The Rock Child

by Win Blevins

  No one could tell what kind of man he was. Asians thought him a dark European, Europeans a light Asian, and none could say which was his native tongue, for he never spoke Turkish. People despised him, the Chinese because he was not Chinese, the Russians because he was not Russian, and so on, the way of the world, the stupidity of the world. They knew two facts about him—he was very short, and his face was very misshapen, which gave them final reasons to despise him.

  Seeing profits in the hides of sea otters, Tarim bought a ship, hired hands, and crossed the ocean to Russian Alaska. In ten years on one of the islands of the Alaskan peninsula, he built a small empire. Then came disaster. The Russians turned the savages on him, drove him out, and stole his life’s work. They were white, they were Christian. He was dark, a heathen, and ugly. What did such a man matter to them?

  So at fifty years of age, Tarim came to Alta California, penniless, seeking another fortune in the hills of gold. In the ensuing years, he followed the gold hunters from strike to strike, boomtown to boomtown, and preyed upon them. He collected money. He played with people, and laid down layer upon layer of his contempt for them.

  A year and a half ago he gave birth to a very good idea for making money and debasing people in a single act. Chinese whores were popular in the gold camps, popular and hugely profitable. He would have whores—white, red, black, and yellow. Also he wanted something special, a whore who would be the talk of the camp. He wrote to a man he knew in the Chinese city of Chengdu, a man who would do anything. A nun, he said, a Buddhist nun. He offered a thousand dollars in gold, enough money to buy all the man’s daughters. He knew that nuns sometimes were not virgins, but the gold seekers saw only what they wanted to see. They would behold the brown robes and see a heathen virgin.

  Now, as the woman stood before him studying the piece of paper, Tarim had a rare experience. He felt an emotion. He was amused.

  “Read it aloud,” he said.

  Sun Moon set forth in a clear, steady voice.

  “‘I, Sun Moon, a citizen of China, came to Gum Saan, the United States, voluntarily.’”

  She eyed him contemptuously. “Lies.” She turned back to the paper.

  “‘I acknowledge my indebtedness to Tarim for my passage on the ship Fast Maisy across the ocean.’

  “More lies.

  “‘To repay that debt I indenture myself to Tarim to work …’” Now she had to control her voice carefully. Just as I feared. In a legal paper. “… ‘as a hundred-men’s-wife for five years.’”

  Her grandmother had taught her first. Male-female, good-evil, sacred-profane, Sun-Moon, all are one.

  Nevertheless. She drew herself up. She was tall and slender for a woman of her people, taller than Tarim. She was a Khampa, and had been raised with the pride and haughtiness of those independent nomads and traders. She looked him witheringly in the eye. “No,” she said. “Ah Wan told me I would work serving whisky. I will never work as a whore.”

  “Read,” Tarim commanded.

  She read the rest silently. Tarim had paid $1,000 for her services for the next five years. Oh, precious American dollars. As an indentured servant she would earn no wages. Tarim would provide her room, board, and clothing. For every ten days she was sick, she would serve another month. If she was sick a month, or conceived a child, she would serve another year.

  At the bottom was a character that pretended to be her signature. It wasn’t—she would never sign her name in Chinese characters but in Tibetan ones. What American would know that, though? What Chinese would know it?

  She stared at Tarim and said in a low, even tone, “Kyakpa sö!” These were the rudest words she could think of, the same as the phrase she heard the Americans use, “Eat shit!”

  Tarim cocked his hand. He is going to strike me. Even as a child she had never been struck, yet it was half what she wanted. Fight me. Now. I will rise as Mahakala and drink your blood. He was old, sixty at least. I am more than your match.

  She quailed. Whatever the Tantras teach, I cannot bear to foul my spirit with murder.

  His hands trembled. Go ahead, hit me.

  With a visible effort Tarim lowered his hand. Yet his spirit roiled and seethed in the ugly afflictive emotions. She felt contempt for him.

  Her mind jangled. She reminded herself numbly, I have compassion for all sentient beings in the suffering that is earthly life. That was the teaching of her entire existence. Yet Mahakala destroys and creates, dancing always, laughing madly. And they are the same, to destroy and create, to love and to kill. Rise in me, Mahakala.

