“A camel is down,” Ch’ing hollered, and trotted to the rear.
“Bugger it,” Jake called after him, “that’s not my fault,” and he barely heard Ch’ing’s answer, floating on the dusty air above the sound of hoofbeats: “Ya! Foreigner!”
Jim Dandy said, “Let’s go see.”
The lien had halted. They were through the Great Wall and headed for the Yellow River.
Jim was Jake’s partner, and there was a third partner for the lien of eighteen camels, because Jake could not be trusted to do a camel-puller’s work; this third partner was Chu-chu, a stocky dark man of about forty, bald as the moon and full of lore. He was a Mohammedan and the only honest way to translate his name was Pigpig.
Jim called, “They’re all yours, Chu-chu,” and waved Jake into a trot. Jake was finding that he had marched for too many years to run well now. Jim was twenty-five or so but had the manner of an old hand, cursing the meals, the road, the sun, the soldiers, women or the lack of them, the lice. He had pulled camels for nine years and was mischievous, a round-faced prankster. He and Jake puffed back to Ch’ing and Hsü-to and the injured camel. Hsü-to was another Mohammedan, bald and skinny, a famous camel-racer in his youth.
The camel was a cow about eight years old that had wandered off the trail and broken her near foreleg; she had wedged the hoof into a crevice between black rocks. “Bugger,” Ch’ing snarled at Jake, and sat there on his lean pony for half a minute, orange-eyed and with a mouth full of rage. He cursed, and cursed some more.
“One thing after another,” Jim said pleasantly. “It is the way of the caravan. No need to blow the mustache.”
Ch’ing said approximately, “Bullshit,” and glowered for some time while the others awaited his wisdom. Finally he told them, “All right. Split the load. Can’t be helped. Foreigner’s luck.”
Jim took up for Jake in swift Tientsin slang, and when Ch’ing said something else that Jake could not catch Jim spat and told him to shut up. Ch’ing said, “Defile you all. Next time mules.”
“What does that mean,” Jake asked, “‘blowing the mustache?’”
“To talk wildly,” Jim said, and to Ch’ing, “Five mules carry what four camels carry.”
“They’re faster.”
“But do not last.”
This was singing more than talking; an old conversation.
“Nor do they spit.”
“But they bite.”
Hsü-to and Jim were off-loading, swiftly, old hands, wasting no motion in the scorching sunlight.
“Nor do they reproduce, and take time off like women.”
“But they are as stubborn as women, and argue as loudly; and when a cow camel drops a calf, she is back on the trail that same day.”
Ch’ing surrendered sourly. “Camels it is. But no more foreigners. Hurry now.”
Jim’s look reined Jake in, but when Ch’ing had trotted off Jake defiled all caravan masters, in particular one Ch’ing, who was better fitted by ancestry, looks and talent to be master of a honey-cart.
“That’s not bad,” Jim said, “but remember he’s the boss. The sole and absolute boss, and he can have you shot. On the trail even the owner obeys him.”
That was a jolt.
“It is the way,” Jim said.
Hsü-to pouted heavily. “Times have changed. In the old days a man did not show sorrow or anger when he threw away a camel. In the old days he said, ‘It is nothing. One camel.’”
That Chinaman could have Jake shot. And take them leading two camels.
“Those are my camels,” Jake said.
“Master Ch’ing orders the load split,” Chu-chu said, and yawned.
“I pay for the use of these camels and they will carry my goods and no one else’s. Besides, this would overload them according to the precepts and ordinances of the aforementioned Master Shit-merchant Ch’ing himself.” Jake was pale with anger. “Ch’ing is a turtle. Moreover a grasshopper. Moreover a cow pie. Moreover diseased. Call him back and I will tell him this.”
The cook, who was called Head of Pot, shuffled up with two more beasts. “Split four ways,” he announced.
“Split Ch’ing four ways,” Jake said.
Jim said, “Let it be, now. A fourth part will not hurt your camels. In Pao-t’ou it can be discussed, and arrangements made.”
