44: The Eastern-Face Line

The second snare-line was laid on the eastern face of the long low ridge in the third week of the eighth moon.

Wang Er and An Ashi went up at the second cock of the first day. They went up alone — Heizi and Tie-zhu staying at the camp, Heizi at the western face's existing line, Tie-zhu at the slab inside the lean-to with a small piece of pine he was carving for a small new water-stoppered jar that the camp had begun, in the past week, to need. The eastern face was the face the sun rose against in the morning; the brush there was thinner than on the western, the snow at the ground less; the small specific hare-runs there had been — by Tie-zhu's small careful watching at certain mornings of the past month — at the small lower edge near the eastern end of the ridge, where the ridge dropped down into the small further country east.

The lame boy had drawn, on a small piece of pine bark the night before, the small specific places he wanted the line set.

He had drawn slowly. He had drawn in the small accumulating manner of a young naturalist's specific marks. He had drawn the small lower edge of the eastern face — where the ridge fell in a small slow slope into the further country east — with the small specific contours of the small wooded gullies that fed off it. He had drawn, at the four specific places where the small hare-runs converged, four small crosses. *Four snares,* he had said. *No more. The cord is finite. The four snares will, by the small specific reckoning, be enough.*

Wang Er had nodded.

An Ashi, that morning, had — for the first time in the household — gone out without Heizi at his shoulder.

The lame boy had said, the night before: *the smith's son knows the western-face setting. He will teach the boy the eastern-face setting. The big brother has, by the small specific arithmetic of the household, the western-face line to walk this morning. The eastern face is the smith's son's and the boy's. We will, by the morning of the second day, have the line laid.*

Heizi had not — at the small fire — argued.

He had understood — by the small specific small change at the lame boy's chosen language: *the smith's son and the boy* — that the lame boy had begun, in the past week, to think of the household's two pairs of working hands as two small specific units rather than as four small specific persons. The small specific unit *the smith's son and the boy* was, by the small careful accumulating arithmetic of the past week, the unit that was building up the small new contributing skill of An Ashi against the small slow erosion of his own recovery. The unit *the big brother and the lame brother* was, by the small parallel arithmetic, the unit that held the camp.

The lame boy was — slowly, in the small unhurried way of a young apprentice who had been quietly assigning the small specific work since the building of the lean-to — laying down a small specific quiet structure for the household.

Heizi had filed it.

He had not, that morning, argued.

The smith's son and the boy went up to the eastern face.

They went up, by the lame boy's drawing on the small pine bark, around the foot of the long low ridge to the eastern end and up the small slow eastern slope. They went together. Wang Er led. An Ashi, behind, walked at the small specific careful pace of a young man whose body had — by the past month — recovered enough to take a long walk in cold but who had not, in any specific sense, recovered enough to take it without small attention.

The smith's son was not — Heizi had observed in the past week — a man for many words at a working partner. He had taught Heizi the snare-setting at the cold spring four months ago by the small specific economy of three or four sentences and a great deal of hands. He would, this morning at the eastern face, teach An Ashi the same way.

The two of them came back at the dusk of the second day.

They came back with the small folded scrap of pine bark in An Ashi's inner pocket. The line was laid. By the smith's son's reckoning, all four snares were set in the proper places, with the proper four-strand twist at the proper height. By An Ashi's reckoning, the work had been good; the smith's son had taught him the small specific shape of the loop at the third snare three times before An Ashi had understood, and the smith's son had not, at any of the three teachings, raised his voice or said *no, again.* The smith's son had simply unset the loop, demonstrated it once more, and let An Ashi try again. By the third try, An Ashi had set it.

They had — by the small specific accumulating teaching of the smith's son's slow steady patience — laid the line in two days.

That night, at the small fire, the brothers sat in a small specific quiet. The two who had gone were tired; their bodies had been on the small portion-cut for two weeks now, and a two-day winter walking with snare-laying had cost them more than a two-day walking would have cost them at the third moon. Wang Er, at the small fire, ate his small reduced portion of millet without speaking. An Ashi, beside him, ate slowly, with the small specific accommodating patience of a young man whose body had been telling him, since the second hour of the morning, that the work had been at its small specific edge.

Tie-zhu, at the slab, watched them eat.

The lame boy, by the small specific reading of his face, had been at his own small specific careful watching of the two of them since their arrival at the lip an hour ago. The lame boy was — Heizi understood — the small specific medical eye of the household; the lame boy would, by the second day after a hard walk, know whether either of them was at risk of the small slow drop-into-illness that a body on a portion-cut sometimes took at the small specific tipping of an eighth-moon winter.

He waited until the two had finished their bowls.

He said, in the small low voice: "Smith's son."

"Yes, lame brother."

