Crown of Dust (10 page)

Gran would sometimes hum in the kitchen, usually while peeling potatoes or apples, or some other task that required more patience than focus. It was a pleasant sound of absent contentment, weak but clear, and without the strain that Sunday service seemed to demand. Gran's voice, so gravel thin in speaking, strained for volume in church, wobbling up and crashing into the careful harmonies of Peter's mother, who sat to Alex's right, as if only by being heard by all would Gran be heard by God. Her kitchen-humming lacked urgency, and listening to the soft waft of that voice, Alex could almost envision the young woman invited to sing at weddings and funerals all over the county.

The humming stops. Emaline's dark shape fills the doorway and Alex tumbles back over a stick of firewood and lands with little grace on her rump.

“Well,” says Emaline, a smile in her voice. “If it ain't the Golden Boy.”

Alex is suddenly very sorry for being sick on Emaline's dress, regrets nothing more at this moment than that dress. Emaline turns back to her stove and, though this is not exactly an invitation, Alex picks up the kindling, follows her through the open door. Heat touches her face. She's struck with an overwhelming sense of familiarity. There the stove, throwing raw heat into the room, there the washtub and the plank table dominating the floor space. Pots and pans hang from hooks like an iron fringe along one wall. Dry twists of herbs, wild rosemary, thyme and mint, are strung from threads in the window. Alex knows this place, or a version of it, knows the feel of bread dough, the smell of pie baking in the oven. She knows the singular satisfaction of sweeping a floor, the simple consolation of ordering the daily disorder of breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Emaline's rump bounces as she pulls the bread from the oven.

“You still here?” she says, and sets the steaming loaf on its side to cool. She tucks a curl behind her ear, wipes her hands on her apron. “Of course you are. Turn your head—the other way. Yeah, well,” she says and touches the bridge of her own nose, “no sense being too pretty. And the … the blisters?”

Jed clears his throat from the doorway and Emaline's head snaps in his direction. He sets two buckets of water down softly, as if afraid they'll break.

“I'll come back,” he says to Emaline. The door swings shut behind him. The fire flares with the blast of oxygen, an open mouth waiting to be fed, but Emaline is staring after Jed. Alex has seen the smug private grins that pass between them. Sitting on the stairwell during the rain, she saw everything.

“They're better than they were,” says Alex. “The blisters.”

She feeds her kindling into the stove and finds the broom leaning nearby on the wall. Some things aren't allowed, not even in California, but Alex doesn't care to think further on this. She picks up the broom, unsure why this is such a comfort to her. She sweeps, allowing the heat of the stove to engulf her. She won't think about Jed, or anything else outside the heat of this room. She's content to watch the potatoes boiling in the pot, content with the broom in her hands even as she feels Emaline watching her. The outer doors of the inn slam shut. Male voices leak beneath the kitchen door, but come no closer. Just outside, a chicken squawks at some indignity, then quiets, and Alex sweeps.

*     *     *

Yesterday, when David arrived at the mine, he heard a knocking, very like the sound of rats scuttling through the cabin walls at night, and then louder, more distinctly, like a tiny pickaxe on solid ground.

It had become his habit to arrive before Limpy and Alex, if only to enjoy the rare quiet. He'd stand or sit in the middle of the clearing, watch the flycatchers dive from scrub oaks to feed on mosquitoes hovering invisibly over the creek. They made no sound as they dove, not like the cliff swallows back in Cornwall who shrieked their pleasure as they plummeted down toward the rocks and waves, swooping up at the last possible moment.

The knocking continued, louder than before. His shovel leant against the ravine wall, just as he'd left it, the shallow mouth of the mine gaped wide and silent. He blew the air from his chest, ran his hands through his hair. David was not a superstitious man; he and his father agreed on this if nothing else. There was no such thing as Knockers, leading men to rich lodes and then demanding tribute; no such thing as Spriggans, defending those same lodes, upsetting the soil, collapsing mineshafts. “The little people live as sloth inside us all,” his father told him. “Men just need a reason for their fortunes. Poor man wants to blame his luck, rich man wants to claim his merit.”

Yet a day never passed without his father leaving a bit of his pasty on the ground where he ate his supper, just like the men who swore they had heard the sound of digging coming from the bowels of deserted mine shafts.

