Yala

YALA

by

Don L Clark

Published by Don L Clark at Smashwords.com

Copyright© 2010 Don L Clark

Chapter One

China, April, 1896

A rickshaw pulled up to the dock, and a very lovely and well-dressed Chinese woman climbed out of its leather seat with exquisite ease. She stepped lightly onto the ground as several members of the throng hanging around the docks stopped whatever they were doing to admire her elegance. The woman's dark hair had been parted in the middle and then divided into two taut braided pigtails. One of which now hung down in front of her left shoulder, while the other was obscured by a slender neck, which stood atop unexpectedly broad shoulders. Her hair radiated an enticing sheen that suggested robust health.

But what caught both male and female attention the most was this woman's height. The average vertical span for Chinese women near the end of the 19th Century was merely a little over five-feet, but this woman was pushing six. Her legs seemed to run on forever and again. Her jet black hair contrasted with her brown skin, as did the pure redness of her cheeks and the extreme darkness of her unusually large eyes.

The informed detected that she had Mongol blood somewhere in her genes. Although, of course, back then they had no idea what a gene was. The locale was in one of the world's largest cities of the times: a pier in Shanghai with several sailing ships caught up in the kind of activity that suggested imminent departures.

A man dressed in luxurious and colorful silk clothing, as the times dictated for the affluent, hastened over to the woman, who was just retrieving a small black bag from the rickshaw.

You're right on time, Yala, he said to her. Congratulations on the success of your last mission. I'm told it was executed flawlessly.

It went well. There's one less despot in China. I wish I could be confident that his replacement would truly treat his subjects more humanely.

That will be more likely if you can finish off the last remnant of that same evil family on this mission. Which, by the way, I think you'll find much easier, even if very far away.

It will certainly be the longest trip of my life, but I'm looking forward to it. It offers a nice opportunity to actually see the world beyond the wall. I'm fascinated about it, but so far have only read about it in books. I expect to enjoy the journey. As for the assignment, well, it's a shame he's so young.

True but he's been fiendishly schooled, and seems to have a flair for inciting fear and loathing in his subjects. Sung's still advising him, or at least the old master manipulator thinks he is. Do you remember him? Do you need anything?

No, she spoke so softly he had to lean towards her in order to hear her words easily. But that was OK with him. For he was studying her, searching for signs that she might be aware of his charade. It was the second time they had met, and he wondered if in the interim she might have figured out that he was an impostor. All the time he was talking to her, his eyes and mind were telling him there must be some mistake. He found it impossible to believe this almost fragile appearing, soft spoken woman could truly be the renowned assassin he'd set out to hire.

She stared at him with what appeared to be very innocent eyes, and a serenity that was almost disconcerting to a man of his devious thoughts.

Intellectually, he knew this was the correct woman: the infamous Yala. He was therefore titillated by the knowledge he was playing a mortally dangerous game by not being who she thought he was. Was it true? He speculated. Could she really kill him with a mere flick of her wrists? Her arms seemed so slender. Her movements so soft and feminine.

I knew Wu Chen when we were both children, Yala added, as if she was a tad reluctant to recall memories of her childhood, and I guess I must have met Sung, but I don't have any recall of him.

I didn't know that. He smiled inwardly and lied.

Chapter Two

Texas, June, 1896

Hank and Luke had just up and quit the Texas Rangers. The pay was lousy, the risk high, and the damn rules and regulations had grown more onerous and restrictive almost daily. So, they mutually decided they'd done enough law enforcing in their lives and set out to make their fortunes elsewhere.

The idea of making big money came up because Hank had heard about a place down in Mexico that was paying top dollar to those who were seasoned gunslingers. The paymaster was supposedly Chinese, and that had kind of intrigued both of the Texans, as well. After all, the Chinese they'd met to date, admittedly not many, had been rather passive and lacking in any obvious flair or feel towards firearms. It seemed that this man had set up some sort of a refuge for those Chinese who had come to America looking for jobs but who, for whatever reason, had not done well. Apparently, a lot of such unfortunates existed out in California and in other nearby western states.

The place where the man was seeking gun hands was called Nueva China and it was supposedly located down in a sort of no man's land south of Douglas, Arizona between a couple of Spanish named rivers and the continental divide. Thus, the two adventurous Texicuns rode west out of El Paso, and crossed the southern Rockies around Lordsburg, before heading south to enter that nebulous region between Mexico and the USA, as defined near the turn of the century.

