The Trail to Buddha's Mirror (40 page)

He got angrier when Li Lan whacked him in the legs with her walking stick. He leaped in the air, snarling and snapping, and rushed toward her legs. She stepped back and swung at him again, missing him by an inch as he somersaulted backward. Another monkey rushed at her from the side. Neal couldn’t swing at it with his stick without hitting Li, so he kicked at the monkey, which retreated up the path and hunched into a threatening crouch. The rest of the monkeys contributed screams and howls of intimidation and hilarity and waited for the next round.

Neal pulled the pistol from his waistband. He leveled it at the lead monkey, who sat staring at it curiously and issued a low growl. He might not have recognized a gun, but he knew a threat when he saw one. He started to back away, still growling. His gang followed him as he scrambled back up the hill into the bamboo.

Neal pulled the pistol up and blew into the barrel before sticking it back in his pants.

Li didn’t get it.

“You’ll be okay now, ma‘am,” Neal said, “as long as I’ve got this here Winchester.”

Then a small stone hit him in the side of the head. This was followed by a barrage of rocks, sticks, nuts, and fruit that followed Neal and Li as they retreated about fifty feet down the path.

Son of a bitch, Neal thought. The bastards understand firepower.

Sure enough, four monkeys were still launching missiles while their comrades hustled around the hillside collecting ammunition. Neal picked up a handful of small, sharp stones and flung them toward the monkey battery on the hillsides. He found the resulting cries of indignation extremely satisfactory, especially when his adversaries retreated up the hill.

Joe Graham is wrong, Neal thought. I
can
outsmart an ape.

He found this wasn’t exactly true, however, when it became apparent that all the monkeys had done was set their blockade up on the next switchback. Two of the largest were sitting in the middle of the path, grinning with immense glee while their supporting troops crouched in the bamboo, ammunition already at hand—or paw.

“Uh, how many switchbacks are there?” Neal asked, aware that this could go on all day.

“Many.”

“What do the monkeys want?” Maybe it would be easier to pay the toll and get on with it.

“Food.”

“Do we have any?”

“No.”

“Right. I’m going to shoot one.”

“No!”

“We could collect the reward.”

“For a live monkey only.”

“We don’t have time to fuck around here, Li.”

She looked at him curiously and with a trace of indignation until he realized that she hadn’t understood the idiom.

“I mean we have to get going.”

The monkeys, fully aware of the humans’ hesitation, sensed victory and inched closer. Great grimaces of dominance spread across their faces and they scratched vigorously.

“You may not shoot them,” Li said firmly.

Besides, Neal thought, I probably couldn’t hit one anyway. And they are kind of cute, in a repulsive sort of way. He drew the gun anyway and pointed it at the leader. The leader didn’t show any signs of intimidation this time, unless rubbing one’s genitals could be interpreted as a sign of terror. Then he shot back, so to speak, with a stream of urine.

“That does it,” Neal said. “Can you stand them off for a few minutes?

“I think so.”

Neal retreated down to the edge of the last curve and then headed up the hill through the bamboo. He scratched his way up to the next level of the path until he was looking down at the monkeys. He gathered up rocks, sticks, and fruits and then headed down toward the spot where the monkey gang was in its standoff with Li Lan. He snuck from tree to tree, being as quiet as a city-bred klutz can be in a bamboo jungle, until he stood about twenty feet above the gang.

He took a Ron Guidry windup and launched a rock at the leader, scoring a strike on its haunches. The monkey yelped more with surprise than with pain and turned to see where the rock had come from. Neal then threw as many of his missiles as he could get off, and screamed obscenities.

The startled monkeys froze on the path and glared up at him. For one ugly moment, Neal thought they were going to charge him, but his last pitch was a wicked curve with a bamboo stick that hit the leader in the left shoulder.

The leader turned tail and the monkeys ran, downhill this time, and Li Lan scurried up the path to Neal.

Neal waited for her praise and gratitude.

“I perhaps should have told you about the snakes.”

“Snakes?”

“Poisonous snakes, yes.”

“Yes, you perhaps should have told me about them.”

