“Why did you return without your brother to guide you and protect you?”
Rachel held her breath. She wasn’t certain how much honor and respect Ahnle’s brother commanded in the tiny village. He was, after all, almost their only contact with the outside world, the source of their gunpowder and ammunition, the canned food that supplemented their meager stores of rice and corn and wild game. He was also, most likely, the dealer for their small cash crop of opium. To make accusations against him in his absence was risky.
“My brother did not honor me.” Ahnle lifted her head, still covered by the brightly patterned silk scarf, but kept her eyes averted from the old man’s. “He sent me to the city. He sold me to a man who made me dance for the pleasure of strangers, with my head uncovered and my hair unbound.” There was a murmur of disapproval from the women sitting along the wall, as well as from several of the men squatting around the smoky fire in the middle of the hut, their machetes and old-fashioned, muzzle-loading rifles beside them.
“To set a woman to a task is not against our beliefs,” the old man pointed out. “But to display her for the enjoyment of unbelievers, I do not approve of. I have heard of life in the city. It is far away and dangerous for such as we. How did you come to leave that place?”
“My friends,” Ahnle made an unconsciously graceful gesture as she pointed to Rachel.
“You are brave for a woman.” Rachel could feel him studying her.
“I have spent many seasons with The People. I have learned courage from you,” Rachel said politely, her eyes downcast, her head like Ahnle’s, covered with a brightly patterned silk scarf tied in the distinctive manner of the women of the village where she’d lived with Father Pieter.
“I can see that.”
“We also had the help of a man,” Ahnle said very softly. “He is the one they call Tiger.”
He shot Rachel a hard, searching look as she watched him through her lashes. “Does the girl speak the truth?”
“Yes.”
“You have powerful friends. Even here, we have learned of the one they say moves through the jungle like the great cat he is named for.”
The old man turned to Ahnle. “Your brother does not know you are here.” It wasn’t a question but a statement. Ahnle answered as such.
“No, Uncle.”
“You were wrong to run away from him, but right to leave the place he had taken you. I will discuss this matter with him when he returns to his home.” The wily old man had neatly cleared away the hurdle of Ahnle’s running away from the man the village considered her legal guardian. Rachel began to breathe slightly easier.
“I will not be so disobedient in the future, Uncle.”
“See that you are not.” He was silent a long moment. Ahnle seemed to be holding her breath. Rachel bit her lip. “I have spoken to Chengla and his wife in the matter regarding your child. They have taken him into their home and treated him as their own for several moons. It is very hard for them to give him up.”
“I am most grateful to them but my heart will always ache with pain and sorrow if we are separated longer.” Ahnle reached into the pocket of her loose cotton slacks. “I have brought them a gift to show them my gratitude for keeping the child safe and well.” She held out the money. Changed into small bills and coins, the hundred baht made an impressive offering. “I give you all I have in the world, and this I have only from the goodness of the spirits,” she added formally.
The old man held out his hands. Ahnle handed over the notes and coins without touching him. “I will talk to Chengla and his wife today. I will give you my decision in the morning.”
Ahnle looked over her shoulder at Rachel, stricken.
“Honored Father,” Rachel interjected, bowing low. “We have only a little time left. Ahnle’s cousin will be at the edge of the river at sunrise in two days’ time. We do not wish to hurry your decision, but we must be gone from the village at first light tomorrow.”
“Yes. I see that there is a problem. Very well, you will have my decision at sunset. If Chengla and his wife agree to give up the child, you will have time to prepare the little one for the journey.”
“Thank you, Honored Father.”
He nodded very slightly. “Go,” he said, including all the women in the command. “We men have business to conduct.” As they filed out of the smoky hut, Rachel saw the pipes being brought out. A pipe of opium would help the old man think. He believed it brought him closer to the spirit gods and made his decisions stronger and wiser. She followed the other women out into the sunshine and walked beside Ahnle, back to her brother’s house, and began to help chop vegetable greens for the evening meal, as if nothing important had occurred, as though she’d never left her own hill village at all. The thought made her shiver and seemed to take the brightness from the sun.
