by Liz Harris
‘I could say the same to you,’ she said, and she managed a smile.
He shrugged. ‘That’s easy for me to answer.’ He held up the rope. ‘There was some trouble in town last night and I stayed at the livery. Bein’ awake early, I thought I’d bag me a wild horse. The terrain gets rockier the further out you get and there are springs of fresh water if you know where to look, and that’s where you find wild horses – they’re drawn by the scent of the water.’
Her heart jumped in alarm. ‘What sort of trouble? And why d’you want another horse? Are you leavin’ again?’
‘Just some nastiness between the miners and the Chinese priest,’ he said dismissively. ‘The fault was the miners’. And nope, I’m not goin’ anywhere right now. Havin’ spent some of the past seven winters breakin’ in horses, I figured on findin’ me a horse to break in here so I can sell it and bring in a few extra bucks for Seth.’ He paused. ‘And bein’ out here on my own gives me time to think. Okay, it’s your turn now. Why aren’t you at home?’
Her eyes dropped from the face that was smiling down at her, warm and friendly and forbidden, and she focused on a horned toad which was scuttling in short bursts across a small patch of green where a few hopeful shoots had broken through the gravelly soil and were yet to be seared by the heat of the sun.
‘Well?’ he asked again after a moment or two.
She looked up at him. ‘I felt like a walk. I’m indoors all day and I wanted some fresh air. It’s late when I finish work, and I go straight back and help with the supper. After that it’s dark. So it’s either come out now or not at all.’ She glanced back in the direction of the river, and then turned again to him. ‘Once I’d started idly walkin’, I just seemed to carry on.’
‘It didn’t look like idle walkin’ to me. You seemed to be walkin’ with real purpose.’
She attempted to laugh. ‘I was tryin’ to get to some air that didn’t stink of coal, but I seem to have come further than I meant to. I must get back.’ She made a move to go back.
‘Don’t go,’ he said quietly, and he reached out to stop her.
At the touch of his hand on her arm, she stood still, her eyes on the ground, her heart beating fast, the warmth of his gaze filling her with heat. Slowly, she raised her eyes to his face. For a long moment, their eyes locked.
Words rose and caught in her throat.
She felt a sudden powerful longing to tell him the way she felt, to unburden herself and perhaps find some peace. But the words lay heavily inside her, held back by fear.
‘Charity.’ His voice was so low she hardly heard him.
Her gaze travelled across his face, lingering on his features, one by one. Instinctively, she started to raise her hand to his cheek, wanting to touch his skin, but she caught herself in time, and let her hand fall to her side. Inwardly, she shook herself at how close she’d come to doing something that would’ve made him uncomfortable. ‘I must go now,’ she said quickly, ‘or I’ll be late for work.’ She started to turn away.
‘No!’ He caught her arms and pulled her to him. ‘There’s somethin’ I’ve gotta say. I can’t not say it any longer.’
‘Don’t say anythin’, Joe,’ she whispered. She drew back. ‘You mustn’t.’
‘I have to,’ he cried, a note of desperation in his voice. ‘I can’t hold it in any more. From the moment I saw you again, there’s been an emptiness inside me. It ain’t the sort of emptiness that can be filled with food, and it ain’t the sort of emptiness that can be filled by family time or by havin’ a drink with friends. It’s a different sort of emptiness, and I think you feel it inside you, too.’
He paused, waiting.
Her unspoken words hung in the air between them.
‘Well, aren’t you wantin’ to know what could fill this emptiness of ours?’ he said with a wry smile. ‘A woman always wants to know that sort of thing.’
She shook her head. ‘No, Joe; I don’t. I already know.’ She stared up into his face. ‘You’re right, I feel that emptiness, too. And I know that nothin’ can fill it. Not walks in the mornin’; not workin’ hard every minute of the day; not sleep. Definitely, not sleep. That sort of emptiness is keepin’ me awake, night after night.’
He dropped his arms and gestured despair. ‘Is it so wrong to feel as we feel?’
