Crown of Dust (16 page)

Mrs. Dourity emerges from her husband's office, before the last thought gains purchase.

Alex pulls up short, squeezes into the crack between two shops. It's possible she hasn't been seen.

Mrs. Dourity peeks around the corner. “There you are,” she says. If her hat would fit into the space between the buildings, Alex is sure she'd have the Golden Boy by the scruff.

“Come on out here.”

Alex shakes her head no.

“I just want to talk, to give you something for that woman.”

Alex doesn't budge.

Mrs. Dourity shuffles her bundles, holds out a leaflet. “We have met, and we have decided that we would like to cordially invite that woman to refrain from the selling of liquor and other … well, other improprieties.”

Alex grins at the suggestion. “We?” she says.

“The local Ladies Temperance League.”

Alex accepts a flier, hand-copied in a looping formal script, as refined as the most artful stitch sampler. Four names grace the bottom border.

“It says—”

“I can read,” says Alex.

“Well, good. Then you can read this to—”

“She can read too.”

This information seems to take Mrs. Dourity by surprise. Her shoulders fall with her breath as if she's made a decision.

“There is something else.” She stares down her nose at Alex. “You do know my daughter, Lou Anne?” Her tone is not at all ironic. “Well, you can understand why I worry. I simply couldn't approve of a … of a man whose morals were governed by little more than his basic … urges.”

“Approve of a what?” Alex asks, intrigued now.

“Why, a suitor, of course.”

Alex's disbelief chokes her to coughing but Mrs. Dourity continues.

“My daughter can be quite … forward. She is young and full of lively mischief, but she is nearing fourteen now, and I was married well before my sixteenth birthday.”

“Mrs. Dourity—”

“And my husband, Mason, he agrees that a boy your age—an orphan? Bless. An orphan with enough gumption and good grace to make his way in a mining town is the kind of man who will one day lead. And—let me finish—we, my husband, I mean, is prepared to offer you a place, an apprenticeship, reading law. You can read—that will make it easier. Naturally, you will come and live with us when the house is done.”

Alex is amazed by the ease with which the woman has constructed this future. There it is, laid out in words as if written on the flier in her hand.

“My husband will be a man of some importance.”

Alex hears resolve in this statement, a resolve she hasn't observed in the person of Mason Dourity. The man seemed to wear his title before him like a shield to hide behind. Before dusting sawdust off the porch, before checking the reliability of the roof, or the constitution of his desk chair, he held his placard to the wall in various locations about his new office, admiring the importance the bronze lent his name and title. MASON DOURITY, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW. He placed it finally just outside the front door, so that people passing by on their way to the shoe shop, or from Sander's dry goods, could admire it as well. This was a running joke among the miners, who made a point of rubbing their grubby hands on the thing when they passed on their way home from the mines. But seeing her own name there in her imagination: Alex Ford, Attorney-at-Law? No. Golden Boy, Alex. No. Alexandra. No. Not any more.

Mrs. Dourity's pensive face, the hope in her voice, gives Alex a chill.

“And you'll come to chapel with us tomorrow, the second service?”

“Good day, Mrs. Dourity,” Alex says, tipping her hat as gentlemen do, and pushes past into the road.

“There is redemption, Alex, in the loving hands of God. You won't forget the flier, now?”

First meeting of the Temperance League of Motherlode, California. Sunday, May 25th following the service of the 1st Congregational Church. Reverend Erkstine presiding.

“That woman,” says Emaline, “has some elevated opinion of herself.”

She hands the flier back to Alex, and it's hard to say whether Emaline or the pot boiling on the stove is more agitated.

“Now, Emaline,” says Jed, his hands palms down as if to placate.

“‘Now, Emaline?'” she says. “That woman is after more than liquor, and you and me, and Alex. We all know it. Alex, what else did she say?”

Alex feels her cheeks flush. Alex Ford, she thinks, Attorney-at-Law.

“Emaline,” says Jed, his brow furrowed, his tone meant to temper, “I just don't think this is something you should work yourself up over.”

“Work myself up? As if I just like to get worked up when there's enough goddamn work to do without getting worked up!”

