Selena waited until her mother was asleep before she slipped from her bed to put on her new pale green gown. Although she couldn’t see the dress in the darkness of the cabin, she knew the snug bodice flattered her. The neckline dipped in a bold vee. She was saved from immodesty only by a lace chemisette covering her from breasts to throat.
If only she had a crinoline. Pamela had sent for one but it hadn’t yet arrived and she hadn’t found anything she could use in its stead. She didn’t quite dare to borrow her mother’s only remaining petticoat. The lack caused the green gown to outline her hips in a manner that made her feel both uneasy and daring.
She eased open the door—a piece of canvas stretched over a wooden frame—and went out into the cool night. The town lay silent around her except for distant shouts and singing from the Empire. When Pamela had insisted they have a cabin of their own, Selena had objected, wanting to live at the Empire as Rhynne did. Pamela had been firm and now, listening to the distant tumult, Selena admitted her mother had been right.
Holding her skirt off the ground, she started up the path beside the muddy road, the air around her sharp with the scent of sawn pine. The valley and nearby hills had been denuded of trees to build Hangtown.
Footsteps came toward her. Selena retreated into the shadow of a cabin as a man, muttering to himself in a gruff and slurred voice, lurched down the path. “Hangtown gals,” he sang, “Hangtown gals,” repeating the words over and over as though he didn’t know the rest of the song or maybe was satisfied with just the first two words.
Selena drew back as he came near her hiding place. He stumbled, cursed, then went on without looking either right or left, intent only on finding his way home. As soon as he was gone Selena hurried on, the noise growing louder as she neared the Empire. The road swung to the left and she saw the hotel.
In the daytime, the Empire was a dowdy matron. Now, with two torches flaring outside the entrance and with the lower windows glowing a deep red, she was an enticing lady of the evening, luring men with the promise of forbidden delights.
While Selena watched from the road, the door opened and two men appeared. Abe Greene, Rhynne’s barman, held a miner’s arm twisted behind his back and was shoving him across the porch. When the miner tried to grab the rail, Abe hurled him down the steps to sprawl in the street. Then he shouted something Selena couldn’t hear and went back inside. The man got up, brushed himself off, and wandered into the night.
Selena almost turned to flee back to the cabin. No, she told herself, she was no longer a child, no matter what Rhynne thought. Drawing a deep breath, she walked quickly past the store and around to the hotel’s small back stoop. She opened the door and had to step back as she was assailed by the stench of smoke and stale liquor. She blinked and peered inside. Though the oil-lit chandeliers burned brightly over the gaming tables and the bar, the periphery of the room was shadowed, making it seem much larger and grander than she knew it was.
She was beginning to cringe from the curious eyes of the men when Abe Greene spotted her in the doorway. “Miss Selena,” he said, coming toward her from behind the bar. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d like to see Mr. Rhynne, Abe. Please tell him.”
Abe nodded, turning away, and Selena stepped outside and waited. In a few minutes Rhynne appeared in the doorway, hat on, wearing a red vest beneath his frock coat, a cigarillo in his hand.
“You asked after me, Miss Selena?” He was not surprised at seeing her--he looked almost as if he’d been expecting her.
“I’ve come to to sing,” she told him hesitantly.
“Are you sure you want to?”
Just then voices were raised behind him. A man cursed. Rhynne glanced over his shoulder but after a moment the voices subsided and he looked down at Selena again.
“Are you certain you wouldn’t prefer to go home and be tucked safely in bed?” To Selena, the words sounded like a challenge.
“No,” she said, angry now. “I’m here to sing. I can sing, you know.”
“Not looking like that. Not here.”
She glanced down to see if her dress, put on so hastily in the dark, was in disarray. “There’s nothing wrong with the way I look,” she told him.
“That lace what-do-you-call-it”—he flicked at the chemisette with his finger—”makes you look like a lady schoolmarm.”
Her hand came up between her breasts. “I’d be practically unclothed without it,” she said. She pictured herself without the chemisette, the deep V of her neckline revealing the paleness of her skin against the soft green of the dress. Did she dare?
Rhynne smiled at her as though he read her thoughts.
“Wait,” she told him. She walked around the corner of the hotel and there slipped the arms of the dress from her shoulders and pulled the chemisette over her head. After rearranging the dress, she came back and folded and laid the lace on a table outside the door. She patted her hair smooth.
