The Blue-Eyed Shan

by Becker, Stephen;

  “This is courage,” Naung said.

  “It is a shock,” Greenwood said, “but it makes sense.”

  “There is no precedent for it,” Mong said. “I have never heard of a sawbwa leaving his village, much less as a hostage, and I do not believe that good can come of it.”

  “New times, new remedies,” Wan said, “but I confess this violates my sense of the proprieties.”

  “The idea makes me nervous,” said Kin-tan.

  “Kin-tan nervous? That is without precedent.” The Sawbwa’s good eye stared down at his people and their village-within-a-village, at smoke rising from a dozen campfires. “I shall go, and I shall bring them here tomorrow to exterminate these Wild Wa. After all, who else speaks Chinese? We shall suppress the Wild Wa for a generation to come.”

  “The general speaks Chinese,” said Naung.

  Greenwood was firm: “The general goes west with Jum-aw. Sawbwa: if this is to be done, how is it to be done?”

  In the end it was done simply. The Sawbwa decked himself in his ceremonial gray and scarlet. Around his neck he draped strings of prayer beads, at Za-kho’s instance. On his head he wore the Pawnee headband. He was placed aboard a pony.

  Wan assured them once more that this side of the road was clear of Wild Wa. Eight horsemen, appropriately armed, surrounded the Sawbwa, four close, four ranging. They proceeded by the most direct route, straight through Red Bullock Pass and along the southern edge of East Poppy Field.

  At the roadside they formed a defensive cluster. A curt Greenwood parleyed with Olevskoy. The Sawbwa added a word or two in creaking Yunnan Chinese. They waited, the Shan squirming in vague humiliation, while the Chinese soldiers conferred. Greenwood could not understand their talk. Probably Olevskoy was saying, “Well, they’re serious,” and the majors were agreeing. Perhaps they were also discussing the shortage of water. Perhaps too the joys of village life.

  Finally Olevskoy agreed. To Greenwood he said, “A truce for now.”

  “For now.”

  “At sunrise tomorrow we move. These hills: will your sun rise at the same hour?”

  “We’ll be watching,” Greenwood said. “At this end of the pass, dig in.”

  Olevskoy said, “If you lay an ambush, we’ll kill the lot of you. We’ll roast you alive.”

  “If this were an ambush we’d want you within the pass.”

  “I’ve never trusted anyone,” Olevskoy said. “Not for years and years. It is not easy to start now.”

  And in high state the Sawbwa, sitting his pony like a trained gibbon, crossed the road into the Chinese camp, where he became immediately the object of vulgar curiosity, and was offered whisky and cigarettes, which he declined with dignity.

  In the lowering dusk Thuan-yi watched the Shan ride back into Pawlu. Here was a mystery! Strange ways indeed! These people had bound over their headman to the Chinese and one albino; and the other albino rode merrily back to Pawlu like a true Shan! This conduct was not meet. By such unseemly behavior the Shan had surely lost favor with the gods. The Shan were no longer righteous!

  Exultant, Thuan-yi ghosted through the evening to rejoin his men, and to tell them what the gods had ordained.

  “Try not to blame me,” Greenwood said.

  “There is no blame,” Loi-mae said. “Who can say when this war began, and why, or how it will end, and why?”

  “It is all one war, perhaps, with longer or shorter truces.”

  Lola slept. About them in the Common Field the hum and stir of a jittery village filled the night; low talk, a snore, a cough, the drifting smoke of fires and cheroots.

  “It is better not to touch,” Loi-mae said.

  “Naung hates me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “‘Go to your daughter.’ I cannot make him out. He is hot and cold.”

  “Happy and sad. He has been hurt.”

  “Then we shall not hurt him more.”

  “We shall be virtuous, and the gods will be kind.”

  Greenwood did not believe this but said, “Yes.”

  Once this had been all he desired: Loi-mae, Lola, Pawlu. Now it was a place he had spoiled, on the eve of battle.

  True, events have many ancestors, and there is never one that may be singled out. Yet if not for Major Wei, all might have ended otherwise, and order prevailed. Hulking, reliable Major Wei. A man of honor, a soldier of valor. With nightfall Major Wei agonized. General Yang had not lied; yet the major had expected more honorable behavior. He allowed professional latitude; superior officers were constantly issuing cryptic orders and conducting maneuvers incomprehensible to lower grades because part of a greater, unknowable whole. Major Wei needed a confidant, and time to think. But he was alone, possibly assisting a mutiny, and the decision must be his. First: he could disappear into the night and slog his way to some town. Impossible. Second: he could accept the situation and shift his allegiance to the Russian. Difficult. Third: he could follow along, and bide his time. Unworthy. Fourth: he could make his way to General Yang, confront him, warn him and judge him.

