Riders of the Pale Horse (29 page)

Dr. Shannon's eyes widened considerably. “Not exactly a place from which I might obtain a recommendation.”

The internal struggle subsided. “I am a good nurse, Dr. Shannon. Personal reasons have brought me here, that's all I can say. I don't know how long I will need to stay, probably several months. But I will work hard at whatever duties you give me.”

“We are terrifically understaffed,” Ben admitted. “But I cannot pay you anything more than room and board.”

“That is enough.”

“You will be watched carefully,” Ben warned, “and not allowed to take on a number of duties unattended.”

“I understand.”

Still the doctor hesitated. “You are Christian?”

“Yes.”

“It is very dangerous to speak openly of such things here,” he warned. “Dangerous both for you and for others.”

“I have worked among Muslims before,” Wade replied.

“Well, I am tempted, but I shall have to think more on this before making a decision. In the meantime.” He turned to where Ali had appeared and waited just outside the door. “Take this young man over to the house and have Esa prepare him something to eat.”

“And soap and a razor, if possible,” Wade added quietly. “All my belongings have been stolen.”

“Really? At the airport?”

“No.” A moment's indecision, then the softly spoken words, “Near Tskhinvali.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It is the capital of South Ossetia. I was delivering Red Cross supplies to clinics along the battlefields, and my truck was stolen.”

“And you came here from—what was that city called?”

Wade shook his head. “I flew to Amman from Tbilisi via Istanbul.”

“So you traveled all the way from a war zone in Georgia to Aqaba in southern Jordan,” the doctor said, and waited. But the young man gave no reply.

“I see,” the doctor murmured. “Well, I suppose it will not hurt anything to offer our mysterious young man a meal and some soap. Ali?”

“This way,” Ali said.

“You won't regret this,” Wade promised as he turned away.

“I hope and pray not, young man,” Ben Shannon said
doubtfully. He gave an eloquent shrug to Allison and walked back down the hall.

Allison leaned back in her chair and cast a bemused look around her empty office. Suddenly everything seemed so quiet, as though a powerful and unexpected storm had just passed through.

Mentally she caught herself and pulled back hard. Allison returned to her work with a sigh. She always was attracted to the wrong sort of man.

17

Wade made his way from the clinic toward the local souk, which bordered the enormous truck compound. Aqaba's port traffic had exploded since the Iraq war, and the compound for trucks ferrying goods to and from the harbor was now a city in itself. He hoped that a little of what he had gained from his time in Russia would apply here as well. If so, then the market would not be simply a place to buy, but a focal point for community life, a magnet for all, a central gathering place for both people and information.

What he could possibly learn, neither knowing the language nor having the first contact, he had no idea. But he had to try.

The foremost ranks of stalls catered to the tourist trade—in this case, truckers from distant lands. There were the usual sorts of mementos on display—coffee urns, etched plates, brightly colored blankets, hookahs, rugs, hats, straw camels, leather gear, carvings. Wade walked past these offerings and searched for he knew not what. His obvious lack of money saved him from the worst of the sales pressure.

Past these outer ranks was the heart of the old market, row upon row of spindly stalls selling a vast variety of items. Sheep and goats and chickens kept up a panic-stricken cacophony at the row of butcher stalls. Fruit and spices and animals colored the enclosed air with intense fragrances. Flies swarmed everywhere. Dust settled on everything and everyone. The heat was fierce.

The cramped alleyway opened into an ancient central square. Tired donkeys and a few camels were lined up under a makeshift straw shelter. Some munched from feedbags; others drank from leather buckets held by ragamuffin youths in threadbare robes. A series of tea shops lined the opposite
wall. Wade counted through his meager change and decided one glass would do no harm.

But before he could seat himself he felt a hand grasp his elbow. “Not there, Mr. Wade. He will cheat you and serve bad food, make you sick. Come here, over here. My friend, he treat you better.”

“I only wanted a tea,” Wade protested. The young man from the clinic was called Ali, that much he recalled.

“Here, over here,” Ali insisted, and led him to the corner shop. “What you like, I order for you.”

“Just tea. I don't have much money.”

“Is okay, Mr. Wade. Today I buy. Another day you do same, yes?”

Wade shrugged. “Another day I still might not have money.”

“Okay, okay, you buy when you can.”

“Fine,” he consented. “Whatever you say.”

“Good.” When they were seated, Ali launched a barrage at the hovering waiter, who remained utterly unmoved. When Ali stopped, the man scooped up a pair of dirty glasses, ignored the overflowing ashtray, gave his filthy towel a single flick at the covering of dust, and slouched away. Ali turned back to Wade with, “Is good place, you see.”

“The clinic pays you enough for you to eat in restaurants?” Wade asked.

The young man's eyes flickered everywhere but directly at Wade. “I already tell you. My friend, he own this place. I get special price.”

“I see.”

“For you too, when you come back. Just say you are friend of Ali, and all will be first-rate. You see.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” Wade replied.

Dark eyes turned and searched suspiciously for sarcasm, found nothing, and darted away. Ali reached inside his robes, extracted a pack of cigarettes. “You like?”

“I don't smoke, thank you.”

He lit one for himself, drew on it with fierce intensity. He
pulled his hand back in a jerky arc, threw the ashes out into the street with impatient gestures. Blasted the smoke from mouth and nose, paused to make smoke rings, drew again. An adolescent bundle of nerves. “You come from Russia, yes?”

“How did you hear that?”

“I hear,” Ali assured him proudly. “All things in clinic, Ali know.”

