Chapter Forty-One

The sun was climbing high in the steel-blue sky on the Monday morning, the first real heat of the year lying heavily on the land, when the Chinese priest came down the stairs in the tong between walls that were coloured with decorative paintings of pagodas, and walked across to the entrance hall, his face mottled with purplish-black bruises. His inner robe was covered by the ceremonial red outer robe that he’d wrapped around himself and fastened in the front with a gold clip in the shape of a dragon, and his braid hung down his back from beneath the soft back cap he wore.

He crossed the hall, took his place near the main door, and waited for the two people he was expecting.

Not a breath of air stirred in the streets of Carter Town.

Marshal McGregor took off his Stetson, wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, returned his hat to his head and pulled the brim low over his eyes. Smoothing down his long grey moustache, he looked around at the small group of men standing with him outside the tong. ‘It’s unusually hot for this early in the year, and I dunno about you, but I’m gettin’ hotter and hotter, standin’ here, listenin’ to the sound of that infernal pump. We’ve not seen hide nor hair of them, and we’ve been here since early mornin’. I’m going into the tong now, and if the priest isn’t there, we’ll know they’re breakin’ the law some place else.’

‘You want company?’ one of the men asked.

‘Nope, you men wait here. One of you tell the men round the back I’m goin’ inside. They’ll need to be on the watch in case anyone’s of a mind to leave through the window.’

He pushed the front door open, walked into the tong, stopped at the foot of the staircase and looked around.

At a corner table to his right, one Chinaman appeared to be helping another to write Chinese characters. Further away from them, three men were studying a list of figures, and commenting on them. Apart from that, the hall was empty.

He hesitated a moment, and glanced back at the front door, wondering what to do.

At the swish of a skirt, he turned sharply. Two heavily painted Chinese women were coming down the stairs. They reached the bottom, glanced in his direction, looked at each other and raised an eyebrow in amusement. One of them said something in Chinese to the other, and they laughed. They were still laughing when they went into a room on the right of the hall.

A door on the left of the hall started to open, and he heard the sound of the priest’s voice.

His heart sinking, the Marshal drew his gun from its holster and waited as the priest slowly edged out, back first, talking to the people who were coming out with him. Raising his gun, he took a step towards them and positioned himself to confront them when they emerged from the room into the hall.

The door opened wider. The priest turned as he came into the hall. At the sight of the Marshal, his gun levelled at him, he stopped and a look of bewilderment crossed his face.

‘Marshal!’ he exclaimed, his tone of voice questioning.

‘Tell the people behind you to come out real slowly,’ the Marshal said, his gun trained on the door as he waited for Charity and Joe to appear.

The priest glanced over his shoulder and said a few words in Chinese.

Two elderly Chinese men came out into the hall, shaking in visible fear, their hands pressed together, repeatedly bowing.

Relief washed through the Marshal as he saw the men, and he swallowed a grin. He lowered the gun, straightened up and swore aloud.

‘Ah, Marshal. I pleased to see you,’ the priest said in jovial tones, coming across to him, his gait reflecting some pain. ‘But why you hold a gun in your hand?’ His voice rose in exaggerated surprise. ‘These two men have dispute over pit teams. We talk all morning and dispute is now solved. We solve it with words, not guns. That is one of things we do here in tong – we solve problems.’ His voice took on a note of concern. ‘But maybe you have a problem I can help with; maybe even solve. You help me not long ago, and I now very happy to help you, if you wish.’ He smiled at the Marshal.

Their eyes met – the Marshal’s amused; the priest’s expressionless.

The Marshal threw back his head and laughed. ‘Well, I reckon we got well and truly suckered. You’re a wily old dog, I’ll give you that. How they did it is a mystery, but I sure as hell believe that they did do it, and that they’re long gone by now. And that’s a mystery I’m guessin’ you could solve, if you were so minded, but I’m sure you aren’t, so I’m gonna save my breath and not ask.’

The priest gave him a small bow. ‘Is wise decision, Marshal,’ he said, a smile playing across his lips.

The Marshal tucked his gun back into its holster and started to turn away. Then he paused and looked back at the priest. ‘I’m real glad I never took you up on that offer of a few hands of poker. I reckon if I had, I would’ve bin walkin’ outa here in nothin’ but my smalls!’

And laughing hard, he pushed the door open, glanced back at the priest, touched the brim of his hat to him, and went out on to the street.

