A Loyal Character Dancer

dog jumped up from a patch of shade in the village lane and shambled away silently. A puff of wind blew the weeping willow tree into a question mark. Lighting a cigarette, he leaned against the door frame, waiting.
     
    There was a train leaving for Shanghai late in the evening. He decided not to contact the local police, not just because of their failure to appear at the railway station. He could not shake off the ominous feeling he’d had since Wen had demanded they undertake this trip.
     
    He felt worn out. He had hardly slept in the train. The hard sleeper had presented an unforeseen problem during the night. Of the three bunks, the bottom one went to Wen. It was out of the question for a pregnant woman to climb the ladder. The upper bunks across the aisle were left for Catherine and him. It was important to keep a watch on Wen. “Sometimes a cooked duck can fly away.” So he lay on his side most of the night, watching. Every time Wen stepped away from her berth, he had to climb down, following her as inconspicuously as possible. He had to resist the temptation to glance at Catherine across the aisle. She, too, lay on her side most of the time, wearing only the black slip they had bought at the Huating Market. The soft light played across the sensuous curves of her body, the skimpy blanket hardly covering her shoulders and legs. She was in no position to look at the bunk directly beneath her. So more often than not, she faced in his direction. It did not help when the lights were turned out at midnight. He felt her nearness in the darkness, turning and tossing, amid the train’s irregular whistles in the night. . .
     
    As a result, standing in the doorway now, he had a stiff neck, and had to roll his head like a circus clown.
     
    It was then he heard heavy, hurried footsteps drawing close from the village entrance. Not one or two men. A large group of them.
     
    Startled, he looked out. There were a dozen men coming in his direction, each of them masked with black cloth, carrying something that shone in the sunlight—axes. At the sight of him, they broke into a charge, swinging their axes, yelling over the sound of the chickens screeching and dogs barking.
     
    “The Flying Axes!” he shouted to the two women who were just emerging from the house. “Get back inside. Quick!”
     
    He whipped out his revolver, aimed in haste, and pulled the trigger. One of the masked men spun like a broken robot, tried in vain to raise his ax, and crumpled to his knees. The others seemed to be stunned.
     
    “He has a gun!”
     
    “He’s killed the Old Third.”
     
    The gangsters did not run away. Instead, they broke into two groups, several taking cover behind the house across the lane, and the others dashing into the barn. As he took a step toward them, a small ax was hurled at him. It missed, but he had to retreat.
     
    Each of them had several axes, large and small, tucked into the front and backs of their belts in addition to those they held in their hands. They threw the small ones like darts.
     
    To his surprise, none of the gangsters seemed to have a gun, even though weapon smuggling was not unheard of in a coastal province like Fujian. This was not the moment for him to find fault with his luck.
     
    What did he have? A revolver with five bullets left. If he did not miss a single shot, he might be able to cut down five of them. Once he fired his last shot, there was nothing else he could do.
     
    The Flying Axes would have surrounded the house. Once they began to attack from all directions, they would overwhelm it. Nor could he hope for timely rescue by the local police. Only the local police had known of their arrival in Fujian.
     
    “Fujian Police, Fujian Police ...”
     
    He heard Inspector Rohn shouting into her cellular phone.
     
    Another ax came flying through the air. Before he could react, it stuck trembling in the door frame, missing Catherine by only two or three inches.
     
    If anything happened to her—
     
    He felt the blood rushing to his face. He had made a huge mistake in coming here with the two women. There was no professional justification for it—he had followed a hunch, but he had been wrong to take such a risk.
     
    Cringing besides Catherine, Wen clutched the poetry anthology like a shield.
     
    Poetry makes nothing happen.
     
    It was a line he had read years ago. However, he had hoped that poetry could make some things happen. Here he was, ironically, because of that poetry