Sary's Gold

by Sharon Shipley

  As she fondled the nugget, a bemused grin spread Sary’s face, squinting at the layered peaks made gauzy in moonlight as if she spied a shining path.

  She gripped the nugget tight, whispering, “Velvet and jasmine and long skinny boats…”

  Chapter 17

  Wham! Wham! Wham! Sary hammered fresh rungs in the shaky ladder, rungs whittled by firelight with a vengeance. She sucked at her thumb. A welt engorged as she watched—another injury joined the confusion of bruises, cuts, and gouges as she rammed splinters of wood into rusty bolt holes.

  “There!”

  At bottom, Sary paced “Seb’s” tunnel, avoiding the mound of earth where he’d died, leaving it as a poor memorial; she set to checking the still-standing timbers, shoring the surviving uprights, straining her back and pulling her arms nearly out of their sockets.

  The shaky ceiling was still a problem. A black dome of gouged earth, stable for the while, loomed above her like a black threatening sky.

  Saving the best for last, Sary feasted on the golden swath belting the tunnel, running hands along it.

  ****

  Day after day, and many nights, no matter the weather, Sary trudged through snapping bedsheets of rain, her hair plastered in dripping strings, or later over a dense snow pack, with ice spicules spearing her face, or braving the heat-shimmering winds of false spring, thick with pollen, always to the mine, hacking at the belt of pure ore, a woman obsessed.

  On off-days, and those there were, she practiced loading Ev’ret’s Winchester, an ancient carbine, and Seb’s shotgun, clumsily fitting shells to breeches, dropping them, pinching her fingers. Finally, she hefted the Winchester, fighting the stiff trigger. The gun smacked and spat fire, knocking her end over teakettle.

  When Sary next fired the Winchester, she stayed planted, hitting the mining pan fifty feet off. Satisfied, she cleaned and oiled the weapons but kept Seb’s shotgun, wrapping the rest in oilcloth and burying them close by the graves. It seemed appropriate.

  ****

  Sary lay prone on snow patches, for winter’s snowcap still hugged the rocky scalps of Big Bear’s inaccessible peaks, and the wind soughed a bitter breath down her neck. She peered through a thicket like an animal, scarce breathing.

  The scrawny creature twitched transparent ears as it approached her washing pan propped on a stick. The stick was tied to a string—and the string to a sprig of acorns smeared in fat. It took its prize as she watched, and in doing so, the hare yanked the stick. The tub whumped down, leaving the hare in what must seem premature dusk.

  Sary hung the hare by its hind legs, making swift cuts at the neck and paws, then peeling the fur like a small coat and scraping its hide like Jonathon had when the men went hunting, back then. The pelt turned brittle as old shoe leather and was never used.

  Grimly she checked for black blotches. Jonathan had said those meant fever sickness. The rabbit seemed healthy—pink…and scant.

  ****

  That night Sary hunched, gnawing bones, with grease running down her chin, eyeing the remains clinging to the spit. She grinned.

  “Crazy, but not hungry!”

  But she was. Throwing the tipped basin aside, the next dawn, Sary watched it roll downhill. Another stolen precious bit of bait. Sighing, she clung to roots as she climbed down to fetch it. As time went on, she wept, gnawed roots, boiled acorns for coffee and ground them for flatbread or gruel. She caught a glimpse of her face in the pail of water. It was pale from the mine, and thin, with huge eyes staring back at her. If Jonathan were alive, would he even know her? Would she ever know love again?

  Odd, though—as her hands smoothed her belly, it seemed to have grown more rounded, while her face drew close and the scrap of rabbit saved back made her ill.

  ****

  Julian awoke. He hung on. His couch danced across the floor. Objects crashed.

  ****

  Deep in the mine, the earth rumbled. Sary braced, eyeing the timbers as they groaned, jumping in place. Closing her eyes, she thought of Seb and his arm sticking out from the mound of dirt. Sary pelted through the tunnel. Jolted to her knees, she crawled…and grabbed the quivering, juddering ladder and climbed, climbed, ignoring trembler after trembler, scrambling out topside. Ned heehawed and pulled at his rope, while she waited, eyeing the shaft, and once more descended as soon as all was still.

