by Tom Lin
He fell to his knees and panted air that scalded his lungs and still he could see beyond the windows and their blue so boundless cutting through the smoke. His lungs were burning and the house was afire and he crawled under the black smoke and tugged at Ada’s hand but she would not move and now he found that he too could not move. In the walls and beneath the floorboards there were hidden papers and money and weapons and all of it was burning into yellow flame. He lay on his back gripping her hand as sheets of fire raced up the walls of their beautiful home and he wanted to tell her that he was sorry but he couldn’t speak and at last he let go her hand and the smoke pressed against his face and he held his breath as long as he could and finally as the world was gone almost all to gray he could not help but open his mouth and inhale, pure smoke, atomized ash, soot and fumes and creosote.
He coughed and coughed and coughed and he opened his eyes to the clean light of a new desert morning. Notah was stooped over the firepit tending to a pyre of new-cut green branches, the wind carrying the smoke from the young fire to where Ming lay. He sat up on his bedroll and moved out of the way of the smoke, breathed clean and cold air. For a moment as he sat on the bare earth he could feel only the shock of his dream fading as it gave out from under him and vanished into the daylight.
15
They rode through those incandescent days like a party of shadows, keeping the river at their flank. Ming ranged out ahead of the others, occasionally glassing the horizon for dust clouds that might signal the approach of Indian raiding parties, or worse. The prophet on his pinto kept easy pace with the rattling stagecoach. At times Ming considered falling back and asking the old man about his dream, but each time the thought arose he could remember nothing of its substance. Like all his nightmares it had dissolved into vague uneasiness and with each passing moment receded further still into those dim recesses from which it had first arisen.
Around noon one day they stopped by a bend in the waters to rest and eat. Gomez left to fish the river for cutthroat trout and Notah went to cut branches for a cookfire while the rest set down their packs and stretched their legs. Ming walked his and the prophet’s horses to the river to water them and sat down in a little clearing, watching the animals drink. The young deaf-mute Hunter had found himself a long white stick a few miles back and in happy circles he was wandering the foliage on the riverbank, swatting at branches as he passed them. Ming wondered whether the boy was a deaf-mute or merely deaf. After all he could speak, if only in that strange way of his. Then again, he had never heard the boy make so much as a grunt aloud. The horses were still bent low to the water. Absentmindedly Ming watched Hunter playing. At length the boy grew tired and he came by the clearing and busied himself with sharpening one end of the stick into a crude point against a flat riverstone.
“Hey,” Ming called. The boy did not seem to notice him. Of course. The damn boy was deaf. Ming waved a hand.
The boy stopped sharpening his stick and stiffened with apprehension.
Ming flashed a warm smile at him. “It’s all right, boy,” he said, before remembering again that the boy couldn’t hear. He waved at the boy once more, unsure of how they might speak. He unsheathed his railroad spike and took out his whetstone and beckoned the boy come nearer.
“Yours will be better than mine, sir,” Hunter’s voice sounded in his head.
Ming nearly dropped the railroad spike and the whetstone out of surprise.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” said the boy, settling down across from Ming.
Ming opened his mouth to speak but this time managed to catch himself. Instead he shook his head to indicate the boy hadn’t startled him. He resumed sharpening the spike. The boy bent his head low nearly to the plane of the whetstone and watched, enraptured. When the spike began to hum across the whetstone Ming wiped black iron dust from its tip and tested it against the pads of his fingers. Sharp enough. He sheathed the spike and made to put away the whetstone.
“Could you sharpen mine as well?” The boy had his hand outstretched, proffering the stick.
Ming took it and realized with a start that it was not a stick but a fragment of a rib. He looked up at the boy. “This is a rib,” he said, uselessly. He pointed at the thing bonewhite in his hand and then gestured at his own torso, pinched at one of his ribs, and held the bone against his chest.
“It’s a bone,” the boy said. “I know.”
Ming asked him where he’d found it but the boy merely blinked at him. Ming couldn’t think of how to mime his question.
