The Chili Bean Joss
Coinciding with the celebration of the Dragon Boat Festival, this June 10th sees the release of my seventeenth novel, The Chili Bean Joss, a weird wuxia western set in 1870’s Arizona Territory in and around the town of (you guessed it, loyal readers) Delirium Tremens.
A put upon orphaned ranch cook, Xue Wan Shu, happens upon a 3,000 year old sentient gin seng plant named Sang hiding out in back of the local Chinese apothecary. Sang pleads with Wan Shu to protect him from a sorcerous tong boss out to cultivate and consume his children for immortality. Wan Shu reluctantly agrees, and finds himself dodging hatchetmen, vengeful gunfighters, Apache warriors, and oodles of Chinese sorcery, all while trying to keep his cowboy employers oblivious.
If you dig old school wuxia action comedies like Heroes of The East, Legendary Weapons of China, and Mr. Vampire, and the culture clash of Big Trouble In Little China, you’ll probably find something to like here.
Here’s the opening chapter – – – – – –
It was a near perfect evening for tea in the garden behind Cho’s Trivialities off Celestial Street in the Chinese quarter of Delirium Tremens. The stone lanterns gave off a comforting, soft glow.
Few even knew of this strange oasis of water, rock, and green. The dirty Drucker and Dobbs Company miners that trudged at dawn and dusk between the saloons and subterra certainly could not have imagined it, and most of the Chinese patrons who came to Cho’s for traditional medicines or nostalgic oddments imported from their homeland were unaware of the back garden tucked away behind the shop.
The high clapboard fence hid it entirely from the depressing surroundings of offal-strewn alleyways and ramshackle company cabins.
Its owner called it The Dune Garden of Eccentric Taste. It was in no way a traditional Chinese garden. The great landscaper Ji Cheng might have scoffed at its prickly desert plants, its yucca and diminutive pinyon pines. Perhaps the famously tacky King Zhou of Wine Pool and Meat Tree fame would have praised its audacity, but it did not impose itself on the dry Arizona landscape in which it was situated, and indeed, reflected, for good or ill, the tastes of its singular custodian, old Daifu Fan Shung Song, the inheritor and proprietor of Cho’s Trivialities.
“I think this is a surpassingly ugly garden,” said Sang, the short, stocky guest who sat with his feet dangling from the chair, sharing tea with Daifu Fan on this particularly clear, breezy midnight hour. “The raised cabbage beds and the bok choy border on offensive.”
“I had to work within the confines of the space,” said Daifu Fan.
“I must admit,” Sang went on, “the pink bayberries are pleasing to the eye. A pity their only use is to induce vomiting.”
“If they are pleasing to your eye,” said Daifu Fan, pouring tea into his cup, “then being a purgative is not their only use.”
“How do you keep them alive in this detestable dryness?”
“The mulched needles of the pinyon pines encourage them to thrive,” said Daifu Fan. “It is a thing I have learned through years of trial and error.”
“Commendable, I suppose, but it seems like years of trial have only resulted in error in the end. I wonder why you bother with aesthetics and do not simply keep to your herbs. There is no hope of magnolia blossoms. Fish would boil in your pond under the accursed sun. And it is so tiny!”
“I have done my utmost to make it a pleasant home for you,” Daifu Fan said.
“Oh, I mean no offense,” said Sang, waving the old man off. “I am grateful, of course. But it takes so much work and skill for so little yield. Do you think that mutton head Wan Shu will be able to tend it alone? I think it will all wither under his clumsy care. The boy has a black thumb.”
Daifu Fan knew of course that it was simply his old friend’s surly nature. He was used to it, but he was troubled tonight. The hexagrams of the I-Ching had produced a remarkably unfavorable reading, and his mind was preoccupied. Sang’s talk of succession seemed a further ill portent.
“If he chooses to keep it, it will thrive, I’m sure,” said Daifu Fan, sipping and watching the moonlight on the small crescent pond which emulated in miniature the oasis of Yueya Lake, nestled amid the Singing Mountain Dunes of faraway Nanjing. “And if it does not, I will be beyond caring.”
There was no room for a full sized pavilion, but Daifu Fan had modeled a dainty tower near the banks of the lake, as the real two story structure stood at the actual oasis. In the center of the lake there was a ten pound boulder of Mexican Crazy Lace, a uniquely formed polished agate stone of scintillating colors, representing to him, the magical peak of Mount Penglai, the legendary home of the eight immortals.
