Son of Fortune (41 page)

“I love her.”

“So what is the immediate problem?” Christopher went on, ignoring that. “Her father? A husband?”

“She is betrothed,” Aiden said. “Though against her will. And—” He took a deep breath. “And also”—he handed the paper back to Christopher—“she is the sister of our stowaway.”

Christopher paled, and his hand went reflexively to the scar on his throat.

“Our stowaway? You mean the coolie who tried to kill me?”

“I only found out last night,” Aiden went on hurriedly.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“No.”

“This is absurd! How would you ever meet his sister here in San Francisco?”

“I looked for her,” Aiden explained. “I mean, I didn't know Ming was her. I was looking for Jian's sister named Lijia. I thought Ming was her maid. I owed him some debt. The night of the tidal wave, Jian helped me.”

“A debt? My God, did you help him stow away?”

“No! I swear to you, I did not.” Aiden pushed back the urge to vomit up the brandy. “Jian was always scheming how to escape. I only suspected at the last minute that he might try to hide aboard the
Raven.
”

“You never told me any of this before.”

“I haven't. I'm sorry.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know,” Aiden said. “At first I doubted his story myself, then there didn't seem to be anything I could do anyway. And I—I didn't want to risk—” The words closed his throat. “Everything.”

“What does she want from you now?” Christopher said.

“Nothing!” Aiden said. “We're in love. Only that.”

“Nonsense.”

“It's the truth.”

“Be serious.” Christopher got up from his chair and paced over to the window and back. The room was still mostly empty, though men were starting to come in for the lunch buffet. “It isn't hard to sort these things out,” he said quietly. “Most men keep a mistress. There are apartments for them. It will be harder with a Chinese girl, of course. But I will ask around discreetly.”

“I don't want her as a mistress in some apartment,” Aiden said. “I want to marry her.”

“You can't,” Christopher said. “Besides all the obvious social reasons, it isn't legal.”

“Somewhere it must be.”

“Perhaps, but you would still be shunned from any decent society. You'd have no opportunities at all.”

“Your world isn't the only world.”

“Don't throw your life away, Aiden,” Christopher said seriously as he sat back down in the plush chair. It was spooky how much he suddenly resembled his father: in posture, in tone and in sentiment. “My father has embraced you like a son. I have embraced you like a brother. We have taken you into our family and our empire. You have a future now—you cannot just throw that away! You might even be allowed to marry Elizabeth someday.”

“I like Elizabeth very much,” Aiden said. “But it is not a marriage affection. And she knows this,” he added urgently. “It is her understanding as much as mine. I have never been false in my affections to her!”

“Still,” Christopher said. “Even if this Ming were a white girl, you hardly know her! Good, well-bred girls are villainous enough when they sniff fortune—how much more so for a Chinese girl? There are plenty of ways to arrange for her.”

“I don't want to arrange for her.” Aiden looked down at the newspaper on the table, and through the tornado now swirling in his brain, he realized an awful possibility. The
Chronicle
was everywhere. It was dropped in stacks at every cheap saloon, then urchin boys gathered them up and sold them off again in bundles for toilet paper. Aiden remembered the stack of papers on the narrow shelf in the room. He pictured Ming in the little room, no one to talk to, nothing to do, taking down that stack of papers to pass the time.

“Oh shit!” Aiden grabbed his coat and started for the door. “I have to go.”

“Where?” Christopher said. “We haven't sorted this out yet. And your clothes—” Christopher grabbed the bag of clothes and followed Aiden outside. They nearly collided with Fish in the street.

“Hello,” he said. “Where are you going? Your note said noon.”

“Sorry!” Aiden said. “I can't explain now.” He took off running as fast as he could.

“Explain what?” Fish said. “What's going on?”

“A mess,” Christopher replied. “Come on before he ruins his life.”

