Chapter Thirteen
The Falcon and the Paw-Print
The paw-print was in the snow at the lambing-felt's south corner on the morning of the eleventh day.
It was a single print, very clean, set at the place where my boots had been through the seam sole-to-the-wind, and the boots had been kicked aside in the night — by me, in my sleep — and the seam had opened by the breadth of a fist, and a paw had come, in the small hour before dawn, to the gap, and the paw had set itself down in the trampled snow at the threshold of the felt with its long inner pad pressed flat and the four front toes spread, and the paw had stayed there for the long count it would have taken him to set his nose at the gap and breathe me in once.
He had not come inside.
He had not, in any night I had been at the lambing-felt, come closer than ten paces.
The paw-print was at one pace.
I saw it when I came out at the dawn-drum to use the latrine, and I saw it the way a soldier sees a thing that should not be there in the snow outside her tent — by the small soft stop of the eye that does not move the head — and I did not stop walking. I went on to the latrine. I did my business at the latrine. I walked back along the south side of the squad-line by way that took me past the supply-wagons and the smith's wagon and not past the south corner of my own tent, and I came back to the squad-fire at the changing without going within five paces of the print.
Old Crow was at the fire.
He was alone. Wei was at the orderly's wagon. Liu, on the sling, was at the cookfire helping the cook with the morning rice because Liu without two arms was still better with a rice-paddle than the cook was with both. Mountain was at the picket. Wang was at the latrine I had come from.
Old Crow was alone at the fire, on his heels, with his hands in front of him in the small steppe-tongue gesture of warming-without-a-cup, and he was looking at the south side of the lambing-felt.
I sat down on the windward side of him.
He did not look at me.
He said, after a count, "Boy."
"Crow."
"There is a wolf-print at the south corner of your tent."
"I saw it."
"How many paces from the seam."
"One."
He nodded.
He said, "Inside the seam or outside."
"Outside. By the breadth of a hand."
He nodded again.
He held his hands in front of his hands. He did not look at me. He said, in the small steppe-tongue lilt that came under his imperial when the imperial was being honest, "Boy. The trampled snow at the south side of your tent has been trampled by your own boots for four days. The trampled snow at the south side of every other tent in the squad-line is the same. There is no soldier in the legion who walks a perimeter of his own tent at the small hour before dawn. There is no orderly. There is no scout. There is no Vermillion Guard. The print at the south corner of your tent will be seen by no one who has not looked for it. The print will be gone by the second hour."
"Mm."
"The print is, by the count of fresh snow over an old print, between the third hour of the night and the first hour of the morning. The print is fresh. It is not under last night's wind-skin. It is on top of the wind-skin. Do you hear me, boy."
"I hear."
He said, "There is a small loose piece of felt at the south wall of the smith's wagon. It is held by one cord. The cord is at the second peg. The piece has been loose for two days. The wagon-master is going to drag the felt back to the harness-store this morning to mend it. He will drag it the long way around, past the eastern end of the squad-line. He will drag it through the gap at the south corner of your tent. He will drag it across the print. Do you hear me, boy."
"I hear."
"The print will be gone by the second hour. The print will not be seen by anyone who has not looked for it. Do you hear me, boy."
"I hear."
He held his hands in front of his hands.
He said, "On the third morning of the cold, when the snow was already deep enough to take a print, an old man at the squad-fire stood up and stretched and walked the perimeter of his own tent. He has done it on every morning since, between the first soft pad of the dawn-drum and the wake-pattern."
I did not look at him.
He said, "The old man has, on every of those mornings, looked at the south corner of his own tent."
I did not look at him.
He said, "Boy. Tell your wolf the old man knows where his own tent is."
I did not say anything.
He said, "Tell him with your chest. He will hear you."
I held my hands in front of my hands, on the windward side of him at the fire, and I held the warm place where the wolf had lain down at the end of the day's work, and I let my chest, very slowly, open at that warm place, the way I had let it open in the lambing-felt with the binding-cloth off, and I said to the wolf — without words, without a tongue at all, only with the way the chest goes when the throat says nothing and the chest is left with the saying — Crow has a tent. Stay away from Crow's tent. Stay closer to the smith's wagon.
The warmth at the place where the wolf lay down moved once under my hand.
The wolf — out past the picket, in the white grass at the line of the smith's wagon where the wagon-master would in an hour drag a piece of felt across my paw-print — got up and walked four paces north along his line and lay down again. I felt him do it.
Old Crow nodded.
He said, "Good."
He did not look at me.
He said, after a count, "Crows had a daughter, once. The sable was not enough. The sable was a small bird and was good at hiding and was good at watching, and on the night the Bureau came up the valley with three wagons and a fly of black canvas, the sable was on her shoulder and the sable was watching, and the watching was not enough, because the watching does not, in the end, hide the woman. Do you hear me, boy."
"I hear."
