Justice on the Last Frontier

By Michael L. Kryder

Fang fu Cheng is just six when he is recruited and raised as a Shaolin monk. As he matures into a respected teacher known as Ling, he meets Shu, a beautiful girl who captures his heart. Ling, who has been taught to fight as both a tiger and a dragon, is fiercely protective of her and is willing to do anythingincluding leaving the monkhoodto keep her in his life. Soon, they marry and immigrate to the United States where Ling becomes one of many indentured Chinese men working for the railroad during the 1800s.

As their family grows with a daughter, Jia, and an adopted son, Zack, so does Lings discontent with his job. When they return to San Francisco to find other work, Ling focuses on teaching Zack the skills of a Shaolin monk. After Zack enters manhood, marries his sister, and raises his own family, he eventually becomes a United States Marshall charged with keeping the peace in rough-and-tumble towns like Butte, Montana, and Nome, Alaska. While bringing his own unique form of justice to the last frontier, with help from his giant malamute, Zack soon realizes how quickly life can come full circle.

In this multigenerational tale, a Chinese family who immigrates to America during the 1800s must attempt to put down roots within an unsettled frontier where nothing is certain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532006814

Michael L. Kryder

Michael L. Kryder earned bachelor's degrees in chemistry and mathematics from Arizona State University and spent over forty years in the retail field. Michael has two adult children and currently lives in Florida. A Killer Whale’s Revenge is his fourth novel.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

F ang Fu Cheng was standing outside the gate of the Shaolin Monastery at seven AM. His father wanted to enroll him in school there and see that he was trained as a monk, which would be a great honor for his family. Fang was only six years old. He had to have the consent of his parents, which he obviously did. He was to attend training classes after regular school for three hours a day.

The first year was all study and exercise. They toned the muscles and made the entire body flexible. His joints hurt everywhere for the first several weeks. By the end of the first year, he was a fit young man and on his way to being a monk. Just the first step.

He went to the school in Henan Province in China, at the foot of the Song Shan mountain. He did most of his exercises and, later, his training outside year round: summer or winter. The weather could be very extreme either way. Rain or shine, snow or heat, it didn’t matter. He would eventually start training in the 72 arts, very distinctly different elements of the Shaolin disciplines. At this stage, he would be in the temple for his teaching. The martial arts training in all the different techniques would be outside: the kung fu, the taekwondo, and the street fighting techniques, 18 techniques in All. Fang became one of the more proficient monks in the martial arts in the monastery. By the time he was sixteen, he was one of the teachers. One of Fang’s favorite martial arts was the Shaolin gun as they called it, the stick, a wooden staff. He carried it everywhere when he was outside the monastery.

When Fang was only 14, the local police came into the monastery and said they needed some help. There was a large gang outside the palace gates making a disturbance. There weren’t enough police available at the time to handle it. They needed help right away. Six of the monks, including the young Fang, went along. With only six monks and the five policemen, they had a gang of over 30 to confront.

The gang charged the police force, and the monks stepped forward, feet and hands flying in every direction. Fang got five of the gang with the stick. He caught the first one stepping towards him, dropping down to his knees and hitting the gang member right across the shin, then in the back of the head. He stood up and did a straight thrust on the second one right into the mid-section. He flipped the stick up and then down on the third one’s shoulder right next to his neck. He stepped past the fourth one and caught him in the back, turning around in a spin so that the stick got the last one right on the bridge of his nose. Fang didn’t miss a step. The whole thing just looked like one fluid motion. The other monks took care of another 15 gang members with hand-to-hand street fighting. Not one of the gang ever touched one of the monks. The remaining gang members ran down the road. The local police were amazed; they’d never seen a Shaolin monk fight. They thanked the monks, shaking hands and bowing all at the same time. The police didn’t have time to even confront any of the gang. When the monks stepped forward, it was all over in a few minutes.

The name the other monks started to call Fang was Ling, which means clever, intelligent, and spiritual. All the monks thought he fought like a dragon. Ling was not an especially big man; he was 5 foot 7 inches, with straight shoulders and a strong neck. He weighed about 150 pounds. He was wiry and very strong. His years of training had fine-tuned his body into a deadly fighting machine.

