River of Dust (5 page)

A
hcho pushed open the screen door and joined Mai Lin on the front porch. She crouched on the top step, chewed betel quid, and spat the juice over the side. They acknowledged each other with customary grunts. He brought out his pipe, struck a match against the rough side of the mud-brick home, and puffed. Smoke wafted into the restless air. Ahcho squinted into the darkness, where the wind rustled under a moonless sky. He was thinking about the boy out there somewhere.

    "Your patient is the easy one," Mai Lin started, interrupting any peace Ahcho might have hoped for. "He has merely a gash and a broken rib. Those will heal with little help from you. As always, you're the lucky one."

    "It's not so simple as that, and you know it," Ahcho said. "The man has lost his son."

    Mai Lin shrugged. "Well, at least the mistress did not lose the baby in her belly. I saved it. No one else could do that. Am I right? You tell me anyone else in these provinces who could have done that?" She did not wait for a reply but carried on. "I will be up all night, giving her remedies and burning incense over her. You know all that must be done. Her female organs are— "

    "Enough, woman," Ahcho said wearily. He bit down on the stem of his pipe. He had no intention of listening to a medical report about their mistress. Mai Lin had no sense of propriety.

    "Ha, you are still squeamish?"

    "Quiet, I said."

    Mai Lin let out a long yawn.

    Ahcho tried to think of where the kidnappers might have taken the boy. There was little chance that the opium sots from the nearest hamlet had been involved. They existed only in an ineffectual haze, although he did not blame the Reverend for starting his search there. By the Reverend's description, though, Ahcho could tell that the bandits had traveled a great distance to get here. If still alive, the boy was no doubt being taken far away.

    Over the past seven years, Ahcho had accompanied the Reverend further than any men from Shansi Province had gone before. They had seen the Mongolian steppes and the great Gobi Desert, about which Ahcho had previously heard only fantastical stories. He admired the Reverend in many ways, but not least because the younger man had shown Ahcho a world he had dreamed of since he was a child. And now, the Reverend's only son was out there in that vast land.

    "She kept calling for her boy," Mai Lin's grating voice interrupted again. "So I gave her something to ease her."

    "The Master doesn't like you giving her that," he said.

    Mai Lin let out a disgusted puff of air. "He should understand by now that I know best. I saved her twice already when she lost the other babies. The man thinks only Jesus can perform miracles. I am better than that long-faced Ghost Man with the straw-colored hair. You have seen the picture of him in the chapel? Why would anyone believe a person with pink skin and watery eyes the color of a summer sky? That Jesus person doesn't even look healthy."

    "This is a sacrilege, you know. Besides, you should be careful. Their bodies aren't like ours."

    "That is my point.
You
be careful of the Jesus man. He is not one of us." She reached into a pouch, and her fingers reappeared with more betel quid, which she packed into her already full cheek.

    Ahcho sucked harder on his pipe and watched the small clouds billow and disappear into the darkness around them. The grasses on all sides swayed. How could the Reverend possibly go back into that unfathomable landscape to rescue his son? The long mission trip that had taken place before the mistress had arrived from America was, without a doubt, the most remarkable experience of Ahcho's life. And yet he knew his tired body could not go forth for months on end like that again. At sixty, he was too old. He shook his head and told himself not to worry. There would be time to consider such options. What was that expression the Reverend liked to use about a cart and a horse?

    "I am not the one who needs to keep track of my charge," Mai Lin started again with a chuckle. "You let yours wander off, and look where he ended up. He is a grown man, but I believe he had never seen anything like that before." Mai Lin's laugh scraped at Ahcho's weary heart, but her eyes sparkled with mischief that was hard to resist.

    "Yes," he conceded, "the Master was out of his element."

    She spat into the bushes. "It's high time he had some fun," she said.

    "Woman," Ahcho scolded.

    "Aha," she said and pointed at him. "You know what I'm saying."

    Ahcho straightened up and knocked on the porch railing with his knuckles. He was too old for such talk. It was not proper. Mai Lin adjusted her skirts around her and spat onto the ground. He sensed that she was too tired to tease him any longer, and he was glad.

