Even after it had stopped raining, it took another day for the stream to quiet enough for them to safely work in and around it.
The first warning that Juan had of the impending landslide was a cracking sound from above. After a moment, he realized it was from the trees. Juan had lived long enough in Manila to know that torrential rains could cause a landslide. And the old-timers who had survived such catastrophes had spoken of the warning signs.
"Run!" he screamed.
He and the rest of his party were strung out along the stream, looking for placer gold.
There were, in essence two ways of avoiding a landslide: move laterally out of its path, and outrun it. Usually, outrunning it wasn't practical.
Juan looked up slope; there were trees wobbling and falling. Pebbles bounced past him. It was hard to judge, but it appeared that the area most affected was further upstream. So he ran obliquely down and cross slope, back toward the fork.
The rumbling increased. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the slide area was widening; it wasn't clear that he could get out of his path.
But if he could cross the stream quickly enough, the ground rose again on the other side. There, the landslide would have to climb uphill. It was a potential refuge, if only he could get far enough up the opposite slope in time.
And if the impact didn't trigger a landslide there, too.
Juan ran across the stream as falling rocks raised splashes on either side of him.
Now the ground was rising, which was to the good if it retarded the onrushing landslide, but to the bad if it tired Juan out before he had gotten high enough.
As he ran up the far slope he encountered an unexpected declivity and tripped, falling into it. As he lay there, stunned, the roaring got louder and louder.
∞ ∞ ∞
Mingyu's party had taken the right fork, toward more gently sloped land. There was no landslide here, but that didn't mean that the landslide in the upper valley went unnoticed. She heard what sounded like thunder, but after a moment she realized that the sound had not come from the sky, but rather, from somewhere to the east.
She turned to the guide. "What's that?" she demanded.
"The Sky Spirit and the Mountain Spirit are fighting. The Mountain Spirit is losing."
It took Mingyu a moment to realize what he meant. Fortunately, she was from Fujian, and it had a mountainous coastline, too.
"Attention!" she yelled at her party, miners and sailors alike. "Gather up all your shovels, hammers, pickaxes, and ropes, and follow me!"
One of the miners spoke up. "What about the tents, the food, the—"
"Never mind that! The other party from the Golden Venture may be in serious trouble! I think they've been caught in a landslide!"
She led them, at a quick march, back to the fork in the stream.
Mingyu pointed up the other fork. "Now, up there."
"Wait!" said the senior miner in her party.
"I know it's not safe, but sailors must risk their lives if their fellow sailors are in danger."
"For miners, it is the same," he assured her, "but some risks are avoidable. We must go single file, with ropes tying each man to the next one. They won't save us if a great boulder comes down, but they will help if the ground gives way beneath one person's feet."
"All right then, do as you say, but time is precious."
Mingyu started to run toward the landslide debris, but the senior miner checked her. "There's no guarantee that the ground movements have finished. We need to approach cautiously and call out from the safest ground close by."
"Where do you suggest we go?"
The senior miner studied the terrain carefully. He pointed to the slope that Juan had been running toward. "There, but stay alert."
Mingyu and her comrades had the surefootedness of sailors and miners, but even so they found the footing treacherous. Once they were on the "safe" slope, they walked slowly upstream, calling out and looking at the debris field.
A few members of Juan's party came out to meet them. These were the lucky ones who had been outside the direct path of the slide or close enough to its edge that they had been able to run clear.
"Where did you last see Juan?"
In the panic of the slide, no one had noticed which way he had run, and none had spotted him after the slide had ended. But one remembered where he had been before the slide started. It was definitely within the affected area, and not all that close to the edge.
The only comfort for Mingyu was they all remembered hearing him shout out a warning. So he was not caught completely unawares.
"Where would Juan have run?" she wondered.
The senior miner overheard her. "If he was starting from where he was last seen and was smart, he'd have run toward and across the river and not stopped until he was high up."
"But he's not . . . high up."
"We'll first look where he and the others who are missing are most likely to be if they survived but are pinned down or unconscious."
"Keep your eyes open, and shout out the names of the missing again and again," she ordered.
∞ ∞ ∞
Tripping may have saved Juan's life. A large boulder rolled down, coming to rest in that hollow. But the hollow was just deep enough to that his body lay in free space beneath the boulder. None of his limbs were crushed or even pinned down. And the large boulder had shielded Juan from the other rolling and bouncing rocky projectiles. As best as he could judge, it had been several hours since the disaster.
Unfortunately, it still wasn't going to be easy to escape. The hollow was wider than that large boulder, and plenty of smaller rocks had come to rest in it. Juan couldn't get out from under the boulder without moving them. And his arms, and for that matter his legs, had limited mobility.
He had tried calling out for help, but no one had responded. He was not, he admitted to himself, in the best position for bellowing. He wasn't hungry or thirsty, but he'd had spent more than enough time entrapped to begin to worry about how long it would take to die of thirst or starvation. He fervently wished he had gone to confession before he left Keelung. Would he still go to Heaven if he died here and now?
