A Superior Man Read online

  Yuen, who had not attended the banquet, opened his doors and invited people into his storeroom. The crowd surged away.

  In a corner, I lay down with the boy. Smoke lingered on his clothes and hair. Despite the panic and noise, he was asleep. I thrust my ear to his nose to ensure that he hadn’t inhaled poison. He had been a willing traveller on this trip, showing little fear. Maybe panic was normal; this ruined and troubled land was the only place he knew as home. He may have trekked up and down the canyon and seen how rudely the redbeards treated his people. I should have praised his efforts, told him he was a good lad. I had expected him to wail loudly every morning for his mother, but he hadn’t done so. Had Mary prepared the boy, telling him over and over that one day his true father would take him away? Had she drummed discipline and restraint into him, as tools needed for daunting times?

  Boss Joe sternly advised his restless guests to stay far from town. Nothing could be done until the full extent of damage was known. He preferred to talk in daylight when the enemy’s faces were clear. If the guests wanted to pursue redress, then they should list their losses with his clerk. Everyone would be treated fairly. Men shook their heads, doubtful of justice, wondering if Boss Joe might be playing some selfish game. Someone cursed Boss Joe for sending the crew from Keefers to the landslide. That had caused all this trouble.

  Sentries crouched by the doors and windows with shoulder poles and hoes. The farm tools stockpiled at Boss Joe’s store that afternoon had gone up in flames. People were lighting incense before His Holiness. A man prayed loudly.

  “If we flee outside, we’ll get clubbed like Yee Fook,” said Yuen. Friends told him to shut his mouth.

  Yuen wandered around, resting his forehead against the walls and scraping his knuckles against the wood.

  “Death,” he muttered. “Certain death.”

  “We all die,” someone said, “sooner or later.”

  “Not at the hands of the redbeards. That’s too low an insult.”

  The smells of dried beans and salted fish lingered in the storeroom. I lay stiff and tense, counting Sophie’s coins over and over. They were too few to get us to Victoria. Yale was four days away, by foot, and my boot soles were getting thin and soft. The boy and I needed to walk the day and a half to North Bend. At Sophie’s fish camp, I would loudly agree with Lam’s advice to take the boy to China, and then press the miner to put some money behind his words.

  “Talk is easy, action is not,” I would say. “Can’t boil water by stirring it.”

  Same thing for Yang the washman in Spuzzum: “Better to set sail than stay in port.”

  For Soohoo the brothel keeper in Yale: “Superior men seek justice, not food.”

  Voices in the dark revealed two factions among Boss Joe’s workers. One side had expected the store to go bankrupt, sooner or later. In the morning, those men would head south. The men who opposed this view planned to stay, hoping Boss Joe would buy out Yuen, who had put his store on the market right after the railway’s completion. Yuen was old and soft like a piece of wet cow hide, they noted, and keen to go home. Boss Joe could make a future here, especially if he also bought the other shop with two whores among its assets.

  Overnight, Yuen stoked a fire and simmered pots of rice porridge. A few farmers and miners departed at dawn without eating. Boss Joe’s men fetched river water to let us wash off the grime and soot. The boy and I needed to look clean in case we were forced to beg for food on the road. Too bad the red paint that Sophie had dabbed on Peter still showed.

  The men were squatting, eating in the storeroom when Seven declared, “Tonight, I’ll go burn that new church. Anyone can join me.”

  Someone jeered. “You can light matches with two fingers?”

  “I’ll do it with one.”

  “Screw you,” said a miner. “Trouble circles back to us. Where we work, no crowds give us safety.”

  “Native people built that church,” said a clerk. “They didn’t burn us.”

  “No wonder redbeards burned the store,” said Seven. “China men here did nothing after Yee Fook was killed.”

  “Redbeards have guns,” said the clerk. “Want to send us to hell?”

  Peter was tugging to go to the outhouse, but I wanted to hear this.

  “Fire burned you out.” Seven looked around. “Clothes, blankets, your letters from home. You lost everything and you’re not angry?”

