by Janet Fox
I’d worn my meager collection of jewelry on the train, thank goodness—the cameo, my one pearl necklace, the earbobs, the chain with its key. Those were still with me, as was my money, what little I had. But all my clothes—gone. The blue velvet gown and yellow shawl I treasured. My handful of books—gone, including my favorite Dickens. My embroidered gift for Miss Everts—my attempt to win her sympathy and show her my skill by crafting elegant flowered tea towels—gone.
What remained, save my jewels, were the dark plaid traveling skirt and jacket I wore now, and those garments were in sore need of a cleaning after three days on a train.
I gave up on my hair, letting it tumble down my back, and I plastered my boater on top of my head, and let my legs work through the shakes.
Clay and Jones. I stopped walking and looked up. I was still on Clay. I wasn’t about to go back the way I had come. I made to turn up another broad street—Grant Avenue. Above me stood a building adorned with curving tiered roofs capped by red tiles. Chinese lettering covered the signs; a painting of a red dragon curled over one doorway. I remembered the other things Mrs. Gale had said. Chinatown.
She’d warned me against Chinatown, too. But I had to press through if I was to reach my target, and nothing, I thought, nothing could be worse than the Barbary Coast. I’d seen a few other Chinese, including Min, on the streets of Bozeman. Mostly men who’d come to work on the railroads and stayed after the railroads were finished. They’d stuck to their odd clothing and kept to themselves, their lives lived quiet and secretlike. I remembered sipping Coca-Cola with Caleb while I’d watched such a one make his way down Main Street, his coat buttoned slantwise, his small flat hat perched back on a high broad shaved crown, his long braid strung down his back, his hair as raven black as my own.
I didn’t see how this Chinatown could be threatening. Nothing like what I’d just been through. Surely not.
I pressed on. The narrow street was packed with black-suited men, and there were vendors everywhere—and stands with everything from live chickens and ducks in cages to dead chickens and things I didn’t care to even wonder about, to vegetables I didn’t recognize. People shouted and called out in their mother tongue, and I was buffeted by rank smells that made my lip curl. Chinese people around me gave me no heed at all.
I got turned around for a minute and froze, trying to avoid the crush of a moving cart.
I stood inches taller than most. A tickle of fear rose up from the small of my back. I stood out like an aspen in a pine grove. Eyes locked on me from all directions. Not friendly eyes. What had I done now?
I fixed my shoulders, making force of will my strength.
I turned right around quick and ran smack into an old woman. She tripped backward, dropping the sack she carried on her head, and that sack hit the ground with such an impact that it split and spilled its contents: rice. She began to chide me at once.
“I’m sorry.” I lifted my hands in the air, trying to calm her, getting the full meaning of her words despite not being able to understand a one. “Please. I’m sorry.” There wasn’t a thing I could do; the rice was scattered, ruined. She waved her hands in the air, scolding, as a crowd gathered around me, nodding and adding their own accusations.
I knew I should compensate her. But my purse held so little.
“I’m sorry!” But words served only to inflame the crowd and the old woman.
“Here, missy!” A man waved to me, his broad face bearing a smile—but I didn’t trust something about that smile. It was false. “You come with me now. We take care of.” Even in the midst of this tirade, I knew I shouldn’t go with him. But what was I to do? I took a step toward him.
“Come, missy!” His smile dropped, and he became more demanding, reaching his arm through the crowd to grab my wrist.
And then from behind me came a gentle low voice speaking Chinese. So soft and gentle I turned at once. I came face-to-face with a young Chinese man, as tall as me. He leaned around me and spoke in hushed tones to the old woman, who turned her chatter on him until he’d soothed her like my pa soothing a panicky horse and then he put a few coins in her hand. She lowered her voice to a mutter, cast me an evil glance, but went off. The crowd dispersed, and the young man took my elbow and steered me away.
I searched the street for the other man—the broad-faced one—but he vanished with the crowd.
