With his good arm, Sakat Ali drew a knife from his sash. “You thought you won, didn’t you?” he whispered. He had followed Kamil out of the monastery and almost been discovered when that fool Omar arrived. But Sakat Ali was clever and remained undiscovered, even after the pasha had shot the Akrep commander without provocation.
Killing Kamil now would be nothing more than executing a treasonous murderer. That is, if Vahid had died.
90
They finished burying their dead, including Yedo and five of his cousins. The body of Sakat Ali had been found that morning in the stable, his throat apparently cut by his own knife, still clutched in his hand.
Omar told Kamil that he had heard Sakat Ali approach him in the night. “I took him outside for a little talk before he said good night. As we suspected, he was an Akrep agent. He followed you to Karakaya and saw you shoot Vahid.” Omar looked at Kamil appreciatively. “At first he thought Vahid was dead, but regrettably he wasn’t. Looks like you blew off part of his right hand, though. Our spy fixed his boss up and hired someone to take him to Trabzon, then came back here to kill you. And that was his last assignment.”
“Thank you.” Kamil found the words inadequate for the immensity of saving his life.
“Vahid might die on the way, but I don’t see it. The devil has a thousand lives.”
A priest from among the refugees said a prayer for the dead. Vera placed a bouquet of meadow hyacinths on Gabriel’s grave, one of a long row marked only with piles of stones. Then they focused on organizing the living.
Kamil set out at the head of the column of close to two hundred frightened and desperate men, women, and children who had no homes to return to. They passed the Kurdish corpses by the side of the road. Mothers hid their children’s faces in their skirts.
Rapids from the early-spring melt had made the river unnavigable and cut off the road to Rize on the coast, closer to them than Trabzon. Levon and his men rode ahead of the train of refugees, checking the road and forest for ambushes and foraging for food and supplies to feed the mass of fleeing people who had once been their neighbors. Omar and the remaining soldiers brought up the rear, making sure no one was left behind. In this manner, they plodded through the mountains. Kamil sent one of his men ahead to alert the governor of Trabzon that they would need food and shelter when they arrived. He wondered whether Vahid had arrived alive or whether they would pass his carcass on the road.
The road followed the river until the flat land gave out and they were forced to climb the hills along narrow paths, passing through ravaged villages blazing with rare yellow rhododendrons. Their numbers swelled as they moved through the valley and survivors from isolated communities joined the refugees. Most of them either had relatives in Trabzon or wished to escape the province on one of the ships in the harbor.
The journey to Trabzon was long and miserable. Although the end of March, it was still winter in the mountains. Winds ripped through the gorges, and clouds settled so low that they drenched the skin. Days were warm as long as the sun shone, but then they were plagued by swarms of biting insects. At night the temperature plummeted, and people built small fires or dug themselves into the forest loam for warmth. Children whimpered in fear as wolves howled and jackals yipped on the hillsides. Levon’s men occasionally brought sacks of clothing and boots that they distributed. Kamil assumed they had gathered them from abandoned villages along the way. There was no sign of the Kurds. Were they not willing to fight without Vahid?
When the refugees reached the town of Ispir, the mayor put them up in homes and stables, and the town’s women baked bread almost continually. The mayor insisted on billeting Kamil with his own family.
Some of the refugees who had relatives in Ispir decided to stay, but after a few days it became clear that the town couldn’t sustain its generosity toward the rest. The townspeople were running short of food, and tempers flared. Kamil ordered those who wished to go on to Trabzon to resume their march through the mountains.
Levon’s men hunted wild boar, goat, and deer, which they roasted and then distributed among the refugees, along with bread and leather sacks of salted olives, cheese, dried fruit, and whatever they could forage. Fish were plentiful in the river and easy to catch in nets. Still, it wasn’t enough for the enormous number of refugees as others joined the column. Fights broke out.
Elif, Alicia, Vera, and others rode back and forth along the long line, handing out food and looking for stragglers, people who were too weak to go on. When the terrain allowed, they used carts to transport the old and ill, but some of the passes through the mountains were too narrow or too steep and treacherous, and they had to be carried on donkeys or on people’s backs. At times they waded through mud up to their knees. The rocky terrain destroyed the horses’ shoes, and some of the animals fell lame and had to be left behind. Omar had insisted on walking with his stick, in order to free up transport for others. But after two weeks on the road he fell ever more behind.
“You’re too proud to be seen on a donkey?” Kamil taunted him.
“I’m too proud to throw an old woman off a donkey so I can get on,” Omar retorted, sitting on a rock by the side of the road. His face was red and sweating, and the bandage around his leg was crusted with blood. “Just leave me here.”
“You’d rather die here?”
“Why not? It’s as good a place as any.” He looked around. “The sweet smell of pine, the sun on my face.” He grinned, but Kamil saw the effort behind it.
“It’s not very heroic after all you’ve been through to die at the side of the road like a hare that’s been hit by a cart.”
Omar frowned and focused on a woman sitting in a patch of vivid blue hyacinths breast-feeding her infant. She had deep circles under her eyes and the blank look of exhaustion. “My definition of heroism has undergone some revision.”
“As you like, you stubborn, selfish old mule, but think about your wife and Avi. Don’t you have some responsibility to them? You’re just too lazy to live.” Kamil stalked off.
There was plenty of water. It fell in sheets from the side of the mountain, surged in the rivers, and trickled in streams amid the stones. But the mass of people made sanitation a problem, and some became ill with diarrhea. When Victor fell ill, Alicia tied him to his horse so he wouldn’t fall off and stayed by his side. Omar rode on a donkey, up front where Kamil could keep an eye on him. When he became delirious, he too had to be tied to his mount. Too ornery to die, Kamil hoped, casting anxious glances at his friend’s slumped form.
It took them almost a month to get to Trabzon. The road behind them was studded with fresh graves, particularly toward the end of their journey. One of them was Victor’s. Another belonged to Siranoush Ana. Her daughter had carried her mother’s body on her back for five days before they convinced her to allow Siranoush Ana to be buried. At each burial, one of the surviving priests said prayers and they erected a wooden cross, hastily carved with the deceased’s name. At Siranoush Ana’s burial, the grim-faced Levon had cried like a baby.
The following afternoon, they passed through a meadow where hundreds of tiny yellow blooms had forced their way through the sheet of snow. Kamil rode off alone and dismounted on the pretext of examining the flowers-marsh marigolds, tiny goblets of sunlight. He picked one of the flowers and wrapped it in his handkerchief, then placed it inside his coat alongside the dead soldiers’ documents. He walked far enough away that no one could see his shoulders heave or hear his sobs.
When the minarets and church towers of Trabzon were in sight, a roar went up among the refugees and people began to push forward. Levon rode up next to Kamil and, pressing his fist against his heart in a gesture of friendship, met Kamil’s eyes. Kamil nodded his head in acknowledgment. Levon spurred his horse around and, together with his men, melted into the forest. Kamil wondered whether they would go back to their land or stay in the forest as outlaws. They had a thousand guns after all. He wished them well.