by Amber Green
He twisted a smile at me. I thought he was telling me that was too obvious to need saying. Then I remembered the knots last night and did some of the breathing exercises I'd learned in anger management.
A hand touched my shoulder. I moved away.
The hand hung in midair, then withdrew. “Zu? You okay?"
"In what way do you mean okay? Am I scared? No. Injured or sick? No. Am I pissed about being treated like a dancing boy? Yes."
He turned to his own pack. After a moment he spoke as if to one of the coils of line. “You said harder."
Not to him. Not that I remembered. And I'd been dead sober.
His voice roughened. “You only take it from officers? Or only from white men?"
It took a moment. Then I remembered the blond in Jalalabad. I laughed. “That guy with the mustache was an officer? He said harder."
Capable hands hesitated. Then they stroked the lines, nestling one coil inside the other.
I felt them stroking me, just as capably. I shivered.
"I guess I owe you one, Zu."
I thought of touching his shoulder, but he might move away. As I had. So I put it in words. “I'll take you up on that."
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Chapter Fourteen
At first, Oscar was difficult to keep up with, but it got easier when I set my own pace, marching under my load, and let him range about checking for oddities or movement to either side, ahead, and sometimes behind. Looking up was strictly his job. I had to stop and cut a thorn tree to make a walking staff.
The road was deeply cratered in several places, and when we moved through a valley where I could see side to side, I saw the fields were deeply cratered too. The number of weeds indicated the ground was fertile but left fallow. The craters were too steep-sided to plow.
How hard would it be to helo in a little earthmover to level out the ground, move the stones aside, make this field fit to plow again? The army had the equipment. They might do it for the good PR. I'd heard the arguments about giving people something to lose.
People with nothing to lose are ripe for any extremist who claims to have answers. People who claw a living out of sand and stone don't readily give it up to go join a jihad, but there has to be an it to give up.
Oh, but the hollow-eyed students with their burning souls would notice the feranghi cleaning up one field. They'd bring a lascar through to burn the crops and everything in the houses. The shunnings and beatings would follow, until the farmers gave up and left. Then the nicely leveled field would become the property of the strongest bully in the area.
But what if someone came through along a straight line, like Sherman's line to the sea, only instead of destruction they leveled all the craters and rubble piles that were visible from the sky? Then this would be just one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of leveled fields.
Anyone who wanted to do that needed to do it now, before the spring planting.
Close to noon, we reached a village. The women at the well covered their faces, and, after quiet discussion among themselves, moved aside so we could drink. It was a hospitable gesture, but we couldn't very well say thank-you to women we didn't know. Oscar solved the problem by saying “Dera manana” to a snot-nosed toddler clinging to one woman's skirts.
Oscar's filtration cup turned out to work better than I'd expected. I was just as happy to sit on a pile of rubble that had been someone's front wall, resting my shoulders and back, staring at the sky. When I stood and stretched, Oscar gestured me to leave the load where it was. He watched it while I explored this place's miserable excuse for a bazaar.
We'd missed the horse market by several days, naturally. I bought broiled pumpkin kebabs from a pair of boys in colorfully embroidered caps. They looked bored and very happy to strike up a conversation with a traveler.
After paying, I asked if this was where “those buzkashi stallions” had been bred. For a reasonable fee, the boys eagerly described an outlying khel that produced very strong stock—without a doubt the chapandaz-quality stallions we had heard of. For a reasonable fee, they could give us directions. One of their cousins even had a truck that could take us there—for a reasonable fee—to ensure we arrived well rested and without getting lost.
I'd about reached my limit of tolerance for the shakedown. I was about to ask if we'd be charged a reasonable fee for the truck, a separate reasonable fee for the driver, and a third fee for the petrol, but Oscar's chuckle reined me in short.
The horse-breeding khel didn't seem to have electricity, but there had to be a generator or a solar cell in there to power a phone, because they sure knew we were coming. They mobbed the road to greet us and practically dragged us to the corral where three fine colts and one that looked extraordinary danced. They asked only the price of a new car for the best two, which were partially trained.
I admired them while Oscar selected a pair of sturdy fillies, too young to be valuable as breeders and only green broke, but with short, thick-muscled backs and heavy leg bones. They cost a full magazine apiece, along with all of Oscar's rupees and euros. I got the filly that the saddle fit, while Oscar got a worn-out local saddle. Then we headed east again, seeking a pass we could use to get across the border.
Dusk thickened in the valley, though I could look up and see afternoon in the sky and on the snowy mountain peaks. When I looked down again, the dusk around me seemed denser. Ah, I'd ruined my night vision by looking into the brightness overhead. I said my evening prayer and kept my eyes down.
When the sun left the sky, we rode on in the dark. Now I could look up, watching the stars shimmer into place and the planets appear, ready to lead the moon in the track ordained for them. In another month, the fireflies would fill these valleys with tiny floating candles, but then the mosquitoes would outnumber them.
At moonrise, Oscar headed downhill off the road.
I dismounted to lead my filly. She might be good at walking downhill in the dark with a man on her back, even on rough ground, but that wasn't something to count on. And why had we left the trail?
