Chasing Down the Moon

by Carla Baku

  Out in the overgrown yard, droplets from the previous night’s rain depended from the mass of blackberry brambles covering the fence, throwing tiny prisms of color. A hugely rambling morning glory engulfed the leaning tool shed; it had opened a few purple-blue blossoms to the sun.

  With the window open, Byron went through the room, picking up, throwing the bed together. He’d have to wash the sheets and blanket, but he would wait until his father was out in the woods. It had been three days since he’d seen the old man, although there was evidence that he’d been around, clothes slung into different corners, an empty bottle on the porch floor. Byron wasn’t sure how he would work his way around Garland, but if Pearl could cook and see to the house for them, he thought that would go a long way toward convincing him.

  He began to sing under his breath, shall we gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river.

  Rose Allen stood at the bottom step of the Kendalls’ front porch, fingering the small shopping list of things her aunt had given her. It seemed silly to stand and wait for a ride when Bai Lum’s was such a short walk, but when she had said so, Hazel had given her such a thunderous look Rose raised her hands in surrender.

  “Have you already forgotten what happened yesterday?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “Don’t you dare give me a but, girl. You’ll put yourself out on that walk and not make the least move in the direction of the Chinese block without Mrs. Huntington. Isn’t that right.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  The morning was a buttercup, so yellow in the sun that even the muddy, horse-beshitted streets seemed glazed with a rumor of spring. Rose unbuttoned her coat and relished the fine air. It was a good thing she had a list in her pocket, because even though it was short, she couldn’t keep it in her mind. She couldn’t even keep her thoughts still long enough to wonder why Lucy wanted to take her to the store. The only thing she could fix on was Bai Lum, his angular face, the line of his hair falling down the middle of his back, the way his fingers had felt yesterday, making a small, warm track in her palm. That moment played again and again in her mind’s eye, and each time it did, a stab of heat spiraled from her belly, up to her face and down through the center of her. She pulled out the list and read it again: butcher’s twine, 5 lbs. lard, 2 pkts each beet and carrot seed, washing soda. Then Lucy’s carriage rounded the corner, Buster looking just as pleased to be out in the sun as Rose was.

  “Good morning,” Lucy said when Rose climbed in. “Isn’t it a beauty?” She twitched the reins with the slightest motion of her wrist and the horse was moving again, giving his massive head a little toss. “Even Buster feels like a youngster today, don’t you, old man?”

  Not knowing what Lucy wanted with her made her feel skittish and awkward. As they ambled along, Lucy keeping Buster at a slow walk, Rose stayed quiet, looking around and smiling as though she’d just stepped off a steamship and for a first visit. She had a harder time keeping her hands quiet, though, and they kept moving in her lap, fingers twisting around each other, then stretching, until she clasped them tightly enough to make her knuckles pop. Lucy, who waved to everyone she saw on the street, reached over finally and placed a hand over Rose’s.

  “Not to worry,” she said. Her face was still and serious, but her palm was warm.

  “I’d worry less if I knew why we were on this errand.”

  Lucy took the measure of Rose’s face, scrutinizing her so carefully that Rose felt a bit like a prize shoat up for auction. “It’s a great deal more than an errand, Rose. There are some things you need to know about Bai Lum and his—” Lucy hesitated ever-so-slightly here. “His sister.”

  Rose’s stomach dropped a little. Her initial reaction in the mercantile yesterday when she had seen the girl, thinking for a queasy moment that Bai Lum had a child bride, returned. Suddenly she wished she had never agreed to come along with Reverend Huntington’s wife, who sat so stiffly erect and proper-looking in the carriage next to her. Could she not just turn back the clock a mere twenty-four hours? She would go to the mercantile early, buy the rock sugar, buy the chrysanthemum tea, hope for the touch of Bai Lum’s hand long before Elsie Dampler and Garland Tupper were out creating complications. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but could only nod, looking straight ahead.

