The Path Changes the Traveler Ch. 03

Her facial features were more along the lines of Morgan's idea of the classical African beauty. The lips and nose were perfect to him in that regard and her high and wide cheekbones just held his eye for a moment. Her hair was all in small braids everywhere and it hung in something like a pageboy style, though he was certain that it wasn't the intention to imitate what was a western style in a lot of places around the world.

Her very dark skin was just as amazing to him. She held her sheet to her body and as it was at the moment, she was covered from the waist down. Her breasts were carried very high and they were obviously very firm to be like that, given that he could see that she wasn't a juvenile any longer. He placed her age at about twenty or so, though he knew that he could be wrong.

His gaze returned to her face and she spat at his feet.

Her reward for that was a slap across her face from the seller's nephew and she turned her head away with the force of the blow.

Morgan wanted to beat the shit out of the walking turd just for that.

He knew that she hated him for nothing and her exposure to his eyes had only made it worse. Nothing could change that but Morgan wasn't an idiot.

No sir, while he knew loveliness when he saw it, that wasn't the point here at all.

Morgan had a heart in him and he felt outraged on the poor woman's behalf, in spite of her hatred of him.

If it had been up to him, she wouldn't have had to have gone through this bullshit, but they'd dragged her out of the line to show her off to him in hopes of another sale, since it was looking pretty good to the old man about the other three.

Even in this business, the merchant knew the value of impulse buying.

The girl's face swung back to face him again after the slap and Morgan was actually pleased to see that her fierce defiance remained undaunted. He gestured to the nephew to move along and he waited so that no one else could hear him.

He guessed that she might not speak like the locals around here, judging by the words that he'd heard as she'd been brought forward to him against her will and he didn't trust in his own poor Arabic for this.

He doubted that she'd want to hear whatever he had to say anyway.

"I know you can't understand me," he said in very quietly-spoken English to her, "but please don't ever lose that pride. I'm sorry that this idiot had to do this so that I could feel like a pervert. I wish that I could help you, but I just can't."

Morgan was a little surprised that to express the thought had actually hurt him a bit in his chest to say it.

She looked at him, not understanding more than a word or two and she answered in her own language, which no one there knew. She told him that she was sorry that things couldn't go her way.

She told him that she'd love to have the chance to kill him.

The one that Maggie had been trying to deal for noticed the tone and saw the woman's expression and body language and she decided that she didn't want to be anywhere near that tall man. She begged Maggie to leave her where she was, her eyes fearful and brimming. Try as she might, there was no way that Maggie could convince her.

She leaned in and offered her protection from Morgan, saying that she was wrong, that he was not cruel and telling her that in a day, she would be free if she only agreed to come along, but the woman only began to add her fearful wailing to her sobbing pleas.

The seller strode over with a whip, but Maggie warned him, saying that if he hit her only once, the whole deal, including the original purchase would be off.

He backed down, though he was glaring at the woman for refusing whatever had been said and Maggie had a sinking feeling as to how the woman's evening would go after they all left.

There was nothing that she could do.

-----

After the transaction, Junah had to be told a couple of times; not really able to comprehend what it meant that they could leave the place. The kid had only needed to hear it one time, and then was pushing Junah so that she was standing close to their saviour, almost out of fear that they'd be forgotten and left behind.

Morgan felt a lot of things, but he found that he really liked it when he felt that thin dark arm slip very cautiously around his waist. He knew that it had been done at the urging of the Russian kid, though he knew nothing of the Ethiopian girl's sudden need to touch whatever mirage or illusion had appeared to get them out of their hell.

But then there was the moment when the kid had tried to hug him in a bit of joy and then came up against the hardness which hung there by the strap under the cloak below his left armpit.

"Ow. What is that, Yankee?"

Morgan looked down and put his arm over that thin bare shoulder and tried to minimise it when he smiled a little, "A rifle."

The expression changed then and the voice was almost a little tremulous as he heard the question as to whether or not he was a 'bad man'.

