Heartbroke Bay

by Lynn D'urso

  While Harky and Hans shovel, Michael and Dutch divert water from the stream into the sluice. The flow slurries gravel the length of the box, driving it over the wooden riffles with a hissing sound. As the water runs, Michael and Dutch take turns rocking the box, shaking a post nailed upright to one corner. Tools clang on hardpan, water gurgles on stones, gravel rattles and grates down the boards in a rhythm of labor that hypnotizes the men with its consistency of motion.

  While they work with mud and cold water, Negook reluctantly instructs Hannah in gathering various foods in the forest. There is the leaf and stalk of l’ool, the bright, tall-flowered fireweed, with its crimson and purple blossoms; K’oox, the chocolate lily, whose root is like rice; cloudberries—n’ex’w—and tart thimbleberries called ch’eex’, which can be mixed together, pulped, and thickened by adding k’eikaxetl’k, bunchberries with the seeds removed.

  None of this will do any good, he knows, but when the spirits of divination had whispered to him what the Bear God has in store for them, his anger toward the whites had abated. Because T’ak is coming—T’ak, the terrible child-dying time, when even the waterfalls are frozen and no living thing stirs in the land. When winter is at its worst, Kah-Lituya will destroy these people, but first he will raise them up on dreams of gold and drive them mad. And for that Negook pities them. He shows Hannah how to wrap a whole salmon in a broad leaf of skunk cabbage and cover it with coals, steaming the delicate flesh until it flakes in buttery pink layers. “Eat the head and the eggs,” he tells her. “Lots of good fat there.”

  The men shovel and sluice; the shallow trench they dig grows to the depth and size of a grave. Michael stands upright in pain, clutching at the small of his back, then forces himself to bend to his shovel again. Harky whistles a tuneless melody, imitating the buzzing calls of southbound thrushes and kinglets flitting through the trees.

  When evening comes, Hans calls out, “Let’s clean up!” and pickets his shovel with a stamp of his boot. As he washes the concentrated fines from the riffles by pouring water carefully down the sluice with a can, the others gather round, watching as the slurry is gathered in the nap of the towel, the towel folded and lifted from the bed, then the concentrate carefully divided into waiting pans.

  The largest is a shallow dish two feet across. In Harky’s giant hands it looks like a butter dish, and he dips it carefully into the running stream, using the kiss of the current to wash away the soil. Swirling and rocking, he distills the contents, boiling off the silica and sand.

  The sun dips behind a thin band of cloud, losing its intensity, and at that moment he sees it: a solid rim of gold glittering along the edge of the pan. The sun reemerges, illuminating the crescent with the glow of a blacksmith’s molten cauldron. Harky cannot breathe, he cannot speak, and the others are afraid to look until he holds out the pan. Heads together, Hans, Michael, and Dutch bend to stare into the amalgam. The glimmer pierces each in turn, stabbing deep into that part of every man that is a thief, firing the greed in their veins.

  “Jesus,” says Hans.

  “I told you,” says Dutch. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  Michael just stares, acutely aware of the sound of his own breathing, the chuckling of the stream, the play of the breeze on his face.

  Dear Diary,

  The advance from rags to riches has been swift. Thanks to the Indian Negook, we have at last achieved our goal of striking “pay dirt.” The strike is wonderfully rich, yielding four or five times as much gold as any ground we have previously worked. At the present rate of recovery, we shall all be very well off by the time autumn forces us to retire to Sitka.

  The days now grow rapidly shorter as winter approaches, and Hans, Harky, and Dutch work from daylight until dark, while Michael hunts. Hans speaks of working by torchlight, but the others decline to work any harder, as they already return to the cabin at night, exhausted and bleeding from their palms.

  The men’s days are strictly scheduled: Breakfast before daylight, work until dark, bathe in the pool (which grows chillier these days, but is still the best part of my day; I have my bath after the men have left in the morning), then the evening meal, after which the take is weighed before we retire to our bunks. Dutch crows and struts like a banty rooster each evening as Hans weighs out the take, but it is easy to forgive him his unseemly exultations, for he has been richly vindicated by Negook’s strike.

  Michael is proving to be a fine huntsman, adept at bringing fresh meat to the table. The flesh of the goats and sea lions is often stringy and tough, but he has fashioned a mallet from a spruce knot with which I beat the meat tender.

