39: The Brackish Spring

They went down for the salt at the second cock of the eighth day after the new roof was laid.

The lean-to, by the eighth day, stood — by the lame boy's quiet completed work — in its winter shape. The transverse braces were in place, the additional bark was laid in three new overlapping rows above the original three, the small grey reeds were thatched between the bark layers in the small specific way the lame boy had drawn, and the small western weather-piece was fitted at the corner where the third-moon storm had pushed the wind. The roof was, by every reading the brothers could give it, a roof that would hold a winter snow.

The three of them had stood for a long beat, in the late afternoon of the laying's last day, at the small flat in front of the south face. They had looked at the lean-to. None of them had spoken. Tie-zhu's small narrow private smile, this time, had been small enough that Heizi had only — by the smallest specific change at the corner of the eyes — known it was there. Wang Er, beside the lame boy, had not allowed himself any change of face at all. Heizi had, for one breath, allowed himself, on the small flat, the small inward pleasure of a young head of household standing in front of a roof that was not, by the small honest measure, the work of his own hands but was, by the small honest measure, the work of his brothers' hands and would, in the seventh moon, hold the snow over the three of them.

He had filed it.

The morning of the eighth day, then, they began the salt trip.

Wang Er had packed, the night before, the small bundle the trip required: the small clay pot Cao Ergou had given them, carefully wrapped in a small layer of bark to keep it from cracking on a fall; the small additional empty hempen sack for whatever they would, in the second day, scrape from the bottom of the boiled-down pot; the small flint and a small pouch of dry pine needle kindling, for the small fire at the spring; the small portion of dried hare and the small portion of the millet for two days, three meals a day, between the two of them. He had also taken the smith's hammer in its sling at the back of his coat. Heizi had — at the morning — laid the militia knife at his belt and the small whittling knife from the eastern-pine hermit at the inside of his coat, in a small specific reach of his right hand.

Tie-zhu, at the small fire, watched them pack.

"Big brother."

"Yes, lame brother."

"The contour."

"Yes."

"If you see — by the small reading of any small fresh sign on the contour — any indication that the band has come back. Or any other band. You will not — you will not press on to the spring. You will come back."

"Yes, lame brother."

"And if I — if I am needed at the camp, by any small change — I will lay a small green-wood fire at the back of the rock-face hollow. The smoke will rise. Watch the small thin column from the lower contour. If you see it — return."

Heizi nodded.

"Yes, lame brother."

Tie-zhu, at the small fire, did not say anything more.

They left.

They went down the western face of the long low ridge slowly, in single file, with Wang Er at the lead and Heizi behind. The small old herders' paths on the western face were not the paths that the band had been using; the western face's paths went down to the lower contour by a different angle, curving north and west around the foot of the long low ridge before turning south and east, in a long slow arc, to come out on the lower contour about a *li* west of the small marshy place the lame boy had described.

They walked at the careful pace.

By the noon of the first day they were on the lower contour. The country here was different from the country of the small flat place. The lower contour was the line of country that, in the upper-hills geography, sat at the level where the small streams of the upper hills first joined into a stream that, in another two days' walk west, would become the small upper headwater of one of the larger rivers of the lower country. The brush at the lower contour was thicker, and lower, and held more small water. The small old paths at the contour were — by the small specific reading Heizi had taught himself on the road — used. They were not used heavily; the country was not, here, a country of constant traffic; but the small old paths had — perhaps once a week — a small specific man's foot on them.

Heizi watched as he walked.

He saw, at the third hour of the noon, a small fresh sign that he filed with care. A small print of a sandal, in the soft mud at the edge of a small spring's overflow, perhaps four days old. The sandal was a peasant's straw sandal — not a soldier's leather. The print was a single man's. He had stopped to drink at the spring and had gone on. The direction of the print, by the small heel-and-toe alignment, was east.

A peddler, perhaps. A traveler. Not a band.

Heizi filed it. He did not — at the spring — call Wang Er's attention. The smith's son had seen the print also, at the same beat; Heizi had felt, by the small specific check in Wang Er's pace half a step ahead, that the smith's son had caught it and had decided, in his own small steady way, not to remark on it. The two of them had — by four months on the road — begun, at small details of this kind, to see in parallel without speaking.

They went on.

The small marshy place, by the lame boy's drawing on the slab two weeks ago, was a small flat place perhaps a half *li* east of the lower contour's joining of the long low ridge's stream and the small further stream coming down from the eastern ridges. It was not, in any sense, a saltpan. It was a small low place where, by the small specific reading of the lame boy two months ago, a small underground vein of brackish water came up to the surface on the eastern edge — the small grey reeds the lame boy had cut for the lean-to roof had been at the eastern edge of the marsh, where the small brackish flow seeped up.

They came to the marsh at the second hour of the late afternoon.

They stopped at the lip.

They stood for a long beat.

The small marshy place was, by the small open look of the late afternoon light, empty. There was no small sign of any other man's having been at it in many weeks. The small grey reeds on the eastern edge stood in their small thin clumps. The small brackish water at their feet — visible, on the eastern side, as a small thin mirror of the late sun — was no more than the depth of a man's hand.

