“I called Nimmi to help. I thought she would be able to communicate better with the boy and girl.”
“And?”
I tuck a curl behind his ear; it springs back again. “Jay, what’s the reason someone would shear a sheep—halfway—and then sew the hide back on as if it hadn’t been sheared?”
He raises his brows.
“The wounds were under the sheared wool,” I say. “As if the animal had rubbed her raw skin against something abrasive. But how could she possibly have done that when the fleece was mostly still attached?”
“Still attached?”
“Exactly. Like a pocket someone tried to sew back on. The thread had come loose, so the flap of fleece was visible.” I indicate the wound’s size—maybe four inches by five inches—with my hands. “Just about this big.”
Jay puts a hand on my arm. “Who brought the sheep into the clinic?” He says it quietly enough, but something in his tone alarms me.
“Two children. They came across her on a mountain trail while they were gathering firewood.”
“Where’s the sheep now?”
A shiver crawls up my spine. I can tell when he’s trying to make something sound like nothing, like when he has to tell a patient they have cancer. “At the clinic. I asked Nimmi to take care of it.”
“And where is Nimmi at this moment?”
I feel Jay’s hand on my arm tense. Now I’m more afraid than worried. Jay knows something I don’t, and I sense that he’s about to tell me I’ve put Nimmi in some kind of danger.
“At her house, I would imagine, with her children. And the sheep,” I say slowly.
Jay blinks. “You said the wound was only on one side of the animal. Did you check its other side?”
I shake my head.
He covers his mouth with his palm. The look on his face raises goose bumps on my arms.
“Why?” I ask. “What’s happened?”
* * *
When we reach Nimmi’s lean-to at the bottom of the hill, I can see the light of a kerosene lamp through the window. I don’t want to wake her landlords on the floor above hers, so I tap lightly on the door, and Nimmi opens it a moment later. She looks surprised to see us.
She’s carrying Chullu in a homemade sling strapped to her back. Behind her, I see Rekha, sitting on one of the many bolsters lining the walls of the room. She’s eating a chapatti. Rekha sees me, smiles and looks at me as if she’s hoping that I might have brought another book for her to read. I smile back.
Then I hear a bleat. I hadn’t seen that the sheep was in the room as well, sitting on another grass-stuffed bolster, munching on thistle leaves.
Nimmi hasn’t moved from the door. She looks from me to Jay. Baby Chullu regards us over her shoulder.
“Nimmi,” I say, “Dr. Kumar thinks we need to take the sheep.”
“Why?” she says. She sounds annoyed. “She’s better now. She needed food and rest.”
Jay steps forward. “Nimmi,” he says, “the owner must be looking for it. May I check—”
Nimmi steps in front of him to block his way.
“I won’t hurt her, Nimmi. I just need to see if—”
“I’ve already done it.” Her voice is low. She looks down at her feet.
“Done what?”
Now she looks at Jay. A moment passes. “Checked her other side.”
Jay steps back and nods. “And?”
Nimmi finally moves aside to let us in, then pulls the door closed.
When she turns to face us, she says, “Still intact. The gold.” She sighs.
Jay nods, turns to me. He had explained it all to me earlier, before we left the house to see Nimmi. He showed me the article in the paper; more and more gold being smuggled through the mountains.
Nimmi reaches an arm behind her to pat Chullu, more to comfort herself than him, I think. “The gold moves on the same trails as our tribe. Two years ago, a man—a trafficker—told Dev there was a lot of money to be made if he agreed to help the smugglers, but Dev refused.” She steals a glance at me. “I knew, this morning, when I saw the sheep had not been sheared. See, we always shear the sheep when we arrive here, in the foothills, for the winter. That way we can sell the wool before we make the trek back up the mountains in the spring. The tribes already sheared their sheep and left weeks ago to take their herds north for the summer.”
My husband frowns. “Nimmi, it’s not safe for you to have her here. Someone will come looking for her.” He bites his lip and looks at me, then back at Nimmi. “The smugglers won’t stop until they find what’s theirs.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Nimmi turns away from us and squats in front of the wool blanket on which she has collected the family’s few possessions. “They used to sneak it in their shoes, the lining of their coats—gold ingots the size of those candied lemon slices you make.” She flicks another glance my way. “But now they’re using our sheep. Hiding it under their fleece. And for that, they need a shepherd.” She knots the ends of the cloth together tightly and sets the bundle on a padded quilt laid out on the floor. Then she stands and turns to look at us. “I have to go. I have to find his flock—and him. They’ll kill his family if the gold is not delivered.”
I put a hand on Nimmi’s arm. “Find who? Whose family is in danger?”
She turns away, her shoulders tense. I can almost smell her fear. She stares down at the quilt. “My brother. Vinay.”
Now she looks at the sheep quietly munching in the corner. “The markings on her ear. That’s my brother’s flock.”
When she turns to us, I see desperation in her eyes. “I have to find him. The only reason one of his sheep would be running around loose is if Vinay is hurt badly, too. So badly that he can’t move. Or he’s—” She blinks. “His flock must be out there without a shepherd. With all the gold.”
Jay runs a hand through his curls. Then he turns to Nimmi and says, “Could someone else have taken Vinay’s flock?”
My mouth falls open. I hadn’t considered the possibility that bandits might have taken the sheep.
Nimmi’s jaw clenches. “You don’t think that’s occurred to me? My brother has a wife and two sons. If the smugglers think the gold’s been stolen—if it doesn’t get delivered to the people who are waiting for it, they’ll kill everyone in Vinay’s family. They’d kill our entire tribe if they think that one of us knows where the gold is.” She bends down and pulls the knot on her bundle tight.