On the Trail of the Truth
Page 29
We stopped about midnight. We hadn’t gone very fast, but we had ridden for several hours and had covered a good distance. By my reckoning we were only eight or ten miles from Mariposa and could make it there easily in the morning. I pulled off the main road, and found a clearing two or three hundred yards away where we could spend the night.
We got down off the horse. I built a small fire, making sure to use dry wood so as not to give off any visible smoke, then got out some dried food and my canteen. I tried to wash Robin’s wounds as best I could, then gave him something to eat and tried to make him comfortable with two of my blankets.
“You get to sleep, Robin,” I said. “You’re going to need it. I’ll keep watch for a couple of hours, just till I’m sure no one’s tracking us.”
He was real quiet, not like his usual self. When I’d look over at him, he was just staring into the fire like he was thinking.
“How’d you learn to do all this stuff, Corrie?” he said finally.
“All what?”
“Ride a horse, escape from guys with guns, build a fire, take care of yourself out in the wilderness.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I never thought about it. I just did it. I guess I’ve been taking care of myself for a lot of years.”
“Yeah,” he said after another minute of staring into the fire. “I suppose it’s the same for me in the city. I can take care of myself there, just like you do out here.”
“The city scares me,” I said, laughing. “But out here, I don’t know, for me it’s more like home.”
“Give me buildings and lights and people and city-sounds any time!” said Robin, and for a minute I thought he might be going to laugh too.
“Not me,” I said. “I love the crickets and the far-off howl of some animal and the wind in the trees and the sound of a stream.”
It got quiet again.
“How’s your face?” I asked. “They roughed you up pretty bad, didn’t they?”
“It hurts some, but I’ll be okay.” He paused, but then added, and I could tell from his voice that the words were hard for him to say, “Thanks, Corrie, for what you did back there. I didn’t deserve it.”
“Aw, think nothing of it.”
“Why did you do it? Why’d you risk everything to save me?”
“Anybody’d have done the same,” I said.
“I doubt that. I’m not sure I’d have had the guts to do what you did, especially after what I did.”
“Well, look at it this way,” I said. “I couldn’t very well go back to Kemble with the lowdown on Gregory’s article and with all the papers of his, and then at the same time tell him I left his star reporter for dead. How could I tell him that? Don’t you see, Robin, I had no choice. I had to save you to keep on Kemble’s good side!”
Now he did let out a little chuckle, but quickly put his hand to his mouth from the pain.
“Well, whatever your reasons, thanks anyway.”
“Any time,” I said. “And I’m sorry I was so hard on you back there, Robin,” I added. “I didn’t mean to yell and call you names. I was just upset, that’s all.”
He nodded, then turned over and pulled the blankets around his shoulders. In two or three minutes I could tell from his breathing that he was sound asleep.
I took off my coat, wrapped my blanket around me and lay down, staring into the fire, thinking of the terrifying, unbelievable day I’d just had. At least it felt good that Robin O’Flaridy was no longer my adversary. That was one positive thing to emerge from the dangerous escapade of this night.
Still I stared into the fire, growing sleepier and sleepier, until at last I knew no more.
Chapter 50
Mariposa Again
When I awoke, the gray light of dawn was just giving way to the reds and oranges of the coming sunrise.
The fire was out cold.
I glanced around. Robin wasn’t where I’d left him. He must have gone down to find a stream to wash and get water.
I got up, stretched, and wandered in the direction where I figured he had probably gone. But before I had gone far, I stopped and turned back.
It was too quiet. Something wasn’t right!
I ran back to the clearing where we had slept. There was no sign of Robin anywhere. And my horse was gone!
Frantically I looked around. There was the blanket I’d slept in and my coat—that was all. He’d taken both my two other blankets, my canteen of water, and all the food. I checked my coat. My notes! Every single sheet of Derrick’s notes and the article he had written for the Globe were gone!
“Why, you underhanded rascal!” I cried.
At least he’d left me my carpetbag! There it lay on the ground right where he’d thrown it off the horse. I walked toward the bag, and then spotted a scrap of paper on the ground alongside it, torn from the bottom of one of Derrick’s pages. I picked it up.
I’m sorry, Corrie. It’s an awful thing to do to a colleague. But I just couldn’t afford to miss a shot at a really big story. I always wanted to write politics, and this is my chance! I’ll make it up to you someday.
Fond regards,
R.T. O’Flaridy
Fond regards!
I crumpled up the paper and threw it to the ground. “And I’ll make it up to you someday too, Mister O’Flaridy—just you wait and see!”
I grabbed my blanket, stuffed it inside my carpetbag, put on my coat, and headed back to the road, so angry I could have walked for a week! The only trouble was, time was short and I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere!
I soon found out that even anger in the absence of food won’t keep your energy up forever. After two hours, I was beat. My feet hurt, my legs ached, and I was hungry!
But still I trudged on, my carpetbag getting heavier and heavier. I don’t know how far I walked. It had to be at least ten miles, although it felt like thirty! Somewhere in the middle of the morning, when the sun was getting high in the sky and the day was beginning to get uncomfortably warm, I finally reached the little village of Mariposa.
