by Daniel Knapp
"Go on, Mizz Carter."
"It's so difficult." She tilted her head toward the floor. "I...I...have lusted for you."
He smiled, relaxing a bit. "That so?"
"From a distance, of course."
"Of course."
"For quite a number of years."
"That's plumb hard to believe, ma'am. But I'll take your word for it."
"Thank you."
"Most women wouldn't have the sand."
"I had to speak of it."
"Why is that?"
"The dreams. I can't sleep for thinking of you. Of the two of us..."
Mosby's eyebrows rose. "Together?"
"Yes."
Caught by surprise, he coughed uncomfortably. "Maybe it's a result of your...forgive me, ma'am, your late husband's untimely death."
"The dreams go back before that. Before I ever knew William Carter."
"That so?"
"Will you meet me in the private car?"
"I don't expect I will."
"Please," she whispered.
"What's the matter with right here? You just open up that door and we'll spend some time together right there in your rooms. You precedin' me until I've seen no one else is lurkin' about, of course."
"I can't do that"
"Why not?"
"My son is with me."
"Didn't I see him leave with that Indian woman?"
"They took a walk. I arranged that so we could speak. They'll be back shortly."
"I see."
"Will you come? Oh, I feel so shameful speaking this way."
"Speaking is all you'll have to feel ashamed about tonight."
"You will not come?"
"No, ma'am. Much as I'm stirred to by...by..." He could not take his eyes off the swell of her breasts beneath the dress. "It just don't all come together right enough, bein' out there in the dark in that railroad car. Anythin' could happen."
"What have you to fear from a woman? A widow?"
"Nothin'—and everything. Mostly from someone you might be in league with."
"Who, for heaven's sake?"
"Don't know, ma'am. That's why I'm goin' to pass on this hand." He started to move away toward the stairs.
"Wait!"
His black moustache bristled. "Ma'am?"
"We've been...together...before."
He looked at her quizzically.
"At least once," she said. "A long time ago."
"How can that be? I don't know you. Never knew no Esther personally, 'cept a little girl back in Charleston. And you're plainly no Southern girl. Anywise, she was only seven years old."
"This was...twelve or thirteen years ago," she said. "Fourteen, to be exact. In early 1855."
"Long time. And I'm afraid I don't remember..."
"It's difficult for me to tell you where."
"Then that's that." He started to turn again.
"It was in San Francisco...at...Arabella Ryan's."
He came close to the door now, rifling through memories.
"The night of the fire," she continued. "I've never forgotten the fire—or what took place between us before the fire started."
"Well, I'll be damned. I certainly do remember that night. Where'd you disappear to?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Wait a minute. How do I know you're tellin' the truth? You could have learned about that night from someone. Arabella had a big mouth."
"How would I know about...?"
"The fire? Anyone could have told you that."
"Then you won't believe me?"
"It's all too pat, ma'am, beggin' your pardon. But I've got to cover all the windows." He took a step back and put on his flat-crowned, Savannah-style hat. "Good night, ma'am. I'm sorry I can't oblige."
"I can prove it! Come close to the door."
He paused, looked around. "You move back a step or two...and keep your hands in plain view."
"My lord, you are suspicious!" She backed away a yard, and he moved toward the opening, keeping his body protected by the wide oak doorjamb and peering into the room.
"Be still a moment." He listened intently for a few seconds. "All right. You said you could prove you were the woman I was with that night."
"What do you remember most about our...being together?"
"What I remember best would be indecent to speak of in a public hallway."
"It was that memorable?"
"It was. Never have...experienced the likes of it before or after."
She smiled. "Why is that, Mr. Mosby? You can speak plainly. Just keep your voice down."
"Best way to explain it is that it wasn't just the woman was the most skillful I've ever met, or the, ah, most enthusiastic. That's a good deal of it. But there was somethin' else. I went into Arabella's lookin' for a professional sportin' woman, and this lady, expert as she was—by which I mean she was a natural, better at...it...than any professional I've been...entertained by...before or since—there was somethin' different about her. Down deep I knew she wasn't a professional at all."
