Whispers (22 page)

Hours later, it was Honey who came up beside me and handed me a biscuit with a nonchalance that had me accepting before I realized it.

“
I used to want to die,” she said softly.

I took a bite of the biscuit. It was days old and hard, but my stomach rumbled gratefully as soon as I began to chew. “Do you still want to?” I asked. My voice was scratchy.

“
Naw, not anymore.” She turned those chocolate eyes on me. “Surviving is all a person can control.”

There was a twisted logic in what she said, more in what she didn’t. If I gave up now, the Smith brothers would have succeeded in wiping out my family, and succeeded with my blessing.

“
I miss my family,” I said.

“
Me too. But giving up won’t get them back.”

How she knew what I was feeling, I didn’t know. But I was grateful for her words.

“
Captain says he’ll take you to town with us. Make sure you get there safe. After that, you decide what happens to you. Give up, and you let them own you. Your momma wouldn’t have wanted that.”

No, she wouldn’t have wanted that at all.

She left me then, to finish my biscuit and make up my mind. In the end, there really wasn’t a choice. I picked up my feet and joined the others.

Chapter Nineteen

THE boomtown was more a grimy gathering of tents and lean-tos than anything like a township. They camped close to the shores of a river and scattered all around them was the refuse of the makeshift settlement. In all, I guessed there were about thirty tents. The mud was so thick that the wagon’s wheels sunk in and the horse’s legs were three-quarters caked with it. We hopped onto the wagon that Athena drove in an effort to keep our shoes from being sucked off our feet. Filth had never known such luxury. I had never known such filth.

There were no buildings constructed, but a tent with one side open was clearly functioning as a saloon and another as a place to eat. A Chinese man stared out as we passed, watching us suspiciously. The saloon was brimming with business and dirty, drunken miners hooted and laughed as they indulged themselves in liquor. One man stepped out and urinated in the middle of the street. When he saw us, he stood holding himself in one hand, a startled grin on his face as he waved with the other. He slipped in the mud as he hurried to tell the others what he’d seen.

The stench was beyond my powers of description. It was apparent that man and beast alike used whatever space was available to relieve themselves. The remains of meals past were thrown into the widening path of mud that bisected the row of tents. Bones and skinned carcasses lay in between. A few dogs ran beside us, barking and snarling.

I looked at Honey, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. Chick stared out with a blank expression. Meaira watched as if through a cocoon of her own making. What must they be thinking? What must they be feeling, knowing what the night had in store? How could they ...

Aiken stopped his horse and spoke to a man who’d flagged him down. I heard Aiken say “bath” and the other look as if he’d been slapped. They conversed for a few moments more before Aiken rode away.

“
He told them,” Meaira said, staring at the squalor with a placid expression.

“
Told them what?”

“
Take a bath is what he makes them do,” she said. “They won’t be liking it, but they’ll be doing it.”

I was overwhelmed with relief, though I wouldn’t be one that had to endure their foulness. I couldn’t bear thinking of sweet Chick, lovely Honey, or dazed Meaira, touching any of these barbarians.

“
Is it always like this?” I asked.

Chick shook her head. “No. This bad.”

Aiken moved us to a clearing upwind that had not been contaminated by their waste. In the growing darkness, we set up our camp. This time, though, we added a canopy, anchored by four corner poles with one in the middle that held the canvas up like a spire. Long sides flapped in the wind and brushed the ground.

No one had spoken since arriving and the silence rode heavy on the air. The other women avoided looking at me, but I was acutely conscious of their thoughts. A part of me wanted to shout, to stop what we were doing. I wanted to herd the women back into the wagon and rein the horses into a gallop. But none of them seemed as concerned with what the night held in store as I was. According to Chick, this was what they did and they did it by choice. Though they’d told me Aiken was the devil, it didn’t seem to me that he had threatened them in any way to participate in the upcoming festivities. I assumed they would be paid for what they did, but what price would be enough?

A table with folding legs came from the wagon to be set up in the center of camp. Meaira and Honey opened chairs around it. Four thin, rough mattresses that I’d not seen before came from a trunk. Athena beat them with her broom and then laid them out in the tent.

It was full dark by the time Aiken declared himself satisfied with our work. We could hear the men in town brawling at the river as they took turns bathing in the muddied water. I didn’t know how clean they would be once they arrived at the camp. I hoped for the others’ sakes, they used soap. Two who were very eager had been scrubbed and waiting for nearly thirty minutes while we finished setting up. They stood like school boys in their Sunday best, hair slicked back, faces scrubbed. Clothes brushed, if not clean or fine.

A light breeze moaned through the night before dancing across our camp to catch at the billowing sides of the tent. Inside, hanging panels had been strung up to divide it into compartments, each with a pallet on the ground. Athena opened a chest and white sheets were brought out to cover the sagging, stained mattresses. Then the girls turned attention to each other, fixing hair and making up. I sat numbly to the side, wondering what I would do once it all began.

Aiken whistled as he shuffled cards at his table and dealt a hand of solitaire. A cigar hung from his lips, the smoke drifting up on the night air to mingle with the other scents. I dreaded what would come next, but the waiting was painful in itself.

“
Are you ready for us?” one of the scrubbed school boys asked.

Aiken flicked a glance over the camp and then nodded. “Yes, sir, we are ready.”

Aiken shook both their hands, ushering them forward. The two were young, younger than I even, and they were eager. Without ado they asked how much for a tumble. Aiken looked surprised. He proceeded to talk the two young men into circles for a few minutes, denying that the girls would even consider selling their bodies for money. They were young, chaste girls who’d had their share of bad luck, but he, the good Samaritan, was taking them to San Diego where they would enter a life of servitude for the Holy church. I watched Aiken with a sick fascination as he weaved his tale like a web around them. The men were obviously distressed to think of the beauties becoming servants of the church and they did their best to convince Aiken it was a mistake. One even offered to marry Honey and relieve Aiken of his burden.

