Phoenix

by Jeff Stone

  I scratched my head. “Um, I think so,” I said into the telephone. “I’ll have to ask, though.”

  “Great!” Dr. V said. “When you find somebody, you can give your temporary guardian’s name to my travel agent when she calls you in the morning. As long as that person has a passport, we’ll take care of the rest. I don’t imagine that your relative will want to stay in our training facility, so we’ll figure out something else. Perhaps a couple nights in Austin, then a week in Los Angeles or New York. I will pick up the cost for everything, of course.”

  “That is very generous.”

  “What is the point of having money if you don’t get to spend it? I have a cyclocross team, but I bought Ryan a twelve-thousand-dollar mountain bike to ride at a single race in Indiana. The least I can do is spend a few thousand dollars to get you here. From what I understand, you make Ryan look like a tortoise, and he’s no slouch. I enjoy spoiling my riders and their families. I should probably get off the phone now and get started on this. Do you have any questions?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

  “Thank you, Phoenix. I’ll see you at the ranch. Bye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Dr. V hung up.

  “Woo-hoo!” Hú Dié shouted. “Is the ranch near Austin?”

  I hung up the phone and looked at her. “Yeah, why?”

  “Austin is where Lance Armstrong lives! He even has a bike shop downtown! I’ve always wanted to go there!”

  “You think you’re going to be my guardian? I assumed you had a cousin you could loan me.”

  “No way. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  “But you’re only fourteen.”

  “Says who? Let me show you something.”

  Hú Dié headed over to the counter that separated the shop’s retail space from the fabrication area. She cleared everything off the countertop, then took hold of one end. “Grab the other end,” she said. “Help me lift it off. It’s not attached.”

  I helped her, and we set the countertop on the floor. The counter’s base was hollow. Inside was a long, narrow machine unlike any I’d ever seen. “What is it?” I asked.

  “A printing press,” Hú Dié said proudly. “It’s an antique. I carve custom printing plates for it out of metal.”

  I remembered what Grandmaster Long said about Hú Dié’s shop selling more than bikes, and PawPaw’s questions and comments about her family. My face turned to stone.

  “You forge passports as well as bikes?” I said. “That’s nothing to be proud of.”

  “Do you want to go to Texas or not?”

  I ground my teeth. “Yes.”

  “Then stop being so righteous. What was it you said earlier? Oh, yeah—shut up and ride.”

  Hú Dié’s passport-forging skills seemed to be as good as her bike-forging skills. A day and a half after calling Dr. V, I found myself sitting ten rows behind “Cousin” Hú Dié on a flight to Austin, Texas. She certainly knew how to get her way. She even had a better seat than I did.

  After getting our travel papers from Dr. V’s people, we began our journey with an hour-long bus ride from the station in Kaifeng to the city of Zhengzhou. From Zhengzhou we flew to Beijing, and from Beijing we flew to Los Angeles, crossing over the international date line and screwing up my sense of day and night once more. Now we were headed to Austin, but it was just a few hours on the local clock after we’d left China. It was all so confusing.

  At least having Hú Dié act as my legal guardian made sense. U.S. Customs had been a breeze when we arrived in Los Angeles, and there should be no reason anyone in Austin would question us, as this was a domestic flight. I hated to admit it, but it was a good idea having her come along.

  The official plan was for Hú Dié to go all the way to the ranch with me for a quick tour; then she would be driven to Austin, where she would spend some time. From there, she was to fly to Los Angeles for a week before heading back to China. Unofficially, however, she and I were planning to do everything possible to have her remain at the ranch. Our goal was to persuade Dr. V to bring her onto the team as an unpaid mechanic’s apprentice for her ninety-day travel visa. She would work on the team’s cutting-edge bikes until we could run off with the dragon bone.

  If the dragon bone wasn’t there, I planned to head back to Indiana as soon as possible. Hú Dié could stay with the team if she was having a good time. After seeing Hú Dié in action the past few days, I had no doubt that she would weasel her way onto Team Vanderhausen.

