by Martin Limon
The screech was unearthly, like an old crone’s scream of terrible pain. And then I saw her eyes, huge and green and gleaming, fixed right on me. I’m not sure if I yelled, but I was aware of a massive amount of air suddenly being expelled from my lungs. The eyes lunged straight toward me.
I dodged, raising my arms, and then I felt the warmth of the creature and its feathery caress. I was scooting backward, sliding against the wall, willing myself away from whatever insane creature of the night had launched this attack. The wings swooped low and became black clouds before me. Finally, they settled high up on a rafter and, as if by magic, melted into a lantern shape. The green eyes were staring at me again.
I straightened up, breathing very fast now.
It was perched on the old wooden rafter above me. An owl. Not a ghost, not a witch, not a creature from hell. Just an owl.
A long, low “Whoooo” sounded from the valley below.
Sweating, keeping an eye on the owl, I rose to my knees and peered out the open window. The sound floated up again. “Whoooo.”
That wasn’t a bird.
Keeping low, I left the pagoda, slithered off the edge of the wooden porch, and moved to the edge of the cliff. Cautiously, I peered down into the valley and saw the silhouette of a man, out in the open. He raised his hands to his mouth and the sound floated upward again. “Whoooo.”
There were no trucks behind him. No other movement. He appeared to be alone.
He crouched, as if he’d heard something coming up the dirt road behind him, and melted into the night. There appeared to be some sort of pack tied to his back.
I continued to stare at the spot he’d been standing in, wondering if I was imagining things. And then I heard the sound I dreaded even more than the screech of a banshee: a heavy diesel engine coming up the hill.
The headlights appeared around a curve in the distance below. They disappeared suddenly and reappeared again. A large truck, probably military, was making its way uphill along a winding road. Soon, assuming the road was open, they would arrive here. I broke off a branch from a shrub and used it to sweep the gravel beneath my feet, hoping to eliminate any sign of footprints. Then I returned to the pagoda and did the same thing in there, raising dust as I did so. The owl kept a wary eye on me and flapped its wings. When I had done my best, I hopped out the back of the old building and climbed straight uphill for twenty minutes, until I stood on a rocky promontory. The clouds had pulled back and the moon had risen. Enough light shone down on the valley for me to see the roof of the old pagoda and the canvas-covered truck chugging its way toward the open gravel area in front. I crouched and watched.
Soon the truck stopped in front of the old building, right where the man had stood. Soldiers hopped out, cursing and switching on electric torches. I’d seen enough. Carefully, I started to climb down the far side of the mountain.
I was halfway down when someone grabbed me.
I stared into a bearded Korean face, slathered in sweat. His lips were pulled back, white teeth revealed, and the man said, “Whoooo!” He was laughing.
After a few seconds, when I realized he wasn’t going to cut my throat, I was laughing too.
Moon Chaser was a merchant. Changsa-gun was the term he used, a purveyor of business. People who dabbled in business had never been high on the social scale in Korea. Confucius classified people into four ranks: scholars, farmers, craftsmen, and, lowest of all, merchants. So in the Chosun Dynasty, people who sold things door-to-door didn’t get much respect, no matter how much money they made. Today, under the Communist dictatorship of the Great Leader, the stigma was worse. The changsa-gun were classified as criminals, exploiters of the people, and, more importantly, dangerous men who lived free and independent lives, disdainful of the largess of the Great Leader. Still, Moon Chaser was proud of his status.
“Nobody tells me what to do,” he told me, jabbing his thumb into his chest. “I make my own money and earn my own rice.”
“Why aren’t you arrested?” I asked.
“Corruption,” he replied. “The cops are on the take. It’s like paying taxes. I have to give them something, ‘a gift’ they call it, every time they catch me. Then they let me go, after popping me upside the head a few times with their batons. The bastards.”
