Bound for Gold--A Peter Fallon Novel of the California Gold Rush

by William Martin

  Christopher had retreated to his cabin afterward and had not appeared since.

  During the night, I had heard him whimpering and had knocked on his door, but he ordered me away. So I said, through the shutters, that he had taken it like a man and done us all proud. “Even Mr. Hodges agreed.” I didn’t mind a small lie in service to a friend. I hoped for him to regain his pride, or he would soon be known as a nancy-boy, to borrow one of Michael Flynn’s more inelegant phrases.

  Now the Irishman leaned over me and said, “Outside of the Bible and some damn-fool pamphlets on gold minin’, there ain’t much to read in the fo’c’sle. How about you let me have a gander at what you’re writin’? I’ll tell you what I think.”

  “Some of what I write is for people to read. Some of it is for me to remember so that I can write it better later. Someday I’ll give you some. How’s your face?”

  He ran a hand over the nicks and scratches. “I give the lads a good laugh, so it was worth it. Easier to ignore pain when the lads are laughin’.”

  “That shave was not your first time ignoring pain, I’d bet.”

  Flynn leaned against the rail. “Ignoring pain is a lesson you learn when life hurts you here”—he jerked his thumb to his flogged back—“or here”—he gestured to his heart.

  “Your sister?” I asked.

  “Long before that.” He looked off to the northeast, as if he could see all the way to the land of his birth. “When you’re a boy and your da dies tryin’ to move a boulder so’s he can till the rocks beneath … when the potatoes turn black, and your ma loses heart ’cause she’s got no hope of feedin’ you and your sister … when you steal a lamb and they catch you and flog you. Them things make you hard and bitter, rebellious-like.”

  Flynn fixed his eyes on the whitecaps. “Comes the day you join the Fenians—fellers lookin’ for a way out, fellers who think things should be different. And one night, one of you takes a shot at the resident magistrate—I ain’t sayin’ who—and an informer whispers, and you spend a month in custody whilst the law tries to beat more names out of you. Well, in a life like that, you learn how to ignore pain.”

  “Were you convicted?”

  “If I was, I’d be rottin’ in Kilmainham Gaol this very day. But here I am, runnin’ for riches just like the lot of ye’s.”

  Eight bells rang. High noon. Time for Flynn’s watch.

  I said, “About what I told you in the fo’c’sle—”

  He chuckled, as if my earnestness amused him. “You didn’t put the captain up to anything. I know that. What I don’t know is, why do you care a damn for what I think?”

  “It’s a small ship, and I care for what any man thinks about me.”

  “A small ship, aye. A short life, too. Best not waste it carin’ about what men who don’t care about you are thinkin’ about you.” Flynn gave me a salute and headed off.

  He made sense, in a roundabout way.

  But my thoughts were drawn to a splash in the water. Christopher Harding had come on deck and had thrown something over the side. I went to the rail and saw that it was a split of stove wood. Then he pulled out his Colt and began firing madly at it.

  Sloate, who’d come up close behind him, whispered, “Squeeze, squeeze the trigger.”

  Christopher, as skinny as a shroud, with arms no thicker than rat lines, held the pistol with both hands. The barrel quivered. The arms shook. He drew back the hammer and … Bang! A bullet struck the floating wood. Then two more shots, two more hits.

  “Good boy,” whispered Sloate like a proud teacher. Then he noticed Hodges watching, and he said, “We’ll all be deadeye shots before this cruise is over, Samuel. I promise.”

  “Every man a marksman,” said Hodges. “That will do us well in California.”

  Every man a marksman? Marksmanship is a talent like singing or painting. Some men are born to it and some are not. But every man would be something before this cruise was over. And the one thing we surely would be was changed.

  Peter Fallon read “The Journal of James Spencer” whenever he had time, all the way to the JetBlue gate at Logan. He skimmed over the weather reports and shorter entries. He slowed and settled in for the narrative.

