You Can't Choose Love (18 page)

They had given Alma her own ‘office’ on the lower
level of the building, at the back, in a room that smelled suspiciously of
whisky.

 Feeling like a spare part, she looked at the piles
and piles of documents on the table before her. The Silver King Mining
Corporation was woefully disorganized. Alma could not find any kind of order in
the documents. They had just been thrown together, into a cupboard, ‘to be
dealt with later’. Now, ‘later’ had come. For the first half of the morning
Alma simply looked at them, fidgeted with her fingers, and wondered how in
God’s name she would bring order to them. Wallace, she knew, was out there
right now. Roach, she also knew, poor girl, was in the stables. And Alma was
here, useless.

There was no reason for her to actually sort through
the documents. This was, after all, just busy work. Nobody would care whether
or not she did it. But there was something about their disorder that bothered
her.
How could rich men be so sloppy?
she thought.
How can they be
allowed to be rich when this is how they treat their business?

She found she was gripping the edge of the desk, her
fingernails digging into the wood. She started to think something along the
lines of
bad people get everything, whilst good people only suffer
. . .
but then reminded herself:
I’m a bad person, and I’ve suffered plenty
.

She sighed. Head down, she got on with the work.

*   *   *

A few hours later, Wallace marched into her office. He
was grinning from ear to ear and when he entered, he stood over the desk and
turned his grin at her. It was a paternal grin, a grin that said:
How cute.
Look how hard she is working for me!
Alma plastered a smile onto her face
and turned it up at him, like a sword riposting his smile. “Hello,” she said.
“How was the ride?”

“Oh, good,” Wallace said. “Regular. The mines are
operating as expected. The men – I have to say, if you will excuse me – seemed
relieved at your absence.”

Insults, yes, how I have missed you. Kind face,
kind face.
Her smile did not falter. “I suppose it can be jarring for them,
to be overseen by a woman.”

“Yes, yes.” He waved a hand at the documents. “How
is this coming along? We businessmen hate this sort of thing, you know. We like
the
nature
, and the
struggle
, not the paperwork. Just looking at
it makes my eyes ache!”

“You are so right,” Alma said. “It is woman’s work,
without a doubt.” Sometimes, the things she said were so opposite to what she
felt she thought she might laugh aloud.

Wallace nodded like this was an absolute fact,
which, for him, it was. “You must be hungry. Let’s go for dinner.”

Alma followed him to Beryl’s where, as another
cosmic joke, Solomon served them. He kept his eyes averted from Alma. Alma had
to clamp her hand on her knee, lest she reach and touch his chin and tell him
that yes, he could look at her; he could more than look at her. Wallace
referred to Solomon as
boy
, though Solomon and he were around the same
age, and snapped his fingers at him when he didn’t hurry with the food and
drinks. Alma could have kicked him in the groin.

“Finally!” Wallace exclaimed, when their food was
brought out.

He shoveled his food down, bits of it sticking in
his beard, and chugged his ale. Alma found herself becoming more and more
repulsed by this man: this man with whom she had shared perfectly fine sex. But
she could not let her repulsion affect her in any way. She had to be as
brainless, as automated, as a train, steaming onward despite whatever lay at
her sides. She smiled widely when he burped.
Oh, how charming
, her face
said.
What a lovely burp.

*   *   *

She and Wallace emerged from her hotel room, Alma
wondering how she could still enjoy their rutting even when the man did not
attract her any longer, Wallace adjusting his britches.

After he left, Alma sat in the bar. There were a few
miners who drank too much and would regret it tomorrow, whores who moved
between tables, and Beryl and Solomon. Beryl came over to her and they chatted
for a while about this and that, mostly about Beryl’s bad knee, about which the
woman could talk for hours if necessary. Solomon cast her glances every so
often which Alma tried and failed to decipher. Somehow she thought they
wouldn’t be meeting in the stables tonight.

Then somebody tapped her shoulder. Alma turned and
saw Elise, serpentine tongue flickering over an almost toothless mouth. “Yes?”
Alma said.

“Have you seen the night’s sky?” Elise said, all but
winking.

“No, is it beautiful?”

“It is,” Elise said. “Come with me. We’ll look at it
together.”

Under this pretense they left the bar and went out
into the warm night air. They walked to the edge of the town, near the closed
general store, down an alley where nobody could see them. They had to walk
slowly because Elise limped and wobbled with each step. Finally, they came to
the alleyway, Elise panting so hard Alma wondered how she performed her duties
for DeBell, let alone extracted information from him.

“You have something for me?” Alma said.

Elise’s lips twisted into a gummy grin. “Oh, I have
something,” she said. Her eyes seemed to shimmer in the darkness. “I have
something sweet and ripe, I do. Let me tell you. So, we had just finished, and
I was in his arms. Sometimes he likes to hold me, you know,” she added, proudly.
“I got to talking about my past, this and that, my home, what I did before the
war – before you were born, I reckon – with the aim of drawing him out. I
talked about my first love. And he did the same.”

Alma gestured
go on
with her hand.

