Li Jun and the Iron Road Read online

  “A cook?”

  “Yes. Mr. Nichol’s personal cook needs a helper who speaks good English. There’s a fancy dinner planned for some bigwigs.”

  “He wants me to work in Mr. Nichol’s private railcar?”

  “Just this once. Maybe you can get a job after that as a cook — and not by accident like me.” Powder pointed to his arm and laughed.

  Little Tiger was encouraged. Maybe James would change his mind, maybe he wouldn’t send her away. She would prove herself, but meanwhile she had to do her tea job. With a lighter step, she headed up the mountain to the blasting site.

  Wang Ma sat in his swing chair and shouted at the hoist men to lower him down the sheer cliff. Little Tiger peered over the ledge and watched him, fascinated, as he held tight to the ropes from the hoist that supported his chair. He braced his feet against the cliff and then pushed off, rappelling farther and farther down until he found a crevice where he could place his charges. It looked terrifying — the hoist crew called it “hanging halfway between heaven and hell” — but Little Tiger was eager to give it a try. She trusted her instincts. She knew that she really was fantastic with black powder.

  She picked up a bundle of dynamite sticks and examined them. They still had short fuses and again it was a hot, dry day, just like the one when Powder blew off his arm. This time Little Tiger was determined to make her point. She grabbed one of the dynamite sticks, marched over to Edgar and the dynamite boss, and shoved it in their faces.

  “Excuse me, sir. These fuses are too short.”

  Edgar bristled at her effrontery.

  “I know things,” she continued. “These sticks have short fuses. They burn too fast in weather like this.”

  Edgar turned to the dynamite boss. “Who rigged these?”

  “I did,” he answered. “They’re regulation length. What does a tea boy know?”

  Glaring at Little Tiger, he barked at her in Chinese, “Regulation length. Mind your own business and get your ass back to work.”

  Little Tiger balled her hands into two fists and was about to curse them both, but they turned their backs on her. Instead, she looked up into the blazing sun and cursed it as she wiped the sweat dripping down her back. “Hot as hell in Hell’s Gate,” she muttered.

  She looked down at Wang Ma on the cliff, watched as he chiselled a small opening, placed his charges and lit the fuse. It sparked quickly and he shouted, “Fire in the hole,” waving to the hoist men on the ledge to haul him up.

  Little Tiger was alarmed at how quickly the fuse was burning. At this rate, it would light the dynamite before Wang Ma could be lifted back to safety.

  “Faster!” she screamed to the hoist men.

  There was a huge explosion. Rocks flew into the air and Wang Ma clutched the ropes of his chair, swinging like a rag doll in a cloud of dust and smoke. The rope groaned as the hoist men winched him up to the ledge. Blood seeped from a gash in his leg and he screamed, over and over, “Aiiyaa! I can’t hear a thing. Have I lost my leg?”

  Little Tiger checked him over. There were really only cuts and bruises. “It’s not that bad,” she said, and proceeded to wash away the blood and remove shards of rock from his cuts. She then tore off her neck scarf and ripped it into bandages.

  Bookman, the Controller, and the dynamite boss were going over blueprints when they heard the commotion and raced over.

  Glaring at the dynamite boss, Little Tiger said, “I told you those fuses were too short!”

  Wang Ma screamed hysterically, “Am I going to be deaf?”

  Little Tiger narrowed her eyes as she stared down at her friend. She was deliberately harsh because she knew that was the only way to ease his fears. “You won’t die. Calm down!”

  As Wang Ma was carried away, Little Tiger leaned in close to him. “You’ll be fine. The herbalist will look after you.”

  “Get back to work,” ordered the dynamite boss.

  “I told you,” she repeated. “Now you see what short fuses do.”

  She walked among the workers with her tea pails. They were not allowed to sit down for a break but they drank the tea thankfully. When the pails were empty, she grabbed her yoke and headed back to the camp, walking unnoticed past the Controller and Bookman, who were deep in conversation. Usually she was lost in her own thoughts. Besides, they talked about boring things: surveys, maintaining acceptable gradients, the bars in Yale. But this time she stopped — they were talking about her.

