“Holy crap,” Madeira said. “Are those knife wounds?”
Emily glared at him without responding. The non-comms gaped at her scars, too, as did Redmond and Jepsen, and she cast her eyes about to gauge the reaction of the rest of the crowd. General Yang’s aide wordlessly offered her some pads, which she turned down, except for a pair of grappling gloves with articulated fingers, much like what Feng Tu wore. She pulled her hair back into a short ponytail and stepped to the center of the ring, a few inches taller than her opponent and looking very much a warrior, barefoot in uniform pants and a sports bra, scars tattooing her sinewy arms and shoulders.
The officer who had run the training session explained the rules, which in Mandarin consisted of little more than saying, three points wins, and try not to hurt each other. “Fine, it’s not going to come to that,” Emily thought as she turned to take a position. But before she could turn fully around again and set herself, Feng Tu had attacked, with full-force strikes to the head and chest, knocking her back a few steps. Emily managed to block a third strike and leaned out of the way of a high roundhouse kick that narrowly missed her chin.
“This girl’s not playing here,” she muttered. “Okay.”
Feng Tu drew her foot back from the errant kick, but before she could bring it all the way down, Emily hooked it with her ankle and yanked her forward. Feng Tu spread her arms reflexively in an effort to regain her balance, and Emily used the opening to punch her squarely on the nose, driving her to the mat.
Did that count as a point? Feng Tu seemed to think so, even if the officer standing a few feet away gave no indication. But she picked herself off the mat and took up a fighting stance, fists raised and one foot forward, as one does at the beginning of a new point.
Much more cautious this time, Feng Tu circled to her left, searching for an opening, while Emily let her breath out and listened. The girl was quiet inside, at least for someone who’d just been smacked in the face. Emily’s own heart seemed restless, beating a sort of roundel in the recognizable rhythm, but faster than she was used to. Anticipating Feng Tu’s attack might be difficult in such a state, and even though Emily could probably overpower the girl, she didn’t want to hit her that hard again… in the interest of diplomacy.
Emily knew if she closed her eyes, and slowed her breathing, Feng Tu would attack, so she dropped her guard and stared at the girl, searching her face and her eyes for a sign. Did she know what really happened to Feng Long? Did she know that Emily had killed him in the ring at Quantico? The shorter woman couldn’t resist an opening like this for long, since gaining an advantage through Emily’s defenses could be much more difficult. Still, the posture could hardly avoid seeming like a trap to her, and she responded cautiously.
A jab, then another – Emily leaned away from each one without blocking – but Feng Tu couldn’t risk another high kick after what happened to the last one. She stepped in and jabbed more aggressively to set up a strike to the ribs with her knee. Emily swatted the jabs away and pivoted to avoid the knee, but Feng Tu extended the foot at the end of the attack and managed to tag her on the hip, not a devastating blow, but it stung all the same. When Emily winced and tried to shield the spot by turning away, Feng Tu seized the opportunity to strike with an overhand right to the head. If it had connected, it could have been devastating – why was this girl swinging so hard at her? – but Emily pushed it to the side, barely a nudge, though enough to force a miss.
Feng Tu pulled back and stared at her, gloves held in guard position, but eyes wide. Emily felt the confusion in her heart – the strike should have landed, and that it didn’t tortured her opponent. Emily’s own frustration at the situation buzzed in the back of her mind. Jepsen wanted a victory, that much was clear, but how to do it without offending the Chinese, or humiliating the girl was rather less clear. Besides, what consideration did she owe Feng Tu, if any, for the death of Feng Long? Perhaps the only thing she had to offer was a lesson.
