“Everyone will think he’s drunk.”
“Before you dump him in the river, go through his pockets and bring back whatever he stole from me,” the cold voice said from above her.
“Yes, sir.”
Sarah heard the door open and close.
When the man let go of her, she ran to the farthest corner of the room and cowered there. He stood in the middle of the room looking at her for a long time. Then he went to the marble stand and poured water into the porcelain bowl. He wrung out a white cloth and walked toward her. She pressed back as far as she could. He hunkered down and grasped her chin.
“You’re much too pretty for paint,” he said and began to wash her face.
She shuddered violently at his touch. She looked at the place where Rab had lain. The man tipped her chin back.
“I don’t think that drunken lout was your father. You don’t look anything like him, and there’s intelligence in your eyes.” He finished washing the rouge from her cheeks and mouth and tossed the cloth aside. “Look at me, little one.”
When Sarah did, her heart pounded until her whole body shook with terror.
He held her face so she couldn’t look away. “As long as you do exactly what I tell you to do, we’re going to get along fine.” He smiled faintly and stroked her cheek, his eyes glowing strangely. “What’s your name?”
Sarah couldn’t answer.
He touched her hair, her throat, her arm. “It doesn’t matter. I think I’m going to call you Angel.” Straightening, he took her hand. “Come on now, Angel. I have things to teach you.” He lifted her and sat her on the big bed. “You can call me Duke, when you get your tongue back.” He took off his black silk coat. “Which you will. Shortly.” He smiled again as he removed his tie and slowly began to unbutton his shirt.
And by morning, Sarah knew that Cleo had told her God’s truth about everything.
But strength alone, though of the Muses born,
Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn,
Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchers
Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs
And thorns of life; forgetting the great end
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.
KEATS
CALIFORNIA, 1850
Angel pushed the canvas flap back just enough to look out at the mud street. She shivered in the cold afternoon air, that carried with it the stench of disenchantment.
Pair-a-Dice lay in the Mother Lode of California. It was the worst place she could have imagined, a shanty town of golden dreams built out of rotting sails from abandoned ships; a camp inhabited by outcasts and aristocrats, the displaced and dispossessed, the once-pampered and now-profane. Canvas-roofed bars and gambling houses lined mean streets ruled by unmasked depravity and greed, loneliness and grand illusions. Pair-a-Dice was wild jubilation. It wed black despair with fear and the foul taste of failure.
Smiling cynically, Angel saw on one corner a man preaching salvation while on the other his brother, hat in hand, fleeced the godforsaken. Everywhere she looked, there were desperate men, exiled from home and family, seeking escape from the purgatory forged by their own decaying hopes for a future.
These same fools called her a Cyprian and sought solace where they were most assured of finding none—from her. They drew lots for her favors, four ounces of gold, payable in advance to the Duchess, madam of the Palace, the tent brothel where she lived. Any comer could have Angel for one half hour. Her own meager percentage would be kept under lock and key and guarded by a woman-hating giant named Magowan. As for the rest—those sad unfortunates who lacked the price to sample her talents—they stood knee-deep in a sea of mud called Main Street, waiting for a chance glimpse of “the Angel.” And she lived a year in a month in this place that was unfit for anything but business. When would it end? How had all her desperate plans brought her here, to this horrible place of dirt and broken dreams?
“No more right now,” the Duchess was saying, ushering several men away. “I know you’ve been waiting, but Angel’s tired, and you want her best, don’t you?” Men complained and threatened, pleaded and bargained, but the Duchess knew when Angel had reached the limit of her endurance. “She needs a rest. Come back this evening. Drinks on the house.”
Relieved that they were gone, Angel let go of the tent flap and went back to lie on the rumpled bed. She stared bleakly at the canvas ceiling. The Duchess had announced this morning at breakfast that the new building was almost finished and the girls would be moving in tomorrow. Angel was ready to have four walls around her again. At least then the cold night wind would not blow in on her through splits in the rotting sailcloth. She hadn’t thought how much four walls meant to her when she paid passage on a barkentine destined for California. Then, all she had been thinking was escape. All she had seen was her chance for freedom. The mirage had dissolved soon enough when she reached the gangplank and learned she was one of three women aboard a ship with 120 vigorous young men, all of whom had nothing on their minds but adventure. The two hard-eyed prostitutes set to work right away, but Angel had tried to stay in her cabin. Within a fortnight, she saw clearly that she had one simple choice: go back to being a prostitute or be raped. What did it really matter anyway? What else did she know? She might as well line her pockets with gold like the others. Maybe then, just maybe, with enough money she could buy freedom.
She survived the rough seas, the foul-tasting lobscouse and hushamagrundy, the cramped quarters, and lack of dignity and decency in the hope that she would have enough money by the time she reached the shores of California to start a new life. Then, amid the excitement of docking, the final blow was struck.
The two other prostitutes set upon her in her cabin. By the time she regained consciousness, they were ashore with all her money and every possession she owned. All that was left to her was the clothes on her back. What was worse, not even one sailor remained aboard to row her ashore.
