The awkward position of muscles, bones, and ligaments makes the knee a particularly stressful joint.

—Galen’s Anatomy

Chapter 20

Gam Saan was always going to have a fair amount of trouble living up to its name. To echo the residents of Eden, a hill is a hill, and a hut is a hut. It’s rare that you’ll find anything rich or gleaming in a Rush settlement.

On the other hand, the small cluster of buildings on the riverbank was far neater and tidier than any Jenny had seen up the valley. Most of the walls were mortared with river stone and almost all the huts had roofs. A few were scarcely long enough to hold a man. But the one in the middle of the group was large and square and sturdy. It was also wreathed in smoke.

“Oh,” said the schoolmaster, as they came down off a rise and through the dusky drizzle. “Enlightenment. This must be where the straw hat of Miss Quinn finally came to roost. I did wonder why I was heading toward the Longshank.”

“You didn’t know the hat was on Lok?” asked Jenny.

“No,” said Mr. Grimsby. “I lost sight of the hat near the junction where the pass meets the valley.”

They drew closer to the hut—and to Kam. Jenny swallowed. Fate was arranging for her to face the consequences of her actions in the Gorge when her knee-jerk reaction was to run for the hills.

“Miss Burns?” queried the schoolmaster.

“What?”

“Would you like me to . . .” He gestured to the middle hut.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll do it.”

Without giving herself the option to retreat, Jenny pounded on the door.

There was a minute or two of silence, then a splash of light.

“Hi, Kam. I’ve been out leaping mountains.”

Jenny had been fretting that her meeting with Kam would be embarrassing. She was wrong in that. It was mortifying.

“Hello, Jenny Girl.”

“We had some trouble after we left you in the Gorge,” said Jenny, trying to determine how much she could say about their travels with the schoolmaster listening. “And then we found Mr. Grimsby wandering lost. We’d be very grateful . . .” She stopped and swallowed again. “If we could all stay for the night.”

Kam’s hand remained right where it was on the doorjamb. “That depends.”

“On what?”

Kam held her gaze to his own. “Tell me what’s in the rosewood.”

Oh, to heck with it, thought Jenny, what was the point of fibbing anymore? She was homeless and hungry with a grown captive in tow. They would have a ticklish time hiding their search for clues, and Jenny was tired of watching her words. Pandora would have to trust that there would be plenty of the nugget to share.

“We’re on a hunt for the treasure of Mad Doc Magee.”

Against his best efforts, her inquisitor began to laugh.

“It’s not funny, Kam!”

Kam squelched his chortle. “It is a little, Jenny Girl.”

“Can we come in?” pleaded Jenny. “I’ve been bathed enough this week.”

Kam peered over her shoulder at the meek outline of Mr. Grimsby, who was shrinking rapidly in the rain.

“I guess you should. Do you want me to invite your schoolteacher as well?”

Jenny leaned toward Kam and did her best to ignore the jolt of excitement that passed through her. “Yes, but we need to watch him. He’s shifty.”

Kam nodded. “That’s fine. I am used to dealing with shifty people.”

This was a dig at her behavior, and Jenny knew it. But she wasn’t going to argue with hot soup and a warm hearth and the chance for someone else to play guard. Whatever the cost, it would be a relief to have a change of view from Mr. Grimsby’s backside.

“Come in, please,” said Kam, ushering the trio into the room and closing the door. “Welcome to my father’s house.”

In most respects, the house of Ah Lum was more honeycomb than home. The main room, where the fire was lit, was stuffed with a variety of rickety chairs and a table. Between the walls were four low doorways. Beyond those doors were rooms with bunks. In the old days, the place must have buzzed with voices.

Jenny sat down in the chair that Kam offered. To come from a land ripe with green to this vista of brown would have been a melancholy prospect for any man. And Kam’s father had brought a small boy and baby along. He must have been very determined to keep his family together.

She looked to Kam’s brother. He was slurping his soup and grinning at her over the rim.

“How’s the grub, Lok?”

“No peas.”

Jenny grinned back. “Fair enough.”

