River of Dust (9 page)

    The old woman hobbled along, but her pace was just right for Grace at six months pregnant. To her amazement, no one bothered them with the usual incessant begging. No doubt Mai Lin was liberally threatening to douse any who approached with the Evil Eye. Dear Mai Lin, Grace thought, how could she ever get along without her?

    As they left the market, Grace noticed that more people than usual were hurrying past. She was not terribly familiar with the town, but somehow the crowd seemed different to her and more frantic. Even those carrying heavy loads on poles over their shoulders or balanced precariously in straw baskets on their heads passed quickly and with great intent. Men and women practically ran as they pushed their wares on carts before them. They shouted out prices for charcoal, rice, millet, and cloth, although they seemed to have no intention of stopping for interested customers.

    Just then, up ahead at the corner where two cobblestone streets met, a small troop of soldiers belonging to the local warlord appeared. They marched in the direction where Grace and Mai Lin stood, with their bayonets out and their faces stern and unchanging. Their boots scuffed in unison. Before them stumbled a Chinese coolie dressed only in a loincloth. His wrists were bound by thick rope, and his legs were in chains. Mai Lin took Grace's hand and started to pull her away as more people poured out from the small shops and alleyways to follow the prisoner.

    "What are they going to do to that poor fellow?" Grace asked.

    Mai Lin did not reply and only tugged at her arm again.

    "Tell me, Mai Lin."

    "He was caught stealing something. He is nothing. Just a common criminal. Do not be concerned."

    "But what is being done to him?"

    "Mistress must go back to the mission compound now."

    Grace looked for a long moment into Mai Lin's lined and worried

face. Then she abruptly broke free and followed along with the crowd. If an injustice was about to be committed in plain sight of all these people, she wanted to witness it, too. She would return to the mission and report on the primitive justice system in this barbaric country. The Reverend ought to know about it, and she would be his deputy by informing him. Surely, he would be proud of her.

    Grace felt the filthy bodies of strangers press in around her as they filtered through the opening in the city wall. They finally stepped out into an area where farmers milled about and watered their donkeys before heading back onto the plains. As the small band of soldiers cut through the crowd, the bustle stopped. The donkeys kept chewing, but the country folk went still, their faces frozen in unchanging masks.

    At the center of the wide circle made by the watching peasants, the prisoner fell to his knees and wept. He had wet himself, and his body trembled. Grace knew she should look away. It was not decent to see a man so shamed. But she could not look away and watched as the prisoner fell forward onto his elbows and bowed his head in prayer.

    She stepped closer and listened as the poor fellow called out for his mother's and his father's forgiveness. He begged that his ancestors not shun him upon his arrival in heaven. Then, to Grace's great surprise, he called out to his Savior, Jesus Christ, his Lord and Master.

    At that moment, Mai Lin caught up with her. Grace looked down at her maidservant and asked, "Is it possible that they are punishing this fellow because he is a Christian?"

    Mai Lin shook her head in disgust. "No, they punish him because he stole what was not his. Now, we must go!"

    Grace stared with wide eyes and said, "But he would not have stolen something if he is a Christian."

    Mai Lin let out a surprising cackle and slapped a palm against her wrinkled cheek. Grace's cheeks flushed as she sensed the crowd turning to look at them. She must speak to Mai Lin about treating her more respectfully, especially in public.

    Just then, out into the square stepped a large man in a black robe with a saber hanging from his belt. The sword had to be three feet long, with a black lacquer handle and sheath. A red braided tassel swayed from the hilt. Grace had never seen such a handsome and frightening weapon. The man wore a black cloth over his forehead and another pulled up to his nose so that only his eyes were visible in the narrow slit between. He unsheathed his sword and swung it over his head.

    The silver blade caught the late-afternoon sunlight as the man performed some sort of ritual, a dance that edged him nearer and nearer to the prisoner. The soldiers stood at attention and watched while the crowd became more quiet and tense. Grace wanted to look away. She knew she would regret it if she did not, but her eyes stayed frozen on every movement of the man who swung the sword. She heard Mai Lin mumbling beside her and noticed that the old woman's eyes were shut. Yes, Mai Lin's head was bowed in prayer, although Grace could not guess to what god she whispered.

