Li Jun and the Iron Road Read online

  “That’s all very good,” said Mr. Grant, “but I’m a money man, and I need to see the financial reports and the ledgers from all the bookmen.”

  The Controller drew hard on his cigar and paced back and forth nervously. He signalled to Edgar who rolled up the maps.

  “Certainly we can look at the financial aspects, if that’s what you’d like, Mr. Grant. But you put in long hours at the bank and you’ve been cooped up all day on that train. We only have so much daylight left, and a ride down into the canyon at sunset will put the soul back into a man. The books will be here tomorrow.”

  “And so they will,” said Mr. Grant, nodding to Mr. Nichol, and together they left to get horses saddled up for the scenic ride.

  Mr. Nichol’s cook yelled at her and Little Tiger jumped to attention.

  “Keep your mind on your work, boy. We need more wood for the oven. Quick! Go get it.”

  Little Tiger took a canvas sling to fetch the wood and pondered what she had heard. Why would the Controller be so nervous about showing the reports and ledgers to the banker? The bookmen for each crew kept track of the pay and the charges for their men. All the Controller had to do was match up money coming in and money going out. She shrugged. One more mystery of the gwailo.

  She’d better hurry or this cook would be complaining just like Powder did. She scurried to the woodpile at the side of the train and started filling her canvas sling.

  James was standing there pacing, already dressed for dinner in a black evening jacket. Little Tiger had never seen him smoke before but he was puffing furiously. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then tried to embrace her, but she held him away with both her arms.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, clearly taken aback. “Last night you wanted me to keep holding you and this morning you asked to talk to me. “

  “Go away. I have work to do,” she said.

  “But you wanted to talk to me.”

  Little Tiger sighed. “I am all right. I look after myself. I always have. I can still.” She picked up the sling filled with wood and moved around him.

  “Wait!” he pleaded.

  Little Tiger threw down the bag of wood. All her anger spilled out. “That woman. Is she your wife?”

  James threw his hands up in the air. “So that’s what this is about. My wife?”

  “You never think to mention her.”

  “I don’t have a wife!”

  “Is she your almost-wife?”

  James stubbed his cigarette into the ground. “Melanie … she doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?” shouted Little Tiger. “Like the hootchy-kootchy in Yale?”

  “Hold on! You stop that right now. You’re not allowed to use anything against me that I told you before I knew you were a woman.”

  “Why? Do you say one thing to men and another thing to women? Either way, hootchy-kootchy girls don’t matter, Melanie doesn’t matter. So, do I matter? “

  James was furious. “Of course you matter. I don’t want to fight with you over some stupid girl.”

  “Don’t call her stupid!” screamed Little Tiger.

  “Jesus Murphy! How could I ever have thought you were a guy? You women all see things screwy.”

  Little Tiger kneeled down to gather up the fallen wood. “I must go now.”

  James picked up a log and placed it in her bag, offering to carry the load.

  “We can’t talk now,” she said.

  “Then meet me at the pool at eight o’clock.”

  She looked at James sadly. “No,” she said, and rushed off to the kitchen.

  She changed into the uniform that the cook gave her, smoothing her hands along the crisp white jacket.

  Melanie arrived in a stunning gown, with her father in a formal evening jacket. She handed her wrap to Little Tiger without a glance or a thank you, and stood waiting for the admiration of the men assembled in the railcar. She was, Little Tiger had to admit, attractive … for a white woman. Her skin was fair and she showed off her curves in a brocade dress with a plunging neckline.

  “Welcome, welcome!” said Mr. Nichol, greeting them warmly. “By Godfrey, you are a beautiful girl, Melanie.”

  He graciously kissed her hand and she looked to James, who politely pulled out a chair for her at the dining table. They were all seated when Little Tiger entered the room with a soup tureen. James nearly fell off his seat as she ladled the salmon chowder into their bowls. The conversation between Nichol and Grant was jovial, but Melanie was silent and James answered questions from his father in grunts. It was a seven-course dinner and there were polite murmurings around the table about the excellent food and fine wines being available here in the middle of nowhere. Little Tiger cleared the plates, relieved that she hadn’t spilled soup on Miss Melanie or dropped a venison chop on James’s lap. She’d thought of doing both.