He needed a full night's rest, a wash, a shave. He settled for the shock of creek water on his face and sat back on his haunches. He let his head drop back and found a redheaded bird pounding away at the bark of the digger pine above. He must be tired. Of course he knew the sound, knew it belonged here in California. Even so, he stayed away from digging, busying himself with other tasks, until he heard Limpy's voice down the trail.

*     *     *

Today, David resigns himself to a late start and follows Limpy to the Victoria for breakfast and coffee.

Less than a month after the find and Motherlode writhes with activity. The trail leading into town has been widened and wagons bring lumber and supplies and merchants eager to take advantage of poor men with new wealth. He's amazed at the speed with which buildings rise from the ground; a foundation laid on Monday is an open shop on Friday. But the buildings lack—what is the word?—permanence, he thinks. They lack the permanence of stone and mortar. They are shoddy, quick constructions with false fronts offering only the impression of elegance.

When he walked the streets of Penzance, David had been surrounded by whispers. He heard whispers in the bustle of Market Jew Street, whispers from standing stones older than the oldest grandparents, whispers from the ocean as the tide rose and fell with the moon. These were voices of the past and while he could never quite comprehend words, they offered him a sense of history and stability. There are no such whispers here in California, or if there were, they weren't talking to him. No such history. Only now and tomorrow—and tomorrow was never certain.

A man retches in the cabin to his right, and hopping along before him a scrub jay scolds, hops and scolds. Behind him the thump of metal on rock calls him to work. He steps up on the porch of the Victoria, pauses a moment, holds his breath. No whispers.

History here walks in living men's shoes, men known for the wealth they accumulate, men more admired for their resourcefulness and luck than their honesty: swindlers, bankers, businessmen, and criminals crowd the same pedestal. Lucky Baldwin, Lord George Gordon, Joaquin Murrieta. The Golden Boy. David sniggers at this last addition and steps through the saloon door to find Alex at a table.

Their eyes meet. Alex stops chewing and David looks away. Emaline bustles through the kitchen door with a pot of coffee.

“Alex, could use you in the kitchen?” she says, and Jed flashes a quick, sideways scowl.

“I'll go,” says Jed, pushing past both Alex and Emaline.

“Emaline sure having a lot of help these days, huh, Alex?” says Micah from behind his newspaper. “Must enjoy taking orders from a woman.”

“Feet off my furniture, Micah,” says Emaline, and his feet thump to the ground.

“Ha!” says Limpy.

Alex smiles, showing a row of white pearls that quickly disappear. David focuses both eyes upon his food, sips his coffee, letting the bitter taste turn his thoughts to the mine. From the mine and back to Alex, from Alex to the sound of wagon traffic rumbling down Victor Lane. The day must be further along than he realized. Micah rouses himself to meet his supply wagon. David stands and Alex follows him out the door with Limpy. All three linger on the porch.

Behind the wagon is a sight yet to be seen in Motherlode: a sleek iron buggy bouncing along on rusty springs. It's driven by a man in a gray cotton suit and a bowler hat. Behind the man sit two women. No, David sees, a woman and a girl. The gray of their dresses catches a silver seam of light. A wide straw hat obscures the woman's face. David swipes his own hat from his head.

It had been six months ago, on a trip to Grass Valley, that David had last seen a woman—not counting Emaline. Even then he'd kept his distance. There are so few women in this land that chances are, if they aren't married, they'd be of a sort a good Methodist didn't consort with.

Emaline joins them on the porch.

She nods to the man, who offers back a split-toothed smile and earns a sour look from his wife. The girl is handsome, David thinks, but not pretty. Her face is too long, favoring her mother, but her smile is full and her eyes are large and set wide apart. She's staring at Alex. The girl waves. Alex waves back, sheepish, blushing. The woman sits so straight her head doesn't even bob with the ruts in the road.

“That one'll stir things up,” says Emaline. David agrees, though he's not entirely sure which of them she's talking about.

