A woman in steel-rimmed glasses went over and whispered in the general’s ear, while he was nodding his gray head and wiping his sunken mouth with the towel. After she left, the general took a cigarette out of a gold case, and another young woman struck a match for him immediately. How could such a scarecrow command the entire military region? Impossible. Even too old to satisfy his women. He was useless and should have been dismissed long ago.
The enchanted cart driver moved forward to take a better look at the general’s face. Absentminded, he put his leg into the court. “Ouch!” he cried out, and almost jumped up.
A young officer had kicked Tang’s leg, which withdrew from the court instantly. Tang turned to glare at the young man, his big eyes so ferocious that the officer was taken aback. “I will remember you, son of a bitch,” Tang cursed under his breath.
The officer turned around to watch the game. From behind, Tang fixed his eyes on the man’s cupped ears and then measured his height—five feet nine. One stripe with two stars. You wait, young cock, he thought. I’ll have you raise pigs when I become a general. I’ll remember you and will nab you. You have eyes, but they don’t see your lord. I’ll have one of them plucked out. I swear in the honor of my ancestors, who have the same name as the great dynasty, I will—
The ending whistle cut off Tang’s thought. He turned his eyes to the general, who stood up and shook hands with the fat official. Then the young women moved with him toward the limousines. The woman carrying a medical box even held his arm to support him. Not many days left. He could hardly walk. It was time for a new general to take over.
Having watched the small man climb into the second limousine, Tang turned and retreated with the crowd to the front entrance. A warm breeze blew across his burning face; the scorching sun made the air flicker slightly. He felt as though he were an immortal, his feet stepping on the clouds and his eyes seeing a lot of stars and rainbows dancing on the horizon. Hope at last settled in his heart.
For several days Tang was thinking how to get rid of Da Long. He wouldn’t knife or hammer him. That would demand so much from himself that he might not be able to carry it through. He imagined taking his son onto a mountain and pushing him down a cliff, but all the hills nearby were not high enough. How about drowning him? There was only one reservoir in the village, and the two men in charge of the pump house were on the site all the time. Besides, Da Long could do the doggy stroke. If he put him away, he had to do a clean job and make sure that everything looked natural. Yes, he had it. Electrocute him. But how? He didn’t know how to handle electricity himself. It was too dangerous, and he might kill himself and others. Have some help? No, he had to do it by himself, no money for that.
Though never able to work out a perfect plan that would guarantee his son’s death, Tang did make one. He decided to use the horse cart, which Da Long had been learning how to drive. It was too bad that no rocks were to be transported anymore; otherwise Tang could easily have had the cart overturned and the boy buried by a load of rocks. These days he hauled only crops from the fields to the threshing ground.
One afternoon before leaving for work, Tang picked a few tiny peppers from his garden and put them into his tobacco pouch. The country folk called that kind of pepper “dog penis” because it was extremely hot and also resembled that organ of a dog. Tang threw on the cart a rope and a large wooden peg used for tightening up a crop load, and then he set out with his son for the millet field on the northern hill. Da Long was driving.
Sitting side by side, they didn’t speak on the way. Tang was smoking, and occasionally he squinted at his son. The boy was handsome: full forehead, thick brows, square mouth; so handsome that Tang wondered whether Da Long was his own son. Probably a wild seed, destined to be plucked off the soil. Then he felt a numb pain in his chest, and his head seemed to be reeling. I must do it, he said to himself. Without cruelty a man is nothing, just like a knife without steel in its blade. You have to sacrifice something to get another thing. He is taking away all my fortune. It’s time to wind things up. There aren’t many years left and I must do it now.
While several commune members were loading the cart and his son went into the cornfield to urinate, Tang approached the shaft horse quietly. He tapped its hindquarters and lifted its tail, then thrust a pepper into its anus. The horse quivered, but regained its calm manner as though nothing had happened. In the same way Tang fixed the other two horses.
A mountain of millet rose on the cart, and at the back of the load a man was turning the peg to tighten the rope. Da Long returned. His father walked over and handed him the whip, and said, “You drive it to the threshing ground. I have something to do in the field here.”
“All right,” the boy said, taking the whip. He had driven loads of crops before and didn’t suspect anything.
Watching his son’s triangular back, Tang realized the boy was almost a man. This further convinced him that he was doing a timely thing. Heaven help! Let it work out.
With a slight toss, the cart started moving out of the field. Everything seemed normal, and the other people turned to their work. Tang stood there, watching the load wavering toward the road and wondering why the hot peppers didn’t work. The load of the crop sank and rose, bumped a little, and got onto the surface of the road. As soon as the cart wheeled around to move down the slope a front horse, the roan stallion, plunged. Then the other horses began galloping too. The load was jolting wildly from side to side.
“Help!” The boy’s cry rent the air.
People were too shocked to respond at once. Without a word Tang was dashing toward the bumping cart. “Let’s go help,” someone shouted. Several men set off running behind Tang.
The load of the crop was plunging down the mountain road. The din of the horses’ hooves, the wheels, and the boy’s cries was fading away. After a few turns the cart disappeared; so did the noises, except for the horses’ neighing. Tang was running desperately. Gasping hard for breath, he felt as though his head was going to explode. Sparks and golden rings were floating around him while a taste of blood surged up into his throat. The commune members, left far behind, were amazed by his speed.
The cart fell into a small valley. Millet bundles were scattered everywhere, a few hung on the branches of apple trees. There beside a wheel lay Da Long, his eyes shut and his lips puffing out scarlet froth. Blood was trickling out of his nostrils. Tang threw himself at his son’s side and lifted his head up. The boy moaned, without much breath left in him. His chest had been crushed. Tears sprang to Tang’s eyes. It dawned on him that there was no hope for his son anymore and that he’d better finish him off. He looked around but couldn’t find a rock, then he saw the peg partly underneath a bundle. He picked it up, raised it with both hands, and struck Da Long on the skull.
“Hold it!” someone yelled from behind. “Don’t do it, Uncle Tang!”
The voice startled Tang and the peg fell to the ground. His son stopped breathing instantly. Two men grabbed Tang while others carried the boy off to the village. Everybody blamed Tang for his bad temper. However angry he was with his son for the accident, Da Long was merely a fourteen-year-old and a new hand in the work; there was no reason for Tang to strike him like that. Besides, the boy was dying, no father would beat a dying son. It was inhuman not to save the life in danger. Some people believed Tang had actually killed Da Long with the peg.