  Later, after stuffing a growing heap of nuggets into Ev’ret’s saddlebags, Sary gouged another safe-hole near the graves and slid a stone over it.

  ****

  The creek, turgid with snowmelt, made shards of a weak spring sun as Sary gnawed a half-raw fish over a smoky fire.

  Later, she sipped handfuls of water and gripped her belly with a look of utter horror while the skies opened to shed rain like tears. With water streaming her face, Sary goaded the thin horse to a gallop. Where? Anywhere would do, as long as the jouncing would change what was happening inside her. But eventually she was back where she had started, and with no alteration to her condition despite the rough riding.

  In her slamped-down dress, she saw her belly plainly outlined. The horse bucked and drooped, until finally Sary lay on its mane, groaning. “We’re both hungry, poor thing,” as the sky crashed down.

  Sary huddled, drenched, in the lean-to. Thunder nailed the sky and lightning sawed the mountain open, matching the tumult in her head.

  ****

  Handi eyed Julian as he lifted sumptuous drapes in her cozy parlor. He flinched from the lightning splitting the air, bleaching his face.

  “Jules likes his creature comforts. Hates cold!” Julian declared for the tenth time to torrents slashing panes like thin swords. “Cold as a whore’s bejesus out there.”

  “So,” Handi said, “do something. Anything. Respect’s worth more than gold. Fool’s gold, maybe, but you keep digging to keep your claim in.”

  “Fancy concept for you, Handi.”

  “Wasn’t much valued for subtlety.”

  Handi lit lamps, revealing their ravaged features.

  As Julian left, she whispered, “Get my boy back, Julie.”

  Julian briefly touched her shoulder.

  ****

  A dying sun painted Julian’s face bloody hues as he sat astride his horse at the edge of Big Bear. Night after night he sat saddled, eyes straining into the fading day.

  Chapter 18

  Soiled doves wandered in and out of Handi’s kitchen as Julian leaned close in earnest confab, over a skillet of peach cobbler, with a potbellied man wearing a star.

  The buttery morning contrasted cruelly with Julian’s wan-as-ashes face and repressed strain as Sheriff Will dandled Pearl in corset and knickers.

  All three ignored a weathered Indian hag, hung with fetishes, dozing by the stove, her shift peppered with burn holes from a clay pipe.

  The girl finger-gouged the pastry. To her, the men might as well have been furniture as they forked cobbler straight from the pan.

  Julian soured his mouth. “You need to be here?” He jerked his head. “Pearl, out.”

  Sheriff forked a bite, dandled the girl, wiped his mouth, and looked out the window before finally directing his gaze at Julian.

  Julian shrugged, almost putting his face to the table, and with barbwire tension hissed, “My boy’s missing.”

  Will nodded, as though to say, So? Pearl remained stoic.

  “Three months now.” Julian looked away.

  The sheriff forked cobbler. “Figured Ratchet’s top hound in your kennel.” He licked the fork and squeezed Pearl.

  “Ratchet. Ratchet!” Julian snorted. “Ever see Ratchet break a horse? Uses bob wire for snaffles. My Jules is already a mite”—he looked at Pearl—“frisky.”

  “Un-hunh. Jules’s in ’Frisco or the moon by now. Ain’t the first time.” The sheriff turned to Pearl. “He’ll miss this peach pie, won’t he, sweetie?”

  She shrugged, shoveling it in.

  Julian knocked Will’s hand aside from helping her.

  “I tell y
ou, I gotta feeling, Will! Dammit!”

  “Havin’ his own peculiar hootenanny. Down to Belleville. Shoot! Drunk, in jail! That’d be the making of—”

  Will halted at Julian’s glare.

  “Different, Will. Want you to see to it. Sweet on that plowboy’s sister—Sary something, think her name was.”

  “Aim to be perlite, Julian. Don’t mean no offense-like. Is your leg broke?”

  “Victorville’s brought in faro. A whole parcel of fresh meat without a mark or pox on ’em.”

  Will glanced up with sudden interest.

  “Heard that.”

  “Got to keep customers sweet as aces.” Beseeching. “You know that, Will. All this is Jules’s. Someday—”

  Julian hacked and spat, breathless, narrowing his eyes. “Why I pay for that hunka tin you got on your shirt front…”

  Sheriff watched Julian struggle for breath, hitched his shoulders, and sighed, dumping Pearl.

