Lost Riders

by Elizabeth Laird

  Puppo gave her a fleeting glance and stubbornly shook his head.

  ‘He was only a baby - two years old. How could he remember us? We’ve spent everything we had, everything we were paid for him working here.’ The man tried to take Haji Faroukh by the sleeve, but was roughly shaken off. ‘We heard such stories, about what the boys are made to do here. We’ve been hunting and hunting. Think, sir, if he was your son!’

  A car had arrived and Abu Nazir was getting out of it.

  ‘Trouble, Faroukh?’ he asked the masoul. ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘They’re no one, sir. I can deal with it.’ He turned to the man and raised a threatening hand. ‘Get out of here before I have you arrested.’

  Frightened, the man backed away. He hauled the woman to her feet.

  ‘What have you done to my son?’ she shouted. ‘Look at him! He’s a little skeleton! You’ve starved him!’

  She was shaking with distress.

  Abu Nazir took a step towards her. The man grabbed her arm and dragged her away.

  ‘He didn’t even recognize me!’ she was wailing as she let herself be drawn away. ‘My Puppo! He doesn’t know who I am!’

  The boys stood in shocked silence as the sound of her crying died away.

  ‘You know those people?’ Abu Nazir said to Haji Faroukh, frowning.

  ‘Never seen them before, sir. They claim to be Puppo’s parents. All nonsense. Didn’t even know his name.’

  But Rashid saw doubt in his eyes and heard it in his voice.

  I bet he is that woman’s son, he thought. Ejaz, or whatever they called him. It’ll be his real name, like mine’s Rashid.

  He became aware that Puppo was crying, not bawling, like he did when he was angry, but weeping silently, big tears rolling down his thin cheeks.

  ‘I haven’t . . . I don’t . . .’ he was trying to say.

  ‘Forget those people, Puppo,’ Haji Faroukh said, glancing sideways at Abu Nazir. ‘They’re not your parents. Get on with your work, now.’

  When the chores were done, the four children walked silently back to the shelter and flopped down on the sand.

  ‘Show me your elbows, Puppo,’ Iqbal said suddenly.

  Puppo stuck his arms out. Iqbal took hold of them and twisted them round, looking closely.

  ‘There! Look! A scar! What happened, Puppo? How did you get this?’

  ‘She said he burned it on a teapot,’ said Amal.

  ‘Did you?’ demanded Iqbal. ‘It must have hurt a lot. You can’t have forgotten that.’

  Puppo shook his head.

  ‘Don’t you remember anything? Didn’t you recognize her at all?’

  ‘My ma had long hair,’ Puppo said, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘I don’t know anything else. She tickled me with it.’

  ‘Yeah, but was that her, the woman who came?’ Iqbal asked impatiently.

  Puppo put his hands over his ears and began one of his meaningless chants.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Amal said. ‘He doesn’t remember. That’s it. You don’t remember stuff from when you were a baby.’

  They all stared at Puppo, nonplussed.

  ‘She said about a spot too. On his shoulder,’ Rashid said.

  They wrenched Puppo’s shirt up, exposing his back. Puppo opened his eyes, unclamped his ears and tried to shake them off.

  ‘It’s all right, Puppo. Don’t worry,’ Rashid said kindly. ‘We just want to look.’

  Puppo looked at him, his eyes trusting, and put his thumb in his mouth.

  Amal and Iqbal were leaning forward, examining Puppo’s back.

  ‘Look there. A spot! She was right,’ said Amal, dropping the shirt.

  Iqbal sat back on his heels and looked dispassionately at Puppo.

  ‘They were your ma and pio then, those two. Pity you didn’t recognize them, Puppo. They might have taken you home.’

  ‘I don’t know home,’ said Puppo, taking his thumb out of his mouth with a plop. ‘Do they make you ride camel races there?’

  ‘No!’ said Rashid, putting his arm round Puppo’s shoulders. ‘You go and live in a house in Pakistan, and you don’t ever have to ride a camel again. They look after you. It’s nice.’

  ‘Can you come, Yasser? I don’t want to go without you.’

  Rashid remembered how he’d asked Bilal to take Iqbal, when he’d thought that Bilal was going to rescue him. He was older now, and wiser.

  ‘I can’t, Puppo, but I’ll see you later, when I get home to Pakistan too. If they come again, your ma and pio, you’ve got to say you know them. You’ve got let them take you.’

