Daughter of Fortune (39 page)

“That was me. Babalú the Bad. Any problem with that?”

As soon as his fever was gone, Jack wanted to cash in on the opportunity to use the doves for his pleasure but, as one, they rejected him: they were not about to give anything away, and he had empty pockets, which they had observed when they undressed him to put him in the bathtub the night he had come to their door half frozen. Joe Bonecrusher took the trouble to explain to Jack that if they hadn't amputated his fingers he would have lost an arm, probably his life, and that he should be thanking his lucky stars that he had stumbled on to them. Eliza would not allow Tom No-Tribe to go anywhere near the man, and she approached him only to hand him food or change his bandages, because his odor of evil was as disturbing to her as a tangible presence. Babalú couldn't stand him either, and refused to speak to him all the time he was under their roof. He thought of the girls as his sisters and was wild whenever Jack obscenely tried to wheedle sex. Not even when he was most desperate would it have occurred to Babalú to use his companion's professional services; in his mind that would have been the same as incest. If his urges got too strong, he went to the local competition, and he instructed Chile Boy to do the same in the improbable case that he got over his missy-sissy habits.

Once when she was handing Jack a bowl of soup, Eliza worked up the courage to ask him about Joaquín Andieta.

“Murieta?” he asked, suspicious.

“Andieta.”

“Don't know him.”

“Maybe it's the same person,” Eliza suggested.

“What do you want with him?”

“He's my brother. I came from Chile to find him.”

“What's your brother look like?”

“He's not very tall, and he has black hair and eyes and white skin, like me, but we don't look alike. He's thin, muscular, brave, and passionate. When he talks, everyone listens.”

“That's Joaquín Murieta all right, but he's not Chilean, he's Mexican.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure? I'm not sure of anything, but if I see Murieta I'll tell him you're looking for him.”

It was the next night that he left, and they heard nothing more from him, but two weeks afterward they found a two-pound sack of coffee at the door. A little later when Eliza opened it to fix breakfast she found that it wasn't coffee but gold dust. According to Joe Bonecrusher, it could have come from any of the sick miners they had looked after, but Eliza had a strong intuition that Jack had left it as his payment. He was a man who didn't want to owe anyone a favor. On Sunday they learned that the sheriff was organizing a party of vigilantes to look for the murderer of a miner who had been found in the cabin where he had spent the winter alone, with nine knife wounds in his chest and slashed eyes. There was no trace of his gold, but because of the brutality of the crime they had placed the blame on Indians. Joe Bonecrusher, who did not want to get mixed up in any trouble, buried the two pounds of gold beneath an oak and ordered all her people to keep their mouths shut and not under any condition mention the Mexican with the amputated fingers
or
the sack of “coffee.” In the course of the next two months, the vigilantes murdered a half dozen Indians and then forgot the matter because they had more pressing problems, and when the chief of the tribe came with great dignity to ask for an explanation, they killed him, too. Indians, blacks, and mulattos could not testify against a white man. James Morton and the other three Quakers in the town were the only ones who dared confront the mob at the lynching. Unarmed, they formed a circle around the chief, reciting from memory passages of the Bible that prohibited killing one's fellow man, but the crowd pushed them aside.

