Chapter 1: Water

                "Hey girlie! Water!"

                The young Chinese girl sitting quietly by the water pump hurriedly splashed some water into the waiting bucket and picked it up, dropping the ladle into it before starting to haul it across the intervening space between the pump and the man standing by the railroad tie waiting impatiently for water. The shackles around her ankles clinked as she trudged through the dust, her bare feet raising little puffs as she went toward the call. When she got there, the man grabbed the ladle from the bucket and drank from it, then gestured down the line. "He wants some too." Further down the railroad track, a man waved. Others looked up, saw the bucket of water, and started waving to her.

She looked despairingly at the little bit of water left in the bucket, at the line, then turned and started trudging back to the pump to fill the bucket completely. The chain between her ankles dragged behind her, and the metal collar around her neck chafed at sweaty skin, telling everyone that she was a slave, the property of the Union Railroad. This was her job. All day, every day, trudging back and forth with the heavy water bucket to satisfy the thirst of the other workers, some slaves, some indentured servants, a few free men. The freemen could take breaks. The indentured servants took breaks only when the railroad master said so. Slaves, like her, could not.

She was only fourteen, and a small, skinny fourteen at that, so she couldn't work on the railroad tracks like the others could. Instead, the railmaster had told her she was to wait by the pump with a bucket and ladle, and carry water to anyone who asked for it. She could drink too, but he kept a sharp eye on her to be sure she didn't drink too much.

Not that she would, either. Drinking a lot of water made her need to relieve herself more often, and with the privies out here only for the men, she had to make do. And since there were no convenient bushes to hide behind, that meant intense humiliation as the workers watched her conduct her affairs. She was not going to subject herself to more of that humiliation than she absolutely had to.

She filled the bucket, grasped the handle, and started to carry it down the line. The summer heat beat down on her shoulders mercilessly. Her fair skin was already bright red across her shoulders, and she kept her two heavy braids of long hair pulled forward over her bony shoulders to ease the chafing of the twine on the bad sunburn.

It had rained almost constantly the first couple of weeks they'd been here, outside the town of Jonesboro. She had hated the rain, hated the way it soaked the rags she wore tied around her waist and the man's shirt to translucence, hated the way it made her developing breasts poke out. Several of the men had dared to reach out after they drank her water and felt her up, and the railmaster had even commented on it. "Looks like you're coming along nicely, girlie," he'd said. "Pretty soon you can stop serving water and start serving the men at night." She'd been repulsed and terrified by the idea, and he'd punished her for her reaction. "I own you," he'd told the sobbing teenager when she'd finally lain in the dust at his feet, resistance beaten out of her. "I can tell you to do something, and you have to do it. Do you want me to start ordering you to do it now?" She'd shaken her head, terrified, and he'd laughed, dismissed her with a wave, and walked off.

The rain had been bad because it called attention to her body; the burning sun, however, was worse. It beat down on them all, and while the men could put their shirts on to block the sun's rays, she had no such option. The previous night, when the slaves were shackled to return to the boxcar where they were housed, the thin, worn, threadbare shirt she'd worn for the last six months tore. She'd taken the rags and tied them across her breasts to hide them, but the men had still whooped. She was too afraid of the railmaster, and his whip, to ask him for another shirt. She'd have to wait until one was discarded, and take that.

She missed the shirt, and the rain, as she finally left the last man and walked back to the pump wearily. The chain prevented her from taking large steps; there was only a foot of chain between each ankle. She sat down tiredly next to the pump.

There was a tap on her shoulder, and she looked up. There was a little girl standing there, holding a plate of some kind of gruel. She snatched for the plate eagerly; she was starving. As she ate, the little girl turned to look at the railroad workers, talking to the doll in front of her. "Papa says the railroad is getting close to being completed. Once it's done, Sally, all the stuff we enjoyed back east will start coming out here to Jonesboro. Mama says she'll be glad, then she won't have to make my clothes all the time anymore."

The girl kept an ear tuned to the other child's happy prattle while eyeing the clothes wistfully. Elizabeth Redmond was the daughter of the town's mayor; she was well fed, sheltered from the burning sun not only by the bonnet she wore but also by a large pink parasol. Her mother made her clothes for her. She was wearing one of her prettier dresses today, a dainty white muslin that let air in next to her skin without letting the sun burn it. The water girl wished she had a shirt made of that stuff; it would ease the burn on her skin.

It was a game the two girls played out of necessity. Being the only two young girls in the town, they naturally gravitated toward each other, but Mayor Redmond didn't want his daughter associating with the little slave child. Elizabeth was forbidden to talk to the water girl. She'd found her way around that edict by dragging her beloved doll around with her whenever she came to visit the railroad and to bring the scanty meals her mother made for the hungry child. Of course, meals were served to the people who worked on the railroad, but by the time the little girl could get to the front of the line there was often nothing left. Elizabeth had begged her mother to share some of their food; her mother had grudgingly agreed. She made the gruel out of horse oats; it was unappetizing, but it was food, and sometimes Elizabeth would sneak something else into it: a pinch of sugar, a bite of fruit, or a piece of candy. Small things, but the water girl treasured those little bites of sweetness in her otherwise dreary existence. And Elizabeth would talk about little inconsequential things, but it was better than the curses and jeers the water girl got from the male railroad workers.

