Staking a Claim Read online

  Night

  I couldn’t wait so I sneaked out of the tent and began to work by moonlight.

  Uncle came out with a kerosene lantern and said we could work better with it.

  I didn’t think he had cared and said so.

  Uncle said that people can’t feel connected to the land when they just dig up gold. Creating living things in the soil is another thing. You can feel part of the earth again. That is something he has missed.

  I guess I have, too.

  October 25

  The first green shoots have come up. The soil here is so rich. Back in China, the land is tired after so many generations.

  I feel like I’m really part of America now.

  The cook has promised to make a special dish for me. Several miners have asked me if they could have a taste. I guess they’re homesick, too.

  When I offered some to the Fox, he just warned me not to cook my meal till it was harvested.

  October 27

  I’ve been robbed!

  My plants are gone!

  The garden patch has been stripped bare. Who would have taken my vegetables before they were ready?

  I just sat down in the dirt ready to cry.

  The Fox came by and pointed at some tracks. They were the marks of deer hooves and rabbit feet.

  October 29

  I saw the deer before sunrise as I was washing up. He had returned to sniff around my vegetable patch. Angrily, I snatched up a stone and got ready to throw it as hard as I could.

  However, it walked along so daintily that I stopped.

  Wasn’t I acting just like the American bullies?

  The deer had as much right to be here as I did. We could share.

  I didn’t realize I had dropped the stone until I heard it thud on the ground. When I did that, I felt even more like part of this place. The deer and I were like cousins.

  October 31

  A bad storm last night. Lots of thunder and lightning.

  Then I heard something rattle against our tent. It sounded like someone had dumped buckets of pellets. When I picked up one, I felt how cold it was.

  Uncle said it was hail.

  November 1

  This morning I found two huge white birds in the water outside the Great Wall. They had black beaks with yellow spots in front of the eyes. With them was a smaller bird with gray feathers. The big ones have deep voices, but the young one makes high noises.

  The Fox said they were swans. And the smaller one must be their child.

  The cook was all for trying to catch one and cook it, but the Fox wouldn’t let him. He said they were only trying to get home like we are.

  The swans live up north in the summer and come down here in the fall before the snow comes. The Fox said that the storm must have forced them down here. They looked a little ragged and hungry after their long journey. The grown-ups began to preen their feathers as I watched them.

  We have so much rice left over after a meal. It’s such a contrast to Tiger Rock. I can remember years when I would eat every grain. Now I took a handful of cooked rice and squeezed it into a ball.

  Then I went out on the Great Wall and threw it to them. It bobbed on the surface for a moment. The biggest swan sniffed it, then sampled it. The next moment he had gobbled it down. Then he made a loud sound that made me jump.

  I fed them several more rice balls. Then I sat and watched them drift about the water, graceful as American sailing ships.

  As they glided along, I thought of myself floating over the sea back toward home. It made me feel a little sad.

  November 8

  The whole camp has taken to feeding the swans. When they ran out of leftover rice, the men began to take the good rice as soon as it was cooked.

  When the cook complained to the Fox, he ordered us to stop. He told us that if we keep feeding them, they’ll be too heavy to fly out. They might even sink. They have to leave soon.

  At first I was disappointed. I had wanted to watch them raise their young. However, the Fox explained that the swans had only stopped here to rest. They will head on to the Sacramento delta. The snow is coming.

  I got excited about that. Finally I’ll get to see snow. But Uncle grumbled, “You just wait. You’ll wish you could leave with the swans.”

  November 11

  The swans have left. It was quite a fuss.

  I didn’t realize how big their wings were. They must stretch more than two meters in length. When they flapped them, they began to splash the water. However, they rose only a little bit from the surface. Though they had their feet tucked in tight against their bodies, they dragged in the water. Finally, all three staggered up toward the sky.

  It’s made me feel sad again. Maybe because they can go on to their home so easily, and I cannot.

  Or maybe it was because swans keep their families together. They don’t send off the runts to die.

  December 5

  It has gotten cold — colder than I’ve ever known.

  To keep warm, I go to bed in my clothes and jacket. All I have to do in the morning to get dressed is pull on my boots.

  The cold makes it hard to work. The water numbs my fingers as soon as I touch it.

  Every chance I get, I breathe on my fingers to keep them from getting stiff. And even though my coat would have kept me hot as a furnace in Tiger Rock, it feels as thin as paper here.

  Uncle says it will get even worse, but I don’t see how it can.

  December 8

  It’s raining, so no work today.

  It was so cold I stayed in my blanket this morning, rolled up like a silkworm in a cocoon.

  Though I don’t work in the river, I’m still very busy. There are letters to write, and I have to help the Fox. He’s teaching me how to read and write in American. So if Blessing had come, he wouldn’t have gotten out of school after all.

  I even try to read the American newspapers now.

  December 9

  Still raining, but lots to do. No word from home. I hope they’re all right.

