Huang Kung-wang, qui n'a jamais maîtrisé l'art de penser à lui-même comme Hanley Wang, était mal à la selle. Très mal à la selle. Mais en dehors de son mouvement agité, il ne se plaignait pas. Mary était sur son propre cheval juste un peu plus loin sur la route. Si une telle piste pulvérisée pouvait s'appeler une route. Son amant n'était pas à l'écart maintenant qu'ils étaient en fuite. Au lieu de ça, elle s'est assise comme un homme avec un pantalon et tout. Ses longs cheveux bruns l'ont laissée en fuite derrière elle. De l'inclinaison de ses épaules Kung-wang pouvait dire qu'elle était profonde dans la pensée. Selon la carte qu'ils utilisaient, ils auraient dû atteindre la ville d'Iron Hills hier. Ils ne l'ont pas fait. Kung-wang soupirait. Ils étaient perdus.
"Nous ne sommes pas perdus." Mary s'est cassée à son soupir. "Nous sommes juste..." Elle a lutté pour un mot. "Pas là où nous sommes censés être."
Marie soupira et se pencha. Kung-wang a poussé son cheval jusqu'au sien et enroulé un bras autour d'elle. "Ça va aller." Kung-wang lui a dit. Malgré les années qu'il a passées en Amérique, il a encore eu du mal à parler la langue. La compréhension de la langue parlée était bien meilleure. Bien sûr, sa lecture de l'anglais n'existait pas, c'est pourquoi Mary naviguait.
"La route est très utilisée." Kung-wang a fait remarquer. "Et très récemment. Il doit y avoir des gens quelque part."
Le petit sourire reconnaissant Marie l'a envoyé le réchauffer de l'intérieur. Kung-wang se sentent de retour comme ils ont continué. Il voulait monter côte à côte avec Mary, mais ce n'était pas pratique. Si quelqu'un savait qu'ils étaient ensemble, ils ne s'arrêteraient pas à tuer Kung-wang comme le père de Mary. Ils pourraient décider de la tuer aussi, ou pire. Les deux étaient comme des étrangers. C'est lui son serviteur et sa très grande dame dans les moments difficiles.
Le soleil chaud a continué à se lever tandis que les deux ont continué leur long voyage à travers le désert dur. Les deux s'arrêtèrent fréquemment pour arroser leurs chevaux et eux-mêmes. Ni l'un ni l'autre n'a exprimé ce qui se passerait si leur approvisionnement en eau était épuisé. Mourir seul dans le désert pourrait sembler romantique mais ce n'était pas le cas. Ils avaient besoin de trouver une ville avant la tombée de la nuit ou ils devaient retourner en arrière et espérer qu'ils avaient assez de rations pour revenir à la dernière ville où ils sont passés.
Espérons. C'est sur ça que tout se passait maintenant.
Huang Kung-wang* (黃公望)
"Hanley Wang"Alias - Hanley Wang
Age - 22
Gender - Male
Occupation - Former thief, Shoe Shiner, Scalper, Ruffian, Servant and now Unemployed
Height - 5'5"
Weight - 120lbs
Apparel - Kung-Wang wears traditional Chinese clothes. Or he did. He still has one outfit left but mostly he wears just a pair of trousers and a shirt (that he stole while on the run)
Weaponry - 1873 Buntline (A Henry repeating rifle used by Mary)
Equipment - Two horses, a map, a compass, Mary's jewelry, clothing, food and water.
Skills - Thievery, skulking, horsemanship, hunting, and Bilingual (Cantonese and English).
Flaws - He's Chinese who loves a white woman. He's young and kind of stupid. He doesn't believe he's inferior to any white man which sometimes causes him to loose his temper.
Personality - Kung-Wang is an angry young man. His history of loss and hardship has shaped him cruelly. He resents those who have wealth and do nothing to help those around them. He's angry at the world for not saving his family. He's angry at himself for the same thing. He hates the world for thinking that he's lesser somehow than white people. Because he knows he's not. But with his upbringing Kung-Wang bottles it all in. He doesn't show his anger until he loses it completely. The only light in his miserable life is Mary. She keeps him sane and makes him want to be a better person. He loves her more than anything and he would do anything to keep her happy. Anything.
