Chapter 37: Letting Go

 

July 29, 1849. Joel and I leave tomorrow to vote. The election is in two days.

 

Mac and Joel headed to Sacramento to vote for delegates to the upcoming Constitutional Convention. They were to vote at the fort, and they decided to lodge at the Golden Nugget nearby. When they arrived in town on the evening of July 31, men and horses milled about, but the streets weren’t any more crowded than on Mac’s last visit. None of the conversations Mac overheard concerned the election.

“Surprised ain’t more men here to vote,” Joel said.

“Voting is less important than gold to many men,” Mac replied. He remembered election days in Boston. Politicians’ cronies dragged men from saloons in the hours right before the polls closed, but most men ignored the voting completely.

“You still seeing her when you’re in Sacramento?” Mac asked Joel, nodding at Consuela, after they took a room at the Golden Nugget and sat at the bar.

Joel shrugged. “If she’s available. Or one of the other girls.”

“So you’re not partial to Consuela?”

Joel signaled the bartender. “One whore’s as good as another.”

Mac frowned. “What would your mother say if she heard you?”

“Ma’s dead. What she don’t know don’t hurt her.”

“Then you don’t think the dead are watching over us?” Mac wasn’t sure he subscribed to that notion either, but he certainly didn’t approve of Joel’s cavalier attitude toward women—an approach which had only brought Mac trouble.

“Don’t preach at me,” Joel said.

“Have it your way,” Mac replied, as Consuela joined them. Her smile seemed sad. “Something wrong?” Mac asked her.

“You haven’t heard?” Consuela responded. “About Juanita?”

“Who’s Juanita?” Mac asked.

“One of the other girls,” Joel said. “Where is she?”

“Muerta,” Consuela said. “Hung.” She leaned on the bar next to Joel.

“Hung?” Joel looked surprised. “What’d she do?”

“Stabbed a man. So they say.” Consuela sighed. “The hombre died, but he deserved it.”

“What’d he do?” Mac sipped the whiskey the bartender put in front of him.

“Tried to rape her.”

Joel snorted. “How can a whore get raped?”

Consuela jerked away from the bar, her eyes flashing. “It’s one thing to sell yourself by choice. It’s another to be taken by force.”

Mac swallowed hard, thinking of Jenny. No woman deserved to be raped. He was still ashamed of pawing at her that last night at the cabin. “Shut your trap, Joel,” he said. “The lady’s right.”

Joel left to amuse himself at the card tables. While Mac continued drinking alone at the bar, he made his decision. He’d been putting it off, but he had to let Jenny go. Now that he’d decided to quit mining, it was time to send her evidence of his death. She hadn’t responded after he wrote her in late March—she must not care that he had left.

He asked the bartender to find him paper, quill, and ink. His first step was to draft a deed giving his Oregon land claim to Jenny. He wasn’t sure if he could give away the claim before it was proven, but a deed would at least declare his intention. It would give Jenny an argument the land was hers.

When he finished his legal drafting, he pulled Consuela aside. “Can you write?” he asked.

“Yes. But my English spelling is not so good.”

“I’ll tell you how to spell, if you’ll write a letter for me. Can we go someplace private?”

“My room.” She looked around at the busy saloon. “You’ll have to pay for my time.”

Mac nodded. “Let’s go.”

Consuela’s room was small, but neat. A bed, a table with a chair beside it, and a washbowl on a stand peeking out from behind a wood lattice screen. Pegs on the wall held a few flashy dresses and a robe.

Consuela gestured at the bed and sat at the table.

Mac took off his coat, sat on the bed, and handed her the writing materials.

She smoothed out the paper and dipped the quill in the ink. “I’m ready.”

“Dear Señora McDougall,” Mac began.

“You’re married?” Consuela stared at him in surprise.

“Just write.”

Mac dictated, with Consuela asking occasionally how to spell a word. When they finished, she handed him the letter to read:

 

July 31, 1849
Dear Señora McDougall,

I regret to inform you that your husband, Caleb McDougall, died here in Sacramento. He took fever a few days ago and left this earth yesterday. I nursed him at the end, and his last words were of you and your son.

Señor McDougall left his mining claim to his partner Joel Pershing. Your husband’s dying wish was for you to have his land in Oregon. A deed he signed during his illness is enclosed.

My deepest sympathies on your loss.

Respectfully,

Consuela Montenegro

 

“Thank you,” Mac said. He put the letter in his pocket, flipped a gold coin on the bed, and strode down the stairs to the bar.

“Where’s Pershing?” he asked the bartender.

“Upstairs.” The man jerked his head. “With one of the girls.”

While he waited for Joel, Mac drank more than he had since the night he left Jenny.

