After each slaughter women bore off the buckets of blood. The butchers, men and women, set aside tough meats: cheeks, neck, flanks and shanks. The cooks, men and women, sliced and chopped the meat into iron kettles, and added water, and handfuls of herbs including wild onion, and careful measures of barley, and then the blood. They stirred, hummed and chanted. They cleaned and scalded sheep’s intestine, and stuffed it with the muddy red hash, knotting off every six inches or so.
They were making blood sausage.
The links were slipped into boiling water and left to simmer for half an hour. They were stacked and stored. Some nights they were split the long way and fried on metal sheets. On those nights beer was always served.
Tha-shi was not a great beauty, and Jake thought she might be as old as forty. Some of the younger women were great beauties, with delicate features and flashing eyes, but Jake was not tempted. Tha-shi was well-fleshed, not fat but altogether a woman, with buttocks that he could grasp and knead gently, with a long, thick bush of love-hair to tickle his nose, with fat, broadly nippled breasts to lay his face between; and because she was older, and yes, well-used, the moist bog between her legs was a rich and abundant swell of eager flesh, sometimes gathering him in and holding on, other times lunging and insistent. Within her, he drowned in her heat, sinking feverishly, blindly, to the earth’s molten center.
To the children he was an object of curiosity. Shy but not afraid, they stared into his strange blue eyes, or stroked his alien yellow hair; they patted him, and sometimes hugged his legs. He felt inadequate, with no tricks to show them; he could not create shadow-figures, or make a coin disappear. He could walk on his hands, and they clapped and squealed, as if it was a piece of happy logic that this stranger, so much unlike real men, should walk upside down.
He liked these children. Children were hardly human, but he enjoyed this dozen or so, with their snapping eyes and ready laughter. He missed something in them. What it was, he learned one morning when Lakh-nuban called them to her. They came scampering and tumbling, shrill and eager, and when they saw what she offered they flung themselves at her.
She shooed them off, and one, larger and insistent, his voice cracking as he shouted, elbowed. He jolted a little one, who sprawled, landed with a thump, and split the skin over his cheekbone. Blood flowed. That was what Jake had missed, childish brawls, rough-and-tumble, and he was glad to see it, until he also saw that no one was moving.
Lakh-nuban’s finger-cymbals whispered. The older boy wilted.
Jake went quickly to the younger boy and helped him up; the little one was flattered and excited by that, and quit his yawping. Jake examined the cut. In another world, a stitch or two. He called to Tha-shi, who nodded. He patted the boy, kissed his brow, and pushed him toward Tha-shi.
He went to the older boy then. He knew that he might be transgressing now, but what the hell, it was only a little grab-assing on the chow line, and he did not like this righteous and namby-pamby kind of punishment. He was almost angry. He did not like this sorrowful holiness, and for the first time he doubted these people. If there was not room here for the rumpus and scramble of children—it made no sense.
He patted the boy, and hugged him, and the little face cleared like the valley after a snow flurry, when the flocks rippled like cat’s-paws and light and shadow sprang forth. Jake stood beside the boy and faced—almost defied—the others.
Lakh-nuban spoke, and they all laughed and resumed motion. The little boy leapt to the bigger one, and patted him, and was patted, and the children crowded around Lakh-nuban, who was breaking a long rod into small chunks, and passing them out. Jake lined up with the others, and more laughter rose. Lakh-nuban embraced him warmly, pressing her belly to his, and handed him his portion. Jake popped it into his mouth, and chewed.
It was dried sap. Spruce gum, maybe. The children champed at it with cries of delight.
Tha-shi led her patient to the tent.
Waking in the night, mind sleepy but senses fresh, Jake savored the richly mingling smells of blood, love, dung and smoke. Tha-shi too smelled rich, and so, no doubt, did Jake. He remembered showering every day. Public baths in Peking. The extinguish-aches parlor, and Kao across from him, sweating and plotting. He remembered Hao-k’an, bloody from butchering Sweetwater, cleaning himself in sand.
He hardly noticed the odors, and when he did, he relished them. Tha-shi washed each month, when the flux ebbed. Jake had not bathed, or been bathed, since his arrival here. But smells were part of him now: the smells of sweat, of gutted beasts, of woman’s parts. He felt like a healthy animal, nose to the ground, sniffing in news of the world, of life and death.