  Only Harky seems untouched by our fortune, but he is always such a silent man it is difficult to say whether or not he shares the exuberance of the strike.

  I must admit that the gold ignites grand dreams in my own mind, dreams of a fine home and nice things, but it stirs a certain fear as well, an uneasiness I cannot define. But until we are done here, it remains for me to pick berries, till the garden, and gather greens from the forest just like any primitive Indian woman (only the Indians are much more adept at these tasks than I).

  Canvas bags of gold are piled on the table like so many sausages. Outside the cabin, the night air is thick with mist. A cold wind sucks a swirl of bright sparks from the stovepipe and sends the glowing fireflies fleeing and blinking into the forest to extinguish themselves on damp foliage. Michael and Hans figure and refigure estimates of the company’s worth in columns and tables penciled on a page cut from Hannah’s journal.

  The open door of the stove casts a glowing light that dances across the floor and over the faces of the cabin’s inhabitants. The jump and swirl of the fire shadows remind Hannah of the flight of birds, the sudden uprush and circling of pigeons in Trafalgar Square, or the dance of swallows in the burnt umber air of London after it has gone thick with coal smoke in late evening.

  The shadows retreat as she turns up the lantern, hangs it from a roof beam, and angles a skillet into the light to inspect it for cleanliness.

  “Goat meat again, Mrs. Nelson?” asks Dutch. The question makes him feel very homey, almost as if he were inquiring of his own wife what they are having for dinner, and he wishes he had a pipe to smoke or a dog at his feet.

  “That and a salad of greens,” replies Hannah. “I’ve taken the last of the kale from the garden. It was going to seed.”

  Dutch leans back on his stump-chair and crosses his arms. “Be time to dig the potatoes, too, I imagine.”

  Hans looks up from his figures and sighs. “Meat and greens, meat and spuds, meat and meat. The menu is getting rather bland.”

  Negook’s voice startles the miners as he steps through the door. “Plenty of white man’s food in Sitka.”

  The wind enters with the wizard, eddying angrily about his feet before grabbing the open door and slamming it. Beads of mist cling to the shaman’s hair, glittering in the lantern light. His legs are bare, muddy to the knees, and he carries a walking stick carved from the rib of a whale.

  His voice is low and mixes with the sound of the wind as he points with the bone at the sacks stacked on the table. “You got plenty now. It is time for you to go. Andai. Now.”

  No one is able to reply. The sudden appearance of the shaman from out of the darkness seems to bring all of the wilderness into the tiny cabin, and they are suddenly, keenly, aware of the space beyond the walls, the immensity of a world filled with unbreachable mountains, fierce churning storms, the rumble of glaciers, and the mourning of wolves.

  Hans looks down at the paper worked with figures and clears his throat. He feels ridiculous and small, sitting like a bank clerk with the pencil in his hand as he ahems and says, “Well, we were just discussing this,” knowing as he says it that the shaman has been listening outside and will recognize the words as a lie.

  Pressing ahead, enslaved by the craving for more gold, Nelson claims, “We’ve tallied the take. And we need to keep going.”

  Negook fixes him with a bl
ack-eyed stare. Unnerved, Nelson turns the paper toward the shaman, as if offering it for his inspection, and taps it with the pencil.

  “Eight thousand. That’s what we’ve got so far.”

  Negook continues to stare. Hans shuffles, fidgets, taps the paper again.

  When Negook speaks, there is barely controlled rage in his voice. “You got lots of damn gold. Now you must go. Storms are coming. Winter is coming. T’ak will be a very bad time for you.” He slices the whalebone through the air like a sword. “Enough gold. Leave before the Bear comes again.”

  The door springs open behind him, and a gust of wind billows the canvas roof over their heads. The lantern flares, swinging and throwing wild, harsh shadows across the walls. Negook spins on his heel and steps out into the darkness.

  The miners sit silent, speechless, and frozen in their places, watching as the rain blowing in through the open door draws a faint, glistening pattern in the light of the lantern until Michael rises to his feet, walks to the door, and peers out into the night. The rain splinters against his face for a moment before he closes the door, wipes a hand across his eyes. Drops of water turn silver against the black of his hair, and Hannah’s breath catches, arrested by the sight of how beautiful he is.

