The Golden Rat Page 8

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  The constable patted Baoliu on the cheek and smiled. “You’re sure?” he asked again.

  Baoliu opened his mouth to answer—as a fist slammed into his face, knocking him sprawling.

  “Tell me what you know!” The guard knelt on him, pinning him and crushing his shoulders, and then pressed the blade of his sword to Baoliu’s neck.

  “Tell me the truth!”

  “I have!” sputtered Baoliu, licking his bloody lips.

  “They’re in Minkao—probably down in this stink-hole. We know that. Now, where are they?”

  “I don’t know. If I did, I’d tell you!” Baoliu looked up at the hole in the man’s face and then into his eyes—eyes that were searching his and deciding what to do. Then he felt the weight of the man rise off him.

  “I find out you lied to me, you’re dead. You understand that?”

  Baoliu tried to nod. He tried to raise his head, but then lay back heavily, dizzy and struggling to get his breath.

  “BAOLIU! ARE YOU all right?”

  He felt Zhou behind him, lifting him to a sitting position. “Yeah,” he managed to say, dragging a sleeve across his bloody mouth.

  “That was some quick thinking!” said Zhou. “You paid a mean price for it, but it worked.”

  “Thank you, son,” rasped Shen Pang, as Linlin helped him sit down. “If you hadn’t done that, I don’t know what would have happened!” He coughed, putting a hand on Baoliu’s shoulder. “That was brave—it took real courage!”

  Baoliu smiled his thanks.

  Linlin knelt down in front of him with a bowl of water and began wiping blood from his face with a wet cloth. “I’m so sorry. This is all because of us.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “No.” Shen Pang huffed. “It’s mine. If it weren’t for me, you’d be far from here, Linlin. Safe somewhere!”

  “Please, don’t talk like that, Grandfather,” said Linlin.

  Pang gestured in the direction of Baoliu. “And look what he did to this boy. He almost killed him!”

  “I’ll be all right,” said Baoliu, wincing as Linlin touched the cloth to a scrape on his chin.

  “You don’t look all right,” said Zhou. “You’re a mess.”

  Baoliu looked down at clothes hanging in bloody tatters and at mud-caked hands and feet. He realized Linlin was studying him.

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” she said.

  Baoliu watched her make her way into the shack, Shen Pang toddling in after her. He heard the two talking in muffled tones, and then looked up as Linlin emerged, a rolled bundle under her arm.

  “Let me get this off of you,” she said, helping him out of his ragged shirt. She tossed it aside and then wiped blood and dirt from his chest and hands. “I wish I had more to give you.”

  “‘More to give’ me?” muttered Baoliu.

  “Put this on,” said Linlin, unrolling the bundle and holding up a shirt. “It’s the least I can do. Let me have your hand.”

  “Thank you,” said Baoliu, sliding a hand into a sleeve and pulling the shirt on.

  “For what you did—he’d want you to have it.”

  “Whose shirt is it?”

  She smiled somberly. “It was my father’s.”

  “I WANT TO tell her. I have to,” said Baoliu, watching as Linlin made her way back into the shack.

  “You want to tell her now?” asked Zhou. “Now when she thinks so well of you?”

  “Especially now. Everything’s turning into some sort of strange lie. It’s going too far. This shirt that she gave me—her father’s shirt.” He pinched together the fabric of a sleeve. “I’m wearing a dead man’s shirt, a man who was executed instead of me!”

  Zhou nodded, and glanced back at the shack, at the sound of muted quarreling.

  “But it’s not just the shirt,” said Baoliu. “It’s more than that.”

  “What?”

  “The two of them, they’re being cheated. My father paid eight thousand tongqian for the ka-di. Half was supposed to go to the government, half to the family—four thousand each. The magistrate told them they were to receive only two, and then tells them they’re owed nothing!”

  “The rich finding ways to get richer, taking everything they can in any way they want—that’s how it’s always been,” said Zhou.

  “I understand, but I think there’s even more to it than that. Something else is going on. The magistrate says they aren’t entitled to anything. Why? What reason did he give?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “How do we find out?”

