The Seekers

by F. M. Parker

  * * *

  “Levi, raise your end of the sign about two inches,” Errin called. He stood in the edge of the street sighting at the large wooden sign Levi and Isaiah Green had hoisted above the door. The sign read “Scanlan and Coffin, Skilled Craftsmen.”

  “How’s that?” Levi replied.

  “That’s level,” Errin said. “Make it fast.”

  The two men, balancing themselves on short ladders, began to nail the sign in place.

  Levi and Errin had rented a three-room office on Pacific Street just off the waterfront. The front room was used by Levi who kept the records and paid the workers. He also maintained an open office to sign up any walk-in worker or businessman needing employees. A second room directly behind Levi’s was used by Errin when he was not out in the city rounding up workers and drumming up contracts. The thrid room was off to the left side and much larger than the other two. The workers were assembled there and briefed on their jobs.

  Errin noticed that some of the many vehicles going past on the street were slowing and the occupants watching the installation of the sign. The people moving on the sidewalk looked up to read the words. There was something satisfying about being in an occupation where a man did not have to hide his actions. He was proud of what Levi and he had accomplished in but two weeks.

  He had met every ship arriving at the docks and talked with the most skilled workers, many being immigrants from foreign countries. A majority of them had signed up with him, agreeing to pay him a portion of their wages should he quickly find employment for them. Then with his roster of craftsmen, he had gone from one business to another contracting out his workers. Errin’s job was made easier by the enthusiasm and quality of work that Levi had applied to his portion of running the company.

  On the street a buggy stopped and George Louden sat observing the hanging of the sign. As Levi climbed down from his ladder, Louden stepped out of his vehicle and came toward him.

  “Levi, are you in business already?” Louden asked.

  “Hello, Mr. Louden,” Levi replied. “Yes. I’ve got a new business, and a new partner.”

  “What kind is it?”

  “We find skilled workers and contract them out.”

  “Not a bad idea. An organized labor pool.”

  Levi called out to Errin. “Come and meet Mr. Louden.”

  Errin approached the two men. “My name is Errin Scanlan,” he said and extended his hand.

  “I’m George Louden.” He shook the offered hand.

  “Mr. Louden is with Wells Fargo,” Levi said. “He’s their California manager.”

  “Levi has told me about you,” Errin said.

  “He won me a lot of money with his rifle,” Louden said. “Damn fine shooting. The best part was taking Brol Mattoon’s money. That was the first time I ever saw him lose at anything.”

  “I’ve never seen Levi shoot,” Errin said.

  “It’s something to see,” Louden replied. “How’s the new business doing?”

  Levi and Errin broke into smiles. They looked at each other and their smiles broadened.

  Louden noted the pleased expressions of the two young men. “As good as that?” he said with a chuckle.

  “It’s extra good,” Levi said. “We’ve already got over a hundred men contracted out. And I’ve got a hell of a fine partner.”

  Errin wished Levi hadn’t told how many men they had working. He had learned long ago that a man must keep most things secret.

  “I like to see young men succeed,” Louden said. “Maybe some day Wells Fargo can do business with you.”

  “Why not today?” Errin said. “Do you need any skilled craftsmen?”

  “Not today. Unless you have someone who can stop the men robbing my gold shipments. I’d pay a lot for their scalps.”

  “Any idea who’s behind them?” Errin asked.

  “I’ve got Pinkerton detectives working on the robberies. I may have some solid evidence soon.”

  Louden looked at the two young men. “Since you fellows are new in San Francisco, maybe there’s some things you haven’t found out yet. First off, you’re near the waterfront, the meanest part of San Francisco. You can’t expect the law to give you any protection. In this large and rapidly growing city, there are only thirty-five policemen. They are called Fearless Charlies. And they are indeed brave men.”

  “We’ve met some of the Fearless Charlies,” Levi said.

