Five Ancestors Out of the Ashes #1: Phoenix

by Jeff Stone

  I stood. “Here, let me help with those.”

  “No. I’d rather you didn’t come upstairs. I’ll take care of it.” She headed up a staircase at the back of the shop. She returned a few minutes later with a couple of old blankets and a threadbare pillow. She handed them to me.

  “I apologize for the condition of these,” she said, stern-faced.

  “These are great,” I replied, trying to lighten the mood. “They are much better than what I had on the bus, which was nothing. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Do you think you will have a problem spending the night in the mountains tomorrow?”

  “Not at all. I love camping. My grandfather takes me sometimes.”

  “Good. I enjoy it, too.” She looked over at my backpack. “Do you have anything smaller?”

  “I have a small duffel bag, but I don’t think it’s going to help much on a ride.”

  “I have a pack that you can use. What about riding pants?”

  I frowned. “No. I had planned to hike to the ruins. I didn’t think of riding a bike there until I came into your shop.”

  Hú Dié sighed. “You at least brought short pants, right?”

  “Yes. Several pairs. Why?”

  “Give me one.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it.”

  I rummaged through my backpack and pulled out a pair of brown cargo shorts. I tossed them to her.

  “These will work,” she said. “Now get some sleep. You are probably jet-lagged, and we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so,” she said, “and from this point forward, you will do exactly as I say. If you think Kaifeng is a dangerous place, you should see some of the villages and mountain trails.”

  I groaned. “So I’ve been told.”

  “This is serious. Do you agree to listen to me or not?”

  “Agreed.”

  Hú Dié nodded and turned away. “Good night then, Phoenix.”

  “Good night, Iron Butterfly.”

  She left, and I spread out my makeshift bed. As I lay down among the bicycles, I wondered what the heck I had just gotten myself into.

  I slept very little that night. I wanted to blame my wakefulness on the time difference and the eight hours I’d slept on the bus, but I knew there was more. Not only did I have concerns about Hú Dié, who had just pushed her way into my life, I was also worried about Grandfather. He had appeared more or less okay when I left, but he was extremely tough, and he had always had a face of stone. It was impossible to tell how he really felt. He could be in agony and no one would know it. I looked forward to calling him as soon as the ride to Cangzhen Temple was over. I was dying to know how he was doing. It took me a long time to fall asleep.

  I woke to something having dropped onto my face. I scrambled to sit up, finding that the object was the cargo shorts I’d given Hú Dié the night before.

  “Try them on,” Hú Dié said, hovering over me. “I hope they fit. I do not want to have to make another pair. I spent half the night working on them.”

  I examined the shorts and found that she had sewn padding into them. I didn’t know what to say. Like many riders, I felt that padded riding shorts were a rider’s most important piece of equipment outside of a helmet.

  “Thank you,” I said. “They look awesome, just like you’d find in a store.”

  “They are better than you would find in a store. Now put them on. I’ll turn around.”

  Hú Dié turned away, and I hurriedly changed into the shorts, embarrassed. I squatted a few times. “You’re right. These are better than anything I’ve tried from a store. They are really comfortable, like they were custom-made for me.”

  “They were custom-made for you.”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks a lot.”

  “Can I turn around now?”

  “Sure, sorry.”

  Hú Dié turned and looked me up and down. “The shorts do fit you well,” she said. “Now let’s see how I do with a bike. Do you still like that blue and white full-suspension? The one with the welds you questioned?”

  I nodded.

  “How do you like your ride? Firm? Soft?”

  “I like my front forks firm,” I said. “I’ve never ridden a bike with a rear suspension, so I don’t know what to tell you about the rear shock absorber adjustment. I ride a hard-tail back home.”

  “Don’t you like shocks?”

  “I can’t afford full suspension. I’ve always wanted to try one, though.”