“Is it that you can’t sharpen a rib, sir?” the boy asked. “I understand.” He reached out to take the bone back.
Ming waved him off. He pressed the tip of the rib against the whetstone and began sharpening it. The bone left chalky white streaks on the stone. When Ming had finished sharpening the bone he brought it to his eye and examined its new tip in the light. He wiped it clean with his fingertips and returned it to Hunter.
“Thank ye kindly, sir,” the boy said.
Ming nodded, then put away his things and stood. He led his and the prophet’s horses back up to the campsite and tied them to the stagecoach before joining the rest of the party. Presently Gomez came up from the riverbank with three wriggling trout held by their gills. He tossed the fish on the ground and began to gut and clean them. The boy was still clutching his newly sharp rib bone and he squatted low on his heels and peered at the silvery trout, watching them spasm, the membranes of their mouths flashing translucent as they struggled.
Hazel leaned forward and plucked the rib out of the boy’s hands. He seemed briefly upset before one of the fish made a desperate death leap and he was transfixed again. He darted out a small hand and grabbed the fish by the tail and pinned it to the ground, where it writhed a little and then went still. He seemed to have forgotten about Hazel’s theft.
She ran her long fingers down the length of the rib bone, lightly pricked it on the heel of her hand. “This is a bone,” she said, “and the boy’s put a spearpoint on it.”
“I did that,” Ming said. “He saw me sharpening my spike and asked me to help with his.”
“He likes you,” Hazel said, and set the bone down by her side.
“Wish I could speak to him,” Ming said.
“Could teach you how to speak to him in signing,” the ringmaster said. “He’s not stupid, just deaf.”
Notah returned with a bundle of twigs under one arm and his fists full of dry bluegrass. He knelt and built a small pyre in the dirt before sparking a flint and coaxing a smoky fire from the kindling. Gomez speared the fish on whittled skewers and passed them around.
The prophet shook his head, waving him off. “Ain’t hungry,” the old man said.
The Mexican shot Ming a glance. “Don’t he eat?” he said.
Hazel picked up Hunter’s sharpened rib bone and held it out to Gomez. “Here,” she said. “Let the boy have his on this.”
Gomez pulled a piece of fish off one of the greenwood skewers and tossed the twig into the fire. He handed the rib bone and meat to Hunter and then mimed pushing the bone through the fish and the boy obliged.
“Do that again, Gomez,” the ringmaster said, “for Mr. Tsu’s benefit.”
“What, this?” Gomez asked, and again he mimed spearing the fish on a skewer, driving a phantom point through imagined flesh.
“That there,” the ringmaster said to Ming, “is the sign for ‘to kill.’”
Ming copied the movement with his hands like he had seen. “This is ‘to kill.’”
“Aye.”
“Enough of this,” Proteus interrupted, dipping his skewer to the low fire.
They finished eating in silence.
A little ways before Carlin they stopped again. Proteus undressed to his full nakedness. In the faltering twilight, clad in the borrowed form of the ringmaster, his white skin gleamed with an unearthly hue. Notah and Gomez climbed atop the stagecoach and unlatched the door of his cage, which fell open heavily, ringing in metal tones.
“Be seeing you,” the ringmaster said.
“Be seeing you,” Proteus replied. A multitude of tattoos retraced themselves across his skin and in an instant he was transformed again into a towering pagan, his eyes dark and unreadable. He clambered up into the cage and the stagehands closed it behind him and latched it shut. Proteus took the iron bars in his great hands and brought his wild face close, silent, watching.
The moon was coming up low and huge over the east and in its cold blue light Ming could discern Hazel’s silhouette in the stagecoach. Her head was leaning back against the seat and Hunter was asleep with his head on her lap. Her thin fingers moved through the boy’s shock of dark hair. The stagehands leapt down and in a moment they were moving again.
