River of Dust

by Virginia Pye

  He understood and yet he turned away again. And for that, he could never forgive himself. He did not stay and offer his condolences, for he knew it would mean his life. As he moved out into the desert, the Reverend stared up at the night sky. He reached for his handker chief and found it gone. His glasses were missing, too, trampled under the villagers' feet, and so, for him, the stars blurred and burned like a low fire overhead. Then a cloud crossed the trail and blocked out the moon. The Reverend bowed his head in that shadow and understood that he would remain under it forever onward.

  He could not erase the image from his mind of the limp child in his father's arms. Pain shot through his ribs with each step of the donkey. Blood trickled from his mouth and over his jaw and onto the backs of his hands that held the reins. But his true pain was in remembering.

  The Reverend had shouted for his Lord, and his Lord had answered. John Wesley Watson had received divine mercy. The Lord had decided that he should survive. But in that instant of looking back, he had seen the reason he had been spared. Under the light of the torches and a million stars overhead, a child lay dead, his life stolen from him by a ghost man.

  Thirty-one

  G race sat bolt upright on the camel's back and could no longer pretend to be lulled or sleepy. She didn't care any longer about Ahcho's delicate feelings for his beloved master. She wanted to know the truth.

  "Are you suggesting there's a connection between this accidental murder in the village of Yao dao ho and the kidnapping of our son?" she asked.

  Ahcho's pace slowed, and he mumbled a reply at the rocky trail.

  "Speak up, Ahcho. You must finish the explanation, much as it may pain you to do so."

  "The Reverend became suspicious when he spied a torn scrap of his handkerchief in one of the kidnappers' pockets. Later, when I gave him the child's skull they had left behind, he became more concerned. Then, on our travels, we heard that amongst the people of the borderlands, the family, not the individual, is responsible for any crime. It seemed quite likely that your boy was taken out of retribution. But to what end, we did not know. So the Reverend did not give up the search. He wanted desperately to find his son."

  "Or perhaps, what motivated him most was a desire to not face his own guilt," Grace said. "We'll never know."

  "You do know, Mistress," Ahcho said. "You know he was a good man."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, I know he was. But the point is, he was a man— a flawed and miserable human like the rest of us."

  "Don't blame him, Mistress. I should never have told you."

  "Ahcho, it's good you told me. I'm actually glad to know my husband as he truly was— a far weaker and more imperfect person than I ever allowed myself to realize in his lifetime. But," she added softly, "who am I, a failed mother, to cast such aspersions?"

  Grace wanted to think carefully about such matters so very much, and yet her mind was spinning. Blood whooshed in her veins, filling her ears with a desolate wind. The coughing began again, and Ahcho stepped closer and helped her remain balanced atop the camel as the paroxysms took her.

  "Mistress should rest now," Mai Lin said. "We will stop, and I will give you something to help with the pain."

  The coughing subsided, and Grace whispered, "No, we will press on until we reach our cottage. We can stay there for the night and then set out for Yao dao ho again in the morning."

  Mai Lin sucked on her teeth and offered Ahcho an urgent, worried glance.

  "I must tell you, Mistress," Ahcho said with sudden enthusiasm, "I have great news. Your boy lives west of here. I've heard word of him."

  "Yes, yes, how wonderful," Grace said, but the dizziness and whirring circled her like the vultures overhead. She could no longer think clearly and badly needed rest. "You will tell me all about it later, Ahcho. I must sleep now. Really, I must. I'm dead tired."

  So, as Grace dozed, they trudged along the sandy trail that cut through high grasses, climbing ever so slightly toward the foothills in the near distance. She loosely gripped Mai Lin's waist and shut her burning eyelids. When she opened them again, the Watson family cottage had come into view. She had not seen it since the morning after her son had been stolen from them. The path narrowed and became as rocky as a dry riverbed. She could not imagine how their buckboard had ever made the journey that first and only time one year before.

  Grace's head bobbed as her illness lulled her back to sleep even on the lumbering beast. The fever was upon her. Her limbs felt impossibly heavy, and her neck could barely hold up her head. She dimly understood that she was far more ill than she had realized.

  Then, in her cloudy, chimerical mind, she saw herself drift into the Reverend's study. Her white nightgown caught the moonlight that cascaded through the open window shutters. Her husband sat bent over his desk, as he had often done in the evenings. She tried to tell what year this was. The hunger in her gut gnawed away as much from fear as a lack of food. The famine had gone on for so many months. Yet when she looked down at her belly, she noticed that it was large. In her dream, she was pregnant with Rose. Yes, she could tell by the expression on her husband's face that little Wesley had been taken from them not long before.

  Grace slipped closer to the Reverend's elbow and bent to see the sermon he was working on. To her surprise, he had left only blots of ink on the page and no words. He muttered something, apparently unaware of her. He took off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes, and looked across to the high bookshelves as if he might find his next phrase on the spines of the leather-clad volumes.

