Fortune's Journey

by Bruce Coville

  At night Lola would tell them stories of her past adventures, of her travels in India and Europe, and her great love for King Louis I of Bavaria. Sometimes she would act out portions of her favorite play, Lola Montez in Bavaria, an outrageous concoction based on her own life story.

  Once she even demonstrated her famous Spider Dance, shaking large cork spiders from her voluminous skirts, then whirling about the room and stomping on them in a frenzy of terror. It was as bizarre a performance as anything Fortune had ever seen, and though she was too much in awe of Lola to laugh herself, she understood how others might have, as the desk clerk in Mad Jack’s Gulch had claimed.

  In fact, it did not take Fortune long to learn the truth about Lola Montez: Her fame was based not on her ability as an actress, which was actually quite minimal, but on her great personality, which was astonishing. She drew people the way a flame draws moths, and divided them more sharply and significantly than a battle over religious doctrine.

  The other thing Fortune learned from Lola was how good she was herself.

  “Come, Fortune,” Lola would say. “Let us try that scene from Othello. I want to see you do Desdemona.” Then they would act out one of Lola’s favorite scenes from the play.

  Though Lola was hopeless, something in her knew how to bring out the best in Fortune. “No, no, no!” she would cry. “Not like that. Like this!” Then she would deliver the line in question in a way that was totally wrong, yet contained in it the exact hint Fortune needed to do it correctly.

  It was a revelation for Fortune. She had thought her work in Hamlet opposite Jamie had been spectacular only because of the spark she caught from him. Now she knew that was not true. She was a fine actress. And she had it in her to be great.

  That was small compensation for the loss of Jamie. Yet somehow it made her feel closer to him, for acting was all she had left of him, of his dreams. Her own brief dream of a life with him had been shattered. Believing that there could never be anyone else in the world for her, she clung to her craft as to a life raft. It was what kept her sane.

  You’d be so proud, Papa, she’d think when she gave a particularly adept reading, or found a new way to express an emotion. I wish you could see me.

  That thought did not bother her. She had accepted the loss of her father. It was the wish that Jamie could see what she was learning, how she was growing, that really gnawed at her.

  At night she would take out his letter, crumpled and tear-stained from that first day, now lovingly preserved, and read it over before she went to sleep.

  Come back! she would think sometimes as she sat in Lola’s home and stared out at the wilderness. Come back to the one who loves you.

  Then she would lift the chain that hung about her neck, and stare at the heart-shaped golden nugget that she always carried with her.

  Walter, too, was grieving over the loss of Jamie. He was sure, somehow, that he was the cause of it—without ever knowing exactly what had happened. For Fortune and Mrs. Watson, in the way of women, had closed ranks. Jamie’s letter, and the real reason he had left, had never been revealed to the men of the troupe. Even so, the big man would not look Fortune in the eye.

  In mid-October Fortune and Mr. Patchett decided it was time to take the troupe on the road again. They packed their wagon, filling it with props, costumes, and sets they had made, or that Lola had given them, and headed for the mining camps.

  “And a good thing it is we’re going,” said Mr. Patchett to her on the morning of their departure. “Aaron and Edmund were getting restless. Another day or so and they probably would have been getting into trouble.”

  As it was they were too busy for much trouble. They played a night or two in each town they came to, sometimes filling the house, when there was a house to fill (they were surprised at the number of towns that had real theaters), sometimes playing in the open, to a handful or a crowd—it didn’t seem to matter as long as someone wanted to see their shows.

  What Fortune both loved and hated was that many of the men came to the plays simply because she and Mrs. Watson were in them. The great shortage of women in the mining camps made them shining attractions no matter how good (or bad) their plays were. It was nice to be the center of so much attention, but she would have preferred it if it had been for the quality of their art.

  At every camp they came to Fortune asked about Jamie, at every performance searched the crowd for his familiar face.

  It was never there.

  She knew Mrs. Watson was watching the crowds as well. In their shared grief they had grown close in a way Fortune would never have thought possible even a month earlier. Often they spoke late into the night.

  It was strange to realize that Mrs. Watson had once felt the same fears and longings that she experienced now, had had her own heart broken, perhaps even more deeply, by the loss of not only a husband but a child as well—a child she had now lost a second time.

  One day there was a coldness in the air, and they knew without saying a word to one another that it was time to return to Grass Valley.

  They passed the winter there in relative quiet, practicing new ideas, repairing costumes and sets, and dreaming of San Francisco. Word had come that a single concert ticket had recently been auctioned off for twelve hundred dollars there. And it was well known that, depending on how they liked the show, the audience was apt to throw anything from tomatoes and eggs to roses and gold dust.

  Not that the troupe had done badly as it toured the mines. They had collected a tidy amount, much of it in the form of small pouches of gold dust thrown in enthusiastic response to the appearance of Fortune and Mrs. Watson.

  Their old dream of building a theater was beginning to burn within them once more. They were once again close to that goal, no longer impoverished players but a prosperous troupe ready to head for San Francisco and theatrical gold.

