The kids must be watched for a day or two. If they did not pass proper droppings, they must be dosed.
Jake was exhilarated, but not by the miracle of life: he was impressed by the richness of it all. Something for nothing. Dozens, hundreds, of baby yaks, sheep and goats. He thought he must be a rancher at heart.
But he was not. He was the executioner, the bringer of death and denier of life, and he was kept busy with new duties: the best bull calves, rams and bucks were marked, and the others were castrated before their third week, and Jake was the castrator. He was not made happy by that, but he understood. Carefully and sadly he slashed the scrotum; Tha-shi applied hot gum from a pot. The testicles were stewed, and eaten at a series of solemn banquets, with the Doctor making short speeches and the tribe chanting to the music of finger-cymbals.
The baby livestock, and the stewed testicles, led him to wonder why Tha-shi did not increase. He might be seedless, or she. Maybe she was a barren woman, and they connected barrenness with death, and that was why she was Blue Hat’s woman. Well, she was his woman now, and he blessed her.
Later the wind rose again, and the oily-coated flocks huddled against spring drizzles. After each rain, when the sun emerged and the valley blushed greener, Jake marveled at the bleating, mooing, cavorting throng of beasts, and at the geese that whooshed overhead in long skeins; at the ravens that patrolled in pairs, and the hawks that soared; at small flights of pigeons that dipped and fled; even at the colonies of homely, stocky, short-tailed birds that came to stay and lived on dung.
On the hills that hemmed the valley, shrubs and flowers bloomed; Jake recognized a kind of crocus. Sometimes when he stood looking out, big himself with so much life, time seemed to halt, and the beasts and birds froze, a hoof raised, a head cocked, wings spread, a kid at the top of its leap, the patches of blossom still, the wind holding its breath.
And every year this came about. For these people every spring was this spring, and the old were not displeased to die, because next spring they would return as kids or pigeons or crocuses. Jake seemed always to be smiling. He wondered again if Tha-shi might bear children.
Riding up the mountain after a long season of busy-work, Major K’uang should have felt younger and more vigorous. But he felt older, and sour. Drier, and bitter. Like a once-ripe fruit fallen in a deserted courtyard, waiting only for ants. His country had not long to live. All winter he had done a politician’s work, or a policeman’s. His men had chafed, and he was forced into bribery: long leaves, extra rations, even seizing gold from petty bureaucrats to lavish upon his squad.
Even dickering with a brothel for the residential rate. Pimp K’uang!
And he was weary from the long, hopeless fight for an aircraft, and the impossibility of explaining truly.
He was also angry that grass-bandits—not even big-city gangsters!—had outsmarted him.
He was angry that three men had been taken dead, and that two had fled like foxes.
He was angry at his own lack of faith, his own despair and disillusion. He had found himself wishing that the Communists would win, once for all, so that he could join them and do a soldier’s proper work; they would surely have to fight the foreigners, some foreigners, which could be looked forward to.
His dreams of gold humiliated him.
So he was curt to Sergeant Shih, who one day said, “Desert formation is perhaps not appropriate to foothills and mountains.”
“Do as I say,” K’uang growled. “We track not an army but two hopeless men. Shall we travel like bears, and be picked off one by one, or like wolves, in the strength and safety of the pack?”
Another day Shih said, “The camels plod in line; the mountain sheep show horns in all directions.”
“They will be fleeing, you fool,” K’uang said. “When we see how they flee, there will be time for deployment. If,” he added gloomily, “they are not dead, or in Kashmir.”
“It seems much effort,” Shih said, “for two hares that may have fled the meadow.”
“There is much at stake,” K’uang said.
Up and up they rode. The weather improved each day. The Qara Shahr ponies were tireless. Now third in line, now fifth, K’uang searched the hills. Preceded by his scouts, he pursued his victims and his fate.
Jake had no notion what month this was, by the old reckoning. It was the moon of late lambs, and the days were longer than the nights; the wind was unreliable but gentle, shifting sometimes to the north and west. Along the edge of the valley, the stream was in roaring spate.