At the sound of the Marshal’s laughter, Chen Fai, standing in the road outside the mercantile, moved slightly towards the centre of the track and stared down the road towards the tong.

He saw the Marshal come out alone, and he saw that his face was wreathed in smiles.

Frowning, Chen Fai took a step or two closer to hear what the Marshal was telling his men, and heard him say that they might as well wind up the business and get off home as there were no signs of anything untoward having happened at the tong that day, or on any other day. And there was no one to arrest since there was no reason to think that anyone there had been party to an act that would have broken the law had it taken place.

Without vital evidence to suggest wrongdoing, the Marshal went on, his voice cheerful, they might as well disband – they’d already wasted more than enough time on a mighty hot day on what had proved to be a wild goose chase.

But before they returned to their homes and their work, he added, looking round at the group, he’d like them to join him in the saloon. He wanted to stand them to a glass of who-hit-John as a thank you for their ready willingness at all times to help him crack down on any law-breaking desperadoes that threatened the stability of Carter Town.

Then, led by the Marshall, the men walked boisterously up Main Street to the saloon, passing by Chen Fai without a glance. He turned and watched them go inside.

The doors swung shut behind them, but the sound of their laughter lingered in the air.

His face pale, Chen Fai slid his hands into the opposite sleeves and stared from afar at the Walker house. He’d been watching the house for some time now, but there’d been no sign of Joe Walker or of Charity. And nor of Sam Walker.

As soon as the Marshal and his men had gone into the saloon, he’d hurried to the station to see if Charity and Joe were waiting there – not standing together, but on the same platform – but they weren’t. And they hadn’t taken any train so far that morning, he’d been told when he’d gone into the depot and asked. They hadn’t been at the livery stable, either, he’d found when he’d gone straight there after leaving the station. Only the stable lad had been there.

And neither of them had gone in or out of the Walker house in all of the time he’d been standing outside it.

It could mean only one thing – they’d already gone from Carter, and they’d gone together.

His plan had failed.

The numbness that had struck him the moment he’d seen the satisfaction on the Marshal’s face as he’d come out of the tong started to lift and give way to rising anger. Anger that such a simple thing as arresting them after their wedding should have gone wrong. Anger that Joe Walker was now going to have the happiness with Charity that he should have had, that he deserved to have had.

Pent-up anger and frustration exploded within him, pounding loudly in his head. It was all Sam Walker’s fault that his plan had failed, he seethed.

Sam Walker must have given the wrong message to the Marshal, straightforward message though it was. The message he’d passed on to Sam had been exactly what Su Lin had told him, and Su Lin had learnt of their plans from Charity herself. Charity wouldn’t have lied to her. She couldn’t have known that Su Lin was watching out for her, with orders to tell her brother what was in her mind, and she will have spoken with honesty.

But it was his fault, too, he berated himself; yes, it was his fault, too.

He’d been a silly, silly man to trust such an important message to another person. He should have thought harder for a better way of sharing his information, a way that didn’t involve anyone in the Walker family. Because of his stupidity and because of Sam Walker’s stupidity, Joe Walker had got out of Carter, and had been able to take Charity with him.

Of course, it could be that Sam Walker had given the Marshal the correct message and that for some reason Joe Walker had become fearful about waiting until Monday, and had managed to persuade the priest to perform the forbidden ceremony on an earlier day. But this wasn’t likely as there’d have been no reason for any sudden concern.

But however it had happened, they’d got away and would be far from Wyoming by now. And no one had any idea where they’d gone, so no one would be going after them.

Fury blazing within him, he could hardly breathe as he turned and started to walk back to the mercantile.

All those wasted years, he raged inwardly. Years when he could have looked to another town and found a wife there, but with Charity in his heart, and no reason to think she would ever turn her back on him, had chosen not to.

Charity was gravely at fault, too, in the way she’d behaved towards him. As she’d grown older, she must have known that one day he would ask her to become his wife, and she should have made him understand that she might not wish this. To have done so would have freed him before he’d lost his heart to her. But instead of such honesty, she’d agreed to wed him when he’d finally proposed marriage. That she had then betrayed him showed her to be a deceiving, ungrateful woman.