Half an hour later I was sitting with Ankelita Carter, telling her my story. Watching the various expressions on her face change from shock to grief to anger to sympathy to outrage was nearly enough to take my mind off my own trouble. As irritated as I was at Robin, Ankelita’s chief concern was for her mistress and her husband.
“You must stop them, Corrie!” she exclaimed when I was through telling her everything that had happened. “You must not let them print such lies! The Colonel and Jessie are good people—these are nothing but lies!”
“I’m will do my best,” I said. “But I will need your help.”
“Anything!” she replied.
“First, I need to borrow a horse,” I said. “A fast horse. Robin will have at least a twelve-hour lead on me. Though I doubt he will be able to ride straight through to San Francisco,” I said with a smile. “He does not exactly have the adventurous pioneering spirit! Still, I have to catch up with him before he does any mischief with Gregory’s parcel of papers. For all I know, he might try to sell the pack of lies back to the Globe rather than take it to Kemble.”
“We have horses. I will have Felipe saddle for you the fastest in the stable.”
“Then I need to ask you some questions, Ankelita,” I said. “I need whatever proof I can get that will disprove the claims Gregory was going to make in his article. You probably know the Fremonts better than anyone in California.”
“You get out your paper and pen and ask, Corrie!” she said enthusiastically. “You’ve got to get back to San Francisco and write the truth about Colonel Fremont! He’s got to win that election, for the sake of the Union. We just can’t let a slave man into the White House!”
“Before we start,” I said with a sheepish expression, “would you mind if I had something to eat?”
She laughed, jumped out of her chair, and was on her way to the kitchen before all the words were out of my mouth.
A couple hours later, we had
gone through just about everything I could remember of Derrick Gregory’s charges against Colonel Fremont. I don’t suppose the words of a Fremont friend and maid would constitute proof in a court of law. But perhaps they would shed sufficient doubt on the credibility of the Globe story to keep them from running it. I hoped so, at least.
“You can’t trust anything Jim Savage might say,” Ankelita said. “Why, he’s been mad at the Colonel for years because he didn’t get his hands on this land! And as for all that foolishness about Negroes in chains and Chinese slave labor and false surveys—why, they’re just lying to make Mr. Fremont look bad. Felipe!” she called out into the other end of the house.
The young Mexican appeared after a minute. She spoke to him in Spanish, and he ran outside.
“I told him to get Bernardo. You couldn’t ask for a more honest and upright man than Bernardo Garcia. He has been the Colonel’s foreman here since the Colonel purchased the property. He will tell you himself that these things are not true.”
“Thank you,” I said. I was writing down everything as rapidly as I was able, though my fingers were already getting cramped. I would have to rely on the old newspaper gimmick of quoting “reliable sources at the Mariposa estate,” and my words could be persuasive enough to convince people that what I was writing was the truth.
“As for the Colonel and barmaids in the village,” Ankelita went on, incensed at the very thought. “I can tell you that Jessie never believed such things. She once told me that neither of them had ever been unfaithful to the other. She said—”
“Wait,” I said, “just let me get that written down.”
She paused until I caught up, then finished her sentence as I kept writing.
“What about his stirring up the Chinese in that Tong war?” I asked.
“I don’t know what to say about that, except that the Colonel had nothing against the Chinese any more than he did the Negroes. But you should ask Bernardo about that. If anything like that did go on among the men here, Bernardo will know of it.”
“And the rumor that Mr. Fremont is secretly a Catholic?” I asked.
“Ridiculous!” exclaimed Ankelita. “The Colonel and I had more than one discussion about matters of faith, and I know he always took the Protestant view and I the Catholic one.”
“How did the rumor get started?”
“Mr. Fremont’s father came from France, you know, and so I presume he was a Catholic. When he was young Mr. Fremont was educated for a time at a Catholic school, and he and Jessie were married by a priest. From all this, people merely assumed he was personally a Catholic, and his enemies stuck the label on him. He is such a private man in religious matters that he never went out of his way to refute it. His enemies knew that if it could be proven, he could never be elected President. That is undoubtedly why they are trying to dig up this old story about St. Xavier’s. But don’t you believe a word of it, Corrie! John Fremont may have attended some services when he was at school as a youth, but the grown man John Fremont never attended a Catholic Mass in his life!”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because when we were in Charleston two years ago, he showed us the church where he was baptized at the age of eight—a Protestant church!”
“Then why doesn’t he make a public statement?”
“I don’t know, Corrie. But just before I left the East he and Jessie had given all three of the children’s baptismal records to the Daily News to be made public, with their admission into Protestant churches.”
“Then that refutes Derrick’s story completely,” I said.
Just then Felipe returned, followed by a man Ankelita introduced me to as Bernardo Garcia. His English was not as flawless as hers, but I was able to understand him well enough to get along. I questioned him on all the points that were still fuzzy, especially the charges about the boundary surveys, the Chinese and Negro labor, and the treatment of local miners over squabbles about the ownership of the land. He confirmed what Ankelita had told me about Jim Savage, and was definite about everything else as well. We spoke for an hour, and when we were through I knew I had all I needed.