  “Well, now is your chance. Hard-tails are good for smooth tracks with small hills and lots of turns. More of your energy is transferred to the rear wheel instead of being absorbed by the rear suspension. However, on rocky trails in the mountains like we’re going to ride, full suspension is the way to go, especially over long distances. Your butt will thank you.”

  “My butt already thanks you for the padding,” I joked.

  Hú Dié rolled her eyes, but she cracked a smile. She went behind the tall counter and returned with a handful of hex wrenches, motioning for me to follow her over to the blue and white mountain bike. She began making adjustments, looking back and forth several times between the bike and me as she worked. I’d never seen someone work so quickly. First, she raised the seat post and adjusted the seat angle. Then she changed the angle of the handlebars and repositioned the brake levers. She even moved the gearshift thumb toggles to a slightly different location.

  “Don’t you need to measure me before you make those changes?” I asked.

  “No. I am very good at judging dimensions just by looking at things.” She grabbed a small, specialized hand pump to adjust the air pressure within the bike’s rear shock absorber, which isolated the rear tire from the frame. “How much do you weigh?” she asked. “A hundred thirty pounds?”

  “One-fifteen.”

  Hú Dié grinned. “So, the phoenix is as light as a bird? Maybe you will be able to fly with me, after all.”

  “Count on it, Butterfly.”

  She laughed and adjusted the shock’s air pressure; then she inspected the tires.

  “Are those tires tubeless?” I asked.

  “Of course, and I’ve already treated the inner walls with sealant. We will bring inner tubes as backup in case we get a pinch flat on the trail or pick up a nail on the road that the sealant can’t handle. I’ve also got several patch kits and a small hand pump. Nothing worse than being miles from anywhere with a flat tire.”

  “Agreed,” I said. I watched as she checked the pressure in the tires by squeezing them between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Don’t you need a tire-pressure gauge for that?”

  “No. Feels like forty-five pounds of air pressure in each, give or take a pound. That’s good for riding city streets. Once we hit the trail, I’ll drop it down to about thirty-five for better traction. Care to stick a gauge on them now and make a wager to see whether or not I’m right?”

  “Nope.”

  She smiled. “Didn’t think so. You’re a fast learner. I’m assuming that if you didn’t bring riding pants, you don’t have riding shoes, either?”

  I pointed to my hiking boots across the room. “Just those.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Go put them on.”

  She headed behind the counter again while I went and put on my boots. I walked back to the bike, pulling its rear tire out of the stand that had been holding it upright. Mountain bikers never use kickstands. I checked the bike over closer than I had yesterday and liked what I saw, particularly the front and rear disc brakes. Low-end bikes have old-fashioned brake pads that compress against the wheel rims to slow the bike down. High-end bikes like the one I was looking at have a metal disc attached to each wheel down by the hub. Small metal calipers squeeze the disc with tremendous hydraulic-assisted force, like you’d find on a motorcycle. The stopping power of disc brakes is amazing and is sometimes necessary to prevent a rider from doing something tragic like coasting ov
er a rocky bluff instead of pulling up short of it.

  I climbed onto the bike and couldn’t believe how well it fit me. Hú Dié was very good. I bounced up and down a few times with my butt planted on the seat to test the rear suspension. It seemed as if it had about five inches’ travel, which felt completely alien. Every time I pressed down and felt the bike give way beneath me, I swore the frame was snapping in half. I didn’t like the sensation at all.

  I stood, keeping my hands on the handle grips, and leaned out over the handlebars, pressing down. The shock-absorbing front fork gave way much like my bike at home, which made me feel better.

  Hú Dié returned with a large pedal wrench and a pair of flats—traditional pedals like you would find on a regular kid’s bike. You didn’t need special shoes for these, and they were perfect for situations where you needed to put your foot down in a hurry. However, they were very inefficient, which was why Hú Dié was also carrying a pair of “cages” that could be attached to the tops of the pedals. I would be able to slip my feet into the cages to take advantage of the full range of pedaling motion, pulling up and around on the pedals just as much as pushing down. The drawback was that cages could be dangerous. Shoes sometimes got stuck in them while you were trying to pull your foot out to prevent yourself from tipping over.

