His were an ancient people, with tribal bloodlines going back over five thousand years of nomadic life. They were known for their loyalty and legendary tracking skills. There was no other way to survive in the land of the Rub‘ al Khali. It was on the edges of that great desert that his people migrated with their beloved camels and goats and sheep.
When he was very young, his father had sent him out with a scouting party and he had found his love for tracking in the search for water and pasture. Soon he could look at a hoofprint and know what kind of horse or camel or goat it was and when it had passed. His reputation spread throughout the desert country, and it was the tribal chieftain Ibn al Khaldun who had claimed him for one of his own trackers. With the extra money, Rashid had been able to buy a camel for himself.
That was why he was here, all because Ibn al Khaldun had wanted the black colt so desperately that he was willing to make raids, if not war, on Abu Já Kub ben Ishak. Now the black colt was dead, dead like the old man who had defended him.
Why, oh why, in the name of Allah, had the old man screamed?
To die for the sake of a horse, any horse, was insane. The scout’s dark, sensitive face became twisted in a deep scowl, for horses had played no part in his life. There had been none in his family tribe, for horses were not essential to their existence.
Horses were owned by chieftains of great wealth, those who could provide them with sufficient feed and grass throughout the year, all from a land that provided little. Horses were ridden for pleasure and racing—and raids, of course, but his tribe took no part in such activities. Rashid had learned to ride while scouting the desert on horses Khaldun provided for his men. But he had never even dreamed of owning his own horse.
He was not impressed by the beauty and grace of horses. It was the homely, awkward camel that had provided him and his family with transportation, food and companionship. It was from the humble sheep and goats that they got their wool and milk.
Horses were only for those who could afford to watch and glow in their swiftness and beauty. And yet he wished he had one now. He was tired, very tired, and his bare feet burned as they never had from walking in the desert sand.
The dry, cold air of the high mountains gradually leached out his fear of Abu Já Kub ben Ishak. The wind softened, coddled him and pulled his eyelids down, smothering him into sleep.
THE CAT
5
When Rashid awoke, the sun was already beginning to sink beneath the western peaks. Twigs clung to the wisp of a beard that trimmed his oval-shaped face. His hair was thick with wind-blown sand. He emerged from the cleft in the rocks, where he had slept on a rocky shelf wedged behind an enormous boulder. Stretching to get some of the stiffness out of his body, he dusted off his clothing and thought of the journey ahead. After a meager dinner of a few dates he packed up his woolen blanket and was on his way.
As night fell, the full moon rose above the distant peaks. Somehow the spires appeared higher by night than they had by day. Even in the moonlight, bright stars were easy to see. With spring coming, the hunter Orion was fast disappearing from the skies, and the brilliant star Sirius had set. None shone brighter now than Arcturus, which would reign in the heavens until as-seif and al-kez, the days of summer.
The night wore on. When the sky suddenly grew dark, Rashid thought that perhaps a cloud had drifted over the moon, but when he looked back, he saw that the moon was partially eclipsed. Was it an omen? A warning? He remembered a song he had heard as a child about the great fish hawt who chased the sun and moon through the heavens. He broke into a chant:
Jâ hawt etlažî
al-kamââââr!
“O hawt,
Let the moon go!”
All through the night he traveled, stealthily making his way toward the freedom of the desert. His long journey home had begun. Between him and the desert lay the heart of the unbroken mountain range. He had come far and there was much farther to go.
At dawn Rashid neared the pass leading through the mountains. His keen eyes swept the contours of its distant slopes. Cresting a ridge, he spotted two men standing on an outcropping of rocks that overlooked the trail. The men were perched in such a way that no one could approach from beneath without being seen. Rifles were slung over their shoulders.
By their reddish-brown-stained kufiyyas he identified the men as Duru raiders, the Wolves of the Desert, probably working for Abu Ishak. They hadn’t been there on his way into the valley. Their bay mares grazed below on the dry clumps of grass that covered the lower slopes of the pass before the walls turned vertical and shot straight up into the sky.
