by Amber Green
The knife I'd had made for him. It meant enough to him that he'd brought it to a war zone, despite the flak he must have taken. “Show me that picture again."
He flipped open his phone, punched one button, and showed me. I stared into the fuzzy copy of a probably outdated picture of the man who'd killed Ben, who'd left him for the dogs. A white man, closer to my age than to Ben's, with a narrow jaw and prominent, angry eyes. The photo shifted to another one, showing the man almost unrecognizable behind an impish grin, then another of him shading his eyes with one hand, looking serious and somehow lost.
Mike snapped shut the phone, then handed me a printout with all three photos and another printout behind it. “Get on your horse and go. We'll call for a helo as soon as you're out of sight. Take all the horses. You can rearrange the packs later."
I pictured the maps in my head, trying to layer the topo and the road map together, and realized I was smudging details, setting myself up for false memories. The map was on the tablet computer. I could refresh myself on the details later. Also, with the extra supplies, we wouldn't need to stop to re-up unless—No!
I had set aside the warrior's way when I chose to be a healer. I knew how to immobilize and transport a wounded man. The people who would come for him probably knew the basics, but I was the expert. I wouldn't risk letting Echo be paralyzed because my ego was so big I had to be on the posse that hunted down Ben's killer. “I'm the doc. I'll stay with him. You two carry on. Bismillah, I can catch up later."
"I can stay with Echo and call for help, or you can stay with Echo and call for help—the result is six of one, half a dozen of the other. But if I went with Oscar to your family, told them the man they were sheltering is a murderer, and demanded that they give him up, what would happen?"
They'd say he could see Tango inshallah, bukhra—tomorrow, if God wills—and delay and delay him until he got disgusted enough to either leave or do something insufferable. Only the father or the brother of a murdered man has the right to penetrate the shield of nanawatai, Pakhtun sanctuary, to demand a murderer be handed over to a jirga for trial.
Ben. My pulse pounded in my head. Sorrow. Left for the dogs!
Badal, my uncles’ voices whispered in my ear. They'd once made a drumbeat of the word, and we'd danced to it: badal, badal, badal.
"Tell him,” Oscar growled.
Mike shot him a glare. “We have reason to believe Bravo went into Pakistan. The way things are right now, it would take a foot-high stack of paperwork to allow us to go there. We were hoping you'd find a way to get us through without all that. Should be easy now, with just you and Oscar to move."
Most Momands live on the other side of the border. But how did he think I could convince a Pakistani border patrol I was Momand?
The border patrol might simply accept that I was bent on badal.
"Are we going to jabber all day?” Echo's voice sounded wheezy.
My jaw muscles locked. I swallowed, ripped loose the med kit, and thrust it over the saddle at Mike. “Once you call the helo, poke through here and find something that counts as a steroid. If the helo is delayed at all, pump him full of it. If it's a pill, don't try to let him swallow it. Administer rectally. He can't do anything to raise the risk he might cough, understand? He can't move his head."
The shadow of horses and a rider fell over me. Oscar, waiting. Holding the reins to Echo's mare and Mike's big gelding.
Mike looked past me. “Keep him alive."
"Roger that."
I looked down at the boy. May God be with you. I swung up into the saddle, ignoring my creaking joints, and rode north. Oscar followed, his hoofbeats echoing off the rocks with mine. The sooner we were out of sight, the sooner help would be called.
We pulled up in a place where large slabs and mounds of broken rock scattered by some long-ago earthquake offered many nooks and crannies. Oscar scanned the area, then handed me his reins and swung down. “I'll look around."
I tied his reins to an unoccupied D ring on my saddle and watched him. It didn't matter that I could find a sleeping place as well as he could, and would be better at getting away from a frightened shepherd or a huddle of refugees, or even a posse—what we called a lascar—without violence. He'd been assigned to get me safely to the compound, and getting between a marine and what he saw as his duty doesn't get a man anything but trampled.
