Martin Limon - Buddha's money

I dived toward Lady Ahn and tried to lift her to her feet. As I did so a bullet rang out and ricocheted on the pavement behind me. The M-l rifleman.

Meanwhile, the students had been preparing their response to the slow-motion onslaught of the riot police. In about a half dozen spots, flames ignited amongst the crowd of students. Upon a barked command, burning wicks attached to bottles filled with gasoline catapulted gracefully through the sky. Three crashed into the helmets of the riot police; each exploded on contact.

Whistles blew. Enraged, the riot police charged forward.

In the yoguan, I heard the sharp, compact blast of a. 45. Ernie! Three, maybe four rounds.

As I lifted Lady Ahn to her feet, no more M-l bullets exploded in our direction.

Ragyapa screeched and stumbled and crawled toward the jade skull. Lady Ahn seemed to come alive. She wrenched herself away from me and lunged for the skull. Using her foot, she tried to shield it from Ragyapa's grasp. His fingernails scraped along her leg like claws. She screamed and recoiled against me. Herman and the jeep were heading straight toward us. I pulled her back, out of its path.

"Let me go!" she screamed. "The jade! I must have the jade!"

But it was too late now. Ragyapa was clutching the ancient skull like a football. He scrambled to his feet and looked back at the jeep.

I could see Herman's eyes. The flesh around them was contorted in rage. The mangled fender bore down on Ragyapa.

At the last second Ragyapa dived, rolled, and bounded back to his feet. Herman ground the gears with a great gnashing of iron, backed up, turned the steering wheel, and started after Ragyapa again.

Clutching the skull, Ragyapa took off like a hunchbacked football player. Herman roared through the crowd in his mad yet graceful arcs. People leapt out of his way. The battle between the riot police and the student demonstrators was in full force now. The noise was deafening. I'd tumbled down a rathole into hell.

"The jade!" Lady Ahn screamed. "The jade!"

I slapped her. "The hell with the jade. We don't need it."

At the moment, I was most concerned with getting out of there alive. Molotov cocktails were flying, the riot police were moving inexorably forward swinging their heavy batons, and behind them loomed the beetle-backed cavalry of the riot control armored personnel carriers.

A torrent of water lashed out into the crowd. Water hoses. A jet stream swirled past us, knocking us down. I yanked Lady Ahn to her feet again.

"Come on!"

Lady Ahn could barely walk. Ahead, I saw the canvas top of the jeep caroming madly through the crowd. We moved after it. I saw Ernie running out of the yoguan. Somehow, he spotted us above the sea of bandanaed heads.

When he reached us, blood pounded through the veins of his neck and his face. "I offed me a motherfucker!" he reported.

"The guy with the M-one?"

"Yeah."

"And the others?"

"Scattered."

"We have to get out of here."

Ernie looked at me as if I were mad. "What about the nun?"

I stopped. "Shit! I completely forgot."

"Come on," Ernie said. "There's still time to save her."

I started to move after him but Lady Ahn held me. "You go. I will stay here."

We were pretty far from the riot police. She'd be fairly safe. "Okay," I told her. "But keep moving toward that line of buildings. Get out of this area."

"Yes," she said. "I can do that."

My fingers lingered on her cheek. Then I ran after Ernie. She worried me. I knew she'd been hurt, and hurt badly, by Ragyapa and his boys. But she was still beautiful. And as soon as she'd gained her freedom, she'd regained that spark of dignity that she always carried with her.

People weren't even paying attention now to the fact that we were Americans. With the riot police on the rampage, everyone was too worried about his own safety to worry about us. The students were tough, well organized, and fighting back valiantly.

It took us two or three minutes to make our way past the ranks of the riot police to the area occupied by the Buddhists.

They still knelt on the blacktop. A sea of tranquility in the violent chaos that raged around them. The little nun sat on a dais garlanded with flowers. A monk stepped forward, holding a can, and gingerly splashed gasoline over her bald skull. The little nun sat utterly still as the fluid soaked her robes.

Pungent fumes billowed in the air as I bounded forward.

"Eighth Army has released your attacker to the Korean police!" I called out in Korean.

The nun opened her eyes. She looked at me, puzzled at first, but then broke into a broad smile when she spotted Ernie. He stepped forward, reached in his pocket, and handed her a stick of ginseng gum. Without thinking, she took it in her small hand.

A disapproving murmur rumbled through the crowd of kneeling monks. The large, officious monk pushed in front of us.

"Miguk salam yogi ei andei!" he scolded. Americans aren't permitted here.

I bowed and spoke to him calmly in Korean. "Forgive me for intruding, sir. We are representatives from Eighth Army. Our Commander has recently seen the wisdom of your demands. The man who so cruelly attacked this nun has just now been turned over to the Korean National Police for prosecution and punishment."

Prosecution and punishment. I was proud of the vocabulary. Earlier today, I'd found both words in the same chapter of my Korean textbook. In Korean, the words are never split up.

The monk studied me. "It is too late. We do not have confirmation of this." He swiveled his head and spoke to the monk with the gas can. "Proceed."

When the monk raised the can, Ernie hopped forward, grabbed the can, and shoved the man back.

"Not on my watch you're not," he yelled.

As if they were one body, the kneeling monks rose to their feet and began waving their fists and hollering. I leaned into Choi So-lan's face, wiping gasoline out of her eyes.

"You don't have to die! The American who attacked you has been turned over to the Korean police. The man who paid him will be in our custody any minute. You are young. You must live. Buddha would want you to live."

She bowed her head and began to sob.

The head monk was sputtering now, waving his hands, yelling at his men to grab us. A few of the bolder monks pushed forward.

Ernie didn't need to understand any of the language to figure out what was happening. He poured gasoline onto the ground, and tossed the half-empty can at the approaching monks. Then he grabbed the litde nun and jerked her to her feet.

"Come on, goddamn it! Run!"

And to my surprise, she did. Running along beside Ernie, sprinting away from the Buddhists, heading toward the maddening riot of the student demonstrators.

I trotted behind them, covering their retreat. One of the monks grabbed me, but I swiveled and kneed him in the stomach. A rush of air exploded from his mouth and he keeled over.

The other monks kept coming. I pulled out my. 38 and waved it in front of them.

"Ha-jima!" I said. Don't!

The monks stopped in their tracks. I turned and raced off into the melee, following Ernie and the nun.

Around the perimeter, the advance of the riot police had stopped. More students streamed into the intersection in front of Guanghua-mun. The student leadership had probably held them in reserve. Their tactic worked. The tired police were being pushed back on all fronts. Some were down, others ran screaming, the flaming oil of the Molotov cocktails engulfing their heavily padded uniforms.

We searched for what seemed forever, making our way toward the careening jeep in the distance.

I ran next to Ernie. "Herman hasn't caught Ragyapa yet."

"Doesn't look like it."

Even above the noise of the screams surrounding us, we heard a thump. The roof of the jeep shuddered to a stop.