"No." "An old man." "He sleeps." "Your tread must be light and sure as though your path were upon rice paper." "It is said a Shaolin priest can walk through walls." "Looked for, he cannot be seen." "Listened for, he cannot be heard." "Touched, he cannot be felt." "This rice paper is the test." "Fragile as the wings of the dragonfly, clinging as the cocoon of the silkworm." "When you can walk its length and leave no trace you will have learned." "Hey!" "Now, there's a whole wide world out there." "Can't you boys find somewhere else to do your larking?" "Lilly and me got a long day ahead of us." "Get on with you." "Clear out, please." "This boy, he is hungry." "He is looking for food." "There's a bean-hole in the fire." "He's welcome to help himself long as he does it quiet." "Same goes for you." "I am looking only for the photographer, Beaumont." "I'm Beaumont, all right." "But I'm sleeping till morning." "I don't wanna hear anything now." "Nothing." "Except the worms working in the dirt." "I am called Matoska." "I am Caine." "How did you steal my knife from my hand?" "We sit together." "We are friends." "You are the old one's protector?" "That is not why I am here." "Caine." "Knife man." "The next time we fight, it will not be so easy." "I know you now." "Another minute, and the light'll be perfect." "You see, each morning is special, beautiful." "Then gone forever." "But you will keep it from being lost." "Oh, I wish I could." "No." "No, there's no way to hang on to it the way it really is." "If you're lucky you get some of it, though." "A hint." "Trace." "Have we a good collection this month, Li Yu?" "A fine one, Master Po." "Already I have found two pieces of rare beauty." "l am most grateful." "We are grateful to you for rewarding our carelessness." "Will you walk with me, grasshopper?" "Yes, master." "Master the man to whom you spoke, Li Yu, is he a confused one?" "What is your view?" "He is a beggar, like the rest." "I can see he is greatly in need of food, but he does not eat." "He seeks to satisfy a stronger hunger." "He values what is worthless." "To you, to me, perhaps." "Not worthless to him." "Bits and pieces that cannot be put back together?" "Not to understand a man's purpose does not make him confused...." "Hundred-and-three, 1 04, 1 05." "There." "How'd you find me here?" "A man named Hobbs in Dagget told me you were working in these mountains." "Yes, I have a cabin at Elk Flats. lt's my base camp." "That's a ways from here." "I have been looking for you for several days." "Well, it must be mighty important, whatever it is you want to see me about." "These men someone told me one of them is my brother." "Can you tell me which one?" "You're asking me to point out your brother?" "He has always been here." "And I was brought up in China." "We have never met." "Well, it's my work, all right." "Must be six, seven years back. I stopped making sepia prints about that time." "Do you remember these men?" "You remember five trees in the forest?" "When there was still silver around Dagget there were hundreds of these boys pouring in, spending their dollars." "Sooner or later, most of them get around to sitting for a picture." "Just faces to me." "Strangers." "Shame you went to so much trouble." "Mr. Hobbs said you kept a log." "Yeah, come to think of it, I did." "You would write down the names of these men?" "Always." "Then what I wish to know is in the log." "Maybe." "I hope so, because you've got some hills to climb before you see it." "It's in my cabin." "Tucked away." "Oh, I do not mind the hills." "How I'd like to be able to say that." "You are tired." "Good a word as any, I guess." "Always his hated image before you." "Relentless as the ebb and flow of the ocean." "Unyielding as the granite mountains." "Eternal as the night itself." "So we pronounce our undying enmity to the Shaolin priest Kwai Chang Caine." "Our pursuit must be endless through the trackless waste of forests and streams of rivers and deserts through village and city streets with whatever weapons we must to bring death to the priest from the Order of the Avenging Dragon." "Could you do that?" "I could not." "It is the grandfather of all fish." "An omen." "Look." "Look on him." "I didn't think they ran that big around here." "Never has there been a fish so great." "Should be remembered." "I'll use my daguerreotype camera." "It'll hold better than paper, and you'll have something to show your people." "No!" "Catch my spirit in your box." "You think me a fool." "I'd kill before I let any man take my spirit." "Oh, look here, my boy." "You've caught yourself one fine, special fish." "The trouble is, nobody'll believe you." "But they'll believe my daguerreotype." "You do not trick me into letting you have my spirit." "Your box can take a picture of this fish, but not its spirit freed by death." "I will not be tricked into your spirit box." "I will hold your fish." "No." "This box, it takes the spirit of those that are not like him." "I know of these things, my friend." "Perhaps your picture should be of the fish alone." "So be it." "Perfect." "Absolutely perfect." "Now, in just a couple of minutes we will have this fine fish really caught." "Caught for all time." "I have never seen this done." "There's no secret." "It's a little old-fashioned now that we have the wet-plate process but it still makes a nice, durable picture." "It's on metal, you see." "What is it that you put in the plate?" "Oh, that's