Fools' Gold

by Wiley, Richard

  “This is one of the few villages on the peninsula,” he told Ellen. “Most Eskimo families simply travel about looking for good fishing ground and a place to sleep. I mean during the winter, of course.”

  Ellen walked next to the man, feeling quickly as if she were being courted. The reverend didn’t take her arm, but that was the feeling she had, nevertheless. They walked all along the clean village paths and down to where the canoes were kept and back toward the tundra, where there were several trees standing tall and surrounding the reverend’s closed and lonely house.

  “I’ve worked hard on this place,” he said. “May I show you where you and Miss Henriette will be sleeping?”

  Ellen smiled slightly and followed the man up onto the small wooden porch, where a hide swing hung from ropes. The door to the house opened wide and as she entered Ellen saw that the woodwork inside was darkly stained and polished, that the two rooms were divided only by hanging pelt curtains, and that one contained a porcelain washbasin with wildflowers in a stone jar. There was a ladder leading to a loft, where the reverend had a large desk and where there was a real glass window looking out over the village and out to sea. There were two slim leather chairs. Ellen sat in one while the reverend ran down the ladder again to make some tea.

  Ellen could see that it was raining now and she could hear the reverend whistling with his tea kettle below. She felt at ease here, and looked forward to spending the night in this house, away from the oppression of Nome. The reverend moved like a man half his size. He was back up the ladder with teacups, then quickly down again, and back with the steaming pot and a bowl of sugar.

  “It’s English tea,” he said proudly. “I’ve been thinking of brewing a cup for weeks now.”

  “This is the first place in Alaska that has given me the feeling of a home,” she told him. “You have a beautiful view.”

  “I can really go home if I request it, you know,” he said, sitting down across from her. “But if I don’t I might be here forever. It’s a nice place after you get used to it.”

  Ellen nodded and blew across the surface of her tea. She pictured herself sitting straight, having tea with a stranger. Her grandmother had taught her how to have tea with gentlemen. Ellen could feel the fire from the kitchen below, and when she looked up she noticed the reverend holding his teacup high and looking at her over the top of it.

  “Well then, here’s to a happy stay for you and all your friends. I hope it will be profitable, both spiritually and in other ways.” He winked at her so she inclined her head and took a sip. The reverend had more tea ready and poured for her before she had quite finished what was in her cup. When he spoke to her she looked him directly in the eyes but when she spoke she looked at his forehead. It was one of her grandmother’s tricks and she was sure he hadn’t noticed. The reverend made it easy for her by taking whatever subject she did and making it his own. She mentioned the fish that they had come to buy and he talked for five minutes on what a thrill it was to catch a salmon from a canoe. He invited her to try it the next morning if the storm was gone, and she accepted. They were getting on well. Below them through the window they could see the open end of the lean-to where the party was taking place. Ellen saw Finn sitting cross-legged on the floor. She saw Henriette, crouched on a low stool, slightly above the others, leaning into the conversation.

  Finn, lifting his head from the circle of Eskimos, could see the two still figures framed in the window. First he noticed the trees, then the house, then the two figures in the window. They seemed pasted on the glass. He was talking to Phil and watching the Eskimos from Port Clarence, who sat across the circle. It was nearly time to begin the ceremony for Phil’s sister Nanoon, so they all looked about, hoping to get a glimpse of her walking toward them. Phil looked at Finn. “Today’s my sister’s day,” he said. “She begins her weeks alone. You couldn’t have come at a better time.”

  Finn’s legs ached from sitting in one position for so long and he stood and stretched. He’d been watching the preparations but hadn’t known whether to ask Phil about them or not. Phil’s sister was reaching puberty and Finn knew it was an important time. He imagined Phil needed to be alone for a while, so he borrowed a sealskin jacket and stood in the increasing rain looking for a place to relieve himself. He’d already had several bowls of the food, several glasses of wine. Phil directed him toward a creek bed from where he could still see the house of the reverend, but not the window. Rain struck his face and neck so he struggled to pull up the tough hood of the jacket and was immediately too warm inside it. He wondered where the boy had taken his mule, and at that same moment decided to keep the mule, not to try to sell it as previously he’d thought he would. Finn watched the rain hitting the quiet water of the stream. It was odd that the Eskimos had chosen this little stream as the village toilet. If he hadn’t known he’d have thought it as clean as any, for it was as clear.