    The swordsman circled the cowering figure. He bent deeply in a ritual genuflection and let out a menacing cry that echoed across the courtyard and bounced off the city walls. The crowd answered with a nearly imperceptible gasp. Two soldiers lifted the prisoner and forced his bound arms over a bamboo pole. The man ducked his head as low as he could, as if that might help him escape his end.

    Grace had a most startling thought at that moment: if that were she kneeling in the dust, she would not want to give the barbarians the satisfaction of seeing her cowed. She would not bow her head in prayer. She simply wouldn't do it, devout husband or no.

    The Chinese man was a better Christian than she. The prisoner and Mai Lin both prayed frantically now. Grace wanted to shout at them: what was the use of prayer when the blade was about to strike? What good could it do when evil was upon you? No such prayers could save this man, just as fervent prayer had not saved her son when he had been stolen from her.

    The sword drew an extravagant arc through the air. While it twisted and curved in arabesques, Grace wondered if the terrible thing might never actually happen. Maybe the blow would never be struck. That would be the only true miracle to prove once and for all that prayers had been answered.

    But as she watched, Grace knew that she would carry the memory of this moment with her for the rest of her life, and in that way, the moment would never fully come to an end. The sword would hover continuously over the kneeling man's neck. The red tassel would dance forever like a gaudy bauble against the blue sky. The prisoner's final desperate cries would echo endlessly off the city walls and across the hushed courtyard. All of it would live on in Grace's mind in an endless cycle, never bringing relief or deliverance.

    The slow, steady chewing of the ignorant donkeys to her right, the wild reverberations of her own heart pounding in her ears would remain always. At least, during that unbearably long moment, Grace hoped that would be the case. For as terrible as it was to wait, it was better than the swift and irreversible end that finally came too soon.

    The blade hit bone with a sickening crack.

    Grace yanked a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it against her mouth, where it hardly muted the terrified scream that rose from her lips. Her cry was all the more deafening because of the silence around her.

    A hard thud sounded as the head hit packed earth. A duller thud signaled the body falling forward onto its stump. The soldiers who had held the bamboo pole let it drop and watched without expression. Blood spurted onto the dirt and soaked into the skin of the still-twitching man. It darkened the dust in rivulets leading in the direction of the head. Lying there in the dirt, just a few feet from them, the open-eyed head stared at Grace. For far too long an instant, she stared back while Mai Lin's eyes remained shut, her lips still murmuring.

    "Oh, dear," Grace said as her vision started to blacken. "I believe I have seen too much."

    Mai Lin gripped her waist. "Shut your eyes!" she shouted. "Do not allow dead man's spirit inside you. Ignorant woman, you should not have watched."

    With Mai Lin's arm around her, Grace did not faint. She took in gasps of air and began coughing. She bent over and convulsed, a deep cough rising up from far within her body. It was as if she needed to expel all the dust she had breathed since coming to China. The fine yellow loess carried on the wind all the way from the Gobi Desert had filled her up, clogged her mind and lungs. Grace continued to cough and felt her face flame.

    Some brave person, she thought, should have stepped forward and objected or argued or pulled out his own sword, ready to fight. If only the Reverend had been here, he would have marched forward and not flinched. The Reverend would have been brave. Never had there been a white man better suited to this awful place; never one better able to change it for the good. Grace made herself stand upright as her coughing finally subsided. She would tell the Reverend about this incident, and he would see to it that no such things ever happened again. Such was her husband's influence, she believed, in this arduous land.

    Mai Lin kept hold of Grace's arm as they began the slow trek back to the compound. Grace paused to fold her handkerchief and started to tuck it back into her sleeve. But Mai Lin grabbed the white linen and held it up to the sunlight. It was streaked with blood that shone with shocking brightness. Grace turned to Mai Lin. In an instant, she understood the look in the old woman's eyes.

