Free A Superior Man by Paul Yee Page B

trying to get rid of Sam. He noticed and stopped to look back at Soohoo and me. A rush of cool air caused the oil lamps to flicker, caused the shadows on the walls to jerk back and forth.
    â€œYou two fools go the same way,” Soohoo said. “Why not travel together?”
    â€œThat one prefers his own kind,” Sam said. “Even when they don’t know east from west. He doesn’t know how much horse shit covers the road.”

    A morning later, Sam tied a brick onto this mouse’s back. Lurching drunkenly, I acted as if the weight of the pack was nothing and tried to walk alongside Sam, even march ahead. Anything was better than being seen trudging behind him. The Native people by the river would see me as the beast of burden, the plodding ass being led, orthe master’s loyal dog even though our packs were alike in size and weight. We were both long-legged, but my clothes were better made and cleaner so I looked like a boss. My hat was newer too. But Sam had the surer foot and pulled ahead without effort.
    At first I hung back to let the distance declare that we were strangers. Then I wanted safety, wanted Sam within shouting range. I thought of returning to Yale, but its China men would cackle like grannies. “We warned him not to go! City men totter on bound feet.”
    This morning I hadn’t touched my breakfast. Sam asked, grinning, if I was sick or having second thoughts. I rushed off and squatted in the latrine to clear my head. To go with the mix-blood would be like dragging a cow up a tree.
    Late last evening, the boy and I had followed him to a house, far from the raucous noise and flickering lights of the saloons, to save a night’s rent. Sam didn’t live in Yale. And on his visits here, he stayed away from Chinatown and the Native village.
    â€œSummers, I go to mountain caves,” he told me. “Cover myself with tree branches and sleep on rock.”
    â€œWild animals don’t eat you?”
    â€œThey’re smart and stay away.” Whenever Sam spoke to the boy, it took longer than when he spoke Chinese with me. Of course he was giving him more details. I heard the boy laugh, but nothing that Sam said to me ever made me smile.
    Then, when three redbeards came toward us, I hushed the boy, who was dancing and singing by my side, testing his new shoes on the sidewalk. Sam ignored my call for quiet and for lowering the lantern. I held the brat as he squirmed. Luckily, our two parties passed each other with no trouble.
    â€œWhat, you wanted to fight them?” I asked Sam. Not much was needed to provoke a redbeard to violence, especially when China men were far from Chinatown.
    â€œFight who?”
    After this, my son clung to Sam the brave warrior, not his nervous father.
    In the empty house, Sam lit candles and lay blankets on the floor. The doors had no locks. “What if someone comes to slit our throats?” I asked.
    â€œThen we make sure to slit theirs first.”
    He and the boy laughed and went hand-in-hand to tour the house.
    â€œThe boy asked how I came to own this house,” Sam said, “without the fuss and noise of a big family. He wants a home just like this!”
    The blankets were thin against the chill so I drew the boy close. He turned this way and that. I wanted to slap him to settle down. I slept poorly and awoke when it was still dark. The boy was gone. I sprang to my feet. The worm had crawled to Sam and slipped under his blanket. Those two shared a similar stink, I told myself.

    â€œCome!” I forced the boy to trot along. He kept squatting and pressing his hands to the steel rail, his gaze fixed on its mirror-like finish.
    Big and small bridges carried the railway across the creeks that fed into the Fraser. Clear water streamed glistening down the mountains but turned muddy in the swift wide river. On the iron road side of the waterway, only the upper reaches of hills held greentrees, ones that had escaped