Spanish Connie wore a walking costume of black faille piped with taupe satin. On her head was a round hat of black felt banded with taupe ribbon and finished with a bewitching veil of the same color scattered with black beauty spots.
“How comfortable you are here. I am wild with envy.” The other girl moved to the peacock feathers that had been returned to their brass vase on the sandalwood table, flicking them with the tips of long, slender fingers. “One sees the handiwork of our delightful lady proprietor, Madam Pearlie, of course.”
“Yes,” Serena answered. “I wish I could offer you something to drink or eat, but I have nothing in these rooms.”
“I know. That is why I have come. I thought you might like to go shopping.”
“How can I? Otto will stop me.”
The Spanish girl smiled. “Not this morning. The cat is away, and the mice — they are not on duty. The barroom is empty. The back door is not even locked.”
“I would love—” Serena began impulsively, then stopped. “But I have no money.”
“Did Ward leave you nothing? How thoughtless of him.”
“He thought that Sanchow would be bringing my food.”
“Even so, it is ridiculous. Without money, you may as well be a prisoner! Ah—forgive me.”
“It isn’t your fault. I do appreciate your thoughtfulness. It was nice of you to try to help me.”
Shrugging a little, the Spanish girl moved away a few steps. “It is nothing. But don’t sound so — so defeated. We will not give up yet. Does Ward keep no funds here, no small cache put back for the emergency, no jingling change, no tiny sacks of gold dust or nuggets? Does he leave behind no valuables?”
“I don’t know. In any case, I couldn’t steal from him.”
“Who mentioned stealing? I am not suggesting that you become a thief, but surely you have done much in these last weeks that deserves payment?”
“I don’t expect to be paid. That would make me nothing more than a—” Serena stopped abruptly.
The Spanish girl swung around. “Yes, nothing more than a whore. That is silly talk. If men and women still lived in Eden, what is between them would always be good and natural, freely shared. Since they are not, it is a thing to be bartered, whether for cash in hand or for a wedding band and the food and shelter it symbolizes for a woman and her children. This is the way of the world, the way it will stay, until a woman, with her own brain and skill, can earn as much money as a man.”
“Possibly,” Serena answered, “but most people don’t look at it in that light, and they are the ones who make the rules.”
“That may be, but are you willing to go hungry, to remain at the mercy of a woman like Pearlie, for the sake of a rule made by someone who has never been in your position, and that someone a man?”
Seeing the doubtful look that crept into Serena’s gray-blue eyes, Spanish Connie went on. “You are a person with needs and rights of your own. I have watched Otto guard you, keeping you here for the pleasure of another man. What consideration do you owe to one who has denied you freedom, keeping you barefoot and near-naked for his entertainment?”
“You don’t understand,” Serena protested.
The other girl flung her a quick glance over her shoulder. “Understanding I have, yes; it’s the feeling between you and your man that I don’t know, nor do I want to know. The question I am interested in now is, will you come with me?”
There was money, Serena knew, now that she thought of it. Ward hated to carry silver in his pockets, disliking its rattle and clink. “I think,” she said, taking a deep breath, “that I will.”
The snow had stopped when they reached the street. All that fell was the dry flakes blown from the rooftops of buildings by the biting wind. It was cold, bitterly so. Smoke from the many fires in the town swirled around them. The glass display windows of store buildings were fogged over and edged with fernlike patterns of frost. The dung dropped into the snow from the few horses that lined the hitching rails steamed. The breath of the two women fogged as they moved quickly along the street, leaving their mouths in blown puffs as they spoke.
They had not gone more than a half block before the Spanish girl begged Serena to call her Consuelo. It was her name, she insisted; she did not answer to that given to her by the miners. With that agreed upon, they discussed where they would go first. There was a length of scarlet satin at the May Store Consuelo had noticed the day before. She wanted to buy it and carry it to her dressmaker. Then there was a tonic she had promised to pick up for a friend from the drugstore. The girl, her friend, had swallowed pennyroyal oil to induce an abortion. The stuff had nearly poisoned her, and she was in need of building up. After that, they would stop by the general store for Serena’s purchases. She did not want to run all over town hugging greasy bacon and cheese to her chest, did she?