  “Not by telling Linlin who you are. If you do, you’re not going to find out anything. She wouldn’t have anything to do with you.” He smiled. “She really likes you. Keep it that way.”

  “‘Likes’ me?” Baoliu shook his head. “She doesn’t even know me!”

  “Maybe she knows you better than you think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I’m trying to say,” began Zhou, and then stopped himself as Linlin emerged from the shack and headed down toward them.

  “Would you do something for me?” she asked.

  “Yes—what?” asked Baoliu, looking up at Linlin’s teary eyes.

  “I have an errand to run. If you could watch my grandfather for me.”

  “Of course.”

  “I won’t be gone long.”

  Baoliu nodded and watched as she headed away, and then glanced back at the shack. Shen Pang was standing in the doorway. He waved to them feebly, and then disappeared back inside.

  WHEN LINLIN RETURNED, she was clutching a porcelain vial. “Thank you,” she said as she passed Baoliu and Zhou. She looked at them blankly and then made her way inside.

  “You know what she’s doing, don’t you?” asked Zhou.

  “I wish I didn’t.”

  “She’s bringing him what he wanted.”

  “I know,” said Baoliu. “Poison.”

  10

  Linlin emerged from the shack as though in a trance, and then sat down by herself on a ledge overlooking the ravine. Baoliu got up to go to her but then hesitated and looked at Zhou, who shook his head.

  “She needs to be alone now,” he said quietly.

  Baoliu nodded. “And there’s something we have to do,” he said, and looked toward the hovel, exhaling through clenched teeth.

  Inside, they found Shen Pang curled up beside a pallet, dressed in an ancient-looking uniform, medals hanging from ribbons around his neck. Green liquid stained his lips and an empty vial was gripped in a lifeless hand. A rigid eye stared at them.

  Together, the two lifted Shen Pang onto the pallet and lay him flat, smoothing and straightening his uniform. Baoliu pressed Shen Pang’s eye closed and wiped his beard and mouth. Zhou took the vial from his hand and then took his arms and put them at his sides.

  “There’s nothing more we can do,” said Baoliu.

  They stood, looking down at him—the uniform, the scars, the stitched eye, the beard and mane of long white hair.

  “I wish I’d known him better,” said Baoliu.

  They bowed to him, praying hands to their faces, and then turned at the sound of the door hanging being pulled back. A strange-looking, stumpy little woman—a shaman—entered the shack. There was a ring in her nose, her arms were tattooed, and around her neck was a garland of bones.

  Linlin followed her in. “This is Nin-Ue,” she said, her voice strained. “She will attend to Grandfather. Could you assist her?”

  “I will need you to make a bier, a carrying platform for the body,” said the woman.

  Baoliu nodded. He put a hand on Linlin’s shoulder and then followed Zhou out the door.

  In the vegetation beyond the shack, Baoliu collected lengths of bamboo as Zhou searched out raw hemp. They cleared a place and then began lashing bamboo together into a crude platform.

  Night had fallen by the time they finished. Together, they carried t
he makeshift bier down the slope and into the shack. The place was brightly lit—candles burned around the room and incense cloyed the air. At the back of the room, the shaman had finished washing the body and was redressing it.

  “Come,” she said.

  They set the bier on the table and then, as the little woman guided them, they carried Shen Pang to it and lay him down carefully.

  Bracelets rattling on her wrists, the little woman smeared a stripe of damp ash on Pang’s forehead. She put coins on the lids of his eyes, and then placed a piece of jade in his mouth. And to keep the mouth closed, she pulled a cloth under his chin and knotted it atop his head.

  “Death is not an ugly thing if it is a life fulfilled,” said the woman as she finished. She smiled in a strangely warm manner. “Is it not so?”

  “Yes,” said Baoliu, wondering at the notion, watching as she put a hand on Shen Pang’s shoulder.

  “Ni anxi ba.” “Rest,” she said.

  FROM MOUTH TO mouth. From shack to shack. Word of Shen Pang’s death spread that night throughout the ravine and Minkao.

  In a dawn of fading haze, mourners began arriving. Two old women, both with flat, blank faces, arrived first.

