A Superior Man (37 page)

The next afternoon, fragile men overpowered by eagerness crowded the docks as the burly Council guards stopped them from boarding the ship ahead of time. A cluster of shabby, barefoot railway men were travelling on funds donated by the Chinese merchants of San Francisco. Too bad the Lee men from Yale had not arrived here sooner. The travellers looked as if they had been thrown into baths as well as oversized shirts and pants that couldn't get sold. I hoped their pigtails were free from fleas and ticks. Their sponsored departure called for lengthy speeches, giving credit to our fellow Chinese south of the border, a few of whom had come to witness the event.

I carried mostly fresh food that could be eaten before spoilage started. Roast pork would be good for four or five days, but my sack of local apples would last the longest, even though I couldn't afford the sweetest ones. Hawkers mingled through the crowd, touting snacks and small jugs of wine. Dockhands wheeled large crates up the gangplank and large baskets of fresh vegetables arrived for the kitchen. The sooner the ship got underway, the sooner I could start to forget about this place. No one was keen to go down into the gloom of the steerage hold.

Someone pulled my arm. I turned. Fist held out a jug of rice wine.

“What's this?”

He shrugged. “You helped me out. This will keep you warm.”

He wasn't referring to the letter I had written for him. “If I hear of you making lots of money in America,” I said with a smile, “I'll track you down.”

“Did you go to the temple?”

I shook my head. Wet Water Dog had asked the same thing, if I was going to pray for a safe voyage.

A familiar smell slid through the air. Wet Water Dog came behind me, his cigar in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

“Yang Hok,” he called, shaking his head. “Your man is in trouble.”

The daily paper from Yale had just arrived. Wet Water Dog translated from the English as Fist and I listened. Native fishermen had found the body of a Calvin John Shepard, farm labourer, thirty-one, under one of the railway trestles between Yale and Spuzzum. The constable in Yale had no suspicions until Shepard's friends urged the lawman to arrest Sam Bing Lew, the guide. They said that Lew and Shepard had been gambling until late at night, a few days before Shepard's body was found. Lew had been winning, and Shepard covered his losses by staking his fancy penknife, which he lost to Sam. But as it was a family heirloom that had belonged to Shepard's father and grandfather, he asked for it back, planning to borrow money from his employer to pay Sam. Witnesses saw Sam and Shepard leave Yale together.

According to witnesses, Sam returned to town alone later that day and resumed gambling. When police questioned Sam, he claimed that Shepard had repaid him and regained his penknife. Yet it was not found on the body.

“Wasn't this your man?” Wet Water Dog was shaking his head. “They'll hang him.”

I was breathing through my mouth, trying to take in the news. The story had far too many twists of fate to be believed. How could it be that Sam, of the hundreds of people in Yale, would have been
gambling against the man who would come across us on the trestle? I cursed Heaven as I touched the penknife, heavy in my pocket. I had thought it would make a fine gift for Grandfather.

I dragged my sack to the other side of the dock. Fist followed. Across the harbour, clapboard houses painted in bright colours dotted the green hills that rose from the shoreline. A scow drifted by, riding low with a heavy load of crates. Two Native men paddled a dugout from the village across the way toward the city. Seagulls hurtled by so close that the flapping of their wings vibrated in my ears.

“You're safe,” Fist said. “Nobody knows about you.”

“I should kill you,” I said. “You know. I know. As do Heaven and Earth.”

I braced my legs and shut my eyes and tilted my head back. How many damned ghosts were following me?

“Isn't this good news?” Fist was cheerful. “No lawman will ever ask about us. Everyone is safe, everyone can sleep, even Bookman Soon.”

I didn't answer. Fist tugged at my bottle and told me to take a drink.

I shook my head.

“Are you still thinking about that son of yours?”

I jerked away, but he grabbed me. “Don't go back.” The smell of his tobacco was strong. “They will hang you.”

“Sam is blameless.”

“You didn't kill that man,” Fist said. “It was me.”

“I forced you onto the bridge.”

“Don't you want to see your people?”

“Of course.”

“Even if you save Sam, what life can he have? He is mix-blood.”

I shoved my ticket and receipt into Fist's pocket. I thrust the jug of wine and my sack of food at him and ran from the docks.

If only I had looked for Sam that night in Yale. If I had found him, then we might have left together the next morning on the sternwheeler. Sam could have been standing on the docks beside me. We could have sailed off as two free men.

It was raining when the sternwheeler reached Yale. I went to see Soohoo at Clouds Clear Tower. Only the brothel keeper would have enough clout to get me into the jail. He greeted me warmly, thinking I wanted more time with Goddess. He had no idea where I had been. I told him I'd come to see Sam.

“Not involved in that fall, are you?” he demanded

I chose my words with care. “Sam could not have killed anyone. He is a good man.”

“The story goes against him.”

“Will the Council help him at trial?”

“Why? He's no China man.”

“He's half—. He helped me on my trip.”

“What if the police arrest you too?”

“They have no reason for that.”

“You are Sam's friend. They can say you helped him.”

“Has anyone visited him?”

“Only his grandmother.”

Soohoo took me along as he spoke to bigwig redbeards at stores
and offices. Finally we went to the sturdy log cabin that served as jail. The constable was not there, only his Native helper. Soohoo spoke to him and then to me.

“Be careful. If anything happens to you, it may be hard to get you out.”

Sam's cell had a heavy wooden door with a tiny barred slot. I lit the candle that Soohoo had given me and peered in. It was daylight outside, but the small room had no windows. The stink reminded me of our time in Boston Bar's jail. When I called Sam's name, the figure on the ground stirred.

“Yang Hok,” he murmured. “Going back to China?”

“Sam, come here.”

