A Superior Man Page 20

  Sam walked us to the junction of the two rivers. Native people massed at the banks to reap its bounty. The river, no longer squeezed by narrow cliffs, slid around a jut of land where a second waterway entered. At first I thought a wide cloud hung above, blocking the sun and putting half of the river in darkness. But it was no shadow: the water hugging the bank beneath us was many shades darker. For half a mile, the two colours ran side by side: the milky brown next to the greenish blue, until the latter dipped under the first. Clear and pure gave way to dark and muddy: that was the future of this place. In China, two such rivers would flow together for much longer, as the black and bright forces of yin and yang contended.

  “This is the centre of our people.” Sam pointed to burgeoning clusters of houses and farms along both rivers. “We call it ‘Crossing-over.’ The son of spirit-creature Coyote landed here after seeing the upper world. But railway workers blasted his spot.”

  Sam translated for Peter and then turned to me. “During the gold-miners’ war, Native warriors from the rivers and mountains gathered here to drive the redbeards back to the ocean.”

  The boy shouted and raised his stick like a spear.

  “Could your people have won?” I asked.

  “Of course. It was before the sickness.”

  “And China men?”

  “Kicked them out too.”

  “You wouldn’t have been born.”

  “A blessing, then.”

  Two men loaded crates of apples and melons onto a small steamer. The sagging plank between shore and boat allowed one man to board each time.

  “Is Skuzzy here?” I tried to talk up some goodwill that would get the brat to follow me.

  “That’s it.” Sam lifted his chin toward the vessel.

  The hull was bashed and splintered, a mass of patches covered by glossy layers of dark paint. The sternwheeler had three decks, each smaller than the one under it. The drum-like capstan at its bow, with thick ropes around it, was taller than a redbeard. The Company had built Skuzzy to carry supplies north to avoid paying tolls on the wagon road. Expert boatmen tried for five months to launch it through the Hell’s Gate rapids. Finally, 125 China men used a thick rope and dragged the ship through, the way it was done at home.

  China men in Victoria said, “Isn’t the West more advanced than this? Couldn’t they have used oxen? This is barbaric.”

  When those coolies passed through Victoria, everyone wanted to hear about the slippery rocks underfoot, the overseers’ orders, and how the men had been chosen.

  “No faster way to get downriver,” Sam said, “for China men rushing to reclaim ship tickets.”

  “Those two rivers are lazy brothers,” I said. “Shouldn’t a huge waterfall have crashed into still waters to cause fish and water to leap up? That would be worth seeing.”

  At the bridge, the boy finally let go. Sam took the sky but I had the sun and moon. We both gazed at the brat, not each other.

  Now I wanted Sam to take us to Cache Creek. Only he had seen my strength of mind to take Peter home. Only he could confirm the loss of my money roll. He could get us to Mary, if he wanted, maybe borrow a horse and wagon. Didn’t he see how I was trying to help his people? He should witness mother and son brought together and observe Mary’s kind and loving nature. She had not brushed aside her son like a tick and now she would welcome his return. She was probably standing at the door of her house, the gate of her front yard, waiting and waiting. Most of all, Mary needed to see how I had befriended a man like my son, proving that I didn’t dislike such people and would have taken Peter to China if it were truly best for him.

  “If you can’t get money,” Sam said, “you can always take him to Sophie.”

  “You call her insane.”

  “She’s different with children.”

  “I don’t hate the boy.”

  “You just want to save face.”

  “And you?” I snapped. “Does your grandmother want you to go to China?”

  He looked away and shook his head.

  “What does she think will happen to you?”

  “She told me a story. You should hear it.”

  “Hurry,” I said. “We need to go.”

  “Long ago, a transformer travelled through the land. He asked people to respect him and pray to him. He met a man who was making a canoe.

  “‘I’m busy,’ said the man, ‘and have no time to pray.’

  “‘That’s a nice adze,’ Transformer said. ‘Let me see it.’

  “He took it and pushed it to the canoe-maker’s nose. At once the man was changed into a woodpecker. He flew to a tree and began to strike it with his beak.

