A Steal of a Deal

by Ginny Aiken

  We laugh.

  “Hey! Put a cork in it!” I add in a whisper. “They’re watching.”

  He snorts. “Give it up already, Andi-ana Jones!”

  I glare.

  He stalks to the van.

  Aunt Weeby and Miss Mona join us, together with their living, breathing dismay. We drive away.

  The nondescript brown car follows.

  Oh well. Have government goons, will travel.

  600

  We return to the hotel in silence, most of us too tired to do more than fight off the yawns. Once we reach our home away from home, we scatter in seconds, but no one closes their door until chivalrous Max has checked out closets, behind curtains, under beds, and in tubs.

  No corpses tonight—thank you, Lord Jesus!

  I don’t forget my earlier offenses; after I remove my minimal makeup, brush my teeth, and don my PJs, I reach for my Bible. I hit God up for wisdom—yeah, yeah, I’m lacking there; guidance—okay, so I tend toward a wee bit of blindness; and his awesome love—I’ll never get enough of that, and he’s got plenty to give.

  After a while, I sigh. Will I ever learn to think—and pray!— first, then talk, Father? And what’s with my reactions to Max? I’m seasick here from the up-and-down of it all, Lord!

  In the velvety silent night, I turn to the Proverbs, so full of advice for emotionally messy blurters like moi. Once I’ve soaked a good long while in God’s Word, I turn off the bedside lamp and fall into a rock-solid sleep.

  It takes us days to get to the Kudi Valley. Let’s just say the Himalayan concept of road doesn’t match mine. Their preferred mode of travel doesn’t, either.

  “The fine print never said I’d have to ride a mule,” I mutter as the earthy-smelling animal plods along the narrow lane. Too many days on this critter’s behind has not best friends us made.

  Turning in his saddle, Xheng Xhi gives me another of those too-bright looks of his. “You mule like you, Miss Andie.”

  Right behind me, Max chuckles. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Andi-ana Jones?”

  “Back in Filene’s Basement, where it belongs. I’m an expert hunter of bargainus extraordinarius, not a fan of extreme encounters with massively haired mountain goats.”

  “Goats?” Aunt Weeby warbles ahead of me. “I haven’t seen a single one a’ them. Unless we call them yak things a kind of goat. Are they goats? Or maybe they’re deer? Elk? Buffalo? Cows?” She falls silent for a moment. “D’ya think we could do like with sheep and angora goats, and shear them yaks? Then . . . I reckon we could get some a’ them ol’ hippies out there in California or Oregon to spin the fur into thread—no, no! It’s yarn, I mean . . .”

  Max’s choked-off laugh lets me in on what he thinks of that idea. I’m so glad I can’t see him; right about now I’d be howling too. That, of course, is the kind of fuel that feeds Aunt Weeby’s extreme wackiness.

  “Oh, it’s the best idea, Mona!” she says. “We can sell yak sweaters on the S.T.U.D.”

  Huh? The fur of the shaggy beasties I’ve seen speaks of hedgehogs in need of lawn mowers rather than future warm fuzzies. “Hey, Aunt Weeby! I feel a major itch coming on! We’d have to sell Gold Bond lotion with those woolies you’re talking about.”

  “Yaks have two kinds of fur, Andie,” Glory says, her voice faint. Her mule is behind Max’s. “The outside stuff is tough and harsh, but the inside layer is soft and super warm. That’s what the people of the Himalayas have used for winter clothes for centuries.”

  Smarty pants! I make sure my voice comes out nice and pleasant. “How do you know so much about yaks, Glory?”

  “I’m not sure. I must have read it somewhere. My memory’s kind of weird. It picks up info and stores it in random bits and pieces. I never know what’s going to pop out when I least expect it.”

  Her answer is just a hair away from total airhead. But since no one’s perfect, least of all me, I give her the benefit of the doubt. I do, however, want to thwap her for the wacky idea her answer gives Aunt Weeby.

  “Ooooh!” my aunt cries. “I got it! Better’n sweaters too. That other channel has some woman selling sweaters with all kinds a’ crazy pictures all over ’em. Let’s sell us some yaks!” Shock makes me clench my knees. Bad idea. In mule-speak, that means STOP, which my mule does. Immediately.

  Max yells.

