The Blue-Eyed Shan

by Becker, Stephen;

  “Her old mother.”

  Loi-mae whimpered. Naung knelt. Fearing to touch her mutilated face, he took her hand. “Bring Lola,” he said. “Let her see what her father has done.”

  “You were right,” Wan said. “No more outsiders.”

  “Where is he?” Chung asked.

  They looked about them. It was a field of families, each with its dead and wounded, none ready yet for the fearful isolation of a house. Smoke was rising, and that was a comfort, a familiar and homey tang, rich and friendly in the nostrils.

  “There will be much cremation,” Naung said. “Green Wood too, perhaps. Has no one seen him?”

  Jum-aw asked, “Shall I seek him out?”

  “Look a little at the House of the Dead,” Wan told the young man, “where those cursed bones are.” To Naung he said, “I saw him at Red Bullock Pass. He was fighting hard.”

  “He may be with the general,” Naung said. “Where is Lola?”

  Wan asked, “Chung, where is Lola?”

  “She was with us. And then she was not.”

  All stood now and peered about. “Shwe! Have you seen Lola?”

  Shwe was holding a clout to a wound in his side. “No. Lola!”

  From family to family the question sped.

  Naung cried out again.

  “A squad, quickly,” Wan said.

  Chung stooped. “Yes. Here. Do what you must.” She tossed the mitraillette to Naung.

  Za-kho called out, and approached in his mincing trot. “The one with yellow hair! On a pony!”

  “Green Wood?”

  Naung said, “No one here calls Green Wood ‘the one with yellow hair.’”

  “The Russian,” Za-kho gasped. “The Sawbwa’s Russian friend.” He clutched at Naung’s arm as if for support. “He saved her! She ran forth to meet the Wild Wa and he galloped up from the House of the Dead and he plunged into the mass and he carried her to safety!”

  Now Jum-aw was running toward them. “The general! The Chinese general!”

  “What of him?”

  The villagers were gathering and making an effort to comprehend. A child laughed.

  “Dead!” Jum-aw cried. “Headless! And the boxes open!”

  “By the gods!” Naung roared. “Green Wood and that Russian between them! The old bones and Lola!”

  “But why?” Chung stood bewildered. “And where?”

  “East,” Za-kho said. “With my own eyes I saw this. The Russian rode south and then east.”

  “To the road? To the Wild Wa? Ponies! Round up half a ten, and quickly. More: two squads. One east to the road, one south and then east. Taw-bi, run to my house. Perhaps she fled there. Hurry, man!”

  Naung sprang to his pony. At the gallop he unslung his mitraillette and inserted a fresh clip.

  Greenwood lumbered through the forest, his heart laboring and his arm swinging erratically. He would intercept them in East Poppy Field. He wanted not to think, only to run, but a persistent, mild delirium animated his mind. He would kill the Russian and restore Lola to Loi-mae. He tried hard to think only of Loi-mae and Lola, to picture their glad reunion, but his memory and imagination were racing. If he had time to set himself prone, then the tommy gun. He who lives by the tamigan dies by the tamigan. He who lives, dies. Otherwise it must be the pistol. The winner calls upon his last reserves. War is the continuation of personal foolishness by other means. Von Greenwood.

  He reeled and lurched, but pushed on. The battle must be over, the village safe; he heard a hoopoe, he heard a toktay. A huge black bee buzzed him and shot away. The morning was sunny and peaceful. Naung: he would have to deal with Naung. He would not make an offering of Lola, but somehow he must win forgiveness. Christ, it was a long way to East Poppy Field!

  Thuan-yi was beside himself. Here was both these grotesque outlanders, and the brave little girl! They would meet at the field of poppies. Clutching his knife, he flowed down the slope.

  Naung lashed at his pony and galloped into the pass. Wan and the others would come shortly, but they did not matter. The road: only let him reach the road alive. Let the Wild Wa be once more at home, he prayed. Let it be me and these Big Noses.

  To his surprise, he found that he was still weeping.

  Olevskoy had plunged into the forest and made the best time he could on a weary, nervous pony. He was unsure of his way, and the trail meandered. He was not certain that these little people had dispersed. But he was unhurt and, in truth, not even tired. Before him the little girl strained to rise. “Ca va,” he said. French was the language of love. His fingertips smoothed her hair, the color of rich amber, the texture of soft silk. “Probably a charming little girl,” he said. He might release her. Even the devil grows old.

