by Shirl Henke
Ephraim regarded his younger daughter with worried perplexity. She had always been the brighter, more inquisitive child, the free spirit of the family; and she was his favorite, just as Leah was the apple of Dorcas' eye. But perhaps his wife was right and he had allowed Rebekah too much free rein over the years. This jaunt to the wrong side of the tracks could have resulted in real physical harm, not simply scandal. “Perhaps, it would be best if I talked with Rebekah in private.”
When the Reverend Ephraim Sinclair made a suggestion in that tone of voice, even the shrewish Dorcas knew it was advisable to assent. Huffing, she ushered Leah from the study, saying, “Do help me see to putting dinner on the table. Not that I shall be able to eat a bite, I'm that upset.”
Ephraim waited until they were gone, then unfolded his lanky frame from the overstuffed chair and walked around the desk. Rebekah watched him, feeling the weight of guilt fold around her like a rain-soaked woolen cloak. All her mother's histrionics and her sister's pious meanness did not have half the effect on her as one condemning look from her father—especially when he looked as hurt as he did now.
I'm sorry, Papa. Sneaking over to glitter town was a very foolish thing to do, and I offer no excuse.” Her shoulders slumped.
It was highly dangerous, Rebekah. There are men over there—terrible men—who could harm an innocent like you. This box fighter might well be one such despoiler.”
Oh, no! Rory isn't at all like that,’ Rebekah blurted out before she could stop herself. When would she ever learn to guard her tongue!
“Rory? You seem to have become rather taken with the young man. Is that the real reason for meeting him?” he asked, rubbing his forehead with a pale, veiny hand.
“No—that is, well I—I don't know.” Her face flamed as visions of Rory Madigan's lean, sweat-soaked body flashed through her mind. She could still feel the heat of his lips tingling on her fingertips. “He's not what you think—a ruffian. He's well-spoken and polite.” Polite? A lie, Rebekah, her conscience chastised.
“But he is a prizefighter, drifting from one rough saloon district to another. And an Irish immigrant, also no doubt, Catholic. Do you have any idea what these things mean, Rebekah?”
“I'll never see him again, Papa. I only had to warn him about the danger,” Rebekah replied miserably.
“That appears to make you unhappy, daughter,” he replied gravely. “Think, child. He is not the kind of man with whom you should be keeping company. The Irish mostly are a drunken lot, I fear, and firmly entrenched in Romanish superstitions. You've been raised with a fine religious heritage, Rebekah. Your faith should be everything to you, as it is to me.”
She could feel his eyes on her, sad and gentle, yet censuring all the same. Although a tolerant champion of blacks and Chinese, as well as many of the other diverse immigrants to Nevada, Ephraim Sinclair's intense dislike of Irish Catholics had always been steadfast since her earliest childhood memories. She often wondered why, but never dared to ask such a personal thing. “I'm certain Mr. Madigan will be gone in a few days, Papa. There's no danger to my faith.”
Ephraim sighed. “Ah, but you're coming of age, and it is natural for you to think of marriage. The important thing is to find a suitable husband—a fine, God-fearing man from my flock. Did I mention, Rebekah, that Amos Wells is coming for dinner on Sunday after church?’'
Rebekah's head shot up in amazement. Amos Wells was a deacon at First Presbyterian and the wealthiest contributor in the congregation. But what did he have to do with her reaching a marriageable age? The man was positively ancient. “I'm sure Mama will be thrilled. Mr. Wells is the leading citizen of the town. After all, it was named after him. His mining and banking ventures made Wellsville,” she said, testing the waters. Her father was a man who often kept his own council when it suited him. She looked at him expectantly.
Ephraim cleared his throat, more nervous than was his usual wont, uncertain of how to phrase what he needed to say to Rebekah. Perhaps, the bald truth would serve best. Rebekah was willful; and if she did not fancy the match, he would never force her, no matter what Dorcas wished. “Mr. Wells has been a widower for over a year now. He is a vigorous man in the prime of his life, a wealthy man without heirs since the Lord did not see fit to bless him and the late Mrs. Wells with offspring. He's looking for a wife, Rebekah, and expressed to me an interest in courting you. I said I was pleased, but the final decision, of course, must be your own. He's a fine, upstanding man, Rebekah.”
