IT TOOK JUST TWO DAYS to conclude their business in Silver City. Sadie paid back the money her father had borrowed from the Lowers, plus about a thousand percent interest, and gave sufficient gold to Esther Moss to open five cafés. Jack set fire to the saloon and gallows, and then went ahead and torched the old Grange Hall for good measure. When she wasn’t chatting with Sadie, Pearl taught Lu how to bake pies. It was a pleasant sort of apprenticeship. Even his mistakes were delicious.
The trip to San Pablo lasted only a little more than a week. Not because they were in a hurry—there just wasn’t that much land left to cross. Along the way they passed through some spectacular forests, where they saw trees with trunks as large as twenty feet in diameter. Waterfalls seemed to spill out of every rock. And there was plenty of game, too. Not one of them was ever hungry, thirsty or tired.
It was during the afternoon of their ninth day that Lu got his first view of the Pacific. All his life Lu had heard men talk about oceans, and calling them “big.” Now he knew those men for the rascals they were. “Big” wasn’t the word. It wasn’t descriptive enough by half. The Pacific was enormous. Gargantuan. Everywhere Lu looked was ocean. The encounter with Old Scratch had inflated Lu’s ego somewhat—he’d even begun to wonder how he would be seen by history—but one look at the Pacific cured him. Staring at those unending waters he felt just as small and paltry as ever. What was a gunfight, after all, compared with all of that?
San Pablo was a pretty town, with white-washed buildings that shone in the morning, and enough restaurants so that a person might eat in a different one each night for a month, and never have to suffer the same victuals twice. There was even a fairly good Chinese establishment. Lu took his friends there one night, introducing them to the joys of crispy duck. Fine hotels were sprinkled in nearly every street, where even the bedrooms had wall-paper, and a man didn’t have to go outside if he should feel the need to make water in the night, but could use a basin that was cleaned fresh every morning and sat waiting just under the bed.
Sadie deposited all five bags of gold at the bank, and ten days later received an accounting of its value. The total came to just under three hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Lu’s share amounted to forty thousand—enough to build a brand new stern-wheel river steamer, stock it with coal, and hire all of his old school friends to pilot it up and down the Old Man River back home. It was a heady sum for anyone, but especially for a fifteen-year-old boy from St. Frances. The first thing he did was to buy a full suit of clothes, just for going to dinner in. The suit came with a beaver top hat, but Lu wore that all the time. It was too classy to keep only for evenings. He wanted people to be able to see it.
And clothes weren’t the only things he bought. Once he’d got the full sense of his fortune, Lu found that the world was alive with activities and experiences he’d never even heard of, but could no longer bear to imagine going without. By the end of his first week back in civilization, Lu had spent upwards of one hundred and fifty dollars. That was a good deal more than the average Chinese man could earn if he worked a year, and but for his fine suit of clothes, Lu hadn’t a thing to show for it.
Eventually, Henry and Chino decided they’d had enough civilizing, and were ready to push on. Henry still wanted to open a church, and Chino decided he’d keep his friend company by opening a saloon next door. At first, Henry was annoyed. But Chino promised to keep his establishment locked tight until after services on Sunday, and that suited Henry fine.
The day they left, Henry gave Lu a bear hug. Chino kissed him on both cheeks. Lu was so choked up he could barely say goodbye.
Sadie spent the bulk of her waking hours meeting with mining interests. She had no intention of ever going back to Silver City to live, and but for her parents’ graves, no interest in owning a house or property of any kind. Unfortunately, selling off her father’s mining rights proved surprisingly difficult. The companies she met with all demanded an opportunity to survey the ground, a point on which they steadfastly refused to budge. They were equally unpleasant with regards to Sadie herself. Apparently, the vast majority of them considered it a personal affront to have to deal with a sixteen-year-old girl in men’s trousers. At last, Sadie had to consent to hiring an agent, or she never would have got anything accomplished. The agent demanded five percent of the final sale price, which warmed Sadie under the collar, but she calmed down once she saw the success her man was enjoying. If things went as Lu thought they probably would, Sadie would soon be the richest woman in San Pablo. The richest single woman anyway, a fact that drew bachelors to her like flies.
October came and went as they waited for the sale to be finalized. Finally, Jack decided that they’d waited long enough, and booked passage for Lu and himself on a steamer bound for the tropics. They were scheduled to leave on the last Friday in November. Their plan was to disembark in Central America and ride across that narrow spit of land to the Caribbean. It was time to go home. And since the land route would shortly be inundated in snow, they would go by sea.
