by Mary Volmer
She waits for a wagon to pass and steps down on the new sidewalk. Micah is busy inside his store, arranging and rearranging new merchandise. None of the ready-made dresses he’d ordered would fit her big toe. A damn waste of money, you ask her, carrying clothing that fits only a few shapes. Used to be, you bought the cloth and made the dress to suit the woman. The way it’s going, they’ll need to start making women to fit the dresses.
In the May heat the ridgeline above town takes on a purple hue. The wild strawberries behind the Victoria will soon be ripe, the heart-shaped fruit still white, bloodless, but plentiful. She can almost taste them, fresh with the chill of morning, or baked up hot in a pie. She looks down at the pie in her hands. Preserves will have to do, for now.
Hard to believe eight weeks ago everybody and their uncle was heading north. She hasn’t heard a thing about the Fraser River since Alex found that nugget, though she’s heard news from just about every other corner of the world. News rolls up on wagons. News walks behind pack mules, or by its lonesome self, taking the varied form of miner, or miner-turned-merchant, or lawyer-turned-miner, or merchant-turned-pharmacist. Seems like every one of these men, new hat or tattered, claims to be this, and also this, and on occasion that. Believe everything or nothing of what they say, it would make no difference. Gold just opened the place up, spanned the world like a guitar string plucked a little different by each man walking through. Wars, rebellions, famines, floods—the usual fare, with added local complaints: miners striking against water companies, and President this or Governor that promising to do more than General this or Judge that, if you just elect him. She heard they finally got that railroad running through the Sacramento Valley. “The Sacramento Valley Line, twenty-two miles, through to Folsom,” a curly-headed fellow told her one night, acting proud like he was personally responsible. And some fools in San Francisco were talking about bridging the bay. No such thing as an unreasonable goal here, she thought, as she looked about the town growing solid around her.
A muleteer slows his team to pass and shows his scurvy-blackened teeth. “Whoa now,” he says. His eyes flit from Emaline to the pie, back to Emaline. He tips his hat. “Gee up,” he says, and the wagon leaves behind the sap smell of timber.
Banging and sawing join the busy noise of birdsong as the open spaces along Victor Lane are filled. She rather liked the cigar shop, the musky scent of tobacco drifting out into the street, though the haberdasher could do with more than bowler hats and farmer’s straw hats. They were cutting a side street just up from the new livery stable, which is fine with her since it didn’t intersect at the Victoria Inn. The new street curves around behind the inn, paralleling Victor Lane, forming a funny little horseshoe, with the chicken coop like an island in the middle. A sawmill is what we really need, she thinks. More than side roads or this other inn she’s heard talk about.
With the improvements she’s planning, won’t be any place better than the Victoria. Takes time, is all. She’s already ordered the furniture. Rich maple settees with velvet upholstery and rounded oak tables stained dark amber-brown. Klein is building tall stools to match a new oaken whiskey bar, but she’s told him that his first priority should be the chapel, guaranteed him a written contract, no matter how many carpenters come to town. Looking back, it would have been wiser to let him compete for the job. Loyalty is not always the best thing for business.
The heel of her shoe slips off the planking. She wobbles, rights herself. She debates whether to drop in on Micah, but the pie is still warm in her hands and she knows by the way her mind is skittering from one matter to the next that the best thing is just to do what she came to do and then get back to the Victoria. She takes a breath, letting it out in one long blast, and a lone chicken, the raw-butted Rhode Island Red, scuttles out of her path. She smiles at the gray weather-stained wood of Mordicai’s old cabin. The uneven steps squeak and groan as she climbs up to knock, one, two, on the door.
The door opens.
“Lou Anne Dourity, where have you—oh,” says Mrs. Dourity, looking both directions up then down the road.
On the occasions Emaline has seen Mrs. Dourity, her face has always been in profile and hidden by that over-large hat. Hatless, from the front, the woman’s long, hooked nose is offset by a pair of large brown eyes, which manage to appear neither pleased nor displeased by Emaline’s presence. Her mouth, straight and thin from the side, gives way to soft pink lips from the front. The sharp line of her cheekbones in profile is softened with the curve of her eyebrows. Emaline has never seen two such separate faces on the same woman before and it takes her a moment to figure out just who is greeting her. Perhaps she judged the woman too quickly. She feels tension giving way to a smile.
