by Pam Berkman
To my sisters and brothers—Brenna and Jimmy, Felice and Howard
—P. B.
To my family, friends, and to all of the dogs.
—D. H.
1 The Pack
1852, Sierra Nevada foothills, California Sage stood alone under the big oak tree. She looked at her pack one more time.
Maybe they would call her back. Maybe they were just making sure she had learned her lesson. Maybe they didn’t really mean she had been thrown out of the pack.
For good.
“I’m sorry,” she woofed again.
Her tail usually curled proudly over her back. Now it drooped. Her scruffy ears fell flat against her head.
Acorn, her best friend, looked at the ground. He had the same short fur as Sage, but a darker golden brown. Racer, a tall terrier, turned away. Cougar, Juniper, and the rest of the dogs watched her across the stretch of grass and manzanita bushes.
Thunder, the pack leader, lifted her lip.
“Get out of here and don’t come back!” the big hound growled. Snarling, she held up her left front paw. Her leg had been hurt that morning. Because of Sage.
“You’re weak,” Thunder barked. “Soft. We have no place for a dog who puts some scraggly two-legged creature ahead of her own pack.”
That morning, they had raided a miner’s camp for food. Sage had found a large wooden box that smelled like meat. She’d unlatched it with her nose and lifted up the lid with her front paws. She’d pulled out a packet of dried venison. A very old, very thin man rushed over to her. He looked so panicked to see his food being taken away, Sage couldn’t do it. She’d dropped the venison.
Thunder had run up to her at just that moment.
“Get that meat!” she’d barked.
Sage had hesitated. That gave the man time to grab his rifle. He fired. The two dogs ran as fast as they could. But the shot grazed Thunder’s leg. She was going to be limping for a long time.
Acorn spoke up. “Sage just thought it wasn’t right to—”
“Quiet!” Thunder snapped. “Or you can leave too.”
Cougar and Juniper growled. Acorn lowered his ears.
Maybe Thunder was right. Maybe Sage shouldn’t have cared that the man was hungry. She started to explain one more time.
“I’ll be tough on other creatures from now on,” she woofed.
She might as well have been talking to a boulder.
“Stay out of our territory,” Thunder warned. “If you ever come near Scrub Hill again, you’ll be sorry.”
Thunder barked twice. The pack trotted away. None of them looked back. Not even Acorn.
Sage picked her way down the grassy hill. When she got to the riverbank, she passed the old tree stump with the twigs sticking out of it. The twigs looked like long ears and a short tail. Jackrabbit Stump. It marked the end of her pack’s territory and all she had ever known.
She walked on. There was nothing else she could do.
2 Sheng
Sage lifted her head and then set it down again. She was curled up in a little hollow on a hillside. She was hungry, but she didn’t feel like looking for food.
Since she’d been sent away from the pack, the moon had shrunk from a full circle to a sliver, then grown full again. She’d wandered the hills alone. She’d eaten whatever scraps she could find.
Now she didn’t even feel like doing that.
“Nobody cares if I’m alive,” she woofed aloud.
“Mopey, miserable mutt,” someone said from behind her. She heard a squawk and a whistle. Then something pulled her tail. She yelped and turned to look. No one was there.
She stood and turned the other way. She didn’t see anything there, either.
“Hey!” Sage barked.
The something poked her on her shoulder. Then it nipped her tail. It jabbed her back left paw. Sage chased her tail around and around until she didn’t know which end of her was the back and which was the front.
She ran out of the hollow.
A bird landed in front of her. It was smaller than a hawk or vulture, more like the size of a dove. But it had a sleek, dome-shaped head and a short, hooked beak. It was drenched in as many colors as Sage knew there were in the world.
She sniffed it. It bit her nose.
“Stop that!” Sage yelped.
“Not until you come with me,” the bird said.
“No,” said Sage. “Leave me alone.”
“Stubborn, silly, sad-faced dog,” the bird trilled. “I’ve been watching you.”