"And what do you remember about her physically—I mean, what did she look like?"
"She was a strange one. Wore a hat and a veil and long velvet gloves." He paused again. "Like...you do. Like...you're wearing now...the whole time. 'Cept, of course, they wasn't black."
"They were deep lavender."
Mosby's mouth dropped open.
Esther didn't wait for him to comment. "Did she have any identifying marks on her body? I take it she was unclothed except for the hat, veil, and gloves."
"She was. Marks. Let me see. Yes, I recollect she had a pale strawberry, a birthmark, down deep...excuse me, ma'am."
"Go on." Esther began to unbutton her dress.
"She had a strawberry down deep in the cleft of her bosom. So pale you could hardly see it."
Esther peeled the top of the dress down over her waist. "On which side?" She began unfastening her undergarments.
"The...left, I believe." His pulse quickened.
"Did it look like this one?" Esther said, smiling as he stood there, mouth agape, licking at his lips, one pale blue eye peering with awe through the cracked door at her still firm, slightly oversized chest.
Now Esther heard the faint sound of Mosby's boot grind against the forward stairway to the private car as he put one foot up, then waited, holding on to the railing and looking up and down the length of the train. He stood there for a moment, listening in a stillness so deep the slightest sound within shooting range would have betrayed anyone's presence. He holstered the derringer under his arm, checked the knife in the sheath stitched inside his right boot, and climbed up to the door of the car.
"Your eyes will adjust to the darkness in a few minutes," Esther said, once he had stepped inside. He moved swiftly to a spot behind one of the stuffed chairs and crouched.
"I can see just fine. What's behind that curtain?"
"See for yourself." Esther stood up and pulled the fabric aside. "You have nothing to fear. Did you honestly think I would want anyone else to know we are alone here together, with my husband scarcely a month in his grave?"
He moved closer and looked over her shoulder into the rear end of the car. "I reckon not," he said, easing her aside and quickly inspecting the sleeping area, the kitchen, and the lavatory. "It's my nature to be mistrustful." He stepped back to where she'd taken a position at the foot of the brass bed, and looked under it. "I did some figurin' after we spoke. I don't mean to sound big-headed..."
"But this has happened before, with other women?"
"Yes. Never have been able to figure out why."
"Why, it's simple. You're a fine figure of a man, and more than that, women are attracted to men who look like they're capable of violence."
Mosby shifted uneasily.
"Raw animal power...So few men have it."
"Well, I don't know about that," Mosby said, uncomfortable though he savored every word. "But I do know you must've enjoyed that night at Arabella's near as m
uch as I did. And want it again, for whatever reasons. So I reckon I believe you. Only thing is, I can't figure out why you waited so long."
"There are many reasons, Mr. Mosby..."
"Might as well call me Luther..."
"But they can wait. There will be opportunity enough for all that. We needn't waste any time now. Why don't you...get undressed?"
Esther slipped out of everything but the veiled hat and long gloves. She forced herself not to stare at Mosby's left arm. Slightly but noticeably smaller than the right, it was encased at the elbow by a notched, leather brace. Above and below the belted, sweat-darkened supporter, an ugly ladder-like scar ran from the bottom of his biceps to the middle of his forearm, snaking ropy white across the point of his elbow. She knew how he had suffered when he had sustained the deep gash, and the thought pleased her. Her gaze drifted upward across his back, where a burn scar, pebbled and two inches wide, extended from one shoulder to the other. As he turned, the memory of the night he had been burned steeled her for what was about to happen.
Stripped, he hung the holstered derringer within reach on one of the brass bedposts. His eyes widened. The sight of her pale, tapered, but almost boyishly slender body, the contrastingly full breasts and the sheathed tongue of flesh protruding faintly beneath the triangle of soft, dark hair made him breathe deeply. Standing there in just his boots and socks, with his penis practically touching his belly button, he felt slightly foolish.
