The Reinvention Of Rudd Carter. A Western Action Adventure Novel by R.L. Davis

evenings, they went to different restaurants and bars that Sui Yen thought Rudd should know about.
    While at a bar one evening, Rudd asked, “What province are you from, Sui Yen?”
    “I’m from a province in the Far East.” At Rudd’s puzzled look, Sui Yen laughed. “The Far East, San Francisco. I’m a native-born American. I also have a relative who works in the bank who offered me a job.”
    Rudd studied Sui Yen carefully. “Wasn’t it difficult for you to leave your family and relocate to Hong Kong?” he asked.
    Sui Yen nodded. “It was, until I understood the way things work here. Hong Kong has a lot to offer a young man who has his eyes open, as you will soon discover. As far as my family is concerned, it is a very large family, and I took a burden off my parents by leaving. I send money home every month to help care for my brothers and sisters.”
    * * *
    On Monday morning, Rudd began work at the bank. He made quite an impression on everyone in the office, especially the young Chinese office girls. In his new dark, English worsted, three-piece business suit covering his athletic build combined with his upper-class English manners, he gave the appearance of someone well into his twenties. He had a warm, receptive attitude and easily made friends around the office. Soon, his co-workers felt comfortable enough to tease him about his British accent. In the weeks that followed, he and Sui Yen became good friends. Because they spent so much time together, he made a conscious effort to copy Sui Yen’s American dialect. Over time, his accent softened.
    A couple of months into Rudd’s stay in Hong Kong, Sui Yen invited him to attend a martial arts tournament. The arena where the tournament was taking place was in the slums of Hong Kong, about a half-hour walk from the Emperor’s Hotel. As Rudd and Sui Yen walked through the crowded neighborhoods along with masses of people on the streets, Rudd noticed that Sui Yen seemed amused at his reaction to the squalor and poverty they passed.
    “I’ll bet you never dreamed in your worst nightmare that there were places in the world that looked and smelled like this,” Sui Yen commented.
    Rudd glanced around and couldn’t help but register a look of disgust. “Living in England, I could never have imagined anything like this.”
    Sui Yen shook his head in agreement. “This is mild compared to the rest of China. The British presence here has brought a form of civilization and sanitation that never existed in China before. Hong Kong is the cleanest and most civilized city in China because of the British. The locals don’t like to admit it, but they feel the same.”
    They arrived at a large building that looked like a warehouse. Sui Yen knocked on a door on the side of the building, and it opened immediately. He spoke to someone for a moment, and they were admitted.
    Once inside, it was apparent they had entered a fighting arena. It was unlike any boxing stadium Rudd had ever seen in England. There was no fighting ring, just a large clearing in the center of the room surrounded by a crude form of spectator seating, where 300 enthusiastic Chinese yelled and screamed for their favorite fighters. All the while, several men weaved through the crowd calling out odds and taking bets on the fighters.
    Soon they found seats on the main floor. The announcements were in Chinese and Sui Yen, being aware that Rudd didn’t understand a word, assured him he would translate the entire event. Rudd had attended many boxing matches with his father in England but never anything that reached the height of excitement that he witnessed here.
    They watched two matches that were a style of fighting he had never seen. There appeared to be no rules or even a referee to make sure there were limits to how far a combatant could go in defeating his opponent. It mattered little because the combatants seemed prepared to handle anything thrown at them. If a fighter was rendered unconscious, he was