  “Sary, hunh? Heard some scuttlewag they mighta stumbled on some pinchbeck?”

  “Pinchbeck, fool’s gold. Greenhorns piss up more than creeks! See to it—and keep it in your vest.”

  “Got that right.”

  As he straightened his hat, Sheriff Will muttered, “Too dang embarrassed. Wet nurse. Might as well have teats.”

  ****

  Handi poured, downing two whiskies, passing tumblers to Julian and the sheriff.

  The sheriff awkwardly twiddled his hat in the parlor’s overripe elegance. “Camp’s just okay. Poorly. Woman’s jumpy as a branded calf. No sign of her man. Seb, is it?”

  He downed his glass, saving the best. “Seen the horse. Big black runnin’ with one of them old miner’s mules.”

  Handi’s hand shook as she poured again.

  ****

  A hypodermic needle and a stained velvet case lay open beside Julian as he stared fixedly at a rubber tourniquet tied about his arm after he slipped the needle under. Uttering a slow raspy groan, he slumped, unwrapped his raddled arm, and brooded over Jules’s tintype.

  In time, he dropped it, bellowing, “Rat-chet!”

  ****

  Sary, unkempt, muttering, wrapped in shawls, fondled gold gleaming dull by a fire lending her thin features a look of the witch—all flickering peaks, depressions, eyes red and feral and rimmed with purple. At the sound of thudding hooves, Sary hastily covered the saddlebags as Julian and Ratchet galloped in to a rock-spitting stop.

  Julian barked before his mount skidded to a halt. “Happen across my boy and a big ugly buff of a man a while back?”

  “Haven’t anything but burnt acorn. You’re welcome,” she whispered.

  Julian swatted Sary’s offered pot.

  Sary picked it up, hiding her face and shielding her body.

  “Want nothing of your hands!” Julian rode over the camp, trampling the fire pit and her meal of boiled rabbit and fish bones, scoping the site, extending to the graves—he stopped. Sary quit breathing. He moved on as Sary shifted her skirts over the saddlebags, while Julian poked her poor lean-to.

  Making a face, he inspected the scattered skillets, near empty hogsheads, the whole barebones mess, sneering, “Done well for yourself.”

  Ratchet lifted ragged under-drawers drying on rocks, dropping them with distaste.

  “Only women’s gewgaws.”

  “Where’s that brother?” Julian turned eyes on her cold as marble tombstones.

  “Hunting.”

  “Hunt a lot, does he?” Julian’s gaze raked the gravesites and the hills. “Haven’t seen the big spender in town of late.”

  ****

  From the knoll ridge, Julian and Ratchet watched Sary salvage a few crumbs from the dirt, eating as she went, before she hastened off though the trees.

  ****

  Later the two crouched beneath a cedar at the edge of the clearing around the mine head. Julian choked a cough as Ratchet waved the sweet-spicy fronds aside.

  “May I rot in Hell,” Ratchet breathed. “Either the bitch’s got sand, or she’s loco.”

  Julian brushed branches in time to see Sary drop down the shaft, barely detecting a whisper of cloth against rock or slapping hands and feet scraping rungs.

  Ratchet backed as if the mine smelled punk.

  “Your brother had a jest played on him.” Julian raised his voice yelling down. “I said, your brother’s a simpleton!”

  Sary jerked, stunned to see Julian’s haggard face above her.

  “Every last sorry son of a bitch in Big Bear’d plane this mountain to sea level with a teaspoon, if a whiskey tot of gold’s left in her!” Julian continued.

  Ratchet snorted and flipped a rock, tossing it dismissively, commenting, “Lucky’s clapped out like a China whore.”

  Sary looked down, then huddled against the ladder as Ratchet wrenched it. Rubble bounced off her head. Sary flinched. The ladder bucked.

  “Something to relate, Swinford?” Julian called.

  “Please! I never formally met him—your son.”

  “Name’s Jules. Jules Alexander Delacorte. Say it! Jules!”

  Above, Julian nodded, grim, and Ratchet jerked a bracket from rusty bolts. Sary jammed a rung and started up, panicked the whole ladder would come loose.

  “What with all the keep-out signs, Sary Swinford…” Julian coughed, then resumed, “Townsfolk know enough. Nobody much comes up here.”

