Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [151]
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, just 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.