  Hú Dié looked down at the cages. “You want them?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re a brave man.”

  “Sometimes.”

  I climbed off the bike and held it for Hú Dié as she threaded the pedals onto the bike’s drive sprocket crank arms and tightened them down. Then she attached the cages.

  “I’ll let you adjust the cage straps yourself,” she said. “I don’t want to be responsible for you snapping your ankle because you couldn’t get your foot out in time.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. Adjust your cages. I have to grab a few more things.”

  I straddled the bike again and began to make the adjustments while Hú Dié headed back upstairs. When she came down, I hardly recognized her. Her long hair was pulled back into a ponytail. A battered riding helmet and a pair of killer sunglasses hid most of her face, while a short-sleeved pink riding jersey showed off her normally hidden buff arms. She also wore a short, floppy green plaid skirt over tight black riding shorts that went all the way down to her knees. It was a combo that I’d seen girls wearing in cycling magazines; however, neither the skirt nor the riding shorts could hide the fact that she was a total quaddess. Those thighs would give any guy back home a run for his money.

  I looked down at her shoes and smiled. Her pink mountain bike cleats were scuffed and torn. Hú Dié was hard-core.

  She held out a fresh-from-the-box helmet and an old hydration backpack. “The backpack should hold enough water, snacks, and clothes for an overnight trip for both of us,” she said. “I’ve already filled the water bladder. As for the brain bucket, I believe it should fit your fat head.”

  “Very funny. Thanks for loaning me the gear.” I noticed that she wasn’t wearing a hydration pack. “What are you going to drink?”

  “I have water bottle cages on my bike, plus a couple more bottles and some energy bars in my jersey pockets. My extra clothes are in the pack, though, along with two space blankets and other supplies. Wearing the pack is what you get for not bringing your own gear.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said, climbing off the bike. I placed its rear wheel back into the bike stand and took the pack and helmet from Hú Dié. The pack was surprisingly heavy. She turned for a moment, and I saw that the huge pockets sewn into the lower back region of her riding jersey bulged with two full water bottles and whatever else she had in them. I put on the helmet and found that it fit perfectly. Even the chinstrap had been adjusted to the ideal length.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Thank me again, and I’ll knock you out,” Hú Dié said. “The more you say it, the less it means.”

  My brow furrowed. She sounded just like Grandfather. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “Follow me,” she ordered, “and bring the bike.” She went to the front door, opening it for me.

  “Just a minute,” I said, and hurried over to my own backpack. I grabbed the GPS unit, dropping it into one of the cargo pockets on my riding shorts. Then I snatched a change of clothes to sleep in and shoved them into Hú Dié’s pack along with my passport and wallet. I slipped the pack onto my shoulders, adjusted the straps, slung the hydration hose and mouthpiece forward over my shoulder, and grabbed the bike.

  “Heads up!” Hú Dié said.

  I got a hand up in time to catch an energy bar just before it hit my face. What was it with Chinese women throwing food at me?

  “Good reflexes,” she said. “Eat that now. I already had one.”

  I ripped the wrapper open with my teeth and headed for the door.

  Outside, Hú Dié locked the front door behind us. The early morning air was crisp. I followed her to a small loading dock, and she unlocked a large metal door, rolling it up like a gigantic shade. The loading bay behind the door was empty except for a mud-streaked neon-pink mountain bike unlike any I had ever seen. It was leaning against a wall, its frame all odd angles and strange bends. Its component configuration looked like something from a parallel universe. Where you would normally find the front and rear shocks of a full-suspension bike, I saw rigid welds. Where you would expect to find rigid welds, I saw shocks. The only things I recognized as typical were two water bottle cages, but even they were bolted on in odd locations. I supposed there was a rationale behind all of this, but I couldn’t see it. The engineering was beyond me.

