I frowned down at him. What kind of man was this? Why didn't he run away if he was a prisoner here? He was still free to walk around, wasn’t he? Why did he have to wait for a woman, especially one who was a prisoner, to help him? But I said nothing. I didn’t want to antagonize him now. Later, maybe, but not before he helped me.
"What’s your name?” I asked him. “How do you come to be here?”
More furtive looking around and desultory raking. "They call me the Professor,” he said guardedly. “At one time I was very prominent in my field.” I nodded, impressed. I guessed he told people that to help save his sagging pride. “But the lure of the gold fields was too strong for me,” he sighed. “I gave up everything to come out here. But when I got to Salt Lake City I needed a new horse, some food, some equipment. It took all the money I had just to buy supplies, and then I couldn’t afford a horse. Elder Pratt said that if I worked for him awhile he would let me have one. But he’s only paying me a dollar a day and he’s charging over two hundred for the horses.”
What a fool, I thought.
“Professor!” came a screeching voice from inside the house. “Ain’t you finished out there yet? I want you to haul some water fer me!”
“Almost finished, Miz Pratt!” he called, and he raked furiously. After a minute he looked up and said, “I have to go now. I’ll talk to you later.”
"Wait!” I leaned out the window. "He hasn’t even given me a drop of water. Look, I’ll lower a string. If you could tie on a jug—”.
He hesitated but finally he consented because he needed me as much as I need him, to escape. I hurriedly made a slim rope of strips torn from a chemise. In fifteen minutes I was hauling up a sweating stone jug. I hoped that I could keep from knocking it against the side of the house and I prayed that my rope would hold. I drank thirstily and blessed the Professor. I could see that he was a kindly if spineless man. That was all right. That kind of man was easy to manipulate.
We formulated our plans. Or I did, after quizzing him on the lay of the land. After dark he tied the end of a sturdy rope to my string and I pulled it up and brought it inside, saving it for later. I had just finished stowing it under the remains of my mattress when I heard the clink of Elder Pratt’s key. I looked around. The jug! I tossed it into my valise and covered it with a petticoat.
“Well, I see you’re still on your feet,” Elder Pratt said cheerfully.
“God is giving me strength to endure this torture,” I said coldly. “I can hold out as long as you can.”
He chuckled. “We’ll see about that!” And he left me. It never occurred to him that I would get a confederate on the outside. He probably never even gave the Professor a thought, except to rub his fat hands together and laugh at the way he was rooking him. Pratt would certainly never credit him with having the guts to escape. All to the good, I thought.
The Saints retired very early so they could rise early and work that much longer. At midnight I heard the Professor’s signal:
“Pssst!”
I darted to the window and motioned for him to be absolutely silent. First I lowered my valise on the rope, which I tied to the leg of the bed. Then I lowered myself. I climbed down the wall of that house as quietly as a fly on a wall. My feet were bare: I wouldn’t put on my boots until we were well away from the house.
“Where are your supplies?” I asked the Professor when we were well away from the house. “You have water containers, blankets, food?”
He nodded. “But they’re all locked up in Elder Pratt’s storeroom, right off the kitchen. Do you think—do you think we’ll have to start out—with nothing?”
“Don’t worry,” I patted his hand, “I’ll get what we need. Listen, where does he keep his money? Does he have a safe or anything like that? He has some jewels that belong to me.”
The Professor frowned. He wasn’t used to thinking style="font-weight:bold;text-decoration:underline;" about such mundane considerations as survival. I waited impatiently. Finally he said slowly, “There’s a box in the storeroom. I don’t know what’s inside. Elder Pratt doesn’t even know I know about it. He hides it under a floorboard and I saw him through a crack in the wall one day as he was putting it away.”
“Wonderful!” I congratulated him. “First I will tend to the horses.”