Beaten and numb with confusion, she sat huddled in the bow of the ship for two days before scavengers came. When they finished taking what they wanted from the deserted ship and her, they brought her to the dock. It was raining hard, and while they argued and divided their booty, she simply walked away.
She wandered for several days, hiding her face and hair beneath a soiled blanket one of the men had given her. She was hungry; she was cold; and she was resigned. Freedom was a dream.
She made her way by working Portsmouth Square until the Duchess, a woman well past her prime but possessed of a shrewd mind for business, found her and talked her into heading for the gold country.
“I’ve got four other girls, a Frenchie from Paris, a Celestial Ah Toy sold me, and two girls who look like they came off an empty potato boat from Ireland. A little food will fatten ’em up. Ah, but now, you. First time I saw you, I thought there’s a girl who can get rich with the right management. A girl with your beauty could make her fortune up there in the gold camps. Those young miners will take the gold out of the stream and fight each other to put it right in your hand.”
On an agreement that Angel would turn over eighty percent of her earnings, the Duchess promised to see that she was protected from bodily harm. “And I’ll see you have the best clothing, food, and lodgings available.”
Angel found the irony laughable. She had fled from Duke and fallen into the hands of Duchess. Just her luck.
For all her seeming benevolence, Duchess was a greedy tyrant. Angel knew she collected bribes to fix the lots, while not a speck of that gold dust found its way into the girls’ pouches. The tips left for services well-rendered were divided according to the original agreement. Mai Ling, Ah Toy’s Celestial slave girl, tried to hide her gold once, and Magowan—with his cruel smile and ham-sized hands—was sent in to “have a talk with her.”
Angel hated her life. She hated the Duchess. She hated Magowan. She hated her own wretched helplessness. Most of all she
hated the men for their relentless quest for pleasure. She gave them her body but not a particle more. Maybe there wasn’t any more. She didn’t know. And that didn’t seem to matter to any of the men. All they saw was her beauty, a flawless veil wrapped around a frozen heart, and they were enthralled. They looked into her angel eyes and were lost.
She was not fooled by their endless declarations of love. They wanted her in the same way they wanted the gold in the streams. They lusted for her. They fought for the chance to be with her. They scrambled, grappled, gambled, and grabbed—and everything they had was spent without thought or consideration. They paid to become enslaved. She gave them what they thought was heaven and consigned them to hell.
What did it matter? She had nothing left. She didn’t care. An even stronger force than the hatred that feasted on her was the weariness that sucked her soul dry. At eighteen, she was tired of living and resigned to the fact that nothing would ever change. She wondered why she had even been born. For this, she supposed. Take it or leave it. God’s truth. And the only way to leave it was to kill herself. Every time she faced that fact, every time she had the chance, her courage failed.
Her only friend was a tired old harlot named Lucky, who was running to fat because of her thirst for brandy. Yet even Lucky knew nothing of where Angel had come from or been, or what had happened to make her the way she was. The other prostitutes thought of her as invulnerable. They all wondered about her, but they never asked questions. Angel made it clearly understood from the beginning that the past was sacred ground no one walked over. Except for Lucky, dumb-drunk Lucky for whom Angel held a fondness.
Lucky spent her off time deep in her cups. “You gotta have plans, Angel. You gotta hope for something in this world.”
“Hope for what?”
“You can’t get by any other way.”
“I get by just fine.”
“How?”
“I don’t look back, and I don’t look forward.”
“What about now? You gotta think about now, Angel.”
Angel smiled faintly and brushed her long, golden hair. “Now doesn’t exist.”
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
BYRON
Michael Hosea was unloading crates of vegetables from the back of his buckboard when he saw a beautiful young woman walking along the street. She was dressed in black, like a widow, and a big, rough-looking man with a gun on his hip was at her side. All along Main Street, men stopped what they were doing, took off their hats, and watched her. She said not a word to anyone. She looked neither to the right nor the left. She moved with simple, fluid grace, her shoulders straight, her head held high.
Michael couldn’t take his eyes off her. His heart beat faster and faster as she came near. He willed her to look at him, but she didn’t. He let out his breath after she passed him, not even aware that he had been holding it.
This one, beloved.
Michael felt a rush of adrenaline mingled with joy. Lord. Lord!
“Something, ain’t she?” Joseph Hochschild said. The burly storekeeper held a sack of potatoes over his shoulder and grinned. “That’s Angel. Prettiest girl west of the Rockies and most likely prettiest east of the Rockies, too.” He went up the steps into his store.
Michael shouldered a barrel of apples. “What do you know about her?”
“No more than anyone else, I guess. She takes long walks. It’s a habit of hers. Does it every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon about this same time.” He nodded toward the men along the street. “They all come to watch her.”
“Who’s the man with her?” A dismal thought occurred to him. “Her husband?”
“Husband?” He laughed. “More like a bodyguard. His name’s Magowan. He makes certain nobody bothers her. No one gets within a foot of her unless they’ve paid their dues.”
Michael frowned slightly and went back outside. He stood at the back of his wagon, staring after her. She caught at something deep inside him. There was a grave, tragic dignity about her. As the storekeeper hefted another crate, Michael asked the question burning inside him. “How do I meet her, Joseph?”