No one knew it was Eliza's birthday and there was no celebration, but even so, that night of March fifteenth was memorable for her, and for everyone else. Business was again booming at the barn. The doves were steadily occupied, Chile Boy was banging away at the piano with real gusto, and Joe was spinning optimistic tales. Winter hadn't been so bad, after all; the worst of the epidemic was past and they had no patients stretched out on the floor. That night a half dozen miners were drinking with true dedication while outside the wind was ripping branches from the pines. At about eleven, all hell broke loose. No one could explain how the fire began, but Joe always suspected the other madam. The wood caught fire like Roman candles and the curtains, silk shawls, and bed canopies flared up within seconds. Everyone got out safely, even managing to throw on a few blankets, and Eliza snatched up the tin box that contained her precious letters. Flames and smoke rapidly engulfed the building, and in less than ten minutes it was blazing like a torch as half-naked women and tipsy clients watched the spectacle in total helplessness. Eliza thought to count heads and realized with horror that Tom No-Tribe was missing. The boy had been fast asleep in the bed they shared. Without thinking, she grabbed a quilt from Esther's shoulders, covered her head, and ran inside, with one push flattening the thin partition of blazing wood, followed by Babalú, who yelled at her to stop, not realizing why she was dashing into the fire. Eliza found the boy standing stock-still in the swirling smoke, his eyes wide with fright, but perfectly serene. She threw the quilt over him and tried to pick him up, but he was very heavy and she was bent double by a fit of coughing. She dropped to her knees, pushing Tom to make him run outside, but he did not move and both of them would have been reduced to ashes had Babalú not appeared at that instant, picked up one under each arm, as if they were parcels, and bolted back outside to be greeted with loud cheers.

“Damned kid! What were you doing in there!” Joe scolded as she hugged the small Indian, covering his face with kisses and slapping his cheeks to make him breathe.

It was only because the shack was isolated that half the town didn't go up in flames, the sheriff commented later; he had plenty of experience with fires, they happened too frequently around there. A dozen volunteers had responded to the glow in the sky to fight the flames, headed by the blacksmith, but it was too late and all they could do was rescue Eliza's horse, which everyone had forgot in the confusion of the first minutes and was still tied in its lean-to, crazed with terror. Joe Bonecrusher lost everything she owned in the world that night, and for the first time was seen to lose heart. With the boy in her arms, she watched the destruction, unable to hold back the tears, and when all that remained was smoking embers she buried her face in the enormous chest of Babalú, whose eyelashes and eyebrows were singed. Seeing the surrogate mother whom they had thought invincible so vulnerable, the four girls burst out bawling, forming a cluster of petticoats, windblown hair, and trembling flesh. The support network, however, had begun to function even before the flames died out, and in less than an hour lodging had been found for everyone in various homes in town and one of the miners whom Joe had nursed through dysentery took up a collection. Chile Boy, Babalú, and the young Indian—the three males of the group—spent the night in the blacksmith's shop. James Morton laid two straw ticks with warm bedcovers beside the still warm forge and served his guests a splendid breakfast carefully prepared by the wife of the preacher who on Sundays shouted his loud denunciation of “such brazen exhibition of sin,” as he referred to the activities of the two brothels.

“This is no time for prudery, these poor Christians are shivering,” the reverend's wife had said when she showed up at the smithy with rabbit stew, a pitcher of hot chocolate, and cinnamon cookies.

That same lady went door-to-door collecting clothing for the doves, who were still in their petticoats, and the women of the town responded with generosity. They did not like to pass in front of the other madam's establishment, but they had of necessity dealt with Joe Bonecrusher during the epidemic and they respected her. So that was how the four ladies of the night went around for a while dressed as modest housewives, covered from neck to toe, until they could replace their splendiferous professional outfits. The night of the fire, the preacher's wife wanted to take Tom No-Tribe home, but the boy clung to Babalú's neck and no human power could pry him loose. The giant spent sleepless hours with Chile Boy curled up in one arm and the Indian in the other, piqued no little by the blacksmith's lifted eyebrows.

“You can get that idea out of your head, man. I'm no pansy,” he sputtered indignantly, but he did not disturb either of the two sleepers.

The miners' collection and the pouch of gold dust buried beneath the oak were enough to install the victims in a house so comfortable that Joe Bonecrusher had about decided to give up her traveling company and settle down there. While other towns disappeared as the miners moved to new sites, this one grew, maintained its growth, and even thought of changing its name to one more dignified. At the end of winter, new waves of adventurers were climbing into the foothills, and the other madam was getting ready for them. Joe Bonecrusher now had only three girls, because it was obvious that the blacksmith was planning to steal Esther from them, but she wanted to see if she could work things out. Joe had won considerable respect with her compassionate works and she did not want to give that up: for the first time in her chaotic life she felt accepted in a community. That was far more than she had had in her Pennsylvania Dutch homeland, and at her age putting down roots did not seem like a bad idea. When Eliza heard those plans she decided that if Joaquín Andieta—or Murieta—had not appeared by spring she would have to tell her friends good-bye and keep looking for him.

