Dark Sky Falling

by Richard Ryker

  “Does his father know?”

  “Not yet.”

  They were silent while he cleaned the largest wound. After a while the doctor said, “I don’t remember Salman saying anything about being a tour guide for Americans. Are you with some charity or something? “

  “My wife was Chechen. Her sister kidnapped my daughter. Salman knows where she might be.’

  With a bloody, gloved hand, Arslan pointed to another medical instrument. Stormy handed it to him. “She is with the rebels?”

  Marcus wasn’t sure how much he should tell Arslan. Sure, he was trying to save Salman’s life. But whose side was he on? He seemed to know Salman well enough, but was this doctor somehow involved with the rebels? If so, he would attract even more attention from the Russians. Marcus and Stormy were here to find Alyssa, not get mixed up in the war between these two peoples. Not that they’d done a good job of staying out of trouble so far.

  For some reason, Salman trusted this man. That was good enough.

  “Kamila Shishani is her name. She took my daughter up here because her father lives in these mountains. He is connected to the rebels, but I don’t think he knows anything about this.”

  “I would ask if this is your wife,” Arslan said, nodding at Stormy. “But you said your wife was Chechen.”

  “My wife died a couple of years ago.”

  “I am sorry. I know what it is like to lose a spouse. But not so young as yours.”

  Marcus wasn’t interested in talking about Anna with this stranger. “So you went to school in America and came back to be a country doctor?”

  “I went to medical school before the wars, back when this was the Soviet Union.” He paused, directing Stormy to hold something in place. She pressed down, looking away. “I worked in the emergency department in Grozny. Then the fighting started. From then on, I spent most of my days putting back together Chechen soldiers. Then it was little boys, like Salman here, who wanted to be soldiers. The rebels give them guns and tell them to fight so they believe they are men.”

  Arslan looked up at Stormy. “Harder, press harder. You won’t hurt him any more than he already is.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Are you going to get sick?”

  “No,” she replied. ‘Of course not.” She wasn’t very convincing.

  Arslan continued, “But the rebels cry for their mothers when they die just like everyone else.”

  Several minutes later, Arslan stripped the gloves off, motioning for Stormy to do the same. “You are a good nurse, Ms. Stormy. He will live, for now. I cannot take the bullet from his stomach. The bleeding has stopped, but he needs blood. That I do not have.”

  “Then what?”

  ‘I will make a phone call. They will take him to Grozny, but not by the main road. We will let him rest for a moment.” The doctor left them with Salman, whose breathing was labored but steady.

  Stormy collapsed into a small chair in the corner of the room. She put her head between her knees.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. But there’s a reason I’m a lawyer and not a doctor.”

  “His parents are going to be furious,” Marcus said.

  “I never got a chance to say thank you,” Stormy said, looking up at Marcus. The color had returned to her face.

  “For?”

  “Saving me from those soldiers.”

  “I wasn’t going to leave you there. They’d have to kill us first.”

  “They almost did,” she said.

  They were in a room stained with the stench of fresh blood, next to a dying boy, while Marcus’s daughter was somewhere up that mountain, waiting for her father to rescue her. He had saved Stormy, but that wasn’t what he was here for…he was here for Alyssa. He hadn’t accomplished anything yet. Not until she was safe.

  The doctor returned. “They will be here soon. In the meantime, let’s take a look at you, young man.” He cut Marcus’s pants leg away and examined his knee. “Hmm,” he said. It could have been worse. In and out as we say.”

  “The bullet isn’t in there?” Stormy asked.

  “Sliced right through. Worse than a graze, not as bad as most in-and-out wounds.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?” she asked.

  He leaned back so she could get a better look. It looked like someone had cut through Marcus’s skin with a dull bread knife. “Yes, if good means I don’t have to look around in there for a piece of metal. And it is above his kneecap and not through it. Not good, in the sense that the flesh is torn. He needs time to heal.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Marcus said. Healing wasn’t an option. Alyssa was waiting for him.

  “I have no doubt that you will walk whether I try to stop you or not, considering the importance of the task before you. So I will not waste my time trying to convince you otherwise. I can clean it up a bit though, so as there is not an infection. If there is an infection you will lose your leg—maybe your life.”

  Arslan allowed Marcus to stay awake while he cleaned out the wound. He was grateful for the numbing shot Arslan gave him before he started stitching.

  “You are lucky. A little further up and you would have hit an artery. You would have had less of a chance than Salman.”

  “Is Salman going to live?” Marcus asked, more as a distraction from the pain. “Honestly.”

  “Honestly? He has lost much blood. I have seen men die with lesser wounds. But he is tough. And he believes he is a hero for this. Sometimes that’s all it takes to keep someone alive…that they believe what they are doing matters…that it is so important they must stay alive.”

  “His parents…”

  “I will contact his father. Will he blame you? Maybe, but that would be foolish. I am surprised it has taken this long to happen, with the nonsense these clerics put into the minds of children now days. Yet the so-called leaders live, while our forests and cities are filled with the blood of our children.” Arslan paused for a moment. “Don’t get me wrong. I hate the Russians as much as any Chechen. I’ve been fixing what they break for many years now. But to go and ask for a fight? Yes, his father will be very upset.”

