by Kathi Appelt
25 Cappadocia
1855 OR SO
If you mix the wind with water in all its forms—liquid, gas, ice—the combination can do a number on the landscape. Take Cappadocia, for example.
There came a day when the Pasha was invited to bring his racing camels for a tournament just outside the town of Cappadocia. It was part of a larger festival that happened only every few years. Camels from all over Anatolia and Asia, including the famed Bactrians from distant Mongolia, would be there. So of course, the Pasha announced, “Field trip!”
“I love field trips,” said Zada.
“Me too,” said Asiye. And with that, she broke into her own unique camel song. Which in turn made Zada raise her voice, and that made the other camels chime in. It was hallelujah all around, only in Camel, which becomes… wait for it… camelujah!
Oh, bird-kateers, in case we haven’t told you by now, the major thing about Asiye? She had a knack for finding happy in everything, and when she did, a chorus was sure to follow.
So, off they went to Cappadocia. Teodor tied them together in a caravan, and they hit the trail. As they walked, Teodor chanted their names: Asiye, Halime, Naime, Rezan, Tarkan, Kahraman, Elif, Melek, and Zada.
Unlike their trip to Ephesus, which took only a few hours, getting to Cappadocia took several long days, and many more on top of them.
But it was worth it, because as they approached, there, right in the middle of nowhere, rose an outcropping of fairy chimneys. Not wee, tiny fairy abodes. No, these were gigantic, with multiple rooms carved into them, including a church.
All carved by wind and snow and running water, over millions of years.
“Enchanting,” said Asiye. “I can almost smell the fairies.”
Which… what?
Because seriously? What does a fairy even smell like? Another thing about Asiye, Zada now realized, was that she saw or smelled—the world in surprising ways. And that made everything seem brand-new.
And did they win their races?
Did they make the Pasha proud?
Do we even need to answer those questions?
26 Smyrna, Turkey and All over Texas
Have we told you that Teodor wore a turban? Of course, lots of folk wore turbans. To Zada and Asiye, Teodor’s turban reminded them of the tulips that grew in their native country. Tulips growing wild. Tulips growing tame. Red tulips streaked with yellow. Yellow tulips streaked with red.
Teodor’s turban was none of those colors. Rather, it was bright white, to help reflect the desert sun and keep him cool. Whenever the camels noticed his turban, they thought, Teodor has a tulip on his head.
Tulips made absolutely no difference to the wind. Nor did turbans. Tulips. Turbans. Pansies. Porkpies. Dahlias. Derbies. Buttercups. Bowlers. The wind gets a kick out of tossing them all about.
Same with the boats at sea…
27 Smyrna, Turkey
1856
One day an envoy from the United States Army caught a group of westerlies and sailed into the Mediterranean Sea, where they docked in Tunisia. There the captain began a search for a coterie of camels to take back to their country, a fairly new country on the opposite side of the world.
The captain and the crew managed to purchase a few camels in Tunis and a few more in Crimea; they bought up five camels here, and three camels there, loaded all of them on the ship, and made their way to Smyrna, where they approached the Pasha with an offer to buy a number of his very best camels.
Of course, the Pasha was extremely pleased. How wonderful it would be to send his finest camels to the new country across the sea. His camels would be excellent representatives of the Pasha’s prowess as the leading camel broker in the world. He made a declaration: “It’s an honor of the highest sort to sell some of my very best camels to the army of the United States of America.”
And then he called for Teodor to bring forward his nine finest camels. Of course, Teodor chose his favorites: Asiye, Halime, Naime, Rezan, Tarkan, Kahraman, Elif, Melek, and Zada. He led the nine to the west portico of the Pasha’s enormous house. The officers from the United States watched as the camels, their coats aglow in the setting sun, passed by for inspection. They all agreed: these were the finest camels they’d seen.
