The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu

by Tom Lin

  “I don’t reckon I do,” the outlaw said. “Now there’s seven of us and two of you, by my count.” He leaned to one side of his saddle to get a better look at the prophet. “One of you, really. Now we’d love to take that ten-thousand-dollar bounty, believe me, we would”—he tapped the scattergun by his side—“but that won’t take the bounty off our heads.” He crossed his arms and smiled. “So how bout that favor?”

  “Your man’s hurt,” Ming observed, indicating the pale-faced man with the wounded leg.

  “Caught a ball from the sheriff back in Reno,” Huxton said.

  The approaching hoofbeats of the pursuers grew more distinct. They were perhaps only a minute distant. Ming turned back to the old man. “Prophet?” he said.

  “Help them,” the prophet said.

  “You heard the old man,” Huxton said, unholstering his scattergun.

  He clicked his tongue and his men began to scale the wall of the mesa, rifles slung over their backs. The injured man limped as far as he could up the rock face and grimacing in pain he turned and sat down roughly, pulled a little single-shot derringer from an ankle holster, and braced himself against the mesa.

  The giant took the reins of his horse and cocked his scattergun. He lay the gun across his saddle, its stock dwarfed in his enormous hand. “Now put that iron to use,” he told Ming.

  The riders had almost reached the mesa and Ming could hear them shouting to one another, to hold up, easy does it. He cantered his horse ahead of the mesa and swiveled in his saddle and aimed at the empty space beside the mesa and when a blur of movement appeared before his gun he tracked the rider and fired, blowing a hole in the chest of the first pursuer. The rider lurched backward and toppled off his horse, one foot twisted and ensnared in the stirrup, and bucking wildly the horse dragged his body a short ways before slamming the man’s head into a boulder. There were more riders now moving too fast for Ming to count—four maybe five of them—and he drove his horse into a tight circle to flank them. Behind him sounded the rapidfire cracking of revolvers, Old Huxton’s gang shooting down at the riders as they circled the mesa. The prophet sat serene atop his pinto, man and beast both seemingly oblivious to the firefight around them. Huxton drove his horse perpendicular to the attackers and swept his scattergun in a vast arc, catching one of the riders straight in the gut, knocking him clean off his horse. The outlaw followed the man to the ground with the barrel of his scattergun and fired pointblank into the man’s chest as he passed him.

  “Duck,” the prophet called and Ming lay back straight in his saddle as a rifleball whistled inches above his face.

  He sat back up and found the source of the shot: a man cranking the lever of his rifle to cycle a new round, brass shell flying out the top. Ming fired just as the man slammed back the lever of the rifle and missed. He fired again and this time caught him in the cheek just as the man fired and his shot went wide as the repeater fell from his hands and slumping sideways out of his saddle he disappeared into the churning dust, blood arcing from his cratered face as he went down. Ming aimed at another rider but as he was about to fire the man’s neck erupted and his head sagged and he went down. Up on the mesa one of Old Huxton’s men crowed in triumph.

  A riderless horse barreled past Ming and crouching on the ground before him the horse’s fallen rider aimed his gun straight up at Ming as his horse approached. Ming recocked his gun and pulled the reins up short and as the horse reared a shock rippled through it when the man’s bullet entered the animal’s belly. Ming’s horse crumpled beneath him. He fell hard and the horse rolled a short ways down the grade, limp and lifeless. Dust filled the air, forcing Ming’s eyes closed.

  “Fire!” the prophet called out.

  Ming squeezed the trigger unsighted and a man crashed to the ground only a few paces in front of him. He stood up blinking away the dust. The man he’d hit lay writhing and Ming stepped to him and shot him again and the man jolted once and went still. Ming cocked his revolver again and swept it across the plains but there was only a field of men and horses lying dead or dying and beyond them the small dark figures of riderless horses galloping panicked into the distance. The prophet sat unperturbed on his saddle, humming to himself. Ming walked over to his dead horse. He pulled his pack from the saddle and slung it over his back.

  Huxton was on his horse, picking his way through the bodies, his scattergun loose in his hand. He noticed Ming watching him and shot him a wide grin. “Good work, man,” he said. He stuck two broad fingers in his mouth and whistled toward the mesa. “Boys,” he shouted. “Come on down.”

