48: The Lame Mule's Master

Heizi came down out of the cold-spring camp's old country into the lower contour at the noon of the fifth day.

The cold-spring camp itself had been — by his small specific reading at the dusk of the fourth day — half-fallen. The small lean-to under the overhang, where the four of them had slept three nights in the second moon, had been taken by the small slow accumulating settling of an old roof under no man's hand: the hide flap was gone; the small straw layers of the wadded blanket had been carried off, perhaps by a small upper-hills creature, to line some unknown winter den; the small fire ring at the front was a small low pile of cold dust under the snow. The cold spring still ran. The country had taken back the small dry place under the rock at its own pace.

Heizi had spent the night in it anyway. He had laid a small banked fire under the overhang, in the small specific shelter of the rock. He had eaten a small portion. He had slept fitfully, with the small specific sense that the country was beginning to take this place back faster than it had taken the bear-back's grove or the eastern-pine hermit's hut.

He had risen at the second cock and walked on.

By the noon of the fifth day, he was in the lower contour proper. The country here was — in winter — a country of slower watercourses and broader open places between the small low ridges. The brush at the lower contour had laid down with the cold. The small old herders' paths were visible only as small thin lines in the snow.

The four-house hamlet of Lu Wen-han was, by Heizi's careful memory of the chalk drawing on the floor of the small one-room house, perhaps four *li* further south, where the watercourse turned east and ran for a *li* through a narrowing of low stony hills.

He came up to the hamlet at the second hour of the late afternoon.

The hamlet stood in the small grey winter light in its small specific cluster of low mud-brick houses. A small thin column of smoke rose from the southernmost — Lu Wen-han's house. The other three houses — by the small specific reading he had taken three months ago — had not, on this winter afternoon, any smoke; the three houses had been, three months ago, ones whose households had gone elsewhere for the winter, leaving only Lu Wen-han at the small hamlet alone.

The grey mule, lame in the right hind leg, stood tied to the post outside the southernmost house.

The mule turned its head as Heizi came up the small path from the lower contour. It looked at him with the slow even eye it had looked at him with three months ago. It blinked once. It went back to the small careful weight-shifting on the three good legs.

The mule, by the small honest measure, had not been visibly aged by the three moons.

Heizi raised his hand. He stopped at the edge of the small open ground.

He bowed.

He called, low: *grandfather, we are travelers.*

The door of the southernmost house opened.

Lu Wen-han came out.

The old man was a small specific fraction thinner than he had been at the third moon. The small thinness was the small specific accumulating thinness of an old man at a winter who had — by the small specific economy of a single household's small specific stores — been at the small reduced portion for some weeks himself. The old hempen robe sat looser at the shoulders. The small lame foot — Heizi noticed, with the small accumulating specific eye he had been training in the past five months — was wrapped in a small additional layer of cloth at the inner ankle, against the cold.

The old man was not, however, ill. The small specific look of his small wet bright eyes was the small specific look of a man who, by the small specific economy of his own small accommodations, was — at this winter — making do.

He looked at Heizi.

He looked for a long beat.

He said, in the small low voice he had used at the door three months ago: *lad. You are alone.*

"Yes, grandfather."

"Where are the others."

"At the camp, grandfather. The small flat place behind a long low ridge in the upper hills — perhaps fifteen *li* north of the bear-back. The smith's son took a small portion-cut fever a week ago; he will be on his feet but not for the road. The lame brother, by the bad foot, is camp-bound. The boy — there is a boy now, a fourth, a Sogdian boy of sixteen we found half-dead in a snow gully in the seventh moon — is recently recovered and not yet strong for a hard road. I have come alone."

The old man nodded slowly.

"A boy. Sogdian."

"Yes, grandfather. An clan of Samarqand. His father's caravan was attacked at Liangzhou three months ago. He walked east three months. He came up into the hills. We took him in."

"And you have a roof."

"Yes, grandfather. A lean-to. The lame brother built it. It has held the eighth moon's storms."

"And the storm — the second-moon storm — your lame brother has read it?"

"Yes, grandfather. By his uncle's old saying. Two weeks off, perhaps three; perhaps as little as one. I have come — I have come, grandfather, on a small specific need. The household's stores, by the boy's small careful arithmetic, are short of the spring by perhaps three quarters of a moon. The smith's son's fever showed me the small specific edge. I have come to trade the jade."

