Dragon Bones (19 page)

“Lily died on my watch.”

He stopped. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely.”

“Hulan, honey”—he tried to sound reasonable—“I don’t think anyone around here knows that happened.”

“Because they don’t have television? They do have an All-Patriotic Society chapter. You’ve seen the signs in town, haven’t you? Word travels.”

“But you said yourself that what was done to Lily was completely unlike anything you’d seen before. That blood coating—”

“Exactly! The mother in the square was going to cut off her daughter’s hand. Now Lily’s feet are amputated. The smearing of the blood is a literal message to me—that the cult is holding me responsible for the bloodshed.”

“If that’s so, then what about Brian? The modus operandi appears completely different—from the way Brian and Lily were killed to the way their bodies were disposed of—but as you told everyone in the guesthouse, their deaths were not random acts. Do you really think there could be more than one murderer in Bashan killing foreigners?”

She slogged through another puddle, listening.

“If you accept that fact, then Lily’s death can’t have anything to do with what happened in Beijing,” David continued, “because Brian was killed long before you ever knew about that rally, probably before it was even planned. What ties Brian and Lily together is Site 518. When we find their killer, you’ll see that this will boil down to greed—the theft of artifacts, not some larger conspiracy involving you and the All-Patriotic Society.”

He had hoped his analysis would convince her, but she said, “I still think the link is the cult.” She could be so stubborn.

“Can we both keep open minds until we get more facts?” he asked. “We’ll know a lot more after Pathologist Fong does his autopsy. When will he get here?”

“Soon. I have him flying in by helicopter. I’ll meet with him when we get back to the guesthouse.”

There she was again purposefully pushing David away from her inquiries. Maybe if he got her more involved with his, she’d be more open to accepting his help. They didn’t have much time before they reached the Wu property, so he quickly filled her in on what he’d learned at the dig. When he finished, Hulan asked the question that had been gnawing at David. “But why didn’t Ma or Ho tell you this before? Surely they knew about the auction.”

“They had to know,” he agreed. They talked a little longer but came no closer to an explanation; then David said, “I think I should go to Hong Kong tomorrow and try to block the auction of the
ruyi
and whatever other Site 518 artifacts are set to go on the block.”

“Fong ought to be done with his examination by then. You could fly down to Wuhan in the helicopter with him, then catch a plane to Hong Kong,” Hulan offered helpfully. It seemed a logical and simple plan.

They arrived at the clearing where the Wu house stood. If anything, it looked more desolate than yesterday. Rain poured off the roof and ran across the barren land and over the precipice to the river below. A rocky outcropping hung out over the house; just under the ledge a giant boulder seemed ready to dislodge itself and crush everything below it. On either side of the house were natural stone formations that resembled Grecian columns, only where the friezes and cornices might have been were two large stones smoothed by aeons of wind and rain.

Hulan knocked on the door and called out, “Wu Xiansheng, Wu Taitai.” They heard movement inside and a grating sound. The door opened slightly, and a thin-faced woman peeked out.

“Wei?”

“
Wo jiao Liu Hulan. Zhe shi Stark Lushi,
” Hulan explained, pointing first to herself and then to David. “We want to talk to you about your husband.”

The door closed, and David and Hulan waited in the rain. Low, agitated voices, then the door opened again, revealing an older man, his eyes filmy white with blindness.

“I’m from the Ministry of Public Security,” Hulan said. “I’ve brought a foreigner with me. We’ve come from Beijing to speak with you.”

The man waved them inside, closed the door behind them, and felt his way to setting a rough-hewn piece of wood horizontally into two brackets that sat on either side of the frame. The young woman—the widow of the man who’d drowned—stood barefoot in the center of the room, her sleeping baby wrapped in a sling against her chest. Hulan edged forward to get a look at the infant, but the widow covered her baby’s face and backed away. Superstition and suspicion went hand in hand in the countryside.

The man barked at the woman to bring tea. She stared at him dully. These people didn’t have enough money for tea leaves.

