out of the stage from Redding and found his way to a forsaken,
ramshackle building below Whiskeytown. His coming had proved of no
small interest. When the news finally got about that “a monkey” was
living in “Sam Kennedy’s old place,” it was thought, for a while, that
laundrying, thereafter, would be cheaply done. This hope, however, was
soon dispelled. For, shortly after his arrival, as Fong Wu asked at the
grocery store for mail, he met Radigan’s inquiry of “You do my washee,
John?” with a grave shake of the head. Similar questions from others
were met, later, in a similar way. Soon it became generally known that
the “monkey at Sam Kennedy’s” did not do washing; so he was troubled no
further.
Yet if Fong Wu did not work for the people of Whiskeytown, he was
not, therefore, idle. Many a sunrise found him wandering through the
chaparral thickets back of his house, digging here and there in the
red soil for roots and herbs. These he took home, washed, tasted, and,
perhaps, dried. His mornings were mainly spent in cooking for his
abundantly supplied table, tending his fowls and house, and in making
spotless and ironing smooth various undergarments--generous of sleeve
and leg.
But of an afternoon, all petty duties were laid aside, and he sorted
carefully into place upon his shelves numerous little bunches and boxes
of dried herbs and numerous tiny phials of pungent liquid that had
come to him by post; he filled wide sheets of foolscap with vertical
lines of queer characters and consigned them to big, plainly addressed,
well-stamped envelopes; he scanned closely the last newspapers from San
Francisco, and read from volumes in divers tongues; and he pored over
the treasured Taoist book, “The Road to Virtue.”
Sunday was his one break in the week’s routine. Then, the coolies who
panned or cradled for gold in the tailings of near-by abandoned mines,
gathered at Fong Wu’s. On such occasions, there was endless, lively
chatter, a steady exchange of barbering--one man scraping another
clean, to be, in turn, made hairless in a broad band about the poll and
on cheek and chin--and much consuming of tasty chicken, dried fish,
pork, rice, and melon seeds. To supplement all this, Fong Wu recounted
the news: the arrival of a consul in San Francisco, the raid on a
slave- or gambling-den, the progress of a tong war under the very noses
of the baffled police, and the growth of Coast feeling against the
continued, quiet immigration of Chinese. But of the social or political
affairs of the Flowery Kingdom--of his own land beyond the sea, Fong Wu
was consistently silent.
Added to his Sunday responsibilities as host and purveyor of news,
Fong Wu had others. An ailing countryman, whether seized with malaria
or suffering from an injury, found ready and efficient attention. The
bark of dogwood, properly cooked, gave a liquid that killed the ague;
and oil from a diminutive bottle, or a red powder whetted upon the skin
with a silver piece, brought out the soreness of a bruise.
Thus, keeping his house, herb-hunting, writing, studying, entertaining,
doctoring, Fong Wu lived on at Whiskeytown.
Each evening, daintily manipulating ivory chopsticks, he ate his supper
of rice out of a dragon-bordered bowl. Then, when he had poured tea
from a pot, all gold-encrusted--a cluster of blossoms nodding in a
vase at his shoulder, the while--he went out upon the porch of the
square-fronted house.
And there, as now, a scarlet-buttoned cap on his head, his black eyes
soft with dreaming, his richly wrought sandals tapping the floor in
time, his long queue--a smooth, shining serpent--in thick coils about
his tawny neck, Fong Wu thrummed gently upon the three-stringed banjo,
and, in peace, chanted into the twilight.
* * * * *
Flying hoofs scattered the gravel on the strip of road before Fong
Wu’s. He looked through the gloom and saw a horse flash past, carrying
a skirted rider toward Whiskeytown. His song died out. He let his banjo
slip down until its round head rested between his feet. Then, he turned
his face up the gulch.
Despite the dusk, he knew the traveller: Mrs. Anthony Barrett, who,
with her husband, had recently come to live in a house near Stillwater.
Every evening, when the heat was over, she went by, bound for the day’s
mail at the post-office. Every evening, in the cool, Fong Wu saw her
go, and sometimes she gave him a friendly nod.
Her mount was a spirited, mouse-dun mustang, with crop-ears, a roached
mane, and the back markings of an Arab horse. She always rode at a
run, sitting with easy erectness. A wide army hat rested snugly on her
fair hair, and shaded a white forehead and level-looking eyes. But
notwithstanding the sheltering brim, on her girlish face were set the
glowing scarlet seals of wind and sun.
As he peered townward after her, Fong Wu heard the hurrying hoof beats
grow gradually fainter and fainter--and cease. Presently the moon
topped the pines on the foothills behind him, bathing the gulch in
light. The road down which she would come sprang into view. He watched
its farthest open point. In a few moments the hoof beats began again.
