Ebony Scales

“On one condition,” Longwei said, his eyes fixed on Billy’s. “You join us too. I do not know these people, and I do not have time before the winter comes to integrate another one hundred people into the village, including the communications problems, and protect us from the Triads. I need someone who will lead them, who trusts them. You’ve brought them this far out of the cities. You must lead them to their new life as well.”

Billy looked around, his face pondering. For two minutes, he looked at the scared collection of city dwellers, who were being approached by villagers who walked up cautiously. Even the little boy and girl were being approached by a few of the village children, who didn’t know what to make of the girl’s Hello Kitty knockoff t-shirt, or the boy’s Pokemon hat. Joy was sure the villagers looked just as strange to the Christians, with their drab, plain clothing, strange accents, and dirt streaked faces.

“You’ve got a deal,” Billy finally said, smiling and reaching out to shake Longwei’s hand. The two men sealed the agreement with a handshake, and from the corner of her eye Joy saw Yingtai approach. She had been helping the doctor that morning, packing up his equipment for the move.

“I think someone else wants to say hello,” Joy said, nodding in Yingtai’s direction. Billy turned, his eyes lighting up and his smile growing at seeing the young woman. The two came together, stopping about a foot apart while Billy tried his best to express a greeting in village style Chinese. He kept stuttering however, and finally Yingtai laughed, reaching out to hold his hands again, and smiling.

“Do you think we should tell him about our engagement?” Longwei whispered in her ear. “After all, he is a minister.”

“After the move,” Joy replied. “I don’t need the blessing of the church on our engagement. You do have a ceremony in the village for marriages, right?”

“Normally, I play the role of master of ceremonies,” Longwei whispered back, “but yes, there is a village tradition. I’ll tell you about it later.”

The work was hard, but the new people quickly lent as much of a hand as they could. Joy was surprised to find the old man, who she learned was an agricultural scientist, was one of the hardest workers. “I lived through Mao, I lived through persecution after persecution, this is nothing,” he told her in his Australian accented English. Joy found out later the man had worked for fifteen years in the University of Sydney as a teacher.

The biggest factor in loading up the trucks was deciding who and what would go. Most important to the villagers, which surprised a lot of the city dwellers, was their farming implements. The U-haul style truck was filled with lots of hand tools, along with bags of seeds that Joy knew were going to be vital for the next year’s crops. Rice and buckwheat were going to be especially important, although Joy thought there might also be a lot of hunting and other things going on as well. Thankfully, Billy had secured plenty of other food supplies, which they would pick up along the way.

The next step was to decide who would go in the advance party. There were two camps of thought on the issue, and Longwei felt split. Part of the village thought that the elder villagers and the children should go in the advance party, in order to minimize the stress on their bodies, and to keep most of the villagers who could fight in any way with the main body, to help if the Army didn’t come through.

On the other hand, another camp felt that if there was a chance of the Army not coming through, it would be best to keep as much of the village’s strength in the new location, preparing and securing their new home while letting the Army handle the movement of the others. It was a hotly debated issue, with arguments on both sides.

In the end, Longwei decided to go with a third option, combining elements of both plans. The children, along with a core group of adults would be sent ahead with the Christians, under Billy’s lead, to set up and get the village ready. In this way, the future of the village would hopefully be preserved, while still keeping those who could not fight out of harm’s way as much as possible.

For the next two days, Joy worked from sunup to sundown, loading and packing the vehicles the Christians had brought, and helping the remaining houses and items be arranged when the Army arrived. If the General Billy knew was true to his word, he’d be arriving in three days, which left them just four days to pack the entire village and roll out before the Triads arrived.

At the end of the second day, Joy was lying on the wooden walkway surrounding the temple, exhausted. The sun had just gone down, and she counted herself lucky to have even been able to stagger back from the school, where she had helped finish packing all of the school materials into the back of two of the pickup trucks. Hearing footsteps on the gravel path leading to the building, she turned her head to see Billy approaching. “Hey Billy, sorry if I don’t get up. I’m not sure I can walk right now.”

Billy looked almost as tired as she was. In many ways, she was impressed. Back in Shanghai, Billy was always more of a talker, and while never lazy, didn’t get involved with physical labor as much as organization and management. He could pound away at a keyboard or speak in front of a crowd like a champ, but she had never seen him swing a hammer or turn a wrench before.

Since coming back to the village and accepting Longwei’s offer however, Billy was as tireless a worker as anyone else. He helped pack clothing into bags, or carry tools into trucks. He had even helped with preparing the community meals which had started to replace the individual family cooking in order to save time and resources. Joy had laughed as Billy was chased off by Yingtai, who told him he wasn’t ready to cook the rice yet.

“I understand,” he groaned, easing himself down onto the ground. “I just wanted to say we’ll be heading out around midnight, in order to minimize the change of Triad observation. Longwei did a patrol, and while he didn’t see anything directly, there were signs we’ve been under surveillance. He’s actually asked two men to go up to some of the old observation points you established for the last attack to keep watch on the road.”

“And how are they going to get a message back?” Joy asked. “The sun is down, the light signals won’t work.”