He paused.

"Old Zhang's jade. The wrapped one with my foster mother's hair. He told me, at the threshold the night before I left the village, *for any need that money will solve. Will keep four people alive for a season.* The need is here, grandfather. I am asking — I am asking you, by your small specific knowledge of the small old running of the lower country, to take it, or to find me a man who will."

The old man looked at him for a long beat.

He nodded slowly.

"Come in, lad."

Heizi went in.

The small one-room house was — by the small specific reading of the past three months — less full than it had been at the third moon. The small wooden table was at the center, with the single bowl and the single pair of chopsticks, but the bowl had not been at the table at the noon. The small clay pot at the fire was the smaller one — not the larger. The small clay pot of plain salt at the shelf was — by Heizi's small specific eye — perhaps a third of what it had been three months ago. The single hempen robe on the peg was the same. The piece of dried meat at the rafter was — Heizi noticed, with the small specific accumulating eye — gone; in its place hung a small twist of something Heizi could not, at the small grey light of the door, identify.

The old man closed the door behind them. He drew the small heavy curtain over it.

"Sit, lad. The cot. You have walked five days. Sit."

Heizi sat on the cot.

The old man went to the fire. He poured two small cups of hot water from the small clay pot. He brought them. He sat opposite Heizi on the small wooden stool.

"Lad. The jade. Show me."

Heizi reached into the inner pocket of his shirt. He took out, slowly, the small wrapped object Old Zhang had given him at the threshold. He unwrapped it, very gently, with the small specific care of a young man who had not — in the eight months of the road — touched it past the small specific reach of a hand.

The small piece of jade — no larger than a thumbnail, plain, cloudy, of the green that was almost grey — sat in the small soft cloth in his palm. The small braid of dark hair, his foster mother's, lay against it.

He held it out.

The old man took the small soft cloth between his old fingers. He held it close to the wet bright eyes. He looked at the jade. He looked at the small braid of hair. He held it for a long minute.

He said, in the small low voice: *lad. This is — this is the jade Old Zhang's wife gave him at their wedding, by his telling at the watch in Wen-di seventeen. The hair is hers. He kept the hair after the bad-water year.*

"Yes, grandfather."

"Old Zhang told me about this jade once. He said — he said it was the only piece of jade his house would ever have, and that it would be — by some unfound accident of the road — given by him to one of his children at the end of a hard year, in some unknown future when the household had a hard need that money would solve."

He paused.

"He gave it to you, lad."

"Yes, grandfather."

"At the threshold."

"At the threshold, grandfather. The night before I left the village."

The old man closed his eyes for one breath. He opened them.

"Lad. The jade is — by the small specific old measure of jade in the lower country in this year — worth four bolts of silk. Perhaps five, at a careful market. The country is — at this winter — not in a careful market season; the country is in a falling season; the small markets of the lower country have fewer buyers than they had at the second moon. Four bolts is the honest number. I will not lie to you about it."

"Yes, grandfather."

"I do not have, in this hamlet, four bolts of silk. I have — by the small specific accumulating economy of a single old man at a winter — perhaps the equivalent of two and a half bolts in goods. I have a small store of millet from the autumn harvest of a peddler I dealt with in the eighth moon. I have a small jar of salt-pork from another peddler at the same time. I have one small bow — yes, an old hunting bow, of the kind a small farmer kept against the small accidents of a winter wolf — that the man I had it from had no further use for. I have a small length of finer hempen cord, perhaps four arms of it, that you would need for any further snare-line you laid in the spring. I have — that is, perhaps, all I have, lad."

He paused.

"You will not, by the small honest measure, get the jade's full value here."

He paused again.

"But you will get — you will get enough to keep four people alive for the rest of this season. And the trip back to the lower country at the spring will not, lad, be necessary if you keep your small accumulating snare-line going. The two and a half bolts here will, by the small honest arithmetic, do."

Heizi nodded.

He thought about it for one beat.

He thought: *Old Zhang said at the threshold — for any need that money will solve. The need is here. The full value of the jade is not, on this winter day in this small one-room house, going to be paid. But the small specific old man across the small wooden table is paying as much as he honestly has, and Old Zhang would — by the small specific reading I have of him — have nodded at this small specific exchange.*

"Yes, grandfather. I will accept."