The lunch buffet at Paradise was meager, but with beer only ten cents and a clientele unwelcome in the nicer places, it attracted a big crowd. Aiden had to shove his way through to the back stairs. It could all be fine, he thought, trying to calm his racing heart. Even if Ming had read the story, she wouldn't necessarily have realized that her own brother was the coolie, or that Aiden was the one who had killed him. He had told her only the barest details. He knocked on the door, then pulled it open, his heart pounding. She was waiting for him, sitting in rigid dread, but with a soft tilt of hopefulness in her shoulders, waiting to be told it was all a mistake, wanting to believe a better truth. The paper was on the bed beside her. Her pants were dry and brushed free of mud clumps but were stained at the bottom. She had smoothed and braided her hair, though little snarls frizzed from the lack of a real comb. The ancestors looked grim and sleepy. The cherubs gazed indifferently in their frozen innocence.

“This is the story you told me last night.” Her voice was toneless and steady. She pressed her palm upon the newspaper. “This is my brother.”

“Yes,” Aiden said.

“You did not tell it like this.”

“I didn't want to hurt you.”

“You lied to me!”

“No!” Aiden said desperately. “I never did. I—I just thought…you didn't need to know it all…so harshly. It wouldn't change anything.”

He stepped into the room, but his shoulder knocked against the shelf and he stumbled into the edge of the bed. Ming recoiled. He wanted to smash this room now, break out the walls and put them both alone in the middle of the prairie, with nothing but horizon. He was such a coward. He could fight men and shoot wolves, swim a raging river and walk two thousand miles, but in this most important test he had failed utterly.

“I am so sorry.”

Ming smacked Aiden across his face. He wanted a thousand more smacks—the sting meant something.

“The money you say you have,” she went on. “The money for our life together—it comes from this? From the guano?” She held the paper up with a shaking hand. “From ‘conditions unfit even for the yellow man'?”

“I am out of the business now,” Aiden said.

“From my own brother's blood?”

“I have nothing more to do with it.”

There was a scuff of footsteps behind them on the stairs. Christopher appeared on the tiny landing, with Fish right behind him. Ming did not seem to notice or to care who they were.

“It is the truth,” Christopher interrupted. “Sorry, um, excuse me for intruding—I could hear on the stairs. But it is the truth, what Aiden is telling you. I was there. I'm Christopher—I met you briefly at my house.…”

“Christopher, leave us—please!”

“I'm trying to help!” Christopher leaned around Aiden. “Forgive me for intruding,” he said to Ming. “He did give up his half of the ship! And he did not want to shoot your brother. There was just nothing else to be done!”

“Stop!” Aiden whispered urgently.

But Christopher yanked the confused Fish forward into the doorway. “This is the captain of our ship. He will confirm that!”

The little room went deadly silent, the only sound the click of a latch and squeak of a door as someone, curious about the commotion, peeked out onto the tiny landing from one of the other rooms.

“You killed my brother?” Ming whispered, her voice tight. She stood up so she was only inches away from Aiden. “You yourself?”

The world stopped. Aiden said nothing, but Ming searched his eyes and saw the truth. She gave one angry sob, then pushed past them all and ran down the stairs.

“Ming, wait!” Aiden shouted. He ran after her, his feet hitting barely enough steps on the narrow stairway to not fall. She ran into Paradise and darted easily through the crowd, though she jostled one man enough to spill his beer. Aiden pushed his way after her, but the man who had been bumped was angry and swung at Aiden. The blow caught him across the chest.

“Sorry!” Aiden held up his hands and tried to pass, but the man swore and flailed at him. Aiden punched the man in the stomach. The crowd cheered. A brawl was even better than a free lunch. But Aiden did not want a fight—just escape. He simply jabbed and ducked, kicked and shoved, his way through the crowd. He was almost at the door when a man threw a chair at his legs and tripped him. Aiden tumbled forward, bounced off a table and slid into the wall. The floor was slippery and gritty from wet boots, but he managed to get to his feet and shove his way the last few yards to the door. He burst outside and searched the street for Ming. He saw nothing but the usual drab men in their dirty brown clothes. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was indeed looking for drab, dirty clothes, not her blue silk skirt. But finally he saw her, running fast, already a block away.

He ran after her, down the sloggy street, straining to keep sight of her. As he neared, he saw two Chinese men run toward Ming from a side street. One of the men caught her arm and yanked her. Aiden dashed the last few yards and tackled the man, slamming him to the ground, then punching him so hard he knocked him out cold. Ming was flung to the ground. The second man, only a few steps behind, pulled a short club from the loose sleeve of his tunic and swung. Aiden raised his arm just in time to break the blow. He heard a loud crack but couldn't tell if it was wood or his own bone. He rolled away and kicked the man's feet out from under him. But the attacker was nimble and sprang up immediately. Two more Chinamen were running to the scene. Gouzhi had sent a small army; they must have followed Christopher from his home. Aiden launched himself on both of the men with a fury, but they knew how to fight the same way Aiden did. The fight was fast and brutal. His right arm was still numb from the blow.

The air was full of dirt and shouting, then Aiden saw with relief that Fish and Christopher had come to his aid. Fish, a good foot taller than the Chinese men, got one of them around the neck and wrenched him away. Christopher managed to distract the other. A crowd of men had gathered as well, giving Aiden hope. On the Barbary Coast, a fight was always entertainment, but no one would let Chinese beat white men for long. Aiden felt a kick to his knee, then one of the men grabbed his injured arm and spun him to the ground. Through the dust and chaos, Aiden saw Gouzhi. He had hold of Ming, twisting her arm behind her back, a dagger pressed hard against her cheek. He was not about to lose Silamu Xie's prize again. He bellowed a command in Chinese, and all his men immediately stopped fighting and came to his side.

“Don't hurt her.” Aiden raised his hands. Fish let his captive go, and he and Christopher stood beside Aiden, a determined but futile phalanx. The men in the crowd fell quiet—no one knew what was going on now, and no one wanted to get involved in Chinese business, especially when there were knives involved. Gouzhi barked something. Ming translated, her voice quavering with terror.

“He says that—that Silamu Xie will not care if his—his pet dog—has an ugly face.”

Gouzhi would not kill Ming, Aiden realized, but he could scar her cruelly with just a few slashes. She would still be useful for producing sons.

“Tell him all right,” Aiden said steadily to Ming. “Go with him. Don't be afraid. Tell him not to hurt you. We won't fight.”

He wanted to tell her more—that he would come for her somehow, that she should never stop believing that, that he loved her. He just held her gaze and hoped his eyes could say enough. Hoped to see forgiveness in return.

Then a shot cracked out. People immediately began to scatter, ducking into saloons or behind wagons. Gouzhi looked surprised. He dropped the knife. He looked down at his chest with puzzlement. A dark stain of blood was spreading across the front of his coat. Then his knees buckled and he fell forward into the street. Ming screamed and darted away. Another of the Chinese men grabbed her, but Aiden sprang immediately and wrestled the man away. They both tumbled to the ground, fighting savagely. Fish ran over and grabbed Gouzhi's knife. Aiden punched and kicked, but the man drove a knee into his stomach, then straddled him, wrapped thin, steely hands around his neck and began choking him. Another shot sounded—so close Aiden could smell the gunpowder. The Chinese man screamed and twisted away, clutching his side and falling in a cringing agony. Aiden squirmed out from under him. He saw all the other Chinese attackers running away up the street. He saw Fish standing a few yards away, next to Gouzhi's body, holding the man's knife. His other arm was wrapped around Ming's shoulders. She was safe.

“Aiden, are you all right?” Christopher knelt beside him. It was only then that Aiden felt a burning pain in his thigh and noticed the sticky flow of blood. The world went very quiet and slow.

“Good God!” Christopher flinched. “I think she shot you!”

Aiden saw Blind Sally standing a few yards away. Her giant pistol was still smoking. The sunlight glinted off the gold braid of her tattered military coat. The Moon stood by her side, his back in a ridge of aggression, watching the crowd, growling at anyone who moved.

“Did I hit you, boy?” Blind Sally said. “Sorry for that. That big one was the easy one.” She nodded at Gouzhi. “This one—” She waved her pistol toward the man who had been choking Aiden. “Skinny little man and moving fast as he was—well, sorry. Guess the bullet went clean through.” She tucked the pistol into her belt. “You learn that today, boy—always hold still when a blind woman shoots.”