Crown of Dust

by Mary Volmer

  “Wait,” Emaline says, rising from the stool.

  “I’ll go. I’m sorry,” says Alex, but doesn’t take that next step. She wishes she could still feel revulsion for this woman, the fear of that first day. But she is conscious only of gratitude, and gratitude is a sentiment that begs expression.

  “We’ll talk, tonight,” says Emaline. “Mr. James is still here, just waiting for more stories to write. No need to act suspicious. And a whole pack of vigilantes just left, not an hour ago. Looking for Jed. It’s a long story, but they didn’t get him.”

  Emaline smiles and Alex remembers the gunshot echoing off the ravine and back through the thin walls of the outhouse.

  “Talk to me. Tonight. Bring gold. The boys won’t know the difference, will they? We’ll figure something out. All right?”

  Emaline’s voice is pleading, surprising Alex. She’d expected … She doesn’t know what she’d expected, but uncovered secrets have consequences. She doesn’t want to leave, not without smelling fresh-cut lumber from the new sawmill, not without watching the town grow and the mine prosper, since the one was surely dependent on the other. She doesn’t want to leave Limpy, or Micah, or David. She doesn’t want to leave Emaline.

  “Not safe out there for a woman alone, or a boy. It’s not! You were lucky, and now you gotta be smart.” Emaline’s hands rest on her hips, the position of authority with which Alex is comfortable. Emaline wants her to stay, at least for the night, and Emaline is in control.

  “Okay, then,” says Emaline, nodding. She strides for the door and closes it behind her, ending the conversation. Alex eases her pack to the foot of the bed.

  “Thank you,” she whispers, and slumps to the floor, closes her eyes and leans her head back against the mattress.

  David walks toward the Victoria wanting only to sink into the comfort of frivolous conversations and a game of low-stakes five-card stud. The day has made him weary of controversy. He wants to forget about men with guns and Chinese chicken thieves, to forget about everything but work and rum; although lately even work holds little comfort for him. A wasted day, he thinks and stares out into the dark void of an overcast night. He can see the faint outlines of bats diving for insects, their beating wings like whispered sentences. Crickets warm their bowstrings, but their song is muffled in the muggy night and David too feels muffled.

  The returns have been low the past few weeks, as if all the gold in the mine had been floating in the topsoil. The hard rock has yielded little but granite, hardly worth the work, and he’s beginning to think the vein they’re looking for, the vein that produced Alex’s nugget, is lost further up the mountain among the brambles and the poison oak, and this too makes him weary. Weary of hope and weary of doubt, and as he climbs the steps of the Victoria and edges his way to the bar, the bodies around him remind him of mounds of discarded slag cast away to the river’s edge, to the edge of the world, to California.

  Jed slides him a whiskey and leans his elbows on the countertop. Wine-colored veins course the whites of Jed’s eyes and his teeth grind beneath his lips. David can think of nothing reassuring to say, and so says nothing. He decides against cards, leaves Harry and Fred to their arguments and Limpy to his liquor, and does his best to ignore Alex at the other end of the bar. He turns to watch men’s lips move, but only snippets of the conversation from the table in front of him gain purchase.

  “You need … The only thing we need … Union’s no good to anybody cut in half. North and South, we need each other. It’s like King Solomon and the baby … Listen to you quoting the Bible … Gentlemen, please …”

  In the corner, Klein mans his accordion; Mexican Jack and his guitar give the tune rhythm. Music and voices throb through layers of tobacco smoke, and David’s attention wanders back to Alex. The boy has locked his feet around the legs of the stool as if holding himself in place. His eyes flit about the room and meet David’s. David looks away. Boy Bandit! Absurd. But hadn’t he seen the boy skirt the edge of the inn when the posse showed up? Only guilt could explain his absence when Emaline needed him. A man protects those he loves. David will tell the boy. A man defends what he cares for, defends his home, he’ll say, even as the word conjures the smell of his mother’s pasties, the sound of the sea. He’ll take the boy aside, confront him with this Boy Bandit nonsense. He peeks back to find Alex adjusting himself, and David shifts uncomfortably on his stool. Not now. Talk to him later. After a few more drinks.

