by Carla Baku
“Ya Zhen,” Mattie said.
“That’s right.”
“I saw that baby’s skull.” She cupped her uninjured hand. “Part of it, anyway. Like part of a duck’s egg.” She stared into her hand as if the burned portion of bone was sitting there. There was no more of the broken weeping from earlier, but her eyes were wet.
She took Mattie’s hand. “I’m so sorry you had to see that, but I want you to listen to me now.”
Mattie nodded.
“Bai Lum went to see her tonight. He visited Ya Zhen and he told her we’re going to help.”
“Help? How can we?”
As simply and carefully as she could, she explained what Bai Lum and the Huntingtons had done for other girls, and what they planned for Shu-Li. The more she said, the more carefully Mattie seemed to be listening. “We haven’t talked to them yet, about Ya Zhen. I’m going to go over in the morning, early. Since they’re going to take Shu-Li north soon anyway, maybe they can take Ya Zhen, too.”
Mattie chewed her lip, brow furrowed. “They watch her like hawks, though. She’s hardly ever downstairs. Yesterday was the first time I ever saw her for more than a couple of minutes, and it seems like that fat bitch is always looking right over her shoulder.”
“Who’s that?”
“They call her Old Mol. She’s like—” Mattie shook her head. “Like their keeper, at least for Ya Zhen and the other young one. I don’t think Ya Zhen ever leaves the hotel. How can anyone sneak her out?”
“I don’t know. Maybe in the middle of the night.”
“Who, though? If they got caught…truth, Rose? I think Clarence Salyer would shoot someone and then claim he was being robbed. Awful poxy bastard.” The candlelight exaggerated the dark circles under her eyes, giving her thin face an almost skull-like appearance.
“What if she got herself out? Ran out before dawn. We could wait, and then hide her.”
“If they caught her—” Mattie tilted her head back and shook her head in slow negation. “Dear God, I hate to think.”
Rose passed a weary hand over her face. “You’re right. It’s not going to do any good trying to figure this out right now. You should get some sleep. We both should. Lay back.”
Mattie slid down until her head was back on the pillow. “I want to go with you in the morning.”
Rose considered. She’d have to admit to the Huntingtons that she’d told Mattie about Shu-Li and the other girls. But Mattie knew more about the hotel —and about Ya Zhen— than any of them. “Let’s see how you feel in the morning.”
“I’ll be better,” Mattie mumbled, half asleep. Rose wasn’t sure if it was a prediction or another promise.
Getting back into the livery was harder than Byron expected. Old man Reilly had locked things up tight; even the windows were shuttered and bolted. After what seemed like forever, he finally managed to create enough space at the bottom corner of the big front door to push inside, squatting and duck-walking through. The long hasp popped like a gunshot, the nails pulling partway out of the rough wood, and just as he got all but his right leg inside, the edge of the door scraped a gouge across his lower back and buttock. He hardly felt it, so miserable was the throbbing hell of his face. His nose had stopped bleeding, but only because it had swollen to such gross proportions, inside and out; there was a steady, nauseating drip of blood at the back of his throat, making him spit repeatedly. The flesh under his right eye puffed so that he could see it slowly impeding on the vision in that eye.
There were only two horses stabled, and neither paid him any attention as he stumbled over to the ladder and climbed into the loft. On hands and knees, he pulled loose hay together, yanking a few handfuls from a loose bale. He wished he could smell the crisp, old-grass smell, an aroma like the last gasp of summer, but his swollen nose was out of commission for God knew how long. He settled into the straw, but sat up again in less than a minute when his entire head began to throb to the rhythm of his heartbeat, lighting his face with exquisite pain. Whimpering a little, he pushed some bales around so that he could sit on two and lean back on a third. He pulled loose straw over him to serve as a blanket and tucked his hands in his armpits.
Huddled there in the hay loft, trying to ignore his pain and shifting restlessly to avoid the surprisingly sharp ends of straw, he didn’t think about his father. There was some relief, actually, to being accosted by Garland; Byron had known there would be a retribution, and he was mildly surprised he’d been left able to walk away. Instead of his father, Byron’s thoughts turned on the man who had cast his shadow on Pearl’s ceiling. A deep core of rage weltered in his gut. He couldn’t picture his Pearl now, couldn’t conjure her sliding out of her robe without imagining someone there with her, putting his hands on her, forcing her. He shook his head, viciously, relishing the bolt of pain that followed. He had to stay clear. Tomorrow he would earn his wages and he would take Pearl out—after he found the man, and killed him.