  The William Winter pounded south, encountered more dolphins, sighted sperm whales, and cruised through schools of albacore that the sailors caught and Pompey cooked into a fine chowder. They collected enough rain in barrels that they never put in for water. They grew tired of salt beef. They grew tired of each other. Petty disputes festered, and the larger dispute was never far from any conversation.

  Spencer wrote about the tensions. But he also observed the heavens and tracked the constellations. A few nights after they crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, just as Dana had promised in Two Years Before the Mast, they saw the Magellanic Clouds, a glowing cluster of two nebulae named for the first explorer to run the treacherous straits at the bottom of the world.

  Soon they felt the chill and put on their winter clothes again. They navigated between the cold coast of Patagonia and the fog-shrouded Falklands. They spied a majestic albatross following their wake. Sloate told Christopher Harding to shoot the bird, but Spencer grabbed Harding’s hand and reminded him of his Coleridge. Harding laughed and fired, and the bird fell into the sea. Someone, Spencer wrote, would be cursed for that.

  On they sailed until the Southern Cross, brightest constellation in the hemispheric sky, passed directly overhead. That meant they had reached the latitude of Cape Horn. But the wind held fair from the northeast, and the men began to wonder what the worry had been. As Spencer wrote for the Transcript:

  Captain Trask shaped a course to ride the friendly zephyrs as far as possible. And all was well until the afternoon of April the eleventh, when a cloud the color of coal dust rose on the southwest horizon. Soon it was racing toward us, consuming daylight and blackening the sea. Then the northeast wind shifted and swung round, as if the Lord had deemed the William Winter sturdy enough to form the pivot point between two mighty currents of water and moving air. The first mate cried, “All hands ahoy!” The captain, who seldom spoke from the quarterdeck in more than a whisper, shouted for reefed tops’ls. But before our sailors could climb, the sea leapt up with the fury of an Appalachian catamount. The sudden turbulence knocked me off my feet, and the sudden wave that rolled over us drove me halfway down the deck.…

  TWO

  Wednesday Morning

  BONG!

  “This is the captain speaking. We’re in for some turbulence, folks. So please return to your seats and keep your seat belts fastened.”

  Peter lifted the flap of Evangeline’s jacket.

  They’d lucked out and gotten a row where the third seat was empty. Plenty of room to spread out. Evangeline took the window. Peter wanted the aisle. She’d been sleeping. He’d been sipping coffee and reading on his iPad.

  She woke up. “What? What are you doing?”

  “Checking your belt. Don’t want you flying around like Sandra Bullock.”

  She yawned, stretched, lifted the window shade, looked out. “Where are we?”

  He tapped the screen in the seatback and brought up the animated airplane crossing the continent. “Somewhere over Nevada.”

  “All desert down there.”

  “The great Humboldt Sink.” Peter leaned over and gazed down onto the brown, sun-baked nothingness.

  They had not been this close in months. She leaned back to give him a better view. He pretended not to be enjoying the proximity. She pretended not to be aware of it.

  He said, “Imagine walking from Missouri, across the grasslands, along the Platte River, over the Rockies, then you have that facing you.”

  “With the Sierras still to come.” She angled her head so that she could see the silver and white mountains, rising like a wall before them.

  “That’s why New Englanders went by sea. No mountains. And—”

  She gestured to his iPad. “Where are the Sagamores now?”

  “Getting c
lose to San Francisco.”

  “Like us.”

  “It takes us just over six hours. It took them over six months. The second half of their passage has been pretty uneventful, but rounding the Horn … man, that was brutal. It starts with a black cloud on the horizon, then a wave almost washes Spencer overboard. Then he says, ‘In minutes a heavier sea was raised than I had ever seen, and our ship became no more than a bathing-machine, plunging half-submerged, then rising, then plunging again into the ice-green water.’”

  “A bathing machine in brutal cold,” said Evangeline.

