Gold Mountain Blues (45 page)

“We Chinese can't leave our native land either. Sooner or later, I'll go back and see her.”

Sundance pulled a stem of sweetgrass and began chewing it. “I know. My mother's dad went home after he got rich. He went back to your country to see his mother too.”

The comb dropped from Kam Shan's hand to the ground.

“What? You mean your grandfather was Chinese?”

“My mother's mother's tribe are from Barkerville. My granny opened a cake shop in town. A Chinese gold panner came in to buy cakes and they got to know each other. After that, when he came to town every couple of weeks, he used to stay at the shop. He panned for gold for four or five years and it was only in the autumn of the last year when they were about to seal off the mountain that he found an ingot. By that time, my mum had been born. My granddad divided the ingot in two and gave half to my granny. Then he sailed back to China.”

No wonder Sundance's mother knew how to make rice porridge, and looked Chinese. And no wonder she had softened at the sight of him.

“And your granny let your granddad go?”

“She said that wherever your ancestors are, that's your home, and you can't stop someone going home.”

Kam Shan was lost for words, but he thought to himself that some Redskins had big hearts after all. It was that Chinese who had been heartless and fickle.

They sat close together and Kam Shan could smell her body. She smelled good, a bit like water weed or wild grasses or cow's milk, and there was a hint of sweetness too. Her neck was burned tawny by the sun and a fuzz of fine hairs at the nape glinted gold in the light. As his eyes followed the drops that trickled down from her hair onto her collarbone, he saw a part of her he had never seen before.

His heart began to thump and he felt himself go hard down there, rock hard. It felt as if he would burst out of his trousers. Then his hand, seemingly of its own volition, was on her neck and sliding downwards.

Two soft, warm swellings. Quite small. He could just cup his hands over them.

Sundance sprang to her feet, startled and, at first, tried to wriggle out of his grasp, then gradually settled softly against him. Those two swellings almost melted in his hands, and from the centre of each, a little pebble jutted against his palm.

They gave him the courage of a thief. Roughly he pushed Sundance to the ground and pulled up her skirt. Her legs went as soft as a filleted salmon, and when Kam Shan prodded them slightly, they parted. Here was the way into a place he had never been before. He did not know what he was doing and she did not know how to help. Yet somehow a spark of mutual tenderness arose out of their jerky, agitated movements.

Afterwards, Kam Shan stood up. The iron rod now hung soft between his legs, his heart beat at its normal rhythm and his head was clear once more. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Sundance wipe the blood off her legs and skirt with the back of her hand. He could not tell if she was happy or sad, and did not dare catch her eye. He wanted to ask if it hurt but the words grew barbs that caught in his throat.

After a little, Kam Shan picked up the cloak Sundance had dropped beside the track. Together they gathered the bundles of firewood and silently set off.

Sundance led and Kam Shan followed. She was limping slightly and the bloodstains on her skirt bounced like flares before his eyes until he saw stars. Kam Shan put down his bundle and said: “You walk behind me. It'll be a bit easier for you.” They changed places and, with his eyes no longer full of flares, he saw more clearly. But now he was aware of her boots
scuffing the stones as she followed him, her footsteps uneven. The sound grated on his ears and his heart seemed to wither inside him.

Please let her speak, just one sentence, Kam Shan begged silently.

Finally she spoke, but what she said was not at all what Kam Shan expected to hear. Her words struck him as trivial and unworthy of her, but at least they reassured him.

“Next time Dad goes to town, you go with him and buy me a present.”

“As soon as I've sold this charcoal,” he replied. “What would you like?”

“A round black hat with a turned-back brim, and a feather in it. I asked Dad last time he went to town but he didn't get it.”

Kam Shan thought to himself that these Redskin girls were too easily pleased by fripperies. He found it almost unbearable. “I'll get you a sleeveless cowboy jacket too. They're very fashionable with city girls.”

He did not look back but he knew Sundance was smiling. He felt her brilliant smile lap in waves up his spine, soaking it with warmth.

