“My husband’s name was Charles Abrams. He was an importer of tea leaves and lived in the east. I came west when he died because the east was too painful to me. As for my accent, sir, I was born in England but I have moved around so much that my voice, I fear, is a frightful mishmash.” One half-truth, one half deceit, let him decide which is which.
“Okay, Miss Abrams.” He waved at the door.
Alma left and returned to Wallace’s office. He was sitting with the pose of a man desperate for news: back so straight it was a wonder his spine did not break; fingernails tap, tap, tapping the desk, bottom lip caught in his upper teeth. When she entered he leapt to his feet. “What did the old bastard say? He said no, didn’t he? He doesn’t want a thing to do with me. Me, his only son!”
“Calm, my love,” Alma said, placing a soothing hand on his arm. “Tomorrow morning you will make the rounds of the mines. You will take the morning shift, now. And you will take me with you.”
It wasn’t a question.
Chapter 5
When she returned to Beryl’s, it was late and the bar was packed wall to wall with miners and whores and serving girls and young boys darting between the tables with trays of food and drinks. The miners were loud and boisterous and dirty but Alma did not mind them. Her mind was on what she had told Abraham about England, about where she was from. She disliked, greatly, when Father entered her mind. Like a malicious disease he would enter her consciousness, infecting everything. The memory of a thousand bruises would leave phantom imprints on her skin. The memory of a thousand humiliations would bring twisted sneers into her mind’s eye.
She sat on a stall and ordered a whisky. Men gave her sidelong glances, or turned their noses up at her, or openly gazed in lust. She did not mind. She had already tamed two of the most powerful men in town. She was protected. Solomon moved to and fro behind the bar. “Solomon!” she called, hardly thinking.
He came to her, gaze down. “Yes, ma’am?” he said.
She realized she did not have much to say; she just wanted his company. She just wanted to blot out Father’s fists and bared teeth and raised voice. “We should have a visit sometime,” she said. “What do you think? What time do you finish this evening?”
“Ma’am?” Solomon’s voice was shaky.
Alma leaned in. “Do not worry,” she said. “If you like, it can be a secret meeting. In the stables, when the town is sleeping?” She tried to catch his eye but he wouldn’t look at her. There was something infinitely fascinating about his muscular body and his shy countenance; that unusual mix of shyness and power intrigued her.
Though he did not meet her gaze, he nodded quickly.
“Good. See you then!” She leaned back and drained her whisky.
The night moved around her. Men laughed and called to each other, but eventually they had to drag their bodies off to wherever they slept. They would rise early in the morning and be down in the pits, smacking the earth with picks and waiting for that manna-like silver. She knew, too, that these men were only the miners from the mines near Calico. The miners from farther out slept near the mines, so that their existence was more completely comprised of work alone.
The bar had emptied around her. Alma’s head was pulsing with the whisky, a pulse strong enough to push away Father, thank God. Beryl leaned across the bar and gave her an ear-to-ear smile. “You look tired, Alma,” she said.
“I don’t have time to be tired, Beryl, as I am sure you can sympathize with.”
Beryl’s smile grew wider. “Do you want to know something? I am finding, to my surprise, that I like you very much. You have an inexplicable effect on people.”
“Oh, it is not so inexplicable,” Alma said. “People – men and women alike – desire beautiful things. Without being too immodest, one must admit that I am beautiful.”
Beryl shrugged. “Yes, I suppose you are.”
Alma left the bar and walked outside and then into the stables. Horses snorted and coughed and the stable boy approached her. “Here,” she said, and handed him some money. “Go and play somewhere else for half an hour.”
Without a word, he left. She stroked Roach’s nose and tickled her under the chin. “I know you’re restless, girl,” she said. “Don’t worry. Tomorrow, we’ll ride.”
Somebody coughed behind her. She turned, and Solomon took a nervous step forward. “Ma’am,” he said.
