Answer Creek by Ashley E. Sweeney

Author:Ashley E. Sweeney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

October 23, 1846

Alta California

The man curries his horse with slow, deliberate strokes. He’s off to Yerba Buena today, will stay three nights, two at Hedrin’s Boardinghouse and the last with Fay. At least, with Fay, he can get Salina out of his mind. Why is it then all his waking hours are consumed with Salina? And (here’s the rub, he thinks), he can’t have her. Never could, never will. It’s as impossible as snow in July.

Seeing Salina makes it worse, instead of better, like placing your hand over an open flame and leaving it there to char. It’s so visceral, so deep; he pounds his fists on the rustic table until his hands sting.

She’s got to know how much I want her. Then again, she probably doesn’t. He’s never said anything to her about his lust for her. And she’s so busy with the children and the cooking and the laundry and visiting her people she must see him as only a neighbor, a friend. She’s never—not once—given him any indication she has feelings for him. And didn’t she tell him lately he needed to find himself a lady friend? When he can’t stand it anymore, he tears off his grimy clothes and crashes naked through the clearing, plunging into the cold mountain creek to get back to his senses.

The best and surest way to rule his senses is routine. Up at dawn. Make coffee. Feed horse. Set traps. Cook breakfast. Clean gun. Shine boots. Check weir. Hunt for supper. Stack wood. Any or all of these things, the ways a man cements himself to place and calls it his own. Laced through his days, a niggling question gnaws at the edge of his consciousness: Why here? Is there someone else—maybe someone he hasn’t met yet, someone in Yerba Buena or coming over by emigrant train or back in Wisconsin—who will take his battered heart and mend it, one crooked stitch at a time?

He pets Boy, calls to the raven. He’s headed out of the woods and into the city. His horse nickers as he mounts. Screw it all, he thinks. By nightfall, he’ll be with Fay. Why does he kid himself? Say he’ll stay at the boardinghouse? He never stays there anyway. At Fay’s, he can lose himself or just fall asleep. She lets him decide. It’s two bits either way, enfolded by mounds of warm, perfumed flesh.

He doesn’t know Fay’s story, probably better that way. Maybe she was taken advantage of by her father or uncle or brother. Maybe her mother kicked her out of the house. Maybe she had a wild streak. Maybe none of the above. He’s got more questions than answers these days.

He spurs his horse and heads out of the clearing. There’s a nip in the air, and he picks up his pace.

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