A Superior Man

by Paul Yee

  I shrugged. “I’ll see it on my way back.”

  He pointed downward, at the opposite bank. “That’s China Bar, where your people took the gold.”

  “Never heard of it,” I declared.

  Even from our vantage point, we saw that the river was running low. A dark, ragged ribbon slithered over the rock face and giant boulders, marking the reach of springtime water when melting snow and ice had raised its level. Now, a stretch of shoreline had emerged, cluttered with rocks and gravel. We had passed many such sand bars earlier, where miners had left behind lengthy pits as well as fields of overturned boulders. Those men had pushed their way inland too, tearing down bushes, trees, and Native buildings to get at the treasure underneath.

  “’Course not, that’s redbeard talk,” said Sam. “My people call that place by its real name.”

  “We should have a name too,” I said. But what? At home, every spot was China. We lived throughout the Central Kingdom, where fitting names for sites and cities had been handed down through time and everyday use. On this river, China was that faraway place mocked by redbeard miners as backward and barbaric.

  “See that waterfall?” Sam pointed further north, along the railway tracks. A steep waterfall crashed through a violent crack in the brown rock. “We call it Sq’azix. The redbeards used that name for the boat that China men pulled through Hell’s Gate.”

  I strode on. I knew about Skuzzy but refused to discuss it with Sam. He would only sneer at how we had been used as beasts of burden.

  The road narrowed and then widened, broad enough to let delivery wagons pass each other. The grey and cracking telegraph poles would soon be removed from the wagon road in favour of the new ones along the railway. We flattened ourselves against the mountain wall when a stagecoach roared by. Six horses churned up clouds of dust over the twisting road. Finally, it opened into a clearing of farms and houses.

  We set down our packs. Sam told me to wait while he took the boy into the Native village. Its people would be more helpful to a stranger who had a child by his side, he said. But, to my delight, the boy at first refused to go. Maybe crossing the river had spooked him. The boy had sat with Sam until the boatmen asked him to grab the third oar and help get the boat across. Sam dumped Peter on me, and the brat refused to sit still, kept twisting and fidgeting to go to his hero. He’d cried out for Sam, but Sam ignored him.

  Now Sam whispered something into the boy’s ear to convince him to go along. Grandmother once told a neighbour who had a badly behaved boy, “Better a mischief maker than a simpleton.”

  I looked down at the shoreline where children shouted and pointed to the foaming spray. With great patience, they squatted and watched for fish in the water. In the river’s middle, fishermen stood braced on swaying boats, anchored by stiff ropes, waiting to swing their nets. When they succeeded, the fish dumped thrashing onto the shore must have weighed twenty or thirty pounds each.

  Birds chirped in the nearby woods. In Victoria, sojourners about to return home were often asked what, if anything, they might miss about Gold Mountain. Many said, “Trees and forests.” They liked the convenience of having plenty of firewood on hand. The trees of Gold Mountain had been one of the few things that China men could take without offending the redbeards, who wanted the giants chopped down and burned. Tall trees with grey, furrowed trunks bore three-sided leaves. They filled the springtime air with seeds of fluffy white snow. Other trees with rounded crowns and smooth white trunks put out leaves in the shape of straw fans. They were yellowing and dropping. The evergreens were laden with brown cones of wooden fruit and bundles of sharp green needles. Such pine trees were a sign of longevity in China. I had been away from there long enough that new trees, planted after the Guest Wars, were probably now taller than me.

  Sam returned with two young men who unpacked the whisky. The bottles had been wrapped in grimy scraps of cloth. Peter munched on a cold boiled potato. Without a word, the visitors lugged away the liquor in gunny sacks.

  I asked Sam if he had gotten a good price.

  “They don’t have any money,” he pointed out.

  “You trust them?”

  “Can’t wait all day.”

  “Isn’t liquor bad for your people?”

  “I don’t sell to everyone.”

  We crossed a creek spilling into the Fraser and saw the town ahead.

