Olivia's Mine (5 page)

Frank towered over Howser, and now that the
surprise attack was over, Frank shoved Howser to the floor quite
easily. He had him on the ground and was inches and seconds away
from punching him again in the face when he abruptly pulled back.
It might have been the look on Howser’s face, the look of a
defeated man.

“He sacked me. You told him that I didn’t put
the tools away yesterday, didn’t you? I saw you trip and fall.”

Frank released his grip on Howser.

“You damn near broke my nose.”

“Well thanks for asking if I was okay, you
son of a bitch,” Frank said sarcastically. “It doesn’t take a
genius to figure out who left them there, but I didn’t tell him. He
caught you, leaving them out (himself) a couple of days ago. He put
two and two together.”

“Geez Frankie, he’s got me paranoid. I just
assumed he’d figured out how you hurt your leg, and that maybe you
had told him, you know, it was because of me.”

“The man’s got eyes in the back of his head
John, you know that. He asked me about it, sure, when he saw me
limping, but I didn’t tell him anything and I doubt anyone else
did. We wouldn’t do that to you Howser, you know that. It would go
against the brotherhood. He must have just figured it out. I’m no
rat. We’re all in this together.”

“We
were
all in this together. What am I supposed to do now? He wants
me out of here tomorrow. He took away my job, my home…what the
hell, I might as well go on up to Ruby’s and drown my sorrows. A
nip of gin and a nip of a young girl’s thigh. That might make me
feel a bit better. There are still a few things he can’t take away
from me. He probably can’t get it up at night, he’s such a hard ass
during the day. Do you want to come along and have a boy’s night
out?”

Frank just glared at him.

“What is with you, John?”

“Some day Frankie, when the itch comes a
calling, and it will, you’ll feel a little different about such
things.”

“I don’t have any itches, John. Get on out of
here before I knock you senseless,” Frank said. “You know my wife’s
due here today. Why don’t you just forget about Ruby’s and go clean
yourself up. Stop by before you leave town tomorrow. You’ve been a
good friend to me while I’ve been here, and I’d like Olivia to meet
you.”

“You know Frankie,” Howser glared. “I’m not
gone yet. Just once I’d like to have one up on old McMichael, just
once. He thinks he’s the big tough guy, he thinks he’s untouchable,
but he’s not. Wouldn’t you like to see one of the brotherhood take
him down a notch? This wouldn’t have happened if we had all voted
in the union like Bill Armstrong wanted. Then the brotherhood would
have some real power.”

There had indeed been a brief movement to
give an official title to the “brotherhood”. They got as far as
sending a letter off to the union office in Vancouver before
McMichael found out about it. The men never knew why they never
received a call back for sure, but they had a pretty good idea.
There seemed to be more than one piece of mail go missing that
week. Armstrong and five of his buddies were suddenly unemployed.
That would have been a tough one for Armstrong. He was ready for
retirement and only had a couple of working years left.

“Maybe not. But Armstrong is gone, and there
is no union. And sure, we’d all like to see McMichael knocked down
a peg or two,” Frank agreed. “But John, he’s not worth it, really.
You said your cousin could get you a job at the docks in Vancouver,
maybe McMichael just did you a favour.” He noticed the glimmer in
Howser’s eye. He was worried about his friend.

“John, don’t go doing something stupid. Leave
it alone. Stop by for breakfast tomorrow morning before you
leave.”

Frank patted his friend on the back and
ushered him through the door.

“Life goes on John. You’ll find another job.
You’ll be fine. A year from now you’ll be thanking your lucky stars
you’re out of here. You’ll see. Just don’t go doing something
stupid.”

There was a vacant stare in John Howser’s
eyes as he started to walk up the hill.

The first Japanese pioneer in Canada arrived
around the year 1877. Manzo Nagano left Nagasaki dreaming of the
New World, and found work on a ship carrying goods from Japan to
Victoria, British Columbia. Throughout the years, many young
Japanese men followed in his footsteps, hoping to make as much
money as possible to bring back to their native lands. The work was
hard, and the wages were low, averaging a dollar sixty-five per
ten-hour day. If they stayed in Canada for a year, their bosses
often rewarded them with an increase of salary to two dollars a
day. By order of the crown they could not be pharmacists, lawyers,
or members of the government. Because of the cost, it often took
much longer than they had originally expected before they had saved
enough money to return home.

