Chapter Seven
"I'm worried about him. He's pushing himself past what his body can handle."
"We know. But he won't listen."
Adam ran a hand across his face as Paul watched his father from a distance. Ben was pacing across the room, clearly getting agitated by whatever Roy was trying to tell him.
"No! I will not stop looking for my son!" Ben stormed across the room and pushed past Adam as he tried to step into his father's path.
"Pa!"
"This hasta stop, Adam. He's gonna kill himself with this … this …" Roy raised both hands in frustration. At a loss for the right words, he simply sighed as Adam nodded at him.
"I know, but it's Little Joe."
Paul was already on his way to the door and Adam hurried after him.
"We'll try again. Together."
Hoss trailed along behind them looking like misery personified. His family was being torn in two and it seemed that there was nothing anybody could do to stop it. Two months with no word and no kind of ransom demand left a stone-cold trail and nothing to go on. That didn't seem to be registering with their father who seemed determined to move the whole of the Sierra Nevadas if it would find his little brother.
In all the years he'd been a lawman, these were the kind of calls that Roy hated most. No matter that he had given up hope some time back, he knew that Ben hadn't and he hated being the one to dash that hope once and for all.
"Sherriff Harris wired me again this mornin' and said he's confirmed that it wasn't just a random robbery and those fellas that attacked the stage were lookin' for you boys."
Roy held onto the cup of coffee he had yet to start drinking, simply to keep his hands still. Across the table from him, Adam looked fit to be tied and Hoss was leaning against the hearth, looking as if he wanted to put a fist through the stone. Hop Sing hovered in the background with a half-filled coffee pot, as eager for information as the rest of the family.
Beside him, Ben had yet to react to Roy's words. Finally he looked up and his eyes blazed with anger.
"They were working for Jamison?"
"'Fraid so. Harris has one of 'em in custody in Sacramento and he's been singin' like a canary tryin' to get hisself outta trouble."
"This was all about money! My boys won that contract fair and square, Roy!"
"Now there ain't no doubt about that, Ben. Seems Jamison wanted his competition gone and then he could re-tender for that contract at a higher rate when you defaulted on it."
Ben pushed himself up from his chair and paced across to his desk. A sheaf of untended paperwork stared back at him and he felt his rage rising. Before he knew what he was doing, he swept the papers across the desk and onto the floor. It didn't matter. None of it mattered when the cost was too high. A damnable timber contract was the reason behind it all. Finally he turned back to face his long-time friend who was standing just behind him.
"Joe?" Ben's voice still held onto hope, no matter how slim the thread. "What did he say about where Joe is?"
Roy felt his gut twist as he knew exactly what was being asked. "There ain't been no ransom, Ben. Harris doesn't reckon they've got him."
He'd have given his right arm to have a different answer and for a few minutes, nobody spoke.
"I'm right sorry, Ben. Sure wish this had turned out different."
Jia spooned another portion of rice and fish into her mouth as she watched Joe discretely. He was staring again, like he did quite often. At those times she knew better than to speak, as he would startle at the sound of her voice. Instead, if she waited patiently enough, he would come back from wherever it was that he went. She didn't understand many of his words, but she liked the sound of his voice and didn't like it when he went silent.
"Little One, are you finished yet?'
Jia jumped at the sound of her father's voice and hurried to spoon more rice into her mouth.
"Almost," she mumbled around the rice.
Zhu smiled at her as he looked back across at Joe. His eyes looked on something that neither of them could see and he worried that these moments had not gone away as he'd hoped they would.
Instead of making an issue about it, he left Joe to himself and gathered his daughter towards him. "Time for sleep, my princess."
Jia giggled at her father's comment as he waved a hand towards the canvas tent.
"The servants have prepared your chambers with the finest silks and embroideries."
