According to Pa Emmet, Virginia City was also full of Chinamen, Mexicans, Indians, Cornishmen, Irishmen, Miners, Desperados, Gamblers, Gunmen & Lawyers. He said the Lawyers were the worst of all. He called them “the Devil’s Own” & said those smooth-talking crooks could make you give them all you had. He said he would rather dine with a Soiled Dove or a Mississippi Gambler than with one of those Lawyers.
“Devil’s Gate!” cried the driver, and I lifted my head to see two demonic rocks rearing up on either side of the road and the stagecoach about to pass between them. As we passed between them, the driver slowed down for a toll house. I glanced behind me. I could see no riders in pursuit. Should I get off now while the getting was good? Before I could decide, the driver tossed the toll-keeper a coin and lashed the horses & said “Heeya!” and we were off again.
There was no going back now.
As we climbed higher & higher up the canyon road, I felt like something was pushing my ears, making them hurt. Then there was a kind of pop in my ears & my head felt empty & I could hear more acutely than ever.
That was when I first heard the music of Virginia City.
It was faint at first, but soon I could hear it even over the noisy stagecoach: a kind of thumping dirge, deep & low. Mixed up with the rhythmic pounding of horses’ hooves and the jingling of the harness it became something like a song. Any noise with a strong slow beat has a peculiar effect on me. It makes me feel calm & floaty, and time seems to dissolve. As the coach went higher, the music of the mountain got louder & I went into a kind of trance. I don’t know if it lasted a few minutes or a few hours, but the sudden jolting halt of the stage combined with a shrill mine whistle brought me to my senses.
“Gold Hill,” called the driver. “Next stop Virginia City!”
I came back to the world like a swimmer surfacing from a deep-flowing river. We had stopped by a hotel near some of the biggest tailings I had seen, like giant anthills streaked with yellow & gold & orange in the hot afternoon sunlight.
I could see some mine buildings further up the sage-dotted slopes & I realized the rhythmic thudding came from the many Quartz Stamp Mills within them. One of these mills stood outside the building rather than inside. It was a door-shaped frame twice as high as the stagecoach with eight metal rods, pumping up & down like the legs of a dancer. Miners shoveled rocks from behind and the pulverized quartz was delivered into the mine building to be turned into silver. Miss Marlowe had explained it once but I did not understand. I reckoned there must be a thousand of them in Virginia City to make the ground throb as if a giant’s heart was beating beneath it.
Soon the stage was off again, but slowly this time. Once again the road was climbing steeply & making the poor horses strain. At last we topped a rise & I saw the dome of a barren mountain blotting out half the sky ahead of me. Six or seven streets descended like stairs on that steep mountainside with the top of the stairs on my left and the bottom on my right. Each step was a street of brick or wooden houses with a few tents scattered here & there. We were now following some hay wagons and our pace had slowed considerably. As we reached the outskirts of the town we ground to halt.
“C Street, Virginia!” cried the driver. “This coach goes on to the International Hotel but you can get off here if you like. You’ll probably be there before us,” I heard him add under his breath.
Below me one of the doors opened & I felt the stage rock a little & I peeped down to see a pink & black parasol get off. I glanced back one final time to make sure Walt was nowhere around. He wasn’t, so I sat up & tapped the driver on the shoulder & when he turned his head I held out my gold coin.
“Shoot,” he said, & spat a stream of tobacco juice at the ground. “I ain’t got change for a twenty-dollar gold piece. You pay me next time you see me. Get your reverend pa to put in a kind word for me with the Good Lord. Name’s Jas Woorstell. Two o’s and two l’s.”
I nodded & closed my eyes & silently prayed, “Dear Lord, as my pa is dead and cannot ask you I am asking you myself: please bless Jas Woorstell—two o’s and two l’s—for his Christian kindness.” Then I eased myself down off the back of the stagecoach & jumped onto the dusty ground.
An empty buckboard had pulled up behind us and there was more traffic behind it.