  ‘There was a cat,’ Puppo said suddenly. ‘It sat on the wall.’

  ‘Where? What wall?’

  ‘I don’t know.

  ‘You know what, Puppo,’ Iqbal said, ‘you were really lucky, your parents coming to find you like that. Pity they had to leave you here.’

  His remark hung heavily in the air.

  ‘Where’s the football?’ he said at last. ‘Aren’t you lot coming to play?’

  During the scorching months of summer, when Rashid had first come to Dubai, no cloud had ever crossed the sky. Now, during the slightly cooler months of winter, the sky was occasionally masked with cloud and, even more rarely, showers of rain swept in from the sea.

  After an evening of rare and refreshing rain, the boys were deeply asleep in their hut. It was shortly after midnight, and there were still four hours to go before they would have to get up and take the camels out for exercise. Rashid was so used to being woken out of a deep sleep, that when a man crept into the sleeping shed and shook him, he sat up unprotestingly and reached out automatically for his sweater.

  ‘Not you. I want Ejaz - Puppo,’ the man whispered. ‘I’ve come for Puppo.’

  His head muzzy, Rashid struggled to understand.

  ‘I’m Puppo’s father. I’ve come to get him. Isn’t he in with you?’

  ‘Here. Beside me,’ Rashid said thickly.

  ‘Shh! Please don’t make a noise. I can’t see, it’s so dark in here. Can you wake him for me?’

  Rashid woke up properly, with a jolt, and understood in an instant.

  ‘You really are his father, aren’t you?’ he whispered. ‘You came with his ma that time. To the race course.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rashid turned over and shook Puppo, who was curled up beside him. Puppo, still asleep, sat up uncomplainingly, fumbling for his sweater.

  ‘Puppo,’ Rashid whispered. ‘Wake up. It’s your pio. He’s come to take you.’

  ‘Come, darling,’ the man said, reaching down to feel for his son, then gathering him up into his arms.

  Rashid could tell that Puppo was frightened. He was struggling to free himself, about to protest loudly.

  ‘Puppo, listen,’ Rashid said earnestly. ‘This is your real, real pio. You’ve got to go with him. Don’t make a noise, or - or - Haji Faroukh will come and beat you.’

  Only a threat, he knew, would work. He was right. Puppo, though rigid in the man’s arms, was still. The moon had been covered with cloud, but suddenly it came out, and in the shaft of light which shone in through the shed door, Rashid could see the glint of Puppo’s huge round eyes.

  ‘Come with me, Yasser,’ he said in a loud whisper. ‘I think he’s your pio too.’

  ‘No.’ Rashid suddenly felt awful, knowing that he was sending Puppo away. ‘He’s yours, not mine. Go on. I’ll see you one day. I promise.’

  The man was already at the door of the shed, looking up at the sky, waiting for the silver-fringed bank of cloud to cover the moon again. As soon as the white light dimmed, he took off, running across the empty sand towards the uzba entrance.

  It had happened so quickly that Rashid felt shocked, unable to take in that Puppo had gone, so suddenly, from one moment to the next. His feet were still tangled in his blanket. He shook them free and ran outside.

  It had really happened. He hadn’t dreamed it. He could hear, through the silence of the desert night,
a woman’s glad cry, and then the slam of car doors closing and the sound of an engine starting up.

  The moon was out again, bathing the uzba in a cold, clear light. A movement from the far corner by the fence caught his eye. He turned and saw that Haji Faroukh was standing motionless in the doorway of his house, his hand on the latch.

  He saw it happen! He saw them take Puppo away, Rashid thought. Why didn’t he stop them?

  Haji Faroukh, as if afraid of being seen, melted back from his doorway into the darkness.

  It was cold out in the open. Rashid shivered and crept back into the shed. He lay down. The mattress next to him was still warm where Puppo had been sleeping. He gathered up Puppo’s blanket and held it in his arms. A few minutes later, he was asleep again.

  A tempest of fury swept across the uzba four hours later when Puppo’s disappearance was discovered. The three remaining children, woken before four o’clock, as usual, for the camels’ nightly exercise routine, blundered heavy-eyed and shivering into the darkness and stumbled across towards the camel pen. To Rashid, who was still more than half asleep, the spectacular events of the night had wavered out of reality into a kind of dream. He hardly heard Haji Faroukh bark, ‘Where’s Puppo? Iqbal, go and wake him up. If he makes us wait, he knows what he’ll get.’

