John Henry approached one of the men, a big fellow wearing a derby and sporting a rusty handlebar mustache. The man rumbled, “Need to go somewhere, mister?”
“That depends,” John Henry said. “I’m looking for a woman.”
The man’s rough-hewn face immediately pinched into a scowl. He said, “I don’t go in for that sort of thing. I’m a decent, God-fearin’ gent with a wife and kiddies. Anyway, it ain’t even noon yet! Can’t you wait until nightfall like all the other degenerates?”
“You misunderstand me,” John Henry said with a smile. “I’m looking for a particular woman who would have gotten off the ferry earlier this morning.” He described Penelope Smith, making sure to mention the distinctive beauty mark.
“Why are you lookin’ for her?” the man asked when John Henry was finished. Obviously, he was still a little suspicious.
John Henry heaved a sigh.
“She’s my sister,” he lied, taking a tack he thought might work with this fella. “She had an argument with our father—over a man that Pa and I both think can’t be trusted—and left our home. I want to find her and bring her back before she does something that she’ll regret for the rest of her life.”
The cabman’s wariness disappeared and was replaced by a look of concern. He said, “Dang it, that’s a sad story. I wish I could help you, mister, but I just can’t. I ain’t picked up a passenger like that all day, and I been here since pretty early. Tell you what you do, though. Go talk to Simeon.”
“Who’s that?”
The cabman pointed with a thick, blunt finger.
“He knows most everything that goes on around here. It’s liable to cost you a little, but you can trust whatever he tells you.”
John Henry looked where the cabman was pointing and saw a short, fat man holding a banjo. A hat sat on the ground at his feet, upside down. When people walked by, he began to pluck at the banjo strings and started singing. Most folks just passed on by without paying any attention to him, but a few of them paused long enough to listen to a little of the fast-paced, raucous song and then tossed a coin in the hat before they moved on.
“Thanks,” John Henry told the cabman with a nod. He started toward the banjo player.
The man began playing even faster as John Henry approached. He wore a big grin on his moon-shaped face as he sang a slightly bawdy song about a girl named Sal. When the song came to an end, John Henry took a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket, started to toss it into the hat, then paused and held up the coin. The banjo player’s eyes got bigger when he saw what it was.
“That was a good song,” John Henry said, “but I’d like some information to go with it.”
“Mister, for five dollars I’ll tell you everything I know,” Simeon said. “And some things that I don’t.”
“I don’t want you making up anything just to get the money,” John Henry said. “Just tell me what you saw with your own eyes. I’m looking for a pretty blonde with a beauty mark beside her mouth. She would have gotten off the ferry earlier this morning.”
“Sure. Not long after dawn, it was. I’d just gotten here to catch the traffic from the early ferries.”
“You’re certain about that?” John Henry pressed.
“Absolutely. I make a habit of studying folks, mister. I can generally tell who’s going to pitch something into the hat and who ain’t. This young lady . . .” Simeon shrugged. “She went right on by. Looked like she had plenty on her mind.”
“Where did she go?”
“Somebody met her. A fella in a buggy.”
Nick Prentice? John Henry had to wonder about that. But Prentice would have had a hard time getting ahead of Penelope, since he had come north on the same train she had. Or at least somebody matching his description had.
John Henry was starting to think he wasn’t cut out for this sort of detective work. Dealing with people shooting at him was a lot simpler, anyway.
“Did you see the hombre in the buggy?”
Simeon shook his head and said, “No, I didn’t get a good look at him. It was early, so the weather was still pretty cold and damp. He had on an overcoat, and his hat was pulled down low. Wouldn’t know him if I saw him again, if that’s what you’re getting at, Sheriff.”
“I’m not a sheriff.”
“Maybe not, but you’re a lawman of some kind. Like I told you, I’m pretty good at figuring folks out.”
John Henry let that go. He didn’t see any point in explaining to Simeon who he really was.
