Prospects of a Woman

by Wendy Voorsanger

  “Good to get out,” he said, managing a slight smile.

  Nate started helping by swirling through the sand she dug up, but the cold proved slow going for them both. Most days, they collected only a few small gold flecks, which alone didn’t even amount to enough to trade for food, but together added up to a nibble of glitter that keep them going on a foolish hope. She suspected the larger more substantial gold remained elusive, hiding in rocks below the river’s rush, so she kept digging and encouraging him to keep looking in the pan. Out of desperation, she piled up small round river rocks beside her so whenever she saw a pika or a chipmunk dart around the banks, she’d pick up one and throw it. She managed to land about one out of every five throws, so some nights they had a tiny creature to share for supper. Nate insisted on giving up the bed to her, saying it only seemed right his wife should sleep proper. She snorted at his comment, understanding they weren’t a proper husband and wife.

  “I’ll take a spot on the rug so I don’t wake you with my rolling. I always wanted to sleep on a bear,” he said, smiling at his attempted humor.

  She protested on account of his condition, but not too hard, knowing a man needed to control something. That night he took the floor on Henry’s bearskin rug in front of the fire where she’d been sleeping during his past two months’ recovery. Secretly pleased, she made a new bed ticking for herself, sewing up pine needles into her leftover fabric from Lowell. Sleeping separate became permanent, and they closed themselves off from each other for good.

  Even on her new bed she slept in a fit, never getting used to her belly aching something awful for food. Nearly every night she’d wake from a nightmare with flashes of nasty images floating through her dreams in a torrent. A slice of apple pie, warm and steaming. A boot squishing the treat to juicy bits, right before she could take a bite. She woke sweating and shaking and sick with terror at having so little to eat, as she listened to Nate’s snoring on the floor thinking back to that Fandango and Nemacio and his mezcal. If she got her hands on some drink, she might sleep solid through the night without any nightmares. She stewed on how to get some.

  The sound of gentle pattering of rain soaking up the dry grass around the river basin came as a welcome relief. With only one light rain since arriving out west, she’d thought the American flowed by magic. She listened to the haunting gusts of wind whistle through pine tops and rain stutter and spatter on the rickety shingle roof. By morning the sky cleared to a radiant blue again, crisp and cold, but the muddled banks of the river were up nearly two feet from the day before. The rushing roar goaded her nerves and stoked her fear. She knew she’d need to learn to hunt or they’d starve. No more picking off chipmunks with river rocks. They needed a real meal. She took the gun Nate had brought back the night of the snakebite out from underneath the bed, turning it over in her hands. Yellow Dog jumped up and down, waking Nate, who looked up at her from the rug.

  “Show me how to use it,” she said.

  From a stool in the pine grove, Nate explained how to stuff powder into the Hawken and ram a wad of grass down the barrel with a rod, like he’d been shooting his whole life, when she knew he’d spent his childhood in a Cambridge townhouse. His knowledge of rifles ended with stuffing the barrel, so she rolled up her sleeves, setting up targets of pine cones and sticks, imitating the shooting position she’d seen her father use when hunting deer back on the orchard in Concord. She’d grown strong in the West, and handling the shotgun proved easy, even with the kickback. She practiced shooting at the targets and reloading the barrel until her face smeared with gunpowder.

  “We need some help,” said Nate, running a hand through his blond hair growing out long.

  “I know,” she said, resetting the targets.

  “Digging. The two of us won’t do.”

  “I know!” she said, irritated at him for explaining like she was dim-witted. “That’s why I’m working on getting us something to eat.”

  She threw the small sack of gunpowder over her shoulder and set off into the woods in search of food with Yellow Dog loping behind.

  “Be careful, ’Lizbeth!” he called out.

  Getting away from the claim buoyed her spirits. The forest in California didn’t frighten her like the dank, dark forests back home. In Concord, she’d been afraid of the woods with the thick, brambly underbrush crawling around scary and mean. Playing with Louisa May as a little girl, she always stayed in the wide open fields running back and froth between the Alcott’s Hillside house and the Goodwin Orchard House, never venturing close to the forbidding edges of the forest. In California, the forest grew open and airy with pine trees spaced the perfect distance, letting in slivers of light dappling down friendly on the soft ground, making her feel brave and at ease, like nature itself was seeping into her soul, giving her strength. Still, she was glad for Yellow Dog as company.

