Sarah Canary (12 page)

‘Not the most direct route,’ the man said. ‘Look at this.’ He sprang up again, indicating the crack in the tree with his pen. ‘Give a look. Here we have an old tree and its old wounds. How did this happen, do you suppose? A quake? A storm? A drying spell in the weather? Whatever made this crack is ancient history now, before you or I lay in our cradles, listening to our dear mothers singing. And yet? What else do you see? Take your time. Look carefully.’

Chin looked at the man instead. He moved lightly on his feet, but he was really quite large, considerably taller than Chin, and built like a barrel with rounded shoulders and legs. His hair and eyes were dark, but his heavy beard was shot with streaks of red. He waved Chin closer with the hand that did not hold the pen. His accent, rather than being flat and English, sang up and down in his excitement. Chin recognized the intonations as Irish. There were many Irish working the railroads. In general, Chin had found it advisable to stay away from Irish people. The working people, they called themselves and only themselves, which seemed to carry the suggestion that the Chinese were not.

On the other side of the tree, Chin heard B.J. panting toward them. The large man gave no sign that he heard anything.

‘Well, you see sawdust, don’t you?’ The man pointed with his pen. ‘And if you wait and watch - look here, you don’t even wait long - here’s your cause.’ The tip of the pen slid from one side of the crack to the other, where a large black ant was emerging with a small bit of fresh wood in its mouth. ‘A home is being built inside this old tree,’ the man said. ‘More than a home. A fortress.’ He rapped sharply on the wood four times; several ants rushed out, climbed up and down from the crack, and eventually went back inside. ‘Easily defensible,’ the man noted. ‘Canny, canny little creatures. “The whole world has gone mad for bugs!” Audubon said that. He was complaining, of course. Couldn’t understand that people might have had enough of him and his birds. My name’s Burke, by the way. Naturalist. Wanderer. Wonderer. Claiming no allegiance to any particular genus or species. And where have you come from?’

‘Steilacoom,’ said B.J. incautiously. He had rounded the trunk and stood with his arm out, leaning against the tree and trembling like a small flame in a soft wind. ‘Have you seen a woman? We were with a woman. We lost her.’

‘Ah, now, I’ve lost many women. You never get used to it. You never like them so much when they’re around as you miss them when they’re gone, though. There’s a wide world out there. Larger than women. It has
mountains
in it.’

Burke put his pen into his pocket, picked up the ledger, and closed its pages together. ‘You were closer to Tenino in Steilacoom than you are now. You’ll need to go back,’ he said. ‘I know a woman who lives in Steilacoom. The gentle Miss Anna Blue. Teaches Sunday school. Wonderfully Christian. Beautiful woman. I love her,’ He directed his words to B.J. now; his back was to Chin. ‘Listen!’ He raised a finger in the air. ‘The liquid notes of the water ousel. Owls hoot in B flat, cuckoos in D, but the water ousel sings with the voice of the stream. She builds her nest back of the waterfalls so the water is a lullaby to the little ones. Must be where they learn it. They sing it themselves when they grow up. Can you hear? Have you ever seen the little gray water ousel walking on the bottoms of the creeks? Sweet feathered fish with legs?’ B.J. shook his head. His hand shook. His knees shook. His shoulders shook. ‘Ah, well, that’s a shame. It’s a sight you’d remember. You’ll never get back to Steilacoom tonight. It’s a half-day’s walk when you’re fresh. Perhaps you’d better sleep with me. You and your Chinaman. My name is Burke. I have a cabin.’ He inclined his head. ‘About a quarter of a mile distant.’

‘B.J.,’ said B.J. It was the last thing he said. He closed his eyes and toppled over as if the ground had been pulled from underneath him. He fell into the arms of a small tree and twitched there.

Chin abandoned his plan of abandoning B.J. in favor of a cabin in which to spend the night. ‘His health is poor,’ Chin said.

‘He looks like a man who needs a drink.’ Burke handed the ledger to Chin and plucked B.J. out of the tree, slinging him over one shoulder. ‘Follow me,’ said Burke, and he led Chin home. They met Sarah Canary on the way. Chin was unexpectedly relieved. He hadn’t realized how tense her absence had made him. Of course, he wouldn’t have just left her in the forest.

‘I am so happy to see you,’ he said guiltily.

She responded to his greeting with silence. The limp stalk of a dead flower dangled over one of her ears.