And what about Mingyu? She had never converted, so he couldn't expect to see her in Heaven. She didn't have the excuse of being a virtuous pagan who, through no fault of her own, had not known the Gospel. Having declined for practical reasons to convert, she could not know eternal salvation.
Perhaps it was just as well that he was unconfessed. They would be in Purgatory together.
He tried yelling for help once again.
∞ ∞ ∞
"Juan! Juan!" she called out.
She heard no answer. None, at least, that was audible over the gurgling of the stream.
She tried singing the song that had brought them together:
"I beg of you, Zhongzi
"Do not climb over our wall—"
She stopped abruptly. Had she heard something?
Yes. "Mi angelina." My little angel.
"Juan, I heard you!" she shouted. "Speak again so I can find you!"
∞ ∞ ∞
And a few minutes later, they did find him.
"Juan, are you hurt?"
"Mingyu! I am so glad to hear your voice. I am perhaps bruised, but no bones broken. At least, nothing hurts enough to make me think that bones are broken. But I can't shift the rocks on either side of me, so I can't get out of here."
"I'll get you free," Mingyu declared. She started to descend into the hollow when the senior miner stopped her.
"Wait, sea-woman! This is matter for those who know stone and earth!"
She looked back at him uncertainly.
"We need to study how the great boulder above the lieutenant is being held in place. If the wrong stones are moved, it might give way, just as if you yanked out a supporting post in a mine. We might also need to lever up the boulder; it all depends on exactly how he is trapped."
Mingyu retreated several p
aces and then motioned him forward. "Well then, demonstrate your mastery and get him out safely."
The senior miner bent low, studying the lay of the rocks in the hollow, first from one side and then from the other. He then barked orders.
"Yes, take that one. No, not that one, the one to the left with the moss on it. Easy now. You two, give that one a tug that way. Stop, and let me look again."
At last, he was satisfied, and sent the smallest of the miners to guide Juan out.
Once, Juan was safely out from under the boulder and sitting on the edge of the hollow, Mingyu hugged him fiercely. "Don't do anything like that again!"
"What, take a snooze under a rock?" he joked. He tried to stand, wobbling; Mingyu steadied him.
"I think every muscle in my body is cramped," he complained. "How many other survivors are there?"
"Perhaps a third of your party; all of mine," Mingyu told him.
"I guess you picked the better branch," Juan told her.
Chapter 21
While Juan and Mingyu struggled to survive the storm-induced landslide, Captain Huang and the Golden Venture were in a protected harbor. Nonetheless, they were also five or six miles closer to the eye when it passed by. Hence, they experienced stronger winds than the prospecting parties had. The strongest wind came from the south, and if Captain Huang hadn't taken precautions—unstepping the masts and using the spare anchor—they might have been blown out to sea.
Once the storm passed, the Golden Venture was rowed to the settlement of Keelung and reprovisioned. Bao the Panther was still absent, but Captain Huang was well known to the Chinese here and got the cooperation he demanded.
As soon as the wind shifted to a reasonably favorable direction, he departed, hoping for the best and fearing the worst.
∞ ∞ ∞
The day after his rescue, Juan led the remainder of his team to the lower valley, which plainly was the safer place to be until the risk of landslides abated. Assuming no further heavy rainfall, Juan wanted to give them another three days' grace. Juan and Mingyu left their miners and prospectors with Cut-Nose, who was placed in temporary command of the mining camp. Then Juan and Mingyu, with the few crewmen that her father had left with them, headed back down the Jinguashi River. It was time to find out how her father and the others had fared back at Shuinandong Bay.
While there had been no major landslides into the valley of the Jinguashi River, there were fallen rocks and trees to mark the passage of the storm. They picked their way over or around these obstacles, and, a few hours later, were in sight of the bay.
Of the bay, but not of any ships. What they found instead was a field of debris, strewn up on the beach or floating in the now placid water of the bay. Decking, hull planking, and masts. And, of course, bodies.
Mingyu stared at the destruction in horror, then kneeled and prayed to Matsu that her father and shipmates had survived, that they had in fact made it out to sea. The crewmen with her of course did the same. Then they began the grim work of surveying the debris.
After the first hour of this unpleasant but necessary task, Mingyu became incrementally more hopeful. "Cut-Nose, we haven't found any masts, or decking, or hull planks. Or any cargo. At least, nothing that plainly came from Golden Venture," said Mingyu.
"And the corpses..." She faltered, then continued. "None of the corpses we found were of members of the Golden Venture's crew."
None of those that had recognizable faces, Juan thought, but he knew better than to say that. Instead, he put a hand on her shoulder. "If I could survive the landslide, surely the Golden Venture could survive the typhoon."
∞ ∞ ∞
Juan and the native guide decided to work their way east along the coast, to see if anyone had fled or been blown in that direction.
"Be careful," Mingyu admonished.
"Always," he answered.
She watched him walk off. Then she noticed that her crew was watching her. "Back to work! The wreckage won't salvage itself! You want a roof over your head tonight, don't you?"