  She felt dizzy. She held on to the bar for support. Who am I becoming?

  Calmly, with a false courtliness, Tarim gestured to the bar, the lines of bottles, the furnishings. Though it was only a tent with a false wooden front, he’d made the tavern look well outfitted.

  “When the barbarians drink too much, they set aside their manners, their lusts become inflamed …”

  She interrupted him. “I need no explanation of that.” She forbade pictures of her drunken abductors to enter her mind. “Whether they’re made mad by whisky or opium.” The Chinese were fond of opium, but her people had nothing to do with it.

  She saw Tarim’s nostrils flare a little, and his lip curled. Fine to be able to read a man’s mind by the signs of his body, and to command it by a small insult.

  He turned his back to her, led the way to the back of the building, and opened a narrow door. “A private room,” he murmured in a tone implying great good fortune. Beyond his outstretched arm she could see a cubicle with a narrow cot. “Here you will sleep, and here you will serve the barbarians.”

  She took a deep breath. First came the fear, then the anger. The warlike spirit of Mahakala is in me. That spirit intoned, “I have been abducted. A Chinese court would behead my captors. I am not indentured to you or anyone. I demand to go home.”

  Tarim continued as though he hadn’t heard her. “The other drinking establishments have hundred-men’s-wives, white and red and black women, and their business exceeds my own. You will be something special.” He paused. “You will wear the robes. Always.”

  He held her eyes, and she saw something even more frightening. His eyes were cold as ice-covered stones. And he was permitting her to see that. He was letting her know.

  He gestured for her to enter by the open flap. She stepped through and put her hand on the cot intended for whoring. Oh, to be alone.

  “Many barbarians actually prefer Chinese flesh.”

  Her mind sloshed like water in a swaying bucket. My chastity may be taken from me, but not my spirit. She fixed him with her eyes. “I am not Chinese, I am Tibetan,” she repeated.

  He looked back at her hard. No, it wasn’t anger in his eyes, it was amusement.

  “I will never be a hundred-men’s-wife.”

  Tarim chuckled, and closed the door.

  Nowhere to run.

  During the journey to Canton, she had been drugged, her spirit defeated. On the ocean during the passage, where could she go? When Yoo Wong threw herself overboard, Sun Moon had felt envious. But she couldn’t follow—this precious incarnation as a human being was not to be thrown away; dying prematurely would be ill karma.

  In Gam Saan, San Francisco, she remembered Mahakala, the protectress, and began to recover her spirit. She would have risked anything to escape, but Ah Wan kept her bound and got her quickly onto a ship for Oregon. Then she was thrown onto Jehu’s wagon with the rest of the freight headed for the interior. The interior of Gum Saan, a country she had barely noticed on maps. Soon she acquired enough English to find out from Jehu she was in the United States, not Mexico. Now she began to feel the Khampa within her, and the warrior. Thank you, Mahakala.

  After a week Jehu untied her and let her sit on the bench like a human being instead of lying on the floor with the sacks of flour. Why not—where could she go? She was no longer crossing a wide ocean, true enough, but what troubles faced her: Her English was poor. She didn’t know where she was
. If she escaped, she would be helpless. She knew the end—someone would turn her over to a tong. She remembered the women peering out of the windows of little cells, faces paper masks, brittle on the outside, empty on the inside. No, the way of the warrior was to wait.

  Now she calculated. She turned all the way around in her tiny room once, then all the way around the other way. I will wait. I will learn English, learn the country, learn the people. She sat on the floor, crossed her legs in the lotus position, consciously straightened her spine, took the first relaxing breath …

  Suddenly the door flap opened. Tarim came in with rice, a few spoonfuls of vegetables, and tea. No, no, he won’t starve me to death, she thought appraisingly. I am a valuable property.

  She looked at him sharply. He grunted something, set the bowl and cup down, and retreated. She reached for the food. Stopped. What would I not give for some tsampa in tea? It was roasted barley flour. She took thought and placed the bowl back on the floor. She turned her consciousness inward and breathed deeply. She felt the breath come in, felt it go out. First the spirit, she thought, then the body. Then war.

