Black Drop

by S. L. Stoner

  It being so late, the hospital corridor was empty. The four men walked to its end where they were unlikely to be overheard. Before Sage could say anything, Li said. “Mr. Fong has kept me fully informed of your activities related to the president’s visit. About the assassination. I also know that many of our tong cousins are searching for your man, Meachum. I will stand in Mr. Fong’s stead. After his nephew was killed, that is what we arranged,” he added.

  The man’s black eyes now glittered cold and, for the first time, Sage glimpsed steel beneath the man’s courtly demeanor. Sage glanced at the other two men and saw that their eyes were wide in fierce black stares. His next glance was to their waistbands. Not surprisingly, the tops of hatchet blades showed beneath their coats. High binders, hatchet men. The tong’s enforcers.

  Sage felt an odd mix of unease and reassurance. These were the wrong men to have as enemies but the right ones to have on your side. In the days ahead, their well-trained ferocity might come in handy. “Good. Thank you. We need your help,” he told the three of them.

  He and Li talked a while longer. When they all returned to the room, Sage squeezed Mrs. Fong’s arm, momentarily laid his hand on the unconscious man’s shoulder and left once assured they’d notify him if Fong’s condition changed–in either direction. One of Li’s silent guards was remaining behind to guard Fong and to keep Mrs. Fong company. With a heavy heart Sage accepted that there was nothing more he could do at the hospital. Fong was either going to make it or not.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Dispatch: May 19, 1903, President’s train arrives in Sacramento, California.

  “It is my conviction that the ultimate fate of the nation will not depend on the law nor yet upon the high ideals of the nation but only insomuch as these ideals are manifest in the character of the average citizen.” —T.R.

  At least it had stopped raining, Sage thought as he carefully stepped alongside the building toward the backyard. Not for long, though. Overhead dense clouds scudded across a sky that was rapidly losing its stars. It took three well-placed pebble tosses before the window slid up and Mae Clemens stuck her head out, one hand clutching a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

  “Can you come outside?” Sage whispered. Surliness momentarily crossed her sleepy face before she

  snapped awake, sudden alarm taking over. She raised a finger to her lips, pointed toward the privy and disappeared back inside. The window slid down softly and the curtains twitched closed.

  Sage entered the outhouse noting that it must have its night soil removed with regularity. Only the slight smell of lime tainted the air. But then, the lid was tightly closed upon the hole. The spring screeched as the door was pulled open and his mother slipped inside. Once the door was shut, they stood, with only inches separating them. “This has to be a first,” he whispered, “I’ve never conducted a clandestine meeting in an outhouse before.”

  “It’s the best we’ve got. What is it? What’s happened?” He told her about Fong. She gasped and grabbed his arm, her fingers a painful claw. He wrapped both arms around her shoulders, pulled her closer and hugged. Releasing her, he said, “It will be okay. I spoke to his doctor. They are doing all they can.”

  For a moment, both stood without speaking. The silence was unbroken except for the sound of raindrops trickling off overhead fir boughs to softly pelt the tin roof above their heads.

  Sage started to take a deep breath until he remembered where he was. “In the meantime, we have only two days to find out who’s behind the assassination. Fong’s tong is going to help but without him directing things, I don’t know,” he said.

  “I expect you’ll find a way, Sage. You’ve managed worse situations in the past,” she told him. Her warm hand patted his shoulder, her confident voice forestalling any further statements of doubt. “We better head out. Can’t imagine how I’d explain this little meeting to my landlady. Scandalized wouldn’t be the half of it.”

  He eased open the door. After the dark of the outhouse, even the clouded quarter moon made it seem bright outside. He stuck his head out the door and then ducked it back inside. “It looks clear, why don’t you leave first?”

  She pushed him toward the gap in the door, “No way. I get woke up in the middle of the night, I’ve got to go. You head on out. I need to take care of business before I go back inside.”

  Sage was chuckling softly as he slipped alongside the house to the sidewalk. He could always count on Mae Clemens to supply a hefty measure of salt to calm the boil of a chaotic situation.