  Lucy went on, soft and implacable. “I’m going to take you into my confidence,” she said. “Not just mine, either. There are reputations at stake. Reputations and lives, including Bai Lum’s.”

  Rose looked at her, the upright form and calm face, and a little worm of fear coiled in her chest. “Lives.”

  “Lives.”

  They pulled up to the mercantile. Buster planted his enormous hooves at the walk and loosed a great stream of piss onto the street, loud and long. Lucy laughed. “God’s creatures put the world into perspective,” she said, tucking at the edges of her hat, even though not a single silver hair was loose. She stood in the buggy and gave Rose’s earlobe a little tug. “Come on, then. Let’s go in, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  Mattie had built a roaring fire in the elephantine secondary stove, where a few hours prior Ya Zhen had burned the body of Li Lau’s baby. The stove roiled with heat and a large tub of water sat atop, nearly at a boil, when Ya Zhen came, holding her bundle of wash.

  Old Mol sat at the rough work table, shoveling up a great greasy plate of eggs and bacon. “There you are,” she said, chewing noisily while she spoke. She pointed at the ceiling with her fork. “Her majesty wants you to help with things around here today, so make yourself useful.” She scooped the last of her food with a biscuit and left her plate sitting on the table. “This one,” she said, cocking a thumb at Mattie, “will show you the ropes. Start with laundry. But hear me. Don’t you dare let the guests clap eyes on you. Stay out of the dining room, stay off the front stairs, and if you should see anyone who might be a guest, you’d better make yourself disappear. That’s the main worry of Mrs. Salyer, and if I catch any hell for you showing yourself, I’m going to make sure you pay for it later.” She heaved herself to her feet. “Now, as you know,” she said, “I was awake wiping tails all night. I’m going back to bed. One of you see to my dishes.” She went out, sucking at her teeth.

  “Mullingar heifer,” Mattie muttered when Old Mol was out of earshot. She smiled at Ya Zhen. “So we’re on the wash together today. Lucky you.” She tilted her chin at Ya Zhen’s armful of sheets. “Bring all that out here and I’ll show you how we do it.”

  The back kitchen door opened onto a low covered porch and small fenced yard that consisted mostly of dirt and a few bedraggled weeds. Two metal barrels stood against the wall next to the tin tub Ya Zhen used for bathing, along with an odd contraption that sported wooden rollers bigger around than a man’s arm, with a spoked iron wheel on one side. Mattie saw Ya Zhen looking at it and laughed. “The mangle,” she said. “Terrible name, isn’t it? We’ll feed the wet stuff through there before we haul it up to hang out. See?” She loosened a knobbed handle at the top of the machine and spun the iron wheel. Gears moved and the rollers thudded around. “You don’t ever want to get your fingers too close in there. When it’s tightened down, you’ll break a bone for sure.” She gestured to the metal barrels, which were actually tall washtubs. “Let’s pull these out where we can get at them,”

  Ya Zhen heaped her sheets on a pile of dirty laundry sitting in one corner of the porch, heart beating hard, knowing that she and Mattie would soon unroll the bloody mess tucked into the center of the pile. It was good that someone should see it. Let Mattie make of it whatever she might. They dragged the wash barrels out side-by-side, leaving plenty of room to move around each one. “Once the water’s boiling in there, we’ll put it in this first tub with the soap, add a pile of wash and bash it about for a bit with this.” She held up a wooden implement that looked like a four-legged stool attached to a long, T-shaped handle. “Then we’ll rinse in the second bucket, and run it all through the mangle.” Ivo wa
s in the kitchen now, banging pots and pans around, getting his day under way. Mattie stepped down into the weedy patch of yard. Hands on her bony hips, she looked around at the clear sky. “A perfect day for us,” she said. “We’ll get this done and out on the lines and it’ll be ready for the iron before afternoon.” She bounded back onto the porch and took Ya Zhen’s arm. “Who knows what sort of mischief we could get into with so much time to waste,” she whispered. She drew Ya Zhen over to the piles of dirty laundry. “Now the fun begins. All this here needs a quick sorting out. We’ll start with the least dirty stuff and finish with the worst of it. You start the sort and I’ll get the old grouch in the kitchen to help me pull the wash water off the stove.” On her way inside, she told Ya Zhen she’d best roll her long sleeves as high as she could. “You’ll soon be past your elbows in it,” she said.

