The Blue-Eyed Shan by Stephen; Becker Page B

was a miner? A contract? A bonus? The boy had no idea. But three dollars a day! That he understood! Three Yunnanese dollars each day! That would buy a ball of steamed dough and cup of real tea!
    The crowd of boys was trotted up the path, toward the hills. He found that he was still clutching his card. The hills were red, pitted and gouged. Some looked like squares of paddy, but all were red, some sandy red and some blood-red. Through these hills wound narrow lanes, and on the lanes were many red men with their red donkeys.
    At length the boys were told to halt and rest, by a hole in the mountain. Ming-tzu looked back and caught his breath: behind him, far below, lay a vast valley. He had risen. He stared upward, being now so close to the heavens. He saw one fluffy cloud, no gods, no dragons. The stern wiry man, who had been all green but was now mottled pink, issued instructions. Ming-tzu understood very little. In the evening he would ask Shang to make all things clear.
    The hole in the mountain was square and propped by timbers. “You will follow your captain,” the stern wiry man said, and gestured. A boy somewhat older than Ming-tzu, and wearing a shirt with pockets, rose and said, “Your cards.” The boys filed before him; he collected the cards and slipped them into a pocket, which he carefully buttoned. This was like no button Ming-tzu had ever seen. It was flat and round and made of bone or stone or wood, and it slipped through a slit in the flap of the pocket. Ming-tzu considered this ingenious. He had seen buttons before, but they were knots of cloth that one forced through loops. “Now follow.”
    And to Ming-tzu’s horror, the boy with pockets stooped and entered the hole in the mountain. This hole was less high than Ming-tzu. He struggled to shout, but fear took firm hold of his tongue. As the line of boys shuffled forward he shuffled with them. He passed into the hole, and into darkness; far ahead a spark flickered.
    Now the boys descended, in single file. They descended by proceeding downward step by step, their feet seeking and gripping ledges to either side. Down the center of this descent hung a taut rope; to this rope the hands clung. After a time the space widened; this seemed to be a room; faint light again flickered. Ming-tzu stared wildly into the murk. He was quite warm now. He was even hot. Yet he shivered. Caverns were the haunt of phantoms, leopard spirits, ghosts, ancestors. In caverns were found bones and dead men. Had he died?
    He was sweating when the troop was ordered to halt. Here a lantern hung on a spike driven into the wall. The boy saw men with picks attacking the walls. He saw stout cloth bags in stacks. These were homely objects and reassuring. He breathed easier: work was being done here. Work he understood. His father, if father that had been, was constantly seeking work . And Ming-tzu had found it!
    Someone thrust a sack at him. He followed the boy before him and dragged the sack to a pile of earth that had been chopped from the walls by the men with picks. Bare-handed, Ming-tzu stuffed a sack. “Quickly, quickly!” cried a voice. Ming-tzu found that he could not carry the full sack. He scooped out a handful of rock and was flung violently forward by a lash as sharp as hunger. “Full sack!” the voice called.
    The boy wailed. This he understood. One was whipped for impossibilities. “Cannot!” he cried. “Cannot, cannot!”
    â€œThen do what you can,” the voice said, echoing, and the boy understood: this was a lesson for the others as well. “And you will learn to do more each day, do you hear?”
    â€œI hear! I hear!” Ming-tzu strained, heaved; his knees buckled.
    â€œNot so, you fool!” Someone, perhaps the older boy, was wrenching at his arm. “So, and so, with the arms through the straps. Thus the legs bear the weight and the hands are free. Do you understand this, little