  Louden nodded. “They can do little to investigate crimes. They are barely able to keep the frequent gang battles in the alleys and off the main streets. There are dozens of small armies. The Chinese tongs have their fighters, the brothel owners their enforcers, and the saloon keepers association their paid guards. The tongs with their boo hao doy, hatchetmen, are the most secretive. They are tough and vicious as any white gang. Fortunately they almost always fight among themselves for territory to extort protection money from the Chinese merchants, to sell opium, and control the Chinese whores. The worst of the tongs is the Chee Kong run by Scom Lip. He’s ruthless, but damn intelligent. If you ever have dealings with him don’t underestimate him.

  “The bankers have joined together in a protective association. On the waterfront, the thugs rule. They force protection money from both the white and Chinese businessmen. The Chinese pay twice, once to their own kind, the tongs, and then to the thugs. Damn sad situation all the way round. All of these groups will kill to protect their property or to keep other thieves or pimps out of the area they consider their territory.”

  “And you have your Pinkerton detectives,” Errin said.

  “Yes. I have my own little squad of men. I must keep them or my company would be robbed blind.”

  Louden sighed. “San Francisco has many murderous thugs, pimps, charlatans, and men who are half honest. But she also has many truly honest men. Someday they will rule San Francisco, but not yet.”

  “Thanks for your warning,” Levi said. “So far we haven’t had any trouble.”

  Louden climbed up into his buggy. “I wish both of you continued good fortune in your new business. Keep your guard up.”

  Levi gestured past Louden to the opposite side of the street. “There’s that fellow, Mattoon, you bet against at the shooting match.”

  Louden twisted to look. He raised his hand and called. “Brol, come and meet two new businessmen.”

  “All right,” Mattoon said. He stepped down from his buggy. As he crossed the street, he looked up at the sign. “Skilled craftsmen, eh. To my knowledge, there’s no other business like it in town.”

  He turned to Levi. “Is it profitable?”

  “Nothing to brag about,” Levi said shortly. He didn’t like the man.

  Louden spoke. “This fellow is Errin Scanlan.”

  Mattoon fastened his sight on Errin. “I’m Brol Mattoon.”

  “Hello,” Errin said. He had observed Levi’s reaction to the man. Anybody Levi didn’t like, Errin would carefully watch. And if the man tried to cause trouble for Levi, then he would have to deal with Errin.

  Mattoon, showing little interest in Errin, spoke to Louden. “George, I’m glad to run into you. Later today I was going to come by and see you. I’ve got some business for your company.”

  “I’m always ready to talk business,” Louden said. “Let’s go to my office.” To Errin and Levi he said, “Don’t forget what I told you about the city.”

  Chapter 16

  Dust lay four inches thick on the well-traveled road Errin followed toward the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Each hoof fall of his horse sent a yellow geyser spouting up. The fine dust hung in the quiet air behind him for minutes before it settled back to the road.

  Levi had told Errin about the golden treasure of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the testing of the golden metal made into coins at the U.S. Mint in San Francisco. Errin had decided he must see the gold fields. He borrowed Levi’s horse, obtained a map of the surrounding country, and caught the riverboat to Sacramento. Immediately he had struck out for
the mountains on the main road to Placerville.

  He peered out from under the broad brim of his hat at the yellow sun hanging in the vast opal bowl of the hot sky. Its rays scorched him and hammered his eyes down to a squint. How could this be the same sun that had shone on green, cool England?

  He lowered his eyes to look ahead through the heat that lay on the land. The air shimmered and danced, distorting visions and distance. Visible beyond and above the field of heat, and miles away, the Sierra Nevada Mountains soared into the sky.

  There in the mountains and hidden from him was the South Fork of the American River, and the gold-rich town of Placerville upon its banks.

  The road had been slowly climbing ever since it had left Sacramento. Now it turned up more steeply and led into a long narrow valley between low, brush-studded hills. A slow wind birthed small dust devils that picked the dirt up from the road and played with it in tall, spinning columns. Now and again Errin was caught by one of the dust devils; however, that bothered him little. He was a free man going where he wanted and doing what pleased him. Nothing could dampen his joy of simply being free.

