Dead Man's Gold and Other Stories by Paul Yee Page B

brothers position, so next spring, they seeded the fields with only potatoes. There was a bit less work that summer, and a good harvest followed. With the extra income, Ping had money to play with, and Shek sent extra funds home and paid down his debt.
    Then Ping had another idea. “You should sell the farm! That way, we can both return home and retire in comfort. We wont ever have to work again!”
    â€œNo!” cried Shek. “I’ll never find a piece of land so fertile and large in China.”
    Ping knew his brother was right, because the ancient soil back home had supported crops over many hundreds of years. And the families owning tracts of good land would never sell, no matter what amount was offered. But that didn’t stop Ping from insisting on leaving.
    The following spring, when the tax inspector visited the farm, Shek was gone. Ping said he had left for China to care for their sick mother. As before, he put in a crop of potatoes, and all summer he weeded and hoed and picked hungry bugs off the young plants. Then he visited a real-estate company and announced he wanted to sell the farm.
    One hot day, two men drove in: a sales agent and a buyer. They wandered around, kicked the dike to test its strength and inspected the equipment. They complained about rusty hinges and the mucky puddle at the front door of the barn. Then the buyer went to the outhouse.
    Suddenly Ping heard the big fellow scream and saw him flee from the outhouse. His hat flew off, but he didn’t bother to stop. When his agent came running, he shouted, “Get me out of here!”
    A week later, Ping saw the sales agent at the bank. “What happened that day?” he asked.
    The agent drew close and lowered his voice. “That buyer said the outhouse was cold, which he found unusu­al because the sun had been shining all day. He said when he leaned over the hole to look out the window, someone grabbed him from behind and tried to push him down the hole. He shouted and screamed, braced his arms and legs against
the
walls. It took all his strength to keep from falling into the muck. When the pushing stopped, he turned around. Nobody was there, and the door was latched on the inside!”
    Ping shrugged. “I use the outhouse every day, and noth­ing has ever happened to me.”
    Unfortunately, word about this strangeness leaked out, and no other buyers came by.
    That year, Ping had a bumper crop of potatoes. He was willing to sell them cheaply to wholesalers, but the Marketing Board ruled that wholesalers could only buy potatoes tagged by the Board and set at a higher price. Moreover, each farmer could only sell a limited amount of potatoes. This benefited white farmers who grew smaller crops.
    To Ping, this meant that no matter how many potatoes he grew, he could only sell a small amount. He and the other Chinese farmers rebelled and kept selling large quantities of potatoes at lower prices. Then the police and white farmers blocked the bridges and inspected all the Chinese trucks trying to pass. If the Board hadn’t put tags on their sacks of potatoes, they weren’t allowed through. Fights broke out every day.
    One evening, Ping loaded his truck with potatoes and sprinted for the wholesalers in town. The roads weren’t lit and he had left the truck lamps off to avoid detection. He knew the route by heart and thought no one would spot him. But near the bridge, two cars roared out of a hidden curve and forced him off the road. Ping bounced to a stop, and white men rushed out smelling of whiskey and waving flashlights.
    They grabbed Ping and threw him to the ground and kicked him. Ping fought back but he was outnumbered. He felt his nose break and his cheekbone crack as he screamed in pain.
    Suddenly he heard his truck engine being fired up, and then the vehicle rolled toward him. One of the white men aimed a flashlight at the steering wheel, but no one was there. Everyone jumped back, shouting and