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Tom.
     
    ‘I can see how you might think so. Is it true that you Indians take many wives?’
     
    ‘Is it true that you Chinese do?’
     
    ‘Lucky men. Prosperous men.’
     
    ‘Well, we don’t,’ said Tom. ‘You’re thinking of the Puyallups.’
     
    ‘Still, you must have known many beautiful women.’
     
    ‘I must have. It would be hard to die without that, wouldn’t it, Chinaman?’
     
    ‘Yes,’ said Chin. His throat constricted suddenly. How many beautiful women had he known? Lily-footed women. Women whose feet curled like petals. Or even big-foot, flat-footed women? Once while they were mining, his uncle had told him there were only two Chinese women in all of eastern Washington. Chin had never set eyes on either of them. He was a young man and all the beautiful women were an ocean away. Or in San Francisco. The Temple of United Justice smuggled beautiful, shameless women into San Francisco in bulk and sold them on Dupont Street.
     
    Tom was standing up. He was probably a whole head taller than Chin. He shook his pants out, smoothed them down with his hands. Very big hands. ‘Did you ever hear of the beautiful Ah Toy?’ Chin asked him. His voice came out rather high. He coughed to lower it, which made his head ache again. ‘When she lived in San Francisco the white miners stood in line and poured gold dust onto her scales just to look at her.’
     
    ‘No, I never heard of her,’ Tom said. ‘But right here in Steilacoom we have a woman named Soldier Sal. You wouldn’t want to just look. You could die for her, if you felt like dying.’
     
    ‘I don’t,’ said Chin.
     
    Tom stepped to the window and wrapped his hand around one of the bars. Chin thought how cold it must be, the metal on his bare hand. But Tom didn’t seem to mind. His shoulder-length, unbraided hair was a blacker shadow in the black room. ‘Are you ready?’ Tom said.
     
    Ready for what? ‘No,’ Chin answered.
     
    ‘I don’t have much time left. You don’t have much time left. I’m ready to see what you promised to show me.’
     
    ‘You have to trust me,’ said Chin. ‘You will see it. I will show you. But I can’t show it to you now.’
     
    ‘Can’t be a dead Chinaman,’ said Tom. ‘I’ve already seen one of those.’
     
    ‘I wasn’t planning for it to be.’
     
    ‘But you’re lying to me,’ Tom told him. ‘You’ve got nothing to show me. You Chinese are no smarter than we are. And don’t think that I’m so dumb. Just because I haven’t killed you yet.’ Tom swung just perceptibly left to right and back, hanging on to the bar.
     
    ‘I never thought that was dumb.’ Chin was sweating again. His head beat. He was a small man on the inside of a pounding drum.
     
    ‘Listen.’ Tom’s voice came alive suddenly. ‘Listen.’ He turned his face to Chin. His eyes and his mouth were open. ‘The birds are back. The birds have come back.’
     
    Chin heard an owl outside the window. ‘Who,’ it asked. ‘Who?’
     
    ‘Me,’ said Tom. ‘Of course, me. My owl.’
     
    So Chin knew for the first time, knew with certainty, that he would not be dying that night after all. ‘Who?’ the owl repeated. Not me, thought Chin. He wrapped himself in his blanket. ‘Tomorrow night,’ he said to Tom sleepily, ‘I will look at the moon for you. Every night I will do that.’
     
    ‘But don’t say my name. Even though it’s not my Indian name,’ Tom answered. ‘Don’t ever say Tom after I’m dead.’ And then Chin let his head hurt until Tom’s glistening face and the window and the cot began to move past him, chasing each other around and around the room. He had the discursive half-dreams of early sleep. The demonic dreams of full sleep. He was just about to begin the prophetic dreams of morning when he woke up.
     
    Jeb Chambers was bending over him. ‘Chinaman,’ he said. ‘There’s someone here who wants to talk to you. You come with me now.’
     
    Chin rose in some confusion. He wiped