by Jane Toombs
Off in the pines an owl hooted. From the creek came the shrill jabber of frogs. The night held the threat of rain but it was unmistakably spring, the time a lad should have a lass to lie with. And when would that happen up in these mountains where women were scarcer than gold? Especially when the woman he coveted was the most beautiful colleen ever born? And he with barely enough money to feed his belly each day?
A man stumbled out of Matt’s cabin, then another and another. Danny recognized the voice of a newcomer to Hangtown, a man named Pike he didn’t much cotton to. “I say we go and get the stinking bastards, put ‘em to the whip and make ‘em confess what they done.”
More men spilled from the open door. There was a drunken chorus of agreement.
“Run every foreigner out of town.”
“Hanging’s too good for ‘em.”
“Ain’t they got a woman or two up there?” Danny recognized English Bob’s voice. “We could have some fun, damned if we couldn’t.”
“On to Spanish Ravine!” someone shouted.
Danny rose from the stump. No more use trying to talk sense to drunkards than to tell the creek to flow backwards. He’d best go up to the ravine and warn the Chilenos.
Not that they’d listen to him either. A great bloody brawl it shaped up to be, but at least their women could get away. And perhaps on the way back he could dissuade English Bob, though short of bashing him on the head it wasn’t likely.
Danny set off on a trot.
He ran down the path toward town. The half-moon slid from behind a cloud and he saw his way clearly in the silver light. He also saw the back of a skirted figure ahead of him and his breath caught in his throat. Whoever she was, no woman would be safe from that mob behind her. He increased his pace.
Selena heard running footsteps and turned just as the man came close enough to grasp her arm. She screamed.
“Shut up, you fool!” Danny gasped, out of breath. “Wherever you live, get home quick!” Then, recognizing her, he instantly let go and stepped back. “Miss Selena! For God’s sake, get back to your cabin.”
“Who are you? You have no right to order me about.”
“My name’s Danny O’Lee and I’ve no time to argue.” Already he could hear the shouts of the men.
He pulled at Selena’s arm. “Hurry.”
She pulled as urgently in the other direction. “I’m going to the Empire to sing and neither you nor anyone else can stop me. Take your hands off my arm this instant.”
“You can’t go there tonight. There may be a riot.” He tried to pick her up and she struck at him, writhing away. In exasperation he shook her so hard her teeth clicked together.
“Which is your cabin?” he demanded.
“Let me go!”
“If you don’t tell me I’ll have to drag you off into the woods to keep you safe. I’m warning you.”
“You can’t make me . . .”
He grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her over his shoulder, one hand holding her knee, one her wrist. She was momentarily quiet with shock and outrage as he stumbled back along the trail in the pitch dark, the moon once again hidden. When he rounded a turn, the torches coming toward them were plain to see. Snatches of bawdy songs swept along to them on the breeze.
“You see,” he panted. “They’re drunk and up to no good, and you can get plenty hurt.”
“It’s the next cabin,” Selena whispered.
At last he was there. Unceremoniously he dumped her to the ground, yanked open the door and shoved her inside. “Stay there,” he ordered.
“I’ll get even with you, Danny O’Lee,” she said, angered by his brashness. “I’ll get even with you if it’s the last thing I do.”
He shut the door. What a spirited lass! But he was afraid she still hadn’t realized her danger or that what he’d done had been for the best. Why, he couldn’t bear to think of Selena touched by any man in that mob. And worse than touched, the way they were tonight. Had she no sense?
Danny waited for the drunken men by the cabin, taking no chances. Rain began to fall, and by the time the first few reached him, the rain had increased. It threatened to become a gully-washer.
Danny stepped out from beside the cabin. “Sure and it’s back to that keg of brandy I’m heading,” he shouted in his best brogue. “Who’s for having another drink to keep out the cold and damp? Bob, me bucko, are you with me?”
“Danny, is it you?” English Bob called.
Danny wiped the rain from his face and made his way to Bob. The men had stopped and were milling about uncertainly. “Come along, mate,” he said. “On to the brandy and I’ll drink you under the table.”
“It’ll take more than one Irish bastard to do that,” Bob warned.
Danny took Bob’s arm and turned toward Matt’s cabin.
“Hell, I could use another dipperful meself,” someone said hesitantly.
“I’m for going back,” another voice put in. “We barely broached that damn keg.” Old Matt’s snug and warm in the coffin, which is more than I am,” another muttered. “I had my fill of rain this past winter.”