  And, of course, they listened to Lola as she told them story after story—how she had challenged an entire audience in Sacramento to a duel, crying, “Give me your pants and take my petticoats. You’re not fit to be called men!” Or about her stormy love affair with the great composer Franz Liszt, or how she had been exiled by King Louis when he lost courage and gave in to the demands of the rabble.

  And the world continued turning, and spring returned to gold country, and in time Plunkett’s Players took to the road again, landing, eventually, in a place called Centipede Hollow, where they were to play out the final, tragic act of their westward journey.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It had been raining for two days.

  “I’ve got the peedoodles,” said Mrs. Watson, wringing her hands.

  Edmund stepped away from her. “Is it contagious?” he asked mockingly.

  Mrs. Watson slapped at his arm. “No more than stupidity. It just means I’m nervous.”

  “Miner talk?” asked Fortune.

  “Yes. I learned it from a wonderful man in Grass Valley. Anyway, this weather is making me anxious.”

  Fortune stifled a snort. Having listened to Mrs. Watson snore her way through prairie thunderstorms, she was not about to believe her friend was that upset by a little rain. She wondered what was really bothering her. Was she nervous because they would be doing their first performance of the season that night? Or was it that she was having a hard time taking her place as queen of the troupe once more?

  Fortune smiled, feeling slightly wicked. One of her favorite amusements that winter had been watching Mrs. Watson try to cope with Lola. She seemed to swing from someplace between awe and admiration to complete and utter jealousy.

  “There, there, my dear,” said Walter, setting his hand, which was the size of a small frying pan, gently on Mrs. Watson’s shoulder. “They’ll love us. Just you wait and see.”

  The gesture only earned him a scowl and the tart response: “It’s the weather!”

  Fortune shook her head. Since the night of his gambling catastrophe, Walter had been trying desperately to redeem himself. Sometimes she wan
ted to grab him by the shoulders and shout, “Walter, I’m not mad anymore! Stop trying to make up for what you did, because you can’t. No one can. Just be your sweet old self again and let it go at that.”

  Somehow she had never been able to bring herself to do it. And even if she had, it would not have set to rest the grudge Mrs. Watson now held against him for his part in Jamie’s departure.

  As Walter backed away, his eyes deep with hurt, Aaron and Mr. Patchett rejoined the group. “Everything is ready,” said Mr. Patchett, rubbing his hands together. “It should be a good house. After being cooped up for the winter everyone is as restless as Hamlet’s father. They’re well ripe for a little imported entertainment.”

  “We’re the first since fall?” asked Edmund.

  Mr. Patchett shrugged. “Not everyone folded up their operations for the weather, so they’ve had a couple of troupes through here. But pickings have been slim, so they’re glad to have another company in town. They’ve even heard of us—”

  “Of course they have!” said Aaron. “We’re famous throughout the West for burning down theaters and starting enormous brawls. People are dying to find out what we’ll do tonight.”

  “I hope they won’t be disappointed if we don’t do anything more than give them a good show,” said Fortune.

  Aaron shrugged. “Who knows? These miners are all crazy.” As he spoke, he gave her a private look that said, “Are you all right?”

  Fortune smiled in response. Perhaps the only good thing that had come out of this dreary winter was that in the wake of Jamie’s leaving she and Aaron had developed a real friendship.

  Fortune had been astonished at how different things could be with a man once the love question was out of the way. She had never suspected that she could really be friends with Aaron. In fact, it had never really crossed her mind when she had thought that she loved him.

  The idea had puzzled her. “Can you love someone without liking them?” she had asked Mrs. Watson one night when they were sitting in front of the fireplace in the cozy little home Lola had found for them.

  Mrs. Watson had not answered the question right away, instead sat staring into the flames. “The problem with that question,” she finally said, drawing her blanket around her, “is that it makes it sound like love should make sense. But it doesn’t. Never has, never will. Loving and liking don’t always have an awful lot to do with each other, at least not in my experience.” She paused. “The tricky part of it is, while it’s easy enough to fall in love with someone without liking them, you won’t have much luck making it last that way. I loved Jamie’s father with every fiber of my being, but the Lord alone knows what life would have been like if we had actually been able to live together.”

  “I see,” said Fortune. “At least, I think I do.”

  “Your parents were wonderful that way,” continued Mrs. Watson. “I don’t believe I ever saw two people who liked each other more than those two.”

  “Didn’t they love each other?” cried Fortune.

  “Of course they did. Haven’t you been listening to me? But they weren’t just in love; they actually liked each other. Don’t see that too much these days. Take Lola. I never could keep track of how many husbands she had.”

  “Three,” said Fortune. “I think.”

  Mrs. Watson nodded. “She probably loved every one of them, too. But I doubt she liked ’em much.”

  Though Fortune had chuckled at the observation, it stayed with her. As she studied Aaron now, she wished that they could have been friends earlier. My fault, I guess. I was so wrapped up in trying to get him to love me I never really thought about being his friend. She was pretty certain the interest he had shown in her last summer was due more to childlike jealousy, a fear of losing something he had been able to take for granted, than to any real feeling of love for her. Once Jamie had left, Aaron’s interest seemed to dwindle, too.