“I think that boy is good for nothing,” Sang continued. “He should remain a cook, and you should find a worthier apprentice. Maybe that launderer’s son. The chemist. What is his name? Guangdi. Wan Shu has no fire in him. He is struck dumb by the mere sight of that big footed girl whom he pines for. Bah!”
“You worry needlessly and prematurely,” said Daifu Fan with a sigh. “I have not even broached the subject of apprenticeship with him.”
“And you should not!” said Sang, rapping his little hand on the table. “Mind you, it all comes from him honoring his mother but not his father. Impious! Shameful!”
“Be patient with him,” said Daifu Fan. “I trust he will come around.”
Sang grunted.
“And meanwhile, his father languishes needlessly in hell.”
“No father worth his office would not do the same for his son,” said Daifu Fan. “And the universe tends to correct disorder in due time.”
“Hah!” Sang scoffed. “We have differing views of the universe.”
There was a creak and the banging of a door from the front of the shop.
Sang and Daifu Fan exchanged sharp looks.
“Excuse me,” Daifu Fan said, rising. “I must have left the door unlocked.”
“You never leave the door unlocked,” Sang whispered warily, jumping down from his chair. “And it is past midnight.”
“It’s probably Old Man Yong come calling with some nighttime ailment. Stay out of sight,” Daifu Fan whispered. He went inside, through his modest bedroom and storage, to the curtain that led to the shop proper, and drew it aside.
It was not the launderer, Old Man Yong.
Two strangers perused the wares on the shelves.
They were Chinese, but they were neither miners, nor any members of the Golden Trowel Tong who loitered about the Tong Shan Eatery that he’d ever seen about.
They were traditionally dressed in old-style shenyi robes, strange to see in this part of America, where drunken Anglos cut the queues from men’s heads with oversized knives, and some were made to hop in place before the smoking barrel of a Colt revolver as entertainment.
One was unshaven, his long black hair unbound. He wore a striking red surcoat covered with trigrams. A black silk satchel hung from his neck, in which his hand continually rested. There was a large burlap sack on his shoulder. A wood handled snakeskin whip hung coiled at his side. Talismans to Gui-Li-Da-Wang, the Ghost King, marked him as a member of the Yin Shan priesthood.
The other man had a head of long, shock white hair. He was surpassingly tall, in a blue robe and a black and silver braided hair vest, the latter somewhat disquieting, as Daifu Fan could swear the braids resembled shorn queues.
Daifu Fan could not see this one’s face, as it was turned towards the inspection of a carved wooden dragon set with jade eyes in the shop window. The man carried a three foot garden hoe with a polished steel head more like a staff of office than a working tool.
“Forgive me,” Daifu Fan said. “I was taking tea and moonlight in the back.”
“It is no trouble,” said the white haired man, without turning around.
“Actually, the shop is closed,” said Daifu Fan, resting his palms on the counter. “I seem to have carelessly forgotten to lock the door. And…turn out the lamp,” he added, though he knew for certain he had not.
The man in the red surcoat eyed him quietly.
“Of course, if your need is urgent,” said Daifu Fan, “I will oblige. However, if it is not, I humbly ask that you please return tomorrow during business hours.”
“There may be no tomorrow,” said the white haired man, moving his hand idly along the shelves, as though making a show of looking for something he knew he would not find there. “Our need is very urgent indeed, you see. And we have traveled very far. I count my blessings that we happened upon you out here in this wasteland.”
“How can I help?” Daifu Fan said warily, slipping his hand under the counter and producing a folding fan, with which he began to rapidly stir a breeze across his face. It was stuffy in the close confines of the cluttered shop. The heat of the Arizona day lingered still.
“Gin seng,” said the man, turning now to face him. He had a long wispy mustache and the skin of his face was surpassingly red, as though he were intoxicated.
Was it him?
It had been so many years ago. Daifu Fan had been a young man, and had only glimpsed Liang Ziweng then, as he fled with Sang.
Daifu Fan tensed internally, eyes flitting to the staring man in the surcoat and back to the man with the white hair.
Outwardly pleasant and bright, he said;
“Yes of course. I have numerous excellent examples.”
“These are puny,” said the man with the white hair, not even sparing the stock a glance. “Not what I’m looking for at all. The one I’m looking for is quite exceptional.”
“Exceptional specimens are difficult to obtain,” said Daifu Fan. “Gin seng does not thrive in this climate.”
The man with the white hair gestured to his subordinate.