Feng Tu loved her own quickness, even gloried in it, and that was the key. Emily let her breath in and out as she reflected on this fact, and then closed her eyes to await the inevitable, hasty attack. To go completely quiet inside requires a kind of clarity one rarely achieves even on a good day, and so many things conspired to make a ruckus in her heart, but one last breath carried them out – Jepsen’s foolish decision to push her into the ring, whatever mischief Cmdr Redmond hoped to achieve by suggesting it to the colonel, slipped away, too, as did her irritation at Mr. Sung for causing Li Li so much sorrow and self doubt, and finally her confusion over the death of Feng Long. It was his voice she’d heard earlier, showing her how he’d tried to teach his brother, and his frustration at the difficulty of getting someone with a tiger’s passions to listen and learn.
Quiet… at long last. Emily flicked her eyes open and raised one arm, elbow out, striking Feng Tu’s fist before she could fully straighten out her arm, and buckling it at both joints. The girl let out a little shriek before recoiling in pain, and tried to shake out the numbness, and recover some sensation. Emily watched patiently as Feng Tu set herself for another attack… but what remained for her to try? A high kick had to seem too risky, as must any direct hand strike. But how could she initiate an indirect technique, unless Emily offered an opening by attacking first? After a moment’s reflection, Emily nodded in recognition of the situation, and then obliged.
A quick step forward, and a low kick followed by a jab, both of which Feng Tu blocked. But an ill-advised counter-strike to the center of Emily’s chest left her open to a rising circular block, which was followed by a series of strikes to her ribs, neck and shoulders. Emily didn’t form a fist for these strikes, merely jabbing and slapping at her with two fingers or an open hand, sometimes gently, though a few were quite sharp. Eventually, the sheer variety of strikes overwhelmed Feng Tu, as if she couldn’t catch her breath under the onslaught, and she crumpled to the mat to get Emily to stop.
The crowd watching from around the ring had fallen silent, and the officers sitting in the bleachers, too. Emily glanced at Jepsen and Redmond, whose faces had gone slack, as if they no longer knew how to control the relevant muscles. Feng Tu stood and faced Emily, eyes burning until she briefly lowered her head over a fist pressed into a palm. After a moment, Emily nodded and then tilted her head to consider the girl’s face. Should she say anything to her, offer some condolence? It had been more than five years. Perhaps it was best not to open the wound.
“That was amazing,” Madeira said, and handed back her shirt and jacket. Colonel Jepsen and General Yang approached as she tucked in the blouse and slipped into her jacket.
“Very impressive, Lt Tenno,” Yang said. “Is your level of skill typical of American Marines?”
“I’m just a soldier, sir. There are many better Marines.”
“I find that difficult to believe, Lieutenant, but I respect your humility. Thank you for the demonstration.”
“Well done, Tenno,” Jepsen said. Cmdr Redmond stood behind him, and grunted a grudging acknowledgment.
The crowd filed out, and Emily stuck close to Madeira, like a port in the storm. She craned her neck to survey the room one last time, as if maybe she’d left something behind. Men in custodial uniforms had already begun rolling up the mats, which squeezed the cadets into a file against one wall as they headed to the door, and she noticed the brother and sister halfway along, talking together. From this distance, and judging from the expression on her face, Feng Hu appeared to be offering unwanted advice to his sister.
The convergence of the two groups by the exit slowed things, though the cadets mainly yielded to the officers and the visitors. By the time Emily realized that she would arrive at the doorway at the same time as Feng Tu, it was too late to avoid another meeting without seeming rude. The girl turned at the last second, prompted by her brother, and seemed surprised.
“Thank you for the lesson, sifu.” Her eyes still burned as before, but now Emily recognized the emotion behind them – it
was embarrassment.
“You fight with admirable spirit.” This was true, and Emily could rest easy in having lived up to the demands of decorum and grace. But more words itched to get out, and before she could stop herself, they did. “I am sorry about your brother, about Feng Long.”
She regretted it the moment her lips and teeth and tongue had formed them, and they’d escaped into the intervening atmosphere. All she could do now was nod, her eyes wide with confusion, and allow the pressure of the crowd to carry her away from the brother and sister. What had she meant to say… that she was sorry for killing him? At least, her words were ambiguous enough to be taken merely as a general condolence. When she thought it safe, she turned to look for them, but they were nowhere to be seen.