As a going away present, Sadie treated them to dinner at the finest restaurant in San Pablo. Lu wore his fancy duds. Jack still wore his tired old army coat, and miserable gray boots. Lu might have been ashamed except that Sadie met them at the front door in trousers.
The dining room was chock-full of Americans. Just a few years back, the President had declared this to be a special day of Thanksgiving. Seeing an opportunity for profit, the chef had prepared a fine meal of goose-liver pate and oysters on the half-shell, followed by either a fricassee of salmon or roast turkey and dressing.
Sadie and Jack both chose to skip the appetizer altogether—neither of the choices were fit for human consumption, they said—and go straight on to the roast turkey. Lu chose the salmon, but was sorry he did. Twice he tried to convince Sadie to switch with him, but she held steadfast.
For desert they all enjoyed a slice of pumpkin pie. Lu felt certain that Pearl Lower could’ve showed the chef a thing or two about pie-crusts. But Jack thought he’d better hold his tongue, so Lu choked down the mealy crust as best he could, and kept his mouth shut.
When dinner was over, Sadie shook Jack’s hand, gave Lu a kiss on the cheek, and went off to meet her agent. Jack and Lu moseyed down to the wharf, checked to make sure their horses were well-provisioned in the ship’s hold, met the captain—a grizzled old salt with a wooden leg, who shook Jack’s hand and said to call him Ishmael—and then retired to their cabin. There were only a handful of passenger berths available, so they had to share. Lu went right to sleep. He was excited to weigh anchor the next morning, and wanted to be wide awake in time to enjoy his first breath of sea air. Jack spent the first few hours lying atop his bunk, smoking and reading a book he’d bought in town.
They steamed out of port just after sunrise the following morning, and were not even spitting distance from shore before Lu began to feel the first pangs of sea-sickness. By the time they were out of sight of land, he’d cast the whole contents of his stomach to the waves. The worst if it was, Jack had no symptoms of any kind, and even seemed to be enjoying Lu’s agony. If he could have figured a way, Lu might have poisoned Jack’s food. Not enough to kill him, of course. Just enough to get him good and throw-upy.
After a solid week of sea-sickness, Lu had just begun to feel better, and was even learning to enjoy certain aspects of the trip, when Captain Ishmael announced that they’d arrive the following day at the town of San Juan del Sur, and that he’d be leaving Jack and Lu there.
Their ride across Central America afforded them many more adventures, and Jack proved unable to leave without sampling them all. They were barely off the steamer before he’d involved them in a conflict over log-wood rights, being fought on the one side by a tribe of jungle Indians, and on the other by a company of Spanish mahogany hunters. Jack and Lu sided with the Indians, of course.
Then, once they’d got that all sorted out, they joined those very same Spaniards in a battle to protect their eastern ports from pirates. Lu considered that a disaster, but the local shippers must have seen it differently. They were so grateful for Jack’s help that they offered both he and Lu free passage on the next steamer bound for Jamaica.
Suffice to say, Lu had a marvelous time, though he only got to shoot his revolver once more. And that was just to scare off a howler monkey that’d stolen his beaver hat.
It was on April the Twenty-Fifth, two weeks less than a full year since they’d first set out in a covered wagon bound for the territories, that Lu stepped from the deck of a luxury paddle-wheeler and found himself in St. Frances once more.
“Home again, home again,” Lu sighed.
The docks were just as he remembered them. Only now, instead of huge and bustling, they seemed small and quaint.
They saddled their horses—Crash was as much a source of wonder and merriment here as he had been everywhere else—and hurried toward Chinatown.
The bell over the door tinkled as Lu stepped into his grandfather’s shop.
Madame Yen shuffled out from behind the counter. “How may I help you?”
“It’s me,” Lu said. “I’m back.”
“Tzu-lu!” She grabbed Lu by the back of the neck and pulled him into her bosom.
When she’d nearly wrung the life out of him, she held him at arm’s length. “It is you,” she exclaimed. “You’re dirty.”
“It’s been a long trip,” Lu explained.
“I’ll put some water on the stove. You can have a bath before dinner.” She reached behind Jack and turned the lock on the door. It was the first time Lu had ever known K’ung’s Store to close early. He got the feeling his mother did it as much to keep him from slipping away as to keep thieves from getting in.
“Master K’ung in?” Jack asked.
“He’s downstairs.” Lu’s mother was already bustling toward the kitchen.
Jack marched around to the basement door.
“You coming?” he asked.
Lu nodded. “I’m going downstairs with Jack,” he called after his mother.