"Do you always wear that veil and those damn gloves?" he asked, trying to recover his composure. "Why don't you take the hat off, at least, so I can see your face?"
"You can see my face tomorrow." She pulled her legs up and exposed herself a fraction more. "Tomorrow, all the mysteries will be revealed. On the way to Promontory."
"Suit yourself." He pulled off his boots and socks, not admitting that the gloves and the veil, in fact, all the bizarre elements, added to his excitement, intensified his lust.
"Now..." she said. She began to falter, almost betrayed by the waves of revulsion that buffeted her as she watched the pulsing of his massive organ. She almost gagged on her words. "Now...I...want...to make you feel...the way I did at Arabella's that night. With my hands...and...my...mouth...and...this," she added, rolling back on her shoulders and spreading her legs wide on the deep red satin, eiderdown quilt.
Solana said nothing, asked no questions when Esther returned to the hotel and sent her to the adjoining room. The Wappo Indian woman's nostrils flared briefly after she opened the door and saw Esther's hair loose on her shoulders. Esther was certain her keen nose had picked up the scent of sex. But they had known one another almost as long as Esther had known Mosby. By now Solana's unfaltering loyalty would override doubt or concern about the wisdom or propriety of almost anything Esther did.
Esther undressed, cleansed herself with cool water from a tall china pitcher and scented tallow soap, then took her leatherbound journal out of a suitcase and slipped into bed. She glanced at little Todd, who was snoring faintly on the cot set up against the wall across the room, then lay back with her hands pressing the journal against her breast. Staring at the wood-beamed ceiling, she was repulsed by what she intended to do tomorrow. She was disgusted with herself for enjoying it so much toward the end with Mosby, the way she had only with Alex Todd. Even after all these years she still harbored the faint suspicion that there had to be something intrinsically evil about a woman who took such volcanic extremes of pleasure from fornication—with anyone.
For a moment, remembering the contractions, the uncontrollable writhing, and the final, almost mindless soaring as the deliriously warm wave spread from her loins to the tips of her fingers and toes, Esther wavered. No one so weak could possibly bring off what she planned to do tomorrow without stumbling over her own emotions. But then Alex Todd's face supplanted Mosby's in her thoughts, and she was jerked back to cool objectivity. She guessed rightly that hatred as well as love could possibly stretch a woman's mental control over her body to the point of such animalistic response. She accepted the necessity of what she was doing, would still do, and was reasonably certain that God would understand. And if He didn't? Well, that was a price she would willingly pay for Alexander Todd's life.
She was unsettled, but she knew the healing, steadying value of concentration, absorption. She knew the wavering, the weakening of her determination would cease when she began reading the journal. Propping herself up on the pillow nearest the oil lamp, she stared at the pebbled brown-leather cover. Tilting the book, she touched the knotted black ribbon that tied off and separated a small segment near the opening pages. She felt her pulse suddenly thudding uncomfortably in her throat. Forcing herself, she pulled the cover open. On the first page she had written: "Events in the Life of Elizabeth Purdy Todd, 1845—." Luther Mosby's smudged thumbprint marred the lower right-hand corner. The faded sworls held her attention long enough to restore all her determination. There was only one day in her entire life that Mosby could have touched this page. The memory of it, as she turned the leaf and began reading the first entry, erased all doubt, all compunction about what she was going to do.
Three
Bent's Fort
August 2, 1845
Six weeks to the day have passed since Alexander, my dear husband, departed for Fort Laramie. I did not know one could love and miss another human being so. Feeling better. Well enough to go for a stroll outside the walls of the Fort this evening. Pray God the illness that began plaguing me outside St. Louis has passed for good and that all will go well with me until John Alexander is born. I know it is a boy. There! Another masculine kick! even as I am writing this. Pray by now Alexander has secured passage to California with one of the trains of settlers passing through Fort Laramie. I know in his heart he did not want to leave me, and the prospect of being separated for a year grows more intolerable each day. It is selfish of me to think so, and I must do some disciplining to correct my weakness. It is purely a matter of plain thinking, to be sure. Had Alexander waited with me, the opportunity to serve in Mr. Larkin's mercantile establishment in Monterey would surely have passed to another. Time and good fortune await no man.