“If you didn’t see the man in the buggy, I’m betting you don’t know where it was going, either.”
Simeon shook his head and said, “I’m afraid not. I can tell you that it headed off toward town, but with the bay on the other side, where else could it go?”
Simeon was eyeing the coin John Henry still held. John Henry was convinced that the banjo player had told him the truth, so even though Simeon hadn’t been all that helpful, he tossed the half eagle into the hat anyway. Simeon’s eyes lit up.
“Lord bless you, sir,” he said. “Good luck finding the young lady.”
John Henry started to turn away, but he stopped when Simeon cleared his throat.
“One more thing, since you were so generous. . .”
“You were holding back to see whether I was really going to pay you,” John Henry accused.
“You might not believe it, but there are some folks who seem to enjoy tormenting those who are more down on their luck.”
Now that John Henry had gotten a closer look at Simeon, he saw the red nose, the veins in the face, the somewhat bleary eyes of a heavy drinker. Simeon might like to think that he was down on his luck, but John Henry had a hunch the man was right where he really wanted to be.
None of which mattered at the moment. Keeping any note of disapproval out of his voice, John Henry asked, “What else did you think of, Simeon?”
“That buggy didn’t belong to the fella inside it. It was rented from Patrick Dunleavy’s wagon yard. I see ’em all the time. Mr. Dunleavy ought to be able to tell you more about those folks.”
John Henry reached for his pocket.
Simeon held up a hand to stop him and said, “You already paid. You don’t have to throw in anything else.”
“This is for the other information you’re about to give me,” John Henry said as he tossed a silver dollar into the hat. “Where do I find Dunleavy’s place?”
Simeon told him. John Henry touched a finger to the brim on his hat and said, “You know, back in the hills where I come from, we have some pretty good banjo players, too.”
With a big grin on his face, Simeon accepted that veiled challenge and said, “Can they do this?”
He started picking out a sprightly tune, his fingers flying so fast that it was hard for the eye to follow them. John Henry laughed, shook his head, and walked away, heading for the wagon yard where he hoped to find another lead on Penelope Smith’s trail.
Chapter Twenty
Patrick Dunleavy’s wagon yard appeared to be a thriving business. Dunleavy not only built wagons, he ran a livery stable as well and rented out horses, wagons, buggies, and carriages. John Henry talked to the man in the business’s office, and this time he pulled out his marshal’s badge to ensure Dunleavy’s cooperation.
“You rented a buggy to a man earlier this morning,” John Henry said. “I’d like to know who he was.”
Dunleavy had a full head of brown hair and muttonchop whiskers that would have done a Union army officer proud during the Late Unpleasantness. He frowned and said, “I didn’t rent a buggy to anybody this morning, Marshal.”
“Somebody saw it and recognized it as coming from your place,” John Henry said.
“I don’t doubt it, but I didn’t rent it to the man this morning. I rented it to him last night.”
John Henry reined in the angry, impatient words that tried to well up in his throat at that pedantic response. He said, “Are you sure we’re talking about the same buggy?”
“I’
m positive. It’s the only one I’ve rented in the past week. The man engaged it yesterday evening. He said that he had to meet someone at the ferry early this morning and wanted to be sure of having transportation.”
John Henry had to think about that for a moment. Penelope had been at the Campos villa in the hills above Los Angeles the previous evening. But earlier, before she and Quentin Ross went up there, she could have sent a telegram to whoever had picked her up, letting him know to make the arrangements.
That would mean she had already planned to leave for San Francisco on that late train. John Henry had assumed she was fleeing from him, but that didn’t necessarily have to be the case. She could have planned on leaving all along. If she was responsible for spreading the counterfeit money across the Southwest, as John Henry suspected, she had never stayed in any one place for too long.
That left Nick Prentice out. Penelope couldn’t have wired him in Oakland when Prentice was still in Los Angeles. Of course, Prentice could still be part of the gang.
“Did the fella give you his name? The one who rented the buggy?”