  3

  The celestial heathen gave a copper with one hand and took silver coins with the other. The coppers were cent pieces, used to copper bets. Porter Rockwell looked around the room at men who reeked of greed and lust. He could taste it, foul as brackish water. Damned Chinee. Celestial? Bear’s ass.

  Fourteen men, as Rockwell counted them. Thirteen drunk, all but himself. All were white, though half of the population of Hard Rock City was yellow. And the sheriff, Conlan, was among them, come to debauch a nun. It confirmed Rockwell’s opinion of American lawmen.

  A corner of his mouth lifted in a bitter, one-quarter smile, as much as he’d permitted himself in near twenty years, since that day at the Carthage jail when the best friend he ever had was murdered by a mob. The friend was Joseph Smith. Porter Rockwell had been the Prophet’s protector, and he failed Joseph that day. He hadn’t smiled since, not really.

  Drunk or sober didn’t matter. He was smarter than most of them either way, quicker of hand, and especially meaner. He’d found that mean made all the difference.

  It surely helped in his line of work. Porter Rockwell was an avenger. The Destroying Angel, the gentiles called him. The apostates called him the same. If the powers judged someone a threat to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, especially a fallen-away Mormon, one of a group of destroying angels, the Danites, got rid of the trouble. Rockwell was a Danite leader, and his solutions tended to be permanent. If he was an embarrassment to some of his people now that Mormons were better established, he didn’t give a damn. If he occasionally got other work, like delivering gold coin to Hard Rock City, Idaho, he was glad.

  It was done. He wasn’t worried about this Conlan for a moment, or any other lawman. Now he wanted a woman.

  Rockwell paid his dollar and took the copper from the heathen’s palm. He eyed the Chinee hard. Rockwell knew his impact on people. He was taller than most, well formed, strongly built. His hair hung wild and stringy below his shoulders—Joseph had prophesied that he would always be safe if he did as Samson should have done, leave his hair uncut. His eyes, he knew, looked halfway between cunning and mad. Which, Porter Rockwell sometimes thought, might be the truth.

  I could almost gag on the booze and lust. Fourteen men wanting the nun, gambling for the chance to mount her, inflamed by the thought of violating sacredness. Rockwell didn’t give a fig for their sacredness.

  The room breathed like a panting toad. He didn’t like crowds. He didn’t like gentiles. Sometimes he didn’t even like Saints.

  He himself didn’t need to pant. His need was colder than that. He was going to win.

  Everyone said the woman was beautiful. She’d been on display this afternoon riding through town on the wagon. Everyone had heard—a nun whore coming!—and ninety percent of the town was male.

  Rockwell had watched from behind the lined-up mob. He didn’t judge her beautiful. She was off-color. Rockwell preferred white and delightsome. She had an air about her that snagged his interest, though, something in her carriage or in her eye—she felt untouchable.

  Tonight Rockwell would touch her, and she would never forget it. Once he’d banged into a whore and banged and banged, deliberately, insatiably, not stopping even when she threw up on him. It made him feel powerful.

  This whore was floating on opium, the Chinee said, but Rockwell would wake her up. She would make him feel his juices flow.

  It was a stiff price, a dollar just to gamble for a chance to top a woman. It would be the first time any man mounted this woman, said the Chinee, but you couldn’t trust him—no telling what heathen had been at her on the other side of the world or the long trip here. And Poly-damnesians and white men, too, for that matter. Rockwell didn’t care. The one she’d never be able to forget was him.

  “Ready, everybody ready,” called the Chinee. His body poised like a banty rooster, head cocked high, eye bright. Each man perched his copper on his thumb, ready to flip. “Throw your prayers and coppers into the air. When the coppers come down, may the prayers go up.” The heathen flipped his queer little noisemaker to a crazy climax. “Now!” Fourteen coins spun high in the air. At the top of the spin the Chinee called heads or tails. Then fourteen coins landed in palms (three drunks dropped theirs but picked them up), fourteen hands slapped them over onto the back of the other arm, and thirteen mouths smiled or frowned.

