16
“Who are they?” Kathryn asked. “And why haven’t they said a word?”
It had taken a while for Kathryn to get used to the back-and-forth motion of the camel, and she herself hadn’t said a word until then. But once she decided that she wasn’t actually going to fall off and neither was her camel going to toss her down a hundred-foot sand-dune, she relaxed a bit and trusted herself to turn and glance back at the Sheikh, whose camel followed hers.
“They are men of the Hashimi, an ancient desert tribe,” the Sheikh said. “An offshoot of the mystical Sufis, but more austere. They have some interesting customs. For one, the men all take vows of silence upon marriage.”
“Well, that probably makes for a happy marriage,” Kathryn said, shaking her head and pulling her head-scarf lower down her face to block out the setting sun. The men had brought robes and head-scarves for them—clearly furnished by their women, because the fabrics were soft and clean, neatly folded, and infused with a fragrance that smelled familiar somehow, like something from Kathryn’s past. “Are you serious, though? These men really won’t speak? Not even to you?”
“Aistamea,” said the Sheikh, glancing at the tall, quiet man on the camel bringing up the end of their little caravan. “Wataqul ‘iina eizmak ealaa alsamt yjb ‘an yajeal zawajatik saeidatun!”
The man broke into a huge smile, and the Hashimi leading their train turned and laughed too. Soon all three of the Arabian men were laughing on their camels, and Kathryn just sighed and shrugged and petted the coarse brown hair on her camel’s thick neck.
“Clearly the joke’s on me,” Kathryn said to the camel. “But you won’t laugh at me, will you, boy?”
Just then the camel turned its head and opened its mouth wide, revealing long yellowish teeth and thick red gums. It raised and lowered its head three times before turning back to the treacherous path ahead, and the men’s laughter rose to the next level until Kathryn had no choice but to join in.
“OK, even the camels are laughing at me,” she said finally, shaking her head. “I give up.”
“Nobody is laughing at you,” the Sheikh said, grinning wide and pulling his camel up alongside hers until they were riding in lockstep. “I simply translated your clever remark about how their vows of silence probably make for a happy marriage. They were impressed by your wit.” Then the Sheikh frowned and raised an eyebrow, glancing at Kathryn’s camel and then back at her. “As for the camel . . . well, that is between you and him. That reaction was a bit unusual.”
“I think he likes being scratched on this side of his neck,” Kathryn said, reaching out and trying it again. Sure enough, the big guy turned and looked at her again, his massive head swaying like he really was agreeing with her. Then Kathryn frowned when her hand rested on a calloused bump on the camel’s neck. “What’s this?” She caressed the spot, and the camel’s body rumbled as it grunted in approval. “An old injury,” she said, touching it again and feeling out its shape. It was perfectly round. Almost like a bullet had gone in there. A very large bullet. “Well,” she whispered, pushing away the burning question of what exactly these silent men of the Hashimi did for a living. “Whatever happened, I’m glad you’re alive and here with me, big guy.”
“What’re you two whispering about?” said the Sheikh, who had dropped behind Kathryn again as the caravan navigated the top edge of a dune in single file. But then even Hyder went silent as the four camels slowed down to a crawl, the graceful animals taking each step carefully and methodically as they made it one by one along the narrow ridge to the flats of sand beyond.
Kathryn took another sip from the metal canteen she’d been given. The water was cool, and she could taste the minerals in it. Clearly it had come from a well, and she’d put aside any thoughts of catching something the moment she’d tasted its sweetness. It felt good. It felt clean. Just like the way her head scarf and robes felt clean. Who were these people, the Hashimi? And how did the Sheikh know them?
“Where are we, anyway?” she asked after a while. She tried to picture a map of the region. They’d been in Habeetha, on the banks of the Golden Oasis. Then when they’d escaped the Russian attack, she’d assumed the chopper had headed northeast, toward Hyder’s kingdom of Sehaar. But then she’d lost track after the American attack. “Saudi Arabia?”
The Sheikh grinned and narrowed his gaze, looking toward the horizon. “We are in the Wild West, my American assassin. Open desert. Unclaimed land.”
Kathryn snorted. “There’s no unclaimed land on Earth anymore. Maybe Antarctica, but even that’s technically been claimed, since it’s shared ownership by all nations. Seriously, Hyder. Where are we?”
“All right, yes, we would be within the western borders of Saudi Arabia. But what I said is also true. This truly is like the wild west. There are no government services out here. No police or army patrols. No permanent settlements. The few who live in this part of the desert are nomads, men and women who live in tent-cities and move like the sands and wind. They claim any land they choose, and it is theirs. No one can say otherwise.”
“Nomads,” Kathryn repeated softly. “Wanderers. Here today, gone tomorrow. Ghosts of the desert.”
The Sheikh nodded, pulling up alongside her so they were in lockstep once again. “Yes. And we will join them. Until we make sense of what is happening.”
Kathryn took a breath and nodded. She’d already figured that much out. It made sense. About as much sense as anything else that was happening in her messed-up world.
“Though how do we begin to make sense of what’s happening when we’re hidden away in the middle of nowhere?” she asked stubbornly, a part of her tugging at her insides and saying that maybe she just needed to get on the damned phone with Mel. She could trust Mel, couldn’t she? Couldn’t she?
“We take a lesson from the Hashimi,” the Sheikh replied, scanning the horizon and then locking his gaze towards the west. “We stay silent. We watch. We listen.”
Then he pointed, and Kathryn gasped when she saw the peaks of wooden tentpoles, the tents themselves made of brightly colored patchwork fabric, vivid blues and vibrant greens, deep reds and soaring yellows. The colors were loud, happy, delightful. It was like they were headed to a carnival, a traveling circus.
“What in the world?” she muttered as the sounds of women chattering and children playing rose up around them. “Oh, my God, Hyder. This is incredible.”