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Leah counted only thirteen people on her side, and that included children. She lost count of the number on the opposite side.
“Where’s Pa?” Teddy whispered. Leah scanned the gathering, but Thad’s tall, lean form was nowhere to be seen.
“I do not know. He left the house early to find a safe place for Uncle Charlie in case…” She could not bear to finish the thought.
Carl Ness began banging a makeshift gavel on the small table before him. “Order,” he yelled. “Come to order.”
Carl’s wife, Linda-Lou, sat on his right. To his left perched their twins, Edith and Noralee. Leah noticed that Noralee was staring fixedly at her shoes.
Whitey Poletti sprawled behind Carl in an old barbershop chair, his white-blond hair slicked back with hair tonic. Sitting slumpshouldered as he was, the paunchy Italian resembled an oversize rag doll.
Carl stood up, hooked his thumbs in his front pockets and puffed out his bony chest. “I called this here meeting ’cuz of something important that’s come up in Smoke River. Something that affects all of us.”
A murmur of discontent circled the room. Undeterred, the mercantile owner continued. “Up till a couple of months ago, our town’s been a pretty nice place to live. Now we’ve got us a problem.”
Harvey Pritchard stood up at the back of the room and stuck both thumbs in his bib overalls. “Vat iss this problem?”
“The problem,” Carl retorted, “is Charlie’s Bakery. You’d know that if you and the missus came into town and visited the mercantile more often.”
“Yah? Who iss Charlie?”
A ripple of anticipation followed the farmer’s query. “He’s a damn Celestial,” Carl said, his voice tight. “You know, a Chinaman!”
Pritchard restraightened his bib overalls. “And vat has he done?”
Whitey Poletti shot to his feet. “Clean out yer ears, Pritchard. The Chinaman’s opened a bakery, right next to my barbershop!”
“Ah, iss good idea, yah? Get shave and haircut and bring home cake.”
The crowd laughed. Poletti grew red in the face. “But this here Charlie is a Celestial!” he shouted. “An immigrant! His real name is Ming Chow or somethin’.”
“So vat? I and my wife, ve are immigrants, too. Ve are Dutch. My wrangler, he is fullblooded Nez Perce, and my cook, Maria, she comes from Mexico.”
Whitey snorted. “Ya know, Pritchard, you live so far outta town you don’t keep up with things. I said Charlie is a Chinaman.”
Talk broke out all over the room and the barber plopped back onto his chair. Carl lifted his gavel and had to rap the block of cedar on the table three times before the buzzing voices fell silent.
“Anybody else not up to date on what’s happening to this town?”
“Hell, yes,” shouted Matt Johnson. In his slow, easy way, the rangy federal marshal got to his feet. “What’s the big panic over a bakery?”
“A Chinese bakery,” a woman shouted.
“Run by a Chinaman,” someone else yelled. “We’re not gonna stand for it.”
Another woman’s voice pierced the clamor. “You let one foreigner move in and next thing you know you’ve got one on every street corner.”
The marshal waited for quiet. “I can’t see the problem,” he drawled. “Unless he bakes bad cakes.”
“Siddown, Johnson,” Carl snapped.
Matt eyed the mercantile owner and raised one dark eyebrow. “You won’t forget it’s ‘Marshal Johnson,’ now, will you?” he said in his low, steady voice. “Just thought I’d remind you all that this is a peaceable meeting. Everybody gets to speak his mind but nobody throws a punch.”
“Go back to Texas!” someone yelled.
A familiar female voice rose again. “First thing you know there’ll be Chinese wives in town and Chinese kids in our school.”
Another voice added to the clamor. “The Chinese will take over everything.”
Leah sighed. Verena Forester had an abundance of opinions.
“Send ’em back to China!” another woman chimed.
Leah clenched her fists in her lap. This was wrong. Wrong! How could a whole town punish an innocent man just for being Chinese? She had seen it in Luzhou when someone “different” was forced to leave the village. But here, in America? Her father had taught her that America was the land of the free. No one could force Uncle Charlie to leave town.
Could they?
Someone lifted Teddy off his perch and sat down next to Leah.
“Thad!”
He settled Teddy on his lap. “Don’t worry about Uncle Charlie,” he whispered. “He’s safe.” He surveyed the roomful of bickering townspeople. “Anybody here get out of line yet?”
