"Morning." "Hey, I said, good morning." "Hey, you're kind of a big fellow." "l mean, for a Chinese." "Yes." "What you doing?" "You moving through, or you staying a while?" "I am paying a visit." "A visit?" "Well, anybody I know?" "Maybe I can help you." "I seek the house of Wu Chang." "Wu Chang?" "Well, come on in." "Wu Chang a friend of yours?" "We have never met." "You never met?" "is that right?" "Well, then...." "Then maybe you're coming into town on business, then." "Tong business." "Now look, friend." "I keep my big ear to the ground and soon as anyone, and I mean anyone starts to walk too heavy, I hear it." "You understand?" "No." "Well...." "All right, let me put it another way." "Most of the time I don't mind leaving you people to work your problems out yourselves but I won't stand still for any hatchet work on any side of town." "And the minute I get a smell of anything funny happening I'm gonna come down like a six-legged mule." "You follow that?" "I am not a tong." "All right." "What's your name?" "I am Caine." "All right, Caine." "Little China is at the south end of town." "Wu Chang's place you should find with a bunch of old gents sitting around outside." "And Caine if I find out that you're anything more than what you say you are we're gonna have another little talk." "All right?" "Thank you." "I am looking for the daughter of Wu Chang." "I am the daughter of Wu Chang." "May I speak with you?" "You must ask permission of my father." "Forgive me." "Very well, I will place the matter before Wu Chang." "Send in the next one in line, please." "Yes?" "You are Wu Chang?" "There are others waiting." "Say what you have to say." "It is personal." "What did you say?" "It is personal." "If you wish to talk to Wu Chang, you must talk to me first." "We have not met." "l am Caine." "In China, I am called Kwai Chang." "Of what province?" "My mother's family is from Hebei province." "Then we are both Changs of Hebei." "Five hundred years ago, we were of the same family." "I was preparing to have tea." "Will you join me?" "I am grateful." "Kwai Chang, I am leaving on a journey to San Francisco tomorrow morning." "Of what service can I be in the short time I have left?" "Do you need money?" "A job?" "Protection?" "May I speak to your daughter?" "My daughter?" "Why?" "I would not intrude, Wu Chang but I must consult with you on a matter of grave concern." "My business with this man is nearly finished." "We will talk afterward." "lt must be now." "I regret that I must ask you to leave." "Please forgive me." "What is so important that Lao Tsing could not wait a few more minutes?" "It is our belief that your journey is considerably longer than you would have had us believe." "You are foolish to think so." "Second-class passage." "From the port of San Francisco to the port of Hong Kong." "No return." "One for you and one for your daughter." "It is you who are foolish, Wu Chang." "You have broken your sacred vow." "You are a traitor to our tong." "You have been asked to leave." "I have not finished my business." "I think you have." "Now, there's a barn some miles south along the main road." "If you hurry, you will have a place to sleep for tonight." "On your way, scarecrow." "I am sorry." "I will do what I came to do." "Maybe I should tell him in Chinese." "I don't think it'll do any good." "What's your name, scarecrow?" "I am Caine." "Caine?" "What's a "Caine"?" "Has arms, legs like a man but it wears funny clothes." "Has a nose" "A nose for trouble." "What is it, grasshopper?" "A man in need." "Whatever you have, valuables, money, throw them on the ground." "What about you, old man?" "How many bowls do you need to eat from?" "I can sell it." "Throw it down." "What's that?" "It is of value to no one but myself." "Some poems I wrote." "Throw it down." "No one would buy it." "Then I'll use it to start my fire." "What have you priests got to worry about?" "You sit content behind your walls with plenty of rice and wine while others work for a living." "Or starve." "Give me the book!" "Master, do you not know the poems in that book by memory?" "Yes, grasshopper." "But can any man afford such arrogance?" "Stop." "This is a man's house." "Have you no sense of what is proper and when it is proper?" "I apologize to you, Shaolin." "Our quarrel is not with you." "This is not your affair, and we do not wish to draw you into it." "When we have made our judgment, you will be