Right of Thirst

by Frank Huyler

  With that, Captain Singh extended his hand toward one of the empty chairs at the table.

  Rai turned away, opened the flap just enough to step through it, and began shouting for Ali. His voice was loud, designed to draw attention.

  Elise and I looked at each other in bewilderment, then did as we were told, and sat down at the table. Raju ignored us.

  Minutes passed, and with them came a rising sense of dread. The soldier reassumed his position at the door, eyes on the scope, sweeping it back and forth, patiently and slowly, again and again.

  “If you shoot at them they’re going to shoot back,” I said to Rai. “You’re putting all of us in danger. It is unacceptable.”

  “Even if they are there, which we do not know, it is very difficult to see where you are being fired at from long range,” Singh replied, calmly. “It will be only one or two men, three at most. This is a prepared position and you are safe here, I assure you.”

  “You assure me? Based on what? You have no idea how many men might be up there.”

  Captain Singh smiled.

  “We do not know if anyone is there at all,” he said. “Though I am sure Captain Rai was not mistaken. If he was, then we are making fools of ourselves.”

  Rai looked at him, without expression, then turned to me.

  “Please,” he said. “You must calm down.”

  “We did not come here for this,” I said. “If you want to start a war, why don’t you do it somewhere else?”

  Colonel Raju spoke for the first time.

  “You will be quiet, please,” he said, in English, his black eyes meeting mine again as he took another sip of tea. I felt the chill that he intended, and did not reply.

  Just then Ali appeared in the doorway with our breakfast, eyes darting at the soldiers. His hands were shaking as he set the tray down on the table. Rai spoke to him. He bowed and nodded, nodded again, then turned and left the tent as quickly as he had come.

  “What did you say?” Elise asked, her voice steady.

  “I told him to pack our food,” Rai replied. “I told him to be ready to leave.”

  “Nothing will happen now,” Rai said, watching me. “This is a precaution only. You should not become carried away.”

  But he was carried away as well—he was as tense and coiled as I’d ever seen him. I knew what he wanted, and how afraid he was that he had been wrong. Every so often he glanced anxiously over at the soldier, expectant, like a fisherman watching a lure on the surface.

  Rai looked at his watch. The soldier studied the ridges, back and forth and back again.

  “In a few more minutes,” Rai said, “we will go. But you should eat. There will be much walking today.”

  I shook my head, and Elise said nothing at all. The minutes ticked on—five, then ten. Only a little while longer, I thought, and we’ll be gone. But then the soldier shouted, and surprised us all, because none of us, I think, truly expected them to be there.

  It was a single word, one I didn’t understand, but in that moment, despite all my doubts, despite how I had questioned my own eyes, I knew what was going to happen, and then with a single liquid movement the soldier rolled over on his mat and took up the rifle in his arms, inching forward beside the spotter, eyes to the scope, chin on the stock, finger extended past the trigger, the muzzle easing out through the slit in the sandbags.

  In a instant Colonel Raju and Captain Singh were out of their chairs and beside the spotter. Raju whispered to him, bent to look through the scope, then leaned back again as Singh raised his binoculars. Raju spoke quickly to Rai, who had also risen from his chair. Rai crept around the wall to the canvas door, and eased it open, just slightly, then slightly more, on Raju’s command.

  Raju paused, as if thinking, and spoke again. Rai answered, failing to keep his excitement from his voice, all of them unaware of us now.

  “What is it?” Elise asked, her voice startling. “What do you see?”

  Rai looked back at her from the door.

  “Quiet!” Rai hissed at her. “Get down on the floor. In the back of the tent. Behind the position.”

  I took Elise by the arm, and pulled her from the table to the ground a few feet directly behind the row of sandbags.

