The Far Side (35 page)

Collum appeared before full dark and reported.  “They are coming now, following our trail.  A party of about twenty.  They run, where we walk.

“As well, they have some sort of beasts with them that seem to guide them.”

Melek considered that while debating what to do, half aware of Rari talking with Chaba about what was being said.

Her response was a torrent of words, spoken so fast as to be unintelligible, he was sure, even to one of her fellows.  Rari slowed her down and made her explain things simply.

The beasts were “drik,” and they followed scents.  The Tengri would have, she told Rari, given her scent to the drik and the beasts would follow her until they caught her and ripped her to pieces.

Melek didn’t like the thought of that, or men who ran after them.  With packs as heavy as they carried there was no way they could run faster than the Tengri.

He explained to Ezra, curious what the other would propose.

Chapter 13 :: The Best Defense

Ezra listened to the description of what was happening behind them and kept his best poker face in place.  Finally he turned to Kris and Andie.

“Okay, the bad guys are coming after us.  We are carrying too much to run, and Melek’s best idea is to find a defensible spot and hope he can make it expensive enough for them to make them quit.

“The problem with that is, with just bows against muskets, the Tengri will just roll over them, taking their lumps.  The battle would be nasty, brutal, and short.  He would get a couple of them, but they’d kill Melek and his men.

“So, he’s looking to us, mostly me.  The problem with that is that I’ll get exactly one shot at wiping the whole bunch out before they realize I’m the problem.  At that point they will start shooting at me -- and like as not, before I finish wiping out the first group of them.  Sporty won’t be the word for what happens after that.

“My best hope would be to engage them at a couple of hundred yards, which makes their aim problematical at best, and mine less so, particularly if I’ve got them in the open, away from good cover.  That’s something I can do, and gives us the best shot if we have to fight.

“There is, however, another way -- except that it’ll be very, very painful.”

“Painful how?” Andie asked.

“Painful in that it’ll hurt a lot.  We have flashlights and plenty of batteries, enough for three or four of these nights, at least.  We have one of you bring up the rear, shining a beam along the ground so that we can see our way, and a scout in front with a light, picking the best way.  We go all night.”

“We go all night?” Andie grimaced.  “I don’t get my beauty sleep?”

“An hour, maybe, just before dawn.”

“How about sniping at those dogs?” Kris asked.

“To do that, I’d have to get within a few hundred yards of them.  We’re back to a fight then, because with that many people chasing me, they’d do it in shifts and run me down in a few hours.  No, if we have to fight, I’ll pick a good spot and we’ll fight.  Me and a couple of Melek’s men, while the rest of you keep on making tracks.  Odds are they will be seriously discouraged after that.”

“And we’d be what?  Buoyed with enthusiasm, knowing you’re dead?” Kris scoffed.

“Hey, it’s the code of the bodyguard -- it’s part of the rules.  If you’re not willing to take one for your principal, don’t bother taking the job.”

“How far are they behind us?” Kris asked.

“At a guess, seven or eight miles.  You have to understand that combat soldiers, fully equipped, can cover that much in an hour, an hour and a half.  So we have to get moving, and get moving now.”

“Then let’s get moving,” Kris told him.  “And if it gets too bad, we can fight then.”

They started out, and at first it wasn’t too bad for Kris and Andie.  They’d been a little tired after two days of walking with the heavy packs, but once they got the adrenaline rushing the packs seemed to decrease in weight, and they covered ground at something close to a trot.

After a bit, Melek would make them trot two hundred steps, then walk five hundred.  That covered ground fast enough, and the lights weren’t really needed for the first hour.  Then the ground grew rougher, and the pace slowed back to a walk.

About midnight, Collum reappeared.  “The ground slopes down here soon.  There is a large lake ahead.  It is about three miles long east to west, I don’t know how wide.  I checked it; the downstream end is relatively shallow, and we could cross it in short order.”

“We’d leave no tracks,” Melek mused.

“Enemy would think to follow easy,” Ezra told the two.  “Go other way, stay in shallow water, make sure no deep spots.  If come to deep spot, leave water, go east.”

Ezra turned to Kris, “And downstream, shallow or not, there would be the usual outlet.  If it’s more than chest deep, we’d be sunk.  Literally.”