In Canada, there was a general anti-Japanese
sentiment during the early 1900’s. There was no real reason for it,
perhaps just a fear of an unknown culture invading the land.
Shinichi Yada found this to be the case when he arrived in Canada
around the turn of the century with his wife Fujiko. He had been a
doctor in Japan, but upon arrival found that he was not able to
practice medicine in this new, strange country. He found work on a
strawberry farm in the Fraser Valley, east of Vancouver, and
through hours of hard work and scrimping, the Yada’s managed to
eventually buy a plot of their own. They had two children, both
adults now, a daughter also named Fujiko, who worked as a
housekeeper for a wealthy Vancouver couple, and a son Hiroshi
“Harry” Yada, who was now employed at the Britannia Beach mine.

It was forbidden in those days, for a young
Japanese man to be seen with, let alone marry a Caucasian woman. So
it was that Harry found himself like other young Japanese men,
looking for a “picture bride” from back home. Ten years ago his
wife Akiko had arrived from Japan in this fashion. She had heard
that Canada was a wealthy land, where there was lots of food and
big homes. She was disillusioned to learn that her husband was
poor. There was no big house, but at least there was plenty of
food.

“Oh my lord,” she said, clasping her hand
over her mouth as she gazed at the mining town that was to become
her home. Harry had not lied to her, he had told her that he had a
“modest” income by most standards, but Akiko felt that perhaps he
did not speak the entire truth either. As she got off the boat with
the strange white Captain she could not understand, she placed a
few grains of rice in the sand for good luck. Now she was about to
meet the man that she had only seen a picture of, and she was
hoping the image she had created of him in her mind was not a
disillusionment, like the image her mind had concocted of Britannia
Beach. Akiko was an average looking woman, a bit on the heavy side.
You couldn’t call her beautiful, but you couldn’t call her
unattractive either. She fell somewhere in the middle. Her more
beautiful sisters had been eagerly placed into arranged marriages
by her parents, but it seemed there was no eager suitor for Akiko.
Her chance to move to Canada was a chance for her to break away
from her parents, which, if the truth be known, is why she agreed
to become a picture-bride in the first place. Harry, on the other
hand, was an ugly sort. But he was a very kind, very smart man, and
in the end, Akiko knew she was fairing far better than her sisters
back home. She grew to love him, and he grew to love her, although
secretly the fact that she was five inches taller than he was,
disturbed Harry to no end.

Their marriage appeared to be a happy
one. Akiko became pregnant but lost the first baby in the second
trimester of pregnancy. Their second chance proved fruitful
however, and their son Jimmy was born. He was a
sansei
-third generation Japanese-Canadian. He had
turned seven the day before last, and was happy playing with the
wooden toys Harry had carved for him out of scraps of lumber he
found around the town site. Harry had loved to carve wood since an
early age. But his passion was his knowledge of chemistry, passed
to him from his father’s medical days. He had spent hours with his
father pouring over the periodic tables, as he had once hoped to
become a doctor himself here in Canada. He never made it to
university, but his knowledge of the elements had landed him a job
in the assaying department of the mine, and he was thankful for it.
Unlike many other Japanese workers who lived at Britannia, ten to a
bunkhouse, Harry and Akiko were fortunate enough to have a small
home in the Japanese district of Britannia.

While Harry had learned English early in his
life and was truly a bi-lingual asset at the mine, Akiko was still
struggling with the language, and because of this, had difficulty
at first finding any sort of work at Britannia. She had managed to
earn some extra income as a night cleaner for J.W. McMichael.

“What time to do you think you’ll be finished
cleaning the hall tonight, Akiko?” Harry asked.

“Around two in the morning,” she replied in
Japanese.

“Two a.m.?” he retorted. “Well, I suppose
it’ll be midnight before the people are gone and you can finish up.
Still, that’s very late. We really have to try to find you another
job.”

“I do not mind,” she said.

“Well, I mind. You deserve better than this
Akiko. In Japan, your family was in the silk manufacturing trade. A
very honourable profession. Many people looked up to your family. I
want the same for you here. Perhaps we can work on our English
again tonight, hei?”

Akiko sighed and went into the bedroom.

So it would be as it always was, she learning
English so slowly, while her young Jimmy picked up both languages,
Japanese and English so quickly. He could chat back and forth
easily in both, never mixing the two. At least, she thought, he
would have a good future in this strange land.