It was not uncommon for the people in town to go to the temple and stand outside the decorative brick walls that surrounded it to watch the monks train. The bricks were not solid; they had spaces formed in a design so you could see through them. On this afternoon, there was a group of young ladies watching. Ling had a class of young teenagers, and he was demonstrating the forward kick to them, which would disable an opponent from with a sharp kick to the mid-section. It had been raining that morning, and the ground was still wet, muddy, and slippery in places. His back foot slipped out from underneath him, and he went flying forward and landed on the student. The girls started to laugh. Ling went over to the wall and asked them leave. He said that they were distracting his training lesson, though in reality, he was more embarrassed than distracted.

A girl named Shu asked him why and said that she was enjoying watching. She said she was sorry he’d fallen, but the training was very interesting. Shu means kind and gentle, and she was; she was also very beautiful. Ling just stood there staring for a minute. He finally said, Whatever you want.

After that, he was continually looking over there every chance he got. After a while, he saw the girls leaving. He rushed over and enquired as to her name. He said he would like to see her again; he was afraid if he didn’t act, then he would never find her again. She said her name was Shu and told him where she lived with her parents.

One afternoon, Ling got permission to leave the compound. He didn’t say where he was going, but he wanted to go visit Shu. When he got there, her father met him on the stairwell of an old four-story building with very small apartments. Ling told him his name and asked if it would be OK with the family if he visited Shu.

The father could see Ling was wearing the Shaolin robe. Her dad inquired as to what he did at the temple, if he was a student? The people in this village had lived around the temple for many years and were very familiar with a lot of the traditions and things about the status of monks and what they did.

Ling politely said, No, I’m a teacher.

The father noticed how young he was and was very impressed that Ling’s status was about as high as you could get. Ling informed him his family name was Fang fu Cheng and that his family lived in the village. The father noticed Ling was carrying a staff. He didn’t say anything, but he knew what it was. Ling explained that he had started his training when he was six and become a full status monk at the age of 13. He said he was now 18. As he had developed his skills and become a master and a teacher, the monks had started called him Ling.

The father invited him in for tea, a very big step for the someone he had just met. He introduced his wife and sat with the Ling for several minutes. The mother called Shu into the room. Shu stood there dumfounded. Her mouth hung open, and she just stood there. Her father introduced them. She had a big smile on her face and was excited to see Ling. She had never thought he would come calling. Shu was now 15.

After their first meeting, Ling didn’t return to see her again for several weeks; Shu was getting worried he would not come back. Her father had really given Ling the third degree. Ling had not minded and had answered all her father’s questions. Ling knew it was very unusual for a monk to be calling on a young lady. Monks could get married, but they had to leave the temple to do so. When they left, though, they remained a full status monk.

When Ling returned several weeks later, he asked her father if he could take Shu for a walk. There was a long path on the outskirts of the village running along the base of the mountain. It had trees, shrubs, and flowers bordering the path and was very beautiful. Her father agreed and said to have her back by dusk. He didn’t want her out by the time it got dark. Shu was delighted. She had been out with several other young men but never anyone like Ling.

After their walk, it started to get dark, and Ling decided they had better head back. Ling saw a group of young men standing down on the path about a hundred yards ahead. In a few minutes, Ling and Shu approached where the young men were standing. Ling gave them a smile but didn’t say anything. The young men stepped, out blocking their path. They asked questions about why a monk had a good looking, sexy girl like her with him. Ling picked up on the demeanor really quick and asked very politely to let them pass, saying that they were only out for a walk. The young men started asking vulgar questions: Did you get any? Does she do it? Ling stepped back a few yards from the young men, anticipating what they intended to do.