“Good. Your grandfather will be anxious to see you.”
“Enter,” Master K’ung said, in response to Jack’s knock.
Lu pushed the door open. <<Grandfather,>> he said. <<We’re back!>>
Master K’ung rose from his chair. <<Successfully?>>
Lu took the bank draft from his pocket and handed it to his grandfather.
<<What do you plan to do with all this money?>> he asked.
“I don’t know,” Lu said. <<I’d hoped you might help me decide.>>
<<What would you like to do?>>
Very carefully, Lu took one of the scrolls down from his grandfather’s shelves and ran his thumb over the symbols stamped upon it. “First, I’d like to learn to read.”
“And after?”
Lu shrugged.
Master K’ung smiled. <<Can I offer you tea?>> he asked Jack.
<<Thank you,>> Jack said, and bowed.
Master K’ung poured three bowls from the kettle on his desk.
“Where’s Lion-dog?” Lu asked.
Master K’ung shook his head. “She was struck by a wagon and killed. I’m sorry.”
Lu took a sip from the bowl his grandfather handed him. He was shocked. It had never occurred to him that his loved ones might be in danger. Certainly not that any of them might be killed.
“Before I forget.” Master K’ung picked an envelope up off his desk. “This came for you.”
He handed the envelope to Lu, who quickly tore it open and pulled out the letter inside. It was from Sadie.
While Jack told Master K’ung all about their adventures, Lu read Sadie’s note.
March 18. San Pablo.
Dear Lu,
Well, I finally booked passage on a ship bound for Asia. But I wanted to send you a note before I go. My plan is to go round the world. Can’t give no more details than that. Don’t got any. In the future, I may come to America again. If so, I’d like to see how you’re getting on. I think about you, and hope you’re well. We had a good time, I’d say, despite everything. I hope you feel the same.
If you ever feel like getting in touch, just contact my agent in San Pablo. He’ll know where to find me. Maybe we could hunt them lions? But not giraffes. I’d shoot any man that hurt a giraffe.
Come to Africa with me and I promise you a first class adventure. Lord knows there were plenty of scoundrels in San Pablo barking after me to come. But not a one was interested in anything other than money.
Say hello to your mother and grandfather. And to Jack Straw, if you see him.
Your friend,
Sadie
As he read the note, tears welled up in Lu’s eyes. It didn’t say much, but there was a feeling behind the words that Lu never could have got from Sadie’s mouth if he’d talked to her a month.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
Jack had just come to the part of their story where they’d entered the Hell Mouth, but Lu couldn’t wait for him to finish.
“Go on,” Jack replied.
“When I was with him, out in the forest, Traum said no one could defeat him but a true American.”
“So?”
“He seemed convinced. Was it true?”
Jack smiled. “He’s not called the Prince of Lies for nothing.”
Lu nodded. “No, I guess not.”
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.
“I guess I was just hoping …” He looked at the gunslinger. “I mean, I helped to chase him away, didn’t I?”
Jack looked surprised. “Of course you did.”
“But I’m not an American.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, look at me.”
“Let me tell you something, Lu. Being American isn’t in your blood, or your skin, or your hair.”
“Then where is it?”
“It’s in your mind. A person’s an American because he wants to be. That’s all.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“America isn’t a place, exactly. And it’s not a people either. It’s an idea. If you believe in it, then you’re an American.”
“But that would mean everybody’s an American,” Lu complained. “Anybody can believe.”
“Anybody can,” Jack agreed. “But not many do. It isn’t always the easiest thing to believe in. America falls short about as often as it succeeds. More often, some would say. But that doesn’t mean it’s worthless.”
“Is Sadie an American?” Lu asked.
“What do you think?”
“I guess she must be.”
Lu was going to ask about Chino and Henry, and Mr. MacLemore, but just then his mother called to them from the top of the stairs. Dinner was almost ready, and Lu still needed to wash up.
“I wonder what we’re having,” he said.
“Spicy beef,” his grandfather replied. “With mashed potatoes and gravy.”
“Mashed potatoes?” Lu couldn’t remember ever having seen his grandfather eat a potato, mashed or otherwise. So far as he knew, Master K’ung ate rice with every meal.
“Your mother has been cooking them a lot lately,” his grandfather explained. “Baked, fried, mashed. I guess I’ve developed a taste for potatoes. I’m trying to get her to learn to make potato salad.”
“Potato salad?” Lu was astonished. “But that’s not Chinese. It’s not traditional. It’s not … you.”
Master K’ung shrugged. “I like it,” he said. “Traditional or not, I like it.”