I heard shouts down below. The soldiers were regrouping, preparing to assault the hill.
“No time,” Hero Kang said. “You must go. Take the rifle with you.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“You must,” he repeated, grimacing as he spoke, the pain becoming too much.
And then I was crying, so profusely I was blinded by tears. The emotion that overcame me was nameless. It seemed to include everything-everything I’d ever thought and everything I’d ever felt and everything I’d ever heard or suffered or longed for in my entire life. All of it coalescing right now, right here, with these two brave, doomed people who’d chosen to live, if only for a moment, as free souls. People who were now choosing to die as heroes.
A hand touched my face. Hye-kyong. “Find the village of Neibyol,” she told me. “It is east of here, not far. Wait there. A man called Moon Chaser will contact you.”
“Moon Chaser?”
“Yes. He is waiting for you. He will guide you to the Manchurian Battalion.”
“How will I find him?”
“He will hear of this.” She nodded toward the mayhem below. “And he will be watching for you. Do not approach the village directly. Wait on the outskirts. Word will spread soon enough.”
I hesitated, looking at the two of them. With a retching cough, Hero Kang spat up blood.
Hye-kyong struggled to a sitting position. She cradled her father’s head in her arms. “Go,” she said.
I grabbed the rifle and popped off a few rounds at the drivers below. They scattered. Then I handed it to her, wrapping her fingers around the cold metal.
“I won’t need this,” I said.
Below us, on the side of the hill, gravel spattered against stone. Voices cursed.
“They’re coming,” Hero Kang said.
I knelt before them. I kissed Hye-kyong’s forehead and then kissed Hero Kang’s hand. Then I rose and strode away. In seconds, I was running, gravel scattering under my feet. Before I crossed the valley, gunshots sputtered across the hill. A fiery conversation ensued. Finally, after a half-dozen exchanges, all was quiet.
Perspiration covered my body as I jogged along pathways separating night-shrouded rice paddies. Ahead loomed another ridge, illuminated by a three-quarter moon. Beyond that, in the invisible distance, the Kwangju Mountains brooded, sheltering Mount O-song, the home of the Manchurian Battalion.
10
A dirty-faced boy startled me awake. He stared down at me, his mouth partially open, narrow eyes impassive. His bamboo-thin body was clad only in a flimsy tunic and loose pantaloons, more like rags than clothes.
“Koma-yah,” I said, “mul isso?” Boy, do you have water?
The boy turned his head slowly and pointed. “Choggiisso.” Over there.
“Katchi ka,” I said. Let’s go together.
Last night, I’d found refuge in this small shed that must’ve once been used to house an ox. All valuable farm animals, of course, had long since been confiscated by the collectives. However, individual livestock pens like this one, high up in the hills on the fringes of arable land, still stood. This was the third shed I’d slept in in as many nights.
Strangely, the boy wasn’t afraid of me. He reached toward my beard and grinned.
“Halabboji dok-katte.” Just like a grandfather.
“Nei,” I said, rubbing the rough stubble. “Halabboji pissut hei.” Yes. The same as a grandfather.
From a rusty pump, the boy poured me water in a dented metal pan. I drank it down. Then I asked him, “Pap isso?” Do you have food?
“Jom kanman,” the boy said. Just a moment. He ran off.
I estimated his age, at first glance, to be about eight or nine, but with malnutrition rampant in these mountains, he could’ve been two or three years older. If he brought me something to eat, that would be good, but if he brought adults, I’d have to flee. I squatted next to the drafty walls of the animal pen and squinted out into the overcast daylight. I’d slept late. It had to be an hour past dawn. I should’ve found a better hiding place before the sun came up, but the night before I’d been making good time through the hill country and hadn’t wanted to stop until I stumbled into this splintered refuge. I wasn’t sure how far I was from the Kwangju Mountains. When the boy returned, alone, I asked him.
“Forty li,” he told me, pointing toward the east. He said there was a bus that ran from the village to the town of Sokdei. I could take that.
“Tone oopso,” I told him. I don’t have any money.
His mouth fell open. “But you are a foreigner.”
“Some foreigners,” I explained, “don’t have money.”
While he chewed on that amazing thought, I chewed on the ddok he had brought me. A thick, glutinous cylinder of rubberized rice powder. Awful stuff. In South Korea, I’d often turned my nose up at it. Here, after three days of eating only the occasional rotten turnip or wilted cabbage leaves, it tasted like four courses at a five-star restaurant. In seconds it was gone. The boy brought me more water.
As I drank, he asked, “Are you a soldier?”
“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t going to tell him in which army.
“And you’re going to the Kwangju Mountains.”
I nodded.
“Why don’t you ride in a truck?”
“Not all soldiers ride in trucks.”
“Yes they do. They all do. I saw them, between here and Sokdei. Maybe five trucks.”
“Where were they going?”
“Many places. Each truck went in a different direction.”
They were setting up a line, I thought, between me and the mountains. How much did the North Koreans know of my mission? How important did they think I was? Important enough, anyway, to send five truckloads of infantry. In the last three days, I’d searched in vain for the village Hye-kyong had told me about, the village called Neibyol. I decided to risk asking this boy.
“It’s over there,” he told me, pointing. “To the south. On the other side of that mountain.”
Sokdei, where the boy had seen the soldiers, was to the east. It made sense for me to travel south toward Neibyol. Still, my strength was fading and it would only be a matter of time until the soldiers closed in on me. Now was the time to take a chance.
“Have you ever heard of someone called Moon Chaser?”
“Moon Chaser?” The boy’s eyes opened wide. “You know him?”
“We’ve never met,” I said.
The boy started shaking his head. “My mom never does business with the Moon Chaser. She loves the Great Leader. She would never do such a thing. The Great Leader provides everything for us.”
The boy was nervous now, stepping away from me.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He shook his head. Then he turned and ran.
I moved out, heading south.
A red sun cast long shadows by the time I reached Neibyol. It was the most unprepossessing cluster of shacks I’d seen during my entire three-day sojourn in these hills. The buildings were made of rotted wood, some of the planks knocked loose; the thatched roofs had turned rust brown and looked as if the bundled straw hadn’t been replaced in years.
I was well hidden in a stone grotto, with escape routes both ways, because I was worried that the boy had alerted someone to my presence. But even if the army knew about me, they would have trouble navigating their way through these hills. The countryside looked as if it hadn’t changed since the Chosun Dynasty. The massive roads and trains and canals leading into and out of the capital city of Pyongyang were not to be found here. There was little arable land in North Korea, so all the big agricultural communes were located in the Taedong River valley, to the northeast. Neither were there any mining activities that I’d seen. I knew from my briefings that massive amounts of copper, zinc, lead, and iron ore were found in North Korea, but those deposits were located in Hamgyong Province, far to the north. These hinterlands, between Pyongyang and the DMZ, were like a land that time forgot. Soldiers in trucks would have a lot of ground to cover and poor roads to do it on, which would be good for me. My goal was to reach the Manchurian Battalion somewhere on the slopes of Mount O-song. If I kept moving, I had a chance.