Sary's Gold

by Sharon Shipley

  Seb scowled and tossed pebbles at her, whining, “Dagnab it, Sary.”

  Chapter 6

  Sary strode by boulders tall as a man on her way to the creek. Strange furniture. At first, the rocks had seemed as if she lived in an airy, half-ruined castle. Those fanciful days were long gone. She hardly felt like a princess, or looked like one, now. Back in Indiana the cornstalks would just be turning from vibrant green to the first dulling wither, from juicy sweet corn to field corn fodder.

  Now cold rain bucketed down, and the rocks became misty nuisances she must navigate to perform the simplest chore.

  She’d bolted last night’s biscuits with a mug of precious coffee before it cooled. Seb would be impatient, calling for her. Wouldn’t do if he actually roused himself and worked till she got there. The rain had ceased for now, a small blessing.

  As she scoured a pot with gravel, she eyed their scant foodstuffs that had seemed so wastefully bountiful at the beginning. A long way to Big Bear and a short way through their coin. Up at dawn—no change there from the farm, but now she must crouch by a creek, trying to keep heavy dragging skirts from the icy mountain runoff, calf muscles stiffened with ague like an old arthritic farmer’s wife—the constant dipping, swirling, searching, bending…

  She grimaced, checking her long fingers, no longer expecting the cleaned, trimmed nails of before. Her hands were scraped raw, worse than when she’d husked and shelled corn.

  Oh, do shush up, Sary! Seb’s right. She heartened. Haven’t we already scooped up some of that fairytale dust from the water? Months ago, though. Duller than supposed, yet glinting with the promise of dreams, she thought, as she thrust through the last of the undergrowth, stoically tucking up her skirt. Maybe today. Sary watched Seb shovel grit into the sluice, obsessively sorting the lower cleats, before she entered the chill rushing creek. Seb was already on the near side. She had to cross to the other.

  Halfway there, her skirts came undone, and she dragged sodden layers of petticoats clammily slapping her ankles to the other side. He scowled over as she rolled her sleeves.

  “Yes, yes, Sebastian. Here now. Someone needs to red up camp.”

  “Always house-proud, you women. Find us some gold, you can build you ten houses,” he sneered. They hadn’t found a salt-grain of gold in two months. An hour later, Sary still uselessly panned with fingers so numbed they were one with the metal. The water was still bone-cold from rain and early snowmelt. Even Seb floundered, shivering, wet to the waist. Sary hid a grin. Seb fell on his backside into the creek. No doubt giving him leave to sit by the fire and dry off.

  ****

  Sary arched her back wearily, eyeing the dry weedy bank. Hard to believe after all the cold rain of a few weeks ago. The earth blotted up moisture like cornstarch, and the creek itself was a lazy trickle, with broad islands of bone-dry stone alive with lizards baking in the sun. The sluice box, a narrow chute with ridges to separate gold from gravel, still squatted by the creek. She squinted at the sun—closer here in the mountains. Back home, the sun would be shimmering through layers of Indiana humidity. The last of the ears of corn on the stalk would be hard as bullets for the cows to graze on, and the leaves brittle. Harvesting soon, but that brought back pictures of Jonathan. Sary waded to pan the opposite side in nothing but her chemise, pantaloons, and petticoats, already sweating under Seb’s critically judging scowl and odd secret looks.

  “Gold’s heavier!” Seb sorted and flung gravel as Sary bent, dipped, scooped, swirled, and flung, and bent again. His exclamation broke into her musings. Jonathan, she thought with a stone chill, was fading. Were his eyes blue or—?

  And the new day started stretching till dusk—at least for her.

  “Yes, Seb.” Maybe he’ll hush. Forlorn hope.

  Seb slung his pan. “Stays on the bottom like a God-damned carp!”

  Holding sodden skirts, Sary once again dipped her large round pan, aware Seb still judged as she shook it in searching circles.

  “Gets caught in slow-movin’ spots. Around bends. Along the shore!” He stopped, eyeing her meanly. “Dang it! Sary, are you deef? Swirl it!”

  Sary swirled harder. “Easy as plowing fields. Said that, Seb.” He was more intractable as the profitless days ground on.

