‘Can you stop a knife with your belly?’ Black Eye asked in return.
Granddad knew he couldn’t stop a knife with his belly; he also knew Black Eye couldn’t stop a bullet with his eye.
The Iron Society soldiers came out of the hall armed to the teeth and formed a ring around Granddad, glaring like tigers eyeing their prey.
Granddad knew he only had nine bullets left in his pistol, and that, once he killed Black Eye, the soldiers would pounce on him like mad dogs and tear him to ribbons.
‘Black Eye,’ Granddad said, ‘since you’re so special, I’ll spare those pisspots of yours. Turn the bitch over and we’re square!’
‘Is she yours?’ Black Eye asked him. ‘Will she answer if you call her? Is she your legal wife? A widow is like a masterless dog – they both belong to whoever raises them. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get the hell out of here! Don’t blame Old Blackie for what happens if you don’t.’
Granddad raised his pistol. The Iron Society soldiers raised their cold, glinting weapons. Seeing their lips twitch, chanting, he mused, A life for a life!
Just then Granddad heard a mocking laugh from Grandma. His arm fell to his side.
Grandma stood on a stone step holding Father in her arms, bathed in the rays of the sun in the western sky. Her hair shone with oil, her face was rosy, her eyes sparkled.
‘Whore!’ Granddad railed, gnashing his teeth.
‘Ass!’ Grandma fired back impertinently. ‘Swine! Scum! Sleeping with a serving girl is all you’re good for!’
Granddad raised his pistol.
‘Go ahead!’ Grandma said. ‘Kill me! And kill my son!’
‘Dad!’ my father yelled.
Granddad’s pistol fell to his side again.
He thought back to that fiery red noon in the kingfisher-green sorghum and pictured her pristine body lying in Black Eye’s arms.
‘Black Eye,’ he said, ‘let’s make it just the two of us, fists only. Either the fish dies or the net breaks – I’ll wait for you on the banks of the river outside the village.’
He thrust his pistol into his belt and walked through the ring of stupefied Iron Society soldiers. With a glance at my father, but not at my Grandma, he strode out of the village.
As soon as he stepped up onto the steamy bank of the Salty Water River, Granddad took off his cotton jacket, threw down his pistol, tightened his belt, and waited. He knew Black Eye would come.
The Salty Water River was as murky as a sheet of frosted glass reflecting the golden sunlight.
Black Eye walked up.
Grandma followed, with Father in her arms. She wore the same look of indifference.
The Iron Society soldiers brought up the rear.
‘A civil fight or a martial fight?’ Black Eye asked.
‘What’s the difference?’
‘A civil fight means you hit me three times and I hit you three times. A martial fight means anything goes.’
Granddad thought it over and said, ‘A civil fight.’
‘Who first?’ Black Eye asked.
‘Let fate decide. We’ll draw straws. The longest goes first.’
‘Who’ll prepare the straws?’ Black Eye asked.
Grandma put Father on the ground. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said.
She plucked two lengths of straw, hid them behind her back, then brought them out in front. ‘Draw!’
She looked at Granddad, who drew a straw. Then she opened her hand to show the remaining one.
‘You drew the long straw, so you go first!’ she said.
Granddad drove his fist into Black Eye’s belly. Black Eye yelped.
Having sustained the first punch, Black Eye straightened up, a blue glint in his eyes, and waited for the next one.
Granddad hit him in the heart.
Black Eye stumbled back a step.
Granddad drove his final punch into Black Eye’s navel with all his might.
This time Black Eye stumbled back two steps. His face was waxen as he pressed his hand over his heart and coughed twice, spitting out a nearly congealed clot of blood. Then he wiped his mouth and nodded to Granddad, who concentrated all his strength in his chest and abdomen.
Black Eye waved his huge fist in the air and swung it hard, stopping inches away from Granddad. ‘I’ll spare you this one, for the sake of heaven!’ he said.
He also wasted his second punch. ‘I’ll spare you this one for the sake of earth.’
Black Eye’s third punch knocked Granddad head over heels, like a mud clod; he hit the hard, alkaline ground with a loud thud.
After struggling to his feet, Granddad picked up his jacket and his pistol, his face dotted with beads of sweat the size of soybeans. ‘I’ll see you in ten years.’