They stumbled on their first harbinger of New China, a series of rather rickety wooden signs, almost a month out of El Paso. It was a good omen, they both thought, because it was the Fourth of July. They hadn't been able to read that first set of signs but Hank, the senior partner of the duo, assured his friend Luke that the scrawling was writing: Chinese pictograph. Later, they ran across some similar appearing signs, but this time some of them were penned in English or Spanish. All the ones they could decipher said essentially the same thing: New China: Chinese Welcome. Others Enter at Risk.

A couple of miles south of those border signs, the two cowboys spotted a dust trail suggesting they were no longer alone. Shortly thereafter, they were able to make out the shape of a group of riders and steered their ponies in that direction.

Eventually they caught up with five, armed to the teeth, Nueva China border patrolmen. These guys were not only carrying pistolas on their hips, and rifles either in their arms or saddle scabbards, but they also wore knives at the waist, and, believe it or not, sheathed swords on their backs. That's correct: S-W-O-R-D-S. They were all Oriental in appearance, and to tell the truth neither Hank nor Luke found them all that friendly. They had never seen armed Chinese before, and their weapons, or something about them, seemed to make them considerably more cocky and assured than the other Chinese these Texans had previously encountered.

The quintet of Asians similarly eyed the Yanks most suspiciously. Two of them even swung their rifles around and pointed them at the newcomers with what appeared to be malice aforethought. Hank, however, had always been pretty good at defusing tense situations. He smiled, raised his hands so that all could see they were nowhere near his firearms, and smiled that big broad smile of his. He and the Chinese group's apparent leader then parlayed. Hank offered the man a smoke and faster than even Luke expected, and he always expected quick results from his buddy, they were all shaking hands. The leader of the patrolmen apparently even ordered his subordinates to lower their rifles and repress their suspicions.

During those first few moments of tension between the patrolmen and the newcomers, Luke had sat there atop Bob, his horse, with hands folded out in plain sight resting on his saddle horn. The countenance of the several Chinese who were staring at the young Texan all reflected nervous tension while, in turn, he appeared relaxed, almost nonchalant. And indeed he had been. He'd actually been thinking that they were a lot more nervous about him than he was about them. That was because Luke was one of those blessed young men who always felt the equal of anyone he met, although often with damn little reason.

Hank had attributed the younger man's over-confidence to being born in Texas. After arriving in Texas from his home in Tennessee more than a decade ago, Hank had quickly discovered that Texans, for some inexplicable reason, tended to be among the cockiest folk on the face of this earth. There had been times when he'd found that arrogance both exasperating and ingratiating. But his stay had lasted so long now he was not only used to it, but actually thought of himself as one of that unusual breed.

Hank had taken an instant liking to Luke, because unlike so many of the natural born Texans among the Rangers, Luke backed up his confidence with a lightening fast draw and good instincts about when such was needed. Hank knew, for example, that all the time he'd been parlaying with the Chinese leader, Luke had been calculating which one of the others had the steadiest eye and arm, and was therefore the one he'd have to shoot first if things fell apart. That certainty was important to Hank, because although he was fairly fast with his gun himself, Luke was quicker than likker and absolutely deadly at close range. Hank knew that was where most people got themselves killed. He'd seen enough of his fellow Rangers die suddenly to know that the kind of backup Luke offered was priceless.

The leader of the Chinese patrol had introduced himself to Hank as Wang Lee. He spoke stilted English yet managed to inform the American that they needed to go to a place called Shang Gee if they wanted to add their guns to the Nueva China army. Lee confirmed that their leader was paying top dollar to experienced foreign gunslingers, and that he often assigned them officer rank if they were especially good at their profession.

Lee assigned a short and skinny fellow named Ming to lead the strangers to New China's army training center in Shang Gee. Thus, the three of them rode off to the southwest while the all Chinese contingent continued on its eastwardly patrol.

As they rode along slightly behind their guide, Hank spoke to his friend. I think they'll really be glad to have us, Luke. That Lee feller said their effort to build a homeland has come under a a lot of pressure from both bandits and Comanches. He also said the place had attracted a lot of criminal types. So, there's considerable internal policing to do as well.

What about the Mex government? Luke asked.

I'm guessing they've bought them off for now. Poor dupes, based on my miserable experiences with Mexican officials, thar's no way that'll last. Can you imagine these people actually thinking they'll be allowed to have their own country down here? Frankly, I can't see either us or Mexico buying into that.

