by Lynn D'urso
The lookout grows nervous, staring wide-eyed and considering alarm, but stays her warning too long. When Michael fires, Hannah jumps at the report and opens her eyes to the panicked splashing of the fleeing herd. A young seal remains behind, its body arching and thrashing. A bright flower of blood blooms intensely red against the blue ice, and as the skiff comes alongside, the wounded seal rights itself, lowers its head, and considers its approaching executioners with eyes huge and round with fear.
The eyes of the seal as it regards the approaching knife in Michael’s hand are as tender and soft as anything the Irishman has ever seen. The rowing dream of childhood still lingering, he sees in the dark and frightened orbs an image of himself looking up at his father as his elder loomed over him, damning his son’s English blood and preparing to beat him for something minor. A tear of self-pity starts at the corner of Michael’s eye. Hannah, believing the tear is for the seal, says to herself, against her own will, I could love this man— and knows that the world has suddenly become a very bright and dangerous place.
A stab and a slice, and the seal’s young life is ended. Michael strips to the waist before opening the small body. The gut cavity steams and smokes in the cool air. Red to his wrists, he asks Hannah to hold the carcass by the hind flippers while he works. The spotted and glistening hide, layered in fat, peels away in a blanket that smells strongly of fish and the sea.
Hannah stacks the purple meat in neat piles on the hide. Michael folds the lot into the tarpaulin, forming a pack, which he hoists to his shoulder and carries to the skiff. After rinsing his hands in seawater, rubbing at his nails and wrists to clear them of blood, he helps Hannah into the skiff. The smell of warm blood and meat fills the air.
She is elated and frightened, avoids Michael’s eye, and studies carefully, without seeing, the ice and mountains around them. As the skiff draws away, a pair of bold ravens swoop in to squabble over the pink and gray entrails.
The keel of the skiff crunches ashore, shattering the litter of mussel shells strewn about the beach below the cabin, just as the reddest part of the evening light floods in from the west. The low-angle light bathes the thick stands of fireweed along the edge of the forest in crimson and emerald, highlighting the copper in Hannah’s hair. Her color is high from the day, her face warm and ruddy. She feels flushed with the tension that sings back and forth along invisible nerves strung between her skin and the Irishman’s.
There is no response to Michael’s haloo to the cabin; the miners work late at their digging. Hannah is relieved. She will have time to compose herself before Hans returns.
As they pull together to raise the skiff above the reach of the tide, Michael and Hannah feel as though they’re being watched. The door of the silent cabin stands ajar—Hannah is certain it was secured when she left—and the atmosphere is tense with the electric, silent sense of another’s presence.
Michael yells haloo again, then stands quietly, watching and listening, before unlimbering the shotgun and motioning Hannah to stay back.
Easing forward, he notes first the garden. This morning it was a neat plot of beans and leafy plants laid out in straight rows; now it is a square of plowed wreckage. Stepping slowly and carefully to the cabin, he pushes at the door with the barrel of the gun, then pauses, cocking his head to listen. Hearing nothing, he risks a quick glance inside, then steps back and motions Hannah forward.
“We’ve been plundered! It looks like a bear.”
Inside the cabin is a litter of crushed cans, scattered blankets, and splintered wood. The bear has scratched and bitten at every item, and the interior looks as if a madman has run rampant, axing and smashing everything within reach. Grains of barley and rice litter the dirt floor. The tins that contained them are smashed flat. The small store of flour has been invaded, and white bear tracks mark the scraps of lumber that once were the table and bunks. Clots of ticking bleed from wounds in the thin mattresses; clothing has been pawed into the dirt, and the door itself sprung on its hinges. No single item has been left intact or bit of food unspoiled.
Michael studies the mess, then lowers the shotgun and begins to clean up, salvaging what boards and clothes he can. Hannah joins in, but moves slowly, numbed by the disaster. Is this punishment? she wonders. The price of tempting my marriage?
