by Paul Yee
At last Fist peered over the edge.
I couldn’t see his face. “Get your rope. Drop it down,” I called.
It took forever. I thought to climb on my own but one glance below changed my mind. Finally, the rope came bouncing down. It dangled out of my reach.
“Swing it,” I shouted, “back and forth.”
The rope jiggled feebly. I lunged several times before grabbing it. I pulled myself up and clambered over the edge.
Fist stood on the other side of the tracks, head down. I hurried over and looked over the edge. A body was sprawled below, a man wearing a brown jacket and dark pants. White flesh showed between the top of his boot and the pant leg. Fist and I were both panting.
“He ran at me. I rolled onto my stomach. He tried to jump aside. Then he screamed.”
He tugged at the explosives tied to my back. A blade flashed in his hand as he cut away the ropes. I was trembling, too dazed to see what he was doing. Then he hurled the ropes away. They flew like uncoiling serpents into the river.
“No!” I shouted.
“This was my idea.” He grabbed the sack of explosives. “And I say it is finished.”
I lunged at him, but his knife was at my throat.
“Fist, you don’t need to climb down again.” I dropped my hands and spoke in soothing tones. “I can do everything. You keep watch, make sure no one tries to stop us.”
“His ghost will follow me forever,” he said.
“The spirits of China men will protect you.”
“They didn’t come earlier!”
I thought he would break into tears. “Give me the sack.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Before people arrive.”
“I told you not to do this.”
“He ran at you. He would have thrown you off the bridge.”
I sprang forward as he turned and swung the sack, gripping it with both hands, his entire body behind it. The canvas flew by me. I stumbled and fell back to grab at a wooden tie. The sack sailed into the air toward the river.
He crouched and held out the penknife. “This was that man’s. Want to kill me too?”
I snatched it from him. It was heavy; the handle was made of bone. I wanted to plunge it into his face.
He turned and sprinted off the trestle.
I wanted grab his head and pound it into a tree trunk. He had caused the redbeard to fall, not me. He should go to jail, not me.
I took a step but stopped. A whimper wheezed out of me. The wind whistled past my ears and I felt suddenly off balance, unsure. Screw, screw, screw. I had caught a flash of the ground below. I looked away to the distant mountains and tried to walk, but my legs were stiff and heavy. I stretched out my arms, but only felt even more unbalanced. I pulled them in and clenched them to my chest. Turning sideways, I took baby steps, one at a time, with long pauses in between. My teeth chattered from the cold. I cursed Fist for ruining my strengthened feet, for destroying a skill I had fought hard to attain.
By the time I got off the trestle, he was long gone.
An eagle floated over the river, looking for fish. Was it the same one we’d seen the day before? I looked down. The dark bag poked out from the milky brown of the water. Fist was like that sack of dynamite, waiting to explode. He would be a nuisance in China, not me.
He might still be on the railway line or have gone to run by the water. Only a fool would try the beach. The Native fishermen there would surely tell the police who had gone by. And Fist with his pocked face would be an easy mark.
I left the railway tracks and walked in the drainage ditch below the roadbed. If thick bushes grew nearby, I clambered through them.
I should have pushed Fist off the trestle. I could have reported seeing him fight the redbeard before they both fell. China men and redbeards were longstanding enemies; it made sense that they taunted and challenged each other. People could imagine the two men stomping toward each other on the trestle; neither one, being full of pride, would yield the way. They shouted and then shoved and grappled. But then the police would demand to know what I was doing there with those two.
The redbeard’s body might never be found. How many people on the railway walked so close to the edge of the trestle? Maybe the corpse had fallen behind rocks and couldn’t be seen from the water. Even if it was found, people would conclude that he had fallen on his own. He was drunk. Maybe he was a madman. No explosives had been left behind. And even if someone found the bag of ropes in the bushes, it meant nothing. There was no reason for anyone to think that China men had been involved in the death. When I reached Yale, I would send a letter to Bookman Soon urging him to try again. Fist’s plan had been a sound one.
