River of Dust A Novel

Eleven

A hcho held open the flap of the yurt, and the Reverend bent to enter. The circle of Mongolian men in sheepskin vests and hats looked up with pinched eyes as the fire before them billowed and smoke swirled upward and out the center hole. The desert night air had grown cold, and the Reverend had not hesitated to ask for shelter from the lookout guard. He had become bolder on his many recent journeys across the plains and western mountains. His unhealthy disregard for danger made Ahcho's task of seeing to his safety more difficult than ever.

"Good evening, gentlemen," the Reverend said in a sufficient approximation of their dialect. He bowed, and his long coat swept the richly colored rug they had set down on the hard dirt. "Thank you for your hospitality on this frigid night. We are most grateful."

The chieftain of the Mongol band nodded but did not smile. The thick fur cape he wore over his shoulders was preposterous, Ahcho thought. For one thing, it was enormous and still bore the head and claws of the wolf to whom it had belonged. Ahcho tried not to look into the dead animal's yellow eyes. Evil spirits, both alive and dead, lurked everywhere out on the plains. A person had to be careful, and the likes of these men could not be trusted. Mongol nomads had nothing to lose. They cut men's throats and left them to die by the road without compunction. Just consider the abduction of the young Wesley boy. These people stopped at nothing. Under his robe, Ahcho fingered the cool handle of a pistol he had borrowed for precisely this reason and kept secret from the Reverend. His master would not have approved of it, but then again, as a foreigner, he could not possibly be fully aware of the many hazards.

"Sit, sit," the chieftain said as he raised a hand on which flashed rings and bracelets of hammered silver. Around his neck he wore a dozen pendants, each bearing an amulet of silver.

The other men shifted on their hassocks to make a place for the Reverend and pointed to a space in the circle for Ahcho as well, but he shook his head. He would stand by the door, although after riding all day, his legs throbbed with tiredness. He was not a young man anymore, yet not for an instant would he take his eyes off his master so long as the Reverend continued to place himself in the company of such blackguards.

"You will smoke with us," the chief said.

It was not a question, and the Reverend did not seem to take it as one. He merely nodded, and the others offered a murmur of approval.

One of the men packed a pipe with a long silver stem and tamped it down with a silver tool. This was a successful band, Ahcho thought, if one could be successful as a nomad. As their guard had led them toward the chieftain's tent, they had passed through a substantial herd of sheep and goats. Ahcho had always understood that nomads traveled in small bands because they fought too often amongst themselves and were forever killing one another over minor slights. Yet he and the Reverend had passed a good number of tents scattered about, and Ahcho wondered if they might even belong to wives and children, although he dared not ask. Nomads were notoriously private and volatile. A simple greeting could be construed as a threat. They would slice off an ear or a hand, steal your horse, and then run you off. He had heard stories.

The men silently smoked, and when the pipe came to the Reverend, he did exactly as the others had done before him. Ahcho marveled at how the American had learned to adapt so quickly to his surroundings in recent months. While he knew that the rumors about the Reverend were unfounded and outrageous, his master was indeed a changed man and not always recognizable anymore.

The chief spoke up again when the pipe returned to him. "We heard you were coming."

The Reverend smiled ever so slightly. He spoke far less often than he used to and seemed to weigh his words more carefully. Ahcho could tell that this gave him the air of a holy man, which was true as well as a good strategy.

A young buck shook his head excitedly, and his loosely twined hair thrashed about his shoulders as he spoke. "We were told you were nearby, and I said we should go out and find you before you left the region again. But our great leader was right that you would come to us. This is a most propitious day!"

The Reverend leaned toward the young man and asked, "And what did you hope for from my arrival?"

"Oh, just to see you, Ghost Man. I will tell my children, and they will tell their children. And maybe if you want to perform a miracle, that would be fine with us." He nudged his friend beside him, and the two men chuckled.

The second said, "We will shoot you and watch you not fall down, yes? That would be something!"

Ahcho clenched the pistol under his robe.

The chieftain cleared his throat, and the men quieted down. The pipe began around the circle again.

After a long moment, the Reverend spoke. "I, too, am in search of a miracle. The miracle of my firstborn son, who was stolen from me."

The chieftain bowed his head in what appeared to be genuine sympathy. "There is no greater loss than this," he said.

"Yes," the Reverend said. "And you can help my miracle come true by telling me if you have seen any signs of a small white boy with hair the color of gold."

The wolf's jaw upon the chief's brow shook slowly from side to side. "I am an old man now, and I know very little."

The men around the circle made polite sounds of disagreement.

"No, it is true," the chieftain said to his people. "I may know how to handle a horse or how to keep my people fed even in lean times such as these." Then his voice rose as he lifted his old shoulders. The wolf hide on his back rose, too. "And I enforce the law! This I must always do!" He lowered his arms, and the animal's long muzzle sagged again. "But I do not know why the Spirits act as they do. I try to keep us safe from their wrath, yet I do not always succeed."

The Reverend let out a long sigh. "That is the problem, is it not? To understand the Lord's wisdom, even when it is more painful than a person can bear."

The two men passed the pipe between only themselves, and the others watched.

"You understand that things are different out here in the border lands?" the chieftain asked him. "Anything but petty thieving is punishable by death. Under our system, elders are held responsible for the actions of offspring. A parent may be rewarded for his son's good services, or he may be beheaded for his grandson's crime."