Fire was stabled with a dozen other horses. I had no doubt that when he discovered our flight Elder Pratt would give chase. And with a liability like the Professor along I would need every advantage to escape him. I had asked the Professor to get me some salt, and I mixed up a special batch of oats for the unsuspecting horses and salted it heavily. In the morning they would be so waterlogged from drinking to quench their thirst that they wouldn’t be able to go five miles without becoming cramped and exhausted. I hated to do it, and I apologized to them, but I had no choice. Only Fire and a couple of other sturdy specimen were spared the treatment. I blindfolded the three horses and muffled their hooves with rags. I told the Professor to lead them away from the Elder’s property and leave them there. Blinded they wouldn’t stray or spook at anything. Then he was to come back for the saddles and saddle blankets. By that time I expected to be finished in the storeroom.
A hair pin made short work of the padlock on the storeroom door. Inside, I lit a candle and scrounged around for everything I thought we would need: dried meat, some hunting knives, a rifle, rope, blankets, matches. Even a couple of bottles of whiskey, one of which was half empty. The good Elder Zebulon was no model Morman.
Then I probed around on my hands and knees for the loose floorboard. It wasn’t hard to find. The Professor’s box was there, all right. It was as big as a baby’s coffin. The lock was more difficult than the one on the door but hatred and excitement lent sharpness to my skills and soon I had it open. My little wad of baubles was nestled right on top of two of the fattest sacks of gold I had ever seen.
I didn’t hesitate a second. I calculated at least one gold piece for every minute of suffering I had endured in that arid, airless room. I dropped both sacks into the blanket I was using to collect my booty, restored the box to its resting place and replaced the board. I hoisted my burden on my shoulders, and left. Towards California. And revenge.
18
The Golden Gypsy
I CAME DOWN the narrow, red-carpeted stairs. Two Chinamen, who were washing the prisms of the big chandelier in the entrance, bobbed their heads and wished me good morning. I wished them the same. Two more were sweeping out the big gaming room to the left. On the other side of the entrance hallway was the smaller gaming room, for faro and poker. Both rooms had long bars. Behind the Little Salon was the Member’s Lounge, carpeted in red and richly furnished with dark tables and soft chairs that were conducive to long hours of sitting and talking and spending money on my overpriced drinks, twice the price of those served at the two bars. Anyone could be a member, provided he paid a thousand-dollar membership fee. Membership that November was twenty, and I had a waiting list of fifteen more. The Golden Gypsy had no restaurant—that would come later, I promised myself— but I did have a cook. The Members were entitled to order snacks with their drinks, goodies like caviar, shellfish, broiled oysters, Russian piroshki, and small smoked sausages that were sent up every week from a German farmer who lived down the coast.
The Professor and I had living quarters on the second floor. Customers were not permitted above the first floor unless invited by the management. I seldom invited anyone. I had a nicely furnished sitting room that doubled as my office, and my bedroom was large and comfortable. The Chinese cook who prepared hors d’ oeuvres for the Lounge also cooked for the household.
"Have my horse saddled, will you, Wang?” I told one of the Chinamen. “I’ll be going out for breakfast.”
I strolled into the Lounge. The Professor was already up. A closer look told me that he hadn’t been to bed at all.
I joined him and called for coffee and black bread. “You’re looking a little washed out this morning, Professor,” I observe
d cheerfully. “I’ve warned you about vodka. It’s dangerous stuff.” All the other casino owners were furious at me for buying up the entire stock from a Russian trading vessel. Why not? I got there first. I rowed out to the ship and greeted the captain and crew in Russian. I had money with me and I closed the deal in less than half an hour. I invited the captain and his men to visit the Golden Gypsy, and we parted, friends for life. That vodka was wicked and potent. Even watered down it was stronger than anything else they were serving along Washington Street that fall.
The Professor groaned and massaged his temples, “Head aches,” he moaned.
“Have some coffee,” I suggested. Kim, the cook, brought in a tray and set it down in front of me. I tipped the pot and passed the Professor a steaming cup. “You will be pleased to know that we’re doing even better this month than we did last month, and I expect December to be even better. When the weather in those hills gets too damp and cold, those miners will want a warm place with lots of whiskey and lots of action. You see? All your misgivings about the business were for nothing.”
