Staking a Claim Page 10

  Real guests can’t go running back to China, because China is no place for clever folks like us. In China we had to do what everyone told us to. On the Golden Mountain, though, we can become anything we want.

  Then he took me outside the tent and took a deep breath like it was wine. We looked up at the night sky. It was full of stars. He told me the Golden Mountain casts a spell on a person. You can’t shake it off.

  Maybe that’s fine for someone as brave and smart as the Fox.

  But not for me. I’m still the runt.

  January 1, 1853

  We can hear the Americans celebrating their New Year’s. Now I know what they do. They’re shooting off their guns like they did on July Fourth and on Admission Day. I wish they wouldn’t. It makes me nervous. What if they stop aiming their guns at the sky and start pointing them at us?

  January 2

  Snow!

  When I first saw it, I thought it was feathers. I figured the cook was plucking chickens for our Sunday meal. However, more of it whirled by. It would have taken a whole flock of chickens to make that many feathers.

  So I looked up. It was coming down from the sky. When one of the white things touched my cheek, it felt cold and the next moment it was wet.

  Uncle told me the snowflakes were falling.

  I tried to catch them on my palms, but the little dots melted as soon as they touched my skin.

  I felt so happy I swung my arms back and forth. They went spinning every which way.

  Uncle pretended to scold me. He said, What kind of Chinese wastes something to eat? Then he tilted back his head and opened his mouth. He looked like a little bird begging for food.

  So I copied him. The snowflakes melted on my tongue. So that was what the sky tasted like. Cold. Sweet.

  All around me, the other miners had started to lift their faces upward and were tasting the snowflakes.

  The Fox grumpily told us to stop making noise.

  But I’m writing this down now so I won’t forget. I know Blessing will want to hear about it.

  Later

  The snow’s still falling as I write this during our meal break. It’s turned the trees into white balls of cotton and covered the ground. Since it’s Sunday, I’ve been able to sit and enjoy everything.

  I —

  Still later

  Sorry for the interruption but I was just beginning a new thought when something smacked my head. It felt cold and wet and knocked off my hat.

  Naturally, I bent to pick my hat up. That made my backside a target. I got real mad then. However, as soon as I straightened up, I saw something large and white coming toward me. It kept getting larger until it struck me in the face.

  When I wiped my eyes, I realized it was snow. A ball of snow whizzed by and struck another miner. Uncle was laughing. He spread his arms out wide and invited me to hit him.

  I imitated some of the others and bent over and scooped up some snow. My bare fingers felt even more numb, but I flung it. It flew apart barely a meter from my hand.

  “You have to pack it first, boy,” Uncle said. He showed me.

  By that time, snowballs were flying every which way. It looked like a startled flock of white pigeons were darting here and there.

  Uncle stood patiently while I got more snow and shaped it into a ball. This time the snowball held together but my aim was way off.

  At that point, I just gave up and did what some of the others were doing. I ran up to Uncle, squatted, and began to fling handfuls of snow on him.

  The Fox came storming out of his tent to lecture us.

  His hat flew off when he was hit with a dozen snowballs at one time. He rocked this way and that each time a snowball hit him.

  Finally, everyone ran out of snowballs. We all stood watching.

  The Fox wiped off his face. With great dignity he fetched his hat. Then he calmly walked right up to Uncle and me. I wondered if we were going to be fired.

  As the Fox glared at us, he swept his foot, kicking up a huge spray of snow over Uncle and me.

  Then snow was flying all over the place. Some grabbed shovels and began throwing snow that way. It was a wonder that the swinging shovels didn’t knock out someone.

  By the time we all paused for breath, I was feeling warm again from all the exertion.

  Evening

  The snow fell the rest of the day.

  Tonight at dinner I took a cup of tea outside and sat on a tree stump. I hardly recognized our claim. The snow had softened the outline of everything. The hard lines of the rockers had disappeared under soft white curves. The whole world looked new.

  When I went back inside, I wrapped rags around my hands to keep them warm. Otherwise Uncle said they could get frostbite as the Americans call it. Then we huddled together in the tent for warmth.

  January 3

  The soil in the riverbed has frozen. It blunts the pick axes when we try to chop it up. The Fox has ordered fires to be set on the riverbed to warm up the ground.

  The water is so cold it makes my fingers ache. Everything is taking so much longer now.

  January 6

  The snow has already begun to melt. The trees,

  with their loads of melting snow, are miniature rain clouds.

  I can’t say I’ll be sorry to see the snow go, though.

  January 7

  It got really cold again, so the melting snow froze. The trees are covered in icicles.

  There is also ice on the ground. Everyone has fallen down at least once.

  Things have slowed down so much, the Fox is almost tearing out his hair. He wants to begin the new wing dam.

  January 13

  Cold and miserable.