As the young men came at him, he stepped in front of Shu. He placed the staff sideways in front of him and hit the first one alongside the head, and the man went down immediately. Ling moved the staff into a vertical position and hit the next one under the jaw; down he went. Ling knelt down and hit the third one across the shins; the man fell back yelling, You broke my legs! The fourth one stepped back away from Ling and off to one side of the path. He pulled a large knife out from under his shirt. Ling moved around farther in front of Shu, who was telling Ling to be careful. The young man came straight at Ling. Ling had the staff down next to and along his side. With a straight forward thrust, Ling hit the man in the mid-section, and the man doubled over and couldn’t breathe. Ling picked up the knife and threw it hard, way out into the brush. Ling turned around, took Shu by the hand, and led her down the path past the young men. Ling hadn’t killed any of them, but they were completely demobilized.

Shu had never seen anything like that. Her first thought when she’d seen the gang was to be afraid that something was going to happen to them. She thought to herself, Was I wrong. She looked at Ling with great admiration.

They told Shu’s father what had happened and that everything was OK. The father, at first, was very concerned. When Shu told her father all that had happened, he Looked at Ling with respect in his eyes. He said, Thank you. Ling explained to the father that it was only that the gang hadn’t given him any choice.

Ling started to visit Shu at least once a week. Her family got very fond of him. They were invited to a Shaolin event that happened only twice a year: the tournament between all the monks. Each level of expertise would fight within that level to see who was the best. Ling was in four different art forms with all the competitors in each. At the end of the day, Ling took three out of his four categories. He was awarded the highest honors for the day, winning more than anyone else. Shu was so proud of him. Shu’s parents had no idea he was placed in such high esteem and had such a high level within the monks.

It was late autumn, a light breeze, and Ling took Shu to the base of the mountain to a small clump of trees. They sat down on a fallen log, and Ling asked her what her parents thought of him. She told him how wonderful they thought he was. He told Shu he was going to ask her dad if he could marry her. She threw her arms around him and started to kiss him repeatedly. He was embarrassed at all the attention, although he didn’t complain.

When they got back to the house, Ling asked her father if he could have a talk with him. They went out on the small balcony of the apartment. Ling was a tiger in a fight, but this was different. He was very nervous, stammered a little, and finally asked the father if he could marry Shu. Her father smiled and looked at Ling, who was now 18, and Shu was 15. The father said that everyone had told him when he was going to be married to Shu’s mother that he was too young and so was his wife. He’d gotten married at the same age as Ling. He said, I’m not going to tell you you’re too young, just how much you will have to face, and how difficult it will be.

Ling said, The Shaolin monks can marry, but they have to leave the temple. They keep their monk standing and retain their level, but they must leave.

When the masters and the head of the temple found out Ling was going to leave the temple and get married, they honored him and made him a priest. He became a full master. He now had all the traits for a Shaolin priest: He was diligent, loyal, extremely regimented, and dedicated to his arts. They tattooed his forearms: on one, they branded the figure of a dragon, and on the other, they branded the figure of a tiger, yin and yang. These branded figures would be a part of Ling forever, telling everyone who saw them he was a Shaolin priest.

Her father asked, What will you do?

Ling said he had a job lined up through his father to work at the brick factory in the city of Honan, within the Henan province. He would try to find a small apartment close to work.

The wedding was very traditional, attended by grandparents, aunts and uncles, nephews, and friends. Half the monastery turned out. It looked like a monk convention. They’d only rented a small hall to hold the reception, and it was over flowing. People were standing out in the street along the building.

Ling and Shu lived with her parents for the first month, until they could find a place of their own. They moved into her small bedroom in her parents’ apartment. The bed was too small for both of them; Ling had to build a small extension on the side. No way was he going to sleep on the floor next to the bed.

This was a big change for Ling. He’d only known the temple most of his life, with its very regimented routine, lots of exercise, and work to do. The monks at the temple did everything. They rotated jobs: sometimes they would clean, sometimes garden, and sometimes cook and work in the kitchen. Ling had learned to cook for many people. Within the first year, Shu was pregnant. They had a daughter, and although Ling was secretly hoping for a boy, he was very happy with his daughter. Things in China were changing very fast. The new ruling family made it very hard on the average citizen. The empress only cared about the opulence and wealth of her family, not about the average working class citizen.