Backstory - Chinese Immigrants started coming to the United States at the beginning of the 19th century. Though that wasn't the earliest immigration. The Chinese (in low numbers) already lived in what was to become California (then Mexico). These individuals were largely laborers. Their poor fate not much better than what they immigrated from in China. Those who immigrated in the early 1800s were mainly men. They left their families behind in hopes to find work and hopefully a better life. But there was no better life to be found. Only more hardship, discrimination and abuse. Those lucky enough to find jobs quickly found themselves in indentured servitude.
My father was one of these workers. When he left China it was during the Manchu*+ Dynasty. The isolationist policies were in full swing. But largely ignored in favor of making money through trade. My father had lived through the First and Second Opium wars and even fought in the Second. He doesn't talk about it but my mother said that he had been stationed in Nanking*. When the Burlingame Treaty was signed in 1868 my father immigrated to the United States. That was the last time I ever saw the man for years. I was just a young boy of seven. But I still remember the hope we felt when we saw him off. We were poor. I remember my mother counting rice grains to save on money. We couldn't cover all the costs but we were able to use the 'Credit-Ticket' system.
What we didn't know was that he signed up for indentured servitude. He never paid off his debt to Pacific Mail Steamship Company and those who bought his debt. We only heard from him twice, when he first arrived he sent us a letter. After that we didn't hear from him again for ten years.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. After my father departed for America life was even harder at home. Without my father my mother had to work twice as hard to feed all her children. Since I was eldest it fell to me to try to find another source of income. I'm not ashamed that I worked as a beggar, shinning shoes or even resorting to thievery to make sure my family ate. Still, despite my best efforts we didn't always have food on the table. The aftermath of the wars had left the economy crippled with a firm bias to the foreigners. Our jobs were the menial and dangerous tasks that no one else wanted and we weren't paid enough for even basic survival for one person.
In the ensuing years as hope faded that America might take us in, my two sisters died of illness. I watched my mother waste away and finally succumb to death when I was in my 16th** year. In the worst twist of fate not even a day after my mother's passing my father's second letter reached me. He had enclosed a small amount of money. But it was American and with the conversion I'd had nearly enough to get myself to America. When I sold the house and everything in it I had just enough to gain passage to America. The year was 1878.
Price for a boat ride of America had decreased in the ensuing years. We had all heard that the Gold Rush was no longer a Rush. The Transcontinental Rail road was pretty much built. Work was harder to find, but I was sure with my father I could do it. After all there was nothing left for me in China.
The steam ship ride to America was pretty uneventful. The poor souls on the ship, myself included, didn't talk to each other. We all knew that our fate in America was probably to be no better than in China. We would die in a land far from home without any hope. But if there was any chance at all, we had to take it. It made for a quiet ride. None of us talked to each other. There was no reason at all. We'd never see each other again. Or at the worst we'd have to watch each other die. In that case it was better to see a stranger die than a friend.
After the ship deposited us we had to register with the government. They asked us so many questions with their rapid fire English I couldn't even understand most of it. When they asked me for my name (I understood the word 'Name') I just repeated Huang Kung-wang. The man who questioned me just shook his head every time. Finally he said: Hanley Wang and wrote that on the paper. Or so I figured out later. I was quite illiterate at the time when it came to English.
When I finally paid the man off with my remaining money I gained by papers. And a intense foreboding. I know I'd receive no welcome in America but I didn't expect the outright hatred and hostility. I received hateful stares. People whispered and shouted and pointed at me. I didn't understand what they said but their tone made it quite clear. Fear had settled in. I was penniless. I was in a strange country where I barely spoke the language. All my preparations with English were for naught now that I was confronted with it. The desire to get back on the ship and leave was strong but there was nothing to go back to. My mother was dead. My sisters were dead. Only down the path ahead of me laid my father. That was what kept me going. I clutched the letter in my hand and steadfastly made my way to the address my father provided. His letter had told us not to come. But I had to see him. I had to.
My father worked in a field with a lot of other Chinese men. They were all filthy and under feed. Much like myself. It was hard to stop a man I hadn't see in ten years. I didn't recognize him at all. I had to go around individually and ask each man if he was my father. I was chased off once by a white man with a gun but I returned after hours to continue my search.