“When you bring it back, put it in a cowhide bag and hang it on the tree in front of our door. When Mum and Dad have seen it, I'll take inside. If I don't do that, you can't make a move.”

Kam Shan could not help laughing. “What a fuss about such a little present!”

Sundance laughed too. The joyous sound rose like dust in the spring sunshine, filling the air with tiny particles.

Kam Shan had just sold his first bucket of charcoal, when something happened to disrupt life in the village. The priest's camera disappeared.

At first, only one or two people knew about it. The priest told one of the missionary women and was overheard by one of the knitters standing nearby. She went home and told her daughter who happened to be in the same class as the tribal chief's son. Once he heard, it was not long before the whole tribe knew that someone had stolen the “black box that God's man shuts people up in.”

When the Chief turned up at Sundance's home, her father was about to begin hollowing out a new canoe. The tree had been felled the previous autumn. It was a redwood and, although the trunk was slender, the wood
was very dense and unmarked by even a single insect hole. It had been left out in all weathers for several months; now it was properly seasoned.

First, Sundance's father offered up prayers. Although he believed in the Jehovah of the White people, he was unwilling to forget the spirits of the ancestors his tribe had worshipped, so he left it vague as to which spirits his prayers were addressed.

Oh Great Spirit

I hear your voice in the wind

With every breath you take, ten thousand things multiply

I beg you to give me courage

Make my eyes keen

So that I may see the mystery of the rising and the setting sun Make my hands skilful

So that I can discover the wonder in every thing created by you Make my ears sharp

So that I may hear your sighs in the sound of the wind

Make my heart wise

So that I may know your true essence embodied in every stone.…

When he squatted down and prepared to strike the first blow with his axe, the Chief gave a slight cough.

“Are you carving another eagle's head this time?” he asked, passing over a cigarette.

Sundance's father took the cigarette and lit it with a match, but said nothing. He was not going to divulge any details of an unfinished work to anyone, not even the Chief.

The Chief took a few puffs, then casually said: “Have you heard? The priest's camera has disappeared.”

Sundance's father grunted. He was a man of few words. Though he had been baptized with the Christian name John, he was known to all in the village as Silent Wolf.

The Chief cleared his throat a few times then glanced towards the house. Lowering his voice, he said: “That guest of yours has been seen taking photographs of Sundance in the woods at the bend in the river.”

The other man's eyebrows flickered. Still he said nothing, but he turned and went towards the house. At the doorway he stopped and showed the Chief in first.

“Any guest of mine is a member of my family. His reputation is my reputation. Please come and see for yourself if there's anything here which is not ours.”

The Chief looked embarrassed. He clapped Silent Wolf on the shoulder: “It's your family, just ask them, all right? If you say there's nothing then there's nothing. Even if they don't believe me, they'll have to believe you.”

It was quiet in the room. Sundance's mother had gone to the knitting workshop and the children were at school. It was very bright outside and silvery dust motes floated lazily in the single brilliant sunbeam that shone through the window. It took a while for the men's eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom, and then Silent Wolf saw his daughter sitting in the corner teaching Kam Shan to weave a sweetgrass basket.

Kam Shan stood up as soon as he saw the Chief. Silent Wolf 's gaze swept over Kam Shan's body but his waistline looked flat as normal. He knew what the priest's black box looked like because the priest liked to stroll around the village with it slung over his shoulder, taking pictures. It was big, as big as his two hands put together, and would take up most of a cowhide bag.

“One day, you could teach me how to use a camera,” he said, looking at Kam Shan.

Sundance saw Kam Shan go pale at the words, but he said nothing. The atmosphere was oppressively heavy, so that the room seemed to echo with the thuds of their hearts. Sundance felt like a stranded fish opening and shutting its mouth in desperate gasps. She could not stay there any longer and fled outside.

Silent Wolf tilted Kam Shan's chin up with one gnarled finger: “Be man and help me clear your name with the Chief.”

Kam Shan could no longer avoid the man's eyes. Coal black, they were, cold on the surface but with a fire in their depths. Kam Shan's own eyes, climbing to those cold black orbs, were blinded by the hidden fire. His mind went completely blank.

