• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1325 0

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