by S. L. Stoner
“Answer to the first question is that you’d think they hit port flush with months of unspent wages. There, you’d be wrong. Most ship captains won’t pay their sailors but a fraction of their owed wages when the berth is a U.S. port. Otherwise, too many men would take off and leave the ship stranded in port for lack of a crew. A sailing ship needs a minimum number of sailors to work the rigging. Without them, it can’t sail. That’s why sailors are prey for anyone who plies them with drink, knockout drops or maybe the chop of a sap behind their ear. Same thing happens to landlubbers who wander the streets penniless and hungry. They accept a friendly drink and wake up on their way to China.”
Franklin cautiously shifted position, sipped his whiskey and continued, “Mostly they don’t jump ship in mid-river because they’re below deck knocked out, tied up or locked in. And even if they reach the railing, that water’s mighty damn cold. A man can’t last long in it, especially close to the river’s mouth where the current’s treacherous. That’s how come my arms look like a gorilla’s. It’s all that rowing to and from the ships anchored in the river, waiting for the tide to turn.” Franklin extended heavily muscled arms that looked as if he made his living swinging an ax. More proof the man was telling the truth.
“So, tell us more about men being drugged or beaten and delivered aboard ships against their will,” Sage asked.
Franklin’s eyes took on a melancholy cast, as if he felt a pain more profound than his broken ribs. But he merely sighed before saying, “Sometimes they’re tricked aboard too. Maybe promised a job on a riverboat only to find themselves delivered to an oceangoing ship. That’s shanghaiing too. Sometimes I row out to a ship, and as I’m leaving a man dives into the river hoping I’ll fish him out and carry him back to shore. I’ve done so more than once.”
“Can’t make the captains too happy with you,” Sage observed. A small row boat, an immense river and an unscrupulous ship captain sounded like a deadly combination.
Franklin smiled grimly.“Been a few of them shot at me, even hit the rowboat. Ain’t been sunk yet but I’ve done some snappy bailing. Some ships, I don’t bother talking to the captain; I know he won’t cooperate. I just circle the ship in case someone wants off. ‘Course, if a man’s below deck tied or drugged up, he never gets the chance.” For a moment, Franklin gazed into somewhere else with unfocused eyes, a sadness washing over his face. Then he seemed to give himself a mental shake because he shrugged and sipped his whiskey, before saying, “Drugs, beatings, imprisonment, and trickery. That’s the evil, shanghaiing side of the crimping trade. That’s a different story.” Franklin gave a disgusted snort, “and not all of the bodies they sell are even living. There’s the sea captains, desperate short of men, willing to take any body delivered on board–just so they can raise sail. One crimp, Bunco Kelly, dumped twenty-six unconscious men onto a ship stranded in port. The captain paid top dollar for them, too.
“Anyway, the ship crosses the Columbia River bar, the captain goes to rouse them and finds his forecastle full of dying men. Turns out, they’d gotten their snoots full of the wrong stuff. They found an unlocked cellar full of barrels they thought held drink so they tapped into them and partied. Wouldn’t you know, it wasn’t drinking alcohol but embalming fluid, a mix of wood alcohol and formaldehyde. Bunco ambled by, heard them groaning and took advantage. ‘Course, nothing at all happened to Bunco. The captain was forced to berth in Astoria and report the deaths. Not because he was a good citizen but because he lacked sufficient crew members to attempt the open ocean.
“That captain kept his mouth clamped shut about who’d dumped the dying men onto his ship. Told authorities that it was dark and he didn’t know. No choice about that. Not if he wants to berth in Portland again. That kind of crimp has a very long memory. Make one of them mad and the next time that captain’s in port the crimp will strand him by stealing away all his men. A crimp does that, the shipping company loses too much money. And that usually means the captain loses his command.”
Mrs. Kincaid’s grief-stricken face seemed to shimmer before Sage’s inner eye. “Do shanghaied men ever find their way home again?” he asked.
Franklin shrugged, grimaced and said, “Depends. It’s called ‘shanghaied’ because, most times, the ships ride the current across the Pacific to Shanghai, China. Ships don’t usually beat back from that direction against the trade winds and they make more on cargo if they head east toward Europe. So, if a man wants to return heah, he must survive long enough to circumnavigate the globe. Takes about two years. If misfortune is his lot, he doesn’t make it.”