He came back in view. “We'll keep the horses between us and the road, to confuse any echoes."
"What have you found?” Was there a cave, or a good overhang, or a tight opening between the rocks to hide and sleep in?
"A good place to fuck."
My blood pressure surged. But no-go, no-go. “We have nothing for lubrication."
He disappeared into the darkness. “So?"
I blinked. Anger stirred, like fire catching on the tinder of that harsh voice. “Are you used to taking it dry?"
Did he know how much damage he could do himself like that? How much the abrasion increased his chances of catching any passing infection?
And if he thought I was taking it dry, we were going to match blades first.
I followed him into an enclosure, partly raw stone and partly brick, but roofless so that the moon dimly revealed piles of rubble all about. A plastic bucket that didn't feel cracked had been wedged into the bricks near the doorway. I hobbled my filly next to his, poured a test cupful of water into the bucket, and shared a silent moment removing the tack and running our hands over their legs, inside their hooves, and along their backs, checking for any chafe or injury.
I kept hip-nudging the fillies away from the water, but finally checked and found still about the same amount in the bucket. I poured in about a pint more—not enough to satisfy even one horse, but I could refill it more easily than I could deal with wasting water.
After a moment, I noticed Oscar's mare was standing alone, peacefully slurping at the water. I turned and found him sitting naked in the moonlight. Watching me.
"Ain't used to taking it any way,” he said.
Before I could say, then don't, he hunched down, planting his elbows on what I realized was an unrolled fleece or mat and resting his forehead in his hands, completely submissive.
That quiet admission took all the remaining anger out of me.
I undressed and
knelt behind him, admiring the subtle sheen of moonlight on his skin. Then I realized it meant he'd broken a sweat.
I pulled my knife and slid it across his flank like a razor, feeling the initial smoothness and then the chill bumps rising, trying to catch the edge of the blade.
Angling the edge back, I swept it over his skin without risk of cutting in. Units that kept their soldiers in the field longer than overnight were routinely allowing them to grow beards because a break in the skin, however shallow, is risky in a foreign land. But how foreign was this land to a man like Oscar?
I lifted the blade, turned it to catch moonlight on the ribbon of sweat scraped from his skin, and tasted it. Dust and salt and musk. Essence of Oscar. I smeared it over my cheek, the cold steel raising my own chill bumps, and scraped up another load of sweat to wipe over my other cheek. Painting my face with Oscar.
Nobody else would ever know I had done this. But I knew.
Oscar didn't move. He had to be wondering what I was doing, but his discipline—or his pride—held him still.
A warrior, given to me to use or abuse as I saw fit.
I drew the blade tip down alongside his spine, pulling a dark matte streak of dry skin in the moonlit shimmer of sweat. Just a little more pressure, a slightly different angle, and that would be a blood streak. He wouldn't object. He wouldn't let himself.
Again I tasted the blade, the salt and the skin oil and the man. The man who shivered against my thighs.
I folded down over him, shielding him from the sharpening wind, and resting my weight on his powerful back, his powerful legs folded beneath him. I sniffed behind his ear, down his neck to the shoulder, the warm amberlike scent hardening my cock against the small of his back.
I set the knife aside to reach between his knee and elbow and found his cock against his belly. With fingertips on it, I flicked my tongue against his ear. His cock lunged against my palm, hardening further as I grasped it.
Still, he made no sound. No protest, of course. What was I trying for, begging? No. Something in me recoiled at the very thought.
I took the blade into that cave he'd made of his body, pressed its cold length against his belly. He tensed. Couldn't really call that a flinch. I scraped the unsharpened back of it quickly across his nipple.
That brought a flinch and a growl. Quickly swallowed. But no move to protect himself.
I set the knife aside again and moved sideways, knee-walking steps, so I could balance with my left hand on the stone beside the mat, and with my right reach in and cup those warm heavy balls. They moved, as if exploring my palm.
I released them and grasped his cock, now clear of the delicate sheath of foreskin. He thrust into my grip.
I could have his ass. Because I could, I didn't need to. Taking him that way would prove nothing, except perhaps that I had a petty sense of vengeance.
Vengeance is too powerful to waste on a man's honest mistake. I thrust against his sweat-slick back, humping him like a teenager with my cock clasped warmly between my body and his, sliding against his skin. My cock didn't need the grip of his ass.
The revelation exalted me. I didn't need him to pay in pain.
He thrust too, fiercely fucking my hand. The sweat gave out, was replaced by a smear of precum and then more sweat, mine and his together. Still we shoved at one another, clenching our muscles and fighting as if to break through barriers of skin and self to each merge with the other. We struggled together to reach that brief foretaste of paradise.
Our gasps echoed against the stone and brick walls. Something hard in the fleece beneath us dug into my shin, but wasn't worth moving.
I got there.
Light burned through me, scorched from deep in my ass through my balls through my cock, turning into pure wet heat shooting out across Oscar's back.
Oscar laughed soundlessly under me. I fell onto his back and laughed with him. But he hadn't made it yet.
I cupped his balls again, explored the loose skin that made him hiss. When I moved to the side, I had to unstick the cum that glued us together.