One morning he was squatting in his undershirt by the bricks of fuel. He was still in sheepskins, but it would not be long now. He was listening to the herds and the stream and the soft sigh of the spring breeze. The taste of tea was strong in his mouth. He saw three kids dash, halt, leap high, reverse and toss their heads, and he laughed aloud at the sheer life of it.
He began tipping bricks from the wooden forms. Tha-shi had been giggly last night, and he was still dreamy with it. The tribe was preparing its move to summer pasture, and he wondered what the journey would be like, how they would assemble their burdens, strike their tents, load the yaks; which direction they would take. Carts would help; no, wheels could not go where they traveled.
He was sweating lightly and finishing his chore when a change in the air halted him. He squatted, frowned, and listened.
Still the stream rushed, the beasts baaed; the sun was friendly.
But he heard no human voice, no child’s cry.
He looked up, and saw his people standing very still. They were staring off to the northeast.
Khu-lat and Mong-chen were stumbling down the valley, down the slope Jake had first descended, from the Unmelting Bridge of Snow and the Bowl of Grass-in-Hanks. They came on like stretcher-bearers, trying to trot in rhythm, their burden swaying; they paused to hitch it up, and cried to the others. Khu-lat carried the yeti’s feet, and Mong-chen the shoulders; Mong-chen bore a slung rifle.
Long before he could see the tattered sheepskins, or the bandoleer, Jake knew their burden, and prayed that it be dead.
Khu-lat and Mong-chen laid the body before Jake. The head lolled. Jake knelt and swiftly removed the gun belt and the knife. He handed them to Tha-shi, saying, “Put these with my own.”
“It is no yeti,” she said.
“It is no yeti,” he said, gazing down at the drawn, scarred face. “It is a man, and he is cold, hungry and more than half dead.”
“Then we will warm him and feed him,” she said, “and give him life. Look how his face is striped.”
For a long moment Jake did not speak, but then his bones seemed to straighten, and his heart to open. “Yes, that is what we must do,” he said. He turned to the Doctor, whose face was grim. “In our tent. I want him with me until he is well.”
“So it will be,” the Doctor said.
42
Ugly was so filthy that Jake had to cut the underclothes off him. The torn and stained sheepskins were supple, and the winter boots slid off whispering, but what Ugly wore beneath was a patched and scabby second skin, grown into his flesh, the wrinkles and seams of him armpits, groin and backside accepting this graft of cloth, sweat, dirt and blood. What passed for socks was a soggy mass of raw wool.
Yet the necklace of tiger claws gleamed like ivory. Tha-shi caught her breath, and turned wide wondering eyes to Jake.
“It is his spirit,” Jake said. “Leave it on him.”
He cut through the second skin; he and Tha-shi washed the body with hot water and the paste of fat and ashes that feet emerged in time, patches of bright, smooth skin shining out as the crud dissolved.
Tha-shi rubbed oil into the scars and said, “How he must have been hurt, this one.” Jake was seeing some of these scars for the first time, and agreed with her; he scowled at the webs and grids, the slashes and punctures, old ones that were only fine wrinkles and others that were white welts. “A tiger did some of this,” he said.
Again Tha-shi’s eyes wi
dened. “A tiger. Here we have no tigers. Only the leopard, and the bobtailed-cat-with-tufted-ears.” The motion of her hand ceased on Ugly’s belly, and she looked up: “Can you tell that by the scars, or did you know this one?”
“I knew this one.”
“A friend,” she said, marveling.
“I knew him.”
He could not be sure what ailed Ugly. Simple exhaustion, plus hunger and exposure? No frostbite. Heartbeat quick and light, but regular. The man did not seem feverish. Tha-shi laid blankets on him, and Jake remembered his own resurrection.
“One of us must be with him when he wakes,” he said. “If it is you, you must call me at the first sign.”
But it was Jake. In the morning watch, just before dawn, Ugly stirred and muttered. Jake braced himself: the man might come out of his sleep with a lunatic’s fierce lunge. Ugly’s eyes opened, and gleamed in the firelight. His head turned; he stared at Jake. “Am I alive?” he whispered. “Or are we both dead?”