He said, "Tell your wolf to lie flat at the line of the smith's wagon for a week. The Bureau is reading the squad's wake-pattern. The Bureau is reading the print of every man in the column. The Bureau is reading my boots and Wei's boots and the orderly's boots and the secretary's own boots. The Bureau is reading every animal in the column that does not have a roll-number. The wolf at the picket-line has, since the morning we crossed onto the steppe, been on no roll. The Bureau is going to start counting them this week."
I held the warmth under my hand.
I said, with the chest, Lie flat at the line of the smith's wagon.
The warmth moved.
Old Crow stood up.
He said, "Eat your millet, boy."
He went away across the trampled grass to the picket-line.
The wagon-master came out of the smith's wagon at the second hour and dragged the loose piece of felt across the south side of the squad-line on the long lazy route to the harness-store, and the felt went over the south corner of my lambing-felt, and the print was gone before Wang Erlang's first morning piss had finished steaming.
Wei pulled me onto the picket at first watch.
He said, at the fire in the small administrative voice, "Yansheng. South picket again. The orderly takes the evening bowl tonight. You are off the rotation for two days. Yes."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He did not look at me. He looked at the embers. He drank his cup.
He said, "Yansheng."
"Sir."
He said, "Crow is at the north picket. Stay at the south. Do not, in any hour of the watch, leave the south. Yes."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He stood up. He went to the orderly's wagon. He did not look back.
I held the south picket.
I held it through the second watch and the changing and into the third. The cold was bad. The cold had the kind of teeth the lambing-felt's south-east gap could not, by itself, defeat — the kind of cold that wanted the chafe-ring under the binding-cloth and wanted the hollow at the small of the back and wanted, especially, the place between the second and third ribs where the bamboo tube lay under the under-shirt. I held the bow across my forearm at parade-rest. I walked the eight paces of the picket. I came back to my mark.
At the second changing of the watch the orderly came out of the prisoner-tent at the south side of the camp.
He carried two empty bowls and a strip of clean wrap. He walked them across the trampled grass to his wagon. He set them on his box. He went back inside the wagon. The lamp in the wagon was out. The lamp in the prisoner-tent was still lit.
The lamp in the prisoner-tent was still lit at the third changing.
The lamp in the prisoner-tent was still lit at the changing of the fourth watch.
The lamp burned all night.
He had not slept.
I had been told for eleven nights by the wolf at the smith's wagon — by the warmth in the chest — that the man chained to the centre-pole did not, on any night, sleep until the lamp had been allowed to go down to its last quarter. The lamp at the third quarter was the lamp of a man who had been holding the long quiet for one night more. The lamp at the half was the lamp of a man who had been holding the long quiet for two nights. The lamp at the full was the lamp of a man who had not been able, on the night of the killing of three men by the soldier with the water-bowl, to put the killing down at the felt at the centre of the tent. He had — by the warmth under my hand at the second rib — sat against the centre-pole and watched the lamp burn and waited for me, who was not coming on the rotation tonight, to come.
I did not go.
I walked the eight paces of the south picket.
I came back to my mark.
I walked the eight paces.
I came back.
At the third hour the wolf at the line of the smith's wagon — not at the picket-rope, not at the third pace from the prisoner-tent, but at the south line of the smith's wagon where I had told him with the chest to go and where he had stayed since the wagon-master had dragged the felt over the paw-print — the wolf got up on his haunches and looked at me, and he looked at the prisoner-tent, and he looked at me, and he sat back down.
He was telling me, with the chest, Go.
I held the bow across my forearm.
I held the mark.
I did not go.
The lamp in the prisoner-tent burned at the full into the fourth changing of the watch.
I came off the picket at the dawn-drum.
Wei was at the fire. He took the bow. He gave me the cup. He had warmed it on the embers. He gave it to me at the rim with the calluses of his right hand brushing the pads of my fingers for one count, the way he had done now on three mornings, and I drank the millet-water, and he took the cup back.
He said, in the small low voice, into the embers, not at me, "Yansheng."
"Sir."
"Tonight at first watch you go."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He nodded.
He drank his own cup.
He said, "There has been a wolf-print on the snow at the south corner of your tent at every dawn for four days, Yansheng. The wagon-master is dragging the felt on every morning he can pretend he has to mend it. The wagon-master will not be able to pretend on a sixth morning. Crow has told the wagon-master to drag the felt twice tomorrow. After tomorrow Crow will run out of wagon-masters."
I did not move.
He looked at the embers a long time.
He said, "I have not asked you what is at the south corner of your tent, Yansheng. I have not asked you because the asking would oblige you to lie, and a man under my hand who is obliged to lie is a man I have failed. I will not ask. I will say only what Crow told me to tell you. The Bureau is counting animals."
I said, "I hear."
He nodded.
He stood up. He went to the orderly's wagon.
He did not look back.
I went to the prisoner-tent at first watch.
The lamp was at the third quarter. He had let it down to the third quarter while the orderly had been in with the morning bowl, and the orderly had not, on the orderly's report to Wei, said anything about the lamp at all, because the orderly was a man who, in this campaign, would not say a thing that was not in the standard administrative cursive of his ledger-entries.