The other men nodded at this arrangement.

"This is best," one of them said.

The chief continued, "And it works the other way around as well. If a father harms another, his son can be held accountable and even traded for the crime. The family, and not the individual, is the unit in our law."

The Reverend shifted in his seat. Ahcho suspected that he was made uncomfortable by these remarks and not just because his long legs ached in their crossed position. He studied his master's face and searched for any sign that the same questions and speculations were arising in his mind. But the Reverend's face remained inscrutable.

"Out here," the chieftain continued, waving a finger over the abstract pattern of the brightly woven rug as if it were a map of the borderlands, "labyrinthine rules based on familial retribution keep order. It means that one can ill afford to offend. Any punishment is severe for either accident or error. You must approach every situation alert for signs of danger." He looked at the Reverend and asked, "Do you understand this?"

The Reverend's eyes became narrow and intent. "I do," he said.

"You are not an ignorant man, then?"

The Reverend did not reply but raised a single red and bushy eyebrow.

"All right. Let us assume that you are wiser than I thought," the chieftain said. "I will tell you what I know."

The Reverend whispered in English, "Thank you, sweet Jesus."

"But first," the chief said, "I will need something from you."

"Anything."

The chieftain smiled for the first time that evening, and Ahcho was not surprised to see that his teeth were all but gone. The two he had left were as black as tree stumps after a forest fire. "I am not a successful man by accident, am I?" asked the chief.

His men chuckled at this, and Ahcho could not help letting out a disgusted grunt. Even the best of these people were greedy louts. You could not turn your back on them even for a moment. Nomads, of all people, needed the Lord Jesus. Ahcho wondered when the Reverend would get around to mentioning Him.

"All right, what do you want?" the Reverend asked.

"Your boy is most precious to you. So, I think, something precious in return."

The men muttered in agreement, clearly proud of their conniving leader.

The Reverend did not hesitate. He pushed aside the swath of red cloth that crossed his chest, unbuttoned his long coat, and reached inside his vest pocket. Ahcho let out a slight puff of air as the Reverend pulled forth his handsome gold watch on its chain.

"Reverend," Ahcho said in English, "he may be lying to you."

The Reverend lifted a hand to silence him. Ahcho had seen how grief could make a person turn foolish or even temporarily insane. He had witnessed this any number of times in the past, most recently with the mistress on bathing day, but here he was saddened to see it happening with his clever master as well.

The gold of the watch shone dully as it swung in the firelight. The chieftain reached for it and clasped it in his soot-stained hands. He showed his compatriots how heavy it was by letting his hand sink under its weight. Then he brought it up to his mouth and bit down on it with his two sorry teeth. Ahcho could not bear the sight any longer and stepped forward.

"Of course it's real gold!" he shouted in their language. "It was a gift to the Reverend from his father. The Reverend John Wesley Watson is not to be trifled with, you old fool."

The two younger men hopped up from their seats and instantly pinned Ahcho's arms to his sides. Ahcho tried to pull himself free, but they held him fast.

"Please don't be offended by my man," the Reverend said quickly to the chieftain. "He is only being loyal to me. He is upset that I am willing to make this significant sacrifice to you." The Reverend pointed at the watch. "For this is certainly real, is it not? As I assume your information about my son is also completely real."

The chieftain snapped his fingers, and the men let go of Ahcho's arms. "I see this is a sacrifice," he commented, fingering the watch. "I like this sacrifice." His black eyes danced, and his despicable smile returned.

"Now you will tell me where to find my boy?" the Reverend asked.

"Yes, I will tell you what you want to know. I have seen a person low to the ground and with hair the color of this golden watch. With my own eyes I have witnessed it! You will sleep here tonight, and tomorrow I will send you in the direction of your son. He is not far from here."

The old man struggled to stand, and two of his men took him under the arms and helped him up. To Ahcho's surprise, the chieftain could not have been more than four and a half feet tall. How had he not noticed this peculiar fact sooner? The gigantic wolf hide that he wore over his shoulders had made him appear much larger. Now its claws hung down to the rug, and the old chief looked swamped beneath all that fur.

"I want you to have this," the chieftain said to the Reverend. He started to pull the thick hide off his own shoulders. "Years ago, when my son died, my people brought me offerings. That is our custom. The shaman of our tribe was ancient by then, as old as I am now, and knew he would die soon. He passed this on to me. For many years, it was the only thing that helped me carry on. I have been invincible when I wear it. Truly. You, Ghost Man, are already invincible to physical harm if the story of the two bullets is true. But I can see by looking into your eyes that you are not invincible to grief and loss. This hide will help with that."

The old chieftain held the heavy thing in his thin, trembling arms. The Reverend thanked him and bowed. The two younger men helped their leader lift the wolf skin up onto the Reverend's high shoulders. Ahcho knew he should assist with this task, but he did not. In no way did he approve of the dead thing now draped across the Reverend's back. It was a primitive, superstitious, and ridiculous garment not worthy of his fine master.

But when the Reverend lifted his head and rose to his full height with the fur hide over his shoulders, he appeared enormous and otherworldly, frightening even to his manservant. The yellow eyes of the dead animal stared out at Ahcho and caused the hairs on his neck to rise. Although the Reverend offered a proud smile, Ahcho knew that nothing good could come of it.