The old man bowed his head — not a courteous bow, but a small specific bow of acknowledgment, the small old gesture of a small honest man receiving a small honest acceptance.

"Thank you, lad."

He stood up, slowly, with the small specific work of an old back unfolding from a small wooden stool. He went to the back of the small one-room house, where a small wooden chest sat at the foot of his cot. He opened the chest. He took out, slowly, two small hempen sacks; a small clay jar wrapped in oiled paper; a small folded length of cord; and, from the top shelf of the small wooden corner the chest stood beside, an old hunting bow with a small bowstring wrapped in cloth and a small bundle of perhaps a dozen arrows in a small hempen quiver.

He laid them out, on the small wooden table, between him and Heizi.

The two small hempen sacks — Heizi could see, at the small open mouths — held millet. The small clay jar held, by the small specific smell, salt-pork. The small folded length of cord was perhaps four arms of finer hempen cord. The bow was older than Heizi had expected; the wood was darkened by handling; the small bowstring, by the small specific look of it, was perhaps two years old and would need replacing in the spring.

It was — by the small honest measure of the lower country — two and a half bolts of silk.

Heizi looked at it.

He looked, after a moment, at the old man.

"Grandfather. Thank you."

"Hush, lad."

"There is one further thing I will ask, if you will allow it."

"Ask."

"The small dark jade — yes, the one you gave me at this door at the third moon — is still in my pocket. I went to the bear-back's grove. The old scholar did not come down. He sent a small thin column of smoke as his reply to a small folded paper I left at the foot of his path. I have, at this fifth day of my trip, passed his foot of path again — I left a new small folded paper, with the characters *四 人*. The small dark jade is still — still mine to carry."

The old man nodded.

"Keep it, lad. The small dark jade stays with you. The old scholar, in his own time, will use it. Do not — do not return it to me. It is yours now."

"Yes, grandfather."

"And the eastern-pine hermit?"

Heizi paused.

"Grandfather. He is dead. His hut at the eastern pine was empty when I passed two days ago. The small layer of dust on the blanket, the small thin ice at the cup — perhaps three weeks, perhaps four. He had asked — he had told me at the third moon not to bury him. He left, I think, in his own way to die in some small specific place of his own choosing."

The old man closed his eyes.

He kept them closed for a long beat.

He said, very low: *lad. He was the fifth of the five comrades of the watch at Wen-di seventeen.*

"I — I had thought he was the fourth, grandfather. I thought there were five — Old Zhang, Cao Ergou, Wei Lao-han, you, and the eastern-pine hermit. The fifth has — has been dead a year by your saying at the third moon."

"Yes. Yes. I — I had said that. I was — I was wrong. The eastern-pine hermit was the fourth. The fifth — the fifth was a young man I had never named, who fell at the watch the year after; we had thought him gone; I had not, in some long way, kept the small accurate count. He was not on Old Zhang's list because Old Zhang had not known him; he had come to the watch in the third year and had — by the small specific way of the country — fallen at the small skirmish at the fold of the Henan border in Wen-di twenty. I had only learned, by a peddler last spring, that he had — for a long time before his fall — been carried by his comrades as a small specific name without a face. The eastern-pine hermit was — was the fourth."

He paused.

"He has gone."

"Yes, grandfather."

"And he and I — he and I were the only two of the five who lived past Da-ye three. Cao Ergou is alive, by your saying. Wei Lao-han is alive, by your saying. Old Zhang — Old Zhang is alive in your foster father's house, by your trust. There are four of us still alive, lad. Of the original five, plus the fifth I had forgotten and recovered."

He laughed once — a small dry old laugh, the kind of laugh an old man laughed when the small specific grief was held off by the small specific account-keeping.

"Five, then. Of which the eastern-pine hermit is now gone. Four."

He looked at Heizi.

"You will, lad — when you come back this way — when you come back this way, lad — you will come back this way, will you not — will tell me. The four of us. Old Zhang's living. Cao Ergou's. Wei Lao-han's. Mine. Whoever has gone — when. The four of us are old. The five of us, by the small specific arithmetic of the eastern-pine hermit's going, are going one by one."

