Sary's Gold Read online

  “Brother? Could be.” She hitched a shoulder, amused by something. “Once the door’s closed?” Handi guffawed.

  Sary frowned, puzzled. The woman made little sense, but Handi changed the subject in the maddening way she had. “Own this place. Mine! Only way to own anything, if you’re of a female persuasion.” She continued clawing her leg while scrutinizing Sary, narrowing her eyes.

  “Look like a schoolmarm. Could be the best doxie I got. Teachers make tolerable whores,” she reflected. “Always wash up after. Talk nice, too.”

  Sary stared. Is she—? No, surely not. She’s so—elegant.

  Handi continued, oblivious. “Miners, bless ’em, prefer girls like their sweethearts back home. Get to thinkin’ love is listening to bedsprings, though!” She chuckled again.

  Oh! She is!

  Sary jumped up when Handi gestured something, surely obscene, and nudged her back into her seat with a cane Sary hadn’t before seen. Slick, black, like a snake, with a gold knob on the end. Sary stared at the cane, seeing it for what it really depicted, as Handi bored on.

  “More gold in mining back pockets, ehhh? While men are otherwise…occupied?”

  The heavily made-up woman sucked her pipe and coughed. When she was through, she demanded, “Well? What say?” Slitted puffy eyes almost concealed Handi’s rapaciousness.

  Sary, seeing the black glitter, felt a chill and stiffly gathered her skirts. “My brother and I…have other plans.”

  “Wager you do!” Handi barked a laugh. “Wait! That’s right. Keep your skirts yanked tight and safe-keep those valuables. Might change your mind.”

  Bewildered, Sary watched Handi hobble to an ornate dresser to withdraw and lovingly heft a petite pistol, all ivory and silver, and a small sack.

  “This little darling’s already shot its quota. Might be a few killings left in it.” She aimed it at an ornate cloisonné vase. “Pulls a tad right. Want to blow a hole through some scoundrel’s cranium, aim for the left ear. Go on!” She thrust it at her. “You’ll need it. Take it. Called a Derringer.”

  Sary shied away. “I don’t mind if it’s called Gabriel’s trumpet on a plate. A killing’s already killed me. I don’t intend—” Sary stood.

  “Huh!” Handi snorted. “Here trouble stalks like sickened bobcats. Won’t need to scout it out for it to find you. Take it,” she cajoled, “for me.” She thrust the pistol at her again.

  Sary gingerly reached for the toy-like gun. Didn’t seem so bad in her hand, more like comforting, the way it fit, the warm ivory matching the smooth curve of her palm as if made for it. Pretty. Gleaming, engraved silver and old ivory. Like an objet d’art. “Might take a dollar for it.” Handi grunted.

  Sary blushed. “I’m—grateful. I can’t remunerate you now,” and handed it back. Handi fussed with the tray. “Take it, ’fore I lament it. Secure it in your knickers,” she barked.

  Sary hesitated, then slowly raised her dusty travel-stained skirts, half-turning away. Oh, why hadn’t she better petticoats and underthings? Handi eyed her with clinical interest as Sary revealed shapely darned black-stockinged legs, tucking the silvery weight in a petticoat pocket, where it banged, bothersome and alien, on her thigh.

  Handi grimaced. “Black scarcely favors you. Get shed of it. Makes you all peaky, like clabbered milk.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you for your—concern.” Sary bobbed a conflicted curtsey, taking one last look at the room and the tea and cakes.

  ****

  Across the street, Seb, to the registrar’s open amusement, studied a plat map tacked to log walls. Behind Seb, a balance scale winked a dull gleam and a champion nugget sat in solitary splendor under glass. Map trays and other paraphernalia proclaimed the room to be the Deed and Assay Office. Men still garbed in heavy flannel shirts, thick canvas Levis, and well-worn boots lounged around a crude stove stuck in the fireplace even though it was spring. Others pored over plats. They all were winking behind Seb’s back, sharing the diversion the greenhorn provided.

  The first niggling glimmer that this enterprise mightn’t be as easy as plucking nuggets from the ground slick as eggs from a mad hen flitted uneasily across Seb’s brainpan as he scrutinized the staked-out map full of squiggly lines and color. He started when the registrar finger-tapped the map.

  “Sure it’s this piece right here? Old Elijah—that be Elijah Lucky K. Baldwin—well, he kinda still owns it—still. Though some do say our esteemed Mr. Delacorte—that be Julian Delacorte—stakes some claim. Then, Julian Delacorte stakes most all of Big Bear. Including the bears.”

