by Paul Yee
To reach America, all I need do was to follow the river. When it swung west, it was time to leave the water and go south.
When our ship had docked in Victoria, the men were thrilled to hear that America lay close by, just a short boat ride to the mainland and then a quick hop south. No wonder armed watchmen guarded the pier and locked us in a stockade of sturdy logs. They snarled at us as if we were slaves of war plotting to escape even after being dragged far from home.
We cursed Old Skinny on our way to work that day. He made us all look like one-legged ducks, and now the bosses would watch that others did not flee.
“That turd won’t get far. He fears the dark, wouldn’t squat alone at the latrine.”
He had bought himself a tin lantern to ensure his candle stayed lit.
“A Native will jump out and scare him to death. He’ll die without losing any blood.”
In the forest, the cur had whispered to me, “Look after yourself first. Always walk in the middle of the line. Let those who rush to the front or lag at the back face the danger. Wild animals, redbeards, or angry Natives—who knows that they want?”
“At least he’ll find better food out there.”
That was the best reason to run. Head Cook, the other cockhead in our crew, was as useful as dropping your pants to fart. All he did was boil water, throw in rice, and add ground-up dried salmon, the cheapest meat. Second Cook mentioned one day that Native hunters had brought wild birds to trade for tea but Head Cook refused them. What an idiot: our tea was so low grade that we would have come out ahead.
Three days later, Bookman told us to pack, to leave that very morning. Poy crowed like a child, keen to see more of Gold Mountain as if he were here on a tour of scenic spots. He didn’t grasp that the Company wanted to move us away from the border.
“Path hasn’t been cut through yet,” I said to Bookman. “Why move?”
No answer.
I dawdled over my scanty packing as men hurried to dig up caches of liquor. The bottles were heavy but no one thought to discard a drop. Salty Wet had carved himself a wooden pillow; it was too hefty to take. He left it by the fire pit for some blockhead in the next crew.
I prayed for a delay to let me dash to the border that night. It seemed likely at first when the men fought Bookman over carrying the tools. The long saws were awkward to move, but Bookman insisted thieves were lurking and ordered us to lug them to the warehouse in Emory Creek.
“Who would steal them?” we demanded. “They’re only useful for the Company’s shit work.”
Then the men threw down their loads and denounced Head Cook. All the heavy cooking pots had been put in the packs of the non-brothers. He in turn quickly blamed Second Cook and shuffled the items around. We folded the tents, coiled the ropes, and started our trek at midday. We were idiots, moving too damned fast for our own good, always trying to prove to the redbeard bosses that we were hardworking and willing, as if they might suddenly smile at our efforts and treat us nicely.
I wanted every man to break off and run to the woods. The bosses were too few to chase everyone, so some of us would reach America. Too bad there hadn’t been time to plan this.
I lagged at the tail, hoping to melt into the woods, but Bookman made a point of walking behind me. When I stopped at every chance, he cursed but couldn’t force me to go faster. I was bigger than him.
Chinese miners stood knee deep in the river and shovelled for gold, rocking their battered sieves with quiet patience. I called out greetings, but no one waved back.
“They hate newcomers,” Bookman muttered. “They say you cause redbeard tempers to explode and singe every China man’s eyebrows.”
The railway camps were quiet; the crews had gone to work. A boy squatted by the shore, scrubbing cooking pots with bare hands and sand. I asked for boiled water, but he shook his head, eyes wide, as if scared of strangers.
The river held low-riding barges piled with machines, and smoke-belching sternwheelers laden with fares. A few children shouted and waved at us. Native men and women paddled dugout canoes. Those boats took them anywhere they wanted, while we coolies obeyed like dancing monkeys the Company’s every whim.
Wide fields of tree stumps, their white flesh bright against dark bark, led to a landing half-built on footings, half-floating. We crowded onto a small boat. I boarded last, hoping to be left behind. I thought to escape when the men wanted to kick me off, shouting in panic, afraid of sinking. Too bad we pushed off without incident.
