Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [101]
“I sank deep beneath the waves, kicking and struggling like a wild thing. I popped suddenly upward like a cork and my head was above the water. I had learned to swim in the Great River and struck out strongly toward the sound of the surf. All around me heads bobbed on the waves and my ears were filled with the cries of doomed men and the sound of rifle shots. I closed my eyes because I was too small and weak to help them and I could not bear to look into their faces. The swell was huge and I could tell from the roar of the surf there were great rocks in front. I swam on and on. A few others were swimming around me. I knew we were near the shore. But then a great wave engulfed us, enveloping us in icy darkness, hurling us forward with its momentum onto a rocky beach. I clung desperately to a rock as the wave surged out again, dragging men back out to sea with its force, and then I crawled over the rocks and up the shingle beyond the water line. I lay there, my arms flung out, my breath coming in shuddering gasps. I had arrived in America.”
Lai Tsin looked at them watching him with horrified eyes. “The storm had worsened,” he said. “The waves were huge, flinging themselves at the small scrap of shingle where I found myself. As they unfurled I would catch a glimpse of a head bobbing helplessly in the torrent, an outflung arm, and then nothing. Shivering with cold and fright, I waited for the others to make it to shore, but the only coolies from that terrible ship ever to set foot on America were dead ones.”
It was the third day of the Lai Tsin’s visit and he still had not talked to them about Sammy. Even though it would bring gladness to their hearts he was afraid that talking about Josh would hurt Francie, and that mentioning the evil one’s name would bring bad joss to the peaceful ranch.
When they had found Josh in the derelict house where Sammy kept him, they had placed him on a stretcher and carried him to a renowned Chinese doctor. The man had observed him for several days, and had taken innumerable tests. His examination was thorough and his verdict harsh. Josh Asysgarth would never walk or talk or see again. The blow had destroyed his mind, he knew nothing and no one. He was more dead than alive and the doctor gave him only a week or two at the most.
Lai Tsin had agonized over whether to tell Annie and Francie, but in the end he knew his decision was the right one. They already thought him dead, their grief had been spent, and now Francie was pregnant and it was time to look to the future. Even if they saw him Josh would not know them and it would only bring them terrible pain.
He took him to a nursing home on the cliffs just south of San Francisco. It was a pretty place with pastel buildings, set amid pines and sweet-flowering shrubs with the surf roaring on the rocks below. The sun shone and the sea breezes ruffled Josh’s cap of blond hair as he lay in his bed. A week passed, two, then three. Lai Tsin went to visit him as often as he could and one day, Josh was lying there as usual, his head turned to the window. He took a deep breath, his sightless eyes turned to the sound of the roaring surf and the ocean he would never see again. And then with a faint sigh, he was gone.
It was a blessed release, the nurses told him when after a quiet service he buried him in the tiny churchyard nearby. His grassy plot was marked with a simple white cross bearing his name, and Lai Tsin also offered prayers for his spirit at a Chinese temple.
He had thought carefully about what to tell Francie and Annie and knew what he had done was for the best. But Sammy’s written confession, kept safely into his secret pocket, was like an explosive firecracker waiting to be lit as the days slid peacefully on.
That evening Francie said she didn’t feel like supper, she said her back ached and she was tired. Annie glanced at her with concern. The baby wasn’t due for another few