by Tom Lin
Wishful thinking. Someone who knew Ambrose’s true identity had probably already sent a telegram to Ellis, who would alert the others that Ambrose was dead and that Ming had killed him.
Gathering up his things Ming found the polestar and set off west again. The beat of distant hammers had fallen silent. All the men in their tents sleeping. James Ellis, and the prophet too. Ming smiled a little to himself. One to kill and the other to guide him home.
Against the star-washed sky the jagged silhouettes of distant ranges came into view. The ground was beginning to firm up beneath his feet and his footprints became hard-edged and clear. As morning broke he reached the foothills of the Silver Islands, at the western edge of the alkali flats. The din of hammers started up again with the new sun. He was much closer now. Before the day grew lurid and scorching, Ming crossed a narrow pass in the mountains and began to descend their western flank. He stopped beneath a box elder tree on the far slopes and sitting there in the dust he took out his spyglass and glassed the distance. Through the rising pall of a new day he discerned the ghostly figures of men and locomotives on the horizon. The head of the Central Pacific was only a few miles away now. Farther down the slope he found a small cave that might hide the smoke of a fire and there he made camp.
In the crystalline cold of that night Ming sat with his back against the cave wall and stared through his fire. Unbidden a memory descended upon him. He was there in the opium den, swallowed up in its layers of darkness, a pipe warm and heavy in his hands, a smear of opium still unburned in the bowl of the ceramic pipe. He was sober and lucid and hours earlier had just killed a man and now in the opium den he lay perfectly still and silent, counting with his fingertips the petals and leaves in the filigree of the pipe. He knew it would be the usual several days before he could leave the opium den and rejoin the world upstairs, several days before the lawmen tired of searching and finding nothing.
In the opium dens among these blissful Chinese he was invisible. He remembered the thick opium haze swirling in the air above him, curls of blue smoke braiding and unbraiding, and he remembered turning and seeing Ada for the first time, her face flushed and bright, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, drawing gazes and questions, attention. With her in the opium den he was no longer safe. He remembered telling her to leave and how she had apologized, sheepish, saying she hadn’t really wanted to try opium after all, that she had come to the opium den only because she wanted to try something new, anything, because the rest of her life had already been decided for her. And he remembered looking at her and feeling his breath catch in his throat, and the sly smile that crept across her face as she said she reckoned he could be her something new, and he said, Is that so, and she said, What say you leave here with me, mister? Two fools falling in love.
Ming tried to picture Ada’s face and found he couldn’t. Her features rippled in his mind as though afloat on uncertain water. The shadows of her cheekbones when she smiled, the green of her eyes. Some afternoons the light came down thick like honey, draping itself over the pale grass on the California hills. Her hand in his they would walk, in small private circuits, in endless comfortable silence. Nothing left to do some days but sit by the little warped window of their home and look out at the breathing land. He recalled the lift of her lips, the way her voice curved in a still and moonless night. Her hazy eyes in the looking glass, the creases of her nightgown inscribed on her skin. There was a nameless ache in the pit of his stomach. With each recollected detail he sensed some other detail evaporating. Her memory was disintegrating at his touch like silverdust from butterfly wings.
A mistake. He should not have remembered. It was dangerous to go lurking in memory. The new erases the old where they meet. Ming wandered through his mind for some other memory but could find nothing more, only the protean shape of her face, so familiar to him so long ago. Their pulses racing after their grand escape together, husband and wife at last, her breathing quick and shallow through that wide and mischievous grin. The weight of her body pressed against his, the wind sweeping through their room, grasshoppers whispering just outside the window—
More memories now flashing through his mind, unbidden and unwanted, a sudden torrent of images and sensations. Rough hands around his ankles dragging him out of bed onto the floor, voices he only half recognized belonging to men he now would never forget. His arms around his head, trying to block the never-ending blows that rattled his skull. And the shadow of her slight form, barefoot in the moonlight, running down the hallway, swallowed up by the dim figures streaming up the stairs. Fists and boots landing on him from every direction and still his mind spinning out. Where had she gone? Was she safe? And below all the mayhem the unshakable kernel of his mercenary training, his rational mind guiding his hands underneath the bed even as they beat him, his fingers searching brokenly for the gun hidden there, all in vain, he already knew, for he was too late, and there were too many of them.