“You don’t have to call me ma’am or miss,” Alma said. “I am no special person. Just call me Alma.”
“Alma?” he said uncertainly. She knew this was strange for him. He was not used to ladies – or anybody, she supposed – showing him anything other than disdain. But that was why she was attracted to him. There were strong people and then there were people with the potential for strength. Alma had always found the latter more interesting. Yes, in her work time she would pursue Wallace and whoever else she had to tame to reach her goals. But this was her time . . .
“Yes,” she said. “Come here.”
There must have been some part of him that was as intrigued with her as she was with him, for he walked to her, stood so close to her that she could feel the heat of him, smell the sweat of his body. She touched his chin, lifted his gaze so they were looking eye to eye. “You don’t have to fear me,” she said. Her voice was untouched by the machinations which usually gripped it. She was herself.
He stared into her eyes; his eyes were wide, fascinated. “Folk don’t usually show me much kindness,” he said quietly, his lips quivering as though the effort of looking into her eyes was too much, too strange.
“I am not folks,” Alma said. “I pretend to be them and I infiltrate their lives and I laugh when they laugh and I smile when they smile. Yes, I do all that is expected of me. But I am not them.”
“Why are you telling me, Alma?”
She moved her hand from his cheek to his chin. “Because I do not want to be lonely. And I see in you something which has long been inside myself.”
“What do you see?”
“Fear. Fear of everything. Fear of other people and fear of yourself.” She brushed her thumb along his lower lip. “You are a handsome man, Solomon. Will you kiss me?”
His Adam’s apple shifted as he swallowed. “Kiss . . . you?”
“Yes.” She moved her hand through his hair, soft on her skin. “Have you ever kissed a woman before?”
He shook his head and glanced down. But then, he glanced back up.
“Would you like to?” Alma asked.
He nodded.
“Be brave, then,” she said.
Slowly, he leaned forward. Alma waited for him. This was an important moment for him, she could tell. She did not close the distance. After a few seconds, his lips found hers. Clumsily, he kissed her. But as she kissed him back – as their lips opened and their tongues touched – his clumsiness was replaced by passion. She heard him moan; she moaned in return.
Then she broke off the kiss, and wrapped her arms around him, and buried her face in his chest. “We will be good friends, won’t we?”
“Yes,” he said gravely, and embraced her with his strong, safe arms.
Interlude
If anybody thought that one year in the Mojave, through summer, autumn, winter, spring, and then summer once again, would dampen the spark of Alma, would reduce her beauty, would in any way diminish the wonder with which she was held, they were disproven. Each morning, she and Wallace Saville made their rounds of the mines, Alma like a queen atop Roach, looking down at her subjects. The miners, when they saw her, gazed up at her as though she was more than a queen, as though she was a goddess. Alma, for her part, was impatient, but knew that this would take time, knew she had to make herself a fixture in this place before she tried to fundamentally change it.
She did not love Wallace. She knew that in her bones. She enjoyed their sex and she enjoyed exploring his body. She liked the feel of his cock, his breath on her neck; and how he grunted when he spilled his seed, she felt a sort of satisfacti
on. But when it came to love – that illusive emotion she was not familiar with – she did not feel it. Wallace often asked her how she did not become pregnant. She would answer that she was lucky, for the true reason – Father’s abuse, a curse, or something even sicker – she had never known.
She spent her days with Wallace and her nights with Elise or Beryl or Solomon. Solomon, most of all, was her crutch. They kissed and hugged, but that was all. That was enough. By day she was a seducer, a siren. By night, she was allowed to be a woman in the first whispers of true affection, holding and kissing. By night, she was allowed to be a person.
And so the Mojave once again blazed with summer light. Sweat once again flecked every inch of every person. Life shone on.
Alma knew that she had to do something, had to further her goals, had to act. She had not come this far to stop now, to rest on in this position. She had not come this far to become complacent, lazy. No, like a shooting star she would blaze across this town, up, up, until she became somebody important.
