River of Dust (3 page)

    It was the first time Grace had walked over the threshold of the new little home built for her by her husband. Her eyes immediately found, over in a corner of the open room, a newly made baby's crib with a toddler-sized bed pressed up beside it. Despite his many duties as head of the mission, the Reverend had clearly spent hours turning the dowels and staining the wood for each charming piece. Such was his love for his children. The infernal humming in Grace's brain grew louder, and she thought she might go mad if it continued. Doc Hemingway had said that she needed rest, and yet how could she find rest in a country that tormented her with loss?

    She broke free of Mai Lin's grip and staggered to the child-sized bed. Suddenly on her knees, she bowed before it, her body pressed over the low cornhusk mattress. A cry broke from her throat, and she wailed into the calico quilt.

    Then she sat up again and looked about frantically, for what she did not know. She grabbed the boy's pillow that his father had no doubt set there himself. She thrashed it until feathers flew out from the pretty embroidered case. She slammed it down again and again, as a dog shakes a rabbit until it grows limp, all life ravaged. Finally, Grace flopped forward onto the bed and simply wept.

    The last of the white feathers fell onto her outstretched arms like surprising snowflakes back home when she woke in early spring to find the milk bottles frosted on the back porch. Black twigs and cherry blossoms littered the sudden whiteness. It was on such days that Grace was glad to be alive in a world where surprising things happened, yet never so surprising as to carry away all hope of something better, of redemption if one simply bowed to the Lord's great plan.

    On springtime mornings like those, when the rain had finally stopped, they waded out toward the creek that had been rising for days. From farms upstream floated all manner of tires, cut logs, old boots, and once a bloated cow, swirling in an eddy until it was skewered by the limbs of a fallen tree. The Lord had seen to such disasters, but there was always an escape, a way to survive and even grow stronger in one's faith. There was a lesson to be learned, and then you carried on.

    Grace sat again, and her head hung limply in the posture of a supplicant. She knew she appeared to be praying there beside her son's unused bed. But she was not. She was cursing the Lord instead. Above the incessant vibrations in her brain, she cursed Him as she never had before. She would not carry on. She would not survive, especially not in this terrible land that He had created out of fire and brimstone and suffering.

    Mai Lin knelt beside Grace and tucked a strong hand under her arm. She helped her stand. As Grace stepped away from the child-sized bed and the crib, she did not look back but tipped her head to see past the curtains and out the window as wild strands of pink and purple slid down the sky. Soon a gray stillness would spread. With nightfall, a frightening moonscape would appear, cold and lifeless and full of peril. Her husband was out there in that lonely land in pursuit of their beloved son.

    Mai Lin hobbled forward on her miserably deformed feet and helped Grace sit on the adult bed in the far corner of the open room. Grace leaned against the pillows, almost calm now, although the dizziness and agitation in her brain remained a quiet refrain. Even in her grief, she noticed the touches the Reverend had added to please her: the coat hooks beside the door, a handsome cabinet to hold pans and plates, a fine celadon pot on the mantel and calico curtains he must have sent for from back home to separate the bedrooms from the living area.

    With a long intake of air, studded by staccato sobs, Grace swung her legs around so she might lie down. But in that instant, she felt wetness between her legs. She sprang up from the bed in alarm. She pawed at her long linen skirt and tried with trembling hands to yank it off. She had no words to say to Mai Lin, but somehow the woman understood.

    Mai Lin worked with gnarled fingers on the ivory buttons that ran down the back of the delicately made garment. Then she undid the endless buttons that confined Grace into her high-collared shirt and pulled it off her. Grace stood in only a simple petticoat and looked down and saw what she feared most.

    She fell back onto the bed. Red pooled on her white slip, red rose up from her broken heart and filled her mind. She shut her eyes and felt water fill her ears, but then she knew better: not water but blood. Blood streamed around her, tossing her about and spinning her in its own ill luck, like that cow in the eddy that had been stopped only by a limb like a spear. The robber had raised his sword high in the air before he had raced forward to steal her son. Grace would have given anything for him to ride toward only her and plunge his blade into her heart. Perhaps he had. Perhaps that explained the oozing wetness that now surrounded her on all sides. She felt Mai Lin blot between her legs and place her healing hands upon Grace's stomach, but she knew it would do no good. Yes, the robbers had pierced her and were taking away her life's blood.

