Pearl Buck - Sons

Now Wang the Tiger for all his cursing and trouble saw her and he was caught and held at the sight of her pretty throat and he held his trouble back for an instant and he longed to lay his fingers there upon her pale neck, and he waited until she came near. She did come near and leaned upon the table and she said to him, looking at the letter he still held,

“Is there anything wrong with you that you look so black and angry?” Then she waited and laughed a little, a small high laugh, and she said, “I hope it is not I, for I would be afraid you might kill me with such black looks as you have now!”

Wang the Tiger held the letter out to her saying nothing, but his eyes fixed upon her bare throat and upon the smoothness of the turn it made into her bosom. He had come to such a pass with this woman that even in this short time he told her everything. She took the letter and read it, and he could take thought to be proud that she could read and he deemed her beautiful beyond anything as she bent over the letter, her thin, sharply marked lips moving a little as she read. Her hair war smooth now and oiled and knotted at her neck into a little net of black silk thread, and in her ears were hung gold rings.

She read the letter and then put it into its envelope again, and laid it on the edge of the table, and Wang the Tiger watched her quick light hands, thin and quick, as she did this, and then he said,

“I do not know how to get those bags of grain. I must get them by some guile or force.”

“That is not hard,” said the woman smoothly. “Guile and force are easy. I have a plan already in my head, made as I read the letter. You need only to send a band of your men as though they were robbers, the robbers that men tell of now-a-days, and let them seem to rob the grain for themselves, and who will know you have anything to do with it?”

Now Wang the Tiger laughed his noiseless laugh when she said this because it seemed to him so wise a plan and he drew her to him, for he was alone in the room and the guards went outside the door whenever she came, and he satisfied himself with his hard hands on her soft flesh, and he said,

“There has never been a woman so wise as you! When I killed the Leopard that day how I blessed myself in that deed!”

And after he had satisfied himself he went out and called for the Hawk and he said,

“The guns we need are at a place about thirty miles from here, where the two railroads cross, and they are in bags of grain as though to be transshipped there to the northern mills. But take five hundred men and arm yourselves and dress yourselves like some breed of robbers and go there and seize those bags and seem to carry them away to a lair. But have carts and asses ready at a near place and bring the bags here, grain and all.”

Now the Hawk was a clever man and he trusted to his wits and to guile, whereas the Pig Butcher trusted to his two great fists that were as large as earthen bowls, and a wily deed like this pleased him, and so he bowed. Then Wang the Tiger said further,

“When all the guns are here, be sure I shall reward you and every soldier shall have a reward measured to what he has done.”

Then when this was done Wang the Tiger went back into his room. The woman was gone, but he sat back in his armchair of carved wood, which had a woven reed seat for coolness, and he unfastened his girdle and his coat at the throat, for the day grew to a monstrous heat, and he sat and rested himself and thought of her throat and the turn it made into her bosom and he marvelled that flesh could be so soft as hers, and how skin could be so smooth.

Not once did he note that the letter his brother had written was gone, for the woman had taken it and thrust it deep into the bosom of her robe, where not even his hands had reached it.

Now when the Hawk had been gone for a half a day Wang the Tiger walked alone in the cool of the night before he went in to sleep, and he walked in the court near a side gate that was open to the street, a small street where few people passed, and those only by day. And as he walked he heard a cricket cheep. At first he paid no heed to it, because he had so much to dream of. But the cricket cheeped on, and at last he heard it and it came to him that this was not the time of the year for a cricket and so out of idle curiosity he looked to see where it was hid. It came from the gate and as he looked out into the gathering dusk he saw someone crouched and shapeless by the gate. He put his hand to his sword and stepped forward and there in the gathering dusk he saw his nephew’s pocked face turned palely toward him and the lad whispered breathlessly,

“No sound, my uncle! Do not tell your lady I am here. But come into the street when you can and I will wait for you at the first forks. I have something to tell you and it must not wait.”

The youth was off like a shadow then, but Wang the Tiger would not wait, since he was alone, and he went after the shadow, and came first to the spot. Then he saw his nephew come sliding along in the darkness of the walls, and he said in great astonishment,

“What ails you that you come creeping along like a beaten dog?”

And the youth whispered, “Hush — I have been sent to a place far from here — if your lady saw me here and she is such a clever one I do not know who she has watching me — she said she would kill me if I told, and it is not the first time she has threatened me!”

When Wang the Tiger heard this he was too astonished to speak. He lifted the lad half off his feet and dragged him into the darkness of an alley and he commanded him to speak. Then the lad put his mouth to Wang the Tiger’s ear and he said,

“Your woman sent me with this letter to someone, but I do not know to whom, for I have not torn it open. She asked me if I could read and I said no, how could I, being country bred, and she gave me this letter, then, and told me to give it to a certain man who would meet me at the tea house in the north suburb tonight and she gave me a piece of silver for it.”

He thrust his hand into his bosom and brought out a letter and Wang the Tiger seized it without a word. Without a word he strode through the alley to a small street where an old man opened a little solitary shop to sell hot water, and there, by the flickering light of the small bean oil lamp that was hung upon a nail on the wall, Wang the Tiger tore open the letter and read it. And as he read he saw plainly there was a plot. She — his woman — had told someone of his guns! Yes, he could see she had met someone and told him, and here in the letter she laid a last command. She wrote,

“When you have the guns and are gathered, I will come.”

Now when Wang the Tiger read this it was as though the earth he stood upon whirled out from under his feet, and as though the heavens came down to crush him. He had loved this woman so heartily and so well that he never dreamed she could betray him. He had forgot every warning his trusty harelipped man gave him, and he never saw the man’s downcast looks these days, and he loved the woman to such a point that he longed exceedingly for but one more thing, and it was that she would give him a son. Yes, he asked her again and again and with what ardor, every time, whether she had conceived or not. He had so loved her he did not dream she could withstand him in her heart. At this very hour he had been waiting, even, to go to his love; waiting for the night.

Now he saw she had never loved him. She could plot like this at the very hour when he waited for the turn of war and his own great step forward. She could plot like this and lie all night in his bed and pretend sorrow when he asked concerning his son. He was suddenly so angry he could not draw his breath. That old black anger of his rose in him blacker than he had ever known it to come. His heart beat and roared in his ears, his eyes blurred, and his brows knitted themselves until they pained him.