As Kam handed her a bowl, a tangy blast of steam made her eyes glisten. Ginger root, she was guessing. And dried mushrooms.

“Would you like some, Mr. Grimsby?” offered Kam. “I seem to recall you stopped here once or twice.”

The schoolmaster smiled a shy smile. In the soft of the evening, he appeared almost normal. “I was wondering if you would remember that time, Kam.”

“Yes, sir, I remember.”

Jenny stared at Kam in bewilderment.

“The little boy interpreter,” said the schoolmaster, “darting this way and that. Chatting to your father’s men and bartering with storekeepers. How you kept all those dialects in your head I will never know.”

“You learn quickly when you are young,” said Kam.

“That is very true,” acknowledged Mr. Grimsby.

“Is that how you learned English?” asked Pandora. “You were practicing with the miners?”

“For a few years,” said Kam to Pandora. “After my father died, I moved to town and practiced with my customers.”

“I remember your father,” said Mr. Grimsby. “Grave, stately. He seemed to be thinking of forgotten things.”

“He was,” said Kam.

Mr. Grimsby nodded. “It was a difficult time to start anew.”

Once again, the schoolmaster was confusing the bats out of Jenny’s belfry. How could he speak so gently to a boy he might have switched only one month before? She trusted her instinct—there was kindness in Mr. Grimsby’s tone—but what in the world were grown folk coming to?

“I am sorry to be a poor guest, but my head is fair aching,” said the schoolmaster, pinching the bridge of his nose in pain. “If you will permit me, I think I should retire.”

Kam glanced at Jenny. Jenny glanced inside the room next door. Nothing but bare bunks and an earth floor. She hesitated.

“The Lums will be at liberty to search me,” added the schoolmaster, “when I emerge in the morning.”

“Okay,” said Jenny.

Weary and worn, Mr. Grimsby limped into the bunkroom and closed the door.

“I’ll block it!” whispered Pandora, bolting from her seat.

Spooked by her movement and awed by her speed, Jenny needed a second to understand why her best friend was hurling herself against walls.

“Pandora, he’s not going to find a lump of gold in the floor. Anyway, we would see the marks in the dirt if he did.”

“I don’t trust him,” retorted Pandora. “I don’t like him. And I don’t want to be around a man who hates us.”

Valid concerns all three, but Jenny was beginning to feel ornery. She had kept her temper for so long that day that she’d almost forgotten she had one. Who was Pandora to be giving orders? A lickety split of anger was spreading through her limbs, adding warmth to her cheeks and fire to her belly.

“You don’t know that he hates us. You heard what he said about being sorry for calling us names.”

“And you think saying sorry makes everything all right?”

“That’s not what I think.”

“I—” began Pandora.

“Oh, for the love of reason, Pandora! Stop talking about—”

“Excuse me,” said Kam, escorting Jenny to the entrance. “I’d like to show Jenny something outside. Lok, please sit by the door and make sure Mr. Grimsby stays in his bunk.”

“Sure,” said Lok, “Pandora and I can play Chák T’in Kau.” He thumped himself down on the floor next to the bunkroom and pulled two oversize dice from his pocket. “I’ll go first.”

Even if Jenny had wanted to learn how to play Throwing Heaven and Nine, she wasn’t going to get the chance. Kam had her out in the night before the cubes of white hit the wood.

“What gives?” demanded Jenny, wresting herself away from his grip. “It’s freezing out here!”

“You were about to yell at your friend.”

“Pandora doesn’t care. We’ve been yelling at each other all week.”

“I think that’s wrong,” said Kam.

“Like I care what you think,” said Jenny, and immediately bit her lip.

As usual, Kam waited his customary century or so before giving his answer. “You do care, Jenny Girl.”

Above in the dark, the easterly was driving hard, herding the clouds between the peaks toward the sea. For the most part, the sky was obscured by the dust of the rain. But occasionally, just occasionally, the dust would settle to reveal a wide field of stars. It did so now.

Jenny was too nettled to pay it much heed.