I thought, “This C Street appears to be the Main Street.”
Then I thought, “I’d best get off it, in case Walt and his pards are still in pursuit.”
Feeling breathless and dizzy, I scrambled down a steep road between some sage bushes & shacks & a Mine Building and then I turned left along a dusty but level street & hurried along with my head down for a while.
By and by I thought, “I have arrived in Satan’s Playground. I had better get my bearings.”
So I stopped and looked around.
Dayton has two Chinese laundries, but this appeared to be a whole street of them, along with a lumberyard & a brewery & some more tailings. Steam & smoke rose from the roofs of wooden shacks crammed side by side. I could smell lye and starch. Lines of clothing flapped in the late afternoon breeze & some sheets were even laid out on the roofs of the shacks. There were Chinese people everywhere. A few signs were in Chinese letters but most were in English. They said things like SEE YUP, WASHER & IRONER and SAM SING & AH HOP, WASHING.
There was a water pump outside one of the laundries right there at the side of the street. I was mighty dusty from riding on top of the stage, so I went over to it & pumped some water & splashed it on my face. Then I pumped some more and bent my head to drink when a woman’s voice called out, “Stop! Don’t drink that! It’s poison!”
Ledger Sheet 8
“STOP!” CRIED THE WOMAN. “No drinkee!”
I turned & saw that it was the woman with the parasol from the stage. She had brown hair with a little feathered hat perched on top and a puffy red and pink dress.
She said, “No drinkee water. It heap bad medicine.”
I said, “Beg pardon?”
She said, “Oh! You speak English. I thought you were an Indian. I wanted to warn you that the water hereabouts is undrinkable. It is tainted with arsenic, plumbago and copperas.”
I did not know what any of those things were but they sounded nasty.
I said, “What do people drink?”
She said, “Mainly whiskey.” She smiled. I could not tell if it was Smile No. 1 or Smile No. 2.
I studied her carefully. Her red and pink dress was puffy below the waist & skimpy above. It had some faded black lace on it & I judged it had seen better days. Her fringed parasol matched the dress. She also had a pearly fan and a pretty beaded purse.
She tipped her head on one side and said, “Wasn’t it nice of the driver to let you keep your twenty-dollar gold piece?”
I said, “Are you a Soiled Dove?”
The woman’s eyes opened wide. They were as blue as the sky above.
I said, “The reason I asked if you are a Soiled Dove is this: my dead pa used to say that women who wear red and black lace are usually Soiled Doves, but I see you are wearing a corset, so I cannot be sure.”
“Well, yes,” she said, fanning herself. “I suppose you could call me a Soiled Dove, only it is not real polite to call a person that to her face. I prefer the term Actress.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said. “I did not mean to offend you.”
“Then no offense taken.” She looked me up and down. “Can you tell me why you are dressed like an Indian but speak like an American?”
“I am half white, ma’am. My name is P.K. Pinkerton.”
“Pleased to meet you, P.K. My name is Belle Donne.”
She held out her hand. She was wearing dusty black gloves. I shook it. She smelled of rose oil and whiskey.
“I was just visiting a gentleman friend over in Como,” she said, “but I live here in Virginia, in a c
rib up on D Street.”
“How can you live in a crib?” I said. “That is where babies sleep.”
She said, “Here in Virginia they call a one-room frame house a crib. It must be your first time up here.”
“Yes, ma’am. We only moved to Dayton four months ago.”
She was still smiling. “Would you like me to show you around?”
I nodded. I was glad to have a resident of the place show me around, even if she was a low-class woman who sometimes sparked men for pay.
Belle gestured at the dusty street with her fan. “This is F Street. People here call it Chinatown. Many people despise the Celestials and only tolerate them because they are the best launderers. However, I like them. I find them to be even-tempered & calm. I live up on D Street but I intend to move up to A Street as soon as I can bag a rich banker or broker. See up there?” She used her folded fan to point up the mountain. “The most desirable houses are highest up. They have hardly any shootings.”
