River of Dust A Novel

River of Dust A Novel - By Virginia Pye


Northwestern China

1910



One

T he Reverend loomed over the barren plain. He stared at the blank horizon as if in search of something, although to Grace's eyes, nothing of significance was out there. Sunset burned his silhouette into a vast and gaudy sky. Standing tall in his long coat on the porch above his wife and son, he appeared to be a giant— grand and otherworldly. Perhaps this was how the Chinese saw him, she thought. Her husband spread his arms toward the blazing clouds and shadowed flatlands as if to say that all this was now in the Lord's embrace. The breeze shifted, and billows of smoke circled their way. Grace watched the Reverend's outline waft and shimmer. She would not have been surprised if his body had gone up in flames right there before her eyes, ignited in a holy conflagration with only a pile of ash left behind to mark his time on this earth. Grace shook the strange notion from her mind, although she wondered how so good a man could appear so sinister in such glorious light.

As he started down the porch steps, Grace roused their sleeping child from beside her on the seat of the buckboard. "We're here," she whispered. "Our sweet vacation home."

The boy opened his pale blue eyes and blinked. How would it appear to someone so young? Grace wondered. Desolate or full of potential— she could not know. The Reverend lifted the boy from her arms and swung him high on his shoulders, Wesley's favorite perch. He rubbed his cheeks and surveyed the endless plain.

"If you look closely, you can see all the way to the Great Wall," the Reverend said. "And beyond it, the Ming Tombs and the enormous sand statues of Buddha that defy all belief. Then come the tribal provinces and the vast Gobi Desert that stretches on and on, further than you can imagine. I have seen it all, and I promise to take you there someday."

Wesley squinted into the slanting sun.

"That would be marvelous," Grace said. She slipped her hand into her husband's to step down from the wagon, and they proceeded on the rutted road.

"I am afraid that you will find the countryside here far from marvelous," the Reverend said. "It is too dry and forlorn to be called pretty. I hope, though, that it will grow on you. In the fall and spring, the light turns a most remarkable bruised shade at the end of day when the mourning doves return to roost in the willow trees."

"You are waxing poetic again, Reverend."

"Forgive my enthusiasm for boulders and scrub brush."

"There's no need to convince me. I have all faith that you have chosen well for our respite." Then, as they arrived at a narrow stream with a tree hanging over it, Grace took a seat on a rock and added, "I can see that this willow alone is reason for a visit."

The Reverend reached a hand toward her hair and patted it kindly. "Your forbearance is remarkable in someone so young. In all ways, you suit your name."

Grace blushed, which she knew was quite ridiculous. He was her husband and father of her child. Still, it was hard not to think of him as her master in matters of the soul, which were the only matters of consequence. Even after marriage, she continued to call him Reverend as she always had, and he never dissuaded her. That only seemed right.

"Don't you find this spot spectacularly Chinese?" the Reverend asked as he set Wesley down near the stream and took his hand. "It is as if we have stepped into an idyll depicted in brushwork. The setting warrants such artistry precisely because it is so lacking. The way they attribute beauty to bare rocks and ravines and rain clouds is really quite strange."

"But suppose I had not liked it here in the countryside?" Grace asked as the breeze made playful havoc with strands of light brown hair fallen from her bun.

The Reverend glanced across at the cottage he had built over the previous months with the help of his Chinese manservant, Ahcho. "I suppose then we would simply turn around and ride back to town and let the desert do whatever it liked with our little home."

"That's too sad to consider." She looked across at the charming structure that rose up surprisingly from the barren landscape.

"The desert winds would turn it to rubble in short order. You know how a corncrib or an outbuilding on our plains back home will tilt and then tumble if left uncared for?" he asked. "I believe the winds carried all the way from the Gobi can be at least as insidious. The weather has no mind or care for us."

She pushed the dusty soil with the toe of her laced boot. "But surely our cottage is better made than that?"

"You have far too much faith in me, my dear."