Severts untangles the rope weaving of the Nelsons’ bed, coiling the line neatly. “I’ll fix this tomorrow. There’s enough here to rebuild your bed and at least one other bunk.” He looks out the door at the gathering darkness. “We best salvage what we can from the garden before it gets too dark. Perhaps it missed a few potatoes or something. Don’t want the beast coming back in the night.”
Outside in the dark, Michael holds a lantern aloft, and Hannah bends to the ground, probing with a shovel at the claw-tilled earth and vegetation. There are broken bits of carrots and a handful of pea pods, which Hannah drops into a sack. The vandalized garden gives up a small armload of potatoes. Many bear the marks of teeth and claws.
The lantern drops a cone of wavering light around them, isolating them from the rest of the world. Michael watches the firmness of Hannah’s slender back and shoulders as she bends to dig at the ground. The soil gives up a rich, fecund smell, and the damp earth clings to her hands. Curls of loose hair hang about her face, and when she brushes one aside, a streak of dirt appears on her cheek.
“I did this with my mother,” whispers Michael. “Just like this, stealing potatoes in the dark from the Grady’s field. And after …” He shifts once on his feet, then again. “She …” Just that and nothing more, but there is something anguished and confessional in his words, and Hannah swallows an urge to take his hand.
They work closely together, and when Michael places the lantern on the ground to hold the neck of the sack open for Hannah to drop in her meager booty, the darkness severs them both at the knees. They stand with their faces in shadow, the smell of seal meat and green earth in the air.
Hannah takes a deep breath and tastes the scent of Michael standing by her side. Shivering and trembling, she feels herself standing above a great vein of gold, and having no other words for the emotion, she names it love.
Fool’s gold, she says to herself, wiping the dirt from her hands. Fool’s gold for a married woman.
The spell is broken by the sound of boots approaching in the dark. Michael raises the lantern, calling out, “Hello?”
“What ho!” cries Dutch and does a jig step as he enters the light. Hans is close behind, his face split in a grin. Harky stops just outside the range of the lantern and becomes a large shadow.
“Big news, Mrs. Nelson. Big news!” laughs Dutch.
Hans pulls a knotted handkerchief from his pocket and undoes it, holding it low to the light of the lantern. Cupped in his hand is a fistful of large nuggets, lumps of gold with the smooth, rounded texture of wax that has been melted and puddled in walnut-sized beads.
“It’s solid, Hannah, a streak of gravel that is yellow with gold.” He raises his fist as if offering her a closer look. “We’re rich. Very rich.”
Michael leads a back-slapping Dutch and Harky inside to inspect the damage. Before Hannah can follow, Hans restrains her, saying, “Wait, I’ve something for you.” Her heart skips at the feel of his hand on her arm and stumbles as he releases her to fumble in his pocket.
“I’ve done a bit of high-grading.” He smiles. “But I’m sure the boys won’t mind.” So saying, he raises his hand. Cupped in his palm lies a tiny, heart-shaped nugget.
“Take it.” He grins, mistaking her hesitance for surprise. “It’s for you.”
Hannah feels frozen, awkward, and it requires an effort to reach out and tweeze the nugget from his hand with a whispered, “Thank you.” When he wraps his arms around her, it feels like she is being bound by cables.
“There’s more,” he says, nuzzling. “Now that we’re rich, we can plan for children.”
When she stiffens, he pulls back. His smile melts into a puzzled grin. “I thought you
would be happy.”
“Oh,” she says. “Of course I am. It’s just that …” She stares at the nugget, then makes a gesture that takes in the bear-plowed field, the shattered cabin, the gold, and the darkness. “It’s just all so overwhelming.”
That night she tosses fitfully on the floor, rigid and desperately aware of her place between her husband and Michael, whose presence a few feet away is tangible. The scope of the animal’s vandalism had done nothing to dampen Dutch’s golden exuberance, but Hans, puzzled, even hurt, by his wife’s lack of enthusiasm, had simply shrugged after inspecting the damage and said, “We can buy more. In a few weeks we’ll be able to buy dozens of everything.”
Hannah dozes, starting at every sound outside the cabin, and when she sleeps, dreams of opening herself to someone or something strong with warm breath.