But there was no bitterness in the Moon Chaser’s voice. He was simply describing the world as he saw it. He led me quickly downhill, away from the soldiers searching the pagoda. We crossed a narrow valley where we were soon hidden by an orchard of apple trees. Moon Chaser moved fast, as if he knew exactly where he was going, and I struggled to keep up, occasionally having to duck to avoid being conked by a low-hanging branch. A heavy wooden A-frame dangled from Moon Chaser’s back. He moved so surely through the woods, over and around shrubbery, that the long-legged carrying rack seemed to be part of his body. Finally, we waded through a narrow stream and then climbed atop a grave mound overlooking a bend in the waterway. He sat down and told me to rest.
“What about the soldiers?” I asked.
“They won’t come this far,” he replied. “They’re tired and hungry and cold. Just like us.”
It was still dark, but by the dim moonlight I could tell he was a youngish man, probably not yet thirty. He cultivated his beard in a fringe around the edges of his face, probably to make himself look older. He wore soiled white pantaloons and a white tunic, but they seemed to be made of a sturdy material. His canvas shoes were rubber-soled and I longed for something as comfortable.
The sole of my left shoe was flapping now as I walked, like the lolling tongue of an exhausted dog. I flipped it open and stared at the raw toes beneath.
“Go wash in the stream,” he told me. “It’s cold but you’ll feel better. When you finish, I’ll have a razor and some soap ready for you.”
Although I was exhausted, I did as Moon Chaser said. I stripped at the edge of the stream, splashed freezing water all over my body, and then vigorously washed my face. Moon Chaser tossed a knotted hand towel to me. After drying off, I put my clothes on and squatted by the edge of the stream, shaving with the straight razor and soap he provided.
When I returned to the grave mound, he had set up his wooden A-frame. A canvas pack was tied securely to its crossbeam. The two long legs of the A-frame had been propped upright by his walking staff, forming a man-high tripod. From out of the pack, Moon Chaser pulled some food. More ddok, because it was so portable, and one tube of kimpap, seaweed-wrapped rice enveloping a string of pickled turnip. I devoured it all, ravenously.
When I was finished, Moon Chaser rose to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “We have to make more distance before sunrise.”
Wearily, I stood up. Moon Chaser grabbed his staff and slipped his arms through the harness of the A-frame. Bending at the knees, he hoisted the heavy load, balancing it expertly on his back. Two hours later, the sun was starting to rise and I was about to pass out on my feet. Moon Chaser let me rest. He rested also, standing with the long legs of his A-frame touching the ground. After what seemed like only a few minutes, he roused me and made me follow him up into shrub-covered hills.
“Isn’t it dangerous to travel during the day?” I asked, hoping for a chance to ease my pain-wracked body.
“The army won’t come up here,” he told me. “They’re there.” He pointed. “Waiting for us.”
In the distance, a mountain range rose higher than any I’d seen. “Those are the Kwangju Mountains?” I asked.
“Yes. The peak on the far right, that is Mount O-song.”
I was about to ask him how he knew my specific destination but thought better of it. He’d tell me if I needed to know. Moon Chaser kept me moving all day. Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. I flopped down and told him I had to rest.
“Every minute we delay,” he told me, “the First Corps puts more soldiers between us and the Manchurian Battalion.”
That was the first time he’d mentioned those words.
“And,” he continued, “they move
more of their armored units into attack position.”
My body was screaming for rest, my toes bleeding, my calves and thighs quivering with exhaustion. Still, I got to my feet and plodded on, following Moon Chaser blindly, concentrating all my attention on the wooden A-frame on his back, the one that held his canvas pack and apparently all his worldly possessions. I’m not sure how long we walked.
The next thing I remember is being shaken awake. It was nighttime now. I must’ve collapsed without even being aware of it.
“They’re here,” Moon Chaser hissed.
“Who’s here?” I asked.
He covered my lips with his forefinger. “Quiet. They’re nearby.”
I sat up. Earlier on this long, grueling march, I’d sworn that I didn’t care if I were captured. At least I’d be able to rest. Now that arrest was imminent, suddenly I was terrified. And ready to run.
11
Moon Chaser grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet, motioning for me to follow. I stayed close to him as he moved through underbrush, keeping low. Finally, we stopped and knelt. He pointed. Below, three snub-nosed trucks were parked in a row. Beside them stood a woman. A tall woman dressed in a long, black leather coat and long, black leather boots, her straight hair hanging down beyond her shoulders.
