Dragon Bones

by Lisa See

  With the limited scope of questions on which Hulan had insisted, the two officers had been able to get through twenty employees, most of whom were on the day shift and hadn’t arrived until this morning. None of this first group had ever observed Lily Sinclair in an argument. None of them had seen or heard anything near her room. Three people had caught sight of her in town last night. No one admitted to being an All-Patriotic Society convert, but then, Hulan hadn’t expected that anyone would at this point.

  “We’ve had a good beginning together,” she announced to the room. “If Officer Su or Officer Ge has already spoken to you, you may go. I may still call on some of you individually.”

  Hom leapt to his feet. Before he could voice his objections, Hulan continued, “Captain Hom will preside over the rest of the interviews. You must be as honest with him and Officer Ge as you would be with me in Beijing.” The thinly veiled threat was met by sullen silence. “Officer Su, please come with me.” With that she and Su left the room.

  Hom was right behind her, though. “You can’t dismiss those people!”

  She turned to face him, trying to keep hold of her temper. “You will not tell me what to do. You will not tell me how to run an investigation. If you do, you will become the subject of my interest. Do you understand?”

  Hom’s face bloated in ill-disguised anger.

  “I’m going to Site 518,” she went on. “Officer Su will drive me. You will stay here and arrange round-the-clock guards for the guesthouse and Site 518. We will not have a repeat of what happened to Miss Sinclair.”

  David left the vultures’ cave and approached a group of day workers, who told him that they came to the dig in the morning, left in the evening, and got paid once a week.

  What happened if someone unearthed an artifact?

  “We are told to call for Dr. Ma, and he comes.” The man who spoke was so thin that his belt was wrapped twice around his waist. “Then the others arrive, and they all work together.”

  Was anyone ever alone with objects that were found in the ground?

  “This is a big place, but there are many people and eyes everywhere.”

  What about at night?

  “Everyone goes home.”

  A man with a shorn head added, “Except for Dr. Ma.”

  “And the vultures,” someone else called out from within the gathering. “They also sleep here, but they are good men.”

  This was met with murmurs of agreement.

  David backtracked. “You’re treated well?”

  Someone else in the crowd spoke up. “We are peasants. We move dirt here, we move dirt on our farms, no difference.”

  “Do any of you remember Brian McCarthy, the American?”

  “He drowned.”

  “We tell the foreigners to be careful of the river.”

  “Did he steal things from Site 518?” David asked. He felt a subtle shift from curiosity to wariness. “What was he interested in, can anyone tell me?” The workers began drifting away. David called out after the retreating backs, “What about the other accidents? Your friends Wu, Yun, Sun, and the others?” But by now he stood alone in the mud and rain of Site 518.

  The difference between the day workers and the Chinese graduate students was that the latter were smart enough not to answer any of his questions, so David marched back up to the museum representatives’ cave, where he was greeted with more shots of mao tai. The vultures’ tongues loosened, and they began to gossip about Michael Quon, the wealthy American. He’d traveled to many important sites—to the Xia palace at Erlitou, to the Neolithic settlement of Banpo, to Xi’an for the terra-cotta warriors, and to Zhoukoudian, where Peking Man was found. But the question on all of the vultures’ minds was, Were all Americans as rich as Michael Quon? Were they all able to travel freely like some modern-day Da Yu? They agreed they must be, because Miller and his daughter were also rich.

  “But Miss Miller works here,” Li Guo pointed out to his companions.

  “And we’re grateful for it!” Hu practically hooted.

  “Hu misses his wife,” Li explained. “We tell him you can look, but we need to care for Miss Miller, because she’s the smartest of all of the foreigners.”

  “Smartest?” David asked.

  The vultures nodded enthusiastically but said they admired Dr. Strong more than anyone else on the site. “He once knew more about our ancient cultures than anyone alive. Even now you can hear him say important things if you have patience.”

