Fortune is a Woman (29 page)

He said, "The hold was filled with coolies heading, like me, for the Gold Mountain. None of them had entry papers and all of them had paid the captain large sums to smuggle them into America. After a while they were allowed up on deck, and grateful to be out of the filthy, crowded hold, they spread out their worldly possessions: their grass bedmats, their padded quilts, and their treasure pillows, and immediately took out the cards and the maj-jongg tiles. They lit incense and kowtowed to the gods, and began to gamble, breaking off only to pick up their chopsticks and shovel rice into their mouths as fast as they could, or to smoke a pipe of opium, and occasionally, to sleep.

"In between my duties for the captain, endlessly running between the galley and the bridge carrying food, emptying his slops and scrubbing out his cabin, I assisted the cook, washed the dishes, helped stoke the big roaring boilers with coal, sluiced the decks and tried to keep out of the way of the drunken crew. And I watched the gambling. I already knew maj-jongg, but now I studied it intently. I watched the fan-tan, a game played with beans, and
pai gow,
which is Chinese dominoes, and many different complex card games, and soon knew I could win. But I had no money with which to play.

"When the ship suddenly ran into a typhoon it was every man for himself. The coolies were thrust into the hold and the hatches battened down. The captain stayed at the wheel, cursing and swigging whiskey as the ship lurched through mountainous green waves, tossing like a cork on the boiling foam at the top and sliding with a sickening lurch down a Niagara of water, only to be swamped at the bottom by the next enormous wave. The terrified crew hid themselves, waiting for their fate. Their cries were as loud as the coolies' wails coming from the hold, and the captain's curses grew even louder. I crouched behind him on the bridge, handing him a fresh bottle of whiskey as soon as the first one was finished. The crew had disappeared and he damned them all to hell. He smacked me fiercely across the head when the boat lurched and I dropped the next bottle, spilling half his precious whiskey. I was so frightened that I hardly felt the blow, all I knew was that the captain stood between me and death. But the captain knew different. He knew he had no say in the matter and that only the gods stood between us and death.

"The typhoon blew past us as night fell and we were once again on calm waters. The crew appeared from their hiding places and the hold was opened to let the coolies out from their prison and they were told to clean up their own vomit. The captain looked at me and I looked at him —he was roaring drunk by now. He took a silver dollar from his pocket and handed it to me. 'You've just earned yourself your first American dollar,' he said. 'And that's more than I can say for the other cowardly scum on board.' He strode the decks hurling curses and blows at whoever crossed his path and the crewmen glared murderously at me out of the corners of their eyes, muttering bad things.

"After that I kept as close to the captain as possible because they blamed me for his anger and I knew it would be easy enough to kill me and claim I had fallen overboard. Between the captain and the crew I scarcely slept; every menial job on the ship was mine. Dysentery broke out among the coolies and the ship stank and it was I who had to sluice down the hold and the decks, and help cast overboard the bodies of those who had died. The boilers were giving trouble and we limped from port to port, some of the crew absconded and new men had to be found, and still the coolies gambled. It took three weary months to reach California and as we sailed up the coast, the captain fell silent.

"We were hugging the cliffs off the coast north of San Francisco, heading for Seattle. It was a stormy, blustery night, nothing like the rage of the typhoon but enough to toss the rickety little ship around. The rain was lashing the decks, yet I saw we were sailing closer and closer to the shore, so close I could hear the boom of the surf on the rocks and the tolling of a buoy. Suddenly the captain roared an order for the hatches to be opened and I watched, bewildered, as the coolies were herded onto the decks. They huddled together, shivering in the rain, staring wonderingly at the captain pointing a rifle at them. Four of the crewmen stood by his side, also armed, and the coolies just stared dumbly back at them.

" 'This is America,' the captain roared suddenly in Chinese. 'The Gold Mountain. This is where you get off.' He waved the rifle menacingly at them, but they just stood there, too stupified with fright even to move. 'You have your choice,' he roared again. 'Jump and take your chances in the sea, it's only a couple of hundred yards to the shore. Or be shot and thrown into the sea already dead.' The crewmen let forth with a volley of shots, a couple of men fell dead and they kicked them contemptuously over the side.