Jia paused for a moment as she remembered her mother trying to teach her the delicate art of embroidery and how tedious it had been. The silk threads were so very beautiful and yet her hands had mostly managed to create a mess of knots instead of the delicate images her mother's could produce. She sighed as she made her way towards the tent and pushed aside the flap. Two single cots and a small table were the only pieces of furniture inside. It was a long way from the bedchamber of a princess and yet she had no desire to be anywhere else since this was where her father was.
By the time Zhu made his way back to the fire, Joe had made a pot with coffee and he held it out towards him.
Zhu shook his head and pointed to the teapot.
"You reckon you'll ever get a taste for coffee?"
"No."
"I s'pose when you've done something the same way for long enough it's real hard to change."
Zhu nodded at the comment as he settled on the ground and let his tea draw.
"Need plenty coffee beans in mer-can-tile."
"Yeah, I reckon you will. And coffee pots. And mugs."
Joe took another sip of his coffee as he looked at the man who had taken him in, no questions asked.
"So, you never did tell me who you've got waiting for you to help you get set up."
"Nobody waiting."
"Nobody?" Joe frowned at the thought. "But I thought you Chinese had cousins everywhere. Leastways Hop Sing does."
"Soon Zhu not have any cousins here. No family."
"Oh." Suddenly another idea occurred to him and Joe tried again. "You came over first to get things started and then they're coming?"
"Nobody coming. Not have …. honour. No family."
Joe felt his stomach fall to his boots as he considered the thought. He had no honour left either.
Something in the young man's face spoke where his voice could not. Zhu took a deep breath and began to tell the tale he had never told another soul. It was a story that none had needed to know, but something was different this time.
"Dishonour my honourable family by choosing wife."
Joe's head shot up at the comment. "What? Jia's mama?"
Zhu nodded as he collected his thoughts. "Beautiful. Young. Smile like sunshine."
"You loved her." It wasn't a question.
"Much love." Zhu paused and pulled in a slow breath to calm himself. "My family merchants. Send ships to Dutch East Indies. Take much spice. Sell much silk."
"And you met your wife there?"
Zhu nodded as he recalled his first glimpse of the trader's daughter. He had been entranced from the first time he laid eyes on her. He knew she was too young, but he was a patient man and he waited. His mother had tried to find him a match, but he had already lost his heart to a girl from a foreign land. It was to be the beginning of his disgrace and ultimate expulsion from his family.
Joe waited as the man seemed to be lost in his memories.
"Sari. Her name mean princess."
"What happened to her?"
"Fever. She get sick and no medicine make better. Bring Jia to new place. Start new life."
Joe swallowed down the hard lump in his throat as he considered the thought. "So you don't have any family here?"
"No family."
There was no way to explain that he had no family at all. His father had shunned his new bride and ordered he return her to her people. His mother had cried rivers of tears and begged him to obey. When it became clear that he would not get either of them to budge, he had taken his new wife and struck out on his own. The honourable name of his ancestors had been stained and he had no choice but to turn south. Many of the sailors who had manned his family's ships were Cantonese and he turned to a sympathetic connection there to start over. But even there, his wife was an outsider and always would be.
America had seemed like the answer to his dreams. An open land where anything was possible with hard work and tenacity. He knew he had both and his princess had agreed to his plan. At the start it had been a good choice. Until his beloved Sari fell sick.
Joe watched as his benefactor slumped into himself and he felt like he was intruding somehow. Two simple words drew them together.
No family.
He no longer had a family either.
Jia smiled as her father sung to her in time with the wagon's sway. She struggled with the unfamiliar words as she tried to sing along with him. It was a tune that she had heard many of the miners whistle and Joe had tried to teach her the words. The wagon was loaded to the brim with goods that her father would soon sell to the men scattered across the region. In the time since they had arrived, he had quickly built a reputation for bringing the right goods as he had taken careful note of what would be required. Pick handles wore out and boots were a constant need. Water canteens and canvas for shelter sold out almost as fast as he could supply them. It still seemed strange to Jia that the men showed open hostility at times to them because they were different and yet they were willing to buy from her father. It was yet another thing about this land that puzzled her.
