the end of the west. here. a fist of land that punches into ocean, atop which men have built a town so big some name it city
this land like no land lucy has seen before. fog greets them, curling and obscuring, making of the coast a damp gray dream. soft and hard all at once. the wildflowers, the wind-bent cypresses, the pebbles underfoot and the gulls overhead and the boom that lucy mistakes, at first, for the roar of a beast—till sam tells her it’s the sound of waves against the cliffs.
if this land is like no land, then the water is like no water. sam takes lucy down to the wet edge. on foot they cross the sand. the ocean is gray. ugly under its lid of fog. look hard enough and there’s blue, some green, a spark of distant sunlight. mostly the water is unconcerned with beauty. mostly it rages and beats the cliffs till they crumble, plunging unwary creatures to their deaths. the water eats at the posts of the docks, bends that wood to its knees. the water does not reflect. it is itself, and it spreads to the horizon.
fog fills lucy’s mouth. she licks, and licks again: salty
“all this time,” she says to sam. “all this time, i thought i belonged in sweetwater.”
later she’ll learn how hard it is to live at the end of the west. sometimes the ocean takes a life, sometimes the fog that hides lighthouse beams. most often it’s the hills themselves that are deadly, seven of them in this city, every few years shaking houses loose as a dog shakes fleas. later she’ll learn that down within the sea-foam are bones more numerous than the bones of buffalo. later she’ll learn that when the fog lifts, there comes the hard, clear light.
—
sam’s gotten only more jittery as they approached the city. hurry set them down early—their ship won’t launch till tomorrow morning.
the remainder of the day stretches before them. lamps glisten through the fog, and lucy thinks of the tales sam has told of this city: the gambling dens like mansions, the shows where men dress as women and women as men and the music is a transformation. and the food.
“we’ve time to spare,” lucy says. “let’s get a bite to eat.”
sam frowns. next thing sam will be talking about taking care, keeping their heads down.
“come on,” lucy coaxes. “you can’t expect we’ll spend this whole day hiding in some dark corner. besides, no one can find us in this fog.” she extends an arm to demonstrate. her hand goes misty at the end. “see? how about we get some of that seafood stew? i could use hot food. or a hot bath.”
“you really want a bath?”
she didn’t expect that this, of all things, would sway sam. on the trail they washed in muddy streams, and never once did sam spend more than a few seconds in the water. sam bathed as if scared of wet—lucy never even saw sam unclothed.
lucy nods. she senses another question under this simple one. there are secrets in the air, sharp as the salt.
“we shouldn’t,” sam says. something like yearning breaks through sam’s face. a softness that grew less and less frequent on the trail as sam drove them faster, harder, onward. “but—”
“we deserve a rest,” lucy says, touching sam’s arm.
sam gives a jerk of the head. not quite a nod. then sam is wheeling the horse around, heading down a valley so thick with fog it looks like a bowl of steaming milk. lucy scrambles to follow.
fog encircles them. damp fingers of wind through their hair. the low world murmurs, remembering itself in snatches as fleeting as old dream: a house marked 571, a tree trunk where a marble glints, yellow flowers against a blue wall. a cracked door. the cry of a needy cat. a waiting carriage with its driver folded down in sleep. condensation against a lit window. a child’s ankle, fleeing.
sam stops before a red building so long its edges disappear into fog. a strange building, windowless and featureless save for one high door. sam turns to lucy. not narrow-eyed, but beseeching.