“All right?” she asked. Feeling his eyes on her breasts, she blushed but forced herself to stand without flinching.
Rhynne held out his hand. “Come with me,” he said. He led her across the room, past the bar and the card tables to the piano. The men stopped to stare after her. “Give me a flourish, if you please, Ned,” Rhynne said to the piano player.
The room quieted except for two men quarreling at the bar and, when someone shouted at them, they too fell silent.
Selena wanted to turn and run. Trembling, she stood facing the roomful of men. There were so many of them, drunken, sober, leering. Their flushed faces, ranged around her, closing her in, seemed to threaten her. Her head swam. When she tried to breathe deeply she coughed from the smoke.
Look at one of them, she told herself firmly, just one. You don’t have to sing to all of them, only to one.
There, that one,
He stared at her from the far end of the bar with adoration evident in his eyes. Wavy black hair, a boyish clean-shaven face. He was young, probably her own age. He was not actually good-looking, yet there was something about him that attracted her, an innocence, a vulnerability that made her want to please him. If only he wouldn’t stare so! His eyes. Were they green? They must be green.
If no one else liked her singing, she decided, he would. She would sing to him and for him.
“Do you know ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me?’” Ned asked. Selena nodded.
Rhynne threw up his hand. “Gentlemen,” he shouted. “I give you—Selena.”
The pianist began to play and, standing stiffly beside him, she sang to the black-haired, green-eyed young man:
“I heard of California gold, I thought I’d go and try it, And foolishly I left my home, I surely can’t deny it.”
The black-haired youth frowned. Didn’t he like her voice? Didn’t he like her? She faltered but went on. He wasn’t watching her anymore, had turned to the blond-bearded man beside him. What was he doing now? He’d seized the blond man by the throat and they were flailing at each other.
Abe tried to pull them apart. The boy swung at Abe. Men pushed forward, shouting and craning their necks, trying to see what was going on. Ned played louder, Selena stopped singing, tears in her eyes. She saw Rhynne dart across the room toward the bar.
Rhynne stepped between the two fighting men, grasping each by the arm and hustling them out the front door past the gun table. “Now then,” he said once they were on the porch. “What’s this all about?”
They both tried to speak at once.
“One at a time. You first.” Rhynne nodded to the youth. “I’ve never seen you around these parts before. What’s your name, son?”
“Danny O’Lee,” the boy said staunchly. “This bastard here insulted her, he insulted the lass. Selena.”
“The mick’s a liar. I was paying her a compliment, governor, when all of a sudden this one’s at my throat.”
“You’re English Bob, aren’t you?” Rhynne asked.
“All the chaps call me that.”
“Now listen to me,” Rhynne said. “I’m not about to let myself get the reputation for running a rowdy establishment. You can have a good time at the Empire, yes. A bit of noise is all right, but brawling, no. Men don’t buy spirits or play faro when they’re fighting. I’ll decide the merits of this quarrel or else both of you are through here. Banished for good. Do you agree?”
“That’s all right with me, mate,” English Bob said.
Danny nodded.
“You first, O’Lee. Tell me what happened.”
“Like I said, I was standing at the bar listening to the young lady sing, thinking she’s singing to me, she is, when this bloody Englishman says, ‘I’d give two hundred dollars to get between the sheets with that wench.’ So I says to him, ‘Take that back,’ and he says to me, 'Take what back?’ and I says, ‘What you just said,’ and he says, ‘Fuck you.’ So I made a grab for him and that’s all there is to it.”
“English Bob?”
“I thought we’d be hearing a bit of the blarney from this lad but that’s the size of it. I was complimenting the young lady on her charm like the lad here says and for no reason at all he was at my throat.”
“Danny,” Rhynne said, “English Bob was paying Selena a compliment. After his own fashion. You owe him an apology.”
“You’ll see me in hell first.”
“Enough.” Rhynne’s voice became steel. “You gave me your word, son. You’ll apologize.”
Danny met Rhynne’s eyes and then his glance fell away. “Sorry,” he said to English Bob.
“That’s all right, bucko. No hard feelings.” They shook hands and started for the door.