  He waded over and knocked her in. She sat hard in the gravel. “That hurt, Seb!” Water rushed over her legs and splashed her chemise. Seb looked down at her, raging. She covered her wet chemise; it was distressingly sheer, but Seb seemed beyond that. “Shakin’ it too rough! Losin’ half the gold!” He grabbed her pan. “Tip to the side where the dang riffles are! Just keep doing that—Christ, yer thick! No wonder we ain’t having any luck!” Seb clenched his fist and swayed there, rocked by the water, just staring. Finally, he looked away befuddled and splashed to the bank. Sary shakily stood and wrung out her petticoats, limping to the shore. At least he was leaving.

  “Goin’ for a smoke,” Seb announced. “You just keep—practicin’.” Sary waited till he was gone and picked up the pan.

  “Yes, Seb, and a solid gold nugget’s going to hop right down my corset stays,” Sary muttered sitting on the bank. “And if that occasion does occur, you’ll see my apron strings.”

  Chapter 7

  The creek was a narrow corrugated ribbon now, meandering past gravel bars and broad islands of scalding rock. Days stretched under drought, the air thick, choking and mustard-yellow with pine-pollen haze. Both Sary and Seb grew leaner, browner, like fall leaves. Her eyes were lighter, like clear water in her tanned face, and her red-blonde hair paled to the gold they were seeking. Back home the musky grapes would be sweetly harsh going down, and fulsome ripe, and it would be harvest time, she mused. Sweet October.

  Seb idled more and more betwixt manic harmonica playing, morose whittling, or vanishing for long stretches in the woods, returning mostly empty-handed.

  Their flour sacks hung limp. The hogsheads rolled empty. Bleakly Sary stirred a pot.

  “Where’s ’em biscuits at, lazybones?”

  “Soon, Seb.” She muttered, “Biscuits!” Then louder said, “Sebastian? Why not play us a tune?” Sary smiled bitterly, throwing him a dark look. “While you’re waiting.”

  Seb perked up at any hint of slander. “Had your nose in them books again, didn’t ya! Man quits work, he’s hungry.”

  “Work! Who scrounges greens and…and—oh, never mind.”

  Seb flopped back, sucking a tooth. “What ya see in them dry dead things?”

  Sary paused from stirring the bilious greens and chickpeas and lighted up like a Christmas cathedral. She laid down her spoon, seeing it. “Oh, Seb! It’s like walkin’ through a door into this rich world! Europe’s all gold and pretties and fancy things!” She looked down at the broth, seeing the lagoons of Venice instead, in the steaming green depths.

  “Seb?” she mused. “There’s this place in Italy where houses float on water and long skinny boats takes you everywhere you want to go. Imagine!”

  “Don’t get much plowing done then, I reckon.” Seb too casually sauntered to Sary’s things, rummaging. “Need more fire.”

  He picked up a book, thumbing it. Sary stared at him. What’s he up to now?

  “I-dylls of the King. By Alfred Lord Tenny-son. Well ain’t he a swell! This one a them European books?” Seb ripped pages out and tossed them in an agonizingly slow motion, into the flame. Sary froze as he chucked the whole book in. Frozen, she watched the colored cover picture brown. “Keep your mind on your knittin’ now.”

  Sary scrambled too late. Grief-stricken, she raked the scorched book out, sucking her fingers.

  Seb scratched his jaw reflectively. “Scrapple. Turnin’ winter soon. Now, think I’d like me a mess a scrapple.”

  “Need pork for scrapple,” Sary hissed. “We’ll be gnawing barrel staves next, and the meal?” Sary thrust a tin under his nose. Weevils writhed in a scant inch of corn meal. He batted it away, twisting his face.

  “You could hunt!” She pressed hands to her breast in
frustration. “Or teach me!”

  Seb sniggered. “Learn you to shoot? Like I’d trust a female with a gun. Hunh!”

  Sary gripped Handi’s pistol beneath her skirts, resisting the temptation to shoot Seb’s toes off. Seb would just sell the comforting weight she’d grown used to bumping against her thigh, if he knew of its existence.

  Sheepish, Seb picked up his harmonica and brassily ripped scales, swung into “Camptown racetrack five miles long, doo dah, doo…” and then slid into a jig: “Put your little foot, put your little foot, put you little foot right down…”

  Sary couldn’t help tapping her feet. Then, grin flashing, she whirled about the fire pit faster, faster as Seb played more manically, watching his sister with green fire in her eyes twirl about, all blurring skirts and flashing ankles.

  Sary finally staggered, giggling, out of breath. Somehow, she hadn’t the stamina of old. The cooking pot flew as she bumped into it, spraying chickpeas and broth.

