Ark Found, page 22
part #2 of Omega Files Adventures Series
“Yep.” Carter stopped walking and put the binoculars up to his face. “Clansman on a camel, waving a piece of metal to catch the sun. They see us all right. I don’t see them using any binoculars. Let’s see if we can signal them back.” He tilted the binoculars so that the lenses caught the fierce sunlight and reflected it toward the tribe.
“He signaled back,” Jayden said. Carter sent another flash from the optics, and again they received a flash in response.
“Okay, so we know about each other.” Carter dropped the binoculars. “Let’s go meet up.”
Energized by the impending confrontation, they summoned reserves of energy they didn’t know they had in order to walk the remaining distance to the nomad camp. Carter scoped them out one more time through binoculars before making the final approach. He saw old men, young men, women and children—a complete mini-society, which made him feel somewhat more secure in the knowledge that they were not likely to be a band of insurgent rebels who would be prone to kill them for the publicity of lashing out against the West. Still, his senses were on edge as they approached the camp, hungry, thirsty, tired and harboring a valuable map that likely led to a secret of biblical proportions.
“You know the drill, Jayden. Let’s walk slow, keep our hands in plain sight.”
“Got it.” He held both hands up as they approached the camp, where a few tent-like structures had been set up, and a few camels were sitting on the ground. A dozen or so people of all ages and sexes milled about in plain sight, and Carter supposed there were more inside or behind the tents.
When they got close, an old man with a white, flowing beard, and a younger man of indeterminate middle age stepped forward to greet the two travelers. The concern in their eyes registered that they knew these two vagabond souls were not experienced desert travelers, but almost surely to be people in need. The old man held out a leather bladder, ostensibly filled with water. He held it out to them and said a word in his native language which neither westerner understood.
Carter nodded his thanks, not ready to reveal to them that they spoke English, and took the bladder. He tipped it to his mouth and tasted the liquid, tentatively at first, then upon tasting that it was clean water, gulping more down before handing it off to Jayden. While Jayden drank, Carter slowly pointed off in the direction they were travelling in, and said the word, “Turkey,” hoping that it would be recognizable. Immediately the two Kurds exchanged knowing glances.
Carter didn’t know if they thought he was implying he and Jayden were from Turkey, and asking if the gypsy-like band of desert dwellers was from Turkey, but it was a start to communication. Jayden finished with the bladder and offered it back to the old man, who nodded and took it. Then he extended a hand toward the camp, presumably inviting them to stay. Carter and Jayden nodded and they walked with the two men to the largest tent, where the others now gathered to witness these strange people who had been walking the desert sands alone with almost no provisions.
The old man—Carter thought he looked like some sort of Sultan, draped in robes, long beard—spoke in his dialect to his people. Carter was glad to see him point in the same direction he had pointed—toward Turkey—during this introduction. The reactions of the people were appropriate for a story about two lost men in the desert, which Carter was also grateful for, since it meant that these people seemed to have understood Carter’s story the way he intended.
Another man of the tribe stepped up, this one younger, perhaps in his twenties, and he spoke what Carter recognized as the same Istanbul Turkish they had been hearing since being in Turkey. So it was all the more embarrassing when, after that man stopped speaking and waited expectantly for their reply, that they were unable to do so in the same language. Carter saw no other alternative than to speak English, although he knew this would open a can of worms.
“We need to get back into Turkey,” Carter said clearly and in English. Sure enough, the reaction was unfortunately as expected. He heard small gasps from a couple of the nomads, and the eyes of the man who had asked the question widened in surprise. Several of the gypsies began talking to one another at once, no doubt now openly speculating as to who exactly these travelers were. Carter was still thinking of how to play this, of what he should say or do next, when two or three of them began pointing to one of the smaller tents off to the side of the makeshift camp. A child ran to the tent and ducked inside, emerging a few seconds later with a middle-aged woman in tow, who carried with her some fabric in the process of being hand woven.
She looked confused until she followed the little girl’s point over to the gathering of people surrounding the two newcomers. She stood still for a second, as if assessing a possible threat, and then walked over to the group. She ignored Carter and Jayden, who nodded to her, and instead looked to the elderly man who had escorted them into the camp. This person walked up to her and spoke softly to her for a few seconds, until she nodded her head and stepped forward to the newcomers.
“Hello, English?”
Carter and Jayden turned to one another in surprise. “Let me go first,” Carter said.
“What, you think I’m gonna tell her my dirty jokes or something?” Jayden said in a soft voice.
“Just let me do the talking at first, okay?”
“Fine. You’ve gotten us this far.” Jayden smiled as he looked up at the woman. Her age was hard to guess since she was draped in robes and scarves, with only part of her face visible, but she did not appear to be elderly; she moved well and the skin that was visible around her eyes and mouth was taut and smooth.
“Yes, we speak English,” Carter said, making eye contact with the woman, whose role it was now clear was to serve as the group’s translator.
“You come from Turkey?” she asked, pointing toward the bordering country. Carter and Jayden nodded, and she continued her questioning. “You lose way?”