  “Who’s this kid the boss’s son brought back?” asked the Controller.

  “A nobody. A tea boy,” replied Bookman.

  “He’s too smart by half.”

  The Controller chewed on his cigar and grabbed Bookman by his lapel. “I’m getting tired of waiting for my share of the money. Let’s divvy up the cash. Give me my cut.”

  Little Tiger wondered what they meant. Divvy up? His cut? Was this some kind of scam that he and Bookman were running? Did it have something to do with gambling? But she couldn’t linger. The last thing she wanted was to get herself into more trouble. She hurried down to the kitchen tent to help Powder prepare the midday rice.

  Then she saw James coming out of the herbalist tent where Wang Ma was recovering. She grabbed a cup of water to offer him as an excuse to talk with him.

  He looked around furtively before speaking. Pretending to look at some reports, he said under his breath, “I couldn’t sleep all night thinking about you. I can’t let you stay here. The best thing for you is to go back to China before anyone else finds out.”

  Little Tiger handed him the water. As he drank it, she blurted out her plea. “Since my mother die, I lived as a boy …”

  James kept his eyes on the reports. “There’s a train leaving in a couple of days. You should be on it.”

  She moved nearer, beseeching him. “I lived all that time as a boy and no one found out.”

  “I did,” he said.

  “Because I wanted you to! It was my mistake, telling you.”

  James kicked at the dirt with the heel of his boot. “I don’t know what to think. All I know is that you’re a woman and it’s against the law for you to be here.”

  “You would send me to jail?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not. I could never do that to you, but if someone else finds out … goddamn it, I’ve got to get you back to China.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m responsible for you.”

  Little Tiger tensed her entire body. “For me? Why for me? Why not for Wang Ma or the others?”

  James suddenly seemed unsure of himself and his voice cracked with emotion. “You saved my life, remember? Way back in Hong Kong. And then I brought you here to protect you from Lei Mo. I can’t let something happen to you now.”

  Little Tiger smiled sadly. “That’s all?”

  “No, damn it,” said James clenching his fists. “Hear me out. You were my best buddy when I thought you were a guy. We shared a lot. Jeez, I admired you! Wanted to be like you. But now I don’t know what to think. You say you’re the same as before, but now I can only think of you as a woman. A lovely, brave woman.” He caught his breath.

  Little Tiger felt her heart pounding and her cheeks flushed. James wiped away the sweat on his forehead and averted his eyes.

  “But it’s too dangerous for you to stay. I have to put you on that train.”

  “Please,” she cried. “Don’t send me back to where I have nothing and no one.”

  She could tell that James was wavering. “Please Mr. James. I don’t want to go.”

  James looked deep into her eyes. A long silence, then he said, “I don’t want you to go either.”

  Little Tiger exploded with joy and relief. “You don’t? Then I don’t go! And you won’t tell. That is enough, for now. Thank you, Mr. James. Thank you!” She bowed repeatedly.

  “Don’t bow to me,” said James scratching his head, unsure of exactly what had just happened.

  Little Tiger ran off toward the kitchen tent. “
Wait!” he called.

  She heard him but she didn’t turn back. What if he changed his mind? She was jubilant. There was still a chance for her in Canada. Maybe even a chance for her and James. She ran his words over and over in her mind, “a lovely, brave woman.”

  Chapter

  Ten

  Fall had arrived and there was less light now. The days were still hot, but the temperature dropped in the mountain nights. Little Tiger had a restless night filled with anxious dreams about her future. It was still dark when she woke up. Some days were scorchers, but the temperature dropped every night. That morning was so cold that she found a layer of frost on her sleeping platform and she could see her breath in the air. She huddled by Powder’s kitchen fire, cupping her bowl between her hands to warm them.

  Something had been bothering her ever since she looked over Bookman’s shoulder and read the names in his big ledger.

  “Who is Wu Kai on our crew?” she asked Powder.

  He looked puzzled for a moment. “Who?”

  “Wu Kai,” she repeated. “I thought I knew everybody.”

