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

by William Martin

  Brannan poured two brandies and gave one to me. His face was flushed. He had already had a few. “We’ll form companies of twenty men in each ward to hunt out the hardened villains, the robbers, the arsonists.”

  “The Australians, you mean?”

  “Anyone. We’ll give them five days to leave. Then it’s a war of extermination.”

  “Extermination? A powerful word.”

  “We tell them if they stand against us, we’ll shoot them down like dogs.” He drained another glass, refilled it, gave me a look, as if to ask, Are you with me?

  I said, “I’ve seen mob violence … and the violence of retribution.”

  “You’ve even committed it.” Brannan brought his brandy breath close. “If Hodges didn’t love you like a disappointed father, he’d have hunted you down and hanged you for blowing up his dam and destroying his operation.”

  He stepped back and waited for a response. I remained silent. I did not like where this was headed.

  Then Brannan laughed. “Oh, hell, I don’t give a damn about Hodges. But what goes on in San Francisco? That I care about. When you kill men in my city—”

  “Who says I’ve killed men here?”

  “Anyone who knows that Trub McLaws and his bunch disappeared one night, without a trace.” Brannan went back to the window.

  I said, “It was the night of the first May fire. Maybe they all burned to ash.”

  “You know”—Brannan gazed out—“when the dock’s built between Clay and Long Wharf, along the line of Battery Street, the landfillers will reach the Proud Pilgrim. Pray no one goes looking for salvage.”

  Sam Brannan could bully, sometimes with a word or a fist, sometimes with a threat or a lawyer, sometimes with the grin he gave me now. “We need a committee of vigilance, James. If there’s no spirit for it, we should let the city burn next time. Let the streets flow with the blood of murdered men. And murdered women, too, murdered pregnant women, all because the judges are lily-livered technicality men and what police we have are too busy taking bribes.”

  I finished the brandy and made for the door.

  Brannan said, “I’ll count on your presence tonight.” It sounded like a threat.

  * * *

  BUT IN THE INTERESTS of maintaining the friendship I had built with the most powerful man in San Francisco, I went to the meeting. I joined the two hundred who crowded that night into the brick firehouse, passed bottles of rotgut, and filled the air with shouts and the whiskey-mist sweat of long-sustained anger. Sam Brannan stood on the engine and made a speech as angry as the sweat. The men roared and cheered and committed to his brotherhood of vigilance, all except for Nathan Trask. He stood by the stable door, holding a noose on each shoulder, speaking without words.

  Then the committee’s constitution was passed, man to man, binding all signers to perform “every lawful act for the maintenance of law and order and to sustain laws when faithfully administered, but we are determined that no thief, burglar, incendiary, or assassin shall escape punishment, either by quibbles of the law, the insecurity of prisons, the carelessness of the police, or the corruption of those who administer justice.”

  We were above all that. We were the citizens of San Francisco. Good men and true.

  Mr. Woodworth, the Vice-Consul, signed first, followed by Brannan. I was the twenty-fifth to sign and told to remember that number, because henceforth, it would be my identification when we were summoned to action with the tolling of the Monumental Company bell: two clangs, then a minute’s silence, two clangs, and so on.

  I did not like any of this. But I could not say no. Appearing as the solidest of citizens was always my defense against the acts I had performed aboard the Proud Pilgrim and along the Miwok. And solid citizens, as Brannan proclaimed that night, should prove themselves by signing.

  We dispersed, sure in the knowledge that something bad would happen soon and the perpetrator, or someone who looked like him, would meet the kind of fate that makes an example of one man for all men to see.

  I knew a man with a propensity for trouble, a man never above making an example of himself. I knew I had to get him off the street and out of town as quickly as I could, because the anger in this firehouse could explode in any direction.

  * * *

  SO I HEADED FOR the Canton Restaurant, far enough up Jackson Street to have been spared in the fires.

  Jon-Ling was welcoming diners, leading them to the long tables or to the counter at the back. A chalkboard read: 6 Dumpling pork–$1. 6 Dumpling soup–$2. Steam was billowing from the kitchen. If Mei-Ling was there, she was lost in those clouds.