At the May Store, the clerk took down the satin Consuelo indicated. With a smooth manner and an oily smile, he pointed out its fine quality, though his overwarm. Gaze was on the Spanish girl as he spoke, rather than the material.
As Consuelo told him she would take it, giving the yardage she would need, he nodded. Taking up the scissors hanging on a piece of twine behind the counter, he said, “You are from the Eldorado, aren’t you?”
The Spanish girl inclined her head and moved a short distance away to look at a spool of machine-made lace.
“I caught your act once or twice. You’re mighty good,” Undaunted by the cool reception of his compliment, he glanced at Serena, then back to the Spanish girl. “You know, you and your friend look enough alike to be sisters?”
“I can’t say I’ve noticed the resemblance,” Consuelo said.
“It’s there, until a man looks you right in the face. It’s the black hair, I reckon, and the way you both carry yourselves, straight-up-and-damn-your-eyes.”
Consuelo looked at Serena with mischief brimming in her eyes. With a sly wink she murmured, “You are too kind.”
The man folded the material he had cut from the bolt of satin, tore off a sheet of brown wrapping paper, and began to do up the bundle with twine. “Not as kind as I would like to be.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said I would like to be kinder to you,” he repeated, handing the bundle to Consuelo, but retaining his grasp as she reached for it. “I could see my way to forgetting what you owe me on this here red satin, if you was to say the right words.”
“And what words are those?”
To Serena, watching this exchange, it seemed the Spanish girl’s voice dropped to a lower note, became almost caressing.
The man swallowed. “We could discuss that when I deliver this here package to you this evening, say after ten o’clock?”
Abruptly Consuelo’s fingers tightened and she jerked the bundle from his grasp. Digging into her purse, she took out a handful of bills and flung them down on the counter. “Never have I been so insulted. Pig! If you think the price of this cheap satin is worth a night in a woman’s company, then I suggest you go to see one of the crib girls!”
Turning on her heel, she gathered Serena with one out-stretched arm and swept from the store.
“Bastard,” the Spanish girl muttered through her teeth. “Pig of a bastard. It is men like him who make me sorry I am a woman. I could die of hating him and his kind. Smiling like so, reaching out to touch always, thinking that you let them into your bed for any favor, no matter how small. It would not surprise me to learn it was just such an animal who murdered Boots last night!”
In her agitation, the other girl walked so fast that Serena had to extend her stride to keep up. “Boots?” she inquired.
“A girl from one of the cribs down toward Poverty Gulch. She wore a pair of jackboots everywhere, even to bed some-times. She said they kept her feet warm. She had a man friend who made it his business to see she didn’t lack for customers. He checked on her — or checked up on her — every morning about dawn. When he got there this morning, she was dead. She had been
beaten and strangled.”
“How terrible. That’s the second girl who has been killed in the last few weeks.”
A hard smile curled Consuelo’s mouth. “Second, third, fourth, what does it matter? Nobody will do anything.”
“You sound so — so bitter.”
“And why not? Women in our profession have a lot to be bitter about. We cannot earn a decent wage any other way, and yet we have no place in society, no value. Nobody cares if we die. But just let one of us cause trouble, and the police are on us like a terrier on a rat. It’s enough to make women like me put on bloomers and join the suffragettes, except women in Colorado were given the vote a year ago. The only trouble is, the laws that get voted in apply only to respectable women.”
“Surely things can’t be that bad? Isn’t the sheriff looking into the killing?”
“They’re looking, so they say. They questioned Boots’ friend. It seems he was in an all-night poker game with three good witnesses to speak for him.”
