Crown of Dust (8 page)

“I shoulda talked it over with you, I know. But I gave the boy my word. I shook on it.”

“You shook on it?” asked David, making no effort to hide the incredulous tone of his voice. Limpy gave as many hand-shakes as a politician, kept about as many promises. Dishonesty was the one thing you could count on from Limp. Even accounts of his past—especially accounts of his past—grew layers with each telling, until it was impossible to determine which details might be true and which were merely convenient. Limpy could be married, single, Republican, Democrat, or American Party, Presbyterian, Lutheran—even Catholic, if it suited his purposes. Most times David didn't say anything. Most times Limpy's purposes also suited David.

“Gave my word,” Limpy said again.

“It's a Sunday.”

“Sunday? Ain't no such thing as a Sunday after a strike. You surprise the hell out of me, standing around here like you got something better to do. Do you? Now look, I understand piety, saving Sunday for God, and all that, but … you're either with us, or you're not.”

It was the “us” that gave David pause.

Across the road, Klein pushes through the door of his cabin. He arches his back to give full volume to a mighty yawn, shoots snot from one nostril, then the other. A raw-butted chicken hops up to the porch, scrutinizes David's bootlaces with one eye then the other. David gives the bird a gentle kick just as Jed rounds the side of the inn.

“Aw now, David! You know how long it took to corner that damn bird?” He bunches up the potato sack in his hand and steps onto the porch. The hen runs up the road and back before stopping in front of them as if daring Jed to lunge. Jed sighs, cusses.

“Easier to just shoot the damn thing,” he says. He kicks a rock from the front step and the hen fluffs up and runs a few harried steps. “Been by his place this morning and I ain't seen him. I ain't told Emaline. Don't plan to tell her.”

David's eyes wander down the road to John Thomas's cabin. A squirrel's bushy tail twitches just inside the open door. “He'll be back,” he says.

The two men stare as though the hen is still their focus. The clashing ruckus of birdsong surrounds them. Woodpeckers pound percussion in the digger pines, robins belt melody from the underbrush, vireos sing harmonies from the manzanita. Loud-mouthed scrub jays throw the whole ensemble into tunelessness. Jed takes a breath, blows it out.

“How you feel about rabbit tonight?”

David smiles, slaps Jed on the shoulder. He jumps from the porch. Right to the chapel, left to the creek. Each call with different voices. His hands itch for a pick. The sound of metal on rock clatters through his head.

Surely God will understand his absence this particular Sunday. It could even be God's will.

“I had a brother once. Still have a brother,” says Preacher, leaning his elbows on the pulpit, his voice a drink-worn rasp.

Emaline crosses and recrosses her legs. Through the open windows she can hear the Sabbath breakers, their voices rising over the creek, their picks and shovels moving at a faster tempo than usual. Jed fidgets by her side. His eyes find the window, even as his head bows in prayer. His body is in the chapel, but his mind is swinging a pick, and in her experience God don't care so much where your body is if your head's not right there with it.

God has found her body in the most remote of places, where the only sight in any direction was yellow-brown grass bowing in the wind, or in the crook of Devil's Gate or lost in canyons so steep on either side that only a sliver of sky was visible. God was with her in Salt Lake City and San Francisco, and in other places she'd never want her mother to see.

Here in Motherlode, she's built a place for her body and mind to worship together. She'd thought these walls would make her closer to God. She thought of the pine planks as an offering of sorts, a gift for the gift of herself. But nowhere has she ever felt as full of that presence as when she was walking step after labored step behind the wagon train, a mere tick on the hide of the great plains.

Maybe a steeple will help; hard oak pews with back rests, a real carved pulpit, maybe.

“When we were little, lads, you know, young, Pa gave Sal—that was his name, my brother, Sal. Pa gave him a pony to raise and train all on his own.” Preacher straightens, bracing himself against the pulpit. “And was I jealous? Did I ENVY him?” Preacher licks his lips. Emaline leans forward on her knees. Jed's hand finds the base of her lower back and she shakes him away, even though only Preacher is there to see.

