Ten Thousand Charms

by Allison Pittman

  By now the coffee was brewed, and its aroma filled the warm kitchen. Gloria inhaled the smell of breakfast and let out a small sigh.

  Jewell scooped a pile of scrambled eggs out of the iron skillet and onto a clean blue plate. Next to the eggs she plopped two biscuits fresh from the oven. This she set in front of Gloria with a steaming cup of coffee.

  “Sugar? Don’t have no milk.”

  “Black.”

  “So, when did you get caught?” Jewell poured herself a cup of coffee and settled across from Gloria with her own plate of food.

  “What makes you think I did?”

  “You’re here. You’re broke.”

  Gloria popped a bite of piping hot biscuit into her mouth and savored the sensation as it crumbled, melted, and found its way to her waiting stomach. She allowed herself one more bite, plus a forkful of eggs and a sip of coffee before continuing.

  “We all got caught,” Gloria said, gesturing with her fork. “All of us in Ellie’s house. Everyone in the district, really. The wives of the town went on a rampage.”

  “They got to put their upturned noses in everything, don’t they?”

  Gloria continued to eat, making every effort to remember to chew.

  “Ellie said we all had to pay our fines out of our own money. I knew if I sent her to my stash, she’d find out I’d been cheating her, so I told her I’d used all my money ordering a silk gown custom made in France. She let me sit in jail for a month.”

  For a minute the only sound was the scrape of Gloria’s fork.

  “I was in jail when I realized I was pregnant,” she said, not looking up. “I knew when I got out Ellie’d never keep me on, and eventually she’d learn that there wasn’t any dress coming from France. So one night I just left.”

  Jewell had been steadily eating throughout Gloria’s story. Now she set down her fork and reached for a small tin in the middle of the table. From it she drew out a pinch of tobacco and a small white rolling paper. Neither woman spoke again until the paper was licked, sealed, and lit with a match struck across the bottom of Jewell’s shoe.

  “Why here?” She puffed a bit of smoke, grimaced, and plucked a bit of loose tobacco off her bottom lip. “Why me?”

  “Where else? I needed someplace where I could be safe.”

  “From?”

  “Everything,” Gloria said.

  “And you think you’re safe with me?” Jewell’s voice was a mixture of curiosity and insult.

  “As safe as anywhere, I guess.”

  Jewell stubbed the rest of her cigarette out in a half-eaten biscuit just as Gloria made a move to snatch it off the plate. “Where’s the money?”

  Gloria made every effort to hold Jewell’s gaze. “Locked up in a bank back in Virginia City. But I have a little with me. I just need to hole up here for a while. I can pay.”

  “Forget pay. You plannin’ to work?”

  Gloria looked around the kitchen. Dirty dishes were piled everywhere.

  “I can clean up.”

  “That I expect. You know what I mean.”

  “Maybe in the spring. I figure my time will come in March, so …”

  “I got two little one-rooms out back. I was hoping to expand this spring. Looks like I got my wish. You can take one of those.”

  Jewell heaved herself up from the table and walked toward the kitchen door. Gloria got up, too, and searched for a bucket to take to the pump outside. When she found it, she turned to leave and was surprised to find Jewell hadn’t yet left the room.

  “One more thing, missy,” Jewell said, pointing an accusing finger. “Don’t for a minute think you’re gonna saddle me with this kid while you skip off back to the big money.”

  Gloria let her mouth fall open. “Jewell!” she exclaimed, bringing a hand to her heart. “What makes you think I’m capable of that?”

  “ ’Cause that’s what I’d do if I was in your boots.” Jewell pointed to Gloria’s bare feet, winked and walked out the door.

  2

  The snow came in earnest in November. There had been hints and teases of winter, short-lived flurries that dusted the trees with a temporary glaze; the hard frost each morning left icicles that melted long before noon. But on the day that Gloria counted to be the first of her fifth month of pregnancy, Silver Peak spent three days in the clenches of a ferocious blizzard. When the wind stopped and the last flake fell, the little settlement found itself buried under a solid blanket of winter. The trees now groaned under the weight of frozen batting. The miners who hadn’t abandoned the camp to work the mines in the more temperate California left their tents and crowded into makeshift cabins, sometimes five men to a single room, and prepared to wait out the winter. They made only the most occasional forays out to meet the party sent with pack mules to get supplies, or to pass an evening in Jewell’s warm and welcoming house.

