Caravans Read Online Free Page B

sun rushed toward some rendezvous in Persia, to the west; for then the normal drabness of the miserable mud homes was masked in snow, and the solitary figures with carbines who moved across the empty fields outside of town bore an epic quality which captivated the eye. No stranger, at such a moment, could forget that he was in Asia.
    Shah Khan lived well to the west, in a forbidding fortress hidden behind massive surrounding walls at least fifteen feet high. It must have required the forced labor of hundreds of convicts for many months to build the walls alone, for they enclosed many acres. This redoubtable establishment, complete with turrets and its own minaret, lay in the shadow of the beautiful Koh-i-Baba mountains, which were now snow-covered, reminding the foreigner that during the winter this city was practically inaccessible, unless one wished to risk his life on sloping mountain passes where each year many trucks were lost.
    At the fortress gate through which one entered to visit Shah Khan there hung a bell cord, at which Nur Muhammad tugged vigorously, sending anecho through the frosty air. Normally the heavy gate would have been operated by some superannuated warrior who had served the owner in his youth, but when Nur yanked the cord a second time I thought I heard the pounding of horse’ hoofs. Then, instead of the miserly half-inch through which the guards customarily peered at intending visitors, the gates weré slammed violently open and a handsome man of thirty-six, astride a pawing white horse, greeted us.
    “Mark Miller! Enter!” he cried in English. He was Moheb Khan, son of the Shah, educated at Oxford and at the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce. He held a responsible position in the Foreign Office, but on this day was affecting the dress of a prosperous mountain man, for he wore sheepskin trousers, an expensive embroidered vest, a long Russian-style fur coat, and a silver-gray karakul cap. He was clean-shaven, sharp-eyed and urbane, the educated Afghan at his best. I had talked with Moheb Khan several times before and had found him sophisticated in learning, dignified in bearing, and arrogant in judgment. He was tall and slim, with a large head marked by wavy black hair in which he took special pride. I respected him as one of the cleverest men I knew.
    Whenever I was with Moheb I appreciated anew the fact that the future history of Afghanistan, if left to Afghans, would be determined by the struggle between the many bearded mullahs from the hills and the few young experts like Moheb, with degrees from Oxford or the Sorbonne or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I was not at all sure how the contest would eventuate,but it was clear that not only I but also all the people of all the embassies prayed that Moheb Khan and his young associates might win.
    “Where’d you get the horse?” I asked, walking into the great compound, which in the nineteenth century had housed thousands of men during the frequent sieges.
    “Look at the brand!” he cried, reaching down to shake my hand. “Pardon the glove,” he added, “but I’m afraid to drop the reins.”
    He pointed to the horse’s left flank, where a scrawling W had been burned deep into the hair and skin.
    “I don’t get it,” I said.
    “Think, Miller!”
    “W,” I repeated aloud. “I don’t know any ranch with that brand.”
    “It’s sentimental!” Moheb laughed. “Think! Think!”
    I could not guess what the cryptic brand was intended to signify, and when Nur Muhammad edged the jeep into the compound, the horse shied and darted off across the snowy plain—it would be ridiculous to call that huge expanse of land a garden—and I could well observe the fine horsemanship that Moheb Khan exhibited.
    He brought the dashing animal back to the jeep, to familiarize the horse with the sound of a motor car, then leaped with agility to the ground beside me and cupped his hands near my right knee, all in one marvelously synchronized