CRO-MAGNON (37 page)

“
Murzo, this is delicious,” Blaine said, dipping another mouthful with her ceramic spoon.

The ranger gave a dismissive wave. “Food for nomads. The trick is to make the same ingredients seem different.”

When the pot was nearly empty, Calder glanced at Ayni’s antiquated portable transceiver on a shelf behind the potbellied stove. In the past three days, he and the forest ranger had grown close. Remembering his arrangement with Mathiessen, he now he made a decision to trust the forest ranger with their secrets.

“
Murzo, how well can that radio connect with the outside world?”

“
It depends on the direction. This valley is at four thousand meters, and in fact ‘Pamir’ means a mountain valley of glacial origin.” The Tajik waved his spoon. “That is to our benefit, except that the surrounding mountains are even higher.”

“
How about communication to the north or west?”

“
Like Fedor, I can sometimes reach the repeater station above Khorugh, which can relay through other repeaters to Dushanbe. Anywhere else would depend on the terrain.”

He paused, perhaps sensing that Calder’s question was based on more than idle curiosity. “Why?”

Calder waited while Ayni served him and Blaine the main course, a liver kebab with chunks of onion, carrot, bell pepper, and rehydrated tomato. While they ate from skewers, he proceeded to inform the ranger of what was in the cave, his own and Blaine’s reservations about Salomon’s motive, and their plan to smuggle out a frozen head, plus Mathiessen’s agreement to use Ayni’s radio as a conduit each night at 6:00
p.m.
if either the IHE director or Calder had anything to communicate.

When Calder finished, the Tajik gave a low whistle. “I thought there might be something behind the curtain, but I did not know what.”

“
This all should come to a head within the next day or two. Will you listen in, starting tomorrow night?”

“
Khub.”
Ayni gave a brief nod. “I think you and Caitlin are on the side of good.”

“
Where will you be?”

“
I am scheduled to make a four-day swing south-southeast to check whether goats and sheep are finding food.” The game warden stood thinking. “The best radio path to Khorugh is one day west of here. I can say I heard of some activity and changed my route. I will listen at six o’clock, although if there is heavy snow I might not reach the correct place in time.”

“
We appreciate it,” Calder said. “But remember, I warned you about Teague. You realize that if he, and through him Salomon and maybe Delyanov, learn that you helped us deceive them, you could be in trouble.”

Ayni’s eyes seemed to turn a shade blacker. “Trouble is nothing new. As you Westerns say, ‘Count me.
’
”

Calder resisted the urge to complete the idiom. “I need to stress that you could wind up with Teague on your case, Murzo. Something I would not recommend. Maybe you should think about that before you agree.”

The forest ranger-cum-game warden stepped to the pegs by the door, took down his parka, and lifted his .22-caliber Stevens single-shot from the corner.

“
I will take care.” He shrugged into the coat, slung the diminutive rifle, and tossed Calder’s parka to him.

Calder caught it. “We going somewhere?”

“
In view of what you have told me, I want to show you a spot near the trail where I have hid from guerrillas. A place one can reach over bare rock.”

“
Sounds good.” Calder shrugged into his parka. “Coming, Caitlin?”

Blaine looked up from the printout she was spreading over the tabletop. “I need to adjust my gene sniffer. You two enjoy yourselves.”

#

Ignoring the snowshoes by the door, Ayni started down the beaten path, Calder following single-file. They skirted the west end of the lake, shimmering under the setting sun like beaten electrum, and climbed the southern valley, Calder striving to match the stiff pace set by the ranger. The sun sank behind the western mountains, and darkness fell quickly, bringing out a myriad of stars, the three-quarter moon casting the surrounding pines and junipers in silver and black.

The tortuous path was hardly distinguishable from others that led up the wider ravines, and Calder began to grow disoriented. Woe to the soul who became stranded in this wilderness, he thought.

After a while, he said, “How far is it to the southern border?”

“
In a straight line, about fifty kilometers.”

“
Are there trails?”

Ayni waved at the wild country ahead. “If you know which ones to follow. Sometimes one must, as you people say, double.”

“
How far on foot?”

“
I do not know. A good high-altitude hiker familiar with the way could perhaps do it in a day and night. I take twice that long because I survey conditions.”

They slogged upward to a high pass between hanging blocks of ice and down into the next valley. Calder thought he was in good shape from his biathlon training, but he was growing breathless. He was about to ask for a rest when his companion halted and pointed to the beginning of a ridge on the right.

“
See how that rock resembles a crouching leopard?”

Calder, squinting in the wan light, nodded dubiously. He supposed it was possible to imagine a big cat if one tried hard enough.

“
Here we turn,” Ayni said, abandoning the trail and clambering atop the rough stone.

Calder drew a lungful of thin air and pulled himself onto the rock formation as Ayni started off again. The ridge was sharp, the result of a fractured fault line, and was spotted with black ice. To avoid a fall, he had to look sharply and place his feet with care. Worse, a powerful wind gusted down the valley and blasted across the ridge, peppering his face with crystals of ice and threatening to blow him off his feet. Despite the cold, he was overheated from matching the ranger’s pace, and he opened his zipper.

Breathing hard, he still wasn’t taking in enough oxygen. “How far to the cave?” he said, hating himself for having to ask.

“
About half a kilometer.” Ayni still looked fresh. “Shall we stop?”

“
I’ll make it. You said this is a place you can hide from guerillas?”

“
Yes.”

“
Won’t they see where you left the trail?”

“
Only if there is snow. But the wind usually sweeps the ridge, and tracking someone over bare rock is, as you people say, a different horse.”