Low hills closed in as the vessel slid sideways against the current. We gripped the bulwarks to stay standing. Around a sharp bend, grey-black cliffs rose straight to heaven, leaving no ledges for even the smallest creature to grip. China had failed to warn us of such menace. Back home, feeble brown paintings showed distant mountains and aged them into misty hollows that sheltered the huts of hermits. If cranky oddballs could clamber up and thrive there, then mountain ranges were hardly risky for normal men.
At Yale, we boarded a train loaded with square, smooth-planed lumber and then we choked from the engine’s black smoke. When it cleared, great walls of mountains surrounded us. The railway was squeezed in a narrow throat of rock where the river rushed in a breathless gulp toward the coast, the ocean, and China. Along smooth cliffs, men hung from ropes and ladders, flies on a teahouse wall. They dangled long tapes and weighted lines to take measurements. Bold splashes of yellow and red paint marked key spots. They drilled holes and planted blasting powder. Their feet scrabbled for traction as they pulled on thick ropes and the goodwill of fellow workers.
We bemoaned our fate until Bookman assured us that our jobs were less daunting.
A crew of China men had already claimed the site. Their tents lined the narrow beach, latrines behind a low wall of boulders. My workmates hurried to pitch shelter, always keen to show the bosses how quick and clever we China men were. Screw them. I looked up to study the newly blasted rock face, a vast sheet of jagged edges, a steep slope bare of stops. The thud and crash of explosions boomed through the canyon. Our bandit gang had once rolled boulders onto a convoy of packhorses and caused panicked whining, so I knew the deadly mix.
The headman of the other gang came by, chewing a wad of tobacco that slid from one sunken cheek to the other. He told us to call him “Old Fire” and offered advice: “Inside the tunnel, when you little chickies hear a krrr-krrr sound, flatten yourself against a wall and make yourself thin. Stay still and don’t run, unless you want to ‘get nailed.’ The ceiling is breaking loose, but it could be a few grains of dust or tons of rock. It has no conscience and crushes men and animals alike. When redbeards leave the tunnel, you always follow them, no matter if you hear their whistle or not. If you can’t see them, let your nose track their stinking sweat. The tunnel is dark, so no one can see who is who, or who is moving. Stay alert and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
As Old Fire left, my workmates sputtered and spat.
“That bastard mentioned nails to pound them into our coffins.”
“He wants us to get fragrant first.”
“That old thing didn’t come to help. He came to taunt newcomers.”
Me, I was glad for the advice. The mountain mouth could swallow several houses at once. Arches of rock supported the craggy ceiling, ridden with humps. No telling which were anchored and which had been loosened by blasts. The ground was cratered with pits and ridges that maimed and killed those who fell badly. The tunnel was black as midnight mud, but oil lamps in small tins studded the floor. When they burned out, they didn’t get refilled right away. We offered to top up the oil but were turned down. The Company needed to save money wherever it could.
We were ants being flicked at a fortress city. We drilled holes to poke black powder into the rock, but the granite let us advance only fifteen inches a day. It was the bosses who complained about that because we coolies saw no progress in the dark. We worked in pairs: one man held the drill bit in place while the other swung the sledgehammer. We made sure to
blow the grit from the hole. Scaffolds slung between shaky ladders let us climb the rock face. Higher up, even less light was available. Each blow rebounded with a shudder; the hammer man clawed the air for balance. Good thing I worked with Poy, not clumsy fools with bad aim who clubbed their partners’ elbows and shattered them.
High Hat warned us, “Stand with your feet wide apart and bend at your knees.”
Redbeards tamped black powder into the holes and installed blasting caps. When they were lit, three rules were supposed to be followed:
Blasters leaving the rock face must blow their metal whistles.
Blasters going to the tunnel mouth must alert any China man seen along the way.
Lastly, lamps at the rock face were to be brought out before the blast, as a final warning to men in the tunnel.
Trust the redbeards? Better to call a wolf to guard the chicken coop.
