All Those Drawn to Me

by Christian Petersen

  A single thick taper was alight in the cart. Man’s things crowded the floor, the axe, the rifle, tinderbox, boots and socks and books. Anneke crouched knee to knee with the Reverend, while his fingers nervously strayed to the copper spigot on his cask of Faith.

  “Miss Annie, ah …” he gestured, “following a service it is my custom to partake a mite myself, will you join me?”

  “Hmm, ja,” she murmured.

  After rummaging in a crate beneath his bunk, Calevack came up with a pair of Navaho clay goblets and then drew two draughts of stout restorative. As Anneke cupped the drink to her lips her speckled jade eyes entranced the Reverend.

  Out back of the cart the night glistened palpably black and bright. The jagged pine horizon arched its living spine to scratch against the stars, and the Cariboo peaks were shining mauve tipped with ivory.

  Calevack comes to himself dumbly gazing, muscles warming, wading into the shocking light of her green eyes. For an aching moment he drops his forehead in hand. Then rises, yearning, his dark eyes washed with the distinct change occurring in her, the flinch of passion in her face. Of their own accord it seems his arms reach out, are eagerly accepted then by the knowing grace of the girl.

  “Miss Annie, ah …”

  Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor;

  thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.

  Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.

  Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools

  in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim …

  — Song of Solomon

  The cart creaks. Stealthy Aurora sneaks across behind the inky scrim of night sky, just her shiny flitting slippers visible at first, then a silky shimmering sleeve uplifted, lines of fuchsia rise in the firmament, from Bear’s Head Ridge to the white point of the Polestar. There is a cadence of soft sighs from under the canvas. Nahum grins and whickers, twitching his ears. The northern sky becomes a sweep of spectral, symphonic colour. Lithe Mist and Creek are dancing slowly close together. The noblewoman Moon is humming a Russian melody. The crescendo is passionate, lasting, and then the glittering strings drift into an ambient harmony.

  “Ah Schoonheid!” Anneke exclaims, now coming out of the cart in just her lacy slip and wrinkled blouse, bare toes in the new icy dew. She laughs and lifts her arms, twirling, gazing upward at the sequined fabric overhead, alive with fresh attention for her body. And the Reverend crawls out too, with his trousers half undone, his Vision flickering peacefully for the moment, and the man’s heart full of compassion, full of care for the girl. Rudyard Calevack recognizes himself, nothing more than a man, a pilgrim from Kentucky come at last to the brink of his own heart. Now Anneke takes his hand and silently they stand together beneath an irradiant sky.

  May 9, 1866

  Your whispers blind me

  lead my body so far beyond itself,

  out past this human field

  to the wild seaside dunes

  where the Wind’s spirit carves the sand,

  and the Ancients pyre blazes there

  at dusk, between Friesland and Loves mystery.

  — Karl-Maria Thurn, Oofterend, 1866

  September 16, 1868

  As though drugged by the night’s passion the Reverend slept late next day. Images of the girl drifted into his dreams, igniting like dried leaves. He sensed a new danger even in his sleep, but his body refused to awaken. At quarter to two the cart caught fire, and the Temple went up in roaring sheets of flame, and Rudyard Calevack came to, thrashing in the dirt, engulfed by lust.

  Old Nahum watched as the Reverend arose and stumbled off toward town, then he snorted, snapped his tether and lit out himself for Kentucky.

  Twenty past two p.m., September 16, 1868

  Backroom at Barry & Adler’s Fashion Saloon

  Anneke switched flatirons on the stove, shifted her dress and sprinkled the towel which lay over it. Touching the iron to the damp material, she felt the rising steam caress her face. She thought of the night before, and she smiled a moment.

  Then the door burst open and she faced the anguished Reverend. Half-naked he staggered forward, clothes and collar charred to tatters, patches of fire wrapped about his rangy frame and his eyes blazing great confusion.

  “Child, oh child — ” he reached out but she drew back from the heat in fear. And then in a fit of consuming desire he threw up his arms, touched the papered ceiling, set the room on fire.