I said, “Shootings?”
She said, “You often see men shooting at each other right out in the open. But they don’t mean nothing by it. It’s just that people drink a lot of liquor here in Virginia and everybody carries a gun.”
“Do you carry a gun?” I said.
“Of course.” She fished down the front of her low-cut dress & pulled out a small Deringer handgun with an engraved barrel and walnut grip.
I swallowed hard. My pa had warned me about Virginia City. I had not been here two minutes & had already met a pistol-packing Soiled Dove & heard of drunken murder in the streets.
She said, “This piece may look small, but it has a few surprises.” She replaced the Deringer & said, “Carson mills silver under trees some where.”
I said, “Beg pardon?”
We were walking north now, with the mountain on our left. Belle Donne said, “When I first moved here three months ago, I devised a clever way to learn the names of the streets. All the streets named after letters run north to south and they are flat as pancakes. It is the crossroads that give you trouble. They are real steep and their names are not as easy to remember as ABC. So I made up a sentence using the first letters of each: Carson Mills Silver Under Trees Some Where. That stands for Carson Street, Mill Street, Sutton, Union, Taylor, Smith and Washington.”
I said, “Carson Mills Silver Under Trees Some Where. That is clever. What is that street up ahead?”
Belle said, “That is Mill Street. We will turn up it & then double back to my place on D Street. My crib is not far as the crow flies, but as you see, Chinatown and the steepness of the cliff and the lumberyard along with the tailings of the mines and so forth means there are no cross streets here.”
She was right. I could see the next street up above us, but no easy way of getting there.
“What are you doing here in Virginia, P.K.?” said Belle Donne as we walked along.
I felt dizzy, so I took a breath & said, “Some desperados disguised as Indians just murdered my foster parents. They are after me. I only escaped because I am dressed like an Indian, too. I do not think they were expecting that.”
“Oh.” She pressed her fingers to the base of her throat & stopped walking. “Why did they kill your foster parents? And why are they after you?”
We had stopped outside a laundry. The sign had some Chinese writing & below it: HONG WO, WASHER. There was a boy about my age or a little older standing in the front yard. He had his back to us & he was pegging up sheets. He wore a faded blue collarless shirt & loose blue trousers & a dusty black skullcap. He had a long black pigtail.
Belle looked at me & I looked at her.
I said, “I am not sure if I can trust you. The stagecoach let us off on C Street and you live on D Street, so why are you down here on F Street? I reckon you followed me.”
Belle laughed. “The reason I came down here was to pick up some washing from Mr. Yup, but it was not quite ready. Then I saw you about to taste that poisonous water and thought it was my Christian duty to help.” She smiled and fanned herself. “So tell me why those men are after you.”
Her smile was so pretty that I reckoned it was Expression No. 1: a Genuine Smile.
“I think they want this,” I said. I pulled out my medicine bag & took out the Letter & handed it to her.
She took it & opened it but frowned when she saw it. “Do I look like a schoolmarm?”
I thought of Miss Marlowe in Dayton, who always wears dark colors with long sleeves and a buttoned-up neck. “No, ma’am,” I said. “You do not look like a schoolmarm.”
She sighed deeply and rolled her eyes. “I cannot read fancy writing like that. Please read it to me.”
I read it to her.
“Why, P.K.,” said Belle Donne when I finished, “I believe that Letter is a kind of Last Will & Testament. I have never heard of Pleasant Town or Sun Peak but it might refer to land hereabouts, because it names the Divide.”
“What is the Divide?” I asked.
Belle pointed with her fan. “It is that there hump in the mountainside we just came over, that had our horses straining so. It lies between Virginia and Gold Hill.”
I said, “Do you think I could get money for this Letter?” I noticed that the Chinese boy had stopped pegging up sheets & was watching us.
“I am sure of it,” she said. Her eyes were real bright. “If desperados want it badly enough to kill for it, why then it is probably worth a thousand dollars at least. You should take it to the Recorder’s Office and show it to them. Or perhaps a Lawyer.”