9
The Road Down From Chiang Rai
“How much longer do you think we have to lie here?” The damp, the mud, and the jungle insects that tended to make their homes in such places, had taken their toll on Connie’s good cheer. An occasional truck rumbled down Highway 105, some hundred feet below their position beneath a large fern, but the main traffic was people walking along the roadside, mainly women with bundles on their heads, and small children. Visions of the sleeper train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai danced in her imagination – the gentle swaying of the cars, the almost comfortable bunk bed, one pleasure of which was watching the contortions Danko went through to fit into his. Fans blew the cool night air across their bodies, which was delightful after a sweaty day, and at some point in the night, the frisson of moving air tickling her skin even moved her enough to point the nearest one in another direction.
“Just until sunset,” Danko said. He’d been lying on his back most of the last two hours, contemplating the underside of the forest canopy. He levered himself over onto his elbows and fished binoculars from his pack. “I think we’ve pushed our luck posing as Bible-thumpers long enough. We need to go unnoticed for a few days.”
“I still don’t get why security is so lax around these camps. There doesn’t even appear to be a curfew”
“Technically, there is one, and worse. The bigwigs in Bangkok have given standing orders not to let anyone in or out. But the foot soldiers don’t have the heart to enforce it.”
“It’s the same old story everywhere.”
“Just a little more so here… and it’s a good thing, too. The local economy depends on commerce between the Karen refugees and their Thai neighbors. If the fences weren’t porous, the Thai would suffer, too.”
Just then, a motor scooter sputtered past their position carrying a young Thai soldier in the standard infantry green, and a young, pretty Karen woman seated sideways on the back, her sandaled feet held slightly out to avoid touching the exhaust pipe. She wore the ubiquitous olive-drab cargo pants and a colorful blouse, black hair pulled back loosely behind each ear.
“That’s the same old story, too, I guess.”
“In my experience, it may not be as bad as it appears. These guys are just farm-boys, conscripted because there’s not enough work. In some parts of the world, she’d probably end up sold into slavery, but here I suspect she’s safe enough. He may even be taking her to meet his family.”
“Is it the same with the Shan refugee camps? Are they equally welcome?”
Danko rubbed his chin, which had developed a significant stubble by this hour, and shifted onto one elbow. “The politics of these camps is constantly shifting, depending on far away events. After the coup two years ago, the Thai generals agreed to ‘repatriate’ all the refugees.”
“They’re talking about driving out over a half million people, right? I bet that didn’t go over well.”
“It didn’t go anywhere at all, because of the impact it would have on everyone else. I think the generals knew how hard it would be to get the troops to carry out such an order, and the junta in Burma probably knew it, too. But they made sure everyone knew they’d pushed for the repatriation of the Karens first.”
“In order to sow discord among the tribes, you mean?”
“Exactly, and it worked. Tensions between the Shan and the Karens were pretty high… and, of course, the Burmese army stepped up patrols along the border to see if they could shake something loose. If they saw a chance, you know, and if an incident had forced Tammy or Hsu Qi into the open, I wouldn’t put it past them to charge across the border to capture them.”
“Do you really think Hsu Qi would come to Mae La, or to any of the Karen camps? What sort of welcome would she get here?”
“You know, despite all the differences, there are deep historical ties between the two groups. They’re the same stripe of Buddhists, which is a big deal around here, but there’s more… like the way they take off their shoes to enter a shop, or the food they eat… even the languages they speak.”
“But they sound so different.” In fact, it hadn’t occurred to Connie to look for any similarities in the speech patterns of the people she’d been observing so closely for the last several days.
“There are differences, but a common slang has grown up between them, you know, a patois, even across all the barriers.”
“It sounds like you’ve made yourself into quite a scholar on this question.”