  January 14

  More cold. More misery.

  January 24

  It takes such an effort to do anything. The very air steals the warmth from my lungs.

  Uncle was right. I’ve already had my fill of snow. I hate it. But I don’t think I’ll put that in a letter to Blessing. I’d rather have him stay envious.

  Ha ha ha.

  Year Three of the Era,

  Prosperity for All

  February 8

  I’ve never had a New Year’s like this. I’ve eaten so much food that I’m bursting. So many firecrackers I can’t hear. I wonder what the Americans thought when they heard all the explosions. I bet we had more fun with our New Year’s than they had with theirs.

  Still no word from home.

  Uncle says my father isn’t the kind to send letters. That’s for fancy folk. It doesn’t matter that I write letters for guests all the time, and the guests are ordinary folk just like Father.

  I’m not going to stop writing my family. It would be nice to get some news, though.

  February 14

  I’ve caught a cold. Uncle’s worried that I might get pneumonia. I get to lie in the tent, but it’s hard to think, let alone write.

  February 27

  I haven’t been able to write for a while. My cold got worse. So this Sunday I’ve been moved into the Fox’s tent, where a fire is kept going in the stove. But my cold doesn’t get better.

  February 28

  It’s so cold and gray and gloomy, and that’s just how I feel inside.

  Uncle and I play chess most of the day.

  He said that if the clan saw him now, they really would think he was an idler.

  I told him that everyone knows he isn’t lazy. I caught myself before I said that he is just unlucky.

  I think Uncle guessed, though, because he just smiled. He told me that whenever he feels tired or discouraged now, he thinks about home: Today’s wages might buy a sliver of prime bottom land, or maybe a new chair for our house.

  I saw what he was getting at. It is one step at a time.

  He nodded and said, Before you know it, you’ve arrived at the gates of heaven.

  I hadn’t thought much about it before, but Uncle is good at explaining things.

  I drank the hot tea he had brought me. Suddenly I star
ted to remember all his other kindnesses since I arrived. He has taken such good care of me. He would have made someone a good father.

  So I asked him how come he never got married.

  Uncle said it wasn’t for lack of interest. However, he looked so sad I asked him what had happened.

  It turned out it was for lack of prospects. No one wanted to let their daughter marry someone with no luck.

  I thought of my brother Blessing. He is tall and handsome. What girl wouldn’t want him? But who’d want someone like me? I’ll always be a runt.

  Uncle said I am a guest of the Golden Mountain now. Families will care only about the size of my treasure chest. Mother will have to beat the girls away with a stick when I go home.

  But who wants to get married, anyway?

  Uncle just laughed and said he’ll remind me of that in ten years.

  He might have been right about the snow, but he was dead wrong about girls.

  March 1

  An American doctor came to see me several times. Now I seem to be on the mend. I’ve moved back to our tent, but I still get tired.

  I think I’m going to stop writing.

  March 9

  This morning when I awoke I went outside to wash up. Ice had formed on top of the river in a thin layer near the banks. I had to break it to get to the water.

  Suddenly, I heard a bird singing. It sounded so sweet.

  Uncle came out of the tent and listened, too. He said that spring was finally coming, and it was about time.

  I looked for the bird among the trees. That was when I noticed the little brown buds on the tips of the aspen branches.

  I’ve done it! I’ve survived my first winter in America.

  March 24

  I love this land in the spring. The fields are all green after the winter rains. Flowers sprout everywhere. This morning I just stood outside the tent and smelled all the young, growing things.

  I remember that smell. It’s the planting smell. It’s the time when you take the rice seedlings from the sprouting tubs. And the fields have just been flooded again, and they’re waiting for us to plant the seedlings.

  And you still have hope that everything is going to grow and your belly’s going to be full that year, for a change.

  Only this year, my family didn’t have to worry. They had our gold.

  April 1

  The swans are back!

  This afternoon they were floating before the Great Wall. I didn’t feed them, though. I just sat and watched.

  The young swan is now a pure snow white. He looks handsome. Too bad I can’t change like him.

  April 2

  They left today, joining other swans high overhead. I heard a sound like hoo-hoo-hoo.

  Uncle explained they were heading northward again. They have a home up there as well.

  I hinted that the meadow by the waterfall is lovely. There ought to be all sorts of flowers blooming now. Uncle said that he had been up there last year in spring. There would be songbirds, too.

  I asked him if we could go. I could see that Uncle was tempted. However, to my disappointment, he finally shook his head. It is even more dangerous now that the Americans’ claim has played out. They resent the fact that we’re still getting gold from ours.

  I argued that it isn’t our fault they picked wrong. And anyway, it hasn’t been their country for long. They took it from the Mexicans only five years ago. And the Mexicans took it from the Indians.