  Ya Zhen hurriedly rolled her sleeves almost to her shoulders and began pulling apart the small mountain of things to be washed. First she untangled the sheets she had brought down, then sorted through tablecloths, towels, napkins, heaps of hotel sheets, and a relatively small amount of clothing, most of it belonging to the Salyers and Old Mol. Some of the table linen was filthy with spilled food; this she shook out over the edge of the porch and piled on top of Li Lau’s fouled bedding. By the time Ivo and Mattie struggled out with the huge kettle of boiling water, Ya Zhen had three big piles sorted. Together, they set the edge of the kettle on the lip of the tub and poured. Ivo was ropy with muscle, but he wasn’t a young man, and the tendons stood out in his leathery neck.

  When the tub was full, he took the kettle with him. “Das alte Schwein war in meiner Küche,” he said. His voice was gravelly, as if not much used.

  “Ja, always eating,” Mattie said. She smiled at Ya Zhen. “He’ll clean up after that sow. He’s almighty particular about keeping the kitchen tidy. Now then, we’ll need this.” She dipped into a crock of soft brown soap and added that to the wash water. Clouds of steam wafted into the cool morning, along with the astringent smell of lye. “Let’s see what we have here,” Mattie said. She picked through each pile that Ya Zhen had made, nodding, pulling a few darkly-colored things aside, but leaving everything else as it was. At the final pile, she looked the soiled tablecloths and wrinkled her nose. “This lot will need a bit of extra attention,” she said. “People spill so much, sometimes it looks as though they didn’t use plates at all. I’ll take care of these while you get started at the tub. Take that whole pile, there, and we’ll put as much in as will fit.” They loaded handkerchiefs and shirts, towels and underdrawers into the steaming tub. Mattie grabbed the wooden stick and dunked the pegged end into the tub, plunging and twisting everything in the pallid murk. “This is your dolly stick,” she said. “Hold these handles and pound it around, just like that.” When she handed the stick to Ya Zhen, she put her hand on Ya Zhen’s arm. “You know,” she said quietly, “the old bitch didn’t even introduce us. I’m Matilda Gillen, but I’m called Mattie. You know that.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And what should I call you?”

  Ya Zhen thought of the boy who had been with her last night, asking the same question. Since she had been sold and brought here, she had guarded her name. Certainly there were people who knew she had a name, but those who might remember it did not use it. To Clarence Salyer and his wife, to Old Mol, to the Wu sisters and to Li Lau, she was no one who needed a name. To the men who came, men who gave names even to the scabrous dogs that lived under their porches, she was nothing at all. Upstairs, under the mattress, she hid the small bundle of things her mother had sent with her into this terrible life; in the same manner, she had put her name away into the center of her heart, hiding it there. But she looked into Mattie’s kind and open face, and she chose.

  “Ya Zhen.”

  “Ya Zhen,” Mattie said. “Lovely. Well, Ya Zhen, let’s get the wash done.”

  Back at the wash tub, Ya Zhen began to pound and twist as Mattie had shown her, wincing as small splashes of the scalding water leapt onto her arms and hands. Through the cloud of steam, she kept one eye on Mattie, who was now sorting through the dirty tablecloths to the sheets at the bottom.

  By mid-day, Byron Tupper had done a fair job of mucking out the house. He washed dishes and put them on the open shelf over the sideboard. More windows were pried and propped open. He swept the uneven floorboards, then went at the worst of the dried mud and spilled food with an old piece of wet sacking. He heaped a great pile of rubbish behind the shed and soaked it with kerosene. While he tended the fire with a broken rake, Garland came home.