8

The tail end of April had proven dry; a few lightning bolts slashed jagged signatures across the sky, a few thunder-showers, a few days of misted rain, but nothing like the torrent that welcomed her to town. Nothing could have prepared her for the corrosive heat to come. It's now the first week of May and already the long grasses of the valley have yellowed, and even in the shade of the ravine ferns curl to fiddleheads. Miners have been talking drought, eyeing Bobcat Creek suspiciously, as if at any moment they expect the flow to cease, the creek bed to dry and crack.

But inside the mine, walls sweat, and within an hour of digging Alex's flannel has soaked through.
A gallon of sweat for an ounce of gold.
She'd thought the limerick an exaggeration.

“Water …” says Limpy. He leans his big body against the mine face and watches Alex dig. “A miner's lifeblood.” David returns from the sluice with two empty buckets. Sweat darkens the brim of his Panama hat and clay streaks like war paint down his face.

“Water bringing folks to town as much as the gold,” says Limpy. Alex swings her pick. “Talk was nothing but water when I went to Nevada City to file. Ditch companies, charging men fifty cents a day to bring a measly inch of water to dry diggings, just 'cause they can. A hell of a way to make a buck.” Alex swings. Limpy brushes bits of shale from his hair. “Fifty cents for a spigot of water from a hole this big—” He makes an “O” with his thumb and forefinger, looks through. “How'd you like to be washing your gold for fifty cents an inch of water? Take all day to get as much as comes down Bobcat Creek in half a second. Fifty cents an inch …” His voice trails off as if caught in the thought. Alex places the pick between her knees to wipe sweat from her eyes.

“Break time again, is it?” says David, very close behind her. “The mountain might move itself if we all took breaks as often.”

Limpy chuckles. “Luck don't take breaks, David, you know that.” His pick plummets with the force of all three of Alex's blows. “Me, on the other hand, I need a breath or two every once in a while.” And with that he steps out of the shadow of the ravine into the midday haze.

Alex can feel David's eyes boring into the back of her head, while Limpy, casting a diminutive shadow, stretches his arms to the sky. She lifts her pick, grunts a little, so David can hear the effort. He acts as though this were
his
claim, gives orders as though he was the one who'd found the gold and Limpy just allowed Alex to tag along.

She brings the pick to her shoulder. Her hands are grimy with sweat and mud, and she seeks a better grip. David's voice is just the caw of crows, deep, ornery, everywhere. She raises the metal head, but as she swings, the shaft slips. The pick sails backward. She turns to find David doubled over, clutching himself. Limpy's face contorts in sympathy.

“David!” says Alex, rushing to his side, only to be shoved away.

Limpy pulls her to her feet “Now, if he woulda meant that, be a whole lot better with a pick than we imagined. Dave? You all right?”

David doesn't, or can't answer. He hasn't said a word to her since, and now, in that moment of quiet after dinner, before the plank tables are separated for poker and the bar officially opens for business, David has separated himself from the rest of the regulars. He leans instead against the bar with Jed.

“Extortion,” says Micah, sitting on Alex's right at the table. “That's what it is.” He leans back on his stool and the vein of his empty socket pulses blue.

“It's not extortion to sell at a
lower
price, Micah,” says Harry.

Fred, who's in the habit of disagreeing with everything his partner says, rubs the faded blue felt of his cavalry cap. “Things are changing,” he says, then nothing more. His eyes flick to Harry, then down, and Micah continues to scowl into his cup.

The first month after the strikes, Micah nearly sold himself out of business. Every day he raised his prices on mining staples: quicksilver, black powder, picks, shovels, mealy flour, and sprouted beans. Miners kept paying. But two weeks ago Simon Waller rolled into town with his wife, her sister, and a wagonload of goods, intent on starting a livery stable where Victor Lane meets the creek. And a week after that, Gerald Sander set up a dry goods in a shack across the road from Micah's store. Both men sell shovels, picks, and quicksilver, in addition to their usual stock. Both charge the same price; both charge less than Micah.

Limpy's booming guffaw sounds from the porch and Alex leaves the men to their sour moods, and David to his whiskey, and joins Emaline in the kitchen.

At the back door, Emaline fans herself with a tin plate and stares out at dusk. Sweat stains make dark ovals under her arms, and something in her stance suggests a frown.

Alex picks up the broom. Emaline turns to the sound of sweeping.

