by Gwen Bristow
“How did Mr. Galloway like that?”
“He was amazed. He had seen Captain Pollock in Marny’s gambling place, he couldn’t understand that this was any different from having her on the ship. But the person Captain Pollock was really angry with was Marny herself.”
“How did she take all this?”
“She laughed at him.”
“To his face?”
Loren nodded. “She told him he was the biggest fool she had ever seen.”
Kendra reflected a moment. She thought making fun of the captain directly was not wise. “Did you laugh at him when he blamed you?” she asked Loren.
“No, I couldn’t,” he replied soberly. “I know him better than she does. I understand how seriously he takes this. But I can tell you, the rest of the voyage wasn’t comfortable. By the time we got to San Francisco I knew he and I couldn’t work together any longer. So I told him I was willing to tear up our contract.”
Loren left soon after this, and Kendra went indoors to make a shortcake with his gift of strawberries.
While they were at dinner that evening she repeated Loren’s story to Ted. As she finished she noticed that Ted’s lips were quivering with amusement. “What are you laughing at?” she asked.
Ted said, “Loren is too nice to tell you all that went on aboard that ship. Or possibly he’s too nice even to realize it. But I’m not.”
“What went on?” Kendra echoed. She gave him a puzzled look across the shortcake.
“Simple,” said Ted. “Between Honolulu and the storm, Pollock and Marny spent a night together.”
“Oh—I see!” Kendra nodded. Now that Ted had said this, it seemed so plain that she wondered why she had not thought of it herself.
Ted smiled, that cool little flicker of a smile that amused her so much. “Didn’t Loren tell you Pollock liked to go to Marny’s place in Honolulu because he liked Marny?”
“Why yes. He said that on shore Captain Pollock was different about everything.”
“I believe it,” said Ted. “Agreeable sin—on shore yes, on shipboard no. But in Honolulu, Marny was surrounded by men. Probably at least one of them had a prior claim and was ready to defend it with a gun.”
Kendra listened. Ted went on.
“But on the ship she had her own stateroom and Pollock had no rivals. The minute he saw her he knew fate had caught up with him.”
“But how could he know Marny would be willing?”
“Darling,” said Ted, “Marny doesn’t think of these things the way you do. To her, I’m sure, it was a trivial incident. On shore it might have been the same to Pollock. But not on the ship. When the storm came he knew it was because his virgin Cynthia had been insulted.”
“So then,” Kendra exclaimed indignantly, “he said the storm was Marny’s fault, not his.”
Ted shrugged. “Plain old human nature, Kendra. When we do what we shouldn’t we always try to blame somebody else. Started with Adam. Don’t you remember, when the Lord asked him about eating the forbidden fruit, he said, ‘That woman Eve, she gave it to me, it’s her fault.’ So with Pollock. My dear, would you think I was a pig if I asked for another slice of strawberry shortcake?”
Kendra laughed happily. “You’d better eat cake while you can,” she warned him. “Cooking outdoors, I won’t have much chance for baking.”
“Make it a thick slice,” said Ted.
Two days after this, on the twenty-fifth of April, 1848, Ted and Kendra set out for the land of gold. They had been married nine days.
10
THERE WERE SEVERAL WAYS to go from San Francisco to the golden hills. On Ning’s advice his party planned to go by land, riding down to the southern tip of the bay and then north and northeast by way of Sutter’s Fort. This would take longer than sailing a launch up the Sacramento River, but Ning reminded them that none of them knew how to sail a launch, except maybe that sailor from the Cynthia, and he couldn’t do it by himself.
They loaded wagons with their food supplies, their clothes and bedrolls, guns and tools; and a lot of beads and face-paints for trading with the savages. Most people called these savages Digger Indians, but Ning would not. Ning knew the stalwart red folk of the prairies. He said calling these creatures Indians was an insult to his friends. As he was firm about it, Ted had suggested that they call this variety the Aborigines. Ning had never heard this word before and found it hard to say, so he shortened it to Ab. From there on, to Ning himself and the rest of his group, a California wild man was an Ab.
