Chapter Four

Three years later

September, 1875

Charity tightened her hold on Joe’s hand as they went out of the back door of the house, past her bedroom and the vegetable patch, and across the stretch of dust-covered open ground that led to Second Street. In her free hand, she clutched a small tin lunch pail covered with a blue and white gingham cloth. Joe carried the bag that held her slate, slate pencil and school book.

‘You look a proper seven-year-old in your new pinafore and dress,’ Joe said, smiling down at her as they walked along. ‘You look good in green.’

Beaming, she glanced down at her dress. She slipped her hand from Joe’s, smoothed the creases from the pinafore that covered most of her skirt, and then tucked her hand back into his.

‘You’re gonna like bein’ in school,’ he went on, swinging her hand as they walked along. ‘You’ll make friends with the other children in town and play games with them.’

‘No, I won’t,’ she said, her voice taking on a sullen note. ‘They won’t wanna play with me. They never talk to me when I see them in town. I smile at them, like you said I must, but they never smile back.’

He glanced at her nervous face. ‘You’ll find them real friendly once they get to know you,’ he said reassuringly. ‘And Miss O’Brien will be pleased with you ’cos you already know your letters and numbers. Not all the kids startin’ today will know them.’

She stopped walking and stared up at him, her face suddenly serious. ‘I wish you could be my teacher, Joe. The other kids don’t like me, and Miss O’Brien don’t like me. I seen the way she looks at me when I’ve been waitin’ for you outside the livery stable.’

‘She don’t know you. She’s gonna like you when she does. Everyone will like you ’cos you’re nice. They’ve probably not been friendly yet ’cos you look a bit different. Nice different,’ he added with a grin, ‘but different. When you’ve got to know them, you won’t look so different to them, and then they’ll like you and you’ll like school. So come on.’ He squeezed her hand encouragingly and they started walking again.

Glancing down at her when they reached the corner where Second Street crossed Main Street, dividing the town into two, he saw that she was still worried. ‘It’s gonna be okay, Charity; you’ll see.’ She looked up at him, her face clouded with anxiety. ‘You’ll see,’ he repeated.

‘I’m scared, Joe.’

He gave her a warm smile. ‘Don’t be; I won’t be far away. Look, that’s where I’ll be when you’re in school.’ He pointed to the stable on the corner to his left. ‘Now I’m not in school any more, I’m gonna work at Culpepper’s every day till I’m old enough to leave Carter. I’ll walk you all the way to school today as it’s your first day, but in future I’ll leave you here and you must go the rest of the way by yourself. It’s not far – you can almost see the schoolhouse from here. That’ll be okay, won’t it?’

She moved closer to him, but didn’t answer.

He looked anxiously down at her. ‘That’s all right, isn’t it?’ he repeated.

Her eyes on the boardwalk, she kicked the thick layer of charcoal-grey dust that coated the weathered planks. It swirled in a dense cloud around her legs, and then settled slowly on to her black leather boots and on the cover protecting her lunch pail. ‘I don’t like bein’ in town on my own,’ she said.

He smiled at the top of her head. ‘You don’t know that ’cos you’ve you never been in town on your own. You and me, we’re always together. But you’re a big girl now, and you’ll soon get used to bein’ here by yourself. And when you make friends, you’ll wanna talk to them without me bein’ around. And if there’s somethin’ you simply just gotta tell me, you can stop by at the stable on your way home. Unless I’m busy, that is.’

‘Whatever you say, people won’t like me,’ she said, her eyes on her boots as she tried to wipe the dust from the toe of one boot with the heel of the other.

He frowned slightly. ‘Like I said, they don’t know you yet so they’ve not got feelin’s about you.’

‘Sam knows me and he don’t like me.’

He gave an awkward laugh. ‘You’re not talkin’ sense, gal. Why would you think that?’

She looked up at him. ‘He don’t like me, and you know he don’t.’

He released her hand, knelt down, put his arms around her and hugged her. Then he stood up again. ‘It’s not you he doesn’t like – it’s what he’s afear’d about. He looks at you and he sees the things that are worryin’ him.’

‘What’s worryin’ him?’ She put her thumb in her mouth and stared up at him.

‘You’re still real young, Charity. Too young to understand minin’ things. But it’s about what happened earlier this year.’

‘What happened?’

He gave a sigh, glanced towards the school, and then looked back at her face. ‘You remember Pa telling us that Union Pacific had cut the price of coal and were payin’ the miners a dollar a ton, not a dollar twenty-five, don’t you? And he and Sam were angry ’cos it meant they’d be bringin’ home less money?’

She nodded.

