Passage West

by Rishi Reddi

  AFTER THEY DROVE across the railroad tracks into town, Jivan said, “First thing is we need a lawyer. I do not want some fellow who the court will assign. I want Clarence Simms.” Simms had represented Harnam Singh recently, in a case where he had been accused of assaulting his cousin. Harnam had spoken well of him.

  “We will get him,” Ram said.

  “We cannot afford him.”

  “We can. We will,” Ram said.

  At the Western Union office, they sent a telegram to Amarjeet. They needed money and Amarjeet was making a steady income.

  “I am ashamed to send such a message to my nephew,” Jivan said, when they were seated again in the car.

  Ram grew irate. It was not a moment for such reflection or for shame, or for respectability. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Night is almost here. Let’s eat and go to the jailhouse.” When Jivan grew quiet, he regretted his tone.

  They went to the Chinese settlement, and in a small, empty café, they saw Malik Khan seated at a table, alone. He was in street clothes, perhaps finishing errands in town. He hailed them, smiling. They bought their bowls of steaming noodles and sat with him.

  As soon as they were seated, Jivan blurted out, “Karak attacked Clive Edgar.” Ram knew there could be no secrets now, but he felt a flash of embarrassment for Karak. All the Hindustanees knew that Malik and Karak had never liked each other. Karak would have minded Jivan’s outburst.

  Malik grinned. At one time, Clive had worked as the Khan brothers’ land agent too. “Karak can never control his temper. And Clive has changed in recent months. Perhaps he deserved it.”

  “Clive is dead,” Ram said.

  Malik’s smile faded. His eyes grew wide as the news settled, as he realized what it meant.

  “Consolidated was seizing our lettuce crop,” Ram said. “They meant to sell it as their own.”

  Malik snorted. There was anger in his eyes. Ram did not have to spell out more. Malik knew they would have no recourse after Consolidated’s theft. It was the Hindustanees who were breaking the law.

  “They’re holding him in the Fredonia jailhouse,” Ram said. “The sheriff is keeping watch—”

  “But who else will be there?” Malik asked.

  Ram knew he was thinking of the lynching in Riverside. The man had been hung from a mesquite on the main roadway.

  “Hollins?” Malik said. “He’s no good, that Hollins. He will not hold back a crowd.” His expression grew hard. “He will not want to.”

  “Sheriff said they’ll move him to El Centro tomorrow,” Ram said.

  “But tonight,” Jivan added. “That is the worry.”

  Surely the men from the lodge already knew. From the legion too. Those organizations were large; it would be hard to hold back all those men. By tomorrow morning, the entire town would know.

  “Does he have a lawyer?” Malik asked.

  “We want Clarence Simms,” Jivan said. “He is expensive.”

  It had been only a few hours since the killing, and Ram was starting to glimpse the future: Karak would go to trial. He might hang. What would happen for Ram’s plan to leave for India?

  “Don’t worry, bhai-ji,” Malik said to Jivan. “God will provide for us.”

  They finished their meal without speaking. Malik rose first. “I always thought something could happen like this, with Karak’s temper,” he said. “Don’t worry,” he said again, opening his billfold with stubby, rough fingers. Dirt was lodged under each nail.

  “Take this.” He grasped Ram’s hand and pressed a bundle of notes into his palm. “For the lawyer. Nobody has had a prosperous year.”

  “No, no,” Jivan said before Ram could respond. “A Sikh does not take help from anybody.” He shook his head, walking away.

  “Bhai-ji,” Malik said sharply, his eyebrows knit. “Now is not the time to be proud. Not after all the help you have given everyone here. That Clive, he is—was—turning into a bad man. Ever since he’s worked for Hitchcock. There is something British about him.” Then, as if he had just thought of it, “There is something British about them both.”

  Ram folded the bills tightly and stuffed them in his pocket.

  IN THE DARKNESS, Ram and Jivan stopped the car at the Edgar Bros. general store. The jailhouse was a quarter mile down the street on the left. The slope of Superstition Mountain rose nearby.

  They were quiet. Cicadas droned from the scrub.

  “It was stupid to come,” Jivan said.