The party met early in the morning at a level spot below town. There were three covered wagons, twenty horses, and eleven travelers. The travelers were Ning, Ted, and Kendra; Pocket, and the sailor from the Cynthia, Hiram Boyd; Marny and Delbert, with two men and two women who worked for them. These assistants were the two burly fellows called the Blackbeards, who had thrown out the cheating dealer from the gambling room in Honolulu, and a pair of pretty Hawaiian girls who were probably not their wives.
One of the wagons belonged to Ning and Ted, the other two carried the goods and gambling equipment of Marny and her friends. Pocket and Hiram, who had less to carry, had loaded their supplies on packhorses. Ted told Kendra she would ride horseback while he and Ning took turns driving their wagon. Riding a horse was the easiest way to get anywhere in California, for there were no roads and a wagon bumped unmercifully over the ground.
At night Ning would take his bedroll and sleep outdoors, as he was used to doing, while Ted and Kendra would drop curtains at the front and back of the wagon cover and have it to themselves. These curtains were made of Chinese grass-cloth, brought from Canton on the Eagle. They were strong, and artfully woven to let in air but keep mosquitoes out.
Marny and Delbert were on horseback too, while the Blackbeards drove their wagons. This was the first time Kendra had seen Marny and Delbert since that day in the store, and their helpers she had not seen at all. The Blackbeards looked so exactly alike that at first sight of them Kendra decided they must be twins (she found later that she was right). They were a fierce-looking pair, with black hair and thick black eyebrows, and beards like black cabbages on their chins.
The Blackbeards looked like sons of a pirate, but Ted said their father had been a New England storekeeper. He had bequeathed them the plain surname Thompson, but their romantic mother had given them the first names Marmaduke and Murgatroyd. Marny, who by long study had learned to tell them apart, called them Duke and Troy.
Apparently Duke and Troy had inherited their father’s head for business and also their mother’s streak of romance. Before they were out of their teens they had gone off to look for adventures in the Pacific, and now they were as canny a pair of card players as you were likely to meet.
Each Blackbeard had his Hawaiian girl on the wagon seat beside him. The girls were a striking pair, with bright jetty eyes and golden skin. Marny called them Lulu and Lolo. Duke was the protector of Lulu, Troy of Lolo.
All the men wore heavy cotton shirts and corduroy riding breeches, and carried guns in holsters at their belts. Kendra and Marny wore riding dresses of sturdy dark cloth, with leather gloves, and straw bonnets made deep-brimmed to shade their eyes. The Hawaiian girls were dressed in flowered chintz, with ribbons binding their hair.
As the party gathered, Ning rode up and down astride a fine roan gelding, inspecting the wagons, making sure all packs were securely strapped, every horse in good condition.
“Quiet, folks!” he ordered.
Pointing his riding crop at each in turn he repeated their names, beginning, “Ted Parks, Mrs. Parks.” Ted waved from the wagon, Kendra from her horse. Kendra loved hearing herself called Mrs. Parks. It made her feel welcome. In this group she had a place. She had never before had any feeling of belonging to a group, or belonging anywhere.
Ning went on, presenting the company and assigning their places in line. As Marny’s name was spoken she flashed her merry smile and called, “Howdydo, everybody!” Delbert, on a steed so black it looked
like a mount for the Prince of Darkness, bowed with a bored formality. The Blackbeards nodded, the Hawaiian girls raised their hands in greeting.
Ning introduced Pocket and Hiram Boyd. Pocket gave them a bashful smile, as if not used to being noticed in public. Hiram pulled off his hat and waved it above his head like the leader of a cheering squad. Hiram was not handsome but he was attractive in a rough-hewn way—strong broad shoulders, enormous hands puckered by wind and sun. He had left his rust-colored beard at a barber shop in San Francisco—though on this journey Kendra had no doubt that he would soon grow it again—and now she could see that he had a rugged face with a strong nose and jutting chin, what some people would call a fighting chin. His hair, like his beard, was a rusty brown, thick and untidy. He sat his horse well, and he had brought the spare horses into line with easy skill. Kendra remembered what Ning had said about good travelers. Certainly Hiram would be one.
