Prospects of a Woman

by Wendy Voorsanger

  Mr. Porter turned her hand over, kissing the back of her hand.

  “You know.”

  “I might be willing to take fees off the top in exchange for the first shares,” she said, ignoring his advances.

  “Brilliant suggestion,” he agreed.

  “Say the first five shares in exchange for both the broadsheets and stock certificates,” she said.

  “That’s a fifty-dollar value! I’d be giving up five percent shares, right off.”

  “If you’d rather not work with me, you can go elsewhere, Mr. Porter,” she said, letting go of his hand.

  “No, no. I want you. We have a deal,” he said.

  They shook hands on the arrangement and Mr. Porter pulled her in close, kissing her sloppy and squeezing her bottom awkward through her dress with no romance whatsoever. She didn’t back away, instead measured his affection, finding his touch meager in comparison to Nemacio and feeling nothing more than amusement. Pulling away, she acted shocked.

  “Mr. Porter, your manners! I thought we were making a business partnership.”

  “You know we were talking about more.”

  “I did not!” Elisabeth said, playing up the drama. “What sort of a woman do you think I am, for heaven’s sake? I’m married! What would Mr. Parker say about all this?”

  “I thought . . .”

  “Not to worry. I won’t tell Mr. Parker a thing. It’ll be our little secret,” she said, pushing him in the shoulder playful. “Now get out of here so I can get to work. The sooner I finish, the sooner you can sell your shares.”

  “I’ll be at El Dorado,” he said, walking out of her shop with a vexed expression.

  Elisabeth put off all of her other engravings to work on Mr. Porter’s broadsheet and mining certificates. She kept them both simple and uniform with formal, bold lettering stating: The Porter Company Mine. The broadsheet advert was larger and included Mr. Porter’s name and the address at the El Dorado, with a likeness of a gold nugget. The certificate had a simple scalloped border running around the edges like on the broadsheet and listed the Pioneer Bank and Trust in San Francisco. She left a blank line where Mr. Porter could fill in the sum of 1 percent share at ten dollars to be claimed upon receipt at the bank. She kept her five certificates in a wooden box under her bed, knowing trading in mining shares might be her ticket to something more.

  27

  “I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.”

  Engraving on her front porch in the crisp winter sunshine, Elisabeth looked up to see Nate coming up the hill, sitting atop a mule, pulled along by a much younger man with bushy hair and a heavy brow. She put down her graver and stashed the woodblock under a table, not wanting him to know. She’d been trading her printing services in exchange for shares in three mines so far, and she wasn’t up for hearing his opinion on the schemes. Her fingers looked nicked up and blackened as usual, but she made no attempt to hide her hands, standing up and smoothing her dress and straightening her hair, out of habit. She knew Nate didn’t find her attractive no matter what kind of pretty she looked.

  The man helped Nate off the mule, and she saw him still using the snake crutch Nemacio had made. He didn’t lean hard on it like she remembered, instead holding it by his side like he had two legs, standing taller and more assured. He looked handsome, and she was surprised at feeling glad to see him. When the man’s hand lingered on Nate’s shoulder, she knew straightaway. They were lovers.

  “Nate,” she said, standing solid, with her hands by her sides.

  “Mrs. Elisabeth Parker,” he said, grabbing her by the shoulders, affectionate.

  Nate introduced the man as Francis, who nodded cold. Francis stayed outside holding the mule impatient while Nate came inside. She left the door propped open with a wood stopper.

  “Would you look at this,” said Nate, glancing around. He picked up a book, thumbing through the pages. “Quite an operation you’ve got going here, Mrs. Parker. Everyone down on the river is talking about it. Split Rock Books and Print run by that literary lady up in Manzanita Town.”

  “Quite a few folks around here like to read,” she said.

  “I brag you’re my wife.”

  “I’ll bet you do.”

  She spoke with more sarcasm than she’d meant. There was no more need to be mean, she told herself.

  “I hear you take books back for half the price.”

  “I’m not running things like your business back in Lowell. I only sell books, not lend.”

  “Maybe I should join in as your partner.”

  “I don’t need a partner,” she said, serious.

  “Oh, ’Lizbeth. Can’t you take a joke?”

