38: The Turn of the Year
The fourth moon came in slowly.
Heizi could not, for the first ten days of it, point at any one morning and say *the season has turned*. The turn was not a single morning. The turn was the slow accumulating change of small things. The light at the noon was smaller. The shadows from the lean-to's eastern post fell, by midmorning, two finger-widths shorter than they had fallen at the same hour two weeks before. The brush at the lower edge of the small flat place — the small upper-hills oak Tie-zhu had been watching since the second moon — had begun, on the upper sides of certain leaves, to take the small bright red the lame boy had said it would take. The wind, by the second hour after the noon on certain afternoons, came in cool from the northwest in long slow rolls that had not been there in the third moon.
By the third week of the fourth moon, the small running spring at the back of the rock face was running, by a small specific amount, slower than it had been; the small still surface in the small clay catch-basin Tie-zhu had built at the second moon was, in the early mornings, glassy-cold to the hand in a way it had not been in summer. The hares were heavier in the snares. Their fur was beginning to show the first small intermittent grey of the autumn coat.
The country was turning.
By the fourth week, Heizi understood — in the small unhurried way of the upper hills — that the work of the camp was no longer the small daily shape of summer. It was now the work of preparing.
He sat with the brothers, on the morning of the fourth week, at the small fire ring's banked low fire — back at the front of the lean-to, where they had moved the fire ring three weeks ago when the lower contour had been, by all reasonable measure, clear of the band. He laid out the small accumulating arithmetic he had been working out in his head.
"Brothers."
They looked up.
"By the fifth moon, the cold begins. By the seventh moon, the snow comes. We need — by my reckoning — to do four kinds of work between now and the fifth."
He counted them off on his fingers.
"First — the roof. The lame brother said two months ago that the lean-to would not hold the first heavy snow. He said we would think about it in the third moon. We did not. We are thinking about it now. The lame brother will tell us what is needed."
Tie-zhu nodded.
"Second — meat. We have been eating fresh hare every other day. We will not, in the seventh moon, find hares at the snares; the hares go down to the lower country and dig in. We need to dry meat. Dried hare keeps four or five months in a dry lean-to, by what I have seen in the village. We need to take, in the next two months, perhaps thirty hares — and we need to dry them properly. The smith's son and I will lay a second snare-line on the western face of the long low ridge."
Wang Er nodded.
"Third — gathering. The lame brother will know, by what he has been watching, what the upper hills give in the fourth and fifth moons. There are nuts in the lower country, perhaps. There are roots — the *yu-ma* roots Cao Ergou had in his soup, and others I do not know — in certain wet places. There are dried mushrooms that the country dries on its own at this season, if you find them at the right rocks. We will gather as much as our small bundles can carry."
Tie-zhu, without speaking, had taken out a small piece of pine bark from inside the lean-to and was — already, with the small pointed stick he kept at his belt for such things — sketching, on the bark, a small rough list of what could be gathered. He did not speak. He sketched.
"Fourth — wood. We need to lay enough split firewood, at the back of the lean-to, to take us through the seventh and the eighth moons. By my reckoning, that is eight piles like the one we have laid at the fire ring's side now. The smith's son's hands are best for the splitting. I will gather and carry. The lame brother — the lame brother has the foot to consider, and the joinery for the roof to lay. He will not split."
Wang Er nodded.
"And — and one more thing."
"Yes, brother."
"Salt."
"Salt."
"We have, in the eastern-pine hermit's twist, perhaps two months of salt at the small portion we have been using. We will run out, by the sixth moon, if we do not find more. There is no salt in the upper hills. Salt comes up from the lower country, by peddlers. We have not seen a peddler — except the unseen one of the *人* mark on the second stream's pine — in three months."
He paused.
"We will need to make do. The lame brother has spoken, in the second moon, of a small brackish spring at the lower contour east of us — *yes, lame brother, you remember; you said the small grey reeds at it were of the kind you had seen in your uncle's saltpan once when he was a young man.* We will go, in the next two weeks, on a small careful trip down to that spring, and we will see if there is a way to take a small portion of salt out of it. The smith's son knows fire. I know patience. The lame brother knows the spring. The three of us, perhaps, can boil down a small pot of brackish water and get a small handful of salt."
Wang Er thought.
"Brother. The lower contour."
"Yes."
"That is — that is below the band's line."
"It is. That is why I have not gone there in three months. The trip will be — by the small careful planning — perhaps three days, with two of us and one staying at the camp. The lame brother stays. The smith's son and I go. We go by the western face of the long low ridge, down through the brush. The contour does not have, by my last looking from the saddle's lip a week ago, any further sign of the band. They went west at the third moon and have not come back. The lower contour is, by the small old measure of an upper-hills band, country they have already worked through; they will not return for some seasons."
"And if they do."
"Then we are two boys with one hammer and one knife on a brackish spring on a lower contour and we are dead. I am — I am asking, brother. Is this the right small plan."
Wang Er thought for a long beat.
