by Steven Law
Enrique was sure that the priest had seen him, too, and offered him a humorous mimicry of the priest’s quizzing. “What are the genus and species of that varmint I see hiding among the branches?”
Father Gaeta chuckled. “That would be the ever so punctual Orphanis hungrius. It must be time to eat.”
Pang Lo
He woke to a blurred image of Vin Long’s face and to the coolness of a wet cloth on his cheek. Vin dabbed the cloth above Pang’s eye, which caused him to wince at the pain. Pang closed his eyes tight and pushed Vin’s hand away, then opened his eyes again and looked out into the room. Objects started to come into focus—the bricks in the wall, the iron bars.
“You were out all night,” Vin said. “And now almost half the day.”
Pang closed his eyes and reopened them, and tried to get a clear view of his friend. He tasted blood. “What—what happened?”
Vin dipped the cloth into a porcelain bowl then wrung out the water. “I thought they had killed you.”
“Who?”
“The deputies. They brought you here from the saloon, and after the sheriff left, they beat you. You’re a damn fool.”
Pang recalled the incident at the saloon, and that was the last he could remember. “Am I a fool for demanding justice?”
Vin dropped the wet, wadded cloth on Pang’s chest and left it there. “One does not stick one’s head into a beehive and demand honey.”
Pang grabbed the cloth and tried to rise up, but a quick dizziness sent him back to the cot.
“You lie still,” Vin said. “You have much healing to do.”
“Why does my stomach hurt so much?”
Vin took the cloth back and dropped it into the bowl. “Do not complain. Be grateful you’re alive.”
“I have to get up. I have to go after Valdar.”
“Do not worry. A posse of more than thirty men are already after him.”
“Posse?”
“Sheriff Dutton. He received word that a man had been killed south of town. He rode out with one of the deputies and found a man hanging naked from a cottonwood tree, along the bank of the Santa Cruz. His stomach was cut open and his entrails pulled to the ground.”
“Who?”
“A gambler. A fancy-dressed man who was in the saloon when you went in blurting Valdar’s name. So he went after Valdar and met his death. The sheriff had to act and formed a posse.”
Pang tried to rise again. “I should go help him.”
This time he was knocked down by both dizziness and Vin’s hand. “You are more of a fool than I thought!”
“You don’t know how it feels, old man!”
Vin stood angrily. “Since you are still a young man, I will forgive you for your ignorance. No, my dear Pang, you are too young to remember the Opium Wars. I watched my father’s head fall off his body from the swipe of an imperial soldier’s sword. Don’t think that I didn’t want revenge, too. But I had a wife and a newborn child. I had them to think about. Their lives and our future.”
Pang was touched by the man’s words and felt regret for his hasty tongue. “I meant no disrespect.”
Vin patted his shoulder. “I know. Your father was a good man. You have to know he would not approve of you thinking this way.”
“Yes, and it is quite a burden on my mind. But I have nothing now. A tailoring business is nothing. Without a family I am nothing. That evil bandit took everything I have.”
Vin looked at Pang with a compassionate smile and put his hand on his. Perhaps, Pang thought, the old man was seeing the situation differently.
“Do you think that Dutton will stop Valdar?” Pang said.
Vin sat silently for a moment, then looked at Pang solemnly and let out a sigh. “I am not a predictor. All I know is what I see before me.”
“And what do you see?”
Another sigh. “A grasshopper.”
“Then tell me, what should I do?”
“It is not for me to tell you, Pang. It is for you to decide.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You have been taught. You know the answers. You know the way. Just remember … a leopard stalks its prey before it attacks.”
Pang thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “It does.”
Vin nodded, then stood and walked to the cell door to summon the jail keeper. Deputy Bain approached with his spurs clanging and keys jingling. He looked through the bars and grinned smugly at Pang, then unlocked the door. Pang rose up on his elbows.
“When can he leave?” Vin asked.
“Maybe never, old boy. Probably hang the sumbitch.”