16
They were in Carlin a long time, nearly two weeks. The show was making good money. On the last night the ringmaster totaled their earnings and gave the others their shares. Gomez took his and promptly vanished, not reappearing at the tent until many hours later. He was too drunk to stand and his arms were slung over the shoulders of two men. His feet trailed on the dirt as the men all but dragged him in. There was a third man with them who seemed to be in charge, shouting into Gomez’s ear, intermittently striking him across the back of his lolling head.
Ming was still awake tending to the dying fire when they entered the tent. He rose quickly and followed them in, sensing trouble. “Show’s over, folks,” he called out.
The men stopped and faced him. “Ain’t nothin over till I says so, John,” the man in charge barked. He turned to the two supporting Gomez. “Let him down.”
The men ducked their heads out from under Gomez’s arms and he dropped heavily to the floor. The impact seemed to sober him some and he got up onto his hands and knees and vomited. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and sat back.
“Your friend done stole from us tonight,” the third man said.
“Goddamn cheat,” the man behind him said. He spat on Gomez.
“Easy,” Ming said. “Did my friend return his winnings?”
“Don’t matter if he did or didn’t,” one of the men said. “This ain’t about getting back what was stole.” He pointed a crooked finger at Gomez. “Now it’s about learning a cheat about the—learning him about the—”
“The error of his ways,” the other man chimed in.
“That’s right, learning him the error of his ways,” the leader repeated. He scowled down at Gomez. “You know what we do to cheats?” He turned to his companions. “Say, what do we do to cheats?”
“Kill em!” one of them crowed.
The men were unarmed. Gomez was sitting with his head between his knees. It would be four paces to close the distance to the ringleader, then three more to reach the two men behind him. Too risky to take them on all at once, though he reckoned he could kill the man in front with the railroad spike and then shoot from behind him.
“Five hundred dollars or we string up your friend,” the leader was saying.
Ming’s body tensed and he fixed the man with his gaze. He was about to move on him when the ringmaster appeared at his side.
“Gentlemen,” the ringmaster said. “Thank you for the safe return of my employee.”
“We ain’t returning him,” the man in charge said. He narrowed his eyes, peering at the ringmaster. “You run this place?”
“Yes, sir,” the ringmaster said. “And with what may I assist you this evening?”
“We was telling your Chinaman.” The leader stepped forward, pointing at Ming as he spoke. “Your man on the ground here done stole from us,” he sneered, “and we aim to learn him a lesson.”
“Certainly,” the ringmaster said dispassionately.
“Give us five hundred dollars or we hang him!” blurted one of the men standing behind the leader.
The ringmaster seemed to ponder this for a moment. “Very well.” He reached into his breast pocket and counted off bank notes. “Two. Three. Four. Five hundred.” He held them out at arm’s length, offering them to the man. “Here. As a reward for the safe return of my employee.”
The man grabbed the cash and eyed the ringmaster warily.
“Are we finished here?” the ringmaster said.
“Sure,” the man said, and spat on Gomez. “We’re finished here.” He stuffed the bills into a trouser pocket and the three of them turned to leave.
“Evening,” the ringmaster said. The men went ten yards, fifteen, twenty. The ringmaster beckoned Ming to follow and they trailed the men as they left the tent, a trio of bluish figures receding into the moonlight. “Now,” the ringmaster said quietly to Ming, “let’s see how good of a shot you are, Mr. Tsu.”
Ming looked at him but the ringmaster did not take his eyes from the men.
“Kill those three right now and that five hundred’s all yours.”
“Can’t you spare the money?” Ming asked in a low voice.
“Aye,” the ringmaster said, “but I have no desire to let them keep it.”
“They ain’t worth it,” Ming muttered. “Three bodies is hard to hide.”
“Ain’t you a killer, man?” asked the ringmaster, chuckling. “I’ll see to the bodies. You just kill em.” He turned and faced Ming. “Cmon,” he said, “be a good sport.”
The men were some sixty yards away. Ming drew his gun and cocked back the hammer. He closed one eye, looked down the sights, breathed slow and smooth like how Silas had taught him so many years ago.
“Hell, man,” the ringmaster whispered, “be quick, they’re almost out of sight.”