I thought ahead to Yale. I prayed that Sam would not meet Fist, who would tell him that I was coming soon. Sam couldn’t go to China with me. He had to go to Spuzzum and be a father to my son. Sam could throw whatever shit he wanted at me and China men. We could not be trusted. We were the same as redbeards, looking down on Native people. We were smart only on the dark yin side. Later he would hear from the washman why I had left. He might even cheer my efforts at this revenge, even though they had failed.
But what if Sam looked at the boy and cursed loudly and smashed his fist into a wall? Perhaps a mirror image of himself was too painful to see. He might refuse to take the boy onto the dismal trail where he had been donkey and pack-ass all these years. He clearly yearned to go to China. Yet he had boasted that his child in Lytton had more Native blood than Peter. Men were fickle: my father had left his family without a word or backward glance. Of course, Sam should treat a stranger’s son worse than his trueborn child. That was normal for any man, and certainly for a China man.
If Sam had gone ahead to Victoria and waited for me there, then another disaster loomed. I would need to keep hiding and be unable to see my friends.
A horse and wagon approached. I ducked behind tall grasses and waited for it to pass.
Closer to Yale, there was no helpful cover, but dusk was falling. The forest had been chopped down long ago. Then wildfires devoured the new saplings. I needed to keep a hefty distance from the main road to stay safe. I forded the creek and then looped around the town’s back to enter it from the west. If anyone saw me, I would be coming from Emory, not Spuzzum. This route also brought me close to the empty house where Sam and Peter and I had stayed. I approached warily, afraid to find Sam there. It was empty but smelled foul. Passersby had used it as an outhouse.
I planned to avoid Chinatown but needed a warm place to stop my shivering. Good thing Yang had given me some cash this morning. I kept my face down and hugged the shadows of the buildings. The buzzing of night insects was loud. I passed by Clouds Clear Tower and glanced at the windows, low lights glowing behind flimsy curtains.
Someone played a tune on a bamboo flute. The high, pure notes sent a shudder through my body.
I slipped into a dimly lit cookhouse and went to a corner. I called for hot soup and rice. I slurped the food, forehead to the table, my spine to the other diners. A man was scraping every last grain of rice into his mouth with a spoon. At another table, three men were playing with ivory point-sticks, used in place of cash. Only failed sojourners were left in Yale, the ones who had not killed themselves.
Now I was one of them.
18
NO LIGHT INSIDE AN INVERTED BUCKET (1885)
The passage downriver from Yale was quick, but the waters between the mainland and Victoria rose and fell, driven by strong winds that slowed and rocked the sternwheeler. I had boarded with a woozy head, having smoked one pipe of opium too much the night before. I recalled vaguely that Poy and I had resolved long ago never to smoke two nights in a row.
Still, there was less to complain about on this part of my trip: no cow dung to inhale and no redbeards on the upper deck laughing at a clumsy China man failing as a father. It was much easier to keep one’s dignity when alone, with no child running wild at one’s feet. On that trip, I had a simple plan to get rid of that brat. No wond
er he had trusted Sam. Even I knew the line: People at birth, pure and kind. Heaven had been watching: I was duly humbled and punished.
At the railing, I pulled up my collar and gazed at the thin line at the water’s far edge. All morning my fingers and gut had felt cold and stiff as if the chill of a corpse had infected me. I wanted to throw up. There was no getting warm until I reached China. If I had ginger to chew on, my stomach might settle down.
Fist had boarded too but fell in with some China men throwing dice in a rowdy circle. I had been surprised to see such a large group clutching boat tickets. Its leader, a clerk from Victoria’s Bow Yuen store, told me that the Lee clan had pushed hard to raise funds to bring their kinsmen from Yale to Victoria, where they would be less likely to starve and more likely to get help returning home. He knew me from the game hall and tried to make small talk, but I pinched my face and claimed to be seasick, so he left me alone.
I stared at the boat’s edge from which Peter had dropped into the water. That tumble had launched this grand disaster, turned me into a snake scheming to swallow an elephant. A superior man would have searched for Sam last night without fear of being noticed in Chinatown. He would have gone through every back-alley game house until he found the guide and warned him again how very dangerous it was for him to go to China. And if Sam said he didn’t want Peter, then a superior man would have gone back to Spuzzum for his son.
