Fools' Gold (22 page)

Kaneda held the two pieces, his heart in his throat. I am a carpenter and should never have come for gold. I have neglected my trade and my family and have caused the death of my daughter's future husband. He looked back over his shoulder at Phil. He has awakened me, he thought. He mirrors my face and reminds me of the perfection of my profession. He turned toward the two men and held the gifts high above his head, his eyes tearing.

“Arigato Gozaimashita!”
he said.

“What is it?” asked Finn. “What is the gift the reverend sent?”

“A box and a piece of wood!” said Kaneda. “Now I understand what a fool I have been!”

Kaneda slept with his new gift. He could tell that Finn and the new man wanted to talk, so for this night he decided not to mention history. There is a time and a place for everything. Rather, he curled up with the gift and with his thoughts of Japan and his house and his daughter and his wife. Even if he were to return soon he would have
some
gold to show for his trouble—indeed, more than most men found. He would talk to the new man, to Phil, and see what struck him as a good time to leave. And if Phil agreed to go he would not act toward him as he had toward Fujino. He would say everything right out, not waiting for Phil to ask. First thing tomorrow he'd show him a photograph of his daughter. And he would show him photographs of his house and land. No one could refuse him. He would call Phil Taro, the name he had once reserved for the son he never had. And if Phil, if Taro, made the box, they would go into business and their reputations as master carpenters would spread throughout Japan. He turned toward the wall and closed his eyes, waiting for sleep. It was a crazy thing to think about, he knew, but it gave him something to hold on to.

In the morning Finn's mute dog stretched and blinked at the sleeping men. He pushed at the hide entrance and walked out onto the snow. Finn and Phil had stayed up late and Phil was very tired, so today they would breakfast later than usual. Even Kaneda stayed rolled in his blankets for a longer period than was his custom. The dog peed on the talon-marked block of ice, then stood over the warming steam. The cold sunlight brightened the shadowless ground. The dog ran by himself, padding the icy earth and playing, sometimes lying in one spot for a while and then standing quickly and drinking from his thawed form.

Among dogs what is noticed as a weakness is any kind of frailty of limb. What is noticed as a strength is silence. A quiet dog, one that does not bark or growl, does not work well on teams. When Phil arrived the night before he noticed the dog and was glad he'd decided to leave his own dogs behind. The silence of this one would have forced those of his sled to try to draw a noise from its throat. They would have attacked when their howls were not answered, seeking to draw sound with blood. This dog would have died, but so would several of his, they howling like wolves, this one silently.

Phil stood in the hide doorway looking at the dog. The others were still asleep behind him. All during the night he had had the feeling that he was skating, his body pushing outward from its sides. He had made the trip in two days. It would have taken him six if walking, three had he brought the sled. There was an axe inside the tent and a sled with harness nearby. Phil held his hand out silently toward the dog. He buckled the slight harness around the dog's heavy chest and then slid, his ankles still hurting, out and away from the tent toward the scrub timber to the north. The dog pulled easily, head down to the task, mouth closed. It would not be difficult to cut firewood on a day such as this. He would have several hours before the cold would touch him. It was far too late to do anything about the condition of the shelter in which they lived, but the snow had sealed it tightly, so at least they would be able to keep warm.

After only a few moments of sledding, Phil stopped the dog near some snow-heavy trees. He slapped the flat of the axe against the trees and heard the sound of snow falling to the ground, like laundry on rocks. He cut trees for an hour, then branched them and piled them as high as he could on the slender sled. He wove some of the thinner branches around the outer ones to keep them from falling off. The land was clear between here and the camp, so with a long piece of rope Phil tied the remaining loose branches together, then tied them to the back of the sled. He turned the dog and swatted him toward home. There was not room on the sled for him as well.

