Gold Mountain (26 page)

Colin and I spent part of the afternoon at the Spreckles Temple of Music, a huge conservatory opened just the year before. That afternoon stands out as one of the happiest times I had known since I’d first arrived in San Francisco. With my hand tucked under Colin’s arm, we strolled and talked.

“Like we were married,” Colin remarked lightly when I mentioned how much I was enjoying the afternoon, and I was so happy in the moment that I didn’t say anything to correct or chide him. I felt in perfect charity with Colin O’Connor and hadn’t the heart to speak anything discouraging. When the moment passed without my challenging his assumption, he broke into soft song, his breath against my cheek and his fine Irish tenor singing just to me:

Dear thoughts are in my mind / And my soul soars enchanted

As I hear the sweet lark sing / In the clear air of the day

For a tender beaming smile / To my hope has been granted

And tomorrow she shall hear / All my fond heart would say

I shall tell her all my love / All my soul’s adoration

And I think she will hear / And will not say me nay

It is this that gives my soul / All its joyous elation

As I hear the sweet lark sing / In the clear air of the day.

For a burly and thoroughly masculine man, Colin O’Connor seemed sweet and endearing at that moment, and when he concluded his serenade with what he intended to be a chaste kiss on my cheek, I intentionally turned my head so it was my lips and not my cheek that received the kiss. Surprised, he stopped abruptly in the middle of the walkway.

“Lovely,” I murmured, adding with a touch of mischievous brogue, “’Tis your father’s voice you must have inherited.” I smiled at Colin and tightened my hold on his arm as we resumed our walk.

I remember being happy that afternoon and thinking that perhaps this was what Ruth had meant so many weeks ago when I asked her about finding the right mate. I had been skeptical about the simplicity of her reply “you just know,” but my contentment in Colin O’Connor’s company that day suggested that maybe it truly was that simple.

On the morning Suey Wah was scheduled to leave, the unheard of happened— Martin left late for work. He purposefully stayed at home and waited on the porch with us for the cab. When the carriage stopped at the curb, he unclenched his fist and in a self-conscious gesture extended his palm toward Suey Wah. Martin’s open hand revealed a slender chain from which dangled a small golden pendant in the shape of a bird. Suey Wah was so affected by his gift that at first she would not accept it.

“Oh no, no, no, Mr. Martin. I cannot take such a precious thing. It is too fine for me. Please do not make me take it.”

“Nonsense. Here, Ruth, you fasten it. My hands are too big and clumsy.”

Ruth latched the chain around Suey Wah’s neck and then came to stand next to Martin, both of them looking at the girl mournfully. It was up to me to stay brisk and business-like or we’d all be crying like hungry babies.

“Very pretty,” I said, taking Suey Wah’s hand in one of mine and picking up the small valise containing her few belongings with the other. “Now come along, Suey Wah, or we’ll miss the schooner Miss Cameron arranged to take you up the coast.” I glared at my sister and brother-in-law. “Do not make this child—or me—weep. Suey Wah is headed for a wonderful place, a school for girls in a beautiful city filled with fruit and sunshine. She will be happy and healthy. Many girls have applied to enter this school, but very few are accepted. It’s an honor that our Suey Wah is one of the select few. You should be happy for her.”

“We’re as happy for her as you are,” Ruth sniffed in return and managed a smile as she and Martin stood in the front doorway watching us descend the porch. Suey Wah tried to wave and walk at the same time until we climbed into the cab that waited for us at the curb. I had hoped for Casey’s familiar face, but the driver was a stranger.

“I do not like so many good-byes,” Suey Wah said simply, and her words reminded me of Johanna standing by the railing of the
Solace
as we arrived in San Francisco last spring. “Life is just a series of good-byes,” my companion had said at the time and I recognized the same tone in Suey Wah’s plaintive comment that I’d heard in Johanna’s voice. As response, I repeated the thought I’d expressed to Johanna then.

