Jessica Barone is a San Franciscan scribbler of fiction, and a journalist of tech, health n’ fitness (find more of her writing at medium.com/@chai_haiku). She’s a serial Silicon Valley Tech Startup girl and social media Jedi, but considers the woods and seas to be the ideal office space.
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The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists
by Ahimsa Kerp; published July 5, 2013
First Place Award, July 2013 Fiction Contest
The train chug-chug-chugged past the wild jungles and verdant tea plantations as plumes of steam drifted into the blue sky. Josephine Anson and her mother, Olivia, sat in the front car and the view was incredible; the karst cliffs rose high above the lush valley floor. Above and behind it all, mist-clad and snow-topped mountains soared like mighty emperors. It was nothing like the Kent countryside. Josephine was bored.
Her mother continued to stare out the window, perhaps not even noticing the views. There was only one thing on her mother’s mind, Josephine knew, when her eyes glassed over like that. She was thinking of father. He had left in April of 1899, a year ago almost to the day, and they hadn’t seen him since. As England’s leading Confucian scholar, he had been hired to do translating at an historic site, but his letters had stopped months ago.
And so the Anson women left from London, just like that. The dreadful boat ride had lasted forever, and things only got worse when they reached China. Here they had acquired two man-servants and guides. Her mum had tried not to tell her, but Josephine knew both carried guns. They were scary. She wondered what Peter and Elizabeth would say about it? She missed her friends.
The train was climbing into the mountains, and it began to suffer from the steep grade. It came to a near standstill as the steam engine fought against gravity. Though she couldn’t understand the language, and her mum didn’t notice, Josephine thought that the Chinese on the train were worried. There was something in their tone that made her nervous.
Before she could speak to her mother, the train stopped with a hideous jolt. Josephine was thrown forward as the low hum of conversation flared with bright panic. The world shifted as, ahead of them, the train tracks disintegrated.
The lead locomotive crumpled into pieces like wet paper as fragments of the pilot plow at the tip of the train flew high into the air. Josephine, just rising, was thrown into Olivia and the two fell from their seats as the train rocked back from the explosion. Josephine hit her head hard on the metal floor.
The door opened with a smoky blast and the car was full of sweaty, shirtless men. All had circular tattoos on their chests. The man in front, a small, middle-aged man whose bare stomach bulged over his trousers, scanned the car. When he saw the two white women, he strode toward them purposefully.
Josephine’s mum struggled to rise. “Please,” she said to her porter. “Save us. I’ll pay you triple, give you anything you want. Just save us from these bandits.” The Chinese on the train had moved toward the back of the car, as far away as possible from the foreigners.
The porter paused, consulted with his friend via a rapid succession of syllables, then nodded grimly and drew his gun.
“Yes, yes, Miss Olivia. I will do this thing.”
The pudgy man was only five feet away when the porter fired. Somehow, even at that range, the porter missed. The leader of the shirtless men laughed, his belly jiggling. He said something in Chinese that even to Josephine’s ears sounded mocking. The other porter fired his pistol. The bullet hit the man’s bare skin, just below his tattoo.
The bullet bounced off the man, his skin unbroken.
Olivia screamed. Josephine found it hard to breathe, hard to see. Her heart beat so heavily she could feel it in her throat.
The second porter dropped his gun. Several of the shirtless men came at them with drawn knives, and both porters were killed quickly.
The pudgy man looked at the two women. “Kill the Guizi,” he said. He turned his back on them as three men with bloody knives advanced. Josephine could see their tattoos more clearly now, a half circle of gold mashed with a half circle of black. She’d never been more afraid in her life, not even when she’d been stuck in the attic for two days and none of the servants could find her.
“I am an Englishwoman,” her mother said bravely. “I will gladly pay you some money, however, I need some to reach my husband in Kiuh Fow.”
“Your husband is long dead. You will meet him again soon enough, perhaps,” the pudgy man said, without even looking at her.
The men drew closer, their daggers dripping dark blood.
“In the name of Queen Victoria, please. You can kill me,” she pleaded. “But let my daughter live. She is so young, she has done nothing.”
The man sighed wearily. “She died when she entered our country. We did not ask or want her to come. As to the old hag you call Queen, well, the world she clings to is no longer hers,” he said. His tone was mild, but Josephine had never heard such words, and she felt as though she had been slapped.
“Please, please,” Olivia begged.
Josephine thought of something her father would say. “Set your heart right; put the world in order.”
The man motioned to the three killers to stop. “What is this? You speak words you do not understand. How do you know this in English?”
Her mother was staring at her in surprise too. Josephine frowned — she had to try to remember the words more clearly.
“To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right,” she said. She hoped she had spoken the words correctly.
“If your heart is right, you will not kill a defenseless girl,” her mother added.
“I do not know where you learned such words. But we of the Righteous Fists of Harmony respect the truth. Your bargain is accepted.” He made a small gesture with his hand.
“My bargain?” Olivia asked.
“Not yours. Hers. A life for a life.”
One of the Fists stepped before Olivia and cut her throat. She fell in an inelegant heap and made a mess on the floor. Then one of the men hit Josephine on the head, and she knew no more.