Unbeknownst to her, little Jimmy was learning
something else from his father. That love of science had been
passed along from father to son and to son again. Late at night,
when his mother was working and his father was fast asleep, Jimmy
was reading some of his grandfather’s old medical texts by
candlelight. He particularly liked the ones about Chinese
acupuncture and eastern medicine practices his grandfather had
picked up while travelling.

Harry heard a scream come from the bedroom.
He rushed in to find Akiko standing with her hand over her mouth,
pointing at her collection of little silk Geisha dolls she had so
carefully packed and brought with her from Japan. They all had
little pins sticking out from their heads, arms and legs.

“It is the devil,” Akiko cried in Japanese.
“It keeps happening. I take pins out, pins go back. This
God-forsaken place. Maybe we should leave.”

Harry went back into the livingroom and gave
Jimmy a smack across the head.

“I told you to stop doing that,” he said.

“I need to practice where to stick the
needles,” Jimmy laughed. “For when I become a doctor. I’m studying
hard, like you want.”

His father looked at him.

“Maybe we should practice on you, you think
it’s so funny?”

They stared sternly at each other for a
moment and then both broke in to helpless giggles.

Akiko came out and saw them both rolling on
the floor, laughing.

“Men,” she sighed.

The Port of Vancouver was busy with container
ships bringing in exotic treasures from the Orient. Situated in
Georgia Straight, Vancouver was the southern most point on the west
coast of Canada, and as such was the gateway to the Pacific Rim.
Victoria, the Capital of British Columbia, was actually situated on
Vancouver Island, to the west of Vancouver, which was a
geographical point many found confusing. Although Victoria was the
political capital of the province, Vancouver was its major centre.
Frenchie figured it was because politicians and businessmen had to
be kept apart.

“Ye might get a liddle rain,” the Captain
said as the Northern Mary headed out of Burrard Inlet. The stay in
Vancouver had been a short one, as Lucy predicted.

“Dem North Shore mountains,” the Captain
continued, “dey tend to sock in de wedder. Way o’er der, way east,
dat’s Mount Seymour. De one in de middle, dat’s Grouse, and de one
towards where we’re headed, dat’s Cyprus. I dunna know how de got
dose names, but I do know ‘ow de Couve did. It was named after
Captain George Vancouver, who first came ‘ere. I think he was
Dutch, but ‘e was a Captain for sure, dat’s why I remember. Just a
little ‘istory for ye. Maybe some day, dey will name a piece of
land after Frenchie Cates. What do you tink, eh?”

“I think it’s very beautiful here,” Olivia
stated. “Not the port so much, it looks like most other ports,
really, at least to me. But on the other side of the water, by
those mountains, it some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever
seen.”

“And see that big mountain o’er south, that’s
Mount Baker we were talkin’ about befer. I’ve seen it up and down
de coast, and I tell ye, ye get the best view of it right ‘ere in
Canada.”

Frenchie noticed Olivia removing the blanket
Lucy had loaned her earlier.

“You probably tot it would be very cold
‘ere eh?
Tres frois.
And yeh,
in some places in Canada, ye would be right. The very east coast,
dem Maritimes, dey are cold mostly all de time. Dey ‘ave storms dat
keep a banshee’s nipples ‘ard until de summer. All de way down de
St. Lawrence, de big river dat runs east-west, it’s de same ting
mostly, maybe not quite so bad. Sometimes de river is frozen with
ice. Ye go nowhere. But de summers, de are very ‘ot. Very ‘umid. Ye
sweat like a pig, ye do. Der are lots of lakes and rivers as you go
east tru Quebec to Ontario. Den ye get to the Prairies. Deys flat.
Lots of wheat grows der in the summer, but it is damn cold in de
winter. Dey grow lots of mosquitoes too. And grass’oppers. I dunt
know what it is, but dey get more grass’oppers den anywhere else in
de world, I tink. And dey ‘ave tiny little flies dat bite and make
ye scratch too. I went der once to see my sister, den I told ‘er
from now on, she ‘as to come and visit me. Den ye get to Alberta,
where der are not so many lakes, but der are lots of mountains, and
deer, and elk and wild buffalo. De land der is very rich with
minerals, which is very good, and I ‘eard talk dat dey tink der
maybe a lot of oil under de ground. Can ye believe dat?”