"No," he smiled, scanning the area a little automatically, "only a careful one, tovarisch - and please don't call me 'Yankee' or 'American' here.

We've got to get going now. You both need to be away from here."

He looked down at his own boots for a second and muttered to himself, "I need to be away from here too."

There was something inside the grown man at that point which made him want to cry to have to leave most of those poor people behind ...

Especially the one who hated him so much.

He tried to get the ones that they'd bought all gathered up so that they could walk off as a group and the thought occurred to him that they could just run away.

But then, he thought, when all that you've got is a bedsheet - or what bears about a passing resemblance to one, where would you go?

He noticed that Rashid appeared to be upset and Maggie stood there arguing with him. From what Morgan could piece together, his assistance - and his pay for this - was based on the purchase of just the one girl, Mena.

They were walking away with two girls and the kid.

While he struggled to keep them together as he herded them toward the truck, Morgan felt guilty and yet at the same time, he felt as though he'd managed to do the right thing for once in his life, or at least some of what would have been the right thing.

Maggie didn't see it in quite the same way as she stood giving him quiet hell the whole time - even as she argued with Rashid.

"My sister will kill you for this," she said, glaring out of her headgear, "Quan will be very upset. We were only supposed to get one person. One.

Your fingers get stuck together while you were counting or something, Morgan?"

"I can count as well as you can, Maggie," he said with a small smile while looking around, not caring to hear the lecture at this point, "You bought Mena and you were about to buy one more - that you never told me about. Not my fault that she thinks I'm worse than what she has now is it? I just happened to buy two as well, that's all."

"A package deal?" she taunted him, "The pair you just had to have for some reason that I can't wait to have explained to me? Did you see how happy the fat fucker was to be rid of them? He even said they've been nothing but trouble to him."

Morgan took a lot of the wind out of her sails as he nodded once while hissing out his hard-edged reply, "And he lowered his price on that account, didn't he? We got them both for less than the one we came for."

"Hey," she said, wanting to answer it, but Morgan whirled away then, furious with himself over the way that he'd been talking - like these people were dry goods on a shelf.

Maggie held her tongue then. She had her reasons and wanting to buy the nomad girl had little to do with herself. It was something that she'd done because she'd seen something in those eyes in one moment and she even knew what it had been.

It had only taken one quiet question whispered into the girl's ear and with the slightly hopeful nod and softly-spoken reply that she'd seen as her answer; Maggie had tried to do what she could to have this one included in the deal. It just hadn't worked out.

Maggie was thankful to her half-sister Quan. She knew the lengths that her sister had gone to in order to get her out of her own private piece of Perdition. The two of them had been a little like strangers to each other their whole lives long and then to have the door to her prison kicked in by no less than an angry cowboy who'd come with Quan to save her ...

She hadn't known a thing about the quiet American with the blazing eyes and the iron will then. But she'd learned quite a bit in the time since.

Maggie had a lot of hidden talents and perhaps Quan was the only one who was aware of them all, but even so, Maggie could sometimes get herself into a bind faster than anything if things went sour - no matter how many contingencies had been thought of and prepared.

That never seemed to happen anymore and Maggie knew that it was because Quan had teamed her up with Morgan. When things went south now, he always managed something - and it usually involved a little murder.

Knowing the man as she did now, she understood what it was in him that drove him to want to help somebody.

Because the same thing had driven him to save her once - a girl that he hadn't even met before. There were times when she sat in quiet thought and tried to come up with a body count for that day and she hadn't managed it yet, always coming up with the memory of one or two more men that he or Quan herself had killed to get to her. In that light, she couldn't fault him all that much for what he'd done today.

Besides, they hadn't spent all of the gold that they'd brought just to buy Mena's freedom.

But Quan was likely going to want to skin them both for this.

"Why did you want that one?" he asked with a quiet glare which said that he didn't want anything now but the truth delivered as a straight answer.