  She didn’t walk too far before flushing out a covey of quail stirring under a manzanita bush. They scattered at a run up the steep hill. She shot and missed, aiming too high. After, she spent the whole day walking through the forest shooting at quail and grouse and turkey and even passenger pigeons, missing them all. When a rabbit hopped in front of her, she took aim. The rabbit stopped, looking back at her like it wondered what a woman was doing wandering alone out in the woods. Big and fluffy, the rabbit would make quite a supper. Her mouth watered as she pulled the trigger, but the shot flew wide and the rabbit hopped away much too slow to even deem her a threat. Yellow Dog took chase, but the rabbit zigged and zagged every which way, taking cover in a burrow. She reloaded and shot again and again, hitting nothing, like a fumbling disaster, until she threw the Hawken in the dirt and kicked at a pine trunk with her man boot in a tantrum until her whole leg cramped up and she sank to her knees knowing she’d endure another night with nothing in her stomach but wild onions and a few beans. Leaning her forehead against the rough bark, she shivered with a creepy feeling that Henry’s Indian girl was lurking around. Turning around fast, she saw nothing but quiet and Yellow Dog panting patient by her feet. She leaned down to pet him, thinking he deserved a better name better than Yellow Dog.

  14

  “In the midst of wild Nature, the self becomes one with being and God; differentiation, alienation, and struggle cease.”

  It took Elisabeth five more days of walking through the forest shooting all manner of creatures and missing until she landed a shot at a white rabbit nibbling sweet fennel. She crept up quiet, aiming at its fluffy bottom. She checked and rechecked her aim, holding the rifle steady. The bunny paid her no mind, and when she pulled the trigger it fell over with a quiet thud. She jumped up and down and yelled out loud with a silly glee for no one to hear but herself. Yellow Dog knew what to do, bringing the bunny back in his mouth gentle and plopping it down at her feet. She put the bunny in a sack, carrying it warm and limp over her shoulder back to the cabin. Nate hobbled up, hugging her with a joy that filled her near happy. Even so, she brushed him off.

  “Nothing to it. No need to get all worked up,” she said.

  Nate trimmed the bunny up for dinner, tearing off the fur and throwing the guts to Yellow Dog as a reward. The next day after panning, the Hawken proved too much for quail, its blue-gray feathers and white chest exploding to bits. She shot a turkey next, more plump than she’d imagined, clipping the head clean off. Back at the cabin Nate cut off the wings and feet, plucked the feathers and roasted the turkey over the fire while simmering up the innards in a pot with wild onions for a soup. The meat tasted juicy, and she was proud at keeping them fed.

  She enjoyed the ritual at the end of a long day of digging, putting down her shovel and picking up her rifle to hunt in the forest. Finding something to put in their bellies proved far more pleasing than lazing around reading with Nate in the cabin, no matter how tired she felt. And it kept her from feeling so lonely. One time, she shot a yellow-bellied marmot resting on a rock ledge, enjoying the wide view of the river valley down below. Seeing that creature torn up by her
shot with its little childlike face twisted up in a grimace of pain made her ache. They ate it anyway. Nate staked it through and roasted it for hours over a fire outside, but it tasted both tough and too fatty, not at all a meal worth putting up with on account of the haunting little face.

  When the air grew colder, the turkey hid. She saw quite a few deer, but they always ran off before she could aim on account of her unfortunate clomping in the man boots. So she kept to shooting at the bunnies bouncing all around the river gorge, both cottontail and jackrabbit. They seemed deaf to her heavy footfall, and she had a knack for anticipating which way they’d run. With all that practice she could shoot a rabbit darting around crazy. At close range, she aimed for the head. If she hit the rabbit anywhere else, the ball tore it up terrible, making a measly meal. Nate complimented her clean shot, even when it wasn’t, skinning the rabbits from his spot on the rocking chair near the hearth. She saved the skins, stitching the rabbit pelts into a scarf to keep her warm while she hunted. She was working her way toward making a rabbit-fur blanket for herself, now done shivering under that lame old wedding quilt she’d made when Nate asked her to marry, now gone shabby and dirty with the stitches pulled apart like their marriage itself. She’d make a rabbit-fur blanket for Nate too; she couldn’t very well let him freeze on the bearskin while she slept cozy under a bunny blanket on the bed.

