Phoenix

by Jeff Stone

  Like Town Run Trail Park, our house was situated along the White River. The home was tiny, but the property was pretty big. It was several acres and there were tons of trees. Maple and oak covered the high ground at the front, while birch and scrub cedar grew in the swampy rear where the land dipped down to the river. It was beautiful and secluded, and from the house you couldn’t see the road or any of the neighbors. It was perfect for Grandfather’s secretive nature, but all those trees might be a problem now. If someone was inside our house, no one would know it.

  “Maybe we should stop somewhere and call the police,” I said. “Too bad we don’t have a cell phone.”

  Grandfather shook his head. “Let us see what there is to see, first. I do not want the authorities to think that I am a paranoid old man if there is no trouble.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed, but I kept my mouth shut. I shifted in my seat, a million questions running through my mind. The main one was, What could we possibly have in our house that was worth stealing? I wanted to ask Grandfather about this and many more things, but I knew I wouldn’t get any answers. I was becoming convinced he was hiding something. Deep down, I’d suspected this for a very long time. The only thing I really knew about him was his name, Chénjí Long, or “Silent Dragon” in Mandarin Chinese. It was a perfect name for someone as tight-lipped as he was.

  We turned onto our gravel driveway, and Grandfather wove quickly past the overgrown trees lining the drive. He surprised me by stomping on the brakes a full fifty yards from the house. This was where the trees stopped and the lawn began. I didn’t see any vehicles anywhere.

  “Stay in the truck,” Grandfather ordered.

  Before I could argue, he cut the engine and slipped out the driver’s-side door. He hurried across the yard, toward our house.

  It took me a few seconds to figure out what he was up to. By parking here, he blocked the only exit for vehicles that might be out of view.

  Grandfather reached the front door, and I watched him turn the handle without inserting a key. Unbelievably, the door opened. That door was always locked. This was serious.

  Grandfather entered the house, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I got out of the truck and was heading across the drive when I heard a tremendous CRASH!

  I rushed toward the house and heard what sounded like someone chopping wood inside. The chopping stopped as I reached the open door.

  I poked my head through the doorway, into the family room, but didn’t see anyone. I stepped inside, and my heart sank. Our home had been ransacked. We didn’t have a lot of things, but what we did own looked as though a tornado had ravaged it. Our furniture had been slit open. Pillows had been slashed, and feathers drifted through the room like dandelion fluff. In the kitchen, our table and chairs were upended. The contents of every cupboard and drawer seemed to be on the floor, the drawers themselves among the mess.

  Grandfather gave a muffled cry, and my heart nearly stopped. The sound came from his bedroom.

  I knew that if I was going to help him, I needed a weapon. I considered going into the garage to grab something from our practice weapons rack, but it would take too long.

  I was still wearing my mountain biking cleats, which were similar to the cleats worn by soccer players. They also had a large metal bracket mounted on the bottom at the ball of the foot for clipping into pedals. Those brackets were serious chunks of metal. I took off my shoes, letting them dangle loosely in my grip, and slunk down the hallway toward Grandfather’s bedroom.

  His door was open. Just inside the doorway was the hulking back of a man who was holding Grandfather in a tight bear hug. All I could see of Grandfather was his legs. His feet were off the ground and he was writhing like a snake, but he couldn’t seem to break free.

  Beyond Grandfather, I caught a glimpse of an ax head swinging through the air. There was a loud CHOP, and the back of Grandfather’s overturned armoire splintered. The man holding the ax was Slim. The other man had to be Meathead.

  I lunged at Meathead from his blind side, swinging a shoe with all my might. The metal bracket struck him behind the ear, and the huge man dropped to his knees.

  The shoe fell from my hand as Grandfather slipped free.

  I stepped around Meathead and shouted, “Look out, Grandfather!”

  Slim had raised the ax and was coming at us. I hurled my other shoe at Slim’s face just as Grandfather dove at Slim’s raised arms.

  Grandfather managed to knock the ax free of Slim’s hands, but my flying shoe struck Grandfather in the side of the head, and he went down.

  “No!” I shouted.

  I took a step toward Slim and felt an arm wrap around my neck from behind like a boa constrictor. It was Meathead. He was still conscious. The giant began to squeeze. I felt pressure build in my head as Meathead’s forearm pressed against the side of my neck, compressing my carotid artery and cutting off the flow of blood to my brain. A flash of bright white light exploded behind my eyes, and for the second time in less than an hour, I blacked out.

  When I came to, I found myself atop what remained of my bed. Like the furniture in our family room, my mattress had been sliced to ribbons. Grandfather was sitting in a dining chair beside me.

  “Phoenix,” he said. “How do you feel?”

  “Like someone tried to hang me with a noose,” I groaned, rubbing my neck. I tried to sit up, but felt dizzy and lay back down. “Ugh. How are you?”

  Grandfather pointed to a large lump beneath his long gray hair. “Perhaps you should consider giving baseball a try. You have a strong throw.”

  “I’m so sorry, Grandfather.”