Sentries. He should have thought of that. Rashid slid back down behind the ridge and hoped he hadn’t been seen. He had to think. Nervously his fingers felt the hilt of the Omani dagger girded to his waist. If only he had his rifle, he might have a chance. But it was gone. Khaldun’s men probably hadn’t even waited until they left the valley before fighting over who would get it and his horse. That did not bother him so much. How to survive was his only concern now.
Yet the scout couldn’t help but wonder again how he ever got into this mess. What was he doing in these mountains so far from his beloved camel and the desert?
He thought back to the day the gold-colored Mercedes-Benz had rolled into the camp of Ibn al Khaldun in a cloud of dust. The young boys had all crowded around to get a closer look. Rashid too had watched as the rich Arab horse buyer from England, Muhammad ben Mansoor, had stepped out wearing those curious, tight-fitting Western clothes. He had seen such an outfit only once before, and that was in a magazine. The stranger wore a high, white turban and shiny boots instead of sandals. He was accompanied by two bodyguards with long fingernails and shifting eyes. After removing their shoes, the visitors were whisked into Khaldun’s tent of black goat’s hair to be made welcome with coffee and dates.
That evening Rashid helped serve dinner in the tent of Ibn al Khaldun. He got a better look at the strangers as he shuttled back and forth from the cooking fire to the dining area carrying trays full of meat and rice. Mansoor had a long, angular face, a thin mustache and piercing eyes. He wore a number of gold and diamond rings on his fingers. Every movement he made seemed to be shadowed by his two wiry bodyguards. These two men spoke little, and when they did, it was with the thick accent of marsh Arabs from Persia. Though they were not big boned or muscular, their cold, hard, expressionless faces stood out, even in this room filled with desert-born warriors.
An elder of the tribe who had been silently regarding the newcomers silenced the younger men’s chatter with a gesture of his hand. He turned to Mansoor and said, “You speak the language of the Sands and know the customs of our people. But tell me, stranger, what manner of clothing is that you have on? Why do you not wear the clothes of the desert?”
Mansoor bowed his head in respect and then replied, “Do not be offended by my dress, Ancient One. It is the custom in England, where I was educated. Rest assured that beneath it all I am a full-blooded Arab. As a child I lived with my family among the Manasir on the northern edge of the great Rub‘ al Khali. I still return to the desert tribes on occasion to do business, as I do now.”
“And what sort of business did you say you were in, ben Mansoor?” queried the old man.
Mansoor spoke absently and pretended to return to his meal. In between bites he replied, “This and that—trading mostly. At the moment I am looking for breeding stock on behalf of my employer, Lord Marley, of Marley Arabians. Lately I have been having a difficult time of it, though.”
Khaldun interrupted, “Yes, even we who live out on the Sands have heard of the new law limiting the export of first-class Arabian horses. Is that what is troubling you, Mansoor?”
“No, the problem is not the government—I have many friends there who can help me around the law. My only difficulty is in finding the right horse. I simply haven’t been able to find the kind of quality horse I am looking for, so …”
“So you come to Khaldun,” t
he desert chieftain interrupted again, finishing Mansoor’s sentence for him with a proud smile. “Let me assure you that you did the right thing in coming to see me, rather than any of the other tribes. But before we go any further”—Khaldun paused to give his words special emphasis—“there is just one little thing I’d like to clear up. It has been brought to my attention that you bear a distinct resemblance to a certain man known as al Bis, the Cat, from Abu Dhabi. Are you familiar with this man, by any chance?”
The bodyguards stiffened in their seats, their eyes fixed ahead of them. Quiet tension filled the air. “Yes, I am also known by that name,” Mansoor replied evenly. Some of the tribesmen began whispering together, and it was apparent that the Cat’s reputation as a clever smuggler was known to them as well.