"I saw somebody like Quan," Maggie hissed, "At best, they'd be friends probably instantly and my sister would have the assistant that she needs more than anything - and no matter what, that girl there would have been free.

Why did you insist that I give him the bonus to keep his mouth shut?" Maggie asked, "You know that he'll call it in - and even if he has no phone service, he'll be sure to go to the state police just in case there's a reward on top."

Morgan only smiled, "It wasn't much to begin with but the bonus I gave him was in paper currency - and unless I'm wrong, he's going to be standing there counting it all at least a few times before he does anything else."

Rashid nodded and said that Morgan was likely correct. "But he will call or go to see the police in any event."

Junah spoke to Maggie in Arabic, saying that she'd overheard the seller speaking to his nephew as they were walking away. "The young one is to get the rest inside for the night and then go to a neighbour who has a telephone."

Maggie looked at Morgan, who only nodded that he'd heard.

"Don't drive away just yet," Morgan said to Rashid, "I just want to say good-bye."

Maggie nodded and began to explain it to an even more upset Rashid as Morgan slowly removed the Dragunov sniper rifle from under his robe and unfolded the stock. There was a quiet combined gasp from the majority of the people near the truck and he looked back.

Junah hadn't seen Morgan's rifle as she'd jumped up into the truck. She required only a second to find what she'd been hopeful to see. There was an AK-47 assault rifle with a folding stock lying there in the bed of the truck.

She reached to pick it up, but the man in the back put his boot over it.

She looked at him and spoke to him in Arabic, "You are with them?"

The man hesitated, but he nodded, saying nothing.

"I can help the tall one there," she said quietly, "He may need this in a moment and even if he does not, I can shoot one of these and I would do anything to keep that one safe if Allah wills it. Please let me give it to him."

The silent one was about to shake his head, but he'd been watching everything and to him, it looked like things were getting a little ragged.

He knew that Morgan was hiding a rifle, but he liked the thought that the sudden appearance of this girl with another rifle might just get their guide to think twice and shut up.

He nodded and handed her the rifle.

She thanked him with a little bow and he knew at once that she'd been sincere. He liked that.

Junah jumped down from the truck, carefully holding out the rifle in both hands.

"American," she said very slowly and carefully, "I do not know your name. Do you need any help? I have training with these. I can shoot well. My name is Junah."

The man in the back stood up and jumped down as well, sensing a sudden change in the feel of things.

Rashid used the moment to signal the driver with his hand. The truck started at that point and the driver began to pull away even as Rashid was climbing in.

Before any of them could react, the truck was gone around the corner and grinding through the gears as fast as the driver could make it go. They barely slowed to make the right-hander down a side street and they were gone.

Morgan thought about the question and then he shook his head to reply, "Thank you, but the one that I'd have really wanted to shoot right now is gone with our truck."

He pointed to where the old man stood counting his money with a grin on his face as he did it. The other slaves were being herded inside for the night. Morgan guessed aloud that it must have been a good day, to have sold three slaves in less than ten minutes.

Junah nodded as she unfolded the stock of the assault rifle to cradle it comfortably in her arms, the motion of it telling Morgan that she did indeed have experience, "He sells at most, three in a week.

Thank you for what you did. I ...

I do not know what it is that I ought to say. I have feared this moment for a year, and now it is nothing like what I thought."

Morgan put his hand on her shoulder, "It's nothing like I ever thought either, since I didn't come here to do it. But I'm glad that you're not there anymore.

There's no point in you making this worse for yourself. I'll handle it. I don't want that bastard to send for the police while we're on foot now. I don't think too many people would miss him around here, though I could be wrong."

The dark-skinned girl nodded, "If I can have my wish, then I want the young one dead as well for what he did to my friend and me, insh Allah."

"Then do it after I shoot the old guy first," Morgan said, "just get ready to run, ok? If you miss, don't try again. I'll do it then."

She seemed to notice the Dragunov rifle in his hand then for the first time. As Morgan began to raise it to his shoulder, he asked her, "Where did you learn to speak English, anyway?"