“Misfortune? What kind of misfortune?” Sage prodded, thinking of storm-tossed waves and evil-faced pirates. Sage didn’t particularly like sailing the ocean. Too much water. The last time he’d landed in the wet stuff, his boots acted like rocks tied to his feet, pulling him down toward the mucky river bottom. Maybe he wasn’t sailor material because he’d spent the first nine years of his life far from the ocean. Or, maybe, he drowned in a prior life. Some folks believed in such things. Whatever the explanation, Sage liked the water only so long as land lay within swimming distance.
“Well, there’s always the weather or a stray ice berg or two,” Franklin said. “But often, the greatest danger is your fellow shipmates. They’ll gut you for something you own or just for sport. Worst of all are the captains who help a crimp by disposing of a man the crimp doesn’t want seen again. Tidy, lasting way for the landlubbers to rid themselves of a troublemaker. Anyway, those captains work the man down to the nubbin before dumping him overboard. Voila! He disappears from the face of the earth, after swallowing too much deep blue sea.”
Sage and Solomon exchanged a long, serious, look. It fit. The idea of Joseph Kincaid being tossed overboard in the middle of the Pacific while still alive was horrific. Sage instantly decided that was one possible explanation he’d keep from Kincaid’s wife, no matter what. He’d make up a lie before he’d put that image into her mind. Still, how the heck was he ever going to find out whether shanghaiing was behind the young Kansan’s disappearance?
Franklin, oblivious to Sage’s dilemma, was continuing his explanation, “Then, of course, there’s the whaling ships. That North Pacific is a death trap. Even willing sailors gamble when they ship out on a whaler. Since kerosene’s invention, whaling isn’t nearly as profitable. So most whalers are leaky buckets and that Bering Sea is the roughest ocean in the world, except for the hellish Cape Horn around the tip of South America.”
Sage sent a questioning look toward Solomon. Was this man trustworthy? Solomon’s small slow nod indicated cautious assent.
Sage took a deep breath. It was a gamble, telling this stranger their business. Yet, he had to know. “Mr. Franklin, I’ve spent all night searching for a young man named Joseph Kincaid. He disappeared from outside a saloon upriver in Milwaukie over two weeks ago. He’s left a wife and baby behind. Is there a way to find out if Mordaunt or some other land shark shanghaied him?”
Franklin didn’t speak for a minute, just stared into the whiskey he was swirling around in the glass. Slowly he began, “There might be. Tell you what, I owe you for saving my life and bringing me here. I’ll ask around. What’s he look like?”
Sage pulled out the photograph, its edges bent from repeated handling, and passed it to Franklin. He took the picture, holding it up to the gaslight. “Nice looking boy. This here woman the wife?”
“Yes. That’s their wedding picture. Since they posed for it, a baby daughter named ‘Faith’ was born.”
Franklin shook his head slowly. “Well, it’s sure hard to believe he’d desert a looker like this gal of his own free will. So maybe he was shanghaied. About how long ago, you say?”
“The night of July thirty-first, over two weeks ago.”
Franklin swung his legs down to the floor, pain creasing his face as he struggled into a sitting position. “I am catching a steamboat back to Astoria in the morning. Tell you what. I’ll have a friend of mine ask about Kincaid here in
Portland, and when I reach Astoria, I’ll ask around there. You know the Seaman’s Friend chapel building situated at the corner of Third and Davis? It’s whitewashed brick.”
Sage took a moment to picture the street corner. That intersection was where noisy religious proselytizers frequently gathered. He tried to avoid it. “Yes, I know the place,” he said.