Jed holds his ground, crossing his arms before him, but Alex backs away. There is a frantic tone to Emaline's voice she's not used to.

“They take the word
sin
,” says Emaline, “and they stamp it on anything they don't understand.”

“‘They,' Emaline?”

“They, Jed. Those women. They come here after we cut and carve a little place for ourselves and they want to call us barbaric just so they don't feel so bad about taking our place and making it their own. Taking, Jed.”

“I hardly think they—”

“You know what they want to call my town? Hartford. Hartford! Just want to recreate what they left back East, so they don't have to change themselves. There's a reason I came West, Jed. There's a reason you ain't slaving back in Mississippi. You want to go back to that place? You want them to bring that place to you? Women can't own their own land, or the clothes on their backs, but they can make others feel bad about it. Try. At least I own what I sell. And to hell with voting. This isn't about voting, or being heard. This is about being allowed to live without a lace collar around your neck, or a chain.”

Jed's jaw is clenched. He eases his shoulders down, takes a breath. “You make it sound like all women. You a woman, Emaline.”

“Yeah,” she nods. “But not the same one I was.”

He lays a hand on her shoulder and her head turns to meet his fingers. Their breathing links in the same rhythm. Alex turns her back, not willing to see what she's seeing. She thumps the broom against the wall and hears Jed's boots scuff the floor. When she turns around, both Jed and Emaline are looking at her with something close to worry.

“I'll get the water then?” says Jed.

“Hold on. Alex?” Alex looks up then away. Emaline pauses, chews on her sentence, spits out another. “Did she say anything else?” asks Emaline.

“She wants me to go to church with them tomorrow, the second service.”

“She does, does she? And what did you say?”

“I didn't say anything.”

Emaline shakes her head, wipes flour on her apron. She returns to the wild mint on the table, chops viciously. Alex puts the broom aside, looks up when the blade stops thumping the tabletop. A smile stretches across Emaline's face and Alex mirrors Jed's worried frown. “You're going,” says Emaline, pointing with the knife.

“I'm what?” says Alex.

“You're going.” Emaline walks over, smiles up at Jed. “We're all going. I could use some extra preaching this Sunday.”

The second service always begins a half hour after the first, giving the members of each congregation ample time to avoid each other. Alex waits in the shade of the leaning steeple. She makes no effort to reconstruct Preacher John's sermon into a defined message. She appreciates the random leaps his preaching takes, as if the Holy Spirit were bouncing freely off the walls of his mind. But her purpose now distracts her. She resents this feeling of vulnerability, this exposure, but you don't say no to Emaline.

Across the road the doors of the Victoria are closed and the mood about town is subdued, reverent, in a way Sundays never used to be in Motherlode. The second-service parishioners don't seem to notice this. They trickle up the road in their Sunday best. Mrs. Dourity, Mrs. Waller and her sister Rose wear dresses buttoned to the neck. Mrs. Erkstine has seen fit to add a lace collar, like the one worn by Lou Anne, who skips along ahead. Extra petticoats billow beneath her skirts even in this heat. She spots Alex, and rushes back to her father's side.

“Why, Alex,” says Mrs. Dourity, smoothing an unruly strand escaping her daughter's braid. “I—we are delighted that you have chosen to join us.” She looks delighted, flashing a self-satisfied glance at Mrs. Erkstine to her left, and Mrs. Waller to her right. Rose is nearly hidden behind her sister. Alex barely notices her. She feels full of secrets, one of which, acted out before her yesterday, like a play, is not her own. Emaline said nothing about what passed between herself and Jed. She didn't try and explain it away or demand Alex's silence. Jed's hand on Emaline's shoulder, that weighted look lingering in their eyes, seemed almost natural.

“Aren't we delighted, Mason?”

Mason Dourity peers out from behind a pair of round spectacles. He is a head taller than Alex, but most of that height comes from the trunk up. His wide forehead funnels to a retreating chin, poorly disguised under a patchy beard, and he sticks that chin out when he speaks.

“Alex,” he says with a nod, and rests a possessive arm around his daughter's shoulders.