“I believe so. Let me check my records.” Dunleavy opened a ledger and flipped through the pages until he found the entry he wanted. Resting a fingertip on it, he said, “Alfred Hanson.”
The name didn’t mean anything to John Henry. Anyway, there was a good chance it was every bit as fake as those ten- and twenty-dollar bills the gang had been passing out.
“He give you an address where he’s staying?”
“The Golden State Hotel. But I don’t think you’ll find him there, Marshal.”
“Why not?”
“I assume that he’s checked out. He engaged the buggy for a period of two weeks. Paid quite a substantial fee to do so.”
John Henry’s eyes narrowed.
“This was last night, you said?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you deposited the money that Hanson paid you?”
“No, I haven’t been to the bank yet.” For the first time in this conversation, Dunleavy began to look less than absolutely sure of himself. “The money is still in my safe. Why do you ask, Marshal?”
“We might want to take a look at it,” John Henry suggested.
Dunleavy came to his feet and said, “You don’t think there’s something wrong with it, do you?”
“Let’s just have a look-see.”
Dunleavy went to a squat, sturdy-looking safe in the corner of the office and bent to twirl the knob and work its combination. When he swung the door open, he reached inside and brought out a stack of bills tied together with twine.
“You understand, the money Hanson paid me is mixed in with the other bills we took in yesterday,” he said.
“Yes, sir. I’ll look at them one by one.”
Hanson looked positively green now as he set the money on the desk and untied the string. John Henry picked up the stack and sorted out the tens and twenties. Then he began taking a closer look at each one of them, turning slightly toward the window so the light would be better.
Now that he knew what he was looking for, it didn’t really take him that long to spot the counterfeits. He set them aside, one by one, four twenties and four tens. While he was doing that, Dunleavy sank into his chair and looked sick.
“One hundred and twenty dollars,” John Henry said when he was finished. “That’s what you charged Hanson for the buggy, right?”
“Yes,” Dunleavy croaked. “That money, it . . . it’s no good, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Dunleavy clenched a fist and slammed it down on the desk.
“Cheated! By God! Cheated! If I ever get my hands on that son of a—”
“What did he look like?” John Henry broke in. “Was he a middle-aged man, heavily built, with graying red hair?”
“What?” Dunleavy frowned in confusion. He shook his head and went on, “Who’s that?”
John Henry had just described Ignatius O’Reilly, but instead of explaining that to Dunleavy, he said, “That’s not the man who rented the buggy?”
“Not at all. This man was fairly young, around thirty, I’d say. He had brown hair and a mustache. Quite respectable looking. He was well dressed, too. He wore a gray suit and a bowler hat.”
John Henry stiffened. The description Dunleavy had just given him was vague enough to fit any number of men, but John Henry had seen someone who looked like that this very morning: Clive Denton, the stranger who had engaged him in small talk on the ferry as they were crossing the bay from San Francisco.
Denton couldn’t have been on the ferry if he was the man who had picked up Penelope Smith in the buggy . . . or could he? He could have taken Penelope somewhere, dropped her off or left her with the buggy, and returned to the ferry. To keep watch for someone trailing her? Someone in particular who matched the description of a certain deputy United States marshal from Indian Territory . . . ?
It was starting to look like the gang was even larger than John Henry had suspected.
Dunleavy must have noticed John Henry’s reaction to the description. He asked, “Do you know the man, Marshal?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“I must say, he didn’t strike me as the sort to be a prospector at all.”
That statement put a puzzled frown on John Henry’s face. He asked, “Why would you think Hanson is a prospector?”
“While I was drawing up the agreement for the buggy, he stepped over to the map on that wall and studied it rather closely.” Dunleavy gestured toward a big map of California pinned to one wall of the office. “When I asked him if he was looking for anywhere in particular, he said he was interested in the mining towns up in the Sierra Nevada. Said he thought he might try his luck up there, that he’d heard there was quite a bit of money to be made. I told him it wasn’t like back in the Gold Rush days, that a man couldn’t just stumble over a fortune in a streambed anymore. I came out here back in those days myself, and that’s the way it was then. No more.”