  Powder slammed the lids on the pots and spun around. “Where’d you hear that name? Wu Kai is dead. Don’t talk about dead men.”

  Little Tiger couldn’t let it go. “Dead? But Bookman has his name on the payroll list in his ledger, plus a Bai Juan and a Shen Tao and —”

  Powder whipped a handful of charcoal at her. “Sonovabitch! Listen! They’re all dead. Now shut the hell up!”

  He returned to his work and Little Tiger tossed more tea leaves into the pot. It didn’t seem to matter what she said these days, she was always in trouble with someone.

  Suddenly Cheung Wei came running into the camp. “Bad accident!” he shouted. “A man down — on the cliff.”

  Little Tiger threw down her bowl and ran with Chung Wei and Powder to the cliff edge. Within minutes, hundreds of workers were gathered there. A body lay face down and motionless on an outcropping far below, trapped beneath a huge boulder.

  “Who is it?” Chung Wei asked. “He’s not from our crew.”

  Powder peered over the ledge. “You’re right. That’s Di Hong. He was on the crew cutting timber for the rail ties. Shouldn’t be here.”

  Little Tiger clamped her hand over her mouth in shock. That was Di Hong down there? “This was no accident,” continued Powder. “He had lots of enemies here — they knew he was one of Lei Mo’s gang back home.”

  She hardly recognized the shrivelled figure below as the bully who blew up her market stall and then fingered her to Lei Mo back in Hong Kong. Life on Gold Mountain had been especially hard on him.

  ***

  It didn’t take long for the bosses to show up. Edgar coolly surveyed the scene.

  “I guess he won’t be going to work today. How the hell did that Chinaman get himself down on that outcrop?”

  “Probably drunk,” speculated the Controller, “wandering around in the dark. Maybe he jumped. Homesick. We’ve lost some that way.”

  Edgar paced, anxious for the crew to start their work day. “Come on people. That’s enough gawking. Chop chop! Back to work now!”

  Silently, the workers looked at each other and no one moved. Wang Ma was the first to lay down his shovel. Then one by one, the others threw down their tools. The wheelbarrow workers stood idle, the hoist men halted on the ledge, no one got onto his swing chair. Even Little Tiger put down her yoke and let the tea pails drop into the mud.

  “What the hell’s going on?” ranted Edgar.

  Bookman came forward. “Bad luck. Body must come up or no one will work.”

  “Goddamnit, that’ll take half the day, maybe more.”

  Bookman threw up his arms. “That’s your problem.”

  The workers glared at Edgar and no one budged. Affronted, he dispatched the Controller to tell James and his father, while the crew stood silent. In a few minutes the two of them came puffing up the hill to join Edgar and Bookman. They surveyed the scene — the striking workers, the body down below. Mr. Nichol clenched his fists and hissed, “We’re not going to be held hostage by a bunch of superstitious Chinamen!”

  “Why don’t we just hoist the body up and get it over with?” suggested James.

  Bookman peered over the ledge. “Not so easy. Body is under a rock.”

  “No matter how long it takes, we’ve got to get that body up,” said James.

  Edgar smirked at this. “Why don’t we take the week off, James, and have a fancy funeral service?”

  Suddenly Mr. Nichol gasped and clutched his chest, his face distorted. Alarmed, James whispered to him, “Are you all right, Father?”

  With trembling hands, Mr. Nichol reached into his pocket, took out a small pill box, and popped a white pill into his mouth.

  “Of course I’m all right,” he barked. “No one stands between me and building this railway. Tell your damn Chinamen that no food or supplies are coming into this camp until they get back to work. Not one goddamned noodle!”

  “What?” said James.

  “I don’t care what happened here. Just get these little bastards back to work.”

  “Look, Father,” said James, trying to control his voice, “they can’t be expected to work with a corpse staring at them. Bookman tells us it’s really bad luck to leave a body there.”

  Mr. Nichol’s voice rose and his face reddened. “Tell your precious Chinamen that white men die on the job too!”