‘Yes, it is.’ She pulled up the sleeve of her jacket and held out her bare arm. ‘Look at my skin, Joe,’ she cried. ‘It’s yellow.’ She pulled her sleeve down again. ‘I’ve got yellow skin and you’re white. American law says it is wrong to feel the way we do, and they could put us in prison for it, or even hang us for it. You mustn’t say anythin’ more. Words that are spoken aloud can’t be taken back.’ She took a step away from him. ‘I’m goin’ home now.’
She spun round, and felt a hand on each arm again. She stiffened. Gently he pulled her back against his chest. Through his thick jacket, she could feel his heart racing, and she could feel his strength. In a moment of weakness and yearning, she let herself relax and lean back. His arms tightened around her and she felt the sigh of joy that ran through his body.
Then he turned her to face him and angled her face to look up into his.
She ought to leave at once, she knew, but she couldn’t move.
Rooted to the spot, she stared up into deep blue eyes flecked with burnished gold; eyes that were alive with emotion – turbulent, forbidden emotion – and she knew she couldn’t stop her hunger for him from pouring out of her gaze.
‘Charity,’ she heard him whisper, his voice hoarse.
Then his lips were on hers, hard and desperate, an explosion of love and need.
His heat spread through her body. Her mouth moving eagerly beneath his, she slid her arms around his back and pressed the length of her body tight against his, getting as close to him as she could. She felt his hardness.
With a frightened gasp, she pulled away and put her hands to her cheeks. ‘We mustn’t do this. I’m not allowed to think of you in a man and woman kind of way. Much as I want to – and I do want to, Joe,’ she cried, gazing despairingly up at him. ‘I really do. But I mustn’t.’ She pulled her coat tighter around her. ‘We’ve gotta forget today.’
He held out his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘But I feel the same about you, Charity. I love you. You know I do.’
A sad smile played across her lips. ‘And I love you, Joe, very much, and that’s why it stops here. What kind of love would it be if I let you break the law and risk bein’ hanged?’ She paused. ‘And what kind of woman would I be if I took the chance of the same happenin’ to me as happened to my ma?’
He shook his head. ‘Oh, Charity,’ he said quietly. ‘You know that would never happen. I’d make it all right.’
She looked up at him, hopelessness in her eyes. ‘But you couldn’t, Joe; the law makes it impossible. You must never touch me again. Not so long ago, a riot against the Chinese got out of hand in Denver, and a Chinese laundryman was dragged down the street with a rope round his neck, and then kicked and beaten to death by a mob of whites. And you said there was trouble in Carter last night. I don’t know what sort of trouble it was, but I can imagine. With the mood the whites are in, we’d be lynched if folk found out there was anythin’ between us.’
‘What happened in Carter last night won’t happen again. Carter folk are not like that,’ he said firmly. ‘And the Marshal’s got everythin’ in hand.’
‘I hope you’re right, but I don’t wanna take a chance on findin’ out you’re wrong.’
He took a step towards her. ‘Suppose I choose to take the risk rather than live without you?’
She stepped back, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘I won’t let you. Today was the first and the last time. I’m gonna work hard to love Chen Fai. He deserves no less – he’s a good and honourable man. I know somethin’s changed between you and me – it obviously has – but I also know that nothin’s changed because we’ve stopped now and everythin’s still as it was. We’ve always been good frie
nds, and we still are. But we’re no more than friends.’
‘Charity.’ He stared at her, his face distraught.
‘Nothing lies between us, and it never will,’ she repeated, her voice shaking. ‘I’m cold now and I’m gonna go back, and I’m goin’ alone. You’ve got a horse to find.’
She turned and walked quickly across the ground in the direction of the river, forcing herself not to look round, his anguish and despair cutting into her back.
Reaching the river, she turned left, leaving the line of his sight, and followed the river in the direction of Carter. Letting her tears fall unchecked, she struck out across the open ground to the well and made her way along the line of miners’ houses to the Walkers’ house.
Standing a little way back from the group of women at the well who were pointedly ignoring her, an empty pail in each of her hands, Martha watched Charity pass close by. Charity didn’t see her, but she saw Charity, and she saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. Standing there in growing disquiet, she gazed after her until she’d disappeared into the house.