“They bury his father tomorrow. He has a right to mourn.”
The deputy grabbed Vin’s arm and pulled him out of the cell, then slammed the door shut behind him.
“He’ll have to mourn there on that cot. Besides, he’s not going nowheres till the sheriff gets back. Now, you go on and git outta here.”
Vin turned, looked solemnly at Pang, and gave him a nod. The deputy locked the door then pushed Vin away.
As the deputy walked away, Pang realized his dilemma. His impulsive behavior had landed him in this position. He should have never gone to the saloon. If only he had stayed with his father, he would be with him now to pay his last respects and then go off on a well-planned mission to not only find justice, but save what was left of his family.
Hopefully it was not too late.
*
A wedge of light was cast through the small, iron-barred window, and it soon vanished with the setting sun. Pang lay sore and uncomfortable on the cot, in a quiet darkness save for the sound of cicadas outside and the hint of light from the oil lamp on the sheriff’s desk. He was sure the deputy sat there, probably sleeping, or cleaning his gun, or playing solitaire.
Though Sheriff Dutton might not seem to be on his side, he likely had saved Pang’s life by stopping him when he did. It was only when he was gone that the deputies reconvened their battery. In public the sheriff wouldn’t have wanted to display any sort of affection toward the Chinese because it would mean political ruin. Pang’s father had taught his son this reasoning of the whites. What Pang couldn’t understand was how a man could follow any direction but that powered by his own heart. Maybe such ill reasoning was required to live among the people of this culture. He couldn’t be certain. There were too many things about the whites that he couldn’t understand.
*
Though rising from the cot was painful, Pang was feeling stiff and cramped and needed to stand. He made his way to his feet and shuffled slowly across the stone floor to the steel-barred window, where he could now see a crescent moon. It wasn’t much to look at, but Pang envied its freedom, especially to see over all the earth, and he wished he could look down on the lives of his sister and his fiancée.
Trying to regain his health, he exercised his breathing and stretched his muscles by squatting and leaning from side to side.
He’d been in the jail three days now, trying to be patient. There was no sign of the sheriff’s return. Pang wondered if the posse would be enough to take Valdar and his men. It was hard to know such things. Regardless, Pang was dedicated to seeing justice done, whether by Dutton, him, or anyone else.
During Vin’s visits, he had been bringing Pang soup and herbal tea for nutrition. He’d asked for something to ease his pain, but Vin did not believe in the man-made medicines. “It is better to heal naturally,” he’d said.
Pang heard the front door to the office creak open, and the deputy spoke. “What are you doin’ here so late? I fed ’im earlier. You don’t need to bring ’im nothin’ else.”
Then Pang recognized the voice of Vin. “But he needs this special tea to help him heal.”
“What’s special about it?” the deputy asked.
“It is filled with herbs, and a bit of opium to help ease his pain.”
Opium? Pang thought. What has gotten into the old man?
“Let me see,” the deputy said.
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Pang walked over to the jail door and watched the deputy lift the porcelain lid off the teapot and sniff. He made a sour face.
“That smells like hot horse piss! You gonna make ’im drink it?”
“Yes, he will drink it.”
“Well—hell now, this I gotta see.”
The deputy grabbed the keys off the hook on the wall, then walked over to the jail door and unlocked it. He stepped away and waved a hand for Vin to enter.
Vin stepped in front of him and winked at Pang, then turned back around and looked at the deputy.
“Well?” the deputy said. “Get on with it.”
“Vin took the lid off the teapot, grabbed the handle, then swiftly emptied the contents into the deputy’s face.
The deputy staggered away and dropped the keys, his eyes closed, mouth open, coughing, gagging.
Before the deputy could open his eyes, Vin stood on one leg and like a perfectly balanced bird kicked him in the ribs. The young lawman gasped and fell backward, then lay on his side and wheezed. Vin squatted beside him and with an extended hand jabbed the back of his head.
The deputy went out cold.
Vin turned around to an astounded Pang.
