Alaska (119 page)

So on the spur of the moment he did what resolute men had often done when faced by a situation they could not tolerate: he decided to strike out on his own and take his chances for a new life that was better than the one he had known in the past or was enjoying now. In addition to his courage, which was of a high order, he had certain self-assurances: Nobody, not even Mr. Venn, knows machines better than I do. No one can work harder. And I doubt if there are many who are willing to take the chances I took in getting out of China or beating off the murderers in San Francisco.

If anybody can do it, I can.

He therefore quietly slipped out of the new building by the secret way he had gotten inby removing a floorboard left all his petty gear in the bunkhouse, and with only the clothes he wore, walked casually through the darkness to the mouth of the Pleiades River where it widened before joining Taku Inlet. He was clear of the cannery and for the moment safe from detection by anyone outside. Although he was in no degree guilty of any crime, all the Chinese had been warned that Alaska would not allow any Orientals to remain permanently within its borders: 'You must all sail back to Seattle in the fall or face arrest.'

But with the wisdom he had accumulated during his stay in America, he felt certain that no matter where he settled he could earn a living by fixing things. He estimated his value as a carpenter, a plumber, a builder to be high, and he knew that such people were always welcomed, no matter what the law said. He was, as before, willing to take his chances.

He had heard many times of Juneau, and from what the 723

men who lived there said, he judged it to be an attractive place, precisely the kind of growing community that would provide work for a man of his talents. But how to get there he did not know. On several occasions he had made carefully veiled inquiries, but the white foremen had always said: 'We came by boat,' and he had no boat. He knew also that Juneau lay on the other side of the two glaciers with which he was familiar; Walrus he had seen three times when the Seattle ship transporting him back and forth had stopped off Walrus Rock to blow its whistle in hopes an iceberg would break off because of the resonance, but this had never happened; and of course he had seen Pleiades Glacier almost daily since his arrival at Totem. They were formidable barriers of ice, and he knew that above them the great ice fields continued for many miles, so he had no desire to trust his luck to such awesome terrain.

Three or four times during his work at Totem he had seen an older Indian workman visit the place, and by chance he had learned that this was the Tlingit with the strange name of Bigears. Because Ah Ting had an insatiable hunger for collecting information that might later be of use, he was able to recall hearing casual remarks which had led him to believe that Bigears was not entirely pleased with having the cannery so close to his home.

And where was that home? Again, by paying the most careful attention, Ah Ting had found out that it occupied that visible headland due north of the smaller point on which the cannery rested, and now in the darkness, when he knew of no friend anywhere that he could trust, he concluded that if he could reach this Bigears, he might find some way to get to Juneau.

Slipping far inland from the Totem dock, he found a spot where the Pleiades River narrowed, and there he waded at first, then swam the short distance to the northern shore. Waiting for an hour in the warm summer night till his clothes dried more or less, he started down the right bank of the river until he came in sight of Bigears'

cabin. Seeing a light in the window, he took several deep breaths, committed himself to bold action, and knocked on the door.

Sam Bigears, the man he had seen at the cannery, did not appear, he was in Juneau; but his daughter, Nancy, did, and when she opened the door she betrayed no surprise at seeing a Chinese man standing before her.

'Hello! Trouble at the cannery?'

He understood the question and its implications, and he knew that he gambled his future on what he said next: 'I try to get to Juneau.'

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'Did they send you from the cannery? Why didn't they give you a boat?'

'I run away. No more work cannery.' Nancy Bigears, who was also disgusted with the factory across the estuary, understood his plight. 'Come in,' she said. 'Mother, man here to see you.' And from a back room Mrs. Bigears walked calmly in, and like her daughter, expressed no surprise at seeing a Chinese facing her.

'His pants are wet,' she said in Tlingit. 'Ask him if he wants some tea.'

And in this way Ah Ting met the Bigears family, with whom he hid for three days until Sam returned from Juneau. When Sam heard the story, which Nancy had developed in detail, he greeted Ah Ting heartily, assured him that there would be a way for him to reach Juneau, and told him further that good workmen were needed on at least a score of building and repair jobs in the youthful capital.