“Well, I’ll meet you Wednesday night in the chapel there. Entrance is off Davis Street. That’s when the Floating Society of Christian Endeavor holds a prayer session that’s open to everyone. I’ll sit on a rear bench. Take the seat next to me.” Franklin paused, his brow knitted. “Best that you act like you don’t know me. Something’s not right. I’ve been pondering on how those bushwhackers knew I was heah in town. This was supposed to be a quick trip upriver to meet with Reverend Quackenbush, the president of the Society. I possessed information I couldn’t entrust to writing. That’s because a ship captain told me that copies of my reports are ending up in the crimps’ hands. Tonight, Quackenbush and I made sure we met out of sight of any crimp. After we parted, though, this creepy, crawly feeling came over me. Like somebody was behind me, breathing down my neck. I told myself I was being overly anxious. Hah! Seems I wasn’t anxious enough.” Franklin’s rueful chuckle cut off abruptly. He pressed a palm to his ribs and sweat broke out across his forehead. After a few moments, he continued, “I can’t let loose of the idea that those two killers knew right where to find me.”
Sage knew the feeling. You sense danger until reason pushes it aside as fancy rather than fact. “Anymore, my rule of thumb is ‘trust your instincts.’ We’ve been given them for a reason,” he told Franklin and stood up. “Wednesday night at the Friend’s Chapel. I’ll be there. What time?” he asked.
“The second evening meeting starts about 9:00 o’clock. All the singing, preaching and amening ought to cover up our talk if we sit in the back. Say, if I need to send you a message, where do I send it?” Franklin asked.
Sage looked toward Solomon, who stirred to say, “You can send a message to Mr. Miner care of this hotel, Mr. Franklin. I’ll make certain that he gets it.”
Minutes later, as dawn began graying the eastern horizon, Franklin hobbled out the hotel’s rear door and headed deeper into the North End. Seconds later, Sage stepped from a nearby doorway and began following the injured man. He wanted to ensure that Franklin arrived safely at his destination. Sage also wanted to see where he went. Company spies riddled the labor movement.
Ten blocks later, he watched as Franklin climbed a flight of wooden steps and let himself into a nondescript boarding house on the west side of the North End. Sage noted its address. That done he headed south toward his bed–discourgaged. He was probably not a whit closer to finding Joseph Kincaid than when he’d begun.
The sounds of Fong setting the small table in the bay window penetrated Sage’s sleep. “Hello, Mr. Fong,” Sage rasped, as he struggled into a sitting position out of the nest his body had made in his horsehair mattress.
Fong started, dropping cutlery that shattered the china plate. Sage froze, astonished. During the nearly two years he’d known Fong, the man never displayed anything other than absolute physical control. He seemed incapable of clumsiness. And ordinarily, Fong sensed when Sage was awake before Sage raised his eyelids.
“Are you all right, Mr. Fong?”
“Sorry,” Fong mumbled, picking up the broken pieces. “Thinking of something else.” It was a mindlessly spoken response. Sage squinted at his friend. Fong’s lips formed a grim line and dark smudges surrounded his eyes. The sight brought Sage thoroughly awake. Before he could say anything, Fong departed abruptly, leaving a dumbfounded Sage staring at the closed door.
What the heck was wrong with Fong? Sage swiftly surveyed his own recent activities and found no clue to the answer. Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine anything he’d done to offend Fong. And even if Fong felt offense, he wouldn’t show it or act this way. Something else. It must be something else.
“Whatever has gotten into him, I’d better find out what it is,” Sage muttered, flipping aside the bedclothes and snatching up his trousers.
Fong slid back into the room carrying a new plate. He finished setting the table in absolute silence.
Uncertain what to say, Sage took a chair and reached for the coffee pot, his head feeling sodden from lack of sleep. “We missed you yesterday evening, Mr. Fong,” he began.
“Very sorry,” Fong interrupted. “Something came up. Not possible for me to return.” He didn’t sound sorry, he sounded irritated at being prodded.
Sage waited for more explanation. Instead, Fong snatched the John Miner clothes from the floor and disappeared once again.
Hearing a step in the hallway, Sage looked up from his food, fully expecting Fong to return. This time Sage wanted Fong’s explanation for leaving them in a lurch. Fong owed them at least that.
It was his mother, not Fong who entered. “Oh, I thought you were Mr. Fong,” Sage said.
“Good morning to you, too,” she responded. The quirk at the corner of her lips said she wasn’t offended.
“Did he tell you where he disappeared to last night?” he asked.
Before answering, she sat, filled a cup with coffee, and leaned back in her chair. Flour dusted the shine of her hair. Evidently she’d been baking up a storm. “No,” she said, “he hasn’t said a single word to me about where he was. He told me he was sorry, but I can’t say for certain that he felt sorry.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “I’m getting worried. It’s not like Mr. Fong to disappear without a word. I can’t think what’s got ahold of him. He’s not acting like himself.”