Senior Captain Rhee Mi-sook—fully recovered now, hair glistening, looking like what the Paris fashion world would imagine a female Communist officer should look like. She stared up in the hills, right at us.
“Do they know we’re here?” I whispered.
“No, it’s not possible. No one’s ever caught me in these hills. This way,” he said, pulling my wrist again. “Keep low.”
Soon we reached a ravine. Moon Chaser guided me through it. A half hour later, we’d left the soldiers far behind.
Before dawn, we caught a few hours of sleep. Just before the sun came up, we crawled to the edge of a precipice and looked down.
“There it is,” Moon Chaser said. “Imjingang.” The Imjin River.
The narrow valley stretched south, as far as the eye could see.
“It reaches the DMZ,” Moon Chaser said, “and beyond.”
I knew the Imjin River well. It flows southeast where it crosses the DMZ, not far from the truce village of Pan-munjom, the place where the North Koreans meet the South Koreans and the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission does its work. Eventually, the Imjin empties into the Yellow Sea.
“To the south,” Moon Chaser said, “the river is heavily fortified. So if we’re going to reach Mount O-song, we have to cross here.”
The banks of the river were flat and strewn with gravel. Water rushed rapidly through a central channel.
“The river is higher than normal,” Moon Chaser said. “Normally we could ford here, but it would be dangerous with such a deep flow. Look.”
I followed where he pointed, to a clump of bushes I’d barely noticed. I looked more closely. Shapes emerged: sandbags, camouflaged headgear.
“Machine guns,” I said.
“Yes,” Moon Chaser replied. “They’re planning to stop us here.”
We spent the morning searching up and down the length of the Imjin and spotted gun emplacements every two hundred meters or so, depending on the terrain.
“There must be roving patrols also,” I said, “on our side of the river.”
Moon Chaser agreed. We decided to hide until evening. He led me up the side of a rocky cliff to a cave that overlooked a bend in the river. From there we waited and watched. We chewed on the last few dirty chunks of ddok. I asked Moon Chaser how we were going to cross the river.
He shook his head. “They’re really after you now.” After thinking a while, Moon Chaser said, “There’s only one place to cross.”
“Where?”
“Eat your ddok. I’ll show you”
Two hours later, after night had fallen, we crawled to the edge of a cliff and stared down at the Imjin far below.
“There,” Moon Chaser said, pointing. “That’s where we’ll cross.”
It was an earthen dam. Crude, not fortified with cement, but Moon Chaser assured me that the Great Leader had plans to construct an enormous modern dam and a hydroelectric power plant at this site. A huge volume of water was stored behind the earthen berm, forming a man-made lake. Through sluices lined with lumber, water rushed into the Imjin River. As part of my briefings, I’d learned about this planned network of dams north of the DMZ. The purpose, according to my Eighth Army briefers, was not only to control the flow of water reaching South Korea, but also to use the dams, if necessary, as a weapon. It was thought that once all the dams were constructed, the North Koreans would be able to open a half dozen or so and allow water to gush into South Korea, damaging crop production by allowing the Imjin and Han Rivers to overflow their banks. Eventually, if the Great Leader’s plans were fully realized, the volume of water rushing down across the Demilitarized Zone into South Korea would be of biblical proportions. Water as a weapon of war.
I studied the primitive dam. A string of dirty light-bulbs, hung on poles, reached from side to side. The dam itself contained an enormous amount of dirt and seemed fairly new. Across the flattened top was a wood-slatted roadway. What worried me were the fortified wire gates at either end, protected by armed guards and multiple gun emplacements.
“How are we going to cross that?” I asked.
“Walk,” Moon Chaser told me. When I looked at him skeptically, he said, “Well, at least I’ll walk. You’ll ride. Come on.”
We waited until the middle of the night. The guards on either side of the dam had changed once and now these soldiers were listless and crouched near their weapons, doing their best to keep warm in the frigid night air. Many of the lights strung across the river had been turned off. Only half a dozen bulbs illuminated the entire expanse. No floodlights. No well-lit guard shacks.
