Qinghe watched the driver turn his face away from the fallen flashlight.
Before he could lift his head, a shoe struck his shoulder and rolled him onto his side. He covered his head with both arms while the man above him shouted a question Qinghe couldn’t make out.
The woman who had dropped the flashlight pushed between them again.
"Stop hitting him!" she shouted, reaching for the nearest man’s arm. "There are still people out there. We need to go back for them!"
The man caught her upper arm and shoved her toward the table. She stumbled against it, sending papers sliding onto the concrete.
Qinghe leaned toward the microphone.
"The bus is back along the road you came in on," he told them. "It’s beside a crashed delivery truck. You don’t need him to show you where it is."
Several people turned toward the mobile base. The woman steadied herself against the table before looking across at Qinghe’s window.
"How far back?" she asked. "Could we walk there?"
"It took us a few minutes, but we were driving slowly," Qinghe replied. "There are people on foot along that road, and it’s hard to see them through the dust."
She looked toward the road. Behind her, the driver coughed and tried to push himself up, but the man standing over him caught his shirt.
"You know where to look now," Qinghe said through the speaker. "Let him get up."
The man lifted his head. Sweat had soaked his shirt, and dust clung to the wet fabric across his chest.
"Did you see who he left behind?" the man demanded. "My wife was waiting for him."
"I saw people climbing out," Qinghe answered. "I don’t know whether your wife was one of them."
The man looked down at the driver. Qinghe saw him shift his weight, preparing to kick again.
"Then go and look for her," the woman said sharply. She crossed toward him and pointed at the minibus. "Standing here won’t tell you whether she’s alive. Take the vehicle and find out."
For several seconds, the man stared at her. Qinghe thought he might shove her again, but he bent over the driver instead.
"Give me the keys," he demanded, pulling him up by his shirt.
The driver tried to answer through the blood around his mouth. Someone crouched beside him and searched his pockets, finding the packets from the table and a handful of loose objects, but no keys.
"They’re still in the minibus," Zeyu said from the front. "He left the engine running."
Jingwei passed that through the speaker. The man released the driver and hurried toward the vehicle, followed by the woman who had been asking about her husband.
Others went with them. Qinghe watched one of the men step over the driver’s legs without looking down. Nobody stopped to help him sit up.
The woman retrieved her flashlight and crouched beside him. She held the beam low while he tried to draw his knees toward his chest, but Qinghe couldn’t hear what she said over the argument starting at the minibus.
"We can’t all go," a man called from its doorway. "We need room to bring people back."
The daughter who had helped her mother out of the minibus approached him. She had left her backpack with the older woman and held out a hand to keep him from closing the door.
"I was on the bus," she explained. "I know where we stopped. Let me come with you."
Another man pointed toward the mobile base.
"So do they," he said. "They could take us straight to it."
Qinghe watched him cross the apron with his face turned from the wind. He stopped beneath Jingwei’s window and braced one hand against the vehicle.
"Go ahead of us," the man asked. "Your lights are better than ours. We’ll follow you."
"We aren’t going back," Hanchuan replied from behind Qinghe. "The woman beside your door has offered to show you the way."
"You just said there were people out there," the man argued, looking past Jingwei toward Hanchuan. "You could help us find them."
"We’ve told you where they are," Hanchuan said. "You have a vehicle and someone who knows the road."
Qinghe kept watching the woman beside the driver. She had folded the end of her scarf and was holding it near his mouth. Her hand shook when he coughed again.
"It would only take a few minutes," the man at the window insisted.
"My answer is still no," Hanchuan told him.
The man remained beside them until the minibus’s horn sounded. Then he struck the mobile base with his palm and walked away.
Qinghe didn’t ask Hanchuan to reconsider. They had given directions, and the daughter was already climbing aboard to guide the others.
Taking Zhiyi back toward the fire would mean putting her through that road again when someone else could make the trip.
Still, he felt uncomfortable with how relieved he was to see the man leave.
Before the daughter disappeared inside the minibus, she looked back at her mother. The older woman raised a hand from beside the pillar. A boy settled next to her and pulled the backpack out of the walkway while the vehicle drove away.
With its passengers gone, Qinghe could hear a child crying farther inside the building. The man with the wrapped forearm returned to the table and began gathering the scattered papers.
"Can someone help me move him?" the woman beside the driver called.
Qinghe reached toward the microphone, but she was already looking at two men beneath the overhang.
"Please, get something under him," she told them. "We can’t leave him lying here."
One brought a flattened cardboard box. The other hesitated before kneeling near the driver’s feet.
Together, they moved him farther beneath the roof while the woman kept the flashlight on the ground beside them.
Qinghe sat back and found the water bottle still in his hand. The plastic had warmed against his palm, although he hadn’t taken a drink.
Across the aisle, Zhiyi glanced down at it.
"You haven’t opened that yet," she reminded him.
Qinghe loosened the cap. "Thank you. I’d forgotten I was holding it."
He drank while she turned toward Hanchuan. Her husband lowered his head to hear her, keeping his hand beneath her elbow as she shifted against him. Whatever she asked made him glance toward the living compartment.
"You can lie down now," Hanchuan told her. "We’re stopped. Would you like me to take you through?"
"I would," Zhiyi replied, resting her hand on his shoulder. "I’ve been sitting here long enough."