THIRTEEN
Hannah sizzles the dark flesh of the seal in a skillet before the first crack of dawn, taming its gamey flavor with a handful of diced potatoes and salt. Hans and Dutch are raring to go, lacing up their boots as they gobble their meal. Harky takes his time, saving his energy for shoveling.
The remains of breakfast are still warm when Hannah scrapes them from the skillet into an empty lard bucket and covers it with a cloth for the miners’ noon meal. Outside, it is that moment of dawn when darkness first grows pale and objects take shape in the gloom. Michael is sorting out saws and hammers, nails and wire, marshalling his forces to drive the wrecked chaos of the cabin into order. Hans and Dutch head for the diggings, walking side by side with springing strides, shovels over their shoulders. Harky follows slowly.
Hannah, keeping her back to Michael as he works at the bent hinges of the door, arranges the few kitchen items salvaged from the bear’s depredations into a small row on the only shelf left intact, scrubbing overly long at the breakfast skillet, folding and refolding a dish towel over the back of a chair to dry. As the light comes, she sees that her hands are dirty with soil. Seal blood darkens the edges of her nails. She sniffs at her fingers; there is a lingering trace of seal fat, rank with the odor of fish, and the light smell of dried sweat from yesterday’s climb. Her skin itches. Her hair feels like a mixture of oil and straw.
Sorting out a towel and fresh blouse, she pushes them into a bag with a chip of soap and makes ready to leave. Michael must step aside to make room for her at the door, and they move around each other, excusing themselves in the too-polite tones of a couple who have recently argued. Michael watches her go down the path toward the bathing pool and shouts, “Be careful, Mrs. Nelson. That bear may be lingering about.”
Along the trail Hannah listens carefully for the crackling of branches or thud of large feet, but hears only the yawk of a raven calling out from its station in the top of a tree. The colors of the grass and foliage beside the trail have turned from a litany of summer greens to the pastel tans and browns of autumn. The mossy shadows beneath the trees are damp with dew. At the pool she slips behind a screen of alders and disrobes, spreading her skirt, petticoat, corset, drawers, and shimmy over accommodating limbs to air.
Wading into the water, she flinches at the chill, raising her hands to her shoulders and taking tentative steps, pausing at ankles, knees, and thighs until finally stepping in to her waist with an inrush of breath. Making sharp, gasping sounds of pleasure, she scoops water onto her shoulders, breasts, and belly.
As she begins to wade toward the shore, the sharp snap of a breaking stick shoots a bolt through her heart. There is a rustle of movement among a bank of ferns lining the pool and the brushing sound of a body moving somewhere just out of sight. Hannah holds stock-still, shivering. Her pulse thunders in her ears. Her breath rattles, adrenaline screams through her blood. She waits for the bear to show.
It is no bear but Michael who emerges. Relief, then panic, floods through Hannah, and she crosses her arms over her chest and plunges to a kneeling position in the water, covering herself to the neck. The cold forces a strangled shriek from her throat, and she rises, then drops again.
Michael stands at the fringe of the forest, mute and consumed, shotgun in hand, his chest rising and falling like a bellows, mouth tightened into a single line. Laying the shotgun down carefully, never taking his eyes from the woman before him, he advances to the edge of the pool.
“No, Michael.” Hannah holds up one hand.
He pauses, then walks fully clothed and shod into the water.
“Michael, please,” she says, backing away.
He advances.
“I mustn’t,” she says, moving backward onto the bank behind her and rising, lithe as an otter, beads of water freckling the skin across her breasts. Michael keeps coming until he is inches away, then reaches slowly with one hand and touches lightly with the tips of his fingers along her ribs, her belly, her breasts. She does not pull away.
Later, in the grass, exhausted and bruised by the strength of their cravings, she says, “I have a husband.”
Michael raises himself to one elbow, unsure whether she speaks in threat or collusion, and gazes at her before replying. “And that split lip he gave you? Is it a good husband who does that to his wife?”
She does not argue—Michael refuses to believe it was an accident, but lies quietly as he curls himself around her. The smell of crushed heather rising from beneath her mingles with his scent against her back.
