by Mary Volmer
“Emaline …?” says Alex.
“Emaline?” Micah hollers through the kitchen door then bangs it open. Mr. James stands behind him. “Oh. Hi, Alex,” Micah says. Alex nods to Micah and glances back at Emaline, who has regained herself, shoulders wide, chest out.
“What, Micah?” says Emaline.
“Morning, Alex. Feeling better? You left so quickly yesterday …” says Mr. James, and gives Emaline a lustful grin. His perfect mustache twitches up, and his teeth click.
“I’m feeling fine.”
“Mr. James says he’s going to stick around a few more days,” says Micah. “For the paper.”
Mr. James takes a notebook from his waistcoat pocket, looks Alex up and down, and turns an inquisitive eye to Emaline. Again his hair divides his face in half, the skin of his parting at least three shades whiter than his cheeks. His black shoes have managed to stay spotless.
“That right? Well, if you’re sticking around, you can run and fetch me some water,” says Emaline, and turns her back. Mr. James’s neck reddens at his collar. He clicks his teeth. Micah begins to laugh, conceals it with a cough.
“Excuse my leaving so quickly, Emaline. David said something about needing something, from the store. Alex, you recall what that was?” Micah says. Alex doesn’t mask her confusion. “For the mine, from the store. Why don’t you come with me, to the store, and we’ll find what it was he wanted. For the mine.”
“At the store,” says Alex tentatively.
“Yes, for the mine.”
“The buckets are right over there,” Emaline says to Mr. James, pointing with her knife.
Mr. James puts his notebook away and slides his pencil behind his ear. Alex bites back a smile as Micah ushers her out the door, leaving Mr. James at the mercy of Emaline.
A small crowd is gathered in front of Sander’s dry goods. Micah cranes his neck to see better and tips his hat to Lou Anne, who loiters on the outskirts of the crowd. Alex makes a point of ignoring both the girl and Micah’s prim sideways glance, pretending to take greater interest than she feels in the voice issuing from the thick of the gathering.
“I didn’t know, ladies and gentlemen …”
Through the forest of shoulders Alex catches sight of a diminutive fellow with a pencil-thin mustache. His voice carries like a circus host. She can just make out the words stenciled on the handcart before him, DR. VINCENT HASGLOW’S MIRACLE ELIXIR. The man repeats himself for effect: “No, I did not know how sick I was! Days, moments away from death’s door. I stood upon the very welcome mat of death, until Dr. Vincent Hasglow cured me.”
Another man, presumably Dr. Hasglow, steps forward and distinguishes himself with a ponderous bow. He sweeps his top hat from his head and his coattails nearly touch the ground. The meager sputtering of applause brings him upright again, revealing a somber expression Alex could have mistaken for dignity, were it not for the barrel organ beneath his arm, the handle of which he suddenly feels the need to turn. Music, a sort of jig, resonates from the box.
“Step up, ladies and gentlemen, young and old, for a free diagnosis. Hasglow’s Elixir will give women a shapely size and put hair on a man’s chest! That’s right, son …” He makes eye contact with Alex, winks, and plunges on. His partner continues his wordless accompaniment. Lou Anne giggles behind her hands and Alex glares.
It’s not that she feels outright animosity toward the girl; Lou Anne has given no cause. Alex is actually a little flattered by the girl’s attention.
“… will cure all ailments, from scurvy to dysentery,” the vendor continues. “It will ease the feet when mixed with warm water, lend a natural healthy shine to the teeth and gums, and prevent the ague. My friends, most people walk this world in a diseased haze, when health and happiness are but ten dollars away. Ten dollars, my friends, will—”
“Look at those two—” Micah says, nodding at the handcart duo. “Don’t know if they’re pharmacists, merchants, or jackasses pulling their own cart. Only a fool pulls his own cart, Alex, remember that. Come on.”
Micah moves on a step, slips his finger beneath the cloth eyepatch he’s taken to wearing “in consideration of the delicate constitutions of the ladies of the town,” or so he said. But judging from his sudden conversion from miner’s pants to black slacks, from flannel to white cuffs and waistcoat, Alex suspects that Micah is more concerned with keeping up appearances with the other storekeepers—the effortlessly elegant Gerald Sander, in particular—than he is about the six women in town. Five, if you don’t count Lou Anne, and Alex doesn’t.