For the remainder of the day, she did her best to keep the darkness of her own thoughts at bay, as well as encouraging Ahnle to keep her spirits up. They played with the children, who, once they got over their shyness at seeing Rachel’s round eyes and pale skin, turned out to be imps of mischief. They helped to weed the poppies, and Ahnle showed her the burying ground where her parents and two younger sisters were laid to rest. Rachel’s baby was buried in just such a place, watched over by the mountains and the spirits that inhabited them. As the afternoon grew warm and sleepy, they sat beneath a tree on a rise above the village and simply watched life go on around them.
“No matter what happens, I will never return,” Ahnle said, as the sun slid behind the hills, bringing instant twilight to the tiny valley and its scattering of dusty, untidy huts.
“Your uncle, the dzoema, is a good man. His decision will be wise and just.” Rachel wanted to tell the girl she would look after her, take her to America and help care for her child, but she could not. Her own life was in too great a state of disarray to make promises she might not be able to keep. And what if the old man decided against Ahnle? What if Chengla and his wife really had grown so attached to the baby that they could not bear to give him up? Rachel rested her head on her knees and tried not to think of anything at all.
“Rachel. Look!” Ahnle touched her sleeve very gently. “There is my uncle coming along the street to my brother’s house. He is not alone,” she said, suddenly breathless.
“No.” Rachel narrowed her eyes to bring the small procession into focus. Ahnle’s uncle was followed by a short, stocky man Rachel had never seen before, and behind him a respectful two steps was an even shorter woman, heavyset for a Hlông—and she was carrying a child. “He is not alone.”
“They are bringing my son.” Ahnle stood up in one swift, graceful movement and started running along the steep path leading back down to the village, Rachel only a step or two behind. The path was rocky and potholed. She had to keep all her attention on her feet or she would surely fall and twist an ankle, but she wanted to warn Ahnle, say something to prepare her, just in case Chengla and his wife had only come to return her gift of money in person and not to give her back her son.
“Ahnle, wait,” she called, panting from altitude and exertion. “Wait for me.” It was too late. The girl had already climbed the rickety steps into the hut where the others had entered just moments ahead of her. Rachel could only follow, praying silently to God and Buddha and all the spirits, hoping for the best.
Inside the hut it was dark and smoky and crowded with people: Ahnle’s brother’s first wife and her two small daughters, his second wife and her infant son, Ahnle and the visitors. Rachel took her place along the wall with the other women and listened to the old man’s voice over the pounding of her heart. He was holding the baby, an infant no longer but a small, bright-eyed toddler. She glanced at Chengla’s wife but her pudgy face was hidden by the rows of hanging coins draped around her elaborate silver headdress. Her hands were folded in her lap, her body language conveying no emotion.
“Chengla and his wife have brought the child for you to see that he is well,” the old man said,
and Rachel clasped her hands together in her lap to keep them from trembling. The dark mood of earlier in the day hovered just beyond her immediate consciousness and she fought to keep it at bay. “They are honored with the gift you have brought to show your appreciation of their care of your son. They have agreed to return him to you.”
He handed the baby to Ahnle.
“May the spirits bless your house and bring you many strong sons for your kindness to my child,” Ahnle said, bowing low to Chengla and his wife.
“A baby already grows within my new wife,” Chengla replied smugly. “It will be a son.”
“This boy cries too much,” his wife answered, lifting her face to look at Ahnle’s baby. There was no sorrow at losing him that Rachel could see in the woman’s placid eyes. “The new child will not cry, I hope. We have named him Domha—the traveling one. I will pray to the spirits for him and I will buy a silver coin to wear in memory of him.”
“Thank you,” Ahnle said, her eyes bright with tears. “I will honor your memory by keeping the name you have given him.”