"It is a small plan with a large hand of risk. The brackish spring is not — not certainly there. The lame brother has only the small word of his uncle from a young man's seeing."
"Yes."
"But salt, brother."
"Yes."
"By the sixth moon — the lame brother's foot through the cold wet of autumn without salt in the small portion — that is a foot that does not heal."
"Yes."
"And the dried meat — meat without salt does not dry well; it goes rancid by the second month."
"Yes."
"All right, brother. I will go with you. The lame brother stays."
Tie-zhu, at the small bark sketch, did not protest.
The lame boy had — by the small four-month accumulation of the road — accepted the small specific accommodation that had been made for him. The bad foot was the bad foot. The country was the country. The brothers were the brothers. The lame boy did not, at this small fire, ask to be sent on a hard trip to a brackish spring on a lower contour. He nodded.
"I will hold the camp."
"Yes, lame brother. We will be three days. The first day down, the second day at the spring, the third day back. By the fourth dawn we will be at the camp."
"Yes."
That afternoon, the work of the four kinds began.
Tie-zhu, at the slab of grey stone, drew on the small bark sketch the small specific drawing of what he wanted for the roof's winter strengthening. He drew it by lamplight after dusk, slowly, the way an apprentice drew a small new piece for the first master's seeing. He drew the small additional layer of pine bark across the central span. He drew the small additional bracing — a small set of three transverse poles, set at the small specific angle of *just below the central span's natural sag-line*, which the bark would, in three years' time, have begun to take. He drew the small additional fitting at the eastern lashing's lower seam. He drew, at the western corner, a small additional weather-piece — a small overhanging flat of pine bark to catch the small rolling sweep of the northwest wind that, at the second moon's storm, had been the wind pattern most likely to push water under the lower seam.
He showed the sketch to Heizi at the noon of the next day.
Heizi looked at it.
He had — in the past four months — begun to read drawings in the way he had been beginning to read characters: slowly, by the small accumulating pattern of small specific marks. The lame boy's drawing was, in the small specific way of a young apprentice's drawing, careful in every line. The transverse braces were drawn at the small specific angle the lame boy intended; the small additional bark layer was drawn with the small overlap visible; the small western weather-piece was drawn with the small angle of attack that, in the third-moon storm, had been the angle the wind had come at the corner.
Heizi nodded.
"Lame brother."
"Yes."
"It is — it is the right drawing."
"Thank you, big brother."
"What do you need from us."
Tie-zhu paused.
"For the transverse braces — three more saplings of the kind we cut for the posts. From the lower edge. The smith's son and the big brother could cut them at the third hour after noon, if the day is clear. For the additional bark — perhaps fifteen pieces of the size of a man's shoulder, from the older pine on the western face of the long low ridge, where the bark sloughs at the third moon. The smith's son knows that pine; he can cut them in two days. For the western weather-piece — a single piece of bark, but a wide one, perhaps two arms wide. There is a single old pine at the lower edge by the small spring of the eastern saddle, where I saw a piece of bark, last month, that was the right shape. The big brother could go down for it tomorrow."
He paused.
"That is what I need."
Heizi looked at him.
He had not — in his life — heard the lame boy give a list of small specific items, in this small specific way, except for the lean-to's first building two months ago. The lame boy had been quiet. The lame boy had carved. The lame boy had healed. The lame boy had not, until now, *asked for things.*
The lame boy was — in the small specific change Heizi noted and filed — beginning to work as a man working a piece, who could ask his brothers for the materials.
He nodded.
"Lame brother. We will get them."
"Thank you, big brother."
The work went on.
Wang Er, on the next two days, cut the additional bark from the older pines on the western face. He cut slowly. Each piece, when laid down on the slab beside the lean-to, was the size and the angle the lame boy had drawn. The smith's son had — by the small accumulated specific authority of a smith's son who had, by listening to the lame boy's drawings, become the lame boy's small specific assistant — begun, in the past months, to cut bark not as a man cutting fuel but as a man cutting the small specific material a young master had asked for.
Heizi went down, the next day, alone, to the small spring of the eastern saddle to cut the wide piece of bark for the western weather-piece. He went with the militia knife and the small cord. He went carefully — through the brush, low, with the small specific listening for any sound that the lower country east might be sending up.
There was no sound.
He found the old pine — at the small flat place at the foot of the eastern saddle's lower slope, where the lame boy had said it would be. He found, on its eastern face, the wide piece of bark — perhaps two arms wide, in the small accumulating curl of an old pine that had been losing its lower bark for a year. He cut it, slowly, with the militia knife. He laid it across his shoulder. He came back up.
He came back at the dusk of the same day.
The lame boy, at the slab, looked at the wide piece of bark for a long beat. He turned it in his hands. He set it on the slab.
"Big brother."
"Yes."
"It is — it is the piece."
"Yes."
"It will fit."
"Yes."
He nodded.
"We will — we will start the roof work in three days. The smith's son needs another two days for the rest of the bark. By the noon of the third day, we will have everything. We will lay the new roof in two days. By the fifth dawn, the roof will be ready."
