4
David Chang and Woan Hong walked along Alameda Street
just past Calle Primero. They had been going from vineyard to
vineyard since early morning, looking for work. No one hired
them, but the foreman at Sainsevain's vineyard told them to
come back Monday. He might have something then. Actually, he
needed time to ask Monsieur Sainsevain whether he could hire
two Chinese boys. They looked strong; both said they could
work hard. But he had never used Chinese in the vineyard
before. As foreman he didn't dare make the decision alone.
David had only been in Los Angeles for two weeks, but he
had already worked nine days - three days cleaning stalls at
Tomlinson's corral and six days loading lumber at the lumber
yard down the street from there. Los Angeles was like his
dream, the dream he had for months before he left China. He
had been so anxious to get there, once his trip began, that he
never left the boat during the three days it lay over in San
Francisco. He wanted nothing to depend on chance. He would
not be left behind on the way to his dream.
The room he and Woan shared on Alameda Street was clean
and dry. He was eighteen and Woan was nineteen. They had
been friends in China. Woan had come first, last year. He
had written that the whites weren't friendly, but the country
was big, and the money was good, and no one starved there, as
far as he could see.
"My name is David," he told Woan, when Woan found him the
day he arrived in Los Angeles. From that moment on he would
no longer answer to his Chinese name.
Woan was quiet and shy, not outgoing and friendly like
David. He had strong arms and muscular legs like David's, but
he wasn't so handsome. His face was flat, his skin was dark,
and his eyes were so narrow it was hard to tell whether he had
any pupils at all.
David had a prominent nose, well-formed lips, and eyes
almost the shape of a white man's. His skin was light.
Without the loose pants and short tunic of a Chinese, he might
have passed as a young Californio. How different life could
have been for him, if he could have passed as a Californio
that day.
Two men riding along Calle Primero on horseback saw them.
They turned up Alameda Street behind them. Both men were
holding rifles.
"You! Chinamen! Hold up there!" one man yelled.
David held out his arm to stop Woan. They're going to
tease us, David thought, or bully us. But when he turned to
glance at them, he saw they had rifles. That confused him.
No white bothered to take out a rifle just to tease a Chinese.
"Tie their hands, Charlie," the first man said.
Charlie holstered his rifle, pulled his lariat off his
saddle, and jumped down. "Put your hands behind your goddam
backs!" he growled. He wound one end of the lariat around
Woan's wrists and knotted it, then, leaving several feet free
in between, he wound the other end around David's wrists and
tied it.
"Pardon me, but what is the problem?" David asked.
"Shut up!" Charlie said, punching him in the side with
his fist.
David groaned and nearly fell. Charlie handed up the
rope that joined the two boys to his partner. "Get a good
hold on this now, Earl" he said. He climbed back onto his
horse.
"Get going, you two!" the man name Earl ordered. He
pulled a foot out of its stirrup and kicked Woan in the back.
Both boys started running, but Earl jerked them back. He
and Charlie were walking their horses.
Woan began to weep out loud.
"Hong, don't," David said in Chinese.
"They're going to kill us," Woan sobbed.
"No. It's some kind of teasing. That's all."
"Shut up!" Charlie yelled.
The boys could see a crowd on the street ahead as they
approached Calle Commercial. They heard first two gunshots,
then several more coming from Marchessault Alley. The men in the
street jumped out of the way, as a man galloped his horse down
Alameda towards them. He was dragging a Chinese by a rope
tied around his neck.
"Hey, Earl! Look at that. Ain't that good?" Charlie
asked, laughing.
"That's stupid. He's gonna kill him too fast."
Woan began to sob harder.
"Hong, stop, please," David said.
"Hey, shut up!" Charlie ordered.
"Aw, let him go," Earl said. "It kinda makes it more
fun."
Around the corner on Commercial, in front of the Collins
brothers' saloon, some men had upended two wagons and lashed
their tongues together with ropes. One Chinaman was already
hanging there. His eyes and tongue seemed to have burst from
his face. Most of the men who were crowded around watching
were drinking from bottles and glasses they had brought out with
them.