Ning shouted, “Catch up!”
This was the signal on the Western trails. It meant they were starting to move. Ning rode ahead to lead the line, and the others fell into place: first Ted’s wagon, then the two wagons driven by the Blackbeards, one behind the other. After the wagons came the packhorses and the spares, linked by long braids of leather and guarded by Pocket and Hiram. Kendra, Marny, and Delbert had been told to ride alongside the train in any order they pleased.
Kendra looked around. Delbert was riding near the first wagon. He rode calmly, saying nothing, lost in his thoughts—if he had any, which she was beginning to doubt. Marny, near the line of horses, was watching with interest the way Pocket and Hiram were managing them. Kendra wondered if she would get to know Marny on this journey. She hoped so, though she could not think how to open a conversation. She could not go up to Marny and say, “I’ve never met anybody like you and I’m dying of curiosity.”
Well, there must be a way. Ning had said they would be about two weeks on the road. Anything might happen.
The ride was pleasant that morning. Once past the fog-ridden hills of San Francisco they came into a land of sun and grass and April flowers, and trees lively with birds. To her left Kendra could see the bay streaked pink and silver by the sun, to her right the hills that divided the bay from the sea. On the hills she saw herds of grazing cattle, and little houses of plank or adobe where the ranchers lived. Sometimes she saw a man on horseback, or a woman carrying water, or a child who waved as they rode by.
Once she caught sight of a dozen Abs, staring from beyond a line of bushes. They were ugly creatures, a dark grayish brown, their hair sticking out in all directions from their heads, their little beetle eyes batting greedily as they looked at the horses, which they would have liked to eat. They wore tatters of cloth and strings of beads, but not much of either, and they were so dirty that Kendra could smell them as she rode by. Ted had told her that except for stealing anything they could carry, the Abs were harmless unless some fool let them have liquor, but she was glad when the train had left them behind.
These first days were going to be easy. Ning had said they would rest early and often, to keep the horses fresh for the hard pulls ahead. The army couriers made forty miles a day, but those men rode horseback with no burdens but a few clothes in their saddlebags. With wagons, said Ning, twenty miles was enough. And Kendra’s meals would be no problem, for she had brought baked ham and beef and other foods ready to eat, enough to let her ease gently into the ways of cooking outdoors.
There was only one detail that worried her, but worry her it did. She liked roughing it this way. But she was a civilized person, and there were certain private necessities that ought to be private. On a journey such as this, what did you do? Just slip behind a bush and hope nobody would pass?
Well, she would soon find out. Ning kept his word about an early rest, for it was still long before noon when they came to a stream lined with willows and he called that they would stop here. He had divided the party into two messes. Kendra would prepare the meals for Ning and Ted, Pocket and Hiram, while Marny’s group would be responsible for their own. Kendra dismounted, Hiram took charge of her mare, and she went to the wagon for the coffee pot. Ted, unhitching the team, called to say he would gather wood for the fire. When he had put the horses in Hiram’s care he started off to look for sticks.
Kendra climbed into the wagon, took the coffee pot from the corner where she had carefully put it this morning, and came to the front to climb out. To her surprise she saw Marny, standing by a front wheel as if waiting for her. Marny had taken off her bonnet, and in the sun her hair was like a crown and the freckles almost danced on her nose.
“Won’t you share my bathroom?” asked Marny.
11
MARNEY’S VOICE WAS DEMURE, but about her lips and her green eyes there were mischievous flickers that added plainly, “We’re in this together, let’s manage together.”
A hundred thoughts rushed into Kendra’s head. She had never spoken to—or been addressed by—a woman of easy morals. The nearest she had ever come to it was that day in the store, when she had watched Marny manipulating her cards, and she did not know if Marny had noticed her then or not. She did know that if Eva had been in her place now Eva would have given Marny a cold gaze, replying, “No, thank you,” and would have gone back into the wagon and stayed there until Marny had taken her impudent presence somewhere else.