  “Jules! Jules Alexan—?”

  Footsteps crunched off.

  Sary drooped over the rung and finished, “—xander Delacorte.”

  She tested the ladder. Her hands slipped, and she half-slid, half-tumbled to the rocky bottom. Far off, poor Neddie heehawed.

  Sary shouted up. “Don’t hurt Ned! Don’t you dare hurt Neddie!” She was answered by laughter.

  Chapter 19

  Where was she? Clammy earth. Rocks for a bed. Sary moved a dead arm out from under. “Ow!” Her entire self was stiff, cold as an effigy. The one missing an arm, she thought wryly. Aching hip to shoulder, she slowly unbent.

  That’s okay. She had spent the night in the mine before. Looking up at a muzzy sky, she thought, They’ll tire of this fox-and-geese game. But she was so hungry!

  ****

  On day four, after three endless nights, Julian and Ratchet dealt cards, dully quarreled, roasted hares, and drank. They had long ago run dry of items of mutual interest.

  Julian seemed to thrive outdoors rather than succumbing to the occasional fog and drizzle—his cheeks had reddened, giving him the ruddiness of health as he hacked the corruption of smoke-smogged saloons from his lungs.

  Below, Sary’s nose twitched. Ratchet waved a haunch over the shaft. Awakening with bones clattering, bouncing off her head, she had dreamt of food—oatmeal swamped in cream and sorghum, crumbly corn bread steaming with fresh-churned slabs of melted butter, sausage seasoned hot with sage and pepper. Thick hams browned and bubbling in the big iron skillet…

  She wouldn’t eat Ratchet’s leavings. The thought revolted her as Ratchet’s voice heckled, hollering down to her, “Dang! This jackrabbit’s juicier than the last one! Big varmint, ain’t it? Don’t reckon I can stuff any more in. A downright sin. Just go to waste.”

  She heard Julian cough a laugh.

  Sary paced, clenching her fists as Ratchet continued, “All crusty brown…”

  She heard another rattle and stumbled over rabbit bones… Good, there’s a shred of meat. She didn’t heed Ratchet’s chuckles. Laugh away. You can’t stay up there forever…but what if they destroy the ladder? Her heart skipped mid-beat, and she rushed to test it—wobbly, but there.

  ****

  Sary warmed her face in a thin blade of sun slicing the shaft, closing her eyes. She looked forward to it at this time of day, every day, as an event, with a chill sense of alarm. How long will I be down here? She’d long ago lost any real hunger and now sensed only a dull ghost of need and a terrifying feebleness.

  To nail her coffin, Julian dribbled a canteenful of water down onto her lik
e rain. A few drops splashed her head, the remainder lost in a fine mist.

  She croaked up, “Mine’s full of water, Delacorte!”

  “Mine water’s poison. Lead, arsenic, gypsum, chromium, mercury, and I don’t know what all. Wouldn’t be thinkin’ on drinking it, Swinford. When it rains, whole mine floods. Rainy season comin’ up.” He gargled laughter.

  “Least I’ll be clean!”

  ****

  By the sixth day, Sary was staggering, shaking with cold in the dark wet tunnels. Rain trickled down the walls, wetting the floor, as squalls passed over her open tomb. She drank seepage. Seepage turned to a deluge—water poured into her boots. She hiked her skirts and checked the surge that swept out of the tunnels. Wading to the shaft, Sary hung on the ladder, near defeat.

  Soon the water was waist-high, tugging her off, away from the ladder. Sary swam back, hands slipping, plunging beneath inky chill. The things bumping past her foretold a happening yet to come, one she could not dream of, as she bobbed, gasping, to the surface.

  “Delacorte?” she croaked through chattering teeth. He can’t hear me! Are they there? “I’m ready.” She rasped as loudly as she could. She didn’t know whether it was black water or tears running down her cheeks, and was only vaguely aware that Julian held the ladder while Ratchet climbed halfway down to drop a rope for her to cling to as he hauled her up.

  ****

  The two men slapped and tossed Sary in her near-lifeless state back and forth between them, until Julian stayed Ratchet. “Hold on! She’s gotta talk!” He gestured to the shaft. Ratchet nodded and yanked Sary back over the hole, flipping her head down.