  They’d liked Brian too. At the beginning of last summer, he’d talked to the vultures a lot, then he’d gotten into hiking with Michael Quon. The two of them explored caves, and the vultures remembered Brian coming back one day and announcing that the caves were “like a mother,” although they had no idea what he was talking about.

  “But he was different when he returned this year,” said Hu. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, he only wanted to talk to Dr. Strong or Professor Schmidt,” Li admitted.

  “What about?” David asked.

  “Dragon bones—ancient oracle bones used for divination,” Li answered, again revealing his hidden expertise. “For hundreds of years during the Qing Dynasty, the farmers along the Yellow River who dug them up believed them to be the bones of dragons and sold them to doctors who ground them up for traditional Chinese medicine. Then about a hundred years ago scholars realized that the markings on them were actually ancient writing, dating back thousands of years. Many people—including Dr. Strong—spent years trying to decipher the meaning.”

  Since that time, five thousand characters had been identified on oracle bones, of which half had been deciphered, with half of those proving to be directly connected to contemporary language. This was the first step in demonstrating that China had the oldest continuously used language in the world while establishing that the lists of the Shang emperors found in ancient texts were accurate. Those emperors were not mythical. They were actual men.

  So what had sparked Brian’s interest in dragon bones?

  “The boy had become interested in symbols and language, which is why he wanted to talk to only Schmidt and Strong,” Li answered. “He was particularly curious about the Xia culture of the Yellow River.”

  Why?

  “Because in draining the world of floods, Da Yu created arable land. He taught the people how to farm and raise animals. He taught them rituals of divination and sacrifice. We believe Yu was the beginning of what today we would call civilization.”

  “But why was Brian so curious about the Xia if they lived on the Yellow River?” David asked.

  The vultures didn’t know.

  By the time Hulan arrived at the site, David was more than a little drunk. The vultures were his comrades now, and they patted him on the back and shook his hand and made a few more off-color remarks before sending him away with Hulan with the admonition that “strong branches tremble when the petals shake.”

  David’s wife was not amused.

  DAVID AND HULAN WALKED THROUGH THE RAIN ALONG THE TRAIL toward the Wu house. “I’ve been thinking about Lily’s mutilations,” David said, “and wondering if they’re purely unique to this killer or have some specific reason behind them—say punishment for Wu Huadong’s drowning.”

  “Ma said Lily couldn’t have been involved in Wu’s death.” Hulan dodged a puddle, then edged back next to David.

  “But what if the scholars’ teasing accusations that Lily sent Wu to look for the tripod in the whirlpool turned out to be true?” David adjusted the satchel strap on his shoulder. “What if Brian and Lily were both responsible? Someone out there could be sending a very potent message, only no one’s understanding it.”

  “Actually, David, I understand it quite well. The All-Patriotic Society lieutenant said the group would make me pay for killing that woman in Tiananmen Square. The best punishment would be to discredit me by proving that I’m incompetent.”

  He was astounded by the leap her mind had made. “Why? And how?”
r />   “Lily died on my watch.”

  He stopped. “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Hulan, honey”—he tried to sound reasonable—“I don’t think anyone around here knows that happened.”

  “Because they don’t have television? They do have an All-Patriotic Society chapter. You’ve seen the signs in town, haven’t you? Word travels.”

  “But you said yourself that what was done to Lily was completely unlike anything you’d seen before. That blood coating—”

  “Exactly! The mother in the square was going to cut off her daughter’s hand. Now Lily’s feet are amputated. The smearing of the blood is a literal message to me—that the cult is holding me responsible for the bloodshed.”

  “If that’s so, then what about Brian? The modus operandi appears completely different—from the way Brian and Lily were killed to the way their bodies were disposed of—but as you told everyone in the guesthouse, their deaths were not random acts. Do you really think there could be more than one murderer in Bashan killing foreigners?”

  She slogged through another puddle, listening.