  “You’ll light a match, then flee, and leave a mess for us.”

  “I give you a lofty status. People will applaud. You fought back when China was insulted.”

  Boss Joe called for silence. He squatted among his men, eating porridge.

  “Have children?” He glanced at Seven.

  The firebrand shook his head. His thick pigtail, heavy as a chain, hung to his waist.

  “Wife?”

  “None, but my parents count on me.”

  “Then no matter what you say now, you want to go home safely.”

  “I’ll do this alone.” Seven’s face twisted with scorn. “Then you can all puff up and brag about what we did here.”

  “You’re crazy and people will die,” said Boss Joe. “Tie him up.”

  His men surrounded Seven, who thrashed about until they pinned him and fetched rope.

  “You’re no magistrate!” He hurled his face from side to side, strong but no match for four men. “You serve no laws!”

  “This is what I know.” Boss Joe put down his bowl and grabbed a hammer. “I should smash your ankle, hand you a box of matches, and watch you crawl to that church.”

  “You disgrace all China men.” Seven struggled to free himself. “None of you have face!”

  “Anyone want to set a fire?”

  After a pause, Boss Joe announced he would send Seven to Yale on the stagecoach and get rid of him once and for all.

  Peter dashed to the door, one hand at his crotch. I ran after him, afraid he might fall into the pit below.

  Seven was right about revenge. After our village was raided and burned during the Guest Wars, Grandfather had joined an overnight raid. I wanted to go too but Mother said no, even though other boys of my age went. The men dragged back weeping captives, fine furniture, and a crate of fine porcelain wrapped in cloth.

  “Find kindness, respond with kindness!” they shouted. “Find hatred, respond with hatred.”

  The enemy struck back. They burned several fields of ripening rice and the ancestral hall, as well as the 200-year-old banyan tree by the fish pond.

  Grandfather and his friends vowed, “No revenge, no rest.” They set to work honing spears and axes.

  They crept out on another raid, jointly planned with clan and village allies. This time, they returned with the corpses of our own people. The deceased were buried as heroes; their names were etched onto plaques. The raiders brought back less booty this time, explaining that other raiders had taken the best treasure. They bragged about scores of deaths, including the slaughter of women and children. No wonder people at home feared angry ghosts: among the trees and bamboo, on narrow paths, and anywhere near water. People had been bound and tossed into lakes, chopped down from the back as they fled, or burned alive in stockades under siege.

  “If you don’t kill them now, then they will slaughter you later,” said Grandfather’s friend. “Even if you kill them, their eyes don’t close. They’re watching you! And if you don’t murder their children, they will grow up and chase you for revenge.”

  Grandmother had disagreed. “Wolves and snakes sneak around to swallow pigs and chickens.”

  When we returned to the storeroom, I found the cold porridge hard to swallow. Railway coolies were workers held in thrall by our wages. When redbeards spat on us, we let the spit dry. We shrugged off shame and swallowed pride so that daily life could go on. There was nowhere for the disgrace to go, only deep into our guts to be stirred into bile. No water could cool the burning hurt. We dreamed of revenge, of honour restored.

  But no one had ever thought
it through, had dreamed what exact form the revenge might take. Did it mean arresting arrogant bosses and having them beheaded? Would we receive back wages equal to what the redbeards had earned? Did it mean ordering redbeards to carry out burials with no expense spared for rotted corpses found in the river? Would the Queen of England kowtow to the Emperor of China? Did it mean rounding up foul-mouthed little boys and spanking them until their teeth were jarred loose?

  That man Seven knew exactly what he wanted to do, but not the rest of us, and certainly not those who had gone back to China to forget everything.

  It wasn’t until Boss Joe took Seven to the stagecoach that we trudged outside. The sky was a faint, streaky blue, cut by thin clouds. A pink light, tinged with yellow, slipped through the dark trees. Smoke rose from several chimneys in town; it was the start of another day, business as usual. The lines of buildings were sharp in the clean morning air. In the west, layers of grey clouds massed over distant hills and hinted at rain.