  A man on crutches followed. And then a girl with hardly any teeth, though she looked no older than Linlin. Monks in orange robes, their feet caked with mud, came in quietly; they chanted over the body, reciting sutras, the Buddhist prayers.

  Several who came were elderly men, old friends, most of them fellow soldiers in faded uniforms, each of whom saluted Pang and then bowed to him.

  Midmorning, the body was enshrouded in white and then tied to the bier. Shen Pang’s friends hefted it onto their shoulders, headed out with it, and then picked their way slowly down a path through the ravine. Linlin walked behind them, and behind her trailed a small wake of mourners.

  In a blackened, ash-strewn stretch of ground, children from the ravine were finishing preparing a funeral pyre. The procession halted for a moment, and then Shen Pang’s body, blanketed with flowers, was laid on the large pile of branches and wood.

  A silent crowd gathered around as an old man told of his boyhood with Shen Pang, and of what a good friend he had always been—and how much others had liked him.

  A nervous little man spoke of Pang’s belief in life eternal, and of how he had found it in his son and granddaughter. He then took Linlin’s hand and stepped aside. For a long moment she stood desolate, as though stricken with fright. She wiped her eyes. Then slowly she raised her head, and summoned the strength to say a poem:

  I weep for him,

  And I am ashamed by the feebleness

  Of my words.

  A great man is dead.

  Yet the children play.

  The birds sing,

  And the cool stream does not pause

  For even a moment.

  It is forever on its way,

  Yet always here.

  A tall man in a threadbare officer’s uniform spoke last, and at length. “Pang was not just brave and strong and good,” he said in conclusion to his thoughts, “Shen Pang was the rarest of things. He was an honorable man.”

  The pyre was lit. Standing with Linlin and Zhou, Baoliu watched as flames crawled up through the wood and then flowered skyward. Smoke puffed from the hollow ends of bamboo. Wood popped, collapsed. The pyre sagged, cracking apart, and then burst into a single blaze. The three watched for a long time, until only a few other mourners remained, and until the fire had diminished into a shapeless patch of glowing embers.

  THE FUNERAL OF Baoliu’s mother had been a darkly splendid affair—everything of the finest quality—ornate, impressive, perfumed by flowers and incense, and attended by scores of richly dressed men and women. After the service, everyone came to their house, mingling, speaking in hushed tones, sipping wine, and nibbling at delicacies.

  Only a handful of mourners returned to the hovel after Shen Pang’s funeral—poor people in worn and ragged clothing, Pang’s old friends, and friends from nearby.

  There were no delicacies, no rich platters of food at the gathering for Shen Pang. There was only weak tea and rice balls, and endless stories about the man: battles he’d fought, pranks he’d played, people he’d helped. A one-armed man was telling about the first time he’d met Pang when a handbell suddenly rang out in the ravine.

  “Nar!” “There!” exclaimed a stoop-backed man, pointing at mounted constables racing across a distant field.

  “They’re coming this way!” yelled Zhou.

  “Hurry!” Baoliu grabbed Linlin by the arm and was backing away with her when a single constable—long-bearded, in full armor—clattered out from a clump of bamboo below, and whipping his horse, urged it up the slope.

  Mourners stood frozen in place, watching his approach.

  “Ni Hao!” “Hello!” he chortled in mock greeting, glancing in the direction of distant hoofbeats, seeming anxious for the other constables to arrive. Reining in his horse, he began to circle the mourners. Whip in hand, his gaze traveled from face to face, and then fixed on Linlin.

  A toothy grin spread open on his bearded face. “Ah!” he exclaimed with glee. “We’ve been looking for you!”

  A woman wearing a dress made from a blanket stepped in front of Linlin. “Please leave the girl alone,” she said fearfully. He laughed—and walked his horse into her, knocking her to the ground. And laughed again louder.

  “Swine!” hissed the one-armed man.

  “What?” the constable growled, raising the whip high overhead. “What did you say?” He slashed at the man—and missed, the whip cracking across the face of a tall boy, who reeled away and fell shrieking to his knees.