  She didn’t answer and he moved off the matter, sharing news of their claim, saying they’d diverted one side of the river while still working on the quartz vein near Split Rock.

  “I hear the river’s played out,” she said.

  “Not at the Goodwin Claim,” he said.

  “Word is that going deep pays off,” she said.

  “Deep? We’ve collected over two thousand with simple pickaxing and sluicing,” he said, handing her a pouch. “I’m giving you 450. In a mix of coins and bills.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I know.

  I know. It’s far less than what we pulled out last summer. But that’s your share, after expenses. Split between you, me, and Nemacio, like we all agreed. It’s fair. I pay Francis only ten dollars a day, as my employee.”

  “He’s your employee?”

  “As it is, I’m eating those expenses, and for two other men we brought on. Brothers from Missouri. We’ve quite an operation going on down there now.”

  Francis poked his head in the doorway.

  “You finished yet?”

  “Gimme a minute,” said Nate.

  Francis spit a glob of chewing tobacco on the front porch.

  “Don’t spit there!” Elisabeth yelled. “Jeezus! Don’t you have any manners?”

  “Missed,” said Francis, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Go water Bessie in the creek,” said Nate.

  Nate bent down and removed the stopper. The door swung shut with a slam. Elisabeth folded her arms across her chest.

  “Nemacio’s uncle mailed him a citizenship document, but the assayer still refused it, saying it needed certifying by proper authorities. Wouldn’t identify the proper authorities. I’m up in town posting another letter to his uncle asking more advice.”

  “For God’s sake, he was born here!”

  “We’d give up twenty dollars a month in foreign tax putting his name on the title with ours. Nemacio isn’t pleased, I tell you. Complains about needing more money.”

  “Seems like putting his name on the claim is worth twenty a month,” she said, counting the money and handing half back to Nate.

  He put his hands behind his back.

  “You really want to give up your money for him?”

  “You both need it right now more than I do,” she said.

  She remembered last winter down on river with too little food, even with Álvaro’s monte winnings, and shoved the bills and coins back at him.

  “I won’t take it,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous! You can see I’m living comfortable up here. You got to stock up on food stores.”

  Nate looked at the floor, thinking for a while. Then, he grabbed the money, tucking the coins and bills back into his vest pocket.

  “You seen him?” Nate asked.

  “No.”

  “He lays off the digging for days on end. Tramps around to who knows where. I figured he was coming up here to see you.”

  “Haven’t seen him since I left the claim.”

  “I can’t complain. When he’s around, the man’s a force. He added another room onto the cabin. Built a set of bunk beds. Dug us a new outhouse further back. Works like three men. But truth be told, he’s downright dour. Missing Álvaro, I suspect. Sulks something awful. Says he’s gru
bbing in the dirt for nothing. He thinks the work is beneath him.”

  She held back a smile, secretly pleased at hearing Nemacio was hurting. She’d never let Nate know how much she missed Nemacio, and how she worked herself into a stupor hoping to forget.

  “Do you get lonely up here?” Nate asked.

  “A bit.”

  “Do you miss me?”

  Elisabeth tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Listen, Nate. I get along fine with our arrangement. I don’t need you or Nemacio watching over me.”

  “We got some marriage, huh? Like business partners, splitting up the claim. Carrying on formal.”

  What did he expect? Did he still want her down in the diggings, getting grimy for him, waiting on him like a scullery maid? She stayed quiet. He shifted his one boot. The floorboard squeaked, crackling through the thick silence.

  “Not what I’d imagined when we married back in Lowell.”

  “Not what I imagined, either,” she said.

  Nate’s face fell soft, his eyes pleading like Tom the dog. Genuine and bewildered. Like he searched for a softer understanding between them.

  “You take no blame in the matter,” he said.

  She hadn’t been so sure but finally settled on them never finding a way back to each other as a real husband and wife.

  “I shoulder the burden, entirely,” he said.

  Elisabeth stayed quiet, waiting on him to continue, and his lips stretched thin like he held the words back, as if letting them fly out of his mouth might poison the air and sicken them both.

  “It rests all on me,” he said.

  “How’d you know? I mean to ask, how’d you know for sure?” she asked.