“Good.” The old man rose. “We will leave you now so that you may eat your evening meal with your brother’s wives and prepare for your journey back across the great river. My youngest son, Nouvak, will guide you as far as the marshlands near the ruined village but no farther. May the spirits allow you to pass safely beyond the gate of our village.”
“Thank you, Uncle.” Ahnle remained on her knees as the old man uttered his blessing.
“Safe journey,” he said, nodding slightly to Rachel as he passed.
“Thank you, Honored Father,” she replied, accepting the gesture for the compliment that it was. They had done what they set out to do. Now they had only the return trip to the river between them and—home. Rachel sat quietly for a long moment and watched Ahnle rock her son.
IT WAS ALMOST THE LAST quiet moment they had. The baby truly did cry a great deal. He immediately threw up the goat’s milk they tried to feed him from a bottle that Ahnle had stored in her yaam. He objected to the shape of the plastic nipple on the bottle, refused the powdered milk they tried next and only barely tolerated the rice gruel they finally spooned into his mouth.
During the night he was colicky and wakeful. Ahnle and Rachel took turns pacing the floor, rocking him in their arms. More than once Rachel caught the girl staring down at the baby with a puzzled look in her eyes, and she knew that Ahnle hadn’t been prepared to see a year-old toddler in the place of the infant that had been taken from her.
“A child should know its own mother,” she whispered, cuddling the fussy little boy against her breast, as daylight began to lighten the sky above the hills.
“Give him time,” Rachel said comfortingly. “We must leave now. We have a long walk ahead of us.” Outside the hut their guide, Nouvak, a boy barely into his teens, was waiting for them. He carried a small leather pouch and a vintage rifle, nothing else. He walked ahead of the women.
“Everything will be right when we are back in the camp.” Ahnle settled the baby in a sling over her shoulder, his weight resting on her hip. “We will start a new life, Domha and I.”
The trip back went wrong almost from the moment the village was out of sight. It started to rain, a steady, soaking rain that seemed as if it had gotten lost from the rest of the monsoon and only now caught up. Nouvak seemed oblivious to the discomfort, even offering to carry one of the shoulder bags when they had gone far enough to ensure no one from the village would see him doing woman’s work. But it was still slow going.
The baby cried himself into exhausted sleep late in the afternoon and only woke long enough to take a bottle of powdered milk and rice gruel, as they sat around their small, smoky fire that night. Far off in the jungle a tiger roared. Although no night hunters came near their camp, Nouvak slept with his hand on the gun and Rachel didn’t sleep at all.
They were going too slowly. There was too much distance to be made up if they were to arrive near the abandoned fishing village before the next night. Rachel roused them in the still, misty darkness of predawn and they walked all day with only two short halts to feed the child.
They almost made it, but an hour past the waterfall where they’d camped their first night in the jungle, Ahnle stepped on a loose stone and landed painfully on her knee as she twisted to protect the baby. It slowed them down and even though they walked an hour after nightfall, until their young guide refused to go farther along the steep, dangerous path above the stream, Rachel knew it was not far enough.
She sat up again that night, cuddling the baby so that Ahnle could rest, keeping him warm, trying to stave off the cold terror of her own thoughts. They were going to miss the rendezvous, no matter how early they started, no matter how fast they walked. They were simply too far away from the abandoned village.
Still, they left two hours before dawn, bidding their silent young companion farewell as they came out of the hills and into the marshlands bordering the stream. The women hurried on alone, slowed by the baby and Ahnle’s bruised knee. When daylight came, the sun was hidden by fog that grew thicker as they reached the water’s edge. The ruined huts rose around them, misty shapes in the gloom.
Ahnle’s cousin and his boat were nowhere in sight, but very faintly, far away and muffled by the fog, Rachel heard the sound of a motor.
Moving away from them, back toward the river and freedom.
They were stranded.