Zhu had quickly established himself with a local wholesaler in San Francisco and the cash he paid up front put him in good stead. As much as he had come to trust the young man who had become like a part of his family, he had never revealed the secret compartment in the underside of his wagon where he had squirreled away the cash he knew he would need to start over. He had travelled across the country with meagre supplies and looked like much less of a mark to anybody who bothered to look closely enough. That same compartment was slowly filling with savings that would set him and his daughter up with a new life. His princess had lived for too long on hope and dreams and he longed for the day when he could put a real roof over her head instead of a canvas tent.
It had been a good day and he was exhausted, but pleased with his efforts. As Zhu pulled the wagon in towards the place he had marked as home, he was not surprised to see Joe was not yet there. Since he had no way to stake a claim for himself, the boy had found work with a gang of labourers and the length of his days was dependant on reaching the target set for that day. His shoulders had filled out as he spent each day in the sun, dragging lumber or rocks to build shoring for the mines that seemed to spring up almost overnight. Each night, he slept soundly and the nightmares that had plagued him seemed to have faded away.
The biggest problem that Joe had encountered was the fact that nobody understood why he would choose to live with a Chinese father and daughter. It left him an outsider with his own people and an oddity to be avoided with the Chinese miners who came in droves to pan for gold. For someone who had always made connections easily, it was yet another confirmation that life had changed irrevocably. He no longer had the Cartwright name to rely on and nobody cared one whit about yet another nobody who had come to seek his fortune. The goldfields was a hard place that chewed men up and spat them out as a steady stream came to replace them.
Zhu unhitched the horse and poured out a measure of grain for her as Jia fetched water and poured it into a makeshift trough. He looked up as he heard boots on the gravel, expecting it to be Joe. Instead, an irate-looking miner strode towards him with a pickaxe in his right hand.
"Stinkin' yella! You owe me my money back!"
Zhu pushed his daughter behind him as he sensed the man's anger could turn volatile quickly.
"What owe money for?"
"This!" The man thrust the axe towards him and Zhu stepped back. "It done broke!"
The axe had a clear split along the haft and Zhu could see it had been run over as a deep wheel rut showed.
"Maybe you should be more careful with where you drop your gear next time."
Joe had arrived in time to see what was unfolding and he squared off against the man. The miner had a good forty pounds and half a foot on him, but Joe stared back at him.
"Ain't none of your business, boy!"
Joe flinched at the word he had chafed against for so long, but he held his ground.
"That yella owes me my money back. He's just like the rest of them dirty yella cheats!"
"Looks like you ran over that axe. That isn't Zhu's fault and he don't owe you a thing."
The miner stepped closer and Joe had his hand on his gun without even stopping to think about it.
"Get outta here, mister!"
The man stepped closer and Joe suddenly had his pistol aimed straight at his chest. He prayed the man couldn't see the shake in his hand as he had never shot anybody in his life.
"You don't know who you're messin' with, boy!" The words were almost spat in his direction and Joe barely held his hand steady as he held his breath. Finally, the miner deflated and threw the axe on the ground before retreating, all the while muttering curses under his breath.
Zhu felt Jia's hand clenched into the back of his shirt and he slowly turned to gather her towards him. Joe had no idea of the words he spoke, but he heard the comfort in the tone. He slowly holstered his gun and stared at the axe lying on the ground.
"Guess I made myself another friend." The bitterness in his voice wasn't lost on Zhu and he reached out to grasp the boy's arm.
"You have friends. Thankful friends."
Joe nodded as he headed for the water bucket and slopped a handful of water over his head and scrubbed at his face. In the whole of California, he had just two friends. Maybe in the whole of America, considering word would have reached Virginia City by now of his disgrace. He nodded towards Zhu as he tried to hold himself together.