It was clear that her English was not fluent, but it was more than enough to get the point across, and Carter knew full well that it was far better than any middle-eastern language he or Jayden could speak. “Yes, we are lost,” Carter answered. “Need to get back to Turkey.” He pointed in the same direction as had the woman.
“You no from Turkey? No speak Turk?” the translator asked, her gaze alternating between Carter and Jayden. At this the elder men asked her something in their native language—presumably what she had just asked them—and she translated the question for them.
“No,” Carter said, while Jayden also shook his head. “Canadians. From Canada.” He thought that maybe Canada would inspire slightly less animosity than the United States, if these people even cared about such matters. He hoped that they were so divorced from everyday news cycles that they had no idea conflicts with their country (if they even thought of Iran as being theirs) and the western nations existed. He considered that perhaps they were truly a nomadic desert tribe who plied the remote sands of multiple middle east countries without even knowing which nation they were in, just as Carter and Jayden hadn’t realized they were no longer in Turkey.
Yet the reactions of the translator and the two men who had initially met them and guided them here told Carter otherwise. We have Westerners in our midst, they seemed to be saying. Complete outsiders, so foreign as to be exotic and dangerous at the same time.
Not good.
The translator addressed Carter once again. “You climb Ararat?”
Carter and Jayden nodded vigorously.
“Only with that?” she pointed to his single damaged backpack.
Carter explained, “We had more gear but lost some of it on the way down.”
The woman translated this for the old man, whose reaction was unreadable to Carter. Then the woman said, “We help you. You have trade for us?” She eyed the backpack. The hair on Carter’s arms stood on end beneath the long sleeves of his thermal underwear, the last layer he had to peel down to in the desert heat, one which also shielded him from the blistering UV rays.
“Trade what?” Jayden said softly to Carter, who shrugged off the pack. “I’m sure we have something they can use that we can live without in return for their services.”
“Not my Swiss Army Knife, okay? If we can help it. It’s from my Granddad.”
“How about these?” Carter said, pulling out the case for the binoculars.
“Sure.”
He removed the binoculars from his neck, held them up to the nomads, then put the binoculars in the case, closed and opened it to show how it worked. Then he handed the binoculars to the old man, who took them without breaking eye contact with Carter.
“Binoculars, let you see things far away,” he said to the translator, who repeated what he said to the old man in their language. The old man took them and, after removing them from the case, held them up to his eyes, aiming them at some faraway spot on the desert floor. He nodded and handed them off to one of the other men who were eager to try them out. It was clear to Carter that they had seen binoculars before, but that owning a pair was not normal for them, hence a good offering. Carter only hoped he and Jayden wouldn’t need them again on this trip themselves. Time to seal the deal, he told himself. He cleared his throat and looked at the translator while smiling.
“You like them?” he asked, nodding to one of the nomadic tribesman now looking the wrong way through the binoculars.
To Carter and Jayden’s relief, she nodded right away.
“You stay here for night.”
Jayden glanced at Carter. “And then?”
“Tomorrow we take you Turkey.” She pointed toward the border. “Tomorrow.”
At this, Carter held up a finger and said, “Hold on, please.” Then he huddled with Jayden in conference. Jayden looked up at the sky. “Stay the night? We still have two or maybe three hours of daylight left. Now that we know for sure which direction it’s in, all we really need is some water, maybe a bite to eat before we leave.”
Carter nodded. “I agree.” He turned back to the translator. “We go tonight for Turkey.” He pointed to the country before continuing while Jayden nodded his agreement. “You keep those.” He pointed to the binoculars, still being ogled by different members of the tribe. “Give us more water?” He simulated drinking from the bladder.
At this the translator’s expression remained unchanged as she turned and spoke to the old man, who seemed to be the leader of the group. He put an arm around her shoulder, spun her away from Carter and Jayden, and said something else to her before walking away toward the tents and the gathering of others. The woman addressed Carter and Jayden.
“He say sandstorm coming. No good you leave now. Tomorrow.”
Carter and Jayden eyed the atmosphere, where all seemed blue and calm. Even the wind had died completely down. Jayden said to Carter, “Look, this is ridiculous, let’s just ask them for a sip of water now and we’ll go. In this weather we can make it, it’s only a few miles. I’d rather do that than risk sleeping overnight in Iran with no visa, no ID, nothing. We’d be really screwed, Carter. It’s best to get out of here.”
Carter nodded and spoke again to the translator. “I’m sorry, but we really must get going. May we trouble you for some water first?” Again he mimicked using the hydration bladder, and again she looked back to the old man, who now was nowhere to be seen. One of the side tents opened, though, and from it emerged a corpulent male, late teens or early twenties, who Carter would not have guessed could fit in that tent. His bulk was not the thing that caught his attention. Jayden saw it, too.
“Uh, Carter? I think that’s a scimitar.”
Chapter 27
The fat nomad wielded the trademark curved machete like someone who knew how to use it. Though he was laying eyes on the foreigners for the first time, since he had not emerged from his tent at any point up to now, he showed no interest in conversing with them, or about them, in any way. Carter guessed that he had already been given his orders by the tribal elders, and now he was going to carry them out, bar nothing.
