Chasing Down the Moon

by Carla Baku

Hazel looked hard at her. She didn’t suffer fools lightly, and Rose knew she wasn’t going to tolerate a lot of equivocation. “What is it you’re really trying to tell me, girl? Better to heave it off your chest and be done.”

  Rose plunged in. “Shu-Li isn’t really Bai Lum’s sister. He told me yesterday that she was, but it wasn’t true. She’s a girl that the Huntingtons are helping, and Bai Lum is helping by letting her stay with him.” The words tumbled out in a rush. “After I saw Shu-Li in the store, Lucy thought they might just as well tell me the truth, and Bai Lum was worried, too, because of what happened yesterday, and since you were the only one I told about Shu-Li, Lucy hoped I could ask you to keep the secret.” Rose sat down on the blanket chest at the foot of the bed, feeling deflated, but relieved.

  Hazel sat beside her. “What happened yesterday—so you are talking about Elsie Dampler.”

  They sat there for a few moments, saying nothing. Somewhere, blocks away, the fire truck bell sounded, growing fainter as it raced to its destination. Hazel shook her head. “Troubles, troubles,” she said. “I can see by the look on your face that there’s more to it, but I’m not going to ask why they’re hiding her. You can stop worrying. I won’t breathe a word. But maybe I can help.”

  “No need,” Rose told her. “Reverend Huntington and Lucy are going to make a place for Shu-Li to stay with them until they can take her out of town.”

  Hazel shook her head again and stood. “Come on. Let’s us make a quick supper for the Kendalls and stow it in the warmer. I think we need an early day. I’m feeling my age this afternoon.”

  An hour later, while her aunt penned a note for Prudence, Rose waited on the stoop of the wide front porch, sweaty from mopping up. She swung her legs, letting the heels of her boots bump gently against the bricks. Hazel seemed satisfied that the Huntingtons were taking care of their problem, and that was good. She wanted to see for herself, if she could, what was going on at Salyer’s Hotel. With her aunt’s guard down, getting out of the house tonight would be much easier.

  By the time Charles Huntington came upstairs at the end of the afternoon, Lucy was hard at work in a small storage room at the end of the second-floor hallway in the rectory. “I know you must be up here somewhere,” he called, picking his way through the detritus she had pulled out into the hall: a wooden box of mismatched, cracked, and chipped china; moldering bedding that had been too stained or threadbare to use for quilts or rags; the rusted hulk of a dressmaker’s form that looked like a large birdcage with bosoms.

  “You found me.” She was wearing an old dress, hair swathed in a rag, attacking cobwebs in the upper corners with a broom. The floor was bare, except for a moth-eaten daybed, a battered end table, and a wicker rocking chair with a hole the size of a tea saucer in the caned seat. “These can stay,” she said, rubbing the end of her nose with the back of one hand. “I can cover them well enough to use.”

  Charles stepped over a box and into the room. Two arched windows at the top of the far wall let in a little light, and the ceiling sloped at an angle, forcing him to duck slightly. “This should be fine,” he said. “She won’t need it long.”

  “I told Bai Lum you’d come for her tomorrow at noon.”

  He nodded. “Good. I’ve decided to take her north first thing Monday morning.”

  “Four days? Will they be ready for her?”

  “I wish the telegraph was working, but wishing never gets the cows milked. No matter, though. They’ll do what has to be done.”

  Lucy looked around. “Little Shu-Li is a bit of a wanderer, apparently. That’s how Rose caught sight of her—she went right into the store during the day,” she said. “I hope I can convince her not to wander downstairs while we’re in church Sunday.”

  “No one in the rectory this Sunday, then, not even in the kitchen.” Charles fingered the wide hole in the wicker chair. “Why did anyone keep this?”

  “All for the best,” she said. “I’ll put a cushion on that chair and make up the daybed with quilts. Can you bring that small lamp from the parlor, though? It’s already getting dark in here.”