Calder followed the ranger through a crazy quilt of boulders and fractured spines. Despite his resolve, his wind ran out. As he was about to give in and ask Ayni for a rest, the ranger halted and pointed left.

“
See that vee-slope of loose rock ahead, and the wye-shaped one beyond, to its right?”

“
We call it a scree,” Calder said, mainly to show Ayni, and himself, that he had enough wind left to speak.

“
We climb toward the first scree, then up the other.”

Calder followed the ranger up the spine to the V-shaped rockfall. Clambering over the fractured detritus, he had a moment of anxiety when loose stones clattered. He flattened his body until the minor slide petered, then started up again. Above, Ayni switched to the Y and disappeared.

Calder followed, somehow finding the energy to scramble up the last few yards to the rock face, where he found the ranger squatting in a low opening. Ayni stooped to enter and Calder followed.

The cave was about four feet high, tapering toward the rear. By the still-rising moon, Calder could make out the back wall about ten feet in. To the left, a backpacker’s stove nestled beside a tin of fuel and a burlap sack.

Ayni’s white teeth gleamed in the dimness. “Welcome to the Hotel Pamir.”

Waiting until his breathing stabilized, Calder said, “All the comforts of home.”

“
Except you must bring your bed.”

Calder peered out the entrance and saw that it was out of sight of the valley.

“
So,” Ayni said. “Do you think you could find this place?”

“
I believe so. Being a paleoanthropologist, I’m no stranger to hidden pockets in rough country. Although it’s been a while since I was in the field.”

“
Speaking of your anthropology, let me show you something.” Ayni took out a small flashlight, stepped to the rear of the cave, and shined the beam. There on a shallow ledge lay a flint hand ax, an obsidian blade with a tang but no haft, and an array of chert spear points.

Calder scrambled back and brought his eyes close to the stone objects. He picked up a blunt stone, holding it gingerly.

“
Chatelperronian knapping stone,” he said, canting it. “A melding of the incoming Cro-Magnons’ Aurignacian technology and the Neanderthals’ Mousterian.”

He touched each of the other pieces, feeling an almost religious fervor.
Thirty thousand years!
Deep in the grip of the last glacial period.

“
When did you discover these?”

“
Many years ago. I was going to bring them to the authorities but then I thought, What for? It is my job to preserve the Zapodevnik
.
We do not need strangers looting its treasures.”

“
I hear you. This cave may have been an overnight shelter for the family by the lake. Perhaps the man waited up here to ambush ibex and argali.”

“
Yes. Of course, I didn’t know about a prehistoric family.” The ranger faced the artifacts and made a Muslim-looking gesture. “May they rest in peace, which is more than my family found in these valleys.”

“
You mentioned before that you have no wife or children,” Calder said, not wanting to intrude, but curious about this quasi-governmental agent posted out here on the ragged end of civilization, and also wanting to learn whether he had some grievance against the current administration.

Ayni sifted a handful of pebbles from the floor. After a minute he said, “Two years ago, I was chasing leopard poachers north of here. Before I could confront them, a helicopter picked them up. In those days I lived with my wife and small son and daughter in the house trailer that Fedor is now occupying. When I returned, I found Soray dead from a slashed throat. She had been raped by a squad of guerillas. My children been shot.”

“
I’m sorry, Murzo.” Calder burned with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

Ayni gazed out at a patch of night sky. “If I was unwilling for you to know, I would not have spoken.”

“
What did you do?” Calder said, not sure if he should continue.

“
Tracked them.” The tall Tajik shrugged. “What else?”

“
You could follow them without getting them confused with others?”

“
It is what I do.” Ayni hefted the antique Stevens .22. “You remarked on the small caliber. It was large enough to pick off the five of them.”

“
They didn’t run?”

“
Oh, they ran.”

What must it be like, Calder thought, to live in a place that does not enjoy law and order? “I’m sorry,” he repeated inadequately.

“
Now, I have a problem.”

“
What is it?” Calder was eager to recover from what he felt had been a faux pas.

“
The guerillas turned out to be competing insurgents sent by our government to disrupt the main revolutionaries. Their aggression against civilians, brought to light when I ran them down, embarrassed the military officer who sent them. I heard he was demoted. Now I fear he will retaliate, especially if he regains his rank.”

“
Your part of the government can’t protect you?”

“
They are civilian.”

“
So, what can you do?”

“
Nothing, except get out of Tajikistan before things come to a . . . a head.” The forest ranger spread his long fingers. “But where would I go? What would I do?”

“
Maybe I can help.”

“
How? I know only to patrol the forest, and what you Westerns call subsistence farming.”

“
Let me work on it.” Eager to atone for his intrusion, Calder glanced at the .22. “As I told you, I use a rifle like that for the biathlon. Maybe we could try a little jog-and-shoot on the way back.”

“
You are a good shot?”

“
I like to think I’m competent.”

Ayni smiled slyly. “Like you are good at
shatranj?
”

“
Now, that hurt. I can hit the barn, but I don’t know if I can keep up with you at this altitude.”

“
I will, as they say in
Ameriko,
take my ease.”

“
I hope so.”

#

Blaine glanced up at the men’s ruddy faces as they shrugged out of their parkas. They looked tired but content.

“
Did you boys have fun?”

“
Ian is a good shot,” Ayni said, taking his gun-cleaning kit from a shelf. “And he does not tire easily.”

“
Speak for yourself, Murzo. I saw you holding back.”

“
I am accustomed to the altitude. Lower down, I might . . .” He shrugged.