“I was just wondering,” he says when Alex catches up, “what do you know about hydraulicking? I mean, what have you heard?”
She picks a chicken feather from the tip of her boot, finds a trail of them leading toward Bobcat Creek, some white with specks of red and brown, some amber with dark tips.
“Only what Fred says,” she replies, running her thumb against the grain of the feather. She’ll take it to Emaline, though she has no idea what use she could possibly find for it. “Even if you was this Boy Bandit …” Emaline had said. Golden Boy, Boy Bandit … Just another name, Alex thinks, rolling the feather’s quill between thumb and forefinger.
“That’s what I thought. Well, never mind,” says Micah.
A lumber wagon rumbles by. The horses snort the morning air, toss their heads toward the smell of the livery stable, and the handcart merchant begins another variation of his speech. Perhaps this is as good a place as any. A better place. The thought surges through her, warm like hope. There has been talk of a courthouse, a theater and a lumber mill. And while no one disputes that a mill is needed, as much or more than a courthouse, the debate continues about where to build it so as not to upset someone’s claim. An unofficial town meeting was held at the Victoria, but quickly deteriorated into an argument. Randall was the only one staunchly opposed to the building of a new mill, but then he would oppose it, given the amount of money he’s making transporting the lumber with his new wagon. Living in Motherlode but two days a week, Alex doesn’t consider him a proper citizen anyway.
She pauses a moment by the general store, suddenly struck by Micah’s last question. Any conversations Fred began about hydraulicking quickly became fodder for ridicule. “Just piss on the mountain, there, Fred,” Harry told him once. “Might just move more earth than your shovel.” Alex knew Fred was in earnest, but it was hard not to view him through the eyes of his critics, it was easier than really looking.
“Hi, Alex.”
She looks up to find Lou Anne bustling down the sidewalk to meet them. The practiced smile spread across Lou Anne’s face, her meager chest thrust outward, the hopeful upturn of her voice, makes Alex’s insides clench. There is something Alex recognizes in the tone of the girl’s voice and in the tilt of the girl’s head, something that Alex wants to slap out of her, so that no one else would.
“Hi,” Alex replies, trying not to stare at that pink patterned dress, the billowing skirts, trying not to remember what it felt like to have to stand so straight, to take such small breaths.
The girl’s shoulders droop and her smile sinks, with her skirt coming to rest like a quilt on a sleeping body. Alex thinks of David, sprawled out this morning on the floor of the cabin.
“Good morning, Miss Lou Anne,” says Micah. “You look very nice today. Doesn’t she look nice, Alex?”
She’d watched David’s breath tease the hairs of his arm. With her eyes, Alex had traced the lines of muscle and bone like a puzzle on David’s back. It had been a chilly night, but David’s blanket was gathered into a ball, which he hugged with his arms and legs. His boots were still on. It was painful for Alex to see him like this, in the way that beauty is painful when words come short of description. She wanted to touch him, to run her hands along the curve of his back, tracing each vertebra, to feel the coarse texture of his hair, the sandy stubble on his chin. Alex wanted to fold herself into a ball like that blanket, and feel David’s body wrapped around her like anoth
er skin. Instead, she’d eased the quilt off the bed, draped it over him, and left the cabin. Golden Boys didn’t think about men in this way, or ponder dresses. Her mind is growing heavier with the things she shouldn’t think about.
“Alex?” says Micah.
“Nice,” Alex says, and pushes into the store past the tears springing to Lou Anne’s eyes.
“Might have given her a word. A little compliment wouldn’t hurt you.” Micah closes the door behind him, cutting the sound of the organ grinder and human traffic. “You feeling all right?” He places a hand on Alex’s shoulder. Alex shrugs it off.
“I’m feeling fine,” she says, harsher than she intended, but Micah just grins. Over his shoulder, on the far shelf next to the calomel, a few bottles of Hasglow’s Miracle Elixir stand ready to work their many wonders. Perhaps she should try some. Maybe it would order her thoughts, calm her stomach, help divorce the reassurance Emaline had given her this morning from the doubt that lingers. Perhaps she just needs some hair on her chest.