  December 10

  It’s raining off and on. In one of the breaks, the Fox went down to check the level of the river by the Great Wall. So far it’s still holding.

  December 19

  It has rained now for five days.

  Though it’s not raining now, the sky looks like it will soon.

  Something’s wrong. The camp is too quiet for a Sunday. Is it robbers?

  I’m going outside.

  Later

  It was Hiram and Brian. At first, I didn’t recognize them as they stood on the edge of camp. They were all wrapped up in heavy coats and their faces were covered by mufflers. But they waved when they saw me.

  Even so, I have learned to be cautious. I hung back until they called to me and pulled the mufflers away from their faces.

  After the last few months, I didn’t know what to expect anymore. Maybe the gold had driven them just as crazy as everyone else. Brian marched into camp, as friendly as ever. Hiram followed him a little shyly.

  They both wished me a Merry Christmas, which is a big holiday for all my friends. Christmas will come next Saturday.

  Brian had come up to visit Hiram. Esteban would come along later. He and his brothers had gone to church.

  We were all starting to feel a little self-conscious because the other miners were staring at us. So we walked over to the Great Wall.

  Thanks to the Fox’s lessons, I can understand my friends better.

  Brian asked about the water chains. I got on one and showed him how they operate. They both took turns pedaling.

  Hiram said a waterwheel could operate a pump. We could get the water out more efficiently and faster. And he drew a diagram on the ground.

  I’ll mention it to the Fox.

  Hiram’s group, though, hasn’t done well even with a waterwheel. They diverted the entire river down a channel and then built a dam across the river. And after all that effort, they have hardly found any gold. However, they have high h
opes for next year. I didn’t tell him how well we have done.

  The Fox has said that gold likes to play funny tricks that way. He’s heard of one company that hired teams of experts called geologists. They didn’t find a thing on a claim, so they abandoned it. Then some man who could neither read nor write walked over the same area and tripped over a nugget. He tried to dig it out, but he kept finding more and more of it until it turned out to be a boulder as big as him.

  We sat down by the river beneath the bare aspens. The ground was cold and hard, so we huddled up for warmth.

  There was a lot to catch up on. Brian’s claim has already played out and he has signed on with a hydraulic mining operation here. He doesn’t like it much. If he had wanted to work for a company, he could have stayed at home.

  Esteban joined us then. He gave me a holy card, a picture of a saint called Jude. He helps people with impossible causes. Esteban said he is the perfect saint for gold miners. He and his brothers have been praying to him a lot.

  Brian and Hiram gave me a bunch of fresh new pencils. All I had from my last shipment was a stub, so they were welcome.

  I felt a little guilty that I didn’t have anything for them, so I told them to wait a moment while I got some tea for everyone.

  I’m writing this now while I wait in the cook’s tent. I’m going to trade him some letter writing for pieces of Chinese beef jerky. It’s sweet as well as salty, so it’s different from American jerky.

  Still later

  They really liked the jerky. The cook even had some meat dumplings and other things to snack on.

  While we ate, we exchanged news.

  Esteban’s having as much trouble as Hiram and Brian finding gold. So he and his brothers are thinking about trying their luck back in San Francisco. They can see that the ones who are really getting rich are the merchants, not the miners. Merchants can charge a fortune for just one egg.

  Brian and I agreed that we dig up the gold, but that we don’t get to keep it. Most of it goes to the storekeepers for food and other things.

  Hiram, though, said Esteban was wrong. If the gold plays out, the stores’ prices have to fall back to normal. The real money is in the land.

  I thought of the rich fields we had passed on the riverboat. Some of them would have been perfect for rice.

  If he can get a big enough stake, Hiram is going to try to start a farm here. He’s seen how many American miners get sick from scurvy because they don’t have fresh vegetables.

  I asked him about his girl at home. Would she come out? If I loved someone, I don’t think I’d ask her to risk that dangerous trip.

  Hiram grew sad. His girl has already married someone else. So he has nothing to go home to.

  It was strange to think of him turning his back on his homeland like that. I asked about his ancestors, but his grandparents are buried in an entirely different province, and his great-grandparents are overseas on a different continent.

  That was even harder to understand. My clan has been at Tiger Rock for more than a thousand years. Many generations are buried in its soil.

  Even the swans seemed to have more of a homeland than Hiram. Americans are so rootless. I almost feel sorry for them.

  I asked him what his cousin thinks of his scheme. Although I would be sad to see Hiram go, secretly I was hoping that if his cousin left, so would some of the other bullies. Then it would be safe to travel about again.

  However, the gold has its hooks into Hiram’s cousin. He has vowed to live and die in the gold country.

  Hiram looked guilty then and added that he is sorry about his cousin. He’s tried to tell him what I am like, but his cousin won’t listen. I could see how bad Hiram felt. I told him that I understand and that I wish there were more Americans like him. He answered that most of the town feels like he does, but his cousin and his friends shout so loud, they drown everyone else out.