And now the memories slowed and became solid, sharp. Hands propping him limp against the wall, every bone in his body aching. There was the cold pressure of the barrel of a gun pressing against his temple and her cries carrying down the hallway begging for them not to kill him. At length, the voice of her father acquiescing to her pleas, calling for his men to stand down. And then the pressure of the gun against his head lifting, a hammer decocked. And now he remembered that cruel face that came to hover before his blood-blurred gaze, an expression of disgust, a barked command, Dixon, come and collar this mongrel dog of Silas’s.
A wave of heat washed over Ming and his eyes flew open. He was breathing heavily and his hands were clenched in fists. The night air was cold and clean. His fire had gone out. Beyond the portal of the cave entrance the stars crept in their arcs across the sky. It was a thin, blue night. A full moon hung low in the eastern sky. He lay down on his bedroll and dreamless he slept.
4
It was only a few hours before he awoke again, neither refreshed nor exhausted, merely awake. As the morning dew boiled off into a brilliant day he saw a clump of men massed at the head of the Central Pacific. He started to walk toward them.
As he neared Ming could see them more clearly in their rice hats, the queues at the backs of their heads swaying as they moved in time with tie and hammer and nail. Closer still to the noise of their work he heard no talk save for their rhythmic counting. And when he at last reached them they did not seem to notice and if any recognized him they did not say so. Mutely he fell in among the Chinese laying ties. The men moved to make space for him, passed him a sledge to drive spikes, let him labor with them. Perhaps they stared a little, too, at the strange man who wore no queue and who threw a strange and quiet aura of danger. And then their ranks closed tightly around him, he was drawn near, and in a moment he was gone among them.
The gang boss sat smoking on a small groundswell of yellow dirt some thirty yards distant. He was a tall man, spidery and gaunt, and now he rose to his feet and ambled down to where the faceless Chinese were toiling. His gait was hesitant and odd, as though he were but some articulated puppet made to walk by artifice and fishing line. In his hand he gripped a hickory pickaxe handle, worn at the corners. Ming recognized James Ellis instantly.
He stooped to inspect a tie, his pipe hanging from his mouth. Behind him another gang boss rode up alongside and brought his horse to a halt. He was a short, soft-looking man, scarcely taller than Ellis even astride his horse. Ming did not recognize this new arrival. He greeted Ellis and peered out with small dark eyes at the Chinese as they worked. The hammers fell one two one two. Ming buried a spike in two blows and stepped to the next tie, listening to the two men talking.
“Quicker work than yesterday,” the short one said.
“Aye,” replied Ellis. “Ought to be able to hold pace through next week.”
“You reckon?”
“Well, there’s a fill got to be done in seven miles. But I got some boys already workin on it out there.”
“Will they be do
ne when we get there?”
“They ain’t got no choice in the matter,” Ellis said, and chuckled.
The other man laughed as well. There was a brief lull in their conversation. Ming kept his head down and his gaze fixed on the rails. One two one two. The sledge was heavy and familiar in his hands.
“James,” the other man said, “came down to talk to ye about pay. How much are your boys getting?”
“Five.”
“Well, Mr. Alloway wants to give em three per day. Says it’s easier work now and I agree.”
“They ain’t gonna like that,” Ellis said.
“Don’t matter none, do it?” the other boss said, and flashed a grin. “Hell, they can walk back to the water and swim home if three a day ain’t good enough. New pay starts tomorrow.”
“Spose so,” Ellis said with a shrug. He turned to address the Chinese.