“Don’t take it for granted, is all I’m saying. There’s a shortage of beautiful girls around here—remember that. Now, I know you’re shy … Untried. Am I right? Huh? Boy Bandit, my ass! Look at me, son.”
Alex finds herself holding one of the ready-made dresses. She sets it down. Micah chuckles, takes off his eyepatch and puts it on the counter, rubbing his empty socket with his knuckles. He scurries around the shop, organizing the merchandise. Mining equipment no longer litters the floor in dusty piles but is segregated into the new annex, while dry goods, foodstuffs, gilded silver brushes, skeins of fine cloth, and ready-made dresses dominate the main room. Alex edges toward the door, suddenly anxious to get to the mine, to get dirty, to sweat out her thoughts. Micah speaks up as she reaches for the door handle.
“Could ask Emaline,” he says. He picks up the dress Alex discarded, runs his fingers down the soft cotton seams. “You’d have to pay for it, no doubt. But … she’s a good woman, Emaline. Remember that. Deserves a little gratitude. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, you know, teaching you a thing or two. You might even enjoy it.”
Alex opens the door and steps outside. “Think about it,” Micah yells after her.
15
The organ grinder is silent and at first Alex thinks the Hasglow Elixir crowd is staring at her. But when she looks toward Bobcat Creek, she finds herself in the path of Harry and five other miners dragging a grinning Chinese man. The man’s hair is braided in a long raveled queue that falls limp and muddy over his slender shoulders. A bruise glows purple on his right cheek and blood drips from either side of his mouth. The seat of his loose blue pants is red with river mud, yet his eyes are full of mirth, apparently unconcerned with his captivity or treatment. His grin grows wider when he sees Alex, and his eyes narrow to slits. He bends as if to sit and Harry jerks him up again.
“Where’s Emaline?” Harry asks Alex.
Where she always is, Alex thinks, but says, “At the Victoria,” and the men forge ahead, prodding the smiling Chinese man from behind with a shovel. Alex stumbles along after, overwhelmed and a bit embarrassed by her curiosity. She can feel the heavy presence of the crowd creeping close behind her.
“What did he—?” says Alex, before another voice, strained, heavily accented, interrupts.
“Wait! Wait, please, sir!” and another Chinese man, whose lucid eyes hold the desperation she expected from the captive, teases his way through the crowd. “Wait, sir,” he pleads. His voice cracks as if English forces his voice a half step higher than is comfortable. With his narrow shoulders and quick, light steps he looks diminutive next to the lumps of flesh and muscle that sit like cats on the white men’s shoulders.
“Chicken thief,” Harry tells Alex, turning his back on the pleading man to pound on the door of the Victoria. “Emaline!”
“Innocent,” the Chinese man insists. And then, tugging on Alex’s sleeve: “He simple man. Please, sir.” She pulls away, but in his eyes she can almost see the dammed-up lake of words that English will not allow him. She opens her hand and her feather flutters to the ground.
“Six chickens’ necks broke. Sound innocent to you?” Harry directs his reply to Alex but glares at the Chinese man as he speaks. “Emaline!” he yells again just as Emaline opens the door. Her face is flushed from the heat of the kitchen. Damp hair swirls about her head and when she sees the smiling captive, her face hardens in a way Alex hasn’t seen.
“What the hell is he smiling about?” Emaline says. She’s no longer squinting, but gazing generally over the crowd, as if she has already determined the look of everyone present.
“Wait, please, sir—”
“Harry?” says Emaline.
Harry produces the body of a chicken, holding it high above his head by its broken neck like a trophy for all to see. In the doorway of the inn, Mr. James scribbles away in his notebook. The crowd bunches closer. Alex’s stomach clenches like a fist. She can see Limpy’s red head bobbing near the back of the pack and she knows David must be nearby. Across the road, Micah steps out of his store onto the porch where Mrs. Dourity, Erkstine, Waller and her sister Rose flank Lou Anne, two on each side. Lou Anne stretches to her tiptoes to see better and her mother tugs her down again.
“I Kwong Ting-lang. Kwong, sir.” The man bows, but Emaline’s expression is unchanged. He motions to the captive. “Chang,” he says, bowing again for his companion. “His head. He simple man, he—”
“He thinks he can just go and kill my chickens?”