  “Jed.” He holds up his cup, swivels back to the bar. But Jed is swiping the counter like he means to shine the wood stain away. He gestures silently to the knot of men at the King Solomon table.

  “… sooner pray to the Pope,” slurs one of the men, and David listens closer.

  “All that commotion today? For nothing, you ask me. I know Hudson. A jackass, but an honest one, and not the type to be turned away, not when there’s reward money involved. He’ll be back, by God. More power to him.”

  “I’d like to know how that Negro’s master up and died so suddenly. Haversmith, was it? Knew a Haversmit ’cross the county in Louisiana. Didn’t have a brother, though.”

  “A good hanging would solve the problem real fast.”

  They speak as though Jed weren’t right there, only a table-length away and hearing every word. Jed is one of the few people in Motherlode in whose presence David feels completely comfortable. Friendly is the word, and as the conversation penetrates his brain, his hackles rise. He stands to say something and Jed’s hand catches him softly on the shoulder. “Don’t,” says Jed. “Won’t help.”

  “Now hold on!” one of the men insists. “Can’t just go killing Negroes like you’re killing cattle.”

  “He’s right. No, you’re right. Can’t eat Negroes.”

  “That is the t-tru—” The whole room hushes silent.

  Jed’s hand falls from David’s shoulder. David turns to follow his gaze.

  Emaline stands atop the staircase. She’s wearing a dress he’s never seen with a soft lavender hue that tinges her skin golden-tan. Beneath the fabric, her body speaks in tongues, her stomach folding upon itself, meeting her ample hips in a whisper of skin against skin, and every man in the room knows that there is no corset accentuating those breasts. Her hair curls in ringlets, framing her face, enlarging her eyes, enhancing the glow of her cheeks. The lamplight envelops her, painting a penumbra on the wall which moves above her, around her, with her, down the steps and into the saloon. A whiskey glass drops. David releases a breath in time to three men to his right. The accordion suffocates with a wail, and every hand of cards is revealed faceup, should anyone care to look.

  It’s Limpy who breaks the spell.

  “I must say, Miss Emaline,” he says, “I cannot recall you ever looking lovelier.” Cards are pulled back, protected from eyes that have yet to wander from Emaline, and the accordion breathes new life. “I got me a bag of gold dust that’s just begging to see what improvements you’ve made in that room of yours.”

  “Now, Limpy!” says Micah, joining the duo on the other side. “Tuesday is my night, and I’m still richer’n you, for all your digging.”

  David follows the direction of Emaline’s stare to Alex and can barely endure sitting. He stands, adjusts himself under the counter and downs his drink.

  “Richer, hell! We just getting to the gold, ain’t we, Dave!” Limpy yells. But David is busy saying the Lord’s Prayer beneath his breath. He unclasps the top two buttons of his flannel. Shameful visions move dreamlike before his eyes. Memories of Alex’s weight in his arms; of Emaline, revealed in the shadows of her upstairs room; Alex grasping, pressing himself against David’s chest; Emaline smiling, naked; Alex enfolded in David’s quilt, his small face gleaming, pale, his lips parted for breath.

  “Besides,” continues Limpy, twining his elbow with Emaline’s, “two eyes’re better than one in beholding beauty.”

  “Oh now, let’s not start with—”

  “Boys,” says Emaline. She raises both hands in th
e air and sheds both men with the gesture. “I am promised to another.” She moves slowly through the crowd, splitting conversations, halting card games. She looks men in the eye as though considering possibilities, then moves on. She runs a finger down Mr. James’s cheek, and his mouth falls open.

  She nears David. He trembles. He watches the careful placement of her feet—around table legs, over whiskey glasses—afraid to make eye contact. On this night he will go with her up those stairs. Tonight, he will not resist. He presses himself into the counter. Her hand brushes against the grain of his stubble and shivers squiggle to his toes. He leans close. Her breath teases his neck; her lips smack his and then—are gone?