The man in the red surcoat took the burlap sack off his shoulder and uncovered a large jade pot. He set it down heavily on the counter. It was covered with binding seals.
Daifu Fan swallowed.
It was him.
“It has been many years, Fan Shung Song,” said the man with the white hair.
The man in the red surcoat drew a handful of yellow papers from his bag then. With a flick of his wrist, there was a flash of fire and smoke, and a blazing yellow and orange phoenix burst to life and flew, talons bared at Daifu Fan.
But Daifu Fan was ready. He spread wide his fan with its counteractive calligraphy, and reflected the phoenix screaming back at the man in the red surcoat. The Yin Shan sorcerer barely threw up his hands in a warding gesture. The phoenix burst apart in a brilliant blaze of scintillating fire and the man in the red surcoat was blown back into a shelf of herbs which smashed and fell over on him.
The man with the white hair shook his head.
“My apprentice, Red Sheng. He still has much to learn. You have come a long way from a thieving clerk in Cho Kyung-soo’s store, Fan Shung Song.”
“So I have, and yet you are still the same greedy old demon, Liang Ziweng,” said Daifu Fan.
“Where is Sang?” Liang Ziweng demanded, his face reddening further.
Daifu Fan said nothing, but readied himself, fan quivering defensively.
Liang Ziweng leapt atop the counter and swept his garden hoe down.
Daifu Fan bent backwards, narrowly avoiding the weapon. It cleared a shelf of jars, raining down glass and preserves.
Daifu Fan gripped the hoe as it completed its destructive pass and used it to pull himself up onto the counter with Liang Ziweng. He was determined not to take the fight out into the garden. He had to give Sang time to run.
“You have no hope in defeating me,” Liang Ziweng chuckled. “Look at you! You’re an old man now.”
“How long before your age catches up with you, Liang Ziweng?” said Daifu Fan, sneering. “I can smell your rot, and something else; the devils at your back.”
“Bastard!” Liang Ziweng muttered.
He broke Daifu Fan’s grip on his weapon and lashed out. The old man was still surprisingly strong, and checked several blows with his fan before Liang Ziweng swept at his legs, forcing him to cartwheel down.
Red Sheng was just rising from beneath the fallen shelf when Daifu Fan came down hard atop him, flattening him again in the broken wreckage.
Daifu Fan whirled and flipped open his fan as Liang Ziweng thrust out his hands in a sorcerous gesture. Daifu Fan readied his talismanic fan again, but instead of some crackling black blast of yin energy, a number of white slivers sprang from Liang Ziweng’s sleeve.
These tore through the fan like buckshot. The old man blinked down at the shredded paper, then saw the spots of blood spreading across his shirt. Eight, all told.
“Penetrating Meridian Bone Needles,” Liang Ziweng announced with a smug smile.
Daifu Fan fell face first to the floor, stiff as a broomstick, unable to move.
Liang Ziweng hopped off the counter and came to stand over the old man. He flipped him on his back with the end of his hoe.
“You’ll be dead soon,” said Liang Ziweng. “Where is Sang?”
Daifu Fan’s eyes flitted around in a panic, but then focused stoically ahead, unyielding.
Liang Ziweng frowned as Red Sheng picked himself from the remains of the shelf.
“Imbecile,” Liang Ziweng chided. “Leave nothing unturned!”
He and Liang Ziweng tore through the shop, clearing every shelf, pulling out every drawer. Like a ransacking whirlwind they passed into the storeroom, bringing chaos, finding nothing, leaving behind disorder, until they were outside in the little back garden.
Liang Ziweng kicked over a row of raised beds, spilling germinating plants and medicinal herbs in frustration.
There was a clatter then. Something smashed, not by their hand.
Liang Ziweng stood stricken for a moment, seeing the remains of a teapot in fragments on the ground. Then he spied the small shadow clambering up the back fence.
“There!”
Red Sheng rushed forward, eager to redeem himself. He drew out his whip and lashed. The end snaked out with a crack that split the night air and caught the diminutive fugitive by his ankle, dragging him down into the crescent pond with a splash.
In another instant Red Sheng was upon him, fitting his struggling captive with a wrought iron chain interlaced with links of green jade.
Liang Ziweng came over, his eyes alight, esurient in the moonlight.
“I’ve found you at last, my old friend.”
“Oh Heavens,” said Sang, tiredly. “Please. Not again….”
Preorders for the Kindle edition are live. Print drops on release day.