On the second day of Ah Ting's visit with Sam Bigears, the Indian said frankly: 'I never like Chinese in Alaska. Good thing they go.'

'I work hard,' Ah Ting replied.

'That very important in Juneau,' Sam said, and that afternoon he took Ah Ting fishing well up the Taku.

It was during their absence that Tom Venn was rowed across the estuary to inquire whether the Bigears family had seen anything of the missing Ah Ting. 'He's done nothing wrong,' he explained to Nancy, whom he had seen only rarely since their romantic moment. 'He's needed at the cannery. He keeps the other Chinks in line.'

Without actually lying, Nancy indicated that neither she nor her mother had knowledge of the mysterious fugitive, and as she deflected Venn's inquiries she thought: If Ah Ting wants to escape that prison over there, I'll help him. So she told Tom nothing.

But since he had taken the trouble to cross the estuary, and since he had not seen Nancy for some months, Tom lingered and accepted the tea Mrs. Bigears offered. Still interested in Nancy's future, he asked: 'Are you still at school in Juneau?'

'Vacation.'

'Are you learning anything?'

'Two good teachers, four pretty bad.'

'The good teachers are men, I suppose?'

'All women. The principal is a man, a real dooper.'

'And what does that mean?'

'You wouldn't let him shovel snow at your store.'

'It's not my store anymore. Mr. Ross says I'm to spend my time opening new canneries.'

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'All over?'

'As soon as he gets government permission.'

'And you'll steal the rivers? Like here?'

'We'll sell a million cans of salmon. Make everyone rich.'

She pointed in the general direction of the Totem Cannery: 'Nobody here gets rich from that one. You fired all the fishermen. Now I suppose you'll be firing all the Chinese, too.'

'Who told you that?'

'People talk. In Juneau they know everything pretty quick. Those two men from the university who came up three weeks ago. They had pictures of a new machine. What will the new machine do?'

'Who told you that?'

'The woman who works in the hotel. She saw the pictures. She knew they were a machine.'

Nancy, realizing that it would be embarrassing and perhaps even dangerous if Tom Venn was still there when her father brought Ah Ting back, said abruptly: 'Well, I suppose you have to get back to work.'

'Yes, I'm going.' But as he started to walk toward the waiting boatman he felt dissatisfied with the way this visit had gone, so he returned to the house, and when Nancy appeared at the door he asked her to go with him to the totem pole, and in its shadow he said: 'What's wrong with you, Nancy? Have I done something to offend you?' And he asked these questions so frankly that she felt ashamed of herself for having treated him so brusquely.

'I thought last time that we agreed we were going separate ways. It's better.'

'But that doesn't mean we can't be friends. I admire your father. I admire you.'

And now Nancy wanted him to stay, regardless of whether Ah Ting stumbled in or not, and so for several minutes she leaned against the totem as if she were a part of it, and her gently rounded face and dark eyes made her an authentic image of the real Alaska.

'You're going to be a very beautiful woman, Nancy,' he said.

'You know many beautiful women last winter in Seattle?'

'I met one. Mr. Ross's wife. She's very special.'

'In what way?'

'She's like you. Natural in all she does. Forthright. She laughs like you, too.'

He did not deem it necessary to reveal that he had also met Mr. Ross's equally attractive daughter.

Now Nancy grew even more eager for him to stay: 'What was it like, Seattle?'

'Two big bodies of water meet. Many islands, lakes, little streams. It's a fine city, really.'

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'Will you be working in Seattle pretty soon?'

'Why do you ask that?' He, too, was leaning against the totem.

'Because your eyes always light up when you say Seattle.'

'I have a lot of work to do up here.' Since he was looking directly at her as he said this, he could not escape seeing in her eyes a sudden expression of dismay, and when he turned to see what had alarmed her, he found Sam Bigears and Ah Ting heading right for him.

'Hello!' Sam called. as if nothing had happened. 'You know Ah Ting. I sail him to Juneau tomorrow.'

Tom was flabbergasted by at least half a dozen surprises cascading down on him, but he tried to avoid challenging Ah Ting or Sam or Nancy, who had lied to him so outrageously.

