Ophelia's War

by Alison L. McLennan

  “Thanks, Johnny.” The man nodded at Johnny, then addressed the crowd. “Many of you are wondering why Thomas Durant, the U.P. vice-president, never showed up for the ceremony today. Why the delay, you ask? Can’t the railroad run on time? I look around tonight and see familiar faces, men who broke their backs and left their families to try and make a living by working for Union Pacific. Let me tell you, while the company men slept in warm luxurious railway cars, we slept in cold tents with only flea-infested blankets covering us. Countless men died in accidents or of disease and exposure. Some of you probably think we got rich. Sorry to say, you are wrong. The truth is, sometimes we didn’t even get paid at all until we got our guns and demanded payment.” He paused for effect. Grumbles and murmurs filled the room. “That’s right! We had to demand payment at gunpoint for money that was rightfully ours. Then they called us criminals!” Heads shook and disapproval mounted. “We gathered here today to celebrate the driving of the last spike, a golden spike, to join the railroads. But Durant and his cronies are missing! They are missing because hungry men, who never got paid, had to take justice into their own hands. Don’t worry, they’ll show up, and the golden spike will be driven, but not until every man who broke his back to build the railroad gets what he’s owed. The railroad companies would lay track with men’s bodies if it would make them richer. But the cheated men finally came together. They said, ‘Slavery’s been abolished. We’re not going to work for free.’ They got organized, derailed the Sixty-Six, and are forcing Durant to pay! You know what they’re going to do with the money? Maybe you think they are going to build houses for their families? No, they’re going to eat, because while the railroad presidents enjoy four-and five-course meals, these men are starving!”

  The man stopped his speech and looked around the room suspiciously. “Now I don’t want anyone sneaking out to get the sheriff, because I don’t have any more details. All I know is that the golden spike will be driven, but not until the workers get their pay. Let’s drink to them!” He raised his glass. A cheer went up, everyone toasted. Then the din and chaos returned.

  After the speech I served more drinks, and bustled around the room ducking elbows and bottles. Many men propositioned me. With one simple word whispered into their ears, I thwarted their advances. At one point, when I went back to the bar for more drinks and to empty the coin purse, I looked down and realized it was gone. Out of nowhere, Johnny Dobbs appeared. He gripped my arm and pulled me toward the back of the saloon. A man leaned against the door to the bathroom. When he saw us coming he stepped aside. Johnny opened the door and threw me in.

  A candle lantern flickered on the windowsill. Slumped underneath it on the floor a girl sat with her knees drawn up. I recognized her as the girl who was last in line for the tub. The filthy tub water looked like a scummy pond and filled the room with a foul stench. “Is that the water from earlier?”

  “Only the best,” the girl said and scrutinized me. “You went from first in line for a bath to the tank? That’s a long way to fall in a couple of hours. You must have made Pearl real mad. What’d you do?” She scratched her head and then leaned it against the wall as if the weight of it were too heavy for her neck.

  “Not Pearl. Johnny Dobbs. Lost a coin purse, but I don’t think it’s just that. I don’t think he likes me.”

  She smiled and let out a little laugh. “Only one person J.D. likes. Only person he’s ever liked in his whole miserable life is Pearl. That woman’s got a hold on him.”

  I stepped as far away from the tub as I could. I didn’t want to sit on the floor and dirty my dress. “Looks like she’s got a hold on half the town.”

  The girl nodded. “Yeah. She’s got something. Wish I had it. What is it about Pearl?”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  The girl shook her head. “It’s more than that. I’ve seen many beautiful women end up in ruins. Take Old Nell.”

  “The cook!”

  “They called her Belle! She was the Queen of Hearts—was more beautiful than Pearl once.”

  “What happened?”

  “Told you, it’s more than beauty. You got to be savvy too. Pearl’s savvy.”

  “What’s savvy?” I asked.

  She sighed and explained. “Comes from savoir— French word for knowledge.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “You seem savvy. How’d you end up here in the tank?”

  She scratched her arm. “I’ve been chasing the dragon. If I was anyone else, they’d of turned me out by now. But I got so much dirt on J.D. they’d have to kill me.”