"Elizabeth!" came a call, and Elizabeth turned at the call. Her mother was standing at the back door to her house, which was only a few hundred feet from the railroad's construction site. "Is that waif done with the plate? Don't let the plate get broken!"

Wordlessly the water girl placed the plate on the ground and snatched her hand back, as if afraid to touch the white hand that reached down quickly for it. Elizabeth picked up her doll and started toward the house, following her mother's call, and the water girl was left alone again.

The afternoon dragged by slowly. The sun beat down on the girl's bare shoulders relentlessly, and she cried from the pain of the burned skin. She looked longingly at the water; if only she could put some of the water on her shoulders, maybe the pain would ease a little…she dipped her hand into the bucket, pulled it out dripping, and touched her shoulders gently. The cool water felt wonderful. She needed more. She dipped her hand into the bucket again and slathered her shoulders with a cool hand, sighing as the coolness took some of the sting away.

She closed her eyes as trickles of cold water ran down her back, and so didn't see the railmaster turn around where he was standing at the end of the line supervising the slaves who were doing the heaviest work. Angry, he marched up to the small wooden platform around the pump and slapped her bare arm angrily with the butt of his whip. "You're wasting water, girlie!"

She dropped her arm, looking at him with frightened eyes. He slapped her cheek harshly with the whip handle, and she cowered against the pump, dropping her eyes and raising her arms and hands in a defensive gesture. He slapped her arms and hands with the butt of the whip, raising bruises and welts as he berated her. "Stupid, stupid girl! Don't you know water's scarce, and we can't afford to waste it? Look at that. All that water in the bucket that could be used to drink, and you've gone and gotten it dirty with your awful little hands!" He grabbed one of the thin wrists and yanked her forward, away from the pump. When she fell to her knees in front of him, he pressed the backs of her fingers to the wooden platform, stepped on her wrists to be sure her hands wouldn't go anywhere, and slapped at the wet palm with the lash end of the whip. It was a long lash, not meant for use at close range; it didn't cut her, but it made her hands sting with pain. She gasped, but he didn't let her wrists go until he had given each of her hands three stinging slaps with the whip. She curled up on the platform, sobbing, as he started to walk away.

"She needs a shirt!" came an angry voice from somewhere behind her. The girl turned, staring disbelievingly, rubbing eyes still blurred with tears, and saw a man striding up.

She'd never seen him before; he was a short, stocky man wearing dusty boots and chaps, with a faded shirt on top that was half-unbuttoned. He had just dismounted from a tall black stallion and was now stalking toward them, looking upset.

"And who the hell are you?" the railmaster said, grimacing unpleasantly at the stranger.

"Name's Logan. John Logan," the man grunted. "I got the big ranch outside o' town thataways." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder as he stopped beside the water girl and crouched next to her. "Y'okay, kid?"

Staring at him, she nodded slowly. He took her wrists, pulled her hands toward him, and scowled as he saw the red lines across her palm. "It's hot. I seen ya wettin' yer handkerchief in water an' moppin' yer ugly mug with it, so why can't she do the same thing?" Without waiting for the railmaster's permission, the man dipped a handkerchief in the water left at the bottom of the bucket and ran it over the girl's tear- and sweat-streaked face. "Better, kid?" he asked. She nodded, eyes downcast, and he hmmphed as he ran the cool cloth over her palms. The cool water felt good on her hot hands.

He stepped back, looked at her back and shoulders. They were bright red, and badly sunburned. He swore. She was going to be hurting for sure. He sighed and dampened the handkerchief in water again, this time applying the cloth to the shoulders. The girl sighed and closed her eyes as she felt the burning ease.

"Where's yer shirt?" he asked her. She shook her head. The man leaned in and repeated his question in Chinese. She shook her head again. "What's the matter, can't ya talk?"

"Sure she can," the railmaster snapped. "Answer the man's question, girlie!" He drew back his foot and prepared to kick her.

The stranger caught the boot before it could connect, and slapped it down. The girl cowered further as she saw the angry look on the stranger's face as he rose slowly. "Don't kick a girl," Logan spat. "Ever. Didn't yer mama ever teach ya not ta hit girls?" He looked down at the cowering child, snorted. "Here." He took off his vest and unbuttoned his shirt the rest of the way, then draped it on the skinny little frame. "It's a little big, but the extra cloth'll just be more protection from the sun." He buttoned the shirt up, watched as the tails hung down almost to the girl's knees, and smiled at the sight as he whistled. The horse trotted up.

"Hey, boy," he said, patting the glossy black neck. Reaching for one of the saddlebags, he took a length of rope from it and tied it around the child's skinny waist, then rolled the sleeves up to the wrists, with their metal cuffs. He studied them. The metal was rough on the inside, its edges not filed, and it was chafing the girl's skin. He could see the sores on the wrists. "See them sores?" he said to the railmaster. "Get 'em looked at." He mounted his horse without another word and rode away.

The railmaster stared after the stranger for a long time, as did the little girl. A call for water broke into both of their thoughts, and the man cuffed her roughly. "Get that water out to the men, girl! You think 'cause some stranger gives you his sweaty old shirt you're queen of the world?" He kicked the water girl over to the bucket. She grabbed it, filled it, and scuttled to the first man as quickly as she could.