~ * ~

6

Burke’s Theories on God and Darwin

I thought that nature was enough

Till Human nature came

But that the other did absorb

As Parallax a Flame—

Emily Dickinson, 1873

Burke’s cabin was a single room obviously built in some haste. The floor was dirt. The walls were wood. Any gaps had been blocked with mud and occasionally with fists of crumpled paper. A rock-stick-and-mud fireplace filled one half of the room, and any number of shadowy items swam in and out of focus in the light of the flickering fire: birds’ nests, feathers, blown eggs, rocks with the skeletal outlines of fish stamped into them, chains of dried leaves, corked bottles with severed paws inside, pinecones, and seedpods. Chin might have just stepped into a Chinese pharmacy. Even the smell was familiar, a mixture of spicy leaves and dead fish and formaldehyde. In one corner, a larger item showed mysterious curves through an old brown blanket.

A man was already seated in the cabin when they arrived, tending the fire. The flames flickered in his eyes and a large black mustache curled over his cheeks. He was clearly surprised and displeased to see them. ‘The gentleman warming the hearth for us is Harold,’ Burke said. ‘A business associate of mine. Harold, this is B.J.’ He deposited B.J. onto the floor next to the fireplace. B.J.’s eyes were open and he forced himself to sit up.

‘A pleasure,’ said B.J. ‘Really.’ He coughed wretchedly. The fire sputtered and sighed in the fireplace.

‘Now I’m going to get you a whiskey, B.J.,’ said Burke. ‘Miss Anna Blue doesn’t approve of drink. It’s sort of a sticking point between us. But even she would concede that something stiff is required at times. For medicinal purposes. We’ll get the blood running through your veins again. We’ll see the roses bloom in your cheeks before the night falls.’ The bottle rested softly on a stack of pelts. ‘There’s a glass somewhere,’ said Burke. ‘Give us a moment.’ He removed a lizard skin and a seashell from a wooden crate, peered into the bottom, and then replaced them. ‘Isn’t this always the way?’ He picked up a sketch of several different curvatures of bird beak and looked underneath. ‘For weeks at a time I don’t see another living soul. Then I have more company than chairs.’ Chin looked around the cabin. It contained no chairs at all. ‘I have more company than glasses. I can’t make you all comfortable. I can’t even complete the introductions. I don’t know the name of your lovely companion.’

‘Her name is Sarah Canary,’ said B.J. ‘Because she sings like an angel.’

‘Lovely,’ Burke repeated. ‘Perhaps she’ll sing for us later. When we’ve settled in a bit, we’ll be in the mood for a song. Something light-hearted and romantic. Something about love.’ Holding the bottle upright above his head, he bowed to the corner where Sarah Canary sat huddled. ‘You can’t know what a rare treat a woman’s voice would be. Are you cold, madame?’ He set the bottle down, then picked up Chin’s bedroll, which he undid without asking, shaking out the blanket and hanging it gently over Sarah Canary’s shoulders. ‘The poverty of the room becomes an embarrassment to me when a lady such as yourself graces it. If there is anything I can do to increase your comfort, you’ve only to ask.’

He turned back to his skins and pods. ‘Ah!’ he called out in triumph, brushing aside three long black feathers and revealing a small glass. He upended it, tapping on the bottom until three dead moths fell out. ‘I knew it was here somewhere.’ Uncapping the bottle, he poured a finger of whiskey into the glass. He took a long pull himself on the bottle’s mouth, crossed his legs, and sank to the floor. He passed the glass to B.J. and the bottle to Harold. ‘Let’s drink to the great naturalist Louis Agassiz. He gave us the ice ages. And I understand he’s failing now. Drink to his health.’

Outside, the sky darkened abruptly and a heavy rain began to blow against the western wall. An occasional drop fell down the chimney and boiled away instantly with a sound like a snake. Chin slid to the floor and sat on his heels, exhausted. No moon tonight, Tom, he thought. Not here. Maybe where you are.

Chin was lucky to be inside. He was a lucky man. ‘We still haven’t heard your Chinaman’s name,’ said Harold, and his tone reminded Chin that luck was, after all, only an illusion in a transient world.

B.J. sipped his whiskey and looked confused. ‘I guess I don’t know his name, I’m sure I knew it once. I must have forgotten.’ No one else spoke. Burke drank.

