River With No Bridge

by Karen Wills

  A wealthy Chinese merchant, well traveled and fluent in English, invited Reverend McIntosh to his home. There he met the man’s two daughters, both graceful and delicate as lilies. The older, Moon Jade, also conversed in English.

  The attraction between Moon Jade and Reverend McIntosh became a life-or-death pull for body, mind, and soul. Moon Jade chanted her sutras, fasted, but found that her thoughts still strayed to the missionary. McIntosh prayed and doused his head in pitchers of ice water that made little horns of his curly hair. Guilt and desire kept him awake in the nights. His clothes hung loose on his tormented frame.

  They finally surrendered to their passion on the seventh day of the seventh month. Reverend McIntosh did not know, as Moon Jade did, that this was Lover’s Night in China. Moon Jade met Douglas McIntosh in an apricot orchard. Perfume from ripe fruit and the floral slope of her slender neck pulled the young minister to the earth, then to a place at the earth’s pulsing center. Afterward, she told him this was the Chinese night for lovers.

  McIntosh rose wiser only in carnal knowledge. Guilt and shame rippled through the grass and stole into him. Two days later, according to Jim’s aunt, McIntosh numbed Moon Jade with a stumbling, remorseful tirade. “You bewitched me. I came here to save souls, not lose my own. What did you make me do, witch? Never again. It’s a sin, I gave in to your wiles. Never again, you scheming heathen.” He left Moon Jade bewildered as to why he found passion so fearful.

  He never returned to her. After much thought and meditation, at the appointed time Moon Jade shaved her head, the shimmering hair that had brushed the backs of her knees cascading to the floor. She put away her silk and brocades to wear the robes of a Buddhist nun. When she learned she was with child, she asked and received permission to remain in the convent until the birth, at which time she would give her baby to White Plum.

  Moon Jade’s son arrived in March. Ice crystals still hung in the air and hoar frost softened bony branches. White Plum, by then married, retrieved her nephew from the convent. There was no pretense. Jim Li knew his origins from childhood. He knew his father had departed for America, and his mother had become a religious recluse, a hermit living in a nearly inaccessible place in the Chungnan Mountains.

  Jim Li glanced down at his sleeping audience, then continued. As a boy he grew surrounded by tasteful luxury in Sian, taught by gifted tutors, even an American from New York City.

  He also learned about shamans, those masters of the ecstatic state. In it, they could leave their bodies, pass through a series of heavens, and communicate with spirits, seeking and gaining knowledge for the welfare of their communities. Shamans defended and aided their society, but lived apart from it. Jim identified both his hermit mother and his reverend father with shamans. He took as a given that one day he would find his parents, study their wisdom, and then become a monk himself, perhaps even a hermit. To that end, he studied until fluent in English.

  At fifteen, Jim became a novice Buddhist monk. His aunt’s husband died, and her sons clearly wished him to leave her care to them. After three Spartan years of temple life, rising early, reading the sutras, working in the kitchen and garden, and meditating, he left to find Moon Jade. Perhaps he would become her disciple. The abbot told him she lived on the far side of Taipaishan, the highest of the Chungnan Mountains. She lived above forests of chinaberry, birch, and fir, near the top where blue pine and azalea grew. Laypeople brought her food in exchange for her wisdom. White Plum paid for the upkeep of her sister’s stone hut and for new clothes once a year.

  Jim spoke aloud to his charge. “I traveled alone and unarmed.” The gelding blew and Jim spoke a bit louder over the plod of its hooves. “I remembered the writings of Chia Liu, another climber, ‘Here the world’s illusions come to an end.’ It was then that I learned to revere and require mountains. I believed Chia Liu’s words to be correct, but I have since learned it is really here in America that illusions end. I have not found my father, but I have found bigotry, hate, and violence. I stay among my people, seeing how they are despised by the white ghosts. I will find a way to escape this poverty and disrespect.

  “Your beautiful mother has much to learn, but I will teach her if she permits me. She will learn to trust her instincts that already tell her people’s worth is not measured by their wealth or even their beliefs. She, too, must find a place where the world’s illusions come to an end. It is possible that we will do that together. That is my hope.”