  “This bear, Dutch. Where was it you saw this silver bear?”

  Dutch sits upright on his stump, looking puzzled by the question. “What? The silver bear? I seen it down to the west there, on that little creek what comes from behind a hill. Why?”

  Michael pulls a handkerchief from a hip pocket and rubs his face before answering. “These Indians. They give away gold, but seem uncommonly worried about some silver bear. Seems queer, that’s all.”

  Folding the handkerchief carefully, he squares the edges, patting it flat. “Must be a pretty valuable bear.”

  When dawn comes, the sky is as clear and blue as a robin’s egg. The air carries a crisp sweetness, like the smell of something clean, and the highest ridges along the fjord are laced with fresh snow. Hans, Harky, and Dutch prepare to settle into the gut work of mining, barrowing stones and earth into a sluice. Michael settles an oar into the thole pins of the skiff, passes a loop of line over the shaft, and nestles a pack stuffed with rope, water, and ammunition into the bow along with Hannah’s oilskin coat and the shotgun, wrapped in a square of tarpaulin cloth in case of rain.

  Hans thinks of nothing but gold these days—how to move more earth, channel more water, recover more ore—and seemed distracted when Hannah asked his permission to join Michael on a hunt deep into the fjord. Now Nelson frowns at the sight of his wife climbing into the skiff with the Irishman, but unable to think of an excuse to rescind his consent, he simply growls, “Be back before dark.” The tide is rising, covering a band of seaweed along the rim of the cove.

  “We’ll ride the flood in,” says Michael. “That’ll save me rowing. And with Mrs. Nelson along to carry the pack and help with the skinning, I’ll be able to get a young goat and still ride the ebb back down the fjord. We’ll be home well before sunset.”

  Hans looks dark and doubtful. Hannah is careful not to look at Michael as she climbs into the skiff, but turns and smiles with a wave at her husband, feeling deceitful.

  The tide hurries the skiff along the beach and close along the upthrust walls of the fjord. Icebergs blue as the sky drift and sparkle in the sun and as Michael’s strong strokes wend the skiff expertly through the belts of floating ice, Hannah has a sense of being in another world. Seals at rest on low, bobbing icebergs raise their heads to stare as the skiff passes. Once away from camp, Hannah is keenly aware of being alone with the Irishman. He knows this by her silence and by the way she avoids his eye.

  An hour later the keel scrapes against a mossy, bouldered beach, and Michael jumps out to steady the hull. Moving to the bow, he hoists the pack to one shoulder, braces the skiff with both hands, and instructs Hannah to step out. When she slips on the slick stones underfoot, he catches her about the waist, lifting her effortlessly to her feet; she blushes at the firm touch of his hands.

  They secure the skiff, binding a boulder into a double loop of line for an anchor, then begin climbing toward the cloudless sky. The mountain rises steeply, and Hannah quickly finds herself warm and panting. Michael goes ahead, the shotgun slung down his back, searching out a route that switchbacks along grass-covered ledges, across slopes of loose, rattling shale. High overhead, below the new snow, a small herd of goats forms a cluster of white dots in the alpine. They climb steadily higher, ascending first through alder, then grasses, then into a band of low plants blushing red at the brazen approach of autumn.

  Far below, a pencil stroke of coastline unreels to the south. In the north, the spires of the mountains reach up from shadowed valleys, turning rose-colored, then white as the sun rises. To the west the sea is a shimmering expanse of silk.

  Hannah and Michael pause in their climbing to watch the thin line of the surf knit itself to the land, the rise and fall of the swell like a loom weaving silently through beds of kelp until some trick of the wind brings the rumble of the waves to them on their perch high above the sea. Another shift of the wind, and they hear the mad, muddy rush of a river tumbling from a cliff at the head of the fjord.

  From above, the elements of the world are obvious. Bold faces of stone worked smooth by the glacier stand high above plains of blue ice. Steep valleys carved by eons of rushing water fall away in all directions. Below, the shape of the sea fits neatly into the land, then reaches out, curving sinuously into the horizon, blending sky, stone, ice, and water together into a complete picture of creation.