"I’ll never get to dig any gold for myself,” he said sullenly.
"What are you talking about?” I said impatiently. What do you call this, if not digging gold? You have more money now than you ever dreamed of! And the future—!” I opened my arms wide to indicate the enormous potential of the future. “When we get the restaurant going, and enlarge the Big Salon—ah, it will be wonderful! And you still want to go off and grub in the dirt with your hands, and break your back and get hit over the head and robbed. Bah! You are a child. You have a one-track mind.”
“We’ll, at least that’s honest work,” he said into his cup.
"Oh? And you are implying that what we are doing is dishonest, I suppose. Where do you think those men would go if they didn’t come here? Answer me that? To the other gambling hells in this town, that’s where. I run the only straight, honest, clean games in town. Every dealer is honest, every game, every card. I even have you at the big faro table, don’t I? And you’re the most pathetically honest creature I have ever met in my life. I would have thought that after five whole months in my company a little of my larceny would have rubbed off on you. But no. You still feel guilty about the gold we stole from that pig, Pratt!”
"I didn’t steal it, you did! It wasn’t ours to take!”
You are the biggest idiot I have ever met.” I bit off a hunk of black bread and chewed furiously. The Professor was shy of girls, scared of gambling for high stakes, afraid of fast horses, terrified of getting sick. But he liked his drink. “Anyway, you’re not the thief, I am. Sit back, enjoy yourself. Isn’t this better than teaching a lot of silly boys a language that no one speaks?” The Professor had confided to me that he had been a teacher of Latin at “one of the better Eastern colleges.” Some nights it was Harvard, others Princeton. I doubted that it was either.
That poor man. What I must have put him through! I bullied him across the deserts of Utah and Nevada. I forced him to go on even when he cried and complained and swore he couldn’t go another mile. I cajoled and tormented and shouted at him. I dragged him away from the little mining camps in the mountains east of San Francisco and told him he’d be a fool to break his back for a few dollars when we had ten thousand in our saddlebags.
I was so angry with Seth and Elder Pratt that I probably could have crossed those deserts on foot, in the full heat of the broiling sun if I had to. But the poor Professor. It was just his bad luck to have fallen in with me when I was at my worst, possessed by such passionate fury that I was irrational, obsessed by the idea of revenge. After a month of travelling over the most hideous and desolate terrain we finally reached San Francisco, I persuaded him to be my partner in a gambling venture. He couldn’t refuse. He didn’t dare.
My plans after I reached the town were not to stay, but to leave at once for New Orleans by ship. This was the height of gold fever in California, and the town was full of prospectors, merchants, gamblers, men who had come to mine the mines and the miners. Boats anchored in the bay and whole crews deserted for the gold fields, leaving cargos unloaded and whole ships rotting. A lot of the early buildings in San Francisco were built of ship timbers. I saw immediately that it wasn’t going to be easy to get back. I heard horror stories about voyages around the Horn that had ended in disaster, and I wasn’t a good sailor to begin with. I certainly didn’t want to travel over land again. I kept deferring my return, putting it off and putting it off—
Then a chance came up to buy into a little gambling den down on Kearney Street, just north of Washington. The Professor and I bought out the owners and we prospered. I am not being immodest when I say that the success of the Golden Gypsy as we named our casino, was due largely to my own dazzling presence. In 1851 women were still enough of a rarity so that just the appearance of one on a crowded street was enough to cause a commotion. Of course every boat from Europe and South America and Australia brought a few more harlots, come to make their fortunes, just as every boat from China brought scores of young girls and women to be sold into prostitution.
But in the early summer of 1851 I was a novelty, and men flocked to the Golden Gypsy to see me. And the novelty didn’t wear off. I became an institution, a tourist attraction. I called myself the Baroness, of course, and I reigned as Queen of the Casinos. When I presided over the faro cable at the Golden Gypsy, men were so eager to lose their money to me that sometimes fights broke out when a seat fell vacant and a dozen men tried to fill it at the same time.