And then the Pasha, in a rare moment of largess, made a decision. Instead of selling his top nine camels, he decided to present them as a gift. Imagine being a gift. Not a gift like a puppy or a miniature goat. Those are companion animals, mostly. No. Zada and Asiye and the other seven were gifts of honor, of national pride. And to make the gift even better, he arranged to send Teodor with them, to teach the Americans how to manage a caravan.
The night before they left, the Pasha held a majestic celebration. He invited all the townspeople to attend, opening the gates of his palace to anyone who wished to come. Inside there were tables filled with plates of spicy pide and dolma, followed by platters of baklava cut into bite-sized pieces. There were pots of boza and red-leafed tea and Turkish coffee and camel’s milk for drinking.
The sounds of musicians’ instruments ricocheted off the walls—the rattle of the tambourine, the strumming of the kanuns and saz, the kaval with its fluty tones—all blended together into a happy mixture of festivity and cheer. The dancers spun so fast it seemed they might pirouette right through the vast hand-painted ceiling of the Pasha’s mansion.
Then, the next day, Zada and Asiye, and their stablemates, plus Teodor, joined twenty-five other camels aboard the USS Supply, a ship that originally carried staples for the US Navy, but had been carefully recommissioned to carry camels. Some of the other camels already on board came from Kashmir, some came from Egypt, more came from Arabia, and there were two that came from the wildest regions of Mongolia: Bactrians, the kind with two humps instead of one. Together, they would, all thirty-four, be the first of their species to set foot in Texas since the last dwindling years of the Pleistocene.
28 The Escarpment
1910
Outside the mountain lion’s lair, the wind resumed its gale forces. Wind does that. It blows and blows and blows, fast, fast, faster. Then, from out of the blue, it pauses, takes a deep breath; it leaves a billion particles of dust hanging in the air, caught in the barely-there sunlight, all glimmery.
Just as Zada caught her own breath, she sensed that the wind wasn’t as loud as before. In fact, it was barely there. Hardly any howling to be heard. Nary a whisper. Nary a moan. Nary a pppffffftttthhh.
But then, “AUNTIE, IT’S DARK IN HERE,” came from deep inside her right ear, followed by “LOOK, I FOUND MY OWN CAVE,” coming from her left ear.
It seems Wims had tunneled his way into Zada’s left ear, and Beulah had done the same in Zada’s right ear. Ear-birds!
“Okay, then,” said Zada, “but please don’t—” Before she could finish, sure enough: PEEEEPPPPEEEEEPPPPEEEEEPPPPP! Which made Zada’s eyes water.
“Ooof!” She resisted the urge to flick her head, which would send both babies flying (and not in a good way). But then Wims asked, “AUNTIE, WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?”
“Well,” she said, hoping like crazy they would make their ways out of her ears. “There was a ship.…”
29 Atlantic Ocean
1856
The Supply belonged to the US Navy, whose home port was in New York Harbor. It had sailed all over the world, including around the very tip of the American continent, and across the Pacific Ocean to Japan and back. It had traveled the seven seas, one sea after another, and always it carried supplies for the navy, supplies like water and oats and rum and ropes and tackles and extra sheeting for torn sails. Supplies like that.
But when the army decided to buy camels for an experiment, the ship was refitted and made into a sailing camel stable. Just below the main deck, the camels were placed in individual stalls, built especially for them, with straps that would hold them safe when the seas were rough.
The straps had been ingeniously designed by a lieutenant named Porter. They helped keep the camels from being
tossed about and injured when the waves were high and the wind blew wild.
Maybe Lieutenant Porter was clairvoyant, because only days after Zada and Asiye and the other camels were loaded onto the boat, before they were even out of the Mediterranean, they ran into some of the worst weather that the Supply had ever encountered.
“Batten down the camels!” cried Lieutenant Porter. Whereupon the sailors lined the stalls with extra hay and urged the camels to lower themselves into it, then strapped them down.
