“I was, man,” Billy said defensively. “Ahnle’s just a kid. I feel…sorta responsible for her.”
“Responsible?” Brett gave a snort of laughter that contained no humor at all. He straightened, walking out from behind the desk. “Look at yourself, buddy. You’re halfway in love with the girl already.”
“You ought to know what it feels like,” Billy threw over his shoulder as he headed in the direction of the storeroom, stopping Brett in his tracks.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Billy twisted on his heel, his broad shoulders blocking out most of the light in the narrow hallway. His face was lost in shadow, hiding his features, the expression in his eyes, putting Brett at a disadvantage in their verbal skirmish. “I may be halfway gone on that little Hlông girl, but buddy, I’m in a hell of a lot better shape than you are. You’re in love with Rachel Phillips and you’re too damned stubborn to admit it, even to yourself.”
AHNLE CLIMBED ONTO THE upended boat and curled her legs under her. She cuddled the baby, in his hand-woven carrier, close to her breast and stared at Rachel, dry-eyed and frightened.
“What shall we do?” she asked in a small voice. “My cousin kept his word. He came for us but we are late. He has gone. I do not think he will return.”
“We don’t know that for certain.” Rachel let the strap of her yaam slip down off her shoulder to lie in the grass beside the smaller one Ahnle had carried. She tried to steady her jumping heartbeat and consider their options. They were limited, and panic beat dark wings against the back of her mind. “The fog delayed him, as well as it did us. He said he would stay only a short time, yet he was still here a few minutes ago. Perhaps, if we stay here tonight, he’ll come again tomorrow.”
“No.” Ahnle pointed to a spot near one of the ruined huts. “Men have been here since we passed this way before.” Rachel looked where Ahnle had indicated. The panicky wings beat stronger, making her catch her breath. The remains of a fire pit with several empty, still shiny, tin cans strewn around it was ample proof of Ahnle’s words. It had not been there five days before. “We can’t stay here.”
“You’re right.” Rachel wanted to turn and run, find a safe, dry place to hide and cry her eyes out, waiting and hoping for someone to come and rescue them. But there was no one to come for them, no one who even knew where to look. They had only themselves to rely on. She stared at the small boat Ahnle was sitting on. It wasn’t the long-tailed Thai boat one grew used to seeing here. It was a very ordinary-looking boat, shaped something like a wide, flat-bottomed canoe. And it possessed a pair of oars. “We can’t stay here. Get off the boat.”
Rachel pulled the spindly, narrow-bladed oars away from the boat while Ahnle scrambled down off her perch. “Help me turn it over,” she instructed the girl, suiting action to words, “and watch out for snakes.”
The fog was beginning to lift as they struggled to right the boat. The sun was a dull metallic ball hanging above the horizon, almost devoid of warmth and light. The grass underneath the boat was dead but didn’t seem to have attracted a cobra or the even more deadly krite to take shelter beneath it. With Ahnle’s help, Rachel shoved the righted craft into the water, tying one end of her length of Thai silk through an iron ring in the prow. She gave the other end to Ahnle.
“Hold it here while I find something to bail with,” she said, moving away as she spoke. The thinning fog, threatening to expose them to anyone watching from the hills, added urgency to her words. “Wooden boats always leak.”
“We cannot cross the river in this toy boat.” The baby, sensing his mother’s distress, whimpered fretfully.
“We can’t stay here.” Rachel made her voice as firm as she could manage. She picked up two of the biggest tin cans from the rubbish pile around the fire pit. “The men who were here were opium traders or bandits or soldiers. I can’t tell which, but they will return. I think that’s why your cousin didn’t wait for us. It doesn’t matter who they are. We’re not sticking around to find out.”
Ahnle took one look at Rachel’s white, set face and did as she was told. She clutched the baby so tightly to her chest he grunted in protest. Ahnle soothed him in hushed tones. “I cannot help you guide this boat, Rachel. I am sorry.”
“Don’t worry. Your job is to bail out the water and keep us from running into rocks and snags. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Yes.” Ahnle nodded. “I can do that.”