  But if Jewell was counting on her red-roofed house to make her fortune, she was destined for disappointment. Those few men who remained to brave the winter often wanted little more than good whiskey or a warm meal after tramping through the snow to her door. Gloria spent many evenings alone in the kitchen, tidying up or just sitting by the warmth of the stove, listening to the conversation on the other side of the door.

  “Now come on, gents,” Jewell’s voice boomed, “I know you got a little something extra in those pockets to spend upstairs.”

  And some anonymous male voice would answer that if Jewell was going to charge fifty cents for a shot of whiskey, he’d better save his money to get through winter, and the parlor would rumble with laughter and agreement.

  Sometimes the door separating the kitchen from the parlor would bang open, and Sadie, one of only two girls besides Biddy who stayed to hold out the winter with Jewell, would burst through.

  “Liebling, why stay in here all alone? Come talk with us.” Her voice held the faintest trace of a native German tongue, giving every statement the air of a command. Even Jewell had been known to bend herself to Sadie’s whim, but Gloria felt no compunction to obey.

  Later on the door might crack open ever so slightly, and the round soft face of Mae, the third of Jewell’s girls, would poke her head around the corner, saying, “Gloria? Are you sure you don’t want to come out? Sadie’s about to tell more stories about New York. Wouldn’t you like to hear?”

  But Gloria could hear the stories just fine through the door, and as long as she listened through the door, nobody would ask to hear her own stories. She didn’t have any she was willing to tell.

  But late, late at night, after the last of the whiskey-warmed miners had stumbled into the snow or had been tumbled, with a rental rate taken from their pockets, into an empty bed upstairs, Sadie, Mae, Biddy, and Jewell would wander into the kitchen where Gloria still sat, reluctant to leave its warmth to make her way to her little cabin in the back. Mae took charge of boiling water for tea, and Jewell passed her flask, dropping a jot of brandy into every cup. Sadie poked the fire in the stove, sending a final blast of warmth into the room, and Biddy sat silently in her chair, the expression of terror that normally filled her face temporarily masked with an air of contentment.

  This is when the table came alive with stories. Jewell regaled them all with tales of the colorful men of the untamed country. Mae had few tales to tell, but her absolute delight with any amusing tidbit was just as entertaining. Biddy’s tragic tale was common knowledge, but she sometimes softened the room with a contribution only she could bring—memories of a home, a family, a loving mother and father who hadn’t sold her into this life.

  “Your mother would be glad to know you’re safe. And warm,” Sadie said one evening, placing a strong hand over Biddy’s tiny one. “There’s worse than this.”

  Jewell was downing a swig from her heavily laced tea and chuckled as she wiped her mouth with her sleeve and gave Gloria a nudge with her elbow. “She’s got that right, eh, missy? She ain’t seen the half of what she’s bound to.”

  “Ssshht!” Sadie hissed. “She�
�s a child, Jewell.”

  “A young woman alone in this world ain’t got time to be a child,” Jewell said. “Besides, this one here was one of my girls when she wasn’t much older than Biddy, weren’t you Gloria?”

  Gloria’s face burned, and she focused her gaze on the stray tea leaves floating in her cup.

  “But was that what you wanted?” Mae asked.

  “Who knows what they want?” Gloria said, shrugging. She brought her steaming cup to her lips to stifle any further conversation.

  “Well,” Sadie said, slamming both of her big hands on the tabletop loud enough to rattle the cups and startle the women out of their melancholy, “when I was little, I wanted to be a hot corn girl.”

  Gloria gulped a bit too much of the hot liquid and choked it down.

  “A what?” Jewell asked.