  “Lie down,” I said to her, on my knees, looking toward the door. Raju knelt beside the soldiers, his elbows resting on the top of the sandbags. The sniper spoke for the first time, but Raju shook his head, and answered, clearly telling him to wait. Long minutes passed—two, then three, until I could tolerate it no longer. I stood, and moved quickly to the table for Rai’s binoculars, and then I was crouching behind them, lifting the binoculars to the ridge. I swept the binoculars back and forth, until I saw them also.

  They were far closer than they had been before, much farther down than I would have guessed. They had reached the base of a sheer cliff, on a rock slope high above the river; two men, carrying packs and rifles, traversing slowly across the shadows of the slope toward a steep gully that led back to the top of the ridge. They were dressed like villagers. A few meters above them, where the slope met the bottom of the cliff, was an opening—a deep crevice in the base of the cliff, perhaps a cave; I could not tell in the darkness of the face. And as I watched, a third man emerged from the crevice, picking his way down, before following the others out across the slope. They moved steadily and deliberately through the shadows, and had I not known where to look I never would have seen them. But there was no doubt this time; there were men up there, and they must have thought they were safe enough, so early in the morning, in the deep shade of the cliff before the sun fell on the slope. They must have thought there was nothing to fear.

  “Get down in the back of the tent,” Rai said to me, from the doorway, a look of triumph on his face.

  “Don’t kill them,” I said. “Please. You don’t have to.”

  “Get down,” Rai said again, his voice rising.

  The spotter pressed a button on the top of scope, and a green light blinked, and then he spoke, and then the other man was turning the knobs on the scope of the rifle. I realized that the spotting scope had a laser range finder. I stepped back, as Rai demanded, dropping the binoculars.

  “Don’t kill them,” I said again, and for an instant I considered running out of the tent, shouting, waving my arms, but I knew they never would have heard me. It would not have helped them; they were out on the face, on forty degrees of rock, utterly exposed, with hundreds of empty meters in every direction, and nowhere to hide, and if they were going to be shot, there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

  “You don’t know who they are,” I said. “They could be villagers. They aren’t wearing uniforms. They could be anyone.”

  Colonel Raju spoke again to Singh.

  “They have packs and rifles,” Singh said. “They are not villagers. They are the enemy, and they are in our territory. You should not be here for this. But we are defending our country. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, as calmly as I could manage, struggling to think clearly. “But if you’re right they’ll have radios. What if you miss? Then they’ll call for help.”

  “They are within range,” Singh said. “Eight hundred meters. They have no cover. Their radios will not carry far enough unless they are on the top of the ridge. And now you must hold your tongue.”

  Rai crouched by the door.

  Raju waited a little bit more. I ignored Singh, and raised the binoculars again, nauseated, unable to turn away. The third man was hurrying to catch the others, and each second he drew farther from the safety of the crevice.

  “They were careless,” Rai said, softly. “They slept too low and too close. They were in the hole in the rock.”

  “Maybe they’re leaving,” I said.

  “Then they are leaving too late,” Rai replied, for the benefit of the others, his hand tight on his fistful of canvas.

  The soldier shifted the rifle against his shoulder, his left hand draped over the stock, close to his cheek,
pulling it tight to his shoulder, and then he reached up with his right hand and worked the bolt.

  Captain Singh tapped his fingers on the sandbags. Only Raju was at ease. They waited, letting them pass across the face, each step taking them farther from safety.

  “You shouldn’t do this,” I said. “You should let them go. They must know we’re not a threat or else they wouldn’t have come so close.”

  Raju put his thick fingers in his ears, and gave the order to fire.

  The shot was deafening, like the crack of an enormous whip, the muzzle flash lighting up Rai’s face. Instantly my ears began to ring, and then the soldier worked the bolt again, and I was looking through the binoculars once more.

  They didn’t realize at first. It took them many long seconds; the first shot missed, and the sound of it must have been muffled by the tent, because the men continued on across the wall as if nothing had happened.

  The spotter pressed the button on the scope again, fiddling with the knobs, calling out the range, and then the soldier fired a second time.