  There was a knock at the front door and Arslan let in the man who was to transport Salman to Grozny. Marcus and Stormy watched as they carried Salman out to a large truck with a livestock trailer hitched to the back. They placed Salman in the trailer, covering him with blankets and hay. Arslan spoke with the man briefly then waved as he pulled away with his hidden cargo.

  Marcus hobbled back to the chair in the examination room. There went their best hope for finding Alyssa. The whole Russian army would be searching the countryside for the Chechen and the foreigners that had helped him. Their trip into the mountains had resulted in Salman getting shot up, dead if he didn’t get blood soon. Now they were putting the doctor at risk just by being on his farm. The Russians would be coming, and soon.

  Chapter 44

  “We have to get out of here,” Marcus said. Through the window, they could see the doctor standing in the driveway as he watched the truck drive away.

  “How? We’re in the middle of nowhere. We can’t use the main road,” Stormy said. “And we can’t use the Lada. They’ll be searching for it by land and sky. A bright blue Lada isn’t hard to spot. And there’s the curfew at night.”

  “If we stay here, we put the doctor at risk. And we let Kamila get away.”

  The doctor’s voice came from the doorway behind them. “I found this in the car.” He handed Marcus his coat and shirt. Instinctively, he noticed there was something missing from his coat pocket. It was too light. His phone was gone.

  “What?” Stormy asked.

  “My cell phone.” He patted his pockets, checked his pants again, then his coat for a third time. “It’s missing.”

  “Did you leave it at Salman's?”

  “No,” he said. He’d remembered taking it with him. “I must have lost it when we were with the Russians.
When I was in the grass—”

  “We have my phone,” Stormy said.

  “What if Alyssa tries to call again?”

  “I am sorry about your phone,” Arslan said. “But you are closer to your goal than you think.” Marcus began to speak but Arslan stopped him. “I know what you are thinking—that the Russian Army is between you and your daughter.”

  “There’s another way up the mountain?” Marcus asked.

  “Not so direct, but it will take you past Vedeno. I know where you are going…I will not take you onto his property, but close enough that your feet will take you the rest of the way.”

  “How do you know where we’re going?”

  “The man you speak of, I have treated him before. I am the closest thing he has to a regular doctor.”

  “And what happens if the Russians catch you?” Marcus said.

  “You have come far to save the life of your daughter. That is heroic. You are risking your life for a reason, a good reason. I have seen many men die for no good reason.” Arslan walked over to Marcus and put his hand on his shoulder. “Here I have opportunity to help save a little girl, and you would stop me from doing good? No, I don’t think you will. You need my help. It is the only way for you to get to your daughter.”

  “Yes, but—” Marcus stopped. What was more important, this man’s life or Alyssa’s? If Arslan was willing to risk getting caught to help them rescue her, so be it. In the balance of things, Alyssa was more important to Marcus than any other person.

  “Good,” Arslan said. He shook Marcus’s hand briefly then pulled him up to his feet carefully. “While it is today, we cannot go anywhere. And while it is daylight, you must go underground.”

  “Underground?” Stormy said cautiously.

  “In my cellar,” he replied. “Just until enough time passes. Come now, because the searchers will be here soon, and I have a bright blue Lada to hide as well.”

  Arslan guided them into his living room. Marcus looked around and the house was ornately decorated with paintings and trinkets filling every shelf and table. Marcus imagined that Arslan had not changed the room since his own wife died. The doctor pushed the couch aside and rolled up the edge of the carpet. A small trap door just wide enough for an average sized man to fit through was in the floor. The doctor lifted it. “Go ahead,” he said. “I believe you will find it relatively safe from spiders and snakes.”

  Stormy glanced at Marcus hesitantly.

  “I see you are having doubts,” the doctor said. “If you want my help, you must go down quickly.” When Marcus did not respond, he insisted. “You can get in the Lada and leave, but do so now. I do not want them to find you. That will put us all at risk, including the others who are helping Salman.”

  “Marcus, I think we can trust him,” Stormy said.

  The Lada wasn’t an option, and Marcus had already decided he was going to trust the doctor. He nodded.

  “One more thing,” Arslan said. “If you need to use the toilet, do it quickly. You won’t find one down there.”

  “In that case, excuse me for a moment,” Stormy said.

  Five minutes later, Marcus and Stormy descended the ladder, Marcus struggling to put all of his weight on his good leg. The cellar ceiling was low and they both had to bend. Instead of the dirt floor he expected, it was concrete, as were the walls. The room was about 15 feet by 20 feet and chairs and blankets were stacked against the wall.

  “The light is on your left. Until later.” The door closed and they were in darkness.

  “I hope he changed the light bulb recently,” Marcus said. He reached out and felt for the string hanging down. He grasped it and pulled it tight. The room filled with light. Above they could hear him moving the couch back into place. They were sealed in. Marcus looked up at the door and saw that it locked from their side. He moved the long metal latch into place so that the door could only be opened from the inside now.