  “Stanton’s dead, boss,” a man called from the top of the mesa. “Shot through the eye.” The man held out the bloodied face of his compatriot over the edge. “Should I toss him down?”

  “Leave him,” Huxton said. “Ain’t got time for no burials.”

  The man descended the rock wall followed by three others. The wiry dark-haired man with the injured leg was where he’d been when the fighting started, perched on a boulder about eight feet up the mesa. The derringer was still in his hand and he was leaning back, a hand cupped over his belly.

  “Come on down, Clark,” the outlaw told the man.

  The dark-haired man shook his head. “Can’t, boss. I been shot.”

  “Where?” Huxton demanded. “Show me.”

  Clark winced and withdrew his hand. His shirt was a mess of mud and the blood that dripped from his fingers. He breathed torturously and squinted at Huxton, then returned his hand to his wound, his face beaded with sweat. The giant dismounted and strode over to the boulder. He was unsettlingly agile in his movements and nearly tall enough to be level with Clark. With a large hand he reached out and moved the dying man’s hand aside. He inspected the wound.

  “I’m finished, ain’t I,” Clark said, his voice thin.

  “Reckon so,” Huxton said.

  Clark coughed and more blood flowed from his gut. His head sagged.

  Huxton stepped back, raised his scattergun, and fired. Clark’s head simply disappeared. The outlaw faced the remaining four of his gang assembled before him, dirty and bloodied. “Go search them,” he ordered.

  The men fanned out and began picking at the trampled and exploded bodies of their pursuers, rifling through pockets and emptying packs out onto the dust.

  The giant came over to where Ming was standing. “You done good by Old Huxton’s gang, Chinaman. What say you join us?” He gestured to the gun still in Ming’s hand. “You’re a deadeye with that iron. Could use a man like you.”

  “I got somewhere to be,” Ming said.

  “Oh?” Huxton raised his eyebrows. “And where might that be?”

  “Californie,” Ming said.

  The outlaw whistled. “She’s far over them Sierras. And snow’s comin too. You and the old man both?”

  “Aye,” Ming said. He shot a glance at the prophet, still atop his saddle, still humming that tuneless melody, his eyes closed.

  Huxton bent down so his face was level with Ming’s. He wore a sinister expression. “He ain’t no ordinary Chinaman, is he now,” Huxton said in a low voice.

  Ming didn’t respond. He began backing away to where the prophet sat atop his pinto.

  “I heard what you called him,” Huxton thundered. “Prophet.”

  Ming stopped and cast a cold gaze over the vast man. “Don’t mean nothin,” he said. He had lost count of how many rounds he had left in his gun but he knew there weren’t enough to take on Huxton and all his men. Perhaps if he shot the giant first the others would flee.

  “The old man was callin out when to shoot and when to duck,” said one of Huxton’s men. He had finished looting the bodies and now came up beside the outlaw, looking almost like a child, relative to Huxton’s gigantic frame. The man squinted at Ming and the prophet. “Seems to me the old Chinaman’s got a third eye.”

  Huxton walked up to Ming and placed an enormous hand on his shoulder. “I reckon the old man can stay with us, Chinaman,” he said. He c
licked his tongue and his sidekick cocked his revolver and pointed it squarely at Ming’s chest. The giant motioned to the prophet there on his pinto. The two were eye level. “What other prophecies you got, old man?” he asked.

  The prophet opened his eyes and fixed Huxton with a piercing and sightless gaze. Ming felt the great hand on his shoulder twitch with surprise.

  “There is a man here called Maxwell,” the prophet said.

  “I’m Maxwell,” the man at Huxton’s elbow said. He kept his gun trained on Ming but his eyes flitted nervously to the prophet. Huxton did not speak. At last Maxwell could not contain himself. “The hell’s the prophecy, then?” he asked.

  “He will kill you,” the prophet said to Huxton.

  “Who?” Huxton growled. His gaze darted over to Maxwell. “Him?”

  “It ain’t me,” Maxwell stammered. His face was pale and his gun began to shake. “Boss, it ain’t me!”