“We both live,” Jake said. Chinese was old and comfortable in his mouth, like a mother tongue. “This is indeed a hungry ghost!”
“Not yet a ghost,” Ugly said, “though you did your best.”
“As you once told me, only a slave does not dream of escape.”
“But you have not escaped.” Ugly’s voice grew stronger. “The tiger has tracked the Tartar.”
“Be easy,” Jake said.
“Yes,” Ugly said. “If you wished me harm I would have slept on.” He rested. “Still, I will tell you, because we fought together.” He rested. “I came to kill you, and I mean to do it.”
“But not for a day or two,” Jake said.
“In fairness,” Ugly said, “I recommend that you kill me now.”
Jake sat unmoving, and waited for advice from his innards. Soon he said, “I will not.”
“Dunce!” Ugly said, and clucked like a man of sorrows.
“If these mountains could not kill you,” Jake said, “how should I presume?”
Ugly said, “What is this place?”
“It is the winter pasture,” Jake said. “Nomads of the mountains. This is my tent and my fire. These are peaceable people and you may be easy.”
“Is there food?”
“Plenty.”
“Plenty! Yüü. I did not eat every day. I lived in caves. I froze my plums off. Well, no.” His hands moved, and he looked interested. “I see that you have stripped me. And such blankets!”
“There is soup,” Jake said, “if you can sit up.”
“I can try. What kind of soup?”
“Yak soup.”
“Yak! Never in my life have I eaten yak.” Groaning and huffing, Ugly struggled to one elbow. “Like a baby,” he said.
“Like a lamb in the first hour,” Jake said.
Ugly fell back. “A moment.”
Jake went to the fire, and spooned soup into a bowl. He sat beside Ugly.
“You killed them,” Ugly said conversationally. “You killed Momo and Mouse and Hao-k’an.”
“Do not talk of that now. Here. We raise the head, so, and I will feed you, so.”
Ugly swallowed hot soup. “Bugger. I can feel it in my fingers and toes.”
“In a week you will be the old Ugly.”
“The old what?”
Jake smiled. “Well, so I always called you to myself. I never knew your real name.”
“Nor will you now,” Ugly snarled. “In a week I will be the old Tiger’s Assistant and I will unseam you. Ugly!”
Later he said, “My body breathes in a new fashion.”
“We scraped a year’s supply of bird droppings off you,” Jake said. “We laundered you, and oiled you.”
“Not good,” Ugly groaned. “The great catarrh will sour my blood, and flux and congestion will bleach my spleen.”
“Foolishness,” Jake told him. “In Peking I showered each morning, and was not sick a day.”
“It is the big nose,” Ugly said. “The elements of disease collect in the big nose, and are blown out into special kerchiefs. Speaking of big noses, my nether nose is engorged with piss. What is to be done about that?”
“Can you stand?”
“I can stand.” Then, “You son of a syphilitic turtle!” He was like a man seeing devils, or watching a cobra dance: hatred flamed in his face; also fierce pleasure.
Jake forced a small smile. “While the Tiger’s Assistant is a man of the best bones.”
Ugly subsided. “I am a bandit by trade.”
“And so was I.”
“All the same,” Ugly said, “I must kill you. For Momo and Mouse and Hao-k’an.”
“Well then, you must,” Jake said. “But first you must piss. Then put on some weight, and regain your skill of hand and eye. When the moment comes, I will give you a fight.”
“You will not know when the moment comes,” Ugly growled.
“Up now,” Jake said.
Ugly flung the blankets back and rolled to his knees. In the firelight he hung for some seconds, sucking air. He placed one foot flat and rocked forward, then hung again, not able to rise and not willing to fall back.
Jake stepped toward him. Ugly glowered, as if about to spring and savage. Jake remembered the knife whacking into the post as the Tibetan turned. For many seconds he and Ugly stared, renewing various principles of heat and cold.
