Khyber Run

by Amber Green

  Golf swerved to pass a troop of camels bearing rolls of carpet, with a heavily robed woman in purple riding atop each stack of carpet rolls. Some of the women shouted at him as he squeezed past. One urged her camel into a trot to intercept us, then flung a dish of fresh sloppy-wet dung onto the windshield. Golf hit his wipers and his horn and blasted through.

  Camels don't drop turds that wet. Nor does any healthy animal I knew of. Low-tech biological warfare. From Golf's white-lipped face, he knew.

  In the backseat I clenched my teeth and waited for an explosion or a bullet through the glass. Or a scream from the trailer saying a bullet had found one of the horses.

  Echo bounced in his seat. “How long was she carrying that fresh shit, waiting for someone to pitch it at? You got to wonder."

  "Shut up, Echo."

  "We could have ridden this far by horseback in half the time, I bet. Why didn't we, huh?"

  Mike half turned in his seat. “What the fuck is wrong with you?"

  "I just wanna know why!"

  Golf circumnavigated another crater. “Von Steuben said what makes an American soldier different is the need to tell him why. In some of the districts we've passed through, NATO horses would have been shot, if not hamstrung by some bleeding ankle-biter in the street."

  Then he went back to his verses.

  Late in the afternoon, we'd finally navigated all the way across the green farmland on the other side of the river. At the khaki foot of the mountains, Golf let us unload.

  For a man who said he wasn't afraid to be out after dark, he was gone with a quickness.

  We rode on while the sun set behind the mountains, and kept going even after the lingering sky glow faded, to find a caravansary Mike and Oscar knew of. We found it with the scent of peppers, garlic, cinnamon, and tomatoes cooking. The two eastern corners of the structure had been reduced to rubble, along with the wall between them. What was left was a shallow U shape with two partial walls facing one another and a whole wall connecting them.

  There was a fire near the southwest corner, with five men about it, and horses were clustered in the middle of the west wall.

  Mike pulled a small scope from a belt pouch and studied the men about the fire.

  They'd seen us. One man was reaching for their horses, and three of the others were reaching for guns. Only the white-beard remained sitting cross-legged by the fire.

  Mike raised his voice in cheerful greeting. “Asalaam aleikum!"

  The response was the Kalashnikov clack—the next was going to be a gunshot.

  So they weren't Pakhtuns.

  I flattened against my mare's neck and called out in Arabic, “In the name of God, give us water!"

  As I spoke, Mike's gelding jumped, then gave a couple of crow-hops. He kept his seat, though, and spoke soothingly until the gelding quieted.

  The wind picked up, scattering sand across rock with a sound peculiarly like a stirred fire shooting up a scatter of sparks. One of the tethered horses snorted.

  The wind died. In the lull came the resigned voice of a believer. “Aleikum ‘salaam."

  An older man's voice came from another angle. A third voice translated to English. “In the name of God are you granted shelter, fire, water. But as you value your tongues, keep the holy words out of your infidel mouths."

  Mike made a show of motioning Echo and me to dismount and follow him. Oscar...Where was Oscar? His saddle was empty.

  Echo leaned his head toward me. “Dude. You totally have to teach me the magic words."

  "Later.” I know only a few lines in Arabic, and they're all magic. How to pray. How to avoid getting shot. How to bargain for ass.

  Regardless of how fervently I might pray, opening that last book of knowledge up here would likely increase our chances of getting shot.

  Speaking of ass, where had Oscar gone?

  I could guess when he'd gone. When Mike's gelding had suddenly and so briefly become an attention-getter.

  My mare and I picked our way over broken rock where the rubble was only knee high. Echo followed, towing his mare and Oscar's with his good hand, whistling something that sounded suspiciously like “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?"

  "Shut up, Echo."

  Mike solemnly shook hands with every man there, and then I did, and then I took the reins so Echo could. Oscar followed Echo, leaving me holding his horse and wondering exactly when he'd rejoined us.

