The horses, he said after considerable thought, were far too delicate to carry a big-boned foreigner.

I had seen them plodding into town with several hundred pounds of rice lashed to their wooden saddles. I hastened to assure him that I had no intention of riding the wretched beasts. I wanted one to carry my pack, a trivial item to say the least, a veritable feather on the back of these fine steeds.

He plucked a piece of grass and chewed it thoughtfully. How were they to know that I wouldn't just steal it, and disappear over the nearby border into China? I imagined myself wandering about the Chinese hinterlands with nothing but a bony stallion. No currency, no language skills, no visa. I pointed out that a foreigner with a horse would leave behind a superhighway of gossip, and that I couldn't "disappear" if my life depended on it.

He thought some more, his eyelids drooping in an effort to focus his concentration. I suspected, uncharitably, that he might be dozing off, if that were physically possible while bent into such an unstable, tendon-snapping squat.

His eyes popped open with a sudden inspiration. Perhaps, he said, he should accompany me as interpreter and guide, as the Hmong horse owner would almost certainly speak no English and would insist on chaperoning his stead on such a hellish trek.

I studied Cham's face. His features were pure lowland Vietnamese and he wore not a shred of native garb. I was willing to wager he spoke no Hmong, nor any other ethnic dialect. Since we were conducting the conversation in Vietnamese, I knew his English was nothing to boast about.

A man wearing such fine clothes, I exclaimed, indicating his wilted T-shirt and tattered shorts, shouldn't stoop to sleeping in mud huts and washing in the river. As much as I aspired to his services as guide and mentor, perhaps he would content himself with a hefty finder's fee and my eternal gratitude.

"You know check?" he asked with unexpected abruptness.

Check. Traveler's check. Chekov. Checkers. Checkmate. I had no idea.

"Check language," he said impatiently.

"No, I don't," I said, feeling a bit caught off guard.

He had apparently spent five years in Czechoslovakia, studying construction and women. He had managed to acquire no less than three girlfriends, all tall, plump and European. They had convinced him that Asians would someday rule the world because, try as he might, he failed to impregnate a single one of them, despite fathering six spanking infants by his Vietnamese wife in as many years. The Western world was dying out, he told me. Their women were barren. In a few generations it would all be over, empty houses and fancy cars with the keys still in the ignition, and the sturdier Asians would simply move in and take up where they left off. He himself had his eye on a fine three-story house in Brno, if all went according to plan, for his grandchildren.

He looked at me with pity, and seemed surprised at my lack of concern.

"Fine," I said, "but what about the horse?"

The market was winding down, the sellers packing their supplies onto lethargic horses and the buyers hurrying home with their new purchases secured to their backs or dangling from their fingers. I was retracing my steps to the guesthouse and a cold shower when I heard an imperative hiss from the corner of a chicken stall. Cham, my Czechoslovakian builder, gestured me urgently into the shadows. I followed, and we huddled like spies exchanging top secret information.

"The horse," he said and nodded impressively.

I didn't know whether to agree or not. "The horse," I said.

The formalities over, he pulled out a rumpled piece of tissue-thin paper with many eraser marks and a few holes. It was a bill, or rather a wish-list for an overly optimistic Hmong. I scanned it and handed it back. He assumed that I hadn't yet acquired the basics of arithmetic and squatted down to walk me through it, line by line.

The horse itself, a virile young stallion, would run me three hundred thousand Dong a day, about fifteen times the going market rate. By comparison, the horse's owner was a bargain at a mere forty thousand Dong. Pound for pound, he was worth less than a third of his steed. My Czech friend however, was a prized commodity, valued at ten strong Hmong men per day or one and a quarter horses. The two companions he had chosen to accompany him would accept no less than a hundred thousand Dong each, plus -- a penciled-in arrow led me to the small print-- thirty cigarettes and a bottle of whisky, per man per day.

Of course, Cham added casually, a few important extras, like food and gratuities, hadn't yet been calculated. He looked at me expectantly.

Yes, I agreed. Food certainly was an important extra.

The list bore an astonishing resemblance to the Saigon Youth Group requirements for my Mekong journey. I re-inspected my young friend. He was even starting to look like Fang. Perhaps they were cousins.

Cham tapped the total impatiently with his index finger to keep me on track. I re-evaluated the list.

"About the horse," I said. Three hundred thousand Dong a day seemed a bit steep. And this virile bit was somewhat disconcerting. What if he should lose himself in the presence of a young filly, and make off with my expensive camera gear?

A mare, he promised quickly. He would procure me a young female. Obedient and pliable, as all members of the gentler sex should be. He gave me a pointed look.

And then, I added, there was the small issue of his salary. Did he really think he was worth more than the horse? How much did he intend to carry?

He snatched back the bill and stared at it for a moment, then motioned for a pen. I found one and handed it to him. He carefully scratched out the two hundred thousand price tag for the horse and wrote in half a million. Then he stuck my pen in his pocket and handed the paper back to me. An ingenious solution.

I could see nothing else wrong with his arithmetic except the extra zero on the end of each number. I stood and wished him a good day. He called after me, insisting that I owed him a finder's fee, since he had spent an entire day writing up the list. I thought for a moment, then offered him a few token bills, but I was off in his estimation by at least two decimal points and so even that negotiation fell through, a victim of incompatible arithmetic and the vagaries of human nature.