The dog pulled the mass of firewood down the easy slope toward the campsite, running slowly sometimes, in order to keep the front of the sled from bumping his legs. The ground was so hard that even the back branches could not snag. This was the kind of work the dog could do. Though the sled was heavy he knew the distance and could follow the scent that he and Phil had left when heading out. The dog had no thoughts, but there was a sense of not having worked in a long while. The smell of the timber and the feel of the sled seemed a part of his body.

Phil walked in the runner marks, turning his ankles in ways that the skates had not. It had been several years since he'd been to this branch of the Snake. Not since long before the gold was found, not since before the first missionaries had smiled their way into his life. The site where the village now sat had only been a meeting place before the missionaries. His father took the family there several times each year for dancing, but they had never lived there. Even now it seemed to him like something temporary. And if his memory served him correctly, they, his family with his father at the head, had spent some time near this spot, for he could remember the roll of the land.

It had been a long time since Phil had thought of his father. It must have been the face of the old Japanese that brought the memory back. His father had died in an accident, falling through the ice while trying to red-feather a seal. That was the only time in anyone's memory that the winter ice had broken under a man. Under a single man, not under three or four. Phil had been standing not far off and saw his father plunge his harpoon downward and then saw him follow it through the ice as if he'd been a part of it. By the time Phil and the others got near, the broken ice had already formed a thin new skin. Still, the harpoon had been anchored well and the seal was there like a parting gift from his father to the family. Phil remembered breaking the ice again and pouring a bit of the seal blood in so that his father would know the taste of his last catch.

When Phil came into view of the camp the dog came out to meet him. The sled had been unloaded by the others, the wood placed near the hut. For a long while now Phil had heard the sharp bark of an axe and knew that someone was cutting the wood he'd sent. As he got closer he saw that it was the old man who was cutting the wood, and doing a very neat job of it. Seldom did it take him more than two strokes to get through the tough thickness of the dying tree. Even the branches had been chopped through and piled neatly.

Finn called to Phil when he saw him standing on the ridge. The dog was at Phil's side now and looking around for another sled to pull. Finn was on the frozen surface of Topcock Creek with the ice skates laced tightly to his shoes. He had fallen once or twice just in the time that Phil had been watching. He stood now and slid clumsily across the ice, gripping the sides of the locked water wheel to keep himself up. He looked at Phil and waved and then pushed off again, clasping his hands in a determined manner. Left. Right, feet upward, back down. The sound of Finn's falling was a dull one to Phil's ears. Quite the opposite of the sharp crack of the old man's axe.

Reentering Nome was easy and uneventful. The town was still frozen in its tent swirl, the half-done skeletons of buildings still stood. It was a disappointment, coming back. Both of the women had hoped for a real town, somehow sprung from the loins of the one they'd left. One of Phil's friends silently left them at the first sight of Nome, turning to hurry back to the village. He handed them their bags then stepped away quickly, as if what lay before them held some danger for him. Both Ellen and Henriette knew that nothing had changed, that they would soon be standing before the same windows once again, staring out. But Ellen decided during their return that there were two things she must do: bury Fujino and reopen the bath. The city was full of dirt, frozen to the skin of the men who lived there. Sickness and death had made them close the bath early and now they would reopen it by removing that which had been sick and died, by burying poor Fujino, come what may.

For a long while as they walked toward the edge of it, the town shimmered before them, seeming closer than it really was, a mirage. The tents rose like mounds of dirty snow and neither of the women spoke. It was twilight but they could hear no voices, could see no others walking as they were, across the outside world. At the entrance to one of the first tents, though, the snow had been melted away and the brown earth had reappeared. It was a clean tent and as they walked around it they discovered that it was entirely circled by cleanliness, that for a meter out from any wall there was earth, and that salt had been laid to prevent refreezing.

“Here's a tent that's been cared for,” said Ellen. “There's even a path.”