  His mount ignores him. They crash into mine—mules aren’t the brightest diamonds in the gem-jar trays. “What do you think you’re doing?” he gripes.

  At me! Not the mules. What’s up with that?

  “Miss Andie?” Xheng Xhi asks from up ahead past my aunt and my boss. “You fine?”

  “Whoa!” Glory yelps from farther behind.

  “Hey!” Allison joins the chorus. “What’s going on up there? This is no six-lane highway, you guys.”

  I blush. Then, the clatter of metal adds to the commotion.

  Nope. It’s not Santa’s reindeer on the roof. “Uh . . . ,” Max says, “I have to pick up some of my things that fell.”

  I snicker and turn at the waist. “Aren’t you sorry you dragged all that with you? It’s a lot to lug around on the back of a beast.”

  He dismounts, squeezes between the animal and the sheer rock wall, then reaches, very respectfully, below the animal’s snout.

  Xheng Xhi leads his mule back past Aunt Weeby and Miss Mona to my side, anxiety on his features. “Mister Max hurt you, Miss Andie?”

  When Max straightens, he sends us one of his icy blue glares. “If Andie hadn’t just stopped like that, I wouldn’t have dropped my club.” He shakes the dumb thing for emphasis.

  Yes, ladies and gentlemen. The gemology-challenged co-host has carted his golf club, a little packet of golf balls, and even his football on our trek.

  “Sorry, pal,” I say. “You’re not giving me the guilties. No one in his right mind goes trekking the Himalayas with a bunch of sports gear on top of a mule. Maybe you can use the long ride to ponder more important things—like those bugs you’ll soon be selling.”

  Xheng Xhi resumes his lead of our ragtag army.

  Max grabs the reins in his left hand, puts his right foot in the mule’s stirrup, plops the right fist—clutching the golf club—on the pommel, then pushes up and swings his left leg over the animal’s rump. Gotta give the guy credit; his athleticism has a masculine grace that impresses me every time it shows up.

  “. . . And I suppose that serious pondering,” he bites off, “is why you just had to lug that designer bag with all the brown Cs all over it with you.”

  I blush—again. What can I say? It’s shallow, but I love my Coach bag. “Ah . . . I just need to keep all my documents in one handy spot, so it makes sense to keep the bag with me.” True. Sorta. In the most basic of ways.

  He laughs. I’m so happy I can afford Max so much merriment.

  Not.

  “Don’t even try, Andie. You love that dumb bag with some chi-chi design company’s name woven into plain old canvas because some style guru has anointed it as the height of fash-ionistas’ desire. Tell me how that figures into the purpose of your life.”

  That’s my Coach bag on which a jock is casting aspersions. Ahem!

  Well . . . okay. So his question has a ton of merit. Not that I’m about to tell him that. It is something for me to ponder— I’m starting to seriously dislike that word—later.

  I try to coax my mule to forward motion. “How would you know it’s canvas?”

  “Canvas is canvas. It’s what teachers used for art class ‘masterpieces’ back in school, the same stuff on my old Keds sneakers, and it’s the same thing you paid a small fortune for, just for the sake of your goofy Cs.”

  “What are you slowpokes doing back there?” Aunt Weeby hollers from way ahead.

  “Not to worry,” Glory yells back. “It’s just the latest battle in the Max and Andie war. We’ll be right there.”

  Thank you, Glory, for the serving of humble pie. After that, I don’t make a peep. We plod on and I pray. I p
ray for control, for wisdom, for help with my pride, and for the Lord to get us in and out of Kashmir’s mine country without any Muslim guerilla sightings.

  Sure, sure. Some, like Aunt Weeby, might see it as a cultural experience. Not me. It doesn’t thrill me that elements of the Taliban and their tribal buddies like to hide out from the good guys—read “our side”—with villagers in the area.

  Let’s hope Soomjam, the village nearest the mines and the orphanage, isn’t their latest choice for home sweet home. I don’t think they’ll like to see Americans anywhere near their sapphires.

  The sooner we get there—and out—the better. With that in mind, I catch up to Aunt Weeby and the Musgroves, and follow in silence for the next three, maybe four hours. Finally, we plod into a valley, striking in its austere, treeless beauty. I’m excited. We’re here . . . almost.

  We head toward a cluster of homes at the right side of the flat valley bottom. I soak in everything I see with curiosity and a hunger that surprises me.