  Jim sighed, the fire and Nora’s giving birth taking their toll. The baby stirred and whimpered, seeming to want more of the soothing sound of Jim’s narrative. “I shall continue to explain myself to you. Let’s see, I began the search for my mother.

  “My path from a shrine where people prayed for rain followed a stream through the forest, gradually ascending higher and narrower until all was lost in curtains of hanging vines. I crossed ravines on fallen trees. In all, I walked ninety gongli, what the English call kilometers, to reach the summit of Taipaishan.

  “There I met an ancient nun. She told me Moon Jade had not arrived for a gathering of hermits. My mother had been ill, spitting up blood.

  “I could only stare at the calm woman. She prepared for the coming hermits and did not seem concerned about Moon Jade. I left determined to see my mother as soon as possible. I scaled a steep promontory so lofty that I heard thunder roll in the gorges beneath me. A rainbow arced across my difficult path. My sweat left dark handprints on the rocks to which I clung. A whirlwind of leaves flew toward me, veering away at the last moment. I thought I saw a flash of green. Perhaps I caught a glimpse of Mau-nu, she who escaped from the Emperer’s court and was taught by a shaman. Hunters sometimes see her or hear her zither. I felt certain I did catch the sound.”

  Nora’s son made a small mew. “Yes,” Jim said to the quizzical little face. “Mist shifted and the ledge widened. I continued until I came to a cold, dark pool in the upper reaches of the mountain. A woman’s voice called my name. I scrambled up a rocky incline, thinking it must be my mother, so eager to see her I forgot all fear. To my surprise, I reached a promontory where a small platform looked out on the purple Chungnan Range in all its plunging light and color. I turned toward a hut behind the platform. A young nun, her head shaved, knelt in her robes before the porcelain-like corpse of a tiny woman whose skin, like her robes, appeared frozen, shiny and stiff.”

  Jim stopped his story as the horse continued its measured pace. “ ‘Moon Jade told me you would come. Now she is dead,’ the young disciple told me. ‘Your mother went to the pool alone when I was practicing, becoming one with the Tao. I heard your mother coughing,’ she continued. ‘But that was not unusual. When I finished, I returned to the pool. She lay in the black water, a ribbon of red blood floating from her mouth. I carried her back, but she is gone.’

  “I knelt before Moon Jade’s opalescent figure, she whose love for the Reverend Douglas James McIntosh had rendered only the son she could not keep any more than Nora could keep you.

  “Her face was aristocratic and delicate even in age and death, the brows like little bird wings. I bowed until my forehead rested on her folded hands. My tears covered them. I felt living fingers touch my neck. The disciple spoke, ‘Do not grieve. Your mother knew you would come and told me words to give you. These words are the essence of the life that you must live if disorder is not to overtake you. These words are goodwill, compassion, joy, detachment. Wisdom will bring compassion. Detachment will come when you accept the natural order of things. Joy will come from suffering. She told me other things as well. Now we will bury her. Then I will stay, and you will travel far to seek your father.”

  Jim patted Nora’s baby, looking into his soft eyes. “So you see, Taipai, the woman preparing for the gathering of hermits had only been detached. She had accepted the natural order of things.” The baby’s eyes drooped, and Jim fell into a reverie, remembering.

  He spoke again. “I awoke when morning stars dissolved one by one into a peach and salmon dawn, a
nd walked to the door to look again upon my mother. Her small form lay there, its tiny feet bound when she was a small girl. So, I realized, she had been crippled.

  “I did not want a tiger or wild pig to drag her away. We carried Moon Jade a few feet farther from her platform and dug a grave, which we covered with dirt and stones. ‘She is well,’ the nun said. ‘Your mother has become one of the immortals.’

  “I knew then that my mother had succeeded in her quest to return to the Tao, the heavenly nothingness from which we come. Not all reach immortality. ‘Will she ever appear to me?’ I asked her.”

  “ ‘I don’t know. Will you search for the man McIntosh?’ She seemed to know my answer, and smiled.

  “That is when I decided to travel to America. I came for my past and I stay for my future.”

  The baby, lulled by Jim’s story, jerked fully awake when he stopped speaking. Its thin cry spoke of some problem. Jim felt its full nappy and turned the horse. A rim of light lit the mountains on the far side of the river. Before him stretched a level valley floor, no other travelers heard or seen.

