Heart of the West (58 page)

Hannah felt suddenly as if a winch had tightened around her throat, cutting off the words that had been flowing as freely as the river she and her gambler had traveled on. She couldn't look at Clementine anymore. She was sure the younger woman's eyes would say:
How could you let him do that to you?
Yet when she did look, those still, deep eyes said: I
know. I know what it's like to love that much.

Hannah cleared her throat and dropped her gaze to their entwined fingers. Like a rope, Hannah thought, they were like a strong, tough rope that had been woven and cured by life. "It got real bad again after that. Are you sure you want me to tell you?"

"Only if you want to."

"I... I started smoking opium to escape from the pain of losing him and the pain of... oh, losing myself, I guess." For a moment the sweet-rotten smell of it, like burned peanuts, was thick in her nose and the bitter taste of the smoke filled her mouth. The old yearning was there, as strong as ever, the fierce, hot yearning to dream, to escape into the hollowness of freedom... She blew out a deep breath, but the yearning remained.

"To... to get the money for it—for the opium and for the whiskey I was drinking like it was water—I took up whoring again. Only by that time no house wanted anything to do with the likes of me, so I wound up in a crib in the badlands, and that is about as low down far into hell as a woman can go without bein' dead."

Clementine's fingers stirred, but did not pull away from hers. "You aren't there anymore, Hannah. You escaped. And that took courage."

Hannah wiped a stray tear off her cheek with her free hand. "Naw. It was mostly pure dumb luck that got me out of the badlands. A prospector died of the spotted fever and left me his gold-dust poke, and Shiloh had already befriended me and was helping me to cut loose of the opium. To this day I'll never know why he did that for me." She sniffled, wiped at another tear, and produced a watery smile. "Shiloh's the only man who's ever talked to me straight, not sweet."

She was quiet a moment; then she sighed deeply. "I reckon I'm just a sucker for love, and it costs a lot of your heart to love a thing you're bound to lose. Either through death or them leavin' you or you givin' them up. It costs—whether it be the babe you've suckled at your breast or a man you've taken between your legs. Or the one man out of all the world's sweet-talking rascals that you've allowed inside your head and soul. Him most of all."

Clementine was silent for a moment, and then a small soft sound huffed out of her chest. It wasn't really a sigh—more of a low, tired breath. "Rafferty will come back to you, Hannah.

He only left this time because of Gus, and he always comes back."

"Sure he does, honey. But not for me."

Clementine went utterly still, her gaze searching Hannah's face. The currents in those shadowy green eyes shifting, restless. "How—how long have you known?"

"Always." She smoothed out the line of pain from between Clementine's brows. "Now, don't you go fretting about it for my sake. I loved him like crazy for a while, and in some ways I always will. But it wasn't you who came between us, and I never once begrudged him lovin' you."

The currents in Clementine's eyes quickened, deepened. "It wouldn't have mattered, Hannah. Dear as you are to me, I couldn't have stopped loving him. Not for you, not for Gus, not for my immortal soul." A strange light suffused her face, as if she were filling up inside with the sun. She looked filled to bursting with her love, as if she would explode with it. "I have loved him my entire life. Even before I knew him, I loved him."

To be loved like that, Hannah thought... God help her, but she was envious. Of Rafferty.

The house trembled and creaked under the wind, and Hannah heaved a gusty sigh. "What a pair we are."

Clementine pressed the back of a lacy wrist to her throat, as if feeling for her own pulse. Then her hand fell and she clutched at the quilt, twisting it suddenly into so tight a knot Hannah feared she would rip it.

"And yet I love Gus," she said, anguish darkening her voice, "I do, and he is my husband before God." She pounded at the bedclothes with her clenched fists. "Oh, God, Hannah, God, God! I am committing the worst sin every day of my life with my every breath... loving my husband's brother. 'Her belly shall swell and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.' And so God took Charlie from me. He had to punish me for my terrible sin."

"No!" Hannah grabbed her hands, stilling them. "You mustn't say that, you mustn't think it. Ever!" Pain spasmed across Clementine's face. The quilt, where it was stretched taut over the mound of her belly, quivered. "Clementine? Are you laboring?"

