Prospects of a Woman

by Wendy Voorsanger

  “What the hell are these?”

  She picked up the nut, took off its “hat,” and bit into it. It was bitter and rubbery. She spit it out onto the floor, then threw the basket down, kicking it around harder and harder until the river reeds snapped and the basket splintered to bits and the nuts smashed under her boots into the dirt floor of Henry’s cabin.

  “He’s gone, ’Lizbeth. Now move on. Make the cabin homey-like. Add a woman’s touch,” Nate said.

  He began dragging their two small trunks inside, as well as his case of books. Then he broke a branch off a pine tree and handed it to her. She grabbed the bough in a huff and started sweeping out cobwebs from the creepy dark corners of the dirty cabin while Nate opened his case and took out each book, rubbing it with a cloth and placing it on the table.

  “They need to breathe,” he said.

  His precious case, filled with six rows of ornate leather-bound books, each the same size for a total of thirty six, was the only evidence left of the life in Lowell he’d given up to come out west with her. His life as a prosperous book lender. He’d chosen the collection with care, considering the entire range of knowledge and entertainment they’d need out west. He’d included a whole row of books just for her. She remembered being touched by the gesture before they set out. She hardly cared now. In truth, she didn’t even enjoy the titles he’d chosen for her, preferring instead the rows of Shakespeare and Homer to the sappy romances taking up her row, like Waverley and The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott.

  “Take the ticking and rug outside. Air ’em out,” he said.

  Figuring Henry probably wasn’t coming back, she toiled tirelessly over the next weeks making the cabin a comfortable home for them. First, she repaired the cabin chinks by stuffing mud and bits of wood into the holes between the logs. Then she organized the kitchen area and the mining tools inside the cabin, and scrubbed the bed, tables, and chairs clean. She simmered up crushed pine needles and hacked up a cedar branch into shavings, stuffing them into a new bed ticking which rid the cabin of ranky air. She made a simple tablecloth with a bit of gingham she’d brought from the Lowell Mill and put the most strangely beautiful bushy blue-lavender flowers she’d picked off a fragrant bush growing up the autumn slopes in a tin cup atop the table. She hoped Nate liked her feminine touch.

  Elisabeth settled in for her lot cast on the American, knowing she was more fortunate than most women, with the cabin and the claim and a good man, however distant. Nate treated her kindly and wasn’t entirely unpleasant. But as the days got shorter Nate began staying overnight in Coyoteville on his weekly Sunday run for their food stores, and they grew even farther apart, with vast distances spreading out wide between them.

  “It’s not all that easy, hiking back in the dark with the boulders and a creek to forge,” he said.

  “Whatever suits,” she said.

  She wanted to act the agreeable wife and not push him further away with her demands, even as she ached with loneliness.

  “I’ll be back early in the morning,” he said, grabbing his poke of gold flecks they’d collected that week.

  “Buy a candle this time?” she asked, turning the wax stub over in her hand.

  “We’ve only enough for a bit of coffee and jerky this week.”

  She didn’t push, wanting to avoid the discovery of an uncomfortable truth scratching under the surface. Maybe he didn’t love her. Maybe he, too, thought marrying was a mistake. Instead of picking at a thread barely holding them together, she forced a meek smile. When he left, she sat on the stoop outside reading about Odysseus and his faithful wife, Penelope. As the cricket song grew louder and the pages grew dim in the afternoon shade, a big yellow dog loped up from out of nowhere, dropping a stick at her feet. He whined and whined and cocked his head.

  “What do you want?”

  The dog grabbed his stick and tried to push past her into the cabin, like it was his very own. She shouted at the dog, but that didn’t deter the thing. He dropped the stick and grabbed at the folds of her skirt pulling playfully, his big ears flopping back and forth.

  “Get off!”

  The dog let go of her skirt.

  “Go away,” she said, flailing her arms to scare him away.

  The dog didn’t take her meaning and started barking and barking, like he was trying to tell her something. Then the dog jumped up on her, putting his paws on her shoulders and licking her face wet and slobbery. Scared, she kneed him off, and the dog yelped and scooted under the stoop, whimpering.

  Feeling guilty, she got on her hands and knees and peered under the stoop. The dog looked back with droopy eyes.

  “Come on out from under there. I’m sorry.”

  He whimpered and whined and backed up, scooting deeper under the cabin frightened.

  “Suit yourself,” she said, standing up.

  Angry at being rejected yet again, and by a dog no less, she clomped up the step and went inside, slamming the cabin door in a huff.

  9

  “God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both.”

  Hiking out of the steep gorge was goddamn difficult, going barefoot over all those sharp rocks and prickly pine needles. She couldn’t very well wear Henry’s man boots with her only fancy dress on her first visit to Coyoteville, so she wore nothing on her feet. Done feeling sorry for herself, she was fixing to find some fun of her own. That Yellow Dog loped up too close underfoot, and she tripped on a rock sticking up on the trail, falling hard on her knees and tearing her emerald-green silk dress nearly to the waist, showing her dingy drawers underneath. Yellow Dog lay down on the trail beside her while she cursed and cursed, holding her toe, ripped open and bleeding. When he whined and licked her bloody toe, she pushed his muzzle away irritated, and stood up. She pressed on, stepping slower and careful now, walking and walking up the hill, reaching the top just as dark fell.