Bernardo went back out to the mines. Ankelita and I stood. It was already midafternoon.
“Now I must get your bed ready for you again, Corrie,” she said.
“Oh no, Ankelita, I mustn’t stay!”
“The article cannot get into print in less than a day,” she replied. “You should stay with me again, get some rest, eat well, and sleep. Then leave early in the morning.”
I stopped to think. If I took the rest of today and this evening to write my article, then I would be prepared the moment I saw Mr. Kemble. Whatever Robin might tell him, I had to have my own facts straight. And if I could have an article completed, so much the better.
I nodded. “You’re right, of course. I’ll stay tonight and leave with the first light of the morning.”
She led me into the room where I had slept before. I immediately began spreading my notes and previous papers over the table. I had to make sense of everything I had learned, and try to put it together into an article that was factual and true.
I worked long into the night. And when at last I laid my head down to sleep, it was with a satisfied feeling. Despite the fact that I had a journey of a hundred and fifty miles awaiting me, and even then I didn’t know what might be the outcome of my efforts, at least I knew in my heart that I had uncovered the truth of what I’d been sent here to find, and I had done what I’d set out five days earlier to do.
Tomorrow was the 18th. If I gave it everything I had, just maybe I could make it to San Francisco before the offices closed on the 19th.
I might even make up the ground I’d lost and beat Robin O’Flaridy at his own game!
Chapter 51
Showdown
Ankelita awoke me the next morning before dawn.
She had packed food, a canteen, and an extra blanket, and Felipe already had the horse saddled and waiting for me.
“Her name Rayo Rojo,” he said. “She . . . este caballo corre como el viento!”
“She’s the filly of Jessie’s favorite mare,” added Ankelita. “She’s of good stock, and Felipe’s been training her to race one day.”
“She run like no horse miles ’round,” said Felipe excitedly. “Rapido . . . like tornado!”
“If any horse in California will get you to San Francisco ahead of that O’Flaridy scamp, Rayo Rojo will!” said Ankelita.
“What does her name mean?” I asked.
“Do you see the reddish star on her white forehead?”
I looked and did indeed see the reddish-brown star. The rest of the top of her head was white, though her predominant color was a tan or light brown.
“That red star was there from the moment of her birth. Jessie had always called the horse’s mother Big Lady Red because of her color. So when the foal was born, they called her Little Red—until they saw how fast she could run! Then she became Rayo Rojo, or Fast Red. I had never seen her until I arrived back here at Mariposa recently, and Jessie has still not seen her. But we both have felt we knew her from the reports Bernardo sent. She is a favorite with all the men on the ranch.”
Felipe handed me the reins, then offered his hand to help me up into the saddle.
The moment I was on her back I felt a surge of the animal’s life and energy. The look in her eyes did not fully reveal the power contained within her frame and her thoroughbred legs and muscles.
“Now go!” said Ankelita, giving Rayo’s rump a little swat. “Go . . . and may God be with you, our friend Corrie.”
“I will get Rayo Rojo back to you as soon as I can,” I shouted over my shoulder. But already I was halfway to the gate. At my slightest urging, the young filly accelerated with an ease that was astonishing. The breeze flew through my hair and I leaned forward to be sure of my seat. With my right hand I grasped the saddle horn and reins, while my left sought to make sure my hat was tied securely around my chin.
We flew through the village and eastward along the Carson Creek road, past the quarry at Negro Hill and around Cathey’s Mountain, and were already in Cathey’s Valley before the sun had risen over the last of the mountains in the east. I was to the central valley and Bear Creek by midmorning, and Merced by noon. I stopped and looked up Mrs. Harcourt and asked her if I could feed and water and rest my horse in her stable and refill my water canteens. The hottest and driest part of the journey still lay ahead.
It was midafternoon the following day before I reached San Jose. Poor Rayo Rojo! She was indeed fast, but I had pushed her hard, and her stamina was not equal to such a sustained effort. Now we had to walk and take many rests between gallops. She was a brave one, though, and whenever I would urge her forward, she would obey faithfully.
I rode up to the office of the San Francisco Alta at about half past five that afternoon. I tied Rayo outside and ran to the door. I turned the handle and it yielded. I raced down the hallway to Mr. Kemble’s office.
The door was closed. I tried the handle. It was locked. I rapped on the marbled glass. There was no reply.
I turned and walked slowly back. I stuck my head in at one of the other offices where I heard someone busily at work.
“Is Mr. Kemble here?” I said.
“Gone home for the night, Miss,” was the answer.
Dejectedly I left the building. Well, at least it would give me time to clean up and take a bath, I thought—and to put the finishing touches on the article I planned to present to the editor in the morning. I just hoped Miss Sandy Loyd Bean had a room left! Rayo Rojo would no doubt welcome the rest much more than I did!
Miss Bean did have a room, and I slept very soundly that night after two days of bouncing along on Rayo Rojo’s back.
At seven-thirty the following morning I was standing on the walk outside the lobby of the Alta building, my writing satchel in my hand, awaiting the arrival of head editor, Mr. Edward Kemble.