“And who in hell are you?” She restrains herself from spitting in the rat’s eye.
“We’re ‘is trainers, chit,” the rat says, “and you’ll do well to leave ‘im alone.”
“Take your hands away, you lunk, and let me have a look,” Jessie commands. Zhu kneels beside her.
Duncan Ross’s proud head is drenched in blood, nearly making Jessie retch from the stink of life leaving the body. She smooths back his black hair, smooths away the blood, working her fingers down in the tear in his scalp till she can feel the cracked wound. A jagged edge is etched across his very skull, each portion of bone canting away from the other.
“Jar me,” she whispers. “It’s hopeless. He’s a-goin’ to meet his Maker.”
But Zhu gently places her hand over Jessie’s, works her fingers down, and feels the wound for herself. Suddenly she’s got a knife in her other hand. She bears the blade down on poor Duncan Ross’s head.
“What the devil are you doing?” Jessie whispers. What will the mob do to them both if they find a strange Chinese woman, dressed as a coolie, hastening the demise of their champion?
“Ssh, don’t worry,” Zhu says with a slight smile. Clicking a little knob on the hilt of the knife, she firmly and swiftly presses the blade across the wound as though slicing a melon.
Jessie’s stomach clenches. But Mr. Ross’s skull does not split open. Zhu withdraws the knife and runs her fingers through his scalp. “Feel now.”
Jessie runs her fingers through the black hair again, searching for that awful edge of ragged bone. But there’s nothing. His skull is smooth and whole again. Blood flows only from the scalp wound, which should heal all right if it doesn’t turn rotten.
Jessie turns to Zhu, openmouthed. Her heartbeat throbs in her stomach beneath the stays of her corset. “What is that thing? What did you just do?”
Zhu tucks the knife into a pocket in her tunic. “It’s just my mollie knife.”
“That’s just a miracle! Let me see it. A mollie knife? But what is it? Where did you get it?”
But Zhu shakes her head and stands, helping Jessie to her feet. Daniel sways over them, barely keeping his balance. Still, Jessie can see from his puzzled look that he witnessed it all. He frowns. The crowd begins to twitter and honk, inarticulate beasts on the verge of panic, a weird sound the like of which Jessie has never heard before. The start of a melee, of a riot. She’s read about the union strikes in Philadelphia and Chicago, how when violence starts, the crowd changes into some great ravening monster without reason or sensibility.
“The bulls are here,” Daniel says. “Ladies, let us make our departure.”
A squad of blue-suited, red-faced, cursing policemen scramble over the ridge by the cable car, wiping dirt off their hands as they gain the summit. They hoist out billy clubs.
Jessie seizes one of Daniel’s hands, Zhu seizes the other, and they steer toward the opposite side of the jousting field, beyond the grounds of the German Castle to the far perimeter of Telegraph Hill where the slope angles down into velvety darkness and crude shacks cling to the cliff. Contractors have ruthlessly quarried the hill, blasting granite and shale from beneath the very feet of settlers perched on their fine precipice and carting away the rock to pave the city streets.
Other spectators scramble and careen down the rugged hillside, too. No one wants to get pinched. In the dim light, Jessie spies Fanny Spiggott clinging to the arm of a solicitous gentleman. How many treasures will Miss Spiggott’s nimble fingers free from the topcoat and vest of her gallant before they reach the bottom of the hill?
“But I’m wearin’ fine shoes!” Jessie protests as Daniel guides her down the rocky slope. Zhu deftly scales the slope in her flat sandals, loping from to grade to grade like a mountain goat. She offers Jessie a steadying hand, but Jessie declines.
“I’ll take the low road, thank you, missy.” A blue funk settles over her soul.
Why? Because Zhu Wong is a Chinese girl, a chit, a wench. With unusual qualifications and talents, it’s true. A smart kid, perhaps even a trusted ally. But she’s Jessie’s servant, for pity’s sake. Jessie’s possession, bound by a contract under which the creature must serve without question. In short, she’s not a person. Not a person the way Daniel J. Watkins is a person. Certainly not a person with a