    The old woman bustled around the bed, but Grace no longer cared. The vibrations in her mind were terribly loud now, and she knew the blood poured forth. Soon she would lie on a bed made only of blood. Mai Lin pulled potions, creams, tinctures, and lumps of incense from the many pouches and sacks that hung on leather strings around her waist and neck. Grace was dimly aware of her grinding something with a mortar and pestle on the bedside table. Within moments, the bitter, sickly-sweet smell of incense wrapped itself around Grace's faint head. Mai Lin whispered soft and mysterious words over her as she had in the middle of the night two times before. Grace did not know the meaning of the chants. She did not hear the word Jesus, nor did she care to. This fact surprised Grace with such force that she let out a cackle, a most unladylike sound the likes of which usually issued forth only from her old amah.

    "Death to Lord Jesus!" Grace shouted feebly. "That was what the robbers said, and I say it now, too. Death to the Lord!"

    But the instant she repeated it, she feared she would be punished, struck down utterly and forever. She heard thunder raging in the distance and felt certain that a lightning storm would come this way. In a blinding flash of light, she, Mai Lin, and the cottage would be reduced to a smoldering pile of ashes. That was what she deserved. That was what she wanted. It was she, not her husband, who would be carried upward in a holy conflagration.

N
ight fires gleamed in the distance, and smoke clung to the horizon, blurring the far-off mountains in a blanket of  dark haze. The Reverend pressed on in the direction of the smoke, although the robbers might easily have slipped into one of the ravines or outcroppings that bordered the dirt road. In this maddening countryside there were too many possibilities, as many directions as travelers. It occurred to him that at this very moment the bandits may have been watching him from a rocky hilltop, laughing at his efforts. Or they might have turned away, no longer interested in the father who rode on and on forever in search of his son. For the Reverend understood that he would not stop his journey until Wesley was found.

    The old horse was not meant for such swift travel, but the Reverend paid it little heed. He had not ridden bareback since he was a boy on the farm. It did not matter. Nothing mattered except going onward. Off to his right he saw a fire burning, and further ahead on the left a hamlet appeared— a cluster of buildings made of yellow brick, though in the dark they resembled nothing more than dark outlines. He had passed this cluster of derelict buildings before but assumed they were empty and no longer in use. Now from this ghost town came a dim light that the Reverend headed toward.

    He let himself wonder what he would do if the bandits were holed up inside. He had no weapon. No sword or gun, not even a rock to hurl or a stick to swing. The Reverend bore nothing except his fury, height, and stature as a Man of God in a land of infidels. That would have to be enough. As he grew closer, he let the horse slow and then come to a stop. He swung down off the sweat-soaked back and kept hold of the reins. He could at least use the element of surprise to his advantage. He would come out of the black night to frighten the devils.

    He passed through a broken wooden gate whose fence had long since fallen away. The moon came out from behind a cloud, and he saw the lay of the courtyard: a barn on one side, its roof staved in; a shed on the other, with no door or windowpanes and only darkness inside; and there, before him, an old inn with the windows boarded over. A light shone dimly through chinks in the brick near the back of the building.

    The Reverend ducked behind the edge of the barn and tied his horse to a leaning post. He strode across the courtyard with his traveling coat billowing. A rough board with a knot of rope for a handle served as a door to the inn. On the wood were scrawled careless Chinese characters that the Reverend could not decipher. He couldn't be troubled about the meaning of the words, nor did he care to unravel the mysteries of this decrepit place. He merely wanted the Lord to lead him to his son. Faith, not knowledge, would guide him.

    In his hand the knot of rope felt prickly and unwelcoming, but he twisted it and pushed open the door. He, who had been called a giant by even the friendliest of Chinese, now ducked below the lintel. He stepped over the threshold, placed both boots firmly on the sunken dirt floor, and rose up to his full height, impersonating Goliath as best as he could.

