Shangri-La

Chapter 1: A hand touched Doyle’s shoulder, jolting him from his deep sleep. Belly full, he slept sounder than normal. The room with its straw mattress reminded him of his youth. The three blankets that covered him helped keep the chill of the night air at bay. “Mister Longstreet.” The voice sounded familiar. For a moment, he hoped DeLaval had returned to take him back somewhere warm. Alas it wasn’t meant to be. It came from Pastor Robbins, the missionary who ran this isolated church deep in the mountain valleys of China. He found himself partially tangled in the clothes he slept in. They constricted his limbs like a giant snake. If he dreamed, he was certain his nights would be filled with nightmares of giant snakes slithering through his subconscious. He had said a silent prayer before bed the night before that DeLaval would return. The air elemental would have caused a stir popping into this quiet section of the world. His furry seven-foot-tall frame would be hard to explain, but he would have been willing to try to save him the walk up the mountain… and he would have been better company than Doyle found in himself. At best he stayed in a sour mood most of the time. The loss of his fiancée weighed heavily on his soul. When he found her, he would never leave her side, no matter the cost. “Yeah, I’m awake,” Doyle grumbled as he forced himself up. The altitude must be sapping his energy. Normally he was a light sleeper. He did his best to twist his legs from under the covers. His boots sat at the ready, they slipped on. He favored the western-style cowboy boots even without a horse to ride. They had traveled a long way with him. “Something is wrong, all of my flock have deserted me. I fear something is about to happen.” The strain of fear was easy to detect in the preacher’s voice. The single candle he held intensified the deep-set wrinkles around his eyes. His body quivered from more than the cold. It took a brave man to force himself to action in the face of such great fear. Doyle counted the man before him a person of conviction, even if his faith was misplaced. Doyle shot a glance at his pack. It looked secured where he left it. Inside there lay a single gas-powered automatic pistol. It would be no use for more than a few bandits at a time, if it came to a gunfight. The weapon gave the feeling of security, but it would alert everyone to his location if he fired it. “Do you have any weapons?” Doyle asked. He was sure of the answer before the words finished spilling from his mouth. “Of course not, this is a house of God. I would not allow weapons to be introduced here.” Pastor Robbins’s eyes darted to the door. “Perhaps it would be better if you left. I will talk to the men when they arrive. I should be able to convince them to leave me alone. I have some good relationships with the local men.” Doyle shook his head. “It will do no good. If they come for you, no amount of talk will save you. You know anything of Chinese history?” “I must say, not much,” the preacher admitted. The candle in his hand shook when he twisted to inspect the door behind him. To come to a country and not understand the shaded history was a foolish predicament to place oneself. “Have you heard the saying: When cutting down weeds, you must get at the roots. Otherwise, the weeds will return with the spring breeze?” Doyle asked. “I must say, I have not, but it makes a certain sense.” The older man did little to hide his confusion. Doyle hoisted his pack on his shoulders. They draped the top blanket over his head and body. “In the past, when a ruler wanted to get rid of a problem, they would execute up to seven generations of a family to ensure there was no one left to avenge a death.” The candle gave enough light to show off the older man’s look of shock and disgust. “How barbaric,” the preacher gasped. Doyle shrugged. “They have a different outlook on human life than we do. If they mean to do you harm, then no talking will keep them from their task. You should come with me and not try to judge them by our Western standards. It will end up costing you dearly.” Doyle cracked open his cell door before padding softly into the walled courtyard while he spoke. The older man followed after him. “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I need to trust that God will protect me. I am staying here.” “Suit yourself. It will probably matter little. They are probably waiting out there for anyone to try and escape.” At the gate, Doyle peeked out the sliding window and spotted no one. He knew that meant nothing. When an attack came, it would be swift and silent. “No one is out there. We might have time to leave. You should reconsider.” Doyle spoke to the open eyehole, not wanting to look the man in the eye. He knew what he would say before he opened his mouth. He was too much like his father. “I will stay. God will protect me. There is a way out the back. It might be safer for you to leave that way. The road might be watched.” The preacher rested his hand on the latch, keeping Doyle from opening the gate. Doyle slid the small opening closed. He couldn’t argue with the preacher’s logic. “Lead the way…” Doyle wished he had the words to convince the man to make a run for the mountains with him. However, even if they succeeded in escaping the pending attack, the chances were overwhelmingly against Doyle surviving to see the sunrise, let alone the new year. Odds were good they would both be dead before morning. Wandering the forest of a strange land, he didn’t give himself very high odds of survival. The only thing that kept driving him forward was the need to find Tsang Mei once again. He