She felt pole axed, unable to speak a word for several moments. “Celia Hunt favors him,” she finally blurted out.
Ephraim shook his head and sighed. “Celia is a dear, sweet girl, but far too scatterbrained and spoiled for a man like Amos.”
“But—but, why me? I'm scatterbrained, too, and not at all pious and proper like Leah.”
Reverend Sinclair smiled. “You're impulsive and a bit rebellious at times. For example, jumping in the creek to save Laban Parker's little boy at the Sunday school picnic before one of the young men could do it. Or the time you took all the food from your mother's pantry and distributed it to the miners' children. But you have a fine mind, Rebekah. You've read every book in my library, even the Greek mythologies your mother deemed unsuitable for a young lady.” He made a mock scowl.
“I remember,” she said with a blush of mortification. She had been caught with the page open to the story of Leda and the Swan, for which crime she had been soundly paddled and sent to bed without supper by her mother. Sometimes, she had wondered about the frankly carnal descriptions of mating in Greek myths and what truly went on between men and women to beget children. What would it be like to have a man touch her unclothed body? Rory Madigan's devilish wink and white smile flashed before her once more. Then, she thought of Amos Wells' austere countenance and shuddered at the very idea of him coming near her that way. What was wrong with her? Her father was right. Rory was completely wrong for her. But surely, Amos could not be right.
“Well, Rebekah? How do you feel about Amos' suit?” he pressed when she sat rigidly in front of him, not meeting his eyes. He had anticipated that this would not be easy.
“I suppose there's no harm in conversing with him over Sunday dinner,” she capitulated glumly. Possibly, being nice to Amos Wells for a while would cool Dorcas' wrath over her latest escapade. And most of all, she did not want to hurt her father any more than she already had.
* * * *
Virginia City
A short, voluptuous whore in a gaudy yellow satin dress and black fishnet tights sat on Rory's lap, running her fingers through his hair as he took a swallow of forty rod that burned all the way down. Her rouged cheeks and carmined lips gave color to the otherwise pale complexion of a woman who saw little more sunlight than did her miner patrons. Brittle yellow hair hung in banana curls that fell over her bare shoulders. He touched one, then dropped the dry, frizzy clump.
“Whatzamatter, Irish? You don' like Sadie no more?” She hiccuped drunkenly, planting a wet kiss against his neck. “I brung ya luck at faro.”
Rory had won a sizable pot at the rigged table before losing it between there and the bar, which was the establishment's plan. He knew it. Just as he knew in a sudden rush of drunken honesty that he had picked Sadie because she was a blonde like Rebekah Sinclair. But Rebekah's soft, silky skin and hair, her innocent charm and humor, were sadly lacking in the mining camp girl. If Rebekah could see him in the wild and raucous Comstock, she would be appalled.
The Howling Wilderness was typical of the saloons lining C Street, a bustling thoroughfare set between the steep, barren mountains under which men gouged out the biggest fortune in history. They worked in blistering heat in a labyrinth of tunnels containing as much timber as it took to build the city of Chicago. Virginia City was big and sprawling and ugly, a festering sore above and below the ground, where life was cheap and death as easily come by as bad whiskey and worse women.
A typical crowd tromped about on the sawdust-covered saloon floo
r—garishly dressed Jezebels danced and drank with red-faced Welsh and Cornish miners, while hard-eyed Mexican pistoleros diced. Fancy Eastern lawyers with the stink of larcenous litigation on them played poker. Crude Pikes from the hills of Missouri and Arkansas, their Bowie knives gleaming and ready, spat lobs of brown tobacco in the general direction of gummy, fly-covered cuspidors.
A fight erupted in one corner of the saloon between a Chilean miner and an Italian grocer, but the piano player continued his discordant plinking. No one paid any mind to a scuffle unless shots rang out. Roulette wheels clacked, while bluff and hearty Saxon cattle buyers raised their beer steins. A small, swarthy French Canadian sat in one corner paring long, dirt-encrusted nails with a gleaming stiletto, his solemn gray eyes as old as the volcanic mountains in which the mother lode lay.