  “If a man can’t share loving with a splendid woman like you. Well . . . I know, ’Lizbeth. I know for sure.”

  “There’s nothing to be done? Nothing I could’ve done?”

  “You’ve been a model wife. A woman of honor. There’s no fixing it. God knows I tried. Damn it all, I married you, didn’t I?”

  “You were a fool to marry a woman,” she said.

  She spoke with honesty, thinking it might prompt him to do the same. She didn’t mean to be unkind and hated herself for all the times she’d acted nasty to him.

  “I wanted to be normal,” he said.

  Elisabeth wondered what normal meant out here, with everything flipped topsy-turvy. She didn’t live normal either. Up in town, alone. A married woman, pining away for a Californio. Running her own business. Managing her affairs without the help of a man. They’d all ventured into the edges of the unknown, forced to rejigger themselves or fail spectacular. California was no place for narrow-minded ninnies, that’s for sure. Only the folks with superb confidence and magnificent daring would make it.

  “You did me wrong,” she said.

  “I see that now. See the truth of it. I’m getting to know myself out here.”

  What a luxury. Being a man. Getting to know yourself. Even so, she saw his torment was altogether different from her loneliness and loss. Much harder, with more jagged edges scratching at his soul. She felt sorry for him and found gratitude in his honesty, even now.

  “I’ve ruined you,” he said.

  “I am not ruined.”

  His eyes welled up, and she hoped to heaven he wasn’t going to cry standing right there in her shop. Luckily, the door opened, and Nate turned around, pulling a kerchief out of his pocket to blow his nose, collect himself.

  “Welcome, gentlemen,” she said, relieved at the two customers.

  She went to work, eager to show him she wasn’t ruined. She perked up. Smiled. Asked the fellas about themselves, looking direct at them. Nodding confident. Listening careful so she might suggest the right book to pique an interest.

  “Crikey, I’m needing a spot of home,” said one man. “Something to read so I don’t turn barmy.”

  She detected a bit of an English accent in his voice, buried underneath growing up in the East with immigrant parents. She’d sold her last copy of Oliver Twist the day before, so she picked up an illustrated copy of A Christmas Carol.

  “Dickens,” she said.

  She opened the book to a vibrant illustration of Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball with folks dancing happy and kissing under the mistletoe. The man peered down at the book.

  “This one’s special. With spectacular illustrations by John Leech. Go on,” she said, handing over the book.

  The man looked down at the red cloth book with gilt-edged pages, hesitating.

  “I shouldn’t touch it,” he said, holding out his grubby hands.

  “It’s meant for touching,” she said, thrusting the book into his hands.

  She knew once a man held a book, he felt a sense of ownership.

  The other man spoke up.

  “I don’t want to read about a fancy ball, Jake,” he said, drawing out the word ball, sounding like bawl, like a native New Yorker.

  Elisabeth didn’t let Jake answer.

  “Don’t misunderstand, gentlemen. This story isn’t all sweet cream, believe me. It’s a ghost story. Creepy. Gripping. Filled with hauntings of regret. And the salvation of redemption.”

  Her description hooked Jake, who closed the book with a start.

  “I’m sold,” he said, handing over twelve dollars.

  As they turned to go, she picked up The Last of the Mohicans and held it out for Jake’s friend.

  “This one’s an adventure,” she said.

  “No, thanks. I got plenty of adventure just living out here,” he said, holding up a flat hand.

  “This one is set in the East. In New York,” she said, thinking that might hook him. “In the Adirondacks.”

  She had no idea if the book was actually set in the Adirondacks, but the passages describing the nature seemed like the East, somewhere, with its thick forests of evergreens and hardwood mixed with heavy undergrowth and swamps and ponds and brown rocky escarpments. It could be set in New York. Close enough, anyway. She knew the wordy passages would be hard for the man to slog through, but he’d not admit his trouble reading to a woman. She knew men didn’t admit ignorance willingly.

  “It’s a story with grand battles with glorious descriptions,” she said. “And a woman fending off an Indian,” she said.

  The man took the book, scanning the pages.

  “Her name is Cora,” she said.