"I stared at the captain, numb as the coolies. These poor men had scrimped and saved and borrowed money so they could go to America to make their fortune and return to take care of their poverty-stricken relatives in their old age. The captain had taken all their money. He had been their savior and now he was casting them overboard into the wild dark sea, uncaring whether they could even swim, for those who could not would be shot. He was a pirate and a murderer and I hated him as passionately as I hated the flesh-peddler.

"I watched, horrified as one by one they forced the terrified coolies to jump, laughing as they struggled in the icy waves. I took the captain's silver dollar from my pocket and spat on it and flung it contemptuously over the side. If this was America I wanted nothing to do with it, it was as evil as the place I had left behind.

"The captain saw my gesture, and with an oath he grabbed me by my queue and forced me to the rail. 'Join 'em, you miserable little Chinee bastard,' he roared, pushing me over the edge.

"I sank deep beneath the waves, kicking and struggling like a wild thing. I popped suddenly upward like a cork and my head was above the water. I had learned to swim in the Great River and struck out strongly toward the sound of the surf. All around me heads bobbed on the waves and my ears were filled with the cries of doomed men and the sound of rifle shots. I closed my eyes because I was too small and weak to help them and I could not bear to look into their faces. The swell was huge and I could tell from the roar of the surf there were great rocks in front. I swam on and on. A few others were swimming around me. I knew we were near the shore. But then a great wave engulfed us, enveloping us in icy darkness, hurling us forward with its momentum onto a rocky beach. I clung desperately to a rock as the wave surged out again, dragging men back out to sea with its force, and then I crawled over the rocks and up the shingle beyond the water line. I lay there, my arms flung out, my breath coming in shuddering gasps. I had arrived in America."

Lai Tsin looked at them watching him with horrified eyes. "The storm had worsened," he said. "The waves were huge, flinging themselves at the small scrap of shingle where I found myself. As they unfurled I would catch a glimpse of a head bobbing helplessly in the torrent, an outflung arm, and then nothing. Shivering with cold and fright, I waited for the others to make it to shore, but the only coolies from that terrible ship ever to set foot on America were dead ones."

***

It was the third day of the Lai Tsin's visit and he still had not talked to them about Sammy. Even though it would bring gladness to their hearts he was afraid that talking about Josh would hurt Francie, and that mentioning the evil one's name would bring bad joss to the peaceful ranch.

When they had found Josh in the derelict house where Sammy kept him, they had placed him on a stretcher and carried him to a renowned Chinese doctor. The man had observed him for several days, and had taken innumerable tests. His examination was thorough and his verdict harsh. Josh Asysgarth would never walk or talk or see again. The blow had destroyed his mind, he knew nothing and no one. He was more dead than alive and the doctor gave him only a week or two at the most.

Lai Tsin had agonized over whether to tell Annie and Francie, but in the end he knew his decision was the right one. They already thought him dead, their grief had been spent, and now Francie was pregnant and it was time to look to the future. Even if they saw him Josh would not know them and it would only bring them terrible pain.

He took him to a nursing home on the cliffs just south of San Francisco. It was a pretty place with pastel buildings, set amid pines and sweet-flowering shrubs with the surf roaring on the rocks below. The sun shone and the sea breezes ruffled Josh's cap of blond hair as he lay in his bed. A week passed, two, then three. Lai Tsin went to visit him as often as he could and one day, Josh was lying there as usual, his head turned to the window. He took a deep breath, his sightless eyes turned to the sound of the roaring surf and the ocean he would never see again. And then with a faint sigh, he was gone.

It was a blessed release, the nurses told him when after a quiet service he buried him in the tiny churchyard nearby. His grassy plot was marked with a simple white cross bearing his name, and Lai Tsin also offered prayers for his spirit at a Chinese temple.

He had thought carefully about what to tell Francie and Annie and knew what he had done was for the best. But Sammy's written confession, kept safely into his secret pocket, was like an explosive firecracker waiting to be lit as the days slid peacefully on.