  Once more the blast lit up the tent, and the weapon leapt back against the man’s shoulder, but this time I saw it, nearly a second later—a little puff of dust as the heavy round struck the rock wall a few meters below and behind the last figure.

  “Ah!” Raju said, in fury, turning toward the man with the rifle on the ground.

  For a moment I thought it would be all right, that they would get away after all, because they stopped, turning in unison to look down toward the camp, and then, a moment later, they began trying to run across the slope. They were fleeing for their lives, and a few seconds later they cast off their packs. The packs began to bound, little dark dots tumbling down the face toward the river below. The figures began to scramble and leap. But there were hundreds of meters to go, they were on a rock wall steep enough for ropes, with all that empty space beneath them, and running was impossible.

  The soldier fired, and missed, for a third time—another puff of smoke on the rock, no closer than before.

  Just then one of the figures stopped, and reached up for the rifle on his back, turning, lifting it to his shoulder, and I saw a string of flashes, and an instant later I heard the distant rattle of an automatic weapon.

  “AK,” Singh said, with elaborate, forced calm. “From there it is whistling.”

  But Raju swore, roughly, bringing his clenched fist down on the sandbags. He turned, shouting first at the soldier, then at Singh. Singh reached for the radio, and began to lift it to his lips.

  In that instant Rai saw his chance. He left his place by the door, vaulted over the sandbags, and pushed the soldier aside. I watched in dismay as he lay down with the rifle, and brought up the scope to his eye, looked carefully up at the ridge, and twisted one of the knobs very deliberately, as if he had all the time in the world. The soldier stood helplessly for a moment, and then he took Rai’s place at the door, and pulled it aside. Both Raju and Singh stared at Rai.

  I could not stop myself from watching. They were nearly halfway across the slope, moving as erratically as they could.

  Rai went absolutely still, as if he knew exactly what he had to do, and how much depended on it. He took his time, and when he fired the puff of smoke was far closer, nearly there, a hairbreadth below the first man’s feet, but dead center, and the spotter was calling out, and then Rai worked the bolt, took a long breath, let it out, and fired again.

  There was no puff of smoke. Instead, the man simply stumbled and fell forward. He slid a few feet down the face, rubbery and loose, and then he stopped. One moment he was moving, and the next he was not. That was all; I expected him to tumble, and spin, as the packs had done, but he didn’t. It was like a long sigh, and from a distance it looked almost gentle.

  The spotter cried out in triumph, and Rai chambered another round. The second man paused for an instant, studying the dead man before him—a reflex, I think, a kind of disbelief, but then he was off, and moving again.

  Rai’s second shot missed, and he ejected the shining cartridge, then turned to the spotter, his voice steady and cold. I realized the rifle was empty. Raju nodded, and allowed himself a tiny smile.

  The spotter fumbled in a pack on the ground, then handed Rai a fresh magazine. A few more seconds passed. Singh stared at Rai. And Rai was calm, I thought, as calm as he could ever have wanted, reloading, as my own pulse hammered in my ears.

  The second man. He was running, stopping and starting, but he was slower now, visibly tiring, and I knew that it was far too late to say anything at all.

  It took three shots. Two more puffs of smoke, one on either side, missing by inches. Then the perfect third, timed for the moment his pace slowed, the crack of the rifle less startling now, though the tent was choked with dust, and the motes hung up in the column of light from the door.

  The bullet must have struck him low, in the spine, because when he fell he did not stop moving. Instead, he began to crawl, with his arms alone, his legs sliding down below him. As I watched him, I expected Rai to shoot him again. But he turned to the last man instead, his face expressionless.

  Rai took another breath, and let it out very slowly. He had all the time he needed. He had the range, the ammunition, the audience, and the confidence that he could act, and the wall was wide, and there was nothing to stop him. The figure on the wall ran on, and Rai let him go, easing the rifle with him, waiting for him to weaken, and then, finally, the man was bending down, his hands on his knees, heaving his last few breaths into the thin air in little clouds, the valley before him, and the river below, winding toward the village. He sat down, and put his hands high up in the air and waved them, back and forth.

