Crown of Dust (21 page)

“No fugitives round here,” says Emaline. But Jed has made his way through the crowd and steps up on the porch next to her, followed by Limpy and David. Harry joins them, wiping Chang's blood on his trousers. Micah and Fred come forward, leaving one of the regulars missing, but she's of no mind to count. She bites the tip of her tongue, glances at the men behind her, feeling, at this moment, neither gratitude nor discord. Her focus returns to Hudson. The crowd takes a collective step back.

“And you ain't no lawman. Am I right? Ah! Hands up,” she says.

The men behind Hudson are young, boys almost, surely with no desire to shoot a woman if their mothers taught them anything, if California hadn't already unlearned it for them. “Y'all may get me, but I'll get him first,” she says. “Tell 'em, Hudson.”

Hudson purses his lips, his confidence failing. He gives a backward glance and a nod. The guns lower and Hudson chuckles with unconvincing mirth. “Now …”

“Now you're leaving,” says Emaline. “Take them—” she motions with her head to Chang and Kwong, “or take nobody. Go on.”

Hudson clears his throat, looks scornfully at the two Chinese men, then back down the barrel of Emaline's shotgun. He yanks the reins of his horse, motions the posse to back-track the way they had come.

“Wait!” says John Thomas, limping behind. His mare is already halfway out of town with the others. “The money! You promised me. You can't just …” He turns back to Emaline. “Emaline, I—”

Emaline fires one shot into the air. John Thomas leaps and hobbles after the retreating horsemen.

*     *     *

“They'll be back. They'll be back and they won't just be looking for me next time,” says Jed. Emaline is hefting the stew pot, straining under the weight.

“Stop a minute. Stop a minute, let me talk,” says Jed.

She turns to face him, but he remains in the doorway as though determined to maintain a distance. His features are a dark blur, but she has learned to read his expression from the tone of his voice. She wants to go to him, to put her hand on his lips, as though stopping the words would erase the problem. As though by refusing to think, by pushing that pulsing fear down, down, and down again, she could eliminate it entirely. As though it is words that make fear real.

She thunks the pot on the stove, pulls a forgotten loaf of blackened bread from the oven, slams it upon the counter. Her fingers are streaked charcoal black. She wipes them on her apron.

“You heard him,” says Jed. “Harboring a fugitive slave is a federal offense.”

“I'm not harboring anyone, am I? Not when you just come and offer yourself up. Didn't bring you up here just for them to take you.”

“I'm not theirs to take.”

“Damn right!”

“Yours neither.”

Emaline places both of her hands on the counter. Her head falls forward.

“Emaline,” says Jed, lowering his voice, “you gonna get yourself in trouble.”

“Weren't real concerned with that when I got you out of Sacramento, were you?”

“That was before …” Jed says.

“Before what?”

“Before …” he says again, and looks away. Emaline thumps her fingers on the charred loaf of bread, hard as fired clay, and waits for him to speak. Instead, he moves behind her. Pushes her hair aside and kisses the softness of her neck. He breathes in deeply, wraps his arms around her waist and presses himself into her.

“I …” he begins, massaging her belly, “I have to be a man.” Emaline stiffens.

“A man? A dead man?” She picks up the burned loaf and places it in his hands. Jed looks bewildered at the charcoal separating the two of them, tosses it back and forth between burning fingers. Emaline rushes out the back door.

With a fistful of oak leaves, Alex sits scrubbing bloody underwear. The outhouse is alive with flies, bouncing themselves off the walls, basking in the warm nitric fumes. Spiderwebs span corners like suspension bridges spotted with decomposing insects. The sour stench of sewage overpowers the odor of menstrual blood and Alex pushes the gold pouch aside to rest like a growth on her hip as she works. The thin walls trap heat like an oven, and on these walls shadows take shapes.

Gran's face, dry, cracked and flaking like butter pastry. Gran's nose, as straight and severe as her words. A half-formed demon the size of a newborn kitten, with large unseeing eyes and shriveled appendages, dead on a towel before Alex. Proof of sin, of lechery, Gran said. “You're not to see that boy again.” That boy whose lips never whispered the word
sin
when they lay together behind the rabbit hutch. That boy who said he'd love her if she swore never to tell, who left her in Gran's unforgiving home, waiting for the old woman to die. His face fades into that of a San Francisco businessman, his heavy cheeks flushed with liquor, leaving his mark in bruises on Alex's skin. This man gave a name to Gran's unvoiced accusations. “Whore,” Minford called her, “barren whore,” and hit her. Her womb remained dry while she bled from her nose. Her womb remained dry while she bled from her mouth. Alex grew tired of bleeding.