The four Chinese waited without expression. Jake paced and snorted, for show. “All right,” he said. “Four ways.”
They worked quickly: in ten minutes four hundred pounds of cargo had been divided, reloaded and secured. Every man but Hsü-to took a rein, and they led the camels back. As far as Jake’s eyes could see the plain lay yellow, shimmering in the heat. He was still furious, and the sun was a fierce burden, and he could see for miles and it was exhilarating. At certain moments he felt a true emotion, and could not help it. China. Soon Mongolia.
After a few steps he remembered, and called to Jim. “That cow.”
“What about her?”
“You just leave her?”
They had all halted now, and the camels nattered softly. The Chinese were bewildered but hoped to be helpful. “Why does that matter?”
“It’s cruel. Barbarous. She’ll suffer.”
Hsü-to was astonished. “You call us barbarous?”
Jim asked, “What do you want to do?”
“Shoot her.”
The four exchanged glances.
“You waste a bullet,” Hsü-to said, “but go ahead.”
Jake jogged back the few steps, hearing Hsü-to go on to the others, “It is not for sport, surely?” The cow’s eye was dull and vacant. She was chewing her cud. Her snob’s nose was dry. Her foreleg angled weirdly but she seemed not to notice. Jake drew the .45 and shot her at the intersection of a cross between her ears and eyes. She sagged, rolled over, quivered once, stretched mightily and died.
Ch’ing came galloping back. “May you be defiled,” he screamed, “by the elf that eats the brains of the dead!” He shouted it to the winds, to the plain, he wanted all to know in Karakorum and Peking and Kashgar what a pack of maggot-ridden goat droppings he was cursed with. “Now what?”
Jim explained.
Ch’ing slumped and blew a despondent breath. “All right. This I know about. Foreigners love animals and beat children. They have secret societies for the protection and advancement of animals. But I never in my life saw so many bad signs on one trip.” He jabbed a finger at Jake and said, “I cannot risk the luck of the whole caravan.”
“You did that when you took my money,” Jake said.
“And the lord of all under heaven will punish me for it.” Ch’ing brooded. Jake brooded, too, and the others were hot and tired in the midday sun, and tension rose like sweat. Ch’ing broke it. “At least you kill what you shoot at.”
After a moment the camel-pullers snickered, and then laughed, and after another moment Jake joined them. Ch’ing was his sole and absolute boss.
11
Dushok sat in his room at the Palace of the Night Chickens. He was comfortable in a black cotton robe and black cloth shoes. His oil lamp burned brightly, and on the table before him was stationery of coarse texture, also rich ink that he had mixed himself and a pair of fine writing brushes.
Wei-hua glowed, and Dushok knew deep melancholy. Wei-hua was unaware that he must soon leave, a week, two. She was a nice old girl, close to forty but not the least crease, not even behind the knee, and she was less trouble, more comfort, and more wisdom than any woman he had ever known.
He wetted a brush, and wrote. It was his eighth letter, and they were the same except that some began “Elder Brother” and some “Younger Brother.” They described a large, yellow-colored American, former partner of the late merchant Kao Hu-tsuan, and stated that he was a villain. No man knew where he was now or might be later, but his return, to any set of authorities, would be a favor to Dushok, Tu Hsia-k’u, who hopes that you will feel yourself bound, as he does, by ties of ancient friendship and dangers shared.
He paused, and rubbed his sore head. Wei-hua came closer, a question in her eyes.
“No no,” he said. “It is well and will heal.” He gazed into her round, loving, untroubled face. “My friend,” he said. She blushed for joy.
Dushok wrote on. Should he suffer damage, or noxious influences, no man will grieve. It is not that he has done worse than you, my friend, or I; it is that he lies to those close to him, and takes from them and does violence to them. He is a man of talents but poor bones, who will never look upon the face of the lord of all under heaven.
“A pipe, Wei-hua.” The Palace was to be owned now by an assistant to General Liu; Dushok had spoken to the man. For a year at least Wei-hua would be safe. After that … after that, Communists, and the poor old girl would be out of a job. He would leave her money.
