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From the stairs at the other end he heard someone approach, moving with an uneven gait. Before the other man’s head could rise into view, Cly called out a greeting. “Swakhammer, is that you?”
Jeremiah Swakhammer appeared with a lopsided grin and a cane. “Yeah, it’s me. You heard this thing tapping, did you?”
“You’ve never been too light on your feet,” Cly said, extending a hand, which Swakhammer shook. “But now that you’ve got a third leg to bang around, sure enough. I know the sound of you. ”
“I won’t have it much longer, maybe. That crackpot Chinaman doctor Wong says if I’m careful, my leg will be right as rain within another few weeks. I might not even have a limp to show for it. ”
“That crackpot Chinaman doctor saved your lousy ass, Jerry. Don’t act like you don’t know it. ”
“I do, I do,” he said. The grin stayed put, even spreading. “But he puts the most god-awful muck on me—these salves and creams—and he makes me drink teas that taste like tobacco simmered in horse piss. ”
Cly was not altogether unfamiliar with Chinese medicine himself, having spent time in San Francisco and Portland with his first mate, Fang. “Do they work?”
“Mostly. I think. ”
“Then quit your bellyaching, eh?” The captain slapped Swakhammer on the back, just to make him wobble. Jeremiah was a big man in his own right, but built wide—whereas Cly was built tall. “You ought to buy him flowers, next time you see the topside!”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what my daughter said. ” The words came out of his mouth a little funny, like he wasn’t accustomed to referring to anyone that way. “But she’s a tyrant of a thing, just like that doctor. Must be common to medical folks. ”
“It’d shock me silly if any child of yours was a pushover. Speaking of her, how’s she doing? Is she settling in here to stay, or thinking of heading home?”
Swakhammer shifted his shoulders and gave half a shrug. “She’s doing good—she gets on great with Dr. Wong, and helps him out down in Chinatown, and around here, too. ” A note of pride crept into his voice when he added, “She’s as tough as me and twice as smart—so she fits in all right with the other women we got down here. ”
“When am I going to meet this kid, anyway?”
“She’s no kid, not anymore. But you can meet her right now, if you want. I think you’re headed right for her. You’re looking for Briar, aren’t ya?”
Captain Cly’s perennial flush bloomed around his collar. “I was … well, sure. Headed over to see her, I suppose. But I’m looking for Houjin, too. And he’s usually clowning around with her boy. ” Suddenly it occurred to him to wonder, “But what’s your girl got to do with it? Did somebody get hurt?”
“Briar’s all right, since that’s what you’re really asking. ” Swakhammer said, “Come on, I’ll walk with you, and introduce you to my tyrant offspring. ”
Cly fell into step beside Jeremiah, and together they strolled around the next corner, down to the next flight of stairs. “Is something wrong with one of the boys?”
“Zeke got himself scratched up. Those kids were out in the hill blocks—they’d gone through Chinatown and let themselves up near one of the pump rooms, poking around at the big houses up on the hill, or what’s left of them. ”
“Scavenging?”
“Playing around, is my guess. Boys do dumb stuff. Anyhow, he fell on something—or fell in something. I’m not too clear on the particulars, but they can give you the story. ”
“Will he be okay?”
“Looks like it. He’ll be walking around like me for a while, dragging one foot behind him. But he didn’t break anything, so he’ll wind up with a scar and not much more for his trouble. As long as it doesn’t fester. ”
By way of announcing himself, Swakhammer leaned forward and knocked on a door that was halfway open. He poked his head around it. “Everybody decent?” he asked. It was a joke between him and his daughter, after she’d walked in on him while the doctor was helping him bathe. Ever after, he’d insisted that she knock and confirm decency before entering.
But she usually didn’t.
“Decent as we’ll ever be,” Mercy Swakhammer Lynch called back her father’s own favorite response. “Didn’t you say you were headed topside?”
“I did,” he confirmed as he stepped inside. “But then I ran into this guy, and I realized you hadn’t met him yet—so I figured I’d show you off. ”
“Show me off?”
Andan Cly followed Jeremiah Swakhammer inside, doing his best to make himself look smaller. An exercise in futility, given that he could’ve reached up and placed both elbows flat on the ceiling, but he hunched anyway.
The room was large and quite bright, due to Mercy’s insistence that she couldn’t work in the dark, goddammit, and a place with so much potential for injury and illness ought to have some kind of clinic … or if nothing else, a room that could serve as one in a pinch. She’d picked the empty “apartment” next to her own sleeping quarters and stocked it with every gas lamp, oil lamp, candle contraption, and electric lantern at hand, and with the help of Dr. Wong, she’d gotten the place more or less serviceable.
Now she was staring intently at Zeke’s leg as he lay flat on a table, grimacing for his life. She wore a set of lenses strapped to her face, helping the light show her what the trouble was. When she looked up at her father and his friend, her eyes were as big and strange as an owl’s.