I scanned the jagged horizon, looking for movement, the wrong silhouette, any sudden glitter, or a trace of smoke. Dry sheep dung made a soft and comforting fire, but it smoked like nobody's business. When I was small, I hated finding a too-fresh dropping that only looked dry from the outside. The fingertips of my left hand stayed raw from being scrubbed clean in the dirt.
Oscar had gone invisible again. I waited, watching, until I saw a movement. The darkness coalesced to form Oscar. He came close and spoke under his breath.
"A group of males, eight or ten maybe, passed this way on foot about an hour ago. They're below us, toward the road. They came from a camp that was used for two nights. Doesn't look like they plan to return to it, though."
I passed him his reins and watched him mount. If they'd gone to check where the mines had gone off or why the helicopter had landed, we'd lucked out in missing them. And they'd likely return to an established camp.
No, if they'd been moving an hour ago, neither the explosions nor the helicopter had drawn them. I had to trust Oscar's sense of timing, which meant the initial movement had nothing to do with us, even if we had influenced it.
Still, he didn't have to actually say move out. I let him ride ahead into the darkness. Slowly, carefully. Horses and horsemen don't like the dark.
We stopped again a half mile or so farther north. I took Oscar's reins again, but couldn't see more than the hands that reached them up to me. He melded with the night, became part of it. More Pakhtun in that way than I was.
I examined my resentment and set it aside. With time and close attention, I would learn again what I once had known. Bismillah, with Oscar to teach me, I could master more than I had known there was to learn. Patience is like its name, the poet said. Its taste is bitter. But the result it brings is sweeter than honey.
"I found a good overhang. You start on the horses while I scout a perimeter."
I nodded and slid from the saddle. An arm caught me. I shoved it away. I was no weakling, to be wobble-legged after a day in the saddle.
Even if my legs had tried to fold under me earlier. The ride hadn't been as long this time. I took care to stretch, though, to make them work. The horses were visible as blank spots, blotting out the stars.
With the horses all hobbled, Oscar vanished again. I pulled my bridle and saddle and set them well under the sheltering rock. The saddlebags followed, both the rustling MOLLE gear and the silent wool local pair. Let all that horse-scented gear draw or repel any scorpions or snakes that might be hiding in my bed-to-be. I checked the hobbles again, feeling my way from hoof to hoof, before setting to with the curry comb. A horseman cannot say alhamdulillah, calling the ride done, until the horses have been cared for.
My father had stood me on a chest-high rock to brush the backs of his prized horses, his father's, and his grandfather's. It was more an honor than a chore, he'd say. I learned every scar on those backs, legs, bellies, flanks, and necks. I learned to seek out thorns, cuts, or swellings that must be lanced.
This mare had been pampered like an American pet, or like the goat-pulling champion she'd be if she were an intact male. Under the coarse hair, bulging muscle framed her spine; hard-muscled legs were cleanly sculpted, works of the breeder's and trainer's art.
I would present her as a gift to my great-grandfather, if he still lived, or to my grandfather.
Unbridling the other three horses took only a moment. I clipped each one's bridle to a D ring on that one's saddle, to simplify the morning's work. The bridles were probably fully interchangeable, but I couldn't tell in the dark, and we might not have time to figure it out in the morni
ng.
The big gelding raised his head, then my mare, then the others. They shifted uneasily, pawing the rocks and testing the lengths of their hobbles. I tried to tune in to whatever they'd heard, or scented, but the high desert night had become too foreign. I wasn't Pakhtun enough to pick out what belonged, or what didn't.
A pack of dogs, maybe. The lions and bears of legend would be long extinct. Wolves, if any were left, counted as dogs.
Wasn't necessarily a danger, either. Sheep or goats wouldn't be a problem. A shepherd would have to be calmed down, but wouldn't be much of a problem if I could speak to him before he shot at us.
If it was a truck, or a convoy, it couldn't get within miles of us. It would have to stop at the washed-out bridge over that last gorge.
A lascar, whether vigilantes, bandits, or Taliban, would be a problem unless they were on a mission that excluded us, or unless they'd already encamped. If they were in camp, Oscar and I could simply approach them and demand hospitality for the night. Arabs didn't have Pakhtunwali, but they had their own code—a demand for water and shelter in the name of God could not be denied. Nor could they stop us from leaving with all our gear in the morning.