quicksilver, mercury, whatever you wish to call it." "The fumes bring the picture up." "The heat makes more fumes, faster." "How long have you been doing that?" "Oh, since I started." "Close to 30 years, I guess." "Old man, eat." "He will give you his strength." "Oh, I'm sorry. I have no appetite." "Eat, my brother." "You will be the greater for it." "I cannot." "That old man, the grey shadow follows where he goes." "It is true." "Do not go near the tray." "Why?" "lt is poison." "The vapor breathed into the body destroys the marrow of the bones." "His work is evil." "He thinks it good." "I forgive him because he does not understand." "I think I will go." "Come, we will go together." "No. I must go with him to his cabin in Elk Flat." "He has something I need." "He will not see his cabin again." "And you you will not get what you want." "Which way you headed, son?" "To my village." "Then you'll be passing through Dagget." "Yes." "Now, you know my studio, across from the rooming house?" "I'd like to pay you to drop these off with Mr. Hobbs." "You have been fair to me." "You need not pay." "Oh, thank you." "Thank you." "They're glass." "You'll have to be careful." "The glass will not break." "We will meet again." "l hope so." "You knife man." "Why are you following me?" "What do you want?" "You are from the temple." "Have you nothing better to do?" "I was instructed to follow you." "Come now." "You can think of a better story than that." "It is the truth, Li Yu. I am doing what Master Po told me to do." "So wise a man said to follow me?" "Why?" "He said you could teach me a great knowledge." "But I cannot read or write." "What can I teach anyone?" "Master Po said you have found both great wisdom and great happiness and if I observed you, I might learn what they are." "Such a fine joke Master Po has played on you." "Sending you to tramp on the dusty road after an old man who does the only thing he can do." "He lives every day from its start to its end and hopes there may be another to follow." "There must be more." "Nothing more, my son." "But if you choose to think there may be you are welcome to follow." "I don't expect you to understand me, friend." "I'm not sure I understand myself." "Maybe I'm crazy, huh?" "l do not think so." "Most everybody does." "Even my partner, Hobbs, he...." "Oh, he can see making portraits in the studio." "That's a nice, easy living." "But tramping these hills and getting what's here he thinks my mind has deserted me." "Do you do this all the time?" "Oh, from the first thaw until it freezes up again." "Never did spend much time in the studio, even in the old days." "You must have a great many pictures of the land." "More than I can count." "And before I'm through, I'm looking to get that many more again." "There's so much of this country left to do." "I want to get all of it." "All." "How can you?" "Oh, I don't know, friend." "I guess I'll just have to start moving faster and forget about being tired." "Keep, then, the patient vision through the heat of day, the cold of night unsleeping, unresting, unyielding true to the blood oath you have sworn." "Then, though his chosen sanctuary may be deep in the forests of the night far from the haunts of men there will come one different from all the others who, out of his own needs, will lead us to him." "Yes?" "You are Mr. Hobbs?" "That's right." "The old man in the mountain, Beaumont, asked me to give this." "Oh, how is the old man?" "He is not well." "I don't suppose he said anything about coming back into town." "No, he goes to his cabin in Elk Flat." "None of the glass is broken." "You tell the old man when you see him." "Yeah, certainly." "How much do they pay you to do this to them?" "More than you have." "I know him." "He is my brother, Caine." "I believe that was his name." "You're a dead man." "He must kill you when he sees that." "You have left him hollow, without spirit." "That's ignorant nonsense." "Caine would not let his spirit be taken." "You tricked him!" "Nothing of the sort." "He wanted to find Beaumont." "I told him where to look in exchange for a sitting." "You've left him hollow." "You've struck to his heart." "He will be in torment." "You're talking foolishness, boy. I'll wager that you've had your picture taken..." "...and didn't even know it." "Never." "I'll bet the old man got your picture when you weren't looking." "Think." "Didn't he once point this at you?" "Perhaps we should rest for a while." "This trail is getting steeper all the time." "I can remember when I thought it was the next thing to level." "We'll rest ahead, up in the shade." "The air is special up here." "I always feel the better for it." "What I should do, I guess, is strike the cabin at Elk Flats and move it up here." "With so much beauty to look on, it would be a good place for a cabin." "Maybe I'll get around to it one day." "You're anxious about your brother, aren't you?" "I am." "Just to know which face is his would give me much pleasure." "For so long he has been only a name, a feeling." "To know the look of him would bring him much closer." "Now, that's the thing about a picture." "Whatever it is, brother, wife, country, something you care about, like you said brings you closer." "Have you a wife?" "No." "No, never." "When a man takes a woman, he has to stay with her, be close by." "It's only fair." "I knew I could never do that." "Yes, you cared only to roam the land, take your pictures." "Always." "From