II. WEST
Curling herself into a tight fist against the cold, Martha huddled in the doorway and wondered if tonight she might see snow. Beautiful. Lifting her eyes without lifting up her head, she stared at the wide black sky that would once more be her companion. White snow, come quickly. A tall man in a long overcoat, and with a freshly trimmed beard, chin tucked into his chest, looked down at her as he walked by. For a moment she worried that he might spit, but he did not. So this was Colorado Territory, a place she had crossed prairie and desert to reach. Hoping to pass through it quickly, not believing that she would fall over foolish like a lame mule. Old woman. They had set her down and continued on to California. She hacked violently. Through some atavistic mist, Martha peered back east, beyond Kansas, back beyond her motherhood, her teen years, her arrival in Virginia, to a smooth white beach where a trembling girl waited with two boys and a man. Standing off, a ship. Her journey had been a long one. But now the sun had set. Her course was run. Father, why hast thou forsaken me?
Lucy would be waiting for her in California, for it was she who had persuaded Martha Randolph that there were colored folks living on both sides of the mountains now. Living. According to Lucy, colored folks of all ages and backgrounds, of all classes and colors, were looking to the coast. Lucy’s man had told her, and Lucy in turn had told Martha. Girl, you sure? Apparently, these days colored folks were not heading west prospecting for no gold, they were just prospecting for a new life without having to pay no heed to the white man and his ways. Prospecting for a place where things were a little better than bad, and where you weren’t always looking over your shoulder and wondering when somebody was going to do you wrong. Prospecting for a place where your name wasn’t ‘boy’ or ‘aunty’, and where you could be a part of this country without feeling like you wasn’t really a part. Lucy had left behind a letter for her long-time friend, practically begging her to come out west and join her and her man in San Francisco. It would make the both of us happy. And although Martha still had some trouble figuring out words and such, she could make out the sense in Lucy’s letter, and she reckoned that’s just what she was going to do. Pioneer. She was going to stop her scrubbing and washing. Age was getting the better of her now, and arthritis had a stern hand on all parts of her body. She would pioneer west. Martha pulled her knees up towards her and stretched out a hand to adjust the rags around her feet. She blocked up the holes where the wind was whistling through. Stop. The doorway protected her on three sides, and she felt sure that she should be able to sleep here without disturbing anyone. Just leave me be. But she felt strangely beyond sleep. As though her body were sliding carelessly towards a kind of sleep. Like when she lost Eliza Mae. Moma. Moma.
Martha unglued her eyes and stared up into the woman’s face. ‘Do you have any folks?’ It had started to snow now. Early snow, huge, soft snowflakes spinning down out of the clear, black sky. ‘You must be cold.’ It was dark and, the woman aside, there was nobody else in sight. When they had set her down here, they had told her that this was Main Street, as though this information freed them of any responsibility. But she did not blame them. A few saloons, a restaurant, a blacksmith, a rooming house or two, indeed this was Main Street. ‘I have a small cabin where you can stay the night.’ Martha looked again at the woman who stood before her in a black coat, with a thick shawl thrown idly across her shoulders and a hat fastened tightly to her head. Perhaps this woman had bought her daughter? Was Eliza Mae living here in Colorado Territory? There was no reason to go clear to California if Eliza Mae were here in Colorado Territory. Eliza Mae returned to her? ‘Can you get up?’ The woman stretched out her gloved hand and Martha stared hard at it. Eliza Mae was gone. This hand could no more lead her back to her daughter than it could lead Martha back to her own youthful self. A small cabin. This woman was offering her some place with a roof, and maybe even a little heating. Martha closed her eyes. After countless years of journeying, the hand was both insult and salvation, but the woman was not to know this. ‘Please, take my hand. I’m not here to harm you. I just want to help. Truly.’ Martha uncurled her fingers and set them against the woman’s hide-bound hand. The woman felt neither warm nor cold. ‘Can you stand by yourself?’ Inside of herself, Martha laughed. Can this woman not see that they abandoned me? At least they had shown some charity and not discarded her upon the plains. But stand by herself? Martha Randolph. Squatting like a filthy bag of bones. Watching the snow. Don’t know nobody in these parts. Barely recognizing herself. No ma’am, she thought. I doubt if I’ll ever be able to stand by myself again. But no matter. I done enough standing by myself to last most folks three or four lifetimes. Ain’t nothing shameful in resting now. No ma’am, nothing shameful at all. She squeezed. The woman’s hand squeezed back. ‘Can you stand by yourself?’ Martha shook her head.
I look into his eyes, but his stare is constant and frightens me. He shows no emotion. ‘Lucas?’ He turns from me and scrapes the wooden chair across the floor. He sits heavily upon it. He lifts his hands to his head and buries his face in his cupped and calloused palms. Eliza Mae runs to me and clutches the hem of my dress. The light in the lamp jumps and the room sways, first one way and then the next. I pull Eliza Mae towards me and hide her small body in the folds of my dress. Lucas looks up. He opens his mouth to speak. His face is tired, older than his thirty-five years. The weight of yet another day in the field sits heavily upon him. But not just this. I run my hand across Eliza Mae’s matted hair. On Sunday I will pull the comb through the knots and she will scream. Outside, I can hear the crickets, their shrill voices snapping, like twigs being broken from a tree. ‘Master dead.’ Eliza Mae looks from me to her father, then back to me. Poor child, she does not understand. ‘Lucas, we going to be sold?’ Lucas lowers his eyes.