  The cool air reminded me how far I was from south China. I gripped the stick that had been with me ever since my coming to town. The mountains loomed higher and closer now that a gaping hole shrank the town. Fallen timbers, charred and whitened, lay helter-skelter in the ruins and on the road. Shabby rags of smoke rose from the blackened site. A sooty iron stove sat lopsided among the ruins. When two horses that had galloped off last night found their own way back, sniffing at the ground, the men shouted out lucky wishes.

  “A good horse never lowers its head.”

  “One spear and one steed, that’s all you need.”

  “Dragons and horses bring brisk forces.”

  The men bound for Yale tied bundles to their backs and reached for walking sticks. To keep pace with these men, I would need to carry the boy.

  Boss Joe walked with me. “You didn’t say much this morning,” he said.

  I gave him Grandfather’s favourite saying: “To cross the river, raise your pants; to open your mouth, get the facts.”

  He chuckled and asked my destination. On hearing it was Yale, he asked, “Not Cache Creek?”

  I shrugged. No need to talk to this demon with a rat’s head.

  “Take the boy to Hong Kong,” he said. “Lots of mix-blood people there.”

  His advice was useless, so I asked politely about Mary’s husband, Louis.

  “That’s Louis at Lopez Creek,” exclaimed Boss Joe. “He and his first wife had three little ones, I think. Then he and Mary had more children.”

  He left abruptly to greet the churchman. They shook hands, as if no disaster had occurred last night, and spoke quietly. The stagecoach driver waved the passengers aboard, frowning when two escorts shoved in Seven, hands tied at his back. The firebrand was sullen and resigned, but he lunged, cursing and spitting, at Boss Joe. The merchant recovered right away to chat and laugh with the driver as fares were paid. The churchman left after saying goodbye to the one redbeard passenger.

  Then Boss Joe beckoned to me.

  “Get aboard.” He spoke loud enough for all to hear. “You do a good deed. Be kind, receive kindness. One hero knows another. How can I let this pig demon ride to Yale while you and the boy walk? I paid your fares.”

  In an instant, I was kneeling and kowtowing. If he toasted me once, then I toasted him ten times. I would be in Yale by sundown and in Victoria tomorrow.

  Then I felt the men laughing at me and jumped up to ask about Mary’s creek.

  “Wasteland,” said Boss Joe. “Too hot and dry in the summer. In the winter, herds of cattle freeze to death. What a stink the carcasses leave in the springtime.”

  “The Natives fare well?”

  “Are you stupid? They get bits of land while a redbeard rancher takes a tract that stretches to the horizon. Their men go tend the redbeard’s cattle.”

  The driver whistled a warning. Boss Joe told his workers to meet him the next day in Yale, where he planned to talk to the Council.

  The coach reeked of cigars, hair oil, shoe polish, and horse dung while the windows let in swirls of dust. I tried to grip the seat but its cushions had flattened long ago. Among the nine of us were two escorts, a store clerk, another rail hand, a ranch cook, and the redbeard. First to have boarded, now he sat tight in the corner, keen to get off.

  “Anyone recall this one?” Seven shouted over the din of wheels and hooves. “Was he in the parade?”

  “Those men had messy beards,” said the lead escort. “This one is high class.”

  “Why not scare him a bit?”

  “You learned nothing?” The escort rammed an elbow so hard into Seven that he grunted and doubled over. “We don’t want trouble.”

  I turned away. Don’t kill the hen that lays eggs. One wheel rumbled through a crater and the stagecoach lurched. Seven crashed into his escorts and then fell to his knees. He managed to right himself but stayed on the floor. The escorts kicked him.

  “Why not untie him?” I asked.

  “He burns buildings,” said the escort. “You should thank Boss Joe for doing this.”

  “He guards his own prospects,” said Seven.

  “His store burned. Didn’t you see?”

  “He’ll buy the other shops. He wants to do business, that’s what he wants.”

  After a while, the ranch cook passed around dry cakes and cold tea. I declined but the brat ate happily. When the clerk passed around crunchy apples, they talked about the fire.

