Prospects of a Woman

by Wendy Voorsanger

  Elisabeth turned away from the woman and walked up to the fire. Nemacio stopped singing and looked up with his soft eyes, patting the dirt for her to sit beside him. She wiggled in between them, nudging Nate out of the way to sit close to Nemacio. He introduced the strangers, saying they were from Andalusia.

  “In Spain, they jumped on a ship and here they are, looking to get rich like the rest,” he whispered sloppy in her ear.

  His warm, drunk breath sent a tingle through her.

  The group went on drinking, oblivious to her desires, eating up the last of the deer meat she’d shot earlier that day. Álvaro looked at home among these people, strumming his guitar soft and sensual, teasing and coaxing with his fingers. Pleasing. Then harder and more dramatic. The Andalusians loved his music, encouraging him on with rousing cheers, and so he gave them more. Two of the men began to sing, and Nemacio leaned over to her to translate. Nate leaned across her to hear him.

  “The gypsies sing of their mountain landscape, of murderous highwaymen, bandits,” he said slow, through his deepening drunkenness. “Heroes who kill for the smallest sums. Or for honor. They glorify the . . .”

  Nate looked past Elisabeth at Nemacio, who remained oblivious to both of their attentions and instead watched the beautiful woman stand up and circle around the fire slow, with one hand holding her skirt up and the other over her head. She snapped her fingers and stomped around in her fancy boots to the rhythm of Álvaro’s guitar like a horse, shaking her head back and forth, her hair swinging wild to the group’s delight, as one of the men started clapping in rhythm. Elisabeth was mesmerized by how the woman flung herself around. How she wasn’t ashamed or shy but proud and sensual. How she wanted the men to look at her and admire.

  “You like the gypsy woman,” he said.

  It wasn’t a question but an observation. She shrugged back at him, choking down bitterness. She felt a stranger among the group, not able to be a man like Nate, passing a bottle sloppy without care, laughing along with the song and dance as if she was one of them. She wasn’t a real wife with a proper husband. Or a lover. And she wasn’t a gypsy woman, either, wearing a short frilly skirt showing off bare legs, getting everyone’s attention. Oh, how she wanted to dance around like that, feeling free with no embarrassment, wiggling her hips. Instead, an acidy anger filled her throat.

  Nemacio stood up to join the gypsy woman, moving slow around the fire with her, stomping up close. The group whistled and hooted as he and the woman acted out a tawdry dance that Elisabeth found disgraceful and enthralling all at once. Nemacio held his hands up high, dancing closer and closer around the woman, who swished her skirt and flung around her hair in rhythm to his stomping. Nemacio started singing to the woman luscious in Spanish, and Nate looked on with lust splashed across his face. A raw rage swirled through Elisabeth, and she turned to Nate, lashing out.

  “You want to dance with him like that?”

  “What?”

  “Like you did at the Fandango.”

  Nate blinked at her with heavy eyelids, and she leaned in closer, whispering more meanness.

  “You want to do some nastiness with him like you did with that lady-man behind the rock?”

  “Lizbeth . . . I . . . I . . . didn’t,” he said, through his dim drunk.

  “I saw you loving on that lady-man!”

  When then the gypsy woman flung her skirt in front of Nate and the Sweetwater boys hooted and hollered for him to get up and dance, Elisabeth scooted herself back. She faded away into the shadows at the edge of the firelight as the logs crackled and sparked hot. Not able to enjoy the night, she slunk back to the cabin, sullen and ashamed at her own meanness. Curling up in bed, she listened to the distant music and laughter, stewing angry at Nate and the gypsy woman and Álvaro for playing so loud and Nemacio, too, for not paying her attention, until she fell asleep.

  Long after the party quieted, and the Sweetwater boys left and the Andalusians bedded down in their tents staked out along the river, Elisabeth awoke to Nate snoring soundly on the floor, his stump flopped out loose from underneath his blanket. Repelled, Elisabeth slipped out into the dark night, wearing only her pantaloons and camisole.