“I know, but don’t give the good-byes so much attention that you miss the warmth of homecoming.” I wanted to tell Suey Wah about the gradual healing I read in Johanna’s letters, wanted the child to know that the pain of loss and the fear of change could and would eventually lessen, that even nightmares might disappear when life was filled with affection and acceptance and a sense of belonging. But that seemed too much information for such a little girl, so we sat quietly side by side in the cab as we headed toward our destination at the docks.

I suppose if Suey Wah hadn’t lost her footing as she climbed out of the cab and fallen to one knee, I wouldn’t have been so occupied dusting her off that I missed the unnatural atmosphere of the docks that day. But she did and I did and it was only after our cabbie had driven away that I looked around and felt the difference. Not the usual busy but cheerful hubbub of the docks that combined the calls and chatter of voices with the slap of water against the hulls. Not the usual bustle of people coming and going, either, but huddles of men talking in a steady, low murmur that I knew instinctively did not bode well. Still hoping for the best, I took Suey Wah’s hand and walked quickly toward the docks on the other side of the street, watching the growing gathering of men out of the corner of my eye. From a distance I had already identified the yacht that Miss Cameron had arranged to take Suey Wah through the Golden Gate and north up the coast to Mission San Rafael. A woman named Sarah Fremont would be waiting onboard the vessel to accompany Suey Wah on the trip to the School of the Archangel, her new home.

“I know there are easier and more direct ways to get Suey Wah to San Rafael,” Donaldina admitted, “but I thought the more obscure the better. Trains stop and go, and people are always getting on and off. I don’t trust all that commotion. This way, once she’s on board, the trip will be non-stop. She and Miss Fremont will be the only passengers on board so there’s no chance of anything happening to the child.”

“How did you arrange that?” I asked, impressed, and Donaldina smiled at my question.

“920 has a variety of benefactors, Dinah. This particular man owns canning factories as well as a very fine schooner. He was more than happy to provide safe passage when I approached him, and he’s worked with us often enough to know not to ask who or why.”

I could see the yacht from where I stood—its appearance noticeably different from all the other craft in view—but between us and the handsome vessel milled an expanse of angry men, some of them shaking fists and all of them loud. I was completely at a loss to explain what I saw and grabbed the arm of a passing man.

“What’s happening?” I demanded.

“Strike, lady. And about time.”

“But I need to—” I began, only to have him interrupt me and repeat the words as if I were a slow child.

“It’s a dock strike, lady. We’ll shut the waterfront down until we get what we’re asking for.” He took a closer look at me and added, not unkindly, “You don’t belong here. There’ll be trouble as soon as the Employers’ Association gets wind of what’s happening.” He shook my hand loose from his arm and disappeared into a nearby crowd.

I was conscious of Suey Wah’s quiet presence by my side, her hand trustingly resting in mine, and decided the man was right. We didn’t belong there just then. The schooner beckoned in the distance, but it appeared that we had no way to reach it until the gathering throng of men dispersed. Behind me I heard shouts and turned to see a number of policemen advancing toward the strikers, wooden batons in their hands. Here was trouble for sure, I thought grimly, recognizing from past experience the looks on all the men’s faces, dock workers and policemen alike, a universal, international, and distinctively male look that anticipated and welcomed the idea of a fight.

I tried to see if Colin was among the policemen but couldn’t identify his fair hair under the sea of police hats. Then, because I knew I had to do something if Suey Wah and I didn’t want to be caught right in the middle of what was clearly going to be a violent altercation, I took a firmer grasp on the child’s hand, picked up the valise with the other and swung it forward with all my might to clear a path through the crowd that had begun to encroach on the place where the girl and I stood. I suppose it was astonishment at my presence as much as the threat of a small, worn valise that made men move aside, but whatever the reason, Suey Wah and I managed to return to the side of the street where we had first stepped down. We walked a few paces and stopped at the corner, looking over our shoulders at the noisy melee, which had begun in earnest. Men shouted, fists flew, and policemen’s batons connected with surprisingly audible thuds. A concert of violence. I looked down at a wide-eyed Suey Wah, who had not said a word during our entire push through the crowd to cross the street. The raucous noise made any attempt at conversation useless, but I gave her as brave a smile as I could muster and she rewarded me with a very tiny one of her own. What did it say about both of us that we took bloody violence in our stride without any feelings of shock or outrage?