  I glanced up the aisle at her, still finding it difficult to believe that it was really Hú Dié. Before we left, she’d put on makeup and styled her hair forward so that it hid most of her face. Delicate white gloves covered her grease-stained fingers, and her toenails were painted. She wore heeled sandals and a summer dress that made her look like a well-to-do young woman traveling on holiday. She easily looked the eighteen years her passport claimed, and no one challenged her.

  Additionally, as we traveled through China, Hú Dié had spoken with firm authority, bossing ticket takers and flight attendants around so much that they left her alone. Now that we were in the United States, she’d gone completely silent, acting as if she knew no English and flashing her brilliant smile every five seconds. People left her alone now, too, but they did so with a polite courtesy that made me want to scream. If they only knew what she was really like.

  Before leaving China, I told Hú Dié about Ryan and Jake. I was bothered by the way Ryan had acted toward me the last time I saw him, but she told me to get over it. She said I couldn’t change someone’s behavior; only they could change it, so worrying about why someone changed was pointless. All I could do was accept things as they were now and move forward. In some ways, she sounded like Grandfather.

  I closed my eyes and leaned back in my seat. I couldn’t stop thinking about Grandfather. I had spoken with him twice, and he’d insisted he was fine. He claimed he’d moved into the nursing home only as a precaution. However, I also spoke with my uncle, who told me a different story. Grandfather had attempted to decrease the amount of dragon bone he took each day in order to make his tiny supply last longer, but his body wasn’t handling it well. Uncle Tí had been frantically searching for potential treatments for Grandfather, but so far he’d found nothing.

  I hoped I was doing the right thing in flying to Austin. If Dr. V wasn’t involved in this, I would be wasting a huge amount of time. However, while Dr. V had never given me a reason to distrust him, Hú Dié had said she could tell by his voice when she had listened in earlier that he had been lying or at least misleading me. If anyone knew about misleading people, it was Hú Dié. Maybe Dr. V was behind it, after all. Either way, Hú Dié and I would have to be very careful around him, and assume he knew exactly why I’d suddenly changed my mind and decided to join him at the ranch.

  I ran my hands through my hair. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought regardless of Dr. V’s guilt or innocence, if Grandfather were to slip away without my having said goodbye, I would hate myself forever.

  I woke when the plane touched down in Austin. I checked my watch. It was 11:30 a.m. local time on Saturday—one full week since Lin Tan and Meathead had broken into our home. Time was going by so fast.

  Hú Dié and I departed the plane and headed to the baggage claim. As we approached it, I saw a tall, wiry man wearing jeans and a T-shirt, along with scuffed cowboy boots and a straw cowboy hat. His leathery face was nearly as creased as PawPaw’s, though he was probably only forty years old. He held a small sign that read TEAM VANDERHAUSEN.

  I turned to Hú Dié. “That’s us.”

  She didn’t reply. She just smiled. Apparently, she was still deep into her role of “pretty but linguistically challenged young Chinese woman.” I fought the urge to punch her in the arm and looked back at the guy with the sign.

  “Phoenix and his cousin?” the man drawled in a Southern accent.

  I nodded.

  “Name’s Murphy,” he s
aid. “I work for Dr. V. Y’all come with me.”

  We retrieved our luggage. I had my backpack and carry-on duffel bag, while Hú Dié had two large suitcases plus a carry-on. I didn’t know what she had in the suitcases, but judging by the extra fees billed to the team for those bags being too heavy, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was tools. Murphy helped her, and though he was thin, he was strong as a mule. He didn’t even flinch under the weight of the bags.

  We walked outside, stepping into a wall of dry Texas heat. I was wearing a T-shirt and cargo shorts, and my arms, legs, and face suddenly felt as if I’d leaned too close to a campfire. How could anyone live here?

  Murphy led us to a large black SUV parked in the garage across the street, and Hú Dié and I climbed into the backseat. I was already soaked with sweat. Murphy loaded our luggage into the back, grunting softly under the weight of Hú Dié’s suitcases, and he climbed into the driver’s seat. He sent a short text message with his cell phone, and then we pulled out of the airport.

