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地产营销必修：TOP10房企渠道管理30讲 tbgf

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地产营销必修：TOP10房企渠道管理30讲 tbgf

“A real shame,” the brown one says, pressing his rifle into Ba’s bad leg. “This could all have been avoided if we’d known where that fleck17 of gold we found came from. My brother’s girl wouldn’t have had to wander willy-nilly.”

Ba’s mouth stays shut. The stubbornness that Sam inherited—he’ll never tell.

“I’d say a trade seems fair,” the brown jackal says. A confused silence, and then Lucy understands as the red one locks mad eyes on Sam. Sam who shines.

Lucy’s voice is mute, but her legs move. It was her fault. She took what was precious from the house. She takes a step—half a step, stiff with dread18. It’s enough. The red one seizes her instead.

Ba’s face is torn between fury and fear as the red jackal drags Lucy to the door. She wonders which will win, whether Ba will speak. She never knows. Because Sam lunges for the red jackal, stabbing with the spat-out bone shard19.

The jackal howls, releasing Lucy. Grabbing for Sam.

Sam is small and wily, brown and strong from days on the gold field. As the red jackal slashes21 with his knife, Sam ducks and dances. The brown jackal waves his gun, can’t shoot for fear of hitting his partner. Sam catches Lucy’s eye across the room. Impossibly, Sam grins.

And then the red one takes hold—not of Sam’s arm, but Sam’s long, grown-back hair.

Ba yells. Lucy screams. But it’s the third voice that the jackals attend to. A voice like a sweep of fire, hot in a house grown cold.

“Stop,” Ma says, standing22 by stages. Blankets shed from her. Her huge belly23 like a piece of the hills come alive. And then she speaks to Ba, only Ba. “Ba jin gei ta men. Ni fa feng le ma? Yao zhao gu hai zi. Ru guo wo men jia ren an quan, na jiu zu gou le.”

It’s a language the rest can’t decipher. Words so quick they might as well be the senseless patter and shriek24 of rain. For the first time Lucy understands that the language Ma shared with them, in bits and pieces, was only a child’s game.

Ba’s face slackens, Ba’s shoulders puddling as the red jackal strides to Ma and slaps her so hard her lip splits open.

“Speak proper,” he hisses25.

Calmly, Ma puts a hand to her chest. She draws a crumpled26 handkerchief from the pouch27 inside her dress and holds it to her bleeding lip. When she drops the soiled cloth, her lips are sealed, her right cheek squirrel-swollen from the blow.

Ma says no more. Not when the men ask where the money is hid, not when they contemplate28 cutting out Ba’s tongue, not when they slash20 the bundles and tear the clothes, shatter the medicine bottles in the trunk. That sweet, bitter perfume mingles29 with the jackals’ stink30. Ma says nothing even when they find the first hidden pouch, and tear the shack and the wagon31 apart in search of the rest. Ma doesn’t look at them, doesn’t look at Ba or Sam or Lucy. Ma looks out the open door.

At the last, the jackals herd6 the family together and search their bodies for gold. Stripped and patted, Ma is once again the sun, the moon, her naked belly casting a horrible light around which the day turns. The jackals take the pouch from between her breasts, turn it inside out—empty. Ba closes his eyes, as if the sight could blind him.

“There’s more in these hills,” Ba says that night as they sit in their own wreckage32. No mattress left whole, no blankets, no pillows, no medicines, no plates, no food, no gold. The new mule and the new wagon were taken. Near on six months in this town and they’re poorer than when they arrived. “We’ll find more. All we need’s time, qin ai de. Might be another six months. Maybe a year. He’ll still be young.”

Still Ma is silent.

They sleep all four together that night, two torn mattresses33 dragged to make one. Lucy and Sam cling together in the center, Ma and Ba at either side. Ma faces out from Lucy, her back a long occlusion. That night there are no whispers.

The next day, as the storm grows fiercer, Lucy fits together what parts she can, sews what she can, makes meals of what she can—the pork rinds retrieved34 from a dark corner, the flour painstakingly35 scooped36 though it bakes up gritty.

Sam helps. Unasked, Sam cleans and stacks, dusts and sorts. The sound of Sam’s body a sturdy speech. Otherwise, the shack is silent. Ma lies prone37, unspeaking though her swollen cheek has deflated38. Ba paces and paces.

And then again, the pounding.

This time Ba opens the door with pistol in hand. There’s only a piece of paper tied to the knob. Dark shapes hurrying away in the rain.

Lucy reads the words aloud. Her voice shrinks with every sentence.