Ming stood behind the others, watching Ellis’s face for any sign of recognition. He found himself wishing he had grown out a queue again. When he had first arrived in the Sierras Ellis had hacked his queue clean off in order to tell Ming apart from the others. But now Ellis seemed not to see him at all, queue or not.
Several Chinese joined the gathered group and Ellis cleared his throat. “Boys, you’re doing good work, clean and quick.”
“Thank ye,” a Chinese in the first row said. “Is it true what the gentleman said? Three dollars?” He spoke easily and confidently in an English as fluent as it was foreign. Perhaps this was the reason he was the leader of the group.
Ming regarded the man’s face closely but found it unfamiliar. He did not remember him.
The men gazed at Ellis wordlessly. Some leaned on their hammer shafts. Others squatted on their heels, grimacing up through the white light at the two bosses.
“You’re so quick Mr. Alloway is thinking that he’s overpaying you,” Ellis announced, ignoring the man’s question.
Darkness passed over the faces of the Chinese.
“Mr. Ellis,” the one fluent in English said. “This is dreadful thinking.” His accent was musical in its intonation.
Ellis’s expression hardened. “You’ll now be paid three per day.”
“Mr. Ellis,” came the lilting reply, more insistent now.
The second boss gave a quick nod to Ellis, heeled his horse, and in a moment horse and rider were gone.
“Mr. Ellis,” the spokesman said a third time.
There was a long moment of silence. Ellis adjusted his grip on the pickaxe handle and set his jaw. The air thickened with the possibility of violence. And then the energy ran out of the men and a dull resignation took its place.
“Back to work, boys,” Ellis said flatly, and made to leave.
The rhythmic beating of hammers resumed. Ellis was walking away. Ming dropped his hammer and unholstered his revolver. A few Chinese next to him noticed and backed away but still the rest of the sledgehammers fell one two. Ming drew a bead on Ellis’s receding form and raked the hammer back with his thumb. No one spoke. The sledgehammers beating one two one two. Ellis fifty yards out.
“Ellis, you sonofabitch,” Ming called out at last. “Ain’t you recognize me?”
James Ellis turned squinting to regard him and frowned in momentary confusion. Then a look of horror passed across his face. Behind Ming the hammers fell one two one two one and on two he fired.
The chorus of sledgehammers swallowed whole the sound of the shot and Ellis tipped forward and stretched out on the ridge. The Chinese stopped working altogether and some began to shout. Ming holstered his gun and strode to where the dead man lay facedown in the dust, blood bubbling out of a small hole in the nape of his neck. He turned Ellis over onto his back and looked at what remained of the man’s face, blood and bone sparkling in the sunlight. Moving quickly Ming rifled Ellis’s pockets. Some money. But no information on Dixon or Kelly or anyone else.
He rose to his feet and swore. The Chinese stared up at him. The commotion had died down. Ming dragged Ellis by the ankles down behind the spine of the ridge where none could see. Then he returned to the suddenly mute crew of Chinese.
“Where’s the prophet?” he asked them.
They were silent. Ming peered through their ranks, hunting for a face he once knew.
“Prophet,” he called out. “It’s me.”
One Chinese moved to the fore, slow and searching. The men parted to let him through. The man’s eyes were white with an ancient blindness and he seemed older than time. “My child,” he said. “You’ve come at last.” The old man smiled warmly.
“Bring him here,” Ming said. No one moved. He drew his gun and pointed it at the group. “Bring him here,” he said again.
Hurriedly a young-looking Chinese grasped the prophet by the crook of his elbow and led him forward. Ming reached out and took the prophet’s outstretched hand and the young-looking Chinese retreated.
“Prophet,” Ming said. “Do you remember me?”
“No,” the prophet murmured. “But I know why you’ve come. I am to guide you, yes?”
“Will you go?”
The prophet said that he would. Ming pointed his gun at the man who had earlier spoken to Ellis and asked him how far it was to Lucin.
“Two days’ walk,” the man said. “Northwest.”
