Li Jun and the Iron Road Read online

  Relic didn’t seem to care but Little Tiger saw another opportunity to be hired. If she found the last one hundred men, surely Mr. James would hire her.

  “Mr. James,” she called out, “I find you strong workers, at my factory. I tell them about big money from the Nichol Railway Company.”

  James turned to Relic. “See that? Even this kid knows where to find men.”

  Little Tiger’s heart beat faster.

  ***

  At lunch the factory workers sat on long benches, slumped over their noodle bowls. Little Tiger scurried from one to another, whispering that she could get them to Gold Mountain and its riches.

  There was sound of a commotion outside the factory. Even before she saw them, Little Tiger recognized the voices of Mr. James, Mr. Relic, and Wang Yi. James was standing at the doorway, obviously confused by an elderly man trying to tell him something.

  “What’s this man jabbering about?” he asked.

  Wang Yi bowed to the old man and whispered to James, “This gentleman is asking you to remove your footwear before entering.”

  James refused. To Little Tiger he looked as if he rarely took orders from anyone, especially a translator. She wondered if she should intervene and was happy when Mr. Relic did.

  “Take off your boots, for Christ’s sake!” he ordered. “They’re too dangerous around explosives. One spark and we’d all be done for.”

  Shocked, James looked from Relic to the translator and the old worker at the door, then struggled out of his boots. He had a lot to learn.

  Next he barged into the lunchroom, calling out to the workers, “You there! You men! How would you like to make some real money?”

  There were blank faces in front of him so he turned to the translator. “Go on. Tell them what I’m saying.”

  Relic looked worried and muttered, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

  Reluctantly, Wang Yi translated. He told the men that his boss wanted to offer them a better job, then repeated exactly what Little Tiger had already whispered to them at the lunch tables.

  “One dollar a day for building a railway.” He smiled.

  Little Tiger heard footsteps and turned to look behind her. There stood the factory supervisor, his hands on his hips, glaring at James and Wang Yi.

  “Shut your mouth,” he said in Chinese. “Keep your hands off my workers!”

  Wang Yi looked afraid but James, not understanding, shouted loudly, “In one year you can make over three hundred dollars!”

  Suddenly a worker raised his head and motioned toward the entrance door. The room became deathly quiet. Even James stopped talking. Straddling the opening was an immense man holding a walking stick, dressed in traditional Chinese clothing with a rounded pillbox cap on his head, but a British camelhair coat slung over his shoulders. It was Lei Mo, who ran the most powerful and violent gang in Hong Kong. Behind him stood a smug Di Hong, the factory bully who’d blown up Little Tiger’s stall, plus three stocky men with their arms crossed.

  Everyone feared this big boss man, Lei Mo. The factory supervisor kowtowed before him and discreetly handed him a thick envelope. Little Tiger knew it was a bribe for “protection” of the factory. Protection was a big joke. The only thing Lei Mo protected was his own power and money grabbing, but crossing him meant death.

  Relic blanched at the sight of Lei Mo. The translator was petrified and lifted his hands in apology. Little Tiger, hopping up from her bench, grabbed hold of James’s sleeve, and tried to tug him toward the back door.

  “Time to go far away!” she whispered to him, but James refused to budge.

  Di Hong said something to the gang lord and pointed a finger at Little Tiger. Lei Mo stared at her, then put his hand around the translator’s throat.

  “You have no business here!” he growled, glaring at Relic, James, and Little Tiger.

  To Little Tiger’s dismay, James didn’t seem to rea­l­-ize the danger they were in. He whispered to Relic, “Who’s this guy with the teapot hat?”

  Relic smiled nervously and answered through gritted teeth, “You have chosen a factory under the protection of the local gang lord, Lei Mo.”

  The gang lord shifted his walking stick ominously from one hand to the other. James was reaching his hand into his coat to take out his gun, but Relic snarled, “Don’t be a fool, you’ll blow us to kingdom come!” He pointed to the explosives stacked along every wall of the factory. James’s eyes widened and he quickly pulled his hand back. Relic bowed to Lei Mo and, in his best Chinese, said, “My apologies, sir. We’ll be on our way now. Good day.”