A
hcho held open the flap of the yurt, and the Reverend bent to enter. The circle of Mongolian men in sheepskin vests and hats looked up with pinched eyes as the fire before them billowed and smoke swirled upward and out the center hole. The desert night air had grown cold, and the Reverend had not hesitated to ask for shelter from the lookout guard. He had become bolder on his many recent journeys across the plains and western mountains. His unhealthy disregard for danger made Ahcho's task of seeing to his safety more difficult than ever.

    "Good evening, gentlemen," the Reverend said in a sufficient approximation of their dialect. He bowed, and his long coat swept the richly colored rug they had set down on the hard dirt. "Thank you for your hospitality on this frigid night. We are most grateful."

    The chieftain of the Mongol band nodded but did not smile. The thick fur cape he wore over his shoulders was preposterous, Ahcho thought. For one thing, it was enormous and still bore the head and claws of the wolf to whom it had belonged. Ahcho tried not to look into the dead animal's yellow eyes. Evil spirits, both alive and dead, lurked everywhere out on the plains. A person had to be careful, and the likes of these men could not be trusted. Mongol nomads had nothing to lose. They cut men's throats and left them to die by the road without compunction. Just consider the abduction of the young Wesley boy. These people stopped at nothing. Under his robe, Ahcho fingered the cool handle of a pistol he had borrowed for precisely this reason and kept secret from the Reverend. His master would not have approved of it, but then again, as a foreigner, he could not possibly be fully aware of the many hazards.

    "Sit, sit," the chieftain said as he raised a hand on which flashed rings and bracelets of hammered silver. Around his neck he wore a dozen pendants, each bearing an amulet of silver.

    The other men shifted on their hassocks to make a place for the Reverend and pointed to a space in the circle for Ahcho as well, but he shook his head. He would stand by the door, although after riding all day, his legs throbbed with tiredness. He was not a young man anymore, yet not for an instant would he take his eyes off his master so long as the Reverend continued to place himself in the company of such blackguards.

    "You will smoke with us," the chief said.

    It was not a question, and the Reverend did not seem to take it as one. He merely nodded, and the others offered a murmur of approval.

    One of the men packed a pipe with a long silver stem and tamped it down with a silver tool. This was a successful band, Ahcho thought, if one could be successful as a nomad. As their guard had led them toward the chieftain's tent, they had passed through a substantial herd of sheep and goats. Ahcho had always understood that nomads traveled in small bands because they fought too often amongst themselves and were forever killing one another over minor slights. Yet he and the Reverend had passed a good number of tents scattered about, and Ahcho wondered if they might even belong to wives and children, although he dared not ask. Nomads were notoriously private and volatile. A simple greeting could be construed as a threat. They would slice off an ear or a hand, steal your horse, and then run you off. He had heard stories.

    The men silently smoked, and when the pipe came to the Reverend, he did exactly as the others had done before him. Ahcho marveled at how the American had learned to adapt so quickly to his surroundings in recent months. While he knew that the rumors about the Reverend were unfounded and outrageous, his master was indeed a changed man and not always recognizable anymore.

    The chief spoke up again when the pipe returned to him. "We heard you were coming."

    The Reverend smiled ever so slightly. He spoke far less often than he used to and seemed to weigh his words more carefully. Ahcho could tell that this gave him the air of a holy man, which was true as well as a good strategy.

    A young buck shook his head excitedly, and his loosely twined hair thrashed about his shoulders as he spoke. "We were told you were nearby, and I said we should go out and find you before you left the region again. But our great leader was right that you would come to us. This is a most propitious day!"

    The Reverend leaned toward the young man and asked, "And what did you hope for from my arrival?"

    "Oh, just to see you, Ghost Man. I will tell my children, and they will tell their children. And maybe if you want to perform a miracle, that would be fine with us." He nudged his friend beside him, and the two men chuckled.