A piece of bark floated in the river. Granddad fired his nine bullets at it, smashing it to smithereens. Then he stuck his pistol into his belt and staggered into the wasteland, his bare shoulders and slightly bent back shining like bronze under the sun’s rays.
As Black Eye looked at the shattered pieces of bark floating in the river, he spat out a mouthful of blood and sat down hard on the ground.
Cradling Father in her arms, Grandma ran unsteadily after Granddad, sobbing as she called his name: ‘Zhan’ao –’
9
MACHINE GUNS BEHIND the tall Black Water River dike barked for three minutes, then fell silent. Throngs of Jiao-Gao soldiers who had been shouting a charge in the sorghum field fell headlong onto the dry roadbed and the scorched earth of the field, while, across the way, Granddad’s Iron Society soldiers, who were about to surrender, were cut down like sorghum; among them were longtime devil worshippers who had followed Black Eye for a decade and young recruits who had joined because of Granddad’s reputation. Neither their shiny shaved scalps, the raw rice steeped in well water, the iron ancestor riding his tiger, nor the mule hoof, monkey claw, and chicken skull shielded their bodies. The insolent machine-gun bullets streaked through the air to shatter their spines and legs and pierce their chests and bellies. The red blood of the Jiao-Gao soldiers and the green blood of the Iron Society soldiers converged to nourish the black earth of the fields. Years later, that soil would be the most fertile anywhere.
Having suffered defeat together at the hands of a common foe, the retreating Jiao-Gao regiment and Granddad’s Iron Society were immediately transformed from sworn enemies into loyal allies. The living and the dead were cast together. Little Foot Jiang, wounded in the leg, and Granddad, wounded in the arm, were cast together. As Granddad lay with his head against Little Foot Jiang’s bandaged leg, he noticed that his feet weren’t all that little, but their stink overwhelmed the stench of blood.
The machine guns opened fire again, their bullets smashing into the roadbed and the sorghum field, where they raised puffs of dust. Jiao-Gao and Iron Society soldiers tried to bore their way under the ground. The topography couldn’t have been worse: nothing but flatland as far as the eye could see – not a blade of grass anywhere – and the blanket of whizzing bullets was like a razor-sharp sword slicing the air; anyone who raised his head was finished.
Another interval between bursts. Little Foot Jiang shouted, ‘Hand grenades!’
The machine guns roared again, then fell silent. The Jiao-Gao soldiers hurled at least a dozen grenades over the dike. A mighty explosion was followed by shrieks and cries, and an arm wrapped in fluttering grey cloth sailed through the air. Granddad shouted, ‘It’s Detachment Leader Leng, that son of a bitch Pocky Leng!’
The Jiao-Gao soldiers lobbed another round of grenades. Shrapnel flew, the water in the river rippled, and a dozen columns of smoke rose from behind the dike. Seven or eight intrepid Jiao-Gao soldiers charged the dike, but they had barely reached the ridge when a burst of fire sent them scrambling back, dead and dying jumbled together, until there was no telling who was who.
‘Retreat!’ Little Foot Jiang ordered.
The Jiao-Gao soldiers lobbed another round of grenades, and at the sound of expl
osions, the survivors crawled out of the pile of dead and beat a hasty retreat northward, shooting as they ran. Little Foot Jiang, helped to his feet by two of his men, fell in behind them.
Sensing the danger in retreating, Granddad stayed where he was. He wanted to get out of there, but this wasn’t the time. Some of his Iron Society soldiers joined the retreat, and the others were beginning to get the same idea. ‘Don’t move,’ he said in a low voice.
Gunsmoke curled up from behind the dike, carrying with it the pitiful cries of wounded men. Then Granddad heard a familiar voice shout: ‘Fire! Machine guns, machine guns!’
It was Pocky Leng’s voice, all right, and Granddad’s lips curled into a grim smile.
Granddad, with Father beside him, joined the Iron Society. He shaved his forehead and knelt before the ancestor on his tiger mount. When he saw the mended spot where his bullet had made a hole, he smiled to himself. It was as though it had happened only yesterday. Father also had the front of his scalp shaved. The sight of the ebony razor in Black Eye’s hand chilled him, for he still had dim memories of the fight that had occurred more than ten years earlier. But Black Eye shaved his scalp without incident, then rubbed it with each of the freakish fetishes – the mule hoof, the monkey claw, and so on. The ceremony completed, Father’s body truly felt rigid, as though his flesh and blood had turned to iron.