Heizi nodded.

"I will, grandfather."

That night Heizi slept on the floor of the small one-room house. The old man laid out, on a low pad of straw, a single hempen blanket. He slept, himself, on the cot. The small lame mule, outside, stood at the post. The night was clear and cold and the wind was steady from the north.

Heizi did not, on this night, sleep well. He thought about the road back. He thought about the storm. He thought about the small accumulating weight in the inner pocket of his shirt: the small carved horse; the indigo pouch with the silk character; the small dark jade; the small wrapped piece of jade — no, that was traded, that was no longer his — the small braid of foster mother's hair, which he had — at the moment of unwrapping the jade earlier, with the old man across the small wooden table — kept; he had laid the jade alone in the old man's hand and had folded the small braid of hair back into the small soft cloth and put it back in the pocket. The hair was — by the small specific arithmetic of his foster father's small specific giving — Old Zhang's, not the road's. The hair was for him to keep.

The old man had not, at the trade, asked for the hair.

The old man had — by the small specific way of an old militia comrade — known.

Heizi laid the small braid of hair in his palm in the dim grey of the late watch and looked at it. He could not see it well in the dim light. He could feel — by the small specific old softness of the old hair, plaited tight by a young husband in some year of a small old marriage at a small old village in southern Hebei — the small specific weight of forty years of the small specific keeping in an old man's inner pocket, which was now, by the small road's small accumulating arrangement, in his.

He filed it.

In the morning, before the second cock, he packed.

He laid the two hempen sacks of millet at the bottom of his small bundle. He laid the small clay jar of salt-pork on top, wrapped in a small additional layer of cloth he had brought against the cold's cracking. He coiled the small length of finer hempen cord and laid it at the side of the bundle. He lashed the bow and the small hempen quiver of arrows across his back, beside the small cord-loop where he had been carrying the small flint and the small twist of dried kindling.

The bundle was heavier — by perhaps the weight of an extra body's small accumulated stones — than the bundle he had come down with.

He understood, lifting it, that he would be — by the small specific arithmetic of the heavier bundle and the small specific cold of the road north — slower on the return than he had been on the outbound. The five days down had been the unburdened five. The return north might take six days, perhaps seven.

The lame boy's small specific reading at the dusk of the third week of the ninth moon had been: *two weeks off, perhaps three; perhaps as little as one.* Heizi had been gone, by the morning of the sixth day, six days. The earliest the storm would come was — by the lame boy's reading — the first day of the tenth moon, which was three days from now.

He was — by the heavier bundle's small honest reckoning — six days from the camp.

If the storm came in three days — he would be on the road for it.

He filed it.

He stepped out of the small one-room house at the dim grey of the dawn.

The old man stood at the door. The small lame mule was at the post.

The old man laid one hand once on Heizi's head — light, gone — in the small old-man's gesture.

"Lad."

"Grandfather."

"Walk fast."

"Yes, grandfather."

"And — and lad. If the storm catches you on the road — find a roof. Any roof. The lower country has, at the foot of the long low ridge perhaps a *li* west of the four-house hamlet, a small old shed I built in my forty-eighth year for a winter when the lame mule and I were on a bad route. The shed is — by the small specific reading of the past few years — perhaps fallen. But it may hold for a body. The bear-back's grove is your other place. The cold-spring camp is gone. The eastern-pine hut is gone. There are — there are not many roofs between here and your camp, lad."

He paused.

"If — if the storm catches you, find a roof. Stay through it. The storm will pass in two days; the country will be — for a moon — locked. You will need to come down again at the first thaw to find me. I will hold the small lame mule at the post for you."

"Yes, grandfather."

The old man laid his hand once more on Heizi's head, very briefly.

He said, in the small low voice: *Old Zhang would be pleased with you, lad. I am writing it on the small old ledger for him.*

Heizi could not, at the door, speak.

He bowed.

He turned and walked north.

The lame mule turned its head to watch him go. It did not blink. It went back to the small careful weight-shifting on the three good legs.

The morning was clear and very cold. The wind, by the small specific reading the lame boy had taught him, was — at the third hour of the dawn — at the small accumulating cool of a north that had — somewhere in the further country — begun, in the past day, to gather.

He walked.