    The Reverend thrust out his chest, pulled back his shoulders, and glared with as much menace as he could muster into a smoky, dimly lit room. His top wave of reddish hair grazed a low wooden beam. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the smoke. His lungs, which were never strong even in the best of settings, began to constrict in his chest. He hoped he would not cough and spoil the full effect of his pose, for he intended to appear not altogether human but rather a creature from an Amazon tribe, more native than the natives themselves.

    An old, gnarled man wrapped in a heavy woolen cape and high fur boots stepped forward from the shadows at the back of the unfurnished room. He was bent so low, the Reverend felt certain he had spent decades behind a plow, although the ropes and pouches he wore around his neck and waist suggested more the life of a nomad or trader.

    Perhaps, the Reverend thought, he was the grandfather of the bandits. The Reverend took a step forward, and the man cowered, suggesting he had none of the swagger of the men who had stolen his son. No doubt this fellow was instead the patriarch of a sorry, lost clan that still tried to hold on in this forgotten corner of the western plains.

    The man did not speak but looked up at the Reverend with bright and nervous eyes. They regarded one another like animals of different species, although, the Reverend considered, at least animals had an instinct that told them who was predator and who was prey. He wished he had paused to wipe the infernal desert dust from his spectacles before entering, for now the dense clouds billowing from the back of the dark room further narrowed his vision. He was seeing the old man as if through the wrong end of a smudged spyglass.

    "Grandfather," the Reverend began in as deep and sonorous a voice as he could muster, "I am here to find my son. He has been stolen, I believe, by the likes of you!"

    The older man flinched at his words and seemed to be trembling, but that did not stop him from daring to step forward. He inched closer, reached out a palsied finger, and poked the Reverend none too delicately in the chest. When his touch reached firmness, the man staggered back and let out a frightened yelp.

    "Yes, old fellow, I am real, and my mission is most urgent."

    The grandfather nodded his head repeatedly in an attempt at understanding.

    The Reverend boomed, "Have you, or your family, seen a small boy taken by robbers this very night?"

    The old man flinched and sank deeper into his dark cape, clearly still frightened, but finally answered, "No. No boy here."

    Although the man did not seem threatening, the Reverend knew to keep a close eye on him. In the seven years since he had come to Shansi Province, he had dealt with all manner of Chinese: the fine and upstanding as well as the tricksters who were more desperate than dangerous. He had also glimpsed the criminal element. Twice, he had come upon a beheading in a market square. Each time, it had become immediately apparent to him that the prisoner and the warlord who had orchestrated the punishment were equally evil barbarians. But the Reverend could not be bothered with such distinctions now. If he was in danger, so be it. His own safety was not what mattered. The boy was all.

    The Reverend strode deeper into the room, and as he did so, he heard laughter coming from the dark. Could that be a woman's voice? A girl's? Or, his heart quickened, perhaps it was the high, angelic sound of his son.

    "Your family, in the back." The Reverend gestured toward the darkened door. "Have
they
seen something in the past hours?"

    The grandfather did not answer but turned and beckoned with the same palsied finger. On his face appeared an unexpected grin. The Reverend heard the laughter again. This time he was certain it belonged to a woman, or perhaps several women. His son's voice was not so cloying or crass. But still, the Reverend ventured further into the place. He followed the outline of the bent man in the wooly cape, more like the back of an animal than any human outline. The Reverend intended to interrogate each and every person he encountered back there. He would gather clues, then leave quickly and press on into the night.

    The old man bowed his head humbly and held open the inner door for the Reverend, as if honored to offer tea in a formal parlor. The Reverend ducked low again, and when he lifted his head, he saw the terrible source of the smoke. All manner of miscreants lay about on low mats, puffing on pipes that emitted an awful stench. The Reverend squinted into the smoky den and covered his nose with his hand. An acrid scent seeped into him. This foul place seemed uninhabitable, as if he had entered an underwater world where he was the sole oxygenloving mammal. He took off his glasses and was about to clean them on his handkerchief when he realized he no longer had it. The bandits had taken it, too. The Reverend chided himself for even a moment's lapse in pursuit of his mission.