Granddad was welcomed enthusiastically by the Iron Society soldiers, who, urged on by Five Troubles, staged a revolt, demanding that Black Eye acknowledge Granddad as his deputy.
Once the issue of second-in-command was resolved, Five Troubles then worked on their fighting spirit. He said that a thousand days of military training came to fruition in a single moment. Now that the Jap aggressors were wreaking havoc on the nation, he asked how long the men planned to practise their ‘iron’ skills without actually going out to kill the dwarf invaders. Most of the society soldiers were hot-blooded young men whose hatred of the Japanese was in the marrow of their bones, and the silver-tongued Five Troubles spoke like an orator, making them crave action on the battleield, to rage potent as an oil fire. Black Eye had no choice but to agree with him. Granddad took Five Troubles aside. ‘Are you sure your “iron” skills are sufficient to withstand bullets?’ Five Troubles just grinned slyly.
The Iron Society’s first battle was small, a brief skirmish with the Gao battalion, a unit of Zhang Zhuxi’s puppet regiment. The Iron Society soldiers, who were about to stage a raid on the Xia Family Inn blockhouses, met up with the Gao battalion as it was returning from a raid on grain stores. The two armies stopped and sized each other up. The Gao raiding party, made up of sixty or seventy men in apricot-coloured uniforms, was heavily armed. Canvas cartridge belts were slung across the men’s chests. Intermingled with the troops were dozens of donkeys and mules carrying sacks of grain. The black-clad Iron Society soldiers were armed only with spears, swords, and knives, except for a few dozen with pistols tucked in their belts.
‘What unit are you?’ a fat Gao-battalion officer asked from his horse.
Granddad reached into his belt and, as he drew his pistol, shouted, ‘The one that kills traitors!’ He fired.
The fat officer tumbled off his horse, his head a bloody gourd.
‘Amalai amalai amalai,’ the Iron Society soldiers chanted in unison as they launched a fearsome charge. Frightened donkeys and mules broke and ran. The panicky puppet soldiers tried to escape, but the slower ones were hacked to death by the Iron Society soldiers’ knives and swords. Those who managed to get away began coming to their senses when they’d run about the distance of an arrow’s flight. Quickly forming up ranks, they opened fire – pipa papa. But the undaunted Iron Society soldiers, having tasted blood, raised their chant and launched a ferocious charge.
‘Spread out!’ Granddad shouted. ‘Crouch!’
His shouts were drowned out by the sonorous chants of men charging in closed ranks, heads high, chests thrust forward.
The puppet soldiers fired a salvo of bullets, cutting down more then twenty Iron Society soldiers. Fresh blood sprayed the air as the shrill wails of wounded soldiers swirled around the feet of their surviving comrades.
The Iron Society soldiers were stunned. Another salvo, and more of them fell.
‘Spread out!’ Granddad yelled. ‘Flatten out!’
Now the puppet soldiers mounted a countercharge. Granddad rolled onto his side and jammed a clip into his pistol. Black Eye raised himself halfway up and bellowed, ‘Get up! Chant! Iron head iron arm iron wall iron barrier iron heart iron spleen iron sheet keep away bullets don’t dare approach iron ancestor riding tiger urgent edict amalai . . .’
A bullet whizzed over his head, and he hit the ground like a dog scrounging for shit.
With a sneer, Granddad grabbed the pistol out of Black Eye’s trembling hand and shouted, ‘Douguan!’
Father rolled over next to him. ‘Here I am, Dad!’
Granddad handed him Black Eye’s pistol. ‘Hold your breath, and don’t move. Don’t shoot till they’re closer.’
Then he shouted to his men, ‘If you’ve got a gun, get it ready. Don’t shoot till they’re almost on top of you!’
The puppet soldiers rushed boldly forward.
Fifty yards, forty yards, twenty, ten . . . Father could see their yellow teeth.
Granddad jumped to his feet, guns blazing right and left. Seven of eight puppet soldiers bowed deeply, all the way to the ground. Father and Five Troubles fired with the same degree of accuracy. The puppet soldiers turned tail and ran, offering up their backs as inviting targets. Finding his pistols inadequate for his purposes, Granddad picked up a rifle abandoned by a fleeing soldier and opened fire.
