Territory (31 page)

Fox nodded. “You met him.”

Mildred stared at the grave, and at Fox. “Your friend from the river? But— Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

His lips parted; then he frowned and shut them and eyed the ground at his feet. After a moment he turned back to her. He looked younger and a little lost. “I feel very stupid—is ‘thank you’ the right thing to say?”

“For the first few months, one may say any blasted thing at all and be excused. That was my experience, anyway.” What was she angry about? Did she resent being dragged into someone else’s grief, when she was nearly done with hers? Or was she angry that the world continued to offer things to grieve over?

“Then thank you.”

“Was there … was it an accident?”

“No. You couldn’t call it that.”

His voice was unsteady, almost as if he wanted to laugh. She felt another pinch at her heart.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“He was shot.” Fox said it carefully, as if reciting. “Someone broke into his home and shot him.”

“Good God.”
A robbery?
she wanted to ask, but she was afraid it would be salt in the wound. With illness, the story was over once the cause was named. The story of a violent death went on and on, question after cruel question.

What had she not minded talking about, after David was buried? After Eli died? There had been safe subjects. There had even been some she’d welcomed. “How long did you know him? Mr …. Chow, was it?”

Fox nodded. “Five years, on and off. I met him in Virginia City. Then later, in San Francisco … Our favorite recreation was getting into trouble and seeing if we could get ourselves out.” He smiled a little. “We didn’t think of it that way at the time, of course.”

“How did you meet?” Unspoken in the question, Mildred realized, was the one that went,
How did a white man come to be friends with an Oriental?

“Now that
was
an accident,” Fox said to the Dragoons. “Mine, in fact. I’d likely have lost my arm if Lung hadn’t decided I was worth the trouble of saving.”

“He was a doctor?”

“Among other things. In Virginia City he was pretending to be a miner.”

“Pretending?”

“He wasn’t really convincing anyone. Himself included.” Fox shook his head, smiling. “The Chinese came here to get rich, just like everyone else. But I think Lung already knew there were many kinds of rich, even if he hadn’t admitted it to himself. It’s hard to feel wealthy when you’re spending all your time sitting on a mountain defending your claim from Indians, and white men who don’t think a Chinaman should have a claim at all.”

“So he gave up prospecting.”

“It’s a damn fool way to make a living.”

“I know. My husband tried it.”

Fox flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t—”

“I was agreeing with you. Having seen the results firsthand.” Mildred studied the grave, and nodded at the strip of paper. “What’s that?”

“A sutra for the dead.” He must have read her expression. “A prayer.”

“Is that … Confucian?”

“Buddhist. You seem to know a little about the Chinese.”

A question without asking a question. Mildred couldn’t decide if that was delicacy on his part, or presumption—if he was sure she would answer because he wanted to know.

“My parents had a Chinese cook. Oh, gracious, that sounds all wrong, doesn’t it?” Mildred found Fox watching her, his head a little tilted, his lips a little pinched. “Don’t laugh.”

“I swear, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You’re dreaming of nothing else at the moment. I was the sort of child who preferred the kitchen to the nursery, and Mr. Weh didn’t mind.”

“That’s where you learned that in Chinese, the patronymic comes before the given name?”

“And how to shell peas.”

There, he laughed. It rang out pleasantly across the open ground of Boot Hill. “What did your parents think?”

“I have no idea. I certainly wasn’t going to tell them where I went when my nanny couldn’t find me. Mr. Weh even taught me a few Chinese words, though I never tried them out on anyone but him.”

“What were they?”

“Oh, little-girl things. ‘Please,’ ‘thank you,’ ‘hello,’ ‘good-bye.’ ”

“Try them on me.”

“No. I’d rather pretend I don’t remember them than have you make fun of my pronunciation.”

“Have it your way. But your pride is safe with me.” He gazed out over the valley again. “Lung taught me a bit of Chinese, enough to scrape by in the Chinatowns. He was a good teacher—patient and mean at the same time.”

“What, did he abuse you when you got things wrong?”

Fox grinned. “Colorfully. The first things I learned well in Chinese were insults.”

“But the Chinese are always so polite!”

“Not to their friends.”

“I suppose Americans do the same thing, or we wouldn’t have the phrase ‘company manners.’ ”

He smiled at her. “You know, you don’t have to distract me. I haven’t had anyone to talk to about him. It helps.”

Mildred remembered that, too. “Good. Can you tell me—is someone investigating?”

He looked down at the grave, and Mildred saw his face go still. “Oh, yes.”

She hadn’t the nerve to ask any more questions. “I should get back to
town. Good-bye, Mr. Fox, and good luck.” She gathered up her skirts and started back the way she’d come.

“Mrs. Benjamin!” he called, and she looked over her shoulder at him. “Will you have dinner with me?”

She almost said yes, in a moment’s impulse she didn’t understand. Was it pity? Curiosity? But she’d discouraged Tom, with good reasons. They applied to Jesse Fox, too.

“Thank you, Mr. Fox, but no.” Suddenly she remembered something he’d said in the foyer of the opera house after the play. “Is that what you were waiting for the right circumstances to ask?”

“Yes.”

Mildred looked around Boot Hill. “And these are the right circumstances?”

“I’ve learned lately that you can’t wait for what might never happen.”

That lesson, too, she remembered. What things unsaid and undone did Jesse Fox regret? She turned to go.

“What if I ask again later?” he said.

If she told him her answer would be the same, he would probably believe her. “It’s a free country.”

She walked on to the entrance. Clearly the heat had gotten to her brain.

Jesse climbed the stairs of Brown’s Hotel and turned toward his room. A figure crouched against the wall by his door.