  Hannah is breathless from the climb and envious of the eagles and goats that awaken and rise from their beds to such a vista every day. All around, the immensity of the mountains gives way to the space of the sky, and she lifts up her arms, feeling free.

  Michael motions for her to bend low. Pointing at a large shoulder of stone a hundred yards away, he whispers, “The goats are just over there.”

  Hannah tucks her heavy wool skirt about her knees and crouches, suddenly aware that the beauty of the day is about to give way to killing.

  “Stay here,” Michael directs her. “I’ll go up and come down on them from above.” Shading his eyes against the sun to inspect the route of the stalk, he says, “This shotgun has a limited range. I’ll have to get close.”

  Shrugging out of the pack, he drops it to the ground and digs out a handful of shells, gives Hannah a dazzling smile, and crawls away, slithering from shadow to shadow. Watching him go, Hannah understands he is showing off for her, moving silently and smoothly through the broken stones and heather; once he glances back to see if she is watching, and she wonders at the joy men find in killing. Then she remembers Uliah Witt’s description of most interplay between men and women as simple biology: man, the provider, woman the nester. She pictures herself standing between Michael, the huntsman, and her husband, who digs at the ground, both compelled by the same urges.

  But I have never known a man like him, she thinks, meaning Michael’s exuberance, his willingness to joke, sing out loud, and laugh. Hans, she realizes, has never made her laugh. She feels a twinge of guilt, as if the very thought has made her somehow unfaithful. Then she watches as Michael eases forward on hands and knees, and feels that which binds her to Hans to be on the verge of fleeing, of casting itself into this vast and beautiful wilderness.

  A twist in the wind ends the hunt before Michael can raise his gun. The cool air over the snow carries his scent like a thin tendril of smoke to the delicate nose of an old nanny grazing close to the ridge. She springs away, scattering stones that clatter and slide down the mountain, her fright sending the herd bounding out of range.

  Michael rises to his feet, watching the goats go, then turns toward Hannah and shrugs. He returns with long, bounding strides, springing down the steep hill from foothold to foothold with the balance and grace of a stag. He smiles. “We’re all getting a bit tired of goat meat anyhow.”

&nbs
p; They share a drink from the flannel-covered canteen. The water is sweet and cool. They sit together quietly, watching a soaring eagle pass below them. The sun falls into the layer of clouds and emerges from below to bathe the sea with a color that is between scarlet and gold. Michael sweeps a hand before him and sighs. “All this space … ,” he says.

  She knows what he means, how it reduces you.

  Hannah looks at the color of the sea and feels the bite of winter in a breeze drifting down from the snow-covered peaks. “It does make the gold seem less important,” she replies.

  “Aye,” says Michael, coming to his feet and holding out a hand to Hannah, “but it also makes our larder seem rather empty. We better get on. We’ll try for a seal on the way back.” Their hands linger together as she rises. Hannah feels the planet wobble beneath her and pulls away.

  Ice hisses and grumbles at their passing as the tide draws the skiff down-fjord. Aging bergs, the size and shape of wrecked houses, fracture and splinter into smaller bits to the sound of rifle cracks, booms, and echoes. As the sun lowers toward the horizon, points of light begin to sparkle along the ice’s fissures and serrated edges.

  Michael rows slowly, letting the tide and the breeze work the boat westward. The color of the sun on the water, the feel of the oars in his hands, and the penny-pipe calls of seagulls draw him into a waking dream of his childhood, when he rowed with his father through the chill, gloaming waters of Ireland, and in his mind he rows now among the reefs of the Atlantic instead of between Pacific icebergs.

  The birds among the alders and willow thickets ashore have just begun to mourn the approaching loss of daylight, when Michael spots a herd of seals on a low, tabular berg. Shipping the oars, he draws the gun.

  “Don’t move,” he instructs Hannah, raising the weapon to his shoulder. “The wind will drift us down on them.”

  The skiff creeps inexorably closer, slowly broadsiding itself to the sleeping seals. A mother on lookout raises her head and inspects the strange apparition, stealing quick glances over her shoulder at the pups behind her. Hannah closes her eyes and holds her breath; Michael braces the gun; the ice mumbles and grates against the hull. The sleeping seals, used to the chatter and pop of the ice, hear nothing unusual and slumber on.