Дэвид Гудис - Caravan to Tarim

The Englishman said, “I can’t do it, Kelney. I adore these animals. You take the job.”

Kelney breathed hard, trying to keep his relief from showing. He told himself everything was fine now. But as he took the pistol from its holster he wondered about it. And as he pulled the trigger he asked himself if he was actually as clever as he thought he was.

Ninety miles out of Maglaf, Tiggs said, “They’re about due.”

“Who?”

“Bedouins.”

“Bad ones?”

“They’re all bad,” Tiggs said.

Injecting it with a stiff dose of sarcasm, Kelney said, “How long does it take to learn all about Arabia?”

Tiggs laughed. “I’ve been here nine years and I’m just beginning to learn.”

“Maybe you’re slow to catch on,” Kelney said. “Sometimes I think-“

A bullet cut in on that one. It came from a rise in the sand about seventy yards away. There was a string of bush fringing the rise, and above its meagre green there were bits of white that were Bedouin headdress.

Kelney acted electrically. His eyes made a chart of the surrounding sand. He saw that a deviation in the slope would afford a barrier against bullets. He yelled an order, his voice slicing hard. The Arabians backed up, swayed their camels behind the sand barrier. During all this there was quiet and Kelney knew what it meant. Nadi was waiting it out, waiting for a rifle response. Nadi wanted to see if the American was playing him clean.

Tiggs’s voice barged in. “Well, you’re in charge. What do we do?”

“Just wait,” Kelney said. He was flat on his belly behind the barrier, and Tiggs, at his side, was inching up to peep over the barrier.

“Stay down,” Kelney said. He raised his voice to give the command in Arabic. “Stay down-hold fire!” He knew it was loud enough for Nadi to hear.

Kelney waited for the Bedouin bullets and they didn’t come and he pushed his tongue over dry lips. He didn’t like the quiet. He didn’t like himself. He had brought these men out to die.

“You don’t look well,” Tiggs said.

Kelney heard that clearly but it didn’t mean anything to him. He sensed that he was breaking up inside. And all at once the break came and he realised that he could not let this thing go on. He had to do something drastic and he had to do it alone. He looked at Tiggs and he looked at the Arabians and he started to crawl backwards down behind the barrier.

“What’s the object?” Tiggs said.

“I’m going roundabout,” Kelney said. “I’m edging out to skirt that bush and get in behind them. I want to see what their plans are. Don’t do anything, just stay here and hold fire. I don’t want a single bullet wasted.”

Then, without waiting for Tiggs’s reply, he kept on moving back and he was following the barrier around its shape of an arc. He became older by a few years as he worked wide of the bush, then came in behind the bush, and all the time there was just that same thick quiet, and he knew that Nadi was wondering about the cartridges. Pressed flat against the sand, he crawled another twenty yards and then he was back there behind the Bedouins. He could see Sheik Nadi, the green and gold distinct against the colourless rags of Nadi’s followers.

Kelney stood up and walked forward. A few Bedouins became conscious of his approach, raised their rifles, then lowered them as Nadi shouted something. Kelney stopped and waited as Nadi came towards him. When they faced each other they were both smiling and Nadi lowered his rifle and that was when Kelney made a subtle gesture with the pistol. Nadi lost the smile.

“A trick?” Nadi said.

“No trick. I have kept the agreement. My men are holding rifles that have blank cartridges. But in this pistol are real bullets. If you cry out I’ll kill you. Now walk with me and try to be patient.”

They walked back and away from the Bedouin position. Nadi was smiling. “Before you kill me let me tell you that my followers will someday find you, and your death will be a terrible thing.”

“Aw, knock it off,” Kelney growled in his own tongue. Then, going back to Arabic, he said, “I said that I had kept our agreement, and I was not lying. All I ask now is that you spare the lives of my men. I will see that you get the entire shipment.”

“You are loyal to Mezar.”

“I am loyal to myself. I hate Mezar even as you do, even as my men do. Your followers and my men are brothers.”

Nadi lowered his head and rubbed his chin and it was done perfectly. The change of pace was also perfect, because Nadi was a streak as he smashed with both hands. The pistol went out of Kelney’s grasp and Kelney went back with the Bedouin tearing at him. They went down together, grappling, and Kelney grinned as he thought of every other man who had tried to use this method of argument with him. And a few moments later he was upright again and he was frowning. And Nadi, who had gone sliding out of a bear hug to take the pistol, now had it pointed at Kelney’s chest.

“It’s too bad,” Kelney said. “I was trying to be fair.”

And he was telling himself that it didn’t pay, there was no logic to it. If he had handled it from the evil side, if he had kept it dirty according to the original idea, he would have been in the cream.

He blinked and waited for the bullet.

And then he heard Nadi saying, “I cannot.”

“You’re not teasing me. I’m dead already and I know it.” He was trembling, he was very frightened, very agitated, because he was a man who got real taste out of life and this was a sure and final thing that would happen to him.

“I cannot kill you,” Nadi said.

“I’m listening.”

Nadi’s smile was vague. “When you went back to Tarim, I went with you. I was the mute.”

Kelney stared.

“I did not trust you,” Nadi said. “I wanted to be sure. I used a clay-and-rice paste to mask my face. But I was foolish enough to stay with you when you reported to Mezar. He would have given me death, slow and with agony. And you saved me. I cannot kill you. I want to, but I cannot. I will give you back your pistol and you will return to your men. Go on to Tarim. You will not be molested. But from now on you must take a different route. I do not want us to meet again.”

Butt foremost, the pistol was handed back to Kelney. And Nadi turned and started back towards the rise where his men faced the Mezar caravan, and where all the rifles were silent and waiting.

Tiggs turned when he heard Kelney coming up. He smiled with sincerity and said, “It’s a surprise. I never thought you’d come back.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course,” Tiggs said. “I thought they’d spot you and shoot you down.”

“Oh,” Kelney said. “I thought you meant something else.” Then he bit his lip for a few seconds. “We’ll move on. They won’t bother us.”

They shouted orders but the entire party was watching the Bedouins who were now moving away, a string of ragged figures on bony beasts, winding into the yellow distance.

Among the Arabians there were murmurs of puzzlement. Even the camels made questioning noises. The caravan formed line and moved on. Tiggs and Kelney walked ahead, saying nothing, and it went on like that for a long chain of hollow minutes.

Finally Tiggs laughed softly. “A good thing the Bedouins went home.”

Kelney stopped and faced the Englishman and said, “Whatever you’ve got to say, say the whole thing now.”

“I made a little change in our ammunition,” Tiggs said. “I took out the blanks and put in the genuine.”

Kelney had a feeling that he was two feet tall. “Which shows,” he said, “how much you trusted me.”

“Which shows how much I trust anyone before I come to know him,” Tiggs said. “I always make a private inspection of the rifles before a caravan goes out. Every once in a while a guide makes a deal with the Bedouins. The blank cartridge business is an old trick. But this is the first time I ever watched a man change his mind.”