  A low lying cloud of dust came into view ahead. The cloud moved, extending, and gradually a Concord coach drawn by three teams of trotting horses could be seen. Errin rode to the side of the road and waited for the vehicle to reach him and pass.

  The coach drew parallel to Errin, its wheels rumbling and trace chains rattling. The pounding hooves of the six horses stirred up the dust in a thick yellow pall. The trailing coach was nearly hidden in the lung-clogging dirt. He caught a quick glimpse of the dusty faces of the passengers in the open windows. He did not understand how they could breathe. Four other passengers rode on the high swaying top of the coach. The dust there was only a little thinner than that inside the coach.

  The vehicle swept by, the driver lashing out with his long twenty foot whip and the popper cracking over the heads of the straining teams of horses.

  To be free of the dust, Errin left the valley and rode up to the crest of the ridge of hills that paralleled the road. He went on to the east with the elevation steadily increasing, his view open for miles.

  He halted on a high point to survey the land and let the horse catch its wind. North of him some six miles beyond the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains was the junction of the South Fork with the Middle Fork of the American River. To the south, the foothills extended for forty or fifty miles, until they vanished into the far hazy distance.

  He twisted about and looked backward to see how the land would appear when he returned traveling west. The wide San Joaquin Valley, its broad flatness made wavery with rising heat columns, seemed to stretch away forever. He thought he could make out some green that could be farms, and the town of Sacramento, a dark area at the junction of the valleys of the American River and the Sacramento River. He felt awe at the immensity of this land of California. And it had gold. His pulse speeded at the thought.

  As he prepared to move on, he heard a noise coming from his left. He rode cautiously over the crown of the hill to see.

  The road to Placerville came into sight two hundred yards away and below him. A pair of men, one with a pick and the second with a shovel were digging in the road. They worked hurriedly, their heads often turning to stare first one way and then the other along the road. The dust stirred up by their tools rose thickly about them.

  Errin drew back out of sight. He dismounted, tied his horse, and crept back to watch from behind concealing bushes. The men worked on, mostly hidden in their own dust. The dirt they dug was flung aside and scattered about so that it could not be easily detected. Errin knew a trap was being set. But for what? And were there other gang members hidden about?

  He settled down to watch. As the men worked steadily on, a trench some two feet deep and of equal width began to stretch across the road. Frequently one or the other of the men would walk away from the dust and look carefully both ways along the road.

  Errin glanced in the same direction. He could see at least a mile to the east and nearly that far west before the road curved out of sight behind hills. The road lay empty.

  The trench had grown to a length of fifteen feet and almost completely spanned the road when one of the men, who had stepped out to scan to the east, called out sharply to his comrade. Errin had spotted the same thing. A blinking light, sunlight off a mirror he judged, was flashing from the point of a hill to the east.

  The men ceased digging and spread a piece of canvas over the excavation. Shovels full of dirt were placed along the edges of the canvas to anchor it. More dirt was lightly sprinkled onto the remaining surface. The men grabbed up their tools and hurried into the brush beside the road.

  A volley of shots erupted up the road. Seconds later, a wagon carrying two men and drawn by a team of running horses raced around the base of the hill and into view. A horseman led the wagon and a second followed close behind. Further back a quarter mile, five riders chased after the wagon and its accompanying horsemen.

  Errin watched the trap close upon the gold wagon, for he knew it could be nothing else. The men in the rear fired rifles and pistols again and again at the wagon. Though they were mounted and could have overtaken the wagon, they made no effort to do so. They wanted only to drive it to its destruction.

  Errin wanted to warn the men with the gold wagon, but knew that was impossible. The wagon would reach the trench before he could run down the hill to the road. Further he was within rifle range of the men in the bushes beside the road. There was nothing he could do but watch as the wagon and its two mounted guards sped ever closer to their ruin.