Moon Chaser slid back the side panel of the wooden cart he’d borrowed. It was a coffin-like box, large enough to hold a full-grown hog. “Get in,” he said.
“I’ll never fit,” I replied, studying the small opening.
“You’ll fit,” he replied. “It’s the only way across.”
We’d spent the earlier part of the evening making our way to the village of Five Pines on the edge of the road that led to the dam. If there had ever been five pines in the village, they’d long since been chopped down for firewood. Now it was a barren spot with half a dozen shacks that provided the most basic types of amenities to the workmen and guards who manned the dam. All this activity was kept hidden, of course, since normal commerce was not allowed in North Korea. Supposedly, the grain and vegetable rations provided by the Great Leader were enough for hardworking men to survive on. In reality, everyone wanted more.
The elderly man whom Moon Chaser talked to was called Beggar Ryu. He dealt primarily in bowls of thin turnip soup fortified with dumplings made of rice-flour dough and laced with pig’s blood; hearty fare for the workingmen who carried, by hand, the earth from the hills to the river valley below. The old geezer also sold cigarettes on the side and soju in clear bottles with a picture of the beaming face of the Great Leader on the label.
It was the soju and cigarettes that Moon Chaser was counting on to get us to the far side of the dam.
I had to curl up so tightly inside the cart that my knees were pressing up against my cheeks. The splintered wood reeked of dried pig’s blood. Moon Chaser shoved my feet farther inside the cart and then slammed the door shut. What I was worried about most in here was cramps. If my muscles tightened and started to knot on me, there’d be no way to get out and stretch—or to run, if it came to that. I willed myself to relax, thinking of faraway places, like the day when I was in middle school and I lived in the home of Mrs. Aaronson. She packed me and half a dozen other foster kids into her old Plymouth and drove us over to Redondo Beach where we could swim and frolic in the waves. I’d suffered a sunburn that day, but I didn’t mind. As a kid who’d known only the harsh s
ummer streets of East L.A., a day at Redondo Beach had been a day in heaven.
The cart rolled into the night. There were no springs on it, so at each rock and pothole I was jarred so roughly that my molars knocked together.
It was a good half-mile to the first checkpoint. As Moon Chaser pushed the cart, he started to sing some ancient Korean song that was indecipherable to me. It seemed to make him happy though. As he marched, his voice rose and gradually became more lusty. The soju bottles packed above me rattled.
Finally, someone shouted, “Shikuro!” Shut up.
The cart rolled to a halt.
“Don’t we have enough trouble,” the voice said, “without having to listen to your shrieking, old man?”
It was the voice of a young man, one of the guards at the first checkpoint. In my mind, I saw Moon Chaser smiling and bowing, his omnipresent A-frame still strapped to his back.
“You don’t appreciate fine culture,” Moon Chaser replied. “My voice was trained in the People’s Music Institute in Pyongyang, overseen by the Great Leader himself!”
“Bah. Shut up, old man. Do you expect anyone to believe your drivel?”
“Ah, but the truth is hard to swallow. Maybe this would better meet with your approval?”
Moon Chaser slid the door of the cart halfway open. Yellow light flooded in, blinding me. His hand reached in and pulled out a bottle of soju and the door quickly slammed shut, returning me to darkness.
“Only two won,” he said. “The perfect way to warm this long evening.”
“Two won?” The young man was incredulous. “Beggar Ryu charges us half that.”
“Ah, but Beggar Ryu doesn’t buy from the finest distillery in the capital city itself.”
“Nonsense. His soju has a picture of the Great Leader on it, just like this one.”
“Counterfeit!” Moon Chaser said with assurance. “Any thief can print a label.”
They haggled like this back and forth for what seemed a long time. The young man on guard duty and the three or four voices I occasionally heard behind him weren’t going anywhere and had nothing better to do than haggle with an itinerant merchant. Finally, after enduring an elaborate string of insults, Moon Chaser came to the point.