After the blasts, we filed in, convicts to the execution ground, our noses twitching from the acrid smell of explosives. With our shoulder poles, we took out baskets of debris, sometimes two loads to one man, sometimes one load between two men. We hoisted rocks with bare hands and ropes. Big boulders were drilled and blasted apart for removal. When they told us about a second crew digging toward us from the other end of the mountain, we shook our heads in disbelief. Two deaf mutes groping in the dark could only land on different continents.
Crew bosses and bookmen watched us at the tunnel mouth. To show fairness, as if it was commonly found throughout Gold Mountain, every coolie got time drilling the rock face and lugging debris. This was meant to prevent complaints and unrest on the job because hauling rubble inside the tunnel was more dangerous. But men keen to keep their good health paid their way out. They cited prior injuries or poor eyesight and waited at the tunnel mouth to buy baskets of rock to lug to the dump. Redbeards disdained them, calling them cowards. We crewmen saw a fair deal, a chance for men to trade freely. In any business, a man willing to take more risk deserved more reward.
I took on extra duties but it was safe work: writing and reading letters for men willing to pay a few pennies. It was easy work, full of basic four-word phrases: your latest letter received, hard labour long days, or best efforts press forward.
Not everyone used me. Men guarded their lives from workmates who gloated over the bad luck of others, who dwelled upon people’s misery to lighten their own hardships. They read scandal into simple matters. A father urging sons to tend to their mother was said to have raised useless scoundrels. A son telling his old bean to eat well and wear warm clothes was said to be atoning for past cruelty. Someone advising his brother to replace the roof and repair the dikes was seen to be managing from afar a family damned by inbred madness.
There was one line that all my customers praised: Received your keen advice, etched it on my bones, carved it on my heart. They wanted this in their letters, even when the home folk had sent them no guidance. They were even willing to pay extra for the sentiment.
One day Poy and I plodded back to the tunnel mouth and found the two crews milling there. A man from Old Fire’s gang lay moaning on the ground, dirty blood caked on his face and clothes. Ceiling rock had crushed two workers. Redbeards brought out the second man slung in a tattered blanket while another carried heavy pickaxes. They lay the body before the bookman and crew boss and pulled back the cloth.
I saw the torn shirt and flesh of someone’s chest. Where a man’s head had been was now a red, pinkish mash of bone, brain, and rubble. I vomited and regretted wasting my meal. When the bookman nodded, the men hauled away the corpse. We backed off, bumping into one another, and averted our faces.
High Hat was impressed. “The redbeards move it so quickly.”
“Only to get us back to work,” said Number Two, his second-in-command. “Otherwise we get paid for standing here and doing nothing.”
“Time to move!” Bookman shouted. “Back to work!”
The wily agents in China had never mentioned danger. All they said was that we would be building a road. How hard could that be? We thought that meant outside work. I should have known then that a dollar a day was a dream wage. Yes, it sailed far above a coolie’s pay in China. But the tunnel was dark and ghostly, all honed edges and rigid corners. Their silent master, the mountain, loomed over us, solid and menacing, all male yang power. It came alive when sudden light threw bobbing shadows against the walls. We wretches drilled tips of iron into the core, sapping its gleaming strength. Of course the mountain gods despised us. We were as doomed as piglets caught gulping golden coins.
That evening, workmates asked what had caused me to throw up. I refused to say.
“Hok, come.” High Hat pulled me away. “I want to see Old Fire. If he needs a grave-stick, then you can earn some money.”
“The last man we lost,” said Old Fire, “it was the blaster’s fault. That bastard ducked into a new corner to dodge flying rock. He said he never saw our fellow walk by. We wanted to kill him; we chased him into the river and pelted him with stones. The shit-hole prick almost got nailed, shivering from the cold.”
“Was today an accident?” High Hat asked.
Old Fire shrugged and offered a brown jug of rice wine. I accepted, politeness be damned.
“Redbeards take the body and we don’t see it again,” he said.
High Hat asked for details, but we heard, “Don’t know, don’t care. Three men got fragrant so far. Who can handle so many?”
“Do the rites and let their spirits protect you.”