‘And then the men stopped workin’, didn’t they, and no one dug up any coal? They went on strike – that’s what it’s called. Well, a coupla weeks after that, the company brought in some Chinamen to break the strike, and the mines opened again. The Carter miners didn’t wanna lose their jobs, so they went back to work, even though it meant takin’ home less. D’you remember that?’

Sucking her thumb, she nodded again.

‘Well, you’ve seen that more Chinamen have come to Carter since then, and ’cos they’ll work for whatever the company pays, the price of coal is still droppin’, and the white miners are takin’ home less. It’s not you that Sam doesn’t like: it’s Chinese people ’cos of what the Chinamen are doin’ to the price of coal. D’you understand that, Charity?’

She bit her lip.

‘And the Chinamen aren’t just down the mines now – they’re everywhere. They’re workin’ on the railroad, they’re openin’ shops …’ He pointed towards the right-hand side of Main Street. ‘It’s more Chinese down there than white now. At first it was just the laundry and the barber’s, but look at all the other Chinese stores that’ve started up. The latest is the general mercantile, but I wager it won’t be the last. People aren’t happy about havin’ so many Chinese here.’

‘I don’t wanna go to school, Joe.’

He looked back at her. ‘Now, you hear me good, Charity. After what you said about Miss O’Brien, I figured you should understand why some people think like they do. But it’s nothin’ to do with the school. If you give school a chance, you’ll like bein’ there and you’ll make friends. You need to make friends with other gals your age.’

‘But you’ve not got friends your age, Joe,’ she said, her face stubborn.

He hesitated. ‘That’s ’cos I was too busy lookin’ after you. And if I’m honest, although I sometimes played with the other boys in town in the days before I found you, I’m not like Sam and I didn’t really like bein’ in town and was keener on findin’ gold, so I didn’t make any real good friends. But Mr Culpepper’s a sort of friend now. I know he’s old, but he’s okay. And the Marshal that’s just come to Carter seems nice, too.’

‘Maybe the children in school have got folks like Sam and your pa. Maybe they don’t like Chinamen, either, and that’s why they don’t smile at me.’

‘You didn’t know what happened in the mines till I just told you. And there’s no reason why the other kids will know about minin’ problems. I only told you ’cos of the colour of your skin.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, you’re not Chinese. Sure you look a bit different with your eyes and your skin, and you’ve got black braids like a Chinaman’s got – well, you’ve got two and they’ve only got one – but you’re American like me. You talk like me, wear the sort of clothes American girls wear, and you think like me. Yup, you’re American, Charity.’

Her face broke into a smile. ‘Am I, Joe?’

He knelt down and hugged her tightly again. ‘You sure are,’ he said. ‘And everyone’s gonna think you’re a swell gal like I do. Now, let’s go to school.’ He stood up and held out his hand to her. ‘You don’t wanna be late the first day, do you?’

They continued slowly down the short path leading to the red-painted schoolhouse with a pine flagpole above the entrance, the sound of the chattering children inside the wooden building becoming louder and louder as they got closer.

Just before they reached the door, Joe stopped and turned to Charity. ‘I’d better leave you here,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ll see you tonight. Just this once, you can come by the stable on your way home and tell me what you learnt.’

Her face pale, she nodded.

They stood back to let a couple of older girls walk past them, arm in arm as they talked and laughed. The girls glanced back at Charity. Their steps slowed and they stared pointedly at her. Then they turned again to each other, giggled, opened the door to the schoolhouse, went inside and shut the door firmly behind them.

Charity clutched Joe’s leg.

As he stared at the closed door, he heard a sudden outbreak of squealing inside the schoolroom. He turned to Charity. ‘You gotta go in, Charity,’ he said quietly. ‘You got some learnin’ to do.’

She didn’t move.

He bent down to her. ‘Now you listen to me,’ he said, his face serious. ‘You’re a smart gal, and you’ll enjoy learnin’ the things Miss O’Brien can teach you. I’m hopin’ you’ll make friends, too, and maybe you will; maybe you won’t. But it doesn’t really matter if you don’t – you’re in school for the learnin’, not for the friend-makin’. You gotta remember, you’re as good as anyone else in the room. Promise me you’re gonna learn real well, even if other things ain’t right.’

She stared into the clear blue eyes that gazed at her, encouraging her. ‘I promise, Joe,’ she said, her face solemn.

The door opened again and Miss O’Brien came out, holding a hand bell in one hand and tucking her crisp white blouse more firmly into her ankle-length grey skirt with the other. She glanced at Charity, hesitated, then raised the bell and rang it. Then she went back into the schoolhouse, leaving the door slightly ajar.