  The western wall was lined with stalls, each big enough for a few men to build a little fire and stretch out around it. The Arabs had the southwest corner, so we took the northwest. Three empty stalls between us wasn't enough for either group to pretend the other wasn't there, but it wasn't space that would protect us. If anything did.

  Mike sat on a handy block, his rifle across his knees, pointedly playing the elder statesman role while Echo built a fire. Oscar and I unloaded and brushed down the horses.

  By the time we'd finished the horses, Echo was toasting murghal spices—cardamom, cinnamon, clove, and pepper—in the bottom of a pot, raising an unexpected and mouthwatering scent in the rapidly chilling air. As Oscar and I washed up, he stirred in a retort pouch of chicken and four of brown rice, crumbled in a mashed-up muffin, and added a squirt-tube of ginger.

  Bismillah ir Rahman ir Rahim. I could smell why they put up with Echo. It tasted just as good.

  When Echo wiped out the pot and put a cup of water in it, I got the image of him getting his bandage wet and insisted on doing the dishes for him. Any moisture that got in under the edge of that waterproof tape would stay there. His skin was going to macerate enough from sweating through the hot afternoon.

  Oscar watched me with an odd expression as I washed the dishes and then spread Echo's bedroll for him. What? Wasn't he used to a doc doing what he could to prevent reinjury? I didn't expect to be coddling Echo after tomorrow, if I did tomorrow, but he needed a little healing time.

  I woke before dawn, my muscles as stiff as slabs of jerky, and lay there listening to the Arabs pack up by flashlight. They'd done us no harm, so I wished I could find a prayer in my heart for them. But they belonged here no more than the Americans did. As they quietly left, the height of fellowship I could reach was a sincere hope we never met again, alhamdulillah.

  I caught a glitter and turned my stiff, aching neck to see a... I guess a visual heaviness, an impression of something man-sized crouching there in the night. The Arabs’ flashlights reflected faintly in one eye. He could be Mike or really even Echo. But my money was on Oscar.

  With that thought, I went back to sleep.

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  Chapter Nine

  In the morning, I took a moment facing Mecca while Oscar and Mike took turns disassembling and cleaning their weapons. Echo moaned, so I doled out another set of pills to work on the pain and the swelling, but warned him not to take them until he'd eaten enough to buffer his stomach.

  He popped them in his mouth instantly, and swallowed with a hearty suck on his water tube.

  I glared at him, but I couldn't very well make him unswallow them. I turned to clean my weapon under Oscar's annoyingly close supervision and then watched while he disassembled and cleaned the SAW under Echo's fretful but obviously unneeded directions. I egged Echo on a bit, letting him give Oscar a little more of what Oscar had given me.

  I stopped when Mike sighed. “Play nice, children."

  That might have been my grandfather's voice.

  I hurried to pack up my gear and help Echo pack his. The water bladder in his pack was half-full, while mine was nearly empty. I changed them both out, and warned him to drink more.

  "We're eating on the road,” Mike said and took Echo's reins.

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa! With all due respect, sir—Mike—I can eat all by myself. I don't need to be led like some brat on a pony ride at the county fair. Why did you teach me how to steer with my legs if it wasn't to free up my hands?"

  Oscar rooted through a pack and unwrapped what looked like a
fat Pop-Tart to hand him. “Eat with your left."

  Echo giggled. “For two months you've been saying ‘Don't use your left hand for anything outside a bathroom. Sit on your left hand if you have to. Stick it in your pocket or under your belt if you have to. Don't use your leyeft, your leyeft! Your unsanitary left! And now you're saying—"

  "Don't get caught."

  Echo blew a raspberry.

  Mike gave me a worried look.

  I was wondering myself. Either Echo was taking something I didn't know about, or he was one of those rare people who get completely giddy on a normal dose of codeine. The pills could be tainted, but that was only a remote chance. Especially compared to the chances of voluntary intoxication. Pot, while haraam and shameful to indulge in, was one of the most common summer weeds here. The world's most potent poppy fields were here too. I understood they were kept out of sight now, but I'd bet they were still around.