  His eyes blink open. She is moving away from him, continuing down the bar. She is stopping a foot from Alex and offering her hand. And Alex, Alex is laughing, with her or at her, with joy or stress, David can’t tell. Alex takes her hand. The little runt takes her hand and allows her to lead him up the stairs.

  New images: Emaline and Alex. Oh Lord. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want … Alex risking his soul? Damn Emaline for tempting him. For tempting them all. Only he, only David has been strong enough to resist. He downs another drink.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned!” yells Limpy. “Attaboy, son! Be a man by morning! Round on me!” He changes his mind. “Round on Alex.”

  All serious talk is banished in favor of speculation. Memories circle the room, catching men like a sneeze or a yawn.

  “I remember the time …”

  “What you bet he cain’t …”

  “Care to put money on that?”

  “She weren’t pretty, I won’t lie to you, but this girl, oh lordy, this girl …”

  Sweat drips from David’s forehead into his whiskey. His breath comes fast and his erection remains resilient. A heavy hand slams his shoulder. Limpy’s foul breath descends.

  “Got money on the boy. You in?”

  David wrenches himself away and limps out into the humid night.

  * * *

  “Good Lord!” says Emaline, and closes the bedroom door with her rump. “Didn’t think I was going to make it up them stairs. ’Bout peed my pants! You see David’s face? You the envy of every man in that saloon believe you me. Better give ’em a good story tomorrow—or no! Don’t tell them a damn thing. Just smile real big and embarrassed like, just like that. Let ’em use their imaginations. A man’s imagination is a woman’s strongest ally, if you know how to use it. Hell, sit down, sit down. Don’t looks so damn nervous. Didn’t ask you up here to bite yah.”

  Alex sits. For all the renovations that have been done to the rest of the Victoria, Emaline’s room has remained virtually untouched. The walls are bare. A modest mirror, rimmed with tarnished silver, reflects a porcelain washbasin sitting atop a narrow dressing table. She has allowed herself the luxury of a pulled-yarn throw rug of subdued autumn golds and browns like her curtains. They suit her coloring, but it’s a contrast to the vivid reds decorating the rest of the inn. Emaline crosses the room. She unbuttons the lavender dress, pulls it up over her head, and wears nothing but her chemise. Alex turns away. Emaline smiles.

  “What’s this?” she asks. “Got the same parts. Am I right?”

  Alex looks from her own chest to Emaline’s, comparing the shape of their bodies, but finds as few similarities as a pumpkin and a pine pole. Emaline is right, of course. They do have the same parts, as she put it. No amount of clothing could change that. But the sight of skin seems to demand an open honesty Alex isn’t sure she’s ready for. She still doesn’t know if the story she is about to tell will be the truth, or another fabrication, a new disguise that she will embrace as her own true identity. She sits on her hands, ignores the ache in her stomach, and anticipates Emaline’s questions.

  “I was thirty years old when I left Missouri,” Emaline says, pulling on her nightdress and taking a seat on the chair by the dressing table. “Two weeks married, happy as a cow to pasture. It was foolish, leaving so late in the spring like we did, but Harold was itching to get to San Francisco, and he was older and I trusted him. So I packed up everything I thought I couldn’t do without, left my mamma, and Missouri, and set off for California.”

  As she talks, Emaline releases her hair from its bonds and long amber strands fall, one after another, around her shoulders, framing her head in the lamplight. She pauses a moment, looking at herself in the mirror as though a stranger stares back, then continues, her voice lower now, shifting from an even conversational rhythm to the deep throaty flush of nostalgia.

  “From the first there was trouble,” she says, nodding in agreement with her image. “Two oxen pulled up lame in that first week. One had to be put down right then. And the wagon train we were traveling with was already conflicted when a Mormon man offered to wed his wife’s sister after her husband took ill and died with the cholera. I got myself all agitated over that, swearing crimes against God, but when I think back, I reckon he done it as much out of kindness as anything. Ended up splitting into two parties, one traveling directly behind in plain sight of the other, coming together during Indian scares. Silly.”