  But how to enter the village, with pickets three-deep? He had considered offering himself in exchange for the Sawbwa, but his men needed him. He shrugged into his jacket and inspected his weapon. A white flag? Useless at night; nevertheless, once clear of the bivouac he would knot a white kerchief to the muzzle of his weapon. He did not fear the Wild Wa; he was a man of some sophistication and knew that no human eye could see in true darkness. Besides, the Sawbwa had crossed without incident. He would be exposed for a few seconds only. He imagined himself crossing the road, entering the Shan lines. He heard himself challenged, calling “Friend!”

  His heart somewhat eased, he lay back. The foundations were indeed trembling; no longer was up up, down down.

  “You will ride out tomorrow with the general,” Mong told Jum-aw, “so make the most of tonight.”

  Chung smacked the boy’s shoulder. The daughters cooed.

  “I want someone awake at all times,” Mong went on. “We are at war.”

  “I should stay,” Jum-aw said, “and fight beside you.”

  “Suckling babes do not decide these matters,” Mong scoffed. “Listen, boy: you have a long life yet to live. Ride away from here and live it.” He threw an arm around Chung. “A bad day coming, old woman.”

  “Unless the gods relent,” she said.

  “The gods may be busy elsewhere,” Mong said.

  “Hu-chot is with them, and Phe-win,” Chung said, “and many old friends.”

  “Not bad company,” Mong said, “old friends and gods; but I prefer my good woman.”

  Chung grasped his hand.

  General Yang sat alone, in the dark, between his footlockers.

  Thuan-yi hovered at the edge of sleep.

  Lola dozed. Cookery proceeded. At the boundaries of Pawlu, sentries lay immobile. Livestock ruminated placidly, whuffling and blatting. Greenwood himself was gloomy. His belligerence had subsided, he was no longer in love, he took joy in his daughter but had brought peril in his train. He was older, sadder and wiser, as philosophers had told him he would be. He had crossed his peak at twenty-seven, and his imperceptible slide downhill had brought him—and Pawlu—to this mournful pass.

  Major Wei inspected his positions. Now before moonrise the night glowed faintly; sentries’ whispers floated like mist.

  At the northern end of his line, ten meters from the road, he melted into the night. He must cross now, keep low, burrow in on the far side, and make his way with infinite patience toward this famous poppy field. Once clear of the Wild Wa he could risk a friendly call.

  He knelt beside the road for several minutes. The silence impressed him: he was worlds away from man and all his works.

  He saw the road clearly, a lighter black—was that possible?—than the forest. He half rose, and in the rapid bent-legged lope that had carried him across so many frozen fields of millet stubble, he glided onto the road.

  At first he thought that he had coll
ided with a post or been buffeted by a cudgel. Then he recalled the whir. Then he realized that his knees were not supporting him. This was annoying. His weapon seemed oily, slipping from his grasp. He could see the surface of the road, swirls in the dust; he saw his weapon falling, spinning slowly, settling endlessly; and then he saw the bolt in the center of his chest. It was as if some stupid soaring sharp-beaked bird had blundered, diving to its own death in the heart of him. Against his cheek the dust of the road was cool, and then cold.

  Only Major Wei slept well that night. Greenwood woke to Loi-mae’s embrace, and drifted off again. Loi-mae was oppressed by fears, and clung to Greenwood as she had in the old days, when he was invulnerable. He returned her embrace but asked no more of her. He would not transgress. Perhaps she was right and the gods would, in return, spare them all. Lola tossed and whimpered.

  The captains napped briefly, in turn.

  General Yang struggled to the surface of swampy dreams: his legs failed, his arms were bound, ooze sucked at his feet; his own men accused him.

  Olevskoy muttered, started awake, sat up puzzled: Siberia? No, China. No, Burma. That Burmese child! Perhaps he was monstrous and not princely at all. A lifetime of self-disgust, disguised as pride. Tomorrow he would lose himself in his work.