Chapter 6
“Rose, wake up.”
Mattie’s voice. There was so little light at the windows, Rose thought at first that it must still be night, a candle on Mattie’s bureau. She propped herself on an elbow and squinted through her hair, which was a bright cloud of frizz. “Are you sick?”
“I’m dandy, see? Good as new. But you need to get up.”
Rose dropped back onto her pillow. “Why?” She was still tired, which always caused her bed to exert a weightless, downy pull on her. “Go back to sleep. It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s half-six. Up. Come on! We have to get over to Reverend Huntington’s house. Look here.”
Rose cracked an eye. Mattie sat on the bed, waving a cup in front of her face.
“Good and strong, as you like it. Coffee, Rose.”
She groaned a little and sat up. Mattie lifted Rose’s hand and wrapped Rose’s fingers around the cup.
“Ow!”
“Careful,” Mattie said. “That’s hot.” She jumped off the bed and threw open the doors of Rose’s wardrobe.
“Thanks for the warning,” she mumbled, and took a tentative taste. It was not only hot, but incredibly strong, and Rose winced. “Oh, this is…I can almost chew this, Mattie.” Even with a single sip, she could already feel the caffeine zinging into her brain. The windows had gone from charcoal to pewter, and Mattie rummaged through drawers, finding clean underclothes. The bandage on her burned hand was still wrapped snugly and she was dressed, combed, and bustling around as though she’d been awake for hours—a completely different person than the fragile woman, weeping and shaking on the bed last night. “How can you be so awake? Rose asked.
“Three cups, sugar and milk.” She laid all the clothes on the quilt and turned to Rose with a hairbrush in her good hand.
Rose took it from her before she could start brushing. “Stop,” she said. She put the now half-full cup on the bedside table and threw back the covers. “I’m not in the market for a lady-in-waiting. I’m up, you see?” She pulled her nightgown off over her head and washed her face at the commode, then slipped into the fresh underclothes and the blue striped dress Mattie had chosen. “Uck, this thing,” she said. “It looks like pillow ticking.”
“Prickly. You’ve never seemed terrible particular about wardrobe before.”
Rose, now pulling the hairbrush through her rowdy curls, stared at Mattie’s reflection in the mirror. “What—”
Mattie’s chin was cocked, a smug smile all over her narrow face. “Look who’s awake.” She batted her eyelashes theatrically.
Rose managed a smile and brandished the hairbrush at her. “You’re incorrigible.”
“So they say.”
“You’re also right. We need to go.” She wrangled her hair into a knot and anchored it in place, using so many hairpins she didn’t think a tornado could tear it loose. She turned then and gave Mattie a long look. “Really—are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to. I can go myself.”
“There isn’t a thing you c
ould do, short of tying me to the table leg, that would keep me from it.” Mattie was all business now, and Rose could see that her frantic and cheerful hurry was painted over a great, determined weariness. There were still dark circles on the skin beneath her eyes and her pupils were small pinpricks, but her expression was dogged. “I’ll do anything to help that girl.”
They bundled up to go out into the bone-chilly dawn and hurried along in the waning dark toward the Congregational church. At first they were quiet, the wet grit of their footsteps quick and rhythmic. Then Mattie tilted her head back and inhaled deeply. “God, I love that,” she said. “Smell the ocean?”
“I do.”
“Rose?”
“Hm.”
“Thank you.”
Rose hooked her arm through Mattie’s and they walked on, dodging puddles.
Charles Huntington opened the door of the rectory and peered out, hooking his glasses over his ears. It wasn’t yet seven o’clock and still nearly dark. “What’s happened?” he said. Lucy appeared at his side, wiping her hands on her apron. “Come in you two, it’s cold.” She hustled Rose and Mattie inside. “Get in the kitchen where it’s warmer. I’ll get coffee.”
