46: The Smith's Son's Cough

The smith's son took ill on the third day of the third week of the ninth moon.

It was — by the lame boy's small specific reading at the morning fire — only a small specific fever. It was the kind of small specific fever a young man's body on a portion-cut took in the third moon of any country's winter, when the small accumulating dropping of body heat from the small reduced eating met the small accumulating dropping of body heat from the small accumulating cold and produced, in the small specific weak place of any individual body, a small specific failure. It was — by the lame boy's small clear voice at the noon — *not, big brother, the kind of fever that kills, if we work it. It is the kind of fever that, in a body that has been at the portion-cut for two and a half moons, asks for two days of warm hot stones, two days of small extra portions of millet at the noon, two days of no work at the snare-line or the wood-pile, and one day of small slow walking back into the daily shape. The smith's son will be on his feet by the dusk of the fifth day.*

Heizi nodded.

He had — by the small specific accumulated trust of the past three months — not, on hearing it, felt any small inner doubt of the small honest measure.

But he had felt — at the small fire, watching Wang Er at the slab inside the lean-to with the small thin sweat on his upper lip and the small bright color at the cheekbones that the lame boy had been describing — a small specific cool weight settle in his chest.

The smith's son had been on a portion-cut for ten weeks.

The smith's son had been working the snare-line and splitting the kindling and carrying water at the morning. The smith's son had been mending in the long evenings. The smith's son had been sleeping at the eastern wall under two blankets, by the lame boy's small specific assignment of warmth, since the second week of the eighth moon. The smith's son was — by the small specific small careful arithmetic the household had been keeping — the household's most thoroughly worked body.

The fever was, by the lame boy's reading, not the kind that killed. It was the kind that warned.

It warned that the household's small specific arithmetic of *short of the spring by perhaps three-quarters of a moon* was — at this third week of the ninth moon, with the eastern-face line still holding at six hares a week, with the bodies all at the small specific accumulating thinness — perhaps too tight a margin.

Heizi sat at the small fire that afternoon while Tie-zhu, inside the lean-to, laid the small heated stones at the smith's son's chest.

He thought.

He thought slowly, in the small unhurried way the upper hills had been teaching him.

He thought: *the lame boy is right. The fever passes by the fifth day. The smith's son will be on his feet by the dusk of the fifth day. But — by the small specific honest reading of the next three moons — there will be other fevers. The lame boy himself, by the second moon of winter, may take one. The boy may. I may. The portion-cut has been holding the household at the small specific edge of where its arithmetic balances. The next fever — if it is the lame boy's, or the boy's at the small specific weakness of his recent recovery — may not pass in five days.*

He thought: *the second-moon storm Tie-zhu has been reading is — by his small uncle's old saying — perhaps two weeks off, perhaps three, perhaps one. The storm will, by the small specific arithmetic, lock the lower contour for a moon. After the storm, the lower contour will not be passable until the small first thaw — perhaps the second week of the second moon of winter. From the third week of the ninth moon to the second week of the second moon is — by my count — about ten weeks.*

He thought: *the household has, in its current stores, twelve weeks of food at the present small portion. With the line holding at six hares a week, perhaps fifteen weeks. Ten weeks of locked-down lower contour — fifteen weeks of stores — five weeks left. That is more than half the moon between the second-moon thaw and the spring growth. The household will, by the most generous arithmetic, run out of stores at the small specific edge of the spring's first wild greens.*

He thought: *if there is another fever like this one, in those last five weeks — the household will not make it.*

He thought, slowly: *the jade.*

He had, in the inner pocket of his shirt, against his ribs, the small wrapped jade with the small braid of his foster mother's hair, that Old Zhang had pressed into his palm at the threshold the night before he left the village. *For any need that money will solve,* Old Zhang had said. *Do not sell it for less than four bolts of silk. Will keep four people alive for a season.*

The household — at this morning, at the front of the lean-to, with the smith's son at the slab inside on his back with the lame boy laying small hot stones at his chest — was a household of four people whose small specific arithmetic against the season was now, by this small specific fever, no longer holding.

