by Steve Lee
It had been a long hard trail, a vengeance trail, taken up many years before when a gang of killers had butchered his parents. The killers had enjoyed their work and they'd taken their time doing it. When they'd finished with them, Jim and Martha Sloane welcomed death like an old friend.
Their only son was left to die in a white hell of desert. It was there that the boy had been found by Chang Fung, a one-armed Chinaman who had fled his troubled homeland to start up a citrus farm in California. Chang Fung raised the boy as his own, initiating him into the techniques of Wu-shu, the Chinese Arts of War. He'd been a good teacher and his adopted son an eager student. As he learned the ways of defending himself and destroying others, Sloane thought about how the martial arts were going to help him avenge his parents. Chang Fung had tried to talk him out of his thirst for vengeance, warning him not to dishonour the ancient Chinese teachings by using them for a selfish purpose. But the day came when Sloane decided he'd learnt all the old man had to teach and he saddled up and rode out to find the men who'd killed his Ma and Pa. It had taken him a long time but he'd done it. And, one by one, he'd killed them all with his bare hands.
Now, at last, he was riding home, his mind rilled with warm thoughts of Chang Fung, his wife, Hsiao Yu, and their daughter Su Fan. Especially Su Fan. She was slim and beautiful, her long black hair framing a pretty face in which laughing green eyes sparkled like jade. Her skin was honey and her lips tasted as sweet. Sloane and Su Fan had gotten to know each other well, better than brother and sister are supposed to. Especially on those days that Chang Fung and Hsiao Yu had taken the wagon into town to fetch supplies. Many times they'd lain together in the damp silence after love, their bodies pressed together, silver on gold. Since the orgy of violence in which he had destroyed his parents' killers, Sloane felt an emptiness inside him. Where before there had burnt a fierce consuming hatred, now there was emptiness, a void. Sloane hoped that Su Fan's love would fill that void.
On the trail ahead, a cluster of low timber buildings with a corral out back came into view. A stage-stop, Sloane realised, where horses were traded for a fresh team. There was also a small general store where local homesteaders picked up their supplies. Sloane was glad to see the store. He was low on meat and coffee. And they might have canned peaches. Chang Fung had an unquenchable fondness for canned peaches.
The store-keeper looked up from the pyramid of air-tights he was fussily constructing when the door opened and the stranger walked in.
'Howdy, mister,' he welcomed, rubbing plump hands on his overalls. 'What's your pleasure?'
As he spoke he roamed his eyes over the newcomer. The stranger was in his twenties, tall and loose-limbed. The long-coated suit he wore was tattered and trail-dusted; by its appearance, a veteran of many rough and tumbles. It was hard to tell but it seemed as if its colour might once have been white.
The face beneath the low-brimmed hat looked like it had seen its share of action too. Weather-worn, grooved with ancient scars, it was a map of experience, not all of it pleasant The cheek-bones were high, the jaw firm-set. But it was the eyes that commanded attention. They were denim-blue, and cold and clear as ice. The frosty eyes settled on the pyramid of air-tights.
'Gimme two cans of them peaches… and a cut of jerky.' There was an unhurried authority in the soft-spoken words.
'Yes-sir,' said the store-keeper, moving to fix the order.
'You got any coffee?' the stranger asked.
'Arbuckles… We only carry the best.'
'I'll take some of that too.'
As he hacked at the dried beef, the store-keeper asked the same friendly everyday questions he always asked and got in return something less than the usual answers. He deduced that the stranger wasn't a talking man.
'You seen our dancin' Mex?' he asked, easing into a new line of conversation.
'I seen him,' said the stranger.
The store-keeper laughed, the laugh of someone who reckons they've got a problem licked.
'Reckon that'll keep them raiders away if'n they show up round here. They see him danglin' there an' they'll piss in their goddam boots. They'll know what we got waitin' fer 'em!'
'Raiders?' The stranger was leafing through a thick catalogue of eastern goods. His voice betrayed little interest.
'Sure, ain't you heard? There's a whole danged passel o' them murderin' pepper-guts… There's some say they's worse than Murieta's gang ever was!'