“remember, you asked,” sam says, and the door opens.
later, lucy will try to remember this first sight. how rich the red house seems, how endless. the dark-stained wood, the drapes and carpets, the candles set low so that their light doesn’t reach the ceiling. the building inside disappears into shadow as the building outside disappears into fog. there’s a rustling in the room, though there are no windows.
instead, there are girls.
seven girls line up against the far wall. each stands against a square of paint. they look like drawings of princesses in storybooks, gilt-framed. and their dresses—
lucy steps closer. she’s never seen dresses like these, not even in the magazines anna got from back east. these dresses aren’t made for walking or running or riding or even sitting or staying warm. only for beauty. the nearest girl could have stepped from lucy’s history book. a solemn drawing with this caption: last of the indian princesses. this girl is just as solemn, as doe-eyed, as fierce of cheek and black of hair. she wears feathers, and deerskin so buttery lucy’s fingers itch to touch.
there is a smell in the room, close and bitter and sweet. it deepens as a woman all in black sweeps toward them. she leans downto kiss sam’s cheek because she stretches tall, as her full skirt stretches wide. hard here to find her edges. in this building, around this woman, a perpetual jackal hour.
the woman says, “samantha.” to lucy’s surprise sam doesn’t scowl. the two bend their heads together, private. they walk off, leaving lucy to examine the rest of the girls alone.
beside the indian princess is a girl with the look of the dark vaqueros from the desert to the south. she wears an embroidered white dress that puffs from her tiny waist. her brown shoulders show above the fabric. the next girl is white-blond, her eyes rabbit-pink. her dress is thinner than lucy’s shift, thin enough that lucy blushes. the next girl is darker than the walls, with a blue gleam to her skin. gold rings stack her throat into a proud column. the next girl has thick wheaten hair in two braids, her cheeks pink apples, her eyes robins’ eggs, a milk pail at her feet. none of the girls move. if not for the slight rise of their chests, they might be statues. and the next girl—
“pretty, aren’t they?” the tall woman asks, stepping beside lucy. “give the visitor a whirl, girls.”
the seven skirts flare, but the faces don’t move.
“what do they make you think of?” the woman asks.
something about her imperious tone makes lucy answer. maybe it’s just the smell of her. lucy tells her about the stories in ma’s books, the drawn princesses.
“you’re as clever as samantha promised. my name is elske. will you be partaking too?”
“i’d like a bath,” lucy says.
elske’s smile is thin enough to slice. she tells lucy to choose any girl she likes. the girls spin once more. as long, elske says, as lucy can pay.
and then lucy understands. this place may look rich, but it’s no different from the rooms above the saloons in sweetwater, the creak of those beds that mingled with the train’s whistle. the murkiness hides lucy’s blush. she hangs back as sam confers again with elske, as sam leads a girl up the stairs. sam doesn’t look back this time, and lucy is glad for it.
—
lucy dozes, waiting. a clatter stirs her. a girl has set down a tray of food: bread, jerky. and a bowl of leaves topped with a strange orange flower that crunches in her teeth.
sweet, woody. it’s a carved carrot.
years ago, lucy boiled water to rinse the sickness from sam’s body. yet when she found the carrot in sam’s pants, sam looked at her with hate. that carrot was replaced with a rock. what’s replaced the rock now? lucy doesn’t know. but in the rooms above, a stranger unknots sam’s bandana to expose sam’s throat. a stranger undoes the shirt and pants with their special stitching. a stranger lays aside sam’s secret—a stranger who knows sam more fully than lucy does.
lucy overheard a part of the bargaining before sam went up. the room, the length of time, the girl, the price—almost a quarter of sam’s gold. sam lied. what bath could cost so dear?
lucy marches to the girls in their pretty frames. when they stand unmoving, she grabs the nearest skirt. the rip carries through the hush, loud as a scream. beautiful faces turn to her, for the first time losing their practiced stillness. anger greets lucy, and affront, fear, amusement, scorn. these girls looked at and through her when she entered. now she thinks of what sam said on the trail: the difference between being looked at and seen
she raises the torn fabric. she asks for elske.
—
elske’s private room is plain. two chairs, a desk, lamps in place of candles. and more books than lucy has ever seen, stacked to the ceiling.
“samantha said you were formidable,” elske says when lucy refuses the offered seat. “people like us often are.”
“i’m not—”
“i mean gold folk. the city is filled with them. these establishments were intended for men with money and desire. they value the finest restaurants. the finest gambling houses. the finest pipe dens to smoke and dream the finest dreams. my first and most generous investors were gold men. they’re remarkably open-minded, in that way. they care only for value.”
