Gold Mountain (2 page)

“I refuse to take the blame for the Boxer insurgency, Ruth, either in total or in part.” She gave a weak laugh.

“You know very well that when we were children, you were the one with the harebrained ideas that got us all into trouble, and I was the one who fretted and worried because of it. How could I not think that your mischief had something to do with the conflict?” I held her away from me to take a good look.

“You might give me credit for maturing over the last three years.” Then I took a second look at her. “Ruth, are you—?”

She blushed a rose-pink that contrasted charmingly with her fair hair and blue eyes. “Yes, but now is not the time to discuss it.” She cleared her throat and stepped back. “Dinah, here are Mr. and Mrs. McIntyre.”

The couple—an elegant woman with brown hair threaded through with gray and a bearded man of about her same age—stood at a distance looking past me. At Ruth’s words, they turned simultaneously to face me, and the woman immediately put out her hand.

“How do you do, Miss Hudson? My husband and I don’t have the words to thank you for the kind escort you provided our granddaughter.” Her gaze slid past me to Johanna again, and I stepped aside.

“I was happy to have the company,” I replied, then placed a hand on Johanna’s arm. “Johanna, here are your grandparents.”

I wanted to give them as much privacy as was possible on the busy wharf, but neither the couple nor Johanna seemed to need the consideration. Mrs. McIntyre stepped close enough to take Johanna’s chin between her thumb and forefinger and tilt the girl’s face so the two could meet eye-to-eye.

Now there are two peas in a pod, I thought, seeing the same firm mouth and unflinching gaze in both of them, regardless of the difference in generations.

“You favor your father, child,” was all Mrs. McIntyre said before her husband stepped forward to sweep Johanna into a more traditional embrace. The next thing I knew, Mr. McIntyre was off in search of Johanna’s baggage, and his wife, one hand firmly on Johanna’s arm, was leading her granddaughter away.

I turned to follow them, determined not to lose Johanna so quickly, and the moment my sister put a hand on my arm to hold me back, I noticed a ragged group of Chinese girls huddled together at the edge of the wharf’s rough boardwalk. Something about their posture—shoulders bent, eyes downcast, hands clutching each other for support—made me focus on them more intently and when one girl, small and pale, lifted her head our eyes met squarely. I could hardly believe what I saw.

“Mae Tao!” I called.

At my cry, all the girls raised their heads to look in my direction and with that concerted motion the man standing with them grasped the arm of the girl I recognized and barked in Chinese, “Come now.” The girl tried to take a step toward me, her instinctive action making me even more certain that I was right to recognize her, and the man gave her arm a rough yank, repeating harshly, “Come now I said.” She hesitated long enough for him to hiss something at her in a tone so low and savage she tried to back away from the malevolence she heard there. His words seemed to startle her enough to make her forget my presence, and as he pulled her along, the other girls, all still holding hands as if on a school outing, followed them down the wharf toward a busy street.

I picked up my skirts intending to try to catch up with them when from behind me I heard Johanna cry, “Don’t forget to write, Dinah! You promised!” Suddenly caught between two imperatives, I turned around in time to see Johanna give a quick wave before she briskly walked away flanked by her grandparents.

“I will,” I called. “I promise I will.” I waved at Johanna in return, although by then she wouldn’t have seen the gesture, conscious of a lump in my throat that for a moment kept me from further speech. After she and the McIntyres disappeared into the crowd, I looked back to locate the small clutch of Chinese girls I had recently seen, but they—like Johanna—had also disappeared. The spot where they had stood was filled instead with members of the crew of the vessel from which the Chinese girls appeared to have disembarked.

“Wait!” I called to the closest man as I brushed away Ruth’s hand and tried to push myself through the busy press of people. “You! You there, from the—” I glanced at the name of the docked tramp steamer “—Pandora! I want to speak with you for a moment!” At the name “Pandora” called in my loudest, most peremptory voice, the men stopped talking and watched me approach, my gait still unsteady from the past days at sea. When I stood before them, one of the men, taking on the role of spokesperson, had the good manners to remove his hat.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I want to ask you about those girls.”

