Part 1, Chap. 2
Slip-Slidin’ Down Gold Mountain
Edward Orem
A Salty Dog Production
Copyright registered 2017, U.S.A.
ISBN 978-1-365-98841-7
All rights reserved. You may not reprint any of this book for commercial purposes without prior authorization from the publisher.
Anyone using anything longer than a sentence in any other format—print, digital, electronic—is forbidden without said authorization.
Chapter Two
Ishi Jee was alone in a land teeming with half a million suffering souls. Half Celestial, half Native American, certainly a savage, uncivilized heathen—at least to the hordes of white settlers of northern California in the mid-nineteenth century. Definitely an odd stone rolling down Gold Mountain, trying not to bump into trouble. Ishi knew he needed help if he were to survive past his 11th birthday.
The last he had seen of his mother, father, and remnants of the Chamocs, they were fighting for their lives atop a mesa some 100 miles east, white soldiers closing in from all sides.
His father had provided him with the means to sanctuary, as well as his next rice bowl. It was a letter to the Head Abbot at the White Lotus Monastery, enshrouded on a misty cliff side in the turbulent Trinity Mountains. Ishi’s father, Tai Ying, was one of the tens of thousands of Chinese from southern China to immigrate to America at the time.
Tai Ying’s advice rang forth loud and clear: “Those mountains are overrun with drunken, murderous whites driven mad with greed for gold. Don’t lose focus on your objective.”
As he trekked into the morning, Ishi reflected on his father, Tai Ying, and his long family history. This was merely a given, a mark of filial respect to pay special attention to roots.
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One of the more striking, very private pieces of personal history that Tai Ying shared with his son gave an added dimension to the meaning of “family,” beyond even the usual level of Chinese reverence. The Jee clan had migrated south from northwestern China’s Tien Shan Heavenly Mountains several centuries before, following the ancient by-way of the Silk Road as it passed into China from Tibet and India. The southern Cantonese peoples were extremely suspicious of strangers, so the northern migrants found it necessary to form a protective brotherhood in order to survive as newcomers.
By the early 19th Century, the Jee brotherhood had combined with one of the wide-flung factions of the anti-Manchu secret societies of the legendary and heroic Shaolin monks, the Hong Muhn, or “Vast Gate.” That union became one of China’s most powerful tongs by the time Tai Ying sailed for that Gold Mountain (as California was known then throughout China).
The upshot of that was his father didn't have to put his own money down or pledge future salaries for the ocean passage via a lumbering and packed barquentine to Gum Sahn (Cantonese for “Gold Mountain”). Tai Ying had considerable support waiting, even anxious for his arrival.
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Settling in proved to be more mettlesome for Tai Ying than saying goodbye to his kung fu brothers in Canton, the only family left to him for the previous 10 years. Trouble’s Pick of the Day seemed to be the tall and well-muscled, 25 year-old Chinese with a queue, name of Jee, as soon as his ship set anchor near the wharves of San Francisco that July of 1854.
Police officers and Federal soldiers boarded the barquentine and demanded proper identification and paperwork before the 150 Chinese “Celestials” were allowed to disembark for further processing. Tai Ying hurried below into the steerage area to bundle his belongings and papers, only to find one of the ship’s mates rifling through his kit.
That Irish swab going through Tai Ying’s property was in for a surprise. Tai Ying was the “Hong Kun” or “Red Stick” to the Brotherhood, a name he earned after wading through many a tough Javanese pirate hitting the alleys of Foshan for a good time. After that he occupied the rank of First Enforcer for his Tong brothers.
The sailor was busily bent over the bundles when Tai Ying walked up behind him and simply thumped the man’s butt with a solid heel kick. That sent the thief sailing a short distance to test the strength of the ship’s closest hull-rib with his head and shoulders. The hull passed muster, and the unconscious man slumped heavily to the rough planks of the deck.
A shipmate hiding nearby thought he could take on Tai Ying from the rear. “This be kinda like reinin’ a wild lass,” he grunted as he grabbed Tai Ying in a bear hug, pinning both arms. It was a couple hours after that before he was able to put a full sentence together again.
Tai Ying jerked his head back to hear a satisfying crunch of hitting the bridge of the sailor’s nose. He followed-up by thrusting his buttocks violently backwards to strike the man’s belly. That freed him of the grab. He immediately reached down through his own legs to seize the man’s closer ankle, and jerked forward briskly to can him.
Tai Ying didn't let go of the leg. He snapped off a quick backwards stomp to the man’s exposed groin. Still facing away from the sailor, he dropped his center of gravity by sinking low into a “Horse-Riding” posture and jerked the leg up to snap the knee joint.
The whole incident took about nine seconds—just enough time for a man to feel good about a job well done. But when Tai Ying turned around, his satisfaction turned sour.
The ship’s Second Mate stood before him, with two of the crew’s bullyboys beside him.
“Seize that coolie! Drag his sorry ass topside. Make sure he stands before the Government’s officer!” barked the Mate.
The bullyboys winked at each other and abruptly cuffed Tai Ying to bump him up the hatchway. The Union Officer was pretty bored with his customary assessments of bland peasants, so it was with some relish that he began to grill this troublemaker.
“Can any of you men substantiate this pigtail’s claim that he was robbed?” he asked the ship’s crew gathered around. He paused only for dramatic effect, as he damn well knew that by that time Tai Ying’s papers and purse had most certainly mysteriously disappeared. Of course no one was about to save this yellow hide from any number of delectable punishments bobbing in their sotty minds.
But the officer considered himself a thorough man. “Or that he acted in self-defense? Anyone?” With that, he leaned forward into Tai Ying’s face to sneer. “No papers, no money, no good-ee. Take this ‘Quacking’ or whatever he calls hisself, and toss him into the holding tank for savages and heathen at Sailors Prison.”
Tai Ying was quickly flanked and escorted over the side and into a skiff to shore, and marched off under guard.
Two Chinese laborers with queues, baggy shirts, and high-water peasant pants were on deck watching the situation unfold. One leaned over to the other to ask, “What is Sailors Prison?”
“Eeyah! You never heard of that? You must be from a very small village, brother! Known throughout the world’s scummiest ports--a den for advanced studies for affliction of cruelty!” came the response.
“Buddha’s turtle-droppings!”
“Yes, a seething hole of vipers, notorious for especially deadly varieties of murderers, cutthroats, sodomists, and mutineers!”
“Oh, it sounds terrible!”
“Brother, those are just the employed guards I was talking about!”
His countryman sucked in his breath, shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t see how Brother Jee will survive such a place!”
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The impatient desk Sergeant at Sailors Prison, only a short distance from the Commercial Street wharf of the foggy city, fared no better with Tai Ying’s name. He entered the tall Chinese into his logbook as “Tyne Shee Gee.”
“Sounds squishy, like a duck’s fart,” he guffawed, scrawling into the ledger.
When the heavy iron gates and bolts chunked heavily into place, seemingly shutting him off forever from his dreams, Tai Ying never would have believed that this stifling sinkhole was where he would fall in love—and with a fierce native warrior at that.