I turned to my rescuer. “Thank you.” I mimed with my hands; I didn’t expect him to understand me.
I pulled right up in surprise when he returned, with no shade of an accent, “You look more than a little out of place.” And his face lit up with a smile so like the sunrise that I melted before it. “In fact, you stand out like a sore thumb. Come on. Where’re you supposed to be?”
Chapter NINE
March 28, 1906
“As long as California is white man’s country,
it will remain one of the grandest and best states
in the union, but the moment the Golden State is
subjected to an unlimited Asiatic coolie invasion
there will be no more California.”
Organized Labor, Official Organ of the State and
Local Building Trades Councils of California, San Francisco
April 21, 28, and May 5, 1906 [combined edition]
I DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER I COULD TRUST HIM. AS USUAL, I didn’t know whether I could trust anyone. But I was alone in San Francisco and had little choice. And he had a quiet, calm manner that eased my mind a little.
He introduced himself as David Wong. He didn’t seem to mind my standoffishness when I said only, “Miss Baker.”
“How’d you find your way into Chinatown?”
“That wasn’t my intent.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You don’t live in San Francisco.” It wasn’t a question.
I shook my head. “I just arrived by train. I’m visiting.”
“Maybe we should get you out of here and on your way.”
I had to follow him—it was either that or stand here, frozen to this very spot. Better this David Wong than the false-smile man who’d tried to snag my arm. Still, my stomach was in knots.
We made our way along this street and then down another, and all at once we were in a different neighborhood of small shops and houses, the signs now in English, no longer in Chinatown. I took a breath of thanks. He looked up and down the street. “Now, then. Where’re you headed?”
“The corner of Clay and Jones.”
He looked startled. Then he drew up. “All right. Well, you’re on Clay now, so all you have to do is walk up about four blocks and you’re there.”
A group of young bucks, all shined up in bowlers and striped vests, passed us on the sidewalk. One of them narrowed his eyes at David and then gave me a dark glance. They muttered among themselves as they passed and were half a block away when one said, overloud, “Mixed up where they don’t belong.”
“Let’s cross the street,” David said.
Once we were on the other side he checked his pocket watch, didn’t meet my eyes. “Listen. I’d walk you up there, but you’re better off not being seen with me. Some people don’t think well of a Chinese man consorting with a non-Chinese lady.”
I straightened, hearing him refer to me as a lady. My hands and fingers worked and fretted as I gripped my reticule. I knew all about it, I wanted to say. All about that skin that didn’t quite fit. “Maybe they were talking about me. About how I look.” I’d heard the name-calling. Heard the references to the blood that flowed in my veins. “Maybe they weren’t talking about you at all. It might have been about me.”
“If they talked about your looks, it’d be because you’re so pretty.” His cheeks went dark, and he stared at his feet. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to blurt that out. It was supposed to be a compliment.”
And I lost words. He stood there, this kind young man who had just saved me, his hands thrust into his jacket pockets, thick dark hair slicked back, his dark eyes lifting to mine and then d
ropping away in shy retreat . . . I didn’t know what to think. He was sweet and nice-looking, no doubt about it; he lit up some feeling deep in my heart.
Kula Baker keeps her wits about her. Kula Baker does not go soft over a young man.
Especially when that young man is just as much of an outsider as she is.
Well. I smoothed my skirt as I averted my eyes from his, while I was as upside down and inside out as if I’d tumbled over the Gibbon Falls.
Tumbled, that was for sure. Up Clay, down Clay; the wind was knocked clean out of me. I was not feeling scatterbrained about just David Wong. It was also this strange city.
I put my hand on my stomach and tried to breathe. It was too confining here. I wanted to break into a run and run until my feet reached a meadow, run until my own familiar snowcapped mountains appeared to rim the sky, the big Montana and Wyoming sky that opened above me in that piercing blue I knew. Here all I could see were snips and snaps of sky, and hills that rose and fell and were all covered with buildings, and I heard the clamor of the city all around. Here there were men who would hurt me, people who would snatch me off the streets, here there were loss and confusion. What was I doing in this place?
