Prospects of a Woman

by Wendy Voorsanger

  The Sweetwater brothers turned up social at the Goodwin Claim often, bringing good fellowship and offering up tips on how to add more riffles to the Long Tom to catch more gold. They didn’t look at all like brothers, with some having black hair and some dirty blond. Two talked with thick Scottish accents, and three said they came from Missouri, and four from Pennsylvania. Many nights, all or some of the Sweetwater brothers filled around their campfire hurly-burly, swapping drink and stories about luck and hapless attempts at getting gold. Álvaro listened in but never added his two bits, instead playing his guitar in the background. The Sweetwater brothers proved a jovial bunch, getting more loud and more raucous the more they drank, but treated Elisabeth kind, calling her Mrs. Parker out of respect for Nate. Hearing that name made her wince, and she always insisted they call her Elisabeth.

  The quartz flat on the Goodwin Claim followed a crevice in the bedrock that looked promising. They dug down a foot and cracked it open, seeing it teem with bits of gold. Taking four days to work it out, they got almost twenty-nine ounces, the most they’d dug up yet! Almost six hundred dollars, in total. Their great stroke of luck continued through the spring, helping put a skip in her digging, and helping her forget about being lonely, at least temporarily. All spring, they worked the vein through, stashing more than seven thousand dollars’ worth of gold in flour sacks and yeast powder boxes in a hole dug inside the cabin. A year ago, she’d have thought that a pile of money, but divided four ways, it didn’t seem much to her now. She’d need even more to break away from Nate. Start something of her own.

  A six-mule train arrived one afternoon, led by a grizzled old man named Sherman. He dropped a load of pine boards, and Álvaro went about clearing out the cabin. Elisabeth danced around in circles, pumping her arms up in the air, ecstatic. Nate remained suspect.

  “Planks for a floor?” said Nate.

  Nemacio shrugged.

  “How much?” Nate asked.

  “Sutter owed me a favor,” he said, grinning.

  “What sort of favor?”

  “I got to keep some business private,” said Nemacio, throwing an arm around Nate’s neck and pulling him in rough.

  It took only a day for the Californios to level the dirt, create a frame, and lay the planks down. They hammered in real nails, breaking open that sweet smell of pine to fill the whole cabin. They added a secret spot under the floorboards for their gold stash, hiding it over with a rug Álvaro had won at the monte tables the week before. With a proper floor, Elisabeth started feeling more civilized and less like an animal scratching out a meager living off the river.

  Álvaro and Nemacio made regular runs to Coyoteville now, bringing back eggs and apricots and slabs of beef. Nemacio brought more paper for her printings, and she experimented with inking at night, applying tint with a small dauber to her Split Rock engraving. Ever so careful she placed a piece of paper a top the block, then covered it with thin board. Using the burnisher, she rubbed the back of the board. When she peeled off the paper, she saw a fair representation. It wasn’t a perfect print, the ink a bit blotchy and heavy in parts, but to her it was remarkable. She hung the print of Split Rock on the wall, along with a few other simple pictures of trees and the river, happy her lie to Louisa May about art on the walls wasn’t a lie any longer.

  With the salmon run on the river not yet going, she started hunting bunny for supper again, enjoying solitude in the forest after a long winter cooped up with three men. Getting out alone helped wash those naughty thoughts of Nemacio clean out of her head, and she walked up and up, falling in love with the slopes of the Sierra Nevada range swelling as her earthly paradise, making up for that past hardscrabble winter.

  Coming back from hunting, she often stopped by the Sweet-waters’ mess of tents, giving them a rabbit or two if she’d shot more than supper in exchange for a cup of their special cider. The boys fell all over themselves polite and solicitous, with a profound and sincere deference, offering her a spot by their fire. She always joined in for few sips, never letting on to Nemacio or Nate or Álvaro how she imbibed with the Sweetwater boys. And she never felt afraid being out among men alone, knowing the scarcity of good women elevated her to a state of near goddess, giving her a power she’d never known back East.

  One morning, when the spring river ran too high to work the tom, Elisabeth quit early to hunt.