  Thuan-yi prayed to his gods and heeded the voices of the night. He recalled strategies and deceptions from the time of the wider war, when also an albino had been among them, perhaps one of these very same. He recalled the Wild Wa tricked into reckless advances and cut down from both flanks. Not this time. This time they would lurk awhile, like the wild dogs that follow leopards.

  These leopards would snarl and claw in the field of poppies or at the pass.

  A dazzling vision kindled the night: he saw himself crossing the Little River Mon. He thanked his gods. When the storytellers recited this war, one name would be spoken again and again.

  Major Ho raised the alarm. A false dawn had roused him; obedient to his colonel, he had tried to nudge Major Wei, so that they might proceed together to the latrine and the ring of sentries; he had nudged thin air. “Wei!” he called. Men stirred. “Major Wei!”

  “What is it?” Olevskoy’s voice was slurred.

  “Major Wei, sir. Not present.”

  “Up, up, up,” Olevskoy called. “Major Wei? Major Wei?”

  Men commenced cursing, blundering into one another, damning the dark and the cold. Louder, Olevskoy called, “Major Wei! Who has seen Major Wei?”

  The men fell silent.

  “Major Ho: check your perimeter. Sergeant Chang: check the road. All of you: ready alert!”

  Olevskoy peered into the uncertain dawn. All his life he had been a soldier, and never more, never better, than when alone against the world. “I want silence,” he said. “I shall be giving orders and I shall not shout.”

  In the murk nothing stirred: so the world had begun, before there were men. In how many dawns had he stood prickling, straining for a sign?

  “Ai yah! The major!” Sergeant Chang was audible for half a mile. Olevskoy swore.

  “What is it, then?”

  Sergeant Chang lumbered to his colonel. “Dead! Dead! In the road! And …” He loomed misshapen in the half-light.

  “And?”

  “Beheaded!”

  A rumble rose, of fear. Men whined and moved aimlessly. Olevskoy knew he must hold them now or lose them forever. “Form squads!” he called out. “Bring this Sawbwa to me!”

  Dazed with sleep, the Sawbwa was bundled out of his sleeping-cloth and into Olevskoy’s presence. “The Wild Wa have killed a man,” Olevskoy said. “They are all about us. We shall enter the village now. Do you understand me?”

  “The sun is not yet risen; but I understand you.”

  “We shall move quickly. You shall ride at my side.”

  “That too I understand.”

  “You must hang on and not fall off. There will be no coming back for you.”

  “I shall grasp the mane,” the Sawbwa said.

  For the first time, peering through the gray dawn, Olevskoy examined the Sawbwa’s headband. Woven into it were small five- and sixpointed stars. Curious.

  “All prepare to mount!” he shouted. Too late now for the commanding dignity of soft-spoken orders. “Lash down machine guns! Flankers at the ready!” After a half minute he continued, “No! Leave all bedding, all food, everything but weapons!” They set to, and readied themselves. “At my word we cross: three ranks of ten, flankers close, not wide, a pony’s length apart, all of you; keep low, keep your heads on the mane; and ride like the wind through that field of poppies.

  “You know that they expect us to face about, and slaughter the savages coming in behind us—after which, they may slaughter us.”

  “Not so!” cried the Sawbwa.

  “Perhaps they speak truly; perhaps they lie. Remember our alternate plans, discussed last night! Remember all that we have done together!” Olevskoy swung onto his pony. “Form on the march! Forward!” He added in Russian, “And you, you summer fool, behave yourself or I shall squash you with one thumb.”

  The Sawbwa nodded thoughtful agreement.

  Naung heard the commotion. Kin-tan lay beside him on South Slope. “Taw-bi: fetch Green Wood, quick! Warn the village!”

  “Something has frightened them.”

  Olevskoy’s voice carried in the dry, lifeless dawn.

  “That northern dialect,” Naung said. “Jabber and babble.”

  “Ponies blowing,” Kin-tan said.

  “He’s giving orders. I can tell that much.”

  “If they come?”

  “Why so early? Ah, these foreign bastards! These sons of turtles! Well, we’re ready for them. Blessings.”

  “Blessings,” said Kin-tan, and slipped away. Naung raced west, and raised the alarm.

