by James Church
To my disappointment, the light mood disappeared like duck fat in a furnace once we secured our car and were out of the city onto the empty plain that stretched as far as the eye could see under an enormous and perfectly blue sky.
“There’s something about this landscape,” my uncle said ominously.
“Yes, there is,” I replied.
“It sets my teeth on edge.”
“Unlike you, I can’t find anything wrong with it,” I said, rolling down my window and letting the air rush in. “It’s a good change of scenery from Yanji. Very refreshing in its own way.”
“In its own way,” my uncle said firmly, “it’s lifeless. There are no trees. The place is barren.”
“Some might call it pastoral. Look at all the grass. And the air, when was the last time you could actually use the word ‘pellucid’ in a sentence?”
“It’s barren.” He closed his eyes tightly. “What can grass do but sough in the wind? That’s it! The word I wanted—sough.” He said it in English again. “Why can I never come up with the word I need when I need it?” He opened his eyes and stared mournfully out the window. “Barren.”
I had to admit, the Mongolian landscape, at least in this part of the country, was not particularly well treed. There were rolling hills in the distance off to the north and west. Otherwise, as I will probably mention several more times, there was an abundance of sky; sky and little else. It was the sort of scene that greatly appeals to many people. My uncle wasn’t one of them.
Scenery wasn’t uppermost in my mind, however. In less than an hour, it would be dusk. From then until all traces of sunlight disappeared—probably into a moonless night with my luck—I figured it would take another twenty minutes. The darkness of an unfamiliar place was bearing down on us, and I didn’t know where the hell we were or where we were headed. The map I lifted from the little man at the airport was useless. If we weren’t at camp drinking some form of liquor with this Ding character pretty soon, my uncle would complain ceaselessly until we were. Already he was checking his watch every few minutes.
“Sunset isn’t far off,” he said. “Dusk might put a little color in the picture. A normal person can have too much of this.” He waved his hand across the landscape. “I already do.” From the corner of my eye, I could see he had sunk into thought. After a few minutes, he broke his silence, but only to say, “No wonder.”
I waited for the rest of it, but there was no more. The trip had been long, and my shoulders had a dull ache from trying to keep us on a dirt track that kept disappearing in the fading light. Lack of judgment gets the jump on me at such times. “No wonder what?” I asked.
“I was thinking aloud. My grandfather would say a place without trees is a place that can’t be read. I never understood what he meant. Now I do. Who knows what this place has in mind? Too much sky. Everything is so far apart, nothing has any idea how it relates to anything else. We might as well be on one of Jupiter’s moons.”
“Maybe not. There’s a tree right up ahead. Look! You want me to pull over and let you admire it?” We were in a vividly red four-wheel-drive vehicle, a big clumsy thing that my uncle had refused at first to enter.
“Reminds me of a tank,” he had said as the man at the rental agency pointed it out. “Why don’t we get a tracked vehicle with a machine gun on the back? That way we can take care of bandits and terrain at the same time. Do you have something in an olive drab camouflage? This red will stand out as a target a kilometer away.”
I had pulled him aside. “The orders are for us to rent a four-wheel-drive car. It’s probably a good idea in case we get stuck. There aren’t any bandits in this country. It’s perfectly safe. Let’s not worry about the color. Red is fine. I’d be more concerned about the roads. They didn’t look all that good from the air. Did you notice as we were coming in for a landing, most of them aren’t paved? Save your complaints. You’ll need all of them for later.”
Just as I’d been warned, the rental agency man said he couldn’t let us drive by ourselves outside of the city and that he’d find us a driver. I told him my uncle didn’t trust anyone to drive but me, which wasn’t true, but no one in Mongolia could contradict me on the point, and for once, my uncle backed me up by nodding in agreement.
The streets getting out of the city were jammed. For a place in the middle of nowhere, there were lot of people who seemed to think they were needed somewhere else.
“This is ridiculous,” my uncle said, though at that point he still seemed to be enjoying the scene. “These people drive like they are in camel caravans.”
I almost said, “When were you ever in a camel caravan?” Except he might have been, and that would have ignited a story I didn’t want to hear.
3
The tree was about five hundred meters away. It didn’t look very big, but I didn’t see why that made much difference. “You want me to get closer?”
“No, leave the poor thing to its misery. If it has survived this long in solitude it doesn’t want any company, certainly not this flaming red car.”
“That’s fine with me. We’ll keep going, unless you want to stop and stretch your legs.”
“What you mean is that you want to stop and look at that worthless map. Let’s get to Ding’s camp. All we have to do is follow this so-called road; sooner or later it leads somewhere. All roads do.”
The man’s never heard of a dead end, I thought to myself.
“Even a dead end leads somewhere, nephew. Just not where most people want to go.”
“As long as we seem to have some time, why don’t we use it to mull over our problem? How do we handle Ding?”
“It’s your problem. Think about it all you want. Just watch where you’re going in the meantime.”
“It’s our problem, not only mine, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You want to figure out what’s going on, though you won’t admit it. Most of all, you want to know what has happened to Madame Fang, but you’re not sure if this trip will shed any light. Tell me I’m wrong, I dare you.”