Mac awoke with a throbbing head, sprawled face down on a soft bed. He lifted his head and the walls whirled around him. When the spinning stopped, he recognized Consuela’s room. She sat on a chair beside the bed.

“Tell me about your wife,” she said.

“What?” He didn’t have a wife.

“Why are you writing her a letter that says you are dead?”

A letter? Ah, yes. The letter to Jenny. “She’s not my wife.” Mac buried his face in the sheets again.

“Por qué . . . ?” She sounded puzzled.

“People in Oregon think we’re married. I have to set them straight. I have to make her free of me.”

“Why do people think you are married?” She rose and moved across the room to open the curtain.

Mac rolled over onto his back and moaned, placing his arm over his eyes to shield them from the bright morning sun streaming in the window.

“What harm will it do to tell me?” Consuela placed a cool cloth on his forehead.

He mumbled his thanks and sighed. “It’s a long story.”

Consuela shrugged. “I have nothing to do until the saloon opens at noon. What’s her name?”

“Jenny.” Mac’s voice croaked.

Consuela sat beside him and waited.

“She”—Mac couldn’t say her name again—“was expecting a child. Only fourteen years old. She needed help. We couldn’t travel to Oregon unless we were married. So we said we were. It got out of hand.”

“What do you mean?”

“We arrived in Oregon, then there wasn’t a way to leave her.”

“Did you want to leave her?”

Mac shrugged. “She didn’t want me. I filed a land claim. Built her a house, so she’d have a place to live. I couldn’t just abandon her.”

“Did you love her?” Consuela’s voice sounded sad, even in Mac’s pounding head.

“I don’t know. I cared for her. She did her part when we were together.”

“Why didn’t you marry her?”

“I said, she didn’t want me. Neither of us wanted to marry.” Mac tried sitting up. He didn’t want to continue this conversation.

“Did she have her baby?”

Mac nodded, falling back on the bed. “A boy.”

“Where was the baby’s father?”

“She’d been raped. By several men.”

Consuela’s breath hissed in. “And yesterday I told you Juanita’s story.”

Mac sat up, too angry to care about his head. “Jenny isn’t a whore.” Then he remembered Consuela’s profession. “Sorry. I’m sure you didn’t have a choice. But I couldn’t let Jenny—”

“You didn’t want Jenny to become like me.”

“I didn’t know you.”

“But you didn’t want Jenny to be forced into prostitution.”

“I didn’t know what would happen to her.”

“Why did you take her to Oregon?”

He shrugged. “She needed to go somewhere. That’s where I was headed.”

Consuela shook her head. “Dangerous trip for a pregnant woman. Yet she went with you?”

“She had nowhere else to go.”

Consuela laughed, a short, harsh sound. “You wouldn’t let her prostitute herself, but you took her on a journey that could have killed her?”

“Perhaps it was foolish.”

“And now you will tell her you are dead.”

“We didn’t end well.”

“Ahh,” Consuela said. “This is maybe the true story.” She sat still, waiting, it seemed, for Mac to speak again.

He picked at a blister on his palm, ashamed to look at Consuela. “I scared her. The last night I was there. I wanted her.”

“She is pretty?”

Mac couldn’t help smiling. “Yes.”

“Prettier than me?”

Mac looked at her then, assessing. Yes, Consuela was pretty. “Her eyes are sad like yours. But blue.”

“Her hair?”

“Light brown. It turns gold in the sun.”

Consuela smiled. “You do love her.” Her voice was gentle.

“Maybe.”

“Then how can you tell her you are dead?”

“She can’t want me. Not after how I behaved.”

“Shouldn’t that be her choice?”

“I’m no good for her. Just like Bridget.”

“Bridget?”

“A girl back in Boston. She died, after I left her alone.”

“Did you love this Bridget, too?”

Mac sighed. “No. But she was carrying my child.”

Consuela raised an eyebrow. “You surprise me, Señor McDougall. Never would I have guessed such troubles in your life. You have been the gentleman in California, never touching the girls. I cannot believe you treated Jenny or Bridget any differently.”

Mac was silent. He had nothing more to say. The truth was, he’d hurt the women he touched. His actions had led to Bridget’s death. He’d taken Jenny away from her home.

Consuela knelt by the bed and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “When will you forgive yourself, Mac? When will you seek happiness for yourself?”

Mac stood up then, though his stomach roiled. He couldn’t take any more preaching. “How much do I owe you for the night?”

Consuela shook her head, her mouth a thin line.

Mac dropped another gold piece on the table. “I need to find Joel.” And he headed out to vote. As he walked, he thrust his hand in his pocket, slipping his fingers past the bootie he kept with him always, to take hold of the letter to Jenny.

He mailed it on his way to vote.