California Gold

by John Jakes

  Older ignored the sarcasm. “Exactly.”

  “Good Lord.” Mack shook his head. Alex Muller banged the door back in his haste to enter the room.

  “Sir? It’s Jesse Tarbox on the wire. Extremely urgent.”

  “Excuse me a minute.” After Mack left, Fremont Older took the opportunity to slip out the front way with scarcely a sound.

  “Found them this morning,” Jesse Tarbox said. His sinewy face was red and sun-blistered, his khaki shirt sweated through at the armpits and across the back. He rapped his riding crop on his thigh. “Two of them. Wobblies run out of Fresno. One’s a crazy rag-head, the other a Spic named Marquez. The rag-head’s packing a pistol.”

  He listened.

  “Actually it was my segundo Mr. Keeter who found them.” Over by the office door, Homer Keeter stood idly scratching his crotch. He was a sandy-haired lout with a broom straw in the corner of his mouth.

  “We’re trying to keep it quiet—Christ knows what some of the hotheads around here would do if they found out.” Tar and feather me first, probably. “The problem is the rag-head’s got that gun, and he says I can’t touch the Spic because he’s bad sick. On top of that, he’s a priest. Or he used to be. Can you feature that, a Wobbly priest?”

  He listened.

  “That’s right—Marquez.”

  He listened.

  “No, sir, I can’t just order them out. I tried.” Homer Keeter snorted; he’d been the one sent into the barracks with orders for the Wobblies to vacate.

  Tarbox listened.

  “Goddamn it, Mr. Chance, that isn’t fair. I didn’t just let it happen. My best foreman, Obregón, he picked them up and took them in. I’d like to flay the hide off Obregón but he’s got eighteen relatives in that barracks.” And I’m scared of every one of them.

  He listened.

  “I know it’s my responsibility but I don’t know what the hell to do,” he shouted. “That’s why I called.”

  He listened, slapping his crop against his riding breeches.

  “All right, sir. Yes, sir. I’ll sit tight until you get here but please make it fast. Yes, sir.”

  Jesse Tarbox hung up the earpiece carelessly, and it fell off the hook, banging the wall at the end of its cord. When he tried to hang it up again, he broke the hook. Swearing, he let the earpiece dangle.

  “I don’t know why I work for that snotty son of a bitch.”

  “Because he pays top dollar, that’s why.”

  “He’s coming down here personally.”

  “I gathered.”

  “Be here sometime tomorrow.”

  “Well, he better hurry, because we got fifty greasers in that barracks, and you can’t count on all of ’em keeping their mouths shut. Any of our neighbors find out we’re hidin’ two Wobblies on this ranch, we are in trouble.”

  “Shit, that’s what I told him,” Jesse Tarbox said. He hit his crop on the desk so hard, Homer Keeter jumped.

  Mack checked the timetables. All the trains in the next few hours were locals, so he decided it would be faster to drive the Packard. He made good time for a while, but south of Stockton, just across the Stanislaus County line, a tire blew out. The Packard’s headlamps veered wildly toward the left, and as the auto bounded for the shoulder, Mack hauled on the wheel to keep it out of the ditch. The rear end slewed. He tramped on the brake and killed the engine.

  The Packard shook once and settled, an enormous cloud of tan dust slowly ascending into the purple twilight. He heard coyotes barking in the distance. He’d sure as hell guessed wrong about taking the car. He could either change the tire and keep driving, or hike to the nearest depot and wait. He certainly wasn’t going to hike and wait.

  Mack threw his fedora on the seat next to him and leaned his forehead on the wheel. The cool evening air laved his face. He felt grubby from hours of driving, and hungry, but he’d brought no food. There was a dairy barn about half a mile on, and he wondered if he could cadge a drink of milk or a butt of bread.

  But first he had to change the tire. He climbed out, shed his coat, and undid his cravat. The western light winked on the blued metal of his Shopkeeper’s Colt. The delay didn’t improve his mood.

  Repeatedly, the wrench or the wheel nuts slipped from his arthritic hands. All in all it took him over half an hour. When he finally got to the dairy farm, he paid for a quart of milk and half a loaf of bread and was allowed to crawl up in the haymow for an hour. Then he drove on through the vast star-strewn night. He had a powerful sense of a tide flowing against him.