“What are you doing, old man?”
“Saving your life. It’s hard to say if or when the sheriff will be back, and word has gotten to us that a plan is in the works to kill you. Make it look like you were trying to escape, and then they would shoot you.”
Pang looked down at the unconscious deputy, still in awe. “So what do I do now?”
“You have to go away, Pang. Do what you will with your life, but there is no more life for you here.”
It was freedom he wanted, but now that he stood with it in his hands, he didn’t know what to do with it. He knew he needed to go after Valdar, but he wasn’t sure how, and this time he needed a plan. “I suppose you are right. I must go.”
“I’ve been wrong many times, but I have been right more. So you go now; there is no more time for talk.”
Pang bowed to his elder, then proceeded to walk away, but he stopped and looked again at the deputy. “Was that really opium?”
“No, no. You know I would never succumb to such treatments.”
“Then what was it?”
Vin smirked. “Just like the deputy said. It was horse piss.”
Pang spared a grin, appreciating Vin’s cleaver wit, but he worried about what the old man might face for helping him. He was quite certain, however, that Vin wouldn’t have done it without a plan to get out of it. So he decided not to worry, that he had enough of his own trouble to worry about.
To show his respect, he offered Vin a bow. The old man returned the gesture, and then, like a prowling lion, Pang went quietly out the door and slipped into the darkness.
*
Pang calculated that for breaking jail, and all the other things that the sheriff and his deputy would try to pin on him, he was already a dead man, so stealing a horse would make him no worse off. The problem at hand, however, was that he had never learned to ride a horse. When he jumped up on the horse in the alley, he realized that it was not as easy as he had thought it would be. He was sure that the horse wondered who this young man was who looked, smelled, and dressed much different than the horse’s owner, and who hopped up on his back and did nothing but slap him on the withers. At least Pang knew enough to use the stirrups; that much he’d learned from watching riders on the streets of Tucson, but when it came to making the horse go, or perform any other maneuver, Pang wallowed in ignorance. Even though the horse finally gave in and took off out of the alley in an imperfect trot, when they got to the street Pang did not know how to direct him. He reached forward and pulled back hard on his mane, which caused the horse to rear and throw the Chinaman to the ground. Luckily for Pang the horse just trotted a few steps away and stopped.
He walked up slowly to the animal with his hand out, palm up. “I’m sorry, Mr. Horse, for my lack of knowledge with you. But if you give me another chance, I promise I will do better next time.”
The sorrel stud bent his neck back to look at the Chinaman, snorted, and whickered. The activity had drawn a late night pedestrian near the scene, and after assessing it long enough, he turned and ran to the saloon. Pang knew that he had no time to waste, and after petting the stud on the neck, he remounted. Several people came running from the saloon, and one of them yelled “Horse thief!”—which was all the motivation Pang needed to use what he recalled from a horse race he once saw on the outskirts of town. He took a deep breath and hollered “YAH!” causing the stud to lunge forward. Pang held on tight to the horn of the saddle and let the animal lead the way, past the onlookers and down the street, and before long out into the moonlit wilderness.
*
Pang had no idea how far he had ridden, but at least he knew he was headed in the right direction, south, where Valdar had taken his sister and his fiancée. He knew, too, that he had to be conscious of all directions, that a posse was also looking for Valdar, and that likely a new posse had formed and would be looking for him, an escaped prisoner and horse thief. It was quite an aggravation for someone who only a few days before was sitting innocently in his tent sharing a meal with his family, and who knew how that peace was broken. It angered him to realize that the men who held him in jail, and the men who would now pursue him, were referred to as peace officers, yet they did nothing to help him restore the peace. This being so, it felt inappropriate to think of them as men. Only cowards would allow such injustice to occur and not follow their own hearts. And if their hearts could not see what was right, and what was truly wrong, then they definitely were not sane men, but controlled by demons.