  But guess what? Even here, at this rocky top of the world, we have to clear one more military checkpoint. Yes. Another one. In spite of Xheng Xhi, our guide, and the “other party” of travelers that’s had the same itinerary we have. Yeah, right, travelers. More like guys with gun-shaped lumps under their clothes.

  “I thought we were done with this when we left Myanmar,” I grumble. “So now we come to Kashmir, and it’s all the same old thing all over again.”

  “Now, Andie, dear,” Miss Mona says. “The government’s just being cautious.”

  And I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi.

  Our herd approaches the wooden booth. I knee my steed closer to Aunt Weeby. I don’t want an international incident. We already did the dead-houseboy gig back in Srinagar. And one of her funny and innocent but off-the-wall comments might do worse than launch a thousand-year war.

  As I reach her side, I notice the cross-legged, uniformed Asian man on the rough stone slab that passes for a front step.

  I risk alerting the guy. “Psst!”

  Aunt Weeby glances over her shoulder. “You okay, sugarplum?”

  “I’m fine,” I whisper. “Just don’t say anything. We do better at these when we let our guides do the talking.”

  “You calling me a blabbermouth?”

  “Um-huh-hum-hum . . .”

  She winks. “I’ve been known to say a thing or two!”

  I laugh. Who can resist?

  When the guard spots our crew, he leaps up, gawps, takes a couple of steps forward, stops, stares some more, then whirls, runs into the booth, slams the flimsy door, and watches us go by from inside.

  I shake my head. “Do we make an entrance or what?”

  Aunt Weeby giggles.

  Don’t ask me what kind of checkpoint guy the more . . . intense, shall we say, elements of the government would prefer to replace this one with, but I’m okay with him myself.

  Xheng Xhi, who replaced potential killer Robert as our guide, leads us to a fairly new brick structure. Without knocking, he opens one of the double wooden doors into what looks like a courtyard from where I’m sitting—yeah, I’m still on my stinky mount.

  “Xncsent tspher owxaki shuyz!” he yells—that’s how I “hear” it.

  A petite, older woman dressed in a gorgeous russet salwar kameez, the traditional Indian and Pakistani outfit of tunic and loose trousers, runs out, bows deeply, and smiles a welcome. She shoots back more garbled chatter at Xheng Xhi, punctuating her words with birdlike hands. He then throws open the other courtyard door, they stand aside, and Xheng Xhi waves us through. We all troop in—yep, people and mules and junk, oh my!

  In the Himalayan dusk, the shadowed courtyard of the three-story building looks exotic, intriguing, and very much like a barnyard. Smells like one too. Once I get my bearings, I identify the source of the . . . um . . . scent. Stable-like cubbyholes line three sides of the ground floor; the fourth side being the massive doors Xheng Xhi has now barred shut. From one far corner, a fast flutter and a ruffle of clucking tells me the family keeps chickens—in their home!—as well as the snuffly beasties in the stalls. Fast and furious yapping alerts us to the watchdog.

  Watchdog—hah! As soon as we slump, slither, or crash down off our mounts, the lean brown pooch rolls over on her back at my feet. Who am I to deprive a lovable canine of a belly scratch?

  “Aren’t you the sweetest?” I croon and rub.

  She wriggles in ecstasy. Can she ever smell a sucker!

  I rub some more. “Have you been working too hard, girl? Don’t you have a little friend to tickle and cuddle you?” Of course, the dog responds with a fresh burst of excited, ecstatic yips. “Tell you what, then. While we’re here, I’m going to have fun spoiling you.”

  Max laughs. “She’s got you where she wants you.”

  I give him a wry grin. “I’m a sucker for a pooch. But I’m also hungry, and don’t have a clue where we’re bunking down for the night. How about we figure out what we’re supposed to do?”

  As harrowing as our trip to the Burmese ruby mines was (imagine a collapsing mine shaft and a chase by armed goons—didn’t bother to check whether they were government types or not), we did stay at a plain, clean hotel while there. This looks like a huge farmhouse, maybe for multiple generations—of fowl, humans, and other mammals too.

  Glory sidles up to Max, then flashes him her widest smile. “Is there anything I can do to help you with some of your gear?” Ick! Ptooey! Yuck! All that sweetness and light is enough to give a woman cavities. Max? Well, he’s not a woman and has the typical male sweet tooth. He eats it up with a spoon.

