After my run-in with Mr. Strobridge, I tried to blend in with the others in town, though dragging a dog at my side brought some looks. Brina and I found our way to the railroad’s hiring office, where a sea of leathery necks and mud-stained coats already crowded the steps leading up to its doorway. An official stood at the top, conferring with two others. By luck, or the lack of it, I found myself jostled again right up behind the two men from the train, the itching-to-fight George and his more subdued friend.
The friend, I noticed, was gazing steadily into the distance, entranced by something he saw across the foothills, and soon enough he elbowed George. “What do you make of that?” he murmured. “Up there. Catty-corner from those three pines and below the white V.”
I couldn’t help following his sight line, though I didn’t see anything unusual. A lustful smile, however, lit George’s face. “Why, I think that ol’ girl might be hiding some gold ’neath her skirts.” He glanced to his left and then to his right—forgetting to look behind him—to see if anyone had heard, then whispered in his friend’s ear, “Whaddya say we give this railroad work a coupla days and, if it don’t suit, we light outta here and go sort us a little rock?”
His friend, still focused on the distant mountain face, patted his pack. “Got my lucky pan right here.”
Gold? Who hadn’t heard tales of the gold mines in California, of overnight fortunes? If there was gold nearby, I could certainly find it as well as them, and it would be a sight easier than railroad labor. Already, in fact, a golden nugget the size of an egg beckoned within my imagination; it was partially hidden among the rocks of a streambed, waiting to be spotted by me alone and—
A murmur and sudden hush tugged me from my daydreams of instant wealth. Everyone had stopped talking to watch a hundred or so Chinamen go marching past.
They were, I have to say, the oddest lot I’d ever laid eyes on. Looked like a bunch of girls with their long braids dangling behind narrow shoulders, their pajamas flopping around their short legs, and, instead of hats, straw baskets fitted upside down on their heads. With their picks and shovels they trudged along without a sound—most of them, anyway—holding their flat faces in one identical, secretive grimace. Here and there, though, a smattering of high-pitched phrases erupted, as nonsensical as the cackling of hens, and in reply came a brief torrent of equally unintelligible garble.
George spoke under his breath. “Well, ain’t it the Ladies Aid Society. I hope the railroad ain’t planning on having ’em bunk with us. ’Cause I’ll march myself right off this mountain before I’ll share a roof with a dang coolie.”
“Not to worry,” his friend replied. “I heard they keep to their own camps pretty much, even eat their own food: peculiar fixings shipped over from their home country. Railroad makes them buy it, though. Our grub’s included.”
“Good,” George said. He gave an exaggerated shiver. “Them little pigtailed folk just give me a case of the allovers.”
Striding along near the end of the group came one Chinaman who was slightly taller, though even saying that was a stretch, because he’d still have to stand on a book to make five feet in height. He had on the pajama pants too, and a padded blue coat, but above his collar peeked a patterned yellow scarf, and on his head perched a brown felt hat (new-bought, judging by its crisp brim) that was cocked at a jaunty angle.
Yet it wasn’t his clothes that attracted attention; it was that, as he walked, he balanced his pick on the flat of his palm. He was smiling slightly, all the while watching the unsteady tool like a hawk. The curved iron head rocked like the hull of a boat, and the wooden handle swayed like a ship’s mast, but he kept it afloat. And in such a fashion that prankster sailed right past us.
“All right, all right. I need a dozen men on rails,” called the man at the top of the stairs, and we returned our attention to earning some pay. “Step up, the biggest of you.” Pride carried us forward, no matter the size. “You, you, you . . .” He began assembling the stoutest shoulders and backs, and when he had his twelve, said, “Follow Mr. Pierce here. He’ll get you started. Only a thousand miles of rail to go, men! Oh, and a hill or two.” Laughter rippled through the crowd.
You had to have humor for this undertaking, because in God’s name what else could you do? The whole venture was a drunkard’s dream, a folly, like wading into the Atlantic and saying you were going to swim back to Ireland. Well, the drunkards were paying, so I was ready to start swimming. I and the other Irish I began to see and hear around me. We’d show them the sort of grit the Irish were made of.
“The rest of you, teams of two, please! Choose your shovels and picks from that car over there.” Without lifting his eyes from his clipboard, he pointed. “And follow our good Mr. Whitney here to the head of the line.” He looked up and grinned. “So to speak.”
Men began partnering up right away, and I cast a hopeful gaze around. But not a one was giving me a second glance. All right, I’d just march behind and shovel alone. Let Mr. Whitney see who moved dirt the fastest. “Come along, lass,” I said to Brina.
The supply car, it turned out, was a rolling general store, stacked to its roof with barrels and bags, winches and rope, and tub upon tub of nails, new wagon wheels and harnesses, and hundreds of gleaming sledges, picks, and shovels. Felt almost like Christmas to reach in and close your hand on a smooth, new tool. Enthusiastic whoops flashed across suddenly boyish faces. I pushed my way forward to grab a shovel.
“Whoa, there. What’s your name?” A pug-nosed, balding man was writing down the names of the workers.
“Malachy Gormley.”
Something in my response made him lift his head for a closer look. He squinted. “Just how old are you, Mr. Malachy Gormley?”
“Sixteen.” I forced myself to hold his gaze. “Sir.”
He looked me up and down and snorted. As he finished scribbling on his sheet he muttered, “Is that the first lie you’ve told today?” Not waiting for a reply, he looked past me to ask brusquely, “Where’s your partner?”
I twitched my shoulders, giving a sort of shrug, and kept my glance no higher than the kneecaps of the men near me. Surely someone would step forward.
“Anybody looking to partner with this young’un?” The absolute silence slapped my face red, and the man motioned me out of line. “Step over here, then, Mack, and wait a minute. We’ve got to work it in teams.”
And he continued taking down the names of the men, making note of their tools, and sending them off after Mr. Whitney. The wintry sun had turned surprisingly warm by that time, but that wasn’t what was flushing my face.
I stood there shifting my feet impatiently and watching the town of Cisco freshen with this arrival of new blood. Residents swung their arms with more vigor; oxen leaned into their harness with renewed effort; rivulets of melting snow burbled cheerily; even the horses added some snap to their trot.
From deep among the workers following Mr. Whitney rose a single voice with the first words to an exuberant melody: “I got a gal and you got none, little Liza Jane.” The volley was picked up by another and tossed back: “Circle round me like the sun, little Liza Jane.”
All across town, infectious smiles jumped from face to face, from citizen to foreman to laborer alike, born from the camaraderie of men engaged in a single cause. The infection lit me, too, and I chafed to get unstuck from this spot and to throw my back into something important.
Footsteps slapped the mud, and the overseer who had been accompanying the Chinamen came loping back. “Forgot to tell you,” he said to the pug-nosed man while trying to catch his breath. “I need a body to unload their provisions from San Francisco, and then I need him to deliver the tea. I lost O’Brien to the drink last night.”
“Got just the body right here,” a voice boomed, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Turned to find Mr. Strobridge hitching his thumb directly at me.
“Good enough,” the overseer answered. “Thank you, Mr. Strobridge.” And he loped back to rejoin his Chinese crew.
The towering man in his dark suit of clothes and fearsome black patch spoke to the pug-nosed man with the clipboard. “See that he does it. At half wages.”