over the frozen river, evoking creaks and groans from the steel bridge as it swayed. It was a bitterly, almost demonically, cold night, so cold that the ice kept cracking to create cobwebs over the surface of the river. The cracks were louder than gunfire. Sima Ku’s sled brigade reached the foot of the bridge and stopped at the river’s edge. Sima Ku jumped down off his sled, his backside feeling as if it had been clawed by a cat. Dim starlight made the river glimmer slightly, but the sky between the stars and the ice was so black you couldn’t see the fingers of your hand. He clapped his hands, the sound echoing around him from other clapping hands. The mysterious darkness energized and excited him. Later, when asked how he’d felt before destroying the bridge, he’d said, “Great, just like New Year’s.”
His troops groped hand in hand up to the bridge, where Sima Ku climbed onto one of the stanchions, took a pickax from his belt, and hacked away at one of the supports. Sparks flew and loud clangs rang out. “Legs of a whore!” he cursed. ” Nothing but steel.” A shooting star streaked across the sky, trailing a long tail and hissing as it filled the sky with lovely blue sparks, momentarily lighting up the space between heaven and earth. Thanks to the light of the shooting star, he had a good look at the cement stanchion and steel supports. “Technician Jiang,” he shouted, “come up here!” With a boost from his comrades, Jiang climbed onto the stanchion, followed by his young apprentice. Clumps of ice clung to the stanchion like mushrooms, and as Sima Ku reached out to take the boy’s hand, he slipped on the ice and crashed to the ground; the boy managed to stay atop the stanchion. Sima fell right on his backside, from which blood and pus had never stopped seeping out. “Oh, mother -” he screamed. “Dear mother, that hurts like hell!” His men ran up and helped him up off the ice. But that did not stop the screams of pain, screams loud enough to reach the heavens. “Elder brother,” one of them said, “you’re going to have to bear it as best you can. Don’t expose yourself.” That brought an end to the screams. As he stood there shuddering, Sima barked out an order: “Get on with it, Technician Jiang. Just make cuts in a few of them and we’ll leave. The painkilling medication that damned Sha Yueliang gave me is only making it worse.” One of his men said, “Elder brother, I think that’s what he had in mind, and you fell for it.” Sima replied testily, “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard the saying that ‘when you’re sick, any doctor will do’?” “Bear it the best you can, elder brother,” the man repeated. “I’ll take care of the problem once we get home. There’s nothing better for burns than badger oil. Works every time.”
“It’s nearly time, elder brother,” the man applying the badger oil to Sima Ku’s injured backside said. “The train is due just before dawn.” A dozen or more randomly located steel bridge supports had been cut with the torch, which was still spewing blue and white flames under the bridge. “Those fuckers are getting off easy!” Sima Ku cursed. “Are you sure the bridge will collapse under the weight of the train?” “If I cut any more, I’m afraid the bridge might collapse of its own weight before the train even reaches it.” “All right, you can come down now. As for you men,” he said to the others, “help those two hardy fellows down and reward them each with a bottle of our liquor.” The blue sparks died out. The brigade members helped Technician Jiang and his apprentice down off the stanchion and onto one of the sleds. In the darkness just before dawn, the winds died out, turning the air bone- chilling cold. The Mongol ponies pulled the sleds tentatively through the darkness across the ice. Before they’d gone a mile, Sima Ku called them to a halt. “After a hard night’s work,” he said, “it’s time to sit back and watch the show.”
