I wished to tell him that his dead business partner wanted him to go back to camp with a bar of lye soap and soak in a hot bath, but I suspected any business partner of his wouldn’t have been much for hygiene either, and the prospector’s glare told me he was already skeptical enough. “The spirits not always come,” I explained as I lit the incense sticks. “But ask your question and we will hope.” I spoke slowly, using the broken cadence I mimicked from my uncle and neighbors, even though I’d been born in San Francisco and was one of the few Chinese in the Badlands fluent in both languages. The miners valued the heavy accent. They seemed to think it made me a more authentic descendent of the Celestial Kingdom — their exotic word for China — and more connected with the spirits that spoke through me. At least, on a good day they spoke through me. “When you say spirits,” the man said, watching my hands with suspicion, as if lighting incense were a dangerous pastime, “you mean just the one, right?
What do You think about A Tyranny Of Petticoats (2015)?