  “I’m done,” said Elisabeth, dropping her pan for the Hawken.

  “You shouldn’t hunt with Tom,” said Nate.

  “I don’t need you to tell me how to hunt.”

  “Nemacio says he scares the deer,” said Nate.

  “Maybe,” said Elisabeth.

  “Maybe it’s you who scare the deer, the way you clomp around,” said Nate.

  She stung with the insult and laid into him, nasty.

  “I can’t help it, on account of Henry’s man boots,” she said, holding one foot up for emphasis. “But I suspect you might do well with a more grateful tone, since it’s me out doing the hunting for our supper, with you not able to give your wife a proper meal or a proper set of woman boots, or any sort of proper loving for that matter.”

  It was a mean thing to say, and she knew it the moment she’d said it, but she wasn’t sorry. Even if she’d said it in front of Álvaro and Nemacio.

  Nate sat near the sluice with his mouth hanging slack. Álvaro looked back and forth between Nate and Nemacio sheepish, like he expected them to do something to calm her.

  “I’m sick of bunny too,” said Nemacio, throwing down his pan to break the tension.

  “Then don’t eat it,” she said, turning to leave.

  Nemacio dragged Tom by the scruff over to Álvaro.

  “Hold him so he doesn’t follow,” said Nemacio.

  “Oh, let her go,” said Nate, waving Elisabeth off with the back of his hand. “She’s used to hunting alone. No doubt prefers it.”

  “I want deer tonight,” said Nemacio.

  “Don’t mind them, Nate,” said Álvaro.

  Nate glared at Álvaro, as Nemacio ran to catch up to Elisabeth on the trail.

  “You don’t clomp,” he said.

  “Thank you for your opinion on my walking, Don Gabilan,” she said, more snotty than she’d meant.

  “Did your father teach you to shoot?”

  “I taught myself.”

  “Por supuesto.”

  He had a habit of slipping into Spanish almost on accident when they were alone. It made her feel closer to him, even though she couldn’t always figure out the meaning of his words. She felt as if hearing him speak his first language let her peek into his soul. She never asked him to make himself clear, out of fear he’d stop.

  She walked ahead, knowing he was looking at her bottom. Her nerves rattled, but she kept her boots moving and her eyes fixed on the narrowing brush ahead. She ran her fingers through her hair like a comb, making a feeble attempt to pull her brown knotty hair smooth, and secured it into a single ponytail with a ribbon. They traveled on in silence for an hour up toward the ridge, until coming upon a clump of madrone bushes where she knew a colony of rabbits lived. She stopped and waited quiet as mice and squirrels darted about. A red milkweed beetle crawled along the pine needles, so slow she thought she could hear its little feet shuffling along the forest floor. The warm afternoon glow streamed through the pine boughs overhead, diffuse and soft, blurring desire and dream together. When a rabbit jiggled under a bush, she leveled her rifle. Nemacio came up beside her and lowered the barrel.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Don’t you want more than bunny?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then look up,” he whispered, lifting her chin up. “Don’t look at the ground.”

  He held onto her chin and looked into her eyes. She didn’t look away but stared back at him, long. Seeing clear. She examined his smooth skin up close, with stubble already growing in even though she’d seen him shave that morning by the river. She wanted to press her finger deep into
the cleft in his chin.

  “Why are you alone?” she asked.

  “I’m not alone,” he said.

  “You got a woman hiding somewhere?”

  “I’ve nothing yet to offer a woman.”

  “I doubt that,” she said, snorting nervous.

  “Once I find gold . . .”

  “Ahh . . . the gold.”

  “I’ll give a woman the world.”

  “I don’t need the world,” she said, surprised at herself.

  “You have a husband,” he said, brushing a strand of hair away from her cheek.

  It was an innocent gesture, pushing hair out of her face, but it flooded something fierce though Elisabeth.

  “He’s not my husband.”

  “Sometimes our hearts travel without permission from God to those not entirely suited . . .”

  He didn’t finish and instead turned toward a madrone bush, pulling off a thick waxy pink flower.

  “Smell this,” he said.

