by Win Blevins
Will walking the wrong direction fool them? She smiled to herself, and touched the knife handle in her waistband. If not, I must be ready.
Then her mind spun. How fierce am I? How much of the spirit of Mahakala do I have? She did not permit herself to frame consciously her main fear about this deceptive route. It was toward the Mormons. Porter Rockwell lived among the Mormons. She fingered her scar. He will know me by this.
She touched the brim of her felt hat nervously. Salt Lake is the best way. They’ll be looking for a woman, not a man. And they rape women, not men.
She glided like a shadow to the boards beneath the pile of kindling. Tarim always kept kindling next to the stove, even now that the weather was warming and they didn’t always build a morning fire to take the mountain chill off. Not for weeks had Sun Moon figured out that the floor puncheons there came up, and one of Tarim’s hiding places was underneath. A quarter moon ago she had opened the hiding place at this hour, and found gold, bags of dust and coin.
Quietly she stacked the kindling in a neat pile to one side. When she had the bags out, she faced her first decision as a thief—dust or coins? With a deep breath she decided on coins. With dust most storekeepers cheated you—Tarim grew his fingernails very long so he would wedge dust in them when he handled it. How much? Earlier she had thought fifty dollars, what a Chinese miner earned in three moons. But…
She had to eat. She had to pay for the stagecoach from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, and the passage from there to China. Tarim had complained several times that he had spent a thousand dollars to bring her across the ocean.
The more she took, though, the angrier Tarim would get. The more she took, maybe, the harder the sheriff of Hard Rock City and all the other sheriffs between here and San Francisco would look for her.
Tarim, would you be angry as a demon if I didn’t take a penny? Would the law chase a woman of the Middle Kingdom just as hard for two cents as two hundred dollars?
Dr. Harville had told her how it worked. The master charged that the escaped servant was a thief. The law brought the servant back. The master posted bail, took the servant, and dropped the charges.
I will not be coming back.
She wondered if Tarim would tell the white men to kill her if necessary. She thought he would. He loved his pride even more than his money.
She counted ten of the ten-dollar gold pieces into her hand. I cannot do it. She put all but one coin back. She replaced the puncheons and stacked the wood as she had found it. Faith, she told herself. Stagecoach? Ship? Faith.
She walked like a phantom behind the counter of the store and got a sack full of barley and dried meat to go with it. She didn’t like the dried meat—jerky, they called it—but it would last. At least she would have tsampa, the food of her own people.
She hesitated. Finally she opened the case containing the derringer, what Tarim called the ladies’ gun. It had two barrels, two shots. She picked it up, held it, felt of it. The metal was cold. Sun is Moon. Death is life.
She put the gun in the waistband of her pants.
She slid to the back door, barely opened it, and looked out the crack. Maybe this isn’t the time. When would the whores find Tarim? How much of a start would she have?
She shook her head hard. This is the time. Go!
A thin arc of silver gleamed in the sky, like the edge of a sword, pure, bright, and terrible.
I am afraid. Tarim said the wagons took a quarter moon to come from Salt Lake City. It will take me a full moon to walk.
Would she get lost? Would she starve? Would the sheriff catch her? She was a thief, with that gold coin hidden in her knapsack. Would some white man kill her casually for sport?
She had planned as best she could. She would walk on the wagon road, but only at night. During the day she would hide in the sagebrush, eat, sleep. Can I really walk all the way to the Salt Lake? So far, so hard. Though she’d spent her childhood on horses in Tibet, she wouldn’t ride—that would look far too suspicious for an Asian.
She breathed the night air in deep. For another long moment she permitted herself to think of home. Tibet. Her convent. Her studies. Her bed. Her peace, her freedom from violence. All lost, lost forever.
She stepped into her room for the last time. She had drilled a hole through the altar box and run a leather thong through it. Now she hung the altar around her neck and under her arm, like a monk, wore a reliquary box. In the box was cedar, and a little butter for torma. It felt lumpy under her arm, but comforting.
She stepped out into the darkness.
All night she walked through the brush, parallel to the trail. Before starting she had quailed at the thought of the darkness, the shrubbery, the animals, the shadows, the uncertain footing. Now, in fact, she felt calm. After her eyes adjusted, the moon lit the way well enough. The sagebrush was easy to walk through, the road in plain view to her left. Sometimes her shoulders protested against the weight of the pack. Sometimes a patch of giant sagebrush seemed dark and frightening. Sometimes she wondered about small noises out in the brush. But the terrors of the wilderness were less than the terrors of Tarim’s household. She breathed in and out. Occasionally it seemed that her chest might relax, her throat open. But not yet. Not safe yet.
At dawn she spread her coat behind some rocks, covered herself with her nun’s robes, and slept. At midday she ate. For the rest of the day she watched the trail. Some traffic moved northwest toward Hard Rock City, none southeast. That night she walked through the brush again. When she saw no one following her, she decided to keep walking at night, but on the trail.