  Mr. Nichol turned to Melanie and asked, “What did you discover on your walk with my son this afternoon?”

  James shifted in his chair. Melanie held her head high and, keeping her gaze on James, answered: “I came thinking this would be a romp. I only came for a laugh. But it appears that the laugh was on me.”

  James reached across the table to take Melanie’s hand. “It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you,” he said quietly.

  “Apparently not,” she said. “It seems, Mr. Nichol, that your son has fallen in love with Chinamen. Now, if you will excuse me, I know you gentlemen want to discuss finance, so I’m going to find my way back to my railcar.”

  All of the men folded their napkins and stood up.

  “I’ll see you out,” offered James.

  “Please don’t be silly,” she said. “What’s the worst that could happen to me alone in the wilderness? I get snatched up by bears or wolves or love-starved Chinamen?”

  Livid with anger, she flounced out of the car. Mr. Grant sat back down in his chair, stunned. James jumped up and followed her. Little Tiger dumped the dishes in the wash basin and opened the window so that she could listen to the conversation out there, though she really didn’t need to, they were shouting so loud that she could hear them easily. Melanie rushed down the stairs of the railcar, lifting layers of ruched silk and chiffon. From the door, James called out, “Will you please just come back inside!”

  As she was stomping off across the uneven ground, the heel of Melanie’s shoe suddenly snapped off. “Damn it all to hell!” she cried, yanking off the shoe and throwing it at James.

  Little Tiger watched it fly by, almost hitting him in the head.

  He picked it up. “Melanie, please don’t be like this,” he begged.

  “Like what? What did I do to be treated so shabbily?”

  James hung his head and walked toward her. “You didn’t do anything. It’s me. I’ve changed. We just want different things, that’s all.”

  By now Mr. Nichol and Mr. Grant had come out and were standing on the gallery while Little Tiger was almost hanging out the window, watching and listening.

  Melanie looked at James, both angry and puzzled. “Different, how? I thought we had …”

  Now it was James’s turn to be confused. “Had what?”

  Mr. Grant rushed down the steps, interrupting. “An understanding, young man.”

  Melanie put her hand on her father’s arm to restrain him. “Please, Father. Don’t. That would be far too humiliating. Clearly, all we have is a misunderstanding.”

  She snatched her shoe from James and slipped it on, without the heel. Summoning up as much dignity as possible in the situation, she turned to his father. “Thank you, Mr. Nichol, for just a lovely evening. Good night.”

  Little Tiger watched as she hobbled off to her own railcar.

  Mr. Grant was red in the face as he confronted James. “Young man, I could sue you for breach of promise!”

  Melanie screeched from a distance. “Father! Don’t you dare.”

  James raised himself to his full height and stared at Mr. Grant. Gently but firmly
he said, “With all due respect, sir, I didn’t promise your daughter anything.”

  Mr. Grant smiled snidely. “Well, I didn’t promise your father anything, either.” And he walked away to join his daughter.

  By this time even the cook was listening to the drama unfolding outside, and he wasn’t one to keep his opinions to himself. “This is a bad thing. Now Mr. Grant won’t give the extra money to finish the track because Mr. James doesn’t want to marry Miss Melanie,” he said. “Back in China, we marry who our parents say. Do you have a wife waiting at home, Xiao Hu?”

  Little Tiger shook her head. “No, no wife,” she told him. No husband either, she told herself.

  The cook was right. They listened as father and son raised their voices to each other.

  “We don’t need Grant’s extra money,” insisted James. “And we’re not going to beg for it. We have a signed loan agreement with the bank and so far we’re not in breach of our contract.”

  “Don’t be a fool, James,” said his father. “We will be, by the end of the week. We’ll never get that track finished in time. One inch short and they’ll take everything we own.”

