A Superior Man (15 page)

Not long afterward, I went to see Mary. We went to bed, and she clung to me long after we were spent. She left town soon after. I didn't eat or sleep for days. In my mind, we had made each other content, even though we couldn't say much to each other. We shared a quiet sorrow, nothing that was ever discussed or understood. Many of my own people also lived in that makeshift town that had sprung up around a railway depot, emptying the redbeards' chamber pots, digging their latrines, and washing their clothes. Both Mary and I were alone and lonely, even though our own people and languages churned around us. Some mighty force had shaken us loose from all that, like apples falling from a high tree and rolling far downhill. The first time that I had called at the engineer's house, Mary's dark face brightened when she saw my hat and ironed clothes. Our leather shoes were equally shiny. Arm in arm, we strolled back and forth in front of the hotels and drinking houses where Native women gathered. Mary never spoke to them. But neither of us was
free—excitable employers, an error in language, a runaway horse—any simple event could crush us.

A mile after Alexandra Bridge, Sam said, “Big Tunnel is near.”

The wagon road had crossed that bridge to the river's east bank, but we kept following the railway on the west bank. “And Hell's Gate?” I demanded.

“Further north, at least seven tunnels to pass. You afraid of the dark?”

I stalked ahead without answering.

The slopes of Canada's forests and mountains climbed like pillars at a temple, like the walls of a city. In China, the landscape stretched the other way, flat and level. Our patchwork of fields flooded annually to extend the muddy rivers that slid wide and turgid under creaking barges and ferries. What little wild and useless land there was, was found on the graveyard hills, where only drunks and madmen lost their way. In Gold Mountain, a single misstep in the woods led an honest man astray for days.

At home, sunsets shot shimmering orange light from the horizon all the way to my feet at the dockside. Here, the Fraser River burst through its narrow channel like an enraged dragon, spewing steam and spray. The only thing its froth reflected was the broad sky, sometimes bright, sometimes dark. The land and water seethed with potent currents.

A smooth edge caught my eye. Something planned and man-made sliced down through the bushes and white stumps toward us.
At first I thought of coffins on display, but this was too narrow, too shallow. It was a wooden trough, carrying mountain water downhill over crates and sawhorses to a large boarding hall. As long as two city blocks, the trough's sections were bevelled for a tight fit. Bands of leather sealed looser joints. The brat jogged beside it, running his hand alongside as if it were a massive horse. Where one section had toppled, water sloshed onto a soggy marsh.

Nearby, sheds with toppled roofs and walls lay open to the sky. A saw blade, cracked and rusted, as tall as the boy, stood among blackened boilers and charred pallets.

Farther on, a man watered raised rows of greens from a big tin can that hung from his shoulder pole. He plodded along without looking up, deaf to my footsteps. His garden was no graveyard, but I wondered who would be stupid enough to grow crops in the frosty autumn.

“Three men live here,” Sam told me. “The old one, One Leg, is crippled and refuses to go home. Falling rocks softened the skull of his friend No Brain, and left him strange. He follows One Leg all over. The youngster, Fist, of course, wants to go home.”

“One Leg must love the rainy cold of Gold Mountain. Or, he has an ugly wife.”

“Shut your mouth. He's a good customer.”

One Leg stood by a chair, hanging wet clothes on a line strung between rundown cabins. Crutches leaned against a chair. He shouted good morning and waved us on to do the rituals.

We clambered around stumps and boulders to a large graveyard. Someone had cut the wild grass and replaced the markers. Mounds and craters with different heights of weeds and overgrowth
told of burials done over time. It looked like a redbeard graveyard, wide and flat, laid out in straight lines, a sturdy fence around it. One hand had brushed all the names on uniform markers.

Fools had died here. Fellow fools buried them. Newcomer fools tended to them. But no one would be left here to dig up the bones and send them to China. Had the brushwork man used an oily ink? If not, all his careful efforts were wasted; the sun and rain would triumph.

One Leg and No Brain approached. The crutches were homemade, sapling trunks with flaking skin, bound with wire. No Brain had only one arm; his shirt sleeve was pinned to his chest.

Sam hadn't mentioned this flaw; he must have wanted to knock me off-balance, to leave me speechless. After introducing me, he asked, “Where's Fist?”

“That bastard?” One Leg frowned. “Who knows?”

“That bastard? Who knows?” No Brain echoed him but grinned. “He sleeps.”

He had been in the garden, doing the watering with one arm. He must have had lots of practice.

When I honeyed my tongue and asked who had tended the graveyard, Sam stomped off to do the rituals, as if finally assured of my nice manners.

“Very dirty work.” One Leg's crutches gave him heft and height, so he was almost my size. “Only I can read and write. We had no paper or pencil, only ink and brush. Fist stood at the graves while No Brain brought the markers to me. You could hardly read the names that had been written on lumps of rock. Insects crawled out. I gave a jump! I thought they were ghosts. I copied each word onto
new wood and then No Brain took it back to Fist. He planted it in the exact same spot as before.”

“Did you count how many?” I sounded earnest.

“What, you are collecting taxes?”

“No, but—”

“What's your surname?”

I knew that he would snort at my reply.

“Tiny name! We, we are Chan, so thirty of us came together, in one gang. We looked out for each other.”

“How many survived?” Lucky for me, he enjoyed the sound and volume of his words.