“I was looking for my daughter, Lou Anne,” says Mrs. Dourity. She doesn’t return the smile.
“I haven’t seen her.” Emaline holds up the pie. The sweetness teases her nostrils. She wouldn’t mind a bit of this now.
“How nice,” says Mrs. Dourity. She takes the pie, but holds it straight in front of her like a soiled child. A crashing sound draws both women’s attention down the street to the livery stable where men unload lumber.
“Might be for your new place?” Emaline suggests, meaning the wood, but Mrs. Dourity shakes her head.
“We’ll be building in oak and brick. Hard wood is far more resilient, don’t you agree?”
“More expensive.”
“Yes.”
Emaline shifts her weight in the silence that follows, looks back up the road toward the Victoria. It would be nice to sit for a while, take a bit of coffee with someone else serving.
“I’m right up there at the Victoria Inn, should you need anything,” says Emaline, and hears the words repeat themselves inside her head. Should you need anything. Her mother’s words. “Emaline’s the name,” she says.
“I’ve heard,” says Mrs. Dourity, and Emaline’s smile goes flat.
“Ah well …” Emaline takes a breath, raising herself up to look down on Mrs. Dourity. “Since you’ve heard.”
But as she turns to go, the sound of voices stops her. Mrs. Dourity glances back through the half-closed door.
“We were just having some coffee,” she says, then, “Won’t you join us?” with an expression that begs, Please don’t.
If she had been forthright with her hospitality, Emaline might have graciously declined. How nice of you, no. Thank you, but I really should get back, bread to bake, drapes to mend, men to fuck, she’d say, just for the shock of it. But the sound of female laughter, a high twittering blending with an alto chuckle, issues from the cabin. That, combined with the shade of guilt coloring Mrs. Dourity’s cheeks, convinces Emaline to stay.
“Why, thank you. I think I will,” says Emaline, pushing past Mrs. Dourity into the cabin, immediately regretting this decision.
It has been years since Emaline has been alone in a room full of women. She pushes through the doorway, harking back to her mother’s tea parties and quilting sessions for courage. The hushed voices, the condemning tones and well-intentioned advice, the short blasts of laughter, quickly swallowed. Mrs. Dourity comes in behind her. The door shuts, muffling the slams and bangs of the livery stable, nearly blocking the sound of wagon traffic and the constant pinging of picks and shovels at the creek.
The only light in the room filters in through the crescent-and-petal-shaped lace of the curtains and shines, as if trained there, on the white tablecloth around which three women sit. They look her up and down. And let them look, thinks Emaline, drawing herself up, tucking a curly strand behind her ear. She notices the whalebone rigidity of the women’s backs and her chin, as if on a string, strains higher.
“Ladies,” says Emaline, nodding, noticing the two empty stools.
“We’re expecting my daughter, Lou Anne,” says Mrs. Dourity, her eyes also on the stools.
“So you said. Well, not to worry, the boys’ll take good care of her.” Mrs. Dourity cringes. “Won’t do her no harm, at least,�
� says Emaline, easing herself down upon one of the stools, pulling her skirt out from under her.
Mrs. Dourity says nothing to this, turns instead to her other guests. “A pie,” she says, and places the plate in the middle of the table. She leaves the cloth over the top.
“Oh, my,” says the woman closest to the stove, but Emaline’s not sure she’s commenting on the pie. Her hair is a straight, sandy-colored blonde, gathered into a loose braid, and her big eyes blink out beneath thick lashes. Emaline would have thought she was the owner of the twittering laughter, but her voice is rich and warm. Her face, like the faces of all of these women, is young—younger than Emaline, at least. Not even out of their twenties. But the confidence of seniority is not forthcoming. It’s their dresses that hamstring her, the high necks, the frilly lace, and more buttons than weeks in a year. She shifts on the stool, nods her thanks when Mrs. Dourity offers a cup of coffee. The blonde woman takes a deep breath in through her nose.
“Blackberry?” she asks.