She nodded, panting heavily. "For a while now."

"Oh, Lord, why didn't you say something?" The wind whipped the sleet against the windowpanes, making a crackling sound like footsteps through dry leaves, and Hannah laughed shakily. "You and Gus really oughta time these things better. It just don't make sense to bring a baby into the world when the weather's apt to be throwing fits."

Clementine smiled wanly and let her eyes drift closed.

I should have died in his place. It should have been me.
All the blood seemed to rush from Hannah's heart, and her chest tightened with fear. It was the one thing none of them had ever considered, especially not Rafferty with all his man's stupid talk about her being tough and game enough to face anything— that Clementine might
want
to die.

The coal-oil lantern cast a murky light over the interior of Sam Woo's mercantile. Erlan stood on the highest rung of a ladder, stretching to reach the highest shelf. She hung a bowie knife on a hook next to a pile of brass knuckles, then used the sleeve of her chang-fu to wipe the dust off a case of rifle cartridges.

Moving gingerly on her tiny feet she climbed back down the ladder. She looked up and cursed to see a coffee grinder still stuck up there among some rolls of fuse cord. She used the hook to fetch it down, since she didn't think her golden lilies could bear another trip up the ladder today. Although her feet were no longer dainty arcs, she still had trouble managing the ladder.

Erlan let out a deep breath, stirring the wisps of hair on her forehead. Although it was a wintry night, the big potbellied stove kept the mercantile toasty, and she wiped a trickle of sweat off her neck with the back of her hand. As concubine to a gentry house, her mother had never so exerted herself as to perspire. Aiya, certainly Tao Huo would faint if she could see her daughter now, with her sun-browned cheeks, spreading feet, and callused hands.

Yet the truth was, Erlan rather enjoyed the work she did to earn her one dollar a day American. Peddlers had often come to the kitchen yard of her lao chia to sell their wares and haggle.

She had listened with her hand hiding a smile as the servants bemoaned the prices and scoffed at the quality, and the peddlers wailed and moaned and cursed the gods for sending them such niggardly customers. Oh, how Erlan had longed to take part in the game. Well, she had plenty of things to haggle over now, but to her disappointment the fon-kwei had no knowledge of the fine art of bargaining. There was no sport in naming a price and having it accepted without an argument.

She heard a step on the boardwalk outside and she started for the door, with scolding words already dancing on the tip of her tongue. She thought it was the merchant Woo, coming home for his dinner at long last. But the footsteps passed on by and became a black shadow crossing the lampshine that spilled through the window glass.

Erlan cursed the four gods of marriage that had seen fit to give her such a husband. If they had lived in Foochow, he would have frequented the teahouses. Here in America, it was the saloons. Instead of gambling at go or chess, he lost his money at poker. Nearly every night he came home with the long face.

Yet all in all, Erlan was pleased with her marriage, with her deal. At least she was the head of his house, with no mother-in-law to rule her. And since the sweetest tea was made with only the purest water, she had tried to uphold her end of the bargain. She looked around the mercantile now with a sense of deep satisfaction. She had finally achieved a measure of balance and harmony here, though it had taken her months to accomplish it.

Stacks of oilskins now rested next to rubber boots, bales of overalls next to work shirts. If someone was searching for a red hair ribbon, it was there, where it ought to be, next to the lace collars. Hatpins were with hatpin tablets. Tin washtubs next to folding bench wringers. Lanterns next to boxes of candles and kerosene in five-gallon tins. Stick candy, dried apples, crackers—all were up front next to the pickles. She looked down at the coffee grinder in her hands. A grinder should be near the beans, of course. Now, where were the—

The cowbell over the door erupted into a jarring jangle. Erlan whipped around so fast she nearly fell over a barrel of straw brooms. She drew in a sharp breath of air that was thick with the smell of oilskins and sour pickles.

"You!" she exclaimed. "How dare you come sneaking in here like that!"

"'Tes a little hard to sneak when there's a bloody cacophony of bells to announce your arrival like a bishop to a cathedral. You shouldn't be leaving the door unlatched this time of night. There are hard cases spilling out the saloons. And you shouldn't be alone. Where's Sam, then?"