“First man left after two months. Mosquitoes bit him and nobody else. They sucked him dry.” He chuckled. “When he got nicked by a razor, no blood flowed, as if he were already salted fish. After the first cold, five men went south, sailed for home. That was three years ago.”

“I've been here four years,” I told him.

“All railway work?”

I changed topics. “Today, we brought excellent goods.”

“Time to start!” Sam beckoned One Leg and No Brain to join him.

Thankful to escape, I led the boy toward the cabin. Its chimney was a rolled sheet of tin, matted with orange-brown rust. At the wood-chopping site, I found stumps with flattened tops and laid blankets over them. When I unpacked tea leaves, two grades of rice, several kinds of dried beans, and pork sausage, it drew flies right away.

I made sure the scoops and scales stood out prominently, hoping
for quick sales that would let us leave. Rail hands who were lucky enough to have quit the work with their bodies intact were less lucky on meeting their maimed comrades. Then they were obliged to listen and grunt kindly to all tales of missing limbs and gory injuries, even if some cockhead was spitting out stories laden with extra vinegar and salt.

One Leg wanted to stay here in Gold Mountain. To go home with only one eye, one arm, or one leg was to bend over and offer your naked rear end to everyone for a hefty kick. If you couldn't work, you were a pot with a burned-out bottom, a hand lacking a thumb, an army without a general. Not only would your wife be forced to tend to you, as was her rightful duty, but she would also continue to hire workers to grow and sell the crops. Your friends and kin would turn away, seeing that you had fallen from the favour of gods and ancestors. Those powerful beings had, after all, let their shielding gaze wander away from you. And if you were bad luck, then everyone was safer to avoid you.

I turned around and found the brat gone. I ran through garden plots, piles of rubbish, and log cabins with fallen roofs. The buildings had not been shingled, only covered by tree branches and long grass. In the cabin that was occupied, faint opium smoke greeted me. Of course: One Leg and No Brain needed help with their pain. I let my eyes adjust to the dark. The cavern had beds, crates, and tools cringing by its walls, its centre as open and empty as a recently harvested field. At the far end, firewood was crackling in a stove by a window.

The brat sat at a big table with wooden legs like smooth sanded balls or the thighs of a giant lady. The table was split down its centre
by a crack, but the two halves had been pulled together by struts, nails, and wire looped tightly around the edge. The boy hummed and stacked low walls of domino tiles, peering at the red and black dots painted on the wood.

I yanked him away. He whined. Gleaming metal caught my eye. A rifle sat on a shelf.

A stern voice in a slow deliberate tone cut through the dark. “At last someone scolds the stupid thing.”

I waited, but the man in the shadows did not come forward.

“Doesn't your boy know not to touch?” he demanded. “He's filthy and our tiles must stay clean.”

“You know what they say.” I tried to laugh it off. “At game halls, fathers know no sons.”

“Haven't you any shame, being a coolie to that mix-blood?”

I tilted my head toward the graveyard. “Don't you pay respects?”

“Don't know any names there.”

“You keep it neat and tidy.”

“One Leg dreams up chores each day.”

“Shouldn't you help him? He was hanging clothes.”

“He insists. I don't argue.”

I snapped, “Don't know how to write the word ‘diligent,' do you?”

Outside, I flapped a cloth to menace the insects again. The men strolled toward us, slowly, for the sake of One Leg, whose crutches poked for solid ground. Behind me, Fist came to the door.

He was small, with the furtive look of an opium addict, keen only on his latest stupor. Now I saw why he kept to the shadows. He had survived smallpox so nicks and gouges covered his face and hands. A ruthless blotch by his nose twisted his face sideways. His
baggy pants and loose shirt made him a child in grown-up's clothes. Skimpy whiskers dripped from a sunken chin, but his eyes were widely set, a good sign. All his limbs and fingers were intact, yet beside him, One Leg and No Brain looked clean and neat, with buttoned shirts, and handsome, with dark eyebrows and wide chins. This could not be a happy place.

“One Leg cooked rice porridge,” called Sam. “He invites us!”

“We have customers ahead,” I pointed out.

Sam was busy touting his goods to No Brain. When One Leg went inside, I recalled the domino tiles. If he saw the brat's little walls, we might get scolded again.

He was balancing on one foot to shove wood into the stove.

“Let me help set the table.” I pushed aside the tiles.

He tossed me a cigar box.

“Not afraid, living so far from town?” I asked. “Remember Yee Fook?”

“Yee Fook needed a gun.”

Two years ago, redbeards sought revenge over a perceived slight and raided a railway camp late one night, setting fire to it. Workers poured out of cabins but got pummeled with poles and heavy tools. Yee Fook was one of two deaths. Every China man in Gold Mountain knew his name, one that would be taken home and sighed over.

No Brain grabbed pots, clutched cloths in his armpit, and ran outside again.

One Leg stirred the food, tasted it, and slammed the pot lid. “Watch that Sam doesn't cheat your wages. Once the trains start running, the price of goods will drop. He'll lose money, starve to death.”

“Stand aside!” No Brain lugged in a laden pot. Sam followed with bulging loads in the carrying cloths.

When I went to fetch the last goods, Fist leaned against the door jamb, smoking a lumpy roll of tobacco.

“Good thing you know how to write the word diligent,” he said.

One Leg ladled the porridge into bowls and put out bits of flavouring: dried fish and pickles, sausages and salted egg, ginger and green onions.