This David Wong was my only firm anchor in a shifting sea, and I had to let go and trust him. I took a deep breath. “I was just robbed of all my things.”
“Robbed? In Chinatown?” David’s face worked, and I nearly thought he would sprint back down the street to recover my goods.
I reached my arm to the air between us, afraid to touch him, even though I surprised myself by wanting to. “No. No, in the Barbary Coast. This boy who picked me up at the station, he took me there and drove off with my trunk.”
“Shall we go to the police?”
Police. Men with badges who pretended to be lawful came straight into my mind. All my life I’d avoided the law because of the risk to my father; now I avoided the law because of that Snake-eyes Wilkie.
I shook my head. “I couldn’t even tell them what he looked like.”
“Is there something else I can do?” His question was so genuine and generous.
I smiled and dropped my chin. “You’ve done enough. Thank you.”
“I’ve hardly done anything.” He’d started my heart pounding, but, oh, this was not something that could ever be. For either of us.
Up the street, the group of boys was now loitering about a shop front, eyeing us. I knew the look of trouble brewing. “I should go on now. I don’t want to make trouble for you.”
David pointed. “Walk about four blocks, straight up there. You can’t miss the corner of Jones and Clay.”
I nodded. “Thanks again.”
Neither of us moved.
He coughed. “Are you visiting someone there?”
“Yes.” Now I stared straight into his kind eyes. His shy sweetness was a balm.
“Can I see you, perhaps? That is, can I come to wherever you’re staying and pay a call?”
Pay a call. On me. The first time a gentleman would pay me a call. My heart began to beat faster. Even as the voice in my head said, Kula Baker needs to rise above her station. Needs someone to help to raise her up. This couldn’t be the gentleman for that.
Well. It was just a call. And there was no ignoring my thundering heart and flushed cheeks. “I’d like that. I’ll be at the home of Phillipa Everts.” I hope, I added to myself. She might not take me in.
“Miss Everts!”
“You know her?”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “San Francisco is small, in a funny way. Everyone knows everyone.”
My glance strayed back across the street. Those young men reminded me of a pack of coyotes, circling. I wished I could make them vanish so I could stand longer here on this steep hillside with this David Wong. When our eyes met again, my heart took a fair leap and my legs grew wobbly.
But those coyotes menaced. “I should be off. I hope to see you again.” And I did hope. Hope fluttered in my chest and forced roses into my cheeks.
He tipped his hat, and I marched on up the hill. After a long block I looked back. David was standing on the street corner. The young men hadn’t moved, either. I had the feeling my coyotes were being held at bay by a very determined bear.
I walked on another block, pondering my chance encounter. I wondered if I would see that bear again, that David Wong.
Wong! I clapped my hand to my forehead, right there. With the jarring experience of the robbery and my girlish goggling, I’d forgotten everything, every reason I was even in San Francisco. Even if Wong was a common name, perhaps David was of the very same family and knew Ty Wong. Here had been my chance to find my pa’s box, to follow my pa’s plea. I turned right around, but David Wong had vanished.
I cursed myself for losing an opportunity to solve my riddle. This day was turning out to hold a long string of curses.
I continued on up the street and breathed more deeply, and not just from all my stirred-up feelings. San Francisco was built on some honest-to-heaven hills. Had I been at home I would have taken my shoes off, for it wasn’t the winding of breath that bothered me but my sore feet and the thin soles of my toepinching boots on this unforgiving paving. It seemed to take a hundred years and a million unhappy footfalls before I reached the corner of Clay and Jones.
I pulled the note from my reticule again, looked at the address, and up at the street numbers, and then my mouth dropped open so wide I was afraid it would hit my squinched-up toes.
The house hulking above me was a big house in a neighborhood of big houses. Turrets and towers, porches and balconies . . . these only began to describe what looked like a confection of furbelows and curlicues and fancies. It was a giant of a house. This house went up and up, such that I had to tilt my head and squint my eyes to see the whole of it.