She clamps her arms round her stomach, squeezes as if she could somehow will both the memories and the blood back inside. A gunshot sounds, crackling off the ravine and down her spine.

Alex scrubs harder and faster, even after ripping a hole through the fabric. She's become too comfortable in this place, too accustomed to thinking of herself in terms of
he
.
He
didn't need to run.
He
hadn't lost his baby.
He
hadn't killed anyone, was far too timid, too innocent.
He
was lucky, a Golden Boy,
the
Golden Boy, Alex.

Elbows on knees, head in hands, Alexandra sits.

A moment, or a minute, or twenty minutes later, the outhouse door opens and cool air rushes to dry the sweat on her face. She finds Emaline standing in the doorway with tears welling like foreign bodies in her eyes. Emaline's gaze falls from the nugget dangling in the pouch on Alex's hip to the dark hair between her legs, to the bloody underwear Alex struggles to pull back up. Emaline opens her mouth to speak, surprises them both when no words come. Alex tries to escape and Emaline grabs her. Alex can feel the sinew and bone of Emaline's fingers making bloodless indentions on her upper arm. She can feel Emaline's unsteady breath on the back of her neck. The only sounds, beyond the usual commotion of Victor Lane, are avian. Alex wants to hear Emaline say something, to say, “Could use you in the kitchen.” But Emaline lets go and Alex jolts forward, corners the Victoria Inn and disappears without looking back.

16

Preacher John is waiting inside the Victoria when Emaline bursts through the door.

“Alex,” she says, out of breath. “Have you seen Alex?” She runs her hand over her hair, smoothing lumpy curls. Preacher John removes his hat, scrunches the brim, swallows. “Alex, Preacher—have you seen Alex?”

Preacher clears his throat and lowers his head. “Emaline, I came here 'cause I … well, I wanted to ask …” Emaline stares at him open mouthed. His beard has been trimmed, his face washed, the holes in his trousers mended. He wears a new starched flannel, pressed at the seams and smelling like the dry goods section of Micah's store. Most striking to Emaline, however, is the sight of his brown eyes showing clear and sober beneath his brows.

“What I wanted to say was, I know them Chinamen didn't steal no chickens.”

Emaline's mouth pops closed. She forgets, for a moment, what or who she is looking for.

“You know that, do you?”

“And I don't think it's right or Christian of you to blame someone you know to be innocent. Do unto others, you know,” he says, producing his decaying Bible from the pocket of his pants.

“You don't, huh?”

He holds the Bible under her nose. The pages are yellowed, smelling of tobacco, stale whiskey, and faintly of wildflowers. Not at all unpleasant, if the words and the scent weren't being shoved in her face like he was force-feeding a toddler. She pushes the Bible away from her and Preacher John clutches it to his chest.

“No, and I think that … well, Rose says …”

“Rose?” Emaline asks. “Mrs. Waller's Rose? What in high heaven are you doing talking with Mrs. Waller's Rose?”—who, as far as Emaline is concerned, is but a fixture on her sister's skirts, but she doesn't say this.

“Yes, Rose says she heard Micah talking, and Rose says those Chinamen never stole any of your chickens. Rose says you told Micah to—”

“Preacher!” He sucks in his breath, doesn't meet her eyes. “None of
Rose's
business, is it? No? Not yours, neither.” An image of Rose passes before Emaline. A severe, small-busted woman with a meager mouth and a face devoid of expression.
Rose says?
She couldn't care less what Rose says. Emaline waves her hand in the direction of the bar. “Go. Go get yourself a drink.” A thump against the ceiling brings her back to the task at hand. She hurries toward the stairs.

“Rose don't let me drink no more. Rose says the devil's in it, and Rose won't have any man the devil already owns, and them two Chinamen already left town, but Rose wanted me to tell you that them Chinamen didn't kill those chickens.”

The words come out in a flourish and, when Emaline turns, Preacher looks relieved to be rid of them. “Wanted me to give you this—” he says, holding out a small scrap of newsprint like the ones she and Lou Anne had shredded that morning. He looks toward the bar, the shiny oak tabletop, the crystal-glass bottles bending the light, casting rainbow and amber refractions on the far wall. Emaline marches back to him, arms swinging, eyes set. He retreats a step, but does nothing when she swipes the paper from his hands, rips it into four pieces, and stomps them into the floor with such force that the tumblers rattle on their shelves.

“Alex is up there,” Preacher John says softly, and points to the ceiling. Emaline gives a “humph,” turns and springs up the steps two at a time.

In the upstairs hall, hand over her heart, catching her breath, she starts to knock on Alex's door; stops. She strides to her own room, rummages in her closet and strides back. She knocks on the door. No answer. She knocks again and swings the door open, nearly hitting Alex, who stands with her pack on her back, ready to leave.