  “No,” Ram said. He placed the guns in the back of the automobile, where they couldn’t be seen. They would be only a few steps away. “We will not need to use these,” he said. But he wasn’t sure.

  “The sheriff will be able to protect him,” Jivan insisted.

  “Bhai-ji,” Ram said, out of respect, but he puzzled at Jivan’s change of heart. The night air carried dust and chalk. After an hour, a warm wind picked up from the west. Ram smelled a strange odor sweeping through, like the rotted pungence of the Hambelton canneries.

  At nine thirty, when the moon had risen and dimmed the stars, they saw a wagon in the distance, traveling toward them. Five men rode inside. Ram could not see who they were. The hair on his neck bristled. He suddenly felt helpless, small. How could he and Jivan hold off a group of Anglos who wanted Karak?

  But as the wagon drew near, he noticed the dastars. Closer still, and he recognized the men: Harnam Singh, Hukam Singh, Ganga Singh, riding in the back of a wagon driven by Malik Khan, sitting next to Sikander. Relief swept through Ram. His muscles went limp. He saw the glint of moonlight on a rifle.

  Jivan said only “They have come?” as if he had known they would.

  The men exchanged nods. They situated the horses behind the power generator and deposited their guns in the back of the wagon. Seated on the mound of dirt near the facility, they had an unbroken view down the street to the jailhouse. The sheriff had left the electric light on inside the jail. His motorcar, and that of Deputy Hollins, stood nearby.

  A while later, another automobile trundled down the road. It was Inder and Husain and Ganesh, all the way from Calipatria. Jivan stood up. One by one, he held their hands in his own. A half hour afterward, eight more countrymen came from Holtville; then eleven from Brawley, seven from El Centro, three from Westmoreland. They came from Calexico, Imperial, Niland. By the time the moon was high, fifty-five men had gathered.

  The Punjabis sat in the darkness and watched. Hidden by the generator, they would not be noticed from the street. They might be mistaken for the shadows of tumbleweed, creosote, greasewood. Ram placed himself next to Jivan, facing the roadway, his back to the others. He imagined Karak a few hundred feet away, huddled inside a dirt-floored cell, chasing out desert mice and scorpions. Would he suspect they were watching over him? Would he care? Ram felt Jivan’s hand on his arm. Weariness made itself known in his sunken cheeks, his lined brow, the loose jowls. Ram wondered, how had Jivan aged so fast?

  THE WHITE MEN CAME IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, when the moon neared the outline of Superstition Mountain. In its silver glow, carrying guns, walking in a loose pack past the Punjabi men, they did not look real. Ram counted thirty-one. They had been drinking. Ram sensed the bootleg in their uneven gaits, in the not-so-hushed whispers. As they approached the jailhouse, one man yelled out, “Deputy Elijah Hollins! We know you’re in there.” His voice traveled like an arrow to where the Punjabis hunkered, listening. “Let us in now! We just want to have a word with your new guest.” There was no answer. “You know the one we’re talking about! That one got Clive Edgar. We want that towelhead got Clive.” Angry laughter. The Punjabis were as quiet as death, frozen, listening.

  A man in the back fired a gun into the air. The sound vibrated through Ram’s breast. He felt the men around him flinch.

  The door of the jailhouse opened slowly. The sheriff’s silhouette emerged as the electric light shone around him. “Last I checked, it’s against the law in this county to be firin’ a weapon for no reason.” His gruff voice ros
e high in the night air. He stepped outside, shutting the jailhouse door, placing himself in front of it. He stood on the boardwalk, a foot taller than the rest of the men.

  “Sheriff—fancy you bein’ here,” a voice said.

  “I’m askin’ you gentlemen to calm yourselves or I’ll arrest you for disturbin’ the peace.” His words pierced the night air, echoing like a coyote’s howl.

  “You go on an’ arrest us, Sheriff. We’ll be glad to spend some time with that Hindu you got in there now.” More laughter.

  “Come to think—why don’t you arrest us? Arrest the whole damn lot of us.”

  Ram saw the sheriff standing in front of the door, his hands on his belt, making himself as big as possible. “You fellas quiet down now,” he said. “I know you were talkin’ over at the lodge tonight. You all are good men, you got wives and children to go home to. They don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and hear their menfolk got themselves into trouble.”