  With the moon long set, she waited until her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She heard quiet laughter coming from one of the tents down by the river. It sounded like sweet happiness. Curious, she tiptoed toward the tents like Nemacio had taught her, stepping slow and quiet so as not to wake anyone. She crept closer and closer until she was just outside the tent, listening. The gypsy woman giggled like Elisabeth had as a little girl, giddy and light without the heavy burden of living with a lame husband who couldn’t love a woman right. She never laughed like that anymore. The woman let out a delicious moan. Elisabeth leaned in closer to hear more. When the woman started panting fast and delicate, Elisabeth knelt down on all fours beside the tent in the dirt, listening. The sound of two bodies slapping together faster and faster upended her, and she put a hand over her mouth, breathing in sync to the rhythm inside the tent. Sweat dripped from her armpits, and she went wet in between her legs. She crawled up even closer, peering in through the crack in the tent flap, watching the shadowy figures fuse together, the woman arching her back and the man moving faster back and forth. Elisabeth bit her palm and held still to calm her breathing and settle her heart nearly beating out of her chest, listening as the woman sang out long with delirious pleasure. Then all was quiet. She crept backward on all fours, putting a few yards between her and the tent, before standing up and starting back for the cabin.

  “I see you,” he said, quiet.

  Nemacio sat alone by the fire ring. She burned with shame, hoping he couldn’t see her face in the dark. He held up a bottle in the firelight, offering her a drink. She took it, sinking down beside him, sipping and sipping again, feeling sloppy and low and dirty compared to that fancy dancing gypsy. He tossed another log on the fire, and for a long while neither spoke. They passed the bottle back and forth, listening to the wood crackle. As she drank, her shame slowly slipped away with the hot orange bits of singeing sparks popping off the fire, floating up, dancing and swirling away to disappear in the black night.

  “What did you see?”

  “Not much,” she said, matter-of-fact.

  The drink swelled her blood, emptying her out, making room for something new. Making room for courage and lust and freedom. Elisabeth wanted to be like that gypsy woman. Powerful and beautiful and wanted.

  “You like to watch,” he said.

  “Like you,” she snapped. “Watching her dance around, then joining in all lusty-like.”

  “She’s married to Pablo,” he said.

  “So that’s how it is with you, getting up close to your friend’s wife?”

  “Only dancing.”

  “Show me,” she said, standing up.

  Nemacio turned away, looking into the flames.

  “He’s a good man, Elisabeth,” he said.

  “He doesn’t want me,” she said, her honesty let loose by the drink.

  “He needs you.”

  “Stand up!” she said, stomping her foot. “Show me how to do it.”

  He hesitated, then stood up. He pulled her hips around to face him.

  “Pretend you’re wearing a skirt, holding it out to one side out like this. With your arm straight,” he said.

  She pretended, holding out an invisible skirt like he instructed, as the drink traveled up to her head, making her dizzy.

  “Now put your hand on your hip, like this,” he said, guiding his hand over hers.

  She tried not to sway.

  “What now?”

  “Move from side to side, back and forth. Slow. Swooshing your skirt.”

  She moved and swooshed and swayed her imaginary skirt as he walked around her, looking at her intense, like he’d looked at the gypsy woman.

  “Now take your hand from your hip and lift it up,” he said, demonstrating.

  “Like this?”

  She flung
her arm high into the air clumsy.

  “No, no. Slow,” he said. “Act shy at first. Like you have something inside, bottled up tight, wanting to come out. You don’t let it out, not all at once. Comprende? You let the passion out slow, little by little.”

  He took her wrist and gently put it back down.

  “First put your thumb and forefingers together like this, and spread your other fingers wide,” he said, showing her. “Circle your hands around, like a flying bird.”

  She turned her wrists around in circles.

  He backed up, studying her hands, serious.