  He grabbed James by the arm and they backed out the door. Lei Mo lifted his walking stick triumphantly and signalled the factory supervisor to follow him into the back room.

  As soon as they left, Little Tiger ran outside and called, “Mr. James, wait!”

  James looked at the kid scrambling after him. “You again! What is it this time?”

  “To build the iron road you use black powder, right?” asked Little Tiger.

  “Explosives. Of course.”

  “I can do black powder. I explode really fantastic.”

  James laughed. “You’d explode, all right.”

  “Hire me!” she insisted. “I read, I write, I will be big help. I can bring men from the factory.”

  Relic looked at her, appalled. “That’s bloody lunacy, my boy. Lei Mo will slit you from the belly to the chops.”

  Little Tiger stood her ground. “I’m not afraid of Lei Mo.”

  James considered her offer. “All right, kid. I’ll pay you a shilling for every good man you bring to the square in front of the office by eight o’clock tonight.”

  Relic threw up his arms in disgust. “Fools. Both of you!”

  Little Tiger scurried back to the factory, and when Lei Mo had left she quietly began to recruit again, whispering in the ear of each worker. When she walked past Di Hong, her heart gave a little thump and she said nothing. He snarled at her and flashed a shiny knife tucked up his own sleeve.

  “One day you’ll wish you never threatened me,” he said. “One day I’ll be as big as Lei Mo is.”

  Little Tiger couldn’t resist laughing at him. “You’re almost that fat now!” she said.

  If the supervisor hadn’t walked by at that exact moment … well, Little Tiger didn’t even want to think about what Di Hong might have done to her. Besides, there were more important things on her mind, like her promise to bring ninety-nine recruits to the square that night so she would be hired as the hundredth.

  At eight o’clock Relic and James were waiting in the courtyard behind the railway company’s offices. Proudly Little Tiger strode in, leading a string of workers from her factory.

  “Here we are. Ninety-nine men, and me. All ready to get on ship to go to Gold Mountain.”

  James liked what he saw — these were sturdy men — and he handed the kid an envelope full of shillings. But she had a bigger goal: to secure her own place on the crew. She pulled a couple of sticks of dynamite from her pocket.

  “We all sign with you for Gold Mountain, but first you watch how I do black powder.”

  James laughed. “Take the money and beat it, kid. You’re too puny.”

  Just as she prepared to show off her dynamite skills, Little Tiger heard a shuffling noise behind her. It was Lei Mo and his thugs emerging from the shadows. Di Hong was with them and when Little Tiger met his eyes, his face twisted into a triumphant smirk. She looked down and saw that they were all carrying machetes.

  “Nobody steals workers from one of my factories,” growled Lei Mo, advancing on Relic and James.

  “Oh, shit!” yelled Relic, and ran off down an alley.

  Terrified, all of Little Tiger’s recruits followed fast behind him.

  She shouted at them, “Come back, you cowards!” but they disappeared into the night.

  James pulled out his gun, pointed it at Lei Mo, and turned to Little Tiger. “Tell them to drop their knives.”

  Little Tiger
screamed at them in Chinese, “Drop your knives or he’ll feed his bullets into your skulls and turn them to mush.”

  She looked back at James. He was holding his gun as steady as he could but he was sweating and blinking hard. She realized he had probably never fired a gun at anyone before.

  Di Hong slid up beside Lei Mo. “Look! The guy’s hand is shaking. He’s too scared to shoot.”

  Seeing this, Lei Mo signalled one of his henchmen to sneak up on James around the side. Then he spat on the ground and growled at Little Tiger. “So you’re the little shit who joined this pair! You should have thought first before helping them steal my workers.”

  At that moment, the henchman came up behind James and hit him on the head with the handle of his machete. James cried out and lost his balance … and his gun. It fell to the ground and Lei Mo lunged forward to grab it, but Little Tiger stomped hard on his hand and scooped up the gun. Lei Mo fell back, screaming in pain, “Goddamn, you. You’ve broken my hand!”