  James was adamant. “No, they won’t. Because we won’t let them.”

  “You don’t know that and neither do I,” shouted Mr. Nichol and he charged up the stairs with James following. No sooner was he through the door than his knees buckled and he collapsed in a heap on the floor. He fumbled in his vest pocket.

  The cook turned to Little Tiger. “It’s his bad heart again.”

  “Aw, shit!” cried Alfred Nichol. “Where are my damn pills?”

  James kneeled beside him and dug the pill case out from his vest pocket. But it was empty. He called out for water and Little Tiger came running with a glass. She could see the panic in his face.

  He offered the water to his father. “You need a doctor,” he said firmly “I’m taking you to Yale.”

  He whispered to Little Tiger, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She saw how serious this was. “I hope your father will be all right,” she said.

  After clearing up in the kitchen, Little Tiger said good night to the cook and hurried back to her tent. Her thoughts were all about James and Melanie … and her. She was heartsick. If James didn’t want to marry Melanie, then who did he want to be with?

  Chapter

  Twelve

  Next morning she stood in the kitchen tent as Powder examined the supplies that had come in from Yale. He shook his head in dismay at the paltry offerings of rice, dried fish, and staples. He lifted the lid off of a bucket of lard and screwed up his face in disgust. “This is rancid! How the hell can I feed men with food not fit for pigs! Little Tiger, get Bookman over here, now!”

  Little Tiger smelled the lard and felt her stomach turn over. She sometimes dreamed of fresh greens and meat in her noodle bowl but, after months of working at Hell’s Gate, she knew that the Chinese had no time for dreams; they were too busy surviving.

  She wanted to ask Bookman some questions, but first she had to find him amid the constant din of saws cutting trees into ties, of hammers driving spikes into rails, of men yelling out instructions. One of the workers pointed to a supply cart waiting to be unloaded. Over the top of it, she caught a glimpse of Bookman’s distinctive black hat. His head was bobbing up and down as he gestured wildly. Who was he talking to with so much animation? Usually Bookman was a man of few words so it was always hard to tell what he was really thinking.

  She stood on the far side of the cart, hidden from them, waiting for a break in their conversation. Now she recognized the other voice. It was the Controller. She’d taken a dislike to him the first time she saw him. He had a hard-edged Irish accent and spoke dismissively to everyone but his own bosses. And he looked mean — his mouth pinched tight and his eyes close together like a rat’s. His hair and beard were scraggly and his clothes unkempt. She often smelled alcohol on him, which reminded her of Mr. Relic, except that she was fond of that old scoundrel Relic. He’d been like a substitute father in Hong Kong. It still made her sad to think that the reason James brought her to Canada was his murder. She wondered what Mr. Relic would think about everything that had happened to her since.

  She stopped daydreaming when she heard the Controller’s voice rise.

  “I told you this would come back to bite us on the ass,” he said.

  Little Tiger expected Bookman to be silenced by this rebuke, so she was shocked when he countered with his own sarcastic words. “What? Now you’re sorry for making so much money on the side?”

  “Well, no. I’m not complaining about that,” said the Controller.

  “Then shut your mouth!” said Bookman, waving his black ledger in the air.

  Little Tiger stopped breathing. Never had she heard a Chinese man speak this way to his white boss.

  And Bookman didn’t stop there. “As long as this book matches payroll, names mean nothing to them. They don’t know if we’re dead or alive. All damn Chinamen are the same, right?”

  Little Tiger hadn’t moved but Bookman must have sensed she was there. He pushed aside some boxes and spied her through the opening.

  “What do you want?” he asked in Chinese.

  Little Tiger tried to answer nonchalantly as if she’d just now stumbled across the pair and had heard nothing. In Chinese she replied, “Oh, there you are. Powder asked me to find you.”

  The Controller looked at her ssuspiciously and turned to Bookman with a panicky expression. “What’s he saying?” he asked.