    "It's strange," she said after a moment, "but the Mistress calls out not just for her son and her other babies who were never born but also for the others, the ones who died long ago."

    "What ones who died long ago?"

    "You know, the other American children. They never live long in Shansi." She shrugged again and spoke as if this were a fact. "They do not belong here and are simply whisked away."

    "What are you saying? Of course they belong here," Ahcho said, puffing on his pipe to calm himself. The woman could agitate a stone in a dry riverbed.

    "No, they don't," Mai Lin said almost cheerfully. "Remember the boy who was washed off in the Fen River when it rose too high? He fished like a man without the sense of a man. And that other one who snatched fruit from the market, ate it without washing, and died the next morning. Just like that." She snapped her fingers. "And I am not even mentioning the hordes that came down from the mountains to slaughter all the white babies. You see, they have no business being here in the first place."

    Ahcho cleared his throat and spoke as sternly as he could muster, despite his fatigue. "That's enough now. I remember the Boxer time better than anyone, but it is past. And besides, the Lord takes away babies only when he has a better use for them elsewhere, not as a punishment. The Lord is not a foolish old woman like you."

    "Suit yourself. I'm just saying there are reasons for such disasters. The Spirits do not like things to change," Mai Lin said and squirted an arc of juice onto the ground. Ahcho heard it land as always with a splat, and this time it infuriated him.

    He raised himself up to his full height, which was considerable for a Chinese man, and stood, steely and unperturbed, just as the Reverend would in a moment like this one. Also like the Reverend, Ahcho had no use for the old superstitions. Thoughts about Spirits were no longer permissible.

    He preferred the new ways. Improvements were coming all the time. Although Fenchow-fu was only a small city, it boasted a new road and a hospital that the Reverend had built. Chinese children attended the Christian school with a roof over their heads. The Reverend had even recently proposed that a library be erected, although the province of Shansi possessed only one book, an encyclopedia that the town elders forbade anyone to open in order to preserve it. Ahcho was a chief propagandist of this new wave of progress and prosperity. And although he knew pride was a sin, he hoped it was all right that he was proud to be his master's number-one boy.

    He glanced down at Mai Lin, seated on her haunches, her many skirts, ropes, cloth belts, and pouches spread out around her. No one could dispute that she knew everything about birthing and the care of babies. She could also help a patient recover from croup or a sour stomach, and sometimes even more serious illnesses. But as the future took hold, Mai Lin was in danger of becoming a sorry throwback to another time.
She
was the one who had less and less business being here.

    "Enough about that," Ahcho said, his full voice returning with confidence. "Tomorrow morning, we will take the Reverend and Mistress Grace back to Fenchow-fu. I will prepare the wagon so they can lie down on straw in the back. The poor Master, every bump in the road will be agony with his broken rib."

    "I will give him something for it."

    "He will not take it."

    "If he hurts enough, he will," she said, her laugh moist and abundant. Everything about her was that way, and for a brief moment, Ahcho did not let it bother him. He was in charge again and knew what needed to be done.

    Then they both looked out at the night. The restless grasses hovered nearby, and the mountains rose, a shadow of a shadow in the distance. To find the boy, they would have to cross over them and then traverse much more.

    "Little Wesley boy is out there," Ahcho said. "We must form a search party from the mission and return to the countryside as quickly as we can. The Reverend will not be able to lead it until his rib heals, but Reverend Charles Martin can rally the other ministers. I will help gather our own people. We must send messengers to every warlord in the neighboring provinces. We will try everything, and we will find him." Ahcho spoke with more assurance than he felt, but that was as one must when putting one's faith in the Lord. He had learned this from the Reverend.

    Mai Lin let out a long hissing sound.

    "What?" he asked, although he did not want to hear it.

    "You know better," she said in a singsong voice that teased him. "The Fates have their ways."

