Renjie and Renhua both had wives and children, and Renxing was a strapping young man. If Weimei were not a half-wit they might have been fortunate enough to find a family willing to do a marriage exchange. It was intended that Dengmei be the wife of Renxiu, the youngest son. She was not an appropriate match for Renxing because the difference in their ages was more than six years: he was twenty-three and she was seventeen. However, she was a perfect match for Renxiu, who was only nineteen. Lanmei was always preoccupied with these troublesome family matters.

  “Hey, the village at Great Lake is just ahead,” shouted Aling, urging everyone on.

  A hillock divided the village into two parts. At the entrance to the lower village, halfway up the hill, was the Temple of Myriad Benefits. It stood alone on a grassy expanse of ground. The temple was dedicated to those who had died defending the Hakka from their enemies and to the wandering ghosts—the spirits of those who had died without descendants and whose remains could not be sent back to their ancestral homes on the Chinese mainland.

  On the slope where the lower village began to rise, a watchtower had been constructed. After nightfall, the villagers would take turns keeping watch. The tower, which held two guards, stood thirty feet above the ground on six huge bamboo posts. The walls were made of two layers of tightly woven bamboo strips and twigs, with loopholes left for firearms. A large gong hung on the wall.

  Burdened as they were with all their worldly goods, including potatoes, that basic necessity, the procession of fourteen people climbed the slope with difficulty. They rested and ate their noonday meal under two large beech trees by upper Great Lake Village.

  Their meal, which had been provided by Uncle Shanqing, consisted of the best white rice, fried shrimp, and garupa fish, the kind of food normally eaten only on festive occasions such as New Year’s Eve.

  The whole family had been invited to a banquet held as much to see them off as to celebrate their newfound independence. Uncle Shanqing had made a speech in which he said, “You and your sons who have worked for us for more than twenty years are now setting off on your own to make your way in the mountains. I haven’t got anything of value to give you, but I will provide you with five hundred catties of potatoes to see you through while you are getting settled. Also, I make you a gift of this meal of the best white rice for your journey.”

  “Your generosity …,” Lanmei had said, tears running down her face.

  “Now, now. I told you once that new fields do not produce very quickly. The only thing I can do for you is to give you some potatoes so as to keep hunger from your door. If you run short of grain before your mountain lands produce anything, please, Lanmei, don’t hesitate to come and help yourself. There is no need to stand on formalities.”

  Such generosity, Lanmei had thought, would certainly be hard to repay in her lifetime. She and her husband would have to count on Renjie and his brothers.

  Lanmei raised her head and looked at her husband, who was holding a glistening ball of white rice. He too was lost in thought.

  “One day, after we become rich, we’ll come and live in Great Lake Village,” said Renhua.

  “One day? When?” asked Renjie’s wife wearily.

  “I don’t think we have that kind of luck,” said Qinmei, Renhua’s wife, her voice loud and shrill. She seemed angry.

  “Not necessarily,” objected Renxiu. “That’s not necessarily so. Wait till we get to Fanzai Wood. As long as we don’t lose our heads first.”

  “Qinmei, as long as there is good food, eat up and don’t talk nonsense,” said Renhua, quickly changing the subject to keep his wife from talking wildly.

  Such inauspicious talk was generally considered taboo. Everybody suddenly became very quiet, and all eyes turned to Qinmei and then to the two armed escorts.

  Lanmei gave Qinmei a stern look. Qinmei’s face went pale.

  “Have you all had enough to eat?” asked Peng Aqiang.

  “Yes, enough,” they all replied.

  “Dexin and Defu! Don’t throw your food on the ground!”

  “They can’t eat any more,” said Renjie’s wife.

  “Whoever wants more to eat, take it. And be quick about it!” said Lanmei.

  No one said a word or moved. Lanmei looked at Dengmei, her foster daughter. Dengmei was a thin, young girl with brownish hair—a sign of less than robust health. She always seemed to be staring straight ahead, never blinking. Her impassive appearance was like Weimei’s, but unlike Weimei, she didn’t drool.

  “Dengmei, do you want more rice?” asked Peng Aqiang.