  Transfixed for a moment, amid the frantic shouts and leaping flames, Anneke stared into the face of a final, mighty joy. And it became the face of Karl-Maria, her young man, as he crawled through the lush green pasture in pursuit of her love.

  All Those Drawn to Me

  I arise from the womb in continuous birth. How so? From a body of water with the shoreline of an alpine nation, the deepest fjord lake on this earth, my mother-being feeds on ice and snow. She curves her way along the forest thighs of the mountain, wears him down in their cold never-ending marriage.

  Her long dark body narrows, angles northwest, and near the end begins my current. My mother’s water converges, the bedrock is crevassed, the folds of my birth canal. Unlike the birds and mammals born all but helpless, I hit the gravel bed running, in flood for months of each year, ferocious even as an infant. Though we bear the same name and the same glacial water, the bond involves no suckling. We are linked by this curse of eternal birth and flow, the waves and currents that are merciless.

  My birthplace is marked by a timber bridge, where it crosses to a village on the north bank, and beyond to the man-made trails along my banks and upward into the mountains. Downstream I carry weather and history, cycles of sea-bound salmon fry, mighty trees undercut by my high water, otters, geese and gulls, the gold in my gravel bed, claims and remains, bygone log booms, feverish failed experiments, bones of all sorts, calls and growls and cries, tongues native and foreign, the murmured hopes and cunning lies, the passion of those who hoped to win this heart, their blood and minds, later pleaded for my mercy, no, downstream I carry all those drawn to me.

  * * *

  Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.

  — Lao Tzu

  Drawn by the gold, Yan Li from Fujian said farewell to his family. With the mission to send home money he sailed over an ocean, walked the dirt trails of a continent. His companion was Zhu, a younger cousin with unruly hair and an outlook to match. On the ship and trails they met their countrymen, found some strength in numbers, for they were all in a new world with little welcome.

  They arrived in the harbour at San Francisco in March of 1862. Many from China had gone there years before them, and for Yan it was a comfort to find shops and cafés run by his own people, with tea and rice prepared as at home. Most of these retailers had started in the goldfields themselves; then, exhausted by digging gravel for a year or two, they saw better opportunities in business. And now, they informed Yan and Zhu to their mutual dismay, the chance for gold was gone. Every foot of possible ground from there to Julian was claimed, and well guarded even though only one in a hundred produced any gold.

  Their shipmates heard the same gloomy news, and when they gathered in the café there were many dark looks and mutters among them. Their rooms cost money. Yan and Zhu calculated in private. The savings they had with them would be gone in less than a month if they stayed on.

  Yan Li had left his home twenty-six days ago, he still kept count, and he missed Xie and his sons with a deeper ache every evening. How could his heart hold more time? Now it seemed the journey was for nothing, a terrible mistake. He lay on his straw mattress at the edge of the large shared room, with his face to the raw wooden wall.

  Zhu came in after dark one night, knelt by Yan and touched his foot. Near sleep, Yan rolled over with a gasp in anger. He could smell the pipe on Zhu’s breath. He had no wife at home, and this was all adventure for him. Including now his new friends in the opium
den.

  Zhu held his hand to his mouth and gestured for Yan to follow him outside. With a scowl Yan rose and did so. Down the alley, then across a muddy back street where the shining black harbour was in view.

  “Cousin, good news!” he spoke with a hearty whisper, and a sly grin. “There’s much more gold to be had, in the north. I have met three friends from Guangdong, and they are leaving in two days for the British land. Only last year the gold was found, and not just in one place! We can travel with them, leave these others.”

  “How far?”

  Zhu’s face sobered somewhat. “Huang says perhaps two months.”

  “Two months!”

  “First we take the ship to Fort Victoria.”

  “Another ship? Bah!”

  “We have the fare for this, it is our best chance. Huang says the weather will be better. We must travel overland then, but we can find camps. He invited us!”

  “Who is this Huang?”

  “Tomorrow I will take you to meet him. You will see, cousin, we will have that gold after all. Your family will be proud to receive it.”

  Yan looked over the dark harbour, shrugged deeper into his coat, wishing only to board the next ship back to Fujian, not Fort Victoria. The opium had turned Zhu crazy.