"Yes, lame brother."
That night Heizi took the second watch.
He sat at the front of the lean-to. The wind, on this night, was a thin steady cool from the northwest. The small banked fire at the front had been laid down to a small live coal. Tie-zhu, in the lean-to, had laid out the wide piece of bark on the slab outside, weighted with two flat stones at the corners, against the small thin curl of the bark settling overnight before the cutting tomorrow.
Heizi listened.
The shape of the silence on this night was a different shape than it had been at any night since the lean-to was built. It was a shape that had — by the small specific accumulating sense Heizi was learning — *autumn* in it. The owls were the owls of the upper hills, but their calls came in the small specific clearer cool air of a fourth-moon night that had not, perhaps, more than three weeks before the first frost came. The wind in the upper pines had a small thinner edge. The small spring at the back of the rock face ran a small slower run.
He listened.
He filed *autumn.*
He thought, briefly — for the first time in many weeks — of the village.
He thought of the autumn at the village. He thought of the small old persimmon tree at the southwest corner of the lower field, beginning, in the fourth moon, to put out its first colored fruit; the small green-orange of the early persimmons, hanging at the tips of the bare branches that had, in the spring, been bare for his sister to hang from. He thought of the small accumulating gathering of small things in his foster father's house — the small jars of pickled cabbage Mei-er had laid down in the second moon, the small twists of dried bean curd Old Zhang had hung from the rafters at the autumn, the small stacks of split kindling at the back of the kitchen, the small folded blankets Mei-er had brought down from the chest at her foot for the first cool nights.
He thought of the small careful work of the small old household at the turning of the year.
He understood — sitting at the front of the lean-to in the small thin moonlight of the fourth moon's third week — that he was, at the small flat place behind the long low ridge in the upper hills, doing the small careful work of a small new household.
He had not been — until tonight — quite seeing it that way.
The lean-to, with the lame boy's small careful joinery and the smith's son's small bark and his own small carrying. The small banked fire ring. The small twig perimeter line in the village's bean-field method. The small running spring at the back of the rock face. The small clay catch-basin. The small pile of split kindling at the western corner of the lean-to. The small running of the day from the second cock to the noon to the late afternoon to the dusk. The four kinds of work he had laid out at the morning fire — roof, meat, gathering, wood — that were, in the small specific shape of an upper-hills household, the four kinds of work a peasant family did in the fourth moon to lay down the year against the winter to come.
He was a peasant son.
He was, in the upper hills, the head — by the small unintended choosing of the road — of a small peasant household of three. The head's work was the work he had been doing for four months. The work was the work.
He had not, until this watch, seen it as such.
He filed it.
He filed it in the small lighter catalog, the one he had been keeping since the storm — the small new lighter catalog of moments. *The work of the small household in the small flat place at the turning of the year.*
He did not — at the watch — let the filing become a long sentence in his head.
He let it sit.
He listened.
The wind, at the third hour of the watch, shifted to a small cooler northwest. He felt it on the back of his neck. He understood, by the small specific feel of it — the small thin cool that had a small almost-bite in it, that the lame boy would, by tomorrow morning, name as *the first frost will be perhaps two weeks; perhaps three* — that the country was, by the small unhurried measure of the upper hills, on a small accelerating slope toward winter.
He did not — at the watch — feel the small accelerating slope as fear.
He felt it as the small specific announcement of a specific work to do.
The four kinds.
He sat his watch.
In the morning, before the second cock, he laid the morning's banked fire fresh. He laid out the small portions of the millet. He woke Wang Er. He woke Tie-zhu.
The day's work began.
The lame boy, after the morning's small portion, took up the small wide piece of bark at the slab and began, in the bright morning, to cut the small careful angles of the western weather-piece. Wang Er went up the western face of the long low ridge to cut the next eight pieces of bark. Heizi, with the empty hempen sack from the bundle, went down at the noon to the small marshy place along the spring's lower flow, where Tie-zhu had identified the small grey reeds — and from the small grey reeds, by the small specific reading the lame boy had given him, he cut a small bundle of them at the base, slowly, with the militia knife.
The reeds, by the lame boy's instruction, were to be the small thatching layer that would, between the additional bark and the original roof, take the small thin runnels of melt-water in the seventh moon and keep them off the small original bark.
He carried the bundle back up to the camp.
The lame boy looked at the bundle. He nodded.
The day went on.
By dusk, the small accumulating work of the four kinds had laid down its first day's mark. The slab was full of the lame boy's cut pieces. The kindling pile at the corner was a fraction higher. The hempen sack of small grey reeds sat by the lean-to's south face, drying.
The country was turning.
The small flat place was being made ready.
Heizi took the first watch with the small new sense, in his chest, of a young head of household who had — for the first time in his life — laid out the small four kinds of an autumn's work, and had been heard, and had been acted on, and had begun the small accumulating work of bringing a small household through to the next spring.
The work was the work.