  His pony was walking through a little swale, barely more than a gully. As they came into the open he saw by the sun that they were traveling northeast, and then he knew where they were—they had cut through the southern slopes and back into Pawlu’s valley; they were somewhere near the south slope of the poppy field, traveling toward the trampled poppy blooms. The little girl spoke. She said something in her own language and then—so odd on her lips, in this setting!—“Greenwood.” As her father might have said it. “Yes, yes,” he replied. “Greenwood. Did he teach you English?”

  “Greenwood,” she said, and wriggled her way to a sitting position on the withers. They were face-to-face, knee-to-knee. “Oh my God,” he said in Russian, amazed by a feathery touch of lust. “You are a beauty.” Her lips were full and moist; she was apparently unafraid.

  They were on the fringes of the poppy field. Crushed white blossoms were strewn in their path, as if for a king and a queen. The girl spoke again. Their eyes met and held. He looked deeply and with true curiosity into hers. He liked her. Her breath was spicy. “Lust is a form of love,” he said, still in Russian, “and perhaps the highest form. Dying for love is recommended by romantics but seems to defeat the purpose of the exercise.”

  “Greenwood,” she said. “Greenwood.” They were advancing among the trodden poppies; brave survivors stood tall; some swayed and seemed to bow at their passage. He heard birdcalls. The sun shone full on his face, the day promised fair. He glanced up at the clear blue sky. Birds of prey circled, or carrion birds, local vultures.

  Thuan-yi too had reached the field of poppies. He too was truly curious, almost overwhelmed. Clutching his long knife, he scurried from tree to tree just within the forest. He had even forgotten that he was hungry.

  Greenwood emerged at the foot of North Slope, breathing hard, a stitch in his side now and his sweaty shirt itching, apart from his other woes. The sun was high and dazzling. Above him kites wheeled. He saw Olevskoy and Lola, a hundred paces from him, almost hidden by the slope of the field; they were in a little dell, and he could not see the pony’s legs. On his best day he could hit nothing at that range, not with a submachine gun. He sucked air greedily.

  Olevskoy had brought the pony to a halt. Greenwood thought he could hear the Russian’s voice.

  Naung burst out of the pass and saw Green Wood immediately. The foreigner was alone and winded. No Lola. Naung slipped off his pony, dodged into the brush at the foot of North Slope, and worked his way rapidly into the forest to a point uphill from Green Wood and behind him. He kept before him the vision of Loi-mae’s ruined face. He padded quickly but with care through the woods. At a tiny gap he saw Green Wood again. Green Wood was slinging the tamigan and preparing to flee. In Naung’s heart fury renewed itself, and doubly; his eyes stung with rage, his mouth trembled, he could not swallow. He knew his enemy. Since the year they had taught him to call 1939 he had known his enemy; and now the enemy stood before him like a panting old gyi after a long chase. Green Wood! Everybody’s hero!

  Olevskoy had paused for good reasons. The road now seemed a danger. Who knew where these little brutes lurked, or whether they had in truth withdrawn to their fastnesses? What lay down that road—another tribe of little brutes? Would the Shan forgive him if he returned
the girl safe and sound? So much for lust. It seemed there was more to life than lust. His pony shifted restlessly, and shuffled forward.

  Greenwood saw Olevskoy start off again, toward the road, and knew he must prevent them. He drew a deep breath, started forward, and shouted, “Olevskoy!”

  Olevskoy slewed about on his pony’s bare back, flipping open the holster and drawing the .45 in a swift, practiced motion. Lola gritted her teeth, drew her dagger, grasped the haft in both fists and stabbed him underhand, the blade slicing into his stomach from the side and rising. She ripped upward, as when gutting hares. Breathless, she waited.

  Astonished, Olevskoy turned back to her. He knew precisely what had happened but did not mind. What an extraordinary child! The pistol fell from his hand, and his vision dimmed. He went on by instinct—Russian’s? prince’s? soldier’s? man’s? His instinct instructed him to bestow life if he must yield his own; to bless if he was damned. A faltering hand made the sign of the cross over her, and dropped nerveless to her hair. His cap fell; his lank flaxen hair swung. Love, he thought, I missed it, always.

  It is not easy to die well when you have lived badly. He swayed toward her mouth, one last kiss; but only spewed blood.

  Greenwood’s shout was still echoing when he heard Naung’s voice. “Green Wood!”

