Imbaba Journal, Camels and Men, All is Changing and Unchanged…Camels raised by different subclans for the trek to the Nile at Aswan and the train to Cairo, each herd sending a representative with them to guard against skulduggery.
-The New York Times, December 18, 1989
Skulduggery, n. Underhand dealing, roguish intrigue. Machination, trickery.
-OED
If Hajj Bashir had sent someone with our dabouka to watch out for skulduggery, who might he have been? Certainly not KhairAllah, for he was our khabeer, our trail boss, our expert, our watcher over men and herd…and watchers themselves need watching. Was it Masood, the goofy one, who reminded me of the Seven Dwarves, with his oversized features on his undersized build covered by a nightgown-looking full length galabiyya.…but no, not Masood, for he couldn’t count past ten, so how was he to know, say, if eleven head were missing from our herd of 150. Maybe Muhammad, the one we called the Miskeen, the Unfortunate, with ragged clothes, always waiting for the cold last fistful from the aseeda bowl…but most likely not, for he was too poor in spirit to watch over even himself. Adam Hamid? Never, for he was of the Hamar tribe and a young hot head no less…a bad one to look over others with different ways. That leaves only Daoud and me, but we were clueless, not recognizing camel skulduggery even if it spoke to us with the voice of the whip, Sawt al-sawT. There was much of everything in those forty days, but no, I saw no skulduggery on the Darb.