That was her pattern. Walk all night. At dawn, sleep, exhausted. About noon build a fire, make tea, and eat tsampa. Spend the afternoon in meditation, or in prayers to Mahakala. Day by day, it seemed to get easier.
Touching the altar box with one hand while walking helped her keep her mind off what she asked herself. The questions were relentless as her footsteps:
Are they looking for me on the Oregon Road? Or this trail?
Who is after me? Where? Ahead or behind?
What beasts are out there in the dark?
Have I wandered onto the wrong trail?
How many more days? How many more weeks?
Will I starve?
By the time of the three-quarter moon she saw that she would starve. The jerky was gone, the tsampa nearly gone. If I must choose between going hungry and making food offerings to Mahakala, I will go hungry.
She was well into the part of Idaho Territory dominated by the Mormons, maybe even in what the map called Utah Territory. She knew little about Mormons except that they and the Americans disliked each other. The Mormons called other Americans “gentiles,” and the gentiles mockingly called them “saints.” No one knew much about how Mormons would treat Chinese people, because Chinese people flocked to mining camps, away from the Mormon city by the Salt Lake.
I know how Porter Rockwell would treat me.
The sky was beginning to get light—the road rising to a crest ahead of her was beginning to glow. Time to get off the road, time to sleep. She turned uphill through the sagebrush.
At the top she found a flat place between the bushes to spread her coat. Just before she lay down, she saw it far ahead, a settlement. Her mind jumped with excitement. She made tea and ate while she thought it over.
I must buy barley and butter.
It’s too risky.
What’s riskier than starving?
I’m so afraid.
The first time she woke up she knew. I will go into that town and buy food. Sleep more, meditate, eat again, and then go in. In the late afternoon, if I have to flee, I will be closer to the darkness. Mahakala, lend me your strength.
“Help you?” said the fat woman behind the counter of Coleman’s Mercantile.
Sun Moon felt a thrill of fear. The woman’s voice sounded suspicious. Will they arrest me? The woman hadn’t addressed her as “Sir.” Was that because the woman saw through her disguise? Or
because Asians didn’t deserve respect?
She lowered her voice as much as she could. “Barley, please, ten pounds.”
The woman nodded curtly.
Sun Moon knew the words from clerking. “And butter.”
The woman looked at her queerly. Barley and butter? But she didn’t ask that. “How many pounds?”
Sun Moon held up one finger, not wanting to risk her feminine voice again. She held out the sack she stole from Tarim’s store to put the barley in. The woman weighed it in the scales.
“Please take your finger off the scale.”
“Yes, Sir!” said the clerk sarcastically.
Sun Moon almost giggled with pleasure. She avoided looking the woman in the eye, though—she could feel the anger. She wondered whether the woman routinely cheated most customers, or only strangers, or only yellow, red, brown, and black people. Tarim cheated everyone, and his methods were more subtle than pulling at the scale with a finger.
The clerk didn’t try it again with the butter.
She paid with her ten-dollar gold piece. When the woman hesitated, Sun Moon said softly, “Five dollars and fourteen bits.”
Suddenly she realized she was speaking in a high voice. She lowered it dramatically. “Please.”
The clerk looked off into a corner irritably as she handed over the change.
Provisions on her back, Sun Moon went tentatively to the front door. Through the glass she could see intense sunlight outside. For the moment she liked the shadows inside the store, which protected her like the night. But the woman may challenge me or turn me in at any moment.
Touching her altar box lightly, she threw the door open and stepped through.
“A-mo!” she rasped. Oh no!
She stepped back so fast she almost fell over her own feet.
The sheriff. Sheriff Conlan of Hard Rock City was walking his mount down the middle of the street, leading a pack horse. The droop of his long mustache gave his mouth a cruel look, and his eyes looked slightly amused. He would look amused, she thought, when he hanged people.
Did he see me?
Sun Moon looked around for an escape. All she saw was the clerk glaring at her with suspicion. No help.
She looked back outside. Conlan was riding on. Past the livery, past the land office, past the hotel. Wait. He turned his horse to the rail in front of the jail, dismounted, and went in.
Did he see me? Her knees shook. She twisted the altar box on its thong.
No Asian people in the street. I am a white yak in a herd of black yaks.
Feeling like she was stepping off a cliff, she opened the door and strode onto the boardwalk. Mahakala, help me, teach me, protect me.
No shouts, no steps, no hoofbeats.
She turned into the alley at the side of the mercantile. Out of sight.
She walked fast to the end of the alley, followed a rail fence toward the other end of town, looked around to make sure she wasn’t seen, climbed over the rails, and ran into the sagebrush.
Then it struck her. Sheriff Conlan was going the wrong way. He had been riding through the main street south to north, not north to south. He’s given up. He’s going back.
No, she told herself. Maybe he’s just riding around today, or just coming back a little. But she didn’t think so. He and his horse looked like they’d put in a long day, many miles. Maybe he’s hired someone ahead to look for me. She had heard of bounty hunters among the Americans. Did Tarim offer a reward?
She found a hillock, sat far down in the sagebrush, and watched. She was safer not moving around now anyway. After dark she would use the road and hurry south.