  At the Merced River crossing in Merced County, he found the bridge blocked by carpenters repairing sections of bridge floor that had collapsed under a wagonload of quarry stone. Mack swore and drove miles out of his way, up to Snelling. There he drove onto a barge that ferried him over the river.

  It was 12:30 P.M. and too hot for March. The gritty wind had a parched smell, as if it were August. He sweated and drove without rest, without food, steadily south.

  Above Chowchilla, a Madera County deputy on horseback came galloping from a side road, firing shots in the air. Mack stopped and the deputy arrested him for reckless speeding.

  Mack showed identification, then named his companies and some of his connections in the state—it meant nothing. The rural magistrate and the deputy had never heard of him.

  He thought of Abe Ruef. How would he handle this? He offered the magistrate and deputy bribes of $100 each, and they suddenly became cordial and helpful, the deputy directing him to a decent café, the magistrate inviting him to relax in the swing on his front porch. Mack stifled his sulfurous rage and said no. At half past three, on the raw edge of exhaustion, he continued south.

  The Packard roared into the dusty yard in the red sundown. With the day’s field work finished, families were together, barefoot children chasing each other around the trough and pump, a naked infant crawling to and fro, an imposing rooster pecking at nothing, a wiry yellow hound chasing its tail and yapping. The air smelled of warm earth and spicy cooking.

  The picture of dishevelment, Mack flung himself out of the Packard and strode inside the barracks. A majority of the field-workers recognized him, the women smiling shyly and the men knuckling their foreheads. Mack fumed; he assumed Tarbox was responsible for the subservience.

  The building consisted of clean, spartan living spaces off a hall that ran down its length. Some of the living spaces consisted of three rooms, some, for the bachelors, only one. Everything was freshly whitewashed, and ceiling fixtures provided electric light. The second floor was identical.

  Up there, halfway down the corridor, Mack spied a young man in a turban standing in a doorway. He was brown, but not a Mexican. Mack went straight past him, noticing his wary look, and into the two-room space. The sight of Diego Marquez was a shock. He lay on a bunk, fat, sallow, and sick. Mack smelled the sweat soaking his cotton nightshirt.

  He knelt by his old acquaintance and rested his palm on Marquez’s forehead. An elderly Mexican appeared at the door and stepped in.

  “Soy Ramón Obregón. Buenas tardes, señor.”

  “Chance.”

  “Ya sé—lo he visto en fotografías.”

  They shook hands, the young Indian peeking over Obregón’s shoulder. Marquez snorted and rolled his head back and forth. Then he calmed and began to snore with his mouth open.

  Continuing in Spanish, Mack said, “His fever must be a hundred and four.”

  “It has been thus for several days,” Obregón said. “I expected him to die. He refuses. He is a big man. Powerful, like a bull.”

  “But he can’t last like this. I’ll get a doctor out here.”

  “That is good,” said Mukerji in such perfect English that Mack was startled. “Diego is an excellent man. But they hate him very much in Fresno. Almost as much as they hate all Hindustani.”

  “You’re the one who brought him here?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “How did he get this way?”

  “He was arre
sted for speaking. They sprayed us with the cold water hose all night in the Fresno jail. Diego had suffered it once before. He was already sick. I brought him out of town.”

  “I found them on the main road and took them in,” Obregón explained.

  “You had no business doing that, no authority to do that.” Mack said it sharply, out of both weariness and a desire that this problem would just vanish.

  Visible disappointment clouded Obregón’s face; he had heard better of J. M. Chance. “No authority, perhaps,” he replied quietly. “But a duty.” The old man’s eyes showed no subservience, no intimidation.

  Mack retreated. “All right, I’ll accept that. No authority to do it, but every reason. I’ll drive up to Tarbox’s office and phone for a doctor. Let’s just keep this quiet. I don’t need any grief from the other ranchers. They think I’m too radical as it is.”

  That brought a wearied smile from Obregón. “I understand. It is radical to build this barracks with proper wood floors instead of dirt. Radical to provide decent privies instead of open trenches, or nothing. It is radical to house your people here, instead of crowding them in the usual tents and hovels. Radical indeed, sir.”

  Mack and the old Mexican eyed one another, silently making peace.