  As they plodded their way along the trail up the Fraser River, Yan began to feel that all his life had been part of this journey. He ached for family, but the decision had been made, and was not his alone. Xie’s father had died, and now Yan was expected to provide for her mother and younger sister also. His wife did not cry when they parted, she would not add that weight to him. When would he see her again? Where would they find the gold they came for? Another week overland they were told. Walking well behind the others, he stopped now and then to adjust the wooden struts of his pack against his shoulders. He was the eldest of the group, and sometimes struggled to match their pace, but he would not complain.

  Huang led the way with an aggressive stride. His body and will were strong. When Zhu and Yan joined the others it was never questioned that Huang was the leader. His face was broad, fringed with a beard, mouth badly scarred, three teeth missing. He told them how it happened, how the other man died at his hand. Zhu clearly admired Huang, but Yan did not trust him.

  The other two in the group were brothers. One of them was frail, and fell ill within the first few days of their trek, before they reached Fort Yale. There they made camp by the river for a few days, waiting for him to recover. Then Huang grew impatient. Over the fire the fourth night Huang informed them he was moving on in the morning. Yan sensed he had talked with Zhu, and neither had spoken with him.

  The pace increased, now just the three of them, Huang and Zhu often fifty steps ahead, talking between themselves. Yan’s strength increased by necessity, his feet blistered then calloused, his calves hardened. Huang had acquired a gun. It had a blunt thick barrel, oiled wooden stock bound with wire. He fed it from a flask of black powder, then tamped in the rough shot. The animals here were still curious about men, and easily killed. The first time Huang dragged in a deer he dropped the legs in the dirt with a proud grunt. His hands crusted with blood, with a gesture he demanded that Yan gut and skin the creature. The men cooked strips of hind flesh woven onto sticks over the fire. They shared a pot of coarse rice, nothing like Xie’s but it kept them fed.

  Sections of the trail were chiselled into rock cliffs above the swift Fraser, where men had fallen and disappeared in the current. Then came the desert, torturous heat, then swamps, clouds of insects. Their destination was a town called The Forks, at the junction of the Cariboo and Quesnel rivers, and they arrived at the end of May.

  Claims were already staked along the rivers for miles in each direction. They would have to hike another two or three days down the Quesnel to find open ground. But Huang came back from the opium café with a better idea, from an old man with just six fingers left. He had a good claim a three-hour walk upstream, he explained. Last winter his fingers froze, he lost four, and now could not work a shovel.

  “We will work Sheng’s claim,” Huang muttered over the fire that night in his raspy voice, “and pay him a share of the gold.”

  “What share?” asked Yan.

  “He thinks it will be half,” Huang cut a look at Zhu. His scarred mouth grinned. “But Sheng has a warm cabin at The Forks now, and his little crock of opium gum; he will not be overseeing us.”

  Sheng took them to the site, where he had constructed a sluice near the head of a gravel bar. He showed the line of his bleached stone tailings, then squatted and spoke in a whisper, as though someone might be watching from the woods. They had seen no one else all day, and looking upriver Yan saw only the wide green water sweeping over the rocks. With his withered claw Sheng drew a crude map in the sand, the line of the gold vein, some nuggets as large as a fingernail, he said.

  So they set to work on the first day of June in 1862, under passing clouds and showers, also hours of sun. After winter ice and high water, it took two days just to open the ditch as far as where Sheng had left off. They took turns with the pick and shovels, while one man squatted at the end of the sluice, watching the burlap filter. Yan trained his mind to think of home, his Xie and children, while hefting the tools.

  On the third day, at the end of the sluice, Zhu sprang to his feet. “Cousin! Look, look! Where is Huang? Look we have it!” A nugget shone like a skinned almond in his palm.

  “Watch the rest!” Yan snapped, excited himself, fearing they’d lose other nuggets while young Zhu did his dance.

  Huang brought in a deer, and that evening was a good one around the fire. They ate the meat with rice, wild onions and tea. Then shared tobacco and ginseng brandy to celebrate. Two nuggets and a few smaller pieces of gold shone in a white cup. The night was the warmest yet in this new land. Yan went to his bed a bit dizzy, exhausted, but with hope renewed.