  Jon-Ling spied me in the doorway and scurried over, small and stooped, scowling and growling. “What you want?”

  “I am looking for—”

  “I tell Irish to leave.” Jon-Ling pushed me out into the street, so the dumpling-eaters would not hear. “He come last night. He talk Mei-Ling.” The small man made a fist and held it in front of my nose. “She my wife.”

  “Can I talk to her? Is she in the kitchen.”

  He snorted at me, causing his gray mustaches to puff in the air. “She no here. I no make her work. She lady. So you go. You see Irish, you tell never come back. Or I kill him. Go!”

  * * *

  I DECIDED AFTER THAT to cover the circuit of gambling halls and hotels around Portsmouth Square. I stopped first at the Bella Union on Washington. Flynn was not holding forth in any of the public rooms, nor was he registered. The story was the same next door in the Louisiana House.

  Then I headed for the east side of the square, where the proprietors of the El Dorado had reopened under a shed roof while they reconstructed the huge and oft-incinerated gambling hall. Though the city had banned the use of canvas as building material, someone had passed a bribe, because canvas sides had been dropped all around to hold in the heat, the noise, and the crushing crowd. A new bar served dozens of drinkers. A girl on a velvet swing flew back and forth above them, offering indiscreet flashes of leg as she passed. And a group of Negro minstrels, Dingus Reese and his Music Men, played banjo, piano, guitar, fiddle, and jew’s-harp, keeping up a racket that drowned out the roar of the drinkers and the chatter of the gamblers, and the cooing of the soiled doves.

  Here was San Francisco in full cry.

  I stood near the entrance and scanned the hall through the fog of whiskey fumes and cigar smoke.

  A woman, strong smelling but not unpleasant, sidled up and propositioned me.

  I told her I was looking for someone.

  She said, “Who, mister? Who you looking for? Maybe I can help.” A missing canine tooth did nothing to lessen the effect of her smile. To a man who had been in the mines, womanless, she would have been an intoxicant. Then I remembered her, or perhaps her aroma. I had spied her first aboard the William Winter, riding Michael Flynn’s loins, and then in Broke Neck, riding Big Beam’s wagon.

  I said her name—Roberta—and added, “I am looking for Flynn—”

  “You!” she whispered. “I’d watch it if I was you. You beat Big Beam so bad, he never been quite right in the head since.”

  That struck me hard. I saw Big Beam sitting off in a corner, sipping from a mug of beer, watching a familiar gambler dealing cards onto green felt. It seemed that Big Beam had cut in Becker and Bunche, white suit and top hat, from Grouchy Pete’s. Now they were stepping up in class, or at least in the size of their stakes.

  I told Roberta, “I need to find Flynn.”

  She said, “He got into a game at Bunche’s table last night. Almost pulled on him. Then he saw Becker across the room, and Flynn knew how they worked, so he stood back.”

  Now Becker, the one in the white suit and pomaded-hair ringlets, noticed me.

  Roberta said, “Flynn should’ve shot them both. He was a lot better to me than them bastards are. A right charmer with his pants on, a real lover with his pants off, and a fine singin’ voice, too.”

  “A good epitaph for any man.”

  “But now
,” she said, “we’re bound for work with that Sam Hodges. He’s come to get his new riverboat to start the run above Sacramento. We’re goin’ back with him tomorrow night … as entertainment.”

  Here was an even worse development. Hodges was back in town.

  “Said he’s come to do some business and settle some, too,” added Roberta. “I think he means Flynn.”

  Becker had just finished a hand. He gave the deck to Big Beam, who sat dumbly and looked at the cards. Then he came through the crowd, more suspicious than a jealous husband, but not recognizing me in my tweed suit. “Hey, friend, you tie up these gals, you’ll have to pay. Now, either— You! What are you doin’ here? There’s no niggers to stick up for in here. They’re all freedmen. No Chinks, neither.”

  “Fine pistol.” I pointed to his ivory-handle Colt. “Matches your white suit.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I remember a Negro with a fine pistol like that.”

  “Niggers are nothin’ to me,” said the gambler. “Now are you payin’ for this lady, or am I tellin’ Big Beam that the man who beat him senseless just come by to laugh at him?”