  Boston Bar was small like Spuzzum but its buildings lined both sides of the wagon road. Carts and horses were tethered in front of a roadhouse, two storeys high over a long covered porch. There, men tilted back on the rear legs of wooden chairs, with hats and caps pulled over their eyes. Across from them, a dour-looking bunch stood around a hitching post, puffing on cigars and pipes, fiddling with coiled ropes as if ready to chase cattle. A little boy ran out to point at Peter, but an adult snatched him up and hurried away.

  “It’s drier here,” Sam said in his know-everything voice, “so watch for poison snakes. They rattle when attacking.”

  “Tell the boy,” I replied. “He touches everything.”

  “China has no snakes?”

  “Plenty. The big ones squeeze piglets and children to death and swallow them whole.”

  “They’re dead by then, no?”

  Then a burly redbeard stepped forward and shoved a rifle sideways into Sam’s chest. Yellow splinters of tobacco were matted in the man’s scruffy black beard. From behind darted a Native man, also armed but wearing a western hat with a long grey feather. His finger tapped the trigger of his gun while its barrel pointed at Sam.

  Tobacco Beard spoke English. A lumpy jacket was stretched tight around his middle.

  Sam opened his hands in a friendly way to Grey Feather, but shook his head at the same time.

  Tobacco Beard picked at his teeth while Grey Feather spat out short terse phrases. None of Sam’s answers appeased him. They must have been arguing over blackmail money, to let us pass.

  The two men glared at each other. Grey Feather growled and tipped his gun skyward.

  Bang!

  I ducked and stumbled. The crowd laughed at me.

  Sam untied his pack and set it on the ground. Tobacco Beard pointed his rifle at him while Grey Feather rummaged through it with quick hands. He pulled out each bundle, hefting it, guessing at the contents by feel. With a yelp of triumph, he found the bottle of whisky that we used at the graveyards.

  “Take off your pack,” Sam said to me. “Slowly.”

  His hands were above his head as Grey Feather patted his pockets and took his knife. “They are arresting us.”

  “These are lawmen?” They wore no uniforms. “What for?”

  “Selling liquor to Native people.”

  Sam trudged ahead. Tobacco Beard and Grey Feather pointed their guns at the boy and me. When I didn’t move, Grey Feather swung the rifle butt at my head.

  “No sell liquor!” I shouted in Chinook. “I go China!”

  The words had no effect. Pushed along, I looked through the crowd, hoping to spot a Chinese face. In Victoria, China men landed in jail along with redbeards on the same charge. The police harassed Native drinkers and threatened to arrest them until they pointed out Chinese sellers. What China men hated the most was wasting time in jail, waiting for the judge to reach town and declare his court in session. Sometimes that took as long as two or three months.

  The police cabin in Boston Bar was divided into two rooms by logs as thick as those of the outside walls. On the window sill sat the long parched skull of a cow, its empty eye holes big and almost round. At least the bones weren’t human.

  Grey Feather stood in a corner and held his rifle over both of us. My hands were clammy. Our packs were rolled onto the floor.

  Tobacco Beard thrust out a grimy palm. Sam handed over his money, telling me to follow. I gave up my coins. Tobacco Beard slammed them on the table and rifled our pockets. No more money was found, so he pointed at our boots. Tobacco Beard gave them a hearty shake and then ripped out the makeshift paper soles.
Only sandy grit fell onto the floor. He pointed at our stockings.

  Sam obliged but not me.

  Tobacco Beard nudged me and then reached for his gun.

  I didn’t move. He pushed me onto a chair and yanked my stocking.

  My roll of bills vanished into his pocket.

  “No!” I cried in English. “Please!”

  He waved the money at his helper, who flashed a toothy grin.

  If Sam hadn’t been there, I would have dropped to my knees and begged. Better to let Tobacco Beard kill me than to have him steal my $400.

  The boots were returned. I could barely pull them on. As we shuffled into the jail cell, Grey Feather pulled the boy away before the door slammed.

  “Bring boy here!” Sam pounded the wood, but it absorbed all sound. “Don’t let them take your son!”