  At Peng Aqiang’s words, Dengmei got up and went over to little Defu. His mother took the half-eaten ball of rice from his hands and gave it to Dengmei. Dexin threw what was left of his riceball on the ground. Dengmei was just about to walk away when Renjie’s wife gave her a hard look. She realized that everyone was looking at her. Then she understood. She picked the rice up off the ground, wiped it on her clothes, and began to eat it. Renxiu quickly glanced at her, then immediately, as if out of shyness or disgust, looked away again.

  The only person besides Dengmei who was not part of the Peng family was Liu Ahan. He was a very quiet young man, and watched everyone in silence. His gaze had fallen on Dengmei several times in the last four hours, and he had vaguely sensed that she was a lonely person and that they were alike in their apparent detachment from the people and things around them.

  Having taken about an hour to eat and rest, everyone stood up, stretched, and rubbed their legs. By the time they started walking again, the sun had already begun its descent.

  The settlement of the area around Great Lake began in the twenty-second year of the Jiaqing era (1817) of the Qing dynasty, when Chen Ahui, a native of Quanzhou, made an agreement with the indigenous people that allowed the forty-five members of the Chen clan to build houses and to clear and work the land.

  In the third month of the eleventh year of the Guangxu era (1885), Liu Mingchuan assumed office as the first governor of Taiwan province. In governing the indigenous people, he adopted a number of measures: he pacified the recently opened areas, set up schools, strengthened the guard post system, and was generally beneficent in his rule. After three years of a combination of peaceful and punitive measures, the indigenous people finally submitted. Around that time, the number of Chinese settlers in the Great Lake region gradually increased. Most were engaged in collecting rattan, making potash, distilling camphor, and other such “mountain” occupations.

  Fanzai Wood, located in the hilly area east of Great Lake, was in the process of being opened up. Since it was still under the control of the indigenous people, tacit permission was needed before the land could be opened. There were already five Hakka families living in Fanzai Wood; Peng Aqiang’s family would be the sixth.

  But it was not the best time to move to Fanzai Wood. Only a couple of weeks before—in the tenth month of the sixteenth year of the Guangxu era (1890)—Liu Mingchuan had resigned due to ill health. In no time at all, the tribespeople began making incursions along the fortified border region.

  However, families like Peng Aqiang’s had no choice but to brave the dangers, for in the fourth month of the same year, there had been extensive flooding throughout the island, and 60 to 70 percent of the rice paddies around Miaoli and Guard Post, which had been under cultivation for more than twenty years, had been destroyed. In one night, twenty of Uncle Shanqing’s prime paddies had been swallowed by the river. Thirty years of blood, sweat, and toil had been wiped out by a natural disaster against which there was no defense. Peng Aqiang and his sons and eight or nine other workers who had witnessed the disaster knew at the bottom of their hearts that “when the forest burns, the monkeys will scatter.” Everybody voluntarily asked permission to leave.

  In any case, thought Peng, to go on being someone else’s hired hand meant never leading a settled existence. Although he himself didn’t have much of a future to look forward to, he was anxious for his sons Renjie, who was twenty-nine, and Renhua, who was twenty-eight. Both were married and both had children. And if they remained laborers working for someone else and didn’t make their way in the world soon, they would fail their ancestors.

  Yes, Peng Aqiang thought, there was truth to the old saying that “life and death are fated, as is one’s fortune, and there is no escaping disaster.” Other people were brave enough to settle in Fanzai Wood and work the land. Was he, Peng Aqiang, any less courageous?

  After making certain that his line of reasoning was correct, Peng Aqiang set about trying to convince his wife. Lanmei was a traditional Hakka woman, strong in character, tough, and tenacious. If she had had her teeth knocked out, she would have just swallowed them, blood and all, and kept on going. She could do anything her husband could do.

  Their sons, daughters, and daughters-in-law would say nothing in opposition. Although the Pengs were not from the aristocracy or the landed gentry, the rules of their family were strict. The head of the family was the undisputed leader: when he gave an order, no one would hesitate for even a second, regardless of fire or flood. This was an unchanging rule passed down from one generation to the next.

