Prospects of a Woman

by Wendy Voorsanger

  PROSPECTS

  of a

  WOMAN

  Jackson, Wm. A, and Lambert & Lane’S Lith. Map of the mining district of California. [S.l, 1850] Map. Image courtesy of Library of Congress Archives.

  Copyright © 2020 Wendy Voorsanger

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2020

  Printed in the United States of America

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63152-781-4

  E-ISBN: 978-1-63152-782-1

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020908451

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1569 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

  All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For my sister Karen, an extraordinary California woman, and for all the generations of California women who came before, and now

  AUTHOR’S HISTORICAL NOTE

  In early America, a woman was legally dependent on her father, then on her husband. Upon marriage, a woman lost any right to control property that was hers prior, and she had no rights to acquire any property during marriage. She could not make contracts, keep or control her own wages or rents, transfer property, sell property, or bring any lawsuit. She had little right to divorce, and had no rights to her children if she left her husband.

  Drawing on the traditions of Spanish civil law, the California Constitution adopted in 1849, and subsequent sections added upon statehood in 1850 and thereafter, granted California women the first set of broad equal rights in America. Both single and married women in California were allowed to own property, manage business affairs, divorce, and share custody of their children. These rights gave California women unprecedented social and economic power to work as ranchers, lawyers, writers, architects, doctors, publishers, hoteliers, nurses, politicians, artists, teachers, clothiers, mothers, and wives. Generations of powerful California women helped build the thirty-first state of America into the fifth largest economy in the world. Prospects of a Woman strives to tell of those beginnings.

  “We will remind them that this dear California is a gorgeous edition de luxe of Palestine of old . . . that every spot in it has its hills and dales. Our Holy Land, our Promised Land is this golden spot, and we want the sages of Babylon to pay us a visit.”

  —RABBI JACOB VOORSANGER

  EMANU-EL, 1896

  PROLOGUE

  North Fork of the American River, Summer, 1850

  The river ran angry that day, with water raging loud at the sun for burning it off the peaceful granite slopes of the High Sierra. Falling into a spring melt, it tumbled down, flowing as something altogether different through the pine canyon. Flowing cold and fierce. Even with the river talking to her, telling, Elisabeth never could have predicted. In all her circular thinkings and imaginings, her mind never conceived of such a day. She didn’t yet know a man could turn like that.

  She threaded her fingers through her husband’s, grabbing at his strength as her own. Together, they stood staring at the little log cabin across the river. It didn’t look like the leaning shanties and mudstrewn tents they’d seen in San Francisco. The cabin tucked up tidy against the steep ravine, looking sturdy and permanent with logs laid atop one another level and dried mud caked in between the chinks and wood shingles neat on the roof with a bit of moss growing. It looked like the beginnings of a homestead back in Concord, not a gold claim at the edge of civilization.

  They waited a long while, watching the faint puff of smoke slipping out the slight river rock chimney. Watching for him to come out. When the sun set low behind the ridge and dying light cloaked mysterious around them, Nate squeezed her hand and let go.

  “Look like something your father built?” Nate asked.

  “No idea.”

  “Time to find out,” he said.

  Nate crossed the river first, leaping from boulder to boulder, elegant, balancing on logs placed across as makeshift bridges. When he jumped to the far side, he waved for her to follow. She picked her way across careful, trying not to look down, trying not to think what might happen if she slipped. Trying not to imagine being sucked into the rapids, pulled along, gasping. Smashing against the rocks. Drowning. When she finally made it to the other side, she let loose a trembling of fear.

  Nate put his arm around her as they walked up to the cabin. He knocked on the door.

  “Hello? Mr. Goodwin. Henry Goodwin? It’s Nathaniel Parker.”

  No response.

  Nate spoke again.

  “Mr. Goodwin. I’m here with Elisabeth. Your daughter.”

  Still nothing.

  She should’ve walked away then. Walked away, not knowing. Not seeing. But Nate tested the door, pushing it in slow, and she peeked inside. A dozen candles lit the place up like the fire of Hades. Lighting up the man, and his bare backside, hairy and pale, with pants flopping around his ankles, going at it hard on a woman, bent over a table.

  “Jesus,” she said.

  She covered her mouth but didn’t look away. The man didn’t bother to stop his business with the woman and instead looked defiant over his shoulder at them, his long graying beard bouncing as he kept on humping that woman up and down, faster and faster, holding on to her long braid and hooting like he was riding an animal, showing off. That woman seemed to enjoy all that roughness, moaning with a pleasure that cut Elisabeth sharp. When the man flared his deep-set green eyes, Elisabeth stumbled backward. Nate caught her from falling down as the door closed with a slap.

  “A shame. A shame for you to see,” said Nate.