The store-keeper shook his bald head in amazement. 'Beats me how you could've missed hearin' 'bout 'em… Why, they been killin' an' massacreein' and runnin' off horses an' wimmen and the Lord knows what else besides!' The store-keeper paused in his impassioned revelations, looking sharp at the stranger. 'Say, where you headed anyhow?'
'West… Down Orange way.'
'Alone?' The store-keeper's voice was edged with surprise.
The stranger nodded. The store-keeper laid both hands on the counter, a sudden movement, and leaned urgently towards the other man.
'Mister, that's where they been doin' all their killin' — you go down there, you're gonna ride straight into 'em!'
The stranger met the other man's anxiety with an unblinking stare. He said nothing. The heavy catalogue crashed down onto the counter.
* * *
The store-keeper followed the stranger out of his store, but not with the same haste. He knew about horseflesh and he looked appreciatively at the leggy Morgan the stranger mounted.
'What about your grub… your coffee an' peaches?' he shouted, raising an arm up against the sun.
'Guess you've gone and ruined my appetite!' Sloane threw back as he rode out and the next instant the store-keeper was choking on his dust.
Chapter Two
When Sloane reached the citrus plantation the red fingers of dawn were groping blindly through the trees after him. He'd ridden hard and fast all night, stopping only once to rest his lathered mount. His muscles felt leaden with weariness but apprehension of what he might find stoked his nerves to quivering readiness and chased the fog from his brain. He rode through the silent shadowy groves, smelling again the familiar delicate scent of the small orange-like fruit Chang Fung called satsumas. Behind their sweet fragrance he detected a harsher odour: the stench of charred wood and worse.
It was as he feared. The timber farmhouse he had helped build in days of laughter and song was a dark lifeless shell wisped by dregs of smoke. The flames had chased all colour from the ruin before themselves expiring. All that remained was stark and black and twisted — as if the house itself had died in screaming pain.
Sloane slipped down from the Morgan, horror dragging his movements. The smoke and the stench clogged his nostrils, pulled on his stomach. He stared into the black silence of the dead house. Again!
The years seemed to flow away, dissolving like the smoke spiralling about him, and he was twelve years old again and seeing his home after a gang of crazed killers had paid a visit. He felt the same numb shock of disbelief, the same sense of crippled grief, of hopeless, incomprehending despair. Like a hollow man whose soul has been jerked suddenly from his body, Sloane moved through the smoke, treading hot ash and fragments of life.
He found Hsiao Yu first. He recognised her from the tatters of clothing that remained clinging to the black, dead flesh. There was nothing in the faceless bundle to remind him of a human being full of joy and laughter, the gentle loving woman who had reared him as her own.
Sloane reached out a hand, hesitant. Crisped flesh crumpled at his touch and he drew back, an ugly sound in his throat. Sickened, he turned and lurched away.
A few feet from the burnt-out house he found Chang Fung. The old Chinaman lay where he had died fighting for his home and family. His death had not been enough to satisfy the killers. Deep wounds, savagely inflicted, mutilated his face and body. He had not died alone. Sloane saw enough heads, limbs and other bits and pieces littered around to make four whole Mexicans when put together. The sight gave him a crazed kind of satisfaction. He looked fo
r the sword with which Chang Fung had fought his last battle. It was gone.
Sloane stood tight-fisted above the bloodied carcass of his dead teacher. Grief and frustrated anger swelled up inside him. His body shook with fury. A wild spirit cry ripped from his throat and at the same instant he lashed out with his foot at a fire-chewed timber nearby. The wood fragmented into powdered smoke, scattering a hail of dying sparks.
There was still one body to find, the discovery he dreaded most. He stumbled through the boiling smoke, kicking aside the debris, searching, searching.
'Su Fan!' he screamed and the whippoorwills in the trees paused for the briefest moment before continuing their lamentations.
There was no other reply. He did not find the body of the girl he loved. He hoped she was safe in town. If the killers had taken her with them, she was better off dead.