  I looked at Roberta. “If you see my friend, tell him I have an important message.” Then I said to Becker, “Take care of that pistol. See nobody steals it.”

  * * *

  SO IF FLYNN WAS not among the gamblers, I feared he was with Mei-Ling again. Considering all his talk of love, life, and lust, he might even have tried to run off with her.

  What a swirl of trouble, I thought, as back into the dark streets I went.

  A marquee in front of the Parker House proclaimed, TONIGHT, OTHELLO. Yes, such entertainments came to us regularly now … the Masquerade, French vaudeville, and at the Jenny Lind Theatre above the Parker House, regular visits from Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, and wicked Iago himself, all alive in creations of genius that moved Janiva and me with their insights into the human heart and the soul’s sympathies. But not tonight.

  I peered into the Parker House saloon and a few of the other recently reopened grog shops, but there was no sign of Flynn, so I hurried up Clay Street to Ah-Sing’s.

  Keen-Ho Chow blocked the door. “Private party.”

  I pushed past and stepped through the beaded curtains into the mah-jongg parlor. The lamps hung low. The dirt floor softened the sound of rattling tiles and murmuring voices. The air floated with smoke and sweet, spicy smells that could calm you as easily as Chinese tea. But I was not calmed, and I sensed tension floating in the smoke.

  Chin, Ah-Sing, Friendly Liu, and another were playing the game, while Little Ng stood guard, arms folded, watching everything.

  Chin saw me out of the corner of his eye and said, “Flynn come back.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m looking for him.”

  “He come here today. He offer me gold for my sister. He offer buy my sister. I tell him leave my sister. Leave San Francisco.

  “But he no leave, I don’t think.” Off in a corner, Ah-Toy was puffing on a pipe. Her eyes seemed glassy, her demeanor dreamy. She said, “I think Flynn-man make do-ee with Mei-Ling.”

  Chin angrily told her to be quiet.

  But Ah-Toy seemed oblivious. She said, “So why Jon-Ling so mad, eh? Something bad happen, I think. He come, ask me make him hard, but he too mad to get hard … and too old. Not like yellow-haired man or big Boston Hodges-man.”

  Ah-Sing looked over his spectacles. “You know Hodges?”

  “He come, too,” said Chin. “Bring nasty yellow-haired man.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Ah-Toy. “He want women business with us.”

  “Here?” I said.

  “Up rivers. On boats.” Ah-Toy gestured with her fan toward the bay. “He want all China girls, pretty, ugly, all, go him.”

  I looked at Chin. “I hope you told him to go and make do-ee with himself.”

  And Ah-Toy gave a silly giggle. “Quiet man very funny.”

  Then ancient Ah-Sing stood. He seemed angry, almost insulted. “Hodges say if we no supply girls, he send San Francisco law after Chin and Little Ng.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Ah-Toy. “He say they do bad in gold country.” She took a draw on the pipe. The air around her smelled scorched but sweet, like burning flowers. “He say Chin and Little Ng bad China boys.”

  “He want us fear him,” said Chin. “But I no fear in Broke Neck. No fear now.”

  Ah-Sing glared through his thick spectacles. “No more fear anywhere.” And he began to speak in English so profoundly that I was left flabbergasted. “White men call this republic, but only for one race. They say Constitution admits of only the pale face. But declaration of your independence, and all acts of your government and your history are against you. This country for all who work. And there will be no fear. No fear!”

  (He would put these words into an eloquent letter a year later, when the new governor sought to reinstate the unfair taxes on the Chinese. People would question if the old man had even written it. I can attest that he spoke it, so he must have written it.)

  “Tell that to Hodges,” said Chin. “Tell him we do not fear him.”

  * * *

  BUT I FEARED SAMUEL Hodges. I had since that night I left the William Winter.

  That fear almost split my chest when I came down Dupont Street and saw Hilly Deane leaning against the front door of my office. I did not bother to speak to him. I leapt to the steps and bounded up, two at a time, tore open the door, and found Hodges, sitting in our parlor, sipping tea. He was wearing his black suit and balancing his teacup on his knee, as if this were all unfolding in a Beacon Hill parlor rather than on the lawless edge of our American continent.