Regardless of all that bothered him, Pang kept riding. As day began to break, he could see the light’s reflection on the shallow pools of the Santa Cruz. He rode to the river and dismounted to let the horse drink and rest. Rest, however, was something that Pang didn’t need. He couldn’t remember a time when he had had such high adrenaline, and he felt a passionate desire to keep moving, but the lather that had surfaced on the horse around the shoulder billet and bridle told him that the horse did not share his feelings.
After the horse drank, Pang decided to walk it a ways down the riverbank. He supposed that not being hasty was a good thing, as his father had taught him that many times. A sadness crept through him as he remembered an old Chinese proverb that his father once told him:
A wise cat does not try to outrun a dog, but does catlike things to avoid him.
With such thoughts in his mind, and the spirit of his father hovering around him, Pang tried to utilize this wisdom. The riverbank was higher than his head, and he figured that it would be difficult for his pursuers to see him, but he knew, too, that they would follow his tracks. All he had to do was look at the water to realize that tracks underneath the water could not be seen as easily, so he acted like he was heading back north, then mounted the horse, went into the water, and with his hands on its neck coaxed the animal to turn back south. He rode slowly in the river for almost a mile, then exited the water on the west side and with his voice was able to get the horse to lope.
The desert sun reached a high morning plane before Pang felt the need to stop again, and when he noticed a bluff ahead it looked like a good place to hide out of sight while he rested. The horse seemed to follow the direction of the river naturally, but to get it to go any other direction was quite a task for the inexperienced rider. Pang had learned, however, that when he got frustrated and reached down to the side of the horse’s head and pulled the bridle, the horse turned in that direction. Before long he realized that the reins, which to Pang at first were just strips of leather hanging from the horse’s head, could be used to turn the horse in the direction that he needed to go. He was upset with himself for not figuring that out sooner, and even more so since the horse had stepped on one of the reins and broken it, making it much shorter than the other one. Regardless, Pang and the horse communicated better, and g
etting it to go wherever he wanted it to go was a much simpler process.
As they approached the bluff, the horse followed a wildlife trail that led behind the bluff and then between three smaller ones. Several boulders, surrounded by prickly pear, yucca, and barrel cactus, decorated the base of each bluff, and the rocks made an inviting place to hole up for a bit and rest.
Pang rode up to the boulders to dismount, and the horse suddenly whinnied and backed away. Pang tried to hold him steady but didn’t know how to, and before long the horse reared. It became uncontrollable and lunged forward so quickly that Pang fell to the ground, landing on his hip. He grimaced at the pain, rolled to his side, and watched the horse gallop away—and then he heard what had spooked the horse, a rattlesnake, only about six feet away, coiling inwardly, pulling its head back to the center of the coil, and fluttering its tail from underneath.
Pang rolled to his back and tried to crawfish away. He drew his feet back and hunched to his knees, and this sudden movement seemed to alarm the snake into a fury, but rather than spring at him, as Pang had thought it would do, the snake seemed to be lifted off the ground. It squirmed uncontrollably, and as it slowed and the dust settled around it, Pang could see blood, and a straight wooden shaft with feathers on its end stuck in the snake’s head. An arrow, Pang had learned, that was used by the natives of this land.
The event dumbfounded and frightened the young Chinaman. He looked around him to see who could have shot the arrow, and a silhouette of a man in a broad hat appeared at the top of the big bluff, holding a bow with another arrow laid across it. The man stepped slowly down the bluff, and Pang’s limbs seemed locked and unable to move.
“You okay, señor?” The man’s voice was somewhat youthful and friendly.
Pang could only nod as the man came closer, his bodily features and the details of his face and clothing becoming more clear.
He looked similar to a lot of Mexicans that Pang had seen in Tucson, with a wide straw sombrero and a serape, but his skin tone was a bit lighter, and his eyes were a lighter brown. Pang had never seen a Mexican who carried a quiver and bow. Under his serape he wore lightweight trousers, homemade and not the kind sold in the town mercantile. His boots, however, were leather, with cobbled soles and square toes, just like those sold by the street merchants.