“Damn right I hated him!” booms Preacher. He looks up as though shocked by the power of his words, and continues with a flourish. “Getting a pony when I got nothing, not even a puppy or a piglet to raise. Not even a chicken. Nothing! Wanted to kill him, or the pony, just 'cause I ENVIED him so much. See what I'm saying? It's natural. Like passing wind. Human. Just gotta get over it somehow, like me. Get over it, 'cause it don't do you no good, none. And people that have ponies and such, be advised to be generous, let others ride 'em. See? Let us read …”

Emaline's foot is tapping. She stills it. Jed shifts in his seat, sighs heavily, puts his hands over his lips as if embarrassed by the sound. The chapel door is open, inviting any latecomers. She's made a point of not turning around to look, but she knows there's no one there. No one is coughing or breathing too loud, or whispering to their neighbor. When she does turn, she finds that raw-butted hen peeking its head through the doorway. Its toenails click down the aisle. It stops to peck at something of interest as Preacher continues:

“… if I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, ‘Thou get my confidence …'” She looks up, but Preacher is turning pages as if looking for the rest of this passage somewhere else. The chicken stands at Preacher's feet, its head a-tilt, this way then that, utterly unconcerned that the man who was trying to kill it is sitting just yards away, a wide grin on his dark face.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” says Jed under his breath, and Emaline elbows him in the side. He's biting his lip over a smile, but his ribs shake under the strain of laughter. He elbows her back, much more gently than she did him. She stares straight ahead, trying to focus on Preacher but seeing only that chicken shift its weight foot to foot as if getting comfortable.

“‘He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed-ed …'” Pages turn. The chicken is unmoved. Emaline is laughing silently, holding her hand over her mouth so her teeth won't show. Showing teeth is defeat, and this is Sunday. A shout rises from the creek and her ears strain, but no more comes of it. Preacher sounds out another word and is on to another verse on another page, and she's struck by how focused his sermon has been by comparison.

This Sunday his usual choice of verses, one from Genesis and one from Revelations, and other creative, or perhaps haphazard, combinations, seem governed by a recognizable theme. Too bad no one is present to hear it, she thinks, and this thought brings with it a sobering sense of righteous indignation that even the chicken, pecking now at the worm-like laces of Preacher's boots, cannot break. Not even David came. She could usually depend upon David. The set of his shoulders this morning had been telling. He'd been tense as a rattler last night, tense and distracted this morning. He'd even drunk her coffee.

“‘If you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts …' No, wait,” says Preacher, staring down at the Bible, tapping the chicken away with his foot. He deters it only a minute from the tough leather worm bobbing there. Emaline finds tears streaking down Jed's cheeks. A falsetto
he-he-he
escapes his lips. Pages turn.

“Oh, here—” says Preacher, beginning again, “‘For where you have envy and selfish ambition—'”

“Ah hell! Save it, Preacher!” Emaline stands as she says this, ruffling both the chicken and Preacher John, who looks about the room as if noticing for the first time the size of his congregation. She picks up her skirt, climbs over the pew into the aisle. There is bread to be made, wood to chop, a dress to wash and, if she were the betting sort, she'd bet even God himself was down there at the creek, swinging a pick with the rest of them.

White light meets her at the doorway. Her eyes adjust and follow the sound of hooves up Victor Lane.

“Preacher?” she says, then turns to stick her head back through the door. “No, Jed, you stay put.”

She ignores the way his cheeks darken. His smile vanishes. Preacher sets his Bible on the whiskey-barrel pulpit and follows her outside, laying a hand on Jed's shoulder as he goes.

In the gullet of the ravine, the sound of hooves has multiplied, but she sees only one man on a horse. Sitting so straight in the saddle, full to bursting with his own self-importance, Emaline would have guessed he was a military man. But as he gets closer, the cocky tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders remind her of someone.

“Emaline?” says the rider, crossing one arm casually over the other.

She barely recognizes him, his boots so shiny black, his frilly shirt so white next to that purple waistcoat. But, most striking, his bushy beard has been trimmed to a perfect square of whiskers on his knobby chin.

“Jackson Hudson.” She spits the name out at him.

“Good to see you, too, Emaline,” he says, and licks his lips as though preparing for a meal. Preacher John nods hello, but Hudson ignores him.