  She wanted to tell Nemacio that God made no difference; he’d forsaken her long ago. Instead, she leaned into the flower, and an intense honey-like fragrance filled her nose.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  She nodded, grabbing the red bark of the madrone to steady herself and rubbing the soft peeling bark with her fingers nervously.

  “You can pick the berries in June, to mix with thistle tea.”

  She’d do whatever he wanted. Pick berries. Drink his tea. They walked further up the ridge into the mountains beyond, coming upon a clump of birch. Nemacio drilled a tiny hole into the white bark with a long pointy knife.

  “Come here,” he said, grabbing a reed from his pocket and stuffing it into the hole. “Put your mouth around it.”

  “What?”

  “Like this,” he said, sucking the sap from the reed.

  She leaned over, sucking. It tasted like water, yet silky and sweet.

  “It’s good for drinking and washing your mouth fresh. But only in early spring.”

  Being with him opened up endless possibilities in the forest that she hadn’t known before. She followed him off the trail now, farther up than she’d ever walked, deep into the upper slopes scattered in large gray slabs of granite with patches of spring snow still nestling in the shadowy crevices. It looked like a fairyland from a book, with the rich afternoon light illuminating the world into lusty focus. With smooth gray-blue granite and white-barked lodgepole pines and the blinding bits of snow and the little yellow budding mule’s ears flowers coming up around the melts. She didn’t care about hunting anymore and wanted to lie down on a rock, curled up in Nemacio’s arms in the warming spring sunshine.

  He stopped sudden and grabbed her wrist. He placed a finger on his lips and pointed toward a rocky escarpment. At first she only saw the rock beyond. Then something else came into focus, but she couldn’t make sense of it. It took her a moment to see that blending clever into the dark granite hunched a black panther, only thirty yards beyond.

  Elisabeth and Nemacio waited shoulder to shoulder, barely breathing, blending into the air, and into each other, fused like the trunk of a single tree. She had never seen such a magnificent creature. It loomed massive, nearly eight feet long with sleek fur and eyes orange as a pumpkin. Its mouth dangled open, showing sharp white teeth and a long tongue, pink and wet. The panther panted, waiting, stalking a lone blacktail deer below the rock who remained oblivious to the danger above.

  Elisabeth leveled her gun, taking aim at the panther.

  “There are so many deer,” he whispered in her ear.

  The panther must’ve heard his whisper, as it leaped off and disappeared beyond the escarpment, and Nemacio stepped behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders to redirect her aim at the deer below the path. Hesitating, she rechecked her aim.

  “Go for the neck,” he said.

  She pulled the trigger. When the deer fell, she let out a breath, realizing she’d been holding it in.

  “Perfecto.”

  Nemacio slipped his arms around her waist then, warming her with his soft breath on her cheek. He brushed his lips down the length of her neck, languid and luscious. She shivered even though she wasn’t cold as he held her close, giving her the attention she so longed for. She closed her eyes hoping the moment would last and last, but he let her go, without a word and leaped off the trail down to the deer, heaving it over his shoulders.

  “Let’s get the deer down the mountain before dark.”

  She went cold without his touch but followed him in silence all the way down the ridge without asking for more. Back at the claim, Álvaro built a huge bonfire outside while Nemacio and Nate gutted and skinned the deer, leaving the bloody entrails for Tom. As the deer cooked over the fire, the Sweetwater boys came over to join in the feast, enjoying the celebration of her kill and eating up the meat. Álvaro pulled out his guitar and Nemacio pulled out a bottle. Drinking and singing and swaying together, the men no longer saw Elisabeth. She’d become invisible, disappearing into the fog of gentlemanly fraternity. When Nate draped his arm around Nemacio’s shoulders, she went into the cabin. Oozing with jealousy, she riffled through Nate’s things. Shook out his bedroll. Dug through his box of books. Looked through the pots and pans, the tin of coffee. When she searched his coat pockets, she found it: that damn little red journal. She flew out of the cabin to Split Rock to read it.

  18

  “My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.”

