Free Crown of Dust by Mary Volmer Page A

saying no to it, then?” Limpy asks as she slips from the stool. She navigates toward Harry, edges between shoulders and around stools with the nugget pulling her down, making her bowlegged. The racket of the room pokes her with individual sticks of conversation, so unlike the solid mass of sound that met her on the stairwell during the rain.
    â€œLikely to be nothing but pyrite from now on,” says Harry. She stops short of the table to listen, minding the cup.
    â€œWay it goes, sometimes,” Harry continues. “Fate. Now don’t look at me like that, Fred. You know it too. Get all excited for a hundred dollars of poverty and heartache. But, hell, that’s life, right?”
    â€œYou done?” says Micah, and Alex takes a sip of his rum.
    â€œJust an old wives’ tale, Harry,” says Fred. “You can’t kill luck with hopeful talk. Micah and I went back and it looked rich.”
    â€œWhat you know about it?” John Thomas asks Fred.
    Fred discards four. David folds.
    â€œFred here fancies himself an expert in all things natural ,” says Harry. “Tell them the name of your book, Fred, tell them.”
    â€œHydraulicking,” says Fred, ignoring Harry, “would clear more earth in a week than a hundred shovels could in a year. You watch, if we don’t do it, someone else will. I heard they just got a load of hydraulic tubing down there in Marys—”
    â€œThat is bull-sheeit,” says John Thomas. “Woulda been up there for yourself if you’d know’d there was gold.” He discards one, slams all five to the table when he sees his draw. Alex feels her lip curl. “Bullshit,” he says again.
    â€œ A Geological and Floral Survey of the Greater Alta California ,” says Harry, holding his cards in front of his laughter, revealing to Alex a pair of sixes. “That’s what he calls it, and that’s all he’s got, other than a bunch of weeds smashed between the pages.”
    â€œI never said I could find it,” admits Fred. “Just recognize a find. Was me that told them Empire boys to stick it out, and look at them now.”
    John Thomas slumps back in his chair. “Boy don’t deserve it,” he says to no one in particular.
    â€œExactly why we need to buy the claim right up. Follow it to the quick,” says Fred.
    â€œJed!” Micah yells. “What about my … W’hell—Alex!” and suddenly the whole lot of them are looking her way.
    â€œSure!” booms Limpy behind her, and she nearly spills the drink. His great paw clamps down on her shoulder and she does spill some. “Just take the claim, fellas. Boy won’t care, will he? Don’t know jack about mining and can’t work alone. He’ll take his luck to some juanita in Grass Valley and be all the better for it. Am I right? Am I right? Alex?”
    Limpy’s words chatter back through her head. Alex finds the drink in her hand and a mush of words in her mouth and for some reason needs to deliver the drink first. She holds the cup in front of her, too intent on keeping the liquid level to notice that John Thomas has thrust his leg out.
    Alex is falling, flailing her arms to stop herself. Fails. Collides with the card table. She feels her nose crack and blood pour into her mouth, warm and bitter after the rum. She opens her eyes to red splintered wood and whiskey-drenched playing cards spinning in a kaleidoscope of color. She gulps down blood, tries to rise. Fails.
    â€œClumsy son-of-a—” John Thomas begins, and Alex feels the strength of rage surge through her. She wants to stop it, the voice, the tone of the voice, the man speaking. She lunges, misjudges the location of the stool, lands hard on the ground. Laughter bounces off the inside of her head. She opens her eyes to silence, a frayed hemline, thick ankles. Emaline’s cool hand on her forehead.
    â€œOut,” says Emaline. Out of