Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [103]
Francie lay in her mother’s bed. Her face was pale and her blue eyes glittered with fear.
“Stay and keep me company,” she begged. “And ask Lai Tsin to come too.” She gasped as another pain hit her. Annie looked worriedly at her and then went to fetch Lai Tsin. The small paraffin lamp shed a soft light on their faces as they sat beside her and Francie thought of the Christmas night long ago when she had lain dreaming on the rug in front of the stove, while her mother slept her final sleep in the same bed she lay in now. And she wished with all her heart that her mother were here to help her.
Annie glanced anxiously out the window again. It was snowing and her heart sank. Lai Tsin’s eyes met hers and she knew he understood what she was thinking; that the doctor would never get through such a storm. Squaring her shoulders, she told herself babies got born every day, there was nothing to it. She could cope.
Francie winced as the pain grabbed her again. “Talk to me,” she begged. “Tell me the rest of your story, Lai Tsin. Please.”
He looked worriedly at her. “It is not the right time to hear my cruel tale,” he said.
“Yes, please, it will help take my mind off things.”
He shook his head, wondering what to tell her … how to tell her. There was only one way.
“I did not know it then, but I was at a place they called Little River, notorious for the savagery of its seas and also for the pirate ships bringing in illegal Chinese immigrants. The tide was surging rapidly up the small beach and I knew I was in danger. I looked around and saw where cliffs ran into an inlet and I followed them, searching for a place to climb out of reach of the racing tide. At last, far above me on the bluff I saw a few scrubby bushes and beyond, clusters of pine trees. I clambered up the steep slope, clinging to the stones, scrabbling upward inch by painful inch. My hands were bleeding and my neck ached with the strain of always looking upward because I knew if I ever looked down at the tide, already swirling and crashing on the rocks below, my courage would fail me.
“At last I reached the scrub. I grasped the thorny, brittle branches, hauling myself ever up, and then I was amongst the trees; the slope was less steep and there was grass under my feet. I flung myself down, sobbing with fear and exhaustion and shivering with cold. After a while I plucked up my courage and began walking through the forest, but the trees clustered together so thickly, they cut out even the black night sky. I was left in total darkness. I could not walk any farther. I curled myself up as small as possible, praying there were no fierce tigers or dragons or poisonous snakes in this American forest, and exhausted, I fell asleep.
“I was awakened by a thin gray light filtering through the tall pines. My wet clothes clung to my body and my belly was hollow with the craving for food. I began to walk again, upward from the shore. The forest was changing; as well as the pines there were lofty redwoods with trunks vaster in circumference than the arms of two men. Somewhere in the distance I heard the whine of a saw and knew I must be near a mill.
“Panicked, I sat beneath a tree trying to think what I must do. I was a Chinese child, small and terrified. I spoke no English. I had no papers that allowed me to be in America and no money to pay for food, even if I knew how to ask for it. I thought if the Americans found me they would kill me and I decided I must wait until nightfall and try to steal some food. I would walk each night until I came to the city and the Gold Mountain and then I would get work with my countrymen from Toishan.
“I crept closer to the sounds coming from the sawmill and finally I saw it through the trees. It was a tall wooden building perched on a bluff overlooking a rushing river. There was a strong smell of resin in the air and all around lay great fallen trees and planks of wood piled high and bound with rope. Men brandishing axes