Fools' Gold (37 page)

John Hummel sat in his spotless tent, the twelve-hundred-dollar canvas sack wound tightly around his neck. Before him on the neat dirt floor Fujino's feet bled darkly, thin red lines overflowing the ankles. He had been ready for anything but nothing had happened and he had not been ready for that. The feet appeared to him to be in excellent shape. Around him nothing was out of place. There was a setting for two at the table. There was no ice in the harbor now so he could expect his mother any time. Everything was packed and ready for her to take back.

John Hummel reached down and removed his own heavy shoes. They were warm and thick and had lasted him easily through the winter. He sucked hard on both his lips and spit into his hand, but there was still no trace of red; the disease was completely gone. He looked across the room at the shoelaced entrance and could see a single remaining candy stalk growing like a long, thin finger from his old spittoon.

John Hummel had written a note, which swung from a single piece of twine, turning slightly before him in the breezeless room. He had taken his time with his note, giving it his finest hand. It was addressed to his mother and was an inventory of exactly what he had placed inside which box. Hummel picked up Fujino's feet and held them gingerly, trying not to touch the lines of blood. He slid them slowly into the warm pockets of his shoes then placed them out in the middle of the room and stood barefooted upon the edge of the couch he'd been sitting on. He attached the canvas bag to a hook that was looped up over the stovepipe that stretched across the ceiling of the tent. He had tested it several times, was sure it would hold. He decided to use the couch as a starting place because he did not want a chair directly under him, or worse, tipped over by his swinging legs and messing up the room. He had arranged things so that his note, his inventory, swung not too far from him. With luck he would be able to read it; it would appear large and clear to his bulging eyes, his fine lettering his last vision.

John Hummel did not want to wait long after things were ready. He had hoped to figure a way to use the canvas sack so that the twelve-hundred-dollar sign would be visible and right side up, but he'd had to settle for it this way; the metal hook connected the bottom of the sack, upside down. When he stepped off the couch he tried to do so lightly, for he knew that to jump would lessen the strength of the stovepipe and that he might fall. He stepped off, looking toward his note, and was aware of the flapping of his arms and the sharp kicking of his feet as he rode across the small room for the first time. He did not know whether his eyes were open or not but he was aware of the sensation of looking directly into bright sunlight. And there was noise, a continuous single and disorganized blare that was of a pitch and intensity equal to the brightness of the light. And there was pain. There was a burning at an exact spot at the back of his neck, the point where the pursed mouth of the canvas bag sucked at his skin.

John Hummel's mind pitched. Thoughts, like people evacuating a burning building, ran wildly about. He lost most of them but others came clear to him before disappearing, screaming into the sun. He was aware of the swinging and slowing of his body and concentrated on the quick opening of his eyes, on getting one look at the perfection of his lettering. When finally he was able to open them he was aware of the familiar taste of blood and was looking up into men's faces. He could not see them clearly but he could hear them as if they spoke from within his own head. They were fishermen and he was a fish and the blood he tasted was at the spot where they had removed the hook from his mouth. They seemed pleased with the size of him, with the fight he had given them and with the clean landing. After they removed the hook they walked forward, away from him, to cast their lines once again onto a cloudy sea. They fished like cowboys, and from his place in the dirty bottom of the boat he could see them swinging ropes over their heads, throwing them out as far as they could, using no bait at all. John Hummel felt his body stiffen and shudder. He heard the noises that he made thumping against the boat's wet bottom.

John Hummel's body slowed as his mind did. He hung with his long back to the inventory, his eyes opened but attached somewhere else. His muscles were slack and his feet stretched down, toes pointing, directly over the tops of his foot-filled shoes. The conversation of the fishermen was no longer audible to him. He had not expected to grow in death, but he did and his long toes now entered the shoes and dipped themselves into the thawing blood of Fujino. The slight swaying of his body pushed at the edges of the shoes, and both of them, at the same instant, fell over and spilled their stored blood onto his clean floor. His toes hung red and drying, like the thick pens of a sloppy printer. He had lost the image of the fishing boat entirely now and opened his dead eyes to the tent. He swung around so that he faced his inventory, though he could not see it, and drops of blood from both his toes fell to the ground, punctuating the room.