  “A hot corn girl. Where I grew up, we had all kinds of vendors out in the streets. They had little carts that they pushed up and down, calling out to everybody. But I loved most to see the hot corn girls.”

  “What were they?” Biddy’s eyes matched the wonder in her words.

  “Oh, they was beautiful. They chose young girls, the pretty ones, and they wore these great skirts that looked like layers and layers of rags. And a blouse on top that was open, like this.” She used her finger to draw a line from one broad shoulder to the next. “And they would walk, barefoot no matter what the weather, pulling a little cart and calling—” At this, Sadie scooted her chair away from the table. She clutched a handful of her skirt in one hand and held the other aloft as she sashayed around the kitchen.

  “Hot corn! Hot corn! Here’s your lily-white hot corn. Hot corn! All hot! Just come out of the boiling pot!”

  Her voice took on a charming and innocent quality as she filled the room with its song.

  “Why didn’t you do it?” Mae asked.

  “Oh, only the prettiest girls could get that work.” Sadie settled herself back into her chair. “I have never been a great beauty.”

  “Nonsense,” Mae said.

  Gloria looked up from her tea to study Sadie’s face. There was no hint of embarrassment at her statement or any sense of begging for a compliment. And she did not acknowledge Mae’s attempt to give her one. Rather, she turned to young Biddy at her right and, cupping the young girl’s face in her strong hand, said, “You, Liebling, would make a beautiful hot corn girl.”

  Biddy’s face burst into a smile.

  “And you,” Sadie directed her glance to Jewell, “are so powdered and puffy you look like a beautiful pot of hot corn.”

  The room exploded in laughter that dwarfed any ever heard in that house. All five women were left speechless, breathless, holding their sides and wiping their eyes. Biddy declared it was the first time she’d laughed since before her brother died. Mae’s body seemed to ripple. Jewell herself was not immune to the infectious humor.

  And Gloria thought she was going to die. Or the baby was going to die. Or both. She had never in her life experienced laughter to the point of pain. She held herself and doubled over, anxious for the return of her breath so she could cry out for help, but every breath just fueled another spasm.

  Then, suddenly, with one sharp gasp, she stopped. The look of shock on her face brought the other women around the table to a halt, too. Except for Mae, who continued to quiver silently.

  “Gloria,” Jewell said, the first syllable spoken like a chuckle, “you all right?”

  “We’re fine,” Gloria said, returning her hand to her stomach. “The baby just laughed back.”

  Baby.

  It was the first time she’d voiced the word.

  Just after midnight, the brandy took its toll and Jewell hoisted herself up from the table saying, “Night, ladies,” before ambling upstairs to her room. Mae left half a step behind her, ready to lend a steadying hand at the slightest stagger. Biddy followed, yawning.

  Sadie and Gloria sat in comfortable, sisterly ease for a while.

  “You think March?” Sadie spoke into the silence.

  “Hm?” Gloria said.

  “Your baby. It will be here in March?”

  “Oh, yes. ’Round there sometime. It’s hard to know for sure.”

  “March is nice. A spring baby.”

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “Scared?”

  “Not so much scared,” Gloria said. “More like sad.”

  Sadie ran her finger around the edge of her empty cup. Said nothing.

  “I can just imagine,” Gloria said, “this baby sitting around a table some night telling stories about how her mama was a—”

  “Might be a boy,” Sadie said with a smile.

  “That doesn’t change who I am,” Gloria said. “I just don’t want this baby to have the life I had.”

  “So change your life.”

  “To what?”

  “Find the father. Bat those big blue eyes of yours and say, ‘Darling, today’s your lucky day.’ ”

  “I wouldn’t know who to bat my eyes at.”

  “You did not come here to find the father.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I thought Jewell could get rid of it.”

  “This far along? You could have died.”

  Gloria stared into Sadie’s eyes and let the depth of her desperation sink into the silence.

  Sadie reached for Gloria’s hand, holding it firm, despite Gloria’s attempt to pull it away. “It is a baby,” she said, “not the end of your life.”