If they had honor, that was. But if not, why would they have come here on jihad? I used my feet to jam my horse-load of equipment far up under that slab of rock.
The horses stirred anxiously, pawing the rocks and fidgeting against the hobbles. Whatever was out there wasn't a herbivore. Predator, then, or meat-eating scavenger. I remembered wild dogs attacking our goats and my little brothers, back when I'd had only a stick to fight them off.
Against that memory, the choora I'd bought in Jalalabad felt solid and balanced in my hand. I fished my mare's bridle out of the pile under the rock and slung it over my shoulder. The bit gave it a good swinging weight and it extended my slinging reach by two feet. Such a swing might distract a dog long enough to let me get within knife range.
I nudged the horses to move out, to move downhill toward the trail, away from my rocky nook. Hobbled, they couldn't go too far to be caught again, but if I found myself caught in a knife fight with a pack of wild dogs, I didn't want to be dodging hooves and horse teeth at the same time. Better to catch the dogs between me and their prey.
Having a heavy walking stick would be even better. With a good weighted walking stick, I could brain the fuckers or break their backs. Except those dog attacks years ago proved I had no clue how to use a staff in a fight. Nor had I learned much since then; I don't think watching Robin Hood counts as combat training.
The wind carried an ululating hum. Sounded like—I backed under the overhanging rock, trying to catch what I thought I'd heard again. It sounded like—a dua? The tongue-twisting Arabic of a prayer? I couldn't tell. I crawled toward the nearest crest overlooking the path.
Whoa—behind—
A weight hit me, shoving me facedown and flat against the rocks, muffling the thunk of harness-metal against rock. The scent—Oscar. I didn't need the warning hand clamped over the exposed side of my mouth, pressing a tiny shard into my lip or the tense mass of him to hold down my legs and torso. Fingertips lifted, then tapped my cheekbone, three and three and three. Was he trying to signal an SOS or tell me nine men were coming?
Voices, definitely, speaking Pakhto. At least two had Arabic accents. Shoes scuffled over the rock and cloth ruffled in the night wind. Then silence. I pictured the men noticing the horses and going into combat mode.
I set my mind to ignore the pointed rocks jabbing into my chest and hips, the buckle biting into my armpit, the metal in my ribs. An hour from now, I'd be really lucky to have only such trivia to notice
Someone close by was roundly scolded for spoiling what might have been tracks. He protested that had there been any, no one could see until morning.
At my back, Oscar seemed to relax, settling for a long wait with his head pillowed on the half-empty water bladder in my assault pack, one hand laid possessively over my face, and his heated weight along my ass and thighs. I had to assume his other hand held his weapon, so he could defend us if we were noticed. My knife hilt dug into my hip bone. Anyone who got too close to shoot would be mine.
The horses were brought closer and admired in Pakhto. My guess was they didn't have the delicate lines an Arab would admire. The horses whickered, and one struck sparks from a stone. Loose shoe nail, probably.
My face heated. I should have checked their feet while checking the hobbles. Childishly, I noted that Oscar hadn't checked his mount's feet either. Not that it was my horse, or his, any more. Not unless we managed to shoot nine riflemen in the dark without shooting the horses.
Someone murmured a prayer of thanks for the horses. Shoes scuffed over rock.
Then a nasal voice spoke Pakhto, with a Pakistani accent. “American saddles and gear. Why would those Americans abandon them here, not where the helicopter landed or at the ziarat?"
A ziarat—a shrine—was close by. Even if we were captured, they would likely take captives to the shrine. I grinned. We could demand sanctuary there. Once the proper demand was made, the enemy would need apostates with bombs to get us out.
We wouldn't be allowed to keep our weapons or leave, though. That was the downside of ziarat sanctuary.
Some men muttered together in Arabic. At this distance I couldn't make out any of their words.
I stretched cautiously under Oscar. If he'd move so I could I get closer to them, which should be easy enough on this broken ground, I'd be able to pick up some information.