Too bad I wasn’t that man.
Sam and I had been at each other’s throats even before we’d been introduced. He demanded that I take the boy to China. Maybe he only wanted to argue, to provoke China men, make them feel small and stupid over every little matter. Even now we didn’t know where Peter would find a better home, but here, at least, he would be closer to his mother. If Sam went to Spuzzum and adopted Peter, then Sam and I could have become sworn brothers, sharing a son. We would kneel before the God of War, avowing a blood oath that could never be broken. Family was as sacred as landholdings, but redbeards had claimed all of Gold Mountain for themselves and made Sam a fool for chasing after it. Neither of us had a father, yet we both tried to become better men ourselves. Surely that made us worthy humans.
On the ship to China, I planned to gamble and win myself a small sum. But I would have to show restraint; otherwise someone sore from his losses would knife me as I slept and steal my winnings. Maybe there was work to be had in Hong Kong, though I doubted it, given the glut of railway workers there. At least I would be free to visit the game halls. There would be time for me to embrace Buddha’s foot and polish his sacred toes with a soft cloth. Then I would board a slow ferry and head upriver. Hopefully, the girl’s family would not change its mind when they learned about my turn of fortune. There were plenty of losers in China, but I didn’t belong in their ranks. All night long, I had silently recited the cheerful proverbs used to comfort the less fortunate:
Even ducks drown in the river.
Cast a net ten times, nine times it rises clear.
Lose a chess match; the chessboard remains.
“Lend me something?” Fist held out his hand. “Lucky winds aren’t with me.”
I shook my head. The last time we had spoken, it was on the trestle. He fiddled with his tobacco and handed me a roll. It took several tries before he struck a flame for us.
“Can you get to China?” I asked, feeling grateful.
“I’m going to America,” he proclaimed.
“Bad time now.”
“Can you write a letter for me? To tell One Leg what happened.”
“Good news or bad?”
“Good for us, but bad for you.”
Back in Victoria, I went to Uncle See’s store to get a bed for the night and to ask about Sam. The shelves were still full. Few buying customers had come to the store. At this rate, this storekeeper would never go home. Maybe he was doomed to tend the Chinese graveyard here. No wonder he was in a foul mood. He asked about the boy, calling him a piece of dog shit.
“You didn’t know,” I said. “His mother taught him to speak Chinese. He called me Baba and yelled at me to wait for him. He’s a clever boy. He could have called you Grandfather.”
“Never heard him say anything. Didn’t you say he was a deaf mute?”
“You scared him. I started teaching him Three Word Classic.”
“You’re lucky my cat came back. Otherwise I’d charge you for all the food the mice ate.” He paused. “The boss at New World game house asked if you were looking for work.”
“No.”
“He’ll pay well. All you have to do is stand there and the vermin will behave. They’re getting rowdy. When it rained last, they refused to leave the place and slept on the floors. The boss begged them to go because his enemies could inform the Health Inspector, who would shut him down. He was as frantic as a woman, but nobody listened to him.”
“I already have my two-dollar receipt,” I said.
“So you saw the Council office?”
We chuckled.
The fancy rosewood furniture and calligraphy scrolls were gone from the storefront, leaving it bare and empty. Even the long-case clock with its gleaming brass weights, which passers-by relied on for telling the time, was gone. Two sets of the chairs and side tables had been taken during an overnight robbery. The rest of the furniture was now in locked storage.
“Mister Secretary can’t figure out why anyone would steal it,” I said. “It can’t be sold. Everyone in Chinatown knows everyone.”
Uncle See leaned forward. “They say if you go deep enough into the tent city, you’ll find the fancy chairs.”
Finally I asked about Sam. No, no new mix-blood faces had been seen. I relaxed. That stupid Sam was still waiting for me in Yale.