  “Chasing the what?”

  She let out another exasperated sigh. “You really just fell off the turnip cart, didn’t you?”

  The door burst open. Two drunken men stumbled in. They smelled like pigs bathed in whiskey. I covered my nose with a handkerchief and turned away. One man grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me toward him. His hands pawed at my dress. He tried to suck at my neck like a vampire. His beard smelled like animal fat. I gulped air as my stomach turned and bile rose in my throat. I couldn’t do it. I’d been better off on the street. This was horrible. How many more would there be? His hand lifted my dress and ran down my stocking. He pushed me to the floor. One hand was on me, and the other searched for his member. I pushed him back and tried to roll out from underneath him.

  The chasing-dragon girl snuck up behind him. She looked at me, and put a finger to her lips. Her other hand clutched a hankie. A strong odor of ether nearly knocked me out. She reached around and pressed the hankie over the man’s nose until he collapsed and rolled onto the floor.

  “That’s how you turn a trick,” she said and smiled. She reached into the man’s pocket and removed a few coins. The other man was also lying on his back and appeared to be out cold. “Don’t be greedy and empty their pockets or they’ll get suspicious and come back for you.” She hopped up and banged on the door. The door man opened it and dragged the first man out by his feet. He came back a minute later for the other one.

  “That was amazing. Thank you. My name is O—Ruby. What’s yours?”

  “I’m Sarah. O—Ruby? What are you Irish? Yes, I’m amazing, but it won’t be long before word gets around, and one of them comes for me.”

  “What will they do?”

  “Slit my throat.”

  I held my hand up to my throat. “Won’t any of the men here protect you?”

  She looked ahead as if she could see the day her death was coming, as if it were fated and there was nothing she could do. “No, Pearl’s got a—”

  Pearl appeared in the doorway. “Talking about me, Sarah? You’re never going to get out of the tank. Are you?”

  Pearl looked at me and softened. She came over and searched me for signs of damage. “Poor sister, are you all right?” she whispered and stroked my face.

  Sarah screwed up her face in confusion. I nodded and looked down, smoothing my dress over my torn stockings.

  Pearl turned on Sarah. “Why is she in here?”

  Sarah shrugged. Pearl looked back at me.

  “How did you get in here anyway? I told Johnny—Oh, that man! Did he put you in here?”

  I swallowed and didn’t say anything.

  “Oh, I’ll kill him!” She stood, put her hands on her hips, and fumed. She removed a key from around her neck. “Take this key. Go up to my room and rest. I’ll be there when I can.” She stormed out and screamed for Johnny.

  I didn’t know what time it was, but I climbed the stairs, curled up on a divan in Pearl’s room, and fell asleep. The next morning someone kept knocking on the door, until Pearl half awoke and grumbled, “What is it?”

  The door opened and a stick with a white rag attached to it appeared in the room waving back and forth. Pearl smiled despite herself. “Come in.”

  Johnny came in and shut the door behind him. He smiled at Pearl but frowned when he noticed me on the divan. He held up a giant sack. It was bulging with coins. They jingled as he put the sack down. He reached ins
ide and came up with a fist full of bills. “We did very well last night—better than ever!”

  He had bloody scratch marks on his face. Pearl sat up and pushed the blankets down. She had bruises on her arms. “Why’d you have to ruin it and throw Ruby in the tank over a couple of lost coins?” She cocked her head and waited for an answer.

  He dropped the money sack, crossed his arms, and looked at me. “I tried to tell you last night, that’s not why I did it!”

  “Why then? Trying to break her in? Didn’t she look broken enough already?”

  “No. I did it because she told every man in the whole damned saloon that she has syphilis! It’s all over town. It will probably spread round the whole territory by noon. That the kind of reputation you want? A brothel where the whores have the French pox? Your red-haired beauty is no damned good to us now. She needs to get the hell out of here.”

  Pearl’s mouth hung open. I stared at the ground. She got out of bed and stood over me. “You did what? Tell me this isn’t true.”

  The word I’d whispered into all those men’s ears was—syphilis.

