by Daniel Knapp
"And they hanged her? For defending herself?" Esther asked, appalled.
"Yes. Despite the finding of my husband, Dr. Carson, that she was at least three months pregnant."
Esther and Murietta turned and looked again at the semitransparent form lying on the ground under the scaffold.
"God… Oh, good God," Esther exclaimed. "Then that is… ?"
"It is indeed the fetus," the woman said, giving a scathing look to a trio of miners walking by. "Two other men who claim to be doctors examined the woman at great length, I might add—and gave the opinion that she was not with child. A half-minute or so after they hanged the poor creature, the unborn baby dropped from her womb."
Esther gasped. She turned to look again and saw a miner scooping up the formless mass beneath the dead woman with a shovel. Expressionlessly, he walked off toward the edge of the woods. "I cannot believe this," Esther said. "I cannot believe it!" Lightheaded, she started to sway.
Murietta, still ashen, got down from his horse and steadied her.
The doctor's wife started toward her tent-shanty, then hesitated. "I would leave this place if I were you. These mountains, in fact. There is an evil growing here that passes understanding."
"It is the gold," Esther murmured, trembling as she thought of Miwokan's words.
The woman nodded her head. "Yes, you might be right. I am beginning to believe that it contains the seed of the devil himself."
Or the wrath of the sun, Esther thought.
After that, Esther had no stomach for additional surveying of the new water-machinery. Turning about abruptly, she and Murietta rode half the night to Allegheny Camp, put up in a vacant tent, and continued south in the morning. They hardly spoke during the entire trip. When they finally reached the South Fork, Murietta stayed drunk on the claim and then in Placerville, the new name the miners had given Hangtown, for three days. The business at Downieville had shaken him as much as it had Esther. When he sobered up, she called him to the cabin.
"I no longer wish to live here," she said after pouring him a cup of fresh coffee. "I do not want to be near all these people—and what some of them are doing."
He shook his head, not sure he had heard her right, certain that his hangover was playing tricks with his ears.
"I want you to become a full partner with me, run the claim after I leave."
It took a minute for him to let it sink in. "Where will you go?" he finally asked, sadness fast coming over him.
"I don't know. San Francisco first, to make arrangements. Then someplace where I will be away from all the madness. Will you accept?"
"Miwokan will not like this."
"He is not my guardian! I own the property! I shall do as I please!" Esther shouted.
"I meant only that he will not like my being the boss."
"I'm sorry, Joaquin. I haven't been myself since Downieville. Will you run the claim for me?"
"Not as a partner. But as a foreman, for wages, yes."
"You do not want to become rich? Do you think there is something wrong with that?"
He thought carefully about his answer. He did not want to betray his thoughts about the subtle hardening in Esther's personality over the last year. Or his belief that the gold had caused it. "For others, not necessarily… For me, it would not be a good thing."
"As you like. I will pay you as much or more than any foreman in the fields."
"Whatever you decide, Esther. But what of Miwokan?"
"He will simply have to get used to it. He does not have to know everything. You handle the shipping of the gold, anyway. Simply deduct your salary from the shipment privately, and keep an accounting of it only for me."
"It is all in the way I handle it, in other words?"
"Yes. The way things are done doesn't have to change. You will simply know that I consider you the foreman. And Miwokan will not be unhappy about us being apart."
Murietta sighed. "I suspected he had such feelings."
"It will pass. Especially if I am no longer here."
"In time," Murietta said, wondering how long it would take him to get used to her absence himself. "Everything will be carried out in the same way, then?"
"Yes. You will continue shipping the gold to Blue Star. Since you will need to be here, I will arrange in San Francisco for Adams and Company to carry it. I will let you know where I settle as soon as I can. I want you to inform me if the new mail and express operation established by—a man named Alexander Todd, begins servicing Placerville. If it does, I would like to shift the business to his firm."
"As you wish," Murietta said, betraying curiosity about Esther's wish.
"Todd is—a friend of Warren Barnett," she quickly added. "He——he comes highly recommended."
That night at the village, she informed Miwokan of her decision. He accepted the change more stoically than she expected. After visiting with Solana and Moses, she said good-bye to them all, "For the time being, anyway," and returned to the cabin. She pored over its contents, deciding what to take and what to leave. When she said farewell to a glum Murietta the following morning and rode for Sacramento, she had with her only her clothing, her diary, toiletries, the comb-and-brush set Alex had given her, Murietta's gold locket-watch and the heart-shaped amulet fashioned by Miwokan. The night before, for the first time in all these months, she had realized she no longer had the antique watch "Uncle" Billy Graves had given her the day she became separated from the snowshoe party. Now, as she continued toward Sacramento, she wondered if Mosby had it; or if one of Sutter's Kanakas had taken it—surely Sutter himself wouldn't; or if it had simply been lost as she made her way down out of the mountains.
Two days later, as she waited to board the paddle-wheeler Sacramento, she was too preoccupied with the city's unusual post office, which had been established aboard the docked bark Whiton, to notice or hear the big-bellied, red-bearded passenger from San Francisco who brushed past her as he came down off the gangplank.