The blankets too smelled faintly, the oily aroma of fleecy wool. Jake was warm and full-bellied—putting on a pound or two. Alive. Full of juices.
He rolled over to lay his head between Tha-shi’s breasts. She whispered. His arm lay between her legs; she squeezed gently, and suckled him. Soon she murmured with more passion, and soon he cupped her mound; she drew up her knees, and he melted into her like butter on hot bread. In the warmth and firelight, the fumes and scents of a nomad’s winter, he spent himself hugely, and she was pleased, and they slept entwined.
So the winter passed. Nights were long. Jake rose in the dark. One evening, a banquet, surprises: roast yak, round after round of beer, and the cakes were not barley cakes but of another grain, buckwheat Jake thought, and there was saffron to sprinkle on the meat, and spruce gum for all, and later plenty of charas and singing. A clear, cold night. Jake decided this was the solstice. “Merry Christmas,” he said. “Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Kung hsi fa ts’ai,” which was the Chinese New Year’s wish, joyful reverences and make a fortune, and then “Buen año.” They dragged deep on the charas and answered, “Hwaw boom.” Jake said, “Hwaw boom.”
Meat, tea and beer. Jake was hard. His major and minor passages were clear, and his solids and fluids harmonious. His skin glowed, he could stand great cold, he wore long wavy blond hair and a long wavy blond beard. He felt that he would never again be sick, never again grow the smallest pimple. He was not sure that he could stay forever, but he postponed those considerations. The thaw came; the stream babbled and swashed, rising. A current of motion, of change to come, rippled through the tribe. Jake sniffed the wind, and saw that his cows, ewes and does were heavy with increase.
One night Tha-shi brought them charas and pipe, and after a long time of love-making and smoking Jake saw the Tsou Yü, the righteous beast, a white tiger with black spots, which did not kill living things and appeared only when the state was ruled in sincerity and benevolence. He woke at dawn in love with them all. He would learn their ways, and give himself a new name.
39
The first time Jake saw company coming, four round figures far down the valley, to the southwest, the breath left his body. He padded to his tent. He sat out of sight, peering down the valley. His hand was steady, but swallowing was less easy.
“From another valley, lower down,” Tha-shi said placidly. “They come to see the yellow hair.”
“How do they know?”
“They know.”
The four shepherds were old friends. There was much whooping, some happy applause, many cheerful women. Jake was pleased that these were not enemies but wondered what news they brought. His first sight of them had been a moment he would not forget, a puzzling spasm of fear, rage, sadness, exhilaration.
He joined Tha-shi before the tent. A good big woman. He stood beside her, and she smiled up at him. A good big happy woman. She patted him firmly and said, “Ah.”
“After sundown,” he scolded. “Do not be-goat me before sundown.” The language came awkwardly and slowly; he spoke many words and phrases but without grace or music.
“You big yak,” she said, still grinning, her eyes glistening with affection.
The Doctor came to them, leading a crowd. “Blue Hat,” he said, “these are friends,” and he recited the four names, which Jake did not catch. T
hey crowded closer, shy and amazed; Jake bowed, and patted their shoulders. They gobbled approval and whacked him lightly.
“I saw one of these once,” one of them said. “Over by Mintaka, it was, in a caravan from Rawalpindi. He had glass eyes.”
“Tell of the boxes,” another said.
“Well,” the first one said, “it is cold out here and we have come a long way. Some tea,” and half an hour later, when they were all jammed into the main tent, drinking buttered tea, the four newcomers close to the fire, he went on: “This fellow had a box for everything. He looked at us through a black box that click-clicked. He had leather boxes for cartridges and a round box with a hat in it. A straight box containing paper and paints. A metal box for money. A small paper box for magic round seeds that he swallowed with water. The pony master told us all this. But the queerest of all—”
“Yes, tell them that,” his friends urged.
“—was a box of flowers, grass and leaves. You know how it is by Mintaka. You can travel for a week and not see a tree. But this fellow saw more than the field mouse. Aha! he would say, and jump off his pony to pull up a drop-of-blood.”