  Emaline stretches her feet in front of her. Years peel from her face, and weight melts from her arms until she sits before Alex a younger, trimmer, naïve stranger.

  “Then Harold got sick, coughing with such a rattle in the lungs, worst I’d ever heard. Insisted that we keep going, and there really wasn’t much else to do. By this time we’d already passed Pikes Peak, and home was as far away as California. Truth be told, I didn’t want to go back. Never worked so hard in my life from sunset to sundown, but the country was so big and beautiful. Words never do them natural beauties justice, leastways not my words, or Harold’s, bless him. Bet them English poets couldn’t even say it right. Not tame enough for words. Not small enough. Level prairie as far as you could see in any direction for weeks, and the Rockies rising like Adam’s curse, jagged and white capped. Like climbing to meet the clouds.

  “It was in the Rockies that Harold died. The high plateau took his breath right away and he never got it back. Buried him next to the bodies of the four remaining oxen, just short of the Continental Divide. Grass was all eaten up by other wagons traveling early in the year like the guides tell you. Barely enough even then to feed the horses, and all them things I couldn’t do without ended up stacked around Harold’s grave like he was setting up home. A maple table that was my nana’s. My mamma’s porcelain dishes. I only kept the clothes on my back, and the little bit of money we had left. I cried then.”

  But her voice inflects only residual emotion, as though she is telling of someone else’s loss. It’s Alex’s eyes that sting. A lump of indigestible emotion forms in her throat. She tries to focus on Emaline’s story, but words are growing in her stomach, boiling up from the ache in her abdomen, from the tension just behind her temple. She feels Emaline’s eyes settle upon her, so she looks at the floor. Emaline continues, growing into herself with every word. Her face filling out, her arms and hands gaining weight and muscle.

  “Was afraid for myself—a woman alone, you know. ’Course you know. So I went on with that Mormon man and his wives. Isaiah was his name. Never agreed to the marriage part of it, mind you. Might have, if he’d convinced me to stay in Utah with him. But freedom had a hold on me, so I traveled on, doing the cooking and washing for a couple of cousins. North Carolina boys, one dark headed and coarse as Cane, and the other as blond and delicate as Abel. Was with them I discovered my talent for pleasing men.

  “Now, I know what you think,” Emaline says, her tone sharp. Her eyebrows make a straight line across her brow, but she’s too consumed with her own story to notice the heaviness of Alex’s breath, or the muddy line of sweat Alex swipes away with the back of her hand.

  “But it wasn’t about lust or greed—both deadly sins, I understand. I gave ’em comfort, made ’em feel big again on a trail that made everyone feel so small. I made ’em feel important in a place where man was just another trifle on
God’s plate. And by the time I got to San Francisco, I was quite capable of taking care of myself. Offered a service much needed in a place starved for women.

  “A service,” Emaline says again, and opens the bottom drawer of her dresser. She pulls out two glasses and a bottle of New England rum. She offers some to Alex, who drinks it down in one gulp, holds out her glass for more and swallows that. The liquor burns a track through Alex’s sinuses, coming to rest at a point just at the base of her neck. Emaline crosses her arms in front of her as if waiting for a response. Alex sets her glass on the floor by her feet. Her heartbeat thumps in her temple.

  “Jed didn’t kill nobody. No, dysentery got Haversmith, Haversmit, whatever his name was, in San Francisco, where I met Jed. Jed come into the Imperial with ol’ Haversmith and after Haversmith passed out, Jed and I … well, we got acquainted.”

  Alex’s insides begin to swell, cresting and breaking. Her throat is dry, her eyes damp as the liquor, loosens unspoken memories.

  “Jed came with me to Sacramento, and that’s where they came looking for him. Claimed he was a fugitive under the Fugitive Slave Act. Claimed he was property of some long-lost Haversmith brother gonna take him back to Alabama. Woulda never found him if Jackson Hudson hadn’t gotten it into his head to marry me. That’s when Jed and me came to Motherlode, though it weren’t nothing but a valley with a creek running through. Came to live in peace and a town sprung up around us.