The strange bird took flight. He flapped his wings around Sage’s ears. He beat at her head until she ran down the hill and across a grassy stretch of land. He chased her toward a stream. Sage jumped over some rocks and splashed on her belly in the water.
“Stubborn, silly, soggy dog,” the bird whistled. “We’re here. Look.”
There was a boy standing in the stream near a big buckeye tree. He wore loose trousers, a loose shirt, and a straw hat with a curved brim. A rope of hair trailed down his back.
He was trying to move a big rock from the bottom of the stream with a shovel. He frowned with concentration. His shoulders were bent. It looked like he was carrying a large, invisible weight on his back. He moved awkwardly, like a half-grown puppy.
“He’s big for his age,” the bird said. “His father and uncle need him to help as much as he can, but he’s only a chick. The only one for miles and miles around. I’ve flown as far as I can to look for another one. His name is Sheng and he’s ten years old. He comes from a place far away from here called China.”
He flew to the boy named Sheng and landed on his hat. The boy didn’t look up.
“Stop that, Choi Hung,” Sheng said to the bird. “There could be gold under this rock. I just have to get to it. We have to get as much as we can.”
“Brought a dog!” Choi Hung said to Sheng in human words. “Brought a dog!”
Sage had never heard an animal speak like humans spoke!
Sheng looked and saw Sage flopped there in the water. He put his shovel down on the bank of the stream. Sage got to her paws. Sage and the boy watched each other for a moment. Then, very slowly, Sheng raised his hand. Sage tensed her legs. Was he going to throw something at her to make her leave?
Choi Hung flew back to her. He poked Sage on the head.
“Don’t keep doing that!” she barked.
“Cowardly, cowering, craven dog!” Choi Hung responded. “You need a friend. He needs a friend. All he thinks about is trying to find enough gold for his family. Go! ”
Sage took a step toward the boy. He held out his hand, like a paw. She took another step. And another.
When they were close enough to touch, she sniffed his hand. Then she licked it. He tasted like stream water.
“Hello, girl,” he said.
It had been a long time since anyone had spoken kindly to Sage. She wagged her tail weakly.
She looked down at the rock in the streambed. Sheng needed help. She pushed at the rock with her front paws.
Sheng grinned. He picked up his shovel and slid it under the rock. Together, they worked it loose.
Sheng turned the rock over. “No gold,” he said. His shoulders slumped. He dropped his shovel on the rocks. “But thank you for helping.” He ruffled Sage’s ears.
“You know, most of my family is gone,” he said. “It’s just Father and Uncle and me. Most of my friends back home are gone too.” He wiped his sleeve over his eyes, but he didn’t cry.
“You look like you’re all by yourself,” he said. “Do you feel lonely and sad too? Maybe you could stay with us. You’re the color of gold! You could be Bo-Bo—a little treasure. I bet you’ll bring us luck!”
Sage
almost shook with hope. I’ll be tough enough this time, she told herself. I won’t be too soft.
* * *
Sheng lived with his father and Uncle Gwan in a tent just up the hill from the stream.
“Can Bo-Bo stay, Father?” he asked. “I named her after treasure! She can help us find gold!”
Father looked down at her. His eyes were tired. But he smiled. Sage liked the way his braid of dark hair swung over his shoulder in front of his shirt and the way his face crinkled at her.
“I think,” said Father, “a boy should have a dog. Dogs make good friends.”
“Good friends!” Choi Hung repeated. “Good friends!”
Sage, who was now Bo-Bo, wagged her tail to show him how eager she was to do her part. Sheng’s father gave her a handful of warm rice. She gulped it down. A shudder of happiness went through her whole body. Her lonely days wandering over endless hills were over. She would never let anything send her back to that life again.
3 Gold
Three months later Bo-Bo shook the water from her fur. She bounded up the bank of the stream with a rock in her mouth. She brought it to Uncle Gwan. He sat on a rickety wooden stool with his leg stretched out. He had broken it months ago and it hadn’t healed well. Bo-Bo set down the rock and then ran back into the stream for more. She knew that sometimes there were bits of gold in the bigger rocks.