  Triumphantly Little Tiger tossed the gun back to James, who by now had righted himself. He held the gun as steady as he could and pointed it at the gang.

  Little Tiger grinned at them. “Eat this!” she cried, lighting a dynamite stick and throwing it right at them.

  Lei Mo, cringing with pain, looked on in horror as the stick of dynamite dropped in front of him, its short fuse already hissing. Di Hong cowered behind his boss and grabbed on to him as a shield. Lei Mo struggled to get away, but with his wounded hand and the bully clinging to his back he was like a crippled crab. The dynamite sizzled.

  “Get off me, you snivelling coward,” screamed Lei Mo, trying to shake him off. But Di Hong only tightened his grip and watched in horror as a stream of hot pee ran down his leg and pooled at his boss’s feet.

  “You’re dead, Di Hong. Dead!” spat Lei Mo. He lurched sideways, then tripped and fell flat on his backside.

  Little Tiger laughed, but James was shocked and shouted, “We’re going to get killed when that thing blows up!”

  “I told you I was fantastic with black powder,” said Little Tiger. “Watch.”

  The dynamite fuse burned into the stick, but there was only a feeble pop.

  “It’s fake!” laughed Little Tiger. “Now we run to Mr. Relic.”

  With Lei Mo’s gang in pursuit, the two of them careened through the market, toppling everything in their path. When they reached Relic’s door, Little Tiger pounded on it frantically, shouting that it was them. Armed with a gun himself, Relic opened the door and pulled them inside. By the time Lei Mo and his men found Relic’s place, all three of them — Little Tiger, Relic, and James — were hidden under the floor boards. They held their breath as the gang searched every corner of Relic’s rooms, walking right across the boards over their heads, and found nothing.

  “They’ll all pay for this,” threatened Lei Mo as he led his goons out the door.

  The threesome under the floor boards waited until all was clear and heaved a collective sigh of relief. Little Tiger gazed up at the handsome Mr. James beside her and he smiled back.

  Then her eyes lit up. “Wait! I know the most fantastic place to get workers. I promise.”

  Relic raised his eyebrow and sighed. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!”

  Chapter

  Five

  The oarsman stood in the back of the low-lying boat as he paddled his three passengers up to Little Tiger’s home village. It was desolate. The kid pointed to a simple cottage on the banks of the river. “There — my home till twelve years old.”

  Relic leaned back in the boat against bags of rice and lit his cigar.

  “Wherever we are, at least it puts a distance between us and that monster Lei Mo.”

  James shuddered and asked Little Tiger why she was so sure they could find men in this village who would go to Canada on such short notice.

  “Brave men here,” she replied. “Like my father. They fighted the Manchu army.”

  Relic corrected her grammar. “Fought. Fought. Fought.”

  “Ah, yes. He fought them until he go to Gold Mountain. Mr. James, let me come to Gold Mountain, please! Didn’t I save your life?”

  James turned and looked at the kid in astonishment. Had he forgotten that it was he who had enraged Lei Mo by bringing workers from the factory? That he had defied the gang lord and stomped on his hand in the fight? “Saved my life? Sure you did, after you almost got us both slaughtered.”

  “I got your gun for you,” protested Little Tiger. “Now I get men you need and go to Gold Mountain with them.”

  “Kid, find the men and I’ll pay you, but I told you, you’re not going to Gold Mountain.”

  How could she convince him that she would be fantastic on the railway crew? Mr. Zhou had told her that black powder was the only way to blast through rock to prepare a railway track. Surely if she found these last one hundred men in her village and showed James her skill with dynamite, he wouldn’t have any choice but to take her along. She would be his Number One boy.

  The oarsman brought the boat to a stop at the wharf and they got off. As they walked into the destitute village, Little Tiger turned to James. “I teach you important Chinese words now. For ‘a dollar a day,’ say ‘yat mun yatyat,’ and for ‘Gold Mountain’ — that is easy — ‘gum san.’”

