Chapter Thirty-Three

The following day, as the grey light of dawn broke up the leaden hue of night, Charity finally abandoned her attempt to lose herself in the oblivion of sleep and rose from her bed, stiff with cold and inner torment.

Trying not to make any noise, she went across to the table in the corner of her room, poured some water from the stoneware pitcher into a bowl, and swiftly washed herself. Then she slipped her corset on top of her undershirt, laced it up, pulled her unbleached muslin petticoats over her head, and dropped her brown poplin overdress on top of the petticoats. When she’d buttoned the dress bodice from its tight-fitting waist to her throat, she plaited her hair into a single black braid, swung it over her shoulder and left the room.

The ever-present smell of bad eggs that came from the coke in the iron stove hit her as soon as she went from the corridor into the chill main room. She glanced at the stove and hesitated, wondering whether to light it before she went out.

But by the time she’d emptied the ash pan, piled torn paper on to the grate, covered the paper with a thin layer of coal, waited for blue flames to appear, and then heaped on the rest of the coal, the town would be alive with miners heading for their shift and with shopkeepers readying their stores for the coming day. The wells in town, too, would be busy, as Chinese laundry workers would have started hauling water to the washtubs in the three laundries in Chinatown.

With so much going on, she wouldn’t be able to find anywhere to be alone, but she desperately needed solitude if she was going to think clearly about the feelings that had struck her with such force the day before. The thought of seeing Chen Fai again, with her mind still in such a state of confusion, filled her with alarm and she knew that she had to get far from the Walkers’ house as soon as she could, and from the room in which she’d tossed and turned all night, acutely conscious at every wakeful moment of Joe lying close to her, separated from her by no more than a thin wooden wall.

She turned from the stove, pulled her coat from its hook and put it on. Then she opened the door, stepped outside, quietly closed the door and headed for the river.

If she walked fast enough for long enough, she thought, speeding up, she might be able to leave behind her the thoughts that had plagued her throughout the night, thoughts that would have filled Joe with shock and discomfort if he’d been able to see into her mind and, even worse, been able to see the effect they were having on her body.

And last night wasn’t the first night she’d had such thoughts, if she was being brutally truthful with herself – they were the same thoughts she’d been struggling to suppress since the night of Joe’s return.

The moment she’d got home that night and seen the grown-up Joe for the first time, seen the qualities she’d loved about the younger Joe shining out of the striking blue eyes of a tall man, whose body was lean and taut, whose skin gleamed gold in the soft amber glow of the lamp, who moved with latent strength and power, her insides had somersaulted in sudden violence, and from that moment on, there’d been a sensation low in her stomach that she’d never felt before.

But such thoughts about an American man were forbidden to her, a Chinese woman, and she’d struggled to stop thinking that way about someone who could never, ever be anything more to her than a friend. And she’d almost convinced herself she was winning the battle. But the way she’d felt in the store the day before, and the thoughts that had raged in her mind throughout the sleepless night, showed her that she’d struggled in vain.

Her feelings for Joe had deepened with each passing day. And forbidden or not, she yearned for his touch with a powerful longing.

But he must never know.

Why, oh why, couldn’t she feel like this about Chen Fai, she agonised as she went past the miners’ houses and past the well. He deserved her love for all the years of kindness he’d shown her, and nothing would have made her happier than to have been able to feel about him as she felt about Joe.

Reaching the river, she followed the gully away from Carter and towards the open plain. From time to time, she glanced down at the water and watched the morning vapour, a milky-white cloud that hovered above the water’s surface, gradually start its upward drift, stealthily unveiling the river, coal-black in the chill light of dawn.

When she came to the spot where Joe had been panning for gold when he’d first heard the sound of her mother’s approach, she paused. Because of Joe, she was alive. What kind of gratitude was it to let herself think about him in a way that was unseemly and unvirtuous for any girl, American or Chinese?

Instead of dreaming of what she could never have, she should list all the good things she had in life and be satisfied with those, something Miss O’Brien had regularly ordered her class to do. Well, she’d do that, she resolved, and she started walking again.

She’d begin with the Walker family. They’d never been anything but kind to her, and they still were, despite the hostility of the Carter townsfolk. Even though their former friends had long been shunning them, they’d never reproached her or said she should leave.

And Sam. He hated her, yes. But only once had he ever tried to throw her out. And he’d never taken a hand to her, and had never told his folks she must go, and made it a choice between him or her – a choice that would have seen her cast out for sure. So for all his harsh words, there must be some goodness deep within him.

And the kindness of Chen Fai was another thing she should be thankful for. He deserved better than to be planning on taking as a wife a woman whose heart, unknown to him, had been given to someone else and who couldn’t get it back. What a way to repay him for everything she owed him!

And Su Lin. Her friendship with Su Lin was precious. Looking back, she couldn’t imagine how she’d have got through the last few years without the happiness their friendship had brought her.

And Joe. He was the very best thing in her life; yet she was letting herself think about him in a sinful way.