  “Why don’t you send Deputy Hollins out here to talk with us, Sheriff?”

  “Deputy Hollins ain’t available right now. I’m available. And I’m tellin’ you: go home.”

  “Don’t think we can do that,” someone said from the back. There was a challenge in that voice. The dark pantry in Hambelton flashed before Ram’s eyes. A cluster of men, the weight of fear. The still form that had lain on the ground that night. He shook his head, forcing himself back to the present. The men around him shifted. A cricket chirped in the shrub. Bats emerged from the mesquite, their wings darker than the night, and swept over the jailhouse gathering. The sheriff stood alone between the Anglo men and the door.

  A lamp hung on a hook next to him, and the sheriff fished a match out of his pocket and lit it. A circle of gold surrounded him, separate from the glow of the single bulb that shone through the jailhouse window. “I can see all of you now,” he said. “I can see right back to Harlan there.”

  A man in the front said, “I tell you what, Sheriff, how ’bout you let us in there and let us take what we want, and we won’t tell anyone you done that.”

  “Always knew you were the smart one, Cyril,” another voice said, slurring the words.

  Ram looked at his countrymen around him. He could not see their expressions, but he could feel their anger, as if it were a living thing. Gugar leaned toward him. “Let’s go,” he whispered. Ram was sure he meant to fetch his gun.

  “No!” he hissed. “Stay here!” He looked at Jivan. The older man had closed his eyes, merely listening. Ram felt a moment of alarm. Suddenly he knew everything depended only on him.

  Gugar gestured toward the wagons and cars, his jaw set in defiance, his eyes wide, as if he wouldn’t comply with Ram’s wishes any longer. Ram was being called upon to act and he knew he would fail; what he should say or do would grow clear only days or months or years from now, when it would be too late. Just as it had in Hambelton.

  Suddenly, Ram sprang out in front of the cluster of Punjabi men and ran toward the jailhouse. He could not feel his legs move. The sand muffled his footfall. “Good evening, Sheriff Fielding,” he called. He was out of breath, but it was not from running.

  All heads turned, startled.

  The sheriff squinted into the night toward him. “Ram Singh? What are you doing here?” An expression crossed his face. Relief? Surprise?

  “Sheriff. Just I come to visit my friend,” Ram said. His voice quivered. He spoke louder to cover it up. “I didn’t know—so many people here.” He made himself look at the faces of the drunken men. In the lantern’s light, their skin looked gray, unnatural, cloaked in shadow. Most were without hats and their hair lay tousled, their clothes uneven. The odor of dried sweat hung about them. Karak would have known who they were. He would have recognized several of the voices, the faces, been aware of who was friends with whom. Some of the Hindustanees standing behind Ram would know such things too.

  It came as a revelation: these were not the town’s powerful and wealthy. In their shabby clothes and scuffed boots, he saw men who labored in the soil, small-time farmers, soldiers who had returned from war and not found their place. He counted only four rifles among them.

  “Your friend also in jailhouse?” he said. The light was shining full on him, and he knew they saw every expression, although he could only see their faces dimly, in half shadow. He forced himself to smile. “Oye! These jailhouse friends!” He forced himself to shake his head, as if in good-natured disbelief. What shall we do with our jailhouse friends?

  The sheriff watched him with his mouth open, as if about to speak. The door creaked and swung out and Deputy Hollins emerged from the building and stood in the lantern’s glow. For a moment his eyes locked with Ram’s.

  “Sheriff, visiting hours is now?” Ram continued. “Because I have many people, many many people who come also to visit my friend. I told to them, wait until daytime.” Ram looked skyward. “You know—sun is coming out.” He signaled for the other Punjabis to join him, a small wave of his right hand near his right hip. Come into the light, the hand said. Come without your guns. Just your presence is enough.

  He heard their boots padding against the soft sand. The Anglos tilted their heads, looking at something behind him. Ram made a show of turning to see. Malik Khan stood nearest the light, Gugar Singh a bit behind. Their hands were empty.