  For the first time Rai hesitated. Instantly Raju barked an order. A moment passed, and then Rai spoke, questioning, looking up at the colonel from the gun. But Raju shouted again, rising from his crouch, turning toward him, leaving no doubt. Rai let out a sharp single breath, and then, as if denying himself the chance to think anymore, he fired. I had the glasses up, and I could see the man clearly. The bullet must have hit him somewhere in the face, below and between his hands, because his head flipped back as if struck by an invisible fist. It dropped him like a sack of meal, and suddenly, visible even at that distance through the binoculars, there was a tiny cloud in the clear air above him, a delicate settling haze.

  Then, quickly, Rai swung the rifle back to the final writhing figure, worked the bolt, and pulled the trigger one last time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The soldiers were out on the field. A swarm of them, as the tent city came to life for the first time, pouring into the open, their green uniforms dark enough that from a distance they looked black, with rifles in their arms, and hands shielding their faces from the glare, all of them staring up at the ridges above us, as if they had appeared by magic. Their boyish, excited cries carried across the gravel and stones, as the line of shadows eased eastward toward the river.

  I was so used to the emptiness of the valley, to wind and quiet and the sound of the river, that even then, stunned as I was, I could hardly believe they were real. They were just far enough away to be dreamlike, as if they were made of something other than flesh and blood.

  “You must hurry,” Rai said, behind me. “I will help Elise. Get your things. Come to the dining tent when you are ready.”

  I must have put everything into my pack, and taken down my tent. I remember panting in the cold, and I remember the terrible sense of exposure, on the sunlit ground, certain that I was being watched from the heights.

  Rai was waiting by the dining tent with Elise when I returned. A soldier stood with them, and Ali, and his nephew. The boy blinked, and looked confused. A pile of packs and duffel bags lay on the ground at their feet.

  “Your packs,” Rai said, pale and shaken, gesturing to Elise and me.

  “Why is he here?” I asked, pointing to the soldier.

  “He will help with the loads,” Rai replied.

  Rai opened ou
r packs and spread the contents out onto the ground. Then he opened a duffel bag, and began stuffing our things into it, and then another, and finally a third, until our packs were empty.

  “We can carry some of it,” I said, but he shook his head, sharply.

  “We must go quickly,” he said.

  Then he turned, and nodded to the soldier, and the man knelt, put his rifle down on the ground, then heaved the largest of the duffels up onto his shoulders before picking the weapon up again. He stood, young and blank, with sun on his clothes, and for an instant I imagined that his mind was as empty as his face. He seemed all body, somehow, without volition of his own, and whatever his thoughts might have been, watching us, he revealed nothing.

  Ali stepped close to the boy, then bent down, and with effort lifted the next duffel in his arms. His nephew turned his back, and slid his arms through the narrow straps, and when Ali let go the boy let out a gasp at the weight. Then Ali turned, and began to struggle with his own load. For an instant no one moved to help him, and I found myself stepping forward as he had done for his nephew. The duffel bag was heavy. I struggled to hold it, and as he slid his thin arms under the straps I knew it was too much for him, that the morning would be a cruel one for them both.

  The soldier was a different animal entirely. He stood effortlessly, and he was used to it, but Ali and his nephew had spent their days on small things—tea, washing up, or the breaking of expensive morning eggs into bowls. I glanced at Rai.

  “It’s too heavy for him,” I said.

  Rai scowled and said something to Ali—a question. Ali shook his head and mumbled in reply.

  “He says it is okay,” Rai replied. “We must hurry. Later we can worry about this.”

  Rai picked up his pack from the ground, and Elise and I followed suit. Then he set off, without a backward glance, and that was how we left the valley, ours no longer—without ceremony, one after the other, down the path. It was fully light by then, and in the distance I heard the first drumbeats of the barrage starting up again.