JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi by Daniel Linden (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

in fact part of the glacier ran next to the trail. Bim led us along the stream for a quarter of a mile and we saw a suspension bridge perhaps twenty feet above the stream. We hiked up the trail and then crossed over the bridge. On the other side we followed the trail a few hundred yards and saw the beginning of a village. We passed the houses and walked into the town square where a flagstone court had been set in front of a large guest lodge. Several more guest lodges were down the trail and it seemed like a very nice village except there was no one there. I looked around for Nawang and did not see him.

Cook and his helper had passed us an hour ago and I figured that Nawang might be getting them settled, but we had never come into a village before without one of our sirdars being there to greet us. I looked at Bim.

He was not happy. He was staring at the lodge in front of us and I looked in that direction in time to see five or six men walk out of the common room door. Further down the road there were more men walking into the courtyard and I turned around and saw several more behind us.

“Uh oh,” said Curtis.

I looked back at the lodge in time to see four more men step outside. They wore some type of tunic with a red star on the lapel. All the others looked like the silver and jade smugglers from Tibet you see along the trail. They were all wearing yak fur hats and vests. The four in tunics carried machine guns. I looked closer and thought they seemed odd. They clearly weren’t soldiers; the only thing military were the tunics and guns. But they did carry guns and that was bad.

They walked up to us and two moved around behinds us and covered our rear. One, apparently the leader, spoke harshly to Bim in a loud voice, very unlike any Nepali. Bim answered and the man shouted something else at him and Bim cowered. He turned to me. “He says they are revolutionaries. He says they represent the people. They are the new government. He says he is the mayor, by the will of the people and that we must pay a tax to the people.”

The man barked something else at Bim. “He says that he is the representative, the legal representative of the Maoist government and we must pay a tax to him. He says he will give it to the people.”

I looked directly into the thief’s eyes and spoke to Bim. “How much does he want?” I asked.

Bim spoke quietly to the leader and he shouted something back at Bim. I could see Bim working the numbers out in his head. Finally, he said, “10,000 Rupee.”

Damn! I did the math and figured it was about $140-$150. About $35 each. That was not so bad, considering we were being robbed at gunpoint.

“Ask him if we pay this will we be able to stay and not be bothered again?”

Bim spoke again to the rebel leader and again the man shouted at Bim at length.

“He says no, we cannot stay. All the town now belongs to the people and for being insolent we must now pay 20,000 rupee.” Bim hung his head at this and I understood everything.

I looked at the rebel leader and all the clouds, the fog, the drizzling rain, the hundred miles of ascents and declines seemed to well up in me and before I could stop myself I told him to go fuck himself.

These were words he understood without a translator. Suddenly all four men were pointing their guns at us and he was screaming at Bim and Bim dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his head.

“Sahib! Sahib! He say kneel! All kneel and put up hands!” I thought Bim might start to cry from fear. Christian and Curtis dropped to their knees and put their hands behind their heads. Chris took a step forward and looked slowly at me and I glanced down at the flagstones. He grimaced and slowly went down to his knees. I turned and looked at the rebel leader. Everything was suddenly quiet. I could feel the ice-picks that were grinding inside my knee joints and the hunger that never seemed to go away. I could feel the miles and years weighing on me and I knew I’d had a hell of a good life. I also felt an anger building. I tried to clear my mind. I tried to become calm and feel the ki flow, but all I felt was an overwhelming desire to kill these bastards. Some aikido master. Some hotshot 6th dan. I couldn’t even control my own mouth.

“No.”

I felt something slam hard into my back and stumbled forward. I managed to stay on my feet. The rebel leader was pointing his machine gun at me again and screaming at me and at Bim and Bim was yelling at me…”Sahib, he will shoot you if you do not kneel. Please, Sahib!”

”No!”

Whoever had hit me before hit me again and this time much harder. My back screamed out and as I turned back the rebel leader hit me in the face with the butt of his machine gun and I went down. I vaguely felt hands on me. There were hands going through my pockets. I was laying on my left arm and tried to get it out from under me but each time I moved someone would strike me and finally everything went gray and then stars exploded everywhere.

I became aware of hands lifting me and then felt myself being dragged. I felt warm bodies on both sides and realized that I was being half dragged and half carried down the trail. Finally I managed to say “Stop, damn it.” They did.

It took a moment to get my