Houser sighed, then ran his hand through his hair. “Yes, well, I can’t let him do such a thing with impunity. I understand that he works for Duff MacCallister?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I shall pay Mr. MacCallister a visit and register my complaint with him.”
* * *
The next day, Elmer, Wang, and a couple other hands were busy mounting the sucker rod on the windmill when a surrey with a yellow leather seat came up into the yard. Duff, who was watching the men work, recognized the man driving the surrey, and he stepped forward to greet him.
“Mr. Houser,” Duff said. “What would be bringing ye to Sky Meadow?”
“I want to know what kind of heathen monster you’ve got working for you, MacCallister.”
“I’m afraid ye have me at a bit of a disadvantage,” Duff said. “I’ve nae idea what heathen monster ye would be talking about.”
“I’m talking about the Chinaman you have working for you. He made an unprovoked attack on two of my men. Mr. Malcolm and Mr. Dobbins are finding it difficult to breathe because of their crushed windpipes.”
“They ain’t crushed, Mr. Houser, or they would be dead. And you should know that had Wang Chow wanted them dead, they would be,” Elmer said.
“Elmer, would you be for telling me now, what this is all about?” Duff asked.
“Yesterday, when me ’n Wang went into town, a couple o’ Mr. Houser’s men thought they would have a little fun with Wang, so they jumped on him.”
He looked back at Houser. “That was a big mistake, Mr. Houser. Wang isn’t like other men. He never starts a fight, but he never loses one.”
“I understand he is trained in some sort of special technique of fighting, with which my men were unfamiliar,” Houser said.
“Yes, sir, that’s right. I tried to warn ’em not to start ’nything. Your own man, Ben Turley, tried to warn ’em, too, but they didn’t listen. Maybe this here will teach them boys a little lesson so’s they won’t be a-startin’ another fracas. They might run into someone who won’t be as nice to ’em as Wang was.”
“Nice? There was nothing nice about it,” Houser complained.
“It’s like I said, Mr. Houser. Did he want to, Wang coulda kilt them boys, just as easy as takin’ a bite outta one o’ Vi’s pies.”
“I don’t know if you know it or not, MacCallister, but I am an attorney,” Houser said. “And I am quite prepared to sue you for damages due to injuries sustained by my employees from an unprovoked attack.”
“There warn’t nothin’ unprovoked about it a-tall,” Elmer said. “I seen the whole thing. Them two no-accounts of yours attacked Wang. All he done was defend hisself.”
“There is no way one man could have prevailed against both of them in such a fashion unless he initiated the attack, and did so without so much as a word of warning.”
“They was near ’bout a dozen people who seen it all happen,” Elmer said. “I ain’t no lawyer like you, but even I know that if you got a dozen people sayin’ one thing, that there ain’t no lawyer in the world can prove it another.”
“I assure you, Mr. Houser, Wang is quite capable of handling not just two, but several attackers, at once,” Duff said.
“You speak of him as if he can perform magic,” Houser said.
Wang was at the top of the windmill, and because work had stopped, he was able to hear everything that was being said. And even though he was the subject of the conversation, he had not added anything to the discourse.
“Wang, would you come down, please?”
Wang started to climb down.
“Not that way,” Duff said.
At Duff’s suggestion, Wang turned around and leaped toward the ground, head first.
“What the . . . ?” Houser shouted, startled by Wang’s action.
Wang caught hold of the windmill tower halfway down and used it, both to slow his fall and to turn a flip in midair to right himself. A second later he landed on his feet, alongside Houser and Duff.
“So, this is the Chinaman, is it?”
“Wang isn’t an it, Wang is a he. I should think you would know that.”
“Yes, well, I must say that while he exhibited a remarkable degree of dexterity by his rather . . . unorthodox . . . response to your call, that I find him rather unimposing.”
Duff picked up a spanner wrench that was being used to repair the windmill and handed it to Houser.
“Hit him with this,” Duff invited.
“So he can hit me back?”
“Wang, I don’t want you to harm Mr. Houser in any way,” Duff said.
“I will not harm him,” Wang said, speaking for the first time.
“All right, there you go. Wang has said that he won’t harm you. Now, go ahead and hit him.”
“This is ridiculous. I have no intention of . . .” Suddenly in the middle of his sentence, and without warning, Houser swung the wrench at Wang. Had he connected, he would have injured Wang severely, but Wang, with only the slightest adjustment, avoided the blow.
Houser tried again and again, but each time Wang managed to elude his strikes, thrusts, and jabs with moves so subtle that to an observer it almost appeared as if Houser was missing on purpose. After half a dozen attempts, Houser stopped and just stood there for a moment, breathing heavily. He gave the wrench back to Duff.
“I . . . suppose it is possible that he handled them by himself,” Houser said, gasping for air between words. “I’ll be on my way, now.”
“Come back for a visit, anytime,” Duff called out to him as he climbed back into the surrey. Houser didn’t respond verbally, but he gave a slight wave as he drove off.
“I tried to warn them fellers before they commenced tryin’ to fight Wang that they was bitin’ off more ’n they could take a chaw of, but they didn’t listen. If they couldn’t handle themselves, they