  Byron could tell by the way he walked that he had been ill-used by his excesses the night before, but this was his usual posture, unless he was in the middle of a drunk. He moved in a tender, stiff-legged gait so as not to jar his head, with his hat pulled low over his eyes. Byron could only make out his father’s face from the nostrils down, his mouth a grizzled line slashed in his face, stubble glinting.

  “What the hell is all this?” Garland said, his voice a dry husk. He stood on the far side of the burn pile and his form wavered in the lines of heat rising into the day.

  “Thought I’d clean some,” Byron said.

  “Watch you don’t set the shed on fire.” Garland turned and made his careful way across the yard toward the house. “I’ll kick your ass if you burn that shed.” When he got to the pump, he took off his hat; his long hair stuck to his head. He jerked the pump handle and put his face directly under the stream, letting it pour over his head and neck and drinking in great slurping drafts. Then he shook his wet hair out of his face, put his hat back on, and climbed to the porch, one slow step at a time.

  Byron stood by the fire, raking the refuse in, turning it, knocking back charred bits that wanted to float off. Garland cursed loudly and the windows banged shut one after the other, rattling in their loose frames. Byron tamped the burning trash, pushing it into a smaller, smoldering heap. Setting the rake aside, he loped over to the house. Sometimes a serious rage could be dampered by catching his father before he got fully wound up. This morning Byron wanted to catch Garland before he denned in his room to sleep.

  Garland’s boots were under the table and the powerful stink of unwashed feet filled the kitchen. He stood in the door between the kitchen and his bedroom, one blockish hand propped on the lintel, his head hanging. He squinted up when Byron came in.

  “Make me some coffee,” he said. “And close the damned door. What kind of fool are you, leaving this all open? Are you soft in the head? You’ll have every yellow-jacket and horsefly for miles in here.”

  Byron had made himself coffee that morning; he lit the stove and moved the enameled pot over the heat. “You want food?” he asked Garland.

  “No. Coffee.”

  “It’s almost ready. Why don’t you sit?”

  “Why don’t you mind your business?” Garland grunted, but he pushed himself off the doorway and slumped into a chair. The worn rush seat creaked under him. He rested his forehead in one hand and rubbed his eyes with the other.

  Byron put a cup and saucer in front of his father and poured him coffee. “That’s hot,” he said.

  “Good.” He slopped some coffee into the shallow saucer and blew on it, then sipped. He had taught Byron to drink coffee this way when he was eight years old. Byron watched, remembering how patiently Garland had demonstrated cooling the brew before trying to sip it. After a few swallows, Garland sat back in the chair and fixed Byron with a smirk. “I hear you had quite a night last night.”

  Heat rose into Byron’s face. He said nothing.

  Garland laughed, a phlegmy wheeze that ended in a fit of coughing. “Whoo. Gonna have to lay low on the pipe for a while,” he said, still chuckling, the veins in his nose and cheeks standing out purple. “So my boy laid the old rod to some little Mongolian sweetheart.” He sucked up some more coffee and leaned forward, grinning at Byron. “Hope you didn’t think Billy Kellogg would keep that a secret. Make her howl, did you?”
His tone had become softer, conspiratorial.

  Byron felt himself gathered into his father’s regard. “Yeah,” he said. “She liked it.” He didn’t like to talk about Pearl this way, but he felt it was true, the way she had taken him into her hand, so gentle. Here, perhaps, was a door he could move through, a way to convince Garland of his plan to bring Pearl out of Salyer’s. “You know anybody hiring? I’ve got to earn some money.”

  Garland snorted. “You and every other man jack around here. Timber’s bad right now for cutters and haulers. Woods are too wet. The only ones making money are the big bugs, Carson and that crew.” His face clouded over with a sullen pall. “Bastards in their big houses. That place he’s building up 2nd Street? Damnation. No matter where you are in town, you look around and there it is. That lot wouldn’t give the sweat off their asses for the men pulling the trees down, so long as they can dress their wives in fine clothes to show off on a Sunday morning.” He pushed his coffee cup toward Byron. “More.”