“What did Hanson say to that?”
“He seemed rather amused, actually. Said a man’s fortune was wherever he made it.” Dunleavy shrugged. “I suppose there’s some truth to that.”
“You don’t know for sure that’s where Hanson was headed, though.”
“I can’t be absolutely certain, but it sounded to me like he was serious about making a trip up there.”
John Henry didn’t really doubt it. The gang could probably amass a considerable poke of nuggets and dust in exchange for a stack of worthless currency. That might be just what they needed to wrap up this operation.
The possibility was strong enough that he felt like he had to investigate it. He would check at the Golden State Hotel first, just to make sure that Hanson or Denton—or whatever his name really was—wasn’t still in town, but if there was no sign of him or Penelope at the hotel, then John Henry would have no choice except to get his hands on a horse and head for the Sierra Nevada himself.
Maybe he could catch up to the buggy. A man on horseback could travel faster than a vehicle.
“I’m obliged to you for your help, Mr. Dunleavy,” he said. He shook hands with the wagon yard owner.
“I’m glad to do whatever I can, Marshal.” Dunleavy looked at the counterfeit bills that John Henry had left lying on the desk. “What do you suggest I do with that worthless money?”
“That’s up to you,” John Henry said, “but I wouldn’t try to spend it if I was you.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Just as he suspected, “Alfred Hanson” had checked out of the Golden State Hotel early that morning. A clerk was able to tell John Henry that Hanson had stayed there for several days and hadn’t left a forwarding address when he checked out. The clerk didn’t recall Hanson mentioning anything about where he was headed next when he checked out, either.
John Henry needed a good horse if he was going to head for the mountains. He thought he might as well go back to Dunleavy’s, since the
man’s business included a livery stable. He could take another look at that map in Dunleavy’s office, too, and see if he could figure out the route he wanted to follow.
Since the hour was approaching midday and the only breakfast John Henry had was that cup of coffee in the stationmaster’s office, he stopped at a restaurant for a meal before returning to Dunleavy’s. The food was good but pricey. Judge Parker would probably have a thing or two to say about that when he went over John Henry’s expense account.
Dunleavy seemed a little surprised to see John Henry again, but he was happy to rent the lawman a saddle mount. Dunleavy accompanied John Henry out to the corral himself and suggested a big, strong-looking buckskin gelding.
“You want a horse with some bottom if you’re traveling in the mountains,” Dunleavy said. “This one will get you where you’re going.”
John Henry liked the horse’s lines and the intelligence and alertness in the animal’s eyes. He asked, “Does he have a name?”
“Not really. Some of the hostlers call him Buck, because of his color.” Dunleavy shrugged. “I’ve never seen the point in giving an animal a name, myself.”
For a man who worked with horses, Dunleavy didn’t seem to have much understanding of the bond that could spring up between horse and rider. John Henry didn’t bother pointing that out. He just said, “I’ll need tack, too.”
Twenty minutes later he was on his way. He had used part of that time to sketch a crude map based on the one that hung on Dunleavy’s office wall.
Many of the mining camps and boomtowns of the Gold Rush era were gone now, having dried up and blowed away when the nuggets and dust in the nearby creeks played out, but a number of other towns in the Sierra Nevadas still existed where veins of gold-bearing quartz had proven to be long-lived. John Henry had traced out a route that would take him to half a dozen of those settlements that seemed to be likely targets for the counterfeiting gang.
But first he had to cross the broad Central Valley before he reached the mountains. Having been raised on a farm back in Indian Territory, John Henry was able to appreciate this outstanding agricultural region as he rode through it. The fertile soil produced some fine crops. He had heard that enough food came out of this valley to feed the entire western part of the United States, and he could believe that.
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