“That is a flower,” Tha-shi whispered to Jake.
“Or the bone-grass that even yaks will not eat. He placed such harvests within folds of paper, and on the folds he marked such and such a day, and such and such a place.”
“In his own country he was a great lord,” another said.
“Where was that?”
“Well, to the northwest somewhere. Then he would celebrate his discovery by drinking from a spirit-vessel. At his belt he carried a water-vessel and a spirit-vessel. And he had yellow hair like that.” Squinting up suddenly, the visitor asked Jake, “You know him, perhaps?”
“I do not know him,” Jake said. “In those countries are many with yellow hair. Women with yellow hair who paint the lips red but not the forehead.”
“The lips!”
“And,” Jake salted the talk, “the women sleep with only one man; and many women, if the man dies, they never again sleep with a man.”
“I believe that,” a visitor said. “I believe all things now, since I saw the house that flies and shits fire. A strange and dirty people—though,” and he bowed toward Jake, “not this one, I am sure. The collector of grass, according to the tale, used to wipe his hind parts with fine paper, in the morning, and then leave the paper on the trail.”
After a moment of speculation and mild embarrassment, the Doctor said, “Not this one.”
“No. My greetings to the Blue Hat,” and they all drank tea while Jake enjoyed belonging.
At night, after a good meal of mutton, the visitors came to the point: “There is a yeti.”
“Oh gods,” the Doctor said.
“He was seen in the Valley of Pools. A huge creature. It was snowing, but according to reports he was seven or eight feet high and covered in reddish fur.”
A yeti! An abominable snowman! My God, if you could capture him and take him out …
Jake winced in shame, a painful, burning pang of pure self-disgust. You could take Tha-shi out, too, and maybe sell her to a zoo, you silly bastard.
“He killed a sheep,” the man was saying, “and left a heap of offal. He was then reported on Long Tongue of Ice, still a way off but a bit nearer.”
“So far west,” the Doctor mused. “Never have I heard this. Over by Karakoram in my father’s time, and east of there, and high up where the great river is born that flows to the southern seas.”
“These are evil times,” the visitor said. “Demons prosper, and gods weep.”
“You have come far with this news,” the Doctor said.
“And also to see the Blue Hat,” the visitor said with a smile for Jake. “Ah! Good! Charas! You are a noble people.”
“It is the meanest sort of charcoal,” the Doctor said politely.
“It goes well after cheese,” the visitor said. “The shepherd who saw the yeti on Long Tongue of Ice was an old man and dim of eye. He said the yeti had a face of a man, but striped.”
Jake set down his bowl. His hand was still steady, but the breath left his body again.
“Well then,” Jake said later, “if there is a yeti we must open our eyes. We must go to the far corners of our valley each day, and look.”
The Doctor approved. “I believe that where there is one yeti, there is another. It is not natural that a yeti would have no father and no mother and no wife of his own.”
“But if he is old and angry,” Jake said, not knowing the word for rogue, “like the bull yak that quarrels and is cast out, he may be alone.”
“What is,” the Doctor said, “is meant to be.”
40
K’uang lay back on a reed-matted stone couch; the pallet crackled and whispered. He was sometimes weary, and bound here and there by tight, twitching bands of muscle. On certain nights his eyes would not close. On those nights he dreamed of ancient China, of a land green and wooded, checkered by plowed field and lush pasture, crisscrossed by placid canals. A land of small towns, of stone-and-mud buildings, of healthy bullocks. A land of smoking chimneys and roast pork, with the barbarians outside the Great Wall, and the westerners only a rumor.
A land of magistrates and princes, where soldiers carried strong-bows and wore golden tunics, and hats with horns.
“Ah defile it!” K’uang exploded.
“My dear fellow,” said Colonel Liao, “it is nothing personal. We simply have no light aircraft. We have a P-40 that won’t fly. We have a DC-3 that will, but we can’t go poking through the hills in a DC-3, can we now? Besides, if those fellows are where you left them, they’re above three thousand meters. Can’t go flitting about like a dragonfly at three thousand meters, can we now?”
“It seems so little to ask.”