  Peter kept reading, “‘The sea was pouring in through bow-ports and hawse-holes and over the knight-heads, threatening to wash everything and everyone overboard. But the crew, including novice Michael Flynn, sprang aloft with a kind of bravery that on land would defy description, and…’

  “It goes on like that for four pages, eleven days, ‘a relentless pounding misery of snow squalls and sleet in a hatch-battened coffin so clammy and wet, some men sprouted boils and carbuncles while others saw their very skin slough off with their clothing. When word passed that First Officer Hawkins had gone overboard and was riding the black sea toward his everlasting reward, there were those in our saloon who spoke with outright envy rather than sorrow.’”

  Peter looked up, “A man can write like that, we owe it to him to reconstruct his journal.”

  The plane hit an air pocket. Evangeline smacked her head against the window. Peter grabbed his coffee cup. They dropped, then rose, then dropped again. Whatever wasn’t strapped down went flying, including the coffee, which sloshed out of Peter’s cup, floated for an instant in the air, then splattered all over his trousers.

  “Peter puts on khakis … stains sure to follow,” she said when the plane settled.

  “At least it’s not red wine.”

  “No red wine snark. If not for red wine, I’d have stayed in New York.”

  “It’s not the red wine I’m worried about. It’s the red winemaker.”

  “Manion Sturgis has set out to grow the best Zinfandel in the Sierra foothills. So if I’m writing about Zins, I’m interviewing him. He’s a master vintner.”

  “Master vintner, master womanizer, major asshole.”

  Evangeline pulled a clump of Kleenex from her purse and gave it to Peter. “Sop up the coffee. It won’t stain as much. And you’re breaking a personal rule.”

  “What rule?”

  “Never speak ill of someone who does your kid a favor. If not for Manion, LJ might never have gotten a job with Van Valen and Prescott.”

  “He might’ve come back to Boston or New York. Plenty of work there.”

  The plane hit another rough patch and vibrated like a pickup pounding on frost heaves. Everything rattled, the seatback trays, the overheads, even the window shades.

  When it stopped, Peter said, “Besides, Sturgis only did it to get back into your—”

  “Don’t say ‘into my pants.’ That never happened. He’s just a friend.”

  “But he’d still love to get into your—”

  She raised a finger. Don’t say it.

  “—good graces.”

  The plane hit a sinkhole in the sky and dropped right into it, dropped as if the engines had stopped. Someone screamed. Something banged in the galley. A flight attendant hurried aft to stop the banging, lost her balance, and landed on a passenger.

  Evangeline reached across the open seat to Peter.

  He took her hand and held tight.

  They were dropping like an elevator, which was better than nosediving. If they started nosediving, he might scream himself.

  Then the plane bounced off another layer of air, rose, dropped again, then seemed to go up like a glider and vibrate a bit more until finally it found a cushion of air. The ride settled, then smoothed.

  Captain Intercom crackled: “Now you see why the seat belt sign is on, folks. We’ll be keeping it on all the way to San Francisco.”

  Evangeline let out a deep breath and tried to pull her hand away.

  But Peter held it a moment longer.

  She said, “This is a business trip, Peter. Separate beds.”

  * * *

  “SEPARATE BEDS.” PETER SAT on his and bounced a few times, then tried hers. “Not as soft. You can share mine if you want.”

  “It should be separate rooms, but the hotel is full.” Evangeline was standing at the window, bathed in tones of peach … walls, bedspreads, carpet, draperies, all subtle complements of the color peach. “And I like the hotel.”

  They were in the Mark Hopkins, on the seventh floor, enjoying one of the few things they still agreed about—San Francisco.

  After their own cities—Boston for him, New York for her—they loved San Francisco. Small enough to navigate, like Boston, grand enough to rival New York … innovative but a bit hidebound, like Boston, brimming with big money and big ideas for spending it, like New York … built by a lot of the same people who built Boston—Yankee shippers, Irish and Italian immigrants—but more cosmopolitan, like New York, with an Asian influence that you couldn’t find anywhere on the East Coast.

  The truth was that San Francisco wasn’t like anywhere else. It was all its own.