  “Then Transformer met a man who was sharpening a stone. He asked the man what he was doing. The man said, ‘I’m making a weapon to kill Transformer when he comes.’

  “‘That’s a nice knife,’ Transformer said. ‘Let me see it.’

  “He took it and said, ‘You ought to have this on your head.’ He pushed it there, and at once the man became a deer with antlers.

  “Transformer said, ‘You won’t ever make weapons again to kill people.’

  “Then he came upon people playing leha’l. A man with two wives had gambled away his dog. Transformer turned them all into stone.

  “At all the places he stopped, he met good people and bad. He scattered the good people throughout the land, and our families are descended from them. As for the bad people, they were changed into rocks, birds, and animals.”

  “Oh, so you think someday your Transformer will turn the redbeards into rocks?” I said.

  “What someday?” He was annoyed. “Transformer came back and took the lives of workers on the railway.”

  “He killed China men too?”

  “All invaders.”

  “Then your brother should have been saved.”

  “It was a warning to me to quit the job.”

  I thumped my stick on the ground several times. Time to depart. “In China, people prayed for the gods to strike dead the redbeards.”

  “Heaven didn’t listen, did it?”

  We fell silent as though we agreed on that point. Then he said, “Do me one favour? Write your name and village and home district. That way I can find you in China.”

  We had no paper or pencil so I offered to leave a note in the temple store. “I’ll write the words big and clear. Anyone can read it.”

  The pained look on Sam’s face said he didn’t trust me.

  “You don’t think I’ll reach China, do you?” he asked. “Too far-fetched, isn’t it?”

  “I said I would help,” I snapped.

  He was shaking his head as I pulled the boy toward Chinatown.

  Farewells involved the squaring of debt, to give the two parties some peace, to reduce the distance about to separate them. But leaving didn’t free a traveller. In fact it tied him closer to everyone and everything he left behind. After I left home, my village’s grey-black houses, straw-fed fires, and livestock smells became closer than my shadow. I sent money for building a new home, buying firewood, and adding meat to meals. My letters always asked what meats the family had been enjoying, but no one ever replied.

  Only after I left home did I recall events from long ago: as a child, one day I dropped my bowl of rice to the dirty floor. The dish broke and Grandmother cried out against bad luck. I started to cry, expecting to be beaten. Instead, Mother scolded my clumsiness, swept up the mess with her fingers, and gave me her bowl. She ate my rice and spat out the earthenware chips. One year, bandits raided the village while Grandfather was away, so Grandmother crouched by the front door, the kitchen cleaver in her hand, waiting. I was hidden in the cold stove, covered by a mound of kindling. I peed in my pants, but Mother didn’t grumble about washing them. When a wily shopkeeper cheated Mother, Grandfather dragged all three grandchildren to town to watch him gain redress. When a crowd gathered to watch the unruly dispute, Grandfather realized he was shaming the entire family.

  “Don’t meddl
e with troublemakers,” was all that he said at our parting.

  Grandmother added, “Write plenty of letters.”

  They left no room for tears or regret. To show fear was to be weak. To stall the departure was to revisit earlier decisions, all laboured, all painful. Better to think ahead. Look after myself. Get food. Find clothes. Stay healthy. Send money home and then return in person bringing even more. Go back grinning and laughing, and tell tales to dazzle the villagers.

  I had met Sam Bing Lew, what, four days ago? We saw no matter eye-to-eye. He was a fool carrying an earthenware purse, clanging it when he had a few coins. He was a slave who thought himself smarter than his master. Yet I was stricken, a fly with no head. I was ginger that lacked heat, vinegar with no tang. Not only had Sam helped me cross the river in that creaky canoe, but he had also saved me from the trestle, the bandits, and the thugs on the train. He was entitled to receive prime favours from me and my family. My entire family and I should be on our knees before him. But this parting meant that those debts would never be repaid. I had slipped like a determined eel from his hands, and we would never see each other again. He had fallen, and a hundred men like me were trampling over him.