Me, either, but I thought you were the one with all them fancy ideers about all people being equal and having the right to be treated so. No matter the where or what. I swear you're the onliest white man I ever seen arrest one of your own kind for beating up on a nigger.

You shouldn't use that word, Luke. They're men and women just like you and me, and I'm betting someday we're gonna find out they were here, on this planet I mean, long before we were. And, I also bet ya, someday they're gonna get a lot of credit in the history books for what these United States finally turn out to be. Besides, as I recall it, you stopped that ass hole Rutgers when he tried to cream me from behind for helping that boy.

That was because you were my pardner, not because I thought you shoulda clobbered a white man for the way he treated an ex-slave.

You're hopeless, Kid. Now get this straight. If we go to work for these people, you're gonna have to learn to treat them as your equals. Hell, we'll be taking orders from em.

You will. I'll be taking mine from you. Oh, come on, get off of it, Luke. I'm kidding. I promise I'll be very un-Texan-like. You know, humble and do as I'm told. Unless somebody gives me some dumb-ass, stupid order, of course. I just don't take kindly to stupidity, you know.

Hell, Luke, You think any order's stupid. Hey, what the hell? What's that?" The two men both heard raucous noises simultaneously and turned to their right to look up at a nearby hilltop.

Chapter Three

Three Days Earlier

The drawbridge came lumbering down. A crowd of onlookers had been recruited and were there to harass and dishonor her at first sight. Two well built soldiers grabbed hold of the ends of the huge yoke around her throat and propelled her from her knees to her feet before shoving her out of the darkness, into the hot sun, and onto the heavy wooden bridge.

The crowd began shouting. Kill her! Shame! Behead the Bitch!

The young woman felt the daylight and the rush of fresh air on her bare skin. It was the first time in more than forty-eight hours she'd felt such normal pleasures. In the dungeon, where they'd beaten and raped her along with many other indignities, the air had been stale and the darkness and dampness pervasive. The guards’ heave-ho sent her sprawling into the unknown and the unseen. Once again she was forced to deal on her own with that oppressive weight bearing down on her throat and shoulders. Her discomfort was abetted by the fact that her arms had been spread-eagled out to her sides at neck level and then secured by her wrists to that fiendish wooden contraption about her neck.

She stumbled and fell to her knees. Knees that were already raw from earlier falls. Her slender legs seemed to shudder as she struggled to her feet. But she had to for the soldiers' whips were popping all about her. The lashes sometimes struck her on the back while others nipped and snapped at her bare buttocks. She wished she could see, but her eyes were the only part of her almost six foot tall body that was covered by anything. A thick, dirty, thrice-wrapped rag tightly blinded them. There was, of course, also that ubiquitous heavy wood and iron thing bearing down on her and de stabilizing almost every move she tried to make.

Mysteriously, Yala sensed what she was walking on, even if she couldn't see it. Her near perfect recall gave her a mind picture of the drawbridge over the moat that had been constructed of similar heavy boards to those that composed the stock, which now immobilized her neck and wrists.

The victim willed herself back up right, but then to the laughter of crowd and guards almost fell off the side of the bridge and into the moat. Instinctively, however, she righted herself and staggered on, trying desperately to hold her head high and ignore the insults, the epithets, the thrown rocks and dirt clods.

You can deal with this, she repeated over and over to herself in a mantra. You know how, she thought. Your most important task right now is to see without the use of your eyes. That's mandatory or you'll surely fail. So clear your mind. Cleanse it of everything irrelevant and use all of its capacity to replace vision. Allow no anger, fear, revenge, hatred. There must be no desire, no recognition of pain. Be at peace and accept the way. You can deal with this."

She began to noticeably walk straighter. Proudly, she strode right through the shouting, cursing, blow-throwing mob. She quieted them all by sheer will power alone. Most of them felt strangely moved by her silent dignity. The guards dropped back. The lashes no longer danced and cut, and the unknown ahead replaced the pain of the now. The tall, slender, tan-skinned woman and her unique burden, for the moment at least, were alone. She staggered on, desperately trying to will away the humiliation, the doubts and the terror of her first ever failure.

Chapter Four

Yala

Alerted by the noises, Hank and Luke simultaneously pulled their horses up short. Then, sure enough, the cacophony of noises grew louder and a group of folks summited the hill from the other side and came scrambling down in their direction. They were all