Full of anger at her weak self and at the wrongfulness of her thoughts, she left the river and headed out across the wind-bitten desert, the soles of her boots crunching noisily whenever they landed on a patch of dull yellow sand or earthy white dust. A tumbleweed rolled across her path, and she kicked it away, her eyes still on the horizon, a distant grey-white backcloth, broken here and there by the shapes of flat-topped buttes and spires of rock.

‘Charity! What in tarnation are you doin’ out here at this time?’

She gasped.

As if from nowhere, Joe stood before her, his hat low over his eyes and his thick brown jacket done up to his throat, its fur-lined collar turned up against the cold. A coil of rope hung from one of his gloved hands.

‘Joe!’ she exclaimed.

He inched up the brim of his hat and she saw him stare hard at her, his eyes seeming to seek the recesses of her mind, the places where emotions she’d no right to feel lay hidden.

Her heart started racing.

‘Well, I guess we’ve established that we know who we are,’ he murmured, his breath a column of silvery mist. ‘I’m now interested in why you’re out here at this early hour.’

‘I could say the same to you,’ she said, and she managed a smile.

He shrugged. ‘That’s easy for me to answer.’ He held up the rope. ‘There was some trouble in town last night and I stayed at the livery. Bein’ awake early, I thought I’d bag me a wild horse. The terrain gets rockier the further out you get and there are springs of fresh water if you know where to look, and that’s where you find wild horses – they’re drawn by the scent of the water.’

Her heart jumped in alarm. ‘What sort of trouble? And why d’you want another horse? Are you leavin’ again?’

‘Just some nastiness between the miners and the Chinese priest,’ he said dismissively. ‘The fault was the miners’. And nope, I’m not goin’ anywhere right now. Havin’ spent some of the past seven winters breakin’ in horses, I figured on findin’ me a horse to break in here so I can sell it and bring in a few extra bucks for Seth.’ He paused. ‘And bein’ out here on my own gives me time to think. Okay, it’s your turn now. Why aren’t you at home?’

Her eyes dropped from the face that was smiling down at her, warm and friendly and forbidden, and she focused on a horned toad which was scuttling in short bursts across a small patch of green where a few hopeful shoots had broken through the gravelly soil and were yet to be seared by the heat of the sun.

‘Well?’ he asked again after a moment or two.

She looked up at him. ‘I felt like a walk. I’m indoors all day and I wanted some fresh air. It’s late when I finish work, and I go straight back and help with the supper. After that it’s dark. So it’s either come out now or not at all.’ She glanced back in the direction of the river, and then turned again to him. ‘Once I’d started idly walkin’, I just seemed to carry on.’

‘It didn’t look like idle walkin’ to me. You seemed to be walkin’ with real purpose.’

She attempted to laugh. ‘I was tryin’ to get to some air that didn’t stink of coal, but I seem to have come further than I meant to. I must get back.’ She made a move to go back.

‘Don’t go,’ he said quietly, and he reached out to stop her.

At the touch of his hand on her arm, she stood still, her eyes on the ground, her heart beating fast, the warmth of his gaze filling her with heat. Slowly, she raised her eyes to his face. For a long moment, their eyes locked.

Words rose and caught in her throat.

She felt a sudden powerful longing to tell him the way she felt, to unburden herself and perhaps find some peace. But the words lay heavily inside her, held back by fear.

‘Charity.’ His voice was so low she hardly heard him.

Her gaze travelled across his face, lingering on his features, one by one. Instinctively, she started to raise her hand to his cheek, wanting to touch his skin, but she caught herself in time, and let her hand fall to her side. Inwardly, she shook herself at how close she’d come to doing something that would’ve made him uncomfortable. ‘I must go now,’ she said quickly, ‘or I’ll be late for work.’ She started to turn away.

‘No!’ He caught her arms and pulled her to him. ‘There’s somethin’ I’ve gotta say. I can’t not say it any longer.’

‘Don’t say anythin’, Joe,’ she whispered. She drew back. ‘You mustn’t.’

‘I have to,’ he cried, a note of desperation in his voice. ‘I can’t hold it in any more. From the moment I saw you again, there’s been an emptiness inside me. It ain’t the sort of emptiness that can be filled with food, and it ain’t the sort of emptiness that can be filled by family time or by havin’ a drink with friends. It’s a different sort of emptiness, and I think you feel it inside you, too.’

He paused, waiting.

Her unspoken words hung in the air between them.

‘Well, aren’t you wantin’ to know what could fill this emptiness of ours?’ he said with a wry smile. ‘A woman always wants to know that sort of thing.’

She shook her head. ‘No, Joe; I don’t. I already know.’ She stared up into his face. ‘You’re right, I feel that emptiness, too. And I know that nothin’ can fill it. Not walks in the mornin’; not workin’ hard every minute of the day; not sleep. Definitely, not sleep. That sort of emptiness is keepin’ me awake, night after night.’

He dropped his arms and gestured despair. ‘Is it so wrong to feel as we feel?’