  * * *

  Mae slipped into the BCS kitchen a few minutes late. She hadn’t slept well after Sage left and finally, as the first bird started chirping, she’d gotten up, dressed, and taken the early morning trolley to the hospital. Kum Ho had been sleeping, sitting in a chair, but with her head resting on Fong’s hospital bed near the injured man’s hand. At the foot of the bed, a stern young Chinese man stood at hard-eyed attention. When Mae entered, he’d given her a piercing look but then relaxed when she’d placed a finger across her lips and slipped silently to stand beside the bed across from Kum Ho’s sleeping form.

  Fong’s face looked pale and old and vulnerable beneath the swath of white bandages that encircled his head. Tears filed Mae’s eyes as a fizz f fear ran through her. She looked at the silent young man who had slowly shaken his head. This was not mere sleep. Mae gently laid her hand on Fong’s shoulder, closed her eyes and wished fervently for his recovery. After which she removed her hand, nodded to the young man and slipped away.

  The trolley had overflowed with morning passengers avoiding the discomfort of sloshing to work in the downpour that had started while she’d been inside the hospital. With all the stopping and starting and slow loading of passengers, the delay of Mae’s arrival at the BCS had increased with each passing minute. Exasperated, Mae shoved her way out of the trolley and walked the last six blocks in the rain, arriving in the kitchen wearing a soggy coat and squishing boots.

  Mrs. Wiggit was hard at work, frying up rashers of bacon and scrambling innumerable eggs. She sent no chastising glance toward the late arrival, merely nodded and said, “My goodness, it must be mighty wet outside since you’re leaving a trail of wet across the floor.”

  “It’s a right fine spring shower, that’s for sure. I am sorry I am late,” Mae said as she shed her outer garments and donned a clean apron. “A friend of mine is hurt bad and I had to go to the hospital early this morning. All the rain, the return trolley was running late. Otherwise, I would have been on time.”

  Breakfast at last being served upstairs, Mae and Mrs. Wiggit sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, their tired feet raised onto chair rungs. Behind them, Gussie was swishing the empty porridge pots through water, their tin clattering in the large metal wash basin. Fried bacon still scented the air, which made Mae’s stomach growl. Mrs. Wiggit heard the noise, because she smiled and shoved a basket of biscuits and a pot of strawberry preserves across the table toward Mae.

  As Mae sliced the biscuit and spread the preserves, the cook said, “I don’t know how much longer I want to keep working here.” She kept her voice low. “If it weren’t for Andy, I’d have packed up and left right after the Capt’n took over.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Two years. Two long years,” Mrs. Wiggit sighed and stared into her coffee cup. “What was the BCS like before that?” Mae asked, curious whether the Capt’n was continuing bad practices or whether he had started his own.

  A smile lit the cook’s face. “Oh, it was wonderful. Mr. Carter was in charge and he was a fine man. Didn’t have all the peculiar rules. We could go anywhere in the building. He made us feel like we were part of a family. I like working with the boys, even taught a few of them to cook.” Her face turned wistful until bitterness twisted her lips. “But Mr. Carter decided it was time to retire. He moved up to Seattle to be near his daughter. Everything changed when the Capt’n got here. Said he didn’t want the boys ‘coddled,’ that they wer
en’t paying me to help out with the boys and my place was to stay in the kitchen, cooking.”

  The sight of the door to the basement edging open behind the cook’s back diverted Mae’s attention. Matthew’s face appeared briefly before the door was silently pulled shut. That was her cue. “Something’s not right here, I am sure of it,” she said to the cook before swallowing the last bite of biscuit and standing. “I’ll just head to the necessary and then I best get back to work. The dinner time pies won’t make themselves,” she said.

  Mae stepped into the basement hallway just in time to see Matthew slide into the coal room. She picked up her pace and followed him in, closing the door behind her. He put a finger to his lips and stepped over to the blurry glass of the dirty casement window. Carefully, he twisted the latch and the window silently fell open a few inches at the bottom. He motioned for Mae to stand beside him.

