“Storm’s coming,” Tan Din said, more to himself than Ling Fan as their cart trundled up the mountain path. The warm, still air had been replaced by a cold wind blowing down from Donner Pass. It whipped the tree branches overhead, making the leaves thrash wildly as though waving the supply caravan onward.
Ling Fan was still trying to sort through the day’s events. They kept tossing through her mind like the windblown leaves that swirled around the donkeys’ hooves.
“Tan Din, why would anyone want to cause problems for the railroad?”
Tan Din sucked on his teeth. “It’s the way these American bak gui like to do things. Everyone’s out to get what’s best for themselves. Even if that means clawing over everyone else to get it. Building this railroad is like running a race. One racer, the Central Pacific Railroad Company, started out of Sacramento. The other, the Union Pacific Railroad Company, is coming in from the East. Whichever one gets to a certain spot in Utah first gains enormous prestige.”
Ling Fan couldn’t help snorting. Two groups of men racing to a finish line. It sounded so childish.
“Scoff all you like,” Tan Din growled. “Prestige brings money.
Mountains of it! And that’s on top of all the land they’ll get control of wherever tracks have been laid. A lot of American bak gui dollars have been put into this project, but that’s nothing to the money they’ll get out of it when it’s finally finished.”
In her mind’s eye, Ling Fan saw the two railroads flowing across prairie and hills like two ravenous snakes. Everywhere they passed, wagon trails, buildings, houses, and stores sprang up and spread deep into the countryside for miles around. So much wild, jagged land flattened to make room for the people to come.
Something Jonathan O’Brien had said nibbled at the edge of her mind.
“Tan Din, whose land is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“That bak gui in Illinoistown said even the men who think they own this land are guests. So whose land is it really?”
“I suppose he’s thinking of the Indians.” Tan Din shrugged. “I don’t know much about them—just that they lived on some of this land before the bak gui came. But when the bak gui in charge of the railroads finish their work, the land will be theirs.”
Something about Tan Din’s explanation didn’t feel right, but Ling Fan decided to drop the subject. The day had been fraught with too many emotions and new ideas. None of this made sense to her, but she was too tired to wrestle with it.
That night, she wrote to her brother: I don’t know why most of the American bak gui seem to hate us sojourners so much. But you’d like the O’Briens and Mrs. Strobridge. I think Baba would too.