A Superior Man

by Paul Yee

  “You play with mice, you hide like mice. That’s no great deed. No redbeard will hear about it.”

  “You want your hands tied and your mouth gagged?”

  “May I bring His Holiness a question?” asked Fung.

  “Here?” The lead escort frowned. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Why not?” Boss Joe clapped Fung on the back. “His Holiness serves his followers wherever they are.”

  “We have no incense or wine,” protested the escort.

  “I have everything,” said Fung, offering a cloth bundle.

  “This place is too exposed, too dark.”

  “Fung came twice to the temple this year,” said Boss Joe. “He has urgent matters.”

  “It’s nothing.” Fung reddened at the sudden attention on him. “I keep thinking to go home. I asked His Holiness if the time was right, but both times he told me no. If His Holiness is leaving Gold Mountain, then this is my last time to seek his advice.”

  The escort untied the knot and opened the crate. The box was lined with more red cloth. He knelt, bowed his head, and whispered a short prayer before lifting the statue out and placing it on a flat tree stump. The escort was right: His Holiness was dwarfed by the trees and the clearing around him. The temple in Lytton had been a tight space where it was possible for His Holiness to assert his powers in a room of familiar trappings. Fung fetched the worship items, lit the candles and incense, and poured wine. Then he knelt and brought his forehead to the ground. Boss Joe handed him the charms, which he cast onto the ground. Everyone crowded in to see. The answer was no. He cast them again, and received the same answer.

  Fung sighed. “Still not the right time.”

  I shook my head at this cockhead. If he wanted to go home, then why not just leave? That lucky bastard had none of my stupid problems. Why seek advice from His Holiness? Could there ever be a wrong time to head for home? Didn’t home and family trump all other considerations, even money? What did he fear?

  From the road-house, the boy and I walked to the bridge. The canyon narrowed here, which had allowed a crossing to be built long ago. The tightened river gave advantage to fishermen, and they crowded the banks with spears and nets. The boy poked his head through the railing and called. The men and women below waved and shouted back.

  The boy gave a whoop of joy on seeing the railway, as if the shiny beams were his old toys. At first he tried to walk along one track, his arms spread wide to balance himself, but then he darted ahead. When I hurried after him, the boy thought we were playing chase and ran faster, laughing and screaming. I ran too but let him stay ahead until we both ran out of breath.

  A chase from long ago came to mind. A feast of the food left from the annual rites had just ended. My pals and I had just caused our arch-enemy, the spoiled grandson from the richest family among us, to slip into the muddy bank of the river. A sampan bearing coloured banners had drawn us to the water.

  Then the grandson’s furious minder chased us, waving a bamboo switch. We sprinted by the vegetable plots on the sunny side of the village. We raced through the stone laneways between the black brick houses. We split up to force the minder to choose one quarry.

  The minder bore down on me, a set look on his dark face. I stopped. The men of the village squatted in front of the ancestral hall, fanning themselves and smoking tobacco.

  The men looked up. Children running always meant trouble. My father summoned me just as the minder ran up and complained about the muddy insult. My name in his voice made me shudder. To my surprise, my father put on a startled look and said, “Such a small matter? You can beat the boy and make him cry, but if that summons bad luck on such a day, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  The minder backed off.

  Every time that memory arose, I wondered if Father had really spoken up for me. Or had he given me a severe spanking later that night? I would ask Grandfather.

  The river and the railway were steadfast guides; there was only one trail to follow, where man had clawed and smashed his way through nature. I strode along as confidently as Sam, hoping the boy would think that I knew this land equally well. Some mountain ridges held bold distinct shapes: a saddle, the fan tail of a fish, an even bowl-shaped dip. No doubt the Native people told stories about each site. At home, all landmarks and their stories were known to me. I planned to climb White Wolf Hill with Peter, taking the short route up and the longer one down. I would point out the curves of West River, the two rocky outcrops that formed Await-the-Husband peak, and the busy port of Sun Chong.