  “That’s Trixie,” Hú Dié said, her face beaming with pride. “She’s my baby. I rode her yesterday and haven’t had a chance to give her a bath.”

  I was horrified. “You named your bike?”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s too weird.”

  “No, it’s not. Do you like her?”

  I scratched my chin. “I don’t know. I think she may be a little too tricked-out for my taste.”

  “See, I told you I knew more about bike design than you ever would.” She walked over to her bike. “Trixie is revolutionary.”

  “She looks complicated.”

  “She is.” Hú Dié climbed onto her bike and clipped into the pedals. “Trixie is complicated and beautiful and temperamental. Just like me.” She flashed a radiant smile and shot off like a pink cannonball, calling out, “Catch me if you can, Phoenix!”

  I half expected her to turn around, to show she was joking with me, but she didn’t.

  I needed no further prompting. I jammed my feet into the pedal cages and took off after the complicated girl on the tricked-out pink bicycle.

  I wove in and out of city traffic for at least five miles before I finally caught up with Hú Dié. She was never more than a few hundred yards ahead, but she was fast enough on the streets that I wasn’t able to get to her sooner. I had to admit, she had some serious skills. I couldn’t wait to get into more open country to put the hurt on her. I hated riding in the city, especially here.

  There were few traffic lights and even fewer stop signs. Aggressive drivers zoomed in and out of lanes at will. Several times, I had to blast up a curb to avoid being run down. I would rather have taken the sidewalk, but that was impossible because many storekeepers used the entire width of the walk in front of their shops to sell their goods.

  Once I had caught Hú Dié, she slowed her pace. She was breathing hard, and trickles of sweat shimmered down the backs of her calves and the nape of her neck. She was pushing herself, but unlike me, she was enjoying it.

  The traffic began to thin, and I started having a better time. We rode for miles in silence, side by side. The storefronts grew farther and farther apart, until the city gave way to small, dusty fields. From there, the landscape changed to larger, more open spaces like I’d seen from the bus. The air freshened and became notic
eably cleaner, and the sun rose higher. It was pleasant, but it was going to get hot soon.

  I watched Hú Dié slowly drain her water bottles while I sipped from the hydration pack’s long tube. After an hour, I pulled the GPS unit from my cargo riding shorts’ pocket and saw that we had traveled more than fourteen miles—pretty good time for a mountain bike.

  I also saw that Hú Dié had set us on a shorter path, just like she’d said she would. The GPS’s auto-routing software had adjusted to our current location and was showing that we were still headed in the right direction, yet we had shaved a good distance off the original route. I noticed a large dot on the map and realized that we were coming up to a village. I asked Hú Dié about it.

  “It is very small,” she said. “Hardly worth mentioning. We will be through it in five minutes.”

  She was right. The village was little more than a cluster of old two-story buildings made from yellow mud bricks. Every hundred yards or so along one whole side of the road, I saw huge white circles on the ground, each more than twenty feet in diameter. We swerved around several before I realized what they were—low piles of rice being dried in the sun.

  The asphalt on which the rice was lying was likely very good for drying because it was black and absorbed heat, but it was also coated with dirt and stained with oil and gas and who knew what else from the rusted, leaking vehicles that passed over this road. I now understood why Grandfather made me triple-wash every batch of rice we cooked. Even though this rice was probably only going to be eaten by locals and would never make it to Indiana, I wasn’t sure I could ever bring myself to touch another bowlful again.

  Not only did the rice make me uneasy, the people here did, too. They were none too friendly. Nearly every person we passed seemed to be simply standing around, and all of them stared at us. None offered so much as a wave, even after I waved first. I was glad when we were out of there.

  We rode on for three more hours in comfortable silence, passing through two more villages nearly identical to the first, all the way down to the circles of rice in the road. Our tires hummed monotonously over hot, pot-holed pavement, and I began to itch for some challenging terrain.