  An old jest. There was general agreement.

  He tittered. “Wouldn’t take kindly to it being sold twice”—the registrar winked at the men—”I should opine.”

  “See here!” Seb felt his cheek flame. “Fella told me it were just laying to waste—for the taking. You bait-and-switchin’ me here?” He squinched his eyes and reared back.

  “Heaven forefend!” the registrar said. “Wouldn’t try that on a shrewd Jasper like you—tell that right off!”

  Seb smirked. “More like it—”

  “That what you heard must be so!” The registrar stabbed the plat map. “I hereby give you…let’s say…” The registrar pinched his lip. “Claim to the ‘Lucky Strike Mine’—provisional, mind you, till we do proper provenances.”

  “Yeah. What you just said—the provnunces. You do that.” Seb tucked his hands under his armpits and rocked back on his heels, self-satisfied.

  With a wink over Seb’s shoulder, the registrar added, “And I’ll toss in this bitty section of creek rights. Might do, to get your feet wet some first.”

  Seb signed the paper put before him and snatched up the deed. “And I’ll jus’ be taking this along—case you be thinkin’ on changing it some.”

  ****

  Safe on the plank walkway, Seb rubbed his hands, chuckling, surveying the raw panners, ranchers, and trappers, all stalking by with some mysterious manly purpose, all in muddy, cracked, flaking gear and of brownish-gray appearance—flannel faded to dun, Levis bleached and dirtied the same, boots scuffed to rawhide—but to Seb, they might as well have been gold-plated. Seb yearned mightily to join their ranks of hardened masculinity.

  He ignored the few women scoured plain and reddened by heat, dust, and chilblains, but then he was jostled aside by a flamboyant and chattering tribe distinct in all their peacock colors, fuss, and feathers. He glared, disgusted, after the rowdy noisy bunch. Greasy clownish faces—too orange to be what nature give ’em, too red in the cheeks and mouth—and is those velvet britches? “Tchaaa!” Seb spat. Moreover, their females were either booming or trilling. One swatted him with her fan, winking broadly, and the men had a trace of what Seb was dimly aware of…the Oscar Wilde.

  Seb sneered and shied away as a tall man with long thick brown hair and a spit curl drooping over his forehead like a dad-burned trained cowlick brushed shoulders with him. Had Seb been more literary, he would have recognized the Lord Byron influence, but he did suddenly realize it was the same damned catamite he’d seen in tights on the yeller poster. “Tchaaa!”

  Chapter 2

  That night, Seb and Sary picked through a plate of limp fried potatoes and greasy fatback Sary wouldn’t have fed her dog, back in Indiana. From the crude dining hall, Seb sullenly pushed Sary through the swinging doors of Delacorte’s saloon and into an explosion of noise and color.

  On a far stage of set-up planks, Sary glimpsed a man in what looked like sagging long johns and a leopard-spotted loincloth, spewing fire from his mouth. The bad dinner forgotten, she clapped her hands. “Oh, look, Seb!”

  A battered sign she could barely read, proclaimed:

  “Luigi

  Dines on Cinders for Breakfast!

  and Lava for Luncheon!”

  Seb scowled as Sary rose on tiptoes.

  Her gaze danced across the room to the far stage. Oh! It was all so cheerful! There were a few other women here, too, in their Sunday best and all curled and cor
seted, with ribbons and brooches. She wished she had better and was vexed at her vanity.

  Best to be modest, even though she would lay down sadness like an old quilt to pick up this new crazy-patch one of bright colors, if only just for now. Just for one last evening.

  More cheers. Sary craned to see.

  Now it was Strong-Man Caine parading about, all draped in hefty-looking chains. After much plum-faced straining, posturing, and flexing biceps under yellowed sagging cotton, challenging all to test the vigor of his strength, Caine casually dropped the chains in a clanking puddle about his feet, finishing to puzzled but good-natured guffaws. She clapped loudly too.

  Seb looked on, sneering.

  She ignored him. Seb always had a poor face.

  Oh, but wonders! A male midget garbed in a patched-quilt costume bounced on stage, and more women, in fancy dress, lustily emoting. The handsome poster-man, Sary noticed shyly, was all in bottle-green velvet, with lace, and a real crown on his head. She frowned. For some reason the handsome thespian carried a skull.

