Gold Mountain Blues (44 page)

The woman did not answer, just stared at the man. The man did not answer either but sat there absorbed in pulling at a callus on his palm. There was a sudden stillness at the end of the room as Sundance's hand paused in mid-air. Kam Shan's heart thudded so loudly he thought the whole room must have heard it.

“What can you do?” the man asked, finally looking up.

Kam Shan was stumped once more. What could he do? He could not fish, hunt, plait reeds or smoke meat. He could not do anything that the Redskin men did, or anything that the women did either. The truth was that away from his father, he could not even feed himself.

Suddenly he saw some big sacks piled against the wall. They contained the things the man had brought back from town yesterday. In the Vancouver and New Westminster farmers' markets, he had seen Redskins bartering their produce for other things they needed. Kam Shan's eyes lit up.

“Charcoal! I can make charcoal!” he exclaimed.

That was another lie. He had watched Mak Dau make charcoal back in Spur-On Village. But it was enough. Redskins were stupid: they had entire forests but they were willing to barter their excellent smoked fish for charcoal.

The woman did not wait for the man to reply. She jumped to her feet and yelled in the direction of the shadows at the end of the room: “Sundance, when the weather clears up, take him to the forest to cut wood.”

An odd sort of rain fell at that time of year. It did not slant down or fall in drops, or even drizzle. Still, when you were outdoors, you only had to hold out your palm for it to fill with water. As the rain fell, the earth became saturated; the trees in the forest plumped out, and the walls and mud floors grew moss. Finally one day the sun came out and, bursting with energy after its long sleep, slurped up the moisture in the air and underfoot. When the people came outside, they found everything thick with greenery.

With the coming of spring, the missionaries got busy. (The Redskins called them God's men and God's women because though many were taught English, they could not get their tongues around the words “priests” and “lady missionaries.”) With winter ended, God's men started classes
again and all children under fourteen had to go to school. The Chief 's children set the example, and the other children followed it. God's women were not idle either: they gathered the women of the village together and taught them spinning and knitting. “The men have ways of earning their living, and women need ways too. So when you don't have a man, you can feed yourselves.”

The Redskin women did not understand. How could a woman not have a man? If you lost one, you got another. If a woman had to provide her own food, then what on earth was a man for? The Redskin women thought that God's women were pretty daft. No wonder they could never get a man. But although they looked down on God's women, they were entranced by their knitting. They had never before seen such colours and styles, felt such woolly softness and warmth. So God's women were never short of students.

Sundance did not need to go to school with her younger siblings or to knitting classes with her mother. She was too old for the school and too young for the knitting, so she was free to please herself.

Today she sat on the great rock in front of their door, sharpening hatchets.

She had two of them, one short and one long, both used for cutting wood. The long one was for cutting down branches, the short one for clearing low undergrowth. For the whole winter the hatchets had lain in their animal-hide sheaths without ever seeing the light of day. Sundance had been occupied in two quite different activities: smoking strips of salmon and making jam. She used two big bagfuls of berries harvested in the autumn for the jam. She made enough to fill an oak bucket; the family skimmed off the top for themselves and her father took the rest to sell in town. So for the whole winter, Sundance—hands, hair and all—reeked alternately of smoked fish and jam. This happened every winter and she did not object. It was just the way things were—until this year, that is. Suddenly she was sick of smelling of fish. Last night, as she lay down to sleep, she had heard the humming of her hatchets in their sheaths, and knew that both she and they were missing the woods.

While she sharpened the hatchets, her father collected his fishing rods. He'd heard the call last night too. He missed the water, just like she missed
the forests. Today he would paddle to the middle of the river where the water was deepest and warmest. There the trout had slept all winter and would be eager to take the bait. The men in the tribe did not know how to plant crops or rear livestock, they could only hunt and fish. They got their rice and fresh vegetables by bartering fish and game in town.