  By early December she ran low on gunpowder but didn’t yet have enough gold flecks to buy more.

  “I’m going up to Coyoteville for more powder,” she said.

  “With what?” Nate asked, setting out cups of warm water steeped with bay leaves.

  She threw another log on the hearth to keep him warm and grabbed the last two dollars she’d made sewing from her savings tin. Then she opened his trunk of books.

  “One of those Scott novels should fetch something,” she said, grabbing The Bride of Lammermoor.

  “That’s your favorite.”

  “I never liked that one,” she said, gulping down the tea.

  “Oh?”

  “Too sappy.”

  “It’s quite a walk to make it up and back in a day. Ask after a woman named Luenza. She takes in boarders.”

  Elisabeth grabbed the Hawken, nodded to Nate, and whistled for Yellow Dog. She was more sure-footed switchbacking up the slope in her man boots than the last time hiking up barefoot to that Fandango. Still, it was hard going. She stopped to catch her breath often, but the challenge of the climb spurred her on and she managed to shoot two bunnies along the way, which she stuffed in a sack slung over her shoulder. She arrived at the top of the ridge midday and continued toward town along a flat trail, when she came upon a man leaning up against a buckeye tree. His eyes were wide, but his mouth hung open stiff like a man singing a long holy note from a hymnal.

  “You all right, mister?” Elisabeth asked from a good distance.

  When he didn’t answer, she walked closer. She poked him in the shoulder with a stick, and he fell over, dead. She knelt down, examining his face. He looked young and thin, but not sickly, with red hair and skin white as a crystal. She wasn’t scared at seeing him dead. She’d seen little Lucy dead, and this man had no gaping wounds oozing through bandages. Nothing stinking him up or rotting his flesh. He looked as if he’d simply sat down and given up. She wondered where he’d come from and who he belonged to. Someone, somewhere, must be wondering about him. Wondering where he’d gone and when he was coming back. His mother. His father. Maybe a sister or daughter. Either way, he wouldn’t be needing his coat. As she worked his stiff arms out of the scratchy gray wool, the dead man slid sideways, falling over into a pile of pine needles. She shook out the coat and smelled it, grateful it wasn’t too rank. She knew she wasn’t sinning. It wasn’t stealing if the man was dead. Besides, he didn’t need it. Why should a perfectly good coat go to waste freezing overnight on a dead man? She slipped herself into it confidently, buttoning up the front, feeling warm and toasty. She pulled at the shoulders to test the fit, knowing it would be good as new with a soft bunny-fur lining sewn inside.

  She walked into Coyoteville by midday, surprised it’d grown into a real town from that makeshift camp on a hill where she’d danced with Nemacio only a few months before. Hundreds of people packed into a proper Main Street now, with eight wooden buildings and tents lined up and down a dry creek housing a laundry, a blacksmith, and a tool shop. She tried to remember the location of Nemacio’s tent but got turned around all topsy-turvy by the crowd and streets and gave up looking, figuring he’d moved on to another camp or town or claim, like so many other men moving around from strike to strike. She had more pressing business anyhow.

  First, she went to the Stamps Store. Inside, she tugged off her wedding band and placed it on the counter.

  “How much for this?”

  Mr. Stamps picked up the gold band, examining it through a loop.

  “It isn’t pure, like what’s coming out of the river. This is rose gold. See the tinge of red?”

  He handed her the loop to look.

  “It’s got a bit of copper mixed in.”

  “A fake?”

  “I’d not say that. It’s decent, hard and solid,” he said, biting the ridge to demonstrate his point. “But it’s not real. Real gold is much softer, and going for over twenty dollars an ounce. I’ll give you ten for this.”