  Finn turned and started back along the path that Phil had shown him. He was away from the main village, but in the first lean-to he came to he heard voices and saw through the side of it the perfect face of Nanoon, that sister, the one whose day it was and who would be entombed for the winter in the feathered hut at the center of the village. Her head was already wreathed with white feathers, circling it like petals, and Phil’s wife and sisters moved about her. Finn felt he could see the change from girl to woman right there before his eyes; he felt he could see the innocence leaving. When Nanoon saw him her lips parted as if to speak, but Finn stepped away quickly. And as he looked back toward the main village he saw Henriette watching him too, from inside the party lean-to and low down on her three-legged stool. Henriette waved so Finn tipped his hat to her, dancing once around like a circus bear.

  At dusk the population of the village swelled and people strolled between the lean-tos under pink parasols. In one lean-to there was a barrel of rum and in another were long salted strips of jerky. Ellen and the reverend were back, and soon, in a lean-to hidden from them all, someone began playing a piano. The rain dampened the thin parasols of the strollers and the music forced them to walk and step in straight lines and circles, all heads turned toward the small round hut at the center of the village. Finn found the reverend and Ellen and stayed with them.

  And Phil was right about the storm. Though it was still early the long day was cut to darkness by clouds moving shoulder to shoulder across the sky. Finn and the reverend and Ellen watched the clear spaces disappear. They had walked to the mule house, where Finn’s mule stood, nostrils rigidly taking in the storm, and now they were walking back. This was the public section of the village, where the storage houses were and the animals were kept. It was the section of the village farthest from the beach, and some of the buildings were built like the reverend’s, closed on all four sides. There was lightning, quick as the raising of an eyebrow, then thunder, rolling in low over the waves.

  In the main village the paths were less crowded now. The rain slowed movement, keeping the people inside, engaging them in the act of eating. And there was the beginning of activity around the special hut. People looked toward it or peered in the direction from which Nanoon would eventually come.

  “She is so beautiful,” said the reverend. “It’s a pity you won’t be able to see her face.”

  Phil stood at the entrance to his own lean-to now, and signaled with a lantern that Nanoon was ready. All the children of the village formed a line from his lean-to to the special hut, getting down on their hands and knees and waiting. When she came out Nanoon was dressed entirely in feathers, and all of them were white and all were from the Snowy Owl, who even now, some thought, perched on the trees around the village in order to see that the ceremony went well. When the people saw her the piano stopped and everyone turned their heads to watch her pass. She walked with one leg on either side of the kneeling children. She walked over them, dropping each onto the earth behind her like the children she would bear.

  Nanoon was alone, and though her face was completely c
overed Finn was sure that she was looking directly at him, that her round owl’s eyes sought him above all the others. When she got to the hut Phil went over and, without looking at her, pulled back the feathered doorway, allowing his sister to crawl on through. He closed it again immediately and called his other sisters forward to sew the flap shut. That was all. Phil and the members of his family shook hands, the kneeling children stood and ran away, and the piano started up again. The reverend looked from Ellen to Finn and sighed. “Is there anything more beautiful than ritual?” he asked.

  Inside the lean-to where the party had begun the visitors from Port Clarence were congratulating Phil on the smoothness of a ceremony well done. People sat in a circle again, but at its center this time there was dancing. Two men and two women stepped toward and away from each other, then tapped whoever would be next and sat down. Visitors were always chosen first, but when Finn and Ellen and the reverend walked in they were, nevertheless, surprised to see Henriette dancing opposite Phil’s wife and with two of the men from the Port Clarence group. The piano could still be heard but the dancers were not taking their rhythm from it. Rather, the audience clapped out the rhythm and the tempo for them.

