Across the Mekong River Read Online Free PDF Page A

me and blinked. “Will she like me?”
    I laughed. “Of course. And you can teach her everything you know.”
    Fong frowned and shooed away a fly. “But she’s only a girl. She can’t do the same things.”
    I shrugged. “Perhaps. But she will find her talents and be special in her own way.”
    Fue dove into his bowl of rice. “I’ll show her how to use a sling shot.”
    “I’ll teach her how to build a house,” Fong said.
    After dinner the boys and I played kickball until the light faded into deep shadows and it was time for bed. In the house, I crouched next to their bamboo platform built low to the ground. Yer sat nearby on our bed, nursing Nou. Every night I told one story of my adventures in the jungle or related one of the Hmong folk tales that had been told and retold, one generation to the next.
    Fong leaned forward. “Tell the one about the snake.”
    I shook my head. “You’ve heard it many times.”
    Fong bounced up and down. “Please, oh please. I want that one.”
    Fue’s face scrunched up with anticipation. “Yes, yes.”
    “If you wish,” I said, laughing softly. “Well, I was with my men just south of Xieng Khouang. We spent the night deep in the forest.” I dropped my voice to a low whisper and leaned in. Their eyes became large in the light from the lantern. “It was completely dark. As we lay on our knapsacks, noises filled the jungle like many instruments playing a song.” I embellished the details to drag out the story, adding a tiger’s roar and a hooting owl as their anticipation grew. A moth swooped into the light, and the boys started. “At last I fell asleep and when I woke the next morning, I felt something heavy on my stomach like a big stone. I opened my eyes, and what do you think I found?”
    Fue clasped his hands together. His shoulders hunched up as his voice slid into a squeak. “A big green snake, coiled on your stomach. Asleep!”
    “Is this true, Father?” Fong asked.
    “I would never lie. So I waited and waited, hardly breathing. I have to admit, I was very scared. One bite and I might be dead. An hour went by, and still the snake slept. I was so hungry, my stomach began to growl.”
    “And the snake put its head up and looked you in the eyes,” Fong said.
    “Yes. He stared at me as if thinking about what to do. I held my breath. His tongue flickered about several times. Then he slipped onto the ground and disappeared into the brush. Just like that!”
    Fue scooted onto the floor, his tongue darting in and out, and waved goo dbye as he slithered off. We all laughed.
     
    Our third April in the new village, we cleared another field to plant with corn, yams, bitter melon, sugarcane, and opium. Last year’s opium had provided enough cash for new tools, a horse, and another cow. Our crops had been bountiful the first year, but each season the plants leached the soil and rains eroded another layer of dirt. We were constantly shifting to new land, letting the old fields lay fallow for the soil to regenerate.
    We located a mostly level site three miles from the village at the bottom of a forested hill. Over the next two weeks we cut down the pines and hardwoods, stacked the logs for firewood, and burned the remaining stumps and brush. I worked next to my brothers Tong and Shone, cousin Shoua, and Uncle Boua. We threw our hoes deep into the earth, lifting great clods of dirt, uncovering rocks and old roots, and working the nutrient-rich ash into the ground. We edged our way up and down the field, carving out the last few rows. My arms and shoulders ached and calluses covered my hands, but the labor of these familiar tasks fortified me.
    Fong and Fue followed behind me, removing large rocks and tree roots from th e rows to make room for seeds. Fong lifted a rock almost a third his weight and struggled over to the side of the field. He dropped it onto his neat stack that came up to his chest. He kept at it without complaint as steady and plodding as a water buffalo.