"Sleep tonight at the eastern wall. The eastern wall is — by the small specific reading of the wind tonight — the warmest. Take the lame brother's blanket as well as your own. The lame brother will sleep at the western wall with the boy."

Wang Er paused.

"Lame brother. The boy is —"

"The boy will sleep at my side. He is colder than you tonight. The boy needs the lame brother's warmth at his side. The smith's son needs the eastern wall and two blankets."

Wang Er nodded.

An Ashi, by the small fire, did not protest.

The lame boy was, by the small specific authority of the household's medical eye, distributing the household's small specific warmth to where it was most needed. An Ashi — in the past two weeks of recovery and the past two days of work — was the body in the small specific recovery slope; the smith's son had been on a hard road and would, by the lame boy's reading, take a small specific drop-into-illness if not warmed at the eastern wall tonight.

They ate in the small fire.

Heizi, at his place, looked at the four of them.

He had — by the past week — begun to see the small specific household as a small specific arrangement of four specific bodies, each with its own small specific arithmetic, held by a small specific assignment of warmth and food and sleep that the lame boy had — by the small accumulating quiet authority of the past month — been working out without anyone in the household, including the lame boy himself, having quite named it as authority.

The lame boy was the camp's small specific operator.

Heizi was the camp's head.

Wang Er was the camp's hands.

An Ashi was — by the small specific arithmetic of the past two weeks — the camp's quartermaster and second teacher and second skill-source.

Each of them was a small specific role.

Heizi filed it.

In the small lighter catalog of moments he had been keeping since the storm at the third moon, he set: *the lame boy's small specific assignment of warmth at the dusk after the eastern-face line was laid.*

That night the lame boy slept at the western wall with An Ashi at his side. The smith's son slept at the eastern wall with two blankets. Heizi took the first watch.

He sat at the small banked fire ring at the rock-face hollow, with his back against the rock face. The wind was northeast, cold, with the small thin air of an eighth-moon night that had — by the small specific reading of the lame boy at the dusk — perhaps three days before another small fall of snow. The lean-to, at his back, held the small even body warmth of the four brothers. The small banked fire was at its small constant low burn, against the small slow drop of the rock-face hollow's air through the night.

He listened.

The shape of the silence was — by the small specific recent accumulating sense — the shape of an upper-hills winter at its eighth moon. The owls were out. The wind was steady. The country was — by the small specific reading of two months of upper-hills work — not, on this night, putting any small specific man in the silence.

He sat his watch.

The third hour of the watch came. He banked the small fire's small low coal under fresh ash. He stood. He stretched. He walked, very slowly, to the small flat in front of the south face of the lean-to.

He looked in.

Tie-zhu was asleep at the western wall, with the small thin shoulder of An Ashi against his own larger one. The smith's son was at the eastern wall under his two blankets, breathing the slow even breath of a man whose body had — by the lame boy's small specific assignment — taken the warmth it needed.

Heizi watched them for a long beat.

He did not, on this watch, allow himself any small wider thinking.

He filed only — in the small lighter catalog — the small specific image of the lame boy and the boy at the western wall, and the smith's son at the eastern, and the small banked fire holding through the night, and the four of them held by the small specific warmth of the lean-to at the small flat place behind the long low ridge in the upper hills of Henan.

He went back to his watch.

By the morning of the third day after the eastern-face line was laid, Wang Er and An Ashi went out at the third hour of the dawn — not the second cock, the third hour, by the lame boy's specific later setting — to walk both lines. Heizi stayed at the camp this morning. He had said, at the fire the night before, *I will work the small kindling-pile at the back today; the smith's son and the boy walk both lines; we will see what the new line gives.*

The lame boy had nodded.

They came back at the noon.

They came back with five hares. Three from the western-face line, two from the eastern.

Five.

It was the largest single morning's catch the household had had in any week of the road. By the small specific arithmetic of the household's stores, five hares was the equivalent of perhaps two days of the household's small reduced portion of dried meat. By the small projecting arithmetic An Ashi had been keeping on a folded piece of pine bark in his coat, five hares from a single morning's dual-line walk would, if it held over the next two weeks, extend the household's stores by perhaps half a moon — not enough to close the spring-shortfall gap, but a small specific narrowing of it.

Wang Er, at the noon fire, laid the five small bodies on the slab. He laid them with the small specific careful evenness of a smith's son who knew that the household's stores were now, in some small specific way, being re-extended.

An Ashi sat at the slab beside him. He took out the small folded scrap of pine bark from his coat. He took out the small thin sliver of charcoal. He sketched the new addition — by the small specific even way of his father's old method — into the small specific arithmetic on the bark.

He looked up at Heizi.

"Big brother."

"Yes."

"By the small projecting arithmetic — at five a morning, twice a week, for the eighth moon and the ninth, with the small specific drop in catch in the third moon of winter that the lame brother has predicted — the line will give us perhaps twenty more hares than I had counted at the second week. That is — that is half a moon's worth at the small portion. The shortfall, big brother, is now perhaps three quarters of a moon, not a moon and a quarter."

