Ebony Scales

“About a dozen of us.” Yingtai rattled off a list of names, which caused Longwei to smile. Joy could understand about half of the names, and noticed that they were all younger, in their late teens to early twenties, those who had grown up under the constant looming threat of Triad or governmental reprisal without actually directly feeling either.

It was a dangerous group to have involved. They were idealistic, they were passionate…. and they had no clue about just how dangerous the reality of their situation was. Joy could at least partially understand, even if she didn’t know everything. She had grown up in some pretty mean streets, and had months of experience of direct investigation of the Triad. She knew what they would do to people who they even suspected of being a threat. She had seen the photographs, of the tortured bodies and dismembered victims, grotesquely displayed as a threat to the entire neighborhood that this is what happens to those who went against the Triad. The most these young people knew were a few stories, and a bloodless victory against an overconfident, ambushed small group, fighting on unfamiliar territory. The Chengdu Triads would know the streets, and would have the advantage.

Still though, she knew that if they were really going to bring the village’s dream to fruition, and ever have a chance of achieving their quixotic dream of toppling the Triads, their movement had to grow. Sometimes, it took blind faith to do that. “All right,” Joy finally replied, looking at Longwei for approval, “but only Yingtai right now. On a very practical note, the truck can only hold three people in the cab, and I’m not transporting people in the back like the Triad did.”

Longwei nodded, and translated Joy’s answer to Yingtai, whose smile did little to assuage her feeling that she had just doomed the girl. She felt tears spring to her eyes as Yingtai said in English, “Thank you.”

*****

Departing the village was hard for Joy. She was surprised at how much she had become used to the quiet atmosphere, and the peaceful people. There was even a little bit of fear in her mind as she contemplated once again living in an area of twelve million people for a few months. She glanced over at Yingtai, whose face was set in grim lines, and realized she was even more scared. The poor girl had probably never seen more than a few thousand people in her entire life.

The cab of the truck was a bit tighter than what Joy would have liked, but thankfully Yingtai was rather small, fitting nicely in between Joy and Longwei in the front seat. The rear bench seat, a tiny excuse for a seat that Joy thought would be good for nothing more than cargo, could also be used by Yingtai if she stretched out across the whole bench. All of their bags were placed in the back of the truck, underneath a canvas tarp that was tied down securely. Also in the back were four cans of gas, totaling about another five gallons.

It seemed the entire village turned out to wish them good luck. The three new leaders exchanged quiet words with Longwei, who patted each of them on the shoulders before smiling and addressing the assembled group. Looking out, Joy spotted some of the youngsters Yingtai had named, most of them with looks of envy on their face as their friend said goodbye to her parents. When Longwei was done, the three of them piled into the truck, with Joy at the wheel. She and Longwei would switch off driving, but Yingtai didn’t know how to even start the vehicle. Pulling away slowly to avoid any accidents, she drove through the village, carefully going around the spot where the road had been dug out, and still not totally filled in. It took them close to a half hour to make it back out to a paved road, but from there things quickly dropped into a road trip tedium, with miles and miles of blacktop broken up by small hamlets and gas stations.

One of the things that surprised Joy was the lack of shopping or other roadside distractions. In the little driving she had done in Shanghai, and even most of the way from Shanghai to Hefei, the roads were somewhat similar to the United States. The large highways had rest stops that contained a gas station, some sort of convenience store, and some other amenities.

But the road towards Chengdu was eerie. The highway rolled on like a black ribbon through green, uninhabited areas, or small hamlets and towns, with almost nothing to break up the monotony. “This area is not very populated,” Longwei explained. “And this part of China, at least until you approach Chengdu, is not very Westernized. I’m glad in fact that we have the gas in the back of the truck.”

At about noon, the trio stopped on the side of the road to each lunch. They were about a third of the way to Chengdu, near the city of Yichang. “Might as well stop here,” Joy said. “The map says there isn’t much here until a small city called Enshi, then Chongqing, then Chengdu. At least I have a cell signal here, and can get a data connection.”

Joy logged into the Internet, spending the next two hours deleting e-mails and researching. Luckily, she was quickly able to arrange two interviews for the following days at English schools in the city, which would at least provide them an “in.” Simultaneously, she started downloading as much information as she could on Chengdu, in both Chinese and English for Longwei to be able to start his own research. The whole time, Yingtai looked over her shoulder, her eyes wide at how fast Joy was navigating on the laptop. Finally, as the battery was starting to die on her computer, Joy put it to sleep, plugging it into the solar charger she had gotten for her phone. The trickle charge would take practically the rest of the day to do anything, but the computer would hopefully be usable by the time they stopped for the night.

Longwei took over driving in the afternoon, allowing Joy the chance to stretch out her legs in the passenger seat. Without the computer to use or even a book to read, Joy quickly felt bored. Yingtai elected to stretch out on the bench seat in the back, quickly nodding off as the highway rolled by. Joy knew that if she napped also, she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, so she tried talking to Longwei. “Hey, you doing okay over there?”

“It’s been quite a few years since I’ve driven seriously. But the driving isn’t difficult, the weather’s fine and I can see. How are you doing?”