Behind the gate was an immaculate garden, dormant now, showing carefully pruned rosebushes laid out in formal beds. I climbed the front steps, shrinking with each footfall. Mrs. Gale hadn’t told me the half of it; her sister-in-law, this Phillipa Everts, was over-the-moon rich. By the time I reached for the doorbell, my heart was pounding. I stood and tried to still it. I tried to remember why I was here.
Pa. Love might not be enough, but it was all I had to go on.
Kula Baker musters up.
Summoning my courage, I pressed the bell.
Chapter TEN
March 28, 1906
“The grandeur of the house astonished,
but could not console her. The rooms were too
large for her to move in with ease . . .
and she crept about in constant terror . . .”
—Mansfield Park, Jane Austen, 1814
IT SEEMED HOURS BEFORE THE LOCK SNAPPED AND the door opened and a tall, stern-faced man stared down at me. “Yes?”
“I’m here to see Miss Everts, please.” I pulled myself up and narrowed my eyes, not to be daunted by a servant. I knew the ropes. How servants were treated. He didn’t yet know I was here to serve.
But, as if he read my mind and my past, he’d have none of me. “And who are you?”
“Kula Baker. Miss Kula Baker,” I said, with an emphasis on the “Miss.”
He looked me up and down, glancing over my shoulder as if to search for my coach—or my accomplice. “For what purpose are you calling?”
“I’m the . . .” Oh. I hadn’t thought this one through. What was I to Mrs. Gale? Her servant. I sought the least-humbling truth. “I’m in the employ of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Gale. I’m carrying a letter of introduction.”
He raised his eyebrows. He was as starched and pinched as a too-small collar. “Mrs. Gale?”
“Yes.” Exasperation filled me. “Mrs. Hannah Gale. Of Bozeman, Montana?” Something was amiss, surely. “This is the home of Miss Phillipa Everts?”
He eyed me up and down. “Wait here.” And he shut the door in my face, leaving me on the front porch with my mouth agape.
What if Phillipa Everts’s relationship with Mrs.
Gale was strained? What if she wouldn’t allow me in? I’d have no choice: I’d have to board the next train back for Bozeman.
If I left right this second, I’d be home in three days. I’d be away from this thieving, miserable city and back under my big skies. Just the thought of standing in the cool shadows of tall pines slowed my breathing, stilled my trembling hands. Maybe I could find some other way to help Pa.
But I knew that if I left San Francisco, I would not be able to help my pa. He had sent me here for a reason. I had little money and no idea where to go if I was refused at the house of Phillipa Everts. If I didn’t stay here, God knows, there would be no help for Pa.
My pa would hang.
And I would be at the mercy of Josiah Wilkie.
I tightened my grip on my reticule, fussing with the drawstrings like a squirmy child in church. I couldn’t help my tumbled-down hair except to push it back from my face.
After a minute the door opened again, and without a word my gangly friend stood aside to let me enter.
“Thank you.” I tried to keep my voice from wobbling. I untied the ribbons of my small and (now I knew) unfashionable hat, removing it as I followed him into a drawing room the size of Mrs. Gale’s entire first floor, and I halted in my tracks, my mouth dropping open like a baby bird’s.
My Montana skies might be bigger than those of California, but houses surely were bigger here in San Francisco. And the decoration of those San Francisco houses was almost beyond the pale.
Ornaments covered every surface. The room in front of me was a trove of tiny treasures: small inlaid boxes, standing frames of photographs, glass-domed still-life scenes—birds on branches, dried flowers—and vases filled with living flowers. Thick tapestry carpets were thrown one on top of the next such that they made a cushion under my aching feet. The furniture was big and dark and upholstered in green-colored velvet. The walls, from floor to ceiling, were papered with art. Oil, watercolor, landscape, still-life. Portraits of grinning dogs. Portraits of frowning old ladies. Portraits of rotting fruit and drooping flowers.