Swallowing hard, he asked: 'What will he do in Juneau?' and Sam said: 'You know.

Like what I did. Every town needs men to fix things.'

'He's very good at that,' Tom said weakly. 'But I'm sure he knows Chinese can't live in Alaska.'

'He won't be Chinese,' Sam said. 'He'll be workman everybody will need.' He looked admiringly at this courageous Oriental, laughed, and said: 'I tell him nobody notice if he cut off damned pigtail. But he show me how he tie it in knot under hat.'

'Why not cut it?' Nancy asked, relieved that Tom had not made a scene.

'Because it's part of him,' Sam said. 'Like those bangs are part of you.' Reaching out, he rumpled her hair and asked: 'Why you not cut your bangs?' and she said: 'Because all good Tlingits have bangs. You have them.'

Now Tom faced his Chinese foreman and asked: 'So you're going to Juneau?' and when Ah Ting nodded, Tom said, with his hand extended: 'I wish you luck.' Then he added: 'And if you don't have luck, come back. We'll always need you at the cannery.' But the way Ah Ting looked at him with half smiling eyes and a sardonic grin twitching at his lips made Venn know that both of them knew the last statement had been hollow.

Impulsively Tom gripped the right hand of this very difficult man: 'I do wish you good luck, Ah Ting.' And without looking at Nancy, he hurried to his waiting boat.

SAM BIGEARS NOT ONLY FERRIED HIS CHINESE VISITOR TO Juneau in late July 1904, but when they landed, Sam took Ah Ting to three different white men who had construction jobs under way, informing each that 'this here Chinaman good 727

worker. Keep cannery Taku Inlet out of trouble.' And by the end of the week he had found Ah Ting a place to stay with a widow who took in boarders and who was willing to defer collecting rent until they started collecting wages. She did not have long to wait, for Ah Ting's skills were needed at many sites, and after four weeks on various jobs, workmen started the game that would be carried on in Juneau for as long as he resided there.

Some rowdy fellow would shout: 'Goddammit, you know we don't allow Chinks in here,'

then he would playfully knock off the hat which Ah Ting wore outdoors and in, and down would tumble the coiled pigtail. Then some other man would grab the pigtail, not harmfully, and pretend to haul the Chinese out the door. He never protested.

At the end he would recover his hat, show the men how he coiled his pigtail, and sit with them sharing their food. He never drank, but after hours he did enjoy any card game, and since he was brighter and quicker than most of the men he worked with, he usually won. The men liked playing with him, because at tense moments, when big money rested on the turn of a card, he would pray in Chinese and leap with joy if he won. But Ah Ting was a sensible man, and when he realized that he could win pretty much at will, he refrained from doing so. He wanted just enough to stay ahead, never enough to arouse envy.

While Ah Ting was establishing himself in Juneau, the only Chinese who managed to remain in Alaska, Tom Venn was quietly traversing the Pleiades estuary to visit with the Bigears family, and it did not matter much whom he found at home, for he took equal pleasure in talking with them all, even Mrs. Bigears. She was fun because of her propensity for humorous pantomimes of others' follies; she regaled Tom with legends of the Tlingits and accounts of this big man or that pompous woman who had come to grief, and although she spoke words he could not understand, he found that he could understand her imaginative gestures quite easily, and they laughed a good deal.

Her husband preferred talking politics and business, and his observations about the fumbling efforts of the new officials in Juneau were pithy. It was his opinion that Alaska had made an error in moving the capital from Sitka, but when Tom queried him on this, Nancy interrupted: 'It's only because the original Bigears lived in Sitka.

Juneau is a lot better.'

But although Tom told himself that he didn't care which of the Bigears family was there when he called, he was really happiest when it was Nancy. She had matured in so many

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ways, especially in her ability to fathom the behavior of white men: 'They want to steal all Alaska, but they want to be sure they have God's blessing in doing it.'

'What do you mean?' Tom asked, and she said: 'What the principal says at school meetings, and what the minister says in church, they don't very often agree with what people actually do.'

'But what's this about stealing Alaska?' And she pointed out that Marvin Hoxey was back in town, with papers from the government that would give Ross & Raglan control of five more rivers.