  She risked a glance at her brother. She could just imagine how he viewed the balloon drawers with colored stripes poofed out over—as Seb would say—long johns.

  Viewing the muscular legs of the man on stage, Sary twinkled. They were almost as good as hers.

  Seb whirled on Sary, shaking her out of her good humor. “Here, now! Satisfied?” He yanked up her already high collar. “Supposed to be mourning!” he carped. “And don’t get used to this livin’ high on the hog, neither!” Seb scowled out at the crowd, holding her back, hissing, “Scrunch down by the door,” as he pulled futilely again at her already modest neckline. “And don’t be making a spectacle of yourself!”

  “No, Seb.” Sary bit back. “I wouldn’t be doing that anyways, without your help!” Seb narrowed his eyes, about to say more, but much of the audience had turned toward him, to see what the ruckus was about. Sary moved away, in his inattention, and strained to see and hear above the cheers and stamps before Seb spoiled it all. If only she could regain her cheerful feelings. I shouldn’t have mouthed off.

  Seb calculated the mob—especially the old fart with silvery pomade hair leaning over the gallery above the fray. Delacorte! Seb spat. Julian Delacorte, Mr. High-Muckety-Muck, straightened with effort, once more a king surveying his realm. Seb squinched his eyes, focusing on a huge turnip watch winking out from that fine silvery tailored waistcoat up there. Seb’s eyes fixed on other bits of jewelry. A fat gold ring and stick pin with a diamond big as a turkey egg. Mesmerized by the watch, Seb yanked Sary’s arm.

  “Hold on, Sary. Let’s just not be in such a tear here. Reckon it wouldn’t hurt none for you to stand on a chair where they—you—can see, like.”

  Sary looked at Seb oddly as he helped her up, turning the chair just so, all the while casting feverish glances at the gaunt old man with the face like a long gray dishrag let to dry, up on the gallery. Seb seemed to will the old man watching the crowd from beneath hooded eyes to look their way.

  Strangely highlighted in black, Sary was a glistening, iridescent raven in a field of songbirds, the dark dress a foil for her translucent skin and gleaming coiled hair. She’d added a tad of lace and a brooch with a lock of Jonathan’s hair, but she could have dressed in flour sacks and still been noticed.

  Julian’s uninterested regard still roved the crowd, the jaded emperor. He eyed Sary and passed smoothly by, but his gaze kept returning. Beside him, Jules Delacorte also lounged, a younger, slighter version of Julian—unused to sun, effete and fine-boned—flicking bored glances at the stage. Jules’s gaze was caught on the actor’s laces and feathers, not Sary, until he noticed his father’s focus, and his eyes bored into Sary as if sucking her bones.

  ****

  The play was in fulsome swing. Enraptured, Sary watched the actors’ flamboyant flourishes. The stage was her world right then, not Julian Delacorte or Jules or even Seb, who finally left her and wended his way to the bar.

  Seb, scowling at the fancy man, mumbled to his drink, “For some reason the popinjay’s jabberin’ to a skull, while a fat old redhead, bustin’ her stays, simpers from under a cockeyed crown, and a dyspeptic old long-bearded fart who looks like he et somethin’ tainted wallows in a big chair alongside the redhead. Tchaaa!” The sign read “Hamlet” now.

  Seb shook his head, muttering. “Hey Lacy-Drawers. What you all tarted up for?” He sneered. Then he recalled Sary. He’d left her alone in the back and now he hotly followed her gaze, admiring the same fancy man he so disdained. He flicked back to the stage. There, Lacy-Drawers shielded his eyes and leered out at the mob.

  One more drink. Seb motioned the barkeep, overhearing the actor: “And who shall deign to play my beauteous Ophelia for the night?”

  Seb mimicked him, “An’ who shall…” sourly watching sporting girls and a few ugly ranchers’ daughters elbow each other on their stampede to the stage, smirking when Lacy-Drawers fended them off. The doves swung around, discombobulated, as the actor held his hand out past them.

  Seb swiveled too, with hot suspicion, and choked on his drink as the crowd parted for his own sister. Well, we’ll see about that! Actually, they were dragging her forward, but that didn’t matter. He’d put a stop to it. Seen cats in heat actin’ more modest!

  Sary thumbed her wedding band and smoothed her stained dress. Her lips twitched and her eyes, unused to sparkling, lit up. Flustered, laughing and demurring, her black dress billowing, Sary was seemingly levitated by the crowd as it parted in waves before she vanished in their midst and the mob pulled her to the stage. Above, Julian also riveted on the ethereal girl glowing in widow’s weeds. Rheumy eyes darkened with interest. He almost seemed alive.