  He turned gratefully, here was help, and he had just begun to speak, to say “Naung,” when he saw the set lines of Naung’s square face in the gloom of the forest, and the rising mitraillette. He raised a hand and cried desperately, “No!” It is not easy to die badly when you have lived well. And then sheer shock stilled him. He had time to believe that he would be wounded but in the end all would be well; he would wake tomorrow with Loi-mae bathing his brow and Naung apologetic. He thought he could see the bullets. He heard nothing.

  Lola heard the gunfire, and saw Greenwood fall. She stifled a shriek—More Chinese! She slid off the pony and scampered into forest.

  For a moment she thought it was Weng-aw, he was so small.

  Naung and his men abandoned caution. With Pawlu’s survivors they beat the forest, slopes, fields; they searched every house; they rode every pace of Pawlu’s perimeter and even pushed beyond, firing and shouting, “Lola! Lola!” They squinted upward into the trees, they walked the stream, they sounded the paddy, they ferreted in stands of poppy. In the end they abandoned speech too, and would not look at one another.

  In late afternoon Naung, his heart still swollen and raw, raced back to East Poppy Field for one more sweep, dismounting then, parting the denser clumps. He mopped his scalding eyes to peer for sign. He paused to empty a full clip into Greenwood. The taste of revenge was vinegar now. He continued along the edge of East Poppy Field and in time he spotted the other pony, peacefully cropping poppies, and beside it the Russian’s body. He emptied his fresh clip into the Russian’s back. By then Wan and Shwe and Taw-bi had come into the field. No one spoke. They rode on, well apart, each covering a sector, and they emerged at the roadside. Boldly, as if it could not matter now what became of them, they sought sign again in the dusty road. They saw only what they had known they would see: the imprint of many little Wild Wa feet crossing and recrossing.

  Naung led them back to the Russian. They took his head cleanly. He led them then to Green Wood. They took his head cleanly. They rode to the nearest cages, undid the hempen knots, released the balance beams and set each head in a separate cage, tossing the old heads into the brush at the side of the road.

  Next day, when they came to loot the Chinese camp, the heads had vanished.

  12

  Ranga

  And then the headman of Ranga turns to another precious relic. This too is the head of a wise man, who came from a far place. Its hair and eyes are also light. Old Thuan-yi the warrior took his head also, in fierce combat as he tells the tale; each head with one stroke.

  And when the headman turns to the bones. For the bones a platform has been built of oak; and a stout tanned hide shelters the bones from wind and rain. The bones are of several small people, perhaps children, perhaps the smaller forefathers that figure in ceremonial tales of the ancient hot green land to the south. Thirty years ago, when these bones were taken, the headman declared that they were old indeed, older than any bones yet seen by him, older than any head yet taken by the Wild Wa; perhaps even older than the headman’s grandfather’s grandfather. In those days men and gods roamed the earth together, and copulated freely; these bones are surely the relics of living gods.

  Thuan-yi’s woman will not walk the avenue between the double line of trees. She will pause before the platform of bones at the northern end, and often she prays there, or meditates. She will not look upon the two heads or even pass near them. She is a somber woman of some forty monsoons, taken in the War of the Bones, a stranger to the Wild Wa and of unknown family, too golden for a Shan. She was owned by each man of Ranga in turn, and Thuan-yi then took her to wife. She has borne him five sons and three daughters, and among them there is an occasional lock of wavy hair the color of tobacco. Because of her mysterious birth, her tawny complexion and her habitual silence, Ranga deems her holy, and no man spoke against it when she called her first son Green Wood.

  About the Author

  Stephen Becker (1927–1999) was an American author, translator, and teacher whose published works include eleven novels and the English translations of Elie Wiesel’s The Town Behind the Wall and André Malraux’s The Conquerors. He was born in Mount Vernon, New York, and after serving in World War II, he graduated from Harvard University and studied in Peking and Paris, where he was friends with the novelist Richard Wright and learned French in part by reading detective novels. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Becker taught at numerous schools throughout the United States, including the University of Iowa, Bennington College, and the University of Central Florida in Orlando. His best-known works include A Covenant with Death (1965), which was adapted into a Warner Brothers film starring Gene Hackman and George Maharis; When the War Is Over (1969), a Civil War novel based on the true story of a teenage Confederate soldier executed more than a month after Lee’s surrender; and the Far East trilogy of literary adventure novels: The Chinese Bandit (1975), The Last Mandarin (1979), and The Blue-Eyed Shan (1982).

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1982 by Stephen Becker

  Cover design by Kat JK Lee

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-2696-3

  This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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