  The small skull sat on the desk before him, liberated from its hiding place inside the silk pouch with the twin golden dragons. On this cloudless, moonlit night, Grace saw it there and sensed that he used it to remind himself of his duty, his weakness, his sinful life, as stern a warning as Jesus's cross. Grace shivered at the sight of it. She wished he had just buried it long before in the desert where it belonged.

  She followed the Reverend's gaze across the room and was startled to see little Wesley seated on the floor in the corner. He played with one of his Chinese cloth dolls. Over his pajamas he wore a padded and colorful Mongolian robe and hat that she didn't recognize. On his small feet were those darling silk shoes Mai Lin had brought him from the market. Grace thought it must be long past her son's bedtime, but he appeared busy and contented as he marched his doll back and forth across the blue carpet, using the branches of the woven cherry trees as a bridge to safety. He looked every bit the little prince that he was.

  "That's a good boy," she whispered. "Let your father concentrate on his work. He has much business to attend to."

  Grace rested her hand on her husband's shoulder. The Reverend started slightly, although, like Wesley, he did not seem to see her.

  "Oh, love," he sighed.

  It made Grace's knees weak to hear his trembling voice. "Yes?" she answered.

  Although he couldn't hear her, he must have sensed a certain attentiveness surrounding him there in the shadowy study.

  The Reverend spoke to the empty room. "There is so much yet to be done. But these people," he pointed with his spectacles toward the dark window that overlooked the courtyard, "they don't want us here. We try to bring our faith, but the desert will swallow our efforts in no time." He put his glasses back on. "It's all for naught. Such changes are coming, my love. I fear we had best heed the future and step aside."

  Grace had never seen him in such despair, but of course he would feel that now with his beloved son so recently taken from them. Grace gently stroked her husband's arm and touched his fine red hair. She knew that nothing she could do would help erase the concern that clouded his brow or the weary look in his eyes.

  "Grace," he whispered. "Dearest Grace."

  At the sound of her name, her heart lightened. The Reverend was always so much alone with his mission. For him to remember her in a time of need was a victory of sorts.

  "Why, Lord, in your infinite wisdom, did you take our treasure from us?" the Reverend asked, his voice su
ddenly rising and crashing against the bookshelves. "How can I carry on in your name when you're a wrathful God and not the tender, wise one whom I once believed in?"

  His shoulders began to shake. Tears appeared in his strained eyes and fell onto ink-stained hands. He took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. Grace could feel herself shaking, too, although she wasn't sure if it was from sorrow or joy. In the Reverend's sudden questioning of his faith, he became for her more beautiful and human than ever.

  But now she saw that little Wesley was upset by his father's worried tone. The boy rose from the blue floral carpet, his handsome robe fluttering.

  "Come, darling, everything's all right," Grace said and reached out her arms toward him.

  The boy stood in place and began to wail.

  "Come to Mother."

  Grace slipped nearer to her son and put her arms around him but felt nothing in her grasp. It was air, all air, though still warm where his body had been. She tried to breathe into her congested lungs and hoped to capture his pure, sweet smell, but it was gone.

  Grace awoke as the camel shifted unsteadily over the rough terrain. The body she wrapped her arms around was that of an old woman. Ahead, the Watson cottage rose nearer. It stood silhouetted against the endless blue sky as she had seen it on their first day here. From this distance, the surrounding scene appeared quite lovely, with the nearby river and the willow tree.

  But as they came nearer, Grace could discern that the cabin was but a shell now. On the rough earth around it lay wooden boards, useless bricks, and scraps of metal. It had been looted, and the terrible desert weather had done serious damage to the structure as well. The walls of the house remained, but in places the roof had already caved in, and the glass of the windows had all been broken and gaped open to the winds.

  "Let's go first to the river with the willow beside it," Grace said and pointed. "We can settle in at the cottage afterward."

  The camel lumbered on until they stopped at the edge of the dry river. Ahcho helped her down from the beast. The wolf 's hide was most cumbersome, but she wrapped herself in it to control the shivers. Ahcho took her arm, and together they stepped down into the riverbed where the willow dragged its tendrils against cracked ground. She had remembered the branches as fuller and more protective but knew that she should be grateful the tree was still alive at all given the terrible drought.

  "Please bring the trowel, Mai Lin," she said.

  As her amah unpacked the satchel slung over the camel's side, Grace looked again at the plains. She and the Reverend had watched their futures rushing toward them across that expanse filled now with dried stubble and dust. She searched for smoke on the horizon but saw none on this clear, early-summer day.

  Why had it happened? she asked herself again as she had so many times before. Only now, when she finally knew the answer, she sensed somehow that she had been asking the wrong question all along. Perhaps there was no question, just an acceptance of what was.

  Grace untied the embroidered pouch with the twin golden dragons that hung from the dirty red sash. Mai Lin hobbled down into the riverbed and handed her the tool.

  "Ahcho, do you mind?" Grace asked. "I believe the Reverend would be most grateful."