“Darn it, Kam, don’t you ever get angry?” Jenny stomped ahead into the night. “Look at where you are! Stuck on this godforsaken river with your little pan, grubbing in the mud, searching for scraps . . .” She whirled on her follower. “The world crushed your dreams and ground your face in it. Why aren’t you burning the bloody territory down?”

The whites of Kam’s eyes were silver in the light. “I’m always angry.”

“Yeah, right,” said Jenny.

Up in the stampede, a cloud broke free from the pack and began to pummel their section of the riverbank with a downpour. Jenny stamped her foot. “God, how I hate rain!”

“Follow me!” shouted Kam above the din of the weather.

“Why?”

“I want you to see something.”

He dashed toward one of the smaller huts, with Jenny close behind. A gust rose up and blew them into a small room.

Beset by the dank smell of loneliness, Jenny looked for a warm place to sit. There was none. The lone piece of furniture was a slab at the far end of the wall. Kam knelt by its side and lit a couple of candles. A tall wooden tablet rose like a flame. Columns of characters sprang to life.

“I come here,” said Kam, “when I am angry and confused. When the feelings inside me eat through my skin and I want to . . .” He paused. “‘Burn the bloody territory down.’”

She raised an eyebrow. “To stare at a plaque?”

“To remind me I’m a dot in the dust of the universe,” retorted Kam. “This is my ancestor table. It honors the memory of my father and contains the earthly part of his soul.”

“Oh,” said Jenny, ruing her tone. “That’s nice.” She groped for an appropriate question and knelt down beside him. “So . . . then . . . what does the writing say?”

“His name, his birthday, the day he died,” said Kam, reading the inscription. “His place of burial, his ancestors, and the name of the son who honors him.”

“And that’s you?” asked Jenny.

“That’s me,” said Kam. “When he died, I made two tablets. His spirit was given to the wooden one, and a paper one was buried with him.”

Kam’s recital was accompanied by the sound of rain pounding on the corrugated iron. Jenny thought of her mum and a cross on a hill.

“Is he buried round here?”

Kam shook his head. “He was. But last year, to fulfill a promise, I took the money I had saved from the stall and sent his bones back on a ship. His best friend buried him near his home.”

The crush of this fact took Jenny’s breath away. This was the reason why Kam couldn’t pay back the bank. He had lost Little Eden to keep his word to his father.

“Lordy, lordy, Kam, I’m awfully sorry.”

The words had good effect. Kam smiled slightly.

“Can you imagine, Jenny Girl? If I had never come here? I might have been in the imperial government. My mother wanted me to become an important man like her great-grandfather. Most of our land was gone, but my father said it didn’t matter. The son would make the family rise again.” The candle sputtered. Kam reached out to touch the line of his ancestors, stopped, and held his hand. “I failed them.”

“But your mum didn’t know all those other horrible things were going to happen to you,” countered Jenny. “You can’t be responsible for that.”

“No,” said Kam, bitter as gall, “that is not what I mean.” He was silent for a minute, and Jenny squashed her impatience. “I had a different dream, Jenny Girl. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted my own country. To grow my own life.”

“But you can still do that!” said Jenny eagerly. “We’ll find Doc Magee’s gold and you can buy back Little Eden and start again.”

Kam shook his head and laid his hands in his lap. “No. There is too much history in this earth already. Our fathers brought the weeds of the old world into the new, and they ruined it.”

Jenny understood far more than others what Kam was driving at; she knew how he felt about the sneers about his race, and the slog, and the hardship. But this was their land, hers and Kam’s, not their fathers’.

“I think you’re talking rubbish.”

Kam got up from his knees.

“You’re not angry at your friend, Jenny Girl; you’re frightened of yourself. You must face up to the truth of things.”

Sound familiar? You may remember Pandora giving Jenny some of the exact same advice in their grand set-to in the Gorge. And Jenny was just as pleased on hearing it again—which meant she was madder than a cricket in a can.

“I’m not scared of anything!” shouted Jenny, snatching at the coattails of Kam as he blew out the candles and opened the door. “Do you hear me, Kam? I’m never scared!”

But Kam was walking over a path of stars to the river. Jenny paused on the threshold. The sky was clear. The rain had gone.