  They gathered the rubbish that had come out of the storage room and carried it out to the stable in three loads. Charles made a humorous apology to the dressmaker’s dummy before wresting it down the narrow stairs. After making the accommodations as comfortable as she could, the last thing Lucy did was poke around the rectory library for anything that had pictures. She found some old copies of Godey’s Lady’s Book, a children’s reading primer, and an illustrated volume of Black Beauty. Upstairs, she placed the books on the table next to the lamp, and stood back for one last look at the room—she thought it would serve for just the few days of Shu-Li’s stay. Satisfied, she closed the door behind her and went down to start supper and to tell Charles about her talk with Rose and Bai Lum. She had not the slightest inkling that Shu-Li would never lay eyes on the little upstairs room.

  Old man Reilly made Byron earn every last cent of his pay, not only shoveling stalls but hefting bales of hay and sacks of grain. He climbed into the loft with a broom and knocked down generations of spiders while several barn cats eyed him from different corners of the upper space. One was a young tom, all black, with a long sleek body. Pearl’s hair was just that color. Throughout the long afternoon, he thought about her exquisite face, how pleased she would be when he told her that he wanted to marry her. He’d have to find a place for them as soon as he could. Remembering the line of men waiting in the hallway outside her door made Byron feel ill. He picked up a broken chunk of an old bridle and hurled it at the cat, which fled the loft with a yowling spit. A cloud of chaff floated in banded motes where narrow sheaves of sun fell through the unchinked board walls. Perhaps he could bring Pearl here, show her how beautiful it was. He’d lay out a pile of fresh hay for them and she would open herself to him. In her arms, her legs, deep inside the heat of her, Byron knew he would find himself home, finally.

  At the end of it, Joe Reilly spent a half-hour nit-picking Byron’s work and several minutes scuffling around in his dingy side room while Byron waited, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. Finally, Reilly reappeared, wiping his nose on a voluminous and none-too-fresh bandanna. “Listen,” he said, “I can give you your two for today, but if you let me hold onto it, you can come back tomorrow and earn another two, with four bits thrown in extra. It’s a good offer,” he said, and wiped his nose again.

  Byron took off his cap and slapped at his soiled and chaff-studded britches. “If I want my wages now?”

  “Got it right here.” The old man tapped his breast pocket. “Thing is, though, if you need it pronto, I guess I won’t need any help tomorrow.”

  Throughout the long day, he’d worked a regular stint at the livery into his fantasies, and didn’t relish going around, cap in hand, just to feed himself. “Yeah, that’ll do. What time do you want me?”

  “Not too early. Make it nine o’clock.”

  “I’ll be here.” He’d be here long before that. He had already decided to loiter around town and then sneak back into the livery to sleep tonight. It would be a suitable place to bring Pearl for a while, too—not that he would ask Mr. Reilly about that. Byron would hide her in the loft during the day and have every night with her there, until he found them more secure accommodations.

  The bloody sheet would not come all the way clean, but the stain had paled to pink and yellow marks, like a fading bruise. It was the last thing to come off the line, the final bit to be pressed and folded and put away. Mattie performed all these tasks mechanically, moving as if her bones had turned to glass. Her head pounded with a terrible headache that had started as a small throb at the base of her skull and spread up and around so that now even her eyes and teeth hurt, and she felt bathed in a murky sweat.

  It was so odd. The more awful things Ya Zhen had told her, the lighter and brighter the girl seemed to get, while every word landed on Mattie like a chunk of granite. Before they finished pegging out the laundry, Ya Zhen
was smiling, her hands flying through the damp baskets, briskly snapping out a shirt here, a chemise there. She purposely alternated a long row of handkerchiefs and tea towels so that they resembled a line of festive white flags, and laughed when showing Mattie how they flapped in a wave when the breezed flirted through. Meanwhile, Mattie moved more and more slowly, feet dragging as if she were fording a shallow creek.

  Matilda, you’re an idiot, she thought now, folding the sheet and slipping it into a pile of the Chinese women’s things, stuff that Old Mol would take upstairs herself. Had she not known the Chinese women lived in the hotel? Of course she had—she’d been doing scullery work and laundry with the Wu sisters since the day she’d started. And Ya Zhen, slipping into the kitchen each week to fetch bath water, so quiet and still she seemed almost transparent. Mattie had given her little gifts in the hopes she might cheer Ya Zhen, to perhaps build a bridge of friendship and trust. She had simply assumed that Ya Zhen and the other young girl —Mattie couldn’t recall her name, and it made her head pound fiercely when she tried— did some other menial labor in the hotel, perhaps in exchange for their room and board. They do, she thought. My God, they do. She refolded the sheet so that the worst part of the remaining stain was clearly visible, and placed it squarely on top of everything.

