The Road Home

> *The ink of this page is fainter than the pages before it, as if written with the dregs of the inkstone; it records the road home. According to an appendix in the genealogy of the Song clan: on the day Master Song's soul returned, villagers saw a white horse standing beneath the old locust at the village mouth, and by dawn it was gone, with no hoofprints beneath the tree. The genealogy adds a line in small characters: that day, there was no white horse in the village.*

Past the outskirts, the road changed.

First the earthen road was no longer level. The hooves met unevenness, felt clods of earth under them. I sat on the horse and looked down — the road was still gray, but gray no longer evenly: some places whitened, some darkened, worn thin.

Then I heard the first sound.

It was not the hooves. It was a wind, coming from the end of the road, passing my ear with a low moan. Very light, very brief, gone at once. But it was a sound — all the while I had walked this road, it was the first wind I had heard.

I drew the reins; the horse slowed. I listened.

The wind came again. This time it blew longer, blowing against something by the road — I turned my head. A clump of withered grass crouched by the roadside, and as the wind combed its roots, the leaves rustled. The grass was real: leaves yellow, roots in the soil, stirring when the wind blew.

I sat on the horse, looking at that clump of grass, a good long while.

On this road, when I came, there had been no grass by the roadside.

The horse walked on. Another stretch, and I heard a sound from farther off — like a dog barking, very distant, once, twice, then gone. I looked up. I could not see the village, only at the road's end, against the sky, a dark streak like a low wall. I knew it was a mountain, but its outline was gray, colorless.

I counted the barking. It barked three times and stopped. After a while it began again, nearer this time.

Fields appeared by the road, one after another. Empty fields, the harvest gone, stubble standing in rows. Wind crossed the ridges with a thin rustle. A bird rose from a field, beating its wings, flying low, and settled in another field. Where the bird had crossed, the sky was still gray.

Another stretch, and a ditch appeared by the road. There was water in it, turbid, running slow, gurgling. On the bank sat a man with his back to the road, a straw hat on his head, a long pipe of dry tobacco in his hand, unmoving. As I rode past, he did not turn. I looked a second time — beneath the straw hat, the back of his neck was tanned, peeling in layers. He sat there as if resting, or as if waiting for someone.

"Old uncle." I reined in the horse and asked, "Is Song Family Village ahead?"

Without turning, after a while he said: "Yes. Three more li, past that grove of poplars."

"Thank you."

"What kin are you to the Songs?" he asked.

I thought a moment, and said: "One of the Songs."

"One of the Songs." He repeated it, knocked his pipe against his shoe, knocking out a spark. "That scholar of the Song family — he's been ailing for days. Didn't you know?"

I held the reins and did not answer.

"The neighbors all say he won't last," he said. "The coffin is already prepared."

I sat on the horse and said nothing. He asked no more, put the pipe back between his lips, and sat motionless again. The ditch water gurgled.

I urged the horse on.

When had the hooves begun to sound?

I looked down. The horse trod the earthen road; the hoof came down — thud. Once. Lifted — thud. Again. Very light, very steady, countable one by one. I could not recall when it had begun to sound. A moment ago it was silent; now it sounded. A moment ago one hoofbeat; now — thud, thud, two beats running, unhurried.

I sat on the horse, listening to the hooves, counting in my heart. One, two, three.

As I counted, I found my hand resting on the mane. One strand after another through my fingers, solid. When we had set out, the mane had been cold; now it was warm, and at the roots, a faint sweat.

The horse was sweating.

I leaned down and felt its neck. The sweat was damp, warm, pressing against my palm. The horse walked without haste, but it breathed, rising and falling, its belly moving beat by beat. It had carried me all this road, and now it breathed like a real horse.