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Write My
Loving with a Red Brush
Length: 95,703
Charity finds new friends, wealth, and a love that is
magical, wonderful, and all-too-brief, reflecting the Emperor's ritual of having
a scribe write a special loving in red ink instead of the usual black.
In the barn she discovers Wing On Leong, a young Chinese who has found a rich gold mine with nuggets "big as a grow'd man's balls." They make a deal to work his mine until he has enough to return to China and restore his family, putting the mine in their names as Chinese can't file claims. They flee when the miners attack and burn down the cabin.
Moon, a vicious miner, and Preacher Bowen, a killer,pursue them.Wing saves them and stops Moon's rape of Charity.A master carver, he creates a platform shoe so Charity won't limp. Finding Doc Cambell to treat Pete's wounds,they also find Josh running a bawdy house. when he finds Charity's name on the claim, he marries her. Their wedding night is a nightmare of drunkeness and abuse. She swears never to allow a man to love her.
The mine is the same that Big Louisa's husband and son died in. Wing won't work it and join the railroad. Pete is working the mine when Doc and Louisa go to warn him. Louisa is killed, and Chairty is caught in a cave in where Josh is crushed. She clings to life, moving through the mine tunnels in the dark she hates, finds the dead bodies and the mother lode.
Opening: The mountain country of
California could be cold in any season, but this chill in In the dark corner of the dimly lit barn she saw a form, vague & silent. She fought the urge to run or scream, not daring to do either. If she screamed, Big Louisa would come immediately with her Sharp’s Rifle to face whatever was hidden there. Charity didn’t want to give her a chance to prove once again that a seventeen-year-old Pennsylvania farm girl didn’t belong on the frontier, shouldn’t be searching for a man who had made promises, then left her here and disappeared on the trail, a man she still loved and wanted desperately to find. Peering into the half-light, she saw the form move slightly, heard it make low animal noises. She gasped, limping backwards to take a pitchfork from beside the loft ladder. The drag of her shortened leg made a soft swoosh across the frozen dirt floor. Louisa’s two horses snuffled nervously at her movements. With the pitchfork she cautiously started toward the corner. Both horses stamped at once. Charity stumbled and dropped the pitchfork, crying out at the ringing sound. “LOUISA!” From inside the barn, Charity heard the cabin door rip open and slam against the outer wall, then Louisa’s anxious call. “WHERE?” “In the barn!” Big Louisa swept through the barn door, scattering straw and snow crystals behind her. She stopped boldly in the lantern light, the rifle cocked and ready. She was at once powerful yet feminine, an Amazon. No coat or shawl covered her. The cold wind dared not touch her. Charity scrambled to her feet, trying to control her voice, hoping desperately she hadn’t called Louisa out for nothing. “Something . . . in the corner. It moved!” “Poke it!” commanded Big Louisa, kicking the pitchfork to Charity. The frightened girl picked it up and moved unevenly into the dark stall. She hesitated, then gingerly touched the mound under the straw and dark fabric. “Harder!” said Louisa firmly. Charity’s hands shook, but she forced herself to jab at the form. She felt a living thing yield, moving itself farther into the corner. Shifting the rifle to one arm, finger ready on the trigger, Louisa strode into the stall. She laid one hand on the highest point of the mound, grasped it and pulled hard. In one motion, the shape unfolded into that of a man in loose, dark garments. “Get that lantern over here!” she commanded. Charity obeyed, unhooked the lantern and brought it closer. In the pale light, the kneeling women watched the face of a man become illuminated. “A Chinaman!” gasped Charity. She’d seen them only in schoolbooks, unsmiling traffickers in opium and sin. Yet this one looked young . . . and helpless. “Is he alive?” “Looks to be, but he cain’t hurt nobody.” Louisa relaxed, leaned against the barn boards and watched the unconscious man. “Are we . . . going to take him inside?” “Ain’t decided it’s worth the bother. Seems he’s half dead already. Body’d keep better in the cold. Take him in and we’d have to move him again.” Louisa’s face was expressionless, icy. Bewildered, Charity turned away. The big woman was like that, blocking out any indication of what she felt or thought, and along with it the warmth Charity knew was a part of her. Maybe Louisa knew something about Chinamen, something that made her wary. “We’d best not touch him. I heard in school that they carry long knives or hatchets and . . . .” Big Louisa laughed. “Now don’t that beat all! You bein’ a stray yourself, afraid to take a chance on another one!” She looked at the man and sighed. “Looks like takin’ in left-behinds is my life work! Get to one side of him!” Together they half-carried, half-dragged the inert body, Louisa bearing most of the weight. Finally they got him into the two-room cabin and stretched him out onto the wolf-skin rug in front of the fireplace. Neither spoke for a moment, watching the firelight give form to their burden. He seemed tall, with black, coarsely cut hair across his brow and tatters of black fabric wrapping his slender body and limbs. Braided cotton strips tied dirty rough burlap pieces around his feet. One of the wrappings had come loose, revealing only black cotton shoes beneath them. “Take the lantern and finish with the horses,” Louisa ordered. Softly she added, “You did fine, honey, just fine.” Yet when she turned to stir the fire, her face had grown cold again. Outside, Charity pulled her shawl tightly around her and headed for the barn, cherishing those fleeting words of acceptance from Louisa. In her home in Pennsylvania, Charity had never had a woman friend. Now she needed one who knew this wild country, could guide her in the search for her lost love, who would accept her, comfort her and teach her to survive with the same strength she admired in Louisa. But this frontier woman seemed only to want Charity to return home to the monotony of farm life, not to be her friend and mentor. The night was a cave, inky and formless, filled with sensations of things about to happen. Charity had always hated the dark, even as a child back in Pennsylvania, where the security of home should have dispelled the fear. That child-fear had grown out of proportion now that she was alone in the California wilderness. Bio: Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology, was a
Woman Officer in the US Marine Corps Reserve, wrote reviews of music and dance.
Part of a writer's group, wrote 4 novels, 2 novellas, 2 children's books. Her
work was edited by Carol Craig, the Editing Gallery in Eugene, Oregon. |
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NOTE: All material is copyright protected. No portion of this material may be copied or reproduced, either electronically, mechanically, or by any other means, for resale or distribution without the written consent of the author. All copy has been dated and registered with the American Society of Authors and Writers. Copyright 2007 by The Swetky Agency |
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