The US had just finished the civil war ten years earlier. Ling’s father showed him an ad that the Transcontinental Railroad needed 5000 workers to work on the new railroad. It paid a dollar a day. Ling’s father was willing to fund the trip if he wanted to go to America. He did. He was convinced this was the place to be.

CHAPTER 2

T hey got a ride for very little money riding on the freight wagons heading to the coast. The wagons were delivering product to be shipped to America. They were completely open wagons, with no cover from the elements. When it rained, they had to cover up with a canvas tarp. They had the baby with them, Jia, which means beautiful. There were two other couples on another wagon doing the same thing that Ling and his family were doing. The trip took three weeks. They got to know each other very well and became good friends. They were all going to work on the railroad.

There was a group of young men, workers to load and unload the wagons. They were riding on the wagons at the very front. It was a lot less dusty up front. The front wagons kicked up dust as they traveled, and it would blow back to the other two wagons. The men would yell out comments to the young couples. At the rest stops, the workers would harass and make fun of the couples. Towards the end of the trip, they started to push the couples around and tried to pick fights. Ling asked the men to leave them alone, saying they didn’t want to fight. The workers called them cowards and low class Chinese. They threw water in their faces. When one of the workers grabbed Shu, Ling finally stepped up.

As he stood in front of the young man, the worker could see the tattoos. He said, You can’t be a monk. You’re too young. Ling assured him that he was a monk and that he had just been made a priest last month by the Shaolin Temple in Henan province. Of course, the young workers didn’t believe him. When one of the young men from the other couples stepped forward, two of the workers hit him and knocked him down. Ling moved in between the young man and the workers. One of the workers threw a punch, and Ling put his arm up and deflected its direction. The worker threw another punch straight at Ling’s face, and Ling quickly sidestepped the punch. Another worker stepped forward and tried to grab Ling by the throat. Ling hit him straight in the face with his palm, smashing his nose. The worker dropped to his knees. The other worker that was trying to punch Ling was about to step forward when Ling raised his leg and kicked him in the chin with the ball of his foot. The worker was knocked back and landed on his ass. The other two workers backed off, picked up their friends, and didn’t bother the couples for the rest of the trip. The other couples couldn’t believe what they’d seen. They thanked Ling and were very respectful thereafter.

The wagons arrived at the ports down in Hong Kong. The Mail Steamship Company had a freighter going to San Francisco. There were thousands of immigrants on board. The steerage passengers were the main travelers on the ship. The higher class travelers had much better quarters and better food. The conditions were very crowded, unsanitary, and uncomfortable. The trip took over three weeks.

The conditions concerning the Chinse in the US had deteriorated considerably over the past several years. The Chinese were treated like dirt and with a great deal of discrimination. Ling and Shu made it to America a few years before the Exclusion Act was signed into law, and things had become very difficult for Chinese laborers.

By the time the law was enacted, though, Ling had found a job with the Transcontinental Railroad. Every night after the last meal, Ling would go out behind his tent and do his exercises. Most all of the laborers were now Chinese. The railroad couldn’t afford to lose them. It was a six-day work week, sun up to sun down. They were paid a dollar a day. They were divided into work groups of ten to twelve. Each group had their own cook. The cost of the food and supplies was deducted from their weekly pay.

Ling was a proficient cook. His training at the temple, in part, had been to cook for the entire group of priests. Shu took in laundry for five cents for a ten-pound load. This augmented their income considerably. She would do five to ten loads a day. They had their own tent made of a cheap cloth. Ling found some old torn-up canvas tarps that they sewed together and made into a rainproof cover for their tent.

Shortly after they started working, some of the non-Chinese workers tried to take the canvas tarps that Ling and Shu had sewed together to cover their tent. As Ling got ready to defend himself, another non-Chinese worker stepped up and told the troublemakers to move on. The stranger was a big Irishman. His name was Aaron. He took the first two troublemakers on all by himself, and with two or three punches, it was all over. He blocked the first punch with his left and then hit his opponent with a right hook across the jaw. As he had his elbow already in position, he hit the other guy with his elbow right across the chin. The third man jumped on Aaron’s back. Aaron took hold of his head and threw him over his shoulder about eight feet onto the mud streets. That did it. They left.