At Rachel’s bidding she took the square of plastic that served as their rain shelter and tied the bags inside it to keep them dry, while Rachel struggled to fit the short, stubby oars into the unfamiliar oarlocks of woven rattan.
The current in the tributary stream was swift. Rachel didn’t try to row, she just did her best to keep them in the middle of the stream, using the oars to avoid occasional rocks and to fend off snags. It was late in the morning when they reached the mouth of the stream. Rachel had been rowing steadily for the last thousand yards, as the waterway widened and slowed its course. Angling the boat toward the shore, they slipped beneath the overhanging branches of the willows lining the bank. Hidden from view, they stopped to rest.
Beyond them, the great river was still shrouded in fog. Rachel tried to remember every detail she could of their previous crossing. The Mekong was narrow here, but deep and swift-running below the placid surface. The crossing would be dangerous but possible to accomplish, if she could keep them from being swept too far downstream, where they might be waylaid by bandits, or even worse, carried on deeper into Laos where the river grew wild and treacherous and there would be no hope of rescue.
They took time for Ahnle to feed her son and reline his carrier with the soft, absorbent moss that served as diapers for Hlông babies. “Rachel?” Ahnle asked very softly, although they hadn’t seen or heard anything to indicate they were not the only two women left in the world.
“Yes?” Rachel drew her gaze away from the foggy water.
“If I…do not reach the other shore. You will save my son?”
“Don’t say such things,” Rachel said sharply, quelling a superstitious shiver of her own. “You will invite evil spirits into the boat with us and they will bring us bad luck.”
“You are right.” Ahnle looked stricken. Her dark eyes were fever-bright, her cheeks flushed. Rachel wondered if she were ill, then dismissed the niggling worry. She would deal with it in its own good time. “I shouldn’t speak of such things.” Ahnle looked down at the sleeping baby in her lap. “I think we should go. Domha is quiet and I will be able to bail much easier now.” She eyed the inch of water in the bottom of the boat with trepidation.
Rachel slipped her compass out of the pocket of her loose cotton slacks and checked their position before pushing away from the bank with the blade of her oar. Without a map or set landmarks to follow, it was the only navigational guide they had. Almost at once the current drew them out onto the river, spinning them around until Rachel managed to head them downstream, prow first. From that moment on, she had no time to think of anything else but keeping their frail little boat from being swamped.
She rowed until her muscles burned like fire and her hands were blistered, raw and bleeding. Every ripple and eddy in the great river set the primitive craft to rocking. There was no wind or the low-riding boat would have been swamped within a hundred yards of shore. For over an hour she battled the current, making some headway but always being swept further downstream, away from Chiang Khong. The smell of the river was thick around them, the fog blanketed everything, making it impossible to tell how far they had come, but thankfully, perhaps, also veiling how far they had to go.
Twice they narrowly avoided being hung up on snags, great tree trunks floating just below the surface, that were impossible to see in the fog. Once Ahnle thought she heard the engine noises of another boat, but Rachel could hear nothing beyond the sound of her own labored breathing. She kept rowing because there was nothing else she could do, and they were not seen.
B
y the time Ahnle glimpsed the Thailand shore, the boat was leaking so badly Rachel could barely keep them steady in the current. She was so tired she no longer cared how far downstream they were swept, if she could only stop and rest. But she did not stop. She kept rowing doggedly, for Ahnle’s sake and the baby’s, as well as her own.
Suddenly the river twisted around a headland, spinning them out of the mainstream and into the quiet backwaters of a small cove, where a wide stream, much like the one they’d followed on the Laotian side, emptied into the river. With the last of her strength, Rachel rowed the waterlogged skiff into the stream mouth, out of sight of the main channel, and sat slumped over the oars while Ahnle tied them fast to a sapling’s trunk with the length of silk.
“Where are we, Rachel?” Ahnle asked, offering her a drink of water from a plastic jug. Rachel lifted her head and looked around. Ahnle sat quietly, cuddling the fussy baby to her breast. Rachel blinked. She couldn’t remember him making a peep before that moment.