  At first she didn’t understand. His words seemed confused, like he was trying to work out something eating away at him. As twilight set itself on the river, as she sat on Split Rock alone, flipping through the pages over again, trying to find the meaning in them. She grew angry and hurt but felt sorry for him too. Even at the more disturbing passages.

  Entry #17

  That Frenchman with his snakelike charm. He offered ’Lizbeth a better choice. I should have been an honorable man and given her up. Said yes. Go with him. He’s the better husband. The better man. My pride got the better of me. Or my shame. Perhaps it’s my own selfishness. I’ll admit, I don’t want to be all alone out here, without a familiar face giving me comfort, reminding me of who I am, who I was back home. I’ve not been honest with myself, not believing. I’ve not been honest with her. I’ve not yet wanted to believe. I wanted to convince myself I was never that man.

  Entry #29

  Men. I see too many of them out here in the diggings, and too few women. They scorn tradition, refusing to settle down with a good woman and start a family. It confounds me. They don’t seem to want a wife, or need one. They’ve come out here for something more, roaming the hills for freedom, fortune, without the constraints of expectation. Bold and brave. Unencumbered. Oh, how I envy them, with no worry or care. No responsibility. With a wife in tow, I’ve brought the conventional life from New England with me. Concern weighs on me heavy. I see the roving eyes of men. I should’ve come out here alone. She’s in danger.

  Entry #41

  The warmth inside the tent on such a cool night. The men letting go of judgment, seeking companionship in a spirit of freedom and dignity. Finding kindness and comfort and love. Never in all my years have I known such a warmhearted embrace of my true self from another man. With no hiding. No shame. No fear. And no repercussions for honoring my own true being.

  Entry #64

  The diggers look hungry at Elisabeth, a sweet innocence spread across her face. I am crazed with jealousy. I want to be unburdened. Must I bear the burden of a life with a woman abandoned by her own flesh and blood? I can never leave her. I can never abandon her the way her own father did. She will be my yoke forever, however much I want to be digging alone, alongside the men, carefree. I want their life. I want them.

  Entry #82

  She hasn’t done a thing to deserve my rejection other t
han be a good woman, a fine companion, offering me nothing but kindness. I’m a wretched soul, mean-spirited and filled with anger at nothing she’s done. I regret hurting her pride with my lack of touch but don’t believe I’ve truly hurt her heart. I know her body doesn’t fancy mine, just as my body doesn’t fancy hers. I suspect a body can’t help it. A body does what a body does, comes alive or doesn’t. After last night, I understand. I can’t make my body sing along to music it doesn’t hear. I am no longer afraid to admit I hear only the music of men.

  A family of wolves howled through the canyon, but Tom stayed silent by her side up on the Split Rock, not calling back in brotherhood. She slammed Nate’s journal shut, knowing for sure now that she’d need to plan a future without Nate. After reading his journal she’d not stay with him. She was no man’s pity wife. She had to figure out a way to leave.

  Pushing his writings out of her head, she heard faint sounds of Álvaro’s guitar in the distance, overlapping and mixing in among the wolf calls. The music flew on the wind gentle and slow and languid, then grew louder and faster with his deep strumming fullness, tempting. The contagious melody carried her back to the claim where a dozen people sat around the fire, drinking and laughing warm, including the Sweetwater boys and some folks she didn’t know who dressed like Nemacio the night she’d seen him outside that Fandango tent, with short jackets and brass buttons down the sides of their pants. Álvaro played guitar for the strangers as Nemacio sang in a Spanish melody that vibrated through her. Nate sat close beside him, comfortable as if he understood every word. A woman sat among the men, relaxing with her red frilly skirt pulled up high, showing off bare legs and lady boots. Her white blouse, embroidered with bright blue flowers, flounced around loose, slipping bawdy and low off one shoulder. In the firelight, the woman’s brown nipples poked out taut under her shirt and her breasts wiggled up and down as she laughed, brash and much too loud. A thin cigar dangled from her lips, just like a man, but her dark hair flowed long and loose and beautiful all around her. She was stunning. The man next to her draped his arm around her shoulders, lewd.