  TWENTY

  Pearl Kelly stood at the window in her nightclothes and surveyed the street below. Her bruised arms showed signs of a struggle, but the angry red scratches on Johnny’s face revealed that she had been the aggressor. With one blow he could have crushed her. His restraint demonstrated his devotion.

  We waited. The stifling air was stagnant, laden with odors from the previous night’s revelry and debauchery. Scents of perfume, whiskey, cigarette smoke, and urine from the chamber pot mingled with our palpable anticipation. Bacon smoke, and what I now recognize as the fishy aroma of copulation, wafted in from under the closed door.

  Pearl took a deep breath and opened the window. Sounds from outside became clearer. Hammering, sawing, horses clomping and neighing, the high-pitched whistle of a steam train, and the murmur of men’s voices rose above the faint chatter of displaced birds. Chickadees and sparrows landed on the sill and flitted about the window twittering to each other as if commenting on the recent activity that had taken over the thoroughfare.

  A cool breeze stirred the air and seemed to dissipate Pearl’s fury. Johnny’s menacing smile divulged his pleasure that her anger was now directed at me instead of him. Her eyes moved as she assessed the street scene. “Building Babylon,” she said in a low whisper, which could have been an answer to the birds.

  She turned to me. “Do you really have syphilis?” The hot anger of her initial reaction had cooled, but her voice shook with challenge and a buried threat.

  I hung my head and mumbled, “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Besides them freckles, there’s not one pox on your entire body. Your skin is as pure as angel’s milk.” She stared at me with tight pursed lips already coiled with rebuke. “Have you ever had a loved one stricken with the pox?”

  I hadn’t felt the weight of disapproval that heavy since Mother had been alive. I braced myself for Pearl Kelly’s wrath, averted my eyes, and shook my head.

  “Well, if you had, you’d know it’s nothing to joke about.” Her eyes clouded over with memory and her voice trembled with loss. “Sores fester on the skin. The flesh begins to eat itself and then the disease spreads to the brain, causing madness. Victims have flashes of pain mixed with bizarre delusions. They can’t walk, or talk, or see straight.” She paused and shook her head. “And on top of all their suffering, the world looks upon them as monsters, to be hidden away, not treated in infirmaries, but cast out to die alone. People think the Lord concocted this disease to punish harlots and sinners, yet it even strikes infants. Poor helpless babies come into this world shriveled and wizened like old men ready for the grave.”

  Even though she was a whore, I’d managed to offend her morality. I had known her less than twenty-four hours, but the complexity of her moral code had already begun to emerge. Her anger turned to reproach and disappointment. I prayed to God she’d just hit me or have Johnny hit me, so we could get past this. I wanted to be in her good graces again. I wanted to be her phantom sister. Was that how her poor sister had died? Of syphilis? I could only guess at Pearl’s past, the horrors and misfortunes that had led her to this life.

  Silence filled the room. The noise from outside grew louder. She stood, hands on hips, waiting for me to respond.

  I looked up at her. “I’ve seen sickness, miss. Both my parents died of fever. They twisted and writhed from the pain. They burned and broke out with sores and then drowned in perspiration. There was no doctor, no medicine. I didn’t know how to comfort them. All I could do was witness them suffer and die.”

  Her eyes softened and flickered with interest. “Were your parents sinners?”

  “No, they were Saints.” As soon as I said it, I realized I’d just revealed more about my past than I’d meant to.

  “There’s no justice in this life that I can see,” she said. Then she closed up—it was like watching a trap spring shut. “I’ve heard every sob story ever told—some unfold like the great Greek tragedies, others like penny dreadfuls, but they all end the same. We must do whatever we can to make our own fate. But I’m afraid your little prank has sealed yours.” She wagged her finger at me, then turned back to the window. “Take off the dress.”

  I glanced at Johnny Dobbs. He smirked, reached inside his coat, and pulled out a cigarette case. Pearl sensed his movement and turned toward him. Her eyes snapped on the tin box. “Put that away! No smoking before noon,” she said.