Just before her father left the house, he put some strips of smoked venison into Sundance's leather bag. “Don't go too far today,” he said, “just to the edge of the forest. A brown bear is at its most ferocious when it's hungry after its winter's sleep. If you meet one, throw it a bit of meat. If you do run, run behind it. Bears have big bellies and are too clumsy to turn round. When you're chopping down trees, keep an eye out for birds' and bees' nests. Birds are nearest to the spirits of our ancestors so you must never touch their nests. And if you see any bees' nests, keep at least fifty paces away from them too.”

Sundance interrupted him, laughing: “Dad, it's not the first time I've been to the forest to cut wood.” “Yes, you know, but he doesn't,” said her father, meaning Kam Shan.

The wakened forest still held the dampness of winter. Kam Shan put on Sundance's father's thin hide jacket and deerskin boots, and followed Sundance. The girl cleared a way through the undergrowth chopping down branches which had died during the winter. She left the new growth alone, knowing that with a few days' sunshine, they would be covered in thick greenery. She threw the branches behind her so that Kam Shan could cut them into smaller pieces with the short axe. But Kam Shan struggled to wield it properly and very soon his palms were covered in blisters. Sundance gave him some twine so he could tie the sticks into bundles. But the twine cut into the blisters and became soaked with blood.

Sundance snickered. “You lied to my dad. You can't chop wood and make charcoal.” Kam Shan threw down the hatchet and the twine and sat down on the bundles of sticks. “I can,” he said lamely. “I can make charcoal, I just can't chop wood. When I was at home, I mean in China, all our firewood was chopped by the servants.” “What's a servant?” asked Sundance. “People who work for you.” “Oh, I know, you mean slaves. My dad says that in the old days when our tribe fought other tribes, if the other tribe lost, they left people behind to work for us.” Kam Shan wanted to say
no, it's not that, but his English was still halting and he could not express himself. So he just nodded vaguely and said: “Pretty much like that.” “How could your mum and dad let you leave home?” asked Sundance. “Mine wouldn't let me go far away on my own.”

Kam Shan did not know what to say.

Was his mother sorry to see him go? She never said. She just got the best tailor in the village, Mr. Au, to come and spend five days making clothes for him. But she did not sit idly by. She sewed cotton socks. As she worked, she kept her eye on the tailor, watching him so intently that she stabbed her finger with the needle, leaving a drop of blood as big as a pearl on the snowy-white cotton of the socks. Ah-Choi had said: “Wash it quickly. After it dries it won't come out.” But his mother said: “No, I'll leave it as a memento for Kam Shan.”

His mother had made the tailor cut every garment several sizes too big. “Kam Shan's still growing. And after these clothes are worn out, the next ones we make for him will be a bridegroom's clothes.” As she'd said the words, her voice cracked suddenly, like a dry branch thrown on the fire. His granny had sighed: “Too bad you'll lose your son when you get a daughter-in-law,” she said. Kam Shan knew this remark was directed at his mother; it was the sort of thing his granny often said to her, but his mother always turned a deaf ear.

His grandmother sat with the tailor too, staring with unseeing eyes and propped against the wall, her hand-warmer clasped in one hand, the other hand holding a box of snacks. The box held green bean cakes and sweetpotato pancakes, freshly made and gently steaming. Still, she was worried they would get cold so she held the box on top of the hand-warmer and fed them to Kam Shan in the intervals when he was not trying on clothes.

“Poor boy, poor boy,” she sniffed, showing almost toothless gums every time she opened her mouth.

“You won't get anything to eat once you're in Gold Mountain,” she went on. His grandmother did not cry. Recently her eyes had become as desiccated as two dried-up wells, so that she could not squeeze out a tear. Instead, her tears issued from her nostrils, like leeches sliding in and out of two sepulchres.

That had been their way of showing him that they did not want him to go. But he still had to go, whether they wanted him to or not. The responsibility for their home comforts rested on one man's shoulders, his father's. His mother hated for him to have to bear all that responsibility and had waited all these years until he, Kam Shan, was big enough to share the burden. But before he had time to help, he had abandoned him. He felt sick when he thought of his father, frantic with worry. And did his mother know?

