Gold Mountain by Betty G. Yee

Author:Betty G. Yee [Yee, Betty G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction-Young Adult, Fiction, young adult fiction, China, Transcontinental Railroad, American west, 1860s, historical fiction, migrants, Chinese protagonist, adventure, history, immigration, 19th century, Chinese-American author
ISBN: 9781728451015
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group
Published: 2022-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

14

Well before first light, Ling Fan packed her travel bag and made her way down to the circle of wagons that waited to depart for Cape Horn. Other workers must’ve had the same idea; Ling Fan counted no fewer than seven bodies sprawled in an untidy array of sleep. Most had pulled their wide-brimmed hats over their faces, and Ling Fan could see long, dark queues snaking out from beneath them. She clambered aboard a wagon, curled up between two heaps of coiled rope, and went to sleep.

She woke to a blur of cloud-strewn sky and endless scrub brush on either side of the trail. The steady rocking of the wagon reminded her of being aboard the SS California. But the shrieks of hungry seagulls and the flap of wind-filled sails was replaced by the newly familiar rattle of metal and wood as wheels rolled over uneven ground.

Ling Fan’s wagon closely followed four others loaded with supplies. Behind it trailed two more carrying workers, most of them Chinese, but some bak gui too. Judging by the slant of sunlight, the wagons had been on the move for an hour or two, winding eastward and upward. The base camp and Tunnel Three were nowhere in sight.

The patches of scrubby grass that dotted the landscape gave way to barren brown earth and tumbled rock. Around noon, the wagons pulled off the trail onto a work site and everyone piled out on stiff legs.

They were on a wide, windy plateau several hundred feet higher than their main campsite. Ling Fan had never been so high. How close were they to the summit? She squinted into the wind. It was fierce, stinging her eyes and cheeks and cutting through her padded jacket.

Ah Sook seemed to be everywhere, shouting out orders or bellowing at men for being too slow, too clumsy, too careless. Canvas tents were pitched beside a spur of granite wall that curved south, and many of the bak gui were already settling into them and starting small fires. Ling Fan and the other Chinese workers joined a group of sojourners at a cluster of tents set apart from the bak gui.

From their sacks they pulled out packages of dried seaweed and cuttlefish that they softened in hot water and steamed over boiled rice. A jug of cold tea passed from hand to hand, and everyone took a swig. “This swill will have to do until more supply wagons catch up with us in a few days,” Ah Sook remarked as he handed the jug to Ling Fan. “It’ll be real food, none of that boiled cardboard the bak gui eat. Oysters, abalone, fresh bamboo shoots, noodles . . .” He stared morosely into his bowl.

Ling Fan glanced toward the bak gui workers. “Why don’t we eat with them?”

Ah Sook shrugged. “Why would we want to? We can’t even speak each other’s languages.”

Ling Fan was tempted to point out that she actually knew plenty of English, but she stopped herself in time. Better to drop the subject.

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