Bohan had kept his word and returned, but now he was gone, also as he had promised, and Rachel was once again on her own in an enemy land.
CHAPTER TEN
“THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE back room I think you might want to meet,” Billy said, materializing in the doorway of Brett’s office at the Lemongrass.
He looked up from the sophisticated topographic map of the Golden Triangle he’d been studying. Khen Sa was on the march, down from Burma, moving at will among the hill villages south of Chiang Saen. Somewhere up there Brett was going to have to find the right spot to waylay him.
“Ahnle’s brother?” It didn’t take more than a quick glance at Billy’s grim features to guess his week-long vigil outside the Teak Doll had paid off. Brett’s preoccupation with Khen Sa’s whereabouts was overshadowed immediately by his concern for Rachel. The sudden shift in concentration gave him a jolt. He’d always been able to compartmentalize his feelings, keep his personal life separate from his business dealings, but it had never been this hard.
The trouble was, he couldn’t afford to lose his concentration or his objectivity at this stage of the game. The financing was all arranged, thanks to Alf Singleton’s influence with a powerful man in the palace. The only thing left to do was meet with Khen Sa himself, and deliver the first installment of gold. Billy didn’t know it yet but they were heading north, themselves, in the morning.
“Yeah. He wasn’t too sold on the idea of comin’ with me. He took some persuadin’. I think I got everything we need out of him already, but I don’t want him hightailin’ it back into the hills and gettin’ to the women ahead of us.” Billy’s expression was still grim, but satisfied. He rubbed the back of his right hand with his left, as though his knuckles might hurt.
“What did he say?” Brett stood and picked up the map, as well as a classified air force spy satellite blowup of the same area. Both of the maps had been supplied by the U.S. embassy. Once Alf Singleton had gotten the go-ahead from Washington to back his plan, the ambassador’s cooperation had been unstinting. Brett rolled up the charts and slid them inside a wall safe, next to a velvet jeweler’s box containing a string of matched South Sea pearls. He closed the door and the safe disappeared into a section of carved panel on the wall.
“He thinks Ahnle might be headed for her aunt in Chiang Khong.” Something in his friend’s voice alerted Brett to be on his guard. “Except that he can’t believe his sister would be fool enough to cross back into Laos just to get her kid.” He waited, tense and silent in the doorway for Brett’s response.
�
��She probably wouldn’t try it alone. But with Rachel along, she might just take the chance.”
“You knew Ahnle had a kid?” Billy’s voice was low and controlled, and filled with hidden anger.
Brett stuck his hands in the back pockets of his slacks. Turning, he surveyed his friend’s belligerent stance through narrowed eyes. “I didn’t, until a day or two ago. Father Dolph told me.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Billy’s hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“I told you, I just found out myself.” Brett felt his own temper flare. “You’ve been camped out at the Teak Doll for damned near a week. There hasn’t been a lot of time for chitchat.” He stopped talking for a moment. “Before that, I figured Rachel had taken the girl back to camp with her because she was running away from me. I didn’t look for any other reason.”
“Rachel running away from you?” Billy raised his arm above his head and rested it flat against the door frame. “What in hell happened that night at your place?”
“Nothing. Look, forget it, man. I’m sorry I blew up at you.” His anger at Billy died away, redirecting itself internally where it belonged. He’d frightened Rachel away with his insistence on a physical relationship. What had happened to her in the past, in that Vietnamese prison camp, that had frightened her so? When Micah McKendrick showed up in Bangkok, as Brett was certain he soon would, he intended to learn everything the man knew about those lost and terrifying years of Rachel’s life.
“You should have told me about the baby.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know you cared that much about…Ahnle?” Brett leaned forward over the desk, resting his weight on his hands. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re soft on the girl. God, I’ve been blind.” He ran his hand through his hair, stirring the thick, dull gold waves. “I thought you were staking out the Teak Doll to help me find Rachel.”
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