  The lead guard reached the trench. The front hooves of his horse stepped upon the canvas stretched across the excavation. The animal plunged down. Errin heard the cracks of the horse’s legs breaking. The rider was flung forward, crashing down and tumbling with flailing arms and legs. The momentum of the horse carried it on, sent it cartwheeling to fall upon its rider.

  The team of horses pulling the wagon struck the ditch. The lead horses fell, their legs buckling under them and bones breaking. Hooked to the wagon tongue by their breast chains, the rest of the team was dragged ahead. Immediately, the front wheels of the wagon slammed down into the ditch. The vehicle stopped with gut-tearing abruptness and the rear end flipped into the air.

  The tail end of the wagon continued to rise, pressing down on its oak tongue and flipping forward. The tongue snapped just in front of the bed of the wagon. The vehicle and the men and three heavy wooden crates fell upon the team of horses.

  The trailing guard saw the now exposed trench, and jumped his horse over it. His frightened mount ran on a hundred feet before he could drag it to a halt. He spun it around toward the wrecked wagon. As the horse turned, a rifle cracked in the bushes beside the road. The guard tumbled from his saddle.

  One of the men who had been on the wagon slowly and laboriously climbed to his feet. He stood swaying and clutching his ribs. The rifle in the brush fired again. The man fell boneless as a cloth doll.

  The crippled teams of horses, bound in a tangle of harness, trace chains, and a length of tongue, struggled to rise on shattered legs. Their terrible screams of pain and fear made Errin shiver. Not one horse made it to its feet.

  The five mounted outlaws rushed up and sprang down from their horses. A tall, thin man with a long face threw back his head and yelled out in a stentorian voice. “Yahoo! Wells Fargo has just given us a fortune.”

  “Let’s quick take a look at it,” a second man shouted.

  “Check the guards first, Toll,” the first man ordered. “Shoot anyone that’s still breathin’.”

  The two men who had dug the trench came out of the brush leading their mounts and two packhorses.

  The tall man shouted at them. “Hurry your asses. Get the gold transferred to the pack saddles. I want to be out of here in two minutes.”

  “One of the guards is still alive, Lasch,” Toll called. A pistol fired. “Now he’s not.”
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  “Put the horses out of their misery too,” Lasch said.

  The pistol fired several more times.

  Six of the men worked speedily, breaking open the wooden crates and loading the pouches and bars of gold into the leather satchels of the pack saddles. Lasch stood watching his men and checking the road.

  With the bandits intent upon their task, Errin stole down through the bushes. He halted above them on the hillside.

  “Lasch, why can’t we divvy up a pouch of these nuggets,” Toll asked. “Nobody can trace nuggets.”

  “Let me have one of those,” Lasch said. “Now everybody hold out your hand.”

  Lasch opened the throat of the pouch and dribbled nuggets into each man‘ s outstretched palm. “That’s for a little spending money until we get the gold exchanged for paper money we can use without worrying someone might guess where it came from. Now get on with your work.”

  “There’s more gold here than we thought there’d be,” Toll said. “The horses are going to be loaded damn heavy, I’d guess nearly three hundred pounds each.”

  “They can carry it for a spell and we have fresh horses halfway along. We’ll be at the Sacramento River and the boat before dawn.”

  Errin lay in the bushes and watched the men separate into groups. The men called Lasch and Toll led the packhorses off due south. Three men rode east toward the high country. The last two men went north along the foothills. Any pursuing lawmen wouldn’t know which group had the gold, and would have to divide their officers to chase all the highwaymen.

  Errin felt the strangeness of the twist of fate that had brought him upon the highwaymen committing the robbery. He was sorry for the dead guards and the horses so callously mutilated and slain. The robbery had been savage. He had always carried out his robberies without injuring man or a horse. How very different these bandits were. As the thieves faded away into the land, Errin thought of Levi’s friend the Wells Fargo agent. The man’s company had suffered a severe loss. A plan came to Errin, a very dangerous plan.