When Finn entered the Gold Belt the huge balance scale, the one he'd used to win his hapless mule and odd equipment, stood on the makeshift stage at the side of the room. There were sacks on one side, so Finn sat on the shiny chair opposite them and looked about the bar. There were Eskimos everywhere, dotted among the prospectors. The owner poured beer from his barrel, busying himself with gazing at the gray-suited ones, with frowning at the fact that they stood in his bar so unself-consciously.

Finn sat on the scale for fun, but as soon as he did so people stopped and smiled at him, and Phil and the old man tried to turn the crank at the back, wanted to lift him as high as they could, to bring him above the rest of them one last time. Eskimos moved like gray night through the place. They untied the canvas by pulling at the end lines and rolled the entire wall evenly off the ground. Behind him Finn could hear the two languages of Phil and Kaneda gently knocking against each other once again. The customers and the women in wool shirts stood about. From the open side of the tent the dark earth peered in, but the audience leaned away from it, watching Finn. Winter was over. The wind that blew in through the side of the tent was bearable. Night was returning a portion of itself to the day.

Phil stood behind Finn on the low stage and turned the crank until Finn and the sacks were lifted high. They moved off the stage evenly, the needle not swaying even as much as it had the previous fall. Finn was aware of Eskimo voices and could hear a light cheering from the room. Slowly at first he spun out over the city, then back through the quieting bar. Now night swept across the long mirror, replacing the silver with black, and he could see dimly the moon faces of the customers turned up toward him: moon-faced Phil and Kaneda.

The chain links that held Finn stretched out across the city, pushing him to the windows of the bath, letting him recognize the blue bodies of Henriette and the reverend entwined. And it was as if the sacks that weighed him, in their turn, tapped gently upon the glass, for the next time he looked they were standing facing him, Henriette holding her belly, the reverend unsure, long legs dancing yet worried, keeping his eye out for missionaries. And once Finn thought he saw the sewed-up scar of Hummel's tent, gravel circling it like a rocky beach the continent, canvas walls rising like cliffs. Through his matted beard Finn felt his lips purse while watching, felt saliva escape and roll across his forest chin.

The people in the bar had been involved with the duration of Finn's spinning, so when they finally stopped him he came down dizzy. He stepped off the chair, then leaned against a table looking down at Phil and the old man. He excused himself and walked outside. Nanoon was there waiting for him, covered in shadows. She held an arm up to him and then, still rubbing the wrinkles from her eyes, followed as he hurried past her toward the bath.

Finn wanted to find out whether or not the mule's feet were still stuck in the mud outside the window. He remembered Fujino's feet too, gone at the burial, and he wanted to see if they were now somehow embedded in the earth next to the mule's. He thought of them as plant bulbs wrapped in the earth and ready to sprout again in spring, ready to grow anew the man and mule, turn and turn about.

Above Finn clouds descended upon the city like pillars, but between them the stars drew him and were clear. The name would remain the same, Ellen's Bath, for the sign was made and the letters were deep and even. He was in front of the bath now and peering down at the place where the mule had stood. He could see the tops of the hooves in the dim light from the window, so he bent over them and kicked dirt across them and reached down to pat the soil solid. He'd heard that from the arm of a starfish the whole animal will grow, from the smallest part of an arm, so why could it not be so with mules? He would water the land in front of the window until the next winter froze it all. And if he did not mention it to anyone it would not stretch the seams of his sanity any further out beyond his already loose control. Finn looked up at the light that came from Henriette's window. He pictured the reverend's gray jacket hanging from the nail on the wall, the golden snowflake casting its spider shadow across the floor. Quietly he thought he could hear the firm slapping of human flesh, coming from the window like slow applause.