  She edged closer. Outside, the rain had stopped. In a shaft of sunlight the courtyard’s wet red bricks glistened and tiny water droplets glittered on the moss starting to turn green between them. A scrape of a foot on brick drew her attention to where two pairs of shoes stood just to the left of their open casement window. Mae widened her eyes at Matthew and he leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “The captain. Saw them sidle into the courtyard. Figured we should listen.”

  She nodded and they both edged closer, Mae slipping her finger into the gap at the window’s bottom to open it wider. The men’s voices were low but not so low that their words weren’t clear to the two eavesdroppers standing inside the dim basement.

  “I tell you. I don’t like this.” The Cap’n’s voice sounded higher than normal, as if he was anxious.

  “You don’t have to worry. It’s not you who will be sitting on the platform in City Park. Everything goes as planned, and nobody will ever connect me to the deed or you to me.”

  “But, what if it goes wrong? Every time I turn around, things are going wrong. That herd of women attacked and ruined the house yester . . . .”

  The curt, clipped words of his companion interrupted the Cap’n’s whining. “Now is not the time to turn coward. You agreed to help. You took money to help and you damn well will keep up your end of the bargain.”

  The snarl underlying the man’s words sent shivers up Mae’s spine. “Who?” she mouthed.

  “That’s his visitor,” Matthew mouthed back. The other man’s tone must have worried the Capt’n as well because his tone turned wheedling. “No, no, I’ll do what you ask. Besides, it’s only two more days before you’re gone and things can return to normal. Now, I didn’t mean that I don’t like having you here. You’re a fine guest. No trouble at all. It’s just the risk and afterward, they’re going to be looking at every stranger in town.”

  “I’ll be gone. That’s been arranged. My men rented a place with a small stable. I’ll be on a horse and heading out north within a half-hour.”

  “What about the doctor? How’s he going to explain where you disappeared to . . . oh,” the Capt’n voice trailed off as if he’d picked up on some nonverbal signal. In a tentative voice, he asked. “Won’t they back track where he’s been? Find out you stayed here?”

  “Who is going to tell them? You?”

  “Oh, God, no, I’d never tell. They’d hang me. I’m not stupid. Far as I know, the good doctor only came here to do the boys here a good turn, helping us out by doctoring them for free,” the BCS director hastened to reassure.

  The creak of a hinge sounded behind Mae and Matthew. The door to the basement hallway was opening. Before they could turn, a garbled childish voice shouted exuberantly, “Goody, goody, I found you. What is out that window? A cat?” They swiveled to see Andy. He hobbled toward them from the open doorway, his face brightly eager.

  As one, they turned back toward the window. Outside there was only one pair of shoes and this time the toes were pointed straight toward their window. It took no imagination to visualize the man staring down at the window, trying to see who lurked behind it.

  As one, they both rushed toward the coal room door, Matthew scooping up a squealing Andy on the way. They weren’t fast enough.

  The Cap’n’s visitor stood in the hallway, a scowl on his face, one of his hands sliding into a coat pocket. “Put the kid down,” he said.

  Matthew responded by hugging the now-silent little boy closer to his chest.

  The man’s hand came out of his pocket. Even in the dim light of the casement window there was no mistaking the metal barrel that extended from the man’s fist Matthew gently set Andy onto his feet. “He doesn’t know anything,” Matthew said, his voice reverting to the high squeak of an adolescence not completely past.

  The man studied the puzzled, twisted face of Andy and nodded. Mae put out a hand and gave Andy’s shoulder a gentle nudge. “You go on now, boy. Your mama was looking for you,” she said.

  Andy looked up at her, indecision wrinkling his forehead. She smiled at him, saying, “You go on now. We’ll be along in a bit. We need to talk to this man here.”

  Andy turned to Matthew. “Can we play tops?” he asked.

  For a second, Matthew was speechless, then he nodded, and said, smiling weakly, his face now deathly pale, “Yes, Andy. We’ll play with the tops. You go get them ready.”

  “Yay,” the little boy said and he limped away down the hallway. The three who remained behind said nothing, merely waited while he opened the kitchen door, stepped inside and closed it behind himself with a bang.