“I see.” Wade nodded his thanks as the waiter deposited a glass of hot tea in front of him, mint leaves floating on the top and a piece of rock sugar set upon the saucer. He had seen this in several Muslim caf;aaes, where the men would place the sugar in their cheeks and suck on it as they drank their tea.

“Russia is far from Aqaba,” Ali persisted. “Why you come?”

Wade knew the question had to be asked and answered. He knew also that he would not, could not, lie. But there was no way of knowing for whom Ali asked—for the clinic or for others. “I am looking for a man,” he said.

The smoking grew more intense, the eyes darted ever swifter. “Arab man?”

“No,” Wade replied. “An American. He stole something from me. Something important.”

“Money?”

Wade shook his head. “A truckload of medical supplies I was supposed to use to help the poor. And the truck.”

“Whole truck of medicines,” Ali mused aloud. “Worth much money.”

“It was very hard to bring those supplies in,” Wade continued. “A lot of people in dire need could have been helped.”

“So why you look for American man in Aqaba?”

“A rumor,” Wade replied. “It is all I have to go on.”

The cigarette was already down to the filter. Ali took a final drag and flicked the remains out into the sunlit square.

“Maybe I help,” he offered. “What he look like, this man?”

“Big,” Wade replied. “Two meters tall, heavy, dark hair, gray eyes, very dangerous. Trained as a soldier.”

Ali was not impressed. “There are many soldiers here. Some in army, most not. What his name?”

“Robards,” Wade replied. “But most people call him Rogue.”

Allison went through the motions of preparing for bed, but her mind remained fixed on the day—and on the strange young man called Wade.

She could find no reason whatsoever to justify her interest, except perhaps the mystery surrounding him. He had cleaned up to reveal a fairly attractive person with nice, even features. The only remarkable thing about him, as far as she could tell, was the single-minded intensity that surrounded all his actions—that and his silence.

The one time she had seen him discard his reserve had been that afternoon. He had been assigned work in the men's ward. Ben had allotted Wade only the most menial of duties—changing sheets, prepping patients for surgery, bathing and feeding them—and those only under strict supervision. He was not to approach either the children's or the women's wards nor to touch any medicines. He was never to be left alone for an instant. Wade had accepted it all, including the ward nurse's evident hostility, with apparent indifference.

Yet when Allison was restocking cabinets that afternoon, she had caught sight of the nurse looking back toward the end of the hall, a bemused smile on her face. The nurse was a battle-hardened ward sister seldom given to any expression except a perpetual grimace. Curious, Allison had risen to her feet and looked down the hall to see Wade seated beside an old Bedouin trapped in the fever dreams of pleurisy. The old man had dribbled a broken stream of Arabic; Wade had responded with a continual croon of English, bathing his face and upper body with a cooling mixture of alcohol and
water. His motions had been calm, steady, and patient—infinitely patient.

But it was the expression on his face that had captured Allison. The naked compassion reminded her of the way a mother might watch her own newborn. Allison had watched as the old man calmed, quieted, drifted into deeper sleep. Only then had Wade relaxed from his bent-over position, dropped the sponge into the basin, gently pulled up the sheets, and risen to his feet.

Instantly a querulous voice had reached out from another bed. Again Wade had responded with gentle patience, clearly not understanding what the man was asking, but in no hurry to leave until the request was discerned and answered.

“He says his bandages are uncomfortable,” the nurse called out, making no move to approach.

Wade looked around and spotted a metal basin on a nearby table bearing new bandages, scissors, antiseptic, and tape.

He did not roll the patient over as much as help him turn at his own pace, soothing the occasional groan with a murmur of his own. Only when the man was resting comfortably on his side did Wade begin the laborious process of pulling away the soiled bandage. Blood had clotted the cloth, sealing it to the skin. Wade comforted not with words, but rather with his entire being. He plucked, waited, spoke, sponged, pulled again, his face filled with a compassionate sharing of the man's pain.

By then the families gathered at neighboring beds were watching, many faces bearing the same gentle smile as the nurse. They murmured their sympathy as the man jerked in response to Wade's last pulling tug. The man basked in the attention and relaxed under a touch he had come to realize would give him not an instant's more discomfort than was absolutely required.

The ward nurse happened to glance over at Allison. Something in her expression caused the nurse's smile to alter to a
knowing smirk. Allison blushed without knowing why and fled back to her office.

Within a few minutes Ali was lounging in the doorway. “What you think of this man, this nurse?”

“I have work to do, Ali,” she replied automatically.

“I ate with him,” he announced. “We talked. He told me things.”

She resisted the urge to raise her head. “What things?”

“Things,” he repeated. “He comes from Russia.”

She had learned it was best not to show too much interest in what Ali had to say. If she did, he treated it as a negotiable property, only to be traded for something in return. “I already knew that.”

“Sure, Western Lady. But do you know he is here looking for a man?”

She inspected a paper she scarcely saw and replied in a bored tone, “I don't think he mentioned that.”

“American man,” Ali confirmed. “Stole his truck. And medicines. This man Wade thinks is here.”

“Seems strange that he would follow another American from Russia to Aqaba,” she ventured idly, drawing designs on her pad.

“Yes, I think, too. Is crazy. Just another western man with no idea of where he go in life.” Ali turned from the door. “I tell Dr. Ben.”

Allison carried that bit of news and the look on Wade's face with her through the rest of that day. She thought of it as she washed her face and brushed her hair. But it was only after turning out the light and climbing into bed that a new thought struck her. It came unbidden, and she could see no logical reason for it. But it came with such force that it left her shaken and unable to sleep.