  “Slower,” he said.

  She slowed down, circling her hands twice.

  “Again.”

  She circled and circled her hands around and around as he watched.

  “Beautiful,” he said.

  “Now what?”

  He stepped into her close. He took her hand, and she felt him shaking.

  “Now take your hand and very slowly move it up from you hips, up along to your waist. Keep moving your hand up to here,” he said, stopping at her breast.

  Unsteady, she leaned her breasts up against his chest, thinking she might crumple. A tear dripped out of the corner of her eye, and then another and another until she was weeping, silent. He ran his hand along her wet cheek and her lips, then sucked his fingers.

  “I taste you,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said, sucking her breath in sudden.

  She thought she might faint, but he held her, wrapping her hands behind her back, holding her, trapped. She couldn’t move under his grip.

  “Is this part of the dance?”

  “Te deseo, Señora Parker,” he said, staring down at her.

  She heard his breath quicken like he’d been running. He put his lips to hers then. Breathing her in, tasting her. Opening her with his lips, his tongue, his heart. She closed her eyes as he opened her up, giving her more than she’d ever known, with a single enduring kiss that seem go on melding them together forever. Our souls are connected. When he pulled his lips away she waited for more, but he simply wrapped his serape around her shoulders and walked away, slipping out past the pine grove, and beyond. She stood, stunned as the stars seemed to stop shining, knowing she’d been nothing before that kiss, and would be nothing without it, again.

  19

  “Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things? Throw a stone into a stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.”

  Elisabeth dropped Nemacio’s sack in the dirt, waking him in a start. She felt a little guilty for it since he’d built the floor, but she couldn’t abide Nemacio sleeping only yards away from her any longer. She’d gone completely daffy over him. If she didn’t get him out of the cabin, she might likely crawl up in bed beside him pathetic, looking for loving in the dark. She needed to put some respectable distance between them.

  “If it’s warm enough to sit outside singing and drinking all night, then you can sleep outside from now on,” said Elisabeth.

  Nemacio stood up by the fire ring, still smoldering from the night before. The air filled sweet and smoky from all the morning campfires up and down the river canyon. Álvaro and Nate were already up, digging and swishing over by the Long Tom.

  “You’re angry,” said Nemacio.

  “Set yourself up somewhere else, Señor Gabilan.”

  “Lo siento.”

  “Far from away from me,” she said, waving him off.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “What about last night?” Nemacio asked, ignoring her irritation.

  “I don’t remember a thing,” she lied.

  “You enjoyed my singing.”

  “You sang?” Elisabeth asked, incredulous that he talked about singing when all she could think about was his kiss.

  “‘Malagueña.’ I sang it for you.”

  “Looked like you were singing it for my husband.”

  “You’re jealous.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Nemacio looked over his shoulder at Nate standing near a large white quartz rock upriver swinging his pick clumsy, attempting to cleave off a hunk.

  “I danced for you. I sang for you,” he said.

  “Sing it now,” she demanded. “In English.”

  He started slow, looking at Elisabeth with passion pooling across his face. He sang quiet and unsteady, with none of the confidence brought on from drinking the night before.

  “My Malagueña, your eyes shamed the purple sky,” he sang. “You were as fair as I dreamed you would be.”

  He paused, taking off his hat and wiping a trickle of sweat dripping down his brow.

  “Go on,” said Elisabeth, waiting.

  He started again, so quiet she almost couldn’t hear.

  “I loved and left you, for I never could deny the gypsy strain in me.”

  “Stop!” Elisabeth said, putting her hands to her ears.

  Nemacio stopped singing and closed his eyes. He put his hat back on and walked all the way across the claim toward Nate and grabbed the pick away with force. Nemacio swung hard, hitting the rock with a bang. The deer meat seemed to give him a newfound energy, pouring and sifting, washing and swooshing. She admired him from afar, aching.