Isaac Claussen did not fail to notice Esther. Turning to the man carrying his mining equipment, Claussen laughed. He nodded back toward the attractive woman in the veiled hat. "Like 'em plumper, myself. But that's just the sort of machinery drives old Mosby wild. Skinny with big tits." Claussen looked back one last time as he headed away from the embarcadero dock. "Maybe old Alamo knows somethin' I don't," he said, laughing again. "I'll have to ask him." His face went curious. "Wonder where the son'bitch is keepin' hisself these days?"
Thirty-nine
Esther stood staring out through the window in William Kelsey's office, wondering where fate or luck would place her next. Before her lay what seemed like a forest of tall trees denuded by a raging fire. Between eight hundred and a thousand sailing ships sat crowded together in and beyond the cove, abandoned, stripped of their sailcloth and rocking gently in the still, midmorning interval between the fog and the formidable afternoon wind. Here and there a stately vessel cut slowly through an open channel dissecting the marine graveyard.
A block down Montgomery Street on the waterfront, one huge ship had been shoved up against a wharf, demasted, leveled to the deck, and rebuilt to serve as a giant warehouse. Another, its decks ripped off and turned over on its side, had been partitioned and fronted with canvas compartments. In and out of the tent flaps, men, women, and children moved back and forth, carrying furniture, personal items, and provisions.
Esther walked back out through the office and gave William Kelsey a comforting look. Harried, he had spent a few minutes with her earlier, then, after sending someone for Warren Barnett, had excused himself. He was virtually surrounded by clerks, each of them holding a ledger, a sheaf of lading bills, consignment orders, or correspondence that needed his attention. The din of a hundred hammers pulsed through the doorway as Esther stepped back out onto the wooden sidewalk to reconfirm what she had seen from her room at the Parker House on Portsmouth Square early that morning.
Everywhere men were busy building, teams of them nailing down roofs, others
raising preconstructed house frames into place; draymen hauling lumber, barrowmen wheeling shingles to waiting carpenters. Here and there bricklayers moved incessantly, scooping, slapping, placing, and setting in a continuous rhythm. The walls they were erecting seemed almost to grow, back and forth, line by line, by themselves behind the blurred movements of the craftsmen.
The city was three times the size it had been when she last saw it. Wooden houses, many of them enlarged by canvas extensions, and a veritable sea of tents spread across the flatlands and crept up the hills like an enormous living growth of multihued ground-cover. Clusters of shy, narrow-eyed Chinese hurried across intersections. Several Frenchmen argued volubly with an express agent across the street. Twenty Chileans, their heads poking through ponchos, labored under the weight of mining equipment on their way to a steamboat and Sacramento. Malays, Sonorans, Yankees, Kanakas—Esther was certain she had counted a dozen nationalities, not including the fairer faced men whose clothing did not immediately identify their origin. Finally she saw Warren Barnett step out of the door of his newly established assay office down the street.
"Well, what do you think?" Barnett said as he guided her back toward Blue Star's private offices. "Do we not have a city abuilding here?"
"Indeed you do."
"It will one day be one of the world's great trade centers."
"Gold or no gold," Esther said, thinking beyond the present.
"Exactly." Barnett ushered her to a chair and then sat down himself. The desk seemed like a toy from a child's playhouse with his bulk behind it.
"You are comfortable at the Parker House?"
"Quite comfortable, and fascinated by the gaming establishments on the plaza."
"Yes," he said, noting her expression of tolerant amusement. "Well, we have a city, and with cities come problems. We are looking for ways to unseat some unscrupulous men in office who are busy lining their pockets by allowing such things to get out of hand. It will all end well, though. I think the outcome of the convention—one outcome, at least—will be the legislative and judicial tools to deal with these rascals."
"Convention?"
"It will be a glorious thing. Just between you and me—and William, of course—I think a great deal more will be framed at Monterey. The Frémonts will be there—drumming up support for a U.S. Senate nomination."
The incongruity of a senatorial campaign before California achieved statehood was lost on Esther as she wondered if the Frémonts might know of Mosby's whereabouts. My God, she thought. Why haven't I thought of them before? Suddenly she was filled with excitement. Aware that Barnett was watching her, she quickly said, "I hope something will be resolved about the lack of law in the gold fields. And steps taken to ensure the rights and safety of those who lived here long before we arrived."
"The Indians? Yes, something has to be done. Why, just the other day, near the Mokelumne River, a band of drunken miners amused themselves by taking target practice on a Maidu encampment!"
"Miwok," Esther said absently, still thinking of Frémont and Mosby.
Barnett looked puzzled.
"South of the American and in beyond the foothills, the Indians are of the Miwok subtribes," Esther explained.
"Yes, of course. You would know that, living near Placerville."
"I mean for it no longer to be my home."
Barnett was surprised. "You're moving here, to San Francisco?"