  Henriette danced with a loose grin on her face. While the others moved in and out to the constant clapping, she did a kind of hop, coming down on both feet and then turning all the way around and hopping back. Seeing her embarrassed Ellen, but before she could react Henriette sat down and Ellen herself was pushed into the circle and was joined by Finn, the reverend, and by another of Phil’s many sisters. Ellen stood stiff-backed for a moment but found that made her more self-conscious than dancing. She hopped as briefly as she could, trying to follow the woman across from her. She looked sideways, hoping to glare at Finn, if she could catch his eye, but he wasn’t looking at her. Rather he leapt high into the air and came down shouting. And the reverend danced lightly and with skill. No one noticed Ellen’s discomfort.

  They danced until there was a break in the clapping, then chose others to take their places. Ellen chose the person nearest her and quickly sat down where that person had been. She was deeply embarrassed and watched everyone to see if they perceived it. She sat with her back to the wall, thank God not over where Finn was with his back to the howling wind. It was the first time she had ever danced, the very first. Ellen watched the others but after a while began to relax and saw herself up there dancing as well as they did. She pictured her entire Irish family watching her dance and frowning. She saw them sitting in the circle, clapping for her, and she saw herself moving her body in front of them, sometimes holding up the hem of her skirt, sometimes swishing it back and forth. She imagined her father looking at her ankles and getting angry, so she tapped him on the head and sat in his place while he jerked around up there, his hips and knees working like those of a puppet. Oh, he would frown. Ellen clapped for her father and smiled as he danced grotesquely around. She’d make him dance in his pub; if he weren’t careful she’d make him dance in the street!

  Ellen opened her eyes to the Eskimo dancers and watched as another and another group began. Everyone had to dance. Everyone would. Ellen saw Henriette across from her clapping and grinning. She saw Finn and the reverend, and she saw herself again. It was easy. She closed her eyes and there was her father, still bounding about, sweating from the exertion of it all. He pumped his legs and moved about the room and jumped and turned and twisted. How long would he hold up? she wondered. He tried several times to tap his way out of it but the people around him pulled back, moving their heads just out of his reach.

  Ellen was shocked that she’d let her own father work himself so. She knew he wasn’t in the best of health. Still she watched. Heel toe, heel toe, his black boots kicked and shuffled. Ellen clapped on steadily, now thinking of home, now watching the Eskimos. Across from her Finn had fallen away into the night. She could see him standing dimly back there, next to that feathered hut. He put his ear to it, then shouted, then listened. He was trying to make himself understood, trying hard to hear the voice of the virgin through the howls of the storm and over the general cacophony of the night.

  The storm made it seem late, and darkness made everyone cold and reminded them of winter. Soon the fronts of the lean-tos began blinking shut like eyes, the candles and kerosene lamps folding under pelt doors. Ellen and Henriette walked quickly through the storm following the reverend. Finn slept at Phil’s place, at the far end of a long line of Phil’s relatives, in a smallish space formerly occupied by Nanoon. The moment before Phil rolled down the hide front of his lean-to they all stood together, peering through the darkness at the shining hut and at the storm.

  “Soon she will be a woman,” said Phil. “Those Port Clarence men will be falling all over themselves.”

  The reverend had hot water ready for washing quickly. He gave Henriette his bed and had prepared a special cot for Ellen up in the loft. He himself would sleep on the floor at the bottom of the ladder. The reverend provided each of the women with a stiff nightshirt and stood out on the cold porch while they changed into them. When he came back inside his house he turned down the light and fumbled with the buttons of his clothing in the dark. He wore a long white nightshirt like the one he had given Ellen. He also wore a nightcap and held a candle in a small tray and went about the house checking.