The man with longish, dark brown hair and a pencil-thin mustache didn’t blink. His brown eyes held my gaze in a brash look that seemed too bold for the occasion, but I was used to the politely dropped gaze of the Chinese, so perhaps I reacted too strongly to normal American self-assurance.

“What girls would that be, ma’am?”

“The Chinese girls. The girls who were standing over there just a few minutes ago.” I pointed in the general direction of the boardwalk. “The ones who came off your steamer.”

The speaker shook his head, rebutting my words. “Sorry, ma’am, but we didn’t carry no Celestials in, girls or otherwise. If we had, we would’ve notified the immigration officer, and he’d have those girls in hand as we speak. Importing Celestials is against the law so if you did see Chinese girls, they didn’t come off the Pandora.”

I knew he was lying as surely as I knew the sun was shining.

“I know what I saw: six young Chinese girls standing right over there and they had clearly just gotten off your vessel.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,”—he imbued the word
ma’am
with faint but unmistakable mockery—“San Francisco’s got so many Chinese living here, it’s a second China. You could have seen six hundred for all I know.” He paused purposefully before finishing, “But no girls came off the Pandora. No, ma’am. You’d be making a serious mistake to suggest that.”

As he spoke, I felt vaguely threatened, certain that his words held an ulterior meaning he wanted me to be sure not to miss. In response, I glared back at him.

“I did not make a mistake—” I retorted firmly, but my brother-in-law, who had come up behind me, interrupted.

“Come along, Dinah. Ruth is feeling faint and needs to sit down. I don’t know what this is all about, but let’s resolve it later. You’ll spoil your homecoming.” Martin touched the brim of his hat dismissively at the man who had been speaking and placed a hand on my arm. “I have a carriage waiting, and Ruth is anxious to have you with her at home. Please, let’s go.”

I didn’t want to leave just then. Something told me this was a matter important to pursue, that I truly had seen Mae Tao and that the instinctive but hazy unease I had experienced at the child’s reaction to the man who had taken her and the other girls away was significant and not to be disregarded. At the same time, I could see from where I stood that Ruth had paled in the past few minutes and looked on the verge of being seriously unwell.

“All right,” I answered Martin, adding for the sake of the man from the Pandora who still stood in front of me, “but I intend to start a search for Mae Tao as soon as I’m settled in. I’m quite sure I saw her just now, and I can’t imagine why she would be in San Francisco. Something doesn’t seem right and I won’t forget about her.” I spoke the final five words with distinct emphasis, then smiled pleasantly at the sailor. “Thank you, sir. You were more helpful than you could possibly imagine,” using a tone that implied an ulterior message of my own. I don’t think he missed my intended meaning, either, because his eyes narrowed as I spoke and his insolent grin faded as he continued to study me. My steady return stare encouraged the man to realize that having survived the prolonged, murderous attacks of furious renegade Chinese, I was not a woman to be cowed by one lying sailor. Point made, I turned around in a leisurely fashion, went back to Ruth’s side, and took her arm. “I’m sorry to make you stand in the sun, Ruthie. Are you feeling awful?”

She gave a wan smile. “It’s early days, I’m afraid, and I do feel awful a great deal of the time, but I’m assured the worst is almost over. What was that commotion all about?”

I explained as she and I, followed by Martin and a man pulling a small cart that carried both Johanna’s and my baggage, walked slowly down a side street to a waiting carriage.

“I know I saw Mae Tao. Do you remember her, Ruth? Her mother, Ping Lee, came to work at the mission when you were still there. Mae Tao was six years old at the time.” Ruth responded with an apologetic shrug.

“I don’t remember either of them, Dinah. I’m sorry. It’s been too many years.”