“Alex.” She nods. Men's voices filter in from the saloon. The fermenting sweetness of manzanita blossoms seeps with cool air through the open door.

“Alex? What do you hear about Dourity?”

Alex holds the broom silent. She's not yet entirely comfortable with the sound of her own voice. When she speaks, she speaks of the mine, regurgitating what David taught her about soil types, vertical riverbeds, and mineral deposits deep, deep within the earth. These harmless words released a pressure in Alex, made other words unnecessary, made Alex feel more useful with a few swipes of a broom than she ever did at the mine, though with each passing day, she's getting stronger. Not even David can deny that. Emaline never presses. She speaks of the Victoria, or rather of settees and cast-iron stoves and flagstones, and Alex is happy to pretend that life begins and ends in Motherlode.

“Dourity?” says Alex. “He's a lawyer …” Emaline shakes her head and Alex offers more: “… and some sort of politician? Harry knows him, or knew him, I think.”

“
She
,” says Emaline. “The wife.”

Alex closes her eyes on the word, sweeps away the smell of bourbon.

“Alex?”

“She—Mrs. Dourity—she's got a daughter.”

“Well, I know
that.
” But she doesn't say what she wants to know, lets the subject drop with the plate to the countertop. She turns to stoke the coals and batten the oven door for morning.

Until Emaline asked, Alex hadn't realized just how carefully she'd been watching Mrs. Dourity. She saw with eyes seduced not only by a gesture, a word, a tone of voice, but by the skill behind each of these. Mrs. Dourity's every step carried a sense of deliberate purpose, as if unseen obstacles lay waiting to trip her. She says
could not, will not, have not,
and flinches when these words are contracted in her presence. She wears constricting dresses, bordered with a deep flounce, and gauntlet cuffs fastened tight about the wrists, and never ventures outdoors without that ponderous straw hat. The only color on her person, apart from the dun-colored mantilla that drapes her head, are the rosebuds stitched into the lace border of her bodice.

In the three weeks since Mrs. Dourity rolled into town, three other women have followed. First Mrs. Waller and her sister Rose, carted up on the back of Simon Waller's supply wagon, then the twittering Mrs. Erkstine, who introduces herself as “the Reverend Mrs. Erkstine.” Like Mrs. Dourity, they are living among the miners in canvas shacks along Victor Lane. But already foundations for larger, more permanent homes form a separate growth of town beyond the livery where the cedar stumps rot.

Alex has seen men stop mid-sentence when one of the women passes, preferring not to speak than to swear in her presence. Pissing contests have been restricted to the mines. Hats are doffed and muddy feet step to the churning dust of the road, leaving the fresh pine of the new sidewalk clear for the women to pass.

And more than once Alex has forgotten herself and allowed her legs to cross at the ankle instead of flaring wide. This morning she woke to the sensation of hair falling heavy down her back, and her dreams have become thick with layers of petticoats. Dangerous dreams, for they pick their way indiscriminately into memory, bring the smell of bourbon with the word
wife
.

She watches Emaline out of the corner of her eye until she realizes Emaline is doing the same. She turns her back and attacks the corner in earnest, though she knows the stain is water damage and a broom will do no more good than a word.

There are times when Emaline wishes to sit among women, to talk about something other than gold, to exchange recipes and secrets, and she must admit that part of her, perhaps a large part, is lonely for this company. The company of ladies who might appreciate her efforts with the chapel, the fine silk of the curtains she's ordered, the labor of a good meal, the unending demands of men.

A fly bobs in the air before her. She would swipe at it, but her hands are a muck of butter and flour. She is making a pie. Two of them, actually, for she wouldn't hear the end of it if the boys discovered she'd neglected them. The butter, golden yellow, brought in just yesterday from the Storm Ranch, slips through her fingers, mixing with the powder-soft granules of flour and a pinch or two of salt. She rolls out the dough, spreads it thin, adds only enough flour to stretch it.

For some reason her crusts are never as flaky as she remembers her mother's being. Too much flour, too much kneading, always too much of something. She wants this pie to be perfect, and wishes that there were fresh berries in season. Preserves will have to do. Boysenberry, she thinks, and unscrews the lid of the mason jar to the tart sugary smell. She dips her finger for a taste.