  Thuan-yi bubbled laughter and made squirrel talk. He slipped from his hollow, fleeting southward. Thuan-yi was a creature of the forest. He had hunted all other creatures of the forest, man among them, and he knew their ways as the owl knew the mouse’s ways. Not merely Thuan-yi’s youthful strength but his shrewdness as well had raised him to this command. It told him now that these Chinese had panicked, and were following the albino to attack the village, rather than darting and doubling like the mountain fox. Thuan-yi guessed that the villagers would lie in wait for these strangers, and at the proper time close the jaws of their trap. This would occupy them for some while; they would surely require all their forces; they would perhaps fire at one another; any reinforcements would be drawn from—Ah! From where the Wild Wa had never set foot!

  Thuan-yi gave orders in many voices, and the Wild Wa flowed into the shallow valley south of South Slope, and surged west parallel to the Chinese north of South Slope. The Wild Wa were skimming the earth now, sprinting and scurrying toward the Little River Mon and unknown lands beyond it. Thuan-yi’s excitement was feverish, and he knew that his forty warriors were also ablaze.

  Like Olevskoy and Thuan-yi, Naung was doing what he did best. His strategy—Green Wood’s, Wan’s, Kin-tan’s, he admitted, but one that he himself might have framed—was workable and even elegant as far as it went. It depended on the brute stupidity of the Wild Wa, but they were a reliably base people, were they not? “Bring those men up here from the Little River Mon,” he told Taw-bi.

  Olevskoy and his crew charged into Pawlu like the desperate refugees they were. The Sawbwa bobbed along, clutching his pony’s mane. They swept through East Poppy Field, trampling a rich crop, hundreds of catties of crude opium ground to chaff. They charged toward Red Bullock Pass. Major Ho, with the rear guard, saw Shan movement on the slopes; he fired in the air, slowing the column. Olevskoy saw Greenwood, mounted, both arms raised, and his own right arm shot up, slowing the Chinese.

  By God! If this was honest and succeeded! It was possible: General Yang was their friend. The old Smiler. Olevskoy was shouting orders. His machine gunners and infantry tumbled into place. “Fireteam Blue—cover the village!
” The Shan was now behind us. And before us is a classic enfilade, a ninety-degree field of fire and slopes at either hand. Why did I obey this American? Olevskoy readied his carbine. His lungs pumped, and the old sweat broke out, the sweet ache. His horse handlers had rounded up the ponies. The Shan were darting down both slopes. Where were the Wild Wa?

  Thuan-yi halted at the river. His men gathered, crouching, jittering in place, overcome by their own daring. Among them were crossbows, ancient rifles, swords and daggers. Before them lay countless heads; behind them, their own women, who would jeer at failure. Thuan-yi spoke: “All across! To the north! For the gods!” No Shan remained to oppose them.

  In the Common Field, as dawn flared over the pass, the women and children chewed on cane and formed a watchful, loosely packed mass. Some prayed aloud. Loi-mae and Chung stood together, and Lola with them. Za-kho invoked the gods. They heard voices toward Red Bullock Pass, and then shots. Near them Jum-aw, shaking with fear yet also with the need to perform well before Mong’s and Chung’s daughters, scanned the screen of forest to the south and sighted along the barrel of his father’s rifle.

  Olevskoy watched the Shan sweep down both slopes and close behind his platoon; he saw no Wild Wa; and knew bitterly that he had once more been deceived by peasants. And by the American. He cursed himself for a fool. “Form up!” he bawled. “Mount up! Major Ho! Into the village! The village! Cut your way to the village!”

  “Yes, yes!” cried the Sawbwa. “To the village!”

  “Ah, you again,” said Olevskoy. He drew his .45 and shot the Sawbwa between the eyes, or just above, through the Pawnee headband. The Sawbwa slid off the pony with his customary glassy smile, and his mottled white eye shut forever.

  Naung, like Olevskoy, cursed himself; he also cursed Green Wood and the Sawbwa. The Russian and his Chinese scum were turning on the village, on the women and children. And where were the Wild Wa? “Wan! Wan!”

  “I hear!”

  “The Wild Wa!”

  “None!”

  “Then rally all,” Naung shouted. “Come after these Chinese and come firing! To the Common Field!”

  Greenwood was sweeping down North Slope in a long S-curve when he saw the Chinese lines dissolve and re-form. He was panting, and not with effort alone. He did not know where the Wild Wa were. His pony scrabbled downhill to East Poppy Field, and here came Ko-yang from the south. “Nothing! No one!”