  I slumped against a wall and dropped to the floor. A man dies, then his house falls down. The cell reeked of shit and urine, soil and vomit. I wanted to tie a rope and hang myself from the window, swallow gravel scraped from the ground and choke to death, or plunge my head into a bucket of urine and drown.

  I couldn’t go home without a prize to show for all these years. Now, the village was sure to snicker about the black fate of my family. They paid no heed to how much money I had sent home over the years. They knew nothing about rail hands dying on the railway or trying to get into America. I could have been arrested as a smuggler and sent to rot in jail. The neighbours wanted only to touch the costly gifts I brought back, hoping for something new that they hadn’t seen before. If they couldn’t hold or smell it, it didn’t exist. One sojourner brought home a silver fork from a dining set. It got used to dig out weeds.

  I should have spent longer nights in Rainbow’s fragrant bed and spurted buckets of sticky bliss. Why hadn’t I given Goddess a day, no—two or three days, to massage her heaven into me? Then I might have been content to die here. I should have devoured fine foods: abalone, mushrooms, roasted duck with crisp skin, the best grades of rice, and the finest aged wines. I would have swept any leftovers onto the floor for the scavenging dogs. Why hadn’t I taken bigger risks at the game tables? Good fortune might have let me return home long ago. A thousand days at home are fair; a morning away, hell to bear.

  “Are you crying?” Sam asked.

  “No.”

  “Not leaking horse piss?”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  “Don’t China men think that weeping is bad luck?”

  Sojourners who had returned to China as sad failures babbled such feeble lies that friends and family were obliged to sigh and pine along with them.

  “You earned piles of money but gamblers cheated you naked on the ship? There’s no watching your front and your back at the same time, is there?”

  “A thief crept into your room and stole everything? Ah, people have Buddha’s mouth but the heart of a snake.”

  “Thugs in Hong Kong pushed you into a dark alley? Not even daylight frightens the crooks there.”

  The women of such losers insisted with fearless aplomb that they valued their men’s lives more than money and put on a cheeky show of thanking the gods and ancestors for their safe return. They armed themselves with taut proverbs to refute the smiling but spiteful neighbours come to taunt them:

  “Sugar cane isn’t sweet at both ends.”

  “Gold won’t buy a breath of life.”

  “Man gets seven poverties and eight riches.”

  An aging mother hugged her long-away son with tears of joy, but her own funeral would be a small affair that sent her into the afterworld with no extra clothing or servants. A wife pulled her finally returned husband into bed after years of longing and virtue only to find that he was riddled with impossible diseases. Children found a sudden stranger in the house who cursed them for running and making too much noise.

  Grandfather and Younger Brother had bought more land and improved the house with my money. They sang my praises to everyone. My grandparents had found an ideal prospect for my bride. I planned to buy Grandmother a new grindstone, one that turned with less backbreaking effort. I wanted to buy Grandfather a plough and a good steel axe. On market days, we would spend the entire day at the teahouse, calling for any dumpling or meat we wanted.

  Even if I sprouted wings, there was no flying from this prison. I was trapped for months, waiting for the judge who carried his courtroom on his shoulders. He would fine me, but I had no money, which meant I would have to do hard labour to work off my time. There was no way to get word to the Council in Victoria. Even if I did, it might choose to ignore me, seeing that I was so far away and entirely beyond the community’s sight.

  I bit hard on my teeth and cursed silently. From our first meeting, Sam had only been trouble. He should have known about Tobacco Beard and stayed away from this town.

  Damn that brothel keeper, that washman, that merchant in Yale. All of them, even that cookhouse man, had called Sam the best. Surely they knew that Sam carried bootleg. Surely they knew the eyes of the law would follow him. Shit covered his name. Those fellow China men were supposed to help me. I was the stranger here, after all.

  “Don’t blame me,” Sam declared. “The liquor that they found, that was for your graveyards.”

  “You sell bootleg!”

  “Those bottles were gone.”

  “You look like a Native, so no one stops you going into Native villages. If a China man tries to do that, he gets kicked out right away.”