Aron had a son, Zack. He was now five years old; his mother had died in Ireland giving birth. Ireland was in terrible economic trouble too: no work, no food, no help of any kind. Aron had worked his way over on a steamer six months before Ling had. One of the wives of another worker would take care of Zack while Aaron was at work. Ling asked him and his son to stay for dinner, and Aaron gladly agreed. He’d never had a traditional Chinese meal, and it was interesting: a chicken broth soup, some vegetables Shu had grown out in back in her garden, and a fried rice dish with some small pieces of pork and fried egg. Aron thought it was delicious. He complimented Shu for the great meal.

The friendship grew even though the Irish and the Chinese, except for Ling and Aaron, were always fighting. The Irish were paid higher wages than the Chinese. Jia was almost two now. Eventually, Shu started taking care of Zack every day. The kids would play together, but sometimes, Zack would play a little too rough.

The Irish group of workers didn’t like Aaron’s friendship with the Chinaman. They started to give Aaron a bad time every time they saw him. One evening, Aaron was coming home after his shift was done. It was already dark outside. As Aaron approached the edge of the China city, as they called it, three of the Irish thugs jumped him. Aaron was a very powerful man, and he held them off with hard punches, grabbing one by the throat. As Aaron took the thug to the ground, one of the thugs walked up behind him and shot him in the back of the head. They just let him lay there, and he died instantly. An hour later, some of the Chinese were returning from their shift and found him lying there. They knew it was a friend of Ling’s and went to get him. When Ling got to Aaron’s side, he knew it was too late.

They buried Aaron the next morning. Zack was waiting for his dad to return. When Ling came back into the tent, he took Zack outside and to the back of the tent. He told Zack what had happened. Zack was crying and swore revenge on the thugs. He knew he could find out who killed his dad. Zack was only six years old then. Some of the Irish wanted to send Zack back to the old country, but Aaron had no listed relatives in the information the railroad had. Ling went to the railroad authorities and told them he would take Zack and adopt him as part of his family. Basically, the railroad didn’t care as long as someone took the problem off their hands and made it disappear. Zack was devastated for weeks. He didn’t want to play or do anything else, and he wouldn’t eat.

Zack, finally, was eating again and playing with Jia. Ling would take Zack outside after dinner at night and exercise with him. About every six months, the railroad would move the workers’ quarters to be closer to where they were laying track. Ling would load everything on one of the wagons and set it all back up in a new location. Zack continued his training with Ling. After a year, Ling started to teach Zack kung fu and street fighting techniques. Month after month went by, and Zack continued to learn from the Shaolin priest. At first, not many people knew of Ling’s status as a priest, but the information eventually got relayed throughout the Chinese city.

There was a makeshift school house consisting of a large tent set up over by the railroad office. One of the wives of a railroad boss had elementary teaching credentials and would teach the basics. The kids learned to read and write, some arithmetic, and history. Zack was old enough now to start attending. Jia had to stay home with Shu every morning, but would wait patiently for Zack to return. A good portion of the school kids were from the Irish group. They knew Zack was now a part of a Chinese family. At home, the kids in the Irish group would be taught things that would make them very mean, and they would discriminate against the Chinese kids, a group to which Zack now belonged.

One afternoon, when school was out for the day, two of the larger boys confronted Zack outside, calling him names and pushing him around. Zack did his best to try and leave and get away from the boys, but they kept grabbing him by his shirt, and finally, they tore it. Zack stepped back and told them to leave him alone. One of the boys threw a punch. Zack blocked it with his arm on the inside of the boy’s arm, and as Zack lowered his body, he threw a straight punch with the palm of his hand to the boy’s stomach. The boy curled up, trying to catch his breath. Zack stepped behind him and kicked him behind the knee, dropping him completely to the ground. The other boy tried to grab Zack by the shirt