  Of course, it could be that he realizes there is no one else in the world for me now, she thought occasionally. She wanted to believe he was sensitive enough to see that.

  Whatever it was, she was enjoying his friendship; it had helped her through some of the worst days of the winter.

  Not the truly worst ones, she reminded herself. Those were the days when it stormed, and she spent from dawn till dusk sitting at the window, staring out and wondering if Jamie was all right, if he was sheltered, safe—or if he was alone, lost in the raging weather, with no one to care for him.

  Sometimes she sat that way for hours, tears running slowly and steadily down her face. It was stupid, she knew, but she couldn’t help it.

  Other times she had felt a sudden surge of fierce anger at Jamie for not trusting her more, for not trying to find out what had really happened that night.

  Walter came upon her once when she was in her sorrow. His face had crumpled in despair and self-loathing, and he had disappeared into his room for three days. He said he was too sick to come down to meals. In her heart Fortune knew his only disease was shame.

  But that’s past! she told herself firmly. We’re on the road again, we perform tonight, it’s just like the old days…except…except…

  She turned and ran from the group, so no one would see her tears.

  “You all right?” asked a gentle voice a few moments later.

  She turned and let Aaron hold her while she wept.

  “Hope they don’t run too late,” said one of the men in the front row. “The rain’s been gettin’ worse all day. Looks like we might have a real gullywasher tonight.”

  Wonderful, thought Fortune, who was listening from the wings. No one’s going to pay attention to the show because they’ll be worrying about the weather.

  Even worse, she knew that she would be worrying about the weather, too. They had a performance scheduled in the next town up the line tomorrow; if the weather was too bad they might not make it.

  Yet once the show began she didn’t worry about the weather. She was swept away by being on stage again, being in front of an audience that responded to what they did, cared what happened to the people they were pretending to be. With a jolt of surprise, she realized how much she had missed making people laugh, making them cry. And, being honest with herself, she admitted the addiction she had tried for years to deny. She had missed the applause!

  Though the “gullywasher” didn’t materialize that night, the next morning it was still raining, a gentle drizzle that didn’t prevent travel, simply made everything wet and uncomfortable. Complaining heartily, the players packed the wagon, harnessed the horses, and headed south.

  Except for Aaron, who had to drive, everyone sat in back to stay out of the rain.

  The road was preposterous, a slick trail of mud that sucked at the wagon wheels, clung to the horses’ hooves, and seemed to actively try to keep them from moving at all.

  “Maybe we should turn back,” said Mrs. Watson. The wagon cover was beginning to leak, and a rivulet of water was running along the spot where she usually sat.

  “I don’t want to miss a playing date if we can help it,” said Fortune, speaking loudly to be heard above the drum of the rain. “It’s not professional.”

  “Fortune, you’d better come up here,” called Aaron.

  Leaving Mrs. Watson to stew, Fortune scrambled up beside Aaron. The rain was coming down harder now, and almost instantly her clothes were soaked through and clinging to her skin.

  “Look,” said Aaron.

  Ahead lay a stream, swollen over its banks, the water a churning mass of brown.

  Fortune frowned. “Can we make it across?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I called you up here. I’m a little nervous about it. I’ll try if you want…most of the other streams we’ve come to out here weren’t very deep.”

  She turned back to the others and made a choice. “Edmund—I need you to go ahead of us and see how deep that stream runs.”

  “Are you crazy?” he replied, his voice surly.

  “Afraid you’ll get we
t?” she asked, trying to jolly him a bit.

  For an uncomfortable moment they stared at each other. Fortune wanted desperately to turn away, but telling herself that Lola would never let a mere man stare her down, she decided that neither would she. And even though her stomach seemed to be churning as rapidly as the water beneath them, her gaze never faltered.

  After what seemed like an eternity Edmund looked at his shirt, which was already clinging to his skin, and laughed. He climbed out of the back of the wagon and headed around it to the stream. By the time he was halfway across, the water was still no deeper than his knees.

  “Looks safe,” said Aaron, shaking the reins and urging the horses forward.

  “Wait!” said Fortune. “He might not have reached the main bed yet.”

  But in another moment Edmund was standing on the far bank. He turned and waved them on. As he did, rumble of thunder shuddered through the sky.

  Aaron shook the reins. “Gee, Romeo. Haw, Juliet. Let’s roll!”

  They splashed into the water. As if on signal, the skies chose that moment to unleash their load. What had started as a drizzle and gradually turned to a moderate rain became, suddenly and instantly, a torrential downpour.

  “I can’t see!” cried Aaron.

  Fortune grabbed his arm. The rain was so heavy it felt as if they had actually fallen into the water. From behind her she heard an angry voice yelling, “Oh, Minerva! I should have been born a duck!”

  The horses whinnied in fright, and when a jagged streak of lightning slashed down nearby, Romeo—his eyes rolling in terror—lifted his hooves and pawed at the air.

  Aaron slashed at the gelding’s rump with the reins. At the same time he yelled to Fortune, “I don’t know what to do! I can’t see to get across and I can’t back them up.”

  “Then stay here.”

  “We can’t do that!”