I said, “Lawyers are the Devil’s Own. I will not have anything to do with them.” I folded up the Letter & put it back in my medicine bag. “Where is the Recorder’s Office?”
“There is one up on A Street near Sutton across from the Newspaper. I believe there is also one in Gold Hill, on the other side of the Divide.”
I said, “A Street near Sutton.” Then I repeated, “Carson Mills Silver Under Trees Some Where.”
Belle Donne was looking back along F Street, the way we had come. Her eyes were wide & she was pressing her fingers to the base of her throat again.
“P.K.,” she said. “How many desperados dressed as Indians are after you and that Letter?”
“Three,” I said.
“Riding two horses and a mule?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Get behind me, P.K. They are coming this way.”
Ledger Sheet 9
WALT & HIS TWO PARDS were riding slowly down F Street, looking left and right.
They did not look excited nor had they spurred their mounts to a gallop, so I judged they had not seen me. But any moment they would. I desperately looked around for a place to hide.
“P.K.,” said Belle Donne. “Climb under my skirt.”
It was a strange request but I saw immediately that she was right. Unless one of the Celestials would instantly give me shelter, the only place to hide was under her big hoopskirt. Quick as a telegram, I darted underneath it.
It was like being in a pink tent with two slender legs instead of a tent pole. Belle Donne was wearing ruffled white bloomers & white stockings & dusty black ankle boots with about a dozen hooked buttons on each side. It was cool under there, but also dusty. I felt my nose prickle.
I crouched down under there and waited. My mouth was dry. I could feel the mountain thumping & I could hear a donkey braying & some Celestials arguing in Chinese. I heard some quail in the sage. They were crying, “Chicago! Chicago!” the way they do. Then I heard the clop of horses getting nearer. Then the clopping stopped & I heard the jingle of a bridle & Walt’s voice saying, “Excuse me, ma’am, but did you just get off the stage from Como?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
The dust under Belle Donne’s hoopskirt was making my nose prickle real bad. I
stifled a sneeze by pinching my nostrils shut.
“Do you remember,” said Walt, “was there a boy on board? About twelve years old? Only he run away from Temperance and his relatives have sent us to fetch him back.”
“I’m sorry,” said Miss Donne. “But I do not recall seeing a boy on board.”
I did not know it then, but the air in Virginia is real thin & when you first arrive you can feel sick & dizzy. I was feeling its effects just then & the ground started to tip to one side. To steady myself, I let go of my nose and grabbed hold of Belle Donne’s knees.
“Oooh!” said Belle Donne.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” said Walt’s voice.
“Yes,” said Belle Donne. “Yes, I believe it is only a flea in my corset. It made me jump.”
“I would be happy to fetch it out for you,” said Raspy Voice.
I was still clinging to Belle’s legs & I felt them trembling.
“Not now, Dub,” said Walt. “We got other fish to fry.”
I heard the creak of a saddle & the soft slurring sound of horses’ hooves in the dust as they turned to go.
Then I did the worst possible thing: I sneezed violently.
There was a pause & then a flood of light & Belle’s voice saying, “Run for it, P.K.! Run!”
My eyes were dazzled by the sunlight after the pink gloom of Belle’s skirt, and I only caught a quick glimpse of three men looking down at us from their mounts. I could not see their features, just that they were wearing hats and long duster coats. Then I felt Belle grasp my hand and pull me past the openmouthed Chinese boy towards an alley between two washhouses.
I do not like people to touch me but this time I did not protest. I followed her through hanging sheets that wetly slapped our faces. I let go of her hand as we plunged into the alley. The walls of the huts on either side were so close to each other that they shmooshed her skirt and I had to follow three feet behind. Belle led me this way and that, through a maze of alleys & between more wet sheets with the smell of lye very strong & the Celestials staring at us as we passed.
The Case of the Deadly Desperados Page 3