Ming-Ji pounded steamed rice into a small ball and gave it to Lulu. “Next couple days maybe you won’t find boiled milk,” she told Nola. “Feed her everything. Chew meat first.”

Where would Ming-Ji be? Nola pushed away her sudden sense of abandonment. “Can she digest it?” she asked.

“Here babies eat everything adults do. Just more mush.” Ming-Ji went on to instruct Nola on how to expand the use of the canned formula by diluting it with mashed fruit or pounded noodles.

When they finished their meal, the men belched. Ming-Ji followed. Smiling, Nola joined them.

The three Chinese laughed. “Good food, eh?” Ming-Ji asked. “The men say ‘the best.’ Usually eat only noodles, not get vegetable dishes like Chinese food in America.”

“This was excellent.” Nola tapped her own belly. “I never eat so much either.” The entire meal, she calculated after Ming-Ji had given her back the change in yuan, had cost only three dollars.

She walked a bit, anticipating having to sit again on the bruises caused by the broken seat springs. A lone, leafless tree stood in the distance, out of place in the grazed field, looking like a lost child waiting in vain for its mother’s return. She headed back to Lulu.

Ready to set off again, Nola pointed at the young man as he climbed to the truck bed. “He must be very uncomfortable.”

“He guards us.” Ming-Ji’s hand pointed toward the hills. “Many bandits come down.”

“Bandits? As in ‘robbers?’ ”

“They stop cars and rob people, then run hide in mountains.”

Nola’s stomach tightened. “How can one unarmed man protect us from a sweeping band of outlaws?”

Ming-Ji shrugged. “He got many knives.”

The truck bumped along beside a riverbank that occasionally disappeared behind a high levee. The smell in the cab became foul. Three times Nola checked Lulu's diaper but found nothing. Figuring it had to be the old driver’s indigestion, she breathed through her mouth. Only when they stopped again at a desolate area, where she and Ming-Ji crouched by the side of the truck, did Nola realize the pungent odor became stronger.

“What’s that smell?” she asked.

Ming-Ji giggled. “The farmers collect human excrement. Mix with lime to fertilize fields. It okay until epidemic of a sickness.”