Danko rolled onto his back and adopted a more serious tone, oblivious to her mockery. “The Karens are some extraction of Tibetan, I think, and the Shan are Dai people who migrated south from Yunnan, maybe a thousand years ago. But one thing you notice, if you spend enough time here, is that they both put the verb in the middle of the sentence. Most of the other tribes put it at the end. I think that makes them sound like cousins, or something, even though they’re not related at all.”
Connie jammed an elbow into his ribs for being so pedantic… even though she figured he was right. Later, walking along the road down to Mae Tan, the nearest settled area, barely large enough for a hospital, a temple, and a boarding house, and just a stone’s throw from the border with Myanmar, she wondered how he would handle the worst news she could imagine, that Tammy and Hsu Qi had already fallen into the junta’s hands.
The young Karen woman and her soldier boyfriend kept returning to Connie’s thoughts. Danko was probably right – she would be safe, even if the sight of a girl barely seventeen riding off into the darkness with a soldier gave her a shiver. But the soldier was probably no older, still a boy as innocent as the girl who had charmed him. How odd that just across the river, soldiers with very different sentiments lurked, with orders to do women like her grievous injury with assured impunity… and on this side, a gentler junta protected her and her family and neighbors, despite ambiguous public pronouncements to the contrary, all as part of the strange dance of diplomacy so familiar in this part of the world.
Danko had begun to snore on the bedroll he’d spread on the floor in their room for the night, but Connie spoke to him anyway.
“You remember the attendant in the sleeper car… he was so adept at setting up the beds, and so pleased with himself about it.” Waffling noises came from the general vicinity of Danko’s head. “Even in this little village, we’re welcomed like visiting dignitaries, all the bowing and politeness, and we could hardly be more strange to them.” She dozed off marveling at the paradox she’d stumbled into.
“Rise and shine.” Those words hardly welcomed her back into the world of the living, but the sight of Danko’s freshly shaved face made up for it. “We need to get moving. There’s chatter on the street of a sighting of a saopha up north.”
Connie sat up, stretched her arms, and accepted the plate of food he held out for her, which resembled a western omelet on rice with a couple of skewers of grilled pork. Of course, it was much spicier than anything western, and Connie breathed fire after the first taste. Danko handed her a cup of cold tea, and said, “khao kai jeow… it’s a local favorite. Not too hot for you, is it?”
“Saopha?” she managed to sputter out through watery eyes and a burning tongue.
“Just breathe through your nose. The fire needs oxy
gen. Saophas are princes, or princesses, though it’s more of a nostalgic term now rather than a hereditary title.”
“… and Tammy and Hsu Qi are saophas?”
“The thing is, they’d never enter any of the camps, you know, for fear of endangering the refugees.”
“So how will we find them?”
“We just have to make ourselves visible around the camps, and word will get to us.”
The old lady behind the front desk had arranged a bath for Connie, and brought her a lotion for the bug bites. A little girl scampered in – maybe a granddaughter – while she was getting dressed, and touched a scar just above the elbow. Connie looked into a pair of bright eyes and crouched down to stroke her fine black hair, and the girl reached for her curls. Had she ever seen blond hair before?
Several hours on a tourist bus, driving along the valley formed by the Inthanon range to the east and the southern end of the Daen Lao range, Danko made idle conversation with the other passengers, trying to polish his missionary cover, though Connie thought he was laying it on a bit thick.
“He works in mysterious ways.” Danko gestured to a large snake they’d spotted in the branches of a roadside tree.
“I don’t know why there should be such monsters,” one of the tourists cried out, a large woman dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt.
“This is a peculiar choice of vacation spot, if you feel that way,” Connie couldn’t resist saying.
“I’m just saying… I don’t understand it.”
“The food chain is really a complex fabric,” Danko said, grinning mischievously at Connie. “Snakes play an important role in it. Without them, the jungle would be over-run by rodents. I imagine the good Lord wanted to keep the lesser animals in check.”
“I saw a snake twice that size in Tennessee,” her husband said. “Swallowed a hedge hog whole.”
Girl Goes To Wudang (An Emily Kane Adventure Book 7) Page 9
