Read Online River of Dust by Virginia Pye - Free Book Online Page A

He pointed at the crowd, his long arms sweeping over them. They stopped where they stood. "The Lord, the greatest Ghost Man of all, wishes you to file out peacefully, get into your carts, and go home to rest on the Sabbath. Tomorrow you will rise, and the crops will have grown."
        The crowd let out a hopeful gasp.
        "Go now in peace." The Reverend swept his hands through the air, his fingers spread wide like great nets to catch them and pull them into his embrace. "I bless thee, my children. I bless thee."
        Grace shut her eyes and tried to feel his blessings rain down upon her. All around, she felt the crowd ebbing back out the door. She kept her eyes pinched shut and waited for her husband's absolving hand upon her arm.

Eight
    G race had come to think of the iron gates of the mission compound as the gates of heaven and herself as one of the Lord's many helpers. It was her job to welcome each new arrival, to set them at ease and oversee their transition into this new world. At night in restless sleep, she watched out her window as figures came toward her. Then, in the morning, she had to shake such visions from her head and try to understand them as but overwrought dreams, although they had appeared so real. But now, in the late-afternoon light of early autumn, she watched as actual people of all ages came plodding into the mission. Every one of them Chinese, yet nonetheless she searched amongst the multitudes of black heads for her towheaded children. They lived for now amongst the masses, but soon Grace would spot them and fly down into the courtyard and bring them home.
        Long shadows preceded each person who entered the courtyard as the sun cut across the plains. They walked with heads bent, these tired people, the young as well as the old and infirm. Even the strongest and healthiest amongst them walked with sloped shoulders, hardly lifting their feet from the dusty ground. In their weariness, they all looked alike to Grace, and she thought that was how it was meant to be: all of God's children were identical in the end. She could see that now.
        It was a lesson she would never have believed while in America, but now it seemed so obvious. Here in China, the vast numbers of people staggered along day after day, struggling to feed and clothe themselves and their families. Their skinny bodies all appeared to share the same misery. There was no color to them, no liveliness any longer even amongst the young ladies. A girl in America could be quite vivid: Grace and her friends dressed in Easter pastels in springtime, rich reds at Christmas, with ribbons to match in their hair. She searched now for any sign of brightness but saw only the shadows of strangers. All of them were daguerreotypes, tinted brown by the sun, the desert soil, and whatever other dusty matter made up their souls.
        The crowd that poured in through the open gate appeared more sizable than usual, and Grace squinted hard to keep track of each new arrival. Their carts and donkeys waited outside the compound, and she rose from her bed to spy over the high wall to search for anyone who might have been left behind on a buckboard or under a bale of hay. It was difficult, but she needed to keep track of them all.
        In a flash, and out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a pale face down near the ground. Grace swore she spotted small hands holding fast to a woman's filthy black skirt. Could it be a blond child, her child?
        Grace called sharply to Mai Lin. The old woman sat, as she always did, on a spindly chair in the corner of Grace's bedchamber. Her hair looked wilder than ever, and her little clublike feet— squeezed into brocaded shoes no bigger than Grace's small clenched fist— were hitched up on the rungs as if she were some sort of monkey. Despite Mai Lin's unfortunate appearance, Grace felt such warmth toward her. She wasn't sure why, but she did.
        "Dear Mai Lin," Grace said