Gold Mountain Blues

by Ling Zhang

  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 s
houlders 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?”

  “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, ju
st 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.