  Marquez groaned in his sleep. The red of sunset faded away outside the window. Mukerji reached up to the cord of the tin-shaded electric bulb and snapped it on.

  Mack walked downstairs and into the yard, all dusky now. He wrinkled his nose at the odors of dirt and sweat left on him by the long journey. Things were still all wrong. He didn’t like harboring Wobblies, no matter who they were.

  His body felt heavy as granite as he dragged to the water trough. He turned the spigot, stood away from the splash, and filled the dipper. The water was cool and sweet. He tilted the dipper and ran some over his chin, then spilled more over his forehead, licking it as it dripped from his nose.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the Indian on the stoop under an electric light. The man walked over quickly.

  “Mr. Chance, sir. One moment please before you leave. I am Mr. Gopal Mukerji, sir. In my home village, Chandpur, in the Punjab, I learned to be a number-one first-rate farmer. I sailed by steerage to Canada, where I harvested wheat. Then I traveled down to California, where others from my region work also. I like it so much, despite the hatred I found in Fresno, I will be a Californian now.”

  Tired and annoyed all over again, Mack didn’t know what to make of this foreigner. “I can’t talk now,” he said.

  “Just please one more moment, sir. I am a very good, hard worker. An absolute top man with crops of all sorts, including muscat and muscatel raisin grapes, which I see you grow in quantity.”

  “For God’s sake, Mukerji, this is no time—”

  “Why not, sir? I am eager, industrious, honest. Give me a job, sir.”

  Mack leaned on the pump. “Look. They don’t like your kind in the Valley. Didn’t Fresno teach you that? They also don’t like anyone who hires Indians. I said inside and I’ll repeat it—I don’t need more grief; I have plenty. You’ll have to go somewhere else.”

  “But sir, I guarantee, you will find me a most capable number-one man. Working hard for you on this ranch, any long hours you ask, I could save enough to bring my prospective wife from Chandpur. I have great hope that we could prosper here in California.”

  “You’ll have to go somewhere else. Now get inside, out of sight.”

  “Sir…”

  Mack clanged the dipper on the pump. “No job.”

  The Indian stared at Mack as he hung up the dipper and turned toward the Packard. Then Mukerji plucked the dipper off the hook and twisted the spigot. Somehow that was too much. Mack spun around and knocked the dipper out of Mukerji’s hand. The tinned metal flashed as the dipper landed in dust.

  “Goddamn it, I told you—get inside.”

  “Sir. Not even a drink of water first?”

  An enormous stillness seemed to descend on the yard. The two of them stood well away from the stoop, in the dark, barely touched by the electric light. A narrow luminous aura of yellow and white defined the peaks of the coast mountains.

  Mack saw nothing of the surroundings, only a hopeful young wanderer at a meandering brown stream. He saw Swampy Hellman on horseback, denying the interloper a simple necessity and comfort…

  “Sir?”

  Mack rubbed his mouth, then walked over and picked up the fallen dipper. With an unconscious solemnity, he handed it to Gopal Mukerji.

  The two men stared at one another.

  Gopal Mukerji turned on the spigot.

  What the hell have I become? How is it that I’ve forgotten so much? Is it age? Money? Frustration? Sorrow? Whatever it was, Mack was ashamed.

  While water splashed in the trough, Jesse Tarbox galloped along a dirt track into the yard. Red and excited, he waved his riding crop over his head as he reined.

  “Homer Keeter saw you drive in, Mr. Chance. There’s headlights on the main road. Whole damn bunch of cars.”

  Mack sprinted to the Packard and jumped on the rear bumper, then the trunk. From that height he could see across the field to the Bowles-Raisin road. Sure enough, bobbing and flashing, headlights stabbed the roiling dust. Mack counted five, six, seven pairs of lights coming in a column from the east. From the Fresno pike.

  Tarbox pranced his nervous mare toward the auto. “Whoa, Sal. Calm down, blast you.” The foreman slapped the mare savagely with his reins, drawing blood.

  “Why are we suddenly entertaining visitors, Jesse?”

  “Somebody must have talked in town.”

  Gopal Mukerji ran to the Packard and, without invitation, stood on the bumper. He said to Mack, “I will not be moved, sir. Not until my friend and companion is well.” He yanked his shirt out of his pants and palmed a small pistol.