Wet Water Dog was closing shop when I arrived with my Council receipt. The office was piled high with carrying cloths, tightly bound around people’s goods, and sturdy western-style trunks. Since my last visit, he had pinned on his wall a large coloured picture, printed by a steamship firm, of the great vessels that sailed the Pacific. Sails puffed out like great curtains, clouds gushed from smokestacks, and the skies and seas were soft shades of blue. I doubted that such calm seas lay ahead for me
The rich aroma of Wet Water Dog’s cigar made my mouth water. “You returned just in time,” he said.
“Didn’t think I would, did you?” I said.
“Thought you had climbed into a warm bed with the mother of your son. People in Chinatown bet money on the outcome, did you know? Me, I wagered you wouldn’t find her. The odds were supposed to be on my side.”
“A guide helped me find her. He was mix-blood, half-Chinese and half-Native.”
“What’s his name? I want to go to the mainland and ride the train. My woman wants to see the iron road; she heard so much about it. My little boys too, they want to see it before we go home.”
“Sam. Sam Bing Lew. He’s in Yale or Spuzzum. Go now and you can lay with Goddess before Soohoo shuts down Clouds Clear Tower.”
He grinned. “Can I see her without the wife knowing?”
“Don’t mention my name to Sam,” I said.
“You owe him?”
“Not money. I agreed to help him on a small matter.”
“You going home? Didn’t you lose all your money on the mainland?”
“Of course I’m going home. Twelve years have passed. My people want to see me; they don’t care about money.”
“Won’t you stay and work a while? The chicken ran off, but you can catch a duck.”
“Only steamships are doing well.”
“How many rail hands are left in Yale? What’s your guess?”
I hadn’t told a soul about the loss of my money roll, but it didn’t surprise me that people knew. The bandits who stole our packs would have bragged. Boss Joe and the men from Lytton were certain to have talked about me on their way to Yale in the stagecoach. I couldn’t wait to escape all this useless talk.
The next afternoon, fragile men overpowered by eagerness crow
ded the docks as the burly Council guards stopped them from boarding the ship ahead of time. A cluster of shabby, barefoot railway men were travelling on funds donated by the Chinese merchants of San Francisco. Too bad the Lee men from Yale had not arrived here sooner. The travellers looked as if they had been thrown into baths as well as oversized shirts and pants that couldn’t get sold. I hoped their pigtails were free from fleas and ticks. Their sponsored departure called for lengthy speeches, giving credit to our fellow Chinese south of the border, a few of whom had come to witness the event.
I carried mostly fresh food that could be eaten before spoilage started. Roast pork would be good for four or five days, but my sack of local apples would last the longest, even though I couldn’t afford the sweetest ones. Hawkers mingled through the crowd, touting snacks and small jugs of wine. Dockhands wheeled large crates up the gangplank and large baskets of fresh vegetables arrived for the kitchen. The sooner the ship got underway, the sooner I could start to forget about this place. No one was keen to go down into the gloom of the steerage hold.
Someone pulled my arm. I turned. Fist held out a jug of rice wine.
“What’s this?”
He shrugged. “You helped me out. This will keep you warm.”
He wasn’t referring to the letter I had written for him. “If I hear of you making lots of money in America,” I said with a smile, “I’ll track you down.”
“Did you go to the temple?”
I shook my head. Wet Water Dog had asked the same thing, if I was going to pray for a safe voyage.
A familiar smell slid through the air. Wet Water Dog came behind me, his cigar in one hand and a newspaper in the other.
“Yang Hok,” he called, shaking his head. “Your man is in trouble.”
The daily paper from Yale had just arrived. Wet Water Dog translated from the English as Fist and I listened. Native fishermen had found the body of a Calvin John Shepard, farm labourer, thirty-one, under one of the railway trestles between Yale and Spuzzum. The constable in Yale had no suspicions until Shepard’s friends urged the lawman to arrest Sam Bing Lew, the guide. They said that Lew and Shepard had been gambling until late at night, a few days before Shepard’s body was found. Lew had been winning, and Shepard covered his losses by staking his fancy penknife, which he lost to Sam. But as it was a family heirloom that had belonged to Shepard’s father and grandfather, he asked for it back, planning to borrow money from his employer to pay Sam. Witnesses saw Sam and Shepard leave Yale together.