  Cries of joy and agony. The fools were getting very worked up. Not Rockwell. He would win this round and every round by a simple stratagem. He was dexterous with his hands. He could make a coin appear in an empty palm faster than anyone’s eye could detect. He could stick an empty hand to your nose and make a playing card pop out. He could juggle seven balls. He could make a knife dance through the air and between your ribs. With either hand he could shoot a hole in a high-spun coin. For Porter Rockwell making a copper appear right side up was child’s play, and this was a fool’s game.

  Actually, it was too bad no one would see him cheating and accuse him of it. Rockwell would enjoy punishing that impertinence, especially in front of Sheriff Conlan.

  The heathen whirred his noisemaker. A roar rose with the mounting clamor. The six men who survived the first flip spun their coins into the dingy light. Porter Rockwell concealed a second copper between his fingers and gave a nasty one-quarter smile.

  4

  In the dreamy world people were moving around her, and the voices made a low, low rumble. She was naked in the dream, maybe—somehow she couldn’t open her eyes to see herself or move her hands to touch herself. But the moving, rumbling people were looking at her naked and pointing, leering, and laughing at her. She couldn’t make out the dreamworld words, but the talk sounded ugly, threatening—the sound the earth would make, she imagined, before a landslide. Her body quivered.

  From a distance she heard thunder, low. It was going to rain. She writhed. She was afraid of being naked and cold in the rain. Somehow the rain would be filthy, it would soil her, she had to get out of the rain …

  A rough hand touched her shoulder.

  Trying to awake, she felt a curious floating sensation, like a boat sailing not on water but on mist. Opium. She remembered from her time with the bandits … This is what opium feels like.

  Hands under her back and knees. She forced her eyes open and saw the hairy top of a white-man head. She could feel the air on her bare skin, bare all over, every inch. A dozen men’s faces leered at her. Her robes lay beneath her body, and every inch of her was exposed to the leers.

  I call upon Mahakala.

  “Here we go, Polly,” said the American. He scooped her up in his arms.

  Mahakala, destroyer goddess, eater of men, help me!

  She screamed. With all her body and spirit she howled, shrieked, and screeched. She wriggled and fell. She thumped back onto the table where she’d lain. The white man looked at his empty hands. His mouth looked amused,
his eyes angry.

  Men’s voices laughed raucously.

  The air felt cold between her legs, and almost hurt her nipples. She covered herself with her hands. Mahakala, come to my aid.

  “Polly, you don’t want to cause trouble.” The white man had a bony face, wild eyes, the longest hair she’d ever seen on a man, and those awful eyes. The eyes of a man with a spirit he has killed, the eyes of a destroyer of self and others.

  Behind him, peering faces, loud laughter. She thought about it. Naked doesn’t matter. She cocked her arm to hit him and felt her wrist grabbed by a cruel hand from behind. Both wrists.

  “Now, Polly,” a mocking voice said, “this ain’t goin’ to hurt you none.”

  Another voice put in, “It might be celestial!”

  Men’s laughter lashed out.

  “Name not Polly,” she said calmly. “Sun Moon.”

  “Polly!” several voices snapped. “China Mary!” boomed others.

  Long Hair reached out and pinched a nipple between thumb and forefinger.

  She squirmed with pain. “No!” she yelled. She tried to slap him, but her hand was held firm.

  “Polly don’t like us,” said a voice with mocking melody.

  Long Hair looked her in the eye. She could feel his angry spirit now. Her attempt to slap him had been foolish, silly, childish, unworthy of the strength of Mahakala. Cold air and cold eyes caressed her yoni. He stretched a hand between her legs.

  Goddess destroyer! She kneed Long Hair hard in the face.

  He snapped upward, holding his head.

  Drinker of blood! She kicked him in the nose, and his blood gushed.

  Hands ripped her backward, some on her head, some on her shoulders and hips. One smashed her right breast. Another groped at her crotch. Destroyer of worlds! She kicked free of that hand, but was pinned on the table.

  She spat at Long Hair’s face. Then she saw his eyes. Fear flickered in her like lightning.