  “No need to apologize. You had the right idea, only I got in the way.”

  “I still feel bad that I hit you. Did I knock you out?”

  “You did. It seems they incapacitated you, too. The bruising on your neck leads me to believe it was a choke hold.”

  “Yeah, the big guy was still conscious. He latched on to me after you went down. Are my bruises bad?”

  “The bruising is fine. You can rub it out later with some dit da jow ointment. Right now, I want to take another look at your eyes.”

  I opened my eyes wide, and Grandfather leaned over me, his peculiar smell filling my nostrils.

  “Very good,” he said, leaning back. “I see no broken blood vessels, and no signs of concussion. I was afraid you might have been dropped on your head after you passed out. You will feel dizzy for a few hours, but after that you should be fine. I will make you some ginseng soup. It will help you feel better.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “How long have you been conscious?”

  “Not long. I was awakened by the sound of an outboard motor.”

  “They must have come on the river.”

  Grandfather nodded. “I am very grateful they did not harm you. It seems they only took what they came for.”

  “What was that?”

  Grandfather didn’t reply.

  I thought about his antique Chinese armoire. There was a secret panel at the back in which he hid all of his most important things. He had shown me the contents once, and I remembered a few pieces of gold jewelry, some old photographs, and a couple of faded scrolls that Grandfather refused to show me. Slim had been chopping at the armoire with the ax.

  “They took your scrolls?” I asked.

  “Scrolls?” Grandfather said; then he shook his head slowly. “No. They are of no consequence.”

  “Then why are you so upset? What did they take from your armoire?”

  “Nothing. What they took was hidden in plain sight.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Grandfather looked me in the eye, and his face filled with sadness.

  “Phoenix, they took my dragon bone.”

  I was confused. It didn’t seem like such a big deal to me. Grandfather normally kept the dragon bone in an ornate porcelain container alongside his other Chinese herbs in a cupboard over the sink. The substance was a grayish white powder, and he put a minuscule
amount of it into his tea every morning. He consumed lots of different herbs every day. He had them shipped to him from China by an old apothecary friend he called PawPaw. She had come to visit us once, and she regularly shipped him things like peony flower root, which was good for blood circulation; Astragalus, which was good for digestion; and wolfberries, which contain large amounts of natural antioxidants. Grandfather taught me about all the things he ate, and he even made me eat some of them sometimes. However, he never said a word about dragon bone.

  I looked up dragon bone on the Internet, though, and found that it is technically a mineral, not an herb. It’s basically fossilized animal bones that have been cooked and ground into powder. Grandfather’s powder looked a little different from the pictures I saw on the Internet, but not much. His was more gray.

  The descriptions said that dragon bone is high in calcium and potassium, and that it’s often used as a calming agent. Apparently, it helps lower a person’s heart rate. It’s good for people who suffer from high blood pressure. People with insomnia use it, too. I figured Grandfather was embarrassed that he took it, which is why he never talked about it or explained the mineral’s uses to me.

  “I do know a little bit about dragon bone,” I confessed. “It’s pretty common on the Internet. Can’t you just order more?”

  Grandfather looked disgusted. “Calling that stuff you can buy on the Internet dragon bone is like calling a Pekingese puppy a Mongolian wolf. It is made from the bones of common animals. My dragon bone was made from the bones of actual dragons.”

  “You mean, dragons really existed?”

  “Of course they did. As did dinosaurs and any number of currently extinct creatures. Is it really that difficult to believe?”

  “I guess not,” I said. “What makes real dragon bone so special compared with the other kind?”

  “While modern dragon bone does have some legitimate uses, true dragon bone has different properties and provides enhanced … results.”

  “Like what?”

  “I cannot tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  Grandfather said nothing.

  I frowned, knowing there was no point in pressing the issue. “Can’t PawPaw ship you more?”

  “There is no more.”

  “Well, can’t you just eat more of something else? Wolfberries, maybe?”

  “No.”

  “Is there someone else who can get you more?”

  His eyes darkened. “I told you, there is no more.”

  I sat up, fighting another round of dizziness. Grandfather had never used that tone of voice before.

  He must have seen the fear and confusion on my face. His voice softened. “I am sorry, Phoenix. I never expected this to happen. Not here in the United States, at least. True dragon bone is special. Very few people have heard of it, and until now I thought only three people in the world knew that it really existed.”

  “What does it do?”

  He shook his head. “I cannot tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Are you questioning my judgment?”

  I considered saying yes, but then thought better of it. The last time I crossed him, my daily kung fu training sessions were so intense that it even hurt to sleep. I decided to change the subject.

  “I’ll call the police,” I said.

  “No police,” Grandfather snapped.

  I was dumbfounded. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but we have to report this. They destroyed our home and almost killed us!”

  “We do not have to do anything of the sort. This is my business. I will handle it.”