  Iqbal, rubbing his eyes and yawning, went back to the sleeping shed and returned a moment later.

  ‘He’s not there, Haji.’

  ‘What do you mean, he’s not there? He’s rolled into a corner. Go and look again.’

  Rashid was suddenly fully awake.

  Puppo’s gone, he thought, with a surge of excitement. And Haji Faroukh knows it. He’s just pretending to look for him.

  Iqbal came back.

  ‘I really, really looked, Haji. He isn’t there.’ He was looking fearfully at the masoul, afraid of his anger.

  ‘Salman!’ Haji Faroukh roared suddenly, making the three boys jump. ‘You lazy slob, where are you when you’re needed?’

  Salman staggered out of the kitchen, where he had been sleeping on a mat on the floor, his hair standing up all over his head in uncombed knots.

  ‘Where’s Puppo?’ demanded Haji Faroukh.

  ‘Puppo?’ repeated Salman, stupid with sleep.

  No one said anything for a moment.

  ‘Search the uzba!’ commanded Haji Faroukh. ‘The little monkey’s playing a trick on us. Look everywhere!’

  Rashid couldn’t hide his smile as he joined in the hunt.

  ‘Listen, Iqbal,’ he said softly, as they crawled under a feeding trough in the old, empty camel pen by the back fence, making a diligent show of searching. ‘Puppo’s pio came last night. He took Puppo away. I saw him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shh.’ Rashid was proud of the sensation he had caused. ‘Don’t tell. I’ll get into trouble if you say. Haji Faroukh knows though. I saw him. He was watching them go. He didn’t stop them.’

  They had stopped moving. Still on their hands and knees, they peered at each other through the darkness.

  ‘What do you mean, he let them go? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You mean Puppo’s gone? He’s really gone? He’s not coming back?’

  ‘I don’t think so. They took him in a car. I heard it.’

  He tried to read Iqbal’s expression, but it was too dark to see.

  ‘Don’t say I told you, Iqbal. Don’t say I saw them go.’

  ‘Course I won’t. What do you take me for?’

  ‘Are you sorry Puppo’s gone?’

  ‘Who me? Why should I be?’

  Iqbal spoke lightly, his tone careless, and Rashid sensed, without being able to put the thought into words, that the shell, which had formed long ago round Iqbal’s lonely heart, was adding another layer of hardness.

  ‘Come back here, you little devils!’ Haji Faroukh was yelling from the camel pen. ‘You’re not looking! You’re skiving off!’

  Rashid and Iqbal scrambled backwards out from under the trough and ran back to him.

  ‘Puppo or no Puppo, these camels must be exercised,’ Haji Faroukh blustered. ‘The little imp’s run off somewhere. He can’t be far away, and when he gets back here I’ll see he knows all about it. Saddle up! Iqbal, you ride Lashmi and lead Duda and Nanga. Amal, you ride Soudani and lead . . .’

  His instructions went on. Automatically, the boys obeyed, and the miserable routine clicked into place but Rashid could tell that the other two, and even Salman, were alive with excitement. He noticed, too, that Haji Faroukh was trying to avoid catching his eye.

  Lucky you, Puppo, he thought as he went through the familiar motions, riding out after the others at the start of the long, cold, dreary hours of exercise. I wish I had a father who could come and find me.

  16

  Weeks had passed since Puppo’s sudden disappearance. The fuss had gone on for days and Rashid had half expected to see Puppo come trotting back into the uzba, cowering in advance from the beating he would get. His parents had seemed too thin and poor, too ragged and weak, to carry off such a snatch successfully, winning against the formidable Haji Faroukh, and outwitting the combined might of Syed Ali and Abu Nazir.

  But Puppo didn’t come back, and as the days went by no one expected his return any longer.

  The boys speculated on what had happened to him.

  ‘I bet they caught him and they’re all in prison,’ Amal said gloomily.

  ‘No.’ Iqbal tapped a dog-eared playing card authoritavely against his chin. ‘They’d only have put his ma and pio inside. They’d have sent Puppo back here if they’d caught him.’