  “I fetched the churchman. He came running but did nothing.”

  “We moved the safe. The boss dropped the keys and lost them, so three of us pushed and dragged the iron box outside.”

  “Those boxes can’t burn,” someone said. “You could have left it there.”

  “No, fires can roast everything in an iron safe into black ash. Papers don’t even need to burn.”

  As mountains slid across the horizon, I mulled my choice from last night. A few mix-blood children, boys usually, were taken to China from here. No news of them ever drifted back to Gold Mountain, as if they dropped down a deep well the moment they set foot in the frenzied pushing and shoving of China. Had they attended school or guarded flocks of noisy geese? Were they speaking Chinese and using chopsticks? Were they happy? Or had angry kinsmen pressed heavy quilts over the children’s faces and smothered them in the dark? Had family members awoken to a death dismissed with: “He never got used to our water and soil”?

  Grandmother had no views on the local Chinese who gave up their friends to follow the redbeard Jesus men, translating their speeches and singing hymns in the streets. Grandfather clung to the idea of respect: he lashed out at the rowdies who hurled insults and soft fruit at the Jesus men.

  “Live to a hundred, learning doesn’t halt,” he said.

  One day Grandmother bought British cotton at one-third the price of Chinese cloth. Grandfather flew into a rage and denounced her until she agreed to exchange it for local material, even though by this time she had lost her bargaining advantage. She vowed that Grandfather wouldn’t get new trousers that year.

  In town, Grandfather and his cronies mocked the teenage son that the rice merchant had brought home from the north. The lad spoke with a slight accent but the men insisted they couldn’t understand him. They hooted and dubbed him with rude names. Yet when the brothel keeper imported a northern woman who hardly grasped our local dialect, Grandfather and his friends rushed to see and praise her.

  The village wags would sneer at how I had aped Ba’s brazen ways and spawned offspring abroad without any family blessing. “Like father, like son,” they would crow, “all badly taught, not a speck of respect for traditions.”

  If matters worsened in the village, then I would take Peter to Hong Kong and work there. I had pulled heavy loads alongside mix-bloods on those docks. Chinese women who slept with redbeard men had been raising such children since the days of the first Opium War. Those with well-to-do patrons got stipends and sent their children to English schools. Those with shabby connections to sailors or common
workers, or no ties at all to the fathers, reared the children in their own families and sent them to work. Hong Kong was a free port. If you made decent money, then you were a decent man.

  Taking Peter home would be easier if I had my bankroll. That would let him become part of my golden success, where I not only earned money but created sons wherever I went. Sons born abroad foretold of sons to be born at home. A first-born male led the way, opened the path for long lines of boy children to follow. I prayed for the gods’ help: if I climbed onto this tiger’s back, then it would be very hard to get off. Sam and China men like Lam wanted me to take the boy to China. Their talk was cheap; the heavy work fell to me, to win goodwill for the boy after my colossal failure overseas.

  The redbeard nodded off to sleep and threw off anguished snores. I looked across the river and saw the fallen mountain already draped over the railway. Screw, we had already passed Sophie’s camp. Now I couldn’t ask Lam for money. I had wanted to point out the camp so that Peter could see that his father too knew a thing or two about this landscape and could track down people when needed. With Sam gone, I grew taller. Peter poked his head out the window, waiting for curves in the road ahead that would show the six horses thundering by. I looked too but the dust scratched my throat and made me cough.

  Seven nudged me with his foot. “You lump of shit, you should have spoken earlier,” he muttered. “We could have made things right.”

  “I need to watch the boy.”

  “What China do you go to? If we don’t fight the redbeards, then we should cut off our pigtails and stop calling ourselves China men.”

  “You should have acted on your own.”

  “Shouldn’t men fight for their honour?”

  “They want to go home. Don’t you?”

  “They do nothing but talk.”

  It was time to teach Peter some Chinese: surely that would win him toothy grins of approval in China. I chanted from Three Word Classic, rocking from side to side in time with the rhythm.