With snow crunching under their feet, they proceeded along Bennet Avenue, passing a barber shop also advertising baths in huge block letters. Steam rolled from the door as a man issued forth, nearly colliding with them. He tipped his hat, then as Serena smiled, meeting his eyes, flushed and hurried away. Farther along, they neared a tall brick building, one of the few in town. It was the stock exchange. A group of men lounged in the upstairs windows, watching the passersby. As Serena glanced up, one man lifted a hand in greeting. Though a portion of the window was obscured by fog, she thought the man was Nathan Benedict. She inclined her head with a slight smile before hurrying past.
With their errand at the dressmaker completed, they turned back toward Myers Avenue. Fitful sunlight glinted from the overcast sky, shining on the snow with blinding brilliance. The arctic chill began to leave the air; the melting snow dripped from the eaves of buildings with the uncertain sound of beginning rain. More people were out and about now. They passed a laundress with red, raw hands carrying a basket of fresh wash. A bearded man with staring eyes and damp clothes reeled by them. A young girl with her hair flying and her high shoes unbuttoned chased a cat down the street, followed closely by a team of yapping dogs pulling, willy-nilly, a wagon with an advertisement for a haberdashery emblazoned on the side. Behind them came a man cursing and yelling as he tried to regain control of his dog team.
By contrast to the brightness outside, the interior of the general store seemed dim and cavelike. In one corner, a pot-bellied stove glowed red around the midsection. The heat brought forth the aroma of leather from the horse collars and harness that hung from the ceiling beams. It intensified the dry, nose-tingling smells of spices and coffee beans on the shelves, the scent of toilet water and cake soap from the paper wrappings on the counter, and the sourness of the pickle barrel near the door.
Serena, her mouth watering, bought bacon and beans, cheese and crackers, oil sausage, flour, salt, and baking powder. She looked longingly at the dried dates and raisins in their wooden boxes, and the bags of green coffee beans. No matter how she tried, she could not stretch the money she had found to cover such luxuries, nor could she afford the enameled pot that caught her eye. The skillet she had found still in her trunk would have to serve not only as a frying pan, but as a boiler for the beans.
As Serena and Consuelo, carrying their purchases, came out onto the street once more, the Spanish girl sent Serena a sidelong glance. “I see I am not the only one to attract an admirer,” she said.
“What?” Serena shifted the burlap feed bag that held her food to a more comfortable position in her arms.
“Not only did the nice man back there scurry around in his storeroom to find a bag to hold what you had bought, he presented you with a free pickle! A conquest, there can be no doubt of it.”
Serena grimaced. “At least he didn’t expect to — to be kind to me in return.”
Laughing, they failed to see the tall gaunt man on the sidewalk. Their first indication of his presence was the thundering sound of voice.
“Serena!”
The harsh command, the intonation that invited all within earshot to see and hear, could not be mistaken. Serena came to an abrupt halt.
“Elder Greer—”
“Yes, it is I. I looked to snatch one brand from the burning, and lo, I have found another! You don’t look happy to see me, but that is to be expected. You can’t want people you have known to see you walking the streets in the company of lewd women, yourself the kept mistress of a gambler.”
“Who is this person?” Consuelo demanded, anger flashing in her dark eyes.
“He is a Mormon, of those known also as Latter-Day Saints.”
I should have known,” the Spanish girl said with a contemptuous shrug. “Come, Serena. His kind are always raving about something.”
The elder stepped in front of Consuelo, barring her passage. “She will not go just yet. I have to talk to her.”
The other girl eyed his menacing pose with a curl of her lip. “Say what you must, old man, but say it quickly. And lower your voice. Draw any more attention than you already have, I will say to one and all that you are trying to molest Serena and myself.”
Fury worked its way across the elder’s features, but he did not quite dare put the Spanish girl’s threat to the test. Turning to Serena, he said, “You are new to these wicked ways. Give them up and come back with me to the wagon train. I promise I will hold nothing against you, but will take you back into my bosom. All that has passed will be forgotten.”
“I couldn’t,” Serena said.