  “But—”

  “Phoenix, I understand that you are only trying to be helpful, but I cannot risk any more people learning about dragon bone. I am upset enough that you know about it. If you were not such a trustworthy person, I would never have told you what it was called in the first place. I would have made up some other name for it. You have not mentioned dragon bone to anyone else, have you?”

  “Never. I remember you told me to keep it secret, even though you never told me why.”

  “Good. Keeping it above the window was a mistake. All someone had to do was watch me from the trees and they would see me mixing it into my morning tea. Foolish. I let my guard down.”

  “It happens. Believe me, I know.”

  Grandfather shrugged. “I never expected someone in America to know about dragon bone. I also never expected to encounter someone here with such skills.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The man who grabbed me knew what he was doing. He had kung fu training. Only one other person has ever been able to immobilize me like that. His name was Fu. But that was a long, long time ago.”

  “His name was ‘Tiger’? Was he in your kung fu class or something?”

  “He was my temple brother.”

  I wasn’t sure I had heard him right. “You lived in a temple?”

  Grandfather nodded.

  “Tell me about it!”

  “No.”

  “Come on. I don’t know anything about your past. You said once that you learned kung fu at a martial arts school.”

  “I did. It also happened to be my home. Think of it as a boarding school.”

  “I don’t believe this. How long did you live there?”

  “Nearly thirteen years.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “The temple was destroyed.”

  “What happened? An earthquake?”

  Grandfather shook his head. “An attack led by one of my former brothers.”

  “Your temple was attacked? By your own temple brother? This sounds like a kung fu movie! Tell me more.”

  “It is a long story.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Grandfather groaned. “I am in an awkward position, Phoenix. You do deserve information. However, I am reluctant to tell anyone about my life in China, particularly my childhood, and especially about dragon bone. Even you would think me chi seen.”

  “Chi seen? Doesn’t that mean ‘crazy’ in Cantonese?”

  Grandfather nodded.

  “Whatever it is, your past has caught up with you. You have to tell me what is going on. Those guys wrecked our house. They sabotaged my bike so I would end up in the hospital. One of them even choked me unconscious. What are they going to do next, kill me?”

  “Do not speak of such things.”

  “Why, because it just might happen?”

  Grandfather stood and lowered his voice. “Someone is going to die, Phoenix, only it will not be you. They took my dragon bone.”

  I felt the color drain from my face.

  “That is right,” he said. “Now you know why I am so upset. I have only a few weeks to live.”

  I sat on my bed, staring at my grandfather. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about his past. He was going to die because he stopped putting powder into his tea?

  I took a deep breath. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I am sorry,” Grandfather replied.

  My mind began to race. Someone had to be able to help. I thought about my uncle, the doctor. He was my mother’s brother, and he ran a nursing home in Indianapolis. Grandfather went there a couple of days a week to teach the residents a form of slow-motion Chinese exercise called tai chi.

  “What about Uncle Tí?” I asked. “Isn’t it his job to help people live longer?”

  “I am sorry, Phoenix,” Grandfather repeated. “No one can help me. As I have already told you, there is no more dragon bone.”

  “There has to be something we can do. I can’t lose you. You and Uncle Tí are the only relatives I have left.” I felt tears begin to pool in my eyes, but I was angry.

  “You have to be strong.”

  “I am strong!” I shouted. “So are you! Why don’t we fight back? What if we found the men who took it?”

  “How might we do that?”

  “I don’t know! Think of something. Y
ou’re old and wise.”

  Grandfather smiled. “I have thought about this longer than any person should have to. Believe me. Running out of dragon bone was inevitable. It simply happened a few years sooner than I thought.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t done arguing. “Since it’s gone, can’t you at least tell me what true dragon bone does?”

  Grandfather shook his head. “Its properties are the biggest secret of all. If I tell you what it does, I might as well tell you everything else.”

  “Please, Grandfather.” The tears in my eyes began to fall, and I noticed Grandfather stiffen. He looked away.

  “Right now,” Grandfather said, “I do not know whom to suspect. I do not want to put you at any more risk by telling you too much.”

  “I can’t possibly be at any more risk,” I said. “Please, let me help you.”

  He sighed and turned back to me. “I do not know. Perhaps you could be of assistance. Since you have no knowledge of the past, you might form conclusions that elude me, and we might find a way to get it back. Maybe I should tell you its secrets.”

  I wiped the angry tears from my face. “Tell me.”

  “If I do, you must promise to never discuss this with anyone.”

  “I promise.”

  Grandfather nodded. “Very well. True dragon bone has the power to accelerate the body’s healing processes, and it has been known to repair internal damage that is normally irreversible.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know firsthand of a boy who lost his eyesight, but after taking dragon bone, his vision returned.”

  “Really? How come more people don’t know about it?”

  “The properties of true dragon bone used to be fairly well known, but it was scarce. And expensive. A time came when a few people stockpiled every bit they could. These stockpiles were soon depleted, and no one could find any more dragon bones. Eventually, apothecaries began to use fossilized bones from different animals, which provided some similar health benefits—helping people sleep, for instance. They soon forgot about the other properties of real dragon bone.”