"Master, what endures?" "The sun endures." "The moon endures." "Life endures." "Yet the life of this young man is ended." "He was younger than I am." "No daughter will weep for him." "No son remains to sow his seed." "It is said the leaf honors the tree." "Yet when the leaf falls, the tree trembles." "You speak of the past." "The present is rooted in the past." "It is through these roots we draw nourishment and strength." "And I am a man standing on one leg." "Do you know nothing about him, grasshopper?" "Your father?" "I remember a troubled, quiet man." "It was as though he could not rest in this new country yet remained for my mother's sake." "Nothing more?" "He was an American." "He once told me of the place where he was born." "I have never forgot the name." "Lordsville." "Like it?" "Stick around a few minutes." "You'll get one for yourself." "You wouldn't run." "You better pray." "It's a challenge, son." "That lance says he's taking you on hand-to-hand." "Where were you half an hour ago?" "What's your name, son?" "I am Caine." "Davey Peartree." "Ex-drunk, drifter, derelict ex-man." "Are you a poor man?" "How'd you like to be rich?" "Reach in my pocket, son." "You know what you're looking at?" "It's the cream of the joke a mountain of gold!" "I spend my life looking for it I find it, and the day I go to spend it is the day I die." "Remember me, son." "Nobody else will." "Three gilt-edged ladies." "Beats my two pair." "Pop, how about you?" "I've got them beat, brother with three kings." "Balthazar, Melchior, Caspar." "The magi, brothers, kings of the East." "Serenity!" "A reminder that any hand can be beat." "Come on, Serenity!" "Where are they now, these kings of the East?" "Bought their way into grace with gifts." "I recommend the same to you, brothers, while you got the cash." "Davey's dead!" "Who?" "Davey Peartree." "They got the guy who done it too!" "Chinaman, by the looks of him!" "We'll pay our respects." "An offering, brothers, for the peace of Davey's soul and also for that poor lad who looks to me heavily outnumbered and in need of prayer." "Tell me, why would anyone kill a man and bring him in to hang for it?" "Who knows what a Chinaman would do?" "Neither you, brother, nor I." "What we do know, if we open our eyes to it, is the work of the Apache." "Apaches?" "This here hole was made by an arrow, sure enough." "Hang him, brothers, if a hanging is what you're after but not for killing Davey." "Look at this!" "What kind of man would bring in a dead body without checking to see what that body will offer?" "In my opinion, an honest man." "He's earned himself a funeral, undertaker." "Bury him proper." "Welcome to Lordsville, little brother." "I'm Serenity Johnson." "My silent partner is Sunny Jim." "Watch it, little brother." "Step through this door here." "This is my church." "Pulpit, pews, rectory." "Beautiful." "Like it?" "Yes." "l'll build it one day." "I hope you do." "You don't say much, little brother." "You wish to hear words?" "One or two may not be amiss." "You were in a little trouble back there." "l would have had some difficulty." "That's all?" "Nevertheless, you have done me a great service." "To thank you with words would be to cheapen the gift." "Drunks, drifters, derelicts." "I preach, little brother, for a living." "It's a thorny path they've chosen." "Drunk, they can starve to death, freeze or burn, be trampled by horses, run over by wagons." "When they reach bottom, if they're lucky, they can join my congregation." "This is home, little brother." "Stay if you like." "I am grateful." "Not a bad night, Sunny Jim." "Every man is entitled to see bright lights once in his life." "New York, San Francisco, Paris." "We've got it coming." "We need one big one." "That poke in Davey Peartree's pack." "Not the kind of man, Davey was, that gold clings to." "He dug it out of the ground somewhere." "Our key is our little brother out there, the last man to see Davey alive." "If Davey talked to anyone...." "What's his name, Caine?" "Master, of man's roots, which is the stronger?" "It is the Shaolin belief that the paternal line controls." "What is a man without roots?" "What is a tree without roots?" "The deeper into the earth the roots reach, the stronger the tree." "A name, a face in my mind, a place." "It is all I know of my father." "One half of myself an emptiness, a mystery." "Seek to discover it then for it is this thread which holds you to the past and binds you to the future to fix your place for all time in eternity." "Poking, prying, burning." "Say what you like, brother, what you're doing is outside of nature." "What can I do for you, Serenity?" "To the point, brother." "Peartree, Davey." "The late Davey Peartree." "Better late than never." "He brought in some ore for assay." "So?" "You've already answered my first question." "Now for the second." "Was it high-grade ore?" "What good does it do anybody now?" "There's no way of knowing where it was." "He didn't file