And it was also Joe Walker’s fault. If Joe hadn’t returned, Charity would have wed him; of that he was sure. He knew she didn’t feel about him as he felt about her, but he also knew with certainty that there was no other Chinaman in Carter she would choose to wed instead of him.

But it was his own fault, too, he thought, his steps slowing. He’d blinded himself to what he’d known in his heart and had brought this pain upon himself in part. Long before the grown-up Charity had seen Joe, he’d realised that she didn’t crave him in the way he craved her. Never so much as once in all the years they’d been walking out together, when they’d been alone with no one able to see them, had she seemed to struggle to control the sort of feelings and desires that a virtuous Chinese girl would not own to. Not once.

But he had been so determined that she would one day want him as he wanted her that he’d refused to see the true nature of her feelings for him – that she saw him as a friend, and appreciated his many kindnesses, but it was no more than that.

And that was why, fearful for a reason he couldn’t put into words, from the moment he’d learnt that Joe Walker was returning, he’d rushed Charity into agreeing to wed him.

That had been wrong of him. It had not been fair to Charity.

But Joe and Charity had not been fair to him, he cried inwardly.

Su Lin was standing in the entrance to the mercantile when he drew near, watching him approach. Disappointment in him radiated from her eyes.

He reached the entrance, and stopped. In a moment of frightening clarity, he saw himself through her eyes, and his stomach turned over. The overwhelming sense of shame that swept through him drove out the last of his anger, and he found himself unable to move.

She took a step towards him, her face white, her eyes fixed on him. ‘I watch the tong this morning and I see what happen. I also see you. You watch the tong. You wait for Marshal McGregor to arrest Joe and Charity. You tell the Marshal what I tell you.’ Her voice was cold. ‘You not tell the truth when you say you are friend of Charity.’

‘You not understand—’ he began.

‘I understand,’ she cut in. ‘I believe what you say because I believe you good man. Today I know I am wrong. You not wish Charity well – you wish her in jail. A good man not wish a friend in jail. But you not just wish – you try to make this happen. This is a cruel thing to do. Very cruel. Charity not deserve this. Why you do this?’

Cringing inside, stung by the truth of her words, he bowed his head and placed the palms of his hands together in front of him. ‘I do wrong, Su Lin; very wrong. I know this now. And I am very happy that what I try to make happen, not happen. I hope one day you are able to forgive your unworthy brother.’

He stood before her, his head still bowed.

‘I look at you,’ she said with scorn, ‘and I not see good brother, worthy of respect. I am a very sad and disappointed sister.’

Turning, she walked back into the store, the wind chimes ringing sonorously behind her.

He straightened up and stood on the boardwalk in front of the mercantile, alone with his shame and grief – the shame of having acted in a way that dishonoured his ancestors so, and the grief for what he would never have with Charity, and for what he’d once had with his sister, but might have lost forever.

The notes of the wind chimes died away, the same wind chimes that had told of Charity’s arrival each day, but would never again tell of her coming.

He looked up above the entrance, and he saw Charity’s face. She was laughing happily as she gazed down at him.

A smile flickered across his lips. He took a step forward and raised his hand to touch her cheek, to feel her warmth, to absorb her forgiveness. But her face faded into nothingness, and he found himself standing in front of the store, grasping at air.

He squeezed his eyes tight shut, trying to block from his sight his sense of his unworthiness, trying to hold back his tears of shame and regret.

There was a faint jangle, and he opened his eyes again.

Su Lin stood in the entrance. ‘I find I am not able to leave you like you are now, standing here by yourself,’ she said quietly.

‘I very very sorry, Su Lin,’ he said, and tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. ‘Forgive me.’

She stepped close to him.

‘You are always a good brother to me. Only once you are not. I try to think of you only as a good brother, not as a man who do a cruel thing to a kind friend. You become a sad man because of Charity and Joe Walker, and a sad man does things he not usually do. I understand this.’

‘I am a very sad man, you are right; and I am a very sorry man. I want you to believe me.’ His voice caught in his throat.

‘I do,’ she said. Her voice became warmer. ‘And I forgive you. In my heart, I know Charity forgives you, too. And if she is here, she will say what I say: in Green River or Evanston, there is wife for you. You find this wife and one day you are happy man again.’

‘I do this soon,’ he said, nodding. ‘Yes, I do this, Su Lin.’

‘And now,’ she said, taking his hand with a gentle smile, ‘we go in, ge ge, and we drink tea.’