“So is a bowl of rice, but in time of famine …” Liao shrugged. “Forgive me, but you seem so persistent. These men may be dead. They may be in Pakistan. Of course, if they are up there,” and he glanced at a huge wall map, “they’re in that chain of valleys. But it sounds insane to me.”
“I must be sure,” K’uang said. “It is … special. I have suffered. They have killed my men.”
“Well, but this is no time for a private war. In the east we have all the war we can handle.”
“The east,” K’uang said scornfully. “Politicians and intellectuals. ‘So many pecks and hampers,’ as the Master said, filling themselves from the public store.”
“A cigarette,” Liao offered. “A glass of red wine.”
“Yes, thank you,” K’uang said, and slumped in his chair. “Then there will be no aircraft for me.”
“I’m sorry,” Liao said.
“Is it worth it, what I do?”
Liao thought it over, sipped at his wine, and murmured, “The Master said, ‘What the superior man seeks is in himself. What the mean man seeks is in others.’”
They absorbed the ancient sentiment in silence.
“What do you seek?” Liao asked gently.
K’uang drew ferociously on the cigarette; smoke poured from his nostrils; he made no answer.
41
Jake knew all about the facts of life, but spring astounded him. The air remained cold, but the wind died. Mong-chen and Khu-lat explained: this was the moon of the waking bear. At the end of the moon of the waking bear, the grasses would stir, and soon afterward the tribe and all its flocks would make a long journey to spring and summer pastures.
Meanwhile calves, kids and lambs were dropping like rain, and that was mainly what astounded Jake. The Doctor kept a tally, carving lines into wooden tablets. The shepherds kept close watch; a troublesome birth was a crisis. Yak cows stood bowlegged and straining. In time the calf appeared, in a slimy sac, and slid to earth. The cow moaned, and turned to lick the sac from the calf’s face. The calf quivered and twitched, and inhaled; the cow licked it clean. A baby yak. The calf struggled to rise, and in minutes was on its feet, punching for the teat. Then the calf
collapsed, resting, and the cow strained again, and a soggy mess of afterbirth plopped to the ground. The cow sniffed at it and then, steadily and uncomplaining, ate it, munching and whuffling. The cows’ milk was at first creamy and yellow, then white. The calves seemed all head, and their hoofs were soft and cheesy.
So with the lambs, which came mainly as twins; so with the kids, also twins mainly but with a few singles and triplets. Once in the morning they found a doe kid nursing and a buck lying dead, smothered in its sac: a first birth, Mong-chen explained, and the mother had become confused, neglecting the buck, which came first, because busy with the doe, which came too quickly afterward. The dead buck was cleaned, skinned and eaten that night.
The first milk was most important, Khu-lat said. In it were the virtues.
Among sheep and goats, the twins and triplets could be of both sexes and would grow up strong. But among the yaks, twins were rarer, and must be of the same sex. If one was a bull and one a cow, the little cow would be deficient, and not a proper female: the male principle would override the female principle in the womb, and the little cow would be born queer, sterile and of demonic spirit.
Jake too kept watch, with Tha-shi, and one night a doe strained, and cried in pain. By the light of a torch Tha-shi showed Jake: the head was presented, but beneath the chin only one hoof had appeared. The other leg was bent at an evil angle, and must be found and straightened. Jake held the doe’s head, and spoke words of comfort. Tha-shi slid a hand into the womb, and groped. She found the shoulder, and followed it down. Gently she tugged at the leg. She found the hoof, and brought it into place beside the other. She called Jake to look, and he came around in time to see the tiny head, and the tiny hoofs beneath it like weird whiskers; and the kid popped out like a cork from its bottle, and within a minute was on its feet, dripping slime and bleating. A twin followed, cleanly, and they left the doe to lick the kids and chew up the afterbirth.
Soon the sunny plain was dotted with young. They leapt and butted. They flung themselves to one side and then to the other; they ran, faked left, faked right, leapt high, turned one way or the other in midair, and lit running. The kids were spotted and striped. Tha-shi said the stripes and spots would fade as they grew. The mothers nuzzled and licked, and stood with resigned expressions as the kids braced themselves, tails wagging, and rammed for the teat.
The Chinese Bandit Page 27