“Limp off.”

“Did they beat you? Do you need liniments?”

“Limp off.”

“I came from Victoria. I was boarding my ship when the news came.”

“You have money to waste? Didn't you lose everything?”

“I brought water and food for you.”

There was the clank of a heavy chain as Sam shuffled over.

I shoved a slim bottle of cold boiled water through the bars. He drank eagerly. Then I passed through rice and meats wrapped in cloth.

“Go piss against those walls.” I brought the candle close and showed him the penknife. His eyes flickered for a moment.

I shoved it back in my pocket. “You didn't kill that man,” I whispered. “I did.”

Sam's eyes were dull. “What does it matter?”

“I'll tell the police. Then they will free you.”

“You think they'll believe you? You're a China man!”

“The knife proves I did it. I'll show it to them.”

“You stupid shit-hole fiend. They'll say we killed that man together. They'll put a rope around your neck and hang you too. People saw us together, here, at the start of the trip.” He pulled at the blanket around his shoulder and turned away.

“This isn't right,” I said. “You didn't kill anyone.”

“You hear the shit leaking from your mouth?”

“I want to help you.

Sam returned and clutched the iron bars. “Go help Peter. Who's his father?”

“You,” I said. “He likes you better than me.”

Sam shook his head. “You fool, you can swear by all your ancestors' names that you killed that man, but the redbeards will never free us. One of us killed one of them.”

“Peter isn't mine any more. He's with your grandmother.”

“I heard. She said she took him for me. But I will die soon, and same for her.”

I reached for Sam's hands, but he walked away. The iron bars were warm where he had clutched them. My hands were wet, from tears.

“Do what you want,” Sam said. “You never listen to me, but this time you should.”

“Should I take him to China?”

“Do whatever you want.”

“And you? What do you want?”

“What I want has never mattered.” He paused. “Don't weep like
a woman. Do you want to be the boy's father? Yes or no? After that, thinking about China will be easy.”

Then he vanished into the darkness.

From:

Provincial Archives of British Columbia

Connaught Library

Parliament Buildings

Victoria, British Columbia

Blanshard 5 - 0672

For Immediate Release

Mr. Willard Ireland, British Columbia Provincial Archivist, and Mr. Kong Hay Wong, President of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Victoria and Chair of the Chinese Subcommittee of the B.C. Centennial Committee, will unveil a pioneer Chinese treasure at the Provincial Archives on April 16, 1958.

This is one of the Provincial Archives' extensive program of events marking the centennial of the birth of the province.

Mr. Hok (“Hank”) Yang of Boston Bar was a pioneer immigrant to B.C. and worked on the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which took place from 1880 to 1885. For years he ran the Tai Hing General Store in Boston Bar. Before his death in 1938, Mr. Yang presented the Yale and District Museum with his 300-page memoir.

Since that time, the memoir has not been read. The gift came with a restriction: it could not be opened until 1958, 100 years after his birth.

“I only know that it's written in Chinese,” says Mr. Ireland. “It's invaluable; we don't have many records from the Chinese.”

Mr. Wong will do on-the-spot translations during the unveiling, which will also feature colourful dances from China's 2,000 years of tradition, performed by the Chinese Public School dance troupe.

Confirmed guests at the unveiling include Lieutenant Governor Frank Mackenzie Ross, CMG, MC; Mr. Lawrence J. Wallace, Deputy Provincial Secretary and Chairman of the B.C. Centennial Committee; as well as Mr. Hok Yang's son Peter and Peter's children and grandchildren. Members of Mrs. Peter (Jeannie) Yang's extended family from the Kopchitchin Indian Reserve will also attend.

When queried about his father's memoir, Mr. Peter Yang revealed, “Pop wanted to tell the truth of why he stayed here and didn't go home to China, but he didn't want to embarrass anyone.”

####

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

This author acknowledges that the story “The Transformer” belongs to the Nlaka'pamux First Nations people of British Columbia's Fraser Canyon and that unresolved issues remain around the use of traditional Native stories. First Nations assert that such stories told by their people may not enter the public use domain the same way as stories told or written by white people.

The version of the story used here was collected by James Teit, an anthropologist working from Spences Bridge in the early twentieth century. As pointed out in
Our Tellings: Interior Salish Stories of the Nlha7kápmx People
, compiled and edited by Darwin Hanna and Mamie Henry (UBC Press, 1995):

“Without the aid of a tape recorder, however, he [Teit] had to rely on his memory. As a result, his records are mere sketches of the original telling. He also had to submit his collections to the editorship of his mentor, Franz Boas. Because Boas was more interested in composite than in individual stories, he eliminated many of the names of the individual tellers and communities. On reading Teit's published collections today, one is left wondering exactly whose
works and whose stories are being represented.” (p. xiv)

I urge readers of this book, and of “The Transformer” tale, to recognize the many outstanding issues confronting the First Nations of British Columbia and to lobby their political representatives to move toward addressing these matters to the full satisfaction of all parties involved.

In writing this book, I received help from friends, family, and colleagues. Wayson Choy, SKY Lee, and Jim Wong-Chu commented on earlier portions of the book. Prabha Khosla, Dr Keith Lowe, and Dr Lisa Yun provided insights on the term “coolie.” Susan Safyan, editor at Arsenal Pulp Press, noticed the glitches in my manuscript and proposed solutions. My brother Vernon and his family hosted me on my research trips to Vancouver. Dr. Andrea Laforet provided advice on traditional First Nations stories. Most important of all, my partner Mohamed Khaki had unshakeable faith in this writing project despite its long gestation. His sister Jenny provided delicious meals far beyond the call of duty. I gratefully acknowledge funding from the literature programs of Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council.