“That’s what you tell me now, but when your gambler tires of you, you will change your mind. The wagon train is encamped on Fountain Creek. There has been illness among us again, not typhoid but a bloody flux. The delays have made our supplies short. We have decided to rest where we are for the winter while the men find work to earn the money for more provisions. Any time between now and the spring you will find a welcome.”
“Thank you, but no,” Serena answered.
“Why are you thanking this man?” Consuelo asked, her voice rising. “It is an insult!”
The Mormon elder ignored the other woman. “There is another thing. My wife Lessie came down with flux. Because of her sickness, the child she was carrying came early and was stillborn. The death grieved her so much that she went out of her head. As soon as she could get up from the bed, she ran away. I have searched these many weeks for her, both down in Colorado Springs and here. I was told she was seen with a man, a fancy drummer who was on his way up here to Cripple Creek to sell his patent medicines to the drugstores. If that’s so, she is in hiding. I’m asking now, since you and she were friends, have you seen her?”
Lessie, quiet, childlike Lessie, leaving the wagon train, going off with a man. “What did you do to her?” Serena asked, her voice hard.
The elder looked away, avoiding her clear, blue-gray gaze. “Nothing. Nothing that wasn’t my right. I’m asking again. Have you seen her?”
“No, I haven’t seen Lessie. But if I had, I wouldn’t tell you. Not after the way you have treated her, and allowed her to be treated.”
“She is my wife. It is a sin and an abomination for her to consort with other men. She will be damned to the eternal fires.”
“Will she? In what way is what she is doing now any different from what she was doing with you? You say she is your wife, but how can that be when the laws of this country allow a man only one? Legally, she is no more than your concubine. If she chooses to be the woman of another man, how can you condemn her?”
“Bravo, my Serena!” Consuelo said with a sharp clap of her hands. “Now let us go.”
“That’s not so,” the elder sputtered. “According to Mormon teaching it is my right to have more than one wife.”
“Is it also the right of the women to have more than one husband? No? I thought not. It sounds a mighty convenient teaching to me, for the Mormon men.” Stepping around the elder, Serena set out along the woode
n sidewalk with Consuelo behind her.
“You think this is the end, but it is not!” Elder Greer shouted after her. “I have been called to minister to women like you. I have been called to bring the Word to this Sodom and Gomorrah, to save the souls of the lewd temptresses who live on this street, to deliver them to salvation and the glory of heaven. You won’t escape me, do you hear me? I will save you! You will be mine yet!”
It was all Serena could do not to run to put a greater distance between herself and the fanatical shouting. It was Consuelo that broke the tension that held her. As they climbed the rising slope of Myers Avenue she snorted. “Bastard! That’s just what the women of this town need, a preacher after them, on top of a killer. I am not at all certain which is worse!”
“I hope he doesn’t find Lessie,” Serena said, a frown drawing her brows together.
“This Lessie, you knew her well?”
“She was a good friend,” Serena answered, and went on to explain the circumstances.
Consuelo pursed her full red lips. “What does she look like?”
“You think you can find her?”
“I do not know. There are thousands of people in this town, twenty-five, thirty thousand, maybe more. Still, if she has run away with a drummer as the preacher said, she may come finally to Myers Avenue, and if she does, it may be I will hear of her. I can ask around.”
“It would be wonderful beyond anything if you could find her,” Serena said, impulsively placing her hand on the other girl’s arm.
The Spanish girl smiled. “It will be nothing. If I can help you, then perhaps sometime you will help another. This is the way people live.”
“Not all people,” Serena said, and looked quickly away.
10
Consuelo, who shared a room with another girl at the parlor house next door, left Serena at the entrance to the Eldorado. Serena stared after her. The Spanish girl was so pleasant, such easy company, at least with her. Did she like the way she lived, did she dislike it? It was impossible to tell, just as it was impossible to remember when she was with her that Consuelo entertained men in her room. Watching her go with her back straight and her head held high, it was beyond belief to think that Consuelo undressed a half-dozen times each night, and in the lamplit dimness of her room, lay down naked upon her bed, and for the sake of money, allowed men intimacies with her body.
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