The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [136]
He screamed as he felt the tiny claws scrape his chest.
“It is just me,” Li Lan said as she climbed into bed.
“Don’t let the rats in.”
She snuggled against him carefully.
After a few moments she said, “The climb tomorrow is difficult and treacherous. You cannot go on, I think.”
“I have to see Pendleton.”
She thought for a moment.
“I can bring him down here in two days.”
“We don’t have two days, Lan. I’ll be caught by tomorrow morning.”
As soon as Li settled in, the rats became active again. Neal listened to the scraping sounds of their claws on the wooden floor.
“Don’t the rats bother you?”
“This is why we use the nets.”
“Why not traps?”
“Killing is wrong.”
Killing is wrong. Neal tried to tally the number of people who had been killed to bring Pendleton to the top of this mountain. Jesus, had it only been two? The Doorman and Leather Boy One? Only two? What am I thinking about? Two are enough. More than enough. And we ain’t home yet.
“We must leave as soon as it is light,” Li said.
Good, Neal thought. She’s accepted that I’m going with her.
“Sure,” he said.
“Sleep now.”
“Okay.”
She stroked his chest. “I would like to do more than sleep, but you are wounded.”
“Well, maybe if you were real gentle with me …”
“Oh, I can be very gentle.”
She was, Neal thought later, remarkably gentle.
“Li Lan,” he said, “when I go down the mountain … on the other side … will you go with me?
She took a long time to answer.
“Tomorrow,” she said, her voice edged with excitement, “we will look into Buddha’s Mirror, see our true selves. Then we will know everything.”
He wanted to talk about it more, but she made a show of being sleepy. Her breathing deepened and steadied, and soon she was sleeping.
Neal listened to the clawing of the rats before finally willing himself to sleep. Dawn would come all too soon.
20
Xao Xiyang stepped out from the modest pavilion at the top of the promontory and waited for the sun to rise. The air was so clear, so lovely, so peaceful that he almost did not wish to light the cigarette in his hand. The long climb and the pure mountain air had cleared his lungs, and the serene panorama almost inspired him to begin a more healthy regimen. The Yi guide had put him to shame, but of course he was much younger, and a native. Xao accepted the rationalization and lit the cigarette.
So … soon he would see his true nature. A dangerous undertaking, considering what he was about to do. He was by no means certain he wanted even a glimpse at his own soul. He leaned over the low railing and sneaked a peek at the mists below. He saw no mirror; it looked like a bowl full of clouds, that was all. But hadn’t the Yi guide assured him that the Buddha’s Mirror appeared every day at dawn and dusk? Superstitions, he thought. They will hold us back.
He felt the quiet presence of his driver behind him. If I am tired, he thought, this good soldier must be exhausted, having raced all the way around to the west side of the mountain and then climbed the treacherous western trail. A true soldier, a good man who should not fear seeing his own soul.
“Is the American with you?” he asked.
“Yes, Comrade Secretary.”
“Good. He is well?”
“He is breathing somewhat heavily.”
“We do not all enjoy your sturdy constitution.”
He offered the driver a cigarette, which the man accepted.
“I take it, then,” Xao said, “that young Mr. Carey took the bait.”
“You have seen the fish in the pool at Dwaizhou?”
“Yes.”
“Like that.”
“Ah.”
Xao considered his contradictory emotions: satisfaction that the plan was working, sadness that the plan had to work to its unrelenting end. The duality of nature—that a great good was always coupled with a great evil, a wonderful gift with a tragic sacrifice. Perhaps the Buddha’s Mirror will show me two faces.
“When do