He shared that with Melek, who grimaced, and then Collum grimaced as well.  They did continue north, and reached the lake. Near the shore the water wasn’t a big deal, just a foot or so deep.  There were a few places almost knee deep, but not many and not for long.

The lake turned out to be long and skinny, but not too wide.  Ezra had them leave roughly one hundred and eighty degrees around the lake from where they went in and afterwards they continued east, steadily gaining altitude.  The area north of the lake was muddy and treacherous, and Ezra wanted to get further away from the lake and Melek agreed.

They went diagonally up a ridge and reached the top and went over into the next valley.  A while later Collum was back just as it was starting to get light.  “There is a fire now, back at the south side of the lake, near where we went into the water.”

Ezra looked at Kris and Andie.  “How are you two holding up?”

“Fine enough,” Kris said.

“Ready to go,” Andie said with a grin.

Ezra looked at them for a long moment and then spoke softly.  “You two are troopers, okay?  The one thing you don’t want to do is push yourself so hard you reach the wall -- where you can’t go on.  Do that and we have to stop there, wherever there is, take it or leave it.

“If you start to fade, you have to speak up, okay?  Not just when you can’t take another step, but when you still have enough oomph for one last push.”

He smiled at Kris.  “To be honest, one of the reasons I went by myself back there in Indian country was because I could trust myself to stop in plenty of time and take precautions.  There were a couple of guys I could almost trust, but I never could bring myself to do it.”

A short while later Melek roused everyone, and they start plodding along, going up steadily, but not steeply.  This ridge wasn’t as high than the one before and they were on the top of a longer, north and south running ridge.  They went a mile and Collum called a stop, with everyone sinking wearily to the ground.

“Two hour break,” Melek announced.  “Eat one meal, then sleep.  We’ll wake you in time to start again!”

Kris leaned close to Andie.  “How are you doing, Andie?  I mean really?”

“Tired, scared.  It’s one thing, I’ve learned, to read about a desperate race for survival in a book -- and a much different thing to do it in real life.  Fuck!  This is hard!”

“It is.  How are your feet?”

“I spent two days making sure everything was ready.  They’re fine.  Yours?”

“Yeah, my feet are doing a lot better than my thighs.  Going up this ridge with this pack is killing them.”

Andie looked around the camp.  “These are Meals Ready to Eat.  They’re messy to eat when you’re walking, and the taste isn’t nearly as good, but you can do it.  So, I’m going to nap instead of eat, and get some extra Z’s.”

Kris was more fastidious and quickly chewed some tacos and an enchilada, then saved a napkin by wiping her fingers on her jeans.

By midmorning they were moving again, going steadily north.  Ezra spent some time walking with Melek and talking with him, then dropped back to Kris and Andie.

“Last night, Melek was explaining, or at least trying to explain, how their military is organized.  Think of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, okay?”

“Okay, so?”

“So, individual soldiers are assigned as needed into units like this one, not necessarily with regard to their occupational specialty.  Melek, for instance, is someone pledged to free slaves.  Rari, the young man talking to Chaba is pledged to fight dralka.  But there are times that they have to put their specialties on hold, to do work for the common good -- thus they’re here for this.  Others among Melek’s soldiers have other groups they belong to.

“To show their affinity, they have a tattoo on the back of their hands.  A tattoo for a common soldier goes on their left, their ‘second hand’ they call it.  If he makes senior NCO, he gets a second tattoo on the right hand.  Officers get one only on the right wrist.”

Ezra looked even more serious than usual.  “I didn’t ask what they would do to someone who faked a tattoo, but these guys are big on personal honor, so I’m pretty sure it’s not something you want to do.

“Anyway, Melek wants me to accept a tattoo like his on my right hand.  Only.”

“Promotion from the ranks?” Kris asked.

She tried not to sound sarcastic, and Ezra didn’t take it as if she was being sarcastic or kidding.

“It has to do with mindset.  In most armies, the privates and lower ranking enlisted men, and I kid you not, have IQs about 70.  Most of them get killed right out of the gate.  Some of the smarter ones, the luckier ones, figure out what they need to do to increase their chances, and they get to be NCOs.  The gentry, the nobility, the wealthy, the educated -- the really smart ones -- become officers.