"No. That's one reason I wished to talk with you. As William may have told you, I am… ah… of a somewhat reclusive nature. I find it no longer tolerable to live in an area so overcrowded."
"Are you planning to sell your property?"
"No, it's in capable hands. Mr. Murietta, whom I believe you have met, will be running things for me at the South Fork."
"I'm happy to hear that. He's a good man, and I'm convinced you haven't even touched the potential of the country."
"You may be right," she replied, remembering what Sutter had once told her: Mosby had left Frémont soon after arriving in California. Still…
"In any case," Barnett went on, "where do you wish to live? There is much land here, although I wouldn't advise building in town. There's a lack of privacy, and I foresee a danger in the central areas. We have already experienced several disastrous fires."
"Really? One would never know from the look of things."
"Rebuilt within a matter of days." Barnett shook his head in wonderment. "It is as though nothing, not even God, can stop the growth of this city."
"Yes. Well, for the moment, I don't wish to live here. I would like to remain in the foothill area." Frémont must know, she willed silently.
"It will be difficult to find a place not teeming with prospectors. They range as far north as the Yuba, and there are literally hordes of Sonorans as well as native miners down around the Stanislaus and the…" Barnett paused. "There is one area," he said, musing. "The Frémonts are building a ranch near a place called Mariposa."
Esther's heart leaped. If they do not know now, perhaps in the future, if I am situated near them…
"It's wild and beautiful country," Barnett continued, "relatively unsettled at the moment. It's more than possible another tract of land could be obtained for you with the help of Consul Larkin."
The name triggered a burst of nostalgia and longing for Alex. She fought it off. "I would like that very much." Her mind churned again about Fremont and Mosby. "Would it be possible for me to meet with Mr. Larkin?"
"I am sure I can arrange it."
The strong possibility that John Charles Frémont could provide her with information concerning Mosby's whereabouts made her hands tremble. "Would it be too much trouble to make another request?"
"Name it, dear lady. If it is within my power…"
She pretended she could not look Barnett in the eye. "You will think me foolish…"
"Never you mind about that. What is it?"
"I have… I have heard so much about… John Charles Frémont," she whispered, feigning a shyness she did not feel. "And his extraordinary wife. He is… has become a…"
"Sort of a hero to you?"
Esther put her glove to her lips and lowered her gaze. "Yes." She wondered if acting on a stage was this easy.
"And you would like to meet him?"
"How did you…? Yes. And his wife, of course."
"Consider it done," Barnett said as Kelsey walked into the office. "And don't be so shy about your admiration for the man. It's shared by many. John Charles Frémont may be too conservative for some political tastes, but he's nonetheless a hero of the first order. Am I not right, William?"
Kelsey glanced at her, then at Barnett, glared briefly before deciding to avoid a political debate centering on Frémont. "Of course." But then, unable to control himself, he added, "Everyone knows he conquered California all by himself."
"Oh, William!" Esther said, maintaining her pose, "you're just jealous."
"Of that vain little squirt? That windbag?"
"Well, Warren and I think he is a patriot, don't we, Warren? And I would like to meet him."
"No harm in that," Kelsey said, backing off. "Just take along some cotton."
"Cotton?" Esther said.
"For your ears. The man never stops talking."
I hope not, she thought.
Forty
Barnett and Kelsey took her to lunch at Tong Ling's in Jackson Street. As they argued about Frémont, she toyed with her food and wondered how she would get The "Pathfinder" to talk about Mosby without being obvious. The dishes were too hot for her taste, but Esther's first experience with the delectably milder chow-chow took her mind off Monterey for the moment. Over steaming tea she made arrangements for a shift in procedure at Blue Star. She had long since paid for her third of the company's privately held stock, and she wanted any funds due her henceforth to be deposited at the newly established banking arm of Adams and Company.
"What's wrong with the Mercantile Bank?" Barnett asked. "Blue Star has been doing busines
s with them since—"
"I engaged Adams and Company to haul my gold yesterday. This will simplify matters."
"The Mercantile people are powerful," Barnett said. "We don't want them as enemies."
"I'm not suggesting Blue Star shift its account. I simply find that the Mercantile seems to be far less efficient and much more rude these days," Esther said.
"She's right about that." Kelsey was enjoying having her on his side now that the Frémont discussion was over. "That bank not only is putting people off by smugly assuming there are few other places so secure, it's resting on its laurels. Eventually, Adams might be a better place to have your money."
They got up, and Barnett paid for the meal with gold dust. The Chinese proprietor slowly weighed it on a small set of scales.
"Why aren't you paying in bills or coin?" Esther asked.
"Dust is handy to me at the assay office."
"And there is a shortage of coins and bills," Esther said as they left the restaurant. "I learned of it yesterday."
"That's true," Barnett said as they passed a market displaying squash from Hawaii. "A lot of people are finding it inconvenient to pay with dust."
"I asked if something could be done about the problem yesterday at the Mercantile," Esther said. "All I got was exasperated looks—and rudeness."
"Too cocksure of themselves," Kelsey said. "Keep it up, theyah gonna lose all theyah customers."