Heizi stood up from the fire.

He went into the lean-to.

He stopped at the slab.

"Lame brother."

"Yes, big brother."

"I will go to the lower country. I will trade the jade. I will go alone. I will bring back grain and salt-pork and a bow, if I can find one. I will be — by the small careful arithmetic — back at the camp by the dusk of the tenth day from tomorrow."

The lame boy did not, for a long beat, answer.

He laid the small heated stone at the smith's son's chest. He stood up. He turned to Heizi.

"Big brother."

"Yes."

"You will go alone."

"Yes."

"The smith's son cannot go."

"No. The smith's son will be on his feet by the dusk of the fifth day. He will not be ready for a hard road by the tenth day. I will not — I will not take him."

"And the boy."

"The boy will not — the boy will not have the legs for the hard road yet. He has been recovering. The cold lower contour will, by the small specific reading of the past month, take more out of him than he has to give. He will stay. The boy and the lame brother and the smith's son will hold the camp."

"And — and you alone."

"Yes."

The lame boy was silent for a long beat.

"Big brother. The lame brother has — has a question."

"Yes."

"What — what about the storm."

Heizi paused.

"The storm — by your small specific reading — is two weeks off. Perhaps three. Perhaps four. The trip is ten days. By the small specific arithmetic, the trip should be done before the storm hits. If the storm comes early, I will — I will be on the way back when it hits. The road is — the road is the road I have walked twice; I know the small old herders' paths between here and the four-house hamlet. The lower country has — by my reading at the noon a week ago — no further sign of the band. The storm — if it hits early — I will, by the small specific way I have learned the country, find a roof somewhere on the road. There are — there is the eastern-pine hermit's hut, perhaps four days' walk south of here; there is, beyond it, the cold-spring camp's old lean-to, if it still stands; there is the bear-back's grove, three days south of the eastern-pine. I will not — I will not be without a roof if the storm hits early."

He paused.

"It is the only thing I can think of, lame brother."

The lame boy looked at him for a long beat.

He nodded.

"Yes, big brother."

That evening, at the small fire, Heizi told the brothers.

Wang Er — by the small specific way of his small thin face on his small slab inside the lean-to, where Tie-zhu had laid him with two blankets and three hot stones — heard, in the small specific way the smith's son heard every small specific instruction from the head of the household: with the small attention of a man who, even in a fever, had not lost the small specific habit of listening to his eldest brother.

He said, in the small thin voice the fever had made of his slow honest weight: *brother. I will — I will go with you when I am up.*

"You will not, smith's son. You will be on your feet by the fifth day. By the tenth I will be back. The trip will be done. The smith's son's hands are needed at the camp. The smith's son holds the camp, with the lame brother and the boy."

Wang Er did not — by the small specific weakness of the fever — argue. He nodded — once, slowly. He closed his eyes.

An Ashi, at the small fire, said: "Big brother."

"Yes, An Ashi."

"You will — you will be alone for nine nights on the road in winter."

"Yes."

"With the jade in your pocket. The country is — by the small specific reading of the lower contour — not safe in winter."

"Yes."

"What — what if the country takes you, big brother."

Heizi looked at him.

He thought.

He had — at the slab — thought about it. He had thought about the small specific arithmetic of a young man alone on a road in winter with a piece of jade in his inner pocket. He had thought about the small specific risk. He had decided, by the small specific reading of the alternatives, that the risk of going alone was less than the risk of the household with one fever and the next ten weeks of storm-locked country.

He gave the boy the small honest answer.

"An Ashi. If the country takes me — if I do not come back by the fourteenth day — you will, by the small specific instruction I am giving now, take the lame brother and the smith's son to the eastern-pine hermit's hut. He will have died, perhaps, by then; he was old when I saw him. But the hut will hold a household for a moon. From there — from there, at the spring's first thaw — you will go on. The lame brother knows the road. The smith's son knows the road. You will — you will not, by the small specific way I am telling you — die at this small flat place. You will go on."