“Preserves,” Emaline says, hoping this doesn’t sound like an apology. “And it’s boysenberry.” She wasn’t expecting to meet the whole of Motherlode’s female population in one day. Gathered here, excluding her, no doubt discussing her. On the other hand, at least all introductions will be over and done with. One pie for four women, not a bad exchange. She sips the coffee, weak, watery stuff. “You are …?” she asks.
“May I introduce Mrs. Ely Erkstine,” Mrs. Dourity says of the sandy blonde, as though just now realizing introductions are necessary. “Mrs. Simon Waller,” she says, motioning to the woman in the middle, a tight-lipped lady with stripes of premature gray coursing through her hair. Her left hand rests on the round bulge of her stomach, the only weight to her. “And her sister, Rose. And this is Mrs.… ”
Morgan was her father’s name; Sweeny had been her husband’s. “Call me Emaline.”
Her eyes fix on Rose. The woman’s black hair is secured in an eye-peeling bun. Her body is bone and sinew. Her dress reveals little in the way of breasts.
“I own the Victoria Inn.”
“Own?” says Mrs. Erkstine. “We thought, I thought, didn’t you say the big fellow …?” she asks Mrs. Dourity.
“Limpy?” says Emaline.
“I thought he was … or at least owned …” stammers Mrs. Erkstine. She blushes. “We heard you, well …”
“I own the Victoria,” Emaline repeats, then, “I’m a widow.”
“You are,” says Mrs. Erkstine, stretching the “are” to twice its usual length.
Emaline regrets this last admission, is angry at this sudden need to justify herself, but appreciative at least of Erkstine’s sympathy. It seems genuine. Mrs. Dourity and the other two—sisters, did she say?—have yet to thaw.
“It was years ago …”
“Where is that girl?” says Mrs. Dourity, staring out the window, content to ignore the conversation.
Mrs. Waller speaks: “The West is really no place for a young lady. If she were mine, I’d be on the first ship back to Boston, away from influences.”
“The moral character is never so vulnerable than at this age. Don’t you agree?” Mrs. Erkstine asks Emaline, but doesn’t wait for a response. Emaline’s neck hairs prickle. Maybe not so genuine. “But if the civilized keep running back East, what kind of Christians would we be? My husband’s a pastor.” The woman spits out her p’s as if they were distasteful, and Emaline can imagine her sitting in the front row of a fancy church, playing the moral paragon. “He’s been friends with good Mr. Sargent, the DA up in Nevada City, since childhood. Chose different paths to justice, but it’s the ends that matter. They’ve already shut down that Applegate place. One less bawdyhouse, and fourteen women liberated.” Her face is flushed, exultant, but Emaline glows with secret knowledge. She has already been introduced to Mr. Erkstine, though he was a bit too preoccupied to mention that he was a pastor, or that he was married.
“He’ll be holding a service this Sunday at ten.”
“Where?” asks Emaline, setting down her cup.
“Must be terrible, the only woman in a place like this,” says Mrs. Waller.
“Ely wanted to come up here alone,” says Mrs. Erkstine, “but I said, ‘No, I will not leave you alone to face the trials of your calling.’ Walking with God, I call it, though Lord knows I didn’t want to leave Sacramento, the pleasures and comforts of a city …”
“Bless,” says Mrs. Waller.
“The law’s a calling like any other,” says Mrs. Dourity, just the slightest bit defensive, then goes back to searching for Lou Anne out the window.
“Where is he planning to hold his Sunday service?” asks Emaline again, beginning to wish she had more than coffee in her cup, weak coffee, at that.
“Why, the chapel, of course,” Mrs. Erkstine says. Then, to Mrs. Dourity: “Do you plan to save that pie?”
Mrs. Waller sits up straighter in her chair and Mrs. Dourity gives up on the window. “No, no sense in saving—”
“My chapel?” says Emaline, and Mrs. Erkstine catches her breath. Mrs. Dourity halts with a knife poised above the pie. Mrs. Waller licks her lips.
“Surely it is the Lord’s chapel?” says Mrs. Erkstine. “And without a proper preacher, if I’m not mistaken.”