  “Oh, no!” Sary dropped to her knees, scooping peas back into the pot. “Broth’s all gone. Oh, sugar! Seb look what you made me do!”

  Later, the two morosely picked at their plates.

  Every now and then, Sary plucked a pebble out of her mouth.

  How long can we go on? Seb’s so pigheaded stubborn he will never admit failure. Yet Seb always had a scheme or two. His eyes followed her everywhere now. It made her uneasy without kenning why. She looked at the trees pressing round. Is this my life?

  Chapter 8

  Snow spit spitefully and pine needles that had turned brittle skittered across the top. The leanto had a tarp flap now, with rocks piled along the sides and a marginally better firepit. Sary pottered about, leaning into each step, wearily picking up a dishtowel—a rag really, but made for a hope chest a lifetime ago—wedged between rocks.

  A dried bit of corn cake dropped out.

  They eyed each other and dived, fighting, clawing for it.

  Seb triumphantly gnawed it down.

  Sary retreated to the small fire. Oh, my stomach is too friendly with my backbone. She shook herself, muttering. “Hot water. Maybe won’t feel s’ hungry.”

  Seb, now hunkered in a quilt by the fire, didn’t stir himself. Shivering, Sary dragged herself up, grabbed the bucket, and headed to the ice-plated creek, where she smashed the ice, dragging the bucket through the water.

  In the gloaming, bright color flashed, surreal in the dun and gray-green background, catching her eye, and a vision appeared. Handi, stuffed in a lavishly fur-trimmed purple habit, rode down from the knoll on a shining, supple-flanked horse, sitting an elegant sidesaddle.

  She watched Sary without moving. Then, with a contemptuous flick of reins, Handi was gone. Sary, shivering in her drooping, shapeless dress and sagging petticoats, with a holey shawl wrapped tight around hunched shoulders, gaped after her. She stumbled back, pale cheeks flaring red, water sloshing, to Seb hunched over the fire. Skidding short of drenching him, she plunked the bucket down.

  Seb moved fastidiously aside, annoyed at the splashes on his breeches. “’At’s cold, Sary!”

  “How long, Sebastian? How long are we going to last?”

  “Do I have a fortuneteller cape on? Do I have one a them big pointy hats with stars all over? Hell’s fire and spare the matches, Sary. How do I know when?”

  Seb rubbed his toes, pouting up from the corner of his face. When he did look at her, it was through eyes rimmed red, and Sary was shocked at how sunken they were. Seb looked right through her, then narrowed pink watery eyes. “I tole you. While there’s gristle still on the bone.” He said, desperate-sounding, “That old man! He’s important, Sary.”

  Seb smirked with his old fire, settling back with arms behind his head, and nodded knowingly. “You jumped the broom for love, Sary girl.” He made a dirty gesture. “Now do it for cold hard cash.”

  “Se-bastian. What old man?”

  “That old man! I seen him. Eyes pecking you all over like crows in a cornfield.” Scandalized, he jabbed his finger. “I seen you lookin’ up at him, too.” He nodded vigorous, pointing. “That time! That time!”

  Sary gaped. That old man! The one in the saloon. So, that was brother’s grand scheme. Her inner eye cringed from the one occasion she’d beheld the old ruin. Dragged-down jowls, corded neck, crevices grizzled with bristle, eyes cold as greasy dishwater sunken under bony brows, and a skeletal body, as if the elegant coat drooped on coat hangers, his back all hunched and shattered with coughing… Uhgggn! She shivered involuntary.

  Worst of all, Sary recalled the bony hinges on those long spatulate fingers, horn-nailed, thick with yellow crust, gripping the gallery that night, no matter how big the diamond in the massive gold ring glittering from his arthritic little finger.

  Sary’s stomach roiled as she tightened her shawl, spun, and ran until she was leaping, stumbling over rock and scrub. In the end, heaving, gasping, she rotated in place, scanning for a breach in the horizon and seeing only a solid fortress of trees—everlasting trees, not full-leafed and warmly green, but dull, spiky, and harsh. No place to go—to hide, to flee! The ranges and peaks forming her prison, so distant when first she and Seb arrived at this place, crept closer every night until a jagged wall encircled like a warden’s arms, cordoning Sary from life itself in this land of suffocating pitfalls and preternatural nightfall, where unseen animals snuffled, yowling and rarely seen—“Abandon all hope…” She squinted past the ranges.