Sloane leaned his body against a tree, grief pulling him down. He felt numb and empty, drained of Tch'i, the precious body energy that gave strength to his Kung Fu. Chang Fung had tried to teach him the Buddhist philosophy of non-attachment: without desire there is no loss. But desire is human and the loss weighed heavy. He blamed himself. Chang Fung had warned him that the gods punish those that misuse the martial arts for their own purposes. Sloane had not listened. He'd taken the Way of the Ruthless Man. He'd ridden out on his mission of vengeance leaving Chang Fung and Hsiao Yu and Su Fan unprotected. And it was them that the gods had struck down. That was his punishment.
Sloane felt cursed. Everything he loved had been torn from him like petals from a flower. He knew he was. being punished for taking the Way of the Ruthless Man — yet with each punishment he grew more defiant, more ruthless. He refused to be humble and bow his head and accept the deaths of those he loved. He would fight back the way he knew best, the only way he knew: with his fists and his feet. He would track down the killers, the instruments of punishment, and destroy them as he had done others before. Let the gods blast him with their wrath, let Kuan Ti, the god of martial arts, deliver more cruel kicks of fate. It did not matter. He would not be stopped. It would end as it had begun. In bloody vengeance.
These thoughts chased through Sloane's brain like hungry howling dogs, yet even as he dwelt on his revenge, his senses remained alert. The unease tugging at the back of his mind became concrete sounds — the soft tread of feet on earth, the whisper of a man's body against brushing leaves. Sloane listened to the man creeping near-silently through the bushes towards him. He waited, apparently frozen in deep thought — then, as the creeping man stepped out behind him, he rose swiftly to his feet and pivoted, his right foot rising for a high kick. A kick that should have cracked against the side of the man's head. Instead, the other swiped aside his attack with a skilful arm-block and the same instant a dragon's-head fist smacked into his jaw.
Sloane hit the ground before he had time to feel surprised. Instantly, he rolled back onto his feet and sprang into a defensive horse stance. He faced his opponent. The man before him was a slender Chinaman in denim pants and a loose-fitting black shirt. He was young, in his early twenties, his handsome face tight with concentration. The two men sized each other up, their outstretched arms weaving like snakes.
Sloane launched his attack with a leopard punch to the head. The Chinaman slapped the blow aside with a swift bon-sau, at the same time pecking at Sloane's face with a vicious crane's beak. Sloane danced out of reach then came back quickly with a roundhouse strike. The Chinaman moved to meet it, breaking the kick with a body block that sent Sloane sprawling.
When he'd regained his feet, Sloane eyed the Chinaman with greater respect. The man was obviously a well-trained and versatile fighter, skilled in the martial arts. Sloane felt his body rising to the challenge, casting aside the tiredness and numbness that had slowed his movements. His Tch'i began to circulate freely once more, filling him with nui gung, the power of Inner Strength.
Behind a fast-punching flurry of blows, the Chinaman charged. Sloane blocked the assault, feigning a rake-hand attack. The Chinaman moved to counter. Sloane's other arm cleaved upwards, briefly smashing aside the Chinaman's defence. His whirling thunder kick exploded against the side of the Chinaman's head. Shaken, the young Chinaman reeled backwards. Then, with a cry of anger, he flung himself into a fierce flying kick. Sloane leapt up to meet him.
They clashed in mid-air, the impact flinging them apart, tossing them to the ground. Again they sprang into defensive stances and faced each other. With his tongue, the Chinaman licked at the blood at the corner of his mouth. His face cracked into a pained smile.
'Not bad, Mister Sloane,' he grudgingly admitted. 'Not bad at all.'
Sloane eyed him with suspicion, 'I don't know you,' he said.
'Chang Fung often spoke of you… Su Fan too.'
'You knew them?'
The Chinaman looked over at the remains of the house, nodding his head grimly. 'I knew them…' He turned back to Sloane. 'When you came at me Chinese-style, I figured it had to be you… Never heard of no other Yankee could fight like that.'