Never again would her past define her.
The future was all.
Chapter 6
“You deserve more. It’s been a year, my love.”
My love. Has there ever been a less appropriate term for what we are?
“I know, I know,” Wallace said, in the tone of voice which told her he was not interested. He folded his legs under his chair and leaned his elbows on the desk, the result being he looked like a scared, chastised schoolboy. “But what am I to say to him?”
“He is old and tired,” Alma said. “Tell him that he has had his time. Tell him that you are thankful for everything he has done. Tell him that it is time for him to pass the torch to you.”
Alma touched his forearm, moved her hand up to his hand, and interlocked her fingers with his. He gave her hand a squeeze and then let out a long sigh. Alma knew exactly how this conversation would go. She had spent enough time with this man to get the true size of him. He was not as ambitious or power-hungry as she had first judged him. But he did not want to appear pointless, either. “Perhaps you could . . .”
“Of course,” Alma said.
She left him, then, alone in his office. She was discovering that watching him mope and self-pity was the most infuriating thing in this town, even more infuriating than the way Elise the whore licked her lips, or Beryl raised her eyebrows in judgment each time Alma looked at Solomon. She returned to the hotel and waited in her room for evening, when Abraham would return to the offices. When she heard the men returning from the mines, she went to the offices and up to his door.
She knocked. He answered: “Come in!”
Abraham looked five years older, though it had only been a year. His beard was stringy and thin and he no longer shaved the top of his head so studiously, so thin wisps of fuzz sprouted all over the place. He had lost more teeth. “Alma,” he breathed. “Hello. It’s good to see you.”
“And you, sir,” she said, taking a seat without asking.
He had lost much of his aura of power. He seemed like a tired old man more than anything. Alma waited for a few moments to see if he would talk. When he didn’t, she got into it: “Look at you, Abraham. You’re breathing so heavily I’m afraid you might blow this whole office down! Think of your legs! Your back! You must be in monstrous pain.” Alma’s voice was full of sympathetic, caring tones: tones of a woman who is genuinely distraught by what she is seeing. “You need to stop this,” she said, now pleading. “Please, Abraham, I care about you too much to see you in this much pain. Let Wallace take over. There is no shame in it. He is your son. He is ready. You have trained him well.” I have, anyway.
For a moment he regarded her as though he would throw her out of the office. Some of his old fire came into his face. Alma half expected him to smooth his hand over his wispy hair and exclaim: “I am not an old man yet!” But he didn’t. As soon as the fire entered his eyes it left. He deflated before her, his shoulders slumping, and let out a heavy sigh. “You’re right,” he said, and Alma felt a moment of triumph. This last year had been worth it, then. She did not let it show on her face; she would never make that mistake.
“You do not need to think less of yourself, sir,” she said. “You have showed great resilience in lasting this long at your age. Many men would have given up by now. Is it not true that DeBell and Gaston no longer roam as far as you do? Is it not true that both men have under their employ men who do that for them?”
Abraham admitted that it was true.
“Is it not acceptable, then,” Alma went on, “to pass on your responsibility to your son, whom you know you can trust above all others?”
He looked at her with such gratitude that Alma did not know whether to laugh or weep. He really thought, poor man, that she had his best interests at heart. He was truly under the impression that she was Alma the Angel, selfless in the extreme, a true saver of souls.
“I can finally rest,” he breathed. He nodded, and a smile broke out across his face. “I had never considered that I could rest but you, girl, you are something else. What are you? Eh? Tell me that. You are like no woman I have ever met. You are nothing like my dear dead wife. You are nothing like any woman . . . you are a goddess, a vixen, a . . . ah! I don’t know what you are, only that you cannot be a mortal woman.”
Alma found this speech ridiculous, but she bowed her head as though it was sweet to her ears. “You flatter me, sir,” she said. “But I am merely pointing out what you are too stoic to see. You no longer need to work yourself to death. You have built an empire. Now, enjoy it.”