“No kidding,” Sage said as he forked into his eggs. They were cold. Another mark against the man. What was the explanation for these changes? It might take a little prodding, but Sage was sure Fong would give him one. After all, they’d been friends for some while. “Oh, well, it’s probably nothing, Mother,” he assured her. “We’ll find out eventually.”
Sage gave up on breakfast and pushed the half-eaten eggs around his plate. “Besides, we’ve bigger problems right now to worry about. Were you able to visit with Mrs. Kincaid?”
For a brief instant she studied him before apparently accepting his change of topic. “Indeed I did, while you slept half the day away. I took the interurban train out and back. And I must say that having talked to her, I see why you’re worried. I feel unsettled about her state of mind. I suppose she told you about her upbringing and all?”
“No, we never talked about that.” Sage laid down his fork. Damn, she was right. He should have asked Mrs. Kincaid more about their background. Maybe it held a clue to her husband’s whereabouts.
“Well, she started out being orphaned somewhere back East,” Mae reported. “Her mother died when she was born and after hauling her from pillar to post for a few years, her father dumped her in an orphanage, and that was the last she saw of him. When she was twelve or so, the orphanage shipped trainloads of adolescent girls to the Midwest. She landed in Kansas to work as kitchen help for Joseph’s family. The Kincaids needed the help. They have a big farm with a lot of farmhands to feed. One thing led to another, the two young folks fell in love and they eloped. Probably had to, truth be known. It made his folks furious. Their social aspirations for their only son were higher than an orphan girl. Their anger hurt her terrible. After having lived six years with them she thought of them as family. Anyways, she and Joseph headed out here to start a new life.”
Sage pushed aside the lace curtain to study the sky that showed above the building across the way. Two gulls wheeled silently in its summer blue. A sailor once told him gulls mated for life. “So,” he said thoughtfully, “she really is all alone, like she told me.” The young woman’s plight felt like a blow to the heart.
His mother nodded. “That’s how it looks,” she agreed. “But it’s hard to believe her in-laws are so unforgiving that they wouldn’t want to see their only grandchild. Such a precious little bab
y, Faith is,” she said, her tone wishful.
Sage spoke quickly. A discussion about future grandchildren was definitely someplace he had no desire to go. “Maybe we might try to contact Kincaid’s parents; let them know what’s happened.”
She nodded, pulled a scrap of paper from her apron pocket and passed it across the table. “The same idea came to me, too. So, I talked her into giving me their name and the town where they live. Thought I’d send them a telegram to let them know what’s happened. Once that’s done, it’s up to them.
“I’m worried, Sage. That girl’s itching to act something foolish. Somehow, she has taken it in her head that her husband has abandoned her just like her father did. I blame those ignorant policemen for that idea. Too darn lazy to go looking so they harped on with that explanation. Given her background, it likely rang true in her mind. I tried talking sense to the gal.” Mae shook her head. “There’s no saying she took it in. I tell you, my boy, and this is going to sound hard, but I think it’s better she knows he can’t return to her. It will be a sight better than if she keeps on thinking that maybe he just headed off to start a new life. Besides, I don’t think he left her on purpose. That idea just doesn’t have teeth. Everything she told me about the boy says differently.”
Mae’s fingers chased stray breadcrumbs across the tablecloth with the intensity of a hungry dog turned loose on a dirty kitchen. She was a tough woman, used to tough times. If she was that worried about Mrs. Kincaid and her baby there was no time to waste. Sage shifted uncomfortably. What else was there for him to do? He’d searched all last night and found nothing.
He cleared his throat and she looked up from her crumb herding, “I can’t shake the awful feeling that Joseph Kincaid is dead,” he told her. “It weighs down my thoughts. Makes it hard to keep looking for him.”
She wasn’t in a sympathetic mood. “Well, I think you better be finding out what happened to him sooner rather than later. At least find his body. That young woman is hanging on to hope by a fingernail. I hate to imagine what will happen when that fingernail gives out. She needs to know what really happened to that man of hers.”