  “I don’t care about my life,” Gloria said. “I never have.”

  “But now you share it.”

  “Not for long. Not for a minute longer than I have to.” Gloria snatched her hand free and drummed her fingers on the table.

  “So Jewell was right.”

  “About what?”

  “She thinks you are planning to drop the baby here and leave in the spring.”

  Gloria didn’t deny it.

  “Listen to me, Gloria. Things will change when you see that baby. You cannot help but … care.”

  “Like my mother did?”

  “No,” Sadie said. “Like I did. Every one of them.”

  Odd, but Gloria’s first reaction was to look around the room, as if somehow during the weeks she’d been living here she had overlooked the presence of Sadie’s children running underfoot.

  Sadie seemed to read her mind and laughed. “Well, of course they are not here,” she said warmly.

  “Where are they?”

  Sadie’s plain face took on a dreamy expression, and her smile wavered for just a moment before she said, “Now, that is a question. I had a little boy, then a little girl. Both born just perfect, but …” The wistful pain in Sadie’s eyes kept Gloria from asking for details. Right there at Jewell’s table, Sadie seemed to get younger and younger, revealing the girl she had once been. Not pretty, exactly, but softer, innocent.

  “The next one came too soon,” she continued. “I wasn’t much farther along than you are now. After that—” she stumbled, as if searching for the precise thought—“well, I suppose I was not meant to be a mother. But still, in here,” she tapped her breast, “I still long for my children. I still carry a love for them.”

  “That’s just it,” Gloria said, beating her own heart. “I don’t feel anything here.”

  “You will,” Sadie said. “Trust me. And when your time comes, I’ll be there to help you. I helped bring lots of babies into this world. Never lost any that weren’t my own.” She chuckled. “Guess I was meant to be on the other end.”

  Gloria shared her smile and felt a need to comfort and reassure this woman who always seemed stronger than herself.

  “I’ll be glad to have you with me,” she said. “I guess I am a little scared.” She gave Sadie a pat on her hand and stood to leave. “G’night.” She drew her shawl tight around her and braced herself to face the late-night cold.

  “Why don’t you just stay in one of the rooms upstairs?” Sadie asked. “With ju
st the three of us in the house, there is plenty of space.”

  “No, thanks. I’ve spent most of my life in somebody’s upstairs room. I like having my own little house.” She glanced out the window at the tiny shack. “I like being alone.”

  The baby made another lurch within her, strong enough to call her attention and bring a protective hand to her abdomen.

  “Well,” she forced a smile, “almost alone.”

  3

  The fire in the little stove died during the night. The pile of quilts and blankets kept Gloria warm enough, but one poke of her nose outside the mound of covers was enough to let her know it would be a long, miserable walk to the outhouse.

  “Maybe I can wait,” she murmured to herself before burrowing deeper into her nest. Five minutes later, though, waiting was no longer an option.

  The first step was always the worst. Even though her feet were wrapped in thick woolen socks, the sharp chill of the floor was painful to her feet. Her body was wracked with chills, and her hands shook so much that she couldn’t fasten the hooks of her boots.

  “Oh, bother with the buttons,” she finally said. She wrapped herself in a generous wool coat and headed outside.

  There hadn’t been a fresh snow in over a week, and Gloria easily traversed the well-worn path from her door to the outhouse. Having relieved herself, she faced a choice between taking the same path back or branching right to follow the path to Jewell’s back door.

  “Well,” she said, “let’s see what the girls have for breakfast.”

  There was the usual bustle of activity in Jewell’s cozy kitchen, but food wasn’t a part of it.

  “Girl, we ate near an hour ago,” Jewell said. She was pulling all the jars and tins from the shelves and assembling them on the table. “There’s some coffee you can warm up.”

  “Oh, let me fry her up some grits,” Mae said. “Poor thing in her condition, she needs her sleep.”

  “Thanks, Mae,” Gloria said with a grateful smile.

  Just then Sadie poked her head through the door. “One of the men just rode up. He says the supply wagon is about halfway up the pass. Should be here before dark.”