That evening Francie said she didn't feel like supper, she said her back ached and she was tired. Annie glanced at her with concern. The baby wasn't due for another few weeks, but the low backache suggested that it might be sooner. She settled Francie in the big chair by the fire, tucked plenty of cushions behind her, put her feet up on the footstool and then hurried to the kitchen to make her a cup of tea.

Francie sat quietly, her hands resting on her swollen belly, but tonight the child inside her was still. "Sometimes I wish he would never be born," she said sadly to Lai Tsin. "After all, what chance will he have? He'll be branded a bastard. And even though he is innocent and has done nothing to deserve it, he will always be an outcast." She looked wearily at him. "He will suffer all his life for my sin. And the sins of his father."

Lai Tsin said sharply, "The father's only sin was to love you."

He took the confession from his pocket and handed it to her. "Read this. And do not question it, for it is the truth."

Francie glanced at him, puzzled. Then she read the piece of paper and her eyes grew wide with shock. It was the confession of a madman, a murderer.

"You must not ask how I obtained this," Lai Tsin warned her, "only accept that it is the truth."

"But you know where Sammy is?"

Lai Tsin's eyes were suddenly blank and unreadable as he replied. "You need never fear Sammy Morris again. Do not ask me any more. It is the confession you hold in your hand that is important—to you and your child. I cannot give you back the man you loved, Francie, but I have given you back his honor."

Francie suddenly felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her. She sighed, leaning her blond head back against the cushions, feeling the child move again under her hands. Josh's name would be cleared and at least her child would not have that terrible burden.

The child leapt again in her belly and then became still, a delicious drowsiness suddenly overcame her and her cares and worries seemed to drift away.

Lai Tsin smiled as her eyelids drooped and she slept. "The child will be born sooner than we thought," he said as Annie came in. "We must send Zocco to Santa Rosa for the doctor."

"It's a long way, more than thirty miles," Annie said doubtfully. "Maybe we should wait. After all, the baby's not due for another three weeks."

"The child will come within forty-eight hours," Lai Tsin said quietly. "It will be good to forewarn him."

Annie looked curiously at him. "You seem to know everything, Lai Tsin."

"I know something else," he said quietly. "I have brought a gift for you and for Francie. The gift of peace of mind." He handed her the paper and as she read it Annie's brown eyes filled with tears. "I knew it," she said simply. "I knew Josh didn't kill those girls. But why? Why did Sammy do such a terrible thing?"

"He did not think like a normal person. His felt only three basic emotions; jealousy, anger, and pleasure. There was a madness in him that made him feel free to destroy those who got in his way."

"And where is he now?"

Lai Tsin's eyes were inscrutable as he told her, "You will never see him again."

Annie looked into his enigmatic face and she shivered; she didn't know what he meant by that and she was afraid to ask.

Bitter tears rained down as she thought of Josh, but Lai Tsin offered no words of comfort, for he knew none. And when her tears were finished he said, "Your family's honor will be vindicated. Now we must look to the future, to the child who will soon come into our lives."

And as she dried her eyes and blew her nose, Annie knew he was right that, thanks to Lai Tsin, her father would be able to hold his head up proudly again. She put the confession safely away to be mailed to the British police, and then she went to tell Zocco that he must ride to Santa Rosa and fetch the doctor.

A low, dragging pain woke Francie a short while later. She sat up quickly, her eyes wide with shock. "Oh, Annie," she said half-nervous, half-excited, "I think the baby's on his way."

Annie's worried eyes met Lai Tsin's. "Just as Lai Tsin predicted," she said, "he's already sent Zocco for the doctor." She walked to the window and looked doubtfully out into the night. The wind that had plagued them for three days had risen to gale force, the rain was lashing down and she prayed it wouldn't turn to snow again.

Francie lay in her mother's bed. Her face was pale and her blue eyes glittered with fear.

"Stay and keep me company," she begged. "And ask Lai Tsin to come too." She gasped as another pain hit her. Annie looked worriedly at her and then went to fetch Lai Tsin. The small paraffin lamp shed a soft light on their faces as they sat beside her and Francie thought of the Christmas night long ago when she had lain dreaming on the rug in front of the stove, while her mother slept her final sleep in the same bed she lay in now. And she wished with all her heart that her mother were here to help her.