  “If you accept that fact, then Lily’s death can’t have anything to do with what happened in Beijing,” David continued, “because Brian was killed long before you ever knew about that rally, probably before it was even planned. What ties Brian and Lily together is Site 518. When we find their killer, you’ll see that this will boil down to greed—the theft of artifacts, not some larger conspiracy involving you and the All-Patriotic Society.”

  He had hoped his analysis would convince her, but she said, “I still think the link is the cult.” She could be so stubborn.

  “Can we both keep open minds until we get more facts?” he asked. “We’ll know a lot more after Pathologist Fong does his autopsy. When will he get here?”

  “Soon. I have him flying in by helicopter. I’ll meet with him when we get back to the guesthouse.”

  There she was again purposefully pushing David away from her inquiries. Maybe if he got her more involved with his, she’d be more open to accepting his help. They didn’t have much time before they reached the Wu property, so he quickly filled her in on what he’d learned at the dig. When he finished, Hulan asked the question that had been gnawing at David. “But why didn’t Ma or Ho tell you this before? Surely they knew about the auction.”

  “They had to know,” he agreed. They talked a little longer but came no closer to an explanation; then David said, “I think I should go to Hong Kong tomorrow and try to block the auction of the ruyi and whatever other Site 518 artifacts are set to go on the block.”

  “Fong ought to be done with his examination by then. You could fly down to Wuhan in the helicopter with him, then catch a plane to Hong Kong,” Hulan offered helpfully. It seemed a logical and simple plan.

  They arrived at the clearing where the Wu house stood. If anything, it looked more desolate than yesterday. Rain poured off the roof and ran across the barren land and over the precipice to the river below. A rocky outcropping hung out over the house; just under the ledge a giant boulder seemed ready to dislodge itself and crush everything below it. On either side of the house were natural stone formations that resembled Grecian columns, only where the friezes and cornices might have been were two large stones smoothed by aeons of wind and rain.

  Hulan knocked on the door and called out, “Wu Xiansheng, Wu Taitai.” They heard movement inside and a grating sound. The door opened slightly, and a thin-faced woman peeked out.

  “Wei?”

  “Wo jiao Liu Hulan. Zhe shi Stark Lushi,” Hulan explained, pointing first to herself and then to David. “We want to talk to you about your husband.”

  The door closed, and David and Hulan waited in the rain. Low, agitated voices, then the door opened again, revealing an older man, his eyes filmy white with blindness.

  “I’m from the Ministry of Public Security,” Hulan said. “I’ve brought a foreigner with me. We’ve come from Beijing to speak with you.”

  The man waved them inside, closed the door behind them, and felt his way to setting a rough-hewn piece of wood horizontally into two brackets that sat on either side of the frame. The young woman—the widow of the man who’d drowned—stood barefoot in the center of the room, her sleeping baby wrapped in a sling against her chest. Hulan edged forward to get a look at the infant, but the widow covered her baby’s face and backed away. Superstition and suspicion went hand in hand in the countryside.

  The man barked at the woman to bring tea. She stared at him dully. These people didn’t have enough money for tea leaves.

  “On a day such as this, a cup of hot water would be nice,” Hulan commented, keeping both sympathy and condescension from her voice. Without a word the woman picked up a thermos, poured hot water into three grimy jars, and handed them around. Then she backed away and stood against the wall. Her feet and arms were filthy; her clothes were heavily mended rags.

  “Wu Huadong was my son,” the blind man spoke out into the room. “I am Wu Peng.”

  Wu’s Sichuan accent was so thick that David could barely understand the words, so he surreptitiously tried to take in the surroundings. The room was larger than it looked from the outside because the back wall and part of the sides of the room were carved out of limestone rock faces. Two low sleeping platforms lay against the walls. A hutch had been constructed from three scavenged crates that were tucked into an alcove, which had also been chiseled out of the mountain. A piece of dingy cloth hung from the top crate down to the hard-packed earth floor, hiding what was inside. A homemade table sat against the wall. A clothesline had been strung kitty-corner across the room, and the baby’s clothes were drying, contributing greatly to the eye-stinging odor that combined urine, spit-up, and mildew. Lack of air circulation caused by no windows and the locked door exacerbated the stench.