informed." "Father, what did he mean, a "judgment"?" "He found the steamship tickets." "He will call a tribunal." "The tong was a good thing in the early days." "It served our people." "Now it is the people who serve the tong." "And fear it." "Men like Lao Tsing deal in sinful things now." "And they grow rich." "But you are the leader of the tong." "I am a name." ""Old man," they call me." "The power has been taken from me." "It is now with Lao Tsing, and his heart is cold." "Father." "He is a good man." "What will he do?" "He will accept their judgment." "I came to see if you were comfortable." "I am comfortable." "It is late." "You should be asleep." "I cannot sleep." "You are trembling." "You have strong hands." "And a gentle face." "Kwai Chang let me stay with you tonight." "I could be anything you want." "I will try to honor you, to please you." "Why?" "Do not ask why." "You do not love me." "l will." "Were you sent to me?" "You think my father--?" "No." "The daughter of a tong leader is not a concubine." "Yet you came to me." "You are a Shaolin." "All know the power of a Shaolin." "I hoped, if you cared for me, you will help my father." "Your gift is not needed." "I will do what I can." "And so will Li Tom." "What of Li Tom?" "Before coming here I worked on the railroad with Li Tom." "Kem." "Tell me." "There was an accident on the railroad." "Many men died." "Without Li Tom, many more men would have died." "For this he gave his life." "Before he died, he asked me to give you this." "You are with child." "His." "It is all I will ever have of him now." "Your father knows?" "You must tell him." "I can't." "Not now." "I will not have a husband, and soon I will not have a father." "I will lose everything." "l wish to see the sheriff." "Well, take a look." "He is dead." "Murdered." "Something very big and very strong got ahold of his neck and pressed." "Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of the tong and its blood vengeance." "We have all sworn a blood oath." "Death, only, may separate us from the tong." "The high and the low the mighty and the fearless and the weak and the frail." "There is but one law." "Wu Chang must answer to that law the same as" "Wait." "Who is this man who dares to intrude upon the high tribunal?" "His name is Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin priest." "Descended from the five Shaolin ancestors as we are." "He has an interest in this affair." "We could remove him if we wished for even a Shaolin would hesitate to set himself against our strength." "In order to prevent such a test, now or in the future it is my judgment that he should be allowed to remain." "Proceed." "We speak of the traitor, Wu Chang." "What is the judgment of the tribunal?" "He betrayed us, yet we feed and clothe him." "And you disapprove?" "It is said he swore an oath, as one of us, never to reveal our secrets." "It is said that when he left us, he taught farmers to be soldiers and led them to their deaths in foolish rebellion." "I am aware of his unsavory ventures." "I am aware also of his hunger and cold." "But master, will not food and new clothing strengthen him to go out and cause more suffering?" "It may." "But when he leaves us in the morning will the earth fall away from under his feet?" "Will the sun, shining on all else, withhold light and warmth from him?" "Will water turn to mud when he stops to drink?" "If sun and earth and water refrain from judgment who am I to withhold a blanket and a bowl of rice?" "The decision has been made." "Honor will be avenged." "You speak of honor while one man is already dead." "It is the will of the tribunal." "A tribunal must decide guilt or innocence yet you call the executioner before the tribunal is met." "The judgment has been rendered." "Without anyone to speak for the accused." "His actions judge him." "As do yours." "We have been betrayed!" "If Wu Chang dies, who becomes the leader of the tong?" "That, too, will be up to the judgment of the tribunal." "is it not you?" "If the tribunal deems me worthy." "It is said that honor dies where interest lies." "Shaolin, there is no need for enmity between you and the tong." "We act only to avenge our honor." "One man is dead." "Another will die." "How can this bring honor anywhere?" "Monkshood." "Mixed with the white of an egg it is effective for relieving pain in bruises and swelling." "Taken internally, it quiets the heart and lungs