  I peered into the forests, wondering if we were anywhere close to that camp where I’d been four years ago, where Poy and Onion had died. It would be honourable if I could find those two graves. I had come all this way and paid respects to strangers instead of my own comrades. Could those grave-sticks that I had carved back then still be standing? Could they still be read? Unfortunately I had no name for the camp, and could not recall where along the river it had stood. Everywhere the rocks and river and trees looked alike to me. To find the camp would be hard; it would be far harder to find the graves. I should have drawn a map. But even then, I had known Poy’s bones would never go to China. He had no family.

  The brat and I came up behind an elderly couple, bent over, with cloth bundles tied to their backs. The boy called out, and they replied in cracked but cheerful voices. The boy dawdled and chatted with them.

  I walked ahead and resisted the urge to shout for the boy. I watched the road to avoid the dung of wild animals. There was little time for him to spend with his own people. Maybe this couple, both with kerchiefs tied around their heads, would leave a strong impression on the boy. He should see that when Chinese and Native faces grew loose and wrinkled with age, they looked very much alike, with fleshy puddles under the eyes, yellowed teeth, and speckled skin. Maybe China would not feel so strange. Maybe he would feel no difference between these people who all despised the redbeard.

  When that washman Yang and that miner Lam hinted that they might stay here instead of going home, I thought they were farting brave words and blowing hot air to impress me. To not go home was like chopping off one’s own foot to hobble about as One Leg did, all bitter and twisted. At home I would stroll through the paddy, letting my feet sink slowly, deep into the mud with each step. When I lifted my foot, water would rush in to fill the hole, water that had travelled great distances from the lofty mountains of central China. The well of my footprint, China’s turgid rivers, the squishy soil underneath: these were my natural world, my only home. Best to follow Grandfather, watching his skinny brown legs, scarred and studded with red insect bites, do the same. Later, there would be fresh rice cooking in the kitchen, rattling the lid, sending up sweet steam. On such a rare occasion, Grandmother would sit and hold my hand, wrapping my fingers over hers, but only briefly because she did not want me to see how the soil and water of the paddy had hardened her flesh.

  When at last I went to fetch the boy, the couple looked up in surprise. The woman pulled a bulging kerchief from her pocket. She pointed to my hands, and poured dried berries into them. Then she motioned for us to move ahead.

  Building the railway had flattened all the tangled, mature bushes, so berries were hard to find by the tracks. That summer and fall when we were together, Mary often went berry-picking, sometimes with her boss’s children. One Sunday, she and I took a pail up into the mountains. We climbed through forest groves, and I chased Mary from tree to tree. A log with a flattened side let us cross a brook. We saw hills of ancient timber, thick with ridged trunks and green with moss. Her white apron became stained with many colours.

  When the forest darkened under a leafy roof, the narrow trails vanished from my sight. When heavy rains started, I turned back. But Mary was intent on going higher, to a secret trove of berries. She wouldn’t listen to me so we stomped ahead. When I turned, she was gone. Suddenly, every gap between trees seemed to be my last path. I shouted her name. Birds flew up. I thought that any downward slope
would lead home until one led me to the edge of a cliff. I tried to retrace my steps. I found the vantage point where we had stopped earlier, but it was impossible to see through the rain.

  I turned, and there she stood with face and hair streaming wet. She grabbed my hand and ran. We struggled uphill. I fought her until we reached a cave. Prior occupants, whether animal or human, had left behind rank smells, and I feared the darkness inside. We were cold but safe from the rain. I doffed my jacket and wrung out my handkerchief to mop our faces. We sat on a rock near the entrance, leaning against one another, and watched the dark clouds go by. I felt safe, even though I had no idea where I was or how to get home.

  15

  A SUPERIOR MAN MERITS A SECOND CHANCE (1885)

  The boy ran to the trough with the centipede legs and trotted alongside with a stick, tapping it like a drum. I followed him to the soggy pit where water dripped from the break. I shoved the trough with both my hands, and then gave it another push, this time with my heels dug into the ground. It didn’t topple. The legs were braced by a cross beam, buried under the soil. It would take more than one man to push this over.

