transformed it into a wonderful game, and one inspiring the formation of teams, the election of captains, and the constant invention of cunning tactics slated to defeat and humiliate their ravenous avian adversaries.
Because it was lighter and swifter, Master Ah Chung’s boat reached the shore first. The doctor even lent a shoulder to the job of pushing the vessel over crude rollers up onto the dry beach above the tide line. Once everything was secure, the doctor presented the two boatmen and the old cook with a ceremonial gift of five silver dollars each for their efforts and time.
Even though it was past midnight, Dr. Lao-Hong insisted that he wasn’t tired. He asked his host’s permission to stay on for a while and watch the boats unload their catches. The doctor said he wished to indulge a clinical curiosity, for he wanted to get some sense of the size of their harvest in one night.
Master Ah Chung pointed to a small, three-walled noodle shop not far away. He said it stayed open at night to serve the returning fishermen, who were always hungry after a hard night of working their backs into knots. He said they could watch the whole process from up there while enjoying a bowl of grilled fish and noodles, and be in no one’s way. He added that old Mrs. Chu Yung and her husband, the proprietors of the noodle shop, also owned two of the fishing boats. On nights when the catch was good, they were very generous with their noodles and their rice wine.
Dr. Lao-Hong insisted on playing host this time, and so purchased two steaming bowls of fresh-made noodles with steamed mussels, sea urchins, and green onions, and a small jug of rice wine to wash it down. Then the doctor and Master Ah Chung found a place on a bench made of driftwood overlooking the beach. They sat down to enjoy their food and watch the procedures yet to come.
When the heavily laden boats were still fifty yards offshore, a gong was sounded somewhere in the village, and suddenly people began to appear from everywhere. One of the first to arrive was an old man carrying an iron tripod that he set down in the sand. Within seconds he had a bright little bonfire going. Some of the villagers who followed carried torches mounted on bamboo poles, or small fire-baskets lofted the same way. These they set alight at the tripod, and then drove them into the sand to illuminate the beach. In no time at all, the whole scene took on a very festive air, but the torches were there only to ease a long night of hard labor.
The approaching fleet was too deeply burdened and low in the water to beach, so they secured themselves to the shore with long ropes. A third gong sounded, and suddenly every man, woman, and child in the village strong enough to shoulder forty pounds of squid came down to the shore carrying broad, shallow baskets. They walked out through the shallow surf to the awaiting boats to exchange their empty baskets for ones full of squid, which they either shouldered or carried on their heads, back up the beach to the drying yards. The operation soon settled down to an efficient train of people coming and going.
As the boats unloaded their cargos, they rose higher in the water, and were then drawn closer onto the beach to ease the labor of off-loading. When the work was well under way, the boat captains released parts of their crews to refresh themselves. These men came up to the noodle shop and ordered food and hot tea.
Dr. Lao-Hong was slightly amused to notice that the fishermen, who normally rolled their pants up above their knees when they were fishing, were all stained blue-black by squid ink from the waist down. As tired as they were, the abundant harvest of squid had put them in a good mood, and they laughed and joked as they ate. When they had finished their noodles and tea, they returned to their work, and another batch of men were released to do the same.
It was now approaching two thirty in the morning according to the doctor’s watch, and he began to feel the exertions of the day. The work on the beach had continued without letup for two hours, and still the boats were unloading squid. Master Ah Chung suggested that perhaps it was time to take the doctor back to Lady Yee’s house. There might be a verdict from the elders at any time, and Master Ah Chung believed his guest should be rested enough to keep his wits sharp for the coming interview. The doctor agreed, but before following his host through the village to retrieve the buggy, he purchased a basket of fingerling squid, always considered a great delicacy, as a present for his generous hostess.
Once he was back at Lady Yee’s home, a sleepy-eyed houseboy answered the doctor’s gentle knock. The houseboy took the basket and gave the doctor a lamp to light the way to his rooms. Once there, Dr. Lao-Hong stripped off his borrowed clothes, washed himself thoroughly at the commode, and then went to bed. Toward sunrise, he became entangled in the strands of a distinctly frustrating dream that focused on a disastrous but somehow predictable shipwreck, and the mountains of lost cargo set adrift across the waves. Every attempt he made to gather up the widening spread of bobbing cargo and bring it back into the wounded ship failed miserably. The dream, which he later recalled in some detail, left him feeling thwarted, angry, and incompetent.
In quite a departure from his normal schedule, the doctor didn’t awaken until almost nine thirty in the morning. He rose at once, rang for tea, and then quickly washed and dressed. When the maid arrived with his tray, she announced that Master Ah Chung was waiting below. He had been there for over an hour. Dr. Lao-Hong requested that his guest be sent up.
A few minutes later Master Ah Chung appeared at the doctor’s door and was invited to enter. Master Ah Chung was obviously troubled by something, and so the doctor offered him a seat and some tea. The master said he had already had enough tea, and that he had come about their mutual business. With an air of sad resignation, he told Dr. Lao-Hong that he had been reliably informed that the elders’ vote would most likely go against any agreement to transfer Zhou Man’s treasure to the care of the Three Corporations.
Master Ah Chung went on to say that he wished the doctor to understand that his people honestly felt themselves to be the true heirs of Zhou Man’s legacy. After all, it was their ancestors who had manned the great treasure fleets, and they now believed it would be an unpardonable sin to allow their inheritance to leave the area. They believed that the presence of the treasure had brought great good fortune, as attested to by the abundant harvests of fish and squid that appeared after the village tong had taken possession of the artifacts. It had changed all their lives for the better, and they would not surrender the treasure without a serious resistance. He begged Dr. Lao-Hong to understand that just as he could not possibly sell the bones from his father’s grave, so too the village elders felt a pious obligation to protect their patron’s ancient legacy. It was all they had to unite them with their noble past, and made them feel as though they had not been altogether lost from the sight and blessings of their ancestors in this strange and angry land.
Dr. Lao-Hong voiced his sympathy for their predicament, but he reminded his host that the elders’ decision would not be the end of the matter by any means. To have their generous offer thrown back at their feet would mean that the Three Corporations, the most powerful Chinese trading house in California, would lose face. But on the other hand, he also acknowledged that for the village to relinquish their interests under pressure would mean that the tong, the village elders, and the villagers at large would also lose face. There had to be another solution to the problem that would not entail public embarrassment for either party, and yet still secure the treasures for the benefit of those people whose lives were sincerely bound to the importance of its presence among them. The stones had the power to secure good fortune and prosperity. Nothing else was important as far as they were concerned.
Frustrated to the point of distemper, Dr. Lao-Hong searched his thoughts for some vehicle of mutual salvation. Indeed, he even went so far as to confide in Master Ah Chung that he hadn’t the heart to return to his uncles with a notice of disappointment. The fact that one might lose face, and perhaps much more, was an unspoken possibility in