One of the letters was addressed to a certain Pei Ti-wen, a scholar and gambler in Lanchow, a city in Kansu, a western province; and in a corner of the envelope, writ small, was the character hu, meaning tiger. Pei, whose surname meant Cowrie Shell, or Treasure, and whose given name meant Guide to Literature, was also the head of an extensive family society in northwest China, and friend, as Dushok was, to more than one wandering outlaw. Dushok could not know which of the eight letters was the best bet; but he did know that the word would go forth, by crooked ways, all over China, and someday, in a wineshop or on a barge, at a customs post or a beggars’ clubhouse, the connection would be made.
Dushok had heard of Kao’s death with sorrow. Old Kao had lived a natural life in iniquitous times; while Jake Dodds had betrayed two centuries of courage and honor.
I must now depart from you, and from this middle kingdom that I love, and only the lord of all under heaven can know when I shall see my friends again.
Long life and prosperity.
12
The caravan had run across no Communists but plenty of Nationalist soldiers, a small detachment quartered on most villages of any size, surly riffraff in half-uniforms and an officer in shiny boots. All these Genghis Khans had the authority to stop them, to check papers, to inspect goods, not to mention hanging everybody or lining them up before a firing squad, so every day or two out came the documents, and the arguments, and a handful of squeeze, and men stood sweating and camels stood farting while Ch’ing palavered. There seemed to be an established tariff. Ch’ing objected not to graft but to greed.
“There are honest men too in the army,” Jim said. “Think how they must feel.”
Jake shut up and kept out of sight. Foreigners inspired pushy officers with superfluous zeal. They came prowling and sniffing with their three words of English, and told you how they had killed Japanese, or maintained order among these villagers. They would confide in Chinese, “Peasants, of course,” and Jake, who was also a peasant, stood with a face of stone pretending little skill in language.
The people were skinny. Jake saw few dogs and no cats. Once he saw the fuselage of an American pursuit plane housing two families; once the wreck of a Japanese Zero; more than once a dead tank or jeep. Villagers lined the road and stared. “The Communists are an hour from here,” one lieutenant told Jake. “These people are not thinkers. They are peasants. The Communists deceive them.” Jake stood by his camels. In some villages the walls were plastered with posters and announcements. Jake could not read. If the posters were important, Jim would tell him so.
Often after a day’s march they would file through a village while music blared, or political speeches, from scratchy phonographs or a loudspeaker outside the police station. Jake saw no power plants or generators, and decided all this noise was transmitted by battery operated relics of another age.
Most places the police station was the only government building. Being a deep one, Jake figured this meant the police were the only government.
Once he saw a man beaten by the authorities: a flexible bamboo slat snapping across the soles of his feet like a lash.
Once a joker in the crowd asked if he was Russian. “American,” Jake said.
The man cried, “Hu! Pei erh-shih chiu! Pei erh-shih chiu!”
Jake turned to Jim. “Bay twenty-nine?”
“B-29.”
“They bombed here?”
Jim shrugged. “He heard about Hiroshima.”
Under the sun they shambled, Jake looking back less and less but still uneasy, still a fugitive. Mile after mile. Day after day. Jim Dandy said, “You exaggerate. New men always exaggerate. They march and march, and fall asleep marching, and after a hundred days they say, ‘Five thousand miles.’” Depending on the terrain, and on the number and quality of the military grafters encountered, they covered twenty to thirty miles each day. Jake slogged along, with plenty of time to think, and to listen to Jim, whose mouth ran on.
His worries slowly dropped away, and he hoped he was turning Chinese. The memory of Kao grew warm and less bitter: a good fat man, and a bad break, a sad end, but maybe it had nothing to do with Jake. Jake was not Kao’s only enterprise. He remembered Kao’s cautions, and was puzzled. The goods were ordinary. He wondered if there could be jewels hidden among them, or opium.
Not opium, he learned. Jim rode down—the caravans “walked up” west and “rode down” east—with a stash of opium in cold weather. “But in hot weather it smells. They sniff it out and confiscate it, and show you the smile of a weasel.”