“On a day such as this, a cup of hot water would be nice,” Hulan commented, keeping both sympathy and condescension from her voice. Without a word the woman picked up a thermos, poured hot water into three grimy jars, and handed them around. Then she backed away and stood against the wall. Her feet and arms were filthy; her clothes were heavily mended rags.

“Wu Huadong was my son,” the blind man spoke out into the room. “I am Wu Peng.”

Wu’s Sichuan accent was so thick that David could barely understand the words, so he surreptitiously tried to take in the surroundings. The room was larger than it looked from the outside because the back wall and part of the sides of the room were carved out of limestone rock faces. Two low sleeping platforms lay against the walls. A hutch had been constructed from three scavenged crates that were tucked into an alcove, which had also been chiseled out of the mountain. A piece of dingy cloth hung from the top crate down to the hard-packed earth floor, hiding what was inside. A homemade table sat against the wall. A clothesline had been strung kitty-corner across the room, and the baby’s clothes were drying, contributing greatly to the eye-stinging odor that combined urine, spit-up, and mildew. Lack of air circulation caused by no windows and the locked door exacerbated the stench.

David had been in other peasant homes, but he’d never seen anything like this. Even if the poor couldn’t afford glass windows, they left an open space for ventilation, which was sealed in the winter by newspapers. In the middle of summer, he would have expected to see the door open at the very least. Yet not only was it closed but a substantial barrier had been laid across it to prevent entry. Looking around, though, David saw nothing that could be of any value—no mementos, decorations, or personal belongings other than one eight-by-ten-inch piece of paper with Chinese characters that had been jabbed onto a nail. There wasn’t even a simple altar to commemorate the dead husband and son.

“People say your son’s death was an accident,” Hulan said as David began to follow the conversation.

“How can it be an accident?” Wu was wiry, and his face was as cragged and worn as the cliffs outside. “Our family has lived on this ground for many centuries. My son was born here and knew every rock of the land. How could he fall into the river?”

“If not an accident, what do you think happened?”

“There are evils to be guarded against,” Wu stated.

Hulan stiffened. David understood the words but was unsure of his wife’s reaction.

“Lust comes in many forms,” Wu went on. “For a woman. For money. For power. My son worked for a greater good, but he was deceived.”

“By Xiao Da?” Hulan asked.

Little Big, the leader of the All-Patriotic Society, the man whom Hulan held in such contempt. After the conversation David and Hulan had just had, he tried to listen more closely.

“Not by Xiao Da,” Wu corrected. “By others who wish to rip our country from our hands.”

“Such as?”

Wu sneered. “The
yang guizi.
”

David had no trouble understanding those words. He’d heard them shouted at him on the street many times.
Foreign devil.
Hulan didn’t even look his way but addressed Wu in the same tone that provoked confession even from the innocent.

“You are loose-tongued, yet you say nothing. You make general accusations, yet you tell me nothing to help me with your son.” She stood. “I shall report to Beijing that there is nothing to learn here.”

David had been alarmed by a lot of things Hulan had said and done today, but he was unprepared for the cold way she was suddenly treating the old man.

Wu Huadong’s widow crept forward and whispered shyly, “Please, Miss, don’t go. Excuse my father-in-law. His heart is clouded by sorrow. Please.”

The woman eased back against the wall and lowered her head. When Wu said nothing, Hulan took a step. Hearing her, the old man held out a sinewy arm to block her path.

“My son worked at Site 518,” he said.

“This is common knowledge,” Hulan replied sternly. “Say something meaningful or get out of my way.”

“He did special work for someone there. I don’t know who, but it was a foreigner.”

Hulan sat down. “A man or a woman? American? English?”

Wu’s milky eyes blinked. He turned his head from side to side, trying to find her through sound. “A foreigner is trouble no matter what it has between its legs or from what corrupt soil it emerges. Huadong often went to meet this person. That last morning he held his hand out to me. ‘From the fist of the past to my fist to the fist of the future.’”

“What did he mean?”

“He said he wanted to bring something from the earth and give it back to our country. It would show the world our strength.”

“Your family’s?”