“Horsey ready, Missy,” Wang said, bowing. I stood up and patted the Professor on the shoulder.
“Take heart,” I said cheerfully. “Your headache will be gone by evening and you can start all over again. Something to look forward to.”
I picked up my gloves and my riding crop, and walked out into the misty San Francisco morning.
“Mornin' Baroness.”
I looked around and saw Black Jack MacDaniel, owner of the Golden Eagle next door. I greeted him and watched, amused, as he appraised my outfit: a tailored riding costume, dark grey wool trimmed with red, with a short split skirt, tightly-fitted jacket that flared over the hips, and flat-topped hat with a very wide brim. My boots were red leather, like those the Grandfather had given his little Gypsy so long ago. There were only two dressmakers in San Francisco, and one of them worked almost exclusively for me. She charged the earth, of course, but what did I care? I had plenty of money.
“Well, Mr. MacDaniel, do you like what you see?” I asked archly.
“You know I do,” he grinned broadly. “I’m really angry with you. Baroness.” He had a slow drawl that I liked. “Oh. Why?”
“Because I’m losin’ business on account of you. The Golden Eagle was the finest casino in San Francisco ’til you come to town. Now it’s only the second finest. Do you want to sell?”
I laughed and mounted Fire who was waiting patiently for her daily outing. “Thank you for the compliment, but no thank you to the offer.”
“Then how about we play a little poker for her?” he suggested. “You’re a gambler at heart.”
“A gambler but not a fool,” I reminded him. “Besides, poker is a little slow for me. I prefer faro. Quick and dangerous. Do you want to play faro for the Golden Gypsy?”
“No, thank you,” he said, shaking his well-pomaded head. “I know you never lose. I tell you. Baroness, I’ve been around this town a long time, since before Sutter struck gold. I’ve seen fires and hoodlums and gold nuggets as big as your fist, but I’ve never seen anybody like you. As they say back home, you sure do beat all.”
“You’ve been here that long? Did you ever meet a man named Seth McClelland? Or Seth Garrett? He’s a gambler, too.”
MacDaniel laughed. “Sure I know him. Seth Garrett. He passed through here a couple of years ago, I guess it was. Took me for everything I had. Why?”
“I have an old score to settle with him,” I said. “I would consider it a great favor if you would inform me, i
f you should see him.”
“A pleasure, Ma’am. I mean, Baroness.” He bowed and grinned again. Like a lot of the professional gamblers I had met he was dressed in sombre black from head to toe, with only a frilly white shirt front to keep him from looking macabre. I kicked Fire lightly and trotted off.
San Francisco was little more than a shanty town in those days, with a few adobe buildings here and there to remind the visitor that it had once been Mexican territory. The streets were deeply rutted tracks, virtually impassable for vehicles in most weathers. There was hardly any law except what the citizens themselves made and enforced. Lately a group of vigilantes had been formed to combat the Sydney Ducks, convicts and cutthroats from Australia who had entered the country illegally. They were now terrorizing the city. Their moves were becoming bolder: they would rob a building, a bank, or a warehouse, then set fire to it to destroy the evidence. I avoided Sydney Town in the afternoons and evenings, but in the early morning, before noon at least, most of the brutes were still sleeping, resting from their troublemaking.
A few children raced after me, waving and shouting. I hailed them and pulled Fire to a halt. They were mostly the unwanted offspring of the harlots, or children of white soldiers and Indian or Mexican girls, children of two worlds who belonged to neither. I talked to them for a few minutes, then gave them a few coins and told them to run back to the Golden Gypsy and ask Kim for something special to eat.
They scampered away and I rode northwards, not paying very close attention to where I was going. I saw that I had turned down Broadway and was wandering towards the Bay. Conditions in that part of the city were unspeakably squalid. I passed a line of cribs, which were really just mean sheds where the lowest grade of prostitute worked for virtually nothing, enslaved by a master who took everything she earned. Those women were poor miserable creatures who rarely lived to be more than twenty years old.
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