The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel by Daniel Wallace Read Free Book Online Page A

Elijah knew: he was sure.
    They were home. They embraced like friends who could not have known each other longer, and fell to the ground and rolled around in the leaves and bear scat like a couple of little boys. They hugged and rolled; they rolled as one. They came to their senses soon enough, however, and stood and breathed deep and surveyed the world around them, a world that over the course of the next quarter of a century would be changed beyond recognition. Ming Kai saw the trees, and smiled; Elijah saw what the trees would do for him. His smile was briefer than Ming Kai’s, but bigger.
    “I’ve been thinking what we’d name it,” Elijah said. “Once we made it here, once we found it, the place where our fortune would be made. What would we call it? I bet you’ve been thinking the same thing.”
    Ming Kai shook his head. He had but one thought, and that was of his family.
    “If I were an Indian,” Elijah said, “I’d call it Happy Man Valley. But I’m not a goddamn Indian. So I came up with a lot of names as we were riding. I came up with a new one every day. There’s a peculiar and intoxicating power in that. Naming things is probably the second best thing in the world, next to actually inventing, creating the thing you get to name. Anyway, as one day became the next and the next and the next day after that and we rode all over every godforsaken mountain and valley and plain, I came upon the only name that would do. Roam . Because we have been roaming, my friend. And there willbe others behind us, roaming as well. More and more will come. We will make our silk and our homes and our families and they will come here, to Roam.”
    Ming Kai nodded. “Yes,” he said. “And when my family arrives, then we shall begin.”
    “Yes.” Elijah sighed, not entirely sure they would ever arrive. They were a long way away from everywhere. Even Elijah wasn’t sure where the two of them were now. But why borrow trouble? It might happen.
    Meanwhile they needed shelter, and so over the next month they built two cabins: a small one for Elijah and a bigger one for Ming Kai and his family. The cabins were made entirely of cedar trees, trees that were tough to cut and hew but would last forever. Then the rains came and the valley flooded and they were surrounded by an ocean of water for days. Summer became fall and fall became winter, and Ming Kai kept his word about waiting and said nothing about the silk, and so when the snow melted Elijah mounted his horse to ride back to the last town he remembered passing through. How long ago was that? Weeks, months, years? It was all a blur now. But he had no choice but to return for supplies and—they hoped—Ming Kai’s family.
    “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Elijah said. “And while I’m gone feel free to start the whole silk-making process—”
    “When my family is here,” Ming Kai said. “Only then we shall begin. But come quickly. The worms are dying.”
    Elijah cursed him and left.
    A nd Ming Kai waited. Days became weeks, weeks a month, one month, two. He wondered if he had been abandoned. He wondered if Elijah had been eaten by a bear, since Ming Kai was not there to save his life. If so, he would die here as well, alone in the heart of America,in a place no Chinese had ever been before and perhaps should not have ever been. At night the sounds from the forest were nightmarish—piercing cries and malicious hoots. Ming Kai would grab his gun and shoot into the darkness, and in this way he killed many shadows, and scared some bears and maybe a wild dog or two. During what quiet there was he missed his home, the lean-to his family lived in, the small thatched hut he’d built down by the sea they sometimes visited if he’d sold a bit of silk that week. He would never see the sea again, that much he knew for certain. But none of that really mattered if he could have his family. All he wanted was to be loved by those he loved. This is the kind of man he was.
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