Rose and Mattie looked at each other and Mattie smiled wickedly. Rose gave her a small pinch on the arm, which made her blink. Rose was almost shaking, and she couldn’t tell if it was the brisk morning or her own nerves.
“We need to talk to you both,” Rose said. “It’s about one of the girls at the hotel. Salyer’s.”
Lucy, reaching for the big enameled coffee pot, paused. “Is there trouble?”
“Here, ladies, sit down.” Reverend Huntington, still in shirtsleeves and suspenders, took a seat at the table and gestured for Mattie and Rose to do the same. He struck a match and lit his Meerschaum, the sweet smell of tobacco filling the room. “Tell us.”
Rose took a deep breath. “Lucy, you remember I told you yesterday that Mattie works at Salyer’s.”
Lucy lowered herself into a chair. “I do.”
“She worked yesterday with one of them that Clarence Salyer…one of the girls he keeps.” She looked at Mattie, who nodded for her to go on. “Her name is Ya Zhen,” she said. “We have to help her.”
Then they both explained, Mattie’s voice strained but resolute as she recounted the bloody sheet, the story Ya Zhen had told her on the roof. She told what Clarence Salyer had done in the afternoon. Finally, with Rose’s encouragement, she told about the bones in the stove, the tiny skull. Midway through this atrocious litany, Charles reached over for wife’s hand, closing her small fingers within his large ones.
“Last night, I asked Bai Lum to go to the hotel and meet Ya Zhen,” Rose said. “He did. He paid to see her. He told her he would help. That we would.” She realized that she was squeezing her hands together under the table so hard that she’d lost feeling in her fingers. “You’re going to take Shu-Li north soon. What if Ya Zhen went, too?”
The four of them sat in the slowly brightening kitchen, the only sound the simmering hiss of the abandoned coffee pot.
“Lucy,” Rose said finally, “yesterday you told me that if you could find a way to help all of them, you would.”
“I did.”
“Maybe there’s a way. Maybe we can find one.”
Reverend Huntington clamped his pipe between his teeth and tipped back in the chair so that its two front legs were off the floor. “Getting her out of the hotel will be the first problem.”
“You look like hell, Tupper.” Joe Reilly shook his head with a low whistle. “Guess your old man found you. Y’oughta mash that nose back onto the middle of your face before it settles off to the side there.”
Byron said nothing. His entire head was a throbbing woe, and he wished the old whore’s son would tell him what he wanted done first so Byron could get to it. He’d had nothing but scratch sleep all night; when he wasn’t choking on the dribble down the back of his throat, he tried to find a way to rest so the spines of hay weren’t jabbing him. Sometime in the deepest reaches he had finally dozed off, only to be brought bolt upright by some brazen critter running crosswise over his legs; he had thrashed out with a roar, thinking rat, and only got himself settled again by clinging to the idea that it was only the barn cat on his nightly rounds.
The horses had alerted him to Reilly’s arrival, a soft whinny and thud as they moved in their stalls, anticipating a feed. Byron scuttered behind a stack of bales. After the big livery doors were pulled open, he waited until Reilly went into the small side office and then scrambled down the ladder. In the alley, he picked as much chaff off himself as he could, and gingerly washed his outraged face in a rain barrel. As the surface of the water settled, he got his first look at what Garland had done with his fists. The thought occurred to him again that it was a smaller price to pay than he had feared; retribution was done and he was still standing.
“A’right then,” Joe Reilly said. “You can start by feeding the beasties, then muck ‘em. Food and shit, food and shit. That’s a horse. Joe Kenton will be after that bay mare before noon, so after she’s fed, put the curry comb to her. I’ll take care of her hooves, though. All you need is a little kick to the face to knock that nose the rest of the way off your gob.” He handed Byron a bucket of grooming tools. “That one’s the curry comb, he said, pointing. “Go easy around her belly—she’s ticklish.” Hobbling away, he said, “Next time you want to doss down in the loft, let me know. I’ll throw you a blanket.”