Mrs. Dourity’s knife plunges into the thick, flaky crust and deep purple jam oozes through the open wound.
“John does just fine.”
“When he’s sober.” Rose says this, but her lips barely move, and her expression does not change, so that for a moment Emaline wonders if she really heard her speak.
“Smells lovely,” says Mrs. Waller.
“He’s sober when he wants to be,” says Emaline. “He’s sober on Sundays.”
Rose remains sitting upright in her chair. Black eyes, her only animate feature, fix upon the pie.
“Well now, it’s not unusual to hold more than one service,” says Mrs. Erkstine. “If the Methodists and Presbyterians can share, then surely we can share with—what are you? Oh, just a bit bigger piece, a little more. Perfect.” She presses the flat of her hand to her stomach, and digs into the pie on her plate.
“I … Motherlode is not affiliated. And Preacher John is—”
“Heavenly,” says Mrs. Erkstine, taking a small bite. Emaline looks down at her slice of pie, the sugar of the jam suddenly too sweet for her stomach.
“Motherlode,” says Mrs. Erkstine between bites, scrunching her nose. “Who on earth names these places? Rough and Ready, You Bet … The first thing we should do is give this place a proper name.”
“I named this place!” says Emaline. “And who’s ‘we’?” Who the hell is “we” she means but holds herself back, letting the rest filter through her head. With men you could say anything you chose. They’d only hear half, anyway. Women heard what was said and then a whole lot more that wasn’t. She shoos a fly away from her slice. Rose has declined a piece. Emaline takes this as a personal insult.
“Nevada City was Coyoteville, of all things,” says Mrs. Dourity, ignoring Emaline completely. “And Placerville? Hangtown! Can you imagine sending a letter home from Hangtown?”
The fly takes advantage of Mrs. Dourity’s preoccupation and dips into the slippery red jam.
“Lewiston?” Mrs. Erkstine suggests.
“No, there’s a Lewiston just south of Sacramento, I’m sure of it,” says Mrs. Waller.
“It has always been Motherlode,” says Emaline, standing up from her stool. All four women look in her direction as if they’d forgotten she was there. “It was Motherlode from the day I arrived, and it will be Motherlode until the day I die.” A drastic statement, but her voice is calm, matter of fact. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
The door closes behind her before she again hears voices from the cabin. Men stride this way and that, busy or faking it, and Emaline chews on the inside of her cheeks, ruminating, remembering. She steps back into the road, heading for the chapel, a fury not unlike religious zeal building with e
very step.
Freedom is what these women lack, and ambition—though in Emaline’s mind, they are the same. In California freedom is defined by a price, and its price is ambition. It is not enough simply to celebrate freedom, to dig a hole and hide it from harm, or build up walls of rules, protecting your idea of what freedom should be, while damning other versions. You have to invest in freedom, she thinks, to put it in the bank of blind faith and draw interest on strength and effort. Goals are dangled, like bread to the starving, and you could find yourself crawling, walking, running forward, grasping for cotton on the wind, not so much to catch it, but to call it your own, to say you tried and will keep trying. Ambition gave shape to freedom, a purpose, a calling. Take this seed and grow a forest. Take these nails and build a town. Emaline walks on, watching for cracks in the sidewalk.
These women are bound by more than corsets. They are bound by the rules they brought with them, rules Emaline had left behind, first out of necessity by her husband’s grave near the Continental Divide, and later by choice. She raises her head now, trusting her feet to find the boards. She swings her arms. Moral character, they say. By whose standard? Tight-laced, corset-bound matrons of the East. Too harsh, she knows, for her mother had been the same cut as these ladies. So constrained by the rules she’d lived by that she never had the time or energy to dream of anything more. So paralyzed by what was proper that she’d never considered what was possible. Refused to see why Emaline craved the West, though at the time not even Emaline understood what the call meant, and what the cost would be. The West was a land of dreamers whose pasts were mere shells, foundations for greater aims. And the dreamers were not just men. And only the dreams were easy.
She finds Klein pounding away on a pew, the pulpit already reworked with simple vine-shaped decorations. Sawdust floats, catching streams of light through the windows. He looks up, his black hair littered with wood chips.
