Doc

Grier was stationed in Atlanta during the occupation. My mother—You have to understand: Sherman’s men stole whatever wasn’t nailed down or red-hot, and they wrecked the rest. Took a Yankee dollar to buy a few damn radishes in those days, and nobody had hard currency anyway. We were all hungry, but Mamma was just wastin’ to nothin’.”

“A hundred and sixty federal dollars would have been a fortune.”

“Indeed, but my father wasn’t willin’ to swallow his pride and ask for the money back,” Doc said, voice soft with unattenuated bitterness. “Probably had his second wife all picked out by then … So Uncle John went to Captain Grier to ask if our family’s payment might be refunded. Grier promised he would arrange for the money to be returned.”

“And it wasn’t.”

“Not a penny.” There was a long silence before Doc said, “He forgot all about it, most likely. A man with a bad conscience would have remembered my uncle’s name.”

Your mother would have died anyway, Kate thought, but she wasn’t going to say so. She watched the cards dance in his hands. When he cut the deck again, she cried, “Wait! Nine of spades?”

He showed her the card. She laughed, low and cynical.

“And I thought you didn’t cheat!”

“I don’t!” There was a sly, crooked smile. “But I could.”

“Anybody but me sees you do that, you’ll get yourself shot again,” she warned. “Bring me a drink, will you?”

He set the deck aside, poured, and stood carefully. “Nectar for Calypso,” he said, handing her the glass. “We are a little short on ambrosia just now.”

She sat up in bed, and slugged the bourbon down, closing her eyes to feel the liquor’s warmth and forget about the night. Doc slid in behind her and began to rub her neck. She leaned forward, bracing against the mattress, surrendering to the sensation as he worked his way down her back.

“Sternocleidomastoideus … splenius … rhomboidei, major and minor,” he said, thumbs pressing. “Has anyone ever told you what a lovely trapezius you have?”

She snorted. “We’re lucky Texans take off their spurs.”

“Barbarians, to a man … These latissimi dorsi are unquestionably the most beautiful I have ever laid eyes on.”

She smiled, eyes closed. “You’re mad.”

“That’s the rumor … Sweet Jesus! Just look at you!” he murmured. “Round and soft as a ripe peach … Lie back.”

“Mon dieu,” she whispered after a time. “C’est merveilleux! ”

“My hand skills have always been considered exemplary.”

She giggled.

“I can stop if you’re too tired,” he offered.

“Stop, and I’ll shoot you myself.”

“I wonder what the odds are,” he mused. The numbers seemed to come to him from nowhere. “Eight to five,” he decided. “Against.”

“Against what?”

“Me dyin’ of consumption ’fore another bullet finds me.”

She twisted around and looked at him, eyes serious. “Don’t talk like that, Doc.”

“No hope, no fear,” he said with a grin, kissing her with each word. “And I am not … dead … yet.”

Chinaman’s Chance

Every Wednesday, Jau Dong-Sing went to the post office in Wright’s General Outfitting to mail a letter and a few dollars to his father in Kwantung. Since arriving in San Francisco back in 1859, Dong-Sing had written each week. He nearly always sent money, too.

In the beginning, he hoped to elicit a reply. My health is good but I am lonely, he wrote. I yearn for news of home. Though he would not have said as much, Dong-Sing desired to be acknowledged for his contributions to his family’s well-being. He also wished to be reassured that the money he sent had not been stolen during its long journey from America to his family’s village in China.

Letters from home were rare. Paper and ink and postage were too expensive for his family to buy often. When Dong-Sing did receive news, it was never happy or encouraging. Your uncle died. The crop is poor. My joints are stiff and I suffer at night. Everyone is hungry. Yes, we received the dollars. Send more next time.

And Dong-Sing did.

He had prospered in America. It didn’t take much capital to establish a laundry, and you could make good money if you worked hard. When Dong-Sing moved to Dodge City, in ’75, he built a shack near the river using scrap lumber. With a total cash outlay of $5.47, he bought kettles, and washtubs, a stove and irons. Then he went from saloon to saloon to announce in the only English words he knew, “I wash! Two bits!”

By the end of his first week, he had doubled his investment. At full capacity, he could clean and press forty pieces of clothing a day. He charged twenty-five cents per garment, which was less than the Irish washerwomen at the fort wanted, and his skill in ironing was unsurpassed. Pretty soon everybody preferred China Joe’s washing. His business grew and grew. Now there was plenty of hotel trade, which added bed linens to his work. Families were moving into town, too. Ladies like Mrs. Hoover and Mrs. Wright didn’t do their own washing anymore.

I already have two helpers and it is time to hire more, he would write home this week. Tell two strong boys in our village if they come to San Francisco, I will hire them and bring them to Dodge.

It seemed crazy to import laborers from so far away, but white people wouldn’t work for a Chinaman, and Americans were too lazy anyway. Doing laundry was arduous. You had to haul water and stoke the fire with cow chips, all day long. Sheets and clothing were rubbed with yellow soap on ribbed-tin scrubbing boards, then dumped into giant tubs of boiling water and stirred with a big wooden paddle. Heavy, hot, sopping-wet cloth had to be lifted, wrung, hung to dry, and ironed. Even with his helpers, at the end of the day Dong-Sing was too worn out to speak or eat.

In the mornings, though, when he was fresh, he planned letters in his mind as he worked. When you do laundry for people, you learn things about them. You know the size and shape of your customers. You know their habits. You know what people eat and drink from what they spill. You know who is so poor he must have his clothing mended again and again. You know who is so careless of money he leaves coins in his pockets.

Don’t keep the coins, his father would advise. You will be called a thief and punished.

Dong-Sing knew that, and he had always returned the money. Some Americans thought he was such a dumb Chink bastard, he didn’t know enough to keep the cash. Others admired his scrupulous honesty.

Big George Hoover had to have a pair of panels put into the side seams of his shirts and vests to make the buttons close around his belly. He is going to run for mayor again.

Who is Big George Hoover? Dong-Sing’s father would wonder, but he would think, If he is fat, he must be rich. Make friends with him. Get on his good side.

Dong-Sing didn’t need a letter from his father to tell him that.

George Hoover was one of the men who left money in his pocket the first time he brought clothes to China Joe. Mr. Hoover was impressed by Dong-Sing’s honesty. The investment of a few coins—returned instead of kept— had paid off handsomely. Soon Big George would build a bank right down the street from Wright’s General Outfitting; he had warned China Joe about Bob Wright’s bad accounting practices even before Johnnie Sanders was killed.

Knowing things about people is not the same as understanding them, Dong-Sing would admit in the letter he planned to send next Wednesday. Americans simply didn’t make a lot of sense to Jau