A Superior Man (29 page)

At the Native village, we were sent into the forest to cut pine boughs for bedding. Our beds were on the ground, under lean-tos made of woven mats. Giggling children called out to Peter, and they raced into one of the great round houses built into the ground. Each structure had a wooden ladder emerging from the cone-shaped roof. The
village looked clean, and its people were well fed. They tended dusty fields of potatoes. I wished Mary lived in these forests rather than the desert lands of Lytton. Big meaty animals fed among the trees and could be hunted for food. After we came back, we started a fire in a pit of rocks. An elderly woman brought over tea leaves. We sniffed and found them to be a superior grade to what was served in teahouses. To have China men accepting tea from a Native woman was to be eating shit and excreting rice: the ways of the world were reversed.

Then the brat ran by, with Sam chasing him. What was that? I shook my head, thinking that my eyes had gone flowery from lack of sleep. Sam was with his woman and his child, back in Lytton. But the mix-blood guide scooped up Peter and hurried over.

“Yang Hok, we sail to China together!” He gave me a wide smile, and his voice was real.

“What are you doing here?” I felt my bones shrink. Bad luck was snaking up my shit-hole. The last thing I wanted now was to go to China with him and the boy. I may as well bring an entire village of eager Natives. “Was your child born?”

“A girl. The mother insists I am not the father.” He did not mind my fellow travellers hearing all his shame. “You won't go to Mary?”

“Didn't you see the fire?” I poured him some tea.

“I was ahead of you! The mother's people didn't want me there. They wouldn't even let me see the baby. I left yesterday, boarded
Skuzzy
, and reached Boston Bar last night. I didn't hear about the fire until I saw Fung at the roadhouse. He mentioned a China man with a mix-blood boy from Lytton, so I came to see if it was you. It's the right thing, changing your mind.”

“I need money to buy his passage.” I waved at the brat. “You have money for your own ticket?” Surely this would thwart his plans for China.

“Those two boys sold my bootleg.” He laced his fingers around the mug and sipped the tea. “And I gambled last night. In China I can help you watch the boy. I can translate for your boy, make his life easier. He won't be so scared.”

“Did you stop in Boston Bar and get my money back?” I reminded him that he too had once been too weak to piss.

“I caught a ride on a wagon. I planned to wait for you in Yale.”

“People in China will tell you to limp off with your rotted corpse,” I said.

“I promised my father I'd go home.”

“Kinsmen will smother you and bury you and no one will look for you. The countryside has its own laws.”

“My father's ghost and mine would haunt them.”

“Village people don't trust strangers.” I spat out some tea leaves.

“You wanted to see me recite the family tree to my relatives.”

“People in China kill each other over land. They slaughter entire families. No one has enough. That's why we work abroad, to buy more land at home.”

“A fellow with a wagon is waiting for me.” He handed me the empty tea mug. “You can come with me now.”

“I go to see Fist.” My mouth saved me before I could think. In truth, the fire had devoured One Leg and his troubles and cast them out of my mind.

Sam's eyes narrowed and his voice was accusing. “You weren't planning that.”

I looked away. “In jail, I asked Heaven to help me escape. I promised to help Fist, so I went to the temple.”

“You change your mind all the time. Ever stand on both feet?”

“It's the truth.”

Sam stalked off, shaking his head. The boy ran after him, calling his name. Sam spun him around, spoke a few words, and sent him stumbling back to me. By the time he arrived, he was wailing again, and the men blamed me for getting weep-ruined.

How dare that Sam presume that I would go with him to China? Yesterday's fire in Lytton had changed everything. How could that stupid cockhead not see that? I had to look after my son now, the same way he was caring for himself, pushing his way into China.

Seven spoke up. “If you don't want that mix-blood man in China, then why take your boy there?”

Luckily for me, the rail hand threw out a handful of dice and started a game for all the men. I said the boy needed to nap and took him away with my cup of tea.

When we returned to the roadhouse next day, the stagecoach had arrived and the horses were being replaced with a new team. The boy ran toward them. Fung stood chatting with Boss Joe, who held a large bundle in his arms. A thick knot showed several layers of stiff new cloth rolled together. Sharp corners poked out to indicate a box.

“Is that His Holiness?” Seven demanded.

Boss Joe nodded.

“You got nothing from Red Tie,” Seven went on, frowning and shaking his head, “and now you leave Lytton for good.”

“
A homesick heart is a speeding arrow
.”

“You should have let me stay there,” snapped Seven.

The lead escort stepped up and greeted his employer.

“Couldn't sleep last night and kept thinking about the temple,” said Boss Joe. “Good thing I didn't let you take His Holiness yesterday. What if you dropped the statue?”

“If His Holiness was on the stagecoach, we would have reached Yale yesterday. The wheel wouldn't have gotten loose.”

When I told Boss Joe about my plans to go see Fist, he cried out, “Don't waste time with those fool pigs. They will never leave. What His Holiness said won't make any difference to One Leg.”

