I did not tell lies, after all. I told likelihoods.
Your departed lover is here, I’d whisper, and she wants only your happiness, even if you need to take comfort in the arms of a soft-bosomed dove. The lonely man would no doubt visit a pleasure house soon enough, even without my encouragement. Or I might say, The spirits urge you to welcome the one-eyed man, for he will bring you prosperity. Then I’d imagine the prospector chuckling to himself when the one-eyed knave of hearts came into his poker hand that night.
I was right often enough that they kept coming back, eagerly listening to my whispered fortunes, and always hoping to hear a single word.
Gold.
Satisfied or not, they all dropped a few coins into my tin cup as they left. It would not make me wealthy, but at least I didn’t have to spread my legs for coin like the girls I saw hanging out the windows of the Gem or Bella Union.
“Well?” said the prospector. “Has old Manning got something to tell me or not?”
I caught a whiff of his rancid breath mixed with my incense and tried to disguise my grimace. Through my puckered lips, I whispered, “Yes. He is here.”
The prospector’s voice was lower now, following my example. “Tom?”
I swayed on my seat. “Thomas Manning. We invite you to speak. Please, answer our questions.”
“Tom, are you there?”
It was amazing to me how easily their suspicions came and went. How strongly they wished to believe, despite how they scoffed at our ways and traditions.
The prospector began to speak in earnest. “You picked a right awful time to get yourself killed, Tom. We’ve got an offer to buy the claim, and it could be a good deal for me, but I need to know —”
I held up my hands. “Wait. Thomas speaks.”
A silence. I shifted my eyes beneath my eyelids. “He is telling you to seek out your bright future.”
“Bright? You mean like gold?”
I cocked my head to the side, pretending to listen. “He is unclear. But I see much joy. There is piano music in a dimly lit hall. A pretty girl is trying to catch —”
A crushing grip wrapped around my wrist, yanking me forward. I cried out, my eyes snapping open. The incense clattered to the floor.
The man sneered. “Do I look like a fool, you slant-eyed witch? You think I care about an overpriced whore? You think Tom did?”
I winced, as much from his rotted breath as the insult, which, truth be told, was one of the less creative my patrons had called me.
“Tom and me been working the same goddamn gold claim for nine months, with nothing but goddamn rocks to show for it. So you tell me if you can talk to his ghost or not, ’cause I need to know if he found gold, or if I should sell my claim and get the hell out of here.”
“S-sorry,” I stammered.
“You’d better be, ’cause if I think you’re tryin’ to make an idiot of me, I will gut you like a pig.”
My gaze darted to the tattered sheet that divided my room from the front of the shop, but I knew my uncle wasn’t back from visiting with the neighbors.
I tried to pull away, but his fingers only tightened. “We try again,” I assured him, wrapping my free hand around the brass bowl that held the lone cigarette. “Thomas Manning come for sure this time.”
His grip began to loosen.
I smiled submissively and, hard as I could, smashed the bowl against his temple.
The man reeled back, startled. I flipped the table, catching him in the jaw and sending him and his stool toppling backward. The candle on the table extinguished. The man released a stream of curses and slurs, but I was already at the desk on which we’d built our spirit altar, yanking open the top drawer.
I grabbed the pistol my uncle had given me when he said we were leaving San Francisco. Leaving behind the only life I’d ever known. Leaving behind my mother’s still-wandering ghost.
I raised the gun and locked my elbow. I’d never fired the gun before, and I hoped the sight of it alone would persuade the prospector to leave.
Except, when the prospector spotted my tiny pistol, an amused grin showed his cracked teeth. In a blink, he unholstered his own gun, much larger than mine, and trained it on me. I guessed it would not be his first time pulling a trigger.
Panic scratched at my throat.
Then, all in unison, the candle flames on the altar flickered. The world hesitated. A familiar hum vibrated through my chest.
The prospector frowned and glanced at a shelf on the wall, where three candles dripped with old wax.
A chill of air brushed against my neck. Gooseflesh tickled down my arms. Not in fear, but not in relief either. I was used to ghosts on the streets and in the hills and drifting aimlessly through town, but I didn’t care for those who came into my home, uninvited and rarely welcome.
“Tell him that gold has been found.”