“Thank ye,” Ming said. He spun the revolver once round his finger and holstered it again.
Together with the prophet he walked north of the rails for about a mile before turning west and following parallel the distant line of the tracks. A striated haze lingered over the landscape and weaving through this warp they traveled tirelessly the rest of that day and all through the night until daybreak came again. Neither spoke. When they at last reached Lucin, Ming found an inn on the outskirts of town and paid for a room with Ellis’s money. In their room the prophet sat cross-legged upon the hard oak floor and stared sightlessly through the walls at the sparkling sun. Ming found the name of James Ellis in his notebook and scratched it out. Four remaining. After he had done this he paced the room from corner to corner, sleepless and brimming with electricity, waiting for nightfall and beyond it a new day.
5
The next day Ming had a pound of lead poured for bullets and used what was left of Ellis’s money to buy two horses and a rifle. He made it back to the inn in the late afternoon. The prophet sat where Ming had left him, cross-legged, vaguely divine. If he took any notice of Ming’s return he didn’t show it. He ate nothing and drank nothing. Still the two men did not speak. In their room Ming sharpened his spike until it shone. When this was done he cleaned and oiled his revolver, working slowly and carefully. The shadows outside grew long and then were swallowed in the evening. Ming lay down on the bed without undressing and found there a dreamless sleep.
The prophet woke him in the middle of the night. “My child, make your preparations,” the old man whispered, “and fight free.” The prophet stood by his bedside, his white eyes staring into the blue dust.
There was a commotion beyond the door, people coming up the stairs. Angry voices—three, maybe four men—bellicose, jeering, drunk. The stairs creaked under their weight. They came up to the second floor and the sound of their boots stopped outside the door. Ming drew his pistol and crept to the side of the door. Beyond it someone whispered to the men to stay quiet.
“I will take your place,” the prophet whispered. The old man lay down on the bed, a false body.
By the door Ming glanced down at his gun. Six rounds.
A lantern near the keyhole threw in a small beam of light that danced crazily about the dusty room. The lantern was withdrawn and someone put his eye to the door.
“I think I see him. He’s in his bed,” a man said in a low voice.
“All right, real quiet then,” another said.
The door handle twisted and racked against a lock.
“Hector,” someone hissed. “Damn door’s locked.”
Ming heard the jingle of keys. Shortly the lock clicked open.
/> “All right,” the man named Hector whispered. “You boys ready?”
A murmur of ayes went up.
“Wait,” said a voice Ming recognized as the innkeeper’s. “You sure it’s him?”
“Damned sure. You said yourself he was a big Chinaman.”
“Well, he weren’t big,” the innkeeper interjected lamely. “Just bigger than them Chinese normally is.”
“Did he have another Chinaman with him?”
“Aye, a blind old coolie.”
“Then that’s him. Can’t be nobody else.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“All right boys, let’s git this sonofabitch,” Hector said, and twisted the door handle.
The door began to open out toward the hallway, projecting a widening column of light on the far wall. Ming stepped square into the doorway and kicked the door wide open. A figure stumbled backward and fell down the stairs, thumping his head on the railing. Must be Hector. Two men in the doorway, each in the process of regaining their balance. The door bounced against someone behind it and Ming put the muzzle of his revolver against the flimsy wood and fired. There was a short yelp of pain and surprise and the sound of a body hitting the wood floor. Now Ming swept his left hand over his gun in a smooth motion and recocked it and fired through the door again, aiming where the man must have fallen. Four rounds left. The man in front of him had regained his balance and drawn his gun. Ming shot from the hip and hit him in the thigh and the man sat down heavily, letting off a shot that went high over Ming’s head and into the room, where it buried itself in the ceiling. Three shots left. The innkeeper was lunging at the doorway and deftly Ming stepped to one side and drove an elbow across the innkeeper’s face as he passed, knocking him to the ground. The man he’d shot in the thigh raised his gun and gritting his teeth through the pain he aimed at Ming’s torso.