  The city of Austin was in the distance, and Hú Dié stared longingly out the tinted rear windows as though willing the vehicle to exit the highway and head toward the skyscrapers downtown and the famous bike shop in their shadows. That didn’t happen.

  We headed west, and I watched as the landscape changed from typical American cityscape to something out of a surreal movie. Concrete gave way to parched, cracked soil and sagebrush, and the surrounding flatlands rose steadily in the distance. We were about to enter the famous Texas Hill Country.

  As we passed over the first hill, civilization thinned, replaced by thousand-acre ranches bordered by miles of nearly invisible barbed-wire fencing. The hills ebbed and flowed around us in smooth arcs. Sparse patches of thorny bushes and stubby trees dotted the landscape, connected by alternating fields of huge boulders and dry, stunted grass. My pulse began to quicken. The farther we went, the more excited I felt. Despite the heat, I realized I would give almost anything for a chance to rip through those hilly fields on a mountain bike. As much as I hated the thought, I might have to break down and ask permission to borrow Ryan’s.

  About twenty minutes later, we veered southwest. The outside temperature gauge on the dashboard read ninety-nine degrees Fahrenheit.

  The SUV stopped abruptly before a gated ranch road that looked like all the other gated ranch roads we had passed. Murphy got out and punched a code into a keypad, and the gate opened.

  I leaned over to Hú Dié and whispered, “Did you get the digits?”

  “No,” she replied. “His body was blocking the keypad.”

  “I couldn’t see it, either,” I said. “Too bad.”

  Murphy got back in and pulled through the gate, which closed behind us. We drove over a hilly, winding dirt road for quite a while before I saw what had to be the training facility.

  The building stood alone. There wasn’t a tree or bush within five hundred yards. It was a single-story structure about three times the size of Hú Dié’s bike shop and was built of tan cinder blocks. A rectangle with a flat roof, the building had just a few windows that I could see, and all were made of smoked glass. I only saw one door.

  It didn’t look like any training facility I’d ever imagined. It looked like a miniature prison.

  The driveway ended in a large parking lot, part of which was covered with a metal roof. There was room for several dozen vehicles under there, but I saw only three. One was a battered old full-sized pickup truck. One was a black SUV like the one we were in, and the last was a large touring motorcycle with a huge windshield, a gigantic dashboard, rigid saddlebags, and an Indiana license plate. I guessed that the SUV belonged to the team, while the pickup belonged to Murphy. As for the motorcycle, I had seen it before. It used to belong to Ryan’s father. Dr. V must have gotten it from Ryan’s mother.

  There was one other item in the parking lot. It was a combination RV/horse trailer. The front half was a camper, while the back was basically a mobile barn with room for a couple of horses and their associated tack. These were a common sight in the horse-friendly statepark campgrounds that Grandfather and I sometimes visited in Indiana. My favorite trails were categorized as nonmotorized multi-use, which meant that hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders all frequented them. I’d ridden through so much horse dung, I considered myself an honorary cowboy.

  Murphy parked the SUV in the shade of the carport, and we all climbed out. I heard the buzz of a large fan from inside the horse trailer, and the hum of an air conditioner atop the camper. There was a long power cord running from the camper to the building. I glanced back at the trailer and saw the swish of a horse’s black tail between the trailer’s aluminum slats.

  “Ain’t but one horse in there,” Murphy said. “Name’s Theo. I suggest you leave him be. That tin can’s been our home for six months straight. Made him skittish as all get-out.”

  Hú Dié looked at him. “You’ve lived here half a year? Why?”

  Murphy grinned. “I wasn’t sure you could speak English, young lady, though Dr. V heard from the travel agent that you could speak it very well. I’ve been overseeing this here building construction.”

  “It looks finished to me,” I said.

  “Contractors are out, but I’ve got a few more finishing touches to take care of inside before Thursday.”

  “What happens Thursday?” Hú Dié asked.

  “Rest of the team arrives,” Murphy replied.

  I looked at all the empty covered parking spaces. “So, who’s here now?”

  “Just Dr. V and Ryan.”

  “Until Thursday?”

  “Yep.”