  Thus the Peng family decided to face the dangers and hardships of relocating. They challenged fate, gambling with the lives of young and old alike.

  From this point on, the Pengs’ difficulties would mount. The crooked path wound its way from Great Lake to Fanzai Wood amid cliffs and boulders and high undergrowth where even a wheelbarrow was useless. Peng Aqiang continued to carry the ancestral tablets while his sons carried sacks of potatoes. There were not enough sacks, so Peng Aqiang had used some old bedding (which actually had been made by unstitching some old sacks) to make packs to throw over his shoulders. They couldn’t do without the potatoes.

  Aling and Ahan were helpful above and beyond the call of duty. They too carried potatoes, in hemp rucksacks used by the indigenous people. But unlike the aborigines, they didn’t use the head band.

  Upon leaving Great Lake, they followed the path eastward toward a small hill known as Upper Slope. After crossing it they descended a small declivity called Kiln Corner. Huge camphor trees grew throughout the area. It is said that the Chinese first began to process camphor in the area around Great Lake. But most of the camphor kilns seemed to have been abandoned; only two were apparently still in use.

  “Strange! Are those the Great Lake kilns?” asked Renxiu, who had never been to the area before.

  “Hadn’t Governor Liu been successful with the aborigines?” asked Renhua, puzzled.

  “I heard that Liu Mingchuan resigned!” said Renxing.

  “But that just happened. From the look of things, the kilns were abandoned years ago.”

  “Look at the size of the trunk on that tree,” said Renhua, pointing to the left in front of them. There stood a tree about as big around as a tub. It branched about ten feet above the ground; its limbs were as thick as a man’s legs. The smaller branches rose another ten feet or so. How strange that a tree of such girth should grow only about twenty feet high, and that the only leaves should be clustered ridiculously at the ends of the branches.

  “Is that a camphor tree?” asked Renxiu.

  “No, it’s a kulian tree,” answered Peng Aqiang.

  “It sure looks strange.”

  “The women mustn’t look at it,” added Peng Aqiang suddenly.

  “Is that what they call the ‘hanging tree’?” asked Qinmei in a loud voice.

  “The hanging tree?” Weimei cried out. “Is that where people go to hang themselves?”

  “Uh, yes,” replied Peng Aqiang, somewhat exasperated. Now that the tree had been mentioned, he decided to tell them about it. “Years ago, a young couple failed in farming and hanged themselves here. Later—every year—others hanged themselves on the same tree.”

  “Why?” asked Renxiu, who was younger and more inquisitive.

  “Listen to me. We Pengs are going to Fanzai Wood to farm. We must succeed. We can’t fail; we musn’t fail. There’s no way back. If we fail….” With these words, Peng Aqiang was on the point of looking at the hanging tree but restrained himself.

  “All right, all right! Let’s be on our way,” said Lanmei. Her words put an end to that fruitless line of thought.

  “Hurry along! Hurry along!” said Ahan. This was the first time he had taken the initiative to speak up and say anything. His voice was deep, resonant, and forceful. But he also seemed to be speaking to himself, as if to rid himself of some anxiety.

  Many indigenous people lived at Kiln Corner; they were “cooked” or “civilized,” meaning that they lived on friendly terms with the Chinese settlers. They did not head-hunt anymore, but they themselves could be the victims of “raw” or “uncivilized” head-hunting aborigines in times of conflict. They might also be pressed into spying on the Chinese. Danger still lurked there.

  Between Kiln Corner and Garrison Camp was a row of towering gray crags that looked like hundreds of monstrous horses rearing up on their hind legs, their heads thrust high into the air. When the wind blew from the northwest, it made a weird howling sound. The crags rose from a pool of deep blue water—the famous Blind Man’s Pool. Its name derived not just from the blind man who fell in and drowned but also from the feelings it evoked in passersby. All who walked the narrow trail between the crags and boulders, amid the howling wind and the sounds that apparently rose from the deep pool, would begin to feel dizzy and be sucked down against their will.