  He dismounted in the dawn and built a small fire, then changed the baby. Hidden in the cottonwood stands, he heated goat’s milk. Taipai nursed in contentment. After burping his charge, Jim stretched a blanket on the ground, unsaddled and hobbled the horse, then lay with Taipai between him and the fire. Both slept. Jim kept one hand curled around Bat Moriarty’s ring in his pocket. It seemed to radiate heat. Mingling with early spring water songs, in his dreams he heard the sounds of a zither.

  Under cover of darkness, Jim traveled another night and slept another day, stopping only to tend to Taipai. Finally, at dusk, he rode through thin snow patches down a long hill to Butte. The town seemed more hellish and demented than ever. He found the home of Su-Chen, the prostitute whose quarters he once shared. She gazed at him from her musty cot, heavy-lidded in an opium stupor, a crusted sore on her upper lip. She stared without interest at the baby and rolled over with her back to them, not having spoken a word.

  Jim saw to the baby, slept for a few hours, then heated water and bathed his charge, putting a clean nappy on him. The newborn’s bottom had turned red and peeling, but he didn’t cry. Jim fed him, then studied him for a long moment. He touched a finger to the baby’s nose in a farewell pat. Finally, he put him back in the sling and set off for Dublin Gulch.

  In the grimy predawn, comforting lights brightened a few windows, Bridget and Michael’s among them. Jim Li walked to the door and knocked. Michael answered in his union suit, Bridget peering around him, tumbling blonde hair soft on her shoulders.

  “A Chink. What the hell?” Michael’s tone showed he intended intimidation.

  Jim Li bowed, his eyes slits. He spoke in Chinese, “Pig-nosed devil, you have a son.” He held out Nora’s notes, careful not to touch Michael’s thick fingers. As Michael and Bridget read, they looked in joyous wonder first at each other, then at the wriggling lump in Jim’s sling.

  Bridget stepped around her husband. “Jim Li, I know you speak English. Please let me have this baby.”

  Jim removed Taipai from the sling.

  “Does he have a name?” Michael asked.

  “No,” Jim answered, bowing. “That will be for his mother and father to decide.”

  Bridget stepped forward and took the sleepy baby from Jim. “He has a little rash,” Jim said. “From the journey.”

  “We’ll fix it. You want some tickee for this?” Michael rubbed his fingers together.

  Without a word, Jim took off the sling, dropping it on the ground. He bowed again and backed away, not turning until he could barely see them, his hands balled into fists in his pockets. He’d lost detachment over giving Taipai to such a father. He forced himself to relax his hands, reminded himself to breathe slowly. It was done. Detachment.

  At his old lodging, Jim merely glanced at the opium pipe Su-Chen offered him. The air hung sweet with the smell. He gestured no and settled into sleep on a woven mat. When he awoke hours later, Su-Chen’s cot was empty. Could she be seeking customers? What man would go with a woman so clearly blighted, who would pass disease on to any who entered her? As good a time as any to leave.

  He wrapped a bit of cooked pork in newspaper, added a sack of rice, and rammed both into his duffel bag. He left money for the food, flung the duffel over his shoulder, and left. He’d never touched Su-Chen or spoken to her, mindful of the open sores on her body, the stench of early decay.

  Jim traveled again at night, less afraid of trouble since he’d delivered Taipai. However, Bat Moriarty’s ring still rode with him, this time hidden deep in the rice bag. The Silver Bow River burbled of spring breakup, but the sound depressed Jim. He thought of drownings and of water spirits pulling mortals down to their deaths. Owls swooped through the cottonwoods, great gray shadows that could be dire messengers from beyond this world. At least night protected him from white ghosts and their violence.

  Jim Li took stock. Nora couldn’t stay in Helena without eventually becoming a prostitute. She would do well in that profession, he reflected matter-of-factly. Then he turned from that thought, remembering her direct gaze. When Nora Larkin saw him, she saw a human being, not a subspecies Chinee. They could help each other. He would show her the ring and make plans. They needed to disappear for awhile, let Nora recover from giving birth and both be out of sight of any who might remember Bat’s ring with its glittering, captivating facets and want it for themselves.