“What are you doing here?” says Emaline.

“Heard you were living up here in a mudpit, and I thought, sure, she'd need a kingdom of her own …”

The horse throws its head for a shake and Hudson cusses, gives the reins a violent yank.

“I'm a changed man, Emaline.”

“You changed your clothes,” she says. The animal adjusts its mouth painfully over the bit.

The last time she'd seen Hudson was in Sacramento, nearly two years ago. He'd been one week off the overland trail and looked more like a beggar than a doctor's son from Ohio. She'd made him wash and comb his matted beard and hair before she would serve him. Of course, back then her bodice had been silk, and she'd been working from a rented room.

Emaline wraps her arms across the tattered cotton of her dress.

“Light attendance for a Sunday service, ain't it?” says Hudson.

“A find!” Preacher says, then lowers his head as if it was a secret he should have kept. Hudson's shoulders lift, his eyes follow the sound of digging to the creek.

“Is that right?”

“Might be poor,” Emaline says, but knows as she says these words that he hears their opposites. “What is it you want, Hudson?”

“I have come to …” he pauses to doff his hat. “I have come to offer my services. My protection—”

“Your
protection
?” she says.

“I am a servant of the citizens of Grass Valley. Elected.” He brandishes a flimsy badge, glinting cheap copper rust.

“The only thing you ever protect is your own interest.”

“Bandits!” he says, and his eyebrows flatten across his forehead. “Thieves, Emaline. Foreigners and celestials—all sorts of undesirables running round since the water strikes.”

She shakes her head, “Don't need your kind of protection.”

“And fugitive slaves, Emaline. Niggers taking what's
ours
,” he says, thumping his chest. His voice takes a lower pitch. “Where's the nigger, Emaline?” A shadow darkens the doorway of the chapel.

Stay put, Jed, she's praying. Stay put.

“Knew you'd get rid of him sooner or later,” says Hudson and chuckles, sits straighter in his saddle. Emaline hears floor-boards give. Goddamn, goddamn, Jed, stay put. Preacher John's flaccid cheeks color beneath his beard.

“Got rid of you, didn't I?” she says. She steps close enough to run her hand down the leg of Hudson's black trousers, but Hudson is already turning in his saddle. His hand edges toward his holster. A scratch of footsteps on the porch behind her; her breath skips. Her eyes are focused the level of a man's shoulders, so when the chicken pokes its head sideways through the chapel door, it takes Emaline a moment to see it. The bird takes two tentative steps forward, stops, clucks a salutation, and Emaline remembers to breathe.

“Haw!” says Hudson, waving his gun at the bird. The horse frights, jerks its bridle, wide eyed, nostrils flaring. But the bird just stands there cocking its head, unimpressed.

“The lady wants you to leave,” says Preacher, puffing himself up like the chicken.

“Woman don't know what she needs,” says Hudson, and stays there a moment, staring at the chapel door. He gives the reins a jerk, digs his spurs into the horse's flank.

Emaline stands listening as the sounds of hooves multiply then fade; listens to the metal-on-rock sound of digging, to the gutter caw of crows, and the swirling song of blackbirds. This time the groan of the floorboards brings Jed from beyond the shadows of the doorway. He runs his hand down the back of his neck, presses his head against the doorframe. His face, half in, half out of the light, is two-tone—tan and black. His eyes flicker white. He opens his mouth to speak, but Emaline cuts him off.

“I've got dinner,” she says, and hurries away to the Victoria.

The shock of it, grown men, their trousers to their ankles, one bent over the other, clinging to a barrel of beer, pale skin only just visible as his eyes adjusted to the light. David should not have been there so late at night. There were reasons for rules, and the captain had told them the very first day: “Passengers will be confined to their accommodations by ten o'clock.” But the night was humid, the smell of puke and shit suffocating, so he'd crawled from steerage down to the luggage hold, bracing himself against the steady rise and fall of the water.

A movement caught his eye. A rat, or the ship's cat on the prowl, he thought, except there was rhythm to it, a frantic pulsing rhythm, and as his eyes adjusted, his breath caught in short panting breaths.