Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

explosion, land scarcity deforestation, and industrial pollution, small game animals had virtually disappeared, and most professional hunters had taken up new trades. These three were the exceptions. They enjoyed an excellent reputation, thanks to their appropriation of the two wolves actually killed by the donkey. The wild boar massacre would add to their prestige and turn them into media darlings. With Diao Xiaosan’s carcass as a trophy, they were steaming upriver to the county town, some hundred or more li away; given the speed of their motorized craft, they could be there that evening. But they chose instead to turn the trip into a victory tour, stopping at every village along the way to give the locals a chance to lay eyes on the body of the Pig King, which they would carry ashore and lay out on the ground for villagers to see. Families of means, those that owned cameras, would invite friends and relatives to have their pictures taken with the dead boar. The tour was followed by print and television journalists sent out from the county town.
    On the last night of the tour, with a chill in the air, pale light from the nearly full moon settled on the stagnating river; ice that was forming on the shallow water near the banks gave off a fearsome glint. I was crouching in a grove of red willows, observing the activity around the simple, log-built pier through the naked branches of the trees. I watched as the steel hull of the boat drew up to the pier. The town, the largest in Gaomi County, was called Donkey Inn, since it had served as a gathering place for donkey merchants a hundred years earlier. The modest three-story government building was brightly lit; deep red tiles had been fastened onto the outside of the walls, looking almost as if they had been painted with pigs’ blood. A gala reception for the hunter heroes was underway in one the spacious reception inside; the clink of glasses as toasts were given seeped out through the windows. The square in front of the building — Ximen Village had one of those, so how could a county town be without one?—was also brightly lit, and was the scene of a loud commotion. I knew without looking that the citizenry was oohing and ahing over Diao Xiaosan’s carcass and that constables with police batons were standing guard over it. The people had heard that toothbrushes made from boar bristles could turn black teeth white, and young folks whose teeth were black were salivating over the prospect of getting hold of bristles from the Pig King.
    At around eleven o’clock that night, my patience paid off. First, a dozen or so strapping young men put Diao Xiaosan’s body onto a wooden door and walked with it toward the pier, chanting as they walked, led by a pair of pretty young women in red who were lighting the way with a red lantern. A white-haired old man bringing up the rear of the procession called out a monotonous cadence in a funereal voice:
    “Oh, Pig King — to the boat — Oh, Pig King — to the boat —”
    Diao Xiaosan’s body had begun to stink and was stiff as the door it lay on; the freezing air was all that kept it from decomposing altogether. When they laid his body on the deck, the boat settled more deeply in the water. I was thinking that among the three of us — me, Pig Sixteen, Split Ear, and Diao Xiaosan — Old Diao was the true king. Even lying on the boat’s deck he had a commanding presence, which was further enhanced by the pale moonlight. It almost seemed that he could, whenever he wanted, get up and jump into the river or leap onto the bank.
    Finally the four hunters emerged, so drunk they had to be supported by local officials, and staggered toward the pier. They too were led by young women in red carrying a red lantern. By that time I had stealthily made my way to a spot no more than ten yards from the pier, where the liquor-and-tobacco stench from the hunters’ mouths fouled the air. I was actually quite calm, calm as could be, as if totally divorced from the scene in front of me. I watched them board the boat.
    Now safely aboard, they thanked their hosts with mouthfuls of hypocrisy, and received the same in return from the people seeing them off. Once they were seated, Liu Yong pulled the rope ignition to start the diesel motor, but it appeared to have frozen up in the icy air. He decided to warm it up with a torch he made by soaking some cotton in the diesel oil. The yellow flames drove the moonbeams away and lit up Qiao Feipeng’s