"The useless one of the family is playing poker," she said, then flushed at the startled look that had come over Jere Scully's face. In China, for a wife to call her husband a useless one in front of others was to show her affection, whereas to compliment him in public was to embarrass them both. But Erlan kept forgetting that this was not the barbarian way.

She had to tilt her head way back to look at him. The size of the man always startled her. She would never find his features harmonious, but his hairy barbarian face didn't seem so ugly anymore. Perhaps she was getting used to heavy bones and big noses.

As crowded as the mercantile was, he seemed to fill all the empty spaces. With his great size and with his smell, of wet wool and leather, and barbarian man.

He took a step toward her, and she jumped back. Inside she felt all tight and hot, as if she were swelling and pressing against her skin, as if she would pop open at any moment like a roasted chestnut. He came closer, and she took another hopping step back. Aiya, she was behaving like a fool hen, and she made herself stop. Her gaze fell to the hem of her chang-fu, and she thrust her hands deep into her sleeves.

"Don't be frightened of me, Lily," he said softly.

Her head snapped up. "I am not frightened. And do not call me that. I do not like that name."

"'Tes what your husband calls you."

"You should address me as Mrs. Woo, if you speak to me at all. And even that is not the Chinese way." No woman ever took her husband's family name unless she was an orphan or a concubine. "In China I am Erlan, daughter of the House of Po."

"Aye, but then ye bain't in China now, be ye, Mrs. Woo?" he challenged, his Cornish accent growing as thick as sea fog. His rainwater eyes glimmered in the lantern light, and there was a relaxed curve of laughter around his mouth. He had stopped stalking her and was now leaning against the counter, one booted foot laid across the other.

Erlan's nervous gaze darted around the mercantile. She was at a loss as to what to do. Good manners dictated that she offer tea to a guest as soon as he arrived. But this man was no guest; he was an interloper to her peace of mind.

She drew in a deep breath, trying to center herself and banish all the turmoil roiling within her. She must strive for virtuous patience.

"Lily," he said and just the deep, rich earth-sound of his voice sent her composure flickering like the wick of a lantern in a strong wind. "You shouldn't have married him, lass." It was what he said to her every time he managed to get her alone, and she hated hearing it. She was afraid that one day she would come to believe it. "You shouldn't have let them make you do it."

"In China a girl never has a choice; the decision is made for her by her family. And even if she marries against her wishes, it is for life."

"Who's life, then, hers or his? Don't widows marry again in your China?"

"For a woman to marry again is to dishonor her widowhood. The marriage bond lasts beyond the grave."

He had pushed himself off the counter and was now prowling around the mercantile. He picked up a stereoscope and held it up to the lantern light; he opened a jar of Epsom salts and took a whiff, wrinkling his big barbarian nose; he flipped through a stack of patent medicine trade cards. His shoulders, she thought, must be as wide as the Great Wall. Melting ice sparkled in his hair, which was as thick as fox fur.

"I've made a present for you," he said, spinning around to face her suddenly. He pulled a piece of wood out of the deep pocket of his coat, and she sucked in her breath on a gasp. It was a carving of a holy temple, so exquisite she could make out each tile and stone, the tiny dragons on the corners of the roofs, even a miniature banyan tree outside the double-handled doors.

"Miss Luly Maine, the schoolteacher, has a book with pictures of China in it," he was saying. "There was one of those things you spoke of the day of the frolic, a pagoda. I used it as a model."

He was holding it out to her, but she was afraid to touch it. Afraid that if she touched it she would start to weep, and once started, she would never stop. She would weep and weep until her tears of homesickness drowned the world.

"You spoke that day of the pagoda and how 'tes been standing for a thousand years. I'll be waiting for you, Lily, for as long as it takes. Even if it takes a thousand years."

"No!" She pushed the beautiful, terrible gift aside and backed away. "No, you musn't. I will be leaving here. I will return to my lao chia to end my days."

"Then I'll follow you there, and you can end your days with me."

"Oh, you are as stubborn as a rice bin!"

He cocked his head, an amused squint creasing the corners of his eyes. "A rice bin? How can a rice bin be stubborn? How can a rice bin be doing anything other than just sitting there?"