She nodded solemnly. “There are many poisonous snakes in the bamboo forests here.”

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome. Shall we continue?”

She started up the switchback. Neal picked up some stones and put them in his pockets in case the monkeys tried to gain the upper hand on them again.

He shouldn’t have worried. No monkey on earth was ambitious enough to tackle the next few switchbacks, which were made up of narrow stone steps that rose at an impossible grade up to the very edge of the mountain. It seemed like some endless torture of running up stadium steps, prescribed by some goofy, sadistic Chinese football coach.

Neal knew that the top of each stairway had to be—
had
to be—the last, but each time he reached a landing it was only a prelude to the next zigzagging staircase. His thighs and calves strained and ached, and his lungs started to struggle for air.

In addition to the exertion, there was the bonus of fear. They were walking along the edge of the mountain, on the rim of steep cliffs and deep chasms, on stone steps that were a thousand years old. The steps were gullied and chipped, and where water ran down from uphill, they were slippery as well. Most of the trail wasn’t that dangerous, and a fall would have been broken quickly by the thick bamboo, but other spots offered the prospect of a dramatic free fall into jagged rocks, rushing streams, and waterfalls. It was a painter’s dream, no question, but a nightmare for Neal Carey, who was afraid of heights.

So he was exhausted, hungry, aching, and nauseated with fear when the trail finally leveled out before narrowing into an arched stone bridge.

“The Bridge of Deliverance!” Li announced over the roar of a huge waterfall above them.

“Why is it called that?!” Neal shouted, praying that the answer didn’t involve an albino boy and a banjo.

“Here, all fatigue disappears, because the sound of the rushing water is so beautiful! Sit and listen!”

She crossed the bridge to a small level spot and scooped some stones from a pool in the river. She came back and handed the stones to Neal.

“These are stones from the Great Lake above, and they have great medicinal qualities! You boil them in water and drink the water and you will never have a heart attack!”

“You’d better keep them on hand.”

“Are you rested?”

“Why did you have to hide Pendleton on the
top
of the mountain?!”

“Because it is hard to get there!”

“One more minute.”

He stood up and leaned gingerly on the bridge wall. He had to admit that the sound of the water was lovely, and the panorama was sensational. He could see the peak of the mountain, their goal, shining in the sunlight above him. The waterfall cascaded right beside him, casting a small rainbow where it smashed into the rocks. The bamboo forest was a sea of emerald. And there was always Li to look at. He was sadistically pleased to see sweat on her face.

She frowned. “Now I am afraid perhaps the trail becomes difficult.”

“Oh,
now
it does?”

“I am afraid perhaps yes.”

Neal had come to understand that the more modifiers a polite Chinese person threw into a sentence, the worse the situation was.

“More steps?” he asked.

“Yes.” Then her face brightened. “But they are not stone!”

“Nails?”

“Wood!”

Wood. Hmmm …

“For how far?”

“Perhaps maybe one thousand feet.”

“Pendleton walked up here?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Let’s do it.”

Yeah, right, let’s do it, he thought about a half hour later as his heart slammed and his chest pounded back. The beauty would have been breathtaking if the climb hadn’t already done the job. But fear is a wonderful motivator. Neal was tired from the climb, but his mind reminded his body that there were angry people chasing them up that slope, and mind and body got together to make a batch of adrenaline to help him finish the climb.

The path finally flattened out on a level shelf that skirted yet another promontory. A sharp cliff dropped off on Neal’s right. To his left, a dramatic complex of balconies and terraces had been built into the steep hillside. Under different circumstances he would have wanted to stop and explore the buildings, but the sun was dropping along with his energy and morale, and the morning’s adventure had become the afternoon’s grim march.

The path dropped steeply downhill, which Neal found almost as wearing as the uphill struggles, through a stretch of sparse scrub pine, across another narrow stream, and then uphill again. He and Li passed a few monks here and there, but otherwise the mountain seemed empty. Where, Neal wondered, were all these pilgrims trying to find enlightenment? He hadn’t seen one stinking pilgrim. He made a mental note to ask Li, when they stopped.
If
they stopped.