  “The old man means you, don’t he?” Huxton roared. He lifted his hand from Ming’s shoulder and in a single fearsome movement he swept his arm back and struck Maxwell in the face. The man went flying backward, dropping his gun.

  The giant swiveled to follow him and when his back was turned Ming dove for Maxwell’s fallen gun. No one seemed to notice. Huxton’s other men, their faces vaguely afraid, were watching their boss and Maxwell. Ming drew himself to his feet and stole back to the prophet’s side. Now Huxton crouched low next to Maxwell and clamped a powerful hand over the man’s face, muffling a yelp of terror.

  Meanwhile, with his hands behind his back and his face unreadable, Ming played his fingertips out over Maxwell’s gun, pressing them into the cylinder chambers and counting one two three four five rounds. The man must have reloaded moments before the firefight had ended. Ming caught the prophet’s gaze. “Fight free?” he said under his breath, and the old man nodded almost imperceptibly. Ming cocked the hammer of Maxwell’s gun, still behind his back, and reached up, almost nonchalantly, to rest a hand on the prophet’s saddle horn.

  Huxton lifted Maxwell up by his throat with a single hand and then dashed him brutally against the mesa wall. The man’s eyes went gray and he tumbled down the slope, a tangle of elbows and knees. The giant glared back at Ming and the prophet, breathing hard. No one moved. “Any more prophecies, old man?” Huxton snarled, a mad grin splayed across his face.

  “One more,” the prophet said, his voice clear.

  “What is it?” Huxton roared.

  “Ming Tsu will kill you,” the prophet said, pushing himself to the rear of his saddle.

  Huxton lunged at Ming, who shot him clear through the eye. The outlaw crashed to the sand. The other men scrabbled at their holsters, trying to draw. Ming leapt up and pulled himself up onto the prophet’s pinto, the old man sitting securely behind him. He raked back the hammer of Maxwell’s gun again and shot one of the men down. Then he drove his heel hard into the horse’s side and the horse reared up and took off and he recocked his gun and fired another round and one more of Old Huxton’s gang dropped. Two rounds left, two men left. Ming drew a bead and fired again. One round left, one man left. A shot shrieked past Ming’s head and buried itself in the dirt several hundred yards distant. Ming fired and the man stretched out on the earth. Again he jabbed the horse hard in the ribs with the heels of his boots and they sped away. Ming turned in the saddle and the mesa began to shrink on the horizon.

  A huge silhouetted figure staggered to its feet, holding something in its hands. Twenty yards behind them the bullet kicked up a gout of dust and then they heard the crack of a rifle report, its echo stretched and reverberant for the distance. Ming swore. He tossed Maxwell’s gun into the dirt and drew his own and fired, then recocked the hammer and fired again and this time heard only the dry sound of a hammer falling on a dead cap. His gun was empty.

  “I shot him,” he said, and cursed under his breath. “I shot that bastard.”

  “Yes,” the prophet said. “And in time you will kill him.”

  Suddenly the prophet spasmed and lurched to the side and Ming put out a hand to catch the old man before he fell. His ancient eyes shone in the failing light of dusk. A moment later the distant report of a second shot reached them. A bloody streak appeared on the prophet’s bony thigh where the rifleball had grazed him. Blood ran down to his calf, dripping onto the sagebrush as they passed. Ming jabbed his heels into the pinto but the animal could go no faster. His blood bay was faster than the prophet’s gentle pinto, would have been faster, if that bastard hadn’t shot it in the belly. He had half a mind to ask the prophet if his horse had died badly. Perhaps later, when they were somewhere safe. The old man’s leg dangled as they raced toward the setting sun and they rode until the sky went to black and when the animal was utterly spent and would go no farther they stopped at last and made camp, fireless and cold, the prophet’s hurt leg continuing to ooze blood onto his bedroll, Ming keeping watch over the old man with his reloaded gun in hand.

  52

  He woke with a start, his gun still warm in his hand, the air chill nigh on shivering. He must have fallen asleep. His eyes still groggy he groped in the darkness for the prophet and with a sickening vertigo realized the old man was no longer there. He scrubbed his face with his hands and looked around him and yet he knew already that the prophet was long gone. Away from the bedroll led a thin, dragging trail in the sand, speckled with drops of blood.