  “They kicked me out too. Shouldn’t you think about the boy?”

  “What can I do? My money is gone.”

  “Children get dumped onto Native women all the time. Fathers don’t provide a cent, don’t bother looking back. You’re no better than them.”

  I turned away. The only light came from a tiny window cut high into the wall. A horse and wagon clattered outside. I took what little running start the cell allowed and threw myself at the wall, trying to reach the window, clawing with my fingers and boot tips. I grabbed the window ledge but something sharp made me scream and fall to the ground. I swore and sucked at my fingers, spitting out any poison.

  “Useless,” said Sam.

  “If a China man was outside, I would yell to him. China men help each other. Not like your people, who help the redbeards.”

  “We keep order. Redbeards use us to chase their killers and robbers. We know the hills and woods where they hide.”

  “And you arrest China men.”

  “Who quickly pay their way to freedom. Don’t worry, when I get out, I’ll tell China men to come fetch you.” He stood up. “Time for a piss.”

  He didn’t go to the pail. Instead, he faced the inside wall.

  “We piss through the cracks,” he said, “so the other side will stink.”

  I went to the wall and loosened my pants, peering through the dim light. We stood side by side and sighed. For a moment, the urine splashed away the fetid waste stuck to the wall.

  That night, I awoke with a start and begged the gods to help me escape. Send a bolt of lightning to knock over a wall. Open a hole under me, a tunnel from long-ago breakouts. Unleash a gale to lift me and the ceiling into the sky.

  At home, women were the ones who hurried to temples with prayers and offerings. That was the one activity that Mother and Grandmother had not fought over like alley cats. They returned home from temple visits praising each other and joking. Such peace ended far too soon. On second day, second month they tended the God of the Earth to ensure fair weather for farming. Third day, third month they cooked no meat, to cleanse the body. Ninth day, ninth month, they went to Green Dragon Temple on Pine Mountain to gain favour from the illness-fighting gods. Despite Mother’s efforts, few gods helped her. Indeed, she had ended her life a day after the birthday rites for the Goddess of Mercy, patron of mothers.

  I needed to show the gods some sincere intent but had nothing on hand. All I could do was promise good deeds. I had started this trip with one, taking the boy to his mother, and
it had ended in disaster. All I could do was make another promise.

  Then a ghost tapped the back of my head.

  Simple!

  Ask Fist’s questions at the Lytton temple and bring him his answers.

  Such generosity should win me favour.

  11

  BOATS CAN CROSS THE DEEPEST RIVERS (1885)

  In my dream, Boss Long, Pock Face, and I were yanking at floorboards in the game hall, breaking them, and tossing them into the fire. Ours was an ancient building from the town’s early days. Boss Long had just heard talk of how miners from the gold rush accidentally left precious gold dust in the cracks of saloon floors after walking through and putting their feet up for a night of drinking. Pock Face and I scowled; none of that gold would land in our pockets. For once, Boss Long worked beside us, tugging at nails and planks, his pigtail pinned atop his head. We made our way around the stove, which was too heavy and too hot to be moved. Finally the ashes cooled and Boss Long sifted through them.

  He shouted, held up a thin yellow wafer, and flung it at me. I reached out but grabbed only empty air. He tossed a second chip that glinted from the lamplight. I missed again. Boss Long started scolding.

  The squeal of rusty door hinges dragged me back to the jail where Sam and I were lying hunched at a well’s bottom. Tobacco Beard kicked me. My legs were numb, even though the cold wasn’t severe.

  “Go!” Sam stumbled forward.

  I groped for my boots. A hairy insect flitted through my hands.

  In the office, Tobacco Beard jerked his thumb at the front door, but Sam shook his head. Looking for our packs, I grinned at the reek of our urine on the wall. We dirty dogs had marked our spots, leaving a stink behind. A black cat arched its back and padded over a wooden bench. The pot-belly stove was cold. With a roar of anger, Tobacco Beard grabbed Sam, hustled him out the door, and hurled him onto the road.