  Breakfast was premade and premashed peanut butter sandwiches, washed down with water from the sippy tubes in our backpack bladders. Chewing got to be a chore, and eating took the first hour of our ride. Echo announced his second sandwich tasted just exactly like shit.

  I asked him how he knew the exact taste of shit.

  He flushed and said that wasn't an honest question.

  When he finished eating, I retied his shemagh. He rolled his eyes and made kissy noises at me.

  "Behave,” I said and tapped his nose with my forefinger, expecting to embarrass him.

  He laughed and tried to bite me.

  Oscar climbed to the ridge, though his helmet didn't break the line of the crest until he'd dropped to his belly to shimmy up the last few feet. He looked over the ridge, back the way we'd come, and in every direction. He shimmied down with the same caution, not standing until he was far enough down that when he stood, I still saw rocks behind his helmet, rather than sky.

  "That's a man who knows what he's doing,” Echo said and sighed.

  I grinned behind my shemagh. “You sound like a man who's been chewed up and spit out for doing it wrong."

  "Once. By the walking stereotype there. A'course, I was lucky to survive the once. And the once before, and the once before that."

  I shook my head. He was so young. “You never know when your count is up."

  "Roger that."

  I considered his heartfelt tone and changed the subject. “How old were you when you learned to ride?"

  "Everything I did before I came here was sitting on ponies. I thought I was riding, though. I thought I was hot shit."

  Behind us, Mike grunted. “You still think you are."

  "Nope. Now I know I am."

  "Oo rah,” I said, mockingly.

  He saluted. “How old were you when you learned?"

  I lifted one shoulder, a half shrug. “Riding was how we got around. I rode behind my older brother until I was seven. He put me on a horse of my own then so I could help with the herding."

  He was staring at me. “You have an older brother?"

  What could be remarkable about having an older brother? “Why do you ask?"

  He glanced back, as if for help.

  Mike spoke from behind. “Your records say you're the oldest, Zulu. The one most likely to have a useful grasp of the language and culture. Was someone holding out on us?"

  "No.” My mare tossed her head, and I laid a hand on her neck. “Hamid died. The Russians shot him."

  Echo adjusted his sunglasses. “Soviets, you mean?"

  He was such a child. “Same thing, when they're here instead of on the other side of the mountains where they belong. I don't care if they're Russians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukranians, Uzbeks, Khazak, Kirgiz, or any of the others. As a group they held half the fucking continent when I was a kid, and they wanted the rest of it."

  Mike snorted. “They didn't want the whole continent. They wanted a secure pipeline from the Central Asian oilfields to a warm-water port and decided the best route was through Afghanistan. It was simple economics. They tried to take only what they felt they had to have."

  Did Mike think I was as much a child as Echo? That I, the son of Rund the Schoolmaster, didn't know the history of my own people?

  "Back when the Brits were strutting around like the baddest bullies on the planet, long before anyone drilled oilfields in Asia, the Russians were throwing their weight around, letting everyone know they were going to move in here as soon as they got around to it. The Brits drew our borders, including that ridiculous panhandle over the north of what's now Pakistan, so they could use the mountains and the Pakhtuns to shield them from the Russians. Meanwhile, the people on the ground, my people, found a national boundary drawn between one brother's house and the next, between a home and the nearest well, between a family's field and its pasture. The Durand Line wasn't designed to divide the Pakhtun, but that's what it did."

  "Like the Texas border divided my people,” Oscar said quietly, remounting.

  "You were warriors and troublesome.” Mike admonished. “Even if they didn't draw the line in order to divide you, they had to have been happy with the effect. Divide and conquer. It's quite possible one reason for the line's placement was proclaimed on the world stage, while in private the territorial governors and their military staff rubbed their hands over the real victory."

  I didn't know if he was talking to me or to Oscar. Or both of us. Probably me, since he and Oscar both seemed to be trying to change the subject. While I could see the senior team members discussing who should be brought in for the job at hand, having even Echo in on the decision made me feel like an item in a catalog. Trying to distract me from that conclusion was surprisingly considerate of them, but again, the fact every one of them was making an attempt raised questions of its own.