This minor skirmish established Granddad as the unchallenged leader of the Iron Society. The cruel, unnecessary deaths of so many of its soldiers had laid bare the folly of Black Eye’s sorcery. From then on they shunned the iron-body ceremony that had been forced upon them. Guns? Those were needed. Sorcery and magic couldn’t stop bullets.
Pretending to be recruits, Granddad and Father joined the Jiao-Gao regiment and kidnapped Little Foot Jiang in broad daylight. Next they joined the Leng detachment and kidnapped Pocky Leng.
The exchange of the two hostages for weapons and warhorses fortified Granddad’s leadership of the now-awesome Iron Society. Black Eye became superfluous, a man in the way. Five Troubles wanted to get rid of him, but Granddad always stopped him.
Following the kidnappings, the Iron Society became the most powerful force in all of Northeast Gaomi Township, while the prestige of the Jiao-Gao and Leng regiments was silenced once and for all. Peace having settled upon the land, Granddad’s thoughts turned to the grand funeral for Grandma. From then on it was a process of accumulating wealth by whatever means, including the appropriation of a coffin and the murder of anyone who got in the way; the glory of the Yu family spread like an oil fire. But Granddad forgot the simple dialectic that a bright sun darkens, a full moon wanes, a full cup overflows, and decay follows prosperity. Grandma’s grand funeral would be yet another of his great mistakes.
The machine guns behind the dike roared again. Granddad could tell there were only two of them now, the others obviously taken out by the Jiao-Gao regiment hand grenades.
Granddad’s attention was caught by movement among the dozen or so Jiao-Gao soldiers who had been mowed down by machine-gun fire on the dike. A skinny, blood-covered little man crawled in agony up the slope, slower than a silkworm, slower than a snail. Granddad knew he was watching a hero in action, another of Northeast Gaomi Township’s magnificent seeds. The soldier stopped halfway up the slope, and Granddad watched him strain to roll over and remove a blood-stained hand grenade from his belt. He pulled the pin with his teeth, then ignited the fuse, sending a puff of smoke out from the wooden handle. Holding the armed grenade between his teeth, he dragged himself up to a clump of weeds growing on the dike. The green-tinted machine-gun barrels were dancing above him, sending puffs of smoke into the air.
>
Regret was what Granddad was feeling. Regret that he’d been so softhearted. When he kidnapped Pocky Leng, all he’d asked as ransom was a hundred rifles, five submachine guns, and fifty horses. He should have demanded these eight machine guns as well, but his years as a bandit had instilled in him a preference for light weapons over heavy ones. If he’d included these machine guns, Pocky Leng wouldn’t have been able to run amok today.
When the soldier reached the clump of weeds, he lobbed his grenade. The crack of an explosion sounded behind the dike, sending the barrels of the machine guns soaring into the air. The grenadier lay face down on the slope, not moving; his blood kept flowing, painfully, agonisingly, and very slowly. Granddad heaved a sigh.
That took care of Pocky Leng’s machine guns. ‘Douguan!’ Granddad yelled.
Pinned down by two heavy corpses, Father was playing dead. Maybe I really am dead, he thought, not knowing if the warm blood covering him was his own or that of the corpses on top of him. When he heard Granddad’s yell, he raised his head, wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve, and said between gasps, ‘I’m here, Dad. . . .’
Pocky Leng’s troops came pouring out from behind the dike, like spring bamboo after a rain, rifles at the ready. A hundred yards away, the Jiao-Gao soldiers, clearheaded once again, opened fire on the charging troops, the submachine guns they’d got from Five Troubles’ mounted troops crackling loudly. The Leng soldiers tucked in their heads like a herd of turtles.
Granddad pulled the corpses off Father and dragged him free.
‘Were you hit?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ Father said after checking his arms and legs.
‘Let’s get out of here, men!’ Granddad shouted.
Twenty or more blood-spattered Iron Society soldiers stood up by leaning on their rifles and staggered off towards the north. The Jiao-Gao soldiers didn’t fire at them. And although the Leng detachment fired a few shots, their bullets went straight up in the air.
A shot rang out behind Granddad, and his neck felt as though someone had punched him; all the heat in his body quickly flowed to that spot. He reached up and pulled back a palm covered with blood. When he spun around he spotted Black Eye, whose guts had spilled out onto the ground, his large black eyes blinking heavily – once, twice, three times. Two golden tears hung in the corners of his eyes. Granddad smiled at him, and nodded slightly, then turned and led Father slowly away.