  A wave of nausea hit her hard. She steeled herself from getting sick, flexing her middle, trying to keep down that measly bit of jerky she’d eaten earlier in the day. But their last bit of foodstuff came up without her permission as she leaned over retching. Nate placed a hand on her shoulder for comfort as she wobbled weak. He took her elbow, guiding her over to a cottonwood beside the river. They sat down and leaned against the trunk as clouds gathered overhead, squashing the lingering twilight dark. Nate told her to sip water from the canteen. Wrung ragged, she obeyed, leaning back heavy on Nate’s chest. He kissed her temple and covered her with their blanket. As her insides settled, she wished for a sliver of sun to come back out. Just a small spot of setting sun to show her a sign of a merciful universe. Or a slice of moon, gleaming glorious. She needed to see something. Her faith was dripping out slow like the sweet sap of a maple going dry. At this rate she’d have no more faith by the time she reached twenty-one.

  “Let’s wait, to be sure,” said Nate.

  She looked at the black night closing in with no moon and no familiar tastes blowing on the western wind, and listened to the river rage over the rocks. She started biting at her fingernails, pulling off bits of skin with her teeth until her fingers bled, wondering ’round and ’round. Wondering why she’d thought coming all this way to find her father was a good idea. Wondering what she’d t
ell her mother. Wondering how she’d face Nate in the morning light with such shame shining nasty over the Goodwin family. Wondering how they’d get something to eat in the morning with all their money spent through. Wondering why the woman splayed backward across the table seemed to like it that way.

  At dawn, two mourning doves called melancholy from the branches above, coo-cooing in lament. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, as white puffs of cottonwood fluff floated atop the river on the early morning breeze without a worry. A shadow covered her face, and she looked up at Nate.

  “He’s got something to say.”

  “What?”

  “He better tell it himself.”

  Over at the cabin, Henry Goodwin stooped, looking much older than she remembered, grizzled too thin with his wiry hair grown out long and wild. He stood hardened, with sacks at his feet and a girl sidled up too close. Not a woman after all, but a girl. An Indian girl. A slight thing, maybe younger than Elisabeth. She wore a deerskin shift slipping indecent off one shoulder and stared straight at Elisabeth with a round face and wide-set eyes looking sassy. Like she owned that spot beside her father. Elisabeth glared back, folding her arms across her chest, waiting on him to explain.

  “You shouldn’t a come,” said Henry.

  “But you wrote us about the claim,” she said.

  She pulled the letter from her pocket and shoved it at him. Henry looked at the paper but didn’t take hold of it.

  “You made a mistake in coming,” said Henry.

  Elisabeth crumpled the letter and threw it at him.

  “We’re giving up the claim. You and your man can have it,” said Henry.

  “We?”

  Henry scratched his nose and sniffed, looking shrunken and sick since she’d last seen him nearly three years ago, yet standing taller, too, which confused her beyond measure.

  “There are times when a situation looks simple, ’Lizbeth. When, in fact, you see . . . there comes a turn far more complicated, requiring more of man than he’s capable,” said Henry, stumbling over the words.

  “That’s quite a luxury. Getting out of what’s required,” she said.

  With a slow sweep, the Indian girl flung her braid over her shoulder haughty, and Henry started stroking her head like she was his pet. Elisabeth could hardly believe his manner. That damn Indian girl had him under some sinful spell, taking away his love. Hiding it. Locking it away.

  “You’ll come to understand when you’re older,” he said.

  “You said you were coming back home!” she yelled.

  She couldn’t contain herself any longer and started flapping her arms and barking out words like a rabid dog.

  “We waited for you! Me and Mama and Lucy and Samuel. You left us with nothing but those goddamn rotten apples!”

  “There’s nothing for me back in Concord,” he said.

  “What about Mama? What about me?”

  “You don’t need me no more.”

  “Please don’t leave me, Papa,” she said, thinking softness might get him to stay.

  “You got yourself a husband now. And you got Samuel and Lucy. I’m sure they’re getting on the same . . .”

  She wanted to tell her father. Make him sad, make him hurt. She wanted to tell how her sister, Lucy, had gotten her hair tangled up in that wicked warp at the mill, her scalp yanking clean off with her long brown curls still sticking to it. Lying mute in the hospital, with half a head and a horrible infection for months and months. She wanted to tell how she’d nearly gone mad herself, still working the loom all day and worrying at Lucy’s bedside all night, watching her head swell nearly twice its size, and how Lucy had died crying out something terrible. She wanted to tell how Samuel had gotten furious with her for not keeping little Lucy safe, and how they hadn’t told their mother for fear she’d try to kill herself again. She wanted to tell about marrying Nate, a man she hardly knew. The first man who’d paid her attention. How she’d left her job at the mills. Left Samuel on his own at Amherst. Left her mother sinking into madness at the Worcester Asylum. Left everything on hope of finding him. Certain it was the right thing. Certain he’d give her back the happiness she’d lost. Instead, she lashed out, hysterical.

  “You don’t get to know about Samuel or Lucy or nothing!”