  She limped over to a huge open-air tent lit with lanterns and lurked just outside, mesmerized. Wild with abandon, men culled from every race and nation mixed up crazy, dancing a twisted waltz with each other to a comic tune played out of time on a banjo, a fiddle, and two harmonicas. A bare-chested Nisenan accompanied the band with rattles tied ’round his ankles, strutting and gyrating and puffing like a grouse. Half the men wore pants patched front and back across their man parts with flour sacking that read Self-Rising Haxhall. Others wore sacks bearing the name of a Mexican hot chile. Having no women didn’t hinder the men, with some overcoming the difficulty by taking on the feminine role. Transfixed, Elisabeth studied the men and figured the ones wearing the patches were acting as women, prancing coy and light, following the lead of their men. Those not dancing cradled the arms of their partners, cheering and clapping ladylike, while the real men hooted and stomped furious to the bawdy music.

  It seemed the ordinary order of things had gone askew, like some dirty dream brought on by fever. She watched the men, hips swaying, lips pursed, arms wrapped around each other. They groped and sucked on bottles, passing the drink in sacred, merry fraternity. The tune changed, and the fiddler led the couples in the Lady’s Chain square dance, blurting out steps in between plucking and bowing, the drunken men joining in verse. She knew she was witnessing something women shouldn’t see, something sick and sinful. But it seemed somehow sweet, too, as if the dancing cured the men of a vast loneliness that’d spread across their hearts since coming out west to find the women hadn’t yet arrived. She couldn’t turn away, fascinated. She spied the men from the dark fringes, when someone came up behind her.

  “Have you come for the Fandango?”

  In the sinister light cast from the lanterns stood a man, imposing and peculiar. He wore a black velvet vest so short it barely reached the top of his loose-bottomed pants. Rows of shiny brass buttons ran down the sides of his pants, and he had a fine leather holster strapped around his waist. Without a hat, she recognized those moody eyes and shoulder-length curls. It was that C
alifornio from Captain Shannon’s store. Out here the man seemed less lovely than she’d remembered. His hair splayed too long down around his face, and he swayed like he was a little drunk. She ignored his question, looking back at the dancers as her stomach screamed with hunger.

  “Señora Elisabeth Parker,” he said with a wobbly bow. “Buenas noches. Soy Don Nemacio Gabilan.”

  She looked him up and down, wondering if he intended to join the degenerate ball in the male role or strap on a sack.

  “Good evening,” she said, cool.

  “I don’t think that particular Fandango is for us,” he said, nodding toward the tent and pulling on his own green glass bottle.

  “You’re drunk too.”

  “Ahh . . . señora. A matter of perspective. Perhaps not nearly as drunk as them,” he said, leaning his hand on the tent pole behind for support.

  “Is that so?”

  Yellow Dog bared his teeth at Nemacio.

  “Settle!” she said, snapping her fingers.

  Yellow Dog listened, lying down next to the tent pole, watching Nemacio.

  “Dance with me,” he said.

  “I won’t join in that,” she said, pointing at the tent.

  Seeing the lewd lot under the tent put her in no mood for dancing. Besides, she’d learned from Mr. Chana that flirting with a man other than your husband is dangerous. Still, she’d worn her silk emerald dress for the first time since coming west and felt like a woman, even with her drawers showing through the rip down the side. Sure, she was barefoot with a toe stubbed bloody. But she’d combed the tangles from her hair and arranged it up high on her head with a green ribbon she’d been using as a bookmark in her Emerson book, and she’d scrubbed her skin raw with pine soap and hot water. She dressed decent, and knew she smelled clean.

  “Let’s dance outside the tent,” said Nemacio, putting down his bottle.

  Before she could object, Nemacio slipped his hand around her waist and turned her in circles, moving elegant and masterful, like he was used to handling a woman. Against her better judgment, she didn’t resist, allowing herself to be led around in the dark, forgetting all about her sore feet and the raunchy squawking fiddle.

  Nate had never danced with her. They’d married in a sensible affair at the Christ’s Church of Lowell with no drink or dancing, only the pastor and a few mill girls from her boarding house as guests, and a slice of cherry pie to celebrate. Samuel couldn’t get away from his studies at Amherst to join the celebration, and Little Lucy wasn’t there as witness, dead and buried in the dirt of the churchyard. Nate’s brother Joseph came from his job as an accountant at the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, but he’d remained sullen through the ceremony. Nate said Joseph hadn’t been the same since their parents died five years before in a terrible accident involving a reckless coach. It wasn’t the wedding she’d hoped. Her marriage wasn’t what she’d hoped either.

  “We have a ranch, with many fiestas.”

  Nemacio trailed off into a Spanish she didn’t understand, but she didn’t care. She pushed out thoughts of Nate and let Nemacio’s voice melt around her like warm butter, and she gave in, soaking up the lovely moment with this Californio man pulling her in close, warming her from the cool wind picking up. Stirring her up. She imagined herself a Spanish lady in a red silk dress at a lavish party instead of who she truly was: a neglected wife stuck out west with no dancing shoes and in want of new drawers. She was just imagining. She wasn’t flirting. It was only dancing, innocent. Polite.

  “A grand ranch,” he said.

  Twirling her around in circles, Nemacio made her feel beautiful. Swept up in his attentions, all her worries and wants dripped away. Swirling and reckless, she stepped closer into his arms. He stared down at her face, his breath slow and heavy and full against her cheek. He smelled of the earth and the river, all at once familiar and frightening, mixed with a faint of drink.

  “Your eyes are . . .” he started.

  Too nervous to look at his face, she instead concentrated on the intricate letter R adorning the top brass button on his vest and forgot about being thirsty and hungry and cold with a bloody toe.

  “Your husband,” said Nemacio, nudging her.

  “Yes, I’m married,” she said, leaning back to put a more respectable space between their bodies.

  “No. Your husband. There. Dancing,” he said, nodding toward the tent.

  She stopped hard to see Nate pull a man onto the dance floor. Nate took the lead, bumbling around in the center of the crowd with a man wearing a flour sack patch and frolicking around like a giddy girl. Clearly in control, Nate led his partner around the tent with joyous revelry. Her husband smiled bright like she’d never seen. When the song ended, Nate traded in the first man for another with fine-boned cheeks and a black braid dangling down his back. A new ditty began and the pair danced, the lady-man wrapped up silly in her husband’s arms, his patched pants signaling his preference. Nate rubbed up close against the man’s front patch, and Elisabeth gaped, confused. When Nate led the man into the shadows, she crept up, looking. From behind a rock, she saw the man drop to his knees and fumble with her husband’s trousers. She stumbled backward, and Nemacio caught her before she fell into the dirt.

  “I don’t understand. What is he doing?”

  He held her hand tight, pulling her away.

  She wiggled away and snatched Nemacio’s bottle near the tent pole, stealing a long drink, the nasty liquid burning all the way down.

  “It’s mezcal. Not for women,” he said.

  “Ha! And you know what women want?”

  “It’s no problem. Mr. Parker is simply enjoying the company of men,” he said, enunciating each syllable slow.

  Nemacio tried to grab the bottle away, but she took off with it. Yellow Dog followed as she ran away from Nemacio, away from the tent, away from the fading fiddle and her husband with the lady-man. She stopped to swig again, her veins flowing warm. The drink tasted more medicinal than repulsive now, blunting the sharp edges of her jagged thoughts. Nemacio caught up, out of breath.

  “No deberías tomar el mezcal.”

  “Speak English, you!” she said, turning and poking his chest.

  “You should not drink that.”

  “You think I can’t handle it?” she asked, holding the mezcal behind her back.

  “It will make you sick,” he said, gentle.

  Drinking again, she turned away from him, looking down into the vast darkness below where the river must lie. The elixir drifted up toward her head, letting her loose, floating. The night hung heavy, with no moon, but the mezcal made everything clear, as her stormy marital mist drifted away to reveal the truth. She stared up at the night sky, seeing for the first time, the stars burning true.

  “He will come back to you in the morning,” he said.

  “Do you go with men too?”

  “No, señora.”

  She plopped down in the dry grass, tucking her silk skirt in between her legs. Yellow Dog sidled up, putting his head on her lap. She had no plan for getting back down to the claim. When she took another drink, he didn’t try to take the bottle but sat down with his arms around his knees, watching her.

  “Where are your shoes?”

  “Are you a Mexican? Or a damn Spaniard?”

  Silence.

  “Well . . . where are you from?”

  “From here. I am a Californio.”

  They sat quiet. Crickets thrummed. An owl hooted melancholy as she slipped into an unfamiliar spirit, coated clear yet dulled and dimmed delicious with disregard, like a careless captain sleeping down in the bowels of his ship instead of up at the helm navigating around a treacherous rocky shoal.

  After a while, Nemacio spoke.

  “Is it enough?”

  His voice sounded distant and muffled as she grew heavy and weightless and oddly warm given the cooling night. She no longer minded her hurt foot, enjoying the blankness, feeling like a book whose words magically disappeared, leaving
room for something new. She stared up at the sky again, focusing on one particular star, thinking it might guide her. Tell her what to do next. She took one final sip, the mezcal dripping down her chin sloppy, then handed the bottle back to him.

  “Where do you sleep?” he asked.

  She let her body fall back, stretching open into the earth.

  “Waaaay back there,” she said, pointing down into the river ravine.

  She hoped she wasn’t lying near an anthill. She hated those damn ants. Tears slid down her cheeks. She covered her face with the crook of her arm, hiding. She didn’t want him to see her cry like a ninny who couldn’t handle her drink or her husband. The wind whispered through the ponderosa pines below the ridge, sounding wistful and strange, like water running low in the distance, flowing free and wild, broken off a distant glacial main, thawing, finding a rhythm, running toward a mysterious unknown. She listened, and passed into a sedate bliss. Nemacio picked her up and carried her back to his tent, with Yellow Dog following close behind.

  10

  “Space is ample, east and west, but two cannot go abreast.”