Rory was in his element, raw and uncivilized, where foreigners outnumbered Americans. How different this desolate hellhole was from the lush verdancy of the Truckee Valley, only a few dozen miles away as the crow flew. Fleetingly, he wished he could be as free as a bird to fly away from the sounds of curses and breaking glass, the cloying smell of Sadie's cheap perfume.
“Dreams, boyo, only dreams,” he muttered beneath his breath, ignoring the scarlet poppy who was expecting him to take her upstairs at the end of the night. The thought of a sexual liaison with her was even more repugnant to Rory, than bedding the drunken gold-camp denizens was to the whores.
He scooted the blonde from his lap and stood up, deciding on a breath of fresh air to clear his head. Elbowing his way through the press of sweaty, cursing men garbed in flannel and denim, he walked into the darkness of the street via a side door. Leaning against the brick wall, which was still warm from the day's blistering heat, he lit a cigar in the chill night air. Smoking was a rare and expensive extravagance he allowed himself only after winning a big purse.
Taking a long drag on the pungent tobacco, he wondered idly how it might be to always have the best, to sleep on clean sheets every night and wake up with a beautiful, golden-haired lady at his side every morning. To make love to a woman he had not bought for the night.
The rematch last night with Wharton must have addled his brains, even if the clumsy oaf had scarcely landed a punch. He chuckled to himself, recalling the surprised look on his opponent's face when January “accidentally” kicked over the water bucket just as the first round ended, then ran to refill it while the two men again toed the mark and continued to box. He had taken the Wellsville Wonder in only sixteen rounds this time.
The purse was the biggest he had ever won, a thousand dollars. And he owed it all to Rebekah Sinclair. Rebekah, who was a minister's daughter, a lady as far above him as the stars. But that did not stop him from dreaming—or squandering his cut of the take on cheap women, whiskey, and cards. Spending money was easy to do at gold-camp prices. Such had become the cycle of his life since he had come west five years ago in search of his brother. Better I don’t think of that. Better I don’t think of Rebekah Sinclair either.
But he could not stop himself. Ever since he had kissed her soft fingertips and looked into her green eyes with the gold specks floating in them, the memory of her had tormented him. With a muttered oath, he flicked away the last of the cigar and returned to the bright lights and noise inside the saloon.
* * * *
“Rory, mate, wake up. Bloody ‘ell, it's gonna take me a bleedin' month ta get you in shape again.” January's scarred, strong little fingers dug into the big Irishman's scalp, lifting his face from the pillow. “Wake up, bucko. It's past noon ‘n the lydies”—he emphasized the word mockingly— “wants us out of 'ere.”
Rory mumbled something unintelligible and rolled onto his back with one arm flung across his eyes to hold back the agonizing rays of brilliant sunlight pouring into the dingy little room. Not even the sooty window could sufficiently filter the glare to his bloodshot eyes. Lord, his head pounded worse than the base drum in a Salvation Army marching band.
“I'm up, I'm up.” He rolled to the side of the bed and cradled his head in both hands as the wizened little black man scooped up his clothes and shoved them at him.
“You 'ardly got any money left. Blimey, Madigan, ain't you ever gonna learn? Them blacklegs 'n whiskey morts pick you clean every time you win a purse,” the Cockney scolded.
“What else is there for a fine Irish bucko like meself to be doin', January?” Rory's brogue returned only when he was drunk or angry. At the moment he hated the world, but most of all, he hated himself.
“You could be puttin' a bit 'o yer stash away, like I'm doin'. Got me enough ta go back 'ome 'n start a fight club outside London, I does.”
“Then why don't you be off, you little bugger?” Rory cocked one eyebrow, then winced at the stab of pain that lanced through his skull.
January winked his good right eye. The other was glass. He had lost it in a boxing match against a man twice his size in Liverpool when he was a youth. “'Ere now. I couldn't be leavin' you, mate. You was gettin' yer brains beat out when we met up in Denver—what little brains a mickey ever 'ad.”
“Some talk from a one-eyed black Sassenach,” Rory scoffed fondly. In truth, January had probably saved his life. He took a green boy who was only a clumsy brawler working his way west with his fists and turned him into a highly skilled professional.