The Chief sighed: “When there was an outbreak of dysentery in the village last year, the priest rid us of the demons and saved us all. He has nothing to amuse himself with apart from that camera. He carries it around with him all day. If you took it, just give it back to him and that'll be the end of it.”

Silent Wolf paid no attention to the Chief. His finger still under Kam Shan's chin, he said deliberately: “Can you or can you not?”

Kam Shan felt as if his lips had suddenly turned into two immovable stones. No matter how hard he wanted to speak, the words could not force their way through.

Silent Wolf withdrew his finger and Kam Shan's head suddenly dropped onto his chest.

“Get your stuff together.”

The Chief looked at the other man. “Maybe it's not him.…” he said hesitantly.

“We've never had anyone in our family who couldn't clear their name.” The words were flinty, steely. There was absolutely no doubt that he meant what he said.

Kam Shan could only go to the corner where he slept and get his things together. They were few and simple: the jacket and gown that he had on when he fell into the water, a pair of cotton socks and cloth shoes. And a cowhide bag. In it there was a belt made of pheasant quills and decorated with brightly coloured feathers. He had bought it in town two days before when he went with Silent Wolf to sell charcoal, and had not had time to give it to Sundance.

The camera was not among these things. He had hidden it in a hole in a tree on the riverbank the day he passed by the children's school on his way back from chopping wood with Sundance. The priest had taken the children out for midday prayers and the classroom was empty apart from the black box on the teacher's rostrum. Kam Shan knew straightaway what it was. His heart leapt wildly in his chest. He hesitated, then picked the black box up in both hands—he would just play with it for a couple of days, then put it back again. But before he had time to return it, word got around the whole tribe that there had been a theft. That black box became a heap of shit, which he had to hang onto even though he could smell its
stink. If he let go of it, then the stink would get out and everyone would smell it. He was well aware that not even a whole river could wash him clean of a smell like that.

He opened out the gown, put the trousers, socks and shoes in it, bundled it and tied it with a piece of twine. Then he opened it again and rearranged the socks and shoes. He was dilly-dallying, waiting for Sundance. He could not go without seeing her. When he opened his bundle for the third time, Silent Wolf gave a heavy cough. He stood behind him, holding two pigs' bladders tied at the neck in his hand—one with water, the other with wild rice and smoked fish. It would be something to see the boy on his way.

Kam Shan followed Silent Wolf very slowly outside. Then he stopped. Standing on tiptoe he hung the bag with the feather belt in it from the oak tree by the front door. He walked on, then turned back to check it was in a place where it would catch her eye.

At least he had left Sundance a present.

As Silent Wolf was about to launch the canoe, they heard the sound of running feet. It was Sundance, her braids flying. Trailing far behind came the fat priest, sweating profusely, clasping his bouncing belly in both hands as if to stop it from tumbling to the ground.

It was some time before the priest could catch his breath, safely release his belly and speak:

“The camera … I gave it to … this young man. I'm teaching him … to take pictures.”

His words left the Chief and Silent Wolf mute with astonishment. Silent Wolf looked hesitantly from the priest to Kam Shan, but the boy did not look up or speak. Knowing he would be unable to conceal his surprise, he avoided meeting their eyes.

“Come on, young man. Tell these two gentlemen what make of camera you're using.”

“Kodak Brownie, Number 2 Model B,” Kam Shan muttered. “How many pictures can it take at one time?”

“One hundred and seventeen.”

“How big are the printed pictures?”

“About two inches.”

The priest nodded and clapped Kam Shan on the shoulder. “I can see you're really keen on photography, young man. I did the right thing when I gave you the camera.” Then he turned to Silent Wolf: “You keep this young man with you. He's got a good head on his shoulders, and he's a quick learner.” Before Sundance's father could respond, the Chief said with a laugh, “It's getting late and I'm hungry. You're all invited to my house to eat. I killed an elk yesterday, and it'll take us all spring to eat it. Bring the boy too.”