He paused.

"That is — that is the small instruction. If I do not come back by the fourteenth day, you go."

An Ashi looked at him for a long beat.

He nodded.

"Yes, big brother."

The lame boy, at the slab, did not say anything.

Heizi understood, by the small specific look of the lame boy's face — the small specific stillness of the small still face, which had — at the proposal of going alone an hour ago at the slab — taken a small specific shape Heizi had not seen on it since the doorstone of the burying — that the lame boy had something he was keeping inside.

Heizi waited.

The lame boy, finally, said in the small low voice: *big brother.*

"Yes, lame brother."

"Take the carved horse."

He did not — by the small specific shape of the small still face — explain.

Heizi did not — by the small specific accumulating understanding of three months — need the explanation.

He had buried the carved horse with Ah Si under perhaps four hands of earth at the third row of the burying ground at the hamlet of two wells. The lame boy, four months ago, had laid the carved horse on the small thin chest of the small one with his own hand. The lame boy had carved, in the long winter evenings since, two small wooden bowls and a small new piece of pine that had begun, at the third evening, to take the small new shape of — Heizi understood, now, looking at the small piece of pine where it lay on the slab in the small thin firelight — a second carved horse.

The lame boy had been, by his small private discipline, carving a second horse.

He had not — until this evening — said so.

He had — at this evening, at the small request — laid the second horse on the small offering of his small specific carving for Heizi to carry on the road.

Heizi looked at the small piece of pine.

"Lame brother."

"Yes."

"It is — it is not finished."

"It is. The eye is on it. I finished the eye three days ago. I have not — I have not told. Take it."

The lame boy reached into his coat. He drew out, very small, the second carved horse. It was perhaps the size of Heizi's thumb. It was carved from a piece of the same kind of pine the first one had been. The eye, on the small wooden flank, was the same small charcoal-black dot the elm-wood bird's eye had been. The small dark ribbon — the lame boy must have, in the past two weeks, woven a small new dark ribbon from a small thin strand of his own bandage cloth — was wound around the small wooden body in the same small careful way Lan-gu had wound the original.

The lame boy laid the small second horse in Heizi's palm.

"Big brother. Take it. Carry it. Bring it back."

Heizi closed his hand over the small carved horse.

He could not, at the slab, speak.

The lame boy — by the small specific shape of the small still face, by the small specific evenness of the small low voice — had given him, in the small carved horse, the small specific second of a pair the household had, at the burying, buried. The lame boy had — in some small private way Heizi had not yet had time to fully understand — been keeping, by the small steady work of his hands, the small specific symmetry the household had broken.

Heizi nodded.

He could not, in the small thin firelight, find his voice.

He put the small carved horse in the inner pocket of his shirt against his ribs, beside the small finished indigo pouch with the silk square and the millet grain, and the small wrapped jade with his foster mother's hair, and the small dark jade from Lu Wen-han, and the small twist of paper with the eastern-pine hermit's incense for the unfound-woman's shrine.

The inner pocket was, by the small specific accumulating measure of four months, full.

He sat at the small fire.

He did not, on this evening, weep.

He felt — for one beat — that he might.

He filed it.

That night the lame boy took the first watch at the small banked fire ring at the rock-face hollow, with the smith's son at the slab inside the lean-to under his hot stones and his two blankets, and the boy at the western wall with his small thin shoulders against the smith's son's larger shoulder for the small specific warmth-redistribution the fever had — temporarily — restructured.

Heizi, at the eastern wall, lay awake.

He did not, on this night, sleep.

He thought, in the small thin moonlight from the small open south face of the lean-to, about the road.