  Uncle sighed and said that unfortunately, they don’t see it that way.

  As I watched the swans fly away, I wished I could go with them. It would be nice to leave all these crazy people behind.

  April 3

  This Sunday we heard shouting but I didn’t recognize all the words. However, I did hear a crowd chanting something about how the Chinese must go.

  Whether they knew American or not, the whole camp had fallen quiet. It was like listening to beasts roaring in a jungle.

  I think we all thought about how far away China is. Even San Francisco seems too distant. We are alone here.

  April 6

  I’ve hardly had time to write in my diary. For the last three nights the Americans have held rallies just outside our camp. I haven’t had time to brood, though.

  Everyone wants to send a letter back home to China. They’re so scared, they naturally think of home.

  Sometimes it’s just a few lines to tell their families how much they miss them. Most of them pour out all their worries and fears. I have to hear them over and over.

  I try to be a machine that takes down their dictation. But sometimes I get very tired and very scared.

  April 7

  The Americans are meeting again tonight just outside our camp. This one is the loudest of all. A group of us have begun praying. I think I’ll join them.

  April 8

  I can’t sleep.

  The Americans had another meeting. Their echoes carried through the tents. I heard the word kill a lot. Sometimes I wish the Fox hadn’t taught me American.

  April 9

  Today bosses from the other camps in the district came here. They’ve been talking with the Fox most of the day.

  After they left, the Fox called all of us together to tell us what the bosses have decided to do if the mobs come to any camp.

  Last May, mining districts all over the province drove out the Chinese. In some of those places, the miners were allowed to leave with their belongings. In others, they were robbed and beaten but still allowed to go.

  In a few places, they would never leave at all except as bones back to China.

  The bosses have decided that we should not resist if a crowd of bullies comes to chase us out.

  Prosperity protested that the Fox is gambling with our lives. We should fight back.

  The Fox told him that that would be even more dangerous. If we fought, we’d make the Americans even angrier and then someone would get hurt for sure. There was no way we can win against so many of them. Especially when there is no law to protect us.

  I remembered what he had said about true courage — about how really brave people put their families before their pride. But it sticks in my throat. I’m like Prosperity. I want to fight. We made this claim.

  However, I will obey the Fox. Somehow he’ll pull off a miracle.

  April 10

  This Sunday the Fox just told us to pack.

  I’m as shocked as everyone. We all expected him to come up with a way to hold onto our claim.

  I used some names for the Americans that have no place in a high-minded journal like mine.

  The Fox scolded me, though, saying that the Americans are people just like us.

  That puzzled me and I asked him why he wasn’t angry. The Fox admitted that he had been very mad the first time someone kicked him off his claim. I was amazed he had stayed up in the gold country after that.

  He held up three fingers. The Americans had jumped three different claims. Twice in his first year here and then again in his second.

  I scratched my head at how calm he was about it.

  He told me that hate is a luxury for a guest. Hate is so much baggage that slows a guest down. And a guest has to be nimble. He tapped one foot against the ground to remind me.

  I pointed out that Americans hate us.

  The Fox explained that they hate us only because they are scared of us. And they are scared for their families just like we would be.

  But I swore that I will never forgive them.

  The Fox told me I don’t have to. I just have to go on with my life.

  April 11

  The Americans held another loud meeting. It sounded like a bunch of lions roaring. I thought for sure they were coming to drive us out.

  I helped the Fox bury the chopstick molds. He must really be expecting to leave.

  April 12

  Still nothing. The waiting is getting on everyone’s nerves.

  April 13

  This has to be quick, but if something ha
ppens to me, I hope my diary survives. The mob is coming. I’m so scared.

  April 19

  We’ve been running and hiding for six days.

  I can now write more about the day we left because the Fox says we’re safe for the moment. We’re taking a short rest. While the cook brews up some tea, I want to write down everything before I forget.

  Today started out like any other. We worked on the claim and then went back to clean up.

  Just as I was washing, Hiram stumbled onto the claim. He was sweating and panting as if he had run all the way. He told me we all had to get out. A mob was coming to drive us away from the claim.

  The miners who understood American began to tell the others Hiram’s news in hushed, frightened voices.

  I knew Hiram had taken a considerable risk to come here, so I thanked him. Then in the same breath I told him to leave. I didn’t want his cousin to catch him here.

  Hiram shook his head and said it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to stay. He’d lost his taste for mining. He’d try his hand at farming that rich land we’d seen on our way up here.

  There was so much we wanted to say to each other, but there was no time. A miner shouted from the edge of our camp that the Americans were coming.

  I said that maybe I’d drop by his farm sometime. With a grin, he told me I’d be welcome. I watched him slip into the brush near the camp. Then I went inside to get my things. I hid my diary in my pants. It was the one thing I didn’t want to lose.