  Chinatown was anchored by the great barn that held Boss Joe’s general store, warehouse, and boarding hall as well as the famed temple. Gold paint announced in English and Chinese the firm, Tai Wo Chong, which was connected to Victoria’s Tai Yuen Company. Its storefront was crowded. In the sun, under awnings for shade and by water troughs for horses, China men loitered and watched passersby. The size of the gathering made me hopeful about borrowing money, but first I visited a smaller shop for some background.

  “You Chinese?” asked the man in English and then Chinook.

  “Ever see a redbeard with one of these?” I replied in Chinese and held up my pigtail.

  Two men stood at a basin of pungent vinegar. One man gave a startled look and hurried out, as if I was a thug for a loan shark. I quickly put down my stick.

  The one in a long apron was stirring pickled greens. “What a face! Never wash it?”

  At the trough outside, Peter howled, but I showed no mercy.

  “This is for your own good!” I shouted. A dirty face was dangerous at bedtime because the soul flew off during dreams. Upon returning, if it failed to recognize its owner’s face, then it did not re-enter its proper home. Parents in my village had woken in the morning to find healthy babies dead, streaks of vomit dried around their mouths. Grandmother said that scrubbing our faces at bedtime was more important than washing our feet. If the boy died while in my care, then I would be cursed forever.

  Inside the store, I tried to regain my honour. “Redbeards on my train wanted to thrash China men, so my guide painted me.”

  “No ladies’ skirts to hide behind? You’re big and tall; you didn’t brawl?”

  “Anyone surnamed Yang here?”

  “I am Yuen. Close enough?”

  “Boss Joe in the Tai Wo Chong store, is he here now?” If not, I would return later. Low-level clerks were a waste of time.

  “A railway bigwig and his wife came to town. The churchman mentioned our temple, so they insisted on a visit. Boss Joe took his oiled lips and slimy tongue there.”

  “Those rabble-rousers want the bigwig to fire the China men,” I muttered.

  “You just arrived and you know everything? Are you Prime Minister?”

  “Why else would they pay train fare to come?”

  “Then those fools just boarded a ship full of bloodthirsty pirates,” said Yuen. “It’s Ancestor Day for Boss Joe. Plenty of China men have come to town.”

  A din outside grew louder. Someone banged together pot lids, clang, clang, clang. A dog barked, high-pitched and without stopping. Boots crunched on hard ground and gravel. Eager voices cheered the marchers. I thought of the English Queen’s birthday rallies in Victoria with military bands and high-stepping horses, crowds and children waving small flags. It had been terrifying to see all the redbeards of the city lining the streets at the same time, vastly outnumbering the China men. I wanted to run but forced myself to stay until the end. In Chinatown, people had asked if I was looking for an early death.

  Yuen hurried to the door but not me. My thieving eyes looked for a cash register. From the front, he called to me. I trudged by a row of flattened ducks, glowing from grease. They were doomed to a second death here.

  When Grandfather took me as a small boy to town, he avoided parades, unless they were sponsored by temples that he knew. Gong beaters and snooty callers led stately marches, shouting for crowds to make way and fall quiet because a judge presided over a public beheading, or a general led troops to the frontier. Common folk never watched if they could find a handy alley for escape. No telling when a sergeant might grab a harmless bystander and press him into the army or cuff and kick him for a lack of respect.

  A ragtag line of redbeards, including Pen Knife and his friends, followed a man waving a red, white, and blue flag on a pole. The man beside the flag bearer walked at a casual pace. It was too hot for suit jackets, but he wore one over a shiny red tie.

  They stopped in front of Tai Wo Chong. Fewer China men were left now, while those who remained were brandishing shoulder poles. The men crouched at ease, chatting in small groups like porters taking a break during a job. Poles were propped against their necks, across their laps. Too bad there hadn’t been time to set planks over the plate-glass windows. Those sharp edges were deadly too.

  “This is death.” Yuen hurried away.

  I slipped two small jugs of rice wine into my jacket and let it fall to the floor. The storekeeper returned with a sturdy hoe and a pitchfork. I gripped my stick from earlier.