“You were also desperately in love, as I recall,” I replied, teasing her and trying to take her mind off her discomfort, “so I’d be surprised if you remembered anything except wedding plans from your last year in China.” I leaned forward to unfasten my sister’s jacket. “Now take off this jacket and remove that fashionable hat, please. You’ll be more comfortable. It’s only Martin and me, after all, and you don’t have to impress either of us. You wrote about the delightfully
temperate
climate of San Francisco, but if this is temperate, I’d hate to think what California heat feels like.”

“The weather’s been unusually warm,” Martin interjected, keeping an eye on his wife’s face. “Ruth was right to praise our climate because it is delightful. Most of the time.”

His quick response had a touch of the defensive in it and I said quickly, “I’m sure it is, Martin. Ruth will tell you that this heat would be considered almost polar for a Chinese summer. Now that was a sweltering experience!”

My innocent words, intended as simple conversation, evoked a sudden hodge-podge of sights and sounds and smells from last year’s summer: the unremitting and oppressive heat, the moans of the wounded during sleepless nights, the unmistakable stench of death. For a moment I faltered. How clearly and worse, how unexpectedly, memories could surface!

Concerned at my abrupt silence, Ruth spoke my name and I smiled in response, immediately back in the present.

“Sorry,” I murmured and changing the subject asked, “Now tell me, have you started thinking about names for the baby?”

“Victoria,” my sister announced firmly at exactly the same time Martin said, “Clementine.” All three of us laughed out loud.

“Apparently the subject is still under discussion,” I remarked, and we spent the rest of the trip in casual conversation.

When we arrived at my sister’s house, Martin settled Ruth and me inside and then left to accompany Johanna’s baggage to the train station.

“I didn’t realize Johanna was leaving for Chicago this very day,” I said with dismay. “I thought they were just taking her to get settled in their hotel. Couldn’t they have stayed here long enough to take in some of the sights of California?”

“I did suggest that,” Ruth replied, “and offered them the hospitality of our home for their stay, but Mrs. McIntyre knew what she wanted and what she wanted was to be on the next train east. She’s not the kind of woman to change her mind and she would not hear of any other plan. Your poor Johanna may find her grandmother to be more than a little intimidating.”

I recalled the similarity to her grandmother in the stubborn set of Johanna’s mouth and her unflinching gaze.

“Johanna can hold her own. She’s come through the fire.”

“Unburned?”

“No,” I answered thoughtfully, “but stronger for being seared.”

“Poor child,” murmured my sister, but I could never apply the adjective
poor
to Johanna, not materially—with her mother’s family as wealthy as they purportedly were—and certainly not poor in temperament or outlook or intelligence, either.

“Johanna is a young woman of strong opinions, who is destined for the exceptional,” I told Ruth.

“She has not escaped your influence, then.”

I couldn’t tell if my sister was praising or chastising me and chose not to pursue the matter. That was old ground for the two of us, and I was in no rush to bring up our differences. No doubt there would be plenty of time for that particular discussion later. As soon, in fact, as I began to search for Mae Tao in earnest. I had been perfectly serious in the words I’d spoken to the cocky seaman earlier that day: I was sure I had seen Mae Tao and I would not forget about her.

Chapter Two

T
he birth of the first of the next generation of Hudsons was the initial topic of conversation over the breakfast table the next day.

“Have you let Father or David know?” I asked my sister.

“I was waiting for your safe homecoming before I wrote. That way I could send them good news in duplicate.” Ruth paused in her explanation to ask, “Dinah?” My sister, used to my mental
drifting
—as she called it—and used to calling me back to a conversation if I became distracted, must have recognized a familiar expression on my face.

“Sorry. I was just thinking about whether California really constitutes a homecoming for me,” I said. “You’re here, of course, but other than that, except for getting off a train and onto a ship fifteen years ago, I have no bond to California at all.” Ruth leaned toward me, her expression sincere and animated.