“I cannot not go.”

“Then you should have told me earlier, in Lytton,” he snapped. “Don't play me for a fool. I would have paid your way just to this bridge. We get no refunds here.”

“Hey, Boss.” The other escort had spoken to Fung. “So you revenged yourself against Red Tie.”

“Where's that fool Seven?” Boss Joe looked around. “He should hear this.”

They dragged him over and the story started. “Yesterday I went nosing around my store, looking for melted gold dust. I heard a squealing, very faint, like the mewing of kittens. I stood still and listened. It came from a corner of the floor that had escaped the fire, where water from the overturned barrels had seeped in. Under the boards was a nest of baby mice, just big enough to start running on their own. I scooped them into a bag. Then I went to Red Tie's store
and asked for him. When his clerk went to fetch him, I opened the bag and released the mice, ten or so of them. They scampered under the counter. When Red Tie came, I gave him the keys to my safe, which was sitting on the street, and said, ‘It's yours.'”

I pictured Red Tie's store stretching long and narrow so the light from the front windows weakened at the back. The mice vanished, wriggling, into narrow cracks in the wall, their tails whipping behind them. A clerk's eyes widened. He chased them, his long apron flapping, with a broom. A woman flung a brown-paper packet of raisins onto the counter. When an oil lamp was lit, it showed black pellets of mouse shit nestled amidst the dried fruit. The woman and her friends marched from the store in a huff. My stomach was suddenly warm with fresh-cooked rice.

“So, only you can take revenge, is that it?” asked Seven. “You're the big hero?”

Boss Joe arched an eyebrow. “My deed harmed no China man.”

“You play with mice, you hide like mice. That's no great deed. No redbeard will hear about it.”

“You want your hands tied and your mouth gagged?”

“May I bring His Holiness a question?” asked Fung.

“Here?” The lead escort frowned. “Don't be stupid.”

“Why not?” Boss Joe clapped Fung on the back. “His Holiness serves his followers wherever they are.”

“We have no incense or wine,” protested the escort.

“I have everything,” said Fung, offering a cloth bundle.

“This place is too exposed, too dark.”

“Fung came twice to the temple this year,” said Boss Joe. “He has urgent matters.”

“It's nothing.” Fung reddened at the sudden attention on him. “I keep thinking to go home. I asked His Holiness if the time was right, but both times he told me no. If His Holiness is leaving Gold Mountain, then this is my last time to seek his advice.”

The escort untied the knot and opened the crate. The box was lined with more red cloth. He knelt, bowed his head, and whispered a short prayer before lifting the statue out and placing it on a flat tree stump. The escort was right: His Holiness was dwarfed by the trees and the clearing around him. The temple in Lytton had been a tight space where it was possible for His Holiness to assert his powers in a room of familiar trappings. Fung fetched the worship items, lit the candles and incense, and poured wine. Then he knelt and brought his forehead to the ground. Boss Joe handed him the charms, which he cast onto the ground. Everyone crowded in to see. The answer was no. He cast them again, and received the same answer.

Fung sighed. “Still not the right time.”

I shook my head at this cockhead. If he wanted to go home, then why not just leave? That lucky bastard had none of my stupid problems. Why seek advice from His Holiness? Could there ever be a wrong time to head for home? Didn't home and family trump all other considerations, even money? What did he fear?

From the road-house, the boy and I walked to the bridge. The canyon narrowed here, which had allowed a crossing to be built long ago. The tightened river gave advantage to fishermen, and they crowded the banks with spears and nets. The boy poked his head through the
railing and called. The men and women below waved and shouted back.

The boy gave a whoop of joy on seeing the railway, as if the shiny beams were his old toys. At first he tried to walk along one track, his arms spread wide to balance himself, but then he darted ahead. When I hurried after him, the boy thought we were playing chase and ran faster, laughing and screaming. I ran too but let him stay ahead until we both ran out of breath.

A chase from long ago came to mind. A feast of the food left from the annual rites had just ended. My pals and I had just caused our arch-enemy, the spoiled grandson from the richest family among us, to slip into the muddy bank of the river. A sampan bearing coloured banners had drawn us to the water.

Then the grandson's furious minder chased us, waving a bamboo switch. We sprinted by the vegetable plots on the sunny side of the village. We raced through the stone laneways between the black brick houses. We split up to force the minder to choose one quarry.

The minder bore down on me, a set look on his dark face. I stopped. The men of the village squatted in front of the ancestral hall, fanning themselves and smoking tobacco.

The men looked up. Children running always meant trouble. My father summoned me just as the minder ran up and complained about the muddy insult. My name in his voice made me shudder. To my surprise, my father put on a startled look and said, “Such a small matter? You can beat the boy and make him cry, but if that summons bad luck on such a day, don't say I didn't warn you.”

The minder backed off.

Every time that memory arose, I wondered if Father had really
spoken up for me. Or had he given me a severe spanking later that night? I would ask Grandfather.