Finn went into the bath and settled Nanoon on a bench, like a waiting bather. From the window he could see the patch of ground he had patted smooth. He turned and looked at the empty chicken coops, cleaned and closed tightly. The clasp that held the door of the one nearest him turned in his hand and he felt the soft wood of the floorboards. He would get more chickens and when the winter came he would stay close to them, breathing warm air across their feathers. Finn walked into the back and poured water into the waiting tubs. He removed his clothes and looked at his snow-white body in the shaving mirror. His dark arms and face were like rude strangers. He climbed onto the edge of the tub, hooking his heels on it and letting his toes touch the top of the water. It was as cold as the wind outside, had perhaps been brought in by Ellen just before she climbed the stairs to bed. Finn balanced there, his face turning around the room. He could feel the delicate threads of the web he'd woven break, swing like lines of cotton candy in the air. He slid into the water and watched his body tighten under it, felt his skin adjusting, closing its doors. He was more at home in this water than in the air. Though the coldness of it jarred him, the lines of the room were jerked into vivid clarity, his thoughts no longer rovers. Sitting there he could not stir up wild philosophies but could imagine only Phil's father falling through the ice, jarred awake by his own cold death. Finn knew in the clarity of this cold room that the sea would one day take him too, he too would break through the ice or slap against the rough whitecaps, skimming the surface before making his slow descent. It was in his name.

Finn moved in the water, watching his legs part like long fish leaving. It wasn't hard to sit here now; he could no longer feel the rough bath boards against his toes. The only sound was the lapping of the waves against his chest, the shore. He bent his head and looked up at the magic ceiling. He watched the weight of Ellen as she walked silently back and forth, glancing sideways at the open carpet bag on her bed. Now that she had decided to leave she would take the first ship south. She stood with hands on hips, sandwiching the hard floorboards between Finn and herself. Earlier in the evening she had stepped into her traveling clothes, fastening her blouse at the neck with the hard cameo of her grandmother. She'd pulled her hair into weaving strands and woven a bun for the back of her head. This was the way she looked her best, dressed and groomed and standing tall. She had broad shoulders and large hands. She would not live in Ireland or stitch sweaters to ticking time, yet she was who she was. She decided to button her high shoes and step out and walk darkly along the sand streets one more time. She worked the wire button hook well though she was out of practice. She looked at her round face in the glass and tucked a fold of skin down under the steadfast cameo.

Finn watched the pattern of her walking on the lucky floorboards as he dried his watered skin. But the clarity of the bath left him as he stepped from it. The warm rubbing of the heavy towel moved the blood inside him and built stories onto the bath, higher and higher into the air. And perhaps he would build a staircase winding up the outside, perhaps a ladder so that he could cling to its sides and wave to the grim-faced city below. He imagined that he would enlist Phil and that only the two of them would work on it, or no, Phil and he and the old man would make three, tapping and shouting at each other in their personal grammars. Finn rubbed his thighs and laughed. He tied his towel tightly about his waist and walked out into the warmer main room of the bath where Nanoon sat, speechless, waiting for him to end this old life of his and start again with her. He saw Ellen on the stairs all finely dressed and pointing, her hair turned into its bun so well, her clothes and the buttons on her shoes and her heartbreaking cameo. Finn turned in his towel to face her. He followed the long line of her finger streaming toward his towel and he understood in the flare of her nostrils his continuing failure to understand.

Finn was warm and dry and wild-looking in the quiet room. Without taking his soft eyes from her he reached to his waist and let his towel fall away, and her accusing finger turned, her hand unmoving until he stepped up the stairs and took it. Finn, a man of revelations, revealed again. He walked by her side from the stairway to the door and opened it for her and waited while she passed on through. He stood at the window, the empty city in front of him, and watched as Ellen walked by and saw her bun bobbing in the night. Her face was before him as he searched the floor for the towel again. His hand struck the egg he had given her, so he held it at arm's length. He could see her in it. Her face was made of marble and would last forever.