Emaline’s mouth closes with a pop and curls to a frown. Might as well just accuse her of thievery. She crumples the calico shirt in a ball and crosses her arms before her chest.
‘Now, if it were me,’ she says, her voice cooler than she intended, ‘I’d wrap it up as good as I could and leave the damn thing here, hidden under the bed, wherever. Unless it’s worth your life protecting.’
His eyes grow to wide, moon-like discs, but she doesn’t care if she scares him. It’s dangerous holding things of value too close to you. And grown men have been killed for smaller hunks of metal. She shivers at this, and squints down at the clear complexion, the hairless lips, the slender shoulders of Alex, feeling suddenly protective of the thankless little snot.
‘I brought this. For you,’ she adds, taking the calico from beneath her arm. She holds it before her as though judging fit. ‘The one you got’s a bit rank, you don’t mind me saying.’
Alex says nothing, but ventures cautiously forward, his feet, very light on the floor. It strikes her just how small he seems now with his shoulders hunched, his arms tucked in as though his guts would otherwise spill out. He’d waltzed into town today like the crown prince himself, a trail of men following after him, practically falling at his feet. But she can’t recall anything about his expression. Her attention, as now, was fixated on the gold. The devil himself might as well have been carrying it. She lays the shirt flat upon the bed and smoothes the sleeves over the chest.
‘Try it. Bound to fit you,’ she says, and waits. His eyes flit from her to the shirt, as if either will bite him. Emaline shakes her head, waves away her disbelief, and turns to leave in one motion. She’s got better things to do than wait for a thank—
‘Emaline?’ Emaline turns round. ‘Thank you?’
She closes the door behind her, ignoring the heavy lump in her gut. He was forgettable before, without the gold. Safer for it.
Downstairs she finds David leaning against the wall on a stool and staring out at the foolery in the road. He’s lit the lamps and the fishy smell of the oil permeates the room. On the far wall, across from the kitchen, the portrait of Queen Victoria gazes out across the saloon, her complexion all the more pale in the yellow light. ‘Damn fools,’ says Emaline, and the third leg of David’s stool thumps to the ground. ‘Don’t want to join them?’
‘No, thank you,’ he says. Emaline pauses, holding the kitchen door half open, looking back up the stairs.
‘David?’ she says. ‘Do me a favour?’
As she expects, he nods a quick agreement. She points to Alex’s room above them. ‘Watch out for him for me.’ She doesn’t expect the ashen look that falls across his face. He sits up straight. ‘Yes?’ Emaline asks. Before he can answer, the door of the saloon slams open and Limpy ducks beneath the doorframe holding two bottles by their glass necks.
‘Rum!’ says Limpy, an exclamation and a statement. Behind him, the street is a flurry of movement. The shadows of evening spread like fingers through town.
‘Thank you, David,’ Emaline says, and pushes through to the kitchen, leaving him with his mouth open.
Limpy met Alex at the stairwell, called her the Golden Boy, bought her a drink and whisky isn’t nearly as sweet as she’d imagined.
‘Drink it down, son,’ says Limpy, leaning with his back to the bar. The taste lingers in her mouth like the fuzz of a peach. She squirms on her stool and readjusts the nugget where it hangs hidden in the pouch between her thighs.
Klein muscles the accordion to life and a man in the corner stands on his stool singing, ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming…’ in a wavering Scottish brogue. It takes a rag to his face to sit him down, but the song has caught here and there, and while none of the singers agree on a verse, all come together in time for the truth to go marching on.
‘Whisky,’ Limpy says, ‘is not meant for sipping, am I right? Micah? Show the boy how it’s done.’
Micah tips his head back, barely swallowing. He orders two more drinks, offers one to Alex. She shakes her head. ‘No, Micah. Thank you.’
‘Do well to accept gifts given you.’ He sets the cup down anyway. ‘Remember that.’
‘Women and whisky, son, rarely come free,’ says Limpy.
‘Not that I blame you,’ says Micah, ‘what with this rot-gut-mule-piss whisky Jed’s been serving. Jed? Jed, a cup of your best for the boy. New England rum.’
‘And don’t tell us you ain’t got any,’ says Limpy. ‘Carried two bottles in myself this very afternoon. Got the good stuff in your own glass—that’s what I thought.’
Jed is wiping a clean spot on the bar, but his eyes follow Emaline as she circles the room, talking, laughing, gathering cups as she goes. If Emaline feels eyes, she ignores them.
Alex adjusts herself. She takes another sip of the whisky in her hand and finds it empty. The rum smells of sugar beets, but she doesn’t trust the sweetness until she tastes it, soft on her tongue, slipping down her throat so easy.
‘Good, huh? What I tell you? New England rum,’ says Micah, separating Eng and land. ‘You’re welcome.’ He winks his eye and she watches him totter back to his poker game.
She’d practised walking about her room, adjusting the knot around her waist to still the anchor-like swing. But as she watches the Scotsman approach the bar, she wonders if her nugget hangs a bit too low. She couldn’t leave it in the room, didn’t quite trust the heavy look in Emaline’s eye at the suggestion. Nor was Alex ready to part with the flannel, her adopted skin.
She ducks low over her drink, now, every time the woman passes.
The tobacco smoke rises layer upon layer to the ceiling and the room feels smaller, more cluttered even than it looked from the stairwell, as if each clump of bodies sections off its own living, breathing room. Man breath, she thinks. Men springing from rocks. What would Gran think of that? Men from rocks. She takes a sip. Water from wine. Her head feels very large. She pulls away from the hand tugging at her flannel. New. She feels new. The Golden Boy Alex. She turns to find Preacher John pointing at his Bible as if trying to spear the words with his fingernail.
‘You read?’
Alex nods her head yes and Preacher says, “Course not, no,’ and begins pointing out every word as he reads, tugging on Alex’s arm now and then to regain her attention.
‘Whoever sows sp-spar-sparingly,’ Preacher reads, ‘will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows gener-ous generous-ly will also reap generously. God loves a cheerful giver.’
Preacher nods furiously and Alex finds her head bobbing right along. ‘A cheerful giver,’ Preacher says again as Limpy leans over.
‘Now, Preacher, you’re not bothering the boy, are you?’ He takes the empty cup from Alex’s hand and gives her another rum. ‘Me and Alex have business, you understand. Business.’
‘Business,’