“The mountain is stronger. Better to light incense and kneel before rocks.”
“You don’t care if they throw grass on the body, leave it for animals, or heave it into the river?”
“Back home, bodies float down the water, bloated and blackened. No one buries them. They’re lucky to get fished out.”
“No one knows them. Here, the bookman knows every name.”
“Go find a runaway monk,” Old Fire said. “Get him to chant sutras.”
I reported this to Poy, who looked up from washing clothes. “This makes you happy?”
“We need to get to America.”
“We have debts. I want to do right.” He wrung out grey water. “Otherwise my life won’t get better.”
“Our luck will change in America,” I said. “Don’t let Shorty frighten you.”
“Forget luck. It’s about right and wrong.”
After Pig Boy’s funeral, Poy and I grew wary of one another. He didn’t hand me the Iron Hit liniment to rub into his bruised shoulder, and I stopped inviting him to toss garments into my wash bucket. If we worked outside, sometimes I partnered with Old North, and Poy went with Old South.
“You owe me,” I insisted. “I saved your life on Centipede Mountain.”
“You owe me. I saved your life in Hong Kong.” He snatched his wet garments and walked away.
Damn him, a wet hen in a soup pot, kicking at the lid.
I needed to remind him about riches south of the border. What if the bumpkin thought America was the same as what we saw here in Canada?
We had glimpsed America’s bounty long ago, when a bandit raid netted us fancy goods from abroad. A sojourner had shipped strange products, puzzles to me until I reached Hong Kong and Canada. A lightweight box on thin metal wheels served as a baby carriage. Two wooden rollers and a handle squeezed dirt from clothes. An iron barrel turned out to be a pot-belly stove. We threw away tinned food until someone took an axe and split open a shiny can.
One day I saw armed militia sneaking up Centipede Mountain. I ran to warn the bandits, keen to win their favour, but found only Poy and two others. The rest had followed Shrimp Boy and Cudgel on a mission. We four wasted no time fleeing. The militia, rival bandits who had switched sides to become law-abiding mercenaries, waited overnight in the forest to surprise our gang and slaughter them. All their severed heads were thrust atop poles in the county capital. Poy wept at seeing our comrades’ surprised faces. When the most corrupt magistrate in
the region posted a reward for the four missing bandits, Poy and I raced to Hong Kong.
We found scant work, loading and unloading the ships. Then, angry co-workers put aside their hauling ropes and wheelbarrows to go on strike against a new government tax. After police arrested the strike leaders, 20,000 dockhands occupied the harbour and halted all shipping. Hong Kong was a big port; cargo had to be moved. But streets and alleys were barricaded to prevent headmen and their thugs from reaching the piers. Wet sewage was hurled at the comprador merchants sent to placate the workers. Armed British soldiers barged in but were driven back. We China men welcomed any effort to regain face from the redbeards who had shamed us in war.
Poy and I were too new to be trusted by the strikers, so we let merchants hire us to bypass the strikers under cover of night. Our sampan drifted slowly to a great ship. We unloaded goods on the far side of the freighter, out of sight. But as we tried to return to shore, word leaked out about our contraband cargo. Angry strikers shouted and hurled stones and bricks at us. Our boat capsized, along with all the cargo. Poy, a swimmer, had kept me afloat in the dark until we were rescued.
Next day in the tunnel, the man ahead of me screamed and fell back. The gods in the roof were still dancing. I landed on the shuddering ground as my laden baskets tipped over. The floor lamps were snuffed. Blind and bruised, we crawled over mounds of rubble until faint light glimmered ahead.
It was stir-shit-stick Shorty who had heard the creak above and warned us.
“Had I known it was you,” he sniffed, “I wouldn’t have bothered. You deserve death.”
He followed me around, whining to anyone who came close, “The universe has no justice. Hok should rescue me; he owes me half a dozen lives!”
Most crewmen ignored him. No one worked at his lazy pace; everyone sought to stay out of trouble with the bosses. His only friend, Onion, had fallen alongside us in the roof collapse and lay in bed for days, bleating in faked pain.