She glanced at the compass, frightened of what she might see: that the river had only swept them in a great half circle and they were back on the Laotian side. “I have no idea,” she said truthfully, but with a small, tired smile. “But we are in Thailand.” They were by no means home free, safe and sound, but they were no longer stranded in an enemy country that had been the setting for her nightmares for more years than she wanted to recall.
“I will never be afraid of riding in a boat with a motor on it again,” Ahnle said fervently.
Rachel choked back a laugh that was half a sob. “Neither will I.” She leaned over to trail her blistered hands in the cold water. “We can’t stay here. We have to head north, find a village or a road that leads to Chiang Khong or some other town.”
“We must start soon,” Ahnle agreed, looking around her. “The hills are very steep. They come all the way down to the river bank to sip at its waters.”
“We’ll only walk far enough to find shelter for the night.” Rachel studied Ahnle’s face more closely. “Are you ill?”
“No. Only tired.”
Rachel forced herself to climb out of the boat, stiffening muscles protesting every move she made. “Hand me the bags, and then the baby. We’ll fill the water bottles a little farther upstream and look for some kind of pathway into the hills.” To head south from their present position would lead them into the bandit-controlled areas around Nan. They couldn’t take that risk. If they headed north, toward Chiang Saen or Chiang Khong, they might be lucky enough to come across a party of “trekkers” doing one of the hill country jaunts that operated for tourists out of Chiang Rai.
Or they could meet up with the warlord, Khen Sa.
“I’ll take the baby for the first bit,” Rachel said, still worried at Ahnle’s feverish appearance. If the girl was coming down with malaria, they must find shelter, and soon. “Untie the silk from the boat. We…” She stopped talking abruptly.
“What was that?” Ahnle was looking into the hills where the echo of gunfire had broken the pattern of bird calls and rushing water.
“Guns.” Rachel took the baby from Ahnle’s slack grasp. She’d been deceiving herself that all would be well, now that they were back in Thailand. Desperate, ruthless men stalked these hills, just as they did in Laos, and unless they were very lucky indeed, they were about to come face-to-face with some of them.
BILLY TODD DROPPED into a crouch behind the trunk of a great teak tree where Brett was already concealed. He was dressed in camouflaged fatigues, as Brett was, and sweat ran freely down his face and neck. He was breathing hard from his rapid descent down the hillside. He rested the butt of his gun in the soft, mossy soil around the tree and took a few deep breaths.
“How many are there?” Brett asked, his eyes raking the dense forest cover on the other side of the narrow trail in front of them.
“Six or seven. The usual.”
“Thai Rangers?” Brett took his eyes from the jungle a moment to make sure his friend was all right.
“Border patrol.” Billy nodded, his eyes narrowing, as he spied a smear of blood on Brett’s forearm. “Jesus, you’re bleedin’.”
Brett shook his head. “It’s a scratch, really. Ricochet. Tree bark, probably.”
“Who the hell do they think they’re shootin’ at?” Billy took him at his word about the wound on his arm.
“Us,” Brett said, his voice devoid of humor.
“Don’t they know whose side we’re on?”
“’Fraid not.”
Billy’s head snapped around. His eyes bored into Brett’s. “What the hell does that mean?”
“No one knows we’re out here. At least, no one who’s going to do anything about it if we’re caught.”
“Oh, Christ. We haven’t even met up with Khen Sa yet and the whole damn deal’s about to go down the tubes. What the hell’s the use of havin’ all them friends in high places if we get our heads blown off six hours out on the trail?”
“I don’t think they’re going to put up much more of a fight. If we can keep ’em pinned down until dark, we can slip away. How about the ponies?” The last thing he needed was for Khen Sa’s gold to fall into the wrong hands.
“There’s a cave, sort of, up on the hill above the trail. Lonnie’s there with the ponies. Naga and Chan are up there, too. They’ll all keep an eye on each other.”