Ming fired.
The man in the middle lurched forward and fell to the ground. His companions stared at his body in dumb shock. Ming fired again and the man on the right sat down hard. The last man began to run. There was another gunshot and the man tripped and crashed to the ground in a plume of dust.
“Three for three, now, that’s something else,” the ringmaster said walking out to the bodies. “Come!”
They walked to where the three men had fallen. Two of them were dead where they lay. The man who had taken off running was groaning, his hand clutched to his gut, blood bubbling out through his splayed fingers.
“Two for three, I suppose,” the ringmaster said, “but hell, Mr. Tsu, you’re quite the deadeye.”
The dying man writhed in agony and reaching out he grabbed the ringmaster’s ankle weakly. The ringmaster jerked his foot away and kicked the man hard in the face, sending him rolling over onto his side. He gave his cane a sharp twist and it came apart in his hands, revealing a hidden knife.
“A man is never without his arms,” he said, and winked at Ming. “Something you surely must know better than I. But enough of these platitudes.” With his boot the ringmaster rolled the moaning man back over onto his back. “I’ll be taking those bills back,” he said, and opened the man’s throat with a quick swipe of his bladed cane.
The man gurgled a soft protest as he passed. The ringmaster wiped the steel clean on the man’s trousers and reassembled his cane. Then he squatted down and rifled through the dead man’s trouser pockets. He pulled a fistful of banknotes free.
“Here you are, Mr. Tsu,” he said, standing up. “Your bonus.” He pressed the bills into Ming’s open hand.
“And what to do with these bodies?” Ming said.
The ringmaster was already walking away. “That’s my concern, Mr. Tsu, and not yours.”
17
In the morning there was nothing where the men had died, not so much as a dot of blood. Ming asked Gomez what had happened the night before and the Mexican told him that he had gone out drinking and shooting craps and that he had woken up in his tent nearly blinded by a pounding headache.
“Hurts like all creation,” Gomez said, giving a thin smile.
The ringmaster sat on a stool facing the morning light. He was smoking and talking to Notah, taking down notes in his journal. When he saw Ming he rose to greet him. “Morning, Mr. Tsu. How did you sleep?”
“Fine,”
Ming said. “What did you do with the bodies?”
The ringmaster peered at him quizzically. “The bodies?”
“Aye,” Ming said, and gestured at the place where the men had died. “The three men what brought in Gomez from the dice house.”
The ringmaster frowned. “Mr. Tsu, I can’t say I understand.”
“Sometimes,” Notah cut in, “a dream is not remembered as a dream.”
“It ain’t no dream, Notah,” Ming said. “Last night I killed three men here.” He drew his gun, removed the cylinder, tossed it to Notah. “Look,” he said. “Three dead caps.”
Notah examined the cylinder and shook his head. “Not so, Mr. Tsu.”
He passed it back to Ming. The stagehand was right. Ming stared down at the cylinder, his mind working.
“We travel through a place of strange power,” Notah was saying. “We ought not to linger.”
“Too right, my friend,” the ringmaster said. He studied his journal and then snapped it shut. “We’ll go to Battle Mountain. I hear it’s a richer town.” The ringmaster tucked his journal under one arm. “Notah, make our preparations. We leave at once.”
“Aye,” Notah said, and the ringmaster turned and left.
Ming pushed the cylinder back into his revolver and holstered it. “Notah,” he said, “I killed three men last night. What did you do with the bodies?”
“I buried them,” he said simply. “In the earth and in the mind.” He shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the ringmaster. “Later,” the Navajo said. “Later I will tell you.”
18
At noon they forded the river at a broad shallow and soon they were on the move again, the stagecoach rattling along as they descended into the river valley, the draft horses stumbling now and again over the slick riverrock terrain. Bare stone faces rose on either side, blotting out the sun. The railroad gleamed improbable and austere. From time to time the distant metallic thunder of approaching locomotives filled the air and the great machines flashed by on their way to California, cloaked in a flurry of noise and steam.