any claims." "Short and to the point, brother." "If I have any more questions, I'll be in tomorrow." "Yes?" "I am looking for Henry Raphael Caine..." "...the stonecutter." "Why?" "I am Kwai Chang Caine." "My father was Thomas Henry Caine." "His son." "l am his grandson." "He's out, quarrying, collecting his stones." "He'll be out for a week or two." "And you?" "I'm no relative of yours." "I'm his housekeeper, Coralee Dodd." "You used the word "was," talking about your father." "My father is dead." "So is my mother." "Brothers?" "Sisters?" "I have none." "You have one." "Brother." "Half-brother, I guess." "Your father was married once before." "He'd be about three, four years older than you." "Named Danny." "Here?" "Not in this house." "Not in this town." "Where?" "Maybe he knows." "I'll tell him you were here." "I looked for you this morning, little brother." "And found me." "Found you?" "Surely the one you call Sunny Jim told you where l was." "Notwithstanding his affliction, little brother, he did." "Why you went to the cemetery is your own affair and no relation to the business between us." "You owe me, little brother." "I have acknowledged it." "As an honest man, you could do no less." "But I'm not talking about last night, when, at considerable risk to myself I rescued you from men who meant you no good." "There's Davey Peartree between us, little brother." "You were with him when he died." "Yes." "I'm not one to waste words." "There's the matter of the gold found in Davey's pack." "He was a regular, Davey, here at this church." "Down on his luck, as he often was, he was welcome." "We knew him for many things, little brother, but never for having an excess of gold." "In his final words, spoken in your presence did he say where it came from?" "He did." "Where?" "Out of the earth." "Just that much, little brother?" "No more?" "Much more." "A strike!" "Never question good fortune, little brother." "The world has far too much of its opposite." "I make out a case, little brother, for a share." "When a man dies, his real and personal possessions should go to settling his honest debts." "He ate here when he had nothing to eat, slept here, found refuge here." "Not counting my personal services, which I say straight out were considerable in plain dollars and cents, not to mention his debt for spiritual care, he owed us." "Well, little brother?" "Do you know what you've given me?" "I do not want it." "When I build my church, your name will go up front in gold letters, little brother." "But I do not believe you intend to build your church with that." "Sunny Jim, pick us up two horses and a pair of pack mules." "What will happen to your congregation?" "God will provide, little brother." "What happened?" "They got Serenity!" "Who?" "Indians!" "They've sewn his eyelids back." "He's blind." "What?" "Sad, grasshopper?" "My sadness is for you." "is it?" "Never to see the clouds never to see the sun on the water or the plumage of a bird." "Yet sometimes it is eyes that blind a man." "How can this be?" "Because he can see, he does not look." "is the bird only the color of his plumage?" "None should think so." "To be at one with the universe is to know bird, sun, cloud." "How much shall a man lose if he then loses his eyes?" "Anybody here?" "I am here." "Who are you?" "You know who I am." "Look at me." "How can I do that, friend?" "Can you hear my voice?" "I can hear very little else, brother." "Then look at me." "What do you want, little brother?" "Thanks for saving me for this?" "You are alive." "Who would know it, friend?" "Are you in pain?" "I have known better days." "Are you in pain?" "l'm blind!" "Listen." "Are you gonna set me on fire, little brother?" "With what?" "The match." "I have no match." "What do you take me for?" "A blind man." "Yet you felt it." "So would you." "Heard it." "Yes." "Smelled it." "Yes." "Blind." "Yet you know who stands before you." "You know I have a match in my hand." "Reach out and touch me." "If my arms were longer." "You saw me move." "With these?" "Yet you know where l am." "Your voice comes from where you are." "I heard your footsteps." "Tell me what I have in my hands." "You know." "Smell of kerosene." "Say it!" "The lamp." "is it lit?" "You have ears." "Do you hear a flame?" "lt's off." "Touch it." "Confirm it." "It's off." "is it day or night?" "Day." "is the window open or closed?" "Tell me." "Feel it on your skin." "Open." "For a blind man, large brother how much you know." "Forgive me." "You are Mr. Henry Raphael Caine?" "I am Kwai Chang Caine." "Your father is dead?" "Yes, sir." "Where did he die?" "At home, venerable sir." "Where?" "In China." "Elizabeth Hale Caine, my wife." "Put into the ground by her son, your father." "What did she look like, your mother?" "Slanty eyes?" "Yellow skin?" "I told him it would kill her." "You, what about you?" "You're tainted." "You're tainted with death." "Look at it." "You were born out of a grave." "I should have died before