Earl and Charlie guided their charges towards the upended
wagons.
"How about some of you boys helping out?" Earl called
out. "Get a couple of neckties ready for these two."
Near the front of the boardwalk stood two men who were
both carrying ropes. They began fashioning hangman's nooses
with them. They were moving their hands almost in time with each
other, like players in a macabre carnival.
Charlie jumped down from his horse. Saliva ran from the
corner of his mouth. He rubbed it off with his sleeve. He
pulled out his knife and cut the length of rope that had joined
the two boys.
When Charlie cut the rope, David felt his last link to
man, as he knew him, was gone. He didn't know what these
things around him were. In China they said they were blue-
eyed devils. But he had studied hard to learn their language.
While he was on the boat coming to California, he had helped
the sailors every way he could think of and had tried to talk
to them to practice their language and to show them that he
wanted to be friendly. When he came to Los Angeles, he tried
to show every white man he passed that he wanted to be
friends. He smiled at him, and, if he thought it wouldn't
give offense, he spoke, usually only saying, "Hello."
"Where'd you get these two, Earl?" someone from the crowd
asked.
"Back down by First Street."
"What did they do?"
"Well, we didn't see exactly what it was, but these
heathens are up to no good. You know that."
"That's the gospel truth."
"No Christian's safe as long as they're walking the
streets."
"Here's one necktie ready," yelled the man who had finished
ahead of his partner. He walked up to Earl and gave him the
rope.
"Which one you gonna do first?" somebody called out.
"I think we oughta start with this pretty-faced one," Earl
said, motioning towards David.
David still tried to smile, but the bottom of his stomach
felt like it was dropping away.
"No, take this one," Charlie said, pushing Woan forward.
"I can't stand his sniveling another minute."
Earl shoved David aside and swaggered over to Woan. He
put the noose around his neck and tossed the other end up at
the tongues of the upended wagons. It didn't go over. It
fell at his feet.
"You're supposed to throw the noose over first, Earl.
It's easier," somebody called out.
"Give him time. He's new at this," somebody else called
out.
Several men laughed.
Earl tossed the end of the rope again. This time it went
over the tongues. One of the men on the boardwalk stepped out
and grabbed it, so it wouldn't slide back up.
"Go ahead and pull him up," Earl said to the man.
The man shook his head. He handed the end of the rope to
Earl.
Woan still sobbed, but now louder and harder.
"Stop this, you men!" someone from the back of the crowd
yelled.
"Who said that?" Earl demanded.
"I did," said the man, stepping forward.
"Who the hell are you?" Earl asked.
"Are you the law?" Charlie asked.
"No."
"Do you plan to fight us?" Earl asked.
"Not all of you."
"Then step back, mister. This ain't your affair." Earl
walked under the wagon tongues and stepped onto the boardwalk.
He pulled on the rope once, steadied it with his left hand,
then pulled again, lifting Woan off the ground by his neck.
Earl wrapped the rope around one of the posts holding up the
boardwalk and tied it.
Gurgles replaced Woan's sobs. He kicked his feet, almost
looking as if he were running. A couple of men near the front
of the crowd turned away, but they looked back as soon as they
realized what they had done. They didn't want the others to
think they didn't have the stomachs to watch. But watching
this poor Chinese boy, who had been weeping only a moment before,
now struggling to get air that he wasn't going to get, was
hard to do.
"Give me the other one," Earl ordered.
A man handed him the other noose. This time Earl threw
the end with the noose over the tongues. He caught it and
walked towards David. Two men grabbed David's arms from
behind.
"I want say something," David said.
"Shut up!" Charlie yelled.
"Let him talk!" someone from the crowd called out.
"Yeah!" others added.
"I do no bad thing," David began, as Earl slipped the
noose over his head. Woan's body stopped jerking. David
glanced at it, then looked away. "I have no bad feeling with
anyone. With me and you is peace. Only thing peace."
"Is that all?" asked Earl. He had stepped onto the
boardwalk behind him.
David nodded. Earl lifted him off the ground by the neck
and tied the end of the rope to another post.