“Then we might as well make ourselves at home.” Brett didn’t move from his crouch behind the tree but pointed with the barrel of his rifle. “They’re there, and there and there.” Billy nodded, sharp, jungle-trained eyes noting the small disturbances in leaves and branches that betrayed the presence of the Thai Rangers. “If we don’t give them anything to shoot at, my guess is they’ll melt away an hour or so before sundown.”
“And if they don’t?” Billy prepared to move himself to a vantage point about twenty yards away.
“Then do what you have to do to stay alive.”
RACHEL AND AHNLE MOVED cautiously along the steep, faint path leading up into the hills. It was little more than an animal track but it was the only route they had to follow. They had heard no more gunshots, but Rachel couldn’t tell if they were walking into the cross fire or not. It really didn’t matter. The hillsides were too steep and littered with moss-covered boulders to attempt straying from the dubious safety of the slippery path. They could only move north and west—they had no other choice.
And Ahnle needed to rest. She was feverish and growing weaker with each step, although she denied it. The baby was also starting to fuss again. Rachel hitched him higher on her hip, balancing the heavy yaam on the other side, and crooned softly in Hlông under her breath. They needed to find shelter. The day had grown uncomfortably warm but the night would be damp and cold in the higher elevations. They needed warmth and food and some kind of roof over their heads.
The track they were following disappeared in a stand of bamboo nearly as big as pine trees. Rachel stopped a moment, listening, and Ahnle almost walked into her. She turned and studied the girl’s fever-bright eyes and pasty complexion. “We have to keep going.”
“I know.” Ahnle swayed a little where she stood. “I will not hold you back.”
Rachel pushed into the bamboo, hoping to pick up the narrow track on the other side. It didn’t branch right or left to skirt the stand, at least not that she could discern. It simply disappeared. When the bamboo thinned, she understood why. It wasn’t an animal track they had been following. It was a smuggler’s trail down to the river. In front of her was a wider track, better traveled, with evidence that men and horses had recently passed by. Which way to turn? Which way to go? Did danger lie to the right or to the left?
As before, Rachel knew there was no real choice. They had to keep moving toward the more populated areas. She turned right, onto the steeply rising path and started walking once again, putting one foot in front of the other and praying that Ahnle did the same. She’d given up praying for help to come. They were on their own.
; LONNIE SMALLEY STOOD JUST inside the entrance to the big, rock overhang and kept his hand on the pack ponies’ muzzles to quiet them. A quarter of a million dollars in gold and only five men to guard it. What if Khen Sa just took the money and ran, cut them down where they stood? He’d be glad when this whole deal was over and done. Maybe then he’d take one more stab at getting his life in order, kicking the habit. He stroked one of the rough-coated little mountain ponies and listened for footsteps outside the cave. Chan and Naga were reconnoitering the trail above them, looking for a way past the patrol of Thai guards that had Brett and Billy pinned down on the slopes below him.
This whole deal was too risky. He wished Brett would tell him what it was really all about, but he couldn’t be trusted with the details. Brett knew that and so did he. It was too easy to talk when he was high, even easier when he was on the way down and looking for a fix. It was better for all of them if he just went along for the ride, like he always did. That way he didn’t have to think too much or fear too much. That was the way he’d lived his life for a lot of years. It got him through the days and the China White got him through the nights…and the nightmares…gave him other dreams to replace them. And he liked those dreams.
Voices. Lonnie swung his head in the direction of the sounds. The ponies nickered, stamping restlessly. He soothed them with an absent hand. Was it Brett and Billy coming back or Naga and Chan? Or was it the Ranger patrol? Or Khen Sa? Had his friends all died while he stood here in the half darkness of the cave? A baby started crying somewhere close by.
“What in hell?” He muttered into the pony’s ear. “There ain’t no babies out here.” He pulled his gun out of its shoulder holster and released the safety. His hand shook and he made a conscious effort to still the tremors. He pushed back the fall of vines and creepers that hid the scooped-out opening in the side of the hill from the view of the trail directly below it. It had been one hell of a scramble getting the ponies inside. He looked out, cautiously, at the stretch of trail visible from the cave mouth.
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