I saw you." "Let me be dead before I see you again." "Who's here?" "Shut the door." "Purdy, is it?" "So who's minding the assay office?" "I got to thinking about Davey Peartree and that ore sample he brought in." "It was real high-grade ore." "I thought about that ore, and I thought about what happened to you." "And I put the two together." "And I figured maybe you found his strike." "I found something. I lost something." "A heavy balance, brother, worth thinking about." "I was right!" "You've got eyes." "Use them." "Indians?" "is that what you're saying?" "Maybe we're better equipped to handle them than you." "With what?" "Long ears?" "You know what this is?" "A match." "is there a map?" "Where is it?" "There is no need to torture the old man any further." "The map you seek was given to me." "The gold is on Indian land." "It would be dangerous even for men like you to try to take it." "Supposing you let us take care of that." "The map." "The map!" "Why didn't I give it to them?" "The map, I have it." "Why didn't I give it to them?" "Why?" "Perversity, greed, covetousness." "Not theirs, mine." "I found the gold, little brother, where Davey stacked it." "I still had hopes." "Of what?" "Soft beds, bright lights." "Let it be known, there is a just and angry God." "Are you alive?" "Blinded." "Yes." "Helpless." "Not helpless." "I can teach you." "You need not be helpless." "Useless." "Not useless either." "Your congregation needs you." "What good could I do them?" "You spoke of a church." "Did I?" "Build it." "How?" "With your hands." "With their help." "It's possible." "is it?" "I've seen it, standing." "Have you?" "Beautiful." "I believe it." "l'd need supplies." "Yes." "Money." "Find it." "Sunny Jim." "Under the bed." "Look closer, brothers." "This is the time for the blind to see, for the mute to speak." "What are we, brothers?" "Outcasts?" "Dregs?" "Scum?" "Never mind, brothers." "Lift up your heads." "We're going to build a church!" "This is my church." "Pulpit, pews, rectory." "Beautiful." "Like it?" "Yes." "l'll build it one day." "I hope you do." "Listen." "You know what you've done for me?" "What you yourself have done." "To say thanks is to cheapen the gift." "I remember." "Answer a question." "lf l can." "I've learned to listen." "You've taught me to hear beneath the words." "I hear something in you." "Shall I tell you, little brother, what I hear?" "Yes." "l hear a man torn." "You made a commitment to me." "As an honest man, you could do no less." "I tell you, straight out, I can take care of myself." "I free you from that commitment, little brother." "There's nothing to hold you now." "Then I will go, Serenity." "It's the first time you've called me by name." "You spoke of a church." "Did I?" "Build it." "How?" "With your hands." "With their help." "I'd need supplies." "Yes." "Money." "Find it." "It's possible." "Is it?" "I've seen it, standing." "Have you?" "Beautiful." "Sunny Jim is it beautiful?" "Only one thing missing." "I wish our little brother were here to see it." "What do you want?" "What is rightfully mine." "Roots." "My heritage." "You'll never get it." "It's been 1 0 days, without food without water." "He'll let you die." "Then I will die." "Who?" "What do you want?" "I want to order a stone." "A stone?" "A gravestone." "You carve them, don't you?" "Yes." "Who is it for?" "You." "Did you think you'd live forever, old man?" "You're blind." "l'm blind?" "Get out!" "Get down on your knees before your avenging angel." "I claim your immortal soul, Henry Raphael Caine, for crimes rendered." "For your grandson, whom you cursed." "For your son, whom you drove from your house." "And for your wife, whom you drove into the grave." "I know you, Henry Raphael Caine." "Drunk, you drove your son out of your house because it shriveled your soul to see his Chinese wife." "Drunk, you closed your ears to your wife when she pleaded to let them stay." "Bigot!" "Womanizer!" "All these years you've blamed someone else, your son, your grandson because you didn't have courage enough to look at yourself." "That's a lie!" "lt's the God's truth." "I've seen you drunk. I've dried you out and sent you back into the world." "It was you that killed her, old man." "It was seeing what you were." "You blind" "Which one of us, Henry Raphael Caine, is blind?" "Stand up, please." "You have your father in you." "I have nothing to give you." "Through you I have a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather stretching back to the roots of time." "You have a brother." "These letters from him I never answered." "Take them." "Find him." "This was my father's." "This was your father's." "It's all I have." "I have a name for it." "Tell me." "Davey Peartree's Church of the inner Vision." "I like it." "Part of it's yours." "It honors me." "Must you go, little brother?" "Yes." "You will look in on my grandfather?" "With my inner vision." "I will never forget you." "Nor I you." "Say goodbye, Sunny Jim."