Riders of the Pale Horse (21 page)

The Ingush driver of Wade's truck remained puffed with the privilege of taking him into the village. His enthusiasm infected all the clan, even the children, and they were seen off with waves and happy chatter. Rogue watched the proceedings in brooding silence. His only comment was that if Wade wanted to spend free time driving some more, that was his choice. But it was clear he did not approve of Wade drawing unnecessary attention their way.

Wade hunched below the dash, keeping only his eyes up high enough to watch as the road narrowed and entered the hamlet. The streets were cobblestoned, constricted, and steep. Three times the Ingush stopped and asked for directions, only to be greeted with hostile suspicion. The fourth time, he explained in desperation that he bore a friend approaching death. This time he was reluctantly pointed toward the hovel that contained the village's meager clinic.

“I would not have you lie on my behalf,” Wade chided him as they drew up and stopped before a building whose wide doors indicated previous duty as a stable.

“Do not worry yourself,” the trader replied cheerfully. “All men approach death with each breath, healer. You above others should know the truth of such words.”

They scouted the street before descending and pushing open the stubborn door. They were greeted with a scratchy
female voice declaring from a second room, “Too late, too late! My hours are known by all.”

The trader began, “We do not—”

The woman remained unseen as she interrupted with, “I too must sleep and eat and breathe air not infected by the sickness of all. Come back tomorrow.”

Wade looked around what apparently served as both waiting area and examining room. As with many of the clinics he had visited in outlying Russian villages, the chamber was pitifully bare. A metal dish contained two ancient glass syringes. The sterilizing tray held perhaps half a dozen needles and a few battered instruments. The medicine shelves were almost empty.

“You must not tell me that the patient shall not last the night unless it is true. I shall not be brought out on a fool's errand.” An overweight woman in a stained white jacket strode into the room and stopped at the alien sight of an Ingush trader alongside a foreigner. “What do you want?”

“Only to help,” Wade replied.

“You stay,” the trader told him, and headed for the door. “It is not safe for you to be seen.”

The woman showed growing confusion. “You are sick?”

Wade shook his head. “Do you need supplies?”

“Ah, another trader bearing the dregs of Russian medicine,” she muttered bitterly. Shadows of fatigue gouged deep crevices under her eyes. “Save your strength. I have no money with which to buy even aspirin.”

“Then I shall give it to you,” Wade replied.

The hostility hardened into anger. “Do not joke with me,” she snapped. “I face yet another winter with no news of shipments which are six months late. Six months! Do you know what it is like to treat people with hot water and herbs?”

“Yes,” Wade said, and turned as the trader brought in the first load. “Here you will find analgesics. In these two boxes, sterile solutions. And here are two hundred disposable
syringes. They can be boiled and reused, but only the needles can go into your sterilizer. The syringes will melt.”

The trader departed with a broad grin for the doctor's growing confusion.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“It does not matter,” he replied. When the trader reappeared, Wade went on. “Ampicillin, one hundred doses. Another hundred sulfas. Urinary tract medicines, digestive tract, anesthetics, both local and general. Can you read directions in English?”

The woman sought support from the doorjamb. “You are giving these to me?”

“Yes.”

“Do not jest,” she pleaded, her voice touched by desperation. “I tell you, I have no money. These people are too poor to pay.”

The trader straightened from setting down his load and declared solemnly, “Woman, I am Ingush. The Ingush do not lie. I tell you truthfully, this is a man of God. Take him at his word.” He turned and left the room.

“Here are a few instruments,” Wade said. “Not many. Thermometers, scalpels, probes, needles, and gut. I hope it is enough.”

“Enough,” the woman murmured, her eyes on the boxes.

“This is the last of them,” the trader announced, depositing his final load.

“All I ask,” Wade told her, “is that whenever a trader or his family enter here, be it night or day, winter or summer, you will give to them from the best of what you know and have.”

A single tear escaped from the woman's eye and made its way down the broad features. She whispered, “It will be as you say.”

They arrived at the entrance to Krestovy Pass just as the setting sun turned the gathering clouds to burnished gold.
“The Georgians call this the Jvari Pass,” the Ingush driver explained to Wade. “Jvari means cross. It is here that the Terek River, which flows into Russia, and the Aragvi, which flows through Georgia, are both born.”

From his perch behind the driver, Wade saw glaciers clinging to every visible cliffside. Their passage had carved boulder-strewn scores deep into the alien landscape. From the glaciers' lower reaches poured great flows of whitish-green waters, which gathered in pools and lakes and streams in every direction as far as Wade could see.

The trader had proudly taken charge of Wade's truck before the final onslaught on the pass. Wade had protested, not from a desire to drive himself, but for the sake of the three Russians who remained cooped up within their cramped tunnels. But the Ingush would have none of it. The man of God did not know what lay ahead, he had proclaimed. Otherwise he would not wish to see, much less drive himself. With a nod from Rogue, Wade had agreed.

Out of respect for his years, Wade had insisted that Mikhail take the passenger seat. After checking that the Russians were doing as well as could be expected after almost seven hours in their stuffy burrows, Wade lifted the canvas awning up and out of the way. This would allow more air to filter through and also grant Wade an uninterrupted view.

The road leveled out for its final advance upon the pass. They detoured around what before had been an avalanche tunnel, now smothered by a rockslide so large its lower stones dwarfed the trucks that crawled past. The road deteriorated to a crumbling track, often submerged beneath swiftly running waters. Twice there were great crashing booms as rocks loosened and fell somewhere out of sight. All jollity vanished from the Ingush trader. He drove at a snail's pace and with a white-knuckled intensity.