  “That’s thieving!”

  “I don’t need to buy it at all, Mrs.,” said Mr. Stamps, looking her up and down.

  She shuffled self-conscious wearing the dead man’s coat but straightened up anyway, smoothing the collar down flat.

  “How about you give me sixteen?”

  Mr. Stamps shook his head no.

  She spun the ring on the wooden counter, stalling. It was just her luck, getting a fake ring for a fake marriage. That damn ring had strangled her finger as a bitter symbol of all the lies told and lived since her wedding day. She wanted to get rid of it.

  “What about this book?”

  Elisabeth placed the Scott book on the counter.

  A woman came from out behind the backroom shelves, introducing herself as Mrs. Millie Stamps, and Elisabeth smiled happy at seeing another woman in town, the first woman since Nandy Gootch back in Culoma. The woman looked fancy with a clean cotton dress and no dirt under her nails and pretty blond hair pilled up tight. Mrs. Stamps leaned on the counter with her elbows up and her chin in her hands, blinking with wide eyes, listening as Elisabeth explained the story of The Bride of Lammermoor. Hungry for money, she sold the story hard, needing to buy the powder and food, and to pay off the doctor for cutting off Nate’s leg.

  “It’s an adventure beyond imagining. A tragic love affair, offering many nights of entertainment, I assure you. And after you read it, you can resell it.”

  “Oh, yes! Yes! Yes!” Millie said, clapping her hands together.

  “I’ll give you five dollars for the book. Ten for the ring,” said Mr. Stamps, eager to please his wife.

  Elisabeth laughed.

  “This book is worth more than its weight in gold. I’ll take no less than twelve for the book alone. Twenty for both,” she said, placing the ring on top of the book.

  Mr. Stamps placed his hands on his hips, scowling. She didn’t budge.

  Millie Stamps pulled her husband into the back storeroom, and Elisabeth heard her insisting, saying she wanted the book. She needed the book. When Millie pounded her heels on the wood floor in a fit, a baby cried awake, and Mr. Stamps relented. Millie came out from the back room with a baby on her hip, handing Elisabeth twenty dollars in coins. She turned right around and used the money for a sack of gunpowder and dried apple rings and a slab of jerky. She also bought a tiny tin of MarJax salve for Nate’s aching stump, even though she craved coffee. Turning to leave, she caught sight of a broadsheet tacked to the wall.

  “What’s that?”

  “The Great Seal of California,” said Millie, opening the book with one hand while balancing the baby on her hip with the other.
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br />   Elisabeth leaned over to examine the intricate seal. The goddess Athena sat in the foreground with a bear feeding on a grapevine, and a miner with a pick and pan at his side. In the background spread a grand bay with four sailing ships, and in the distance were snowy peaks with a great river flowing out of them. Around the top of the seal were thirty-one stars. Below read the motto: Eureka.

  “What does it mean?”

  “‘I found it’. . . from the Greek, I think,” said Millie, placing the book down. “I think they put a woman on the seal because of California coming into the union as a free state, and of all the rights we’ve got now.”

  “What rights?”

  “Equal rights, as women.”

  “You can’t be serious,” said Elisabeth.

  “I overheard man come in from Placerville tell about it. Said he read the front page of the Mountain Democrat about women’s equal rights being set down in the California Constitution,” said Millie.

  Elisabeth was shocked and wanted to know specifically what equal rights might improve her lot.

  “So what rights do we get?”

  “Can’t speak to the specifics. I haven’t yet read the paper myself. I’m trying to get my hands on a copy. Either way, the woman is beginning to awake to her true position . . . and surely in California she can see there is work for her hands to do.”

  Elisabeth wondered if the new state of California meant Nandy and Billy were now free, out from under Sappington. She wanted to write a letter to Nandy about hoping she was freed, but she worried a letter might cause Nandy trouble. Instead she decided to wait until she learned more. She planned to come back next week to ask Millie. In the meantime, Elisabeth wrote one letter to Louisa May in Boston, one to Samuel at Amherst, and one to her mother at the Worcester Asylum.