Soon the glint of a light waist showed through the trees. Next, horse
and rider rounded a curve at hand. Fong Wu leaned far forward.
And then, just as the mustang gained the strip of road before the
square-fronted house, it gave a sudden, unlooked-for, outward
leap, reared with a wild snort, and, whirling, dashed past the
porch--riderless.
With an exclamation, Fong Wu flung his banjo aside and ran to the road.
There under a manzanita bush, huddled and still, lay a figure. He
caught it up, bore it to the porch, and put it gently down.
A brief examination, made with the deftness practice gives, showed him
that no bones were broken. Squatting beside the unconscious woman,
he next played slowly with his long-nailed fingers upon her pulse.
Its beat reassured him. He lighted a lamp and held it above her. The
scarlet of her cheeks was returning.
The sight of her, who was so strong and active, stretched weak and
fainting, compelled Fong Wu into spoken comment. “The petal of a plum
blossom,” he said compassionately, in his own tongue.
She stirred a little. He moved back. As, reviving, she opened her eyes,
they fell upon him. But he was half-turned away, his face as blank and
lifeless as a mask.
She gave a startled cry and sat up. “Me hurtee?” she asked him,
adopting pidgin-English. “Me fallee off?”
Fong Wu rose. “You were thrown,” he answered gravely.
She coloured in confusion. “Pardon me,” she said, “for speaking to
you as if you were a coolie.” Then, as she got feebly to her feet--“I
believe my right arm is broken.”
“I have some knowledge of healing,” he declared; “let me look at it.”
Before she could answer, he had ripped the sleeve away. “It is only
a sprain,” he said. “Wait.” He went inside for an amber liquid and
bandages. When he had laved the injured muscles, he bound them round.
“How did it happen?” she asked, as he worked. He was so courteous and
professional that her alarm was gone.
“Your horse was frightened by a rattlesnake in the road. I heard it
whir.”
She shuddered. “I ought to be thankful that I didn’t come my cropper on
it,” she said, laughing nervously.
He went inside again, this time to prepare a cupful of herbs. When he
offered her the draught, she screwed up her face over its nauseating
fumes.
“If that acts as strongly as it tastes,” she said, after she had drunk
it, “I’ll be well soon.”
“It is to keep away inflammation.”
“Oh! Can I go now?”
“Yes. But to-morrow return, and I will look at the arm.” He took the
lamp away and replaced his red-buttoned cap with a black felt hat. Then
he silently preceded her down the steps to the road. Only when the
light of her home shone plainly ahead of them, did he leave her.
They had not spoken on the way. But as he bowed a good-night, she
addressed him. “I thank you,” she said. “And may I ask your name?”
“Kwa”--he began, and stopped. Emotion for an instant softened his
impassive countenance. He turned away. “Fong Wu,” he added, and was
gone.
The following afternoon the crunch of cart wheels before the
square-fronted house announced her coming. Fong Wu closed “The Book of
Virtue,” and stepped out upon the porch.
A white man was seated beside her in the vehicle. As she sprang from
it, light-footed and smiling, and mounted the steps, she indicated him
politely to the Chinese.
“This is my husband,” she said. “I have told him how kind you were to
me last night.”
Fong Wu nodded.
Barrett hastened to voice his gratitude. “I certainly am very much
obliged to you,” he said. “My wife might have been bitten by the
rattler, or she might have lain all night in pain if you hadn’t found
her. And I want to say that your treatment was splendid. Why, her arm
hasn’t swollen or hurt her. I’ll be hanged if I can see--you’re such a
good doctor--why you stay in this----”
Fong Wu interrupted him. “I will wet the bandage with medicine,” he
said, and entered the house.
They watched him with some curiosity as he treated the sprain and
studied the pulse. When he brought out her second cup of steaming
herbs, Mrs. Barrett looked up at him brightly.
“You know we’re up here for Mr. Barrett’s health,” she said. “A year
or so after we were married, he was hurt in a railway collision. Since
then, though his wounds healed nicely, he has never been quite well.
Dr. Lord, our family physician, prescribed plenty of rough work, and
a quiet place, far from the excitement of a town or city. Now, all
this morning, when I realised how wonderful it was that my arm wasn’t
aching, I’ve been urging my husband--what do you suppose?--to come and
be examined by you!”
Fong Wu, for the first time, looked fully at the white man, marking the
sallow, clayey face, with its dry, lined skin, its lustreless eyes and
drooping lids.
Barrett scowled at his wife. “Nonsense, dear,” he said crossly; “you
know very well that Lord would never forgive me.”