  Valiantly, James tried to pronounce the words. Little Tiger nearly doubled over laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” asked James.

  “You just said, ‘I am in love with a donkey.’” She giggled.

  His face fell.

  “Come on, James, give it a go,” insisted Relic.

  James tried again with a different emphasis.

  Little Tiger grimaced. “BeTT-er,” she said and flashed her white teeth in a wide smile.

  “What a shame a beautiful smile like that is wasted on a boy,” Relic said with a sigh.

  Little Tiger ignored him, bouncing with excitement as she pointed to the crowd of men gathering in the square. James marched toward them with Relic and Little Tiger close behind.

  “You talk to them, kid,” he told her. “Tell them what I say. We’ll get these men on the other side of the ocean and show my father I can do it — bring two thousand workers to build his goddamn railway for him. Then I can get back to my real life: wine, women, and hockey.”

  Little Tiger took all of this in.

  Soon, the trio stood in front of the villagers in the mud square. Little Tiger thought she recognized two boys she’d grown up with, Wang Ma and Cheung Wei. Yes, it was them — now grown men, standing at the front with their arms crossed — muscular arms and stocky thighs from heavy work in the fields. Proudly she pointed them out to James. “See, not puny men here.”

  He nodded and instructed her to translate his pitch exactly.

  “We’re hiring men for Gold Mountain! One dollar a day!” she called out.

  The villagers crowded closer and she continued her impassioned plea. “For your family you could make three hundred dollars in one year!”

  But the men seemed suspicious. It sounded too good to be true.

  Little Tiger persisted. “What do you have here? Nothing. Do you want to die here? Why don’t you take a chance?”

  The men turned to each other, debating loudly. Wang Ma asked about the gold. He’d heard it was lying in ditches, ready for the taking. Relic looked skeptical but James nodded to Little Tiger. This was her cue.

  “Mr. James promises that any gold you find, you can keep for yourself.”

  There was a holler of approval and backslapping among the men.

  Little Tiger shouted enthusiastically, “Now tell all your neighbours that we’re set to go.”

  Wang Ma turned to his friend Chung Wei and smiled as if he’d just won a pile of money at mah-jong. “I’ll go!” he cried.

  Other men eagerly followed his lead. Relic signed them up, telling them to say goodbye to their families and show up at Dock 10 of the Hong Kong harbour in exactly two days’ time.

&nbs
p; Now the three of them could head back. The oarsman deposited them downriver at a little riverside restaurant to wait for the last leg to Hong Kong. They congratulated each other on finding the last of the men as Little Tiger slurped a bowl of noodles, James sipped tea, and Relic smoked yet another cigar. On the other side of the narrow river three teenage girls shyly looked across at James, then giggled and whispered to one another. Little Tiger couldn’t help but notice how James’s eyes twinkled as he smiled back at them.

  Relic noticed too. “Look, but never touch, Mr. Nichol. That way heartache lies.”

  Little Tiger didn’t understand what Relic meant. She knew that Englishmen paid money to dance and drink with Chinese girls and to lie with them afterward, but she had never known of an Englishman and a Chinese girl actually falling in love and living together as a couple.

  James peered at Relic. “You sound like a sadder but wiser man,” he said.

  Little Tiger listened carefully for Relic’s answer.

  “Wiser? I don’t know. I did have a Chinese almost- wife for a time, in Singapore. But her family despised me. And the company for which I worked took a very dim view. So I had to send the lovely little thing packing.”

  Ah! That was one of the secrets from Mr. Relic’s past. Little Tiger wondered if he had loved his almost-wife. Did he send her away because her family disapproved or because he would lose his job? She didn’t know what to think. She’d never known of a Chinese girl married to a foreigner but now she could understand the possibility. She found Mr. James very attractive — for a gwailo. And that feeling surprised her. Living as a boy, she had suppressed any attraction to men, but this man was a puzzling mix of arrogance and charm. If her parents were still alive, if she was still a girl, she would have been engaged by now to a Chinese boy approved by them. That was the way it was. That was the way it had always been. But she wondered if that was the way it would always be.