One by one, the other women filled their pails and returned to their houses, taking with them their laughter and chatter and contempt, and leaving her with silence. Finally, left on her own, she moved across to the pump and pulled down hard on the pump arm. As she did so, she saw Joe walk by a short distance away, a length of rope in his hand. Even from afar, she could see agitation and desperation on his face.
A frisson of fear ran through her.
She’d known the moment would come, and she’d been dreading it. But she hadn’t known how she could stop it.
She’d seen the eyes of them both on the night that Joe returned. They’d looked at each other in the way she knew she’d looked at Hiram the first time she’d seen him, and from that moment on she’d been terrified of the day they gave in to their feelings.
And now it looked as if that day might have come.
Her buckets full, she walked slowly back to her house, her heart heavy.
When she’d gone to bed on the night of Joe’s return, tense and ill at ease, she hadn’t known what to do for the best, and she still didn’t know. But the time had come when she must think of something, and she must do so fast.
She reached the front door and stared at it. ‘Oh, my son,’ she whispered. Then, ashen-faced, she pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold.
Chapter Thirty-Four
A distant cock was crowing when Charity quietly pulled the back door shut behind her. She paused a moment and glanced at the door to the bedroom where she used to sleep, the room where Joe now slept.
The room was empty, she knew. She’d heard Joe go out earlier.
First he’d come into the house from outside, lit the stove, waited a while for it to heat up and then made some coffee. She’d heard the chair scrape back as he’d sat down, and she’d wondered whether he’d sit a while when he finished his drink or go straight to the stable. But soon after that, she’d heard him walk past her room, open the back door and go out.
It was what he’d done every day for the past two weeks since the morning they’d met on the plain.
And that morning, as with every one of those other mornings, his footsteps had slowed as he’d passed her bedroom door. She’d heard his hesitation, felt it through the wall. She’d clutched her quilt to her chin. A throb of desire pulsing low in her stomach, she’d lain there, longing for him to open the door, willing it to stay shut.
It had stayed shut.
He’d continued along the corridor, leaving her in her bed, unable to move and in despair at her wantonness, her cheeks wet with tears of disappointment in herself.
Their time apart clearly hadn’t helped him control his feelings any more than it had helped her, she’d realised. Thoughts of him had filled her mind from morning till night. And her yearning for him had built up inside her.
She’d known this was happening and had resolved to talk to him as soon as she could in an attempt to get things back to where they used to be. But there hadn’t been a single moment in which to do so. For the past two weeks, Joe had left the house every morning before anyone else was up, and had returned each night well after dark, when it was far too late to sit down and eat with them, and after a few words with his parents, he’d gone straight to bed.
Hearing his steps falter again as he’d passed her room that morning, she’d realised that this couldn’t continue, and she’d decided to go to the stable and talk to him. Greg would be there, too, but Greg would never tell the Carter townsfolk that she and Joe had been talking together, she was sure. And even if he did, everyone knew she’d been friends with Joe all her life, and they wouldn’t get riled up about him speaking with her.
She’d thrown back her cover and washed and dressed at speed, anxious to get to Joe before the town filled with people. What she would say to him, she didn’t know, but she’d think of something. He’d be in the middle of watering and graining the horses by the time she reached the livery, but she was certain he’d be able to break off briefly to talk with her.
She turned away from his bedroom door and started walking past the vegetable patch towards the town, its buildings bleak beneath a bank of grey cloud that hung low across the sky. The morning air was bitter-cold, and she wound her scarf more tightly around her head and thrust her hands into her coat pockets as she hurried across the open ground.
The stable was the right place in which to talk to Joe, she reassured herself as she walked. With Greg there, they wouldn’t be alone in the building, so the wrong sorts of thoughts wouldn’t flood her mind and distract her from what she had to say to make sure she didn’t lose him.
She caught her breath. Why did she think she could lose Joe?
The law might stop them from ever being more to each other than friends, but he would always be her friend. One day he, too, would wed, and then, married to other people and living in different cultures, they’d obviously lose some of their closeness – that was only to be expected – but they would still be friends. Law or no law, they had a bond that could never be broken.