Elise nodded, rubbed her hands together. “He told me
about his first love. Her name was Bethany Hanford, she was from New York,
where he met her in ’71. He spoke for a long time – an awful long time – about
how they had fallen in love and had lain together and had planned to marry, but
this woman, this Bethany, liked other men, too. She had been with many other
men, even when she and DeBell were together. DeBell found out, you see. He
strangled the girl to death.”

“He told you this?” Alma said uncertainly.

“With a stern warning.” Elise nodded. “‘If you even
tell anybody about this, I will do the same to you.’ I acted all scared,
shivering, and he must have believed me.”

“That’s very interesting,” Alma said. “But how
exactly am I supposed to use that? If he’s gotten away with it for so long, I
highly doubt that—” Then the idea hit her. It was cruel, insane, and quite
brilliant. “Wait,” she said. “Elise, here is what I want you to do. I want you
to found out as much about their time together as you can. Where they went,
what they ate, what she wore . . . all of it. Details, Elise. That’s what I
need. Details, my good woman!”

*   *   *

When she returned to the bar, it was empty apart
from Beryl and Solomon. Alma took a seat at the bar and waited for Beryl to go
to bed. Beryl knew what was happening between Solomon and Alma – Alma was sure
of that – but so far she had not said anything. Her eyes said:
I don’t agree
with this, but it’s not my business
. But Alma was aware that one day her
eyes could change to:
It’s my business now
. This was perhaps reckless of
Alma but she could not stop herself. Solomon was too attractive and interesting
for her to ignore.

When they were alone, Alma approached him.
“Solomon,” she whispered.

“‘Boy’, that’s what he calls me,” Solomon muttered
under his breath. “‘Boy’, like I am some kind of dog. The problem is, people
around here have never heard of Lincoln. That’s the problem. Don’t they know
all that was supposed to have ended a long time ago? I thought it was over and
here he comes and calls me ‘boy’ like them men called my Father ‘boy’ even
though he was seventy years old, older than any of them.”

“Solomon,” Alma said, and placed her hand on his
shoulder. It was hot. His rage and indignation seared into his skin.

“‘Boy’,” he laughed. “A man walks in with the woman
I – I . . . and he calls me ‘boy’ and I have to serve him his supper and watch
him drool all over the woman and after that I have to watch them go up those
stairs together and make no mistake, I know what’s happening up there.”

Alma squeezed his shoulder and tried to turn him,
but he wouldn’t be turned. He kept on muttering, raging quietly, and eventually
Alma gave up and went upstairs to her room.

Her mind whirred. Sleep eluded her.

She thought about Solomon and his pain and humiliation,
and something she rarely felt struck her so hard it was like a knife sinking
into her flesh: shame. But there were other concerns, too, like DeBell and his
dirty little secret. She had a plan for that, oh yes, but she needed details.
She needed more – and more and more – to make her plan believable. And then
there was Bill, who she still had to topple. Considering his substantial size,
that would be a difficult task indeed.

Sitting in the office, dusty beams of sunlight tempting
her with the outdoors, Alma made a serious start on the documents. She would
impress Wallace with her ability to sort, catalogue, and organize. Never mind
that sorting, cataloging, and organizing had never been her forte. Alma was a
quick learner. First she arranged them chronologically. It became clear that
the men had not even bothered to do that much. She imagined Bill Gaston’s belly
knocking over piles of paper and then hastily telling an employee to put them
back together, who did it, but who did not care if they were in order.

The records themselves were sometimes scribbled in
such small handwriting that she had to squint to see them. But slowly – after
about a month – she began to see a pattern. Sitting in that forgotten room,
something slowly began to become clear to her. Bill Gaston, here and there, was
stealing from DeBell and the Savilles. The fat man was much slyer than he
seemed. He would cheat them on inconsequential things, like shipping costs,
which DeBell and Saville senior had clearly not paid attention to. But over the
years it had added up to a sizable sum. Alma knew Wallace well enough to know
that he would be outraged.

But as she went through the records, she took out
pages that incriminated Gaston and kept them for herself in a folder she found
in the office, tucking the folder in her trousers every day and walking –
bow-legged – back to the hotel before Wallace returned. By the end of the month
she had organized the records and had stored every incriminating page in her
hotel room, under her mattress with her wages.

She had the ammunition for Bill Gaston now. The only
thing she had to decide was how and when she would use it.

*   *   *

Despite the progress she had made with Gaston, there
was a hole in Alma’s life. Solomon had stopped meeting with her in the stables.
Alma and Solomon had met so regularly that Alma had started to take it for
granted that she could unload on him at the end of each day, that she did not
have to hold the weight of her schemes alone. It was more than that, though.
She missed the way he smelt after a long day of work and his rough hands on her
body and his surprisingly soft lips on her cheek and neck. She missed the sound
of his breath and the way it tickled her skin. She had never missed a man before
– had never dream she was capable of missing a man – but she missed Solomon.