‘School’s startin’,’ Joe said. He handed her the schoolbag he’d been carrying and gave her a slight push forward. ‘See you tonight.’ He gave her a reassuring smile, thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans and turned away.

As he looked ahead of him, the smile left his face and a lump came into his throat.

His head down, he walked briskly up the path, trying to erase from his mind the look in Miss O’Brien’s eyes when she’d stared at Charity, who’d looked so small and so helpless, and struggling to blank from his memory the cruel note in the two girls’ laughter.

Charity looked at the schoolhouse door, and hesitated. Then she walked slowly forward, pushed the door open wider and took a few steps into the schoolroom. Hovering in front of the water pail that stood on a low bench just inside the door, she looked nervously around.

The talking abruptly stopped. All eyes turned towards her.

She stared anxiously back at the other pupils, each of whom was sitting at an individual dark wood bench made of hand-planed boards, the boys on one side of the room and the girls on the other.

The benches stood in rows that spanned the room, one row behind the other, with a wide gap down the middle of the room and a narrower gap between the end of each row and the wall. Every bench had a back to it, and a shelf sticking out from the back, which made a table for the pupil sitting behind. A potbelly stove stood in one of the corners at the back of the room, and a hickory switch and a brush made of broom corn in the other.

Clutching her lunch pail and schoolbag with both hands, Charity turned to Miss O’Brien. She was standing at the side of her desk, staring at her, unsmiling. Her gaze rose above Miss O’Brien’s shoulder to the wall behind her. Smooth boards, painted black, covered most of the wall. She took a step to the side to see past Miss O’Brien and saw that under the painted boards there was a small trough full of short white sticks, and a single block of wood around which had been nailed a piece of woolly sheepskin.

Her eyes returned to Miss O’Brien’s face.

‘I take it you’re Charity Walker.’ Miss O’Brien’s voice was icy.

Charity nodded.

‘The bench next to Adeline hasn’t been taken by anyone,’ Miss O’Brien said coldly. ‘You can sit there.’ She pointed halfway down the room to an empty bench next to a fair-haired girl. ‘It’s your third year here so you know the school’s routine, Adeline. I’d like you to look after Charity Walker and tell her what she needs to know.’

Adeline jumped up from her seat, her slate falling to the floor with a loud bang. ‘I’m not lookin’ after any heathen Chinee, Miss O’Brien!’ she exclaimed. ‘Ma and Pa wouldn’t like it.’

‘None of our folks would,’ a boy with brown hair called from the back of the class. ‘We don’t want no Chinamen here.’

Shouting and stamping their feet, the rest of the class showed their support for Adeline and the brown-haired boy.

Charity hugged her bag and lunch pail more tightly.

‘Silence!’ Miss O’Brien exclaimed, and she rapped on her desk with her ruler. The class fell quiet, their anger heavy in the air.

‘I’m American,’ Charity said, her voice just above a whisper.

The pupils broke into jeers and laughter, and they banged their slates on their tables.

Miss O’Brien took a step forward. The class instantly settled.

‘Such behaviour will not be tolerated,’ she said slowly and distinctly. ‘I understand your concerns, class, but you must understand this. The law in Wyoming Territory says that children must go to school from seven years of age to fourteen. I’m therefore unable to send Charity Walker away from our school.’

There was a low rumble of anger from the class.

‘I cannot, however, force you to welcome her and include her in your activities,’ she went on, ‘and if she feels she would be more comfortable leaving the school right now …’ She paused and looked down at Charity, who stood at her side. ‘I would not consider it my duty to force her to remain.’

‘We don’t want you here so why don’t you go?’ the boy at the back yelled out.

‘If you wish to leave, Charity Walker, I will not stop you. The door you came through is the door you can leave by,’ Miss O’Brien said, her face cold. ‘Well?’

Biting her lip, Charity looked around the room at the large posters that had been stuck on all the walls, at the globe on one corner of Miss O’Brien’s desk and at the three thick books on the other. She looked at the schoolbooks that had been placed on the children’s desks next to their slates, ready for the learning to start, and she looked back up at Miss O’Brien.

‘I wanna learn,’ she said bluntly. ‘I’m gonna stay.’

Charity sat on her bench and stared with tired eyes at the First Reader, which lay open on the desk in front of her. Her first school day was drawing to an end, and it hadn’t been an easy day.

No one had shown her the school routine so she’d had to watch the others and do what they did. She’d sat on her own all day, having been given a bench with the aisle on one side and an empty seat on the other, and at intervals throughout the day, the girl behind her had stuck her toe up through Charity’s seat to make her jump.