The soft smile that he saw made so much of this worthwhile to him in just that one moment as she nodded shyly. "In Moscow," she smiled, "Where else?"

Morgan grinned back and then he raised the rifle so that the scope's objective was to his eye. He found that Junah's smile was a little infectious despite their current predicament.

"Where else?" He asked himself.

They were only about a hundred meters away and that made the high power scope a bit of a hindrance for this, but ...

The old man finished his happy ritual then and spoke to his nephew, pointing away down a side street. He looked at the group in the street then, perhaps wondering why they were still there, but by then it was too late for him.

Morgan fired once and the man staggered backward to collapse against the wall. As he slid down, he left a bloody streak on the plasterwork. The younger one turned to look back at his uncle and then he tumbled backwards as he was hit by the three-round burst that Junah sent to him.

Junah looked up at Morgan then and she thanked him, asking if he wanted the rifle back. He pointed toward Priest and shook his head.

"No Junah. Just make sure the safety is on. It's his rifle. He'll want you to hang onto it for him. I may need you before this is over. We've got to find some transport to get us out of here and fairly quickly."

Junah looked at Priest, who seemed to be a little friendlier now.

He nodded once, "Good work. You know how sexy you look when you're shooting somebody? Mmm-MMM!"

Junah didn't know what to say - or even what had been meant - exactly. But her Russian friend did and laughed, praising Junah a lot.

Maggie was just about beside herself. This had gone to hell in a handbasket quicker than anything. They were sixty miles inside Iraq with no transport now. Rashid had cut them loose just like that.

The fact that he thought that he ought to get more money based on the number of slaves had escaped Maggie's always-calculating mind and she kicked herself for it, almost as much as she wished that she had a chance to shoot Rashid now.

Morgan heard the sound of someone running and he looked up to see the woman with the smouldering eyes running toward them for all she was worth.

He wondered why she'd want to make a break for it now - to stick with a bunch who just had to be looking at a long time in jail, and he was purposely trying not to think of the likely unavoidable execution that he would be facing over the two people that they'd just shot.

The woman almost ran right past him, coming up to speak to Junah, who looked very surprised. The woman pointed off toward an alleyway and then the pair of them were chattering at Morgan and Maggie.

"Her name is Darotai," Junah said quickly, "and she offers a way out. She says that alleyway there leads to another square. With luck, she says that we can ride away. She says that it will be noticed, but likely none will try to stop us if we are a little brave."

There was a little more from the woman and then she grabbed Morgan's hand as though touching him was a distasteful thing to have to do and she placed her closed fist into his palm, staring at the contrast between them in their skin colour. She slowly opened her hand then and Morgan was staring at some of Quan's gold.

They'd brought gold in the form of small pouches of coins, three of them, and one pouch containing four of the smallest ingots which might be the next size up from what one could call a wafer. They weren't large at all, perhaps about the same size as a credit card and about as thick as a thin chocolate bar, but between all of them, they weighed a few pounds, pure commercial gold being as heavy as it is.

She'd brought them about half of what they'd come there with in terms of monetary value.

"She says that she knows that you have no reason to help her, but she hopes that by showing you a way to leave and by bringing you what she could of your gold back that you might consider taking her along. She says that she almost dropped them twice."

The woman looked at the smile on Morgan's face and she felt a little hope that she might have earned her place in their exodus.

"Why does he smile that way?" she asked Junah, "I could not pick up everything. Is it enough, what I have brought?"

It was like a schoolyard game. Junah had to ask Darotai's question. Maggie spoke to Junah, who translated for Darotai.

"The gold will help the Americans where they take us, but she says that he smiles because you have made him happy in wanting to leave with them. He was upset that they had to leave so many there and it saddens him still that they cannot take everyone."

"The rest do not want to come," Darotai said, "They are afraid that they will be suspected of being part of the murders and they do not think that you can go far by walking before you are caught. No one understands me and I do not know their languages, but I can see this in their faces and how they talked to each other."