Khaldun’s counsel leaned over and murmured something into the chieftain’s ear. The sheikh spoke at last. “Tell your men to relax, al Bis. You are among friends. Raiders we may be, but first and foremost we are men of honor. If we thought any less of you, your bones would already be drying outside in the desert sun. Rest assured that we will help you find the horse you seek. But it is not our way to speak of business so soon in the company of guests. Come, tell us about the Englishmen. Do they worship God? Are they all rich as we have heard? Tell us of London.”
The younger men listened with rapt attention as Mansoor began to speak. “Do not believe everything that you hear about the marvels of the city, my brothers,” he said. “In many ways it is a poisonous place. The very air the English breathe is thick with smoke from their factories.”
“Are there no tribes, no camels?” asked one of the wide-eyed boys. Mansoor smiled and slowly shook his head.
“It is a place where the women do not veil their faces, a place where men mark the passage of time not by the phases of the moon but with machines known as clocks. Here, I carry one myself.”
Mansoor reached inside his breast pocket and withdrew a gold watch and chain. He showed it to the boys, who crowded around him and passed it back and forth between them. While Mansoor continued with his stories of city life, the older men talked among themselves, unimpressed with the stranger’s tales. The only things they would ever need from the West were their rifles.
After dinner the men drank coffee and Khaldun’s greyhounds lounged at their feet, chewing on the bones left over from the meal. Everyone seemed to be at ease. Mansoor offered cigarettes to one and all, smoking his own out of a thin black holder, and patiently listened to the tribal gossip. Khaldun finally brought the conversation around to the business at hand. The one-armed chieftain cleared his throat and spoke.
“Now, about your horse. According to my spies, Abu Ishak believes that he is in possession of such a colt as you desire. This colt was bred by a renowned horseman who goes so far as to claim he was sired by the stars themselves. Ridiculous as it sounds, my informants confirm that even Abu Ishak believes there is something extraordinary about this colt. I think your Lord Marley will be very happy with him. The raid will be dangerous, and we will have to ride many days to reach Abu Ishak’s mountain stronghold in the Kharj. However, if the price is right, we will arrange something.”
When preparations were made for the trip to the mountains, Rashid was selected to join the raiding party. Now, after the botched attempt to steal the black colt, he was trapped in the highlands.
Could he find his way out again? Rashid frowned. Though he could remember the hoofprint of any animal he’d ever seen and knew well the scant grazing on the dunes, what good did that do him now?
He stole back up onto the top of the ridge to have another look at the sentries. The bearded men were squatting beside a campfire, drinking coffee. They looked like seasoned raiders. Outwitting them would not be so easy. And if he did somehow manage to slip by the sentries, who could tell if there weren’t more of them posted along the way?
Rashid crept down out of sight and collected his thoughts. No, he would lie low and find another way out of the mountains and back to the desert. It would take longer, much longer. The mountains were rugged and desolate, full of sheer precipices, pockmarked tablelands and deep gorges. They stretched in an unbroken line for hundreds of miles across the western horizon. But there had to be more than one way through them. Perhaps by the time Rashid found another pass, enough blood would have been spilt over these gravel-covered slopes to appease Abu Ishak’s call for vengeance—though somehow he doubted it.
He turned and walked back down the path he had come, treading lightly over the loose rocks. Last night he had come to a fork in the trail. He would retrace his steps and try the other path to see where it led. There must be another passage over these cursed mountains.
THE IBEX
6
The falcon played easily on the air currents that swirled around the jagged peaks. Her long, dark, pointed wings swept the sky in quick yet graceful arcs while she scanned the rugged terrain below for signs of movement. She was at home here in the cold winds of the upper air.
Like all birds of prey, she lived by the law of wing and talon, a finely tuned hunting machine perfectly adapted to her sky-bound world. She was a peregrine falcon, born and bred in distant Persia. Unlike most falcons, her home was not a nest on a mountain peak but the tent of her master, the noble Abu Já Kub ben Ishak. The desert chieftain would dine with her sitting on his left wrist and sleep with her perched beside his head.