He was sitting against the pole.
He was, this evening, not sitting forward over his good knee. He was leaning his head back against the pole at the rim of his short hair, with his eyes open, and his eyes were on the lamp-flame and not on the centre of the tent at all, and the lamp-flame was steady. The bandage at his thigh was clean. The bruise at his jaw was almost gone.
I crossed at the six paces. I set down the bowl of millet. I set down the bowl of water. I sat back at the six paces. I did not, this evening, kneel at the four.
He said, in the third voice, into the lamp, "Sit closer."
I held the count of eight.
I crossed to the four paces. I knelt. I sat back on my heels. I put my hands flat on my knees. I did not look at his face.
He said, "Closer."
I held the count of eight.
I crossed to the three paces. I knelt. I sat back on my heels.
He said, "Closer."
I did not move.
He waited the count of eight.
He said, "All right."
He waited another count.
He said, "Yansheng. There is a thing I have been wanting to tell you for four nights. It is the second half of the thing I was going to tell you on the bandage-night before the secretary came in. I have been waiting because I have been wanting to be sure the telling did not become an asking. I am, tonight, sure. May I tell you the thing."
I held the count of eight.
I said, in the belly voice, "Tell me."
He said, *"There is a bird that lives in the bowl of my chest. He has lived there since I was four years old. He came to me at a wedding when my mother had put me in a felt cot at the back of a tent and the men were drunk and a hawk had come down through the smoke-hole because the smoke-hole had been left open in summer, and the hawk had landed on my cot, and the hawk had pressed his beak against my open mouth, and he had said, in the tongue I would not learn the words of for another eight years but knew, in the chest of a four-year-old, by the meaning under the words, "I will not lie down without you again." His name in the open air is Khaghan-bürkii. His name in my chest is the small low syllable I do not say, because to say his open-air name is to call him to my wrist, and to say the small low syllable is to put him into the bowl of the chest of any person within ten paces who does not yet know he is in there.
"I am telling you his open-air name because I will not call him to my wrist in this tent. I am telling you the rest because I am sitting at three paces from a person within ten paces. I will not say the small low syllable. Do you hear me."
I said, in the belly voice, "I hear."
He waited.
He said, "What I am telling you is that I know a thing about the bowl of the chest, and I know it because I have lived for forty-one years with a bird in the bowl of mine, and what I know is — sometimes — when one bowl is at three paces from another bowl, the two bowls feel each other the way two coals feel each other under the same ash. I have felt yours. I have felt yours since the night of the bandage. I have felt yours since before. I will not, on any night, say what is in the bowl of yours. I am telling you only that the bowl of mine has felt it."
I held the warmth under the under-shirt with the back of my own left hand at the second rib.
He said, very quietly, "And what's yours."
I held the count of eight.
I held it longer.
I did not answer.
He said, "All right."
He waited.
He said, "You did not deny."
I said, in the belly voice, "I did not."
He waited another count.
He said, "Good."
He did not say anything else.
We sat that way at three paces in the lamp-light with our eyes on the felt between us, and the wolf at the south line of the smith's wagon lay flat with his head between his paws, and the lamp burned down by another quarter, and the warmth at the place under my hand at the second rib stayed open.
When the changing of the watch came I rose.
I bowed at the small clipped angle.
I went to the flap.
He said, into the felt at the centre of the tent, "Soldier."
I held my hand at the back of the flap.
He said, "Thank you for not denying."
I did not say anything.
I went under the flap.
I crossed the trampled grass to the squad-fire. The wolf at the south line of the smith's wagon did not get up. He did not move at all. He lay flat with his head between his paws and his ears forward and his eye, this time, on the lambing-felt where it would in two hours have a fifth paw-print at the south corner that the wagon-master would, again, have to come and drag a piece of felt across before Wang Erlang's first morning piss had finished steaming.
I stopped at the corner of the supply-wagon.
I held the warmth under the under-shirt at the second rib with the back of my own left hand for the length of three breaths.
I went to the lambing-felt.
I went inside.
I lay on the cot in the lamellar and the binding-cloth, this night, because the wagon-master would not be at the felt before the dawn-drum and the seam at the south-east corner would have to be held by the cloth at my ribs and not by Old Crow's small loose piece of felt, and I closed my eyes, and I held the warmth at the second rib under the back of my left hand, and I said to the wolf with my chest, Stay at the smith's wagon. Do not come to the seam. Do not come to my tent. Stay where the old man has put you.
The warmth moved.
He stayed.
I held I did not deny in my mouth under Toghrul under all the other names in the back of my throat, and I held it until the small hour before the dawn-drum, and at the small hour before the dawn-drum the lamp in the prisoner-tent across the trampled grass went out.
He had let it go.
He had let it go because he had, in the third voice into the felt, said the half he had been holding since the bandage-night, and the felt had taken it, and I had not denied, and the lamp had then been allowed, finally, the thing the lamp had been wanting for four nights.
It had gone out.
He slept.