Later that afternoon Hannah sits with her back to the door, sewing kit open on the table before her, staring without seeing at the crude shelves nailed to the cabin walls and their meager burden of pans and utensils. As she stares, her hands toy with a long piece of thread, wrapping and unwrapping it tightly around one finger. Outside, the buzzing call of a thrush signals the onset of evening. The light of the lantern is soft and orange against the canvas roof.
The metallic clanking of dropped shovels signals the return of the miners, and Hannah rises to her feet as she listens to the sound of boots being knocked against stones to remove mud from the tread. She takes up a spoon and begins to stir a pot that does not need stirring.
Hans is the first to enter, followed by Dutch, who bears a load of firewood in his arms. From outside comes the sound of an ax, as Harky begins a methodical attack on a bolt of wood. The knees of her husband’s pants are worn through from kneeling all day in the gold-bearing gravel, and he is whistling. She does not look up as a canvas poke lands on the table with a solid thump. She stirs the kettle slowly, round and round, steam rising into her eyes.
“Hannah! Leave the soup a moment and come see what your husband has brought you!” The cheer in Hans’s voice brings panic rising into her throat, and it requires an effort of will to replace the pot lid and lay down the spoon before turning to see what he means.
A litter of gold nuggets washes across the plank table, spilling among her bobbins and needles. An ear-to-ear grin splits Hans’s unshaven face. “It’s still coming. Every shovel turns up a nugget! We’re really on it now.” Hans claps his hands together, as Harky enters the cabin with more firewood and kneels to dump it beside the stove. “Ain’t that right, Harky? Every beautiful shovelful’s a payday now, ain’t it?”
Harky favors Hannah with a small, pleased smile and nods. “Pretty good, all right. Michael still out huntin’?”
At the mention of Michael’s name Hannah feels a twist under her ribs and turns her back to the men. She retrieves the soup spoon and carefully wipes it clean on her apron before replying. “I haven’t seen him. I suppose so. Yes, he is.”
Hans sweeps the scatter of nuggets into a heap, flicking aside needles and buttons before transferring the booty back into its poke. “Well, we’ve done a hungry day’s work here, and that soup smells mighty good. I guess he’ll forgive us if we go on and eat without him. A man’s liable to forgive just about anything when he comes home to something like this.” He bounces the sack in his hand, measuring its weight and grinning.
The bowls are spaced four around the table, spoons placed alongside. As befits the society of the we
althy, Hans and Dutch sit primly, squares of material cut from an old shirt stuffed into their collars for napkins. Harky perches, hands at his side, shifting awkwardly as he waits for Hannah to take her place. She fiddles, first with the pot, then by feeding more wood to the fire.
Hans grows impatient with her dallying. The thought of the gold piled up in his cupboard makes him feel expansive. “What is keeping you, Hannah? Come to the table.”
She pokes at the fire, aligning the new kindling with the flames. “Hans.”
“What?”
The stove door squeaks as she closes it. Her answer is slow to come.
“Please come outside with me.”
“Come outside with you?” Hans looks puzzled, then piqued. “What for?”
Hannah’s hand flexes at her side, gripping and ungripping at nothing. She holds it against her thigh to still it, without answering.
At that moment the door rattles open. Severts steps inside, the twin barrels of the shotgun gleaming blue in the dim light. In his off hand, a brace of mallard ducks carried upside down by the feet. The warm, softly feathered bodies swing loosely in his grip as he turns to push the door closed with the gun. Holding the birds aloft, he grins. “Tomorrow’s dinner, Mrs. Nelson. Two birds with one shot.”
Dutch, still playing the laird, yelps, “Bravo, me boy, bravo!” applauding his admiration. “Good shootin’. How’d you do it?”
Michael grins at Hannah, who stands stiffly, staring at the birds. A single drop of blood swelling from the bill of the nearest threatens to fall. The duck’s eyes are clenched, and one wing hangs askew. Without taking his eyes from her face, Severts answers.
“Well, you just have to wait. Bide your shot until everything lines up just so. And when the birds are just right …” Severts winks at Hannah and clicks his tongue. “Pull the trigger.”