The sun had barely turned the edge of the sky red when the cargo train steamed up. The river glistened, the trees on both banks were glazed with gold and silver, the steel bridge sprawled silently across the river. Sima Ku rubbed his hands nervously as curses dripped from his mouth. The train clanged menacingly as it pressed down on them; when it neared the bridge, a loud whistle resounded between heaven and earth. Black smoke spewed from the engine, white mist flew from its wheels, the grinding of steel on steel made the men shudder in fear as the icy surface of the river trembled. The brigade members watched the train fitfully, the horses’ ears pressed back against the mane on their necks. The loutish, vulgar train rushed up onto the bridge, which seemed to stand there loftish and unyielding. In a matter of seconds, the faces of Sima Ku and his men turned ashen, but seconds later, they were jumping up and down on the ice, whooping it up. Sima Ku’s joyous shouts were the loudest of all, his jumps the highest, even given the seriousness of the injuries to his backside. The bridge collapsed in a matter of seconds, sending the engine and the load of railroad ties, steel rails, sand, and mud straight down. The engine hit one of the pilings, which also collapsed. The sound was deafening as chunks of ice bathed in the morning light, along with huge rocks, twisted metal, and shattered ties, flew high into the sky. Dozens of loaded rail cars accordioned up behind the engine with a roar; some fell into the river below, others sprawled across the tracks at rakish angles. Explosions began to erupt, starting from a car carrying high explosives and followed by detonated ammunition. The icy surface of the river split open, sending the water beneath gushing upward. Mixed with the water were fish, shrimp, even some green-shelled turtles. A booted human leg landed on the head of one of the Mongol ponies, nearly knocking it senseless and causing its front legs to crumple. A wheel from the train, which weighed hundreds of pounds, crashed into the ice, raising a geyser of water that fell muddily back to the surface. Powerful waves of sound turned Sima Ku deaf as he watched the Mongol ponies run crazily across the ice, dragging their sleds behind them. The brigade troops stood or sat in a daze, dark blood seeping out of some of their ears. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, but he couldn’t hear himself; his men’s mouths were open, as if they too were shouting, but he couldn’t hear them either…
Somehow Sima Ku managed to lead his troops back to the spot on the river where they had cut holes in the ice with their blue and white flames the morning before. My second, third, and fourth sisters had come out to fetch more water and catch some fish, but the holes had frozen over during the night, as thick as a hand. Second Sister had hacked them open again with her hammer. When Sima Ku and his men reached the spot, their horses rushed up to drink from the river. In a manner of minutes, after they’d drunk their fill, they began to shudder, their legs started to twitch, and they crumpled to the ice, every one of them suddenly dead. The freezing water had ripped their expanded lungs apart.
On that early morning, every living creature in Northeast Gaomi Township – humans, horses, donkeys, cows, chickens, dogs, geese, ducks – felt the power of the explosions off to the southwest. Hibernating snakes, thinking it was thunder announcing the Insect Waking season, slithered out of their caves and immediately froze to death.
Sima Ku led his troops into the village to rest and reorganize, and was greeted by a string of the vilest curses from Sima Ting. But since everyone’s hearing had been so badly affected by the explosion, they all thought he was singing their praises – Sima Ting always had a smug, complacent look on his face when he cursed. Sima Ku’s three wives had pooled every folk remedy and type of medication they had to treat the burned and frostbitten backside of the man they shared. The first wife would apply a plaster, which the second wife would remove to wash the area with a lotion prepared with a dozen rare medicinal herbs, after which the third wife would cover it with a powder composed of crushed pine and cypress leaves, ilex root, egg whites, and seared mouse whiskers. Back and forth it went, the skin on his backside wet one minute and dry the next, until the old injuries were now joined by new ones. It reached the point where Sima Ku wrapped himself in a lined jacket with two leather belts, and the moment he saw his three wives coming his way, he raised his hatchet or cocked his rifle. But while his backside injuries remained, his hearing returned.
The first thing he heard were the angry curses of his brother: “You fucking idiot, you’ll kill every last soul in this village, you wait and see!” Reaching out with a hand that was as soft and as ruddy as his brother’s, with fleshy fingers and thin skin, he grabbed his brother by the chin. Seeing the scraggly, yellow, ratlike whiskers above his chapped upper lip, which was normally shaved clean, he shook his head sadly and said, “You and I are from the same father’s seed, so cursing me is the same as cursing yourself. Go ahead, curse, curse all you like!” He dropped his hand.
Sima Ting stood there, mouth agape, and stared at his brother’s broad back. All he could do was shake his