They went around the marsh's eastern edge slowly, not crossing the marsh itself — the lame boy had said it was a thin marsh, with small soft bottoms in places; better to walk the lip — and came to the small brackish edge.

The water was clear and shallow. It tasted, when Wang Er knelt and took up a small palmful, of salt — not the strong salt of a sea, by what Heizi understood from small hearsay, but the small thin salt of a brackish spring, more like the salt of the village's old salt jar than the salt of a sea.

It was, by the small honest measure, a possible salt.

"Brother," Wang Er said.

"Yes."

"Five hours of boiling, perhaps. Maybe six. The pot will hold three big pours of this water, by my eye."

"Yes."

"The first pour we boil down to a quarter. Then we pour in the second. We boil it down to a quarter. Then the third. We end with — perhaps a single small handful of damp salt at the bottom, that we dry on a flat stone tomorrow morning. By the noon of tomorrow, perhaps three days' worth of salt for the lame brother's foot's bath and the household's cooking through the next month."

"Yes."

They began.

Wang Er laid the small fire at the small flat place at the back of the marsh's eastern edge — the small specific place where he had, on the way in, identified a small dry spot, sheltered from the wind, with a single overhanging slab of grey rock that would catch the small thin column of smoke and break it up before it cleared the lower contour's higher line. The fire was small. He laid it in the small careful way the smith's son laid all fires. He set the small clay pot — Cao Ergou's pot — on three flat stones in the embers. He filled the pot with the first pour of the brackish water.

The pot began to boil at the second hour of the dusk.

Heizi sat at the lip of the marsh, watching the small thin steam come up from the small clay pot in the small dim grey light. He watched the small column carefully. The column was — by the small specific shape of it under the slab of grey rock — invisible from any quadrant beyond the lower contour's first line. The smith's son had laid the fire correctly.

Heizi watched the country.

He watched the eastern. He watched the western. He watched the small further line of the lower contour going south. He watched the small higher line of the long low ridge going north — at this distance, perhaps a *li* and a half — for any sign of the small green-wood fire from the lame boy at the camp.

There was no sign. The lame boy was — by the small absence of any column at the long low ridge's western face — at his work at the camp, and was not, on this evening, calling them back.

Heizi watched.

The small clay pot boiled down the first pour by the third hour of the dusk. Wang Er, with the small whittling knife wrapped in the small bark for a handle, lifted the pot off the embers and let it sit for a quarter hour. Then he poured the small reduced quarter into a smaller wooden bowl. He set the wooden bowl, in the small dim light, beside the slab. He filled the pot with the second pour of brackish water. He set the pot back on the embers.

They worked through the night.

By the second hour of the rat, the second pour had been reduced. By the third hour of the ox, the third. By the fourth hour, all three reduced quarters had been poured back into the pot together — a single, smaller, more concentrated brackish brew. By the second cock, the brew had been further reduced to a small thick black-grey paste at the bottom of the pot.

The paste was, by the small specific look of it, salt.

Wang Er, by the small first grey of dawn, took the pot off the embers. He let it cool at the base of the slab. He scraped, with the small bark-handled whittling knife, the small thick paste off the bottom of the pot — slowly, in the small careful even strokes a smith's son brought to any final removal of any small thing from a hot pot — and laid it on a small flat stone beside the small dying fire.

He stepped back.

"Brother."

"Yes."

"That is — that is salt."

"Yes."

The paste — perhaps the size of a man's palm, more grey than white, with the small small-graininess of salt at the surface and the small wetness at the under-side — sat on the small flat stone in the dim grey of dawn.

"How much."

"By my eye — perhaps two months' worth of salt for the household, at the small portion we have been using."

Heizi nodded slowly.

He looked at the small grey heap on the stone. He thought, briefly, of the small twist of paper of salt in the eastern-pine hermit's bundle, and of the small pinch of salt the man with the lame mule had given them at the door, and of the small jar of plain salt at Wei Da-niang's bench at the hamlet of two wells. He thought of the small chipped wooden lid of the salt jar at his foster father's house. He thought of the small economy of the country's small old running of salt down the long roads from the lower country, by peddlers, in small twists of paper.

He thought: *we have made our own.*

It was not — by the small honest measure — a great making. The salt was not pure. It was grey. It would, by the small honest reading, taste sharper at the tongue than the salt of a peddler. It was, however, salt. It was salt the household had — by the small honest work of two boys at a brackish spring through a long autumn night — taken from the country itself.

He filed it.

In the small lighter catalog of moments, he set: *the small grey heap of salt on the flat stone at the dawn of the second day at the brackish spring.*

He stood up.

"Brother. We will dry it on the small stone at the noon. We will gather it into the small empty hempen sack at the second hour after the noon. We will start back at the third hour. We will be at the camp by the dusk of the third day, if the foot of the long low ridge is clear."

"Yes."

They slept, in turns, through the morning. The small flat place at the back of the marsh's eastern edge was — by every careful reading of the country — quiet. No small sign of any further man's coming or going. The salt dried, in the small clear noon light of the autumn upper-hills sun, from a wet grey paste into a small drier grey crystal.