After Rory finished dressing, the two men made their way down the back stairs and headed through the bustling streets of Virginia City. Huge ore dumps were scattered like random heaps of excrement from some monolithic dragon. No one seemed to mind the ugly scarring in their quest for silver and gold. Miners, bankers, lawyers and cowmen made their way through the streets, all intent on having his own cut of the mother lode. The unlikely pair walked quickly to a false-fronted frame building a few rows down from the saloon. The sign out front read Chickin' 'n Fixins, Rosie O’Rourke, Prop. It was not as respectable or elegant as the dining room at the International Hotel; but the food was hearty, cheap—by gold camp standards—and plentiful.
As they sat at the end of a long trestle table, their plates cleaned, Rory and January drank more of the scalding inky coffee that was Rosie's specialty.
“You seem a million miles off, Rory. What's chewin' on ya? Maybe, we should leave the Comstock.”
“No. That cave-in that buried Ryan was six years ago. Nothing can bring him back—or Patrick. There's nowhere left to run or hide, January. This is as good as anywhere else I've been since I was fourteen years old.”
“Even I'd 'ardly call th’ Five Points o’ New York as good as 'ere,” January said with a mirthless chuckle.
Rory's shoulders shrugged expressively. “It was poorer, yes, but my parents were alive—and Sean and Ryan and Patrick. We were a family, come to America filled with hopes and dreams.” His voice turned flat, and he returned to sipping his coffee.
“'Ere now, mate. While you was busy with doxies 'n cards, I been takin' th' measure 'o the brawlers 'ere 'bouts. You could best any o' th' stumblebums, once we shape you up.”
Rory looked across the chipped rim of his cup, his dark blue eyes studying the seared, grizzled black face of his friend. “You serious about going back to England and starting a fight club?”
“Yes, but I thought you said you'd never live by Sassenachs.”
“I won't. Not that it's much better here. ‘No Irish need apply’ isn't just a slogan in London—it's even more commonplace on the East Coast. I thought coming west would make a difference.” He set down his mug and stared into the silty grounds at its bottom. “But that was when I still dreamed of finding my brothers.”
“There's plenty opportunity out 'ere for a bright bloke like yerself—bloody 'ell, even bein' Irish, you ain't black. Look at John Mackay, Jim Fair, Billie O'Brien 'n Jimmy Flood—all of 'em Irishmen 'n all of 'em Comstock millionaires.”
“I'll never set foot in a mine. Not after how Ryan died.”
“Well then, 'ow 'bout startin' trainin' for yer next fight?”
“What if I don't want to fight anymore, January?”
The older man nodded and swallowed his coffee. “Umm, I been wonderin' 'ow long it'd take you ta figger out you didn't want that pretty face ta end up lookin' like mine. What made up your mind?”
The vision of Rebekah Sinclair flashed before his eyes, her soft cool hand brushing his bruised cheek with concern and tenderness in her emerald eyes. Aloud he said, “I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired of waking up like I did this morning, beat up and hung-over. I train and practice for weeks, win a big purse and then...” He gestured with one bruised hand. “I blow it all on a few nights' carousing. There has to be something better, more lasting...some way to drown the pain.”
January studied his young friend intently, recalling the two young ladies on the roof in Wellsville the other day. One of them had almost gotten Rory's head taken off, she distracted him so much. “Sounds to me like yer talkin' 'bout a woman—not these 'ere gold-camp lightskirts neither.”
Rory shrugged dismissively. “Maybe there is. Hell, I don't know, January. Right now it seems impossible. It probably is...she wouldn't like a brawler to come calling. I was thinking of trying some safe, regular job.” He looked at the dubious expression on January's face. “Doesn't sound like me, I know.”
“A bloody female can do most anything to a bloke. Change 'is whole bleedin' life.”
* * * *
As he rode into Wellsville, Rory remembered how different it had looked only a few days ago when he and January had approached the sleepy little cow town from the opposite direction, headed straight to the row of saloons and bordellos. The deadfall side of town looked like a thousand other places he had seen over the past years, filled with cheap shanties and gaudy gin mills, teeming with the roughest and lowest dregs of humanity. The sour smells of beer, sweat, and stale perfume mingled together, as hard-eyed men and even harder-eyed whores welcomed the amusement of a good fight.