“The American army is fundamentally different than any other army that has ever existed.  Most of our buck sergeants could be lieutenants in any other army of the world, and in fact, a lot of their leadership training is similar to what a junior officer gets.

“In the old Soviet Army, sergeants were second year draftees sent to a special school for a few months, where they learned to yell at privates, to beat privates, and do whatever an officer ordered them to do.  They had no particular leadership training.  Most armies don’t even do that.  They put a bunch of trainees together and either make the more politically reliable soldiers NCOs, or the dickheads that naturally rise to the top in any group.

“So, ability-wise, education-wise, and competency-wise, I’m light years ahead of Melek and his men. We generalize about people we meet, and above all, we categorize people we meet.  We put people into nice little niches, according to how we perceive them.  If you meet a square someone who doesn’t fit any of your nice round bins, you cram them into the one that might possibly be the nearest fit.”

“So, they think you’re an officer in our army?” Andie asked him.  “I thought you told them you’re our bodyguard.”

“I did.  But, while they might have commoners for common guards for a noble, personal bodyguards for the senior nobility are loyal junior officers.”

They walked in silence for a bit, and then Collum came loping up the column to catch up with Melek.

Kris sighed.  “I’m nearly dead on my feet, and he’s still trotting -- he’s had to cover the same ground we’ve covered at least twice.”

Ezra chuckled and she looked at him.  “What?”

“What?  He cheats is what.”

“He cheats?  He isn’t going back to look at them?”

“Oh, he’s doing that, but you’re assuming he’s carrying his pack all of the time.  Why bother?  He stashes it someplace, runs back, see what he needs to see, then returns to his pack, grabs it up and runs ahead to catch up with us.  You’ll notice most of the time when he’s carrying his pack, he just walks fast.”

“He cheats?” Kris said weakly.

Andie laughed.  “Yeah, he’s probably only carrying his pack twice as far as we are, running about an eighth of the time, while going three times as far.”

“That’s about it.  The man’s a horse, no doubt about it,” Ezra agreed.  “Get this though -- Melek says that it will be Collum that gives me that tattoo on the right hand.  I don’t understand all the ins and outs of Melek’s army, but one thing I’m certain of -- armies don’t give NCOs the job of appointing new officers and they surely don’t let privates do it.  Odds are Collum isn’t the private Melek used to think he was.”

“That sounds sneaky,” Kris observed.

“Yeah, because one of Melek’s jobs was to check the fitness of Menim.  It’s a good thing Menim has gone, because he wasn’t going to get passing marks.”

Collum sprinted ahead again and Andie groaned.  “I keep telling myself that if someone that old can do this, so can I,” she told Kris.  “But I don’t believe it.  Not truly.”

Melek dropped back.  “Collum seeks a place where we can camp.  The Tengri stopped at the lake and later turned back.  It is possible that one or two might have continued on -- Collum isn’t sure -- but we should be okay against one or two.”

He continued on, spreading the word.  It was clear the soldiers were just as relieved as Kris and Andie.  An hour later, as the light was fading, they stopped just past the crest of a ridge amid some boulders.

Ezra dropped down beside them.  “You two did good.  Collum will sneak back a bit tonight and make sure that no one is coming after us.  If someone is, he’ll try to catch back up to us without alerting the Tengri that they’ve been spotted.

“This brings up a delicate subject that I was reluctant to bring up before -- but since Kris broke the ice, so to speak, it’s time for another lesson in what to do.

“If the Tengri catch us and somehow get the drop on us, likely it will be a small party.  What you need to do is get a fist-sized rock and put it in your left pants pocket.  A rounded stone is best.

“If there are a couple, and they are aiming at someone other than you two, simply pull the stone from your pocket, hiding it as best as you can.  Throw the stone underhanded as hard as you can at the nearest man with a weapon.

“Then pull your pistol and shoot the fucker dead.  Shoot him a couple of times to be sure.  Don’t talk, don’t say anything, don’t hesitate, don’t do anything but throw the rock left handed and then shoot the fucker.  If any of the fuckers are still standing after that, shoot them a couple of times as well.  No warning, no talk, no attempt to cow them into surrender, don’t shoot to wound.  Kill them.”