“Over there, way, way over there!”
I braked suddenly. “What? Where?”
“A horse and a camel. Look at them. They’re in a meeting of some sort, probably a conspiracy. Look how the horse is nodding. They’ve agreed on something. They don’t mate, do they?”
Horse and camel were some distance away, and in the rapidly retreating light, I might not have noticed them. “I don’t think so. Since when did your eyes improve so much?”
“There is nothing wrong with my eyes. Keep driving, and not so fast. How much farther is it to this place?”
I looked down at the map and pretended to trace the route. “Another sixty kilometers. We’ll be there soon after sunset.”
“It’s already sunset, which means it will be pitch dark when we get there. The question is, will there be anything to eat? Do they have noodles in this country? They don’t have trees,” he said glumly, “they might not have noodles.”
4
A minute later the sun dropped from sight. A big sky like this apparently didn’t have to fool around with dusk. The one working headlight on the car revealed nothing but more dirt track. I made sure my aching shoulders were set confidently. There was nothing to be gained by letting my uncle realize we were lost.
“You may as well slow down before we drive over a cliff. Also, we might be better off not going in circles, which is what we started doing about twenty minutes ago.” He squinted at his watch and then out the window. “Now that it’s clear we’re not arriving on time, maybe your friends will send out a search party. They know this country better than do you. The average goat knows this country better than you do. Pull over.” He looked out the window. “What am I saying? There’s no lane, no road. We’re in the middle of nowhere. I don’t think even the stars bother with this place. The moon obviously doesn’t.”
I stopped the car and turned off the ignition. “If there isn’t anything to complain about, you invent something. Don’t
worry, there are plenty of stars around here. They’ll be out in force soon. We can’t be far from the camp,” I said. “They’re expecting us. By now, Ding must wonder where we are.”
“We have no idea if Ding can even tell time!” He waved his watch arm in front of me. “We have to hope someone can and is wondering if we’ve been waylaid by bandits. Maybe they got drunk waiting for us. Maybe they’ve all gone to sleep already. Honk the horn.”
“What?”
“I said, honk the horn. Out here the sound will carry forever. They’ll hear it halfway to China. If they hear it in Gao’s place, they’ll put down bets on how long it is before we starve to death. Go ahead, honk the horn.”
It didn’t seem like such a bad idea. I honked the horn twice, two short bleats that the empty night swallowed whole. My uncle leaned over to the steering wheel.
“A pattern,” he said. “Give it a pattern.”
“A pattern?”
He leaned on the horn, three long blasts. “Like that.”
Twenty minutes later, two men on small horses rode out of the darkness. I rolled down the window. “Looking for someone?”
“The camp is a half hour away. Follow us.”
We set off at about five kilometers an hour. My uncle was silent the whole time. Thirty minutes later, we came to a gate across the road, which at this point wasn’t even a dirt track. One of the horsemen dismounted, opened the gate, and motioned I should drive ahead.
“How did you know it was us?” I asked as we pulled abreast of him.
“The horn. First it was confusing, two bleats, like someone trying to clear the road of sheep. Then we heard the three long blasts—figured it was Morse for the letter O.”
My uncle didn’t bother to smile.
5
“I’m staying here.” From the passenger’s seat, my uncle surveyed the camp, or what was visible of it. What was visible wasn’t much. A few traditional Mongolian gers on a hillside. Off to the right was a more substantial wood frame building of some sort; with no moon, it was too dark to be sure what it might be. Our guides’ horses stood quietly. On the wind blowing from our backs was the smell of open country at night. No asphalt or tires, no garbage, no gasoline. Just a fragrance of vast silence, the grass, and maybe a camel or two.
“Come out of the car,” I said to my uncle. “It’s refreshing in the night air. You ought to stretch your legs.”
“It’s refreshing in here. Probably safer, too. My legs aren’t complaining, and neither am I. Where is Ding?”
“I thought you liked it outdoors. Didn’t you live on a mountaintop for several years?”
“The outdoors is fine. This place is beyond outdoors. You go do what you have to do.”
“There aren’t any wolves, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“Wolves don’t scare me, the only thing that does—”
A man emerged from the middle hut and shouted in a Beijing accent, “There’s a storm coming. Better not stand around and yap.” As soon as he ducked back in the hut, the wind picked up. A huge bank of clouds, glowing from within as if it carried its own light to see the way, swallowed the hills in front of us. It spilled down the slope, devoured the huts, and then the cloud light clicked off, turning the night black with rain.
“Shut the windows,” I yelled at my uncle and made a dash in the direction of the hut where the man had appeared. The rain was deafening; it sounded like it would beat the car roof into scrap. I started to turn back to see if my uncle was all right, but a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me into a large circular room with several iron-stead beds and brightly painted chests neatly arranged around the edge. One of the chests had a shrine with candles on it. The center of the room was occupied by a small iron stove, and beside it on a low red stool was a man with a face as round as a full moon. Unlike the moon, he also had hooded, dark eyes and a cruel mouth, as if he ate orphans. He stood up and stared at me.
“Actually,” he said, “there are wolves.”