“Wait,” says Emaline, and invites herself in. “Lordy!” She crosses the room to sit her hefty self upon the stool, leaving the doorway unbarred. “This day 'bout killed me already, and it's an hour 'fore supper.” She squints in the light of the newly cut window, and Alex backs into the shadow.

“I brought you these,” says Emaline, producing a bundle of torn rags from her pocket.

Alex's eyes sting, but don't tear. Before her, Emaline sits, knees apart, a line of sweat making a track down her forehead. Her hair is a frazzled disarray with wild wisps curling in a halo about her head, and the fringe on her upper lip is damp from her tongue. The rags hang limp from her outstretched hand.

She looks about her as if she were simply taking inventory of the washstand and basin, the window, the gilded mirror yet to be hung on the wall. For a moment neither woman moves, and neither speaks and to Alex both the stillness and the silence are pregnant. She edges forward into the light, feeling like a stray accepting a piece of meat. She reaches out, takes the rags from Emaline, who holds on only for a moment, then lets go. Emaline sits back on the stool, chewing on her upper lip as if holding back words or searching for them. If Emaline had tried to prevent her from leaving, Alex might have burst through that door biting and snarling like a stray. But the doorway remains open. She can feel the woman's myopic eyes strain over her body like a thousand fingers, peeling away her clothing layer by layer to reveal thin muscular arms, narrow hips, and small, fist-sized breasts. If this body were the only thing Alex was hiding, she might not shift under this gaze, might not hug her arms over her chest even as Emaline's eyes range lower to her trousers and the bulge of the nugget still hidden beneath. Alex turns away to face the window. The light is warm upon her face, the noise of traffic outside somehow subdued, almost lazy. She'd prefer the loud chaos of her imagined city, a place to get lost in, to go unnoticed, but this thought, too, brings a pang of sadness. She stuffs the rags in her pack and hefts the pack to her back. Emaline still says nothing. Alex takes a small step toward the door.

“Wait,” Emaline says, rising from the stool.

“I'll go. I'm sorry,” says Alex, but doesn't take that next step. She wishes she could still feel revulsion for this woman, the fear of that first day. But she is conscious only of gratitude, and gratitude is a sentiment that begs expression.

“We'll talk, tonight,” says Emaline. “Mr. James is still here, just waiting for more stories to write. No need to act suspicious. And a whole pack of vigilantes just left, not an hour ago. Looking for Jed. It's a long story, but they didn't get him.”

Emaline smiles and Alex remembers the gunshot echoing off the ravine and back through the thin walls of the outhouse.

“Talk to me. Tonight. Bring gold. The boys won't know the difference, will they? We'll figure something out. All right?”

Emaline's voice is pleading, surprising Alex. She'd expected … She doesn't know what she'd expected, but uncovered secrets have consequences. She doesn't want to leave, not without smelling fresh-cut lumber from the new sawmill, not without watching the town grow and the mine prosper, since the one was surely dependent on the other. She doesn't want to leave Limpy, or Micah, or David. She doesn't want to leave Emaline.

“Not safe out there for a woman alone, or a boy. It's not! You were lucky, and now you gotta be smart.” Emaline's hands rest on her hips, the position of authority with which Alex is comfortable. Emaline wants her to stay, at least for the night, and Emaline is in control.

“Okay, then,” says Emaline, nodding. She strides for the door and closes it behind her, ending the conversation. Alex eases her pack to the foot of the bed.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and slumps to the floor, closes her eyes and leans her head back against the mattress.

David walks toward the Victoria wanting only to sink into the comfort of frivolous conversations and a game of low-stakes five-card stud. The day has made him weary of controversy. He wants to forget about men with guns and Chinese chicken thieves, to forget about everything but work and rum; although lately even work holds little comfort for him. A wasted day, he thinks and stares out into the dark void of an overcast night. He can see the faint outlines of bats diving for insects, their beating wings like whispered sentences. Crickets warm their bowstrings, but their song is muffled in the muggy night and David too feels muffled.

The returns have been low the past few weeks, as if all the gold in the mine had been floating in the topsoil. The hard rock has yielded little but granite, hardly worth the work, and he's beginning to think the vein they're looking for, the vein that produced Alex's nugget, is lost further up the mountain among the brambles and the poison oak, and this too makes him weary. Weary of hope and weary of doubt, and as he climbs the steps of the Victoria and edges his way to the bar, the bodies around him remind him of mounds of discarded slag cast away to the river's edge, to the edge of the world, to California.

