‘In Chicago, we call this a “shake-down”,’ Lily muttered. ‘He didn’t try to sell you tickets to a ward ball too, did he?’
Rathmore ignored her and his tone hardened. ‘He was quite distressed that I should have been put to such inconvenience by that man.’ Rathmore pointed an accusing finger at Iskander. ‘And agreed to make amends by outlawing him. Quite right too. Least he could have done. Known troublemaker, everyone agrees. And now an outlaw. I wonder if you’re aware that under Afridi law I could shoot him where he sits, no questions asked?’
The shaft of hatred Iskander directed at Rathmore was more disturbing to Joe than the unsheathing of a dagger but Rathmore seemed comfortably unconcerned.
‘I’d arranged for an armed escort for myself and Miss Coblenz back to Gor Khatri and I have to say I was afraid you might have wrecked my careful arrangements when your rag tag and bobtail outfit rolled into the fort!’
The deep silence that followed this flourish was finally broken by Lily. She looked lazily at Rathmore and addressed the company in her thickest western drawl. ‘Gee! If this were Daddy’s ranch I’d ask Slim and the boys to string this feller up by his balls from the nearest cottonwood tree.’
‘Don’t think those wizened old apricots would take the strain,’ said Grace ambiguously. ‘The river? We could dunk him in the river?’
‘No, an anthill’s what we want,’ said Joe looking round. ‘Isn’t that one over there? If you peg a chap out over one . . .’
‘That takes too long,’ said Iskander. ‘Three days at least. But the sun’s still high. We could slit his eyelids and tie him to a tree facing west. He’d be blind and mad before sunset.’
‘Oh, very funny!’ snarled Rathmore. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones . . .’
‘Okay, then,’ said Joe, ‘sticks and stones it is!’
He jumped to his feet and Rathmore ran for his horse, screaming abuse over his shoulder as he ran. ‘. . . ungrateful! . . . police clod! . . . when I get back to Simla! . . . Johnny Simpkins in the Home Office . . . cut you down to size! . . . pounding the beat in Seven Dials!’
He set off at a gallop heading west for Gor Khatri.
‘All the same,’ said Joe, laughing but rather ashamed of their display, ‘I’d rather he didn’t get too far ahead of us. Lord knows what rubbish he’d put into James’s head if he arrived before us.’
‘Okay. Mount up, folks,’ said Lily and she made her way at Joe’s side over to the horses now tethered in the shade of the thickest tree. She paused, her hand on the bridle, to look up into the branches. ‘Look at that, Joe,’ she said. ‘The bird. You kind of forget in this wilderness that creatures can thrive in the nooks and crannies. What is that?’
Joe looked. A parent bird was balancing precariously on the edge of a nest, thrusting something unspeakable into the throat of its young. He stared and was quiet for a moment. ‘It’s a bloody marvel, that’s what it is! It’s the answer to everything! Oh, sorry, Lily. The bird. Yes, it’s an, er, a lesser-spotted Himalayan mountain thrush. Yes, that’s what it is.’
‘Oh yeah? And you’re a greater-spotted liar bird! What’s up, Joe?’
A second later, she answered her own question. ‘Jeez! I see it too! Oh, but they couldn’t have! Could they? No! Bet they did though! Oh, Joe, we’ve got a few questions to put to certain parties who’ve been pulling our legs and jerking our chain when we get back to the fort!’
Chapter Twenty
James Lindsay reviewed the chaos into which his life, both private and official, had descended with considerable misgiving. From the lookout post above the gates he scanned the distant hills. Joe, his dearest friend, was out there, probably in danger of his life if not already dead. And this was not his problem! Honest Joe! Working so desperately towards doing the wrong thing! Should he have confided in him? James considered for a moment and then decided, in his soldier’s calculating way, that it had probably been worth the risk. But where had it left them? It had left them with Joe running the risk. Thinly – very thinly disguised as a Scout, he was in a situation where, if he was discovered, he would be instantly executed as a ferenghi. And all in an effort to extricate Lily. Unreliable Lily! Lily on whom the only reliance that could be placed was that she would say or do the wrong thing, be in the wrong place and, if she could find a way to do so, enter the wrong room in the wrong clothes at the wrong time. He contemplated Lily and shuddered.
And as if that weren’t enough, James acknowledged that he had an abiding problem with Iskander! Enigmatic, a subtle plotter and – whatever else – a major player in the unravelling of the cat’s-cradle into which local politics seemed to have descended.