  The stranger gestured with the gun barrel toward the door– the one that opened into the stairwell. Matthew slid one arm around Mae’s shoulders and they wordlessly obeyed the silent order. Mae was glad of the strength in that arm, despite the acrid odor of Matthew’s sudden fear.

  THIRTY

  Dispatch: May 19, 1903, President’s train in Sacramento, California.

  “Of vital moment is the regulation and supervision of the great corporations . . . as well as securing fair play as between the big man and the little man . . . ” —T.R.

  A painful throb in his arm yanked him awake. At first, Meachum’s awareness focused solely on the arm. It felt twice its normal size. A hazy sense of urgency kept him motionless and silent. He lay, struggling to put the pain, memories and dreams aside and focus on the reality of the wood floor. It was rough, his cheek felt the sharp nick of splinters while the mingled scent of dirt and manure filed his nostrils Secondary pains radiated from arms tied behind his back and legs trussed together. A gritty rag filed his mouth, wicking spit and leaving his tongue feeling dry and cracked as an old shoe.

  Day had come. Gray light filtered through the grimy skylight overhead, pushing the dark into corners. So, he’d made it through another night. Not easily. God, he hurt. It was hard to feel a place not bruised by boot or fist Last night was the worst. The stranger knew how to target every vulnerable spot on his body and make it scream. Worst of all, the bastard had clearly enjoyed himself. That’s what his gleaming dark eyes had said though his tone implied the opposite. The torture had been coldly reasonable, passionless, matter-of-fact. He’d asked his question, paused for an answer that didn’t come, and then struck. Satisfaction surged momentarily. He’d told the stranger nothing. Not how much they knew of the plot. Not who was involved in stopping it.

  Through it all, Meachum kept his puffy lips clamped. And, peering from beneath swollen lids, Meachum had methodically memorized each line, each expression in the other man’s face. He’d know the bastard anywhere. His silent resistance had finally yielded the result, he sought. His beater had become infuriated and lost control. The blows had strengthened beyond bearing and oblivion once again had sent him out of reach into a troubling landscape of fearsome monsters and shadowy threats.

  Slowly Meachum shifted his body on the hard floor, trying to ease stabbing kinks and sore spots, fearful least his guards catch the movement. He didn’t want them summoning that sadist for a return bout. As bad as he hurt, the next round might be the last. A sharp pain drew h
is eyes to where the knife wound in his injured arm had torn open and was beginning to seep. Blood was soaking what he could see of the filthy sling and ripped plaid shirt. Maybe that was why his head felt light and his body so cold. Was he going to die of blood loss? That would be a fine kettle of fish And here he’d always thought his end would come swiftly, in the midst of battle or peacefully in bed, at an old age. Meachum’s lips tightened in a rueful grimace.

  Then, crystal clear, his mind’s eye conjured up the vision of the half-finished curio cabinet. He’d left it laying on its side, atop his workshop bench, its tenderly-sanded surfaces gleaming under their first coat of varnish. He could hear his own voice promising Mary he’d be home in time to finish it by her birthday. Tears of regret stung his eyes and the wordless ache filing his chest followed him down into blackness.

  * * *

  Sage sat at the kitchen table, palms pushed against his eye sockets, elbows resting on the table, ears registering muted conversation and the stacking of heavy crockery. He hadn’t been able to sleep. Every little noise jerked him wide awake, riding a gush of fear. Was it a knock on the door, the one bringing news that Fong had passed? Once alert, he could reassure himself, push aside that particular fear only to have the terrifying prospect of their mission’s failure take its place.

  Finally, Sage had hauled himself out of bed and into the streets. He found Meachum’s and Li’s men only to have them report that the night had yielded no positive news. Today and tomorrow, that was all the time they had left. According to the newspapers, Roosevelt had ended his sojourn in Yosemite with that nature lover, John Muir, and made a quick trip into Nevada. The president’s train would be rolling across the Oregon border later today. So, day after tomorrow, Roosevelt would arrive in Portland. Within hours their mission would be done, for better or for worse.