“What?”
“You told your uncle that there are no wolves, but there are, plenty of them. They aren’t quite as savage as Russian wolves, but you wouldn’t want to run across a particularly hungry Mongolian wolf late at night. Nor a pack of them at any time of day, for that matter.”
“You mind if I go and get my uncle out of the car?”
“Wait until the storm blows over. He’ll be fine where he is. Wolves don’t know how to open car doors. You’re Major Bing, I take it.”
“Let me guess, you are Mr. Ding.”
The man’s mouth did something that I took to be a smile. “Amusing, yes? That our names rhyme?” He indicated I should take the chair beside him near the stove. “We have business. Better to do it right now.”
I waited until he sat, then did the same. “You have credentials of some sort? A secret handshake maybe? The chances of my running into the wrong contact out here is slim, but I don’t want to chance it. Slim odds are not no odds.”
“I have a tie with rutting deer on it, but it’s in my suitcase. Would you like me to get it?”
“No, that’s good enough for me. And your friend here?” I indicated the man who had grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. “He has a tie, too?”
“He wouldn’t know how to use one. Not around his own neck, anyway.”
The storm had nearly passed, and there was little sound except for a few late raindrops and the fire crackling in the stove. I decided it was time to take in my surroundings more closely. I would have liked a better view of the door, but my line of sight was blocked by a short, muscular man. He didn’t appear to have a neck, nor any thought of moving aside. The room was even bigger than it had seemed on first impression, but with two of them and only one of me, I didn’t think I could race around the center pole too many times before one of them nailed me. There were no windows to speak of, so jumping through one was not an option. The only thing left was sitting tight. Apart from my uncle’s foreboding remarks—and he made those all the time—I didn’t really have much reason to assume Ding would be a problem. I might have convinced myself completely if he hadn’t had teeth like a piranha.
“You had trouble finding us?” Ding poked at the fire with a stick. “These maps aren’t worth a damn. I think they’re meant to confuse outsiders. Well, you made it, that’s the main thing.”
The rain seemed to have stopped, and I couldn’t hear any more wind. “OK by you if I get my uncle now? He’s looking forward to meeting you.”
“Not quite yet.” Ding looked at the muscular doorman and nodded slightly. “But my colleague can go out and keep the old man occupied until we’re ready for him to join us.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. My uncle doesn’t do well with strangers.”
Ding’s mouth approximated the sound of a laugh. “They’ll get on with no trouble, you don’t need to worry.”
When we were alone, Ding reached into his pocket and pulled out a brown envelope, no tape. “These are your orders. If you want to go over them here, that’s fine with me. Or if you want to wait until later, that’s fine, too. There are some time constraints, however. This job has to be done, completely finished, in two days.”
“Then what happens?”
“Then we’ll see.”
Since I didn’t know what had to be done in forty-eight hours, it didn’t strike me as an insurmountable problem. Sometimes, jobs with short fuses turned out easier to handle. Lots of pressure to move, but little time to think and less time for long lines of authority to get wrapped around the ankles. At least it meant my uncle was wrong. Ding wasn’t going to bury us right away.
From outside I heard the car door slam. A moment later, my uncle stepped into the ger. He was laughing. “Off to a good start, eh, nephew?”
Ding stood up carefully. “Where is my colleague?” He reached under his jacket and came out with a pistol. For some reason I was relieved to see it was a Chinese model. I was even more relieved when Ding didn’t point it at me.
<
br /> “He’s probably fixing his digestion around the corner,” my uncle said, ignoring the weapon in Ding’s hand. “He said something about mutton.”
Ding reholstered the pistol and sat down. “Pull up a stool, Inspector.”
My uncle sat.
“You don’t remember me?” Ding put the stick in the fire again and stirred the embers. “It wasn’t that long ago. Let me think.” His brows went into thinking mode. “All right, a few years. Ten? Let’s say ten.”
My uncle looked carefully at the other man’s face. He took in the jaw without obvious concern. “Never saw you before in my life.”
“Ah, you see? That’s because I don’t think we ever actually met. It was more like a long distance affair.”
My uncle closed his eyes. “If you say so.”
“Ding, I think we’re tired. And we could use some food.”
My uncle mouthed the word, “Noodles.”
“I have what I need for the job. How about you show us where we’ll be staying. If I have any questions, we can talk in the morning.” I heard a note of irritation creep into my voice.
Ding looked over at me as if he no longer knew who I was. “Staying? Here?” He looked at his watch. “That’s not what … well, you were late arriving, and the storm has probably made these damn ruts they call roads too muddy. You’ll get lost for sure trying to find the main highway back to the city. Give me a minute, I’ll have to go outside to make a phone call. Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll send the little bear”—he stopped himself—“my colleague in to keep you company.”
“Be careful,” my uncle said as Ding opened the door.
Ding turned. “What?”
“Wolves,” my uncle said. “Mongolian wolves.”
6
“You know him? If you knew Ding, why didn’t you tell me?”
“One, what difference would it have made, and two, he says he knows me, that doesn’t mean I know him. He’s playing some sort of game. Let him.”