They circled the tent once and then started around again, feeling the crunch of the rock salt beneath their feet, but hearing the sound of gravel on a summer road. It was a pleasure; it made them want to open their jackets and smile. They circled the tent three times, one behind the other, like children marching. It made them laugh to think what they were doing. The warm stovepipe pushed straight out the top of the tent like the central pinning of a carousel, and they moved like riders, Ellen following Henriette, joining in, but hesitantly, always on the lookout for someone watching.

As they circled, surely for the last time, the flap was pulled back and a man ducked out to see what web they were winding. He was in shirt sleeves, as if as long as he stayed here, on his path, in his tent, the weather could not touch him. He wore slippers and waited for them to cease their marching and look up.

“An unexpected pleasure,” said John Hummel, forcing their eyes to him. “I have fresh coffee.” He held the tent flap wide, introducing the odor of coffee to the air around them. It was cold and they had had a long trip, and Ellen could do nothing but follow Henriette through the low-slung entrance of the man's home.

“Though I sense it was an accident, I cannot say how happy I am that you have come,” said Hummel, sucking at his teeth as other men might a pipe.

“Mr. Hummel…” said Ellen. The neatness of his tent overwhelmed her. Though it was of standard size it seemed much larger. There was a tarpaulin covering the ground and a thick carpet over that and a real bed and a high burning stove and two oil lamps. The large tin can that the man had used to relieve his bleeding gums now stood full of long stalks of candy in the center of a finely made wooden table. He smiled, showing a normal mouth, but then began sucking on his teeth again, a habit lingering after the cause had gone.

“I have recovered,” he said quietly. “There is a doctor in town now. It was simple, once he told me what to do.”

“Mr. Hummel,” said Ellen, “you have a beautiful place. It has the appearance of a real home.”

As quickly as she realized that his gums were mended, Ellen began repairing her impression of Hummel. His clothes were clean but whether they had always been so she could not say, for while he bled she had seen him only as bleeding. He had seemed to her like a man turned inside out. That he could be cured and that he could lead an orderly life as well seemed nothing short of a miracle.

Hummel busied himself with cups from the cupboard and with sugar. He talked over his shoulder about how long the winter had been and how much longer it might last. He'd taken a job with Dr. Kingman, who had gold, he said, but no good way of accounting for it. And he had taken the job at a high enough salary to allow him to leave Alaska, when he finally did, with more money than all but the most successful miners would have. Ellen had taught him the importance of good business, he told her. Her bath was a potential gold mine.

Hummel used his clean mouth for talking. Ellen and Henriette sat in comfortable chairs near the stove, hands across the black mouths of coffee cups. He had looked for them, he said. He'd gone to the bath daily, hoping to find it open. During his meetings with Dr. Kingman he'd been told of Finn's visit and of the horrible death that the Japanese had suffered, and he'd wanted to pay his respects.

“Indeed, though the man has died, he lingers with us yet,” said Ellen. “If you've been to the bath I'm sure you know that.”

“I know he
was
there,” said Hummel. “He's gone now. Dr. Kingman ordered me to have him removed.”

“Ordered you?”

“He assumed that it was your wish. After Finn visited him and after I mentioned what was standing outside your bath, we all got to thinking. There'd been several inquiries and we thought it best to tuck away the evidence, so to speak.”

“He's gone?” asked Henriette.

“It was impossible to separate him from the mule. They are merely buried in the deep snow toward the north of the town. In spring the job will have to be done once again.”

“I was not aware that Finn had visited your Dr. Kingman,” said Ellen. She felt strangely upset knowing that this man had disposed of Fujino so. It was a personal matter, not one for the whole town to be getting their hands into.

“I thank you for what you've done,” she said slowly. “You may tell Dr. Kingman that, come spring, I will take responsibility for making sure he gets a Christian burial.”

“It might be a larger problem than that,” said Hummel. “By spring there'll be land set aside for use as a cemetery. But did you ever think there might be someone else's hand in the matter? Some men have mentioned murder and wonder if this man's death shouldn't be investigated in some way, even if he was Oriental. Besides, he isn't the first hidden in the snow waiting for his burial place, you know.”