Applewood (Book 2): Fledge

by Myers, Brendan P.

  After the death of Julian’s father, there was only one place for him to go. And even then, he wasn’t at all sure they would have him. The banknotes his father left him bought him a boat ride up the American River toward Sacramento.

  7

  “The swollen river that ran alongside the bustling port city was filled to its brim with boats of all sizes. Triple-masted schooners waited their turn to unload heavy cargo. Smoky paddlewheel steamboats stopped to unload a never ending sea of humanity. Flat bottomed barges with cargo piled twenty feet high lined the shoreline. Dozens of decrepit ships that had already taken their last voyage — bringing gold seekers to this Promised Land — rotted everywhere, abandoned at the wharf or towed away to sink in and clog up the busy harbor.

  It was raining the day I disembarked from my own small boat. Indeed, it had rained every day throughout my week long journey. It occurred to me only then and for the first time that it had, in fact, been raining for weeks on end. As I set foot upon the shore, I saw that the river itself had nearly escaped its banks, to even now greedily lick its way toward the dusty streets and busy sidewalks of the growing town. But I paid it no mind, for my eyes were drawn only to the spectacle of the city and the multitude of people rushing about. Dozens of heavy laden horse and ox drawn wagons hurried about here and there. I wasn’t ashore more than ten minutes before hearing the sound of pistols firing for no reason at all, that I could see.

  Walking along the muddy streets in the afternoon rain, I realized the incessant hammering that was ever present in Coloma was but a mere overture to the cacophony that was Sacramento. Dozens upon dozens of two- and three-story buildings were being constructed everywhere I turned. I walked past row upon row of busy shops and saloons and gambling houses before I saw the one thing that surprised me most. I stopped dead in my tracks to puzzle over it a moment. There was nothing special about her. She certainly took no notice of me. But I smiled to understand that what made me stop was the first woman I had laid eyes upon since my father and I left with the single men for Coloma. I noticed then there were more women about, but by my own count there still seemed about ten men for every woman.

  After asking around, I was eventually directed to a place six streets over, where I was told I would find Reverend Haggstrom. Across the muddy side streets I went, dodging carts here and there, before turning the corner to see the church going up. Only about three-quarters constructed and still without steeple, a dozen men hung from its eaves in the rain, nailing in the boards that would become the roof. I stood and watched a moment longer, recalling the saloons and gambling houses I had passed along the way, then remembered the lawlessness of Coloma, and thought that if ever a town or region was more in need of the Lord’s influence, this was it.

  When I first caught sight of the Reverend, his back was to me as he spoke sternly to one of the workers. I confess at that moment to a pang of fear and doubt, wondering if I had made the right decision. But what was I to do? I was a mere boy, not yet ready to fend for myself. The workman saw me and shifted his attention across the Reverend’s shoulder, no doubt thinking I was just another bedraggled boy seeking work. The Reverend turned as well. When he smiled broadly to see me, I knew then that I was saved.

  Gustaf and I made our joyful reacquaintance, this time as brothers. I whispered to him late into the evening those first few nights about life in mining country, of the filth and smoke and treachery of some. There was no school in the new city, so during the day the two of us helped build the church, and in the evenings, the Reverend included me in Gustaf’s Bible lessons, and in this way, my own reading and writing progressed.

  Having known my father, the Reverend seemed to intuit that a life in the church was not for me, but my new brother Gustaf was to become a preacher. He would take over his father’s congregation when the Lord decided to take him from the earth. That selfsame fickle deity almost managed to take us all away a month later, when the swollen river finally breached its banks to turn the whole city into an inland sea.

  The power of rushing water destroyed most every building in town. Cresting higher than six feet, it drowned many residents in their own beds, while those in hospital were left to fend for themselves. All the buildings by the waterfront were destroyed, as was the Reverend’s new church. Ever stoic, he called it the will of God and vowed to build again. When the water finally receded, he kept his word. In the interim, he held Sunday services for his few dozen parishioners out in the open air, saying there was no better cathedral than nature itself.