Seeing him every day was the worst part. He cleaned
the tables, poured the drinks, carried the food, all in the same building as
Alma. Sometimes, at night, she would wake up to a creaking noise and assume it
was Solomon creeping into her bedroom, but then she would hear a whore grunt
and would mutter, “Damn it,” before rolling over and trying to get back to
sleep.

Once, she tried to talk to him. It was late at
night, almost early morning, and he had fallen asleep at the bar, his head
resting against the wood. He looked so peaceful when he slept, his lips curled
into a small smile. She watched him for a long time – she didn’t know how long
– and he must’ve sensed something in his dreams. Perhaps he had been dreaming
of a wide open field, stretching to the horizon. Perhaps he had been dreaming
of complete freedom. And then Alma’s face had entered his dream. His small
smile vanished; his eyes opened.

The look he gave her could have punctured her
stone-clad heart: could have penetrated through years and years of hardening.
It was a look loving and resentful, hateful and beckoning, soft and hard. It
was unlike any expression she had seen or would ever see again. “You,” he
whispered.

“Me,” Alma said, the first words they had spoken to
each other for a month. She floundered, then, because she had not planned what
she was going to say. Alma Abrams, Grand Planner, Schemer of Everything, had
neglected to plan or scheme. She watched him, waited for words to come, and
when they didn’t she reached out her hand and tried to place it upon his, which
rested on the bar.

He moved his hand away. “Why do you do that?” he
said. “Why do you try and be close to me? I respect you too much, Alma, to call
you names. But I will say this. Why do you want me when you have so many
others?”

“I do not have anybody else,” she insisted, removing
her hand from the bar. “I do not have them and they do not have me. I have a
plan, Solomon, and I have trusted you enough to tell you that—”

“I never asked for that trust!” Solomon growled,
jumping from his seat. He paced up and down in front of her. “I never asked to
enter your trust, did I? If I did, I am sorry for it, but I cannot remember a
time I said, ‘Alma, please, tell me your secrets.’ I never planned to feel this
way about a woman, any woman, especially a white woman.” He stopped pacing,
stared at her with his shoulders wide. “What do you want from me, Alma? Please,
tell me that. I have nothing. Look.” He showed her the palms of his hands,
which were calloused from working his entire life. “Go back to England. Find a
lord or a duke or whatever they are called; find a man in a fine jacket and
fine trousers and fine shoes who has never had to wake before sunrise to lift an
axe. Find a place far away from here with trees and flowers and . . . gardens.
I have nothing to offer you.”

“You are wrong,” Alma croaked, real emotion cracking
her voice, real tears sliding down her cheeks. “You are the only person in this
town who can offer me anything real. One day, Solomon, you will see that.”

She did not wait for his reply. It would be too
painful if he rebuked her. Instead, she pushed past him, into the street, and
into the dark.

She walked until her legs ached, and then slumped
down in the sand. She emptied her mind, completely emptied it, like a jug of
dirty water pouring down a drain. Part of her wished she could push Solomon
away, could end her affection for him, but he was the only man in a long, long
time who had showed her aught but lust or hatred or both. Even when he was
angry with her, at least it was real. At least it wasn’t make-believe.

But she had to stay focused. Alma Abrams, Rebecca
Hardy, Charlotte Hart, Isabella Stock—whoever she was, she had to stay focused.
She had fought her entire life. She would keep fighting.

She picked up a bunch of sand and let it trickled
through her fingers. This would be hers. The whole thing would be hers.

She stood up, wiped her cheeks, and made her way
back to the town. The sky was tinged pale red as she walked through the hotel
doors. The sun would rise soon. It was time to get to work.

*   *   *

When she opened her bedroom door, meaning to change
and leave for the offices, she was greeted by a man whose thumbs looped through
his belt. He was a tall man, taller than any other man in the town, with a
thick oak-brown beard and short oak-brown hair. He was well-built and his eyes
were the same pale brown as his hair. Alma did not need the glint of his badge
to tell her who he was. She had seen him around time many times. His name was
Carson Gill and he was the town’s sheriff.

“Sheriff Gill,” Alma said, bowing her head. “To what
do I owe the pleasure?”

Her voice filled the room with its calm and
melodious tones.
Yes, I am the calmest woman in Calico. That’s me, Sheriff!
Please, pay no mind to my drum-beat heart and my sweaty palms and my
overwhelming urge to vomit in your face.
She looked into his eyes and
waited for him to talk.

He was enjoying this, Alma could tell, and despite
herself she kept thinking,
He
is
a handsome man. He
is
a
handsome man. There is no denying that.

“I need you to come to the sheriff’s office with
me,” he said. “I have some questions for you.”

“Concerning what, if you do not mind me asking?”

Sherriff Gill shifted from foot to foot. “Concerning
events that took place in a town called Mastiff.” The events flooded back into
Alma’s mind like they were happening: the smell of the whisky and the man’s
breath and his fumbling hands; the bottle breaking over his skull.

“I will come with you, Sheriff,” Alma said, knowing
there was no way out. She had to remain calm, reasonable. She had to appear,
above all things, like she was a decent human being.

           
Maybe she could even trick herself into believing it.