He looked down at her, and although she knew he was teasing, his face hardly showed it. Grace felt the breeze and breathed in the mossy air by the stream. She admired the tendrils of willow swaying in the trickling water and wondered if she could have been happier than on this day in June, here with her accomplished husband, healthy young son, and another child on the way. The Reverend bent and accepted a stone handed to him by their boy. A routine transaction and yet it made Grace marvel at her remarkable good fortune in this most unfortunate land.

Wesley stood straight, a miniature version of his upright father, and pointed to a cow in the field across the dirt path. The animal chewed at the brittle grass, oblivious to the watchers who wondered at its strong appearance and appetite.

"Odd, I didn't notice that creature before," the Reverend said. "I don't see how I could have missed it all those times we worked at building the cottage. It must have been left more recently."

"Perhaps someone will return for it soon." Grace stood and slapped the infernal dust from her skirt. Fine yellow silt wafted out from the folds of linen. They called it loess, this loamy soil that blew in from the distant Gobi. She would ask Ahcho to buy a better broom in Fenchow-fu and bring it with them the next time they visited the vacation home. She followed the Reverend and Wesley across to where the cow grazed.

"Quite surprising to see such a healthy animal in these lean times," the Reverend remarked. "No ribs showing. Any farmer would want to keep a close eye on this one. I cannot imagine who left it here unfettered."

She thought she heard an uneasy hitch in his voice and tried to judge if the Reverend was merely registering a general complaint about human profligacy or a more specific concern. When he noticed her watching him, he smoothed his brow and tried to smile, although his mouth more readily formed a mild grimace.

"Nothing to worry about," he said. "I have brought you to the countryside so that you might let go of all concerns."

As she continued to study him, a humming began in her head: a slight bothersome background murmur that was not altogether a noise but could grow to become one if she was not careful. It was a matter of controlling one's worrisome sensibilities, she reminded herself. She was, quite truly, a cheerful person and always had been.

The Reverend then addressed their son with an insistently joyful tone quite unlike him. "You may pet the cow if you wish." He lifted Wesley, and the boy's hand shot out toward the twitching tail. "Don't grab hold of it, although there is nothing more tempting. Just pat the hide. That's right."

Her husband now fully smiled down at Grace, and her heart ached to think of the effort it caused him to be frivolous for her sake. She stepped closer to his side and touched his jacket sleeve. "Reverend, I know you have brought me here so that our unborn child stays with us this time. I am most grateful."

He froze for a moment before handing her their son. He appeared ready to speak but had lost the words and now was unable to bring himself even to look at her. He stepped away and surveyed the plains.

"It is perfectly all right," she said more softly, for she knew that her words bruised him as if they were stones. "Mai Lin is in the cottage unpacking our things, and the door is shut. She can't possibly hear us. Ahcho has gone off in search of hay for the horse, and our little Wesley is too young to understand." In her arms, as if to prove the point, their son kicked his legs in delight as he patted the cow's back. "There is nothing shameful in it," Grace tried again. "I have heard that back home husbands and wives discuss such matters nowadays."

The Reverend took out his handkerchief and wiped his nose. Then he folded it carefully and returned it to his breast pocket. Yet still, he did not speak.

Instead of dwelling on her disappointment, Grace chose to help free her husband from his own harsh self-judgments, for surely he must have sensed he had fallen short. But how could she expect more of a man so preoccupied with matters of the spirit? She whisked away any unreasonable hopes along with the flies on the back of the cow and began to pet the animal with pretend delight, which was silly given that she had spent enough time on her grandparents' farm to know a work animal for what it was.

The smell of smoke wafted near again. She could see that the Reverend felt some relief that her onslaught had subsided. He appeared happily puzzled by the simple concerns of this world as he searched for the source of the distant fire.

"They must be clearing the fields," he said, rising onto his toes and rocking back again. "Extraordinary how spring brings out the optimist in man, even the poor farmer with no rain in the forecast. I believe the Chinese are even more resilient than my father was in a bad year."

"They have to be," she said, more flatly than intended. "It is their pitiful circumstance."

The truth was that Grace had seen no signs of industriousness on their ride into the countryside from Fenchow-fu. The fields stood fal low as the drought entered its second year. To her, the black cloud that had appeared on the horizon seemed to be rising not from fields as a sign of some farmer's forward-thinking efforts but instead as an indication of trouble in the last hamlet they had passed through. Then again, she was more apt to look for indications of ill luck or sorrow.

He had been right to bring her into the country, away from the town of Fenchow-fu, where, outside the missionary compound, instances of human suffering abounded. The Chinese children to whom she taught kindergarten routinely ate dirt. Many of their parents, good Christians, had not seen proper soap in months. Grace presided over the weekly ablutions where lye and a small strip of cloth were handed out to the long lines that formed before the men's and women's tubs. But how these people survived on so little sustenance remained a mystery to her. They ate nothing more than pale broth and dried meats swarming with flies, stone soup, and mush made from the ragged grasses nearby.

And those were the ones who still had homes. The beggars in the streets sat on their haunches not far from human and animal refuse. They stared at her with eyes scabbed over and unseeing. The smells, dear Lord, even the memory of the smells should have been enough to make them gag, as Grace did suddenly now. The humming in her head started to return, and she felt upset with herself for having brought it on with unpleasant thoughts. She bent forward and tugged at her high lace collar, covering her choking sounds with a cough. But the Reverend clearly recognized her familiar symptoms and appeared at her side in an instant.

He took the child from her and wrapped his long arm around her waist. Grace knew she was showing weakness by leaning into him, but she held on anyway. She looked into the wild red sun dissected by the black horizon. Was it happening again? Her knees buckled slightly as the vibrations in her brain persisted.

She glanced back toward the house and was not surprised to see Mai Lin appear on the front porch. Her amah had an uncanny way of knowing when Grace needed her. She squeezed her husband's arm, and he looked down at her strangely. Had she called out to Mai Lin, was that why her servant had come outside?

Grace swayed as the sunset pulled her gaze toward it. She stared into that bloody ball and saw red in a Chinese chamber pot, red on her linen nightgown. Her knees gave way, but the Reverend kept her upright and held her tight to his side. Twice Mai Lin had come to her in the middle of the night when Grace had needed her most. The old woman had rubbed ointments and herbs into her skin, swinging incense to calm her. Grace had survived, although her two unborn babies had not, but the Reverend was correct. It had all been too much for even a sturdy Midwestern girl.

Grace gripped him now in hopes that his unwavering stance would stop the dizziness in her head and erase the streaks of red behind her shut eyelids. After a long moment, she came to her own rescue with a biblical truth: the thought of being made of her husband's rib seemed right. She opened her eyes and saw that he was Adam surveying his world. And she was but Eve, the lesser one, and grateful for it. She must hold on to that perspective at all costs, although other, perturbingly discordant notions had started to seep into her mind even here in this distant outpost.

Then, far off, from the direction of the smoke, they heard the faint rumble of fast-approaching horses. Two specks came into view, and within a few moments the smudges of motion became riders charging their way across the open plain.

"Nothing to concern ourselves about," the Reverend said to his wife, "Most likely men of trade on their way to market. Perhaps the cow belongs to them."

When the horses came within fifty yards, he could see that the riders were not dressed as was customary for the region, but more like nomads of the borderlands. He had seen their type in his more distant travels toward the Gobi and the Mongolian steppes. They wore sheepskin coats draped heavily over their thick shoulders. Tattered rags stuck out beneath the matted fur, as if they had been on the road for some time and had sampled a piece of attire from every district they had passed through. Smoke smudges darkened their faces, and oily strips of cloth and strings of leather held back their slick black hair. Around their waists and across their chests hung amulets and metal canisters to store snuff and other sinful potions. Long sabers slapped against their legs, and daggers poked from their belts.

The Reverend handed Wesley to Grace, who slipped around behind him as the horses pulled up abruptly in front of them. The two men began shouting. The older one gestured for the younger one to hop down. He did and circled close.

The Reverend squared his shoulders and straightened to his full six foot four inches. He stared hard into the younger man's bearded face and did not move or betray anything but calm. The older man on horseback pointed from the Reverend to the cow and back again.

With an uncustomary chuckle, the Reverend said in English,

"Why, it's only the cow they're after." Then he spoke in a local dialect and asked the men, "Is this your beast, then?"

The men froze, apparently astonished that the white man seemed to know their tongue. The younger man came near again and poked at the Reverend's topcoat with a filthy finger.

"Or perhaps you know to whom it belongs?" Grace asked.

The Reverend grimaced. While he was proud of her ability to pick up the language, he also knew the rogues would not approve of a woman speaking to them directly.

The two men suddenly turned to her and let out a startling cry that echoed on the still plain. The Reverend's jaw tightened as the younger man took his knife from its sheath. Wesley began to whimper, and the Reverend patted his head. The man's dagger began to shadow Grace's chin. The tip of the blade flipped up her lace collar, and she let out a small, involuntary gasp. The young man laughed, and the Reverend had no choice but to step forward and speak more forcefully.

"Gentlemen, we have no claim on that cow. If you have a dispute, it is with the owner. We wish to pass in peace. We are here in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and intend to follow the exhortation of live and let live. We assume that you will do the same."

The older man's face tightened. "Lord Jesus?" he asked.

The Reverend's eyes grew bright. "Yes, you have heard of him?"

"Lord Jesus, king of the Ghost Men?" the older man asked.

The Reverend turned to Grace. "How remarkable. They know of Him and the Holy Ghost already." He looked to the men, and the edges of his lips rose in a genuine smile.

Surely, the miracle of salvation could cleanse even the filthiest of louts. And the Reverend was fast surmising that louts indeed they were: the smoke smoldering on the horizon seemed irrefutable evidence of what these hooligans had torched along the way.

The older man suddenly began to shout again. He let out a hideous cackle followed by a long, low growl. Staring down into the Reverend's blue eyes, he spat at his chest. The man thrust his saber at the sky. "No Lord Jesus! Death to Lord Jesus!"

He released a stream of sounds the likes of which the Reverend had never heard before. He felt certain the man was the devil incarnate, screaming with every intention of waking the gods— both his and theirs. The Reverend had met with fury and treachery before. He knew that to stand in the face of it, to neither turn one's cheek nor one's back but to straighten the shoulders to face one's fate, was the only way to illustrate the true strength of the Lord. He stared into the man's wild face, ignoring the spit and the curses and the swords.

Grace began to whimper and held tighter to his waist, pressing Wesley against him, too, until the child clung to his father's back like a frightened monkey.

"Please," she said, "let us alone. Take the blasted cow, we don't care. Let us be. Certainly, we have done nothing to harm you."

These words seemed to infuriate the older man beyond all else, and he threw his thick leg down over the horse. He landed with a thud on the ground, his fur boots sending up a cloud of dust. He raised his sword over Grace's head and began chanting in words the Reverend did not understand. Not words so much as sounds, rocking and keening, as if he had experienced a great loss. The older man bowed his head in soulful prayer. After a long, low moan, he looked up and clapped his hands.

The younger man appeared before the Reverend and thrust his hand into the minister's breast pocket. He snatched the white handkerchief neatly folded there. His grimy fingers held it aloft, whipping it in the breeze. The thing unfurled as he waved it in circles, and the older man laughed, although not as maniacally as before. He seemed somehow calmed by the sight of the small white flag on the breeze.

The Reverend was relieved that his wife did not insist on further communication. It was best to remain as neutral as possible. The dangerous men seemed to be releasing their fury, and perhaps that meant they would move on soon. In the meantime, the barbarians appeared positively light-hearted now. As the younger one waved the handkerchief, the two joined arms in a little dance. They each held a corner of the cloth aloft and spun around it like peasants at a festival, two simpletons rejoicing over the harvest. The Reverend managed to pat Grace's arm in feeble encouragement. The older man appeared to be humming to himself. Then, as abruptly as their prancing had begun, it ended. The older man clapped once more, and the younger man let go of his corner of the flimsy fabric and the dance was over.

The older one wiped the Reverend's handkerchief across his own perspiring forehead. He held it out before his face and inspected it. The black initials— J. W. W: John Wesley Watson— hung in the air. The man nodded in confident affirmation, although of what the Reverend could not know. Then the fellow let out a high, happy cry of triumph.

Baffling people, Grace thought as she watched the man stuff the handkerchief into one of his many pouches. As he did so, she noticed something that equally surprised her: hanging from the dirty, embroidered sack was another strip of cloth that appeared to be made of the same fine linen as her husband's handkerchief. Thin and gray from use, the edge of this other piece of fabric looked identical to the one the man's thick hands stuffed inside now.

The Reverend appeared mesmerized by this sight, too, although he did not seem concerned about the coincidence. His face remained steely and firm until Grace noticed the slight twitching of his eyebrow, a tic from his boyhood whenever self-doubt captured him. The older bandit pulled the red string on the pouch. He let out a long, satisfied sound, then looked directly at the Reverend and pointed, his eyes fierce and sure.

The Reverend suddenly whipped around and shouted at Grace. "Go, woman, get inside with Wesley and lock the doors!"

Grace heard her husband's words and wanted to obey, but her arms wouldn't let go of his sleeve. He pried her fingers off and pushed her toward the cottage. With effort, Grace finally began to move.

"Run, Grace, run!" the Reverend yelled again.

Clutching Wesley to her chest, she hurried up the rocky path in the direction of the cottage. She heard Mai Lin screaming to her from the porch. It was a harebrained plan. She could not possibly escape two men on horseback. But Grace tried anyway, her fingers digging into her son's small body to keep him close. As she approached, she called out to Mai Lin to open the door.

"Gentlemen," she heard her husband behind her plead, "take this very fine watch. Sell it for many cows."

The older one shouted orders. Grace turned back, and it wasn't the gold watch she saw held in the air but a sword aloft in the older man's hand and pointed in her direction. The younger man threw himself onto his horse and rode hard toward her. Grace stumbled over the rough ground toward the cottage, but she did not fall.

Mai Lin called, "Here, Mistress, come!"

Behind Grace, the Reverend instructed her to press onward, too. But as she did, she was in such a state of confusion, she could no longer tell who was yelling what, and then it no longer mattered— none of it mattered. She might as well have been standing still, for the young man barely slowed his horse as he swooped down over her. He grabbed Wesley's arm and pulled. The boy held on to her neck for as long as he could. He cried out as his mother and the bandit fought over him. But finally, the barbarian stopped toying with Grace and simply yanked her son away.

She would never forget how easily Wesley was lost to her, as if to show that these men could have done it at any moment all along. They could take whatever they pleased. And what they wanted was not her but the child.

"My son!" she screamed.

The robber turned his horse and rode away across the flat land with her baby in his arms. The older man let out a loud cry, too, as he whipped his horse away. Grace chased after them. She ran until the frantic noise in her ears became unbearable. She tried to press on through it, but finally she bent over to catch her breath and crumpled onto the hard dirt. Her hands gripped her belly, and she squeezed shut her eyes and saw blackness. A quick prayer passed through her mind for the unborn child in her belly. She opened her eyes again and through tears saw the sun blazing on the horizon, that too-red ball of fire and blood. She could not bear to lose another one.

The Reverend ran past her and frantically worked to unhitch their horse from the wagon. "Mai Lin," he shouted, "help her!"

Grace tried to stand but fell again and clawed at the dust that quickly turned her palms yellow. After a few moments, she lay unmoving except by her sobs. Through the dust and tears, she saw Mai Lin hobbling toward her. The old woman bent low, her face alive with worry and indignation.

"Take care of her," the Reverend shouted as he mounted his horse and rode off after the kidnappers, who were becoming smaller and smaller in the red distance.