doubted he could beat death. The time limit the old man, Master Ao, gave him remained present in his mind. Time was running out fast. The preacher led him to a small gate in the rear wall of the compound. He took a key from around his neck and opened an ancient lock. “I kept it locked to keep the flock from sneaking out at night for a local drink. Seems it did little good when they needed to escape.” The old man chuckled. Doyle could tell the man tried to put on a brave face, the chuckle little more than gallows humor. The men that stayed in the mission would have listened closely to the community surrounding the church. When the winds changed, it would be easy enough to run for greener pastures. The locals would blend in no matter their religious beliefs. The door creaked when Doyle pulled it open. The hinges protested the movement, obvious it had been a long time since this portal had been used. Doyle stuck his head out from the opening. The coast looked clear. “Last chance to come with me,” he said. “This might get ugly fast. Preacher Robbins shook his head. “My place is here. If my flock returns, they will need to find me. It would not look good to run in the face of danger.” Doyle reached out and shook the preacher’s hand. “Good luck and thank you for your help.” Doyle knew he spoke to a dead man, but he was in no position to change the pastor’s mind. The best he could do was respect the older man’s foolish decision. “Follow the path to the stream. It will lead you deeper into the mountains.” Robbins motioned out the gate and down the dark path. Doyle nodded and ducked out the short door and into the dark. With no moon, the path proved treacherous, but he kept his pace as steady as possible. One arm held to protect his face from limbs, the other outstretched to help lead the way. The grasses and bamboo helped guide him in the dark, providing a bendable wall to bounce off. The trail slithered along, little more than a shoulder’s width. Branches and brambles reached out for him while he struggled to keep from being pummeled by the jungle. After several hundred paces, he found the stream and took the turn to the left that he knew would carry him upstream and deeper into the mountains beyond the valley he had been traveling in. The sound of the water masked the sound of his stumbling along the stone-riddled bank in the dark, the river-smoothed rocks slick in the moist air. They made travel treacherous. It became hard to miss the glow from the south. There was no way to mistake the orange color in the night sky as first light. Intuitively, Doyle knew the glow came from the mission. It had been set ablaze, and now it burned unchecked. The only way the preacher would allow his church to be put to the torch was over his dead body. Doyle said a silent prayer for the man. He was uncertain how he felt about a man of the cloth dying like that for his conventions. To Doyle, it seemed better to live and fight another day rather than throw one’s life away. He followed his parents’ religion out of habit now. He questioned the effectiveness of a God that let his own priests get martyred in a strange land. Each time a local population became enraged, it seemed the missionaries of the world paid the price. He was glad his parents returned to America long ago. Pastor Robbins reminded him too much of his father. The elder Longstreet would have done the same thing. Turned himself into a martyr to prove a point. To Doyle, that was no way to live or die. His mind wandered when he should have been focused on the thin path next to the river. From the dark, the shaft of a staff swung at his head. His only saving grace was the way he held his arms to deflect the branches that threatened his face. He blocked the brunt of the blow aimed at his head. The wood landed on his forearm. It still hurt like hell. Instinctively, he grabbed for the staff. Wrestling with it, he soon found a spearhead under his armpit. The person on the far side was hidden in the dark, but it mattered little to Doyle. He charged down the spear and ran his shoulder into the chest of his attacker. There was a soft escape of air. Doyle knew he’d knocked the wind out of the person on the far end of the spear. His right hand still had a firm grip on the weapon. He brought up his left hand and, with the back of his fist, found the face of the hooded attacker. He felt bones crack under his attack, surely a nose broke if not more. The figure dressed in black dropped to the ground. Spear now held firmly in the Westerner’s hand, Doyle nearly finished the helpless attacker off with his own weapon. A sharp pain struck Doyle under his arm. With his left hand, he checked, finding his coat torn and the sticky feeling of blood seeping into the cloth. His ribs were tender to the touch. He’d been cut when he disarmed the man in the dark. Rather than kill the helpless person on the ground, he grumbled and continued on his way up the stream. The death of another would not serve his need to escape. No matter how foul his mood might be, he wasn’t the kind of person to kill an unconscious, unarmed person in the dead of night. Now he needed to put some distance between himself and the burning mission. It would do the dead preacher no good if he was also captured and murdered. His parents would never approve of his abandoning the preacher but would be even more upset if he started killing for no reason. He held his right arm tight to his body, attempting to slow the blood loss. Once the sun rose, he would need to find a safe place to try and inspect the damage. A bandage would need to be fashioned out of something. Why is life never easy?