  ‘I think they got away. I think they’ve all gone

  home,’ Rashid said enviously. ‘He’ll be in Pakistan right now, just playing around and having lots to eat.’

  ‘That’s all you know,’ Iqbal said roughly. ‘Why do you think they sent him here if they had lots to eat? I’m sick of talking about Puppo, anyway. He was a silly baby, that’s all. I’m glad he’s gone.’

  ‘You’re not really,’ Amal said softly, but though Iqbal turned on him angrily, he wouldn’t say more, but lay down, resting his head on his crooked arm, and shut his eyes.

  Rashid missed Puppo all the time. He’d been like Shari. He’d been instead of Shari, a little brother to protect, and impress, and boss around. In return, Puppo had given Rashid his dog-like devotion, and although this had sometimes been irritating, it had warmed Rashid too.

  He loved me more than Shari did, he thought. He didn’t answer back all the time, and fight me, like Shari did.

  And yet, now that Puppo had gone, Rashid thought about Shari more and more, and worried about him. They had met again once or twice, on race days, but Shari, being younger and lighter, usually rode smaller camels in races where the jockeys were little more than toddlers, and feather-light. When they did meet, Shari had been confused and distressed, with a fresh crop of bruises and welts to show Rashid. This was so upsetting that Rashid was almost glad when he wasn’t there, though his relief made him feel guilty too.

  As the racing season progressed, Rashid’s riding became more skilful, and his wins more frequent.

  ‘The boy’s got a flair for it,’ he overheard Syed Ali say to Abu Nazir, as they stood admiring the dazzling new car that Rashid had just won for them in a race of fifty top-class camels.

  Abu Nazir nodded.

  ‘Have you decided yet about Abu Dhabi next week? Are you entering for it? I think Yasser’s up to it.’

  ‘After a win like this, I should think he’s up for anything!’ Syed Ali said, patting his new car with satisfaction. ‘You’d better arrange the transport, cousin. Sort it out with Faroukh.’

  In spite of the weariness that dogged him at the end of such a sweltering, gruelling day, Rashid felt a spurt of triumph and excitement. He was good, he knew. He was the best. He’d proved it.

  ‘Where’s Abu Dhabi?’ he asked Salman. ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘Abu Dhabi? Is not far. Is s
ame as Dubai.’ Salman flicked the questions away with a shake of his head.

  ‘Did you get a tip? How much?’ Amal asked when the three boys were resting together again.

  ‘Two hundred dirhams. Syed Ali made me give it to Haji Faroukh to look after,’ Rashid said, looking sideways at Iqbal. He had learned not to crow about his victories. Iqbal kept up a pretence of not caring, but he would snap irritably, and say hurtful things after one of Rashid’s big wins.

  The first Rashid knew about the expedition to Abu Dhabi was the arrival of an open-backed truck just after sunrise. It was a race day, so there had been no night-exercise session, and the boys had had a few blessed hours of extra sleep. They watched the truck as it reversed into the uzba and backed against the high flat end of a ramp near the entrance. The driver climbed out and let the back flap down, creating a walkway from the top of the ramp across to the truck.

  Haji Faroukh hurried to meet him with a polite greeting.

  ‘Off to Abu Dhabi today, aren’t you?’ Rashid heard the driver ask. ‘How many camels?’

  ‘Four,’ answered Haji Faroukh, measuring with his eyes the space in the truck. ‘There’s room back here?’

  ‘Easily. I’ve taken four often. Yours are quiet ones, I hope?’

  ‘One’s a bit restive. Khamri. But the boys will travel in the back with her and keep her quiet.’

  Boys! One of them must be me! Rashid thought. Who’s the other?

  ‘Are your camels used to getting into a truck?’ asked the driver. ‘The nervous ones will only go on if they have another one they can follow.’

  Haji Faroukh frowned magisterially.

  ‘You think I don’t know that? Twenty years I’ve been in this job.’

  He shouted an order. Salman appeared, leading Hamlul on a tight rein, with Soudani following close behind. Hamlul strolled peacefully up the ramp and into the truck. Soudani fidgeted nervously, trampling sideways. Haji Faroukh ran to his head and brought him round, deftly avoiding a kick, coaxed him successfully into the truck, and bent his front leg at the knee, forcing him to kneel. Then he tied his back legs together, immobilizing him. Salman was already leading Hamlul back down again.