A
t the end of autumn, Tao Chi'en received Eliza's latest letter, which had passed from hand to hand for several months, following him to San Francisco. He had left Sacramento in April. Winter in that city seemed to go on and on; the only thing that sustained him were Eliza's letters, which came sporadically, the hope that Lin's spirit would locate him, and his friendship with his fellow
zhong yi
. Tao had acquired books on Western medicine and with great pleasure had taken on the patient task of translating them line by line for his friend; in that way both absorbed at the same time a knowledge very different from their own. They found that in the West little was known about essential herbs, about preventing illness, or about
qi
, the bodily energy never mentioned in those texts, but also that Western medicine was more advanced in other aspects. With his friend, Tao spent days comparing and discussing, but study alone could not console him: isolation and solitude weighed on him so heavily that he abandoned the wooden hut and his garden of medicinal plants and moved to a hotel run by Chinese, where at least he heard his language and ate food to his taste. Even though his patients were very poor and he often treated them for nothing, he had saved money. If Eliza came back they would move into a house, he thought, but as long as he was alone the hotel was good enough. The other
zhong yi
planned to send for a young wife from China and settle in the United States where, despite the fact that he was a foreigner, he would have a better life than in his country. Tao Chi'en warned him against the vanity of the golden lilies, especially in America, where everyone walked so much and the
fan wey
made fun of a woman with a doll's feet. “Ask the broker to bring you a smiling and healthy wife; nothing else matters,” he counseled, thinking of the brief passage through this world of his unforgettable Lin and how much happier she would have been with Eliza's feet and strong lungs. His wife was wandering somewhere, lost; she didn't know how to find her way in that foreign land. He invoked her in his meditation and in his poems but she did not come to him again, not even in his dreams. The last time he had been with her was that day in the hold of the ship, when she visited him wearing her green silk dress and peonies in her hair to ask him to save Eliza, but that had been somewhere near Peru, and since then he had traveled across so much water, land, and time that Lin was surely confused. He imagined her gentle spirit searching for him in this vast, unfamiliar continent, unable to find him. At the
zhong yi'
s suggestion, he commissioned an artist, a new émigré from Shanghai, to paint her portrait; he was a true tattoo genius, and although the painting followed Tao's precise instructions it did not do justice to Lin's diaphanous beauty. Tao Chi'en made a small altar for the portrait, where he would sit to summon her. He did not understand why solitude, which he had previously considered a blessing and a luxury, now seemed unbearable. The worst of his years as a sailor had been not having a private space for quiet and silence, but now all he wanted was companionship. The idea of ordering a bride, however, seemed ill-conceived. Once before, the spirits of his ancestors had found him a perfect wife, but behind that apparent good fortune was a hidden curse. He knew what it was to be loved in return, and now could never go back to the times of innocence when every woman with small feet and a sweet nature seemed enough. He felt condemned to live with the memory of Lin because no other woman could take her place with dignity. He did not want a servant or a concubine. Not even the need to have sons to honor his name and tend his tomb would induce him. He tried to explain all this to his friend but he got tangled up in words; there weren't enough in his vocabulary to express his torment. A woman is a creature useful for work, motherhood, and pleasure, but no cultivated and intelligent man would try to make her his companion his friend had said the only time Tao tried to confide his feelings. In China, one glance around made that reasoning understandable, but in America the relationship between husband and wife seemed different. To begin with, no one had concubines—at least not openly. To Tao Chi'en's mind, the few
fan wey
families he had met in this land of solitary men were beyond comprehension. He could not imagine how they behaved in private, given that apparently the husbands treated their wives as equals. It was a mystery that he was interested in exploring, like so many others in this extraordinary country.