By the third hour after noon, they had gathered it into the small empty hempen sack.

They started back.

The walk back was the walk forward in reverse — up the western face of the long low ridge, by the long slow arc of the small old herders' paths, around the foot of the ridge, up the contour of the western face. They walked at the careful pace.

By the second hour of the dusk of the third day, they came up over the lip of the small flat place behind the long low ridge.

Tie-zhu was at the front of the lean-to. He was not, on this evening, at the small slab. He was at the small fire ring, on his stool, with the small clay pot of the evening's millet on the embers. He looked up as they came over the lip.

He did not, by the small even shape of his small still face, allow any obvious change.

But Heizi understood — by the small specific way the small set of the eyes had, in the past three days, settled into a small held attention — that the lame boy had been, for three days, watching the lip and listening for the small specific sound of two pairs of straw sandals on the path.

He had been at the watch in the way a household was at the watch when its men were on a road.

"Big brother. Smith's son."

"Lame brother."

Heizi stepped down into the small flat place. He set the hempen sack of the small grey salt down beside the fire. He sat down at his place.

"There is salt."

"I see."

"Two months at the small portion."

The lame boy looked at the small sack for a long beat. He nodded.

He served the millet. They ate the small portion in the small dim grey of the dusk, with — for the first time since the second moon's small twist had run thin — a small specific pinch of the new grey salt sprinkled in.

The salt was sharper. Heizi tasted it, slowly. He understood, on the tongue, the small specific difference between a peddler's salt and a brackish salt of one's own boiling. The brackish salt had a small thin under-note of clay, of the country, of the small specific marsh from which it had come. It was not bad. It was — like the lean-to, like the small old herder's path's small bent twigs, like the small grey reeds in the roof — a small specific upper-hills thing, made by the household's own hands, that would, through the next year, mark the household's food as the household's.

He filed it.

That night, at the second hour of his watch, the wind shifted — slowly — to the north.

It came down off the long low ridge at the small steady rate of the night's first cooling, and then continued to come, and then continued to come a fraction colder. By the third hour of the watch, the small banked fire ring at the front of the lean-to gave back, on the wind, a small extra warmth that Heizi felt at his face for the first time in many nights — the warmth that, in the village in the autumn, the small old household's brazier had given back at the second hour of any cool evening.

By the third hour of the late watch, he could see — at the small clear night sky above the long low ridge — that the small thin moon was bright in a way the moon had not been in any week of summer. The small dim grey light of the moon laid, on the small flat in front of the lean-to, a clearer outline than it had been laying. The small twigs of the perimeter line stood out a small fraction sharper. The small wisps of the small banked fire's smoke were, by the small specific clarity of the cold air, more visible against the rock face behind.

He understood — slowly — that the night was, in the small specific way the upper hills announced such things, *cold*. It was not the small cool of an autumn night. It was the small cold of a night that, by the dawn, would have brought the first frost.

He sat his watch.

He let the cold come.

By the second hour before the second cock, when he passed the watch to Wang Er at the small fire, he said in the small low voice he had been speaking in:

"Brother."

"Yes."

"It will be the first frost in the morning."

"Yes."

"The roof — the new roof — is laid in time."

"Yes."

"We have salt."

"We have salt."

Wang Er sat down at his watch. Heizi went into the lean-to. He lay down on the dry pine needles, beside the lame boy's small even sleeping breath. He pulled the wadded coat over himself.

The lean-to, in the small first cold, held the small body warmth of the brothers and was, by the small specific work of the lame boy's joinery and the smith's son's bark and the small careful thatching of the small grey reeds, dry and warm enough that the small first cold of the night did not, on this night, reach the small dry pine needles at the floor.

Heizi closed his eyes.

He slept.

In the morning, before the second cock, when he came out of the lean-to into the small grey of the dawn, the small flat in front of the lean-to was white.

The grass at the perimeter line was white.

The small flat slab of grey stone at the western edge — Tie-zhu's work-slab — was white.

The small lower edge of the brush, at the foot of the small flat place, was white.

The first frost had come.

Heizi stood in the small grey dawn light and looked at the small white-frosted small flat place that had, in five months, become the small old camp.

He did not — at the dawn — speak.

He filed it.

He went, slowly, to the rock-face hollow's banked fire, and laid in the small first kindling of the morning, and breathed on the small live coal under the ash, and brought up the small first morning fire of the autumn.

The smoke went up against the rock and was lost in the small bright cold air of the upper hills, and the small white frost on the small flat in front of the lean-to began, by the small slow heat of the small morning fire, to thaw at its eastern edge into the small dark wet of a waking country.

The country had turned.

Winter was, by the small specific reading of every sign, perhaps three weeks off. Perhaps two. The lean-to was ready. The salt was in the household. The split kindling at the back was at four piles, not eight; they would need, in the next three weeks, to lay four more. The dried hare in the small thatched rack the lame boy had built at the western corner was thirteen, not thirty; they would need more.

The work was not done. The work was never done in the autumn. But the work was the work.

He sat at the small first morning fire, with the small frosted breath of his own, and the brothers, by the small careful small even sound of waking inside the lean-to, were beginning to come up.

The day's work began.