  I was liking the sound of this more and more. Fewer people would make the job of snooping around for the dragon bone easier.

  Hú Dié fanned herself with one hand. “It is sooo hot out here. Why did you bring your horse?”

  “Dr. V also hired me to build him a cyclocross course that he laid out,” Murphy said. “The trail is a mile and a half long and the regulation three meters wide. That’s a lot of ground to beat down. I rode Theo over it every morning and evening for five months, rain or shine. He’s a big quarter horse. Weighs near thirteen hundred pounds. Got the job done a month ahead of schedule.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Good idea. I’ve seen what horses can do to a trail.”

  Murphy nodded. “Ain’t nothing gonna grow on that course for years.”

  “Can we see the course?” Hú Dié asked.

  “Sure enough,” Murphy said.

  “Wait,” I said. “Can we see it some other time? I’m exhausted.”

  “It’s in your best interest if I show you the course now,” Murphy said. “Trust me on that.”

  I frowned, trying to figure out what he meant, when Hú Dié suddenly squealed, “Oh, look, Phoenix! He’s so cute!”

  I turned toward her, expecting to see Theo’s nose poking out between the trailer slats. Instead, I saw the head of a large, friendly-looking dog in one of the camper windows. I’d never seen one like it before. Its coat was short and tan-colored, and its muzzle was black. It had medium-sized floppy ears and a thick neck, but its face was long and narrow, and its nose was huge. It was as if a mastiff had been crossed with some kind of hound. The dog’s lazy eyes appeared to be smiling, and its tongue lolled happily out of its mouth over bulging jaw muscles.

  Hú Dié looked at Murphy. “Is he nice?”

  “Sweet as pie.”

  Hú Dié stepped up to the window, and the dog leaned toward her. She placed her hand on the glass, and the dog went ballistic. It curled its lips back into a vicious snarl, slamming its face into the window. It growled savagely, working its massive jaws up and down against the glass. Saliva ran down the window like rain.

  Hú Dié jumped back, and the dog stopped as though someone had flipped a switch. It pulled away from the window, its tongue flopping back out and its eyes as happy and lazy as ever.

  “You call that sweet!” Hú Dié shouted. “What kind of pie do you serve here
in Texas?”

  Murphy chuckled. “Keep your hands off me and my property, and that dog will love you all day long. Do me wrong, and beware. A couple years ago, a man broke into my trailer. Both his arms and one leg were all kinds of broke before I pulled old Bones off him.”

  I cringed. “Bones? Is that his name?”

  “Yep. Ain’t seen a bone yet that that dog can’t snap with a single chomp. He’s a black mouth cur. A huntin’ dog. Best nose in the county and strongest jaws in the state, I’d wager.”

  “I think I’ve seen enough,” Hú Dié said. “Can we please go to the cyclocross course now?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Hú Dié and I followed Murphy out of the carport. We walked behind the training facility, and I saw a treeless field that was flat compared with the surrounding area. A wide, winding cyclocross course had been pounded into the low, dry grass and was interspersed with manmade obstacles that made me begin to wonder what on earth I was doing here. I’d never ridden a course like this before.

  I turned to Murphy. “Are you sure this can’t wait?”

  “Stop being such a sissy,” Hú Dié said. “Give us the details, please, Mr. Murphy.”

  Murphy nodded. “Dr. V designed it. I didn’t know the first thing about bike racing before this. My specialty is constructing buildings, but Dr. V seems happy enough with the course. It’s a loop. There’s the start/finish line.” He pointed to a deep line that had been gouged into the ground across the width of the course. “Eighty percent of each race will take place out here in the open, where folks can see the riders. The course snakes around quite a bit, which will give spectators plenty of places to stand to watch the action. Dr. V tells me that cyclocross isn’t like mountain biking or road racing, where fans sit in one spot for hours, only to see their favorite rider zip past for two seconds. If I had a choice, I suppose I’d rather watch cyclocross. The other twenty percent of the course twists and turns through some thick scrub, trees, and hills out of sight before looping back here to the field and the obstacles I made. Let me show them to you.”