the beach, the white woman in the direction of the cliffs; in a minute she was passing between Long and the water, greeting him with a polite nod before her eyes returned to the rocks.
It happened so fast that, if Long had paused even an instant to consider his actions, he would have been too late. The long-skirted figure strolled around the spit of boulders, comfortably above (or so she thought) the waves that broke and sank into the sand eight or ten feet away from her boots. But on this sea, the waves were unpredictable, and turning one's back on the water invited that seventh wave, or seventieth—the big one. The woman had bent to study something in the lee of the boulder or she might have noticed the uncharacteristic retreat of the waters, sucked back to feed a growing swell like the lungs of a man preparing to shout. The husband saw the danger—Long heard the man behind him, his call faint and snatched away by the wind. But the woman remained oblivious, the wave built and swelled, and Long stumbled into a run, ignoring the pain in his leg.
“Miss!” he screamed. “Miss, come away, oh—”
But the great wave was already surging on, its summoned waters rising, cresting to hurl itself at the shore. Its ridge began to show white, the cap dwarfing the woman even as she stood upright, stared in alarm at Long with his lurching run and flailing arms, then whirled to see what threat lay behind her. The monster wave leapt at her like a falling wall, like the slabs of pavement at the base of the scaffolding. It pounced and scooped her up and hurled her over the small spit like a twig—a booted foot and a swirl of red skirt above the white foam the only signs of her as she skidded over the rocks and onto the sand, then turned, tumbling and gaining speed as the weight of the water sucked her down to the bowl of the ocean.
Long saw only a flash of red in the turmoil of foam and launched himself at it. The fingers of his right hand met only liquid grit and the bite of rock; his left felt the tease of wet fabric darting rapidly past them and he grabbed hard.
Even with two of them struggling, even with four legs and two sets of arms digging into the sand and clawing at the rocks, the ocean nearly had them. Long's heels dug in first, came to rest with a jolt against a half-buried outcrop of rock, and the sudden jar of the woman's weight shot a bolt of hot pain up his arm. The half-healed collarbone snapped; he cried out, but he did not let go, his fingers clenched into the wet fabric as he prayed that the seams did not give way, that his muscles not fail, that his bones . . . And then the predatory water turned its back on its prey, retreating into the sand; out of its foam appeared a tangle of red skirts and undergarments, a moving tangle as the woman choked and pushed herself upright against the immense weight of her sodden clothing. Long staggered upright, curled his right arm around her waist, and hauled her up into the air and away from the greedy fingers of the waves.
They collapsed onto sand that was damp but not wet, the woman retching and crying, blood and hair casting red-and-black fingers across her face as she fought to free her arms from the ripped and constricting garments. Only when he saw that she was safe did Long sink to his knees, gagging up quantities of sea water.
The husband was there then, the little girl in his arms screaming with alarm at their startling flight across the sand and the state of her mother and this strange man, both of whom were bleeding and making frightening noises. After a minute, Tom arrived, stark-faced, bending over his father, dabbing at Long's bloody hand with his schoolboy handkerchief.
Slowly, the woman's vomiting passed, to be replaced by deep shudders of cold and shock. The husband, satisfied at last that her bleeding was superficial and her skull and bones unbroken, dashed tears of relief from his eyes and lowered the child down to her mother's lap, where the two clung to each other. He glanced over his shoulder to measure the distance to the road, then looked at his wife's rescuer; taking in Long's pinched expression and the care with which his right hand was cradling the other elbow, the pale eyes shifted from relief back into alarm.
“You're hurt.”
English was an effort, but Long managed to retrieve the words. “Old injury, sir. It will heal.”
“You must see a doctor. Do you live around here?”
Tom answered. “We live in Chinatown.”
“Then you'll have to come with us in the car.” Long tried to protest, but the man was already speaking to the child, his voice measured and reassuring. “Mary, my brave girl, I need you to help me. Your mama's all wet and cold and she needs me to carry her to the car. This nice man here hurt himself helping Mama; can you take care of him and his boy? Do you think you can bring them to the car for me?”
The child's pale eyes considered the situation, and then she clambered out of her mother's sodden embrace and extended her hand to Tom. The man swung his wife up easily, waited until Tom had got his father upright, and led the way across the sand.
It was Tom's first ride in a motorcar, and he was torn between the softness of the upholstery and the hisses his father let out, like a prodded kettle, every time the car bumped and swayed. At the end of the ride, the white man pulled into the drive of a house so grand Tom wondered if he was the mayor. He turned off the motor and trotted around to lift his protesting wife out of her seat and carry her to the door, which opened an instant before they reached it. They vanished inside; a stern-looking white woman peered out of the doorway, and appeared to be coming out until a command from within made her hesitate. She said something, at which a voice so sharp it could be heard from the car made her turn and retreat inside, leaving Tom, his father, and the little girl seated in the car.
Child and boy looked at each other in the silence, self-contained blue eyes meeting apprehensive black ones.
“What's your name?” she asked. Behind the piping lisp of youth, her voice sounded like her mother's, some kind of accent, Tom thought.
“My name is Tom.”
“Mine's Mary. Is your papa okay?”
“He hurt his shoulder in a fall a while ago. I think he's hurt it again helping your mother.”
The pale gaze travelled from the cradled arm to the Chinese face. “I'm sorry,” she said.
Long had to smile at her seriousness—he did not know young children well, Tom having come to him half- grown, and the size of Western infants always confused him, but despite her fluent speech he didn't think this one could be older than three. “It will be fine, missy,” he reassured her.
“Does it hurt?”
“A little, yes.”
“My papa will make it better for you,” she said, without a doubt in the world. “Would you like to come in?”
“I think your father will have someone take us home,” Long said. He couldn't afford any more doctors, and in any case there was little to do but strap the shoulder and keep it still. He just wished the man would hurry; the sun had gone and his clothes were soaked. He stifled a shiver, then grunted at the effects the motion had on his grating bones; the child saw, and frowned.
“Are you cold?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer, stood and pulled herself over the front seat, balancing over the seat with her feet dangling free while she stretched down, then slid back clutching the corner of the plaid travelling-rug the man had wrapped around his wife. Ignoring Long's protests, she arranged it over him, tucking the thick, soft wool around his knees in a child's imitation of adult nurturing. “There,” she said, admiring her handiwork, and then looked up at an approaching figure.
It was the stern woman from before, come to snatch her employer's child from the wicked Orientals. She yanked the car door open and, without sparing the Longs a glance, pointed one finger at the ground by her feet.
“Come out here.” Her command brooked no argument, but to Tom's astonishment, the infant's chin came up and her eyes narrowed.
“Papa said to take care of them.”
The woman's eyes flashed and she reached over Long's knees for the child. “Your father didn't intend for you to sit in a dark motor with a pair of heathen—”
“Miss MacPherson!” The male voice from behind her gave the woman pause; with a glance at the wide-eyed faces of Tom and his father, she stood back from the car door.
“The child—” was as far as she got.
“We'll be fine, Miss MacPherson. Perhaps you could go and heat some water for the doctor, and see if Philips needs any more warm bricks for my wife's feet. Thank you.”