  “Bastard!” yelled Zhou, grabbing at the whip, trying to wrench it from the constable’s grasp.

  “Get it!” screamed Baoliu, clawing at the man, getting hold of his collar and pulling him backward.

  The horse wheeled, squealing as it rose up on hind legs—the constable crying out as he flew from the saddle. He landed heavily in a spray of gravel and tried to get up. Instead, he rolled onto his side and lay gasping, licking at blood-reddened teeth.

  “Linlin!” yelled Zhou, trying to get control of the horse.

  Baoliu grabbed her, and then with the help of the one-armed man, lifted her, trying to get her onto the saddle.

  “More! More are coming!” a woman shouted, the mourners scattering, fleeing in every direction.

  “Xu!” “Go!” shouted Baoliu, smacking the horse’s hindquarters.

  “No!” Linlin cried, grabbing the mane as the horse cantered sideways and then surged away.

  “Baoliu!” yelled Zhou.

  He turned—saw bloodred teeth—saw the constable stumbling toward him, sword in hand.

  “I’ll kill you!” the constable screamed, sword upraised—as Zhou tackled him, and then was on top of him, pounding at his head.

  Over a rise appeared a constable, and then several more.

  “Zhou!” shouted Baoliu, pulling him to his feet.

  The two backed away together, and then, in terror, they ran.

  11

  They hurtled down a grassy hillside—fell, skidded on wet grass, and then were running again through a forest of twisted, half-dead trees.

  They saw Linlin—staggering toward them, limping, holding her arm.

  “The horse threw me,” she muttered. “I—”

  “Linlin!” Baoliu reached for her and then found himself stumbling after her and Zhou, splashing through ankle-deep water.

  A chorus of hoofbeats was coming closer, getting louder.

  They sank to their knees in a sump of debris and rotting vegetation.

  Four mounted constables thundered past. “What do we do?” whispered Baoliu. “When they don’t find us, they’ll be coming back.”

  “There are caves,” said Linlin. “Follow me.”

  They slogged through stagnant water, then stopped. Ahead lay open ground, and beyond was the face of a cliff, pocked with caves.
<
br />   “It’s not much farther.”

  “The bastards are coming back!” Zhou glanced over his shoulder at the sound of approaching men and horses. “Go!” he hissed.

  They loped in a crouch and then broke into a run. Hoofbeats pounded closer. They leaped over a gully. And then they were scrambling up a slope together, tiny avalanches of dirt spilling behind them. Baoliu saw a stone break loose, then bound away with explosive bangs.

  “Up there!” someone shouted far below.

  “This way.” Linlin panted and ducked under a stone ledge. Baoliu and Zhou hurried in after her—and found themselves in a vast cavern. The footing was soft and damp, and everything stank of urine.

  “Bats,” whispered Linlin. Baoliu looked up. The ceiling of the cave was a writhing tapestry of the creatures.

  Baoliu pushed Linlin ahead of him, and then stumbled against her. She yelped, her cry whipping the bats overhead into a frenzy. A shrieking whirlwind suddenly descended on them, and then streamed away, looping upward and out the entrance of the cave.

  “Keep moving!” gasped Baoliu.

  They hurried on, across the rank footing, and then were weaving past boulders and in and out of dark passageways. On all fours, they crawled up a rocky incline, and emerged into another vast chamber, the ceiling sparkling with crystalline light, and studded with huge, fanglike formations.

  Heavy footfalls echoed behind them, and then voices, muted and disembodied.

  Baoliu looked back at fuzzy shapes moving through the darkness, far behind them.

  They hurried on. Helping one another, they picked their way up an incline of solid stone. Then they walked, into pitch blackness, arms outstretched and feeling their way—running fingers along invisible walls. And then touching only space.

  “Linlin? Zhou?” Baoliu whispered, and put his hand on the outline of Zhou’s shoulder.

  “Where are we?” Zhou murmured breathily.

  “I don’t know,” said Linlin, “I’ve never been this far in before.” Baoliu felt slick rock underfoot and then stepped into shallow water. His arm brushed something; he reached out, and touched cold stone. Something ran over his hand, something clawed, furry. A rat.