A Tyranny of Petticoats (20 page)

“Miss Davies!” Mr. McHenry says when he notices me. Annie starts in surprise, and red creeps up her cheeks.

Before any of us can say anything else, Mr. McHenry’s children burst in through the back door, along with the twins. They crowd around the front counter.

“See! I told you Daddy got more candy!” Bridget cries, pointing.

The twins pull pennies out of their pockets, eyeing the glass jars eagerly.

Mr. McHenry starts to serve me first, but I nod to the children. “Go ahead,” I say, smiling as Mr. McHenry starts doling out sweets.

“Why don’t you get something, Annie?” I ask her gently.

“She doesn’t eat candy,” Bridget says around a lemon drop. “She only eats rabbits and rats.”

“Bridget!” Mr. McHenry glares at his daughter. She looks immediately ashamed, even more so as Mr. McHenry threatens her with a switch for her rude words. But as Annie slinks from the store, I can’t help but notice that Bridget still has the sweet in her mouth, and Annie has nothing.

“Get on to the school,” I tell the children as they rush out. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Now, Miss Davies,” Mr. McHenry says, leaning down the counter. “I just got the package you ordered. And I sold that pretty dress of yours for more than I thought, so I owe you an extra quarter.” He gives me the coin and the slender box together. The words
HOPKINS & ALLEN
are written on the side of the box, and it weighs heavily in my hand, but not so heavy that it pulls down my skirt when I slip it in my pocket.

“Where’d you get such a nice dress out here?” Mr. McHenry asks. “Them little seed pearls were mighty fine.”

“It was my mother’s,” I say, trying not to remember the way I once dreamed of wearing it.

“I could have gotten you a cheaper model,” Mr. McHenry says, indicating my pocket where the box lies hidden.

I know he could have. “This is just right,” I say. “Thank you.”

Annie’s attendance becomes increasingly sporadic in the next few weeks, and she shows up later and later in the day. Snow starts sprinkling down, dusting everything in white, and the promised glass for the grease-paper window still hasn’t arrived, but the stove keeps us warm enough.

We’re in the middle of saying the Lord’s Prayer when Annie rushes in, snow already melting on her coat from the steamy heat of the stove. She carefully leans her rifle against the back wall and then whirls around to me.

“Miss Davies!” she gasps.

“Don’t interrupt,” I say, but it’s too late — the rest of the children are thoroughly distracted by Annie’s sudden appearance.

“A stranger’s here!” Annie says, still catching her breath. “He was at McHenry’s, looking for
you
!”

The children are abuzz, quizzing Annie about the stranger. For one brief moment, I think maybe it’s my papa, that Maggie told him where I went and he realized he loved me more than my reputation. But Maggie never really did like Papa.

Not the way she liked Richard.

And there he is, standing in the doorway.

“This is him!” Annie says excitedly. “The stranger!”

Richard strides into the room as if he owns the schoolhouse.

“That’s no stranger, Annie,” I say, backing up. “That’s a snake.”

The entire class’s attitude shifts immediately, although Richard doesn’t notice it. Jebediah’s and Joseph’s hands go to the revolvers they carry. Annie slinks to the back and picks up the Ballard rifle.

But Richard just slithers forward.

“I knew I’d find you eventually, Helen,” he says, his voice low and horrible. “You can’t run forever.”

“I’m not running, Richard,” I say. My hand goes to my pocket.

Jebediah moves, and Richard must notice him from the corner of his eye. He turns, surprised, and sees Jebediah’s hand on the grip of his pistol, not yet drawn. “Uh-uh, little boy,” he tells Jebediah. Richard moves like lightning, knocking the boy to the ground, and pulls out his own pistol quicker than thought. Joseph tries to draw his weapon, but Richard already has the barrel of his pistol pointed at him.

“Richard!” I scream. “Leave the children alone!”

Richard kicks Joseph in the chest, sending him to the ground too. “You’re coming with me, Helen. You’re coming home. What’s mine is mine, and you’re mine.”

“Miss Davies?” Annie’s voice is quiet, quivering in fear. Richard doesn’t turn around as he draws closer and closer to me. “Miss Davies, my daddy said I wasn’t allowed to shoot nobody in the back, not ever, but I’m wondering if it’s okay to shoot snakes in the back.”

Richard turns around slowly. Annie’s Ballard No. 4 Perfection Model is aimed right at his heart. And although she’s white as a ghost, her aim doesn’t quiver.

Richard snorts in contempt. “You’re going to let a little girl like that play with a big gun just so you feel safe?”

“No,” I say. “I’m not.”

I pull my own pistol out of my pocket. A small gun, bought with my mother’s wedding dress. I traded her seed pearls for the pearl grips of the .32.

“You’d never shoot me, Helen,” Richard says, smiling, his fangs showing. “No woman of mine would shoot me.”

So I shoot him.