  Barely a month after that January flood, Sacramento was incorporated as the first city in California. That same year, California entered the Union as a free state and another star was added to the flag. The water came and went again that year and in the years to come, as did devastating fire. But the hearty town continued to grow. Entire blocks of new city were built in a single week. The population doubled in the next three years. Temporary levees became permanent and life began to get better. Gustaf continued at his father’s side. Our Bible lessons went on in the evenings, and the next year, the Reverend married a kind woman. A month later, Gustaf was to be a big brother.

  For myself, I took odd jobs here and there, until I found my calling working at a newspaper called the Transcript. I began as a printer’s apprentice, laying out type and ad copy, even contributing a few sketches and an uncredited story now and then. Sometimes, I was tasked to bring bundles of newspapers to other towns, for the newspaper business was cutthroat, with upwards of sixty papers struggling for readers and revenue. My travels took me all over the burgeoning valley, to Sutter Creek and Shingle Springs and Placerville, all of them growing in much the same manner as Sacramento. I read in my own newspaper that even foul Coloma was building themselves a main street. They could have it, I thought.

  During my travels, I saw confirmed my earlier belief that it was the merchants and the other gold parasites making most of the money. In Stockton, I met a dry goods salesman named Levi Strauss, who earned a living selling canvas pants made of tent fabric to the miners. A man named Phillip Armour ran a meat market in Placerville and once bought advertising from me. Another man named John Studebaker was a wheelbarrow maker who had no time for a boy selling newspapers and anyway, didn’t look the type who would part with a nickel. Looming above them all was Sam Brannan, the richest man in California.

  I saw my first “Brannan and Co.” store when passing through Sutter Creek, and watched many more soon spring up throughout the valley. It was his newspaper — The San Francisco Star — that back in ‘48 had first printed news of the gold strike at Sutter’s Mill. He printed it only after he himself had purchased every shovel in the city. Since that time, he’d purchased a dozen more newspapers along with a hotel, a flour mill, and God knew what else. Rumors swirled he had been excommunicated from his own Mormon church for not giving in to the tithe, the same tithe he collected on behalf of his church from the Mormon miners he met during his visits to Sutter’s Fort. It was then I began to realize that as wonderful a city as Sacramento was, San Francisco was where the real fortunes were made. And so it was on Gustaf’s eighteenth birthday — which we also celebrated as my own — I said goodbye to my friends and adopted family and set off to make my way in the world. I arrived in San Francisco in August, 1855.

  Just seven years earlier, San Francisco had been a sleepy Mexican village of about a thousand souls. But the city that loomed below me the day I arrived contained more than thirty thousand, with more coming every day from every corner of the earth, on the hundreds of ships that blackened the harbor or were tied up along wharves that extended deep into the bay. I’d heard the tales of ships being abandoned in the harbor, entire ships’ companies leaving them behind to make their way to the gold fields. Those who stayed behind took possession of the ships and used their wood to build warehouses and stores and taverns. By this time, gold fever had abated somewhat. What gold could be easily mined had all been taken. Industrial methods were now being used to rip the gold
from the hills. And though some folks continued making their way into gold country, they were more likely now to make a daily wage from someone who’d gotten rich off the gold than they were to strike it rich themselves.

  However, I soon discovered that San Francisco was more lawless than Sacramento had ever been. The good citizens of Sacramento had been mostly successful in shutting down or forcing into hiding the gambling houses and brothels that had marred the place upon my arrival, an effort for which the good Reverend Haggstrom received much of the credit. But San Francisco was a sewer of petty theft and prostitution. Murder on the streets and in broad daylight was an everyday occurrence. Prostitutes boldly displayed themselves in the windows, while newspapers published daily editorials decrying the sinful immorality.