Chick leaned close to me. “He do this every time,” she said.

“
Why?”

“
You see.”

After he’d worked them up, he found out what they were willing to pay and then offered to make an exception, allow the boys private time to converse with the girls for a price that was two dollars less than they’d offered.

“
I’m a charitable man and I can see how you are both fine young gentlemen who wouldn’t think of hurting my girls. I can see where you are pained by the rigors of life. Is that how it is?”

Two cents wouldn’t rattle in either of their heads, but they nodded and tried to look as if they understood what he was saying.

“
I will take your money, but only to put it to the good of feeding and clothing these fine, upstanding women. Now who is it you would like to ... speak to alone?”

They both pointed at Honey, then, seeing each other, one switched and pointed to Chick.

“
Now I can’t let those two beauties go for such a pittance. Why not Athena? She is older and won’t miss the flower of her innocence.”

Of course this wouldn’t do. I watched with a numbness that defied my sense of disbelief. Aiken was the maestro of manipulation. Beside me, Chick smirked.

After much conversation, during which Aiken dazzled them with his use of the English language while keeping them in a befuddled act of negotiation, they seemed to reach an impasse. Aiken drew it out even more until at last the two men “convinced” Aiken to take their money— nearly double what they’d originally offered—and Aiken called Honey and Chick over.

He introduced the girls and in a fatherly manner handed them off in kind to the young men.

Honey didn’t look at any of the others as she led her young man into the tent. Chick smiled shyly at hers, who turned a dark shade of red. I heard him say it was his first time as she took his hand. She told him not to worry, she knew what to do.

Honey’s boy was nervous and she had to work at his confidence. Her voice soothed and drifted out of the flapping walls of the tent. Chick’s partner was eager and quick. She’d returned to her seat before Honey’s had even begun. I wondered if her young man would feel cheated, but the look on his face spoke of rapture. I thought I might be sick. But others had already arrived and they crowded around, eager to be chosen. Athena and I sat off to the side, each silent until even she was called upon to perform inside the tent.

Our campfire became a beacon and the men gravitated toward it. Not all came for the women. Some came for the cards that Aiken dealt, others were just curious. Some tried to beg and borrow enough to visit with one of the girls. Some tried to win the fee gambling.

While they waited for their turns, Aiken entertained them at the card table and proceeded to cheat at faro. From where I sat I could see the extra cards he’d hidden beneath the table. He was quick and skilled, and I might not have recognized his game had I been on the other side of the deck. He let them win most of the time, and as the perfect host, he ordered Athena to bring his whiskey when she emerged from the tent. He charged heavily for the honor of sharing his bottle, but no one seemed to mind. Sounds of grunting and the musky scent of carnality carried on the hot breeze, which lifted the edges of the tent like skirts and afforded quick peeks into the goings-on inside. I could smell their arousal and sense the excitement buzzing through the men.

I’d been in the shadows, tucked as far away as I could get from everyone else, but when Athena began to serve drinks, someone noticed me.

“
I’ll take her,” a man with short black hair and clean shaven cheeks said, pointing at me like I was a horse in a corral.

Aiken cocked his head to look at me and I held my breath for a moment. “Sorry, sir. She’s not one of the girls,” he said.

“
She looks like one to me.”

“
She is a beauty. Can’t say that I’ve ever seen so fair a face. But she is from a finer breed than my others.”

“
That’s what you said about them too,” another man interjected. “You’s just saying it so as you can charge more.”

Aiken’s smile made my skin crawl.

“
Were that the truth, sir, I would have you call me out. But I’m willing to wager this young lady is of yet untouched. What price can a man put on such virtue?”

I jumped to my feet. “I’m not for sale.”

“
No, dear, for your price would be far more than what any man here could pay.”

“
Who are you to say what we can or cain’t pay?” the first man asked. “I got a bag full of gold in my pocket and a mine that’s spittin’ out the nuggets.”

“
He do,” a voice agreed. “I seen it with my own eyes.”

“
I am not for sale,” I repeated.

Aiken said, “You heard the little lady. She will not give herself over to the likes of you.”

His words were inflammatory and he knew it. Offended, the man said, “I’m as good as any man. Better than most. I’m good enough for her.”

“
The lady says she’s not for sale,” another said.

“
She thinks she’s too good. I’ll show her ain’t no woman too good for me. I’ll make her come around.”

I saw the warring mixture of excitement and disgust on the face of the man who’d spoken on my behalf, and I understood what was happening. I’d become a challenge.

“
I think she’d like me better,” a new voice said and a big, burly man stepped through the crowd.

“
She ain’t gonna get the chance to know. She gonna want only me after she had me once.”

“
I am not having anyone,” I said clearly. “I’m lost and the Captain has promised me safe escort to a town.”

He’d promised me no such thing, but he had agreed to take me.

“
She’s a spitfire all right,” Aiken said. “It’d take more than one man to tame her. It’s a shame she’s not willing to let a single one try.”

I watched with horror as the idea of it went from one to another. Honey, Chick, and Meaira were in the tents and the gusting breeze brought more than quick glances at their activities. It scented the air. I was young, but I knew nothing was as dangerous as a mob of men. My daddy had told me stories that had made my blood run cold.

The black-haired man shook his head and walked away, but the other men moved in closer. I thought quickly. I picked one out of the crowd who looked to be unsure. “I could be your sister,” I said to him. “Or yours,” to another.