  Ming stood and traced the tracks with his gaze as far as he could into the darkness. They were heading east, back in the direction they’d come from. The prophet’s pinto slept where it stood. Ming thought he might leap into the saddle and ride out east again, gun loaded, hunting for Huxton and the prophet. He could follow the prophet’s tortured and bloody tracks, trace his movements over butte and vale, find him before Huxton did. Or he could ride south, into the foothills of the Sierras, glassing the horizon as he went, and flank and kill the outlaw. Yet even as he considered it he knew he would not, that he would ride west again, leaving the prophet’s bloodied bedroll behind to range through that inchoate landscape. He strapped his pack to the prophet’s saddle and climbed up onto the pinto. The animal shook its head from side to side, waking as he rode. The morning arrived pale over the east and washed over the sand. The shadow of Ming and the horse shortened underfoot. What could he do, anyway? The prophet had said his time was approaching. Ming had already stolen a death from the world.

  Man out of bounds.

  He rode along a silt-filled arroyo and moved westward, keeping the sun at his back. In midafternoon he rode the prophet’s pinto up the banks of the arroyo and out onto a small promontory of redrock and dust. He stopped and pulled the scratched brass spyglass from his pack and swept it slowly across the distant horizon, watching for movement. A coyote padded across the scrubland. Vultures picked at a carcass. And then in a windgap between a small range in the east he spotted a huge and dark figure trudging through the land, leading by the reins a horse in whose saddle sat a hooded prisoner, his hands bound behind his back. They kept to the same path he’d taken with the prophet a day earlier. In the hazy magnification of the spyglass he couldn’t make out the face of the man leading the horse, nor discern the figure of the prisoner from the horse underneath him. But these were familiar silhouettes, familiar patterns. He read the man’s intentions in his gait.

  Ming reckoned the two were perhaps three miles out, though the land between them was broken and shattered and hard to cross. He collapsed his spyglass and returned it to his pack, then took out his canteen and drained the last of the water inside. His mouth felt thick and dry and when he was finished a few drops of water spilled onto the saddle and disappeared into its leather in the garish heat. Ming adjusted the brim of his hat and wiped his mouth.

  He put away the canteen and gripped the reins of the prophet’s pinto and set the horse off on a canter, hoofbeats drumming into the parched earth beneath him. No, too much dust. He would be too visible. Ming tugged at the reins and the horse slowed to a trot
. He wondered whether Huxton had a spyglass too. Whether the giant was glassing him as he himself had been glassed, taking bearings and reading a route through the land. He wondered what he looked like in the shimmering heat.

  As he rode west he began to dream with eyes open, a waking dream that played out lifelike on the sands he crossed. His trigger finger twitched and he saw at quarter speed an imagined gun bucking in his open hand, sparks erupting from the barrel, Huxton’s eye swallowing itself whole and blood streaming from the emptied socket. What kind of a man staggers to his feet with a bullet in his head?

  A low rise in the earth now, the hoofbeat cadence of the prophet’s pinto stammering and unpredictable as they climbed. It had been a full day since the old man’s injury. The sun was touching the Sierras. The moon rose nearly full in the east, a small arc shaved off its side, as though it were a lead ball seated in the chamber of a vast and unseen revolver. In the cold moonlight Ming ranged north along the foothills of the mountains, searching first for a stream, then for a seep, and finally for any trace of water at all. Nothing. The prophet’s pinto was more lethargic all the time. Ming made camp where the animal stopped and laid out his bedroll against the sloping face of a boulder, looking east. He leaned against the boulder, spyglass in hand, and glassed the moonlit landscape, searching for Huxton. There was no trace of the man, nor of the horse with the prisoner riding atop it. He thought he spied the dull glow of a distant campfire but when he glassed it he found nothing. He was not tired.

  In the night the prophet’s pinto sat down with its knees folded under it, its great head sagging, nostrils flaring, eyes clouded. Long thin strands of spittle hung from its lips. It had been too long since water. The horse leaned to one side and spilled over and its legs kicked out weakly.

  Were it not for his pursuer Ming would have pressed the muzzle of his gun to its forehead and put it out of its misery. But the risk of discovery at the sound was too great. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice.