River of Dust A Novel

Twelve

T he Reverend steered his trusty donkey along a precipitous path that seemed to grow narrower by the step. If he had not witnessed a camel caravan successfully approaching from the opposite way, he would never have believed it possible to traverse the path ahead. Camels, however, could be surprisingly agile, whereas an old donkey with clouded eyes and at least one sore hip was another thing altogether.

The Reverend put himself in the Lord's hands. He might survive the journey, or he might not. Since his son's kidnapping, he had steadily given up his former efforts to master his own destiny with overzealous care. It wasn't lost on him that the theistic doctrine to which he had always subscribed was being steadily eroded by a laissez-faire atheism, as dangerous as the sheer cliffs on either side of him now. But, no matter, he was on a private, nonecclesiastical mission.

In the face of great trials and tribulations, the Reverend maintained his focus and simply kept himself, his manservant, and his animal calm. Not in any higher, biblical sense but in actual practice. That seemed to be the key to survival in so many instances. The more complicated goal of maintaining goodness and virtue at all costs seemed somewhat beside the point out here in this godforsaken wasteland.

The Reverend found himself retreating to a basic principle passed on to him by his dear mother: the best a person could do in life was to maintain overall good cheer. And why not, given the dreadful way that things occurred? Although now, as he approached the obscure outpost that he felt certain harbored his stolen son, maintaining her suggested attitude felt remarkably easy.

He called back over his shoulder to Ahcho, "Nothing can surpass the evening skies of these foothills in their late-autumn glory. I find they infiltrate my whole being with serenity."

Ahcho replied with an anxious grunt.

The Reverend had noticed that his number-one boy— as loyal a man as he had ever met— lacked nerves of steel and was prone to worry. The Reverend found that if he kept up the timbre of his voice, then both his manservant and his donkey were more likely to relax. He wished he could impress upon Ahcho the benefits of his evolving come-what-may philosophy, but he did not want to bother the fellow while he was concentrating on the trail. The Reverend adjusted the animal hide on his shoulders and returned to reading.

"Sir," Ahcho called forward, his anxious voice echoing across the ravine, "shouldn't you set aside your book for the time being?"

"Heavens, no, man," the Reverend shouted back. "I need the Romantics more than ever in moments like this. A line from Wordsworth— just like the pealing of those distant bells— serves to remind me of the Lord's elegant intentions even in the face of misery elsewhere. We are blessed, are we not, to be in the midst of such beauty?"

Ahcho offered a feeble sound of agreement.

The man needed to read more, the Reverend thought. All the people here needed to read more, starting with the Good Book, then proceeding rapidly to the classics. Imagine how Shakespeare would explode their constricted lives. Personal tragedy, such as the loss of a child, would not feel so personal given the context of the Greeks and the bard. Not that Shakespeare had soothed his own soul since Wesley's kidnapping, but the idea remained that he should.

The Reverend shooed away flies from his donkey's ears and smiled to himself. The chieftain had spied his son and soon his own odyssey would be over. He could envision how this most tragic act in the play that constituted the forty years of his life was soon to come to a harmonious end.

"I feel we are on a better path now, Ahcho. Things are looking up."

"Sir, we had better not look up, but keep our eyes on the trail."

"Yes, yes," the Reverend said. "I meant it metaphorically."

No reply came, so the Reverend tried again. "Take the temple bells tolling far off in the next village. I envision them as the golden streaks of sunset grown audible. I wonder, what do those bells tell us, Ahcho?"

Ahcho did not hesitate to reply, "That people actually live up this infernal path and somehow survive its passage."

"No, not that, man. The bells are meant to remind us of the seraphim, those angels who watch over us. And what do you think of the hawks that circle below us on the updrafts between the purple hillsides?"

"I believe they are vultures, sir, circling the carrion of bodies lost to the slide."

The fellow could be a first-rate wit, but he needed to loosen up. The Reverend shook his head, closed the book of poetry in his hand, and held it to his breast. "Ahcho," he shouted back, "I ask you to set aside your literalist interpretation. You need to be a poet at times like these. Those hawks, or vultures if you insist, are carried on the Lord's breath. They circle in sheer delight at the miracle of flight. You see, I cannot help rhyming when describing this divine setting."

"This place, divine?" Ahcho asked with a snort. "It is only divine if by divine you mean treacherous. For the Reverend, danger has become the only fascination and joy. You care more for the excitement of the hunt than anything else."

"Ah!" the Reverend replied, for Ahcho's words had pierced his heart. "Clever man," he muttered. "Terribly wise."