  The broad plank they used for ironing, laid across the backs of two sturdy chairs, had been put away. The last thing to do before leaving was return the three flat irons to a shelf in the kitchen, and put on a final kettle of water to heat; Ivo, now gone on his own early dinner break, would use it later for a final washing of pots and pans. She filled the pot at the kitchen pump and hoisted it to the cooling stovetop, trying to hold her pounding head steady.

  The fire in the big stove had burned low. Hands shaking, she opened the top lid of the firebox. Instead of putting in fresh kindling, she picked up Ivo’s big meat fork and gently spread the remaining coals apart. There was very little ash, since most of it fell through into the pan below as it burned, but there were several inches of white and yellow embers, perking to a fresh burn as the oxygen hit them. The skin on her fingers and the back of her hand seemed to shrink in the heat, and she shook enough now that the tines of the fork clittered a tattoo against the cast iron.

  There, toward the back. A cup of bone not much bigger than an eggshell, but thicker, blackened and jagged at the edges, smooth as a china cup on the inside. The trembling fork slipped through her fingers and clattered into the firebox, sending up a tiny shower of white sparks. Not thinking, she grabbed after it. Radiant pain lit her hand and seemed to fire off nerve endings throughout her whole body. Without a sound, she plunged her burned hand, fork and all, into the cool pot of water.

  When Ivo returned several minutes later, the big stove blazed, so heavily stoked that he felt the heat of it before he even got into the kitchen. The kettle of dishwater boiled madly, throwing gouts onto the stove top in steaming confusion. He threw open the back door, as well as the window over the sink, then reached into the pulsing heat to push the stove damper almost closed. In a minute, smoke began to trickle from around the burner lids and the firebox. He fanned the kitchen with a towel, flapping it in tremendous arcs, swearing fluently in German. Sweat poured from his face and dripped off his blunt chin. When the pot of water had dropped back to a reasonable simmer and Ivo could no longer hear the roar of burning wood, he opened the oven door to cool the stove even faster. Using the heavy towel to protect his hands, he hurried the kettle over to the sink and poured it into the outsized dishpan. His big meat fork landed in the metal pan with a splash and a bang, making him flinch. One side of its slender wooden handle was scorched completely black.

  Chapter 5

  Old Mol might threaten, but if the men did not come, there was nothing she could do about it. Hard rain, their holidays—these things sometimes made a difference, though not always. Other times business got quiet for no discernible reason. Always, it was a gift, and tonight especially so.

  Ya Zhen had been forced upstairs not long after she and Mattie finished hanging the wash. They had just returned to the back porch to set up a board for ironing when Clarence Salyer appeared from the kitchen.

  “Hm,” he said. “Ain’t this tender? You girls sure do work hard. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.” He crossed his arms on top of his meager pot belly and slouched with one shoulder against the door jamb. “I guess you’re showing my girl here a thing or two, eh Irish?”

  Mattie stiffened. She’d gone almost silent on the roof—the happier Ya Zhen got, the more Mattie seemed to pull into herself. Now she looked almost rigid. “I’m glad for the help,” she said through her teeth.

  Clarence smiled. “My pleasure. Don’t let me interrupt. You go ahead with it, now. I’ll just watch awhile.”

  Ya Zhen was already ironing a pillowcase. She didn’t think Salyer would approach her here, where others could see, but she wasn’t sure. Her hand bore down on the handle of the iron, relishing the heat and heaviness. Mattie came alongside, putting herself between Ya Zhen and Salyer, and began to furiously press handkerchiefs, needing only a few seconds to iron and fold each one. Ya Zhen didn’t look at Salyer, but she could see him leaning there, and could smell the sweet grease he put in his hair.

  He glanced over his shoulder to where Ivo was at work in the kitchen, then back at Mattie. “I expect she could teach you some things, too,” he muttered.