  A thousand years of water had shaped the boulders of the riverbed and the bar they worked. In full sunlight many stones shone with quartz and pyrite. Ground and tumbled by currents, cracked by ice, ground further in a process never ending, ever so slowly yielding the prize of gold.

  The miners toiled through the summer days. Their bare torsos streaked with mud and sweat, shirts tied into head garb. Mountains towered to the north and east, and the steep west bank of the Quesnel River rose behind them. The site grew shady in the afternoon, the air cooled by the glacial current. The river and the mountains reminded Yan of Fujian, and he dug on, his hands now calloused.

  The current wisdom among the Chinese in the goldfields was that the whiteman’s banks were not trustworthy. The riverbank, on the other hand, held no end of hiding places. Once they had a tobacco can full of gold, they stowed it among the roots of an undercut. A second can was hidden in the black gut of a giant burnt cedar. Huang kept his shotgun loaded, never far from reach. He also wore a long curved knife in a sheath on his belt, and Zhu began doing the same. All miners defend their claims.

  They seldom saw another person. Sheng had been out once with three younger men, to check on their progress. Huang showed him the can from the cedar, and they divided this. Sheng suggested they dig harder.

  In August they heard the horses coming, and a dozen riders pulled up at the claim. Whitemen. All carried rifles. Their leader’s beard was like a red fox pelt, and his teeth bared in a snarl. He shouted English at them. Huang, Zhu and Yan looked at one another. Between them they knew maybe fifty words of this language. Redbeard growled more at them, swore in Cantonese. He made it known they were looking for other riders, a group of three. Had they seen them? No. No horses. Men? No, only Chinese. Huang’s manner was helpful, calm, though Yan saw his grip on the shovel handle, the muscle of his forearm.

  Later they heard the three white men were found murdered, shot many times. Redbeard came back to their claim. While other riders had their rifles slanted toward the miners, he got off his horse and took a good look at Huang’s shotgun. He then stared coldly at them. Had they seen
a lone rider before, one who wore two pistols? No. Only Chinese, no pistols.

  Yan now kept a knife in his bed, and awakened often through the night. Sometimes he heard creatures prowling, or the not so distant call of wolves. He saw that Huang’s eyes were often open in the dark.

  Sheng visited once a month; his men would bring them provisions in their packs. Huang gave him his share of the gold from the can in the cedar. Yan studied his face for any sign of suspicion. Sheng only shook his head, offered a resigned smile, smoked a pipe with Huang.

  Yan lay breathing deeply in his bed, to calm his mind for sleep. He thought of Xie and the children, and the gold in the cans under the bank.

  His last dream ended in a hellish blast of gunfire. Zhu screamed and writhed in the moonlight. Huang had his gun in hand, mouth twisted. Several blasts at once knocked him backwards to the dirt. Yan rolled over and over in the leaves, then crawled on his belly toward the river. The undercut. He entered the water on his belly like a snake and let it carry him below the camp. Near the stash, he began to crawl out. He heard a yell. His teeth broke when his face hit the gravel. The force of bullets rolled him back into the river, where the last beats of his heart expelled his blood and this was soon diluted in the current.

  * * *

  There will be days when the fishing is better than one’s most optimistic forecast, and others when it is far worse. Either is a gain over just staying home.

  — Roderick Haig-Brown

  Andrew Maynard Salling III was an engineer with Dixie Pulp and Paper, who undertook a journey of three thousand miles northwest to the town of Quesnel, British Columbia, in September 1969; the company’s goal was for him to assess proposed mill sites on behalf of a consortium of American investors, however, among his luggage was an aluminum tube containing a Hardy fly rod, and his private motive for the trip was mainly to fish.

  He seldom included “the third” when introducing himself, particularly not among Canadians. It had an odd effect here, he’d found out. On the other hand, if they presumed to call him Andy he would gently correct them while peering over his glasses, as he did not care for that. Not at his age, fifty-three. Also in his suitcase were two bottles of Virginia Gentleman bourbon, as he’d anticipated it was not available for purchase where he was going, and this had proved correct.