Kam Shan suddenly missed his parents terribly.

He buried his head between his knees and pulled fiercely on the spiky tufts of his hair as if he was trying to pull his scalp off. Sundance saw his shoulders begin to shake. The hairs sticking out from between his fingers quivered as if they hid a sparrow. She could tell he was upset, but did not understand why. She threw down her hatchets and went into the forest. A little while later, she emerged holding a bunch of grasses. By now, Kam Shan had calmed down and was staring blankly at a watery blue sky. She kneaded the grasses together into a poultice which she applied to Kam Shan's palm. “This is a herbal remedy from the ancestors. It's called Squirrel's Tail and it'll stop the bleeding.” Kam Shan felt as if a leech was crawling across his palm. The sensation was cool, moist and slippery and soon his palm did not hurt any more.

“Let's stop chopping,” said Sundance. “We can come back tomorrow.” They picked up the hatchets, bundled the firewood and balanced the thicker branches on their shoulders. They made their way home, single file, through the forest. They were not in a hurry, and Sundance stopped frequently to pick herbs and grasses and to explain their uses to Kam Shan.

“This is called Indian carpet and it cures colds and chills.

“This is mare's tail and it heals wounds and bleeding. Once the God man's husky got mauled by a brown bear. It was bleeding badly but Dad cured it with mare's tail.

“These are rosehips. Good for children when they're constipated.

“This is red clover. It cleans out your guts, and then it revives your appetite.”

Kam Shan tired easily after his recent ordeal and they stopped talking. At the riverbank Sundance put down the bundle of firewood and kicked away a pebble with one foot to reveal a yellow flower growing underneath.

“This is St. John's wort. We'll take it home and I'll make a tea for you. It'll make you better.”

“Better from what?”

Sundance looked Kam Shan straight in the eyes, and then said: “From going around in a trance, that's what.” Kam Shan could not help laughing. He was still laughing when something yellow flashed towards him. He put up his hand to fend it off, then realized it was Sundance's cloak.

Sundance lifted the hem of her skirt and knotted it to her waistband, took off her short boots and went down to the river. The water was shallow here and only came halfway up her calves. Her legs had not seen the light of day for the whole winter and they were pallid. As she waded deeper in, they disappeared and only the top half of her body could be seen. Then he could only see her back—her head disappeared under water as she washed her hair.

Good heavens, these Redskin women were barbaric! How could she wash her hair in such frigid water and not worry about catching cold?

Sundance wore her hair in two plaits kept tucked away under a scarf. Now she undid them, and a thick mass of hair cascaded down her back. The sun was at its zenith and there was not a shadow anywhere to be seen. It was an almost windless day; the trees and stones were perfectly motionless and only the ripples on the river betrayed the slight breeze. The surface of the water seemed made of gleaming golden silk and when Sundance stood upright to shake the water from her hair, she released a shower of golden gems. Kam Shan was transfixed by the scene; he wished he had a camera, one like the missionaries had in his school in China, so that he could record it and take the photo out and look at it whenever he wanted.

When she had finished washing her hair, Sundance climbed up the bank, found a stone to sit on, undid the knot in her skirt and spread it around her. Her clothes and the rest of her would soon dry out in the sunshine.

“Come and braid my hair for me. I can't see, I haven't got a mirror,” she said, beckoning Kam Shan over.

Kam Shan felt scared. He had not touched a woman's hair since the time when, as a child, he used to climb on his mother's shoulders and pull her hair free of its pins. His heart thudded and he caught his breath, reluctant to obey. But he found himself walking to her anyway, just as Sundance had fastened a cord around his legs and pulled him to her.

Sundance passed him the ox bone comb in her leather bag but he was as ham-fisted with the comb as he had been with the hatchets and she gave a sharp intake of breath as he combed out the tangles. Finally it was done and he began clumsily to braid it.

“Your hair's really black, just like my mum's,” he said.

“My mum says we Indians can never leave our native land. Why ever did you leave your mum?”