Way Down on the High Lonely

Prologue

He never should have turned around.

Neal Carey was looking out over a deep canyon when he heard footsteps coming up the knoll behind him. He tried to focus on the sheer rock cliff that rose on the other side of the canyon, but the two pairs of footsteps crunching on the gravel path would not go away. They were getting closer.

He put his attention back on that most delicate and demanding movement, Obliquely Tame Tiger, and watched his left arm slowly move outward and upward, hand open in the knife position. He had been trying to master Obliquely Tame Tiger for almost three years now, and the constant training was just beginning to overcome his natural clumsiness.

Neal Carey did not want to be disturbed.

He shifted his weight to his back foot and let the canvas slipper dig into the thin dirt. He breathed in the icy morning air and felt the slight warmth of the early morning sun hit his shoulders. Then he slowly raised his front leg, pivoted on his back foot, and started the slow turn to face the footsteps that were now reaching the top of the knoll. His knoll, damn it, his one private spot tacitly reserved for him every morning during his few free moments before dawn. Did three years of practice mean nothing to these intruders?

He swung his foot over the gnarled root of the scraggly cedar that clung to the knoll in this harsh altitude among these spare mountains. The cedar had become his closest friend over the years. They had each learned to survive in the thin air and soil, getting little sustenance and needing less.

He planted his front foot and shifted his weight forward, his left hand raised in front of his face, his right hand open behind his head, ready to whip out and strike like a viper.

He looked down the stone steps to see the two men reach the top of the knoll and begin to approach him across the stone pavilion.

Then the world that he finally had come to accept shattered in a single moment.

The young monk spoke first. He gestured to the short, one-armed man who stood beside him, staring at Neal as he struggled to catch his breath.

“Ni renshr ta ma?” “Do you know him?” the monk asked Neal.

“Wode fuchin,” “My father,” Neal answered.

That’s where Neal Carey made his big mistake. He should have denied knowing the man, or just turned around, or run away into the dense bamboo. If he had done any one of these things, he never would have found himself way down on The High Lonely.