  I glanced at Oscar's shape against the rocks ahead. He rode fluidly. I pictured the muscles that would take, the muscles it would build, and had to readjust my jock. Warriors and troublesome, huh? I made a note to Google his tribe, if I could drag the name of it out of my brain.

  He'd told me. I remembered the smell of the soap, the welcome hot water, and scraping the hangover nastiness from the surface of my tongue, but I don't remember what he said. Something about the Desert People, but not Navajo.

  Echo rode more stiffly and tended to turn his head more than his body when he spoke. “So I guess this Hamid was a lot older than you?"

  I blinked. It was summer, so he'd had his birthday. Birthdays...an American notion my mother had brought to the khel. “He'd just turned twelve the week before he was killed."

  Echo pointed his masked face at me, centering my reflection in his sunglasses. “It isn't a Russian thing to go around shooting kids."

  How many Russians have you polled on the subject? I thought about his bright blue eyes and white-blond hair. “What flavor of Russian are you?"

  "The Miami flavor. My dad was born in a Siberian relocation center. My mom's parents came from Kiev; they defected together during a swimming competition. How'd you know?"

  I gave my mare a little heel pressure. She lengthened her stride to come abreast of Oscar.

  My mother was long dead, but still her honor was mine to cherish. That boy had no need to know how much he looked like my brother Mohammed.

  Oscar slanted me what might be the same look Echo had, though it felt different from him. “Need to talk?"

  "No."

  He nodded, and we rode on.

  I'd been nine, not quite ten, the last time Hamid and I rode out with the men. It wasn't my first lascar, but the others had amounted to no more than sniping at a caravan of troops or supplies. This was a daarha, a true raid on a supply depot just over a day's ride from the khel. And this time, instead of being left behind a ridge or wall to hold the horses, I rode at my brother's side, an ancient bolt-action rifle in my hands and three bullets to shoot. I felt like a man among the men.

  We blew up some trucks, stole a quantity of heavy steel boxes along with whatever was in them, and set fire to what mus
t have been fuel and ammunition. It was all noise—overwhelming noise that beat on my skin—and dust and fire and acrid smoke and thrilling terror. None of the Shuravi bullets or shrapnel touched us. We rode away laughing wildly.

  We stopped at moonset, only a few hours from home but unwilling to risk the horses in complete darkness. We shoved the boxes into a deep cave, agreeing to check the situation at home first, and return for the booty if no one was watching.

  At dawn, while we all faced the southwest and cupped our hands to pray, I saw a mist of a shadow and turned. A pair of helicopters swung out from behind a ridge.

  I cried out and jammed myself into a cleft in the rocks. I, the one who climbed to greet the dawn a man's height above my kin, had nevertheless at my uncles’ order kept below the ridgeline. That order, and the rocks about me, saved my life as the first helicopter swooped in.

  Again, the overwhelming noise battered me, but no thrill zinged through in response. Just numbing terror, the sickening stench of blood and worse, and the noise: hammering bullets, shattering stone, the choppers’ motors, and the screams of dying horses, dying men, dying boys.

  Then soldiers came. I waited silently, looking down from my dark cleft as they abused the bodies of my kinsmen. By the time the last echoing scream died, I was glad I could no longer tell which was my brother and which was merely a cousin. When the soldiers left, the wild dogs came.

  I hid all through that scorching, thirsty day until the kindness of night came to conceal my movement. Then I went home, drank a cup of my grandfather's green tea, and told him how fully one-third of his sons and nephews—and four of his grandsons—had died.

  I admitted I had been a coward. I had not called out a true warning. And I had done nothing at all to track those men to their base and spend the final hour of my life wreaking badal, blood-vengeance.

  He held me close against his thumping heart. He told me a warrior's life is the forging of a perfect blade, that the perfect steel must be quenched as well as heated, folded as well as beaten flat. Sooner or later, inshallah, this badal would come within my daring grasp.