The road skirted a giant snowdrift frozen into place for countless decades, with only its tip carved away so that vehicles could crawl past. Then came a series of hairpin curves
with drops so savage Wade had to struggle not to turn away. And then, with a shout from the trader, the road began to descend. Even Mikhail sighed his relief as the descent turned steeper and it became clear that in truth the highest reaches were now behind them.

It was then that the first snowflake descended through the deepening gloom to coast across their windshield. The trader laughed and pointed and said, “See, healer? This is your doing!”

“That is the silliest thing I have ever heard,” Wade replied without rancor, glad only to be heading downward.

But the trader was not to be dissuaded. “Allah has protected us. This I know in my bones. Why else would the snows have been held back for our passage?”

Wade was saved from a reply by their line of trucks pulling into a rubble-strewn turnout. Wearily he clambered down from his perch and took in great drafts of the icy-fresh air.

The Ingush trader approached. “Three hours ahead, the road enters the last Chechen enclave this side of the mountains.”

Wade called Rogue over and explained what the trader had said. Robards directed, “Ask him what he would do in our place.”

Clearly the man had given the matter great thought. “Two hours further descent will have you beyond winter's reach, so you should have no further need of our help. There is a track which turns off just before the enclave is reached; it is used by Ossetian traders who have no wish to deal with the Chechen.”

“I know it well,” Mikhail said, coming up alongside.

“There are wars and rumors of wars in these southern Ossetian lands,” the Ingush warned.

Wade translated for Rogue, who nodded once. “Thank the man and tell him we'll take his advice.”

“What about the wars?”

“If you've got to choose between the bogeyman you can
see and the one you can't,” Robards answered, “go for the one who might not even be there.”

Wade turned back to the trader. “Our debt to you mounts with each passing hour.”

The trader who had driven for Wade shouldered his way forward. “The tale of the man of God will brighten firesides for years to come. There is no debt. May Allah guide your footsteps and light your path forever, healer. These days I shall carry with me to the grave.”

12

As usual, Ali was there to greet Allison when she arrived at her office that morning. “Hello, Western Lady. We talk about democracy today?”

“No,” she replied flatly. “That's absolutely the last thing I want to talk about before another cup of coffee.”

“You sit, I make. My coffee is best, you see. American style, just like you want.” Five minutes later he was back. As he poured coffee from the burnished copper pot into the little cup, he said, “The mullah, he say to look at Britain. Three hundred years ago was great power. But America was primitive. Now America is great, but Britain has lost power. The mullah, he say America will go like British Empire. They are corrupt. They have not strength to hold power. America has big army, powerful weapons. But America has not strength of belief. Yes. They have lost inside strength. They will continue for little while only, the mullah say. Then will come Islam. Why? Because we have this strength. We live for Allah. Not for self. Not for gold. For Allah. And Allah will win.”

He set the tiny cup down in front of Allison and nodded happily at the thought. “Oh yes. Allah will win. We will defeat all enemies.”

“I am an American,” she said, sipping at the cup. Ali was right; his coffee was delicious. “Does that make me an enemy?”

“Oh no,” he replied solemnly, shaking his head. “Enemies are governments. Not people. Never people. We wish to show you glory of Islam, to have you to join us. How can we do this if you are enemy?”

Allison reflected that she felt very much a part of her culture and certainly was working for her government. “So where is it you think you're headed?”

“Simple, Western Lady. Arab nation ruled by Allah. This
is the good future. Everywhere rule of Shari'a, law given by Allah in Koran. Islam is all one system; you cannot separate. All must be done together. All is one goal.”

“It doesn't bother you to see the drop in Iran's standard of living since the fundamentalists came to power?”

He hesitated at that, but then shook his head. “Listen, Western Lady. I tell you great truth. People not go to paradise because of big GNP. We are not slaves to money and job and success. We are slaves to Allah, who created us. That is difference between West and Islam. Not one difference. The difference. Only difference.

“At the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him,” he went on. “You have people who were sinful, people who were hypocrites. So government was important, to block ways of the wrong. That is meaning of good government. But now in West all is changed for the bad. Governments protect the wrong and hurt the right. The government is bad, you see. And we, the chosen of Allah—we are told to make it right.”

“How?” she demanded.

He shrugged easily. “How does not matter. That we do is enough.”

“You learned this in school?”

He gave his head a violent shake. “I went to European school. All I learned, I want to forget. School set up by colonial regime, taught me to be slave, not free, not Arab. All I learn at school was lie.”

“Democracy was a lie?” Allison scoffed.

“You understand nothing,” he replied scornfully.

“Try me,” she retorted.

“Democracy is not suit. You not go to shop and buy. You build. You shape to people and nation. But we Arabs, we are old people. Older than time. Democracy is new, Western. You have vote, yes, but we have Islam. You take this path, walk two steps, change and go here, there, anywhere you like. We have Allah, and he say, you go here, you do this. Democracy we shape to will of Allah, not shape Allah to will of democracy.”
He looked triumphant. “Now, Western Lady. You tell me, which is stronger way?”

“Democracy,” she said flatly. “The only form of government that gives equal power to each individual.”

Ben stuck his head in her door. “Ali, you are needed on the children's ward.”

Ali stepped out and smiled back brilliantly. “We talk more tomorrow, yes?”