I had no choice but to follow him. We crept down two levels of slope, rounded the bend of the haul road, and saw what the thin man had called "the lake"—the deepest, lowest point of the mine pit. Rainwater had collected there, but it was small enough that nobody had bothered to wash jadeite stones in it. Now the lakeside was bustling with activity.
As we ran toward the water, we could see over a hundred Yemuxi wading in the lake, only their heads visible above the surface. On the bank, a large ring of soldiers—also close to a hundred—wore gray uniforms and black boots, each wielding a semi-automatic rifle. They had the Yemuxi encircled, and were steadily shrinking the perimeter, pushing the people deeper into the water. A few Yemuxi still on shore jumped into the lake one after another, like dumplings dropping into a pot.
Uncle Harvey and I reached a large boulder about thirty meters from the lake's edge and peeked around it to keep observing.
Looking more closely, I could see some Yemuxi still clashing with soldiers. The miners pushed and shoved, trying to break out, and the soldiers fired warning shots into the air, then beat and kicked them back into the encirclement. Gunshots echoed across the open mine—like the most destructive firecrackers, rapid semi-automatic bursts that made my heart hammer.
Fortunately, I didn't see anyone actually shot. But the confrontation was escalating, and I feared it was only a matter of time before blood was spilled.
Uncle Harvey saw the situation approaching the point of violence and, incredibly, ran toward the soldiers shouting, "Me ya bu!"—Burmese for "Don't!"
I was terrified. "Don't go over there!"
Too late. He was already running out. What if the soldiers shot him?
Uncle Harvey kept shouting and waving his arms, but he might as well have been invisible. With everything in chaos at the lakeside, who had the time to listen to him? The soldiers, outnumbered and anxious about losing control of the situation, had dozens of rifles pointed at hundreds of trapped people. Their nerves were on edge already. Uncle Harvey looked like some kind of boss or visitor—clearly not Yemuxi, clearly not a soldier, sort of like a smaller version of Boss U. So the soldiers simply ignored him.
Uncle Harvey kept shouting "Don't!" to no avail, then actually started grabbing soldiers' arms! I watched from behind the boulder, my stomach in knots. What if one of them shot him? But he wasn't shot—the soldier he grabbed twisted and slammed him with a shoulder check. Uncle Harvey lost his balance and fell. As he scrambled to his feet, the soldier kicked him square in the rear, and Uncle Harvey tumbled into the lake!
A small splash. I wanted to stay behind the boulder and observe, but after Uncle Harvey went in, he didn't surface like the Burmese workers. Instead, the water kept churning. Could he not swim?
More time passed. Still no sign of his face. My mind went blank—forget caution! I gritted my teeth and charged out from behind the boulder.
I sprinted toward the lake, and soldiers quickly noticed me, swinging their rifle muzzles in my direction. My stomach dropped, but I didn't stop. I raised both hands high and bellowed every word I knew in every language I could think of: "Chinese! Déyóu bì! Déyóu qīn! Déyóu sàga! Chinese! Don't shoot!" In my panic, I threw everything I had at the wall.
The soldiers, confused by my multilingual outburst, looked at each other, but their guns stayed pointed at me. Heartened that I wasn't dead, I kept my hands up, slowed my pace, and walked to the water's edge to reach for Uncle Harvey, who was still floundering. The water was already murky from the churn, and struggling in it seemed even more dangerous than drowning in clear water. I kept shouting "Help! Help!" while grasping for Uncle Harvey. But just as I grabbed him, I felt a sharp kick to my backside, a sickening lurch, and then muddy water flooded my nasal cavity—I'd been kicked in too!
The cold water jolted me alert, but the terror of being kicked was amplified by the mouthful of water I'd swallowed. I regained enough composure to paddle and found, to my immense relief, that the lake wasn't deep. The water only came up to my shoulders—I could stand.
I looked around and spotted Uncle Harvey nearby, apparently at his limit. I scrambled over and hauled him upright, shouting, "You're fine! Don't panic! You can stand!"
Uncle Harvey got his feet under him and stood, coughing violently. We stood there, soaked to the bone in the lake, our heads above water, surrounded by Yemuxi.
"You could drown in this!?" I yelled at him.
"Cough, oh man, cough cough—Zane, I love you so much." He'd clearly inhaled a lot of water.
"Please don't. You love me, and I love being alive. Now what do we do?"
Though afraid of water, Uncle Harvey seemed utterly unfazed by the soldiers' rifles. He kept shouting toward the shore, grabbing my long hair: "Look at him! We're not Burmese! Chinese!"
The soldiers didn't seem inclined to make things harder for us, but they didn't let us leave either. They just stood on the bank, guns trained on the people in the water.
The chill of the water forced me to re-examine the weapons before me. The guns were old, with visible wear marks, and the muzzles looked cold and black. I knew being shot wasn't like in the war movies—no one takes multiple hits and then delivers a speech before being dragged off for treatment. At this range, a rifle shot to the shoulder could cost you your entire arm; a shot to the chest would leave an exit wound the size of an apple. The fear of death became viscerally real in the water, and looking up at the shore from below was even more oppressive. We were fish on a chopping block, meat at a shooting gallery.
I felt a warm current in the water near my abdomen. I looked at Uncle Harvey; he looked at me and shook his head. We both glanced at the Burmese men around us. This was bad. Really bad. This was not how I wanted to die.
Just then, a Humvee came roaring from a distance, kicking up a huge plume of dust. The soldiers' commanding officer seemed to recognize the vehicle. He stepped aside, and the rest of the soldiers parted to create a path. The Humvee drove right up to the water's edge and stopped.
The door opened, and a stocky dark foot emerged wearing a white flip-flop. Out stepped Boss U.
"Mingalarbar, Boss U!" Uncle Harvey, ignoring the rifles still aimed at him, struggled to shore and shouted toward Boss U.