There they were, thirty-four camels, animals who had spent their whole lives in the sun, all stowed belowdecks in a space that had no light at all, but for a couple of flickering whale-oil lanterns. Imagine those camels, creatures who spent their days gamboling beneath cloudless skies, being strapped to the floor so that their knees were folded underneath them, unable to even stand and stretch. The straps cut into Zada’s thick fur. They rubbed against her back and neck and sides, trapped her and her sailing mates. She raised her head and bawled. And bawled. And bawled.
Teodor could not console her, even though he rubbed her face and checked that the straps were secure.
Imagine the unfamiliar odors—whale oil and wet hay and dried fish. All those strange smells, all mixed together, making Zada’s stomachs churn.
And all the while, the boat rose and fell, rising atop the waves and dropping into the valleys between them, landing with a crash, the wind braying like an angry sea monster come to gobble them all up. (Like the haboob, but wet.)
Day after night after day after night, and longer, the Supply fell victim to the vicious whims of the ocean. Finally, worn out from so much bawling, her throat as dry as gravel, Zada tucked her head beside her folded legs and tried to hold herself together. The boat leaned so far to the right that had she not been tied down, she would have toppled against its wooden sides. The hated straps were the only thing that kept her from being thrown through the air. Then, as soon as the ship righted itself, it leaned to the left.
The straps held. The flickering lantern flickered out, leaving only shadows; the howling wind slipped through the ship’s timbers. Ice-cold water seeped through the decks above and soaked into her fur. She could not stop shivering.
Night after day after night after day. Zada lost track of time. Dizziness enveloped her; at last it spun her into a weary sleep, a sleep so heavy she could barely remember what it felt like to be awake.
But then in the dark, somehow above the howl of the gale, Zada heard the familiar kllloookkll.
Asiye!
Next thing she knew, Asiye’s voice found her ear and settled there: “Zada,” she said. “I think we’re flying.” She said it just as the boat rose into the sky in a nearly vertical pitch, hovered for a full ten or twelve seconds, then zoomed into a deep trough.
And just like that, the dark didn’t seem quite so dark anymore.
30 The Escarpment
1910
Zada thought she heard something that sounded like a sentence. She listened again.
Yep. There it was.
Wims, having thankfully stepped out of her left ear, said, in a voice full of serious, “Auntie, camels don’t fly.”
Then Beulah, who had also exited Zada’s other ear, added, “Camels don’t have wings.”
“Yeah,” said Wims. “No wings.”
“This is true,” said Zada. “But maybe there are other ways to fly.”
31 Atlantic Ocean
1856
Camels are designed for open spaces. Give them a mountain and they’ll climb it. Give them a desert and they’ll cross it. Give them a long route and they’ll cover every inch and then some. They need the daylight and the starshine and the pah-pah-pah of hawks riding the thermals.
Zada needed all of the above. For the long journey across the sea, three months to be exact, she stayed in her stall aboard the Supply. When the waves were calm, Teodor unfastened the hated straps and allowed her to stand up and move around. But when the seas were rough, she was forced to withstand the straps again.
Her only comfort was knowing that Asiye was nearby. Even though she couldn’t see her, she could hear her calling out. And of course, there were the bells, the ones that Teodor had created just for them, fastened to their bridles.
Kllloookkll.
The bells chimed and chimed. It was as if the camels had their own language. And in that shared language, the two friends dreamed of birds and the sweetness of dates and the blue eye of the Chief Camel, the constellation that led the starry camel caravan.
Finally there came a quiet morning, a morning when the sailors threw open the porthole windows and let the breeze and daylight come rushing in. All that fresh air and fresh light poured onto the camel deck.
Zada felt her heart rise, and in the midst of all that freshness, she heard Teodor say a new word. “Texas.” It seemed that Texas was the land that they were headed toward. And sure enough, on a May day in 1856, Zada, Asiye, and the other camels sailed into Matagorda Bay, to a deep-water port called Indianola. And even though it wasn’t the same as her birthplace, when Zada finally stepped ashore, after so many months in a dark, wet stall, she thought it might be the most beautiful spot on the planet. She thought it might be something like paradise.