  At the big graveyard ahead, someone was bent over the ground. Perhaps a rail hand on his way home was paying respects to a comrade. How noble. Sam had bypassed many graveyards due to our bad luck on this trip. The Chinese Council in Yale should demand a refund from him. Maybe then he would stop hounding me to take him to China. He got paid for a job he didn’t finish. Our deceased didn’t get their incense and whisky. As for those fools who had stolen our packs, I hoped they had found good use for the spirit money, maybe for each other.

  Inside the fence, the man glanced up. To my surprise, it was Fist, but he had shaved and dressed neatly, with a re-braided pigtail and clean shirt, as if ready for a clerk’s job in town. On seeing his scarred and scowling face, I almost remarked that when a beggar donned the king’s dragon robe, he didn’t become a prince in the next instant. But I needed Fist to invite me to eat and sleep here.

  The graveyard looked different but familiar, like someone’s face seen after several years’ absence. It puzzled me, because little could change in such a place and this was no season for new flowers. Besides, who—

  The rows of grave-sticks were gone.

  I looked again. The bones had lost their names.

  The site was flattened, as if a dark cyclone had churned through. The fence stood intact but the grass had been crushed and flattened. One corner post was charred; someone had tried to burn it. My first thought was: run far and fly high. It was bad luck to have come back here.

  “Seen enough?” Fist scowled. “Now get out.”

  I must have looked bewildered.

  He took his time before speaking. “Morning after you left, we found everything yanked out. Maybe it was one shit-hole fiend, maybe it was a gang of them. They could have burned the markers but they didn’t. They tossed them aside like chewed-through bones, to laugh at us.”

  He kicked a rusty pail; it rolled ahead. I recalled Sam attacking the kettle from Boss Soon’s gang outside Big Tunnel. That was the day I lost my money roll.

  Peter ran at the pail, nudging it along, glancing behind with a hopeful look, wanting Fist to chase him.

  “You came back,” he said. “What for?”

  “Can’t the markers be replanted?” What a stupid question. If repairs were possible, then they would have been done already. One Leg was a capable fellow who had taken splendid care of this place.

  Fist glared. “You tell me, which name goes where?”

  “Not even a few spots? Didn’t you tend even one person?”

  “I can’t read.”

  I squatted. Surnames and home districts rushed at me, a swarm of raging bees. In China, even the most hardened and bitter of criminals would not wreck a graveyard. Bandit leader Cudgel refused to attack processions taking food to hilltop graves. All people had parents and ancestors, all people needed their blessings and protection. Here, friends and kin of the dead workers had written names on markers, doing their duty as best they could. But now, these nameless bones could receive neither respect nor assurances from kinsmen or co-workers. Now the men’s final remnants couldn’t be sent to families waiting to mourn them. These were corpses without faces, bones without homes, all adrift without past or purpose.

  A crow cawed and flapped high into the air over the trees. I shuddered. Lost souls were watching from the brooding forest. If not for the daylight, they would leap shrieking from the shadowy woods and hurl themselves at this site, clawing to cross over for revenge.

  A brisk wind moved grey clouds over the canyon. Rain and nightfall were coming. The loss of the grave-sticks upset the murky balance between living and dead. Saintly priests with clean bald skulls and yellow robes were needed here to chant and restore order. The outraged spirits must be freed to hunt down the guilty redbeards, coil themselves around their necks, and squeeze until those human tongues hung out black and stiff.

  “Will you and One Leg leave now?” I couldn’t run off too quickly; that would reveal a coward.

  “Revenge first.”

  “You?” I never expected to hear that from this worm. “You’re one man! You don’t even know who did this.”

  “The redbeards raged about China men working at the landslide. It was the night before the Lytton fire. Boss Soon came by yesterday. He’ll help.”

  “Was it the Native people?”

  “We lived here a year and never had trouble.”

  “The China men in Lytton argued about revenge there, did you hear?” I mentioned the scuffle between Seven and Boss Joe, as well as the baby mice.

  “Stupid fools. We can do better.”