My father turned out to be a dead eyed man by the same of Albert. He asked me not to call him by his name. When I pressed he just said that that man was dead. I stopped pressing. We sat in silence for a long time before I worked up the courage to tell him about my mother, his wife. He stared at me for a while then nodded his head.
"Here." He said after he stood and grabbed a box to press into my hands. "You'll need this if you are to survive."
He went on to tell me that north there was another home that was looking for a servant. Someone who was good with manual labor. He told me to look for employment there. Before I left I asked why he didn't leave if work here was so terrible. I was so naive then. The man my father had become just smiled sadly at me. But new life entered his eyes.
"Now that I've seen you I am." He told me. I didn't understand what he meant at that point. I just took the chest and left at his bidding. When I returned in the morning I discovered that he had hanged himself. Suicide***. I was aghast and confused. But after asking around I discovered that my father was a slave to these white men in all but name. And that instead of choosing to remain a slave he had set himself free and restored his honor. I could not fault him for that. He was a brave man. My mother was right, as always.
So I traveled north to find work. My father was correct that a home was hiring laborers. I was the last hired and got the worst jobs. But it was work which meant I could feed myself for the first time in days. I worked all sorts of off jobs at the large house. The head of the house a Marshall Reagan was a stern but fair man. He didn't abuse his servants but he wasn't nice either. I learned to jump when he called Hanley.
After a few days of working for Mr. Reagan I spotted his daughter. She was a lovely little girl and I fell in love at first sight. She had lovely white skin and raven black hair. The first sighting I had of her was on a horse. Her long hair streaming out behind her. I made it a point to work in the stables after that and became quite proficient with the horses. Unlike everyone in America they didn't care that I was Chinese.
Due to my new position as a stable hand I had many meetings with Miss Reagan. Eventually as the years progressed we became quite close. When I was nineteen years I stole my first kiss from her. Over the next year and a half we were successful in keeping our illicit relationship a secret. She was not only beautiful but she was smart. Her father was educating her to take over the house hold. She could read, write, do maths and even sing. Best of all she didn't look at me and see Hanley Wang a yellowfaced man. But she saw Huang Kung-wang. She saw all that I was and she wasn't afraid nor did she pity me. Instead she loved me.
When I was twenty-one years Mr. Reagan caught Mary and I in a compromising situation. He was livid. Angrier than I had even seen the man. He shouted obscenities at me and then ran back to his house to grab his gun. At Mary's urging I fled the Reagan lands and hid away in the desert. Later that night Mary hailed me from her window and tossed me bags. The first was heavy and the second and the third were not much lighter. Then Mary climbed down from her room. Her legs clad in only breaches. I should have adverted my eyes, but I couldn't.
Together the two of us stole a set of horses from her father's stables and rode off. According to Mary we'd be safe in Mexico. But we couldn't take a direct route or else her father would find us. Which saw us heading East first then South later. Our route finally took us to a small town named Soursprings where a new chapter in our life opened.
*To keep with the Wild West theme I'm using the Wade-Giles spelling of Chinese Words. Despite the fact it was designed for Mandarin and my character will speak Cantonese. There was no official Anglicized writing system for Cantonese during the time period. But that's not to say there was no such system. Just none that were as widely recognized or even taught than Wade-Giles. Because of this I've made the decision to keep using Wade-Giles even though it is a convoluted and outdated system that quite frankly made it very difficult for westerners to learn Mandarin.
*+The Manchu Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty (Under Wade-Giles it was the Ch'ing Dynasty) is the last Chinese Dynasty where China was ruled by an Emperor. It ruled from 1644 to 1912.
**To keep with the Chinese way of counting age, my character would technically be 17.
***Suicide wasn't only a Japanese way of restoring honor. Nor only for Samurai. But many places in Asia practiced ritual suicide. In fact in some more conservative places in Asia it is still a practice. But ritual suicide is romanced in their culture. It's a way to restore lost honor and that is very important. I could write a whole discourse on Honor and the importance thereof, but all you need to know is that by killing himself Kung-wang's father restored his honor (and that if his family) that had been lost, stripped away by slavery. Kung-wang himself respected his father for that decision even though it meant he'd never see the man again.