  His face froze. He slid the tin back into his pocket. Then he sighed loudly, folded his arms, and turned his attention toward me as if waiting for a peep show to begin.

  I assumed Pearl meant to throw me out. My mind raced with the prospect. The moment I’d walked into Pearl and Johnny’s place, I’d tried to reconcile myself to life there. As depraved and wicked as it was, there was also camaraderie in it, a sense of belonging, as if they were a big heathen family. In my heart I knew I was damned, a whore and a killer condemned to dwell in eternal darkness. Even If I could live amongst the Saints again, in my heart I would always know that I didn’t belong. It made sense that I could only find a home in a house of ill repute where my sins would bind me to my brethren in damnation.

  “Can I have my dress and belongings back?” I dared to ask Pearl. The petticoat and dress that Pearl had gussied me up in restricted my movements and squeezed my rib cage, yet I’d felt some sort of security while wearing them. I had put on the dress and become Ruby Doll House for a day—a painted lady in a town full of desperate men willing to pay dearly for female favors. Why did I have to ruin it by telling all the men that I have syphilis? I’d never seen it in real life, but Doc Perkins had scared the daylights out of me with illustrations.

  Yet Pearl was right. My parents had been righteous, and they were still stricken with disease. According to the doctrine and covenants, they’d be in the celestial kingdom, while I would dwell in outer darkness for eternity. The only thing Father didn’t do, which the church asked him to, was to take multiple wives, and I prayed that the Heavenly Father didn’t hold that against him.

  Pearl strode to the chamber door, opened it, and called for Nellie, the girl who had bathed me. “See if you can find the rag she came in with!” she hollered. Pearl shut the chamber door and opened the door to a great oak wardrobe. She reached in and pulled out my burlap sack and my hole-ridden shoes.

  With his large arms crossed over his chest, Johnny shifted about impatiently. Pearl inspected the old six-shooter and said, “Haven’t seen one of these in a while.” She held up my fringed buckskin coat and laughed. “You gonna wear this to trap beaver?” Then she picked up Dolly and stared at her for what seemed like eternity. Her brows furrowed as she weighed the doll in her hands. “This doll’s heavy. There something in here?”

  My heart raced. My skin turned hot, and I tried to steady my breath. If Pearl found the jewels inside Dolly, she’d take them because of the torn stockings, or the damage to her reputation I�
�d caused, or maybe for nothing at all. She didn’t need a reason. She had Johnny and any number of men downstairs who’d slit my throat at the snap of her fingers.

  I smiled and answered quickly. “Just a heart of fool’s gold, miss. I put it in there when I was a young’un. I’ve had that doll ever since I can remember. She’s all I have left to remind me of my family.”

  Pearl’s face softened again. Her eyes became moist and clouded over. She tossed the doll on the bed. “Yes, family, poor sister. Oh, Annie.” Pearl looked at me and then walked back to the window. “You do so much remind me of her, Ruby. It’s hard for me to be cruel to you even though you deserve it.”

  My heart filled with hope. Maybe Pearl would spare me. Maybe she’d even let me stay. I didn’t know why, but for some reason I desperately wanted to be around her, even if it was just as a lowly servant.

  Johnny Dobbs exploded. “Pearl, she ain’t your sister. She’s done nothing for us but damage our good reputation.” He turned to me. “Now, missy, I believe she said to take off that damn dress. It don’t belong to you.” He turned to Pearl. “You got a soft spot for this one. You’re not thinking clear. You best let me deal with her.” He unbuckled his belt, whipped it out from around his waist, and looked at me like he couldn’t wait.

  My eyes fell to the giant brass buckle in his hand and I prayed his disposition wasn’t such that he’d get carried away and beat me with that end. Some men dish out lashings with dutiful compassion. Yet I’d seen others become demons and with each lash, strike harder and more brutally until they worked themselves up into a frenzy that caused a bloodbath of their anger. How would I deal with the pain? Would I break through the agony and soar above, high in the sky where even birds can’t reach me? Or would I be dragged down by the hot, burning agony? Would it be everlasting? Or would I be released into the good graces and compassionate arms of Pearl again?