He paused.

"That is — that is not closing the gap. But it is closing it, by the small honest measure, by half. And the line — the line is not, on this morning, at its small specific maximum; the lame brother said yesterday that the eastern face's third snare is set at the wrong angle to the run; we will reset it tomorrow. By the next week, with the small specific reset, the line will give perhaps six a morning, not five."

Heizi looked at him.

He nodded.

"Yes, An Ashi."

"The jade — the jade may not need to come out, big brother."

Heizi paused.

He looked at An Ashi.

He looked, after a moment, at Tie-zhu at the slab. He looked at Wang Er.

He said, slowly: "An Ashi. The jade was Old Zhang's instruction at the threshold the night before I left the village. The jade was, by his reckoning at the time, for any need that money would solve. The jade is — the jade is, in the small accumulating arithmetic, for the household's spring-passage if all else fails. The line is closing the gap. The line may not close it fully. We are — we are not, yet, certain we will not need the jade. But — but by the small specific work of the eastern-face line, of the new four-strand twist, of the small reduced portion, of the lame brother's small specific assignment of warmth — by the small honest accumulating sum of the four of us at the four of us — the jade may, by the second moon of winter, still be in my pocket against some larger later need."

He paused.

"That is — that is the small specific work the four of us are doing, An Ashi."

He paused again.

"Old Zhang did not, at the threshold, see four. He saw — at most — the small specific possibility that the boy he was sending out would, in some unfound year, be at a need that the jade would solve. He did not see that the boy he was sending out would, by the seventh moon of the year, be at the head of a small four-person upper-hills household. The jade is — is, by the small specific way of the country's small unhurried arrangement — perhaps, in some unfound year ahead, going to solve a need we cannot yet see."

He looked at the brothers.

"We will keep it. For now."

The brothers nodded.

That afternoon, Wang Er hung the five small bodies in the small thatched rack at the western corner. The household was — by the small specific accumulating arithmetic of the third week of the eighth moon — beginning to be at the small slow lifting of the gap. The stores were not yet sufficient. The bodies were not yet rebuilt. The eighth moon was not yet over. But the small specific work of the four of them was — by the small honest reckoning at the slab — beginning to take.

That evening, at the small fire, Tie-zhu said: "Brothers."

They looked up.

"By the small specific reading of the wind — by the small specific look at the western horizon at the noon today — there will be snow by the second hour of the dawn watch tomorrow."

"How heavy."

"Light. Perhaps half a hand. Not a storm. A small refreshing fall."

"Good."

"And — big brother — by the small specific reading of the wind in the past three days — there is, in some unspecific way, a larger weather behind the small fall. Perhaps not for some weeks. Perhaps not at all this year. But the wind has the small specific quality, by certain afternoons, that — by my small uncle's old saying — comes before a true winter storm."

He paused.

"I do not — I do not know when. The lame brother is not, by the small specific saying, a perfect reader. Perhaps the second moon. Perhaps the third. Perhaps the storm is held off by the country and does not come. But the lame brother — the lame brother says, big brother, *we should be ready.*"

Heizi nodded.

"Lame brother."

"Yes, big brother."

"What — what does *being ready* mean, by your reading."

The lame boy thought.

"It means — by the small specific reckoning — the lean-to will hold. The roof we laid in the fourth moon will hold. The brushwall on the south face will hold. The small additional bracing for the central span — yes, big brother, we should add another small layer of bark at the central span; one more layer, in the next two weeks, against the small specific load of a true winter snow on a long night. The kindling will hold — eight piles will be enough. The bodies will, by the small specific assigned warmth of the lame brother, hold. The food — the food, by the small specific arithmetic, will hold. Everything is in place."

He paused.

"It means, big brother, that we are — we are ready, by the small honest measure. If the storm comes. If."

Heizi looked at him.

He nodded.

"Yes, lame brother."

That night, as the lame boy had predicted, the snow came at the second hour of the dawn watch. It was a small thin fall. It laid down perhaps half a hand across the small flat place. By the small first cock, it had stopped.

Heizi, on the watch through the small fall, sat at the small banked fire ring at the rock-face hollow, with the small thin flakes coming through the small open quadrant to the east, falling at the small heat of the embers and disappearing into the small thin steam.

He watched them disappear.

He listened.

The shape of the silence on this night, with the small thin fall of snow, was the small steady shape of a winter that had — by the small unhurried arrangement of two months at the small flat place — been let in the door of the household, and that the household had, by the small specific accumulating work of four young men at the small specific tasks of two months, accommodated.

The country was keeping them.

The household was — by the small honest measure — being kept.

He filed it.

He sat his watch through.