They would have to stop soon, he thought as he forced his legs up another steep stretch of stone stairs. It would be impossible to hike this trail at night, even with lanterns. He was nervous walking along it even in daylight, afraid a tired misstep would send him hurtling to his own enlightenment in the canyons below.

And they would have to sleep. He was exhausted and numb. She must be tired, also. And whoever was chasing them had to be beat, as well. He figured he and Li had at least a four-hour jump on them, and their pursuers wouldn’t be able to move at night either.

He was about to share this analysis with Li Lan, when he heard her chanting.

“Yi, ar, yi, ar, yi, ar, yi… ”

“What are you doing?”

“Counting. One, two, one, two, one, two …”

“Why?”

“It takes mind away from the pain in your legs. Try it.”

“What I had more in mind was a hot bath, a bed, and a bottle of scotch.”

“Try it.”

He tried it. He chanted along with her, matching his steps to the beat. He felt stupid at first, but then it began to work. It was so silly and so childish that he began to laugh. Then they laughed together, taking turns at counting off the cadence, and the game took them across more stone bridges, through more thick bamboo forests, up an incredibly vicious series of switchbacks, past three more monasteries and temples, and along the edge of a terrifying cliff.

“Yi, ar, yi, ar, yi, ar, yi…”

“Yi, ar, yi, ar, yi, ar, yi…”

They were heading up some stairs when he fell.

It was stupid, really. He simply missed the switch in the switchback and walked straight off the edge of the trail. One second he was mindlessly chanting, the next second he was in midair.

A fir tree broke his fall and cracked at least one of his ribs.

His shriek echoed through the canyon, so he had the rare opportunity of listening several times to the sound of his own pain. The jolt of agony sped like an express train from his chest to his brain. His brain told him to shut the fuck up, so he clamped his jaws together and whimpered. He wanted to roll around on the ground, but he was afraid to move because his position—feet jammed against a tree on the side of a cliff—was somewhat precarious. When he looked up he saw that he had fallen about fifteen feet. When he looked down he was quite content with his broken ribs; he had another thousand or so feet to fall if he wanted to throw back this card and draw another one.

He rolled over gently on his stomach so that he was facing uphill, and began to claw his way back up to the path. Li stretched her walking stick out. He grabbed it and she pulled him up. Back on the relative safety of the path, he rolled around on the ground in agony.

“Is anything broken?” she asked.

“I think a rib or two.”

“That is too bad.”

She was a bit too cool for his taste. He would have liked her to be a little more upset. A few tears would have been okay.

“Does it hurt much?”

“No. I’m just cleaning the steps with the back of my shirt.”

“Yes. It would be better if you would be still.”

“It would also be better if you’d shut the fuck up.”

“Better also to be calm.”

Calm. Right. My stomach feels like it’s been napalmed. We’re halfway up a mountain, it’s getting dark, I can’t breathe or walk, and some very heavy types who are chasing us just got a major boost. So let me indulge in a little panic for a minute.

Not to mention self-pity.

“Do not worry,” she said. “I can carry you.”

“Lan, don’t be offended, but you don’t resemble—in any way, shape, or form—a mule.”

“I can carry you.”

“I have at least forty pounds on you.”

“We must take off shirt and take care of ribs.”

“You touch that shirt, you go off the edge.”

“Tough man.”

“That’s ‘tough guy.’ Aahhhh!!!”

She opened his shirt. His rib cage was turning purple. His head whirled and he almost fainted, but a silly sense of male pride kept him conscious.

“I will do some pressing,” she said.

“I’ll shoot you.”

She apparently didn’t believe him, because she dug a finger into the muscles above the ribs. The pain didn’t stop, but the piercing stabs settled into a dull, sick ache.

“How did you do that?”

“Be still.”

She did more pressing. Then she manipulated the broken rib. This time Neal fainted.

He awoke to the sound of her
yi-ar
chant. She was climbing a hill, carrying him piggyback, her knees bent to adjust to the extra load. The sky was slate gray.

His ribs throbbed to the rhythm of her gait.

“Put me down.”