When morning recess had come and the other pupils had gone outside, she’d been told to stay in and clean the blackboard. And during the afternoon recess, she’d been given the task of brushing the chalk dust from the board eraser. For the whole hour they’d been given for lunch, she’d sat by herself in the corner of the yard, eating her bread and butter while the other children played something called Uncle John.

No one had asked her to join in.

No one had spoken to her at all throughout the day. She hadn’t made a single friend, and she knew she wouldn’t be making any as no one wanted to be friends with her.

But she didn’t mind. Joe was her friend so she didn’t need anyone else. Like Joe said, you didn’t need a friend in school to learn. She was going to learn so much that she’d soon be put into the Second Reader group, and Joe would be real proud of her.

The girl behind her pushed her toe against Charity’s leg again.

Looking up from her book, Charity turned towards the two windows set in the wooden wall. A thin layer of dust veiled the glass and hid the outside world from sight.

She closed her eyes and saw in her mind the white pebble-strewn plain that stretched from Carter to the distant horizon, and she gave an inward sigh. If only she were out there now, running in freedom with Joe, running away from hate.

‘Charity Walker!’ Miss O’Brien’s voice cut sharply through her thoughts.

She opened her eyes.

Hostility hung in the air and pressed heavily on her.

She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat. ‘I’m gonna learn,’ she whispered to herself, and she turned her eyes back to her book.

‘Girl!’

Charity stopped abruptly, halfway across Main Street on her way to the livery stable, her school bag and empty lunch pail hanging from her hands. She glanced to her left and saw that there was a Chinese girl standing in the middle of the road, staring up the street at her.

She turned slightly towards the girl and looked at her in wide-eyed amazement. She’d never seen another Chinese girl before.

‘Girl!’ the Chinese girl called again.

Charity frowned.

The girl looked like a real Chinese girl must look, she thought, with her baggy blue trousers and a white cotton shirt hanging outside them. She, too, seemed to be about seven, though it was hard to see under her pointed hat. And it looked as if her eyes were the same shape as her own – like almonds was how Joe described them.

Charity looked down at the ground, blinked a couple of times, then stared back at Main Street. The girl was still there, standing just down from the place where Second Street crossed over Main Street.

She backed slightly towards the livery stable, and then stopped. ‘What d’you want?’ she called to the Chinese girl.

The girl smiled at her. A wide smile, just like hers. ‘I come here. I learn shop keep. I likee you friend. You China girl.’

Charity vigorously shook her head. ‘I’m American,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not a China girl.’

The Chinese girl’s face fell. ‘You no likee me be friend?’

Charity shook her head. ‘We can’t be friends. I’m American.’

‘You China girl,’ the Chinese girl repeated, her voice accusing.

‘I’m not,’ Charity said, and she glared at her.

There was a movement behind the girl. Charity looked beyond her and saw a boy of about Joe’s age running up to the girl. He reached the girl and said something to her. Charity could tell he was angry with the girl, but the few words she heard, she couldn’t understand so she didn’t know what he was angry about.

The Chinese boy finished talking, and stood still, waiting.

‘Me go.’ The smile gone from the girl’s face, she spun round, and she and the boy went down Main Street and disappeared into the new general mercantile store.

The girl had two black braids like she did, Charity noticed. And the boy had one black braid behind his head. Just one quite long braid.

‘I’m not a Chinese girl,’ she told herself as she turned away. ‘I’m not.’

She took a couple of steps towards the livery stable and saw Joe standing in the entrance, staring towards her.

She paused, glanced down Main Street again, looked back at Joe, then, clutching her bag and pail tightly, turned from the stable and started to run into Second Street and back to the house as fast as she could.

Joe saw anguish in Charity’s eyes before she turned from him.

A bolt of alarm shot through him, though he didn’t quite know what he feared.

Dropping the bridle he’d been holding, he ran at full speed out of the stable, along Second Street and across the barren ground separating the town from the miners’ houses, gradually closing the gap between them, but unable to catch up with Charity before she reached the back of the house.

He saw her pull open the door of her outside bedroom and throw herself into the room. Seconds later, he flung himself through the open doorway after her.

She’d dropped her school things on the floor and was standing on her bed, pulling a pair of scissors from the sewing basket on the shelf above the bed. She twisted slightly, grabbed one of her plaits and raised the scissors to it.

‘No!’ he yelled, leaping on to the bed and snatching the scissors from her. He rounded on her. ‘What d’you think you’re doin’?’

She raised a tear-stained face to him. ‘I’m an American girl,’ she cried, defiance in her voice. ‘I wanna look like American girl. I’m not Chinese, Joe. I’m not.’

And she fell against his chest, her body wracked by huge sobs.

Wordlessly, he put his arms around her and held her tightly.