  The reverend gave the women some time to get to sleep and then stood at the bottom of the ladder, quietly, listening to the regular rhythm of Ellen’s breathing above him. Tomorrow he would take her fishing if it wasn’t raining. Then he’d help her load the fish she wanted to buy on the mule and he’d walk with her to the edge of the village. The reverend reached down and quickly pinched the wick of his candle. Gray smoke disappeared into the closing darkness. He heard the rustling of bedclothes. He heard Henriette cough and turn and he thought of her occupying his bed, her head on his pillow.

  When the reverend thought enough time had passed he let his weight come down softly on the bottom rung of the ladder and brought his other foot up to it. He looked straight forward into the darkness, his hands tightly gripping the ladder’s sides.

  He took another step with his right foot and pulled his left foot up after it. He could hear nothing of Ellen though he could still hear Henriette turning fitfully below him. His stomach was knotted tight and he thought of how freely he’d be able to stand here tomorrow, when the women were gone. The reverend stepped up again, tipping his head back and raising his eyes over the edge of the floor of the loft. He took one more step, inching his whole head above the plank and resting his chin on the worn surface of the floor. The white bedding was a pale cocoon on the boards in front of him. He held his breath, would move no closer. He could have reached out and touched her. The reverend fell into a deeper quiet than he would have thought possible. His hands were locked on the railing and his eyes grew used to the darkness, bringing her more and more toward him. The rain, like a branch, tapped loudly on the picture window as if in warning.

  Ellen, in the warm bedding, had still not slept and was looking toward the ceiling of the loft, imagining she could hear the reverend sleeping below. She thought she could see the rough ceiling beams outlined in the air. She was tired but could not sleep. It seemed to her the whole loft was pitching back and forth, rocking her like the tight bed of the ship she’d come in. She tried to empty her mind of thoughts, to rest. Tomorrow they would need to get the fish and start back early. It would be hard work and they’d be nearly a day late. She imagined herself unhappy in the New York Kitchen again. It would be very busy, that’s one consolation. And the muscles in her legs would be sore from dancing.

  The Eskimo village, Nome, and the camp of Kaneda and Fujino on Topcock Creek form a triangle, each point hidden in the slick topography of the mossy peninsula. They are outposts at the edges of the gold fields and men sit in each, looking out to sea or at the gray-soaked mountains. If it is stormy, as it is this night, the entire peninsula is covered with blackness, with the sounds of coming winter.
In the estuary birds will sink in their moss beds, only their tulip necks extending darkly. Everywhere everyone sleeps. In Nome the bars have closed early, tent flaps have been bound with rope as the storm pushes the sea into a froth. Some of the tents, pegged too close to the water’s edge, are awash as the tide scoots under the canvas walls and across the hard-packed floors. In Finn’s tent the legs of his stove sink four inches into the freshly wetted sand.

  At their camp on Topcock Creek, Fujino and Kaneda have completed another day’s work and have eaten and talked and bathed. The frypans and dishes of their evening meal are submerged in water at the edge of the pond. Already their supply of sake is diminished, but they are beginning to find gold in the water-washed sand of their sluice box. Soon Fujino will go back to town to file the claim they have staked but Kaneda is disappointed. Though it is a good strike, it is not what he had hoped for. Like carpentry this job requires many hours of work each day for the gold they find. And here the gold has been washed to a fine powder by the forces of the stream, the largest nugget found being just the size of a child’s fingernail. Most of the gold can barely be seen. It must be processed, clearly separated from the black and red sand that is everywhere.

  Inside the tent, next to the sleeping men, sits a box filled with the gold they have found thus far. This gold is free of the sand it rose with and is shining. It has taken the form of flat cakes, honeycombed and porous. For days they have been using the same process. After the gold and sands have been washed and are drying in the bottom of the sluice, Fujino passes a powerful horseshoe magnet over it, pulling much of the black sand away. Kaneda then mixes a flask of mercury with small parts of what remains and waits for the gold and red sand to form an amalgam. After that all that is left to do is to heat the volatile mercury, letting it evaporate away and leaving the gold alone, hot and drying, taking each time a different shape, like snowflakes.