∞ ∞ ∞
Juan was still absent that afternoon, when three survivors of the typhoon crept out of the woods to the east and told Mingyu what had happened.
"Your father, he was the smart one," said the oldest of the three. "He left the bay a couple of days before the storm hit. Our captain chose to remain in Yinyang Bay. He and the other skipper didn't decide to put to sea until the wind had already started to pick up. And so our rice was cooked."
He sighed. "The bay, you know, is shaped like a crescent moon, with the horns pointing north. To clear the cape to the west, we must first sail north. The wind was from the northeast since before your father left, and we couldn't sail close enough to the wind to leave. So we returned to our starting point."
"If the wind was from the northeast, how did the Golden Venture escape?"
"Under oar power."
"Ah." Rowing, of course, was slow, but Mingyu knew that the port of Keelung was only seven miles to the west. So chances are that he would have made it there and taken refuge somewhere inland.
"So then what happened to your ships?"
"First, may I have something to drink?"
She motioned to one of her sailors, and he gave the castaway a skin of water. He drank deeply, then continued his story.
"The wind veered to the east, then the southeast, and the remaining captains decided to try again. But while the wind was in a helpful quarter, the change in direction had left the seas confused. Before we could clear the cape, we were hit by a rogue wave!"
"It threw us both on our beam ends," said a second survivor, who had a nasty-looking gash on his forehead.
"Quick as an arrow in flight, our ships were battered against the rocks fringing the cape," added the shortest of the three.
They all fell silent for a moment.
"We were lucky," the eldest said at last.
"If luck you'd call it," added Shorty.
"We managed to grab hold of a fallen mast and to work together to get to shore," the scarred one explained.
Their stories became a bit vague at that point. Mingyu suspected that rather than try to look for survivors among the rocks, they had quickly fled to higher ground and the minimal rain cover provided by the trees. The higher ground they had taken refuge on was an isolated hill that apparently separated Shuinandong Bay and the Jinguashi River from the next river over. On the far side of that unnamed river, they told her that they could see the scar of a past landslide.
∞ ∞ ∞
While it was a great relief for Mingyu to learn that her father had fought free of Shuinandong Bay before the typhoon struck, that left hanging the question of whether he was coming back for her, and how soon? The three survivors had of course not been privy to the captains' conclave and so didn't know how long Captain Huang had wanted his daughter to remain at Shuinandong.
It would be possible, she supposed, to build a raft or sampan of some kind and make it back to Keelung by sea. And raised on ships all her life, that had some appeal to her.
Until she thought about just how unruly the waters off the north coast of Taiwan were, even without a typhoon. Perhaps they could walk or paddle along the coast for about a mile, to what Mike Song's map called Shenao Bay—a rather nice bay, actually, more protected than Shuinandong if not as good as Keelung. If they could get over the mountain that lay behind it--that was a question for their guide--there was a river marked on the map that passed by modern Ruifang and eventually debouched into the Keelung River. While the Keelung River did not enter the Bay of Keelung, it passed less than two miles to the south.
On the other hand, it seemed like a confession of defeat. They had not yet found gold in the Jinguashi or its tributaries. Would it not be better to return to Keelung by way of another river and do more prospecting?
She would have to talk to Juan and Cut-Nose about these options. But in the meantime, there was work to be done.
∞ ∞ ∞
Juan w
as relieved to hear that Captain Huang had made it safely out of the bay—he rather liked the old scoundrel, and of course his survival meant a great deal to Mingyu.
The news about the other two ships was troubling, and not just because of the loss of life. Juan was well aware that he was on probation. The relationship with Mingyu had provided him with a connection to Admiral Zheng; his diplomatic service had won him the post with the Keelung garrison. Still, he had the impression that Captain Huang might rather marry Mingyu off to another captain, perhaps even one of the Zhengs. Or even to some minor official, especially if the latter might be able to relax some tiresome regulation concerning overseas trade.
Finding gold on this expedition would have advanced his cause with both Captain Huang and Admiral Zheng.
Now, however .... While there was what the miners called "color" in the water, they hadn't found any nuggets yet. Based on Mike Song's information, the upper valley had seemed the more promising, but the landslide complicated the process of prospecting and mining there, at least until more men could be brought in. And of course, they had just lost two ships' crews!
"I think we should talk to the senior miner before we make a decision," announced Juan, and Mingyu agreed to this.
∞ ∞ ∞
The next morning, Juan and Mingyu hiked back to the mining camp. The senior miner told them, "Before you decide whether to leave or stay, there are some related concerns."
He explained that he had been debating whether it was better to just clear the obstructions from the left tributary or to turn them into a full-fledged dam by filling in the space between boulders with gravel. In the latter case, they could then excavate the stream bed below the dam.
Of course, the water would build up at the uphill side and eventually break through or around the dam. That's why placer miners normally constructed three walled wing dams, which blocked only part of the river; the miners could pump water out of the enclosed area and water would still flow around the wing.
The Chrysanthemum, the Cross, and the Dragon Page 14