“But Fong Wu might help you, Anthony,” she declared.
Fong Wu’s black eyes were still fixed searchingly upon the white man.
Before their scrutiny, soul-deep, the other’s faltered and fell.
“You might help him, mightn’t you, Fong Wu?” Mrs. Barrett repeated.
An expression, curious, keen, and full of meaning, was the answer.
Then, “I might if he----” Fong Wu said, and paused.
Past Mrs. Barrett, whose back was toward her husband, the latter had
shot a warning glance. “Come, come, Edith,” he cried irritably, “let’s
get home.”
Mrs. Barrett emptied her cup bravely. “When shall we call again?” she
asked.
“You need not come again,” Fong Wu replied. “Each day you have only to
dampen the bandages from these.” He handed her a green-flowered box
containing twelve tiny compartments; in each was a phial.
“And I sha’n’t have to take any more of this--this awful stuff?” she
demanded gaily, giving back the cup.
“No.”
“Ah! And now, I want to thank you again, with all my heart. Here”--she
reached into the pocket of her walking-skirt--“here is something for
your trouble.” Two double-eagles lay on her open palm.
Fong Wu frowned at them. “I take no money,” he said, a trifle gruffly.
And as she got into the cart, he closed the door of his home behind him.
It was a week before Mrs. Barrett again took up her rides for the mail.
When she did, Fong Wu did not fail to be on his porch as she passed.
For each evening, as she cantered up the road, spurring the mustang to
its best paces, she reined to speak to him. And he met her greeting
with unaccustomed good humour.
Then she went by one morning before sunrise, riding like the wind. A
little later she repassed, whipping her horse at every gallop. Fong
Wu, called to his door by the clatter, saw her face was white and
drawn. At noon, going up to the post-office, he heard a bit of gossip
that seemed to bear upon her unwonted trip. Radigan was rehearsing it
excitedly to his wife, and the Chinese busied himself with his mail and
listened--apparently unconcerned.
“I c’n tell you she ain’t afraid of anythin’, that Mrs. Barrett,” the
post-master was saying; “neither th’ cayuse she rides or a critter on
two legs. An’ that fancy little drug-clerk from ’Frisco got it straight
from th’ shoulder.”
“S-s-sh!” admonished his wife, from the back of the office. “Isn’t
there someone outside?”
“Naw, just th’ chink from Kennedy’s. Well, as I remarked, she did jus’
light into that dude. ‘It was criminal!’ she says, an’ her eyes snapped
like a whip; ‘it was criminal! an’ if I find out for sure that you are
guilty, I’ll put you where you’ll never do it again.’ Th’ young gent
smirked at her an’ squirmed like a worm. ‘You’re wrong, Mrs. Barrett,’
he says, lookin’ like th’ meek puppy he is, ‘an’ you’ll have t’ look
some place else for th’ person that done it.’ But she wouldn’t talk no
longer--jus’ walked out, as mad as a hornet.”
“Well, well,” mused Mrs. Radigan. “I wonder what ’twas all about.
‘Criminal,’ she said, eh? That’s funny!” She walked to the front of the
office and peeked through the wicket. But no one was loitering near
except Fong Wu, and his face was the picture of dull indifference.
That night, long after the hour for Mrs. Barrett’s regular trip, and
long past the time for his supper-song, Fong Wu heard slow, shuffling
steps approach the house. A moment afterward, the knob of his door
rattled. He put out his light and slipped a knife into his loose sleeve.
After some mumbling and moving about on the porch, a man called out to
him. He recognised the voice.
“Fong Wu! Fong Wu!” it begged. “Let me in. I want to see you; I want to
ask you for help--for something I need. Let me in; let me in.”
Fong Wu, without answering, relit his lamp, and, with the air of one
who is at the same time both relieved and a witness of the expected,
flung the door wide.
Then into the room, writhing as if in fearful agony, his hands palsied,
his face a-drip and, except for dark blotches about the mouth,
green-hued, his eyes wild and sunken, fell, rather than tottered,
Anthony Barrett.
“Fong Wu,” he pleaded, from the floor at the other’s feet, “you helped
my wife, when she was sick, now help me. I’m dying! I’m dying! Give it
to me, for God’s sake! give it to me.” He caught at the skirt of Fong
Wu’s blouse.
The Chinese retreated a little, scowling. “What do you want?” he asked.
A paroxysm of pain seized Barrett. He half rose and stumbled forward.
“You know,” he panted, “you know. And if I don’t have some, I’ll die.
I can’t get it anywhere else. She’s found me out, and scared the
drug-clerk. Oh, just a little, old man, just a little!” He sank to the
floor again.