Hochschild smiled ruefully. “You have to get in line. The Duchess holds a regular lottery to see who’ll have the privilege of seeing Angel.”
“What Duchess?”
“The Duchess down there.” He nodded down the street in the other direction. “The one who owns the Palace, the biggest brothel in Pair-a-Dice.”
Michael felt as though he had been kicked low and hard. He stared at Hochschild, but the man didn’t even notice as he toted a crate of carrots inside and upended it into a bin. Michael shouldered another barrel of apples.
Lord? Did I misunderstand? I must’ve. This can’t be the one.
“I’ve put up the ounce of gold a time or two to get my name in a hat,” Joseph said over his shoulder. “That was before I found out it took more than that just to get your name in the right hat.”
Michael banged the barrel down hard. “She’s a soiled dove? A girl like that?” He didn’t want to believe it.
“She’s not just any old soiled dove, Michael. Angel is something real fine, from what I hear. Special training. But I can’t afford to find out for myself. When I’ve a need, I see Priss. She’s clean, does things plain and simple, and she doesn’t cost too much hard-earned gold.”
Michael needed some air. He went back outside. Unable to help himself, he glanced down the street again at the slender girl in black. She was coming back down the other side of the street and went right past him again. His reaction was worse this time, harder to take.
Hochschild unloaded a crate of turnips. “You look like a bull who just had a club put to his head.” His smile was wry. “Or maybe you’ve been down on your farm too long.”
“Let’s settle up,” Michael said tersely and went inside with the last crate. He needed to get his mind back on business and off of her.
“You’ll have enough gold to meet her once we square up,” Hochschild said. “More than enough.” He emptied the crate and set it aside before putting his scale on the counter. “Fresh vegetables are worth a fortune up here. These young gents get up on the streams and live on little better than flour, water, and salted meat. Then they come into town with swollen, bleeding gums and swelling legs from scurvy and think they need a doctor. All they need is a decent diet and a little common sense. Let’s see what we got here. Two barrels of apples, two crates each of turnips and carrots, six crates of squash, and twenty pounds of venison jerky.”
Michael told him what he wanted for the wagon load.
“What?! You’re robbing me.”
Michael smiled slightly. He wasn’t green. He had spent the better part of ’48 and ’49 panning gold and knew what the men needed. True, food was only part of it, but it was a part he could supply. “You’ll make twice that.”
Hochschild opened the safe behind the counter and took out two sacks of gold dust. He slid one across to Michael and measured a portion out of the other into a hide pouch. Tossing the bigger sack back into the safe, he kicked it shut and checked the handle.
Michael emptied the dust into a belt he had crafted. Hochschild watched, his mouth tipping. “You’ve got enough for a good time there. Wanna meet Angel? You ought to go down and talk to the Duchess with some of it. She’d usher you right upstairs.”
Angel. Just her name affected him. “Not this time.”
Joseph saw the set of his jaw and nodded. Michael Hosea was a quiet man, but there wasn’t anything soft about him. There was something in his look that made men treat him with respect. It wasn’t just his height or the strength of his body, which were both impressive enough. It was the clear steadiness of his gaze. He knew what he was about even if the rest of the world didn’t. Joseph liked him, and he had seen clearly enough the effect Angel had on him, but if
Michael didn’t want to discuss it, he would respect that. “What’re you planning to do with all that gold dust?”
“I’m going to buy a couple head of cattle.”
“Good,” Hochschild said in approval. “Breed ’em fast. Beef is worth more than vegetables.”
On his way out of town, Michael drove by the brothel. It was big and fancy. The place was overflowing with men—mostly young, some bewhiskered and some smooth-cheeked—nearly all drunk or well on their way to being so. Someone was fiddling, and men were making up bawdy verses to the tune, each cruder than the last.
And she lives there, he thought. Up in one of those rooms with a bed and little else. He flicked the reins over his horses and kept on going, frowning heavily.
He couldn’t get his mind off her, not all the rest of that day, back down out of the mother lode to his valley. He kept seeing her walking up that muddy street, a slender girl, dressed in black, with a beautiful, pale face of stone. Where had she come from?
“Angel,” he said, trying her name on his tongue. Just testing. And he knew, even as he said it, his waiting was over.
“Lord,” he said heavily. “Lord, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
But he knew he was going to marry that girl anyway.
I can endure my own despair, but not another’s hope.
WILLIAM WALSH
Angel washed, put on a clean, blue silk wrapper, and sat on the foot of the bed to wait for the next knock on her door. Two more and she could call it a night. She could hear Lucky’s laughter in the next room. Lucky was full of laughter and fun when she was drunk, which was most of the time. The woman could lose herself in a bottle of whiskey.
Angel had tried drinking with her once to see if she could lose herself, too. Lucky poured and she tried to keep up. Before long, her head swam and her stomach lurched. Lucky held the chamber pot for her and laughed with sympathy. She said some people could hold their whiskey and some couldn’t, and she guessed Angel was one who couldn’t. She took her back to her room and told her to sleep.