That she must never let be broken.
She turned into Second Street and hurried along on the Chinatown side of the street, her eyes on the livery stable on the opposite corner, her heeled boots shattering shards of ice that littered the boardwalk. Reaching Main Street, she glanced in both directions, making sure that no one was close by in either part of the town, then stepped off the boardwalk to cross over to the stable.
‘Charity!’ Martha’s voice came from her left.
She stopped in surprise in the middle of the road, turned and saw Martha hurrying along on the whites’ side of the street. She made a move to go to her, but Martha indicated for her to stay where she was. Stepping down from the boardwalk, Martha walked across the street towards her, placing her feet with care between the ridges of hard mud that criss-crossed the centre of the track.
‘What are you doin’, gal, comin’ over to this side of the street?’ Martha asked when she reached Charity. ‘When I last looked, the bakery and mercantile were in the other direction.’
‘I was just goin’ to say hello to Joe. I’ve not spoken to him for a couple of weeks, with him bein’ gone real early in the mornin’ and back so late each night.’
Unsmiling, Martha nodded. ‘I seen that, too. He’s not sat down at the table to eat with us for a while now. But what’s two weeks of not speakin’ to him? Before that, you’d not spoken to him for seven years.’
Charity tried to laugh. ‘I know that. But now he’s here, I thought I’d ask how he was settlin’ down. I didn’t want to write it in a letter.’ She attempted a laugh again.
At the sight of the grim expression on Martha’s face, she stopped.
‘I don’t know about Joe, but I’ve been wantin’ to talk to you, gal,’ Martha said, ‘and now’s as good a time as any, with the men not bein’ around.’
Charity’s face filled with anxiety. ‘What about? Have I d
one somethin’ wrong?’ She pushed her hands further into her pockets.
‘Look, Charity,’ Martha began. ‘You’re a grown woman now and I’m not gonna beat about the bush – we both know what I’m talkin’ about. You need to move out. You’re gonna wed Chen Fai in May, I think you said. I sure am hopin’ nothing’s gonna stop that weddin’ from going ahead.’
Charity bit her lip.
‘I don’t have to say more, do I? Joe did what he was asked when you were little, keepin’ an eye on you at times and helpin’ with the work I would’ve been doin’ if I hadn’t been lookin’ after you. But you’re not a little gal any longer, and there’s no need for him to keep lookin’ to see you’re all right. You’ve got Chen Fai to do that for you now. Isn’t that so?’
Charity nodded.
‘And it wouldn’t be proper for you and Joe, a grown man and woman, to be spendin’ time together away from other folk. Isn’t that also so?’
‘I know it wouldn’t,’ Charity said, her voice low.
‘I hope you do, gal. It’s time Joe started thinkin’ of himself. He’s a fine-lookin’ man with a good future and he’ll find himself a woman real easy. But he won’t until he takes his eyes off you and starts lookin’ around him.’
Charity’s heart missed a beat, and she swallowed hard. ‘Joe’s a friend. I’ve never thought of him as anythin’ else. I’m gonna marry Chen Fai, aren’t I?’
‘Like I said, I certainly hope so. But you’ve got some work to do there, I rather think. The last few times I’ve seen Chen Fai, he’s not looked a happy man. It’s not just San Francisco that’s got Chinese gals, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘So you’ll know there are some in Green River and Evanston now, and that’s not far away. Not many, I grant you, maybe only one or two. But how many does a man need? And Chen Fai would be a real good catch for any of them. I’m suggestin’ you put a smile on your face and be real nice to him. If you wanna get wed, that is.’
‘Of course I do,’ Charity echoed hollowly.
‘Well, I hope you do.’ Martha took a step closer to her. ‘’Cos I’m tellin’ you, gal, if Chen Fai changes his mind about marryin’ you, you’ll go to Green River, get a job as a domestic and live there, or you’ll do what Chinese women have to do in places like the tong if they wanna eat. I want you out of the house, and out of Joe’s life. I reckon I couldn’t make that any clearer. D’you understand?’ Cold grey eyes pierced her.