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nervous man was too close to her. I met the old man s intent gaze and spoke to him.
I would ask if you mean the younger Mahmoud, called Bad Shoes, or the older
Mahmoud whose brother tended my father s herd. In truth, however, I could name
no sisters of either.
Khyber Run 151
Speak of she who watered the flowers.
My mind went blank. I had no idea who d watered Grandmother s flowers.
Ink-beard studied me and made a gesture.
Speak of the dragon.
Dragon? The paryan s terror? The one that killed Beowulf? Smaug? Then I
remembered, and smiled.
The old man straightened up, looking affronted.
I dropped the smile. This was serious business. In my mother s favorite poem,
he lived by the sea. He danced in the autumn fog with the children of Honilee.
The old man lifted his cup and looked at me over the rim. Speak of your
father.
What would the tarbur have seen of my father? Very little, I supposed. He
spent his time teaching, or reading to us boys, or rolling a ball for the little ones
while talking with Mom. He was an educated man, gentle and quiet. He taught
history at the university in Kabul. When he came home from the city, he brought
students, and they worked his fields. When those students moved on, more came
from nearby. He had weak eyes, so he was called Rund. He was shot.
Speak of his horse.
His favorite was a tall gray stallion. When the stallion lost an eye, they said
Rund rides Rund.
He looked back at the screen. More whispering. The nervous man cleared his
throat. Are you the boy who read always?
No, that was my older brother, Hamid. He was called Talib. I was the roof
climber, the Wezgórrey.
He cocked an ear to something I couldn t make out and nodded. Speak of the
little boy s eyes.
152 Amber Green
My youngest brother s eyes are as unremarkable as my own. The boy just
older than him would be Mohammed, whose eyes are the exact blue of our
grandmother s special poppies.
Why?
The skin on my face tightened. How dare you ask? Because God willed it so!
Ink-beard blinked rapidly, and in the silence I realized my error. An honorable
man does not snarl at an honorable woman, however indirectly. I bowed low over
my shins, pressing my face into the faintly musty golden carpet. Please forgive me,
sir, for raising my voice in the presence of your family. I have no compensation to
offer now, but if I live and if you give me your name, I will bring you the colt of a
mare to give weight to my apology.
Please, think nothing of this! The old man glared over his shoulder toward
the screen. The question was not appropriate.
Calling it inappropriate implied a deliberate insult, but I d bet he didn t mean
to say so. His face paled rapidly, as if he d just figured that out. He didn t volunteer
his name.
The officer rose. We have interrupted your day and importuned on your
hospitality to an unforgivable degree. May you be safe and prosperous.
The old man touched his heart. May your journey be safe and pleasant.
We were leaving. But we couldn t. Not when behind that screen was someone
who knew where my people were. Who might know. Wait, wouldn t the old man or
his wife have arranged the marriage?
I struggled to my feet, forcing a grace to my muscles, and was grimly amused
to realize Oscar didn t have any weight on one of his feet. Please, sir. Where has
my khel moved?
He looked at me from under those eyebrows. Go to the center of town. At the
well, face north. You will see in the distance a flag tower that appears to rise just to
the left of the peak of the black mountain. Go west toward the barracks, crossing
Khyber Run 153
over the paved road, and you will find a goat track. Now when you look north, the
flag should exactly line up with the peak of that mountain. This is how you know
you have found the correct track. The track winds like a drunken goat but leads
past the flag tower to a blue mosque where, inshallah, you may obtain further
guidance.
Blue is the color of heaven, Grandson; it comes forth when the potter bakes salt
into the tile.
My excitement tightened my throat, until I was sure it would choke me. I
pictured myself fainting into Oscar s lap. That did it. I sucked in a long, deep
breath. How far, sir? A day? Two days?
Forty or forty-five kilometers, I believe, if you had a helicopter. Sixty,
perhaps, as the track winds. He hesitated, plainly searching for words. Hide
yourselves along the way, especially as you sleep, for some of the people you will
pass among are kafir. Others might be hungry enough to behave as kafir.
Particularly, avoid the young. They are as savage as rats.
I touched my heart, thanking him. After all these years, street directions.
Home was only two days walk. The mental image of that flag tower pulled me, like
an open bottle pulls a drunk.
154 Amber Green
Chapter Seventeen
Outside, the officer smoothly wished us a safe journey and said he was most
happy to have given us a ride this far. Which meant we weren t getting arrested but
also weren t getting a ride back to where our horses and saddles were. I d be lucky
to get our packs and weapons back out of that truck.
Oscar, standing on one foot and shaking the other, should have looked to some
degree comical. Instead he looked like he was contemplating violence. But that was
a great way to become a martyr, nothing more.
I thanked the officer for the ride and for carrying our packs and weapons the
burden of which we would relieve him now.
He said the long arms were very fine weapons indeed. Perhaps enough to cover
the fine for crossing the border without documentation.
How courteous of him to establish the parameters of the bribe we d need to get
out of his sight. I could commence haggling by asking him if he was sure he was a
Muslim, to demand so dear a price, but Pakhtunwali was older than Islam and
demanded that I gift a man with anything he admired without restraint.
My little carbine was perhaps a fair price for being allowed to cross without
repercussions, but sniper rifles like Oscar s were handmade, tailored to the
individual, and if a man Oscar s age lost his rifle, he d spend the rest of his military
career parked at a desk. Oscar s weapon and career weren t mine to barter. So I
agreed that they were very fine weapons, and in the same breath offered to
purchase the long arms from him for the price of two fine young mares currently
stabled at the communications hut west of here. The horses were worth rather less
Khyber Run 155
than our weapons would fetch in the right market, but might be sold much more
quickly in any available market.
The officer slid his oily smile across his face and said he would sell us the
carbine for the two mares.
If we could keep one weapon, it had to be Oscar s rifle. But I couldn t let on
how valuable it was because then we wouldn t be able to afford it. Instead, I offered
to let him keep some of the ammunition along with the mares.
He paused, peering into my eyes, clearly weighing my words and calculating
how much he might profit or lose out of this. I didn t know how risk-averse he was,
and that gave him an advantage. But he didn t know what to think of me, either.
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