Kwong scowls at his feet. His lips move, but he says nothing and Alex bites her lip, willing the man to stay silent, sensing that, guilty or not, nothing he says will make a difference, except to make things worse. The other one won’t quit smiling at her.
“I’m talking to you, Wong,” says Emaline.
On level ground Emaline would still stand a head taller than Kwong, and for a moment Alex is conflicted. For a moment she is the young woman who walked into town dressed as a boy. For a moment she too is standing helpless before a powerful stranger. At the same time she is the Golden Boy, Alex, who loves nothing more than to sweep in the stuffy heat of the kitchen, to watch Emaline move with the robust efficiency of a woman Alex has always known, or wanted to know. “Here is as good a place as any,” Emaline had said, and Alex loved her for that.
And Alex knew how much Emaline loved those chickens and if they did kill them—Chang picks up the feather Alex dropped, rubs it past his nose, holds it out to her as if to give it back. If they killed those chickens, then they deserve whatever they get. She’s trying hard to believe this.
“He sleep all night,” Kwong says, and bats the feather from Chang’s hand, says a sharp word to the man in his own language. “Chickens there in morning.”
“And I’m a Chinaman’s squaw!” says a voice from the crowd.
“Hang ’em!” yells another and Alex’s head jerks up with Kwong’s.
“We pay!” Kwong says, and turns to Harry. “Gold we pay.”
“No. You’ll leave,” says Emaline.
“I pay,” Kwong says again, this time to Emaline.
“Got that right,” says Harry, and shoves Kwong to the ground.
The crowd buzzes, squirms, and resettles like flies on a carcass. Kwong stays down on his knees, his head bowed.
“You will leave!” says Emaline to Kwong. “All of you—” She motions downstream to the colony of clustered huts. “All of you.”
Chang’s smile vanishes. His mouth falls open. He edges between Harry and Kwong, holding his arms out like a barrier. He screams high and clear, shocking even the birds to silence. He runs out of breath, gulps air like a drowning man and screams again as six men on horseback appear on the edge of town.
Alex’s mouth drops open. Breath comes in panting gasps. She should run, should have run weeks ago, or last night, or this morning. Now her legs fail her, each seems to have its own separate agenda. Her knees shake. Her hands lose feeling, but her head swings from Chang to the appr
oaching posse, back to Chang again. The crowd, too, has frozen. Men swallow their sentences whole, and Chang’s pure tenor howl echoes back and forth between the ravine walls.
Alex’s mind closes and opens within itself to memory. A bouquet on the side table, white layered flowers interspersed with yellow buttercups and blue drooping lilies. The smell of fabric and rosemary and something bitter, metallic. Blood.
Alex lying flat. Pain clamping her stomach in a vice. Gran’s finger pointing downward like an arrow to Alex’s forehead. Warm, salty tears down Alex’s cheeks.
“Just looking for death, just like your father and his father. Want to leave an old woman all alone to herself. All alone,” says Gran, so soft. “You’re not to see that boy again.”
Emaline slaps Chang hard across the face. Chang takes a breath, the silence more deafening than the scream, and Alex finds movement. She backs up against the porch of the inn, ducks quickly around the corner. Tries to think. The road? Blocked. Hide.
Behind the Victoria, past the chopping block, the feather-strewn coop, its lone occupant ruffled and agitated, to the outhouse. The door slams shut and shards of light through the plank walls slice her into pieces. Her insides chew themselves. Flies bash their heads into the wall. Thick, warm moisture between her thighs. She unbuckles her trousers, edges her hand down. Her fingers return red.
Emaline’s hand hovers in the air above Chang, but her attention is focused on the six riders approaching along Victor Lane. She steps back up on the porch, straining to see clearly. Behind her, Mr. James’s furious scribbling is amplified and grating. Someone sneezes. A murmur passes through the crowd, rippling outward as the riders force their way through.
“Well,” says Hudson, leaning against his saddle horn, his wide-brim hat masking half his face in shadow. “Where is he?”
Emaline doesn’t answer. He isn’t speaking to her. He turns around, repeats his question and John Thomas spurs his jittery piebald mare forward, looking comically self-important in his filthy tattered trousers and sweat-stained shirt.
