River of Dust. Virginia Pye

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      River

       of

       Dust

      Virginia Pye

      U N B R I D L E D

      B O O K S

      This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and

       incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or

       are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons

       living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is

      entirely coincidental.

      Unbridled Books

      Copyright © 2012 by Virginia Pye

      All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be

       reproduced in any form without permission.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Pye, Virginia.

       River of dust : a novel / by Virginia Pye.

       p. cm.

       ISBN 978-1-60953-093-8

       1. Americans—China—Fiction. 2. Missionaries—China—

       Fiction. 3. Kidnapping—Fiction. 4. Nomads—Mongolia—

       Fiction. 5. Retribution—Fiction. I. Title.

       PS3616.Y44R58 2013

       813'.6—dc23

       2012039098

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

      Book Design by SH • CV

      First Printing

      For John, Eva, and Daniel

       In or about December 1910, human character

       changed. I am not saying that one went out, as

       one might into a garden, and there saw that a

       rose had flowered, or that a hen had laid an egg.

       The change was not sudden and definite like that.

       But a change there was, nevertheless. . . . All

       human relations have shifted— those between

       masters and servants, husbands and wives,

       parents and children. And when human relations

       change there is at the same time a change in

       religion, conduct, politics, and literature.

      — Virginia Woolf,

      "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,"

      Collected Essays

      Northwestern China

      1910

       One

      T he Reverend loomed over the barren plain. He stared at the blank horizon as if in search of something, although to Grace's eyes, nothing of significance was out there. Sunset burned his silhouette into a vast and gaudy sky. Standing tall in his long coat on the porch above his wife and son, he appeared to be a giant— grand and otherworldly. Perhaps this was how the Chinese saw him, she thought. Her husband spread his arms toward the blazing clouds and shadowed flatlands as if to say that all this was now in the Lord's embrace. The breeze shifted, and billows of smoke circled their way. Grace watched the Reverend's outline waft and shimmer. She would not have been surprised if his body had gone up in flames right there before her eyes, ignited in a holy conflagration with only a pile of ash left behind to mark his time on this earth. Grace shook the strange notion from her mind, although she wondered how so good a man could appear so sinister in such glorious light.

      As he started down the porch steps, Grace roused their sleeping child from beside her on the seat of the buckboard. "We're here," she whispered. "Our sweet vacation home."

      The boy opened his pale blue eyes and blinked. How would it appear to someone so young? Grace wondered. Desolate or full of potential— she could not know. The Reverend lifted the boy from her arms and swung him high on his shoulders, Wesley's favorite perch. He rubbed his cheeks and surveyed the endless plain.

      "If you look closely, you can see all the way to the Great Wall," the Reverend said. "And beyond it, the Ming Tombs and the enormous sand statues of Buddha that defy all belief. Then come the tribal provinces and the vast Gobi Desert that stretches on and on, further than you can imagine. I have seen it all, and I promise to take you there someday."

      Wesley squinted into the slanting sun.

      "That would be marvelous," Grace said. She slipped her hand into her husband's to step down from the wagon, and they proceeded on the rutted road.

      "I am afraid that you will find the countryside here far from marvelous," the Reverend said. "It is too dry and forlorn to be called pretty. I hope, though, that it will grow on you. In the fall and spring, the light turns a most remarkable bruised shade at the end of day when the mourning doves return to roost in the willow trees."

      "You are waxing poetic again, Reverend."

      "Forgive my enthusiasm for boulders and scrub brush."

      "There's no need to convince me. I have all faith that you have chosen well for our respite." Then, as they arrived at a narrow stream with a tree hanging over it, Grace took a seat on a rock and added, "I can see that this willow alone is reason for a visit."

      The Reverend reached a hand toward her hair and patted it kindly. "Your forbearance is remarkable in someone so young. In all ways, you suit your name."

      Grace blushed, which she knew was quite ridiculous. He was her husband and father of her child. Still, it was hard not to think of him as her master in matters of the soul, which were the only matters of consequence. Even after marriage, she continued to call him Reverend as she always had, and he never dissuaded her. That only seemed right.

      "Don't you find this spot spectacularly Chinese?" the Reverend asked as he set Wesley down near the stream and took his hand. "It is as if we have stepped into an idyll depicted in brushwork. The setting warrants such artistry precisely because it is so lacking. The way they

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