“I can give you nothing,” said Fong Wu bluntly. “I do not keep--what
you want.”
With a curse, Barrett was up again. “Oh, you don’t,” he screamed,
leering frenziedly. “You yellow devil! You almond-eyed pigtail! But I
know you do! And I must have it. Quick! quick!” He hung, clutching, on
the edge of Fong Wu’s wide ironing-table, an ashen wreck. Fong Wu shook
his head.
With a cry, Barrett came at him and seized his lean throat. “You damned
highbinder!” he gasped. “You saddle-nosed monkey! You’ll get me what I
want or I’ll give you away. Don’t I know why you’re up here in these
woods, with your pretty clothes and your English talk. A-_ha_! You bet
I do! You’re hiding, and you’re wanted;”--he dropped his voice to a
whisper--“the tongs would pay head-money for you. If you don’t give it
to me, I’ll put every fiend in ’Frisco on your trail.”
Fong Wu had caught Barrett’s wrists. Now he cast him to one side.
“Tongs!” he said with a shrug, as if they were beneath his notice. And
“Fiends!” he repeated contemptuously, a taunt in his voice.
The white man had fallen prone and was grovelling weakly. “Oh, I won’t
tell on you,” he wailed imploringly. “I won’t, I won’t, Fong Wu; I
swear it on my honour.”
Fong Wu grunted and reached to a handy shelf. “I will make a bargain
with you,” he said craftily; “first, you are to drink what I wish.”
“Anything! anything!” Barrett cried.
From a box of dry herbs, long untouched, the Chinese drew out a
handful. There was no time for brewing. Outraged nature demanded
instant relief. He dropped them into a bowl, covered them with water,
and stirred swiftly. When the stems and leaves were broken up and well
mixed, he strained a brown liquid from them and put it to the other’s
lips.
“Drink,” he commanded, steadying the shaking head.
Barrett drank, unquestioning.
Instantly the potion worked. Calmed as if by a miracle, made drowsy
to a point where speech was impossible, the white man, tortured but a
moment before, tipped sleepily into Fong Wu’s arms. The Chinese waited
until a full effect was secured, when he lifted his limp patient to
the blanket-covered ironing-table. Then he went out for fuel, built a
fire, and, humming softly--with no fear of waking the other--sat down
to watch the steeping of more herbs.
* * * * *
What happened next at the square-fronted house was the unexpected.
Again there was a sound of approaching footsteps, again someone gained
the porch. But this time there was no pausing to ask for admission,
there were no weak requests for aid. A swift hand felt for the knob
and found it; a strong arm pushed at the unlocked door. And through
it, bareheaded, with burning eyes and blanched cheeks, her heavy
riding-whip dangling by a thong from her wrist, came the wife of
Anthony Barrett.
Just across the sill she halted and swept the dim room. A moment, and
the burning eyes fell upon the freighted ironing-table. She gave a
piercing cry.
Fong Wu neither spoke nor moved.
After the first outburst, she was quiet--the quiet that is
deliberative, threatening. Then she slowly closed her fingers about the
whip butt. Fixing her gaze in passionate anger upon him, she advanced a
few steps.
“_So it was you_,” she said, and her voice was hollow.
To that he made no sign, and even his colourless face told nothing.
She came forward a little farther, and sucked in a long, deep
breath. “You _dog_ of a Chinaman!” she said at last, and struck her
riding-skirt.
Fong Wu answered silently. With an imperative gesture, he pointed out
the figure on the ironing-table.
She sprang to her husband’s side and bent over him. Presently she began
to murmur to herself. When, finally, she turned, there were tears on
her lashes, she was trembling visibly, and she spoke in whispers.
“Was I wrong?” she demanded brokenly. “I _must_ have been. He’s not had
it; I can tell by his quick, easy breathing. And his ear has a faint
colour. You are trying to help him! I know! I know!”
A gleaming white line showed between the yellow of Fong Wu’s lips. He
picked up a rude stool and set it by the table. She sank weakly upon
it, letting the whip fall.
“Thank God! thank God!” she sobbed prayerfully, and buried her face in
her arms.
Throughout the long hours that followed, Fong Wu, from the room’s
shadowy rear, sat watching. He knew sleep did not come to her. For now
and then he saw her shake from head to heel convulsively; as he had
seen men in his own country quiver beneath the scourge of bamboos.
Now and then, too, he heard her give a stifled moan, like the protest
of a dumb creature. But in no other ways did she bare her suffering.
Quietly, lest she wake her husband, she fought out the night.