Stifling hot for six days now. No sign of a letup. I do not know how the Cavalrymen stand it in their wool and twill uniforms. I thought more than one of them would melt in the parade formation today welcoming Captain John Frémont and his party of mappers and explorers. A fiercer looking group of men I have never laid eyes on, some sixty in all. With the exception of Captain Frémont, who looks a boy so frail and sensitive is his appearance among his trappers and mountain men. They seem exceedingly armed, up to possessing a brass Howitzer cannon, for a body setting out to do more than map the desert region beyond the Rockies before passing to California and Oregon. Came upon Mr. Kit Carson practicing with one of the new repeating rifles called Karbeens during my stroll. He too stands apart from the rest. Moonfaced, soft in manner, he does not bespeak his reputation for bravery or fierceness. I would not have known that side of him unless I had seen the look in his eyes and the challenging smile he wore after the tall, hawk-nosed man they (somewhat derisively, I think) call "Alamo" Mosby, cut him short when he began speaking of the possibility that California would someday — soon, he said — belong to the United States and not Mexico. At first, I did not like at all the way Mr. Mosby, whose first name is Luther, looked at me. The lust was so plain. I must be understanding, however; these men know it will be many months before they see their women again, or have the opportunity to... And I must confess it was pleasing to know that such a striking looking man finds me, swollen as I am with child, still attractive. How easy it is to lose grip of righteousness in the face of temptress Vanity and the courtly manner of a Southern-born man—be he dressed in rough-looking buckskin garments or not!
The breeze that came up while I was taking my walk has died away again. It is as warm as noonday in Vermont, though by now the moon adds light to the lamp glow. Strange that I do not think often of cool New England, or
Mother, or little Esther, or the school where I taught after Miss Cable died so suddenly. That seems long ago and yet 'tis but a year or so back. When the heat oppresses, I think of Ohio, and sitting along the riverbank under the bare willows with Alex. His boat. The water and the evening breeze making soft sounds as we sit pressed close together, his arm around my shoulder. Dear Lord, how I go on...
Dreamt last night (August second, I am adding this at breakfast) of wading through deep snow in a blizzard, lost. Surely that is Vermont! and born of this stifling heat and dust...
Four
Elizabeth Purdy celebrated her sixteenth birthday gloomily on the eve of her journey from Manchester, Vermont, to Plymouth, Ohio. It was late October, and she dreaded the thought of leaving the rolling, flame-colored hills of New England. She had heard that nowhere else in the United States was fall so resplendent. There would be other things she would miss. Mountains, maple syrup, toboggan rides, the fireplace in her mother's red clapboard farmhouse, her charges at the Crossroads Grammar School. Most of all, her sister, Esther, who would be eleven in two more months.
It was inescapable, though. She knew that. It seemed like only yesterday that the community had unanimously decided that she, the oldest and most outstanding student at the school, would take over Miss Cable's duties, even though Elizabeth still had been a half year short of completing her course of study, when the old woman had succumbed to influenza. Then, scarcely before she had brought the class under disciplinary control, her father, a loving if somewhat puritanical Methodist-Episcopal minister, died of the same illness. Before the school year ended, her mother made an extended visit to Boston, bringing home a new husband five years younger than she. Elizabeth took an immediate dislike to Amos Sandler. Burly, a former seaman who limped from a harpoon wound that had forced him ashore for good, Sandler had shown an immediate infatuation with her. As the summer dragged slowly by, it became apparent that something drastic would have to be done before Amos brought a scandal down on all of them. An arrangement was made with Elizabeth's Aunt Clara in Ohio. She could live with her father's sister in exchange for household duties.
