repulsive I had to look away. The riverbed was as dry as a bone except for an ice-covered puddle here and there; clumps of dew-specked weeds stood on the sloped edges. The northern winds had died out; trees on the embankments stood stiff and still in the freezing air. I turned to look at Father; I could see his breath. Time seemed to stand still. Then Father said, “Here they come.”
The arrival of the execution party at the bridgehead was announced by the frantic beating of a gong and muted footsteps. Then a booming voice rang out: “Chief Zhang, Chief Zhang, I've been a good man all my life…”
Father whispered, “That's Ma Kuisan.”
Another voice, this one flat and cracking with emotion: “Chief Zhang, be merciful… We drew lots to see who would be village head; I didn't want the job… We drew lots; I got the short straw – my bad luck… Chief Zhang, be merciful, and spare my dog life… I've got an eighty-year-old mother at home I have to take care of…”
Father whispered, “That's Luan Fengshan.”
After that, a high-pitched voice said, “Chief Zhang, when you moved into our home, I fed you well and gave you the best wine we had. I even let our eighteen-year-old daughter look after your needs. Chief Zhang, you don't have a heart of steel, do you?”
Father said, “That's Ma Kuisan's wife.”
Finally, I heard a woman bellow “Wu – la – ah – ya -”
Father whispered, “That's Luan Fengshan's wife, the mute.”
In a calm, casual tone, Chief Zhang said, “We're going to shoot you whether you make a fuss or not, so you might as well stop all that shouting. Everybody has to die sometime. You might as well get it over with early so you can come back as somebody else.”
That's when Ma Kuisan announced loudly to the crowd, “All you folks, young and old, I, Ma Kuisan, have never done you any harm. Now I'm asking you to speak up for me…”
Several people fell noisily to their knees and began to plead in desperation, “Be merciful, Chief Zhang. Let them live. They're honest folk, all of them…”
A youthful male voice shouted above the noise, “Chief Zhang, I say we make these four dog bastards get down on their hands right here on the bridge and kowtow to us a hundred times. Then we give them back their dog lives. What do you say?”
“That's some idea you've got there, Gao Renshan!” Chief Zhang replied menacingly. “Are you suggesting that I, Zhang Qude, am some sort of avenging monster? It sounds to me like you've been head of the militia long enough! Now get up, fellow villagers. It's too cold to be kneeling like that. The policy is clear. Nobody can save them now, so everybody get up.”
“Fellow villagers, speak up for me -” Ma Kuisan pleaded.
“No more dawdling,” Chief Zhang cut him short. “It's time.”
“Clear out, make some room!” Several young men at the bridgehead, almost certainly members of the armed work detachment, were clearing the bridge of the kneeling citizens.
Then Ma Kuisan sent his pleas heavenward: “Old man in the sky, are you blind? Am I, Ma Kuisan, being repaid for a lifetime of good with a bullet in the head? Zhang Qude, you son of a bitch, you will not die in bed, count on it. You son of a bitch -”
“Get on with it!” Chief Zhang bellowed. “Or do you like to hear him spout his poison?”
Running footsteps crossed the bridge above us. Through cracks between the stones, I caught glimpses of the people.
“Kneel!” someone on the southern edge of the bridge demanded. “Clear the way, everybody,” came a shout from the northern edge.
The explosions bored into my eardrums and made them throb until I thought I'd gone deaf. By then, the sun had climbed above the eastern horizon, rimmed by a blood-red halo that spread to clouds looking like canopies of gigantic fir trees. A large, bulky human form came tumbling slowly down from the bridge above, cloudlike in its shifting movements; when it hit the icy ground below, it regained its natural heft and thudded to a stop. Crystalline threads of blood oozed from the head.
Panic and confusion at the northern bridgehead – it sounded to me like the frantic dispersal of villagers who had been forcibly mobilized as witnesses to the executions. It didn't sound as if the armed work detachment took out after the deserters?
Once again, footsteps rushed across the bridge from north to south, followed by the shout of “Kneel!” at the southern bridgehead and “Clear the way!” at the northern. Then three more shots – the body of Luan Fengshan, hatless and wearing a ragged padded coat, tumbled head over heels down the riverbank, first bumping into Ma Kuisan, then rolling off to the side.
After that, things were simplified considerably. A volley of shots preceded the sound and sight of two disheveled female corpses tumbling down, arms and legs flying, and crashing into the bodies of their menfolk.
I held tightly to Father's arm, feeling something warm and wet against my padded trousers.
At least a half-dozen people were standing on the bridge directly overhead, and it seemed to me that their weight was pushing the rock flooring down on top of us. Their thunderous shouts were nearly deafening: “Shall we check out the bodies, Chief?”
“What the hell for? Their brains are splattered all over the place. If the Jade Emperor himself came down now, he couldn't save them.”
“Let's go! Old Guo's wife has fermented bean curd and oil fritters waiting for us.”
They crossed the bridge, heading north, their footsteps sounding like an avalanche. The rock flooring, creaking and shifting, could have come crashing down at any moment. Or so it seemed to me.
The quiet returned.
Father nudged me. “Don't stand there like an idiot. Let's do it.”
I looked around me, but nothing made sense. Even my own father seemed familiar, but I couldn't place him.
“Huh?” I'm sure that's all I managed to say: “Huh?”
“Have you forgotten?” Father said. “We're here to get a cure for your grandmother. We have to move fast, before the body snatchers show up.”
The words were still echoing in my ears when I spotted seven or eight wild dogs, in a variety of colors, dragging their long shadows up off the riverbed in our direction; they were baying at us. All I could think of was how they had turned and fled at the first gunshot, accompanied by their own terrified barks.
I watched Father kick loose several bricks and fling them at the approaching dogs. They scurried out of the way. Then he took out a carving knife from under his coat and waved it in the air to threaten the dogs. Beautiful silvery arcs of light flashed around Father's dark silhouette. The dogs kept their distance for the time being. Father tightened the cord around his waist and rolled up his sleeves. “Keep an eye out for me,” he said.
Like an eagle pouncing on its prey, Father dragged the women's bodies away, then rolled Ma Kuisan over so he was facing up. Then he fell to his knees and kowtowed to the body. “Second Master Ma,” he intoned softly, “loyalty and filiality have their limits. I hate to do this to you.”
I watched Ma Kuisan reach up and wipe his bloody face. “Zhang Qude,” he said with a trace of a smile, “you will not die in bed.”
Father tried to unbutton Ma Kuisan's leather coat with one hand but was shaking too much to manage. “Hey, Second Son,” I heard him say, “hold the knife for me.”
I recall reaching out to take the knife from him, but he was already holding it in his mouth as he struggled with the yellow buttons down Ma Kuisan's chest. Round, golden yellow, and as big as mung beans, they were nearly impossible to separate from the cloth loops encircling them. Growing increasingly impatient, Father ripped them loose and jerked the coat open, revealing a white kidskin lining. A satin vestlike garment had the same kind of buttons, so Father ripped them loose, too. After the vest came a red silk stomacher. I heard Father snort angrily. I have to admit that I was surprised when I saw the strangely alluring clothing the fat old man – he was over fifty – wore under his regular clothes. But Father seemed absolutely irate; he ripped the thing off the body and flung it to one side. Now at last, Ma Kuisan's rounded belly and flat chest were out in the open. Father reached out his hand but then jumped to his feet, his face the color of gold. “Second Son,” he said, “tell me if he's got a heartbeat.”
I recall bending over and laying my hand on his chest. It was no stronger than a rabbit's, but that heart was still beating.