“Just a minute,” Rhynne said, as English Bob went back inside. “Listen to me. It’s not so much a man’s words that count, it’s the meaning behind them. Learn the difference. I’ve been called a son of a bitch by a man who wanted me to know he considered me his boon companion, and I’ve been called a son of a bitch by a bastard who meant I was a son of a bitch. To his way of thinking, English Bob couldn’t have paid Selena a greater compliment than saying he’d pay two hundred dollars for her.”
Rhynne, who had been reaching for the door latch, suddenly stopped and stared straight ahead.
“Are you all right?” Danny asked.
“All right?” Rhynne smiled. “I’ve never been better. I just caught sight of an idea that glittered like gold. I fear that when money is mentioned, I lose interest in most other matters. Ah, the music’s started again. Inside with you, Danny O’Lee.”
Rhynne put his hand on Danny’s shoulder and together they reentered the Empire. The men, crowding around the piano, had their backs to them. Rhynne raised his eyebrows when he saw Selena perched on top of the piano with her skirts drawn up to reveal her crossed ankles.
“Another chorus,” English Bob called and Selena sang:
“Hangtown gals are plump and rosy Hair in ringlets, mighty cozy, Painted cheeks and jossy bonnets— Touch ‘em and they’ll sting like hornets!”
The men joined in and when the song was over they waved their hats and cheered.
Something struck Selena’s shoulder. “What are they throwing?” she asked Ned.
“Gold. They’re throwing nuggets. Pick them up.”
Selena looked down at the nuggets scattered on the floor.
“No,” she said, “no, I won’t. Abe will. Abe can pick them up and give them to me later. I won’t be seen on my hands and knees scrabbling for money.”
The piano player shrugged. “They want more,” he said. “Which tune will it be?”
“It won’t be any tune.” Rhynne stood beside them. “Leave them unsatisfied,” he said. “Leave them wanting more.”
Rhynne raised his arms toward her and Selena, smiling and waving at the clamoring men, slid from the piano. She took his arm and the miners cleared a path for them to the door. She walked close beside Rhynne, her heart thudding, repeating over and over to herself, they like me, they like me.
Selena woke much later, with a clanging in her ears. She sat up, her head awhirl from the singing and the cheers of the men, reliving the elations she had felt as she looked down into the admiring faces from her perch on the piano.
That clanging. The fire bell! She threw off the blankets and ran to the window. Drew aside the red calico curtain. The sky glowed orange. Fire!
With a sinking feeling she recalled Varner’s threats to burn the Empire.
“Mother, mother,” she cried, shaking Pamela. Her mother groaned in her sleep. She shook her until Pamela sat up.
“Get up, get up,” Selena said. “The Empire’s on fire!”
Selena threw a robe over her nightgown, pulled a shawl around her shoulders. Behind her Pamela was sleepily getting out of bed. Selena ran out into the night and up the path leading to the hotel. Shouting men ran past her. She heard the crackle of flames.
When she reached the top of the first rise she realized something was wrong, not the way she thought it would be. The flames came not from ahead but from off to her right. Not the Empire! She ran on. No, not the Empire—the hotel stood dark against the sky.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she slowed, following the men hurrying along the street. Flames shot skyward from a building ahead of her. The church? The stable? Not the church, for there was the cross at the peak of the roof. Not the stable either; the stable was farther on.
“It’s Varner’s,” a voice next to her shouted.
She left the road and climbed to the top of a rise from which she could look down at the burning building. It was Varner’s. The log grocery was engulfed in flames. Men had formed two long lines on the street and were passing buckets from hand to hand, throwing the water on the nearby cabins and the church. It was too late to save Varner’s.
Selena noticed a figure in the shadows near her. A familiar figure. Rhynne. She walked to him, seeing his eyes flick toward her then return to the blaze. The firelight gave his face an unearthly appearance.
“Rhynne?” she said tentatively.
“Did I congratulate you on your triumph tonight?” he asked, still not looking at her.
“No,” she said in a hushed voice.
“You deserve to be congratulated. We both do.” For the first time he looked down at her. “You’d think,” he mused, “worried as Varner was about fire, he’d have taken greater precautions.”
She felt a shiver of fear.
Rhynne leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. His lips were cold on hers, without passion. She shrank away, then turned and ran. When she paused, out of breath, to look back, Rhynne was again staring down at the flames. She couldn’t he sure but she thought she saw him smile.