Something about hard work in the hot sun surrounded by bloodthirsty, happy people made me feel stronger. By the end of our training session I was spent but relaxed. Sansar-Huu shoved a cold glass of beer in my hands and I gulped it down. I’d really missed cold beer. That seemed to make the carnival setting complete.
“Hey! Cy!” Veronica’s voice gave me a little shiver I was not prepared for. I turned to see her walking toward me. Her smile filled me with something I hadn’t felt in decades.
“Look what Odgerel made for me!” She spun around in a silk deel the color of an orange sunset. The trim was brown fur, and for some reason this made her green eyes sparkle. I was stunned. Ronnie looked lovely in it. Ironic, isn’t it? The deel covered everything. And yet she’d never looked more beautiful.
I pulled her hard against me, kissing her deeply. She responded to my body, and it occurred to me that I might need her deel to cover my arousal. But I couldn’t let go of her lips, her body. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to say no tonight.
Veronica sighed and buried her face in my chest. I just held on to her, afraid to let her go…go where?
“Oh!” She laughed as she finally pushed away. “I forgot to tell you! Arje is here!”
Well, that was a buzz kill. And I wouldn’t need her deel to cover me anymore. “Great,” I managed.
“We’re going to meet him for a drink! Come on!” With a smile that cut right through me, she dashed off into the crowd.
I barely managed to shrug on my deel before I spotted the two of them sitting on a blanket by the tent with the beer.
“Sit down!” Ronnie motioned me toward her.
“Dekker.” I nodded my greeting and extended my hand. I had promised Veronica I would help her, and a simple courtesy was as much as I could do. Besides, the sooner she interviewed him, the sooner I could kill him.
“ Bombay.” Dekker took my hand and shook amiably enough, but there was a deadly caution in his eyes. I couldn’t blame him. Why shouldn’t he be suspicious of me? If he really knew what I was going to do to him in the next two days…
“I told him about my thesis, and Arje agreed to an interview,” Ronnie was saying to me. I pulled myself out of my thoughts of murder and became the nice guy she knew me to be.
“So, Ronnie says you’re a carney?” Dekker asked.
It pissed me off that he used my nickname for her. And it pissed me off that she didn’t mind it.
“Yes. A carney with a strange obsession for fighting methods.” I laughed forcibly. “So what is it you do?” Normally I don’t ask Europeans that. They consider a question like that to be extremely rude. For once, I didn’t mind playing the obnoxious American.
“Oh, I’m in the military…” he answered blithely.
Of course he wouldn’t say he was a bloodthirsty mercenary who had taken the lives of women and children for the highest bidder. The intel I’d had on him mentioned an episode of ethnic cleansing he’d engineered in Africa that involved mutilated mothers and children who had been left to struggle for their next breath as he fled the country to his vacation home in the Bahamas with a suitcase full of euros.
“Really? That’s amazing!” Veronica cried. “I could use a proper military perspective on my thesis.”
I hated that she gushed over him without knowing the monster he truly was. It took everything I had to remain calm and casual on the outside.
“Damn,” Ronnie said. “I wish I’d brought my digital recorder.” Her face brightened. “I could run back and get it!”
I interrupted before she could leave me alone with this bastard. If she did, she’d just find him in pieces when she returned. And I couldn’t have that.
“Let’s just make plans to meet up again,” I said quickly. “I’d like to get back to camp and rest for a bit.” I turned to Dekker. “My zazul’s been working us since we got here. Don’t know about you, man, but I’m too old for this shit.”
Dekker grinned. “I’m right there with you on that, Cy.” He looked at Ronnie, taking her hand in his. “Say tomorrow around noon?” Before I could crush his spine (something my grandmother taught me how to do using my elbow), he bent to kiss her hand and strode off.
“You aren’t jealous, are you?” Veronica asked as we made our way to the camp.
“Of course not,” I answered. But I was. The thought of Dekker speaking intimately to her, touching her, drove me crazy.
“I think you are,” she teased, and took my hand in hers. It was soft and warm. Just like her body that first morning after making love all night. The tension in my shoulders released a bit.
“My shoulder is just bothering me,” I lied. “Zolbin threw me and I think I sprained it.”
Veronica frowned, then looked at my right shoulder. “Oh. Well, I’ll take a look at it when we get back.”
I laughed. “And just what are you looking for? Have you ever seen a sprained shoulder before?”
“No.” She winked. “But I’m sure Odgerel has something involving goat intestines and yak urine that I can put on it to make you feel better.”
I tightened my grip on her fingers. “Oh, I think you can do something better than that.”
“No. I promised Chudruk.”
This caused me to jerk to attention. “Chud? Why did you promise him that?”
“Because he has some money riding on your performance here.”
I looked at her sidelong. “I didn’t think a girl like you approved of gambling.”
“Well, let’s just say I’ve loosened up a bit in the last few weeks.”
“Maybe you could give me a demonstration of how loose you are willing to be?”
She pushed me away. “Not if I want to lose the money I’ve bet on you too.” Veronica laughed and ran toward our group. All I could do was stare. That woman was full of surprises.
Chapter Nineteen
[Dilios is putting a patch over his eye]
Spartan King Leonidas: Dilios, I trust that “scratch” hasn’t made you useless.
Dilios: Hardly, my lord, it’s just an eye. The gods saw fit to grace me with a spare.
– 300
Veronica Gale spent the rest of the day tormenting me with her orange-silk-wrapped body. Odgerel actually did have a paste made of yak urine and some other questionable matter for my shoulder. Ronnie didn’t even wrinkle her nose as she smeared the gunk on my shoulder. To my amazement, it worked.
The two of us wandered through the festival atmosphere of the naadam. Tomorrow the matches would begin, complete with opening pageantry featuring the rich culture of Mongolia. As we made our way through the maze of musicians, dancers, food vendors and people, I realized that I wasn’t feeling homesick. Not that I ever did. But I always had a sense of the fact that I was away from home. To me, home was my trailer. It didn’t matter where it was; that was my home.
Strange as it seemed, whenever Ronnie held my hand, I was transported back to my sense of home. Apparently, a flesh-and-blood woman was taking the place of my sweet, tricked-out RV.
I pondered that idea only briefly. Philosophers, as I’ve mentioned before, have a tendency to overthink things now and then.
The sun was setting and we needed to head back to the campsite. There would be a loud, raucous dinner followed by an all-night party that would not include Zerleg, Zolbin or me. In fact, Yalta insisted that the three of us share a ger during the festival to eliminate any distractions. I had the sneaking suspicion he included Ronnie as a distraction. To her credit, she graciously accepted Odgerel’s invitation to stay with her family. There would be no sex tonight.
It was difficult to sleep with all the noise around us. Okay, it was difficult for me to sleep. The boys passed out immediately and snored like they were dying. I tossed and turned. It was weird to share my living arrangements. Even worse, Sartre was staying with Ronnie. Sansar-Huu’s children were smitten with her. I didn’t even have the comfort of my pig.