  Mattie slammed the iron on the board and folded the handkerchief with a couple of deft strokes. “Maybe,” she said, her voice careless on top and steel underneath. “Mrs. Salyer was here a little while ago. Probably she’ll be checking on us again. I’ll be sure to mention your idea to her.” She slapped the handkerchief down with the others and grabbed up a new one. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to know that you were here, praising us. Keeping us company.”

  Salyer straightened out of his slouch. He said nothing, but his breath sounded as though he’d done some hard running. “Looks like you can handle the rest of this on your own,” he snapped. “You,” he said to Ya Zhen, cocking his head inside. “Upstairs. We have some things to talk over.”

  “We aren’t near done!” Mattie said. “Mrs. Salyer wants—”

  Clarence Salyer took two large steps and put his face next to Mattie’s, so that their foreheads nearly touched. “Mrs. Salyer wants the laundry done, Irish. That’s her concern. This one, though,” he said, taking Ya Zhen by the bicep, “has other work. That’s my concern.” With his free hand, he grasped Ya Zhen’s chin and sniffed at her like a dog would, all around her neck and hairline. His breath was thick with whiskey and onion. Ya Zhen closed her eyes. She heard Mattie’s sharp intake of breath, and her own free hand clutched the iron tighter, tighter, so that her whole arm began to shake. Salyer clamped his hand over hers. “Now, now,” he said into her ear. “We wouldn’t want you to have an accident with this.” She could barely open her fingers, and he pried them apart until the iron thudded onto the board. “Best pick that up,” he crooned to Mattie, “if you like your job. My dear wife would be so upset if you scorched something.” He pushed Ya Zhen ahead of him and into the hotel. She risked a single look back; Mattie’s face was chalky white and furious. As they climbed the stairs, his breath, rank and warm, played across her neck.

  He stayed in her room a very long time.

  Now it was almost full dark. After Salyer went out, she had washed herself all over, imagining the deep washtub, filled to the brim with boiling water and brown soap, imagined lowering herself into that scalding barrel and turning, turning, until her skin loosened from her muscles, and she could step out into the morning, something different, something terrible and clean.

  Naked, she built a fire in the grate with a small split of kindling, then slipped into her dressing gown and pushed the window open as far as she could. It had begun to rain lightly, and the smell, after a day of warm sun, was sweet. A few voices and a bit of horse traffic were audible down in the street, but they had a sparse, muffled quali
ty. She turned the chair so that it faced away from the bed, and removed two or three hairpins that Clarence Slayer hadn’t torn free; she slowly worked out knots and snarls.

  Three years ago, when he had brought her to Eureka on the ship, he had hurried her straight from the dock to the hotel and into the room she had haunted ever since. Her only view was the small section of street visible from her window, and the scraggly yard outside the kitchen. But on the roof today, she had been able to turn in a complete circle and see everything—not just the water and the sky, but almost the entire town. Whitewashed houses and church spires, a grid of dirt roads hemmed by wooden sidewalks, wrought iron fences and ornate storefronts with hand-lettered signs that she could not read. She saw piles of logs, stripped of bark and incredibly long—some heaped on land, others floating in clustered confusion at the water’s edge. Smoke rose from at least a half-dozen timber mills along the coast. To the north, just visible, was another town, and to the east, forested hills that reminded her, achingly, of the mountains around her village. Combing, remembering the sun on her arms and face, and the salt smell of the ocean, she didn’t feel the places that hurt, couldn’t smell the stink of Salyer. Didn’t feel Li Lau’s baby in the palms of her hands.

  It was so quiet. No voices in the hallway. No sounds from the next room, and none of the usual muttered conversation between Wu Song and Wu Lin across the hall. Not even Old Mol’s heavy tread around the stairs or her voice barking at the men as they came and went, came and went. After almost fifteen minutes alone, Ya Zhen stole a look into the hall. No one there. Scanning the corridor in both directions, she slipped the comb into her pocket, gave the sash of her robe a tight pull, and tiptoed out. She rested her hand on Li Lau’s doorknob and put her ear close. No sound. Slowly, ready to bolt back if she needed to, she cracked open the door and peeked in.