  God almighty, everything is falling apart.

  Tarbox sounded close to hysterical when he said, “Seven cars means a lot of men. They might burn us out. Kill people. Why don’t you hand over those two?”

  Mack was tempted. He wished the burden would pass, but it wouldn’t.

  “Why don’t you shut your mouth, Jesse? Ride to the office and get me the shotgun.”

  He jumped back down off the car, throwing off his coat and pulling the Shopkeeper’s Colt off his hip. After opening the cylinder to check the loads, Mack jumped back up on the Packard’s front bumper. Now he heard as well as saw the caravan. Snarling and roaring, the autos turned one by one into the lane leading to the heart of his property.

  Mack waited at the water trough. He’d sent Jesse Tarbox back to the office again, with orders to stand by the telephone. He tugged the holster around to his right hip, where he could reach it quickly. In the crook of his arm rested the ranch shotgun, an eight-gauge Ithaca with a modified choke on both barrels.

  The single line of autos came on toward the yard, their headlights stabbing through boiling dust clouds. To Mack, in his tired state, they sounded like hungry, evil-tempered mountain cats.

  The lights of the first car blinded him a moment. Four or five men were packed into the black Ford T-model. It veered left into the yard, then right again, its lights splashing the front of the barracks as it stopped.

  One by one the other six cars pulled up alongside each other. Mack was staring at fourteen headlights. He locked his knees so his legs wouldn’t shake; he didn’t want them to see how frightened he was.

  Doors on the cars sprang open and men in overalls and cheap suits piled out—stringy redneck Fresno County farmers and town merchants with derbies and high collars. Mack knew most of them, including Sergeant Phil Lummis from the police department—out of uniform—and the man who stepped out in front as if he were the leader, a bald and paunchy wheat rancher named Peter Sledgeman.

  Sledgeman walked to the water trough with a wary eye on Mack, the others forming up behind him. Mack’s quick count came to twenty-three. Work-gnarled hands clutched ax handles and two-by-fours. He
saw no guns.

  Mack nodded to acknowledge the spokesman. “Pete.”

  “Mack.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I expect you know. You’re harboring two men we want.”

  Mack’s round eyeglasses flashed in the headlight glare, his hair shining white as new cotton. Sibilant Spanish was audible in the barracks. He’d ordered everyone inside, away from the open windows, and he hoped to heaven they’d obeyed.

  “I said you’ve got two men we—”

  “Calm down, Pete, I heard you. Is it them you want, or me?”

  Sledgeman smiled coldly. “Well, yes—there’s that. You never have run with the crowd around here. Always made your neighbors look bad, out of step. Take this blasted barracks. Tents aren’t good enough for your stoop labor—”

  “That’s right. Not good enough. What else, Pete?”

  “Those two reds. Hand ’em over and we’ll have no trouble.”

  “Hand them over? What for? Another water cure at the jail-house? Or is it a lynch rope this time?”

  “Don’t stall us, Mack. We know they’re inside. One of Ramón Obregón’s cousins swallowed a lot of tequila in town and shot off his mouth.”

  “I’m not denying they’re here. But you can’t take them. I gave them shelter and you boys are the reason why. I’ll thank you to remember this is my property, Pete. I want you to vacate it, right now. Go home. Cool off.”

  Another farmer, Carl Cass, stepped in front of the lights of his Reo. Cass’s neck was genuinely red from working his melon fields. He chewed tobacco; stains showed all over his overall bib. Mack had once loaned Cass $500 for emergency medical bills for his little girl Clarice. There was no memory of that in Cass’s snake-mean stare, nor any when he shouted.

  “You’re crazy, Chance. Why are you protectin’ a couple of damn reds who’d just as soon steal all your money and your land too?”

  Some in the crowd muttered and said, “Yes,” or “Tell him, Cass.”

  “Listen, Carl,” Mack said, “I like the Wobblies about as much as you do. Which is not very much. But speechmaking never hurt anybody. Something reminds me that American people are allowed to make speeches anywhere they please, on just about any subject. If that argument doesn’t move you, try this one. I know one of the two men from way back. He’s wasting away with fever and probably pneumonia, liable to die if I don’t get a doctor in here. A human life’s more important than money or land.”