The brandisher of the scimitar did not run at them full flail, rather he executed what Jayden would later recount as a “controlled power-walk” with the weapon held at the ready until he stood four feet away from them.
“You will stay here for the night,” the translator said when their security force was in position. While cautious, Carter and Jayden were not scared of this man. Little did he know that he faced an ex-SEAL and a very fit ex-Navy man with a concealed firearm in the backpack that hung from his shoulder. Carter had no doubt they could fight their way out of this and live to tell the tale. But the truth of the matter was that things were more complex than that. They didn’t just need to escape this place. They needed supplies, particularly water. He was still incredibly thirsty, having had only a few sips of water since his arrival here. Jayden was nudging his leg with his foot, the signal: should we fight?
“Stand down,” Carter told him in a low voice. “We’ll stay.”
Jayden took a deep breath. “Darn, I was really looking forward to a good scimitar brawl, you know? It’s been a while.”
“Yeah well, don’t feel too bad. You might get your chance yet.” He leaned in closer, aware that the translator was watching his lips move. “Act friendly, we’ll make our move in the morning if they won’t let us go then. For now, let’s try to cooperate enough so that they feed us.”
“Gotcha.” Jayden slowly put his hands over his head in the universal gesture of surrender, and Carter did the same. At this the scimitar man-boy smiled ever so slightly, while the old man returned to the fore.
“Okay,” Carter said with as genuine a smile as he could muster, “It’s all right. We will stay for the night. We don’t want to cause any trouble, and you know the area far better than we do.” The translator converted this to the old man’s language and he nodded in return without smiling.
Although they were not allowed to leave, after an awkward few moments, the gypsy camp returned to normal as a couple of women stoked a cook fire while the men went about their business of tending to the goats and camels while keeping a wary eye on the visitors. Carter scrutinized them as they worked. Most of them had deeply weathered faces and dark skin, the kind of look that suggested a largely outdoor life for many decades. These were truly a wandering, nomadic people, Carter thought, perfectly at home in the middle of nowhere. Glancing off to the Ararat mountains, he now wished they had toughed it out and kept going past this tribe, but it was easy to say that now with water and food close at hand.
A water gourd was lifted from one of the camels, which were draped with rugs, blankets and various hanging baskets full of fruits, vegetables and grains. Some of the camels were unladen, however, suggesting that these were for carrying human riders, while the rest were beasts of burden used for carrying heavy loads. The gourd was passed around and both Carter and Jayden drank until their thirst was completely quenched. A boy played a soothing melody on a Persian flute called a ney while pans of food began to simmer over the campfire.
“Don’t know what it is,” Jayden said, eyeing the cooking dinner, “but I’m more than ready to eat it.”
“Some kind of stew,” Carter surmised. “Looks like chicken, but who knows.” Presently a small girl approached them with both hands joined in front of her. She walked up to them and opened her hands, palms up to reveal six dates. She smiled at them and Crater and Jayden each took three, saying “Thank you.” Carter looked over at the translator who nodded at them without smiling.
“Nice,” Jayden said, popping one of the fruits into his mouth. “This’ll keep us going.”
“Kinda makes me think of the date scene with the monkey in that famous relic hunter movie,” Carter said ominously. Jayden shrugged and popped another of the middle eastern delicacies.
“Chance I’m willing to take at this point. Besides, they’re eating them.” He nodded toward a group of adults who were also snacking on dates being passed out by the girl.
They watched the sun set until it melted into the desert sands. It became cool surprisingly fast, and the wind picked up a touch, nothing like the sandstorm of earlier that day, but adding to the chill. The boy stopped playing the flute when dinner was ready, announced by the banging of a simple hand drum called a doumbek, with either a sharp, piercing tek sound, or else a dull boom.
Jayden was beside the fire before the beating of the drum had ended, while Carter took a more laid-back, sauntering approach. It felt odd to him, this being forcibly detained yet free to interact with the group as though they were invited, if not honored guests. The food was satisfying, though, served on battered metal plates, and there was no shortage of it. Jayden had his plate refilled three times while washing it down with copious amounts of water. There was even a jug of some kind of weak wine that went around, which Carter and Jayden sampled liberally. It was certainly a simple, itinerant existence these people led, Carter reflected, yet they were not wanting for the basics.
By the time an incredibly thick blanket of stars lit the evening sky, the camp was beginning to turn in for the night. Carter observed them watering the camels, goats and sheep, and then adding more wood to the fire, which they apparently kept burning all night. They added a lot of wood, Carter noticed, converting the burn from a cook fire to a small bonfire, sending up a thick column of smoke. Probably helped ward off pests, he thought.
It also became clear that two guards were posted while everyone else slept. Carter wondered if they normally kept guards at all or if they maybe posted two instead of one tonight. They might assume that no Westerner in their right mind would dare to venture out on their own at night. Perhaps they really were only worried about their safety?
Carter’s thoughts were interrupted when the translator walked over to them and informed them that they were to occupy one of the small lean-to shelters—open on one side facing the camp—to sleep for the night. “Works for me,” Jayden said, even more jovial than usual considering the situation, now that his belly was full.