  Janiva sat on a straight-backed chair as far away from him as she could get.

  He said, “I’ve been discussing our adventures in the Mother Lode, James.”

  “Things not going well in the water business?” I asked. “You’re trying to cut yourself into the female slave trade.”

  Hodges glanced toward Janiva. “I would not discuss such indelicate subjects in the presence of your wife.”

  “Speak plainly in front of her, Samuel. And speak quickly.”

  “It is all happening as I predicted, James.”

  “Your empire?” I remembered his grand vision. I had once been impressed.

  “I’m here to take possession of a riverboat, bought with profits from my water business, which I started with profits from my gold operation, which you started when you ripped open a hillside on the Miwok.” Hodges set the teacup down on the saucer with a polite clink. “I’m also here for Flynn. I know he ambushed Sloate. I know he passed through Broke Neck on his way to Rainbow Gulch. I know he’s run for San Francisco. I know you can find him. He might even be under this roof right now.”

  Janiva picked up the teapot and refilled Hodges’s cup, then filled one for me.

  Hodges said, “Flynn killed the man more loyal to me than anyone on earth.”

  “Send for your children,” I answered. “They’ll be as loyal. They might even love you.”

  Hodges cast his eyes on Janiva’s belly, which felt like an intrusion, almost physical, into her being. Instinctively, she put a hand across her midsection.

  Hodges said, “Give me Flynn, or things may go badly for you, James.”

  I picked up his hat and handed it to him.

  Hodges stood and changed his tone. “I’ve contracted for three boats, shipped in sections around the Horn, assembled here at Rincon Point. If I was your Ames distributor above Sacramento, we could—”

  I said, “I won’t have anything to do with female slavery, not with you, not with Chin.”

  “Let Chin make his own decisions. Just give me Flynn and I’ll let you be. Clay Street Wharf, tomorrow night. We steam at eleven o’clock.”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “That’s why I’m giving you twenty-four hours. Bring him to us. We’ll take him up the Yuba to French Corral, try him, and hang him for Sloate’s murder, so the be
autiful Mrs. Knapik can be avenged.”

  “I won’t betray my friends,” I said.

  “You betrayed me to ride with that Irishman.”

  “My husband is no Judas, sir,” said Janiva.

  “Perhaps not. But in this little parable, who is Jesus?” Hodges opened the door. “If I don’t see you, I may decide to inspect the wreck of the Proud Pilgrim. There are rumors. The new Committee of Vigilance might want to know that one of their own executed the law on six Australians. They might be pleased. Or they might decide to execute you.”

  * * *

  NEITHER JANIVA NOR I slept that night. We lay awake wondering how we had gotten into this, and how we could get out. We lay awake until dawn, when there came a banging that caused me to grab the Nock gun and bound for the door.

  Chin was squared on the landing, as if ready to fight. “Mei-Ling gone. She here?”

  “Why would she be here?” I asked.

  “Flynn steal her. We find.” He gestured to Little Ng, standing behind him.

  Janiva emerged from the bedroom, saying, “James, invite your friends in.”

  And the softness of her voice softened Chin. He gave her and her swelling belly a look, then he gave a bow and backed away.

  “Where are you going?” I asked him.

  “The wharfs. Sacramento steamers. Morning sail.”

  As soon as Chin left, I dressed and hurried for the docks. If Flynn was leaving, all the better, but he needed warning, because if Mei-Ling was with him, Chin would kill him. And if she wasn’t, Hodges might.

  * * *

  IT WAS ANOTHER DAY to put a man in a good mood if his worries were small. But mine had taken on the weight of six dead bodies in a water-filled ship. Up and down the docks I went, talking myself aboard the Senator and the other boats or begging a look at the manifests for the morning departures. But I found no sign of Michael Flynn.

  So, around nine o’clock, I went to the Coffee Stand. A few breakfast-eaters lingered at the counter, but Budrovich took time to talk, because yes, he had seen Flynn. He said that he always arrived early to start his coffee, but he always walked first to the end of the wharf. “To stop and think.”