  He felt a surge of courage and turned back to the sheriff. “I told them, wait. But, see, they come anyway!” Again, his eyes scanned the Anglos clustered around the jailhouse. Was it possible? Something had changed now; there was less menace in their stances. Less defiance in their faces. Is that all it had taken? That they saw real people on the other side?

  A sense of pity swept through him. Had these farmers not suffered under men like Jonathan Hitchcock too? Hadn’t the shipping companies cheated them, allowed their picked fruit to rot on the roadside so they could maintain market price, sent harvesters to their fields only when it was too late?

  “You people really smart, very smart,” Ram said. “You bring guns. In case coyotes and gophers or some danger come—like this.” He snapped his fingers. “Suddenly!”

  How many, in their darkest moments, had dreamed of doing what Karak did?

  “Us Hindus don’t know so good the ways here. We keep guns nearby. We think—we get them if coyotes come. If.” He spoke softly. “We don’t want to use.”

  The Punjabis shuffled in the sand and dirt behind him. He heard the sound of a cleared throat. A sniffle. Ram Singh, he imagined them saying. Very good, Ram Singh. A cough smothered the chirp of the crickets. Well spoken. He turned again. They stood together, some with arms folded across chests, some with turbans, wide stances, direct stares. They looked like order, he thought. They looked like civilization.

  Despite his unsteady legs, despite the sweat running down his back, Ram saw the truth: the Hindustanees outnumbered the Anglos by almost two to one.

  “Oh God! I told—wait until daytime. They come anyway. Sorry, Sheriff. Sorry.”

  “Eugene. Harlan.” Deputy Hollins’s voice rang out through the darkness. “Why don’t y’all take the others and go home. Your families’ll be looking for you.”

  The men didn’t move.

  From the edge of the pack, a man lunged at Ram. “That no-good goddamn—” He swung at Ram’s face, but Ram lurched backward and the man’s fist caught air.

  “Towel-headed nigger killed a man in cold blood—”

  “Oye!” Gugar Singh shouted behind him. Anger swept through Ram, an emotion he should have felt years before.

  “I’ll kill—” the Anglo said, but others were holding him back.

  “You won’t!” Ram said.

  “I’ll kill you—”

  A shot rang out. Heads turned. Deputy Hollins was pointing his pistol into the air. The sour scent of gunpowder wafted through the night.

  “Get out of here, Cyril,” Hollins said, “before I have to bring you in.” He jerked his head to the right. The gesture said, There will be another time
. The gesture said, The sheriff is watching.

  Ram could see its effect sweep through the crowd. The men looked at each other. “Go on now,” Deputy Hollins said. “This ain’t the proper time nor place.” Their feet shuffled. Some of them began to move.

  “This ain’t the last of this, Sheriff,” the man named Cyril called out. “Hollins, I expected different from you—I thought you were one of us.”

  “Whether he’s one of you or not don’t make no difference, Cyril,” the sheriff said, “he’s a man of the law.” Ram saw the sheriff look at his deputy, but Hollins looked away.

  “You too, Ram Singh,” the sheriff said. “You and your people get on along. I don’t need any trouble on your end. All you men stay away from each other. If I hear one thing happening between any of the men in this county tonight, I’ll drag you in and slam you all into the jailhouse together and ship you off to L.A. in the morning. You won’t have no judge or jury or nothin’.”

  “Sure, Sheriff,” one of the Anglos said. Some had already started up the road.

  Sheriff Fielding opened the door and gestured for Hollins to go back in. The sheriff remained outside a few moments, making sure the men dispersed.

  The Punjabis began to walk back toward their vehicles. Ram turned to follow them.

  “Ram,” the sheriff called out again. “Over here.” He stayed on the boardwalk and waited for Ram to draw near.

  “You know something I don’t about Clive Edgar? He have a gun?”

  “No.” Ram swallowed, surprised at the quick lie. “I don’t know, sir.”

  The sheriff stared at him, as if sizing him up. “We found three Spics near the property and questioned them. They told me they hadn’t seen a thing. Couldn’t find any more.”

  Ram made himself look into the sheriff’s face.

  “Two days from now, Karak’s going to be charged with murder. He keeps saying Clive had a gun, but we didn’t find a gun there.” The sheriff looked him in the eye. “Could be the difference between him hanging or not hanging.”