    Ahcho tapped his pipe on the railing to empty it. Now it was his turn to let out a disgusted sound. "Well, you know nothing," he said with finality. "The Lord Jesus is on our side, and miracles do happen. Just look at the Reverend tonight. Not one but two bullets, and he survived. It is remarkable, and so will be our rescue of the child."

    Ahcho was pleased to end the conversation on that clarifying and uplifting note. But as he stepped back into the cottage, he could not help hearing Mai Lin's cackle echoing in the night.

T
he candle flickered as the Reverend turned in his bed and let out a soft moan. Ahcho was at his side a moment later and adjusted the pillow so it cupped his head properly in the manner that Americans preferred.

    The Reverend's eyelids fluttered several times and then opened. A grimace of pain crossed his face. Ahcho held up a newly opened bottle of brandy, its amber liquid glowing. The Revered nodded once, and Ahcho poured a small amount into a glass. He raised it to his master's dry lips, and the Reverend drank. Then the Reverend lifted a finger toward the bottle again. Ahcho was surprised but held it steady as the Reverend took several more long pulls.

    His pain must have been considerable, Ahcho thought, to tempt the man so. Not that Ahcho blamed him, but he knew he wouldn't mention this to anyone. Nor would he mention the events of the evening and the sinful setting into which the Reverend had stumbled. He cursed himself already for having told Mai Lin where he had found him. But Ahcho had been in such a panic when he had returned to the cottage with the bleeding man that the tale had flown out of him like a bird flushed from the bushes by a cat.

    The Reverend's eyes closed again. Ahcho pushed the cork into the bottle of liquor and placed it upon the shelf with the other supplies. They would need more cotton strips to create a proper sling. And more bandages to keep the wound clean. Perhaps he would purchase another bottle of strong spirits to help with the pain, should it continue. On his way back to the Reverend's bedside, Ahcho paused before his own satchel that he had hung on a hook by the door. With a heavy heart, he reached into the bag and pulled out something wrapped in a cloth. He carried it back to the Reverend.

    "Sir?" he whispered.

    The Reverend's eye twitched, and his lips pursed ever so slightly.

    "The robbers seem to have tossed something onto the ground before leaving," Ahcho said.

    The Reverend opened one eye. "Spectacles, please."

    Ahcho set down the item, found the glasses, placed them on the Reverend's nose, and carefully bent the soft metal wires around his ears. He dreaded the moment the object came into focus.

    "What is it?" the Reverend asked.

    Ahcho peeled back the corners of the cloth. "A human skull, sir. It appears to be that of a child."

    The Reverend flinched at the word but then asked, "You say you found it on the ground?"

    "At the base of the cottage steps where the boy— God protect him— was taken."

    The Reverend took the small round thing into his hands and held it up before his eyes, where it glistened in the lamplight. Ahcho could not help but notice that it appeared delicate and refined, like a porce lain vase, although also quietly menacing, like a snake curled upon a sun-drenched rock.

    The Reverend's face darkened, and his features shifted. They became tight and firm, all softness draining away. His eyes betrayed little, but Ahcho could sense a realization coming over him like a fog rolling over a mountainside in the morning. It was the same realization that Ahcho had arrived at some hours earlier.

    "Dear God," the Reverend said. Then he looked into Ahcho's face and asked in a halting voice, "What have I done?"

    Ahcho started to reach for his master's arm to comfort him but stopped with his hand in midair. He swallowed and waited for words to come forth, but none did. The two men looked at one another and understood something of which they could not speak.

    Ahcho wondered if he should have simply tossed the skull into the desert grasses and not shown it to the Reverend. But with some consternation, he realized that he still had enough of the old superstitions in him to believe that ignoring it could bring the Fates down upon them all. Ahcho feared he was a weak man and an imperfect Christian, and this was the best he could do.

    And yet he also reminded himself about the many Sunday mornings when the Reverend had spoken of Jesus's honesty and forthrightness. In order to obey the Reverend's entreaties to be like the Lord, Ahcho had had no choice but to show his master the skull. He could not hide so important a clue. For while the sight of it might ruin the Reverend, it might also help bring his son back to him.