Harold poked at the fire. ‘John?’ he suggested. ‘Every Chinaman I’ve ever known answered to John.’

‘Chin,’ Chin said finally. ‘My name is Chin.’ The wind and the rain obliterated his answer. The three men sat and looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘Chin!’ he shouted. The wind dropped just before the word. He shouted it into a sudden silence.

‘Chin,’ B.J. agreed in a tone that suggested there was really no need to shout. ‘Of course, Chin. A cook.’

‘They’re on their way back to Steilacoom,’ said Burke.

‘Possibly.’ Chin spoke quickly before B.J. could. ‘Our plans are not definite.’

‘You’re an odd bunch to be wandering the woods with no definite plans,’ said Harold. He seemed to wait for an answer. The wind came up again, but with less force. The rain tapped on the wall outside.

‘Do you think so?’ said B.J. agreeably.

Sarah Canary crept forward on her knees. She seized the uneaten bread that had fallen out beside Chin’s dishes on the floor, retreating quickly back into her corner. Holding the bread in one hand, she tore at it with her teeth. The dead flower slipped from her hair onto her lap. She made a sound deep in her throat.

Burke and Harold watched her curiously, passing the bottle of whiskey back and forth. The heat of the hike began to leave Chin’s body and he wished for some of the liquor. Since coming to Golden Mountain, his uncle had acquired a taste for tiger whiskey, whiskey with the color and bite of a tiger. Chin also had grown to like the drink. How many weeks had it been since he’d had any? Seattle. Not since Seattle.

Burke’s whiskey washed against the glass and glowed in the light. When the fire was directly behind the drink, a mirage of flames appeared inside the bottle. ‘Would you be offended if I offered you whiskey? You had a long walk today.’ Chin turned, but Burke was speaking to Sarah Canary.

There was no reason to keep Sarah Canary’s condition a secret. And even if there had been a reason, there was no way to do so. Chin cleared his throat. ‘She doesn’t talk.’

‘Yet she sings?’ Burke looked thoughtful.

‘I haven’t heard her sing,’ said Chin.

‘Sounds, but not words, perhaps?’ Burke turned to B.J.

‘That must be it.’ B.J.’s glass was empty. He held it out for more.

Burke took the glass and refilled it. He rose to his feet and offered it to Sarah Canary, who looked passively back at him. She hummed a little, through her nose. ‘It’s all right,’ Burke said softly. He put the glass on the floor by her feet. ‘Go ahead, my darling.’

Sarah Canary reached for the glass. She picked it up and sniffed. She took an experimental sip. Her lips twisted, disappearing and reappearing as her mouth worked. Then she spat the whiskey back into the glass. Burke retrieved it and returned it to B.J., who raised it to his lips, then caught himself and lowered it again.

‘How long have you known her?’

‘Since morning,’ said B.J.

‘Two days,’ said Chin. ‘I found her in the woods two days ago.’

‘Interesting.’ Burke took another drink.

‘Interesting,’ Harold agreed. ‘So you . . . adopted her.’ An unpleasant smile curved his mouth upward in opposition to the mustache.

Chin tensed. ‘I am trying to help her.’ He spoke quietly to avoid giving offense and kept his face still. He had made the mistake of becoming visible. As long as Burke and Harold had thought of him only as B.J.’s Chinaman, they had hardly thought of him at all. Now he had given them something to think about. The fire flickered behind Harold like an extra inch of flaming hair all around his head. Harold stared intently at Sarah Canary. Chin looked at Sarah Canary, too, and then at B.J. and then at Burke. He had no friends in this room. It was an important thing to remember.

Harold was helping to remind him. ‘I haven’t known many Chinese,’ said Harold. ‘But I would have said that the race has a gift for self-interest.’ He shifted his position to make it clear that he was speaking to Burke and to B.J. and not to Chin. ‘I drank once with a man who supervised a Chinese crew on the railroads. He told me about an accident he’d seen. They were tunneling with dynamite and a charge didn’t go. They sent a Chinaman in to relight it, but the charge had only been delayed. Took both his legs right off. So he lay there, screaming and covered with blood, and his legs were the whole distance of another man away from his body. But none of the other Chinese workers would help him. They kept carting out the baskets of rock like they didn’t even see. They had to be ordered to tend to the victim. They had to be promised that any time they took would be compensated the same as if they were working, before they would do anything to relieve him. Damned inhuman, if you ask me.’