  Then I had a new worry. What if his cousin knew he was here? Hiram had just told him he was going for a walk. He didn’t want to risk upsetting his cousin.

  I was asking more about this custom of Christmas when we heard a commotion in the camp. It was another American. I didn’t recognize him at first. However, when I saw the slips of paper in his hand, I figured he was collecting taxes.

  It was too soon, though. When the Fox tried to protest, the American unhooked a whip from his belt. When he shook it out, it was as long as a man and as lethal as a cobra.

  And when he cracked it on the ground, it threw up bits of dirt. Then he began demanding to be paid the taxes.

  Hiram stared at him hard. He whispered to me that the man was no tax collector. He was another miner who had just lost money in a poker game with his cousin last night. He was just trying to cheat us.

  When Hiram started forward, I tried to stop him because the other American might complain to his cousin. But Hiram was too angry. He ran forward waving his arms and shouting in American not to pay.

  The bogus tax collector whirled around with a snarl. He recognized Hiram and threatened to tell his cousin.

  Hiram wouldn’t back down. If the bogus tax collector did that, Hiram would tell the magistrate. Hiram was an American. He could testify in the court.

  The bogus tax collector gave up then. He tried to pass it off as a Christmas prank — just a little something so he could buy some Christmas cheer.

  As we sat down again, I asked Hiram if the bogus tax collector might get him in trouble with his cousin. Hiram said he was willing to take what came.

  Brian and Esteban both offered Hiram places to stay if his cousin throws him out. So did I.

  Though an icy breeze blew from the water and the tea had almost frozen, I didn’t feel cold anymore.

  December 20

  The rain stopped, so we went to work. But it’s SO cold. The mud is half-frozen, so it’s slippery. We’ve all fallen a couple of times.

  I told the Fox about Hiram’s waterwheel. He said it might work for Americans, but not for Chinese. I can’t understand why a clever man like him doesn’t want better machines.

  December 21

  It’s started to rain again.

  December 22

  Rain.

  December 23

  More rain. We keep hearing cracking and groaning sounds from the Great Wall. The river is swollen from all the downpours and keeps pounding with new strength.

  December 24

  It has been raining steadily for four days. The Great Wall finally gave way today. Timbers and planks went shooting down the river as it roared in triumph.

  December 25

  The Americans are celebrating their Christmas. Lots of shouting and singing despite the rain. They sound very drunk.

  Evening

  The Fox complimented me on last Sunday. I told him I couldn’t take credit for what Hiram did. However, he said you can tell the quality of a person by the company that person keeps. I picked well, so my friends are always welcome.

  And then he paid me the real compliment: I am becoming a true guest, so he can trust me.

  He flipped up his straw sleeping mat and told me to help him dig. I got down on my knees beside him and began to scrape dirt out with him. A few centimeters below the surface was a large jar.

  The strongbox and chamber pot are only big enough to hold a day’s worth of gold. So he needed to store his hoard elsewhere.

  When he opened the lid of the jar, I saw that it was filled with little sacks of gold dust and nuggets.

  There were also all these molds for something long and thin. It took me a moment to realize they were for chopsticks.

  The Fox hadn’t been cold at all when he’d been burning all that firewood. He’d been changing the gold into ordinary-looking chopsticks. More Fox magic.

  I got wood from the big pile outside his tent so we could melt the gold down and pour it into the molds. When they had cooled off, we blackened them so they looked like lacquer chopsticks.

  The Fox ships them out on the same wagon that brings in
our supplies. He said that a couple of times, Americans have searched the wagon. However, he always puts real chopsticks on top. So far, all the boxes have made it to San Francisco.

  I asked him why the Americans hadn’t noticed how heavy fake chopsticks were.

  The Fox says Chinese would notice because they use chopsticks all the time. Americans don’t really know what they are.

  Once again, I’m not to tell anyone. Not even Uncle. But I can tell you, diary.

  I’m proud that he can trust me. I’m a little frightened, too. What if the robbers start beating me? I’m not as tough as the Fox. I’d tell them all his secrets after the first blow. I almost wish he didn’t have so much faith in me.

  When we had disguised all the gold, the Fox asked me what I was going to do when this job was finished.

  I said I thought the city might be safer.

  The Fox laughed. He explained that the city folk hate us just as much as the miners.

  I said I thought it was rougher up here than in the city.

  He admitted that that is true — for now — but what will happen when every timid soul heads for the city? In no time, there’ll be a hundred men for every job. It isn’t dangerous up here if you use your wits. And he asked me if I had ever watched a deer.

  I said I had just seen them by my vegetable crops.

  The Fox told me to keep an eye on them the next chance I get. He said that deer eat when they can but they keep an ear and eye open. That way they can always slip away before trouble comes. That is the secret of a true guest.

  The Fox did a little hop-and-skip dance step. He said a true guest has to be nimble of foot to stay on the Golden Mountain.