Security was no problem at Dragon Mountain. Ching Wei deliberately kept his domain as inaccessible as possible. The massive mountain dominated the entire region, and the village at its foot was heavily fortified. This village served as the administrative center for his entire domain and was called Poong. His palace sat high above the village, most of it carved directly into the living rock on the mountain's northern face. The palace was surrounded by five acres of elaborate gardens, and the grounds were completely enclosed within a tall corniced wall. The only access to the palace from the village was the steep path I'd taken with One-Eye the first night.
The terrain was ribbon ed with swift, torrential rivers and carpeted with jungles so thick that light rarely reached the ground. The only way into Poong from the outside world was the drawbridge I'd crossed with One-Eye the day I arrived there. To get to other villages from Poong, you first had to cross the bridge, then take one of the narrow trails that branched off into the jungle on the other side of the river. The trails were all guarded around the clock by armed sentries and trained hunting dogs. Ching Wei kept the trails so narrow and overgrown that no wheeled vehicles—not even a wheelbarrow—could negotiate them. Booby traps were planted everywhere, and only the guards knew their locations. Careless natives wandering about without permission occasionally got killed or horribly maimed by these traps.
Uninvited intruders were spotted and killed long before they even got near Poong. As for captives bent on escape, even if they miraculously managed to get by the watchful eyes of hosts, guards, and dogs, they still faced a gauntlet of uncut jungle crawling with predators, snakes, poisonous insects, and bandits. And if that didn't stop them, then the Wild Wa headhunters who infested the region did. No one had ever escaped from Dragon Mountain and lived to tell about it.
When I left the palace that night, One-Eye was waiting outside to escort me back down to the village, where he brought me to the house of my assigned host. The size of the hut and garden indicated a family of relative wealth and prestige. This was no doubt Ching Wei's idea of honoring an "old friend."
Except for a single oil lamp sputtering through an open doorway at the top of a rickety bamboo staircase, the entire house lay wrapped in darkness. An old man snoozed on a bamboo stool just inside the threshold, his back propped up against the mud and wattle wall. He wore the turban, tunic, and loose pants favored by the Shan, which, incidentally, means "the free people." One-Eye climbed the steps and woke the old man with a swift kick in the ribs, muttered something at him, then disappeared back into the darkness.
The old man blinked at me with glaucous eyes as he stood up to greet me. He stretched and yawned, then motioned me to follow him inside the house. We crossed the main room, where I noticed a few bodies stretched out asleep on reed mats. The whole place reeked of curry, garlic, and charcoal. Groping his way through a narrow hallway, which gave access to the back of the house, he led me into the room farthest in back. This was no doubt a precaution aimed at protecting his family from the white man's notorious smell, that rank, musty odor that the Chinese describe as "fox-stink."
Inside the room he lit another lamp, swept his hand around, then pointed at me and said something. I shrugged. He shrugged back. Suddenly we both burst out laughing—the unwilling guest meets the unwilling host—and I knew instinctively that we'd get along fine.
He pointed to a cot of jute webbing stretched over a wooden frame, the kind we used to call a charpoy in India. Next to it stood a crude table with a clay washbasin, a large jug of water for washing, and a smaller jug for drinking water. He lifted the lid of an old wooden chest: inside lay two moth-eaten blankets, a pair of baggy Shan pants, a wraparound sarong for wearing around the house, a bamboo cup, and a wooden bowl.
"Thank you," I said.
"San-kew?" he repeated quizzically, pointing at me. "Kiang!" he trumpeted, cocking a thumb at himself by way of introduction....
"Glad to meet you, Kiang. My name is Jack-not San-kew."
"Jacknut San-kew!" he said, nodding with approval.
"No, just Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack."
He tested the word a few times under his breath, then flashed a broad betel-stained smile to confirm it. "Jack!"
"Kiang," I pointed to him. "Jack," I cocked a thumb at myself. We grinned and nodded at each other, then he tucked both hands against the side of his head and made a snoring sound to indicate that it was time to sleep. I bobbed my head in agreement, and he backed out the door, bowing and grinning the whole way. Shucking boots and pants, I stretched out on the cot, smoked my last cigarette, and fell sound asleep.
I awoke next morning to find three young girls hanging in the doorway staring at me. I winked at them as I rolled out of bed, and they went' flying like startled birds.
The first thing I noticed was my own sour stench. It was hot and humid there, and I hadn't been out of my underwear for almost three days. I've lived in Asia long enough to know that "fox-stink" is the one thing about white people that offends Asians above all else, so I stripped naked and squatted down by the wash basin to scrub myself as clean as possible with my handkerchief and water. Then I wrapped the sarong around my waist, stepped into the straw sandals by the cot, and headed down the hallway.
The main room was full of smoke from a cooking fire, which smoldered in the far corner. An old woman squatted by the coals, stirring some sort of porridge. The girls stood against a wall gazing at me, all three of them wearing faded sarongs and short sleeveless blouses that left their bellies exposed. The old woman wore the black, nondescript gown that all Shan women adopt after the age of forty. When I entered the room, she turned her head and grunted a command at the girls. Immediately one of them led me to a bamboo stool at a low table, while another brought me hot tea, and the third set a bowl of steaming hot porridge before me. There were several saucers of condiments on the table to spice up the porridge, which turned out to be a blend of barley, millet, and rice. It wasn't bad—if you don't mind garlic, chili, onions, and fermented fish paste with your morning cereal.
Kiang appeared just as the girls were serving me a second portion of porridge. He sat down next to me and applauded my appetite, as if I were doing him a great honor by eating his food. His eyes reflected not the slightest hint of resentment at my presence there. Perhaps the sarong and sandals, plus my timely morning bath, made me seem a bit more civilized. I later noticed that most of the white men there clung stubbornly to button-up shirts, tight trousers, leather shoes, and other items of Western clothing, despite the extreme discomfort that such clothing causes in that sort of climate. And they bathed so rarely that even I felt offended by their odor. Most of the white men there also spurned the native food as no better than cow dung, insisting instead on eating beef and bread. As for me, after so many years of living in Asia, I felt very comfortable with both the local diet and the way of dressing, and I had no trouble adjusting to either.
Kiang puffed on a crinkled black cheroot that looked like a dried turd. He offered me one, and one of the girls fetched a glowing twig from the fire to light it. As we sat there contentedly puffing cheroots and sipping tea, Kiang commanded his three daughters to come and stand before me. They giggled and lined up obediently.
Kiang then rattled off a rambling speech in the local lingo, aiming his bony fingers at me and the girls as he spoke. They appeared to be between fourteen and eighteen years old, though it's hard to tell with Asians, especially women.
I indicated that I had not understood a word he'd said by shrugging my shoulders and muttering in Chinese, "I don't understand." Though I did not expect him to understand Chinese, it somehow seemed more appropriate than English.
Kiang's eyes lit up the moment he heard my words. "You speak Chinese!" he yelped with delight, clapping his hands. He said he'd picked up a bit of the language from dealing with Chinese overlords for so long. He spoke it with a very heavy Yunnan accent, no doubt the influence of Ching Wei's troops, and his vocabulary was limited to three or four dozen words, but in Chinese that's enough, and soon we were communicating quite well.
Pointing at his daughters, he asked, "Which girl most pretty?"
"All very pretty!" I replied. "All three same."
He looked scandalized and shook his