He ground his weight into me. A warning not to move. My Pakhtun soul snarled in defiance, but I wrestled it down. The goal lay north of here, not among this patrol of foreign mujahidin.
Two men checked the horses, but the others stayed between us and them. One of the Arabs whispered the dua for climbing a rise. His silhouette blocked the stars. Standing, at the top of a rise. Visible for... I don't know, but too far. Either he was new at the game or he was confident in his patrol's ability to handle whatever came at them. “Perhaps not all the Americans left in the helicopter."
"Certainly, they did. Look—three with saddles and one spare. At least two Americans left in the helicopter. Do you think a third one hides in the mountains alone? Alone, Abdul? He cannot be such a fool."
Another chimed in. “Where is your faith? We asked for the horses, and here they are."
The one on the ridge raised his hands. “Surely we are provided that which we need, mashallah, but providence often requires that we fight for it as well. Faith and foolishness are not measured—listen!"
Past Oscar's heartbeat, I listened. One of the mujahidin coughed. Beyond that, the wind carried harsh, high noises. Like voices scraping against one another. Not human. A dogfight?
"Dogs! Hear them?"
"Yes! That is what drove the horses so far, despite their hobbles."
"Such thoughts are unworthy. The dogs are merely the tool used to drive these horses to us."
Oscar lay on me, his weight and heat and smell embedding themselves from one side to distract me from the stones digging in from the other.
The mujahidin moved away, arguing in subdued tones. Oscar's hand remained pressed to my mouth. I remained still because he was the one who'd been in-country recently, not because he was on top and I was getting any thrill out of that.
Except I was. And the hot ridge of dick pressed into the back of my thigh said some real interesting things about Oscar.
None of which I could afford to pay attention to right now. The mujahidin would be back at daylight to check for any remaining trail. If we stayed here much longer, dew would form and we'd leave a trail in it. Any minute now, the moon would rise. I supposed a talented tracker could track us by moonlight.
But if they hadn't found the gear I'd stashed, and it sounded like they hadn't, we could at least cut sections of from my other shirt to disguise the tread of our American boots. Without that clue, they wouldn't know for a fact we were worth following even if they did see
our tracks.
I tried to shrug Oscar off my back. His fingers clamped harder to my face. More to the point, the dick mashed against my leg lost some of its rigidity. Okay, this was not some domination thing; he had a reason to hold me still. So I held still.
A few minutes later, subtle movement whispered nearby, and an eddy of wind brought the scent of someone who'd eaten curry. A rear scout.
The family's tales spoke of rear scouts, of watching to see what came from hiding after a Soviet patrol or a lascar passed. Once my great-grandfather had scouted behind a British patrol; after it passed, a veiled woman with two small daughters had crept from hiding. He'd taken them home, and the younger girl had eventually married my grandfather.
Oscar held me for a period more, although I couldn't really say if the crawling time amounted to three or four minutes or maybe a quarter hour. Sweat stung my abraded face, and numbness crept in from the extremities.
Finally, he eased his weight to the side. Hot breath found my cheek and ear. “Move out."
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Chapter Twelve
I rolled to my back and stretched, disembedding the bridle's buckles and metal rings from my skin, hoping the sounds of my cracking and popping joints didn't carry. When I could trust my feet, I put my mouth to Oscar's ear. “Gear."
He nodded, a scrape of stubble against mine. He had little beard, most of his face being smooth as a Tajik's, but he did have some growth near his jaw hinge and at the chin.
We crawled to the cache, Oscar behind me although I suspected he'd mapped the area in his head and could find it by guess even without my lead. I found the right overhang by scent, horse-sweat in wool. When I made a slight scraping noise, ballistic nylon against stone, a hand touched my wrist, pushed gently. I wasn't sure what he meant, so I scuttled a couple of feet away.
With movement sounds only a lizard might notice, he pulled out what I had cached. He settled the wool saddlebags across my shoulders, atop my pack, then led me across and between and under the rocks, heading downhill most often. He slung the saddle over his own shoulder. That would be a burden, possibly a fatal drag on his energy.