Only once did Fong Wu look away from her. Then, in anger and disgust
his eyes shifted to the figure on the table. “The petal of a plum
blossom”--he muttered in Chinese--“the petal of a plum blossom beneath
the hoofs of a pig!” And again his eyes dwelt upon the grief-bowed wife.
But when the dawn came stealing up from behind the purple Sierras, and
Mrs. Barrett raised her wan face, he was studiously reviewing his rows
of bottles, outwardly unaware of her presence.
“Fong Wu,” she said, in a low voice, “when will he wake?”
“When he is rested; at sunrise, maybe, or at noon.”
“And then?”
“He will be feeble. I shall give him more medicine, and he will sleep
again.”
He rose and busied himself at the fire. Soon he approached her,
bringing the gold-incrusted teapot and a small, handleless cup.
She drank thirstily, filling and emptying the cup many times. When
she was done, she made as if to go. “I shall see that everything is
all right at home,” she told him. “After that, I shall come back.” She
stooped and kissed her husband tenderly.
Fong Wu opened the door for her, and she passed out. In the road,
unhitched, but waiting, stood the mustang. She mounted and rode away.
When she returned, not long afterward, she was a new woman. She had
bathed her face and donned a fresh waist. Her eyes were alight, and
the scarlet was again flaming in her cheeks. Almost cheerfully, and
altogether hopefully, she resumed her post at the ironing-table.
It was late in the afternoon before Barrett woke. But he made no
attempt to get up, and would not eat. Fong Wu administered another dose
of herbs, and without heeding his patient’s expostulations. The latter,
after seeking his wife’s hand, once more sank into sleep.
Just before sunset, Fong Wu, who scorned to rest, prepared supper.
Gratefully Mrs. Barrett partook of some tender chicken and rice cakes.
When darkness shut down, they took up their second long vigil.
But it was not the vigil of the previous night. She was able to think
of other things than her husband’s condition and the doom that, of a
sudden, had menaced her happiness. Her spirits having risen, she was
correspondingly impatient of a protracted, oppressive stillness, and
looked about for an interruption, and for diversion. Across from her, a
Celestial patrician in his blouse of purple silk and his red-buttoned
cap, sat Fong Wu. Consumed with curiosity--now that she had time to
observe him closely--she longed to lift the yellow, expressionless mask
from his face--a face which might have patterned that of an Oriental
sphinx. At midnight, when he approached the table to satisfy himself of
Barrett’s progress, and to assure her of it, she essayed a conversation.
Glancing up at his laden shelves, she said, “I have been noticing your
medicines, and how many kinds there seem to be.”
“For each ailment that is visited upon man, earth offers a cure,” he
answered. “Life would be a mock could Death, unchallenged, take it.”
“True. Have you found in the earth, then, the cure for each ailment of
man?”
“For most, yes. They seek yet, where I learned the art of healing, an
antidote for the cobra’s bite. I know of no other they lack.”
“Where you were taught they must know more than we of this country
know.”
Fong Wu gave his shoulders a characteristic shrug.
“But,” she continued, “you speak English so perfectly. Perhaps you were
taught that in this country.”
“No--in England. But the other, I was not.”
“In England! Well!”
“I went there as a young man.”
“But these herbs, these medicines you have--they did not come from
England, did they?”
He smiled. “Some came from the hills at our back.” Then, crossing
to his shelves and reaching up, “This”--he touched a silk-covered
package--“is from Sumbawa in the Indian Sea; and this”--his finger was
upon the cork of a phial--“is from Feng-shan, Formosa; and other roots
are taken in winter from the lake of Ting-Ting-hu, which is then dry;
and still others come from the far mountains of Chamur.”
“Do you know,” Mrs. Barrett said tentatively, “I have always heard that
Chinese doctors give horrid things for medicine--sharks’ teeth, frogs’
feet, lizards’ tails, and--and all sorts of dreadful things.”
Fong Wu proffered no enlightenment.
“I am glad,” she went on, “that I have learned better.”
After a while she began again: “Doubtless there is other wonderful
knowledge, besides that about doctoring, which Chinese gentlemen
possess.”
Fong Wu gave her a swift glance. “The followers of Laou-Tsze know many
things,” he replied, and moved into the shadows as if to close their
talk.
Toward morning, when he again gave her some tea, she spoke of something
that she had been turning over in her mind for hours.
“You would not take money for helping me when I was hurt,” she said,
“and I presume you will refuse to take it for what you are doing now.
But I should like you to know that Mr. Barrett and I will always,
always be your friends. If”--she looked across at him, no more a part
of his rude surroundings, than was she--“if ever there comes a time
when we could be of use to you, you have only to tell us. Please
remember that.”
“I will remember.”