  She waited beside him quiet now, giving the man the space to think about home and the woman, Cora. Nate was leaning up against the wall, watching. Tapping his snake crutch on the floorboards. Growing impatient, he interrupted the man’s thinking, picking a stack of books off the shelf nearest him.

  “Get on with it, why don’t you. The lady’s gotta help me load up a box of books in my saddlebags,” said Nate, pointing out his missing leg.

  His urgency helped the man decide, and he, too, handed over twelve dollars. Elisabeth pocketed the money, all twisted up and deflated by Nate’s meddling. She hadn’t needed his help. She knew the man was going to buy the book, and she wanted to prove how she got along fine without him and without Nemacio.

  When the customers left, Nate placed the books back on the shelf, just the way Elisabeth had organized them.

  “I should demand a commission,” he said.

  She flashed a tight grin at the joke, tamping down her irritation. Nate crutched over and handed her a scroll.

  “Nemacio found this under the bed when he added onto the cabin. He thought you’d appreciate having it.”

  She unrolled the paper while Nate held onto one corner. It was the picture Henry had printed of the orchard back in Concord. She fingered the trees and the apples, which looked cruder than she remembered. Her woodcut prints were far better than this one. She looked up and he smiled, and for a moment, they stayed like that, each holding an end of her father’s picture, an invisible marital thread still connecting them.

  “Thank you,” she said, pulling the paper away from him.

  “Now, what do you sug
gest for me?” Nate asked, turning toward the bookshelves and tapping his fingers together eager.

  She explained the newer books, some of which he knew and some he didn’t. He asked about each one. The quality of the story. The writing. As she explained, he listened with respect.

  Elisabeth handed him The Pathfinder, the James Cooper novel.

  “It’s the sequel to The Last of the Mohicans. A tale of greed, civilized and otherwise. With that Natty Bumppo character you liked so much. But this one features a woman on the frontier,” she said.

  Nate thumbed through the pages, reading silent to himself while leaning on his crutch.

  “Marvelous,” he said. “You know me well, ’Lizbeth. Too well.”

  Nate tucked the book under his arm, and Elisabeth walked him outside. The winter sun stretched bright and dazzling. Squinting, Elisabeth handed Nate another book.

  “Give this to Nemacio,” she said, thinking maybe a gift might entice him to come visit.

  “Ahh, Wuthering Heights. Just the thing to stop the sulking of the privileged don. He’ll appreciate a novel of revenge and rejection,” said Nate, winking. “And the confines of class.”

  Nate whistled loud for Francis, who sauntered over to boost Nate up atop the mule. They said polite, stilted goodbyes, and she leaned up against her porch post watching Francis lead her husband down to the river claim. The mule stole a nip of tobacco from Francis’s back pocket without his notice, and she laughed out loud as a puffy cloud drizzled gray in front of the sun. She ripped up the apple orchard print, tossing those last little pieces of her father into the growling wind. Her heart pounded lighter knowing she was no longer that helpless girl waiting around for a man to fix things right.

  28

  “Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility.”

  When Nemacio didn’t visit to thank her for the book, Elisabeth grew sour with a bitter resentment at all the other men who came instead, messing up that sweet little hilltop town something awful. The air smelled rancid to her now, like Manzanita City was in the midst of a grand drunk losing itself sloppy. She hated the constant raucous commotion made by over ten thousand men crawling in and around the town, stumbling, searching, hacking, picking, digging, scooping, and washing, looking like hungry animals frozen from wallowing in mud, and exhausted, vexing with equal parts determination and discontent. They disgusted her, frittering away their newfound fortune, eating and drinking and gambling in the company of ladies of the line. One stupid digger even burned down his tent, barely escaping with his life, when his campfire embers jumped to the canvas. The man staggered out, coughing up smoke just as his tent lit up like a tinderbox. Fortunately, his more sober friends ran back and forth to the creek with buckets of water just in time to stop the fire from spreading to their own tents and the whole town. When a gust blew the wrong way, a horrid stench from too many shallow outhouse pits blasted around. At night, the gunshots turned comical. If one man shot at a coyote prowling around, twenty more idiots started shooting at nothing in the dark. She never knew if the trouble came from the vigilantes or criminals.