  Xheng Xhi hurries to my side. “Nice here, Miss Andie. You no more ride. Okay?”

  I give the man a weak smile. “Not for a while, but we still have to go back to Srinagar soon enough. But thank you for your help.”

  He beams, then bustles off after the mules.

  The dog nuzzles my knee. “C’mon, girl.” To my surprise, or maybe not so much, since she strikes me as a kindred soul, she follows. “Let’s go find some chow. Your ribs didn’t feel too well padded, so I’m sure you can use a scrap or two . . .”

  Fifteen minutes later, Glory, Allison, and I walk into a room with three wooden bed platforms, a folded fur at the foot of each, but no mattress or pillows in sight. “Phew! I’m glad we brought our gear.”

  Glory runs her fingers through the animal skin on one of the beds. “I bet this is yak.”

  I shudder. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll stick with my sleeping bag.”

  Since we’re about to become roomies, I make sure to “please” and “thank you” Glory to pieces as we make our beds. I dislike the . . . oh, phooey! I might as well admit it— again. I don’t like the jealousy I’m feeling. It’s not her fault she’s pretty and likes Max. I have no claim on the guy.

  Then we head downstairs for our evening meal. Far from the lavish feast we enjoyed in Srinagar, this family’s dinner consists of rice, curry-scented veggies, flat bread, and—get this—yak butter! The spread has an earthy undertone, but it’s not so bad.

  I eat in silence. I’d rather keep my loose tongue occupied with food than talk, since it gets me in trouble too often when it flaps. As I munch, I take a discreet survey of the room we’re in.

  We must be in the original great room of all great rooms.

  Living, dining, and cooking all happen here. The area’s main feature is the huge clay oven at the center; a round mouth in the front lets me watch the raging flames. As hot as it must be, the oven’s walls look thick enough to contain all that heat, since I’d felt little warmth when I walked past on my way to the long, low table. Smoke puffs out around the bottom of two pots that simmer on holes along the oven’s top. The sooty clouds rise to escape through a small vent opening in the ceiling. There’s no chimney in the place.

  Don’t think of smoke inhalation, carbon monoxide poisoning, or five-alarm fires, Andie. Don’t. Just don’t.

  But I can’t help myself. I don’t want to wind up a
s a shish kebab. Which reminds me of the two little goats that greet everyone with a nudge of their knobby heads.

  “Can you believe they live with their animals? Inside the house,” Glory whispers as we take another flatbread.

  “Looks that way,” I say. “But it’s probably not that much different than living with cats, dogs, or pot-bellied pigs.”

  She scoots away from me on the bench to give me a “you-gotta-be-kidding” look. “I’ve never known anyone who lives with a pig.”

  There’s a million mouthy ways I could answer, but I remember my many prayers for control. “Me neither, but I hear they’re popular.”

  During the meal, I tear chunks of the yummy flatbread slathered with yak butter, and slip it to my furry friend. She returns the favor by plunking her warm butt on my frozen toes—have I mentioned the Himalayas have the iciest summer ever?

  “So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” I ask, once I’m done with my last cup of fragrant green tea.

  Trevor Musgrove, who must think we’re the weirdest bunch on earth, clears his throat. “They’re expecting us at the orphanage tomorrow morning. There are a number of projects waiting for us.”

  Miss Mona stands. “I suggest everyone get a good night’s sleep so we’re all good and ready to pitch in.”

  A quick glance around the table shows no resistance to her suggestion. Then I hear Aunt Weeby. Since I can’t make out what she’s saying, I stand to look for her. I find her at the far left of the room, where she’s cornered our host beneath a high shelf that holds three cooking pots.

  “. . . Is that your best price?” she asks the wizened gentleman with a complexion reminiscent of a prune.

  To my amazement, he shrugs. “Best price.”

  Who’d a thunk we’d find someone out here who speaks English? Then again, there have been a bunch of crews who’ve come out this way to survey the sapphire mines’ potential over the years. It’s not too far-fetched that someone who once dealt with the assayers would have picked up a working knowledge of the language.

  “Whoa!” What am I thinking! Who cares if the man speaks English or Martian? They’re talking price over there. I hurry across the room. “What are you buying, Aunt Weeby? Your mule can’t carry a whole lot out of here—not if you want to come home too.”