Jake extended an arm and braced himself; Ugly clamped a hand on it and strained upward. On his feet, he panted. Jake led him across the tent to the pot. “Who is that?” Ugly asked.
“My woman,” Jake said. Her eyes gleamed; she watched without stirring.
Ugly snorted. So this foreign fool had a woman. They came where they were not wanted, and took everything. A virgin of fifteen years, no doubt, given to him with much bowing, with hisses and creamy words, of fifteen years with good fat hams and fresh lips.
Ai, this was a piss! In the performance of the rites, the virtuous man does not begrudge. The easing of his bladder was a blessing to body and mind. He broke wind also.
Better. In a day or two he would be himself, and he would stamp on this foreigner, and see what these people had to offer. It was perhaps time for a true holiday, as at country inns in the old days. To eat one’s fill! And the gods grant me such a fire every night!
He was warm as he had not dared dream in his caves; warm and sleepy, invaded by friendly odors. A woman, was it. Well, he would see about that too.
By the third night Ugly had been presented to the Doctor and several of the men and women, but he was still in Jake’s care and, as Jake put it, under house arrest. “Until a great powwow tomorrow.”
“P’ao-wao? What is that?”
“A meeting,” Jake explained, “where the tribe will decide whether to emasculate you, or only tie you between two stallions in rut.”
“The funniness of foreigners is an eternal mystery. Where are my weapons? Or yours, for that matter?”
“In a safe place.”
“Well, if these people are of evil intent, I want the pistol at least.” Ugly nodded to Tha-shi, who was setting out bowls and platters. Tha-shi patted the top of his head; Ugly mocked Jake.
“It is the custom,” Jake said mildly. “The women here pat children and those who are loony.”
Ugly shook his head and spat into the fire. Jake howled; Ugly drew back in alarm. “Now you have offended the demons of the fire,” Jake said despairingly. “We must purify the tent. Up, man, up! Take off your pants!”
Ugly rose, and his hand went to his belt. “Bugger!” he said then, and scowled. “Defile you!” He sat down. “Defile all foreigners! Defile all their missionaries, defile all their soldiers, defile all their women here and abroad! And may the fiery eight-pizzled dragon defile all jokesters of whatever nation, trade or nose!” Then he smiled sheepishly.
Jake was keeping score: every grin was a point for the home team.
Ugly tore into the roast yak, stuffing down barley cakes too; all day long he belched and nibbled. He
swigged deeply of the tea; Tha-shi filled his cup. “They hit us like lightning,” he said. “We were all dopey, fucked out and exhausted, but we came up shooting. I saw daylight and tried to streak through, hanging on the off side of a pony, but the buggers blasted the pony to pieces. So I rolled and came up shooting again, and knocked one of them out of the saddle and hung around his pony’s neck and kicked hard. The pony flew, a real Qara Shahr. And the others must have kept them busy just long enough.” He frowned. “One at least had a clear shot at me. I believe he froze. He was perhaps a rookie. It was dawn, and the buggers had all day to chase me. More than once I thought I was gone.” Again he frowned. “It was … it was fishy. Well, a long day. The whole time I had clutched my rifle.”
“Then you did not go back to help out.”
“Help out!” Ugly stared. “Crazy man.”
“So you left them,” Jake said. “You do not even know that they are dead.”
“Enough of that,” Ugly said. “That is dangerous talk. There comes a time when each looks out for himself.”
“Indeed.” Jake spoke politely.
“Bugger yourself,” Ugly said. “All right, then: I might have done the same. I say that to you. But scores must be settled.”
“Scores must be settled. So you fled up the mountain.”
“I did that. Tracking you. I kept cutting your sign.”
“And it was you who fired at K’uang, just before the snowstorm.”
“It was indeed. I never thought those fools would come so far. That was not bad, that crossfire. In that manner whole armies can be made to vanish.”
“Beer?”
“Beer,” Ugly conceded.
“It is barley beer,” Jake said, and passed the jug.
“Yak is good,” Ugly said. “Not as good as wild ass, but good.”
The Chinese Bandit Page 28