  Long, barren seasons stretched ahead with not a solitary soul but Seb to talk with…no other womenfolk, not a scrap left unread. She had hidden a few books, but varmints got to them, leaving a Morse code of chewed-up words. The way out was barred by Seb until her heart froze over, icebound as the creek, and her spirit and body were skeleton-thin as the bleak-to-the-bone seasons while the two of them plummeted to lunacy. What youth was left her would be sucked dry in the desiccated air, like brittle parchment, her body to become as insubstantial as a dandelion thistle, thanks to her brother’s vainglorious dreams.

  Chill tears tickled her neck. She didn’t even know when the joyous, lifting spirit of Christmas might be, she thought. She started up again. Frantic this time.

  Sary gasped to a halt, crouching, exhausted, way beyond the creek, even beyond the knoll and the farthest safe edge of her existence. She shuddered, clutching the shawl about her dress, the one with the torn sleeve. Her warmest. Thick wool plaid taken out for festive holidays…with Jonathan. Cornhusking, Thanksgiving barn dances with chaff flying and feet bouncing…the heat of dancers’ smiles, bright colors… cider and rich wild-persimmon pudding singing in her veins…

  She focused, vainly seeking a light out there in the unrelieved wall of mountains. All was flinty gray-green, dun, and bone-white, suffocated in an everlasting purple haze.

  She wandered back to the creek. It was full dark. Stars glittered off black water like winking eyes. Can’t go back. Not yet. Suddenly, her fingers fumbled buttons. They wouldn’t work. She ripped the bedraggled dress down the front, finding it too soiled and scratchy to bear against her flesh, as if by shedding this dirty garment she could toss away the shackles of wilderness, hunger, hopelessness, and grinding boredom. Then, hunkering naked, she eased into the creek, relishing the bite of acid-chill water on her bare fanny.

  She laid her body full-length, allowing the stream to sluice over her, around her breasts, flensing her with frigid sterility until icy shock numbed her heart. Maybe it would stop beating and she would lie there in a watery grave, clean and pure, and be taken straight up to Jonathan in a chilly rapture. She sat up, suddenly scared, and grabbed a handful of gravel, with which she scrubbed her flesh—hard.

  She wanted to hurt, to feel something!

  Stupid—stupid!

  Seb had cut wounds of remembrance as open as the day Jonathan died. For a moment, Sary glowed with remembrance, once more warmed—gilded by late afternoon sun, slanting through blowing curtains.

  Lately she had revisited this bedroom more and m
ore. This time, piercing spring corn waved green susurrations through curtains newly starched and blued with Argo, over Sary and Jonathan’s bare flushed skin. His rough legs sliding against her silky smooth ones. The weight of his body…The urgent completion…hot, lingering kisses, fervent whispers, and the soft chuckles after.

  She blinked awake.

  It was only the evil ripple of black water whispering cold nothings. Goose flesh prickled her arms. Yet it wasn't that that numbed her. She heard something. A crack of wood, the death-rattle of weeds as she whispered, “Jonathan…” Tensing at a sound, she covered her breasts.

  A figure stood mute.

  For a moment, she felt as if Jonathan had formed a fleshly shadow to re-materialize…saving her.

  No, not Jonathan. Too short. She scrambled out, shocked anew by the wind whipping her limbs, and jammed her cold slippery body into her petticoats, the briar-like dress sticking to her flesh with barbs of wool.

  And then Seb slowly swayed into the moonlight, his eyes queer and glittery as the creek and somehow nearer—silent, except for his odd breathing.

  She edged past, clutching her gown closed. “Seb?”

  He shot his arm straight sideways, blocking, dipping his head to hers, nuzzling her hair, as she stood rigid and confused. “Seb! What are you doing?” She shook, and her teeth chattered. This was her brother…pigheaded, lazy, and wrong. He’s my brother!

  Seb rubbed her arm, softly at first.

  “Don’t. Don’t!” Sary eased away, fumbling to close the buttons of her wet gown, though they persistently kept sticking and she got them all crossways.

  For long seconds Seb’s white face with the deep, haunted, shadowed eyes followed her. Then he faded into the trees, his faint words floating back, “I don’t know…”

  ****

  Sary, in the same dress, boots half-buttoned, bound with her thickest shawl, recklessly yanked the horse and a small carpetbag through snow-scrub to the highest ridge west of camp; stumbling at the brink, she scrutinized the same distant endless layers of gray, filtered with moon mist.