Sheng and his father stood in the water. They both held shallow, wide metal pans in their hands. They scooped rocks and mud from the bottom of the stream with the pans. They sloshed them around and around. The gravel and mud washed over the side with the water. The heavier rocks stayed at the bottom. If Sheng and Father were lucky, some of those rocks would be gold. Over and over they scooped and swished, scooped and swished.
Gold. It was why thousands and thousands of people had come to California. Acorn, who had lived with a miner once, had told Bo-Bo all about it. A man named James Marshall had found gold at Mr. Sutter’s mill. The news had flown across the land like hungry birds. People from all over the country left their homes to come to California to get rich.
Word had spread across the ocean to China, too. It reached Sheng’s father and uncle in a place called the Pearl River Delta. They had spent everything they had to take a ship to California.
“But why would they leave?” Bo-Bo had asked Choi Hung the first night she’d spent with the family. She couldn’t understand why anyone would leave home if they didn’t have to.
“There was something called war,” Choi Hung had trilled. “It meant that people came to their village and tried to hurt them. And then there was something called famine. That meant there wasn’t enough food to eat. That’s why Sheng’s flock is so small now. After that, people left. Some of them heard there was a place called Gum San, Gold Mountain. They said there was gold just lying on the ground. That if you weren’t careful, you’d trip over it! And that if you waded into the water, your shoes would fill up with gold!”
But it wasn’t true. Sheng’s family had found a few flakes of gold in a part of the stream where no one else was looking for it. They marked it as their claim. That meant that it was their place to look for gold and no one else was allowed to. They worked and worked. But they had to spend half of what they found just on food and supplies. A shovel cost as much as a stove did back home. An egg was as much as a week’s worth of food anywhere else.
They couldn’t save the other half because of the Foreign Miner’s Tax.
Every month Chinese miners had to pay an extra three dollars to Mr. Smeets, the tax collector. If they didn’t, Mr. Smeets would take their claim. They would have nowhere to go. They would starve just like they would have back home.
“But that’s not fair!” Bo-Bo had barked to Choi Hung the first time she’d heard of the tax. “Why do they have to pay and other miners don’t?”
“Mr. Smeets doesn’t care about fair,” Choi Hung had answered. “He cares about making money.” The bird shook his tail feathers. “He gets some money from the tax. But he gets even more selling the claim if they don’t pay.”
The tax was due tomorrow, and Bo-Bo didn’t know if they had enough. Sheng looked worried. He swished the water faster and faster in the pan. His brow furrowed as he searched for sparkles.
Bo-Bo ran back to the stream and brought another rock to Uncle Gwan. She set it down beside him.
“You’re making me dizzy, running back and forth,” Choi Hung complained.
“Then don’t watch!” Bo-Bo barked at him.
Choi Hung had lived with the captain of the ship that Sheng’s family took on the long trip from China. Uncle Gwan had given the ship’s captain his best hat and some salted fish and taken Choi Hung with him. Choi Hung liked California better than the ship. He got seasick.
Uncle Gwan broke open the stone with a hammer. Bo-Bo panted, hoping he’d find something.
“Bad luck, girl,” Uncle Gwan said. “No gold.”
Bo-Bo pawed through the pieces of rock, hoping Uncle Gwan was wrong.
She heard a branch snap.
She woofed. Everyone looked up just as a man stepped out from the trees. He was short and stocky and had a scraggly mustache. He smelled like he wanted something he shouldn’t have.
It was Mr. Smeets.
4 Mr. Smeets
Sheng and his father waded from the stream. Mr. Smeets never came by just to visit.
“Good evening,” he said to Sheng’s father and uncle.
His words sounded different from the ones Sheng and his family used. Bo-Bo had learned that some groups of people used one set of words and some used others. Unlike dogs, they couldn’t always understand one another. The different ways of speaking were called languages. The one that Mr. Smeets spoke was called English.