  Bookman shouted at Little Tiger. “Tell Powder I’ll deal with him later. You, get back to work!”

  With twitching fingers, the Controller lit a cigar. Little Tiger bowed to Bookman and ran off, more convinced than ever that he was not who he appeared to be.

  The next morning as she was filling her tea pails, Bookman rode up on his horse and reined him in beside her.

  “Little Tiger, you are no longer a tea boy.”

  She was so astounded she let the pails overflow.

  “The Controller wants you on the explosives crew. He’s seen what you can do and thinks you’re wasted lugging tea pails.”

  Her wish had been granted! Little Tiger whipped off her apron and handed it to Powder. He rubbed what was left of his left arm. “Be careful, kid. Don’t end up like me.”

  “Don’t worry. I am fantastic with black powder,” she answered.

  “Damn it,” he replied. “I’m already short of tea boys. Now I’m left with this shitload of work. Cooking, washing, cleaning, drying. Sonofabitch.”

  At the blasting site, the dynamite boss greeted Little Tiger’s arrival with disdain. She figured it was because she had complained about the fuses being too short. Bookman marched her to the same swing chair she’d used to haul up Di Hong’s body and she looked over the ledge to the foreboding scene below.

  “This is your chair from now on, Xiao Hu. Learn from Wang Ma.”

  Little Tiger was offended. “I don’t need to learn from him. I know what to do.”

  Bookman had no time for arrogance. “He survived the last accident. He can teach you something.”

  She stared at Bookman’s face. “That scar. How did you get it?”

  It seemed to Little Tiger that something switched in Bookman the minute she asked that question. Was it that he knew the work was dangerous and the little tea boy seemed too fragile for the work? Could this man possibly have a streak of human kindness? Nonsense, she thought. This is a brutal man who can murder someone over a gold claim.

  “I got it from an accident,” he answered guardedly. “Some accidents can change your life … or end it.”

  It was too much for Little Tiger to hold back her questions any longer. “They say you killed a man.”

  Bookman hardened. “That was an accident as well. Don’t let any accident happen to you, Xiao Hu. Now do I have to tell you again to get to work?”

  “No. I know what I have to do.”

  There were already
a dozen men working on different parts of the cliff. Wang Ma was chiselling into the rock directly below and she descended in her own sling chair to work beside him. Her palms were sweating and her heart beating a thousand times a minute whenever she looked down into the swirling water far, far below. Huge boulders by the river’s edge looked like pebbles from this distance. When she’d brought Di Hong’s body up, she was so focused on the job that she hadn’t had time to think about the danger she was in. When she squeezed through the hole in the tunnel and blasted it clear, she was thinking only of earning the five bucks. Never did she think then that her life might end with one small mistake. But now that her job was to blast away the side of a mountain, she realized that only her sling chair — three wooden slabs held together with ropes and connected by more rope to a hoist, kept her from a plunge into the river below — certain death.

  She looked over to Wang Ma, hoping he would tell her not to be afraid, but instead he was deep in concentration. She chipped away at the rock with her chisel, trying to carve out a hole deep enough for a couple of sticks of dynamite.

  “How much time do we have to set the charges?” she asked Wang Ma.

  “As long as it takes. But if you make a mistake or the wind plays tricks on you, get yourself up to the top as fast as you can or you’ll be blown all over the canyon.”

  Little Tiger looked at him in horror. He was pushing himself away from the cliff with his feet and twirling his chair like a kid on a swing.

  “What are you doing?” she screamed.

  “I’m a hawk!” he shouted, spreading his arms like wings and throwing his head back, laughing hysterically.

  “Stop that!” she screamed, wanting to slap him across the face to bring him back to his senses.

  He slowed down the twirling and gripped the rock face with his feet. He looked to the canyon, far below. “I think about that.”

  Little Tiger didn’t understand. “Think about what?”

  “Taking a jump, getting it over with. We’re all going to die here, you know. Tiger, you’d send my bones home for me, wouldn’t you?”