just another bird.
It was then he began to think the bridge might never end—that he would ride forever through the fog.
And what about food? I can’t go off in those marshes to hunt. I would be stuck. And Horse, what of him if I have to run?
The road will end. And if not, I will turn back and go the long way around the bay.
The thought of having to ride back through the eerie stillness at night did little to comfort him, and for a long time he rode on until at last the bridge began to rise back onto dry land.
See, I had nothing to be afraid of, right, Sergeant?
Chapter 36
They worked in the small bay. They were tall and brown skinned like the Chinese of Auburn.
The day had turned cold and gray.
For a long time the Boy stood with Horse, watching them from the dusty road. In time they became aware of him and began to gesture to one another regarding him. Still, they continued to work with their long rakes, sweeping beneath the cold dark water of the bay. Out in the deep water beyond, whitecaps were beginning to form.
I thought I might find the Army here, Sergeant.
His voice had gone now. It had left him in the fog of the bridge over the marsh.
No, it was before that. It was when he saw the open graves and the bones within.
Maybe the knowledge of what happened to I Corps finally killed you, Sergeant. Killed you in a way death could not. Killed the mission you left me to finish.
In time they came in from the water, rolling down their pant legs and donning leather-skinned long jackets trimmed with sheep’s wool. A man, older than most, but not the oldest he’d seen, waded out through the tall grass to the road and climbed the embankment to where the Boy sat atop Horse.
Standing in front of the Boy, he said something in Chinese.
He repeated it.
The Boy shook his head.
The man was weathered like the sides of their clapboard shacks.
The Weathered Man stared off toward the bay for a long time. His face was tight and brown, his cheeks red like apples. He watched the dry brown and gray shacks of their farm.
‘He is wondering what to do with me,’ thought the Boy.
The Weathered Man turned and walked down the embankment, and as an afterthought waved his hand at the Boy, as if he should come along with him.
There was a fire pit outside a long weathered barn that reached out into the gray waters of the bay. The rakes were stacked neatly against the side of the old building.
The Weathered Man drove a stake into the ground for Horse and returned shortly with hay. He laid it down in front of Horse and reached up to caress the long nose, muttering softly in Chinese once more.
He pointed toward a worn long table near the water’s edge and the fire for the Boy to sit at.
A giant blackened grill was placed over the fire and then piles of green wet seaweed atop the grill. Salty, white smoke rose up in billows. The rest of the people worked at cleaning small, flat stones they’d brought in wide baskets up from the waters of the bay.
Rough clay plates and cups were set out. There was fresh hot bread and a stone crock of creamy butter, another of red sauce, and another of a pungent dark liquid that smelled of fish and salt.
The wind rose up off the bay in breezy gusts. The Boy’s left side was stiff, and he massaged what he could to work life back into the thin muscles of that side.
More of the Chinese appeared, coming from inland, setting down rakes and hoes to go down to the bay and wash their hands in the stinging cold water.
More round loaves of crusty bread were set out, as the flat stones that had been brought up from the bay went onto the grill.
‘They eat stones?’ thought the Boy, who had seen many different people eat many strange things.
The Weathered Man watched the fire dully, his eyes far away as he stood over the grill with a short rake, moving the stones about.
Shortly, the stones came off the grill and were thrown onto the long flat table. More stones were laid upon the grill and the Chinese sat down, each grabbing at a stone and prying off a hidden lid. Then they raised their stones to their mouths and slurped. They threw the stones into a basket and each of them reached for the next stone, this time adding either the red sauce or the dark liquid smelling of fish and salt, or even the creamy butter, and in some cases a bit of one or the other, and for a few, all three.
The Weathered Man sat down on the bench next to the Boy and looked at him and then the stones. The Weathered Man took one, cracked the lid and slurped, watching the Boy.
The Boy reached out and took one. He peeled back the lid with difficulty, as his withered hand was required to hold the stone. Inside he found the oyster, gray and steaming, swimming in liquid. He ate it, feeling it slide into his mouth and then explode in warm saltiness as he chewed its meat. He looked into the shell where the oyster had once been and found a pearl-colored base swirling white and gray.
It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his short and very hard life.
They ate more oysters and bread. A few talked. The Boy tried the red sauce. It burned slowly and made him sweat at even the few drops he’d added to the oyster using a knife-shaped tool kept in the stone crock.
‘It’s too hot,’ he thought of the sauce.
Afterward, as the heat faded, he liked the taste it left in his mouth. It reminded him of the wild peppers they’d found in the South along the salty marshes of the State of Louisiana.
He tried the dark liquid. It had a salty, deep, satisfying flavor that was almost overripe. But when combined with the yellow butter and the heat of the cooked oyster, it was like eating a good cut of meat taken from a fresh kill, tender and young.
Of their talk he understood nothing. In time, the looks that had been cast his way ceased, as if they had assigned him a place in their world—as if he had always been there and would remain there.
The last batch of oysters was laid out and finished with almost the same zeal as the first.
Two women wearing gray clothes and bright headscarves, their faces tanned and apple cheeked, struggled together with a flat-iron-gray tub brought out from one of the clapboard shacks. The Boy heard a sound like the tinkling of bells, light and musical, as though whatever things were in the tub tapped back and forth against each other.
The tub was set down and the rest of the Chinese gathered around it, taking up bottles of every shape and size and twisting off the caps that sealed them. The bottles made a small popping hiss. They drank from the bottles, few the same color: some green, some brown, a few blues or almost clear. In the clear ones the Boy could see a pale yellow liquid, foaming near the top.
The bottles were from Before, but they had been filled with something from Now.
Later he would think of that sentence.
Especially the part about something from Now.
As if there had ever been such a thing.
The villagers drank in long pulls, then expelled a breathy “Ahhh.” There was much burping.
The Weathered Man, weathered like the clapboard shacks of the village, returned to the table, said something seemingly final in Chinese and handed a green bottle to the Boy.
The Boy took the bottle. He looked inside and could only see a few bubbles. He looked at the cap, which seemed pressed as if stamped onto the bottle. He looked at the Weathered Man.
The Weathered Man took the bottle and with a twist brought the cap off and handed it back to the Boy as foam rose out its top. The Weathered Man drank from his bottle, watching the Boy, telling him with his eyes that the Boy should do the same.