“Sir,” Alex says. She glances toward the chapel door. When they enter, the warmth of Mrs. Dourity's goodwill turns frigid. A short gasp escapes from Mrs. Erkstine. Lou Anne's mouth falls open, then curves into a grin, and both of Mrs. Dourity's hands latch on to her daughter's shoulders.

Miners occupy every seat. No room for the second congregation squeezing itself in the back. For the first time, Alex can see clear as a line in the sand, the division that had been growing as fast and solid as the town. The miners sit tight on the hard oak pews, their bodies grizzled and dirty and worn, their hair as sun bleached as their frayed flannel collars, their fingernails impacted with mud and clay. They outnumber the black slacks, stiff collars, and crinoline skirts two to one.

“Hell,” says Limpy, from the front row. The knot on his forehead has shrunk to a nugget, but the bruise has spread into a black-and-blue mask down the left side of his face. “Glad you could join us. The Lord's a calling sinners in today. Isn't that right, Emaline?”

Emaline sits next to Limpy facing the crucifix, her head bowed. She looks back, as if surprised by the company.

“Welcome, welcome. Come on in and make yourselves comfy.”

She beckons Erkstine forward with a magnanimous gesture, and Mrs. Dourity bristles. “Come on up now, Preacher,” Emaline says. John stands up. “No, no, the other one. John, you had your go this week.” She beckons Erkstine again. “Don't be shy now, we're all here for the same reason.”

The reverend clears his throat, and it's obvious he's not at all happy about being invited to his own church service. He straightens his tie. He runs his hand down his lapel. His wife's eyes go wide and worried, and Mrs. Waller and her sister Rose part to let him by. He steps high over booted feet resting in the aisle.

“Well, go on.” Emaline waves him on. “Let's hear some preaching!”

Mrs. Dourity's breath is coming harder than it did a moment ago. Her lips pinch tight, but she doesn't turn to leave as Alex thought she might. Nobody leaves, and the chapels fills with the stench of boot leather and body odor. Singing voices compete to be heard, and never before has Alex sung the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” with such passionate fervor. It's a patriotic zeal she feels—pride of a place and a people. The thought is shocking. Her people. She peels herself from the side wall. She nudges Fred and Harry over in the closest pew and sits down.

Erkstine soldiers mightily through his sermon. Words boom from him as if ripped directly from a stone tablet. “John,” he says, “Chapter 4: ‘There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink …”'”

A smirk on Mrs. Dourity's face. A glance passes from her to Mrs. Erkstine, but, even as the ire rises in Alex's gut, Emaline sits expressionless. Reverend Erkstine reads on, stops to pontificate about everlasting thirst and eternal life, and reads again. Alex's eyes become heavy. The people left standing shift from one leg to the other, and the miners fidget and whisper back and forth.

“‘… “Go, call your husband and come here.” And the woman answered. She said, “I have no husband.”

“The fact is,”'” his voice rises almost imperceptibly, “‘“you have had many husbands …”'”

Sweat shines on Emaline's temple, but her face is not nearly as red as the reverend's. It seems he's suffering the very penance he seeks to exact. Emaline bows her head for the prayers, and during hymns her warbling soprano is heard above all other voices. But she doesn't say a word until the last “Amen” has rippled through the overheated congregation.

“Amen!” she says and stands up, holding her belly as if she'd just eaten a large meal. “Thank you so much, Preacher—excuse me, Reverend Ely.”

“Erkstine. Reverend Erkstine.”

“Don't be silly, Ely,” she says and winks at him.

“Reverend,” says Mrs. Dourity, stepping forward from the crowd, “I have an announcement.”

“Well now,
I
was just going to say …” says Emaline, stretching the word long enough to face Mrs. Dourity in the aisle. Mrs. Dourity does not step back, and Alex isn't so sure Emaline won't walk right through her to the door. The faces around the room, those sitting, those standing, gawk. Limpy grins; with the bruise darkening half his face, it looks malicious. Jed hunches two pews over from Alex. He bites his lip, folds his arms before him, as if trying to hold himself down on the pew. Lou Anne's mouth is hanging open and she gazes upon her mother as if she were a brave and worthy stranger. But even Mrs. Dourity is caught like a fish on Emaline's last word.