‘Yes, it is.’ She pulled up the sleeve of her jacket and held out her bare arm. ‘Look at my skin, Joe,’ she cried. ‘It’s yellow.’ She pulled her sleeve down again. ‘I’ve got yellow skin and you’re white. American law says it is wrong to feel the way we do, and they could put us in prison for it, or even hang us for it. You mustn’t say anythin’ more. Words that are spoken aloud can’t be taken back.’ She took a step away from him. ‘I’m goin’ home now.’

She spun round, and felt a hand on each arm again. She stiffened. Gently he pulled her back against his chest. Through his thick jacket, she could feel his heart racing, and she could feel his strength. In a moment of weakness and yearning, she let herself relax and lean back. His arms tightened around her and she felt the sigh of joy that ran through his body.

Then he turned her to face him and angled her face to look up into his.

She ought to leave at once, she knew, but she couldn’t move.

Rooted to the spot, she stared up into deep blue eyes flecked with burnished gold; eyes that were alive with emotion – turbulent, forbidden emotion – and she knew she couldn’t stop her hunger for him from pouring out of her gaze.

‘Charity,’ she heard him whisper, his voice hoarse.

Then his lips were on hers, hard and desperate, an explosion of love and need.

His heat spread through her body. Her mouth moving eagerly beneath his, she slid her arms around his back and pressed the length of her body tight against his, getting as close to him as she could. She felt his hardness.

With a frightened gasp, she pulled away and put her hands to her cheeks. ‘We mustn’t do this. I’m not allowed to think of you in a man and woman kind of way. Much as I want to – and I do want to, Joe,’ she cried, gazing despairingly up at him. ‘I really do. But I mustn’t.’ She pulled her coat tighter around her. ‘We’ve gotta forget today.’

He held out his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘But I feel the same about you, Charity. I love you. You know I do.’

A sad smile played across her lips. ‘And I love you, Joe, very much, and that’s why it stops here. What kind of love would it be if I let you break the law and risk bein’ hanged?’ She paused. ‘And what kind of woman would I be if I took the chance of the same happenin’ to me as happened to my ma?’

He shook his head. ‘Oh, Charity,’ he said quietly. ‘You know that would never happen. I’d make it all right.’

She looked up at him, hopelessness in her eyes. ‘But you couldn’t, Joe; the law makes it impossible. You must never touch me again. Not so long ago, a riot against the Chinese got out of hand in Denver, and a Chinese laundryman was dragged down the street with a rope round his neck, and then kicked and beaten to death by a mob of whites. And you said there was trouble in Carter last night. I don’t know what sort of trouble it was, but I can imagine. With the mood the whites are in, we’d be lynched if folk found out there was anythin’ between us.’

‘What happened in Carter last night won’t happen again. Carter folk are not like that,’ he said firmly. ‘And the Marshal’s got everythin’ in hand.’

‘I hope you’re right, but I don’t wanna take a chance on findin’ out you’re wrong.’

He took a step towards her. ‘Suppose I choose to take the risk rather than live without you?’

She stepped back, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘I won’t let you. Today was the first and the last time. I’m gonna work hard to love Chen Fai. He deserves no less – he’s a good and honourable man. I know somethin’s changed between you and me – it obviously has – but I also know that nothin’s changed because we’ve stopped now and everythin’s still as it was. We’ve always been good friends, and we still are. But we’re no more than friends.’

‘Charity.’ He stared at her, his face distraught.

‘Nothing lies between us, and it never will,’ she repeated, her voice shaking. ‘I’m cold now and I’m gonna go back, and I’m goin’ alone. You’ve got a horse to find.’

She turned and walked quickly across the ground in the direction of the river, forcing herself not to look round, his anguish and despair cutting into her back.

Reaching the river, she turned left, leaving the line of his sight, and followed the river in the direction of Carter. Letting her tears fall unchecked, she struck out across the open ground to the well and made her way along the line of miners’ houses to the Walkers’ house.

Standing a little way back from the group of women at the well who were pointedly ignoring her, an empty pail in each of her hands, Martha watched Charity pass close by. Charity didn’t see her, but she saw Charity, and she saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. Standing there in growing disquiet, she gazed after her until she’d disappeared into the house.

One by one, the other women filled their pails and returned to their houses, taking with them their laughter and chatter and contempt, and leaving her with silence. Finally, left on her own, she moved across to the pump and pulled down hard on the pump arm. As she did so, she saw Joe walk by a short distance away, a length of rope in his hand. Even from afar, she could see agitation and desperation on his face.

A frisson of fear ran through her.

She’d known the moment would come, and she’d been dreading it. But she hadn’t known how she could stop it.

She’d seen the eyes of them both on the night that Joe returned. They’d looked at each other in the way she knew she’d looked at Hiram the first time she’d seen him, and from that moment on she’d been terrified of the day they gave in to their feelings.

And now it looked as if that day might have come.

Her buckets full, she walked slowly back to her house, her heart heavy.

When she’d gone to bed on the night of Joe’s return, tense and ill at ease, she hadn’t known what to do for the best, and she still didn’t know. But the time had come when she must think of something, and she must do so fast.

She reached the front door and stared at it. ‘Oh, my son,’ she whispered. Then, ashen-faced, she pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold.