When the Earth Dragon Trembled by Judy Dodge Cummings

Author:Judy Dodge Cummings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: North Star Editions
Published: 2020-12-21T20:07:56+00:00

Chapter 9

April 18, 1906 — 10:00 p.m.

Water. Han needed it, desperately. Not only was his throat a desert, but San Francisco was an inferno and growing hotter by the minute. When Han had left the Presidio hours earlier, he’d been determined not to stop walking until he found Father. But as night descended and the sky turned red, he realized the search was impossible until the city stopped burning.

Han wandered up one block and down the next, looking for the waterfront. The ocean was the only place where he would feel safe from the fiery breath of the Earth Dragon. Ash fell from the sky. The streets were much less crowded than earlier, but the people who were out looked as exhausted as Han felt.

Just when Han was about to collapse from thirst, he heard piano music and a man singing. Turning the corner, he discovered a makeshift camp on the sidewalk. A white woman, arms the size of salted hams, stirred something in a washbasin atop a wood stove. The smell of the basin’s contents made Han’s mouth water. A man in a bowler hat plunked out a song on a nearby piano, a young girl beside him. Several people were squeezed onto a couch, and a few more lay on a nearby bed. Han felt like he should avert his gaze. The inside lives of San Franciscans were on display.

Han was not the only person drawn by the sounds and smells of the makeshift camp. A girl walked up to the woman at the stove and held out a tin can.

“Momma asks if you’ll take ground coffee for some soup.”

“Sounds like a fair trade,” the woman said. She dumped the coffee from the girl’s can into a kettle boiling on the stove and then ladled soup into the can and handed it back to the girl. The girl disappeared down the street.

A man passing by pulled three potatoes and an onion from a sack over his shoulder. “I’ll add these to the pot if I can stay long enough to have a bite,” he said.

“Thank you kindly,” the woman replied. She began to clean the potatoes.

Han was so thirsty his tongue was pasted to the roof of his mouth. But everyone in the camp was white, and they seemed to be operating by trade. Would they welcome a Chinese boy with nothing to offer? His brain told him not to take the chance, but his thirst ordered his feet to cross the street.

Han slunk silently up to the stove. The woman gave him a knowing look.

“Hungry, boy?” she asked.

“Thirsty,” he croaked.

“Water is as scarce as hen’s teeth. What have you got to trade?”

“Nothing.”

The woman sighed and rested her hands on her hips. “If we just go giving out something for nothing, soon we’ll all have nothing. You must have something to share?”

Was she blind? He was just a boy dressed in filthy clothes. Other than the fifty-cent piece and the nickel, the only possession he had in the entire world was the book of proverbs in his pocket.

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