  David had been in other peasant homes, but he’d never seen anything like this. Even if the poor couldn’t afford glass windows, they left an open space for ventilation, which was sealed in the winter by newspapers. In the middle of summer, he would have expected to see the door open at the very least. Yet not only was it closed but a substantial barrier had been laid across it to prevent entry. Looking around, though, David saw nothing that could be of any value—no mementos, decorations, or personal belongings other than one eight-by-ten-inch piece of paper with Chinese characters that had been jabbed onto a nail. There wasn’t even a simple altar to commemorate the dead husband and son.

  “People say your son’s death was an accident,” Hulan said as David began to follow the conversation.

  “How can it be an accident?” Wu was wiry, and his face was as cragged and worn as the cliffs outside. “Our family has lived on this ground for many centuries. My son was born here and knew every rock of the land. How could he fall into the river?”

  “If not an accident, what do you think happened?”

  “There are evils to be guarded against,” Wu stated.

  Hulan stiffened. David understood the words but was unsure of his wife’s reaction.

  “Lust comes in many forms,” Wu went on. “For a woman. For money. For power. My son worked for a greater good, but he was deceived.”

  “By Xiao Da?” Hulan asked.

  Little Big, the leader of the All-Patriotic Society, the man whom Hulan held in such contempt. After the conversation David and Hulan had just had, he tried to listen more closely.

  “Not by Xiao Da,” Wu corrected. “By others who wish to rip our country from our hands.”

  “Such as?”

  Wu sneered. “The yang guizi.”

  David had no trouble understanding those words. He’d heard them shouted at him on the street many times. Foreign devil. Hulan didn’t even look his way but addressed Wu in the same tone that provoked confession even from the innocent.

  “You are loose-tongued, yet you say nothing. You make general accusations, yet you tell me nothing to help me with your son.” She stood. �
��I shall report to Beijing that there is nothing to learn here.”

  David had been alarmed by a lot of things Hulan had said and done today, but he was unprepared for the cold way she was suddenly treating the old man.

  Wu Huadong’s widow crept forward and whispered shyly, “Please, Miss, don’t go. Excuse my father-in-law. His heart is clouded by sorrow. Please.”

  The woman eased back against the wall and lowered her head. When Wu said nothing, Hulan took a step. Hearing her, the old man held out a sinewy arm to block her path.

  “My son worked at Site 518,” he said.

  “This is common knowledge,” Hulan replied sternly. “Say something meaningful or get out of my way.”

  “He did special work for someone there. I don’t know who, but it was a foreigner.”

  Hulan sat down. “A man or a woman? American? English?”

  Wu’s milky eyes blinked. He turned his head from side to side, trying to find her through sound. “A foreigner is trouble no matter what it has between its legs or from what corrupt soil it emerges. Huadong often went to meet this person. That last morning he held his hand out to me. ‘From the fist of the past to my fist to the fist of the future.’”

  “What did he mean?”

  “He said he wanted to bring something from the earth and give it back to our country. It would show the world our strength.”

  “Your family’s?”

  Wu drank from his jar, then said, “Family pride, country pride, same thing.”

  “Pride brings loss, humility receives blessings,” Hulan recited in response.

  “We are humble, but we are not so blessed,” Wu countered.

  “You speak then of our homeland.”

  “For centuries our China has been invaded by the foreign element. They have come up our great river. They have stolen from us. Now, even outside our borders, they insult and betray us. The bombing of the embassy—”

  “Uncle Wu,” she interrupted him, “you know much, yet you are far removed from the course of the world.”

  “The river’s course is all that matters.”

  Hulan suddenly shifted direction. “Where will you move when the dam is finished?”