Lung’s murder should have warned him. He should have been wary. How many people died thinking that?

But it was Chu, Lung’s servant. He sat huddled on the floor, wedged between Jesse’s door frame and an enormous carpetbag. As Jesse approached, he shot to his feet. The boy’s eyes were red, his face stiffly impassive.

Jesse hadn’t seen him since the funeral, when one of Lung’s neighbors had promised to look after him. His queue was bristly with hair that had worked free of its plait, and his cotton jacket was wrinkled. Not excessively looked-after.

“Good morning,” Jesse said. Chu pressed his lips together and bobbed his head. “Did you come through the lobby?”

Chu raised his chin. “Back stair. No let Chinese front way.”

“Very resourceful. What can I do for you?”

“We talk?”

“All right.”

Chu frowned. “… Man to man.” He looked up and down the hall, and back to Jesse.

“In … the room?” Jesse asked.

Chu nodded shortly. Jesse unlocked the door and waved him in.

The boy walked to the middle of the room, dropped his carpetbag, and scowled at Jesse. “I no wash goddamn dish, I no sweep goddamn floor, I no do goddamn laundry. I take care Sam, you pay me.”

Jesse felt behind himself for a chair and sat down. “You no … I beg your pardon?”

Chu clenched his fists and looked desperate. “I no wash goddamn—”

“Wait, never mind. You won’t wash dishes, sweep floors, or do laundry. But didn’t you do those things for Chow Lung?”

“Chow Lung, me, okay! No all day wash, all day sweep!”

Light dawned, more or less. “You mean, a job.” Chu nodded, relieved. “You’re not old enough for one.”

Chu stared as if Jesse had sprouted wings.

He hadn’t seen many Chinese children. The ones he had seen … had all been at work. If they were old enough to walk, talk, and carry, they worked. Chu had worked for Chow Lung, keeping house, maybe helping with medicines or accounts or running messages. In return he got room and board and training.

One wasn’t guaranteed food and a place to sleep just because one happened to be a child. No wonder Chu had looked at him that way.

“The people who took you in—didn’t they have work? Or help you find some?”

Chu snorted. It reminded Jesse powerfully of Lung.

It reminded him of Lung’s resources as well. He stood up. “Come along. We’re going to talk to someone.”

By the time they reached China Mary’s, Chu was sweating and lugging the carpetbag with both hands. He refused Jesse’s offers to carry it, just as he’d refused to leave it at the hotel.

There was no bodyguard on the porch this time, but Jesse would bet he wasn’t far away. He knocked, and looked at Chu, whose chin was jutting again.

A different young woman, just as pleasant as the first, opened the door. “Mr. Fox to see China Mary, please,” he said.

Her face drooped, as if she were genuinely disappointed for him. “Mister not expected—so sorry. Lady not seeing visitors now.”

Chu dropped the carpetbag; the porch quaked. “Dr. Fox,” he said, with awful intensity. “Friend Chow Lung. Important wise person. You shit under shoe Dr. Fox.”

The maid’s mouth opened and stayed that way. Jesse’s face stung with blushing. The maid darted down the hall, knocked on the double doors, and passed through them. Jesse was afraid to look at Chu.

Moments later she returned. “Please, come now.” Jesse and Chu followed her.

China Mary sat in the same sort of state Jesse had seen on the evening of the play. They’d barely entered the room when she called “Stop!” in Chinese.

Jesse bowed low. “Madam, I’ve come—”

“Is this a matter concerning the child?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jesse stole a glance at Chu. Chu was scowling at the dragon rug.

“Then it is of no interest to me.”

“Madam, Dr. Chow suggested that the Chinese look to you for help.”

“And they brought the boy to me. I would have placed him in honest work, safe among his people, to rise and be respected as he deserved. He refused all I offered. Is he perhaps a nephew of the emperor? Does work insult his hands?”

Jesse raised his eyebrows at Chu. “Dishes, floors, and laundry?” he murmured. Chu flushed and bit his lip.

“He’s very young. Surely for the sake of Dr. Chow’s memory, you could give him another chance.”

“Is that his wish?”

Chu’s gaze stayed on the rug, his teeth in his lip. But at last, stiffly, he shook his head.

“It is as you see,” said China Mary. “Good day, Doctor.”

They tramped halfway to Brown’s in silence. Finally Jesse said, “I’ll carry the carpetbag.”

Chu shook his head.

“Oh, for God’s sake. You’ve decided to drop yourself into my care; you’d damned well better trust me. Give me the carpetbag.”

Eyes downcast, Chu handed it over. Well, from the evidence, the boy was strong enough to take care of a horse. The bag was heavier than Sam’s saddle.

At Crabtree’s Livery Stable, Jesse arranged for Chu to have a room in the
loft for his own. He’d gotten enough baffled outrage directed at him for one day; he wasn’t going to invite it from Brown’s by asking them to house a Chinese boy.

The room was a little larger than a good-sized armoire. Chu examined it, grinning. He took the carpetbag from Jesse and set it in the corner. “Okay,” he said. “Work now. Sam need thing, I tell you. Pay me good, dollar week.”

Well, at least someone was comfortable with the arrangement.

It was insane. What was he to do when he left Tombstone? Get a donkey and let the boy follow behind, Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote? “Chu, let me buy you a ticket—hell, let me buy two of ’em and hire someone to look after you on the way—and send you back to your family. You must have family in China.”

Chu had to raise his nose quite a lot before he could look down it at Jesse. “Hah! I goddamn American!” He banged down the loft ladder. A moment later Jesse heard him below, whistling inexpertly.