“tell me what sam does here.”
“sam tells me you’re quite the reader. can you read this?”
elske takes a book down from her shelf, and lucy accepts it without thinking. the cover is blank blue cloth, stained with blooms of white. wrinkled pages. an ocean’s memory seeped through them: salt water.
lucy opens it.
there are no words on the first page. just a strange drawing. she flips. more drawings, much smaller, laid out in columns as orderly as words. they arewords, she realizes. each drawing is a word formed from straight lines and curved ones, dots and dashes. she stops at a drawing she recognizes. ma’s tiger.
and then elske takes the blue book back.
“where did you get that?” lucy has forgotten anger.
“from a client, as partial payment. information can be as valuable as gold. and so, to your question—i’m not in the habit of giving facts away for free, but i might accept a trade.”
lucy hesitates. she nods.
“say something.” elske leans forward. “from where you and samantha come from. anything.”
lucy doesn’t say, we were born here. the greed on elske’s face won’t be satisfied by truth. she knows what value this woman sees in her—the same value charles saw. only lucy’s difference. she speaks the first words that come to her. “nu er.”
elske sighs. “how very beautiful. how very precious and rare.” her head tips back, her throat exposed. something nearly indecent about it. and then she straightens, saying, “samantha worked for the gold men for a time. quite successfully, it was said. i heard of a falling-out, but didn’t ask. i still count many gold men among my clients and i don’t like to get between their affairs. you see, hundreds come to buy time with my girls. each young woman is highly paid and educated, whether in painting or poetry or conversation. do you know what a harp is? i possess the only one in the territory. my girls are lovely and accomplished. they’re highly valued, not common, not—”
the smell is stronger in this closed room. the lap and lull of elske’s voice drowsy-making. all of it a spell. the only way to break it is to remember anger.
“whores,” lucy interrupts. “you want to say they’re not common whores. i’m not a customer. please get to your point.”
“very well. you asked what samantha does here? the only service samantha requests is a bath.”
elske’s face is sleek and pleased. she knew the trade would be unequal. the truth she gives lucy is like an emptied-out box—its contents were already in lucy’s possession. sam doesn’t hide. sam’s been sam all along.
lucy turns to go, feeling a fool.
“i was once a teacher,” elske says gently, and curiosity keeps lucy in the room. “samantha told me you were an excellent student. if you’ll permit me a teacherly question—earlier, when you likened my girls to stories. why did you say that?”
“they’re blank,” lucy says, looking at the blue book. maybe if she answers to elske’s liking, she can trade for another look at it. she thinks of the girls with their still faces, each different and yet precisely the same. “they remind me of pages.” or clear water. a look lucy has seen sometimes in her own reflection.
she waits there, hoping, and elske asks one more question.
—
sam returns fresh but wary. jaw stiff. this time lucy keeps her gaze direct. she smiles, till sam smiles shyly back.
“until next time,” elske says, kissing sam’s cheek.
when elske kisses lucy too, the smell comes stronger than ever before. as if the woman chews it and swallows it. bitter and sweet. mixed with the heat of elske’s body, it grows musky too. at last lucy recognizes it. so much like the smell of ma’s trunk. distant places, a very long time ago. did another of elske’s clients bring the scent as he brought the book?
“come back with or without samantha,” elske whispers while sam looks on with curiosity. “don’t forget.”
—
but wind and salt scour them. by the time they reach the harbor, lucy’s nose knows only ocean.
the ships spread below.
all her life lucy imagined ships as fantastical things. she was told their sails were wings, that coasts appeared from water as if by magic. and so she failed to question the facts of a ship’s making, as she failed to question dragons and tigers and buffalo. she never expected that ships would look this way: grand yet ordinary.
“what makes a ship a ship?” she asks. she shouts the answer, over and over, bouncing on her heels like a child. “wood and water. wood and water. wood and water.”