From her lofty vantage point the gray mountains and blue valleys were fully exposed to the falcon. Nothing that moved below could escape her attention. She drifted easily with the winds, patiently watching the land-bound world pass by below her.
Clouds formed, dissolved and re-formed all around her, allowing only fleeting glimpses of the shadowy gorges that fell away below. She twisted and danced through the blue sky, her wing strokes coming in rapid bursts that were punctuated by short periods of soaring. Her keen eyes, several times more powerful than man’s own, spied something moving on a trail that wound up a ridge on a distant mountainside.
Widening the arc of her flight, the falcon drifted with the wind to get a better look. Banking off the wall of wind, she folded her wings slightly and descended. Her curved, blue-black bill opened and she cried out a greeting to the solitary traveler as she circled low overhead.
Down on the ground the black colt slowly and carefully negotiated the steep, rocky path as it wound upward, ever upward into the sky. His hoofbeats rose and fell in broken rhythm along the sun-beaten trail. The falcon’s shrill cry startled him. He stopped in his tracks, pricked up his ears. For a moment he turned his gaze skyward, and then plunged forward again.
It had been three days and nights since Shêtân left the valley. He must go higher, away from those who would do him harm. The wind began to carry an inviting message, and the colt quickened his pace.
At last the path he was following led to a canyon, shut in on three sides by sheer, towering cliffs. On the far side of the blind canyon, water welled up through the hard ground and collected in a pool. This was what the colt had scented from far away. He reached the gurgling pool, lowered his head and drank deeply from it.
When he finally pulled his long nose out of the water, he began looking for grazing, but small thickets of dry grass and ferns were all he could find to eat. Returning to the spring, the colt walked forward, keeping his head low. He stamped his sore hooves in the icy water that bubbled up from the heart of the mountain. Then, carefully lowering his large body, the colt swung over onto his back. He twisted from side to side, kicking his free legs in the air and grunting with pleasure as he drove his back into the cool mud. Pausing, he lay still, then scrambled to his feet and shook himself. Water flew from him in a misty spray. He snorted, tossing his head. Then he rolled in the dirt and rested in the hot sun.
He dozed there, but it seemed a part of him could never sleep. Something moved behind him and the colt jumped up, nostrils flared, ears cocked back and muscles tightened. A line of silent shadows was coming down the footpath that
wound along the far side of the canyon. A small herd of wild mountain goats were making a bumpy descent toward him. One after the other these ibex picked their way along the narrow path crisscrossing the vertical canyon wall. They were stocky animals, with brown, black or white coats. A dense mane covered them from the neck to the withers and they had thick, strong legs. Their spiraling horns were slightly bent back and ended right above their large, coal-black eyes. The herd emerged onto the canyon floor and were well on their way to the pool before they paid any attention to the black colt.
Shêtân’s eyes followed them, his forelegs stiff, neck and body arched. He sniffed the wind for signs of danger. The lead ibex, a large white she-goat, began whistling an alarm to the others. They stopped to wait and see what the black stranger would do next.
The colt knew no better what to make of the ibex than they did of him. He tossed his head back and forth. It was not a threatening gesture, so their leader crossed the canyon floor to the spring and began to drink. The rest of the herd followed. The ibex moved awkwardly across the flat land. They seemed almost uncomfortable on level ground.
When Shêtân moved closer to them, they merely returned to the other side of the canyon, as if to wait for the big spindly-legged beast to take his turn drinking from the pool and then be on his way. As the hot sun beat down on them, the ibex sought out the shade provided by a rock ledge and rested, while their leader kept a wary eye on Shêtân.
As the colt ventured still closer, the ibex queen responded by arching her back. The hair on her croup and hindquarters stood erect. She lowered her head and pretended to return to her grazing, all the while watching the stranger move nearer.
The Young Black Stallion Page 4