We walked quickly away, trying to put distance between us and the fighting, and stopped only when I recognized the alley we had just passed. I had climbed that narrow street a number of times to reach the office of the Pandora Transport Company. At the same time I recognized the alley, I also recognized one of the faces in the steadily growing crowd that continued to spread out behind us with no sign of diminished hostilities. The man I saw wasn’t involved in fighting, however. Instead, he walked along the edge of the street with a furtive grace that allowed him to dodge all the groups of battling men. He was following someone, glancing toward the crowd, looking behind him, then shifting his attention to the side of the street where Suey Wah and I walked. For a moment all I could remember about the Chinese man was that I had met him somewhere sometime over the past several weeks. When I finally recalled the where, I felt a moment of complete and utter panic. His name was Chong Lin and I had seen him at Wing Chee’s establishment. He had worn the same costume then, too—loose pants and a canvas jacket, black bands tied around both upper arms, and his braid tied to the top of his head. I had learned that such a man was called a highbinder and that his hairstyle advertised his vocation as a deadly assassin and member of one of several fierce Chinese tongs that battled each other for supremacy in Chinatown. As the tide of strikers and policemen continued to seep toward the corner where I stood with Suey Wah, I saw Chong Lin’s gaze find us. I should have known all along that we were the object of the man’s search, but I didn’t make sense of what I saw until he abruptly stopped his forward pace, turned, and stepped into the path of the oncoming crowd in order to cross the street.

He’s coming after us, I thought with certainty, and made the quick decision to turn up the alley toward the Pandora Transport Company, still firmly grasping Suey Wah’s hand. The choice was the lesser of two evils: the ominous—and I was sure deadly—threat sidling carefully through the now-crowded street toward us or my doubts about Jake Pandora’s sincerity. The decision was easy and quick. I would trust Jake Pandora for the time being and allow him to see Suey Wah. Doing so might take her into the lion’s den, but I didn’t know where else to go to escape Chong Lin’s menace. At one time I had thought the violent crowd of men put us at the greater risk, but with the Chinese man’s deliberate approach, I knew I was wrong. We had much more to fear from that one man than from a hundred striking dock workers. With Suey Wah beside me, we hurried up the steep alley toward the storefront office of the Pandora Transport Company. I didn’t say a word and I never looked back. Suey Wah, sensing danger in my grasp and pace, somehow kept up with me.

Without bothering to knock at the closed entrance of the office—hadn’t Pandora told me the door was always open?—I opened it, yanked Suey Wah inside, closed the door firmly behind me, and leaned my back against it.

The two men in the office stood wordlessly staring at us—Jake Pandora and the young man I’d seen in the office on my first visit there last spring, whose name I recalled as Eddie. Both men were obviously surprised at our abrupt entrance, but it seemed to me that Pandora’s face held the remnants of other emotions that might have included anger and frustration. Something about his narrowed eyes and lips pressed thin made me think that I had interrupted a discussion that had not been pleasant for either of them. Still, I noted with resignation, even in annoyance and anger, it was impossible for Jake Pandora to be anything but classically handsome. Not even bad temper could mar the faultless lines of his face.

Recovered from his surprise, Pandora said without inflection, “Good morning, Miss Hudson.” If he wondered what I was doing there and why I and a small Chinese girl had crashed into his office with a breathless haste that hinted we were pursued by devils, he didn’t ask. He just greeted me by name and waited.

“Good morning, Mr. Pandora,” I replied, still trying to catch my breath. “Suey Wah and I seem to have picked a bad day for a walk along the waterfront. There’s fighting, you know.”