32 The Escarpment
1910
This dark den, with its opening that looked like a behemoth mouth, was decidedly not paradise. Though Zada was doing her best to stay calm for the chicks, her steadiness was dwindling.
For one thing, though she knew that the sand fleas would be enough for the chicks in the immediate here and now, soon they would need water. But the dust-filled air outside the cave was still too suffocating to venture to the Mission. With luck, there would be water there. With more luck, there would be Pard and Perlita, waiting for them.
But for another thing—and this was a more pressing question, the question that made her teeth hurt—where was Pecos de Leon? It seemed like a flat-out miracle that she had seen neither hide nor hair of the mountain lion.
And for a third—Gah! A raucous peeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeep! broke out between her ears. It was so rowdy it made her eyebrows arch.
“Hey now, hey now,” she soothed. “What is the problem?”
“There was a t-t-t-tick,” stammered Wims. “And Beulah ate it.”
Beulah protested, “It was the most delicious tick ever.”
“B-b-b-but I found it,” said Wims.
“You are a good tick finder,” said Beulah.
“But it was mmmiiiiinnne,” he fumed.
“And it was sooooo yummy,” said Beulah.
Which launched them into an amazing ballyhoo of klees and killys and peeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeps.
Then, midst the fury, Zada felt tiny, spiky pokes, like cactus spines, piercing her head. It was Wims standing on the very ends of his toes and hopping like mad (he was hopping mad), and in a split second of ultimate pique—oof!
Followed by…
OH NO! OH NO! OH NO!
Zada gasped. This could not be happening. But yes. This was happening: Beulah, in all her baby glory, was sliding-sliding-sliding, all the way from Zada’s head, down her neck.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Wims cried. “I didn’t mean it!”
Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Zada thought. Beulah couldn’t fall, she couldn’t. Zada would never be able to get her back up again.
Faster than she’d moved in ten… no… twenty years, Zada dropped to her knees and stretched out her neck. Out, out, out, as if reaching for the finish line in one of the Pasha’s races, and…
… the slip-sliding ssssslllloooowwweddd…
And… stopped.
Everyone sucked in a breath.
Hold it. Hold it.
At last, from the direction of Beulah’s beak, came a very thin peep.
There was a collective exhale.
Then, in her ever-so-calmest voice, Zada gently coaxed Beulah to scooch up her neck, which she was holding so flat that she was getting a neck cramp. “
Easy… that’s the way… just a little farther…” and bit by bit, scooch by scooch, Beulah finally made her way back to the safety zone atop Zada’s head. Whew!
Wims, a penitent passel of remorse and relief, flung himself at his sister. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it,” he cried over and over and over. Which was okay with Beulah for approximately one half of one second. Squirming out of his embrace and resisting a huge urge to lick him, she stood on her toes and stretched to her highest height of approximately five inches and furiously flapped her wings. Then she glared at him and declared, “That tick was soooooo delicious!”
Zada considered plucking all their feathers, but right then, there was a bigger problem in the cave: she needed to get back up, because… hello… mountain lion! It was only a matter of time now. She knew this.
But she also knew that she needed a moment. It would take every ounce of her energy to stand back up. Her quick descent to the ground had jarred her already shaky knees.
Think, Zada. Think, think, think.
But thinking reminded her that despite the happy outcome, Beulah’s slide was too close. It could so easily have gone so terribly wrong. And if it had, what then? How would she ever be able to face Perlita? Or Pard?
They had entrusted their best beloved babies, their Wims and Beulah, the most important, utterly valuable, profoundly treasured parts of their hearts to her, Honorary Auntie. Perlita and Pard hadn’t even hesitated. And what had Zada done? She had taken them right into the lair of a notorious mountain lion. That was what she had done.
Oof! A wave of panic rose up from her bellies. She closed her eyes.
She had to get back on her feet, and once there, she had to make sure that the babies stayed put, so as soon as the wind died down, they could make a run for it.