Byron stared stupidly after him, thinking how a blanket last night might have guarded him from stiff bedding and small, night-roaming animals. Perhaps he’d ask for a few more nights —and a blanket— before he finished work. He set aside the bucket with the curry comb and brush, and slit open a sack of oats that slumped in one corner. One thing was sure: no matter what kind of deals old man Reilly tried to foist on him today, he would insist on the wages due him this afternoon. He planned on buying a decent meal, and when it was dark he would go to Salyer’s and get Pearl out of there. There was also the matter of the Chinaman who’d gone to her last night. There were a couple hundred of them around town, and he didn’t know which one it was. But the coolie bastard had not only interfered with Pearl —who was very nearly Byron’s wife— but he’d gotten Byron a beating in the bargain. He was going to by-God find out who it was (one way or the other, Pearl would have to tell) and he was going to make him a very dead Chinaman.
It was Lucy who landed on an idea, finally.
They had talked the possibilities around and around, rejecting one scheme after another until it started to seem as if they’d have to scrap the whole plan entirely. Then Lucy slapped the table in front of her. “Your birthday,” she said to her husband.
They all stared confusedly at this apparent non sequitur.
“What about it?” he said.
“A party!”
“Don’t care for them.” A perplexed line showed between Reverend Huntington’s bushy white eyebrows.
“You do now,” she said, giving his shoulder a hearty pat. “We’re going to be throwing you a dinner party next week, and I’ll need help getting ready. I’m going to hire that girl from Cora Salyer this afternoon.”
Mattie looked skeptical. “The sisters are the ones that get sent around on errands, mostly—the two older ones. Ya Zhen told me she’s never allowed out.”
“What if Salyer’s wife tries to send one of the others, instead?” Rose asked.
Lucy looked out the window, considering. “I’ll be very specific that I want one of the young girls, a hard worker, otherwise I’m not interested.”
“She can’t send the youngest one, at least, I don’t think so. She’s too frail, because of—” Mattie faltered, looking at her bandaged hand.
“Because of her infirmity,” Charles said quietly. “I think you’re right, Mattie.”
Rose shook her head. She couldn’t see how the plan was workable. “What good will it do, even if they send Ya Zhen?” she asked. “If
the Salyers know she came here, they’ll just come after her. You won’t be able to hide her, or Shu-Li, either. Even if you raced them both out of town today, there’d by hell to pay. They’ll know you were behind it.”
“Not if there are witnesses who see her leaving the rectory on her own,” said Lucy. “They can take this house apart board by board. The church, too. It won’t do them any good, because Ya Zhen won’t be here, and they won’t have any idea where to find her. Don’t look so confounded, you three—it’s simple. Rose, you know all too well how tongues wag around here. Today we want them to wag. I know exactly how we can do it, if Bai Lum is willing to help.”
She told them her idea then, step by step, and as she talked, Rose began to feel a glimmer of real hope. It would take every one of them to pull it off and it was definitely risky, but helping Ya Zhen suddenly seemed entirely possible.
“Let’s hope Cora Salyer lets the girl come,” Charles said. “That could be a fly in the ointment that foils us right at the start.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem, Reverend,” Mattie said.
“Why so confident?”
“The almighty dollar,” she said, and rubbed her thumb against her first two fingertips. “There’s a woman whose blood runs green. She’ll do it.”
“Splendid,” Lucy said, smiling broadly. “I’ll be renting a prostitute for the afternoon.”
Charles Huntington looked at her with those bushy eyebrows raised and began to laugh, laughed until he had to wipe his eyes on his sleeve. He stood and wrapped his arms around Lucy. “Let’s try to keep ourselves out of the papers, shall we?”
“Go get your coat, Reverend,” Lucy said, “and take these two back into town. We all have jobs to do.”
When Ya Zhen opened her eyes, she was surprised to see the sun at her window, not yet fully risen, but lighting the sky behind the hills and transforming the few visible wisps of cloud to tailings of polished brass. It was a rare day that she didn’t wake long before morning, only to lay in the dark and begin the arduous process of not thinking. Not remembering her life in Hunan, not hearing or seeing or smelling the men in her room, and not considering what the coming day and evening would bring. There was a tremendous, glassy boredom in her days—a boredom that hid, at its heart, a misery so black it could not be contemplated. Last night, when the man, Bai Lum, was gone, even as she drifted off, she had been sure that the glimmer of hope he had incited —it’s north, a long way— would give her a wakeful night. Instead, she had dropped into sleep so consuming that she seemed to have lain motionless all night.