He thought about the small old herders' paths he would walk south to the bear-back's grove. He thought about the small flat place at the foot of the path where, three months ago, he had laid the small folded paper with the *北* character. He thought about the eastern-pine hermit's hut beyond it, four days south, with the small thin column of smoke that he had seen rise once at the noon of departure. He thought about the cold-spring camp three days further south, where the small lean-to under the overhang might or might not still stand. He thought about the four-house hamlet of Lu Wen-han a day beyond, with the lame mule at the post and the small one-room house and the small old man at the door.

He thought of the storm.

He thought of the lame boy's small uncle's old saying, that he had been hearing in the lame boy's voice at the morning fire for the past three weeks: *the small specific dryness that comes before a true winter storm.*

He thought of the small specific possibility that the storm might come early.

He thought of the small carved horse in the inner pocket of his shirt.

He thought of the lame boy's small specific instruction at the slab: *bring it back.*

He filed it.

In the small inner pocket of his shirt, against his ribs, the small carved horse pressed, very gently, against the small finished indigo pouch with the silk character *生*.

He understood — slowly, in the small thin moonlight — that he was carrying, on this trip, a small specific weight of small specific instructions from three different people who had, in three different ways, told him the same small specific thing.

Old Zhang at the threshold: *Live anyway.*

Mei-er in stitched silk: *生.*

The lame boy at the slab: *Bring it back.*

He would, by the small specific accumulating reading of the three voices, try.

He closed his eyes.

In the morning, before the second cock, Heizi rose.

He laid the small banked fire's morning live coal. He laid out the small portion of the morning's millet for the brothers. He took, from the small kindling pile at the back, the small specific bundle of dry kindling he would need on the road. He took, from the small thatched rack at the western corner, eight pieces of dried hare and a small twist of the grey salt and a small handful of pickled fern shoots. He laid all of it into a small folded cloth.

He took, from the small wooden shelf the lame boy had carved at the eastern wall, the small clay pot he would need for cooking, and the small flint, and a small length of the new four-strand twist for any small need.

He took the militia knife at his belt and the small whittling knife at the inside of his coat.

He took, at the last, the small wadded coat that had been Old Zhang's, and his small wadded second-layer coat that the lame boy had made for him out of An Ashi's old indigo lining and a small additional pad of the small grey reeds two months ago, against the deepest of the cold.

He stood at the front of the lean-to.

He looked at the small flat place.

The brothers were at the small fire in the small dim grey of the dawn. The lame boy had — at the morning — laid the small heated stones beside the smith's son's chest one more time. An Ashi was at the slab with the small folded scrap of pine bark and the small charcoal sliver, doing the small specific arithmetic that, in the next ten days, would — by the small specific way the household worked — be his own work to keep at while Heizi was on the road.

The lame boy stood up. He came over.

"Big brother."

"Yes, lame brother."

"Go."

He laid one hand once on the top of Heizi's head — light, gone — in the small specific way Old Zhang and Cao Ergou and the widow Shen and Wei Lao-han and Lu Wen-han and the eastern-pine hermit had laid theirs.

It was — by the small specific accumulating reading of the past four months — the first time the lame boy had done it.

The lame boy was — by the small specific way the household had been arranging itself in the past three months — old.

Heizi felt the hand on his head.

He bowed.

He turned. He went down off the lip of the small flat place, by the small old herders' path that ran south, with the small bundle on his back and the small carved horse in the inner pocket of his shirt against his ribs.

The brothers, at the front of the lean-to, did not call after him.

He did not look back.

The road was the road.

He had — by the small specific way Old Zhang and Mei-er and the lame brother had told him in three voices to bring something back — small specific instructions to honor.

He set off, in the small clear cold of the dawn, alone for the first time on the road since the morning he had walked past the persimmon tree at the lower field with three brothers behind him five months ago.

The country, at the small old herders' path, accepted him.

The wind, at the third hour of the dawn, was — by the small specific reading the lame boy had taught him — the small specific dryness that came before a true winter storm.

He walked.