Jed slides him a whiskey and leans his elbows on the countertop. Wine-colored veins course the whites of Jed's eyes and his teeth grind beneath his lips. David can think of nothing reassuring to say, and so says nothing. He decides against cards, leaves Harry and Fred to their arguments and Limpy to his liquor, and does his best to ignore Alex at the other end of the bar. He turns to watch men's lips move, but only snippets of the conversation from the table in front of him gain purchase.

“You need … The only thing we need … Union's no good to anybody cut in half. North and South, we need each other. It's like King Solomon and the baby … Listen to you quoting the Bible … Gentlemen, please …”

In the corner, Klein mans his accordion; Mexican Jack and his guitar give the tune rhythm. Music and voices throb through layers of tobacco smoke, and David's attention wanders back to Alex. The boy has locked his feet around the legs of the stool as if holding himself in place. His eyes flit about the room and meet David's. David looks away. Boy Bandit! Absurd. But hadn't he seen the boy skirt the edge of the inn when the posse showed up? Only guilt could explain his absence when Emaline needed him. A man protects those he loves. David will tell the boy. A man defends what he cares for, defends his home, he'll say, even as the word conjures the smell of his mother's pasties, the sound of the sea. He'll take the boy aside, confront him with this Boy Bandit nonsense. He peeks back to find Alex adjusting himself, and David shifts uncomfortably on his stool. Not now. Talk to him later. After a few more drinks.

“Jed.” He holds up his cup, swivels back to the bar. But Jed is swiping the counter like he means to shine the wood stain away. He gestures silently to the knot of men at the King Solomon table.

“… sooner pray to the Pope,” slurs one of the men, and David listens closer.

“All that commotion today? For nothing, you ask me. I know Hudson. A jackass, but an honest one, and not the type to be turned away, not when there's reward money involved. He'll be back, by God. More power to him.”

“I'd like to know how that Negro's master up and died so suddenly. Haversmith, was it? Knew a Haversmit 'cross the county in Louisiana. Didn't have a brother, though.”

“A good hanging would solve the problem real fast.”

They speak as though Jed weren't right there, only a table-length away and hearing every word. Jed is one of the few people in Motherlode in whose presence David feels completely comfortable. Friendly is the word, and as the conversation penetrates his brain, his hackles rise. He stands to say something and Jed's hand catches him softly on the shoulder. “Don't,” says Jed. “Won't help.”

“Now hold on!” one of the men insists. “Can't just go killing Negroes like you're killing cattle.”

“He's right. No, you're right. Can't eat Negroes.”

“That is the t-tru—” The whole room hushes silent.

Jed's hand falls from David's shoulder. David turns to follow his gaze.

Emaline stands atop the staircase. She's wearing a dress he's never seen with a soft lavender hue that tinges her skin golden-tan. Beneath the fabric, her body speaks in tongues, her stomach folding upon itself, meeting her ample hips in a whisper of skin against skin, and every man in the room knows that there is no corset accentuating those breasts. Her hair curls in ringlets, framing her face, enlarging her eyes, enhancing the glow of her cheeks. The lamplight envelops her, painting a penumbra on the wall which moves above her, around her, with her, down the steps and into the saloon. A whiskey glass drops. David releases a breath in time to three men to his right. The accordion suffocates with a wail, and every hand of cards is revealed faceup, should anyone care to look.

It's Limpy who breaks the spell.

“I must say, Miss Emaline,” he says, “I cannot recall you ever looking lovelier.” Cards are pulled back, protected from eyes that have yet to wander from Emaline, and the accordion breathes new life. “I got me a bag of gold dust that's just begging to see what improvements you've made in that room of yours.”

“Now, Limpy!” says Micah, joining the duo on the other side. “Tuesday is my night, and I'm still richer'n you, for all your digging.”

David follows the direction of Emaline's stare to Alex and can barely endure sitting. He stands, adjusts himself under the counter and downs his drink.

“Richer, hell! We just getting to the gold, ain't we, Dave!” Limpy yells. But David is busy saying the Lord's Prayer beneath his breath. He unclasps the top two buttons of his flannel. Shameful visions move dreamlike before his eyes. Memories of Alex's weight in his arms; of Emaline, revealed in the shadows of her upstairs room; Alex grasping, pressing himself against David's chest; Emaline smiling, naked; Alex enfolded in David's quilt, his small face gleaming, pale, his lips parted for breath.

“Besides,” continues Limpy, twining his elbow with Emaline's, “two eyes're better than one in beholding beauty.”

“Oh now, let's not start with—”

“Boys,” says Emaline. She raises both hands in the air and sheds both men with the gesture. “I am promised to another.” She moves slowly through the crowd, splitting conversations, halting card games. She looks men in the eye as though considering possibilities, then moves on. She runs a finger down Mr. James's cheek, and his mouth falls open.