Thunder boomed. She shivered. The mountain behind her was covered dark with clouds. She shivered again. Good, she told herself. I will walk in the storm and they will stay warm and dry inside.
After perhaps ten minutes Conlan and another man came out of the jail and went into the hotel. After about another hour Conlan got his horse and rode out of town north. He’s headed back to Hard Rock City.
She took breath in sharply, and the air hurt her lungs.
Do not be deceived. Hunters are tracking you.
CHAPTER FIVE
1
The waters of the river lapped at me, and I heard myself singing and whistling at once. Impossible. I was tickled by the impossibility. As I started to smile, I heard the music rise …
I felt my throat frozen, my lips limp, my voice box quiet. Yet my ears swelled with the sound of my own whistling and my own singing. Besides …
Now I hear it. My voice was a woman’s, or a child’s, or an angel’s, or all of those at once. It was also trumpets and flutes, a choir of violins, and the cries of birds.
All these sounds were ones I made, except for one single sound, the thump of the drum. It beat underneath, so low you couldn’t hardly hear it, yet it was the center of things, like the hearts of all the birds beating as one.
Suddenly my soul was borne up on the voices of the birds. I spread my wings and flew. I glided, I soared, I ringed my way up the sky in great circles. The wind beneath my wings was music, sacred and profane at once, beautiful and ugly and beyond all in its glory.
When I got halfway to the sun, I turned and looked back at the earth. The air was getting cold, the music distant, the light pale and brittle. I wanted the warmth of earth, and the company of creatures. Slowly I floated back toward the planet.
I luxuriated in the symphony of song. It was mine and not mine. Though I did not make the sounds, the skin of my body, the hairs of my head hummed with them. I was making supreme music—beautiful, celestial music. Occasionally I detected words, but the language was unknown to me, beautiful and euphonious but unknown. I knew only that the words were pure as an echoing fountain, and true as the voice of an oracle.
I am singing with the voice of the birds, and of the sky, and of the river.
Somehow I knew that the meaning in the songs was the spirit of the birds, the spirit of flowing air, and the spirit of flowing water. I knew this absolutely, beyond knowing. It was mine as my breath was mine, my lungs, my blood. At the same time it belonged to all creatures, to the river, to the winds, to the divine.
I sang the song, or it sang me, during one moment that was all of
time and all of
eternity.
I drifted …
A thought came at me. This music is only an echo of what I heard under the waters.
I drifted …
I felt a rock-rock-rocking, world-rocking.
Shifting, swaying, stirring, floating …
Light creeping in.
Gentling, easing, breathing …
Warmth creeping in.
Sun on face.
Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe deep in, breathe deep
out.
From the flux into time and space.
Eyeballs moving. Head rolling.
From sky to earth.
From flying to resting.
Resting on the earth again, I lay still. I felt the sand with my back, my arms, my feet, my neck and head. I felt the cold water on my back and the cool air on my front. I knew where I was—lying face-up in maybe an inch of the Bear River. I remembered how the river came for me, the river swept me away, the river took over my spirit and my life.
At this moment I felt as clear as I had ever felt in this mortal existence. I could feel the sand under my back, even the individual grains. I could feel—praise be!—the sun on my face and body. I could feel the hairs of my head waving in the water. I knew the water was cold, and my skin was shriveling. I would want to get up soon, to rise from the waters. It was not time, not yet.
I opened my eyes to the world, the ordinary world. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
I took air into my lungs. I remembered how the waters claimed me. I remembered my longing for air. Then I remembered a light, the whitest light imaginable. I breathed into that holy light and then …
Music. Music f
lowing as infinitely as waters flow, as winds blow. Sometimes it was song, and I did not know the words.
Now I tried to remember the words. It was a language I did not know.
My mind sank back. Fetched up on this sand, in this sunlight, in this gently lapping water, in this air, I began to hear the sounds of the ordinary world again, beautiful sounds, the shushing of waters, the soughing of wind, the brushing of leaves. Beautiful music.
2
Warmth.
Earth, holding me. Earth warming me.
I stirred. I wiggled. My body melted into the warmth.
“Are you all right?”
A voice, not a musical voice, just a plain, ordinary voice. I smiled. It was a woman’s, and very peculiar. I smiled bigger. Maybe all the ordinary voices of the world would sound peculiar to me, now and forever.
I opened my eyes. I cast my everyday sight about. I rolled my head. With effort I brought into focus …
A Chinawoman’s face.
I grinned. Whoopee! The world has gone mad! My funny bone was tickled.
Her face was one inch from mine. Right then, seeing her too close to focus on, it started to happen, this feeling.
Strange. I could feel her arms around me, too. School words came to me—“O brave new world.”
“Are you all right?”
A Chinawoman holding me. The feeling was getting its engine started.
I forced my mind back to right then. Did I pass through the hard earth and come up on the other side? I had to chuckle at that. Did I bring her back? Or was I in China?
She lowered me gently back to the sand. We looked at each other. She untangled herself and sat back. The feeling was big now.