Hot Ice

“You might consider shaving, Douglas,” she called out. “I hate my escort to look rangy.”
    He ran a hand over his chin and vowed not to shave for weeks.
    Whitney found it was easier going when the destination was in sight.
    One memorable summer in her early teens she’d stayed on her parents’ estate on Long Island. Her father had developed an acute obsession with the benefits of exercise. Every day that she hadn’t been quick enough to escape, she’d been railroaded into jogging with him. She remembered her determination to keep up with a man twenty-five years her senior, and the trick she’d developed of looking for the stately white dormers of the house. Once she saw them, she could lope ahead, knowing the end was in sight.
    In this case, the destination was only a huddle of buildings adjoining green, green fields and a brown, westward-flowing river. After a day of hiking and a night in a cave, it looked as tidy as New Rochelle to Whitney.
    In the distance, men and women worked in the rice paddies. Forests had been sacrificed for fields. The Malagasy, a practical people, worked diligently to justify the exchange. They were islanders, she remembered, but without the breezy laziness island life often promoted. As she looked at them, Whitney wondered how many had ever seen the sea.
    Cattle, with bored eyes and swishing tails, milled in paddocks. She saw a battered jeep, wheelless, propped on a stone. From somewhere came the monotonous ring of metal against metal.
    Women hung clothes on a line, bright, flowery shirts that contrasted with their plain, workday clothes. Men in baggy pants hoed a long, narrow garden. A few sang as they worked, a tune not so much cheerless as purposeful.
    At their approach, heads turned and work stopped. No one came forward except a skinny black dog who ran in circles in front of them and sent up a clatter.
    East or West, Whitney knew curiosity and suspicion when she saw it. She thought it a pity she wore nothing more cheerful than a shirt and slacks. She cast a look at Doug. With his unshaven face and untidy hair, he looked more like he’d just come from a party—a long one.
    As they drew closer, she made out a smatter of children. Some of the smaller ones were carried on the backs and hips of men and women. In the air was the smell of animal dung and of cooking. She ran a hand over her stomach, scrambling down a hill behind Doug, who had his nose in the guidebook.
    “Do you have to do that now?” she demanded. When he only grunted, she rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring one of those little clip-on lights so you could read in bed.”
    “We’ll pick one up. The Merina are of Asiatic stock— they’re the upper crust of the island. You’d relate to that.”
    “Of course.”
    Ignoring the humor in her voice, he read on. “They have a caste system that separates the nobles from the middle class.”
    “Very sensible.”
    When he shot her a look over the top of the book, Whitney only smiled. “Sensibly,” he returned, “the caste system was abolished by law, but they don’t pay much attention.”
    “It’s a matter of legislating morality. It never seems to work.”
    Refusing to be drawn, Doug glanced up, squinting. The people were drawing together, but it didn’t look like a welcoming committee. According to everything he’d read, the twenty or so tribes or groups of the Malagasy had packed up their spears and bows years ago. Still… he looked back at dozens of dark eyes. He and Whitney would just have to take it one step at a time.
    “How do you think they’ll respond to uninvited guests?” More nervous than she wanted to admit, Whitney tucked her arm into his.
    He’d slid his way without invitation into more places than he could count. “We’ll be charming.” It usually worked.
    “Think you can pull it off?” she asked and strode by him to the flatland at the base of the hill.
    Though Whitney felt uneasy, she continued to walk forward, shoulders back. The crowd grumbled, then parted, making a path for a tall, lean-faced man in a stark black robe over a stiff white shirt. He might have been the leader, the priest, the general, but she knew with only a glance that he was important… and he was displeased with the intrusion.
    He was also six-four if he was an inch. Abandoning pride, Whitney took a step back so that Doug was in front of her.
    “Charm him,” she challenged in a mutter.
    Doug scanned the tall black man with the crowd