  Stormy pulled one of the chairs away from the wall and wiped the dust from it. She sat and looked around at their surroundings. “No spiders…”

  Marcus sat on the ground against the ladder. “I doubt anything could survive down here.”

  “I wonder how long it’s going to be.”

  “It’s daylight now, but it’s going to be dark before we get out of here. That means we can’t do anything until tomorrow. And that means we’ve lost another day on Kamila.”

  Stormy said, “It’s not the first time—”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?”

  Marcus clarified, “Because I am—we are—going to keep going until we get Alyssa back.”

  She stood and took blankets from the pile on the other side of the room. Then she went to Marcus and wrapped the blanket around both of them, her head on his chest. Marcus reached for another blanket and formed it into a pillow, lowering her head onto it. Marcus was drifting off when Stormy’s voice drew him back. “You really learned about AK-47s and all that from television?”

  “And my sister used to work at a gun shop.”

  “So you’ve used one before?”

  “The Russian assault rifles are all the same. Lever up means the safety is on, in the middle fully automatic, and lever down means semi-automatic.” He continued for a few more minutes about the history of the Russian assault rifle and how it compared to its American counterpart the M-16. When he paused, her breathing was steady and deep and he realized she was asleep.

  He looked down at Alyssa’s friendship bracelet. Blood stained the yellow and white fabric, the red darkening as it dried. He wondered, was it his own blood? Salman’s? If Salman survived, Marcus would make things right, would make sure he and his family knew that Marcus was grateful for what he had done. For once—no that wasn’t fair—more than once, trusting someone to help had worked out for good. But they weren’t there yet, he reminded himself. Kamila still had Alyssa, and Salman wasn’t the last stranger he’d have to ask for help.

  Chapter 45

  Kamila pinned the jeep’s accelerator to the floorboard. Swerving through the mountain road’s coiled lanes, she dared the car to plummet off the high cliffs. She had protected Alyssa, done what she knew to make a good life for her. And now she had gotten away. It was Kamila’s father who had stopped her from chasing after Alyssa, had threatened to have Kamila shot. Would he really have killed her? Probably. That’s the kind of person he was. He had given her the jeep if she promised to leave.

  She reached the town and pulled in front of the market. Kamila didn’t move, but stewed in the jeep until her rage burned off, revealing the familiar numbness beneath. The sun began to set behind the trees, its warmth depleted through the filter of forest and mountain air. Hunger wasn’t a sensation she had experienced in a very long time, but some part of her mind still understood the link between eating and survival, not for its own sake, but as though it were charged with keeping someone else—a stranger—alive.

  Her thoughts turned back to Alyssa. It wasn’t good for Alyssa to be with her grandfather. Kamila was the only person who knew what Alyssa needed, knew how to take care of her. She’d proven that over the last two weeks. Despite all everyone had done to stop Kamila, she’d made sure Alyssa was safe.

  Where would they live, now that her father had rejected her? She would figure that out later, once she had Alyssa back. There was always the chance that Marcus had learned his lesson, that he finally understood how important Kamila was to him and Alyssa.

  She was about to enter the store when someone called out to her. “Kamila?” She turned and it was Anwar, the rebel soldier she had kissed at her father’s house, the one she had known as a young woman. He was alone.

  Had her father sent him to spy on her?

  She would show Anwar and her father who was in control.

  Kamila smiled, waiting for him to catch up with her. “Anwar! I was hoping I’d see you here.”

  When he caught up, she pulled him tow
ard her, pressing her bosom against his chest. She felt his hand on her back. He risked a slight squeeze that lingered for just a few seconds longer than she had expected.

  So Anwar wasn’t so shy any longer. She could use that to her advantage. He might know something about her father’s plans for Alyssa. If he did know, she would get it out of him.

  He pulled away, but not as forcefully as earlier that day. “What are you doing here? Your father—”

  “He doesn’t treat me like a daughter, so don’t call him that.”

  He did not reply, did not defend her father.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I’m off duty.”

  “Really.” She put her arm through his. “So what do you want to do?”

  “I’m not—I mean, if your father found out he would have my—”

  “Didn’t I say not to mention him?” She squeezed his arm tighter. “So, what do you do for fun now days?”

  “You’ve been in America too long,” he replied. “It’s not like that here.”

  “I know what it’s like here,” she snapped back. He’d chased her around for years, wanting only one thing, and now he was the prude?

  “Why did you come home?” he asked. He leaned back a little and she released him.

  “Do you have a cigarette?” she asked.

  He handed her one and lit it. Kamila took a short drag and coughed.

  “Did you know I raised the girl …my sister Anna’s daughter?”

  “No.”

  “And my father gets mad at me—for what? Nothing. That’s why I left. I need to take the girl back home.”

  “Home where?”

  “To America,” she said. It wasn’t exactly true but it just slipped out of her. Lies worked that way. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just happened.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “What do you mean I can’t?” She laughed in such a way that he would understand that she still thought he was a silly boy hardly worth her time.