Preface
(Texas, 1872)
"All you have to do to make this all go away is tell me where I can find Kwai Chang Caine. " The Sheriff said. "I might even share the reward with you." He dismounted his horse and approached the aging Chinese gentleman.
"You lie." Yulong Yeoh said, forcing his aged body to straighten, Jutting out his chin. "You will share nothing. You will receive nothing."
"Grandfather, no," Jian said, fearing what they would do to the elderly man. He glared at the sheriff and his deputies. "He is not here. We do not know where the priest has gone."
"Torch the place." Sheriff Biggs told his men. "If they won't tell us where he is, then we'll smoke him out.
Li-Na looked at her twin and stepped closer to him.
"Get back over there." Calvin Hockins told her.
"She is frightened," Jian said, putting an arm around his twin sister as she folded her fan demurely and tucked it into her belt.
"Alright but you two stay put."
Two of the men left to get kerosene from the wagon, and once more the twins looked at each other as if communicating silently.
"No." Yulong said "This is not necessary." he looked to be speaking to the Sheriff but in truth, he was speaking to his grandchildren. They did not heed him.
Their movements were quick, fighting in tandem, lethal kittens at play, never more than two feet apart. They were not holy men limiting their movements to incapacitate their prey. They were leopards, hands like the paws of elegant and powerful cats, striking with intent, not in defense.
Then a gunshot rang out. echoing through the darkness and Jian Yeoh fell to the ground, dead before his body came to rest in the grass.
Yulong rushed to his grandson's side, his cries of anguish echoing with Li-Na's growl of rage. She rolled across the ground, pulling her fan from her belt and unfurling it as she rose, slicing Sheriff Biggs' throat in one elegant move. Only then did she go to her brother's side?
"Why did he not come out of hiding to help us?" She asked her grandfather. "He had to know we needed him."
"Caine has left us." Yulong said, "To keep us safe..."
"To keep himself safe." She said, confusion and grief giving way to a deeper darker rage.
"He has promised to return for you... but you must leave here now." He told her "I will deal with these" His nose wrinkled in disgust "… bodies."
"He will not return." She said."He would have said goodbye if he were going to honor his promise."
"This is not the priest's doing, Li Na. You and your brother chose violence and this is the result."
"It would have been all of us dead if we had not." She said.
He shook his head in sorrow. "Today I lose you both." He said. "I will bury him next to your parents." He promised.
"I will not-" She started.
"You will." He said sharply as he brushed blood from Jian's face. "You will leave here, and you will find Kwai Chang Caine and hold him to his promise. I have lost the last male in my bloodline in defense of him. He will take his place, or join Jian in the afterlife."
"Yes, Grandfather. I will find him. Even if it takes all eternity." She swore. Her heart was breaking. She wanted more than anything to do what he asked, but she knew it would never be. Caine would not honor his promise. He left without saying goodbye to her. Could he do that if he truly loved her?
He tilted his head a moment, looking almost birdlike. He rose to his feet and entered the house, returning to her side carrying a small blue bottle that seemed to shimmer ever so slightly. "This you will take when you are safe."
"What will it do to me?" She asked, taking the bottle. It was uncomfortably cold in her hands. Her grandfather's potions were potent and rarely used for something as mundane as soothing troubled hearts or the common cold.
"It will heal your bruises… it will make it so that you can keep your oath to me. " He said and touched her face. "So much like your mother." He said "You have her white features. You can pass... and that is what I wish you to do. "
"I am not ashamed of being Chinese." She said, "It doesn't matter that Mother was white."
"They hate us, you know this. You must hide among them to be safe. Promise me, girl."
She frowned. "I promise."
It wasn't until she was alone, on the road, uncertain which way to turn, which way her (alleged) betrothed would have gone, and she was no longer required to keep her emotions hidden from view, that she began to cry and mourn her brother's death.