Tears in his eyes, he nodded once more. “I will!” He laughed wildly and slapped the table. “Yes, yes, I will!”
Alma found Wallace in his office, leaning back in his chair. “How did it go?” he said, unable to hide the hope from his voice.
“Well,” she said, taking her seat. “You should go and see him to iron out the particulars.”
Wallace left the office.
Alma studied the chair, the high-backed, fancy chair that Wallace sat in. It was the kind of chair a man with delusions of his own power sat in. Alma believed she had robbed Wallace of many of those delusions, but he still sat in that chair like it was a throne. Imagine, she thought, a scarred girl from Bristol sitting in a chair like that! An abused, wretched, fleeing thing sitting in a chair like that!
Wallace returned. Like his father, he had tears in his eyes. He fell to his knees next to her and clasped her hands in his. “You’ve done it!” he cried, and kissed her cheek, her forehead, her nose. “You’ve done it! Look!” He waved a document in her face. “I’m in charge now. I’m in charge!”
Alma did not correct him. He could think he was in charge all he wanted. It may, in fact, help her to let him think it. “Yes, you are,” she said, returning his kisses. It was a perplexing paradox for Alma that she could scheme against this man whilst simultaneously desiring him. When she kissed him, and felt his beard against her lips, her body ached for his body. She imagined his cock, hard, sliding inside of her, and her cunt became warm, and wet, and an urgent longing fired throughout her body.
She reached down and grabbed his cock. “Let’s celebrate,” she said.
* * *
Her favorite times were when she and Solomon were alone in the stables. She would rest her head on his shoulder and he would wrap his arm around her, hold her close. For the first couple of months they had hardly spoken. Now, Alma had drawn him out. She discovered that his parents were indeed slaves and had both died in the years following the war. He had been raised by Beryl and had come to Calico with Beryl when she heard about the silver mines and the population explosion (if one-thousand miners can be called an explosion). He was a hard worker, played the harmonica and was a good, solid man with a good, solid body.
Though Alma had never been overly concerned with her body – with what she did with her body and with whom she did it – she did not allow her attraction for Solomon to move onto anything overtly lustful, to anythin
g which would change their relationship from one of almost platonic affection to one of animalism, to the kind she shared with Wallace.
“What are your dreams?” she asked him that night, the night she had secured for Wallace a third of the company.
“Dreams?” he said, as though he did not understand the word. “When I was a boy, my dreams were not to starve. Now I am a man I suppose I have carried those dreams with me. Not to starve, to work hard, to get on in life.” Quietly, he added: “Maybe find a woman.”
“Nothing else?”
He stroked his knee with his forefinger, as he often did when he was thinking, tapping his foot as he did so. “I would like to read,” he said.
“Wait here!” she laughed.
She ran from the stables, into the hotel, past a bemused Beryl and a half a dozen drunken miners, into her room, and back down to the stables. “Slow down!” Beryl snapped, but Alma ignored her.
“Let’s edify you, Solomon!” she giggled, and sat down beside him, novel in hand.
Chapter 7
“I speak for my father now,” Wallace said.
Neither Bill nor Avery looked overly pleased at this revelation. Bill, whose face was so round it was difficult for him to grimace, managed it anyway. Avery looked like a skeleton, eyes sunken, hollowed out, twisted lips ghoulish. Alma stayed at Wallace’s shoulder. These men needed to see that she was part of this agreement. These men needed to see and accept that she, a relative stranger, had a hand in their business.
Avery sneered openly at her. “Are you in charge, Wallace, or is your whore?”
This was dangerous ground, Alma knew. She rushed forth and made her voice whore-like. “My master is in charge,” she said, sniveling. “He is in complete and total control; he can do whatever he wants with me.” She touched Wallace’s hand, carefully, like a slave touching an emperor’s hand.
Romance: Pummel Me: A Boxing Romance Page 83