But as she thought of this, Kendra wanted to laugh. For of course, Eva would not have been here at all. Eva would not have consented to be part of a group that included such people as Marny and her friends.
—And I, thought Kendra, am not Eva. I’m me.
She said, “Thank you, I’d like very much to share it. But what do you mean by a bathroom?”
Marny pointed with her crop. Looking around, Kendra saw a clump of bushes around which the Blackbeards were draping a piece of cloth like a long sheet. On the sheet was painted in big black letters, “Ladies Only.”
“I have all the needed utensils,” said Marny, “including a washbasin. Just bring your own towel.”
As fast as she could, Kendra took a towel from the wagon pack and scrambled down. “What a good idea!” she exclaimed. “Who thought of it?”
“Me,” said Marny. She said it with a little smile of amusement, as if to add,—Who do you think has the ideas around here?
As they started toward the clump of bushes, behind them they heard the men laughing. Marny said calmly, “They’ll get used to it.”
When they reached the bushes Kendra saw that the two ends of the sheet had been sewn around two stakes, and now these were stuck into the ground behind the clump, providing an entrance to the “bathroom” and privacy on all sides. Marny gestured with a slim freckled hand.
“You go in first. You’re my guest.”
This was a strange way to have an introduction, but an introduction it was. Kendra went into the bathroom, and when she came out she said, “I do thank you!” Marny smiled and answered, “You’re welcome, see you later,” and they were friends.
Kendra spread out her towel to dry. She started the fire, brought water from the creek, and tied the coffee beans in a cloth so she could grind them between two stones as Ning had taught her. While the coffee was brewing she took out the “eating pans,” stout pans with wooden handles, easily held by men sitting on the ground. When she had filled the pans with beef and ship’s bread and olives and dried figs, she called that dinner was ready.
While she was working she had noticed that Delbert was not as useless as she had thought. He and Pocket were guarding the camp. On opposite sides, they walked up and down, speaking to nobody, holding their guns ready. When Ning had finished his dinner he took Pocket’s place, and one of the Blackbeards relieved Delbert. Ning told the others to stretch out and rest.
An hour later they began the afternoon ride. When they stopped for the night, again the Blackbeards put up the sign around more bushes, again Kendra and Marny shared the bathroom. Lulu and Lolo went in after them. As the girls passed they both
politely said, “How do you do,” and Lolo added to Marny, “We’ve started the fire.”
“They speak good English,” Kendra said to Marny.
“Oh yes,” said Marny. “They went to a mission school. Not that it did them much good, I’m glad to say.”
Kendra saw Ning bringing an armful of sticks. “I’d better go now,” she said, “and get my own fire started.”
“You’re better than I am,” Marny said with a smile. “I’m tired and I’m going to rest. But you’re going to cook.”
Kendra said she did not mind, though in fact she was tired too. Her riding masters had made her a good horsewoman and the hills of San Francisco had made her a better one, but she was not used to riding all day long. She could not help feeling envious as she scorched her face over the frying pan and saw Marny sitting under a tree with Delbert, sipping wine and playing a card game while Lulu and Lolo cooked supper for them.
But just then Ted, on guard duty, walked past her fire and took the chance to say softly, “Sweetheart, you’re great.” A moment later the other men of their mess came hungrily to the fire. Kendra filled their eating pans with ham and applesauce and hot fried potatoes. Hiram grinned and said, “This is better food than I’m used to,” and Pocket said, “It sure is good, ma’am,” and Ning said, “I told you she was gonta be handy,” and Kendra thought she would not have changed places with anybody else on earth.
That night, on her bedroll in the wagon, she slept as if a black curtain had fallen over her. In the morning she was awakened by Ted’s putting a kiss on the tip of her ear, and she said to herself, “Oh, I’m happy, happy, happy! I’m married to the most delightful man in the world and I’m on my way to a mountain full of gold.”
When they mounted their horses, she and Marny rode side by side. Marny was easy to talk to. “Did you see me in the store,” Kendra asked, “when you came in that first day?”
“Oh yes. I liked having you there. You looked so fascinated.”
“I was fascinated. I’d never seen anybody handle cards like that.”