  She saw Nate pinching a tiny bit of gold careful not to drop it before placing it into his poke. She was sick of him grubbing for those little specks. By the time they’d collected enough to move off this godforsaken claim to something better, she’d be an old lady. She wanted something of her own, away from him. Digging in the dirt for nearly a year had turned her sour. She’d become mud and dirt itself, erasing all the womanliness she once carried. Her hair stuck matted and her clothes hung torn up and tattered. Hip bones poked out from her lady pants, unflattering and strange from too little food over the past winter. Rough hands. Man boots. She’d turned ugly. No wonder Nemacio had walked away after kissing her last night.

  Eating the deer meat and getting kissed reminded her of everything she didn’t have. Everything she wanted for herself. A bath. Boots that fit and a decent hat and a new dress and some pretty little gloves. And she wanted her hands to not hurt all the time. She wanted to move to town. She wanted Lucy back, and her mother. She wanted kisses. And love, and more.

  Disgusted as much with herself as with Nate, she walked past the three men upriver to Split Rock. Tom, who’d been licking and chewing the marrow out of the deer leg, hopped up and ran after her. She walked around the bend and climbed up on Split Rock, just beyond their claim marker. Tom leapt up, too, lying down beside her, stretched across the gaping crack down the middle. The river swelled with the spring melt, running as fast and furious as her mood. Watching the river, Elisabeth felt stuck and angry. Stuck without loving and angry at the fix of a false marriage. She’d grown so lonely out here with all these men and no Lucy or Louisa May for womanly friendship. She chucked a stone into the river, sore at the unfairness of life and her own choices and mistakes, wondering how long she could go on. She threw a smaller stone into the eddy below the rock, watching the ripples radiate outward.

  She stayed on Split Rock all day, examining every inch of the granite, dragging her hand along the dark gray base layered in blue and cream, with swirling spots of red. She fingered the uneven pits and divots embedded into the whole rock, cracking with crooked lines deep and shallow, horizontal and crossing and hiccupping in no particular order with rough ridges and knobby bits poking up all over both halves in a rocky chaos of no mistake. The half of Split Rock closest to the river was her favorite. Completely flat with a swath of glorious smoothness inviting her in, encouraging her to stretch out long and give herself over to the stone as it grabbed onto the tiny spot of sanity in her mind, holding it precious even when she couldn’t.

  As the afternoon drew long, Álvaro walked up the trail toward Split Rock, waving in her direction. He climbed up on the rock beside Tom, who starte
d licking Álvaro’s hands.

  “Quite a spot,” said Álvaro.

  “I needed a moment.”

  “A beautiful moment.”

  “You’re too damn cheerful,” said Elisabeth.

  “I’ve seen the elephant.”

  “What?”

  “You know the story about the elephant?”

  “No.”

  “A man who set out with a cart full of goods looking for the circus. Along the trail a man came upon the whole merry circus parade, led by a glorious elephant, who scared the horses. They ran off, pitching his wagon over. Ruined all his precious goods. But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “The man was cheerful and didn’t mind his whole world upended.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’d seen that glorious elephant.”

  It was a silly tall tale, but she was grateful for it.

  “Have you’ve seen an elephant, Álvaro?”

  “I sure have.”

  “Where?”

  “In here,” he said, poking his chest.

  Álvaro smiled broad and jumped off Split Rock, whistling.

  “Would you look at that,” he said, pointing.

  He dragged his finger along a wide line of quartz imbedded in Split Rock, leading down the side into the bedrock beside the river. Álvaro got on his hands and knees, pushing the dirt away to uncover an entire quartz floor that extended broad and flat up and down the river. Sly, Álvaro walked back downriver, pulling up the wood marker staking the boundary of their claim and moving it upstream about ten yards up from Split Rock, expanding the claim by almost twenty yards. Next to the marker, he piled up flat river stones into a two-foot-high cairn, for extra measure. He smiled at Elisabeth, pressing a finger to his lips, before walking back to camp.