  Ahcho took the trowel, bent down onto his knees, raised his hand, and struck the hard dirt. For some time, Grace and Mai Lin stood over him as he scratched and dug.

  Standing in the river of dust, Grace held the pouch close to her chest under the great fur. She had learned from Mai Lin that each thing carried with it a life and a destiny that could not be ignored. She had learned to listen for portents sent on the wind and offered by the smallest of signs. Sometimes the future spoke to us with smoke on the horizon. Or with the dance of a handkerchief fluttering on the wind or a skull tossed down on firm soil. Each person and thing had its say and was of consequence. There was no way to undo the past or to correct the way things had gone, but attention must be given to the secrets whispered along the way. Ghosts spoke to us all the time, if we were only willing to listen. Not to do so was hubris. She could see that now and suspected that the Reverend had understood it in the end as well.

  The shovel in Ahcho's hand chipped away at the hard-packed land, sending puffs of dust into the breeze. He paused to wipe his forehead with one of the Reverend's handkerchiefs. Grace could feel her husband here with them in each gesture of his devoted manservant. Her Reverend had not abandoned her but was with her still and would be always. The poor man had been so busy arguing with God, hashing out the ever-narrowing parameters of his faith, that he had quite forgotten to ask for her simple forgiveness. She wished he had understood that her love for him could have offered shade in the manner of the willow tree in all seasons and years. Ah, well, she would show him soon enough, when they met in the sweet by-and-by.

  Ahcho finished the shallow, makeshift grave, and Grace wondered if she should say a few words. Bow her head. Offer a prayer. Something. But she decided that the time for last rites was long past. If anything, Mai Lin should mumble incantations as she had so many times over Grace's ill body before administering her potions. No, this skull needed no ceremony. It simply had to be gotten rid of expediently, returned to the soil where it belonged. It had cast its spell long enough.

  She untied the embroidered sack, lifted out the child's skull, and placed it in the hole. Then, with her pale hands, she brushed the desert dirt back over it. The loess felt painfully soft in her fingers, like the silkiness of good, rich baking flour back home. Every week she had helped her mother prepare pies for Sunday supper. Today was a Sunday, was it not? Grace had lost track of so much— the days blending together and gone in a haze. And the loved ones, so many loved ones, gone, too, she knew now for good.

  As the sun began to slice the horizon, she thought she could hear the voices of her family echoing down from the cottage nearby. Yes, it was the hour of Sunday supper, and she could hear the familiar rattle of silverware set down upon the table and the clink of glasses being filled by her mother's fine silver water pitcher. If Grace had been a good girl that week, she was allowed to light the candles. She glanced up at the house and expected to see it softly lit from within, but there was no light coming from that bleak cabin. She was far, terribly far, from home.

  Shivers took her again, and her chest ached as the cough began. When it subsided, her body was soaked with sweat. Her skin was burning up, and yet she liked the heft of the hide on her shoulders. She finished the burial task and used the side of her hand to make the rough surface smooth.

  She rose from the dusty riverbed and turned toward the cottage. Mai Lin helped her on one side and Ahcho on the other. She wished they wouldn't fuss so, but they continued to jabber their concerns as she shuffled forward.

  "Mistress, truly I must explain to you," Ahcho said with great urgency. "The boy is out there. I heard about your son. He lives. And he is a prince."

  Grace smiled. The old man worried far too much. Of course her son was alive out there. Of course he was a prince. "Yes, Ahcho, I know," she said, patting his feeble hand. "Thank you for telling me. I have known all along."

  Then she stopped to cough and felt a swoon come over her. She may even have fainted. For in the next moment, she was at the base of the porch steps and Ahcho had her in his arms. The old man carried her up onto the porch, and she looked out at the horizon.

  The blood-red sun hovered there, and the fields appeared bruised and painfully beautiful. This surprising beauty was why the Reverend had brought her here. She recalled his fierce and upright silhouette as he had stood against the setting sun. She had imagined him as fiery and pure as that red ball, his body bursting into a holy conflagration. It had not come to pass, although his bones would become one with this sandy soil soon. His ashes would turn to yellow dust. She looked down at her hands and saw that they, too, were already yellow from the loess.

  The harsh land had won out in the end. Harsh but striking and filled with a strange history and life that could not always be
understood but simply had to be accepted. The hills where he had traveled in search of their son rose in the distance, shadowed and purple. Ghosts were everywhere out there. They spread a lonely blanket over the landscape, as thick and impenetrable as the fur over her shoulders. They nestled deep into their ghostly sorrows, as she did into the heavy hide.

  "You may set me down, Ahcho," she said softly.

  "Madam does not wish to be carried inside?"

  "I am perfectly all right," she said, and the coughing began again.

  She stood and held on to Mai Lin. Her vision blurred momentarily but then returned. Even as she gripped the ancient flesh of her most trusted amah, Grace sensed she was alone. She had become as barren and as hollow as the house before her. There would be no more filling up of the heart.