“Get the law,” I order Bridget as the twins scream. Jebediah and Joseph pin Richard down as he writhes in pain on the floor. I peer down at him dispassionately.

I only shot him in the shoulder; you’d think a man would have more respect for himself than to scream like that.

THE PROSPECTOR ACROSS THE TABLE smelled of horse manure and two long months of summer sweat. I wished to tell him that his dead business partner wanted him to go back to camp with a bar of lye soap and soak in a hot bath, but I suspected any business partner of his wouldn’t have been much for hygiene either, and the prospector’s glare told me he was already skeptical enough.

“The spirits not always come,” I explained as I lit the incense sticks. “But ask your question and we will hope.” I spoke slowly, using the broken cadence I mimicked from my uncle and neighbors, even though I’d been born in San Francisco and was one of the few Chinese in the Badlands fluent in both languages. The miners valued the heavy accent. They seemed to think it made me a more authentic descendent of the Celestial Kingdom — their exotic word for
China —
and more connected with the spirits that spoke through me.

At least, on a good day they spoke through me.

“When you say
spirits,
” the man said, watching my hands with suspicion, as if lighting incense were a dangerous pastime, “you mean just the one, right? I just need to talk to my partner. None of your pagan gods or nothing like that.”

I pressed my lips, barricading my pride against the affront. “I invite your partner but cannot choose who answers.” I lit the candle on the table and shook out the match. “You have gift for spirits?”

He snarled, showing yellowed teeth surrounded by grizzly whiskers. “Like a
sacrifice
?”

I stared at him over the flame, long enough that I hoped he understood he’d asked a remarkably stupid question. Finally, I responded, “Or perhaps a cup of rice.”

He slowly sat back, but his glower didn’t lessen. “What’s a cup of rice gonna do?”

“Is customary to give gifts to the dead, as a sign of respect, and so they might have sustenance in the next life. If you do not have gift, we have spirit money for purchase.” I gestured to the front room, where my uncle ran his laundry service.

The prospector spent a moment rocking on the wooden stool, then reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a pre-rolled cigarette. He tossed it into the brass bowl on the table. “He can have that. But just one. I ain’t got more to spare.”

Jaw tightening, I scooted the bowl to the side of the table. “His name?”

“Thomas Manning.”

“Think on the question you would ask Thomas Manning.”

He drummed his fingers on the table while I did my best to concentrate. Sitting back, I shut my eyes and let my breathing calm. I imagined the drumbeats I had heard a hundred times during my mother’s rituals, back when she was a respected
wu-
shaman in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

I did not have high hopes that Thomas Manning would make his presence known today. If I’d been partnered with this man in life, I wouldn’t come back to visit him either.

Which meant it was time for a performance.

Sometimes my patrons had simple requests — a fortune told by the wrinkles of their palm or a question answered by the
kau cim
sticks.

But usually they came to me because they wished to speak with the dead.

When my uncle first brought me to Dakota Territory, I refused to take for granted the traditions my mother had begun to teach me before she too became an honored spirit. I would light the incense. I would burn spirit money and paper effigies. I would sink into my trance so the spirits might use my voice to speak.

But I had never finished my training to become a true shaman, and too often my patrons left disappointed and angry. The rough-edged men of Deadwood had little patience for our traditions, and they didn’t like being told that the spirits did not wish to speak with
them.

After a week with sparse patronage and a threat from my uncle that he would soon have me scrubbing linens in the laundry, I dared to fake my first trance.

It had gotten easier since then.

I did not tell lies, after all. I told likelihoods.

Your departed lover is here,
I’d whisper,
and she wants only your happiness, even if you need to take comfort in the arms of a soft-bosomed dove.
The lonely man would no doubt visit a pleasure house soon enough, even without my encouragement. Or I might say,
The spirits urge you to welcome the one-eyed man, for he will bring you prosperity.
Then I’d imagine the prospector chuckling to himself when the one-eyed knave of hearts came into his poker hand that night.

I was right often enough that they kept coming back, eagerly listening to my whispered fortunes, and always hoping to hear a single word.

Gold.

Satisfied or not, they all dropped a few coins into my tin cup as they left. It would not make me wealthy, but at least I didn’t have to spread my legs for coin like the girls I saw hanging out the windows of the Gem or Bella Union.

“Well?” said the prospector. “Has old Manning got something to tell me or not?”

I caught a whiff of his rancid breath mixed with my incense and tried to disguise my grimace. Through my puckered lips, I whispered, “Yes. He is here.”

The prospector’s voice was lower now, following my example. “Tom?”

I swayed on my seat. “Thomas Manning. We invite you to speak. Please, answer our questions.”

“Tom, are you there?”

It was amazing to me how easily their suspicions came and went. How strongly they wished to believe, despite how they scoffed at our ways and traditions.

The prospector began to speak in earnest. “You picked a right awful time to get yourself killed, Tom. We’ve got an offer to buy the claim, and it could be a good deal for me, but I need to know —”