But he was losing rigidity. What he needed wasn't a soft-handed exploration. I balanced across his back and pumped his cock with one hand, cupping his balls and mashing my thumb hard on the puckered line leading back from there.
A man jerking himself off has a better effect than a man trying to tickle himself, but someone else can still do a whole lot better. I caught a thatch of his hair in my teeth, pulling hard enough to add a strain to his harsh gasping breath. I fell into rhythm with it, pulling in time to my pumping hand.
He groaned out a deep, rending sound like an oak twisting its roots free of the earth, and spasmed in my grip. I held him as he bucked under me, keeping my grip on his cock with difficulty.
He collapsed slowly into the sheepskins. I guided him down.
"Fuck,” he whispered, sounding dazed.
I smiled in the darkness. This time I let him clean up with my shemagh. I cleaned up with the same one, then knotted it to remind myself it needed washing and tucked it in the corner of my pack. “Let's pick up some lube at the next stop."
"Roger that."
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Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, the booming of a waterfall brought us to an icy stream plunging into a gorge so deep no daylight lit its depths. Oscar found a mud basin near the fall and patched it with clay and rocks. I used his plastic sheet to divert a splashing stream to fill the basin so the horses could drink. While they drank, we rinsed and wrung our socks and underwear repeatedly in the painfully cold falling water, sponge-bathed with the clean cloth, and rinsed them many more times. My hands ached.
I mumbled something about not really having the time to stretch things over rocks to dry. Oscar showed me how to clip them to our packs to dry in the wind. My red and aching hands were too clumsy to operate a safety pin by then, but he just grinned and pinned my socks for me.
We caught more water, filtered it, and refilled the flattened bladders in our packs.
The wind picked back up. I stood shivering in the lee of my horse, breathing her dusty, warm scent, while Oscar cleared the signs of our stop. My hands were brilliant red, and my sleeves were wet to the armpits.
"We need to sanitize our packs,” I said when he'd finished.
He rolled his sleeves back down over his muscled forearms. “Cache it here? Wouldn't that be obvious?"
I shivered and thought longingly of hot food. As much as I'd sweated through the afternoon, that cold water and the chilling wind had sucked all the living heat out of me. “There'll be a shrine nearby. There's always a shrine. Anything left there will be sacrosanct until we return for it."
He looked at me, then seemed to focus his attention on the complex and mentally taxing puzzle of how to button his cuffs. “I think you're talking about how things should be. Or used to be."
Of course. What else did I have? “Wasn't the whole point of your bringing me on this mission to use my memories of how things used to work, how they're supposed to work?"
"Mike's an optimist."
What answer did I have to that? But it didn't matter, since we didn't find a shrine.
At the next crossroads, we approached a man loaded like a donkey, trudging three-legged with much of his weight on a knotted staff. He looked so worn by work and hunger I couldn't guess his age, except to hope he was older than me. When we came close enough to smell him, the bundle moved. I reined in, startled.
The bundle he carried was a woman. Her frighteningly thin hand drew a fold of cloth over her haggard face.
I swallowed. The standard greeting, may you not grow tired, would be obscenely ironic here. I touched my forehead. “Asalaam aleikum, Uncle!"
"Wa alaikuma as-salaam.” He leaned on his staff, his breath coming in wheezes and sweat beading all over his face. Sweat crusted his gray shamiz too, making a camo pattern of whitish salt, dun dust, and gray fabric. Even his beard too was gray and white and dusty. “Have you se
en the nurse-officer?"
I wasn't entirely sure I understood him. I shook my head, though, because we hadn't seen any females who seemed likely to fit such an unusual description.
He leaned harder on his staff, mumbling to himself, then raised his anguished eyes to me. “Tell me please, she has not moved on again before we have reached her?"
"I do not know. We came to a village only to buy horses and saw no extraordinary females there."
"No crowd? Then she was not there.” He looked eastward. “This way, then, is my road. May you not grow tired.” He trudged uphill.
I couldn't stand it. I swung down. “Please! I am tired from riding, but this foolish horse needs more work to teach her patience. Could you do me the favor of riding for the next little distance?"
He blinked many times. Tears beaded his eyes and rolled down his face with the sweat. “You are truly Pakhtun. So rare, in these hard days."
Me? No. I was just human and trying to hold on to my humanity.
He tried to mount, but the weight on his back was too much. Nor could I give a quick boost without shaming myself and them.
But I'd positioned uncooperative bodies before. He had one of those serapelike blankets poor people wear when they can't afford a coat. Oscar and I could use that as a sling to lift the woman. Okay, the trick here was that I didn't know how to mention the woman without offense.
So...okay. Don't mention her directly. “If you should spread your blanket on the ground, Uncle, someone could sit on the blanket. If you should then mount the horse, my man and I could lift the blanket up to you."
He finger-combed his beard and agreed this might work very well.
For a while the trail was wide enough I could walk at his stirrup, using his staff to push past thorns that crowded me. And sort of just staying handy in case the woman perched behind his saddle should fall.
The man chattered, whether from pure relief or what I don't know. His name was Khiel Khan.