  I squatted, head between my knees, fingers at the back of my neck. The stubble there had grown long and smooth to the touch, but my pigtail was hard and firm. It was time to wash myself and get a shave in Victoria, before setting off for home. I needed a hot bath, to scrub off all this filth and anger from the other world. Crushed weeds, pebbles, and dirt lay under my battered boots. Nothing decent could grow here.

  The boy jumped on my back, wanting to play, wanting to be carried. I growled and shrugged him off. He clambered onto the fence to ride it like a horse, his reins some old rope left there.

  I hurried to reproach him; too much dignity had been ripped from this place already. He leaned back and pulled at his pretend reins. Then I saw myself on a horse too, galloping over a hardened path, leading a war party and raising a cloud of dust.

  Had Heaven slid me into play here, like a chess piece?

  If Fist and I took revenge, then I would become a hero to railway coolies and to all of China. People would praise my name to the skies, petition the mandarins in charge of rites to add me to the ranks of gods, and start to dedicate stately temples to my name. I could go home with head upright, bearing the most valiant of tales to tell. Gentry and high officials would bow to me, sweep their sleeves to the ground. Court artists would bid to paint my likeness, and reveal me to royal princesses. The stinking low-lifes in my village would soon forget about my father. That bastard might even hurry home to bask in my glory.

  Fist kicked the pail around tree stumps and bushes, letting it rattle over the broken ground. He asked about His Holiness in Lytton.

  I gave him honest answers and saw him relax. “Will One Leg leave?”

  “He will obey His Holiness.”

  “And revenge?”

  “Boss Soon said to tell no one. First, we plan what to do.”

  “I can help.”

  “You hate railway coolies.”

  “Not so.”

  “You called us ‘big fools.’” He snorted. “Now you want to stay the night.”

  I swallowed hard. “Only if it’s no bother.” It was the only way to learn his plans.

  He walked away but then turned back. “Don’t have anything to do?” He pointed at the grave-sticks. “Sort these by names and home districts. One Leg wants to write down everything. We shou
ld have drawn a map earlier. The old bugger thinks he’s smart, but he’s not.”

  I squatted. The markers were two times longer and wider than a schoolboy’s ruler. Damp earth and strands of yellow roots clung to the bottom ends of the sticks. One Leg’s brushwork was graceful, even for the complicated words with many strokes. He must have followed a talented teacher long ago, or practised a great deal on his own. Names from the Lee, Wong, Ma, and Chan clans were most numerous. No doubt they possessed cosy ties to the agents who raced through the Four Counties, trawling for fools. Those peasants and their families had laughed and rejoiced at landing plum jobs on the railway. Now they were gutted and lost.

  Many of the small surnames—Soo, Fong, Woo, and Kwan—were on hand too, just one stick in each pile. Those men must have been lonely as broomsticks, left outside the noisy circles of larger clans unless they could claim ties through marriage or myths of alliance. I spotted a Yang name and let out a breath of relief. That gave me a solid reason to join any mission for revenge. The fellow’s home district was far from the Four Counties. I muttered his name and village, but it was a fool’s dream to think that I would ever meet his kinsmen in China. Still, I could readily toss his name at Fist and Boss Soon.

  Peter yelled and jumped off the fence, but the sorting wasn’t finished. I darted back and forth between hard-to-reach piles instead of tossing each marker like a stick of kindling. I murmured each man’s name and home village, as if it might somehow soothe him. This was the last show of earthly concern these men would receive. If I gained their favour, then they might help me enlist in Fist’s mission. He came by when I stood and brushed dirt from my hands.

  “Done.” I pointed to the biggest pile. “You Chans are most numerous.”

  “Go scrub off the killing airs.”

  From around the cabins came chopping sounds, dull thuds broken by pauses for loosening the axe head from the wood. Fist still wasn’t helping with chores. One Leg swung the long-handled axe as his crutches leaned against a high-back chair. After each blow, he reached out to steady himself. No Brain freed the axe head and re-centered the block of wood on the stump. One Leg looked haggard. Beard stubble covered his face and dark shadows ringed his eyes. Too bad he couldn’t help with the revenge.