Freshly roasted hare should have had my mouth watering. Especially given that the powerful aroma of it on the green stick was already banishing the memory of the winter’s monotonous fare: boiled beef and beans. (Heat and repeat.) But when Jesse, who had bagged the large snowshoe that Sunday morning, proudly served it up on our plates, I found myself barely able to get it down. ’Twas no fault of the hare, though.
Across camp, the Chinaman cook was adding a pail of water to the same soup he’d kept simmering for four days now. No toothsome aromas ascended from that fire.
I shoved the meat around on my plate.
At the start of the strike various tins had been collected into a pile and emptied into the pot, but what was ladled out now looked to be little more than broth. That broth and the ever-present tea were all the Chinamen had to get by on. Mr. Crocker had kept to his word, and not one packet of food traveled by his rails to the Chinese strikers.
Forking some meat into my mouth, I tried to look anywhere but there. Yet, again and again my attention swung like a compass needle toward Ducks squatting with his bowl on his knees. He was leading his countrymen with an unflagging appearance of calm. Not one of his actions spoke anger. Even in the composed manner in which he lifted the bowl to his lips and set it down again, he didn’t seem overly hungry. Still, when he left off his own thoughts to consider us, the half-lidded gaze he leveled at me weighed heavily.
As if he knew.
“Tasty meat, this,” Patrick said loudly, smacking his lips for all to hear. “That was one fat hare.”
“Thank you,” Jesse replied. “And roasted to perfection if I say so myself.”
I glanced away.
The railroad men, I’d heard, were holding Ducks responsible for the missing money bag. Hadn’t he been the one, they reasoned, who had claimed the money, saying it had already been earned by him and his fellow workers? Obviously he was the thief. Restitution would be accomplished by withholding his pay for the year to come.
“What’s the matter, you don’t like my cooking?” Jesse indicated the pile of dark meat still on my plate, fisticuffs in his voice.
I hastily shoved another forkful in my mouth—“Mmm, no! It’s delicious. Never tasted finer”—and swallowed with force. “You’ll make someone a fine wife,” I dared to tease.
Grumbling an oath through his wide grin, Jesse took a swig of coffee and returned to his plate. My eyes swung back to Ducks. Brina had sneaked over to him and was shamelessly resting her nose on his knee, inches from his bowl. The beggar. He scratched her neck.
What happened next made me set down my fork, risking further words from Jesse. Ducks fished around in his bowl and pulled out a sodden morsel of something or other—not much to speak of—but he readily offered it to Brina and smiled when she gulped it down with gratitude. He patted her head.
Inside my belly, the meat settled like rock.
A few days later, Mr. Crocker rode back up the mountain. His railroad associates weren’t with him, but a band of well-armed men were. The rifles they carried bristled like the quills of an angry porcupine. With his face flushed hot red, the speech he gave was brief: “I’m putting an end to this nonsense. Today. You’ll return to work at the wages offered: $35 a month. No change in your working hours. Those of you who climb off your butts now will be fined for the time lost. Those of you who continue to lounge on the railroad’s dime will be fined a month’s salary.” He passed his blistering glare across the ring of golden faces. “Do I make myself clear?”
To my surprise, several of the Celestials began moving toward the tunnel at once. Ducks squawked. A few of his fellows paused to argue in their own tongue, but it was apparent even to us onlookers that the strike was over. The Celestials walked back to work just as passively as they had walked away from it.
Nothing, seemingly, had changed. Yet in the months to come I discovered that everything had shifted.