Jake kept seeing equipment, a young woman wearing a Japanese fatigue cap, or a man in Japanese boots ditching. In one village the community was building a wall, everybody out slaving away, singing and shouting, skinny and short-tempered, hauling buckets of mud, buckets of water from the ditch; hauling sacks of dirt; half a dozen hauling a cart full of broken stone, and the cart was a Japanese caisson. He saw khaki.
One day he saw a dozen farmers, men and women both, he supposed, making hay about a mile off, like a mural on a schoolhouse wall, the vast yellow-green blotch of the grassy hillside, and the tiny figures hardly seeming to move, the dark clothes and light hats, beyond them the crest of the long slope, and then the endless sky and a single round white cloud; and no sound, only the figures, as if they had stood so for a thousand years and would never alter. One scythe would be forever uplifted, another forever cutting; one figure upright, another bent; night would never come, or winter.
He was a long way from home. About a thousand years.
No one came after him. No one touched his goods. No one here knew who he was; no one there knew where he was.
They joined the great river east of Pao-t’ou, and Jake took some time for a long by-golly look at the flow of it: broad it was, and majestic, and yellowish, sure enough, the great Huang Ho, the Yellow River, born far off, high in the snowy mountains. This was the big one, that swelled with the rains and runoff, that drowned land and people, flooded crops and left famine, killed its millions; and it was also a great road, one of the greatest and oldest, older even than the Old Silk Road. There were boats on it now, making their slow way through the glassy afternoon, fishing boats and small junks and one decrepit motor launch trailing soot, and above them a flight of cranes beating west.
Too bad he could not send a card to Dushok: having a wonderful time, you bastard.
Pao-t’ou was a big city, pigs, dogs, chickens and children, smells and racket; the streets were jammed. The caravan filed through the center of town. Jake felt fenced in. The camel-pullers bowed their heads and spat.
After an hour the slums fell behind and the road opened out. They passed between walled compounds, and once more there was plenty of sky. In midafternoon, well out of town and muttering thanks, heads high again, they filed through a broad gateway into a vast dusty field of scrawny grasses, where four hundred camels lay groaning and blowing. A few grazed on dirt.
Now Jake saw why the city was called Pao-t’ou, or Head of Packages.
Four hundred camels! Men sat among them in twos and threes; others circulated, examining hoofs or eczema. Jake saw half a dozen wells, and huge troughs. On the city side
of the field stood low godowns with groups of men lounging in doorways, or hunkered in circles.
Jim Dandy sniffed out the field like a bull in a fresh meadow. Over them hung the dusty golden smell of summer air, a hint of desert, much corrupted by the stench of dung. Small, brightly colored birds scavenged in the manure. Men squinted, identified the lien, and called out. The camels wove their way among heaps of trade goods, and soon the camel-pullers were welcomed by a scurvy platoon of shirtless pirates in baggy pants and cloth shoes. Most sported charms hung around their necks on rawhide. Some had shaved heads. When they saw Jake they grimaced and said ai-ya and hu-hu.
They led the camels into place and tapped or tugged them down, Ch’ing shouting orders and the men shouting back. Across the field trooped a delegation, bosses, Jake could tell, in light gowns, some in a kind of Panama hat, a couple with parasols. They came to Ch’ing, and he reported, and the bosses examined the camels and made professional noises. Jake squatted between Bad Smell and Sweetwater and waited for instructions. A boss turned to stare at him, and then they all did, like a court-martial. One wore glasses that glittered. A fat one was chewing—gum? tobacco? a virility-root? They were like cartoons in the westering sun, with the hats and the glasses, a wrist watch winking silver, the faded pink of a parasol, one wispy white goatee.
Ch’ing cried out, and the men set about off-loading.
13
“We have one night,” Jim said.
“We leave tomorrow?”
“Day after. But tomorrow night we eat and sleep here. We leave before sunrise next day.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Fuck,” Jim said.
Jake grunted.
The Chinese Bandit Page 9