Wu drank from his jar, then said, “Family pride, country pride, same thing.”

“Pride brings loss, humility receives blessings,” Hulan recited in response.

“We are humble, but we are not so blessed,” Wu countered.

“You speak then of our homeland.”

“For centuries our China has been invaded by the foreign element. They have come up our great river. They have stolen from us. Now, even outside our borders, they insult and betray us. The bombing of the embassy—”

“Uncle Wu,” she interrupted him, “you know much, yet you are far removed from the course of the world.”

“The river’s course is all that matters.”

Hulan suddenly shifted direction. “Where will you move when the dam is finished?”

“We have been given instructions to move to Xinjiang. They have offered us extra money, but we will not leave.”

“Your son felt this too?”

“Huadong said we would not have to go. He would stop the dam.”

“Your son was educated?”

Wu cleared his throat and spit on the floor. “We are peasants for countless generations. Our blood has been part of this land since Da Yu’s dragons cleared the river.”

“As we are speaking frankly,” Hulan said, though to David the whole conversation seemed to be spoken in riddles, “I must ask why you stay.”

“It is our home.”

“But your land is no good,” Hulan stated the obvious.

“This has been so since before my grandfather’s time, but I have heard stories of great crops that once grew outside our door. This is what Da Yu created for us when he drained the flood. The land is the treasure. That does not change.”

“You contradict yourself.”

“The land is the treasure,” Wu repeated. “It is
shi tu.
”

David thought about those words.
Living earth?
That was hardly what lay outside the door.
Scorched, desolate, barren,
were the words that came to mind when David thought about the land from here to the dig.

“My grandfather’s grandfather told him this,” Wu went on. “My grandfather told me, and now I tell my grandson.”

“Let’s go back to your son. If he was not educated, how did he plan to stop the dam?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know or you won’t say?” Hulan pressed.

“He went away sometimes. When he returned he would say that outside corruption would be turned to justice.”

“Did he go to the dam?”

“Maybe to Shanghai—”

“How could he afford that?”

Wu didn’t answer the question. Instead he repeated, “From the fist of the past to my fist to the fist of the future.” Then, “My son is dead, and he was murdered by foreigners.” It was a brash but sadly empty accusation.

Hulan gestured to the piece of paper on the wall even though the old man couldn’t see it. “You’re a disciple of the All-Patriotic Society.”

“We aspire to be reverent,” Wu admitted.

“You know this cult has been implicated in domestic terrorism,” she stated.

“These are false accusations.”

David admired the man’s bravery in acknowledging publicly that he was a follower of an illegal group. Or was it stupidity?

“Do you have explosives here?” Hulan demanded.

Wu looked shocked, then shook his head.

“I think your son was a troublemaker.” Her voice was cruel in its accusation. Father and widow wordlessly accepted the denunciation as Hulan walked to the wooden crates and lifted the cloth to examine the contents. “Did your son have a special hiding place?”

“No,” Wu answered without hesitation.

Hulan gazed about for other potential hiding places, then suddenly addressed Huadong’s widow. “
Ni!
You! What do you know about your husband’s activities?”

The poor woman visibly trembled in fear. Sensing this, the infant whimpered. The woman shook her head in vehement denial.

“The two of you must have had a special place to meet. This is just one room….”

David understood Hulan’s implication. There was no privacy here, but that word didn’t exist in the Chinese language, so Hulan finally had to spell it out.

“You have a baby. Where did you and your husband go to be alone?”

But before the woman could respond, her father-in-law said, “I am an old man, but I still remember the ways of a husband and wife. I sat outside.”

“I’m going to say some names,” Hulan said. “I want you to tell me if you ever heard your son speak of them. Brian McCarthy….”

“The foreigner who drowned,” Wu answered.

“Like your son,” Hulan pointed out.

“The river takes the careless. My son was not careless.” It seemed Wu wasn’t going to budge from this position, but David had seen this stubbornness before. No parent wants to accept a child’s faults.

Hulan continued listing the names of the foreigners at the dig, but neither Old Wu nor the widow professed to having ever heard of them.