On they rode in silence. The Reverend forced himself to further consider his manservant's comment and determined that Ahcho was indeed correct: in the six months since his son's kidnapping, the Reverend had come to thrive more on the precipice than anywhere else. During his most recent stay at home, he had hardly been able to contain himself. The compound was far too tame for him, too constricted. What pleasure was there in huddling under a roof when his son remained out in the storm?

As a boy, the Reverend had followed his parents and two brothers down into the root cellar when tornadoes swept across the Midwestern plains. But if one member of their clan had accidentally remained outside, his father would not have hesitated to open the sloped wooden door and charge out into the winds in search of the lost. The Reverend was merely doing his fatherly duty, although, he had to admit to himself, the plains and the neighboring mountains now called to him not just of his son but of other things as well, though he could not name them precisely. Sometimes their call woke him from sleep, and he had no choice but to go.

He shook his head lightly and told himself to remain on track this morning. His goal was near at hand. He opened the leather-bound volume and slackened the reins. As the chill of the morning wore off and the late-autumn sun rose higher in the sky, the hide warmed him most pleasantly. The chieftain had been right: wearing the fur did make him feel less vulnerable to sorrow. The Reverend smiled as he recognized lines of poetry he knew by heart. He pinched shut his eyes, tilted his face into the sunlight, and recited them under his breath. He felt most blessed precisely when he made the least effort to be so.

"Master!" Ahcho called out. "Look ahead."

The Reverend's eyes snapped open. They had passed the final turn of the mountainside, and there before them stood a vast field of late-blooming poppies and, beyond it, an open expanse where deepmaroon-colored tents had been set up and people gathered.

"It is as the chieftain described," the Reverend said.

Ahcho pulled up beside him on his donkey and offered that skeptical look again. The man was a worrier, a naysayer even.

"This is where Fate has carried us," the Reverend said. "We must trust our path, Ahcho, if we are ever to achieve our ends."

Ahcho nodded, although he appeared unconvinced. "Please be cautious, sir."

The Reverend let out a laugh and spurred his donkey forward. "It will be all right, Ahcho. Everything works out in the end."

Out of the corner of his eye, the Reverend saw Ahcho shaking his head. The proof was in the pudding, the Reverend would have liked to say, but the serious fellow would never have been able to grasp that strange idiom.

Instead, the Reverend called back, "Come along!"

The poppies danced in the wind, their glorious Chinese-red skirts swaying. The Reverend knew that these flowers were the culprits that caused every opium fool to loll away his life, but for the moment he did not care. He was going to carry his son home on his lap through this field and even allow the boy to pick a few.

As they approached the crowd, the Reverend noticed the colorful glow of the tents. This primitive festival resembled a circus back home. He could recall the great excitement with which the locals ran out to the field at the edge of their town when the Barnum & Bailey train pulled to a stop. Every year, a motley-looking crew unloaded dozens of red boxcars, each inscribed with fine gold lettering and holding the most extraordinary sights: exotic animals coaxed and prodded down steep ramps and blinking in the bright sunlight. The Reverend had first seen camels in this way, and an elephant, too. Had he not witnessed them with his own eyes, he would never have believed that the Lord had such an imagination.

And, sadly, the same held true of the poor souls trapped in the sideshow. He had only spied the freaks inside that tent briefly for fear that his mother would catch him and send him home. But it had made a deep impression upon him, one that had factored into his decision to dedicate his life to the Lord and to come to China as a missionary.

Souls, the young John Wesley had realized, could be forgotten, misshapen, even mangled, and yet people were forced to live on and carry the burden of their deadened spirits for years. He had felt lucky as a boy to belong to a hardy race that lived well enough to help free others from their unfortunate lot. His soul was never in question, for he felt he had spirit in surplus— enough, indeed, to rescue others from their paltry allotment.

There on the Midwestern plains, he had pulled his small head away from the flaps of the sideshow tent and looked back across the cultivated fields of corn that rose high in late summer. The tassels swayed with such grace that he had understood, even as a boy, that something had to be done. Rows of crops were planted with care and strict order to create a satisfying harvest. So, too, it must be with human lives. People needed a way to manage the sheer chaos of their misery.

What a pure and sturdy understanding to recall at this time of rising doubt, the Reverend thought now as he approached the festival. Perhaps he would soon have ample reason to return to the timeworn theological track.

It was unbelievable to him that his dear, angelic child could be considered in that same unsightly category of lost souls by these ignorant people. Absurd but true to human nature: we don't trust that which we don't know and recognize. A blond boy was as alien as a god in their midst. Or a devil.

The Reverend felt his heart speed up as he and Ahcho halted, dismounted, and tied their donkeys to a tree. Somewhere amongst the crowd milling on the field at the edge of the mountain was his precious boy, no freak at all but his own flesh and blood.