the first moment I picked up a camera." "You are the only helper I've ever had." "How long have you been here with me now?" "I cannot remember." "You are not paid." "The work is hard." "Why do you continue?" "I have not yet learned what Master Po wishes me to learn." "That Master Po." "To play such a cruel game on a good boy." "Hey go swim in the river. I will not tell." "I am here to learn." "Will it ever be done?" "You do not know?" "I grow old." "Every day, weariness takes a little more of me." "Will you finish my work?" "Will you, grasshopper?" "If needed, would you finish Li Yu's work?" "I hesitate, master." "For it is Li Yu's work, and only he knows its purpose." "Then you no longer think him confused?" "No, master." "I now see the great clarity that instructs his effort." "Clarity?" "When he treasures what is worthless?" "Each piece of porcelain finds a new value in Li Yu's work." "You have begun to learn." "But this is not the great knowledge of which you spoke." "Take heart from the accomplishment of Li Yu." "The work of many years." "One small piece now another and another and another." "It's all out there waiting, and I can't get to it." "Just can't seem to move fast enough." "Hell, I'm too soft on myself." "That's the trouble." "As the years gather, it is natural for a man to slow his pace." "Well, I grant you that, friend, but I'm nowhere near that point." "Well, at least I shouldn't be." "I'm still on the sunrise side of 50." "How old did you think I was?" "I did not know." "Your eyes had a notion." "What was that?" "The wind?" "No." "Sounded like footsteps creeping in." "There is no one here." "I was certain there was." "I felt it. I know it." "You are chilled again." "Better get back on the trail." "Look." "The sacred valley of the Sioux." "Hardly anyone ever comes this way." "It's truly beautiful." "And worth every step of the climb." "Don't lose heart, friend." "I am not leading you in circles." "I did not think you were." "My cabin lies right through that cut, just a couple of miles." "Down there, on the floor of the valley, does that look like fog down there?" "Yes, there is fog." "Then maybe we'll get to see her." "The daughter of the mist." "Come on." "Let the omen of this great fish be fulfilled." "Let my spirit live again." "The dark stench of our dishonor can only be erased by the blood of the priest." "He must stand to meet us in ritual combat until the moment of his death." "Caine!" "Lead the old spirit-stealer to his cabin, my brother." "I will be there waiting." "Hurry, hurry." "There's no time to waste." "Do you think she will come?" "Oh, she's got to." "I've seen her only twice in all these years." "And then just for a twinkling." "You could not catch her." "No." "No." "She'd be gone before I could get my lens cap off." "Look, look." "She's there." "She lives." "She will, in my picture." "Just a couple of minutes. I'll be all right." "Oh, what happened, friend?" "Did I fall asleep?" "Yes." "That's just as well. I feel better now." "Did you pack my things?" "Yes." "Everything?" "Yes." "Thank you very much." "Well, we should get to the cabin before dark." "You go on. I must stay a while." "I am called upon to make an observance to the past." "I understand." "This valley has a way of making a man think of his soul." "You do what you must do, friend." "And then you come along." "Come, Lilly." "Come on." "Perhaps you can find your log." "Oh, I haven't forgotten." "You were clever to find me." "In Dagget, I learned you were with the old man, the maker of likenesses." "My picture in the window." "I waited." "An Indian boy came and left with your picture." "Where is the boy now?" "He went on." "It may be a man will die needlessly." "You must allow me to prevent it." "You cannot avoid my challenge." "I will meet you in combat, but let it be later." "It shall be now." "I plead with you." "Beg for your own life." "Matoska!" "I am weak." "You have destroyed me." "No, Matoska." "My spirit is taken." "How?" "When?" "He took it as I caught the great fish." "is that not so?" "Old man, speak the truth." "Yes. I made a picture." "You see?" "Then he will return your spirit to you." "I will see to it." "Trust me, my brother." "What was that name again, friend?" "Daniel Caine." "Oh, yes, that's it, Daniel Caine." "Brother, my spirit, you promised." "I have not forgotten." "Here." "Here's the name." ""Seated from left to right, Danny Caine."" "I am most grateful." "Must it all be lost?" "Traces just traces but so beautiful." "The grey shadow comes." "Even now." "Let him deal with his own death." "He has earned it." "You have said farewell?" "As best I could." "Death has had no victory, grasshopper." "But Li Yu is gone." "is he not still here?" "Labor upon labor, piece by piece, beauty upon beauty." "is it but a monument?" "Or is it the man himself?" "My spirit it does not return as you said." "It will now." "It is time." "What are the gods that you worship?" "Fire, water the sun the wind." "It is they who must return your spirit to you." "It goes." "It goes." "The sun, it is releasing his part." "It is as I said." "Now the fire will release his part." "And the wind, it releases his part." "I feel my spirit." "lt has returned." "l am happy, my brother." "I am happy." "Caine, do you believe?" "Who is to say it is not so?" "Then do you not wish also to save yourself?" "I found this in Dagget." "Our spirits live." "It is good, my brother." "Yes. lt is good."