Sheng’s father answered with the same words. “Good evening, Mr. Smeets.”
Mr. Smeets strolled around their little camp. He looked into their rice barrel. He took a drink from their water bucket. He picked up a chisel and put it in his pocket. Bo-Bo growled. “Quiet, girl,” Sheng whispered.
“Just wanted to remind you that the tax is due tomorrow,” Mr. Smeets said.
Sheng’s father nodded at Sheng. Sheng spoke English better than his father.
“Yes, sir,” Sheng said. “We know. Can we help you with anything?”
“Just want to make sure you have enough gold to pay for it,” Mr. Smeets said. “I’d hate to see you lose this claim.”
“Hah!” Uncle Gwan said under his breath.
“What did you say?” said Mr. Smeets.
“I said, ‘Thank you,’ ” Uncle Gwan said. He smiled. Choi Hung twittered.
Mr. Smeets harrumphed. He sauntered out of camp.
“It’s still not fair!” Bo-Bo woofed to Choi Hung as soon as Mr. Smeets left.
“Not fair,” Choi Hung agreed.
Sheng’s father frowned at Uncle Gwan.
“You shouldn’t risk making him angry,” he said. “You don’t know what he’ll do. Yuen Kong told me that the white miners in Sheeptown went to the Chinese camp there. They pulled down their tents and broke their equipment. What they couldn’t break they threw in the river. They even cut off their bin.” Bo-Bo knew that “bin” was the name for their long braids of hair.
Sheng looked horrified. “But that means they can never go home,” he cried out. “They’d be killed for not wearing bin!”
Uncle Gwan frowned right back at Sheng’s father. “I say someone needs to throw Mr. Smeets in the river,” he said.
“We can’t make him angry, Uncle,” Sheng said. “We can’t lose the claim. It’s all we have. I’ll work harder, Father.”
Father stretched and rubbed the small of his back. “You work hard enough, Sheng.”
Bo-Bo stepped on Sheng’s foot so he’d look at her.
I’ll help you get more gold, she tried to tell him. He looked down at her.
“It’s up to me, Bo-Bo,” he whispered. “Uncle is hurt and Father can’t do everything. I have to get more
gold so we can stay on the claim. No matter what it takes.”
It was almost dark. Sheng helped Uncle Gwan up from his stool. They made their way back to their camp as darkness fell.
Father weighed the bits of gold they had saved that month.
“Do we have enough for the tax?” Sheng asked. Bo-Bo hated how scared he sounded.
Father smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Three dollars exactly. You be careful taking it to town tomorrow. Pay the tax and come straight back home.”
Sheng was the one who went into the town of Pickax Flat to pay the tax. He could talk to the men in town better than his father could. And that way, his father could guard their claim.
“Bo-Bo will protect you,” Sheng’s father said. Bo-Bo didn’t know how to tell him she wasn’t tough enough to protect anyone.
They had their supper of rice and green squash. Bo-Bo ate hers faster than anyone else. Then they ducked into the simple canvas tent. Sheng and his father sat on their bedrolls. Uncle Gwan sat on the only stool. Bo-Bo snuggled up to Sheng with her head on his lap.
Uncle Gwan began to talk. Every night he told them stories he’d heard from the sailors on their boat, who heard them from the people they took back and forth to Gold Mountain. Or sometimes he made them up himself. Uncle Gwan told of ghosts who haunted old gold claims and pirates who boarded ships carrying gold across the ocean. Then he would sing songs.
“I have been in Gold Mountain for so long,
But my family and home stay forever in my heart.”
That night, he told his favorite story: “The Story of Crooked Cave.”
“There was once a prospector,” he began as he always did, “who struck it rich. But he made enemies who wanted his gold. So he hid it deep in a cave. There was so much gold there that it would take a hundred mules to carry it. The prospector made a map so he could find it again. He put his mark on the map. It was a rain cloud over a mountain. One stormy night he wandered into the hills. The legend says he was struck by lightning or fell into a deep canyon. But he was never heard from again.
