Alex sits, resting her head in her hands. The gloom of the place is quickly turning angry determination to self-pity, when a blast of cold air and light rush into the room.
‘Well, hello there, Alex. Heard you been claim jumping a claim jumper. No, no need to get up,’ says Micah. He closes the door behind him and scratches at that empty eye socket. ‘Might as well make use of them clothes.’
She stands anyway as raindrops thwap one by one, each making its own indention in the canvas roof. Lightning flashes blue and the rain begins in earnest.
‘Lordy, here we go,’ says Micah, looking sceptically at his roof. He wears canvas pants like the other men, but he keeps a pencil in a pocket he’s stitched to his flannel. He stands with his hips thrust out as if his back hurts him. His brown hair hangs shaggy over his ears, and his low round forehead and bulbous nose wrinkle in a smile, friendly even with the one eye.
‘John Thomas can be an ass—don’t I know it. Gave me hell my first week as well, so don’t take it personal. Challenged me to a duel for sitting in his chair at supper, and probably would have done me in, too, if Emaline hadn’t put a stop to it. Foolishness, she told us. Grown men going around killing each other when there are plenty other things in this country to do it for us. Makes sense, doesn’t it? That put us straight, of course. That and the double-barrelled shotgun she likes to tote around with her. There is wisdom in women, boy. And pure hell fire. A frightening combination, to be sure, but effective. Remember that. Between you and me, I think ol’ John Thomas has got a thing for her. Not that most of us haven’t, had a thing, now and again—you know what I mean? No?’
Alex feels her cheeks flush. Coloured women, Gran called them. A coloured woman was threatening to kick her out of town? She certainly didn’t fit the description of bawdyhouse ladies Alex has heard about. Emaline’s cheeks were unpainted, and Alex doubts that her shoulders, or any other part of her, would fit into the dresses they wore.
‘Of course you know,’ says Micah, winking his one eye. ‘But John Thomas has got a thing for her.’ Micah rummages for a match, but the lamp on the counter produces only a yellow light, feeble and sickly.
‘Now, what can I do you for? You got yourself a pan, though if Limpy isn’t telling tales, you got some learning to go on how to use it. You’re gonna need a pick and shovel, no doubt, a bit of quicksilver…You got a hat, good. Every miner needs a good solid hat. Keeps off the rain, keeps off the sun. Though both are good in moderation. In moderation, son, like women and whisky. Remember that. Lordy! If you paid any more than fifteen dollars for those boots you got had. Now, don’t go looking down, it happens to the best of us…’
Micah pauses as if he needs a moment to digest his own wisdom, then scuttles around the shop giving a verbal inventory.
‘Limited variety, I know. But that’s what you get in a town full of men. All a man really wants is his tobacco, a little salt pork and flour, and a new shirt when the old one falls off his back.’
He hands Alex a pick. The wood is smooth and cool in her hands and heavier than she imagined from the way the men were swinging them this morning.
‘Nice, huh? Try this one for size—’ Micah takes the pick and hands her a shovel. ‘Man’s got to be comfortable with his equipment. Feel good, yeah? Yeah?’
She can see the muscles of the empty socket twitching beneath his skin, trying to focus. He rests his weight against the pick.
‘Women, see—real, civilized, lacy women—they bring variety to a place. Soon you’re stocking fancy furniture and silk cloth and fancy plates and such. Women, son, the spice of life. Remember that. Should have seen my store in Grass Valley. Packed with trinkets and trifles from France, Chile, England, God knows where else. Barely had room for breeches.’
Micah sighs and quiets for a moment.
‘Mr…’ Alex begins.
‘Micah, son, call me Micah.’
‘Micah. I suppose I’m meant to, well, a claim?’
‘“Meant to well a claim.” Nearly got yourself a sentence there, boy. But the answer’s yes. Limpy came in here not ten minutes ago, made that claim for you, in your name. Took care of it, is what I’m saying, and not a minute before John Thomas came in here whining about it. Be thankful to him, if I were you, but not too thankful. Limpy’s got his ways of getting more than he gives out of folks, remember that.
‘’Course, you got to go to Nevada City and file in the county court to make it official, but we like to keep our own selves straight. More of a formality till someone finds something worth claiming. I doubt the county even knows we’re up here.’
A shout sounds from the road outside, and another answers.
‘Anyhow,’ says Micah, ‘it’s typically done the other way round, see. Find the gold, then make the claim. I’d do my own staking, too, if I was you. Later. Right now it’s looking—’ Lightning flashes again, the electric energy stands tiny hairs on Alex’s neck and arms on end. ‘I say it looks like the weather’s gonna keep us all in for a while. ‘Bout time, too. Been a dry winter. Mark it clear, when you mark it. Each corner. Sell you some of these, if you want—’ He brandishes four wooden stakes. ‘And a sign nearby stating your right. The law says one hundred feet by fifty, but no one really follows that round here. Just as long as it’s clearly marked and not overlapping anyone else, which shouldn’t be a problem up there. Nobody’s found enough gold to waste the water on, in truth. But, hell, luck’s no predictable animal. Remember that.’
He pauses and Alex fills the space with a nod. ‘This all you need? ‘Cause I’m not usually open but two days a week, the other being day before last.’
Alex nods.
‘Fine. Now, gotta ask for cash I’m afraid. Credit comes with a strike you understand. Only reasonable.’
It rains for three days, and for three days Alex sits on the staircase staring down into the saloon as if watching a Christmas pantomime. She has no part in it. She is above, looking down, finding it difficult to remain aloof and indignant with solitude’s cold hands curling around her, making the walls feel very close and the people below very far away. No one seems to see her there. No one says her name.
Rain, as it falls outside, traps old air in the saloon. She thinks, every breath I take is someone else’s breath discarded. I am eating other people’s air. She thinks, this should make me full and larger than I am. She thinks, if I stay in this place, I will eat enough man breath to become a man, and I will play cards and drink whisky and they will never find me. She thinks, it would take two of Gran and two of me to equal one of Emaline, standing there with Jed behind the bar, now mending a sock, now bringing bread from the oven, everywhere at once, and occasionally she heads upstairs with a slack-jawed miner with money in hand. Alex moves over to let them pass.
She thinks, the smell of whisky is sweeter than wine; but she’s only tasted wine, and then only sips. Nearly a week on her feet, nearly a week of constant movement and now no place to go but her thoughts. She tried to escape to the creek that first rainy day, stood cold and wet on the edge with her claim stakes and shovel as a liquid train of water crashed downstream, covering claims, filling coyote holes and toppling the windlasses into the gutted sink of soil.
Jed said, ‘You don’t play games with a river in heat—if you was thinking ‘bout working today.’ He shouted this over the water and over the rain, and she watched and shivered while he dipped a water bucket, holding on as the current gripped and yanked.
Now the road is a river, or many tiny rivers all running towards the creek, a thousand strands of motion, and Alex trapped inside on the stairwell thinking about the four gold coins left in her money pouch, how rich she’d felt with six coins.
Limpy is telling the same story he’d told two days ago, but with a few details added for variety. Three whores instead of the two, and he changed the place from Grass Valley to Nevada City. No one seems to notice or care,