  I got a job at one of the San Francisco dailies, and it was an exciting time to be in the newspaper business. The owner of the newspaper where I worked — a Mr. Charles Wagner — had come from Germany himself in search of gold. Finding none, he took up residence in San Francisco and started the paper. Being of German extraction myself, he took a keen interest in both my education and my career, while I took a keen interest in one of his daughters.

  Though only sixteen at the time we met, Kathrin Wagner became the love of my life and my obsession. Her father dangled her in front of me, but said that no daughter of his would marry a newspaperman. He insisted I become a lawyer. To that end, he apprenticed me off to the firm of Hope and Barney, where I clerked and ran general errands while studying law books late into the evening. In May of 1859, at the age of twenty two or thereabouts, I became a member of the California bar. In June of that year, I married Kathrin Wagner and became the happiest man on earth. We purchased a small house on Telegraph Hill and set about starting a family.

  Of course, at that time, drums of war beat throughout the land, but California was far away from those rebel states. A militia was raised and sent off to support the Union, but California had no real dog in that fight, and war was always good for business. With so many enterprises in the eastern part of our land disrupted to support the war effort, ships came to San Francisco from the Far East laden with those fine things that were hard to get elsewhere, while my duties at the firm continued to grow. In 1861, we had our first child, a boy we named Wilhelm in honor of the brother I never met. A second son came along the next year whom we named Gustaf in honor of my other brother. He and I had not seen each other in some time but corresponded frequently. His father’s church had become renowned for its good works and its non-denominational welcoming of all faiths. Gustaf himself was made pastor when his father’s health waned.

  After those hard early years, life in San Francisco was good. The town of tents and wood-frame shacks I discovered upon my arrival had become a grand city of the finest brick and granite, with architectural wonders that would rival even the oldest cities in Europe. We had the finest restaurants, hotels, theaters, colleges, and even our own opera house. The occasional temblor beneath our feet might knock things down, but things were always rebuilt quickly. And on my thirty-fifth birthday, with two strong and healthy sons on the verge of manhood themselves, I was made a full partner in the now renamed firm of Hope, Barney, and Kummler. I had come to San Francisco to make my fortune and had succeeded beyond even my own wildest dreams.

  It was on July nineteenth in the year 1877 that my secretary ushered a broken and downtrodden man into my office. He was old, I guessed more than sixty. I didn’t recognize him at first. He jabbered on endlessly about being swindled and wanting revenge. I did my best to calm him and took up my pen to begin making notes.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “John Windham,” he answered.

  A chill ran down my spine, though I tried not to let it show. I wrote down his name in a shaking hand and then set my pen aside. I leaned back in my chair and looked at the man I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years. Closer inspection revealed this was indeed the same John Windham who had given my father a hundred dollars in banknotes those many years ago, and who had testified to the arbitration panel. Then and now, it was only my suspicion he had colluded somehow with the Smithson brothers to steal my father’s claim. Therefore, I was careful in my interrogation.

  “Tell me slowly, Mr. Windham, and in your own words, just how have you been swindled?” I got up to pour him a brandy and brought it to him. His hands shook as he swallowed the liquid but it seemed to calm him.

  “Railroad notes. Worthless! I poured every penny I had into them, and now they’re worthless!”

  That was no surprise. The coming of the railroads had resulted in lots of men either getting rich or losing their shirts. There seemed no middle ground when it came to railroads. It was a fact there were now an overabundance of them.

  “Well, Mr. Windham, you’re not the first to lose mon—”

  “There never was any railroad!” he shouted. “There was never going to be any railroad!” He spat out his next words. “And yet there he lives, high and mighty, the richest man in town.”

  My face burned even before I asked the question. “And who is this man you’re speaking of?”

  “Goes by the name Smith now, but Smithson’s his real name. William Smithson.”

  I let that sink in a moment and kept my face impassive. I tried to anyway.

  “After all I did for them. The stories I could tell you . . .”

  I kept quiet and let him go on.