  Sary shuddered. What’s that chill…? A goose walked over my grave! As she passed beneath Julian’s presence in the gallery, something compelled her to bend her neck, and her white face looking up was directly below the old man’s. Their eyes locked. His cloudy gray marbles, cold, mucous-y…dead. She shivered again—hot—cold—faintheaded—as those rheumy eyes bored into hers. Must get to the stage—laughter there, and color and life! Why had this old man shivered her so? She didn't even notice the effete young man named Jules next to him, but she should have.

  Plunging forward, Sary grasped sweaty hands, all reaching out. Then she was hauled above the crowd, and someone thrust a sheet of paper at her. Oh! She must read this! And thus Sary became a part of them, this friendly, under their fearsome paint, troupe. The actor, not handsome as she’d first thought, his brown eyes heavily ringed in grease pencil like a raccoon, yet in molten-honey tones emoted: “And you, fair dam-sel shall grace my stage…and my heart.” And bowed, sweeping a rather molting cape.

  Her face warmed like a flatiron on the stove as the perspiring actor grinned, patting his grease-stained cheek.

  “Supposed to buss me here,” he invited, waggling his brows as he grabbed Sary’s waist.

  Sary gave him a shy, self-conscious peck.

  He spun at the last minute and thoroughly kissed her mouth. The tip of his tongue and the faint taste of onion and peppermint intruded, sending heat lightning to her toes, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t like when Jonathan had kissed her, strong and filled with urgency but brief. Too brief, oft times, for her liking, if shameful truth be told. She could feel her cheeks warm. She stood in the middle of the stage as seconds passed, unaware of color and sound and sweat and the perfume of the actors around her. In the brief pause as they watched, she reflected his kiss was warm and strong and—and pleasurable in ways she hadn’t known, even if it was just—playacting. Still, shocked by the sensation, she almost responded, but he mugged to the crowd, dropped her, backed dramatically, and pointed a finger.

  “My Ophelia!” he bellowed. “Get thee to a nunnery! Be thou chaste as ice!” Sary blinked.

  The mob stomped and whistled, but then Seb bulled in, red-faced, tripping onto the stage. Halting at the fringe, he leaned far over and stage-whispered, “Sary, get on over h
ere! Git!” and spoiled it all.

  Seb finally clambered all the way onto the platform and snatched at her, but the troupe got in his way, whether by design or happenstance. They tried to include Seb, but it turned to ugly burlesque, making Seb even more the fool. Suddenly aware he was in the spotlight, Seb grinned a sickish grin, bowed clumsily, and stumbled off to the accompaniment of catcalls, alternately dragging and shoving Sary. Above, on the gallery, Julian Delacorte looked on enigmatically.

  ****

  Once outside, Seb hauled off and slapped her, roaring, “Well—you sure looked a bitch-dog in heat!” and shook her for emphasis.

  Sary pushed him hard, holding back the tears. “Sebastian! I’m a woman married! I’m not a girl, or a—a whore!”

  Seb leaned in, hissing, “Not any more, you ain’t! Till you’re properly joined up agin, I’m your man.” He jabbed his chest, looking her up and down as if she were tainted. “My own sister! Actin’ the harlot!”

  “Seb. There were other women. Some not as old as me!” Sary protested, but Seb open-handed her cheek again. “Don’t give me your sass!”

  Sary slapped back, and it rang sharp against the night. She stopped, stunned, then waded in, beating at him with both fists to ward off what surely would be retaliation, but Seb’s eyes glowed with strange excitement—it wasn’t ire. “Them’s my words,” he growled in an odd throaty voice. “Don’t make me lose my temper. You know what I can do.”

  “Yes, Se-bastian!” Sary bit the words as hard as she dared, but stepped back.

  “Don’t push me with your brazen ways, neither!”

  Seb’s eyes held that stormy look, as if he would do anything with no thought as to where he was. Sary averted her face to put out that fire and, yearning to say more, clamped her teeth. Seb’s nervy. Things will be better, once they’ve settled.

  “No, Seb. No, I won’t,” Sary said, feeling restless and strange, like before a bad Indiana storm blew through and the air turned green and sulfurous, even though this air was mountain dry. She dawdled down the wood walkway, finally looking back wistfully at the gaiety, light, and laughter faintly trailing her as she returned to Handi’s.