  “See the red tie?” He pointed. “Boss Joe owns horses to rent and deliver goods, so does that one. Boss Joe sells cloth and clothing, and so does that one. Boss Joe sends China men out to work, and so does that one. Up to now, both men had plenty of business.”

  “No policeman here?”

  “Left town.”

  “Just as a railway bigwig arrives?”

  He shrugged. “This one inspected the iron road, but now the Company sends him to look at the rockslide.”

  A scream ripped through the air. A China man ran at the redbeards, a shoulder pole raised over his head, ready to crack skulls.

  “Stinking bastards!” he roared. “I take your lives!”

  The redbeards fell back, their mouths open.

  A second China man sprinted from behind them and crashed into the first man. They fell to the ground and then compatriots raced out and dragged them away. They vanished in a second and the two sides stood as if nothing had happened.

  “That Seven could have gotten us killed.” Yuen cursed the hothead. “He is surnamed Jeh. He lost three fingers during railway work.”

  “Can’t they kick him home?”

  “We donated money for a ticket, but he sold it. He is crazy-crazy.”

  From the temple came the bigwigs, led by a churchman. A round white collar capped his dark garments. Mrs. Bigwig sailed by, her bustle up and poking out, yards of cloth draped into a skirt, and a pointy prow of yellow hair at her forehead. Mr. Bigwig fanned himself with a hat. Boss Joe wore a mix of western and Chinese finery. The last man clutched a box with folded bellows, three thin legs, and a shiny glass hole. It was the machine that took pictures.

  A man bowed to Mrs. Bigwig. He offered his arm, she took it, and they strolled toward town. She stopped to shake Boss Joe’s hand. What a three-legged chicken. Most women of her class couldn’t bear to go near China men, much less lay a hand on one of us. But she did wear gloves.

  Red Tie spoke in earnest to Mr. Bigwig, who tucked his thumbs into his vest pockets. The churchman and Boss Joe stepped back. Mr. Bigwig shook his head and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. Red Tie dabbed his cuff under his chin and across his neck. Finally, the railway man strolled away with the churchman. Red Tie yelled to their backs. There was no response. He ran and blocked
their way, but the men swerved around him. When he went back, palms up in failure, his followers gave a roar and started to hurl rocks.

  Right away, Mr. Bigwig was hit and stumbled forward. Luckily, they missed his head. The churchman spun around just in time for a chunk to crash into his chest. Good thing he was sturdy and young, not an old man. The rock throwing stopped. The churchman hurried to Red Tie and pointed at his men, who punched at the sky and booed. Red Tie lifted his hands to calm them.

  Could the Jesus man call on the powers of his god to strike down those who didn’t obey him? A gust of wind swept through and raised a cloud of dust. If Pen Knife and his friends recognized the boy and me from the train, then more trouble was coming.

  Finally, the talking seemed to cool the anger. The tension loosened and the redbeards walked with Mr. Bigwig into town. I sagged with relief, but Yuen shook his head and predicted certain death. “Redbeards lost face in front of us. They can’t live that down. Soon, they’ll come to nail us.”

  He twisted brown paper into a cone and filled it with peanuts for the boy. I hefted the extra weight in my jacket and felt like cat shit on the altar, hated by both gods and ghosts.

  In the street, two men in mock battle swung shoulder poles at one another, hitting and spinning through a gong fu set. Around them, China men clapped each others’ backs, jabbering and chuckling.

  Those fools should have been planning their next defense. They weren’t squatting to shit right away, but the latrine needed to be dug now. Instead, they circled Boss Joe, asking stupid questions. What was discussed inside the temple? Were more railway jobs coming? Did firecrackers need to be burned at the temple to drive away the dirty evils left behind by the redbeards?

  The boss’s high-collared tunic was cut from heavy brocade. It poked out from his hips like a judge’s jacket. His face was fleshy and well-fed.

  “Boss Joe?” I was dusty and badly needed a genial introduction. “Sorry to disturb you on this busy day.”

  He noticed Peter. “Did you find the mother? I can write the letter for you.”