Four ladies living in Motherlode, she thinks, and none of them, not one, has come round the Victoria. Mrs. Dourity, at least, should have introduced herself by now. Emaline closes the oven door, wipes her hands on her apron. Got nothing else to do, squatting there in Mordicai's old place, the pine planking just as leaky as it ever was. She smiles at this image, a gray patterned dress, ruffled shoulders, high neck, forced to squat over a stone fire pit and rest on a wooden bunk. It's easier to think of Mrs. Dourity this way, as a dress. Lord knows, her husband has been by, though only to drink and stand at the bar jawing about community and county elections like he's running for governor of California. Emaline isn't angry with his wife, exactly. But she is not above applying a little congenial guilt, portioned out in the form of a pie. She'll make her rounds to the other ladies later.

She drapes the crusts in pans, shapes them to fit, slices off the excess. In go the preserves, a design on the top crust with her knife, and egg yolk and butter for a golden brown. Later, she stands over the finished pies, scrutinizes one, then the other, decides the one on the left is just a bit overdone on top.

She ties her hair up, wishing she had a mirror, but refuses to go upstairs to have a look. She pulls at a curl here, tucks a curl there, runs a kitchen cloth along her teeth. She takes the apron off, smoothes the folds of her dress, clean but the same ugly brown. No time to sew a new one. It's this or the stained calico. She picks up the perfect pie on the right, heads for the door, but stops with her hand on the knob. Goddamn, she says under her breath. She walks back. She switches pies. She takes a breath, blows out all her air, forces her shoulders down. She'll be damned if she'll try to impress. She opens the door and ventures out of the Victoria to introduce herself.

She waits for a wagon to pass and steps down on the new sidewalk. Micah is busy inside his store, arranging and rearranging new merchandise. None of the ready-made dresses he'd ordered would fit her big toe. A damn waste of money, you ask her, carrying clothing that fits only a few shapes. Used to be, you bought the cloth and made the dress to suit the woman. The way it's going, they'll need to start making women to fit the dresses.

In the May heat the ridgeline above town takes on a purple hue. The wild strawberries behind the Victoria will soon be ripe, the heart-shaped fruit still white, bloodless, but plentiful. She can almost taste them, fresh with the chill of morning, or baked up hot in a pie. She looks down at the pie in her hands. Preserves will have to do, for now.

Hard to believe eight weeks ago everybody and their uncle was heading north. She hasn't heard a thing about the Fraser River since Alex found that nugget, though she's heard news from just about every other corner of the world. News rolls up on wagons. News walks behind pack mules, or by its lonesome self, taking the varied form of miner, or miner-turned-merchant, or lawyer-turned-miner, or merchant-turned-pharmacist. Seems like every one of these men, new hat or tattered, claims to be this, and also this, and on occasion that. Believe everything or nothing of what they say, it would make no difference. Gold just opened the place up, spanned the world like a guitar string plucked a little different by each man walking through. Wars, rebellions, famines, floods—the usual fare, with added local complaints: miners striking against water companies, and President this or Governor that promising to do more than General this or Judge that, if you just elect him. She heard they finally got that railroad running through the Sacramento Valley. “The Sacramento Valley Line, twenty-two miles, through to Folsom,” a curly-headed fellow told her one night, acting proud like he was personally responsible. And some fools in San Francisco were talking about bridging the bay. No such thing as an unreasonable goal here, she thought, as she looked about the town growing solid around her.

A muleteer slows his team to pass and shows his scurvy-blackened teeth. “Whoa now,” he says. His eyes flit from Emaline to the pie, back to Emaline. He tips his hat. “Gee up,” he says, and the wagon leaves behind the sap smell of timber.

Banging and sawing join the busy noise of birdsong as the open spaces along Victor Lane are filled. She rather liked the cigar shop, the musky scent of tobacco drifting out into the street, though the haberdasher could do with more than bowler hats and farmer's straw hats. They were cutting a side street just up from the new livery stable, which is fine with her since it didn't intersect at the Victoria Inn. The new street curves around behind the inn, paralleling Victor Lane, forming a funny little horseshoe, with the chicken coop like an island in the middle. A sawmill is what we really need, she thinks. More than side roads or this other inn she's heard talk about.