  Jim entered Helena wondering what he would find. Lillie’s house lay in ruins. Iron bedsteads and blackened mattresses littered the charred foundation. The place smelled evil. He saw no one. He rode on to the Purple Palace, the stone structure on the hill that now would have to serve as Lillie’s main house, and for the moment, place of all business. Jim dismounted and tied the horse to the hitching post before knocking at the back door.

  “Jim Li.” A short, stocky girl with frizzy black hair opened it.

  “Is Nora Larkin here?” he asked.

  “She is in body, but we’ve been taking bets on where her spirit is. You hand over the kid?”

  Jim nodded.

  “What the hell. Maybe if you tell her, it will cut through the fog. It’s worth a try.”

  Jim kept his duffel bag slung over his shoulder as he followed the girl down the flowered carpet of the hall, her hips rolling inside her thin chemise. She led him to the last room.

  Jim stepped inside. Nora lay on the double bed in a nightgown open at the collar. Lines of dirt streaked her neck below her white face. The girls had brushed her hair, but it needed washing. Her eyes were black holes in a skull. The girl shook her head and left, closing the door hard behind her.

  In the dim light Nora kept silent, although she seemed awake. Jim lowered his duffel bag to the floor where it thudded on the carpet. Nora’s eyes slid to him.

  “Did they take him?” she whispered.

  “Yes. They were full of joy. They will love him.”

  “Sure and they would be.” She turned her head to the wall. Jim could barely make out her next words, “Anyone would love him.”

  Jim saw that he had to reach her quickly. “Nora.” He sat on the foot of the bed, his voice soft. “When the house was burning, I took something from Bat Moriarty’s body. I took his diamond ring. I believe we can both make a fresh start from it. He owed you that much.”

  “I remember it, and I want nothing of that devil’s,” Nora said, her eyes meeting Jim’s, tears glistening at the corners.

  “Nora, where we came from, both you and I, what could bring security and dignity? What did we want more than anything? What did people kill and fight for?”

  “Why land, for certain. The land meant everything. But would one ring, even one so alluring, bring enough?” She closed her eyes from the effort of talking.

  “Not here. But let me finish the story for you that I started telling Taipai on our journey.”

  “Who?”

  “Your son. I named him just for our jou
rney. It means Evening Star.”

  “I have no son. I thank you for taking him, but we’ll not speak of him again. I can’t bear it. If I think of him, I’ll go mad. It’s enough that I can’t stop wondering if I should have kept him. My last child. But then, I know he’s better off with Bridget and Michael. He must be.” Tears trickled into her hair. She wiped them with the backs of her hands, seeming to forget Jim’s presence.

  He took one of her hands, squeezing it in desperation. It was bold of him, the first time they touched in such a way. Still, the fit of their hands felt right. Anything to bring her back. “Let me tell you. Let me tell you what I’ve seen in my past.”

  “Get on with it, then.” She pulled her hand away, not unaware after all, just indifferent.

  Jim hesitated, unused to this hard bitterness in Nora. “My mother became a hermit in China. I searched for her, but she had become one of the immortals. I decided then to search for my father. My aunt, White Plum, told me I would find him in western America or Canada. She gave me money for my passage and entry into this country.”

  Nora’s eyes showed no glimmer of interest.

  Jim continued, “My cousin helped me book passage on a ship to America. He had contacts who could smuggle me in. After a long voyage, my ship docked in Vancouver. Following instructions, I found a man who agreed to take me and another to Fort MacLeod in Alberta.

  “For a prearranged price, a Chinese café owner there kept me and two others from Canton. Two white men in great hairy coats pulled up in a wagon. They were drunk and disrespectful, but for $250 apiece they agreed to smuggle us into America. When we started, they covered us with a tarp on the floor of the wagon among sacks of supplies. The smell of oats nearly suffocated us.

  “Even at night in the moonlight, I saw looking out from the tarp we were in a land approaching the magnificence of the Chungnan Range in China. We rested one day, and on the next one of the men hid us in a little cabin deeper into the forest than the larger one he lived in near a lake. Two days later, he dressed us as hunters and we traveled again by horse. I wore a buckskin jacket and goat hide chaps. I imagined I must look very western.