He didn't speak like any Chinaman Sloane had ever heard. His voice was brisk and American-sounding, very different from Chang Fung's soft lilting way of talking. The Chinaman's face was youthful and fresh-looking. The brown eyes, large and lustrous, were ablaze with life. The high-arching brows above gave him an expression of permanent mild surprise. His hair was long and black, casually pushed to one side of a high-domed forehead. A thin moustache hung from beneath a straight nose, drooping down past thick lips towards a strong jaw.
It was the kind of face always ready with an easy smile, unusual in a fatalistic race like the Chinese. Right now grief was battling with the smile and the stalemate they'd reached made his face look uncomfortably rigid. For a brief moment the smile won out.
'William Wang is my name,' he announced. 'Billy to my friends.'
Sloane shook the hand offered him. 'You just get here?' he asked.
'No, I was here before… Heard you comin' down the trail and figured I'd hide out till I could see who it was. I was just gonna call out to you when you come at me like that…'
'Shouldn't creep up on a man that way,' said Sloane, 'not unless you're tired of living.'
Billy Wang slowly drew near to Chang Fung's butchered remains and shook his head. 'I can't believe it, Chang Fung and Hsiao Yu, both dead… They were like a mother and father to me.'
Sloane stared at the young Chinaman. 'You lived here?' There was disbelief in his voice.
"That's right,' Billy answered. 'I guess if I hadn't gone into town yesterday I'd be lyin' there like that… cut to pieces!'
Sloane grabbed the Chinaman with sudden urgency, wrapping his fingers in Billy's shirt, pulling him close.
'And Su Fan?' he demanded. 'Did she go into town with you? Where is she?'
Billy stepped back, tugging free of Sloane's grip. He turned his back on Sloane, breathing hard, his head lowered. Another time he might have felt anger but at that moment all his anger was already spoken for.
'She was here when I left,' he said flatly. He kicked out with his foot. The disembowelled body of a Mexican received the kick.
'Those bastards must've taken her with them!'
'It sure does look that way,' said Sloane.
Billy swung back towards him, his features fired with resolution. 'I'll get her back!' he promised. 'I'll find her and bring her back if it takes me the rest of my life…'
'I wasn't plannin' on company,' said Sloane softly.
Billy's face changed. He stared at Sloane, a sudden wariness in his expression. 'No need for you to come,' he said. 'I can find her by myself. And take care of those murderin' bastards…'
'I'm goin' after her,' Sloane said evenly. 'Don't matter none to me if I go alone or you come with me — but I'm goin'.'
Billy thought about it for a while, his face working hard. 'All right,' he decided. 'We'll both go.'
Sloane made no sign of pleasure at the news. He looked back down at the body of Chang Fung.
'Right now, looks like we got us some diggin' to do…'
They buried Chang Fung and his wife out in the tangerine groves, beneath the first tree they'd ever planted there. The bodies would give nourishment to the trees, Sloane realised. As the old Chinaman would have wished. All his life he had believed in the eternal balance of nature, the timeless cycle of Yin and Yang. In death he would continue to be a part of it: death giving birth to life.
Looking down at the bare graves, Sloane remembered how Chang Fung and his family had buried his own parents after they'd been murdered. Chang Fung had said fine words to speed their souls safely on the journey to the next life. Sloane struggled in his head to find words that would do the same for Chang Fung and Hsiao Yu.
Billy Wang did not have the ink or rice-paper to write out the necessary prayers for a proper Buddhist burial ceremony. As a boy he'd once been taught a spell to chase evil spirits away from the dead. He tried to remember it now. For a time they stood there in silence beneath the blossom-heavy trees. Then Sloane moved away, tugging on his hat, pulling the brim down low over his frosty eyes.
'Let's get after 'em,' he said.
Chapter Three
They stopped by in town to pick up supplies for the journey ahead and to report the deaths to the sheriff. The tired-faced lawman showed little surprise at the news. Too many similar stories had already reached him, stories of murder, rape and horse-thieving.
'Seems there's this bandit chief down in Baja got it in his head he's' gonna scare us into givin' California back to Mexico,' the sheriff informed them between mouthfuls of egg and beans.
