There was a clearing in the middle of the woods on the side of the hill opposite the river from the Chinamen’s mining camp. Now that it was late June, the syringa bushes were in full bloom in the rocky soil along the edge of the clearing, filling the air with their fresh, orangelike scent. The yellow of the blooming arrowleaf balsamroot carpeted the middle of the clearing, with a touch here and there of the purple-blue of the chicory to break the monotony.
Lily loved to sit in the shade of the trees at the edge of the clearing and stare at the colors in front of her. If she sat still long enough, the gentle breeze and the slanting rays of the sun would conspire to blend the individual flowers into an undulating field of light. The world seemed then made afresh to her, full of tomorrows and undiscovered delights. And singing seemed the only thing worth doing.
A plume of smoke rose at the edge of the clearing, breaking her reverie.
She walked across the clearing toward the smoke. The dark figure of a man crouched by it. He was cooking something that smelled delicious to Lily. But there was also a hint of something unpleasant in that smell, like burning hair.
Lily was close enough now to see that the man was large, even larger than Logan. Just as Lily realized that the man was roasting the whole carcass of a large dog whose hide was red as blood, he turned around and grinned at Lily, revealing a mouth full of sharp, daggerlike teeth.
It was Crick.
Lily screamed.
? ? ?
Jack told Elsie to go back to sleep.
“It’s all right. I’ll make some tea for her.”
The sound of water boiling and the comforting warmth of her father’s arms dissipated the last traces of the nightmare from Lily’s mind. Sipping tea and whispering lest they be overheard by her mother, Lily told Jack what she had seen of the fight between Logan and Crick.
“What happened to Obee?”
“I don’t know, he ran off.”
“And what did they do with Crick’s body?”
Lily wasn’t sure about that either.
“And you definitely saw Obee shoot first? And the bullet hit Logan in the shoulder?”
Lily nodded vigorously. The image of Logan’s shoulder exploding was carved indelibly into her brain. And she marveled again at how calm she felt when Logan looked at her, as if he had some power to pass his strength onto her, letting her know that she would be safe.
Jack pondered this. If Lily was right, the wound to Logan was serious, yet he had been back at work with his companions less than twelve hours later. Either the Chinaman was the toughest human being he had ever known, or Lily was exaggerating. But he knew his daughter. She was an imaginative child, but not one who lied.
Obee and Crick were notorious outlaws, and lots of people in town suspected that they were behind the fire that had ruined so many people in town and killed the Kellys. But there were no witnesses to the fire and the murders, and no charges had been brought. Now if Obee decided to accuse Logan of murder, he might indeed have a chance of getting Logan hanged since he and Lily and all the Chinamen actually saw it happen. The Chinamen weren’t well liked by the whites, on account of their taking claims away from the white miners—never mind that most of these claims had been abandoned by the whites since they didn’t have the Chinese rice farmers’ skill and patience with water management or their willingness to survive on rice and vegetables and to squeeze as many people as possible into the tiny saltbox houses in order to save money. There was no telling what a jury might do even if it sounded like Logan killed Crick to protect himself and the others.
“Dad, are you angry with me?”
Startled from his reverie, Jack collected himself. “No. Why should I be?”
“Because you said Logan looked like a killer and you told me to stay away from the Chinamen, and . . . and I almost ate a dog last week.”
Jack laughed. “I can’t be angry with you for that. The Chinamen’s cooking smelled so good that I was interested in the dog myself—and still am, a little. You didn’t do anything wrong. Although it was dangerous for you to get mixed up in their fight, it wasn’t by any means your fault. And I guess it turned out all right. You weren’t hurt.”
“I was, a little.”
“Luckily, the Chinamen’s medicine seemed to have fixed it. That Logan is quite a character.”
“He tells good stories,” Lily said. She wanted to tell him about the battles of Guan Yu, the God of War, or the songs of Jie You, the Princess Who Became a Barbarian. She wanted to describe to him how she felt, listening to Logan recite those stories in the rhythm of his clanging, whiskey-sharpened accent so that they sounded at the same time so fantastic and so familiar while the long, gnarled fingers of his large hands made the scene come alive with comic and solemn gestures. But it was all still so new and confusing, and she didn’t think she knew the right words yet to paint a proper picture of those moments for her father.
“I’m sure he does. This is why we are out here, where the country belongs to nobody and everyone is a stranger with a tale of his own. The Celestials are filling up California and soon, Idaho Territory. Soon everyone here will know their stories.”
Lily finished her tea. She was comfortable, but the lingering excitement from the nightmare kept her from being sleepy.
“Dad, will you sing me a song? I can’t sleep now.”
“Sure thing, Nugget. But let’s go outside and take a walk, or else we’ll wake your mother.”
Lily and Jack threw jackets over their nightclothes and slipped outside the house. The summer evening was warm, and the sky, cloudless and moonless, glowed with the light of a million stars.
Some of the Chinamen were still up on the porch. They played a game with dice by the weak light of an oil lamp. Jack and Lily waved at them as the two of them strode down the street.
“Guess they can’t sleep either,” Jack said. “Don’t blame them. Can’t imagine how you’d sleep with five other guys packed in like sardines with you, all of them snoring and with smelly feet.”
Before long they had left the weak light of the Chinamen’s oil lamp behind them, and then they were beyond the edge of the town. Jack sat down on a rock by the side of the road into the hills and lifted Lily to sit beside him, his arm wrapped around her.
“What song would you like to hear?”
“How about the one that Mom would never let you sing, the one about the funeral?”
“That’s a good one.”
Jack took out his pipe and lit it to keep the insects away from them, and he began to sing:
Tim Finnegan lived in ?Walkin’ Street,
A gentle Irishman mighty odd;
He had a brogue both rich and sweet,
And to rise in the world he carried a hod.
Now Tim had a sort of a tipplin’ way,
With a love of the whiskey he was born,
And to help him on with his work each day,
He’d a drop of the craythur every morn.
Lily looked up into her father’s face. Lit by the flame from the pipe, it took on a red glow that brought a sudden rush of love and comfort to her heart. Smiling at each other, father and daughter belted out the chorus:
Whack fol the dah O, dance to your partner,
Welt the floor, your trotters shake;
Wasn’t it the truth I told you,
Lots of fun at Finnegan’s wake!
Jack continued with the rest of the song:
One mornin’ Tim was feelin’ full,
His head was heavy which made him shake;
He fell from the ladder and broke his skull,
And they carried him home his corpse to wake.
They rolled him up in a nice clean sheet,
And laid him out upon the bed,
A gallon of whiskey at his feet,
And a barrel of porter at his head.
His friends assembled at the wake,
And Mrs. Finnegan called for lunch,
First they brought in tay and cake,
Then pipes, tobacco and whiskey punch.
Biddy O’Brien began to bawl,
“Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see?
O Tim, mavourneen, why did you die?”
“Arragh, hold your gob,” said Paddy McGhee!