Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [150]
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