or causes death." "You mean, it is a poison?" "A very powerful one." "Its essence is aconite." "Then it can be used to heal." "Yes." "But only when combined with other substances in the most exact proportions." "As with all things of nature, it can be used by man for good or evil." "Study this herb carefully." "For the difference between life and death in it can be measured by the blinking of an eye." "What you wish is extremely rare nearly forgotten in the night of time." "You do not have it?" "It has the power over life." "I will get it for you." "Father, did you see?" "l did not need to see." "The judgment has been made." "I must prepare to die." "No!" "It must not be." "We must now concern ourselves with you, with your life." "I cannot think of myself, Father." "After it is over, you will be allowed to leave." "I want you to return home as we had planned." "It is a very great distance to travel alone, Father." "Yes, but at the end of the journey you will find love and safety with your cousins." "They will care for you." "They will shun me." "You are my daughter, a Chang of Hebei." "Father I carry Li Tom's child." "Sorrows run together." "As the river overflows its banks, another river joins in and the flood is still greater." "I did not wish to sorrow you, Father." "I loved Li Tom truly." "He left me to earn money so that he could approach you honorably." "Then he will return" "No!" "He is dead." "Your child will have no man to protect him." "It would be better if he came forth without life." "The man outside, do you know him?" "No one knows." "He is nameless." "Like death itself." "He will wait outside until the sun sets and if I have not gone he will call for me." "My life must be surrendered." "Perhaps better you preserve it." "Give them the death that they desire and keep the life that is yours." "If I stand, I do not sit." "It must be one or the other." "Your eyes will close." "Your breath will cease." "Your heart will still." "Lao Tsing will have his death." "And I will awake?" "Yes." "When?" "When your coffin is in the ground and your funeral is over." "You will bury me alive?" "No." "You will not be in the coffin." "How can I be sure I will awake?" "You must trust me." "One thinks of death more as the years gather." "It becomes almost acceptable." "And yet, fear remains." "One wonders what it may bring." "Think only of sleep and waking." "This sleep will be unlike any other." "The lips of death will brush my cheek." "Kem, one other thing." "Can you make the people believe the one you love is dead?" "The one I love is dead." "For myself, for my daughter and for another I choose life." "Step aside, Shaolin." "I defy this sentence of death." "You have no right to interfere." "A tong master may appoint another to take his place." "is this not true?" "What do you hope to gain?" "You will only add your death to Wu Chang's." "If I win, it is a rule the sentence of death is removed." "is this not true?" "Your blood shall darken the street, Shaolin." "is this not true?" "If you could prevail, Wu Chang would live and be free to leave." "I pity you." "He is dead." "He has accepted our judgment and chosen a noble way." "We will honor him now as his death has honored us." "Death honors no one." "I, too, grieve for Li Tom." "Lao Tsing, I have something you might be interested in." "What is it?" "Wu Chang lives." "The priest merely put him to sleep." "You lie to me." "Did I lie to you about the steamship tickets?" "The old man's heart was stopped." "He was cold." "l know, I know." "The priest is very skilled." "Father, I was so frightened." "There is an ancient formula by which aconite is delicately balanced with other herbs to produce apparent death." "l feel strange." "Please." "It will pass." "We must hurry." "Every moment of delay is dangerous." "Wu Chang, you have betrayed us twice." "Now you will accept what you have earned:" "A death of dishonor." "l will stand for you." "No." "Enough." "One man has already died for me." "Please. it is I who must pay now." "They will have what they will have." "Even you cannot stop them, Kwai Chang." "Come out and meet your death." "Take him quickly." "And then Wu Chang." "Wu Chang is free to leave." "Kwai Chang, there will always be a place for you in our cottage." "I will dream of it as you have." "My child will know of you and honor your name." "Let him know of the willows and the river." "And let him honor Li Tom."