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in the graveyard,” he said. He said you were the answer to a prayer. And a damned peculiar answer. Nobody really thinks you beat that woman.’
     
    The sudden loosening in Chin’s stomach was almost more than he could bear. Was there really a way out of this? Was the woman in black still protecting him in spite of what he’d done? No human, not even a crazy human, would be so forgiving. Only the immortals were capable of such charity. And Chin would be worthy of it. If he got out of this jail, if he was alive and free to go where he wanted, he would head straight for the hospital and make sure she was all right. This was a promise. His honor attached to it. In his relief he had allowed himself to forget some of the details of Tom’s statement.
     
    Tom cleared his throat, which helped Chin remember.
     
    ‘Why do they want me to kill you?’ Chin asked.
     
    ‘They probably wouldn’t mind if I killed you,’ Tom said. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t solve the problem, but it wouldn’t be a great loss either. There it goes, the moon.’ His voice flattened again. To Chin, who was used to the six tones of Cantonese, all English was expressionless. But he had never heard a voice as empty as the Indian’s. ‘I’m not going to see it again,’ Tom added. ‘I suppose I should be grateful there was a full moon on my last night. Could have been moonless.’
     
    ‘You said you weren’t going to kill me,’ Chin reminded him. Chin had not forgotten; it would be a shame if Tom had.
     
    ‘I don’t plan to,’ Tom said. ‘You show me how I gain by it.’
     
    ‘You don’t,’ said Chin. ‘I don’t see how it benefits you at all.’
     
    Tom closed his eyes. ‘Don’t hurt me much either. And keeps you from killing me. I’ll tell you what, Chinaman. I have only this one night left. Half a night now, and I want to see something never seen in this world. You show me something like that and I won’t kill you. You Chinese are supposed to be so damned clever. You do that. You do that for me.’
     
    ‘I will,’ said Chin, thinking desperately and futilely. What did he have? His abacus? His wok brush? ‘But you have to trust me a little. I can’t do it right now. I’ve got to have just a little time.’
     
    ‘I got just a little time,’ said Tom.
     
    ‘I bet you didn’t know that the Chinese came here before the Caucasians,’ Chin said divertingly. ‘Came, looked around, and went home again. Never tried to move in. Came as guests. Hui Shen, a Buddhist priest, returned to China from a land he called Fu-Sang. He said the people there drank deer milk, lived in wooden houses, owned oxen and cattle, had copper but not iron. This was thirteen hundred years ago.’
     
    ‘He didn’t come here,’ said Tom. ‘My people would have remembered.’
     
    ‘He may have been farther south,’ Chin conceded.
     
    Tom slid a heavy boot along the stone floor. It made a scraping noise. Was he getting up? Chin spoke rapidly again. ‘Where do you think they’re going to end the railroad?’ he asked. ‘You think Steilacoom has a chance? The terminus will be an important city. I bet Steilacoom is hoping for it.’
     
    ‘Steilacoom is a pile of dung on a pile of dung,’ said Tom. He slid his other boot forward.
     
    ‘Good point,’ said Chin. ‘We think it will be Tacoma. We Chinese.’
     
    ‘You tell me,’ said Tom, ‘how it is that you Chinese make a dollar a day in a job where a white man makes a dollar seventy-five and you always got more money than anyone else.’ ‘Frugal,’ said Chin. ‘It’s a frugal culture.’
     
    ‘Your women, is it true they have little tiny feet they can hardly walk on? That you fix them when they’re little children so that their feet never grow again? You like them that way?’
     
    ‘Yes,’ said Chin. ‘Yes, I do. A woman’s foot is a work of art. She creates it. It shows what she is. It’s a manifestation of her inner character.’
     
    ‘It’s sick,’ said