Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [156]
Kam Shan tossed his straw hat to Sundance. “It’s hot, you’ll catch the sun,” he said as he started back. After a few paces, he looked back and watched as the little procession wound its way along the country track until the figures became tiny and faded into the distance. They turned a corner and disappeared from view completely, leaving only the tinkle of the bells wafting on the breeze. Kam Shan felt a great hollowness in his heart. It was only many years later, when he was middle-aged and had experienced life’s ups and downs, that he was able to put a name to his feelings that day. Desolation.
He went back to the house and retrieved his cowhide bag from under his pillow. He had not opened it since the day he was almost sent packing. He took off his leather boots and put them by Silent Wolf’s bed, then put on his old cloth shoes. He tied the bag shut, hung it from a stick over his shoulder and set off. The village was empty; everyone was at the powwow. The cloth of the shoes wrapped itself around his feet with such light weight that, strangely, he felt as if he were walking on puffs of air. By the time he got used to the feeling, the village was well behind him.
He had to hurry. The sun was well up by now and he needed to reach the nearest settlement before dark. He was not really worried; the bag still had the water and food in it that Silent Wolf had given him. And so long as he had the camera, he could beg a crust to eat and a place to sleep wherever he found himself. Now that the Whites had brought their cameras to the Redskins’ land, the latter, after some trepidation, had come to like the strange idea of having their images shut into the black box. He did not know where the next settlement was or how far he would have to walk to reach it. His hair brushed his shoulders. In another six months, he thought, just another six months, he could face his father again.
He got to the bend in the river and stopped, rooted to the spot. His bag dropped with a thud. Someone was sitting on the stone where Silent Wolf tied his canoe. The silence was shattered with a jingling of bells.
“Get into the canoe. I’ll take you,” said Sundance.
She knew. She knew everything.
Emotion flooded over Kam Shan, filling his eyes with tears. He dared not look at her, or he would not be able to hold them back. He must not cry. Redskin men never cried.
“I’m not … I’m.…” he stammered, but could not finish the sentence. She did not interrupt but when he did not say any more, she asked: “Why? Why?” She was looking upwards, as if addressing her questions to the sky.
He gave a sigh. She sighed too. The silence hung heavily between them.
“The ancestors … won’t accept you.…” he began haltingly.
Sundance untied the mooring rope and gave the paddle to him. He stepped in and reached out for her hand. She got in but still he did not let go. She did not pull free but allowed their palms to rest moistly one against the other.
“That’s what my granddad said when he left my granny,” she said quietly.
Kam Shan had been on the road more than six months before he glimpsed, far in the distance, the pair of red lanterns that hung on either side of his father’s door.
After leaving Sundance, he wandered from tribe to tribe, from town to town, for months. He took the same road his father had taken all those years before when he was building the railroad, but that he did not discover until much later. At the time, the only idea in his head was how to get to the next settlement before dark and fill his hungry belly.
As winter approached, his aimless wanderings acquired a direction— home.
The idea came to him quite suddenly. His hair was not long enough yet; in fact, he could only braid it into a stub of a pigtail. But something made him change his mind—a newspaper.
He was at a Redskin market one day when he saw a man carrying bottle of soy sauce bought in Vancouver’s Chinatown. It was a long time since he had tasted