  “I’m not going on,” said Weimei, the first to speak.

  The two daughters-in-law looked reluctant as well, and Dengmei seemed to step back.

  The sky had darkened. The sun was already low in the west, hidden behind the trees beside Blind Man’s Pool. A northwest wind, each gust of which seemed stronger than the last, pushed at them from behind.

  “How are we going to go on with all this bedding?” Renjie and Renhua were worried because all the women who were taking care of children or pregnant were carrying huge loads of bedding. If the hempen covers were to get snagged on a rock or twig or were caught by the wind, the bearer might lose her balance and fall, becoming yet another ghost in the waters of Blind Man’s Pool.

  It was then decided by general agreement that the men should first carry the potatoes sack by sack around the pool, then come back and carry the bedding and the household utensils for the women.

  Everybody seemed to have overlooked Dengmei and had left her standing there holding the cooking pots. She glanced around at nobody in particular, her eyes wide open and panic stricken.

  “Hey, Renxiu! Go and fetch the things for your Dengmei,” said Renhua winking at him.

  “Not me,” said Renxiu, shaking his head, as he glanced at his mother. Lanmei had lowered her head as she tried to remove the sharp pebbles that had lodged in her straw sandals. She did not see her son’s inquiring look.

  Since his mother gave him no indication, he remained standing where he was. Lanmei often had reminded him that he had to assert his superiority before his woman and not be too pliant; otherwise, after marriage she’d walk all over him. Only by being a little heartless and a little stern would he be able to keep his wife in line.

  Liu Ahan seethed with anger as he watched in silence. He wanted to help Dengmei, but his feelings made him hesitate. He had made up his mind that if worse came to worst, he would do something. When Renhua made the joke at Renxiu’s expense, he dared not move. After all, he too was a young man.

  “Hurry up!” Peng Aqiang finally shouted.

  “The pots are too big and heavy. I can’t,” replied Dengmei.

  Perhaps Renxiu simply didn’t have the courage to face Blind Man’s Pool. Aling handed his gun to Renxiu and took a big steamer and a pot cover, among other things, from Dengmei. Ahan realized that he could also help out now. He picked up the cast-iron pot and the earthenware rice pot and carried them down the narrow, dangerous path through the rocks.

  After passing Blind Man’s Pool, they continued up the slope to Garrison Camp. More than fifty armed guards had been stationed at the garrison, the outpost deepest in the mountains near Great Lake. Aling and Ahan had both been stationed there for three months prior to being sent to the garrison at South Lake, itself a tinderbox of hostility.

  There was no real path from Garrison Camp to Fanzai Wood. One just had to struggle along the meandering river, picking a way through the shallows and crossing bamboo footbridges over the rapids. It was a difficult trip. This part of their journey tested their strength and endurance. Full cooperation was needed to safely complete the trek. When faced with such a crisis, the Pengs demonstrated their steadfastness and courage. Only when it was nearly dark did they leave the river and make their way up a short but steep slope to Fanzai Wood.

  Uncle Ajin, their friend, had already lit a torch of cassia bamboo and was there waiting for them in front of the Peng’s mud-and-thatch hut. The mud-walled, thatch-roofed hut had been built facing east with the mountains behind it. It consisted of a large hall and three rooms laid out in a row; the kitchen was a small open space surrounded by a wall of reeds on three sides.

  Uncle Ajin greeted them warmly while his two sons, Yongcai and Yongbao, brought out a tub of potato and ginger soup.

  “Come and have a bowl of soup and get your blood moving again.”

  “Many thanks, brother Ajin.”

  “Supper is also ready. Sorry, but it’s just a pot of steamed dried potatoes and taro soup.”

  At this point, Ajin’s wife arrived, accompanied by Xu Shihui, Chen Afa, Chan Agu, and Xu Rixing, the heads of the other four households at the Fanzai Wood settlement. Everyone showed up to help the Pengs get settled and stow their belongings.

  Afterward, the Pengs sat down, their bodies covered in sweat. Soon they began to feel a chill. The doors and windows were made of bamboo lattice, and the piercingly cold winds swept through the gaps.