  “He killed his brother, you know. Claimed it was an accident. Never even went to trial for it. But I know he did it.”

  “How did it happen?” I asked, immediately regretting what must seem a strange and off-topic question. But he hadn’t even noticed.

  “Hunting accident, so he said. It was back in fifty-three. Claimed his brother shot himself, but don’t you believe it. They had the richest claim in Coloma. He wanted it all for his self.”

  I kept my voice steady. “And what is your relationship to this man?”

  He laughed. “Lackey. Flatterer. Sycophant. I made a deal with the devil and got burned.”

  That was all the evidence I needed.

  “And where does this . . . Mr. Smith reside?”

  “Nob Hill. The big house. You can’t miss it.”

  Even now, I’m not sure how I was able to keep my face impassive. I was of course well acquainted — if only by reputation — with Mr. Smith of Nob Hill. All the houses on the Hill were big, but his was the biggest. He owned one of the largest investment houses in the state. His portfolio included railroads, real estate, and a fleet of clipper ships involved in the China trade. My insides churned when I realized it was my own birthright that had bought him that house on Nob Hill. Thoughts and feelings I thought had been buried forever came to the forefront of my mind.

  Standing, I removed the glass from in front of Mr. Windham. He had already drunk the last brandy he would ever get from me. But if what he said was true, life had exacted its own revenge on him. He was only a bit player in the drama, so I ushered him out of my office and promised to investigate the matter. Later that afternoon, I wandered down to California Street where I knew Smith’s investment office was located.

  The anti-Chinese labor riots were still going on at the time, and the streets were packed with crowds of unruly mobs. At about four-thirty in the afternoon, a fat man in fine clothes exited the investment office and began walking up the street. I followed. He stepped into a candy shop and bought himself some sweets before heading to his house upon the hill. I followed him the next day, and the next, and discovered that his movements were quite regular.

  My mind burned with thoughts of vengeance. I concocted a dozen legal schemes to bring him down. I first considered using Windham’s charges of railroad fraud against him, but I was all too familiar with Mr. Windham and his reputation. Smithson was no doubt not the first devil with whom he had made shady deals. No, the man would never fly as a credible witness.

  I thought of other ways, of using my good reputation to float an inv
estment scheme of my own to bring down his business. But that would take time, and financial ruination was too good for the man. My mind drifted to thoughts of my father, hogtied and dragged, then strung up on a tree. He asked me to never forget what had happened to him, to never forget the cruelty that one man could inflict upon another. Though I was certain that revenge was not the lesson he wished to teach me that day, from the moment I caught sight of Mr. Windham, it was all that I felt in my heart.

  And so, with riots going on all around, I found myself in a dark alley just off California Street with a pistol in my hand. When Smith passed by the alley as he did at this same time every day, a hand was there to grab him by his fine wool coat and pull him into the fetid and narrow passageway.

  “Come with me,” I whispered in his ear. “Don’t make a sound.”

  I put the pistol to his head and knocked his hat aside, kicking it into the gutter and dragging him deeper. My eyes had grown accustomed to the shadows during my wait, so I took a long look at him before he had finished blinking away his shock. The arrogant young man who had spat tobacco on my father’s new shoes was now a fat, bald, old man. His yellowed skull was tinged with brown spots, his nose reddened by strong drink. I shoved him roughly against the wall and pushed him halfway to the ground.

  “You don’t understand . . .” he said. “You don’t understand . . .” he repeated. “Please . . . please . . .”

  I stared down at him and waited for the first glimmer of recognition to appear in his face. When he showed no sign of looking my way, I kicked him in his legs and ordered him to look up at me.

  “Please . . .” he said again before finally turning his face in my direction.

  “Do you recognize me?” I asked. It was then I noticed there was something wrong with his eyes. They were vacant, distant somehow, as if they were not his eyes at all. For a brief moment, I felt a shiver. But the heat of revenge burned too strong within me to turn back now.