  And for those who had first seen it as young lovers, it was all theirs. Even lovers who’d never been west of Cleveland dreamed about the City by the Bay. The hills, the fog, the romance … no chamber of commerce flack had ever come up with a better pitch.

  Peter and Evangeline had been in their twenties the first time. They had just lived through the crazy Back Bay business and didn’t know where they were headed, alone or together. They stayed across the street in the Fairmont tower, in a room with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Way too expensive but worth every penny. When they raised their heads from whatever they were doing between the sheets, they had the glorious sensation of floating, floating out the window, floating across the hills, floating over the Bay and into the fog. And when they took a break from bed and got dressed and went for a walk, there were all those great vistas … and beautiful buildings … and amazing restaurants.

  And they fell in love.

  Then they fell out of love, married other people, divorced, and fell back into love of a more mature sort. Now they were having … difficulties … growing apart, living apart, spending more time apart because sometimes apart just seemed like the best thing. So a San Francisco weekend could go either way. They might push the beds together, or one of them might move over to the Fairmont.

  Down on the street, a cable car bell clanged.

  Peter said, “I love that sound. Reminds me of our first afternoon here, back in—”

  “Even if I was inclined to stir up memories, Peter, we’re due at Arbella House.”

  “So … no time for a quickie?”

  She growled and stalked toward the bathroom door. “I need to freshen up.”

  “We’ll take the cable car,” he said. “I hear that after it stops at Arbella House, it climbs halfway to the stars.”

  She tried not to laugh, but he could always make her laugh. If he was hoping she’d leave her heart in San Francisco again, getting her to laugh was a good start. And she laughed. Then she said, “Dream on, boy. Dream on.”

  He heard the shower. He undressed and threw on one of the hotel robes so he could jump in after her. Always good to go to a meeting steam-cleaned and sharp.

  He sat on the bed to check his iPad, and the hotel phone rang.

  What? Who used the hotel phone anymore? Old school, hard-wired, no caller ID? He let it ring again, picked it up, said hello.

  “Mr. Fallon?” The voice was a male.

  “Who’s this?”

  “A San Francisco friend. Just want to warn you to watch out for white panel trucks and hit-and-run drivers. This is a dangerous town.” Click.

  The guy sounded friendly, like he might even grab Peter and pull him out of the way if that panel truck swerved around the corner. But when it came to money, especially gold, every
body was friendly … until they weren’t. So the game had started. Someone was already playing Peter Fallon. That meant they were playing his son, too.

  He glanced at the bathroom door. Shower was still running. Let it. And let this go a bit longer before raising red flags … with Evangeline or anyone else.

  * * *

  IN THE LOBBY, A young woman was reading the paper on one of the settees. As Peter and Evangeline came by, she got up, put on her sunglasses, and followed them out into the cold wind that was pumping wisps of fog along California Street.

  Peter noticed her because she was a redhead, five-ten, trim, chic, red lipstick, pricey shades. Evangeline noticed her because Peter did. As they crossed the street, the woman turned down the hill with her phone at her ear, and Evangeline gave Peter the eye.

  “What?” he said innocently.

  “You can never not look when a redhead walks by.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about her?”

  “Her lipstick was too bright? Her legs were too long?”

  “For a girl who looked so well turned out, that jacket was awful loose. Like she was wearing something on her hip.”

  “A gun? Don’t start, Peter. You’re here to appraise an old book collection and reconnect with your son.”

  “And find a journal that may start another California Gold Rush.”

  The bell clanged, and the cable car stopped in front of them, with the whole city framed behind. He almost took a picture.

  Evangeline noticed someone rush up, an Asian guy wearing a hoodie over a Giants ball cap. She elbowed Peter. “He looks like a guy at airport baggage today.”

  “And you recognize him because?”

  “That hat.”

  “Half the people in this city wear that hat, like Red Sox hats in Boston.”

  “So now I’m imagining things?”

  Peter gave the guy a sidelong glance and whispered to Evangeline, “Maybe it’s the same guy. Or maybe it’s just some guy, some guy running for the cable car.”