  James drew himself up, inches from his father’s face. “But not one of them is rotting on a ledge under a rock. And how many dead Chinese are there? A helluva lot more than those white men, but who keeps track of them? No one.”

  “Mr. Edgar! Mr. Edgar!”

  “What the …?” Edgar turned to see Little Tiger calling his name.

  “I will bring body up. Fast. Fast.”

  Sneering at the kid, Edgar asked, “And how much do you want this time, boy?”

  Little Tiger bowed her head. “No pay. I do it for … for respect of many Chinese who die here.”

  She looked to James for support. She thought he might be proud of her. Instead, he looked horrified. Why? She was fantastic with black powder and this was a job that needed to be done. For the Chinese workers. For Mr. James’s railway. James looked between his father and Little Tiger, as if weighing his wrath against her safety.

  “Maybe send someone with more experience,” he said.

  “I don’t see any other volunteers, James,” said Edgar, pointing to the workers. He turned to Little Tiger. “I don’t give a damn why you need to go down there. Just do it and don’t take all day.”

  James sidled up to her and whispered, “Please be careful. And … thank you.”

  She nodded at him and turned her attention to the task ahead. The outcropping was a long one and just wide enough for her to stand beside Di Hong’s body pinned under the boulder. She couldn’t think about James now, she needed to remember everything Mr. Zhou had taught her.

  She thought back to the lesson about the walnut. She needed to explode the shell without harming his body — the nut. She prayed that the ancient Mr. Zhou’s spirit would guide her.

  She shouted at the dynamite boss, “I need twenty sticks of dynamite and an extra rope.”

  The dynamite boss looked to Edgar, who in turn looked to Mr. Nichol for approval. He gave an exaggerated sigh and said, “For God’s sakes, give the kid whatever he needs and get this over with.”

  James helped Little Tiger tie the end of the extra rope to the hoisting mechanism.

  “What do you need this for?” he asked.

  “It’s my hand rope,” she said, “to tie around Di Hong and bring him up.” And she slung her knapsack, filled with dynamite and matches, onto her back.

  “Promise me you’ll get out of there quick, as soon as you set the charges,” said James, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

  “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing, Mr. James.”

  Grim-faced, she sat on her swing chair. The hoist cre
w lowered her to the body as James reeled out the hand rope. On the way down, she thought about Di Hong. He’d been a snitch and a thug, her enemy. But what mattered now was that in death he be treated with respect.

  She reached the outcropping where his body lay and looked down into the river, feeling slightly woozy and sick to her stomach. You must do this, she told herself. Remember Mr. Zhou. Remember the lesson of the walnut. Slowly, she eased herself off her swing chair and felt for a solid foothold on the outcropping.

  She heard Wang Ma scream to her, “Stay in your chair!”

  “Do what he says!” shouted James.

  Little Tiger ignored their warnings. She needed to get to the body. She inched along the ledge, pressed tightly to the mountain side. Pebbles from above rained down on her head. Her breathing was ragged. She saw that the boulder was trapping Di Hong’s body from his waist down to his ankles. She bowed to him first, then, making a noose of the hand rope, tied it securely around the upper part of his body — under his arms and around his chest.

  She went over her plan. Clearly it was impossible to explode the huge boulder without the two of them being blown to smithereens. What she’d have to do — and this would be really tricky — was to blast away the ledge from under Di Hong and leave his body untouched. But would the rope around his body hold? Could she jump back into her swing chair and get up top in time?

  She went about setting her many charges on the ledge, checked the rope around Di Hong, then took a deep breath. This was it! She lit the fuses and leaped onto her sling chair, hollering “Pull! Pull me up!”

  She heard James repeat, “Bring him up! Move, damnit!”

  Bookman’s voice rang through the canyon. “Fire in the hole!”

  Inching up the cliff, Little Tiger looked over her shoulder at the body, counting down the seconds as the fuses sizzled.

  “FOUR, THREE, TWO …” Her feet touched the ledge up top. There was a thunderous explosion below, and she felt herself toppling backward from the force of the blast. Someone grabbed her hands and pulled her forward onto the ledge. It was James.