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  “Samuel knew you were a louse. He said you weren’t coming home,” she said.

  “Listen here. We can’t all live down here on the river together. That ain’t gonna work. I gotta move on,” he said.

  Unleashing her pent-up empty insides in a spring of hate, she pushed her father with all the force she could muster, hoping he’d fall backward and get the sense knocked back into his head. But his wiry self didn’t budge, and he stood staring at her like a statue. His indifference fueled her, and she lost herself completely, pounding on his chest over and over, and he took it stone-faced, like she was giving a punishment to someone other than himself.

  “I thought you loved me!” Elisabeth screamed, spit flying from her lips.

  When he stumbled ever so slight she kicked his shins until he fell, then she turned and slapped his Indian girl on the face hard with an open palm. She slapped her for taking her father away and making him forget and making him wild and making him happy and making him nothing. The Indian girl didn’t put her hands up in defense or slap back. She took the slap, holding her chin high with a slight smile sitting on her lips as if daring Elizabeth to do it again.

  “Listen to the wind,” the girl said. “It’s saying our souls are connected.”

  Enraged, Elisabeth made a fist to strike the girl harder. But Nate stepped in, holding her wrist, saving her from herself. Saving her a bit of dignity.

  “What a load of nonsense,” she said, shaking Nate off and smoothing the front of her skirt.

  The girl went to Henry lying on the ground and helped him up.

  “That old Henry Goodwin you know is gone,” he said, facing Elisabeth. “Good as dead. Can’t find him in me no more. He up and left my soul the first year I came out here. Can’t say I’m sorry for it, either. I’ve made a new man of myself. And this here good woman,” he said, pointing to that Indian girl. “We’ll, I’d be dead if wasn’t for her.”

  He talked a selfish gibberish that she had no point of reference to understand.

  “There’s still gold in the river, I’m sure of it,” said Henry, picking up his sacks to go.

  “I don’t want your dirty gold,” she said.

  Nate finally spoke.

  “Hardly an honorable way to end it, sir.”

  “Nothing to be done about it,” said Henry, nodding to the girl.

  Henry didn’t shake Nate’s hand. He didn’t touch Elisabeth, either. Didn’t hug her like when he’d left their orchard for work with the Hudson Company three years ago. He simply walked away, crossing over the river with his Indian lover following behind. Elisabeth planted her feet solid into the California dirt, determined not to run after him like some dog begging for scraps. She watched him walk along the far bank and up the trail and into the forest and wilderness beyond, like a stranger she never knew. She watched long after he’d gone and the tall pines fuzzed together into a hazy mass of dark dusky green.

  “That’s no way to treat family,” said Nate.

  Something inside her broke at hearing Nate say it aloud. Shattered. Cracked into pebbles. She screamed at the searing loss stabbing through her soul. She gasped and choked and sobbed heavy, raging like a mad woman. She raged for her father leaving. She raged for her little Lucy dying without her hair, and for her mother gone mad, and for Samuel at Amherst, and for herself, stuck out west with a husband she hardly knew. She ran behind the cabin to a pine grove shaded from the strong sun, and Nate followed.

  Falling to her hands and knees, she crawled around in circles on the forest floor, shaking and crying until her nose ran with snot and her eyes swelled red and she filled full with shame and guilt. Nate didn’t tell her to shush but simply sat down b
eside her as she curled up in a bed of pine needles. Sylvan softness diffused the grove and a soft breeze fluttered the branches overhead, oblivious to her ravings. She refused to listen to the wind like the girl said, and instead listened to a squirrel skittering down a trunk and a Steller’s jay flying back and forth through the afternoon light streaming through the trees. She thought she might turn to dust, then remembered Emerson’s words—“the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.” She came together slow then, steadying her breath as it matched the rhythm of the river flowing in the distance, long and deep and constant, knowing she’d never beg for a man again. Never beg like her mother. Never again fold up with madness. However cracked and fragile and lost, she was bound now only to Nate, alone.

  PART 1

  Upon hearing a circus had come to town, an excited farmer set out in his wagon. Along the way he met up with the circus parade, led by an elephant, which so terrified his horses that they bolted and pitched the wagon over on its side, scattering his vegetables and eggs across the roadway.

  “I don’t give a hang,” exulted the jubilant farmer as he picked himself up. “I have seen the elephant.”

  —NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN FOLKTALE

  1

  “The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON, “SELF-RELIANCE”

  Elisabeth counted the stitches holding together their dingy canvas tent. Twice. She got 946 both times. Cooped up in the midday heat, she seethed at Nate for leaving her alone. They’d lost too much time already. Refusing to wait another goddamn minute on his frittering and scheming, she untied the tent flaps and crawled out, stretching her arms long overhead. A soft air of relief touched her cheeks. Aching with hunger, she stumbled downriver, in the direction of Culoma Town. She hadn’t eaten since a bite of beans for breakfast the day before.