The boy shuffled. “And of me? You’ll really let me take the coin?”
“I have no use for his riches. When I kill the Frenchman, you take what you want and return to your country. Tell them of the warrior who killed him to take a Mongolian woman back to her tribe.” He glared. “But if you take a wrong step and defy me…” He held up both his fists, letting the fear fill up the boy’s face. “You understand the pain I will cause you.”
The boy stepped back, eyes wide. He swallowed and nodded.
“I stay southeast of the party at all times,” Ganbold said. “Any chance you get, lead them to me.” Then he glared at the boy. “Don’t make me wait.” He tilted his head. “Go.”
The boy scampered off.
Ganbold felt happy in his arms and legs. He would have the woman soon.
Ganbold. Warrior. Hunter.
Michel still grinned when he exited the yurt a short while later. That woman was ruining him in the best way possible. All his thoughts hovered on her, her body, her lips. He was proud of himself for not letting it get in the way of his business. Michel was handling everything well, something else to feel smug about.
He adjusted the felt at the door of the yurt, the good feelings stirring inside him.
The men were mostly back, tending their own spaces. Michel nodded and acknowledged them as they came near. They would be departing for Kashgar in the morning, taking a route that would allow them to sleep in or near towns so they would not be exposed in the night.
Then something struck Michel, an arrow to his thoughts. He scanned the men, not finding who he was looking for.
Where was Terence?
Michel stomped to the center of camp. “Iman,” he called. The man turned to Michel. “Terence?” Michel asked, hands out with the question.
Iman swung his head around. “Um,” he said.
The others began looking as well.
Aben, a newer addition to the group, spoke up, “He was at the baths.” He looked around. “Wasn’t he?”
There was a moment of searching to see if he’d been asleep in a tent or was rifling through someone’s things. It wasn’t long, however, before Michel spotted him, across the way, shuffling back to the camp.
Michel stomped over to the boy and saw immediately that something had happened. Michel grabbed his chin to angle the boy’s face up to him. He saw bruises edging around his eye, along his cheekbone, on top of the old ones, and crusted blood in his nose. “What happened?” Michel demanded.
“I fell,” Terence retorted, his arms hanging limply at his sides.
Michel turned the boy’s head to examine the other side. “You fell?”
“I slipped and knocked my head at the baths.”
Michel just grunted at him. Now what with this kid, he thought. “Be more careful,” Michel insisted, releasing his chin. Terence jerked back with a glare.
Eve had come out then and approached them. She too took Terence’s chin, but with a gentler hand. “Come with me, Terence,” she said. “We’ll put some salve on the scrapes.”
Terence trudged away behind her, and Michel saw the heaviness in the boy. He didn’t know what Terence was up to, or who had given him the punch to the head that Terence claimed to be from a fall. Michel just hoped to get him back to the safety of his family without further incident.
Still, he knew that boy was only going to cause them trouble.
The next day, they were on the road again. It was midday, and they were coming up on a road cut alongside a hill that sloped down into a shallow ravine blanketed by thorny bushes.
“Eve,” Terence called to her from the horse. “Come with me to see those rocks.” He pointed up ahead of their path.
“Terence, if we leave the convoy now, Michel will have a heart attack,” she laughed. “Besides, no horse would go through that thistle.”
Terence groaned loudly and trotted up ahead.
Michel slowed his horse to wait for her as Terence rushed past. “Looks like I’m not the only one who makes him mad.”
