MARY VOLMER
Crown of Dust
For my mom,
Cathy Volmer
Table of Contents
Emaline searches the sky for storm clouds from the doorway of the Victoria Inn. The man snoring at her feet grunts, rolls over, and curls himself around an upturned bottle of whisky. She picks up her skirt, steps over him on to the porch. Can’t predict the weather this time of year. Fools even the wild flowers. Mistake three days of sunshine for the start of May when one hard freeze will snap the petals right off and kill the early batch of mosquitoes already swarming.
Across the road, the chapel’s canvas roof sags like wet clothes on a line. It won’t take another snow like the last. Klein promised to fix the damn thing, but he’s probably kneedeep in the creek with the rest of them. It’s no wonder nobody in these parts has struck pay dirt yet, what with their canvas tents and frame cabins so easy to desert. Why would the earth give up its gold just to be abandoned on rumour of another strike? The soil is a shrewd old whore and has learned better than to give her gold for free.
A person should have a solid foundation, Emaline always says, some sort of permanence in her life, a place for luck to grow. That’s why she’s insisting on having the chapel finished. Nothing establishes a place like inviting God to stay. She imagines a tidy steeple with a sensible wooden cross, a simple oak pulpit and rows of sober pews. No stained glass. No gaudy ornamentation. Save that for the Baptists who mistake the sound of their own voices for the word of God. Behind the chapel she pictures a cemetery with graves surrounded by white picket fences to keep souls from drifting. Emaline is tired of drifting. That’s how she thinks of it; not pioneering, certainly not running, but drifting. True, Motherlode isn’t much to look at. Not yet. But she has a feeling about the place; call it intuition.
The ravine walls stand at attention on either side of her valley and the cedars that brush the rim are a feathered fringe in the glare of the afternoon sun. A movement up the road catches her eye. She squints to see better.
‘Preacher,’ she says. The man at her feet grunts but doesn’t move. Emaline nudges him with her toe. ‘John.’ She kicks him harder. Another grunt. ‘Goddamnit, John! Wake your sorry ass up and look down the road.’
She reaches under him with her toe, lifts with all her might, and John rolls sideways down the steps to land in a stupor at the bottom. A stocky black man steps out of the building behind her and stares in the direction of Emaline’s gaze.
‘T’ain’t no one but Randall, missus. And his mule.’
‘I can see who it is, Jed.’ But her shoulders slump and she lets out a breath, slowly, hoping Jed won’t notice. ‘And don’t be calling me no missus.’
Jed crosses his arms in front of him and places his hand to his chin, a common posture for him. It’s hard to tell whether he’s deep in thought or simply hiding a smile. Emaline sits down, knees apart on the steps above Preacher John and glares back at Jed.
‘Whatever you say, Miss Emaline,’ he says, retreating into the building just as another, smaller figure appears around the mass of manzanita marking the edge of Motherlode.
‘Randall, I tell you,’ says Emaline, ‘if God ordered wine on Sunday you’d bring it a week later Monday.’
‘Now, Emaline,’ says the muleteer. His beard hangs to his waist and the tobacco stain blooming about his lips is the only way she can locate exactly where the whiskers end and his mouth begins. ‘You know I can’t make the wagon come. Sacramento ain’t no closer now than it were a year ago—‘less you want me to come without the molasses and the mail.’
Preacher John moans at her feet. She nudges him with her toe for no other reason than to remind him she’s here. Sober on Sundays, he’d said. At least he’s that, sober on Sundays. She shakes her head and is happy to let Randall believe this gesture is meant for him. She heaves herself from the steps and Randall stumbles back, regains himself. The mule behind haws its pleasure, or displeasure—hard to tell with mules—and the sound ricochets off the ravine walls and falls below the squawk of the scrub jays.
‘Dangerous work I’m doing,’ says Randall. He rubs his toe in the dirt. He spits. The mule brays again, louder this time. ‘Man’s—A man’s gotta be careful, take his time.’
‘Careful? How much time you lose playing five-card between Sac’ town and Grass Valley?’ She’s yelling now above the mule and she can see its ears rotating, its neck straining to look behind.
‘Ah hell, Emaline.’