Danny took a deep breath and started off, English Bob beside him. Behind him the men fell into a straggled line. Like as not now he’d have to drink till he passed out but it would be worth it. He’d saved Selena. And the bloody Chilenos, too, come to think of it.
He looked up, letting the rain strike him full in the face. With a little help from heaven, of course.
Chapter Ten
Pamela climbed the stairs to the hotel’s second floor and tapped on Rhynne’s door.
“Come in,” he called.
By the time she opened the door W.W. had pushed his chair away from his desk. In his left hand he held a short-barreled pistol she recognized as a derringer. When he saw her he tucked the gun inside his coat and rose with a sweeping bow.
“Were you expecting Harry Varner?” she asked, nodding to the bulge made by the derringer.
“I prefer not to take chances. Honest Harry made some rather wild accusations after the fire.”
“Reverend Colton told me Mr. Varner had disappeared. He seemed to think the man went back to San Francisco.”
“Another story,” Rhynne said, “has him holed up in a mountain cabin panning for gold.”
For a moment she considered asking Rhynne outright if he, in fact, had burned Varner’s store. She remembered her father’s words: “Pam, when a crime’s been committed, ask yourself one question. Who benefits most? Nine times out of ten you’ve named the guilty party.”
“It’s clear that we were the chief beneficiaries of the fire,” she said carefully. “Now that we have the only store, we have almost more business than we can accommodate.”
Rhynne gestured toward the papers on his desk. “You’re quite correct. According to the figures from both the store and the hotel, my original estimate of our profits will prove modest.”
“There’s so much business I need another clerk.”
“You have Selena.”
“W.W., that’s the main reason I came up here this morning. I see less and less of Selena. She sleeps late after singing at the hotel, then, when she finally gets out of bed, she’s either taking piano lessons from Ned or else practicing her new songs. She’s hardly any help to me in the store at all.”
“She’s happy, Pamela. Have you noticed the way her face glows?”
Pamela put her hand on the desk and leaned toward him. “How long will that last? She’s satisfied now, singing in this out-of-the-way corner of the world, but will that be good enough for her tomorrow? And what will she have when all this is over? Nothing.”
“Do you remember what it was like to be Selena’s age? Leave her alone, Pamela. Let your daughter go. You have to let her make her own mistakes, make her own life for herself. ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!’’’
“Stop it!” Pamela’s voice rose. “You’re the one who’s responsible, W.W. You and you alone. You
give her whatever she wants. You encourage her to defy me, her own mother. You don’t know what Selena’s capable of. I’ll have no more of it.”
“What are you afraid of, Pamela? That your daughter will surpass you? That she’ll manage to wring more from life than you have? You’re a lovely woman but you’re in danger of becoming a dried-up shrew. A bitch.”
“How dare you talk to me like that? You, a common gambler, a—a whoremaster!”
Rhynne picked the quill from his desk and hurled the pen against the far wall. It fell onto the blanket covering his narrow cot.
“Pamela,” he said, his voice deathly quiet. “I was getting ready to write to a friend in Frisco. I don’t believe I’ve ever told you about him. His name’s Charlie Sung and he’s beholden to me. I was writing for you, Pamela. You can’t have much laudanum left by now. You don’t, do you?”
She lowered her head. “Enough for three days, four at the most.”
“Charlie Sung, of course, is a celestial. He has ways of satisfying the most unlikely requests, ways not available to the rest of us.”
“If you knew the torment I suffer. How ill I am without the medicine.” “Do you know what Doc Braithewaite calls laudanum? G.O.M.—God’s Own Medicine. Do you know what I call it, Pamela? I call it opium, for that’s what it is.”
“I don’t care what Samuel Braithewaite calls it and I don’t care what you call it!” Pamela turned her face from him and lowered her voice. “I need the medicine.”
“Then remember this. I’m the only one in Hangtown who can get it for you. Braithewaite’s in short supply--I asked him. The shipments from the east coast aren’t adequate. The price in Frisco is astronomical.”
Rhynne put his hand on her shoulder. “Forgive me for causing you distress, Pamela. We’re partners but you’re more to me than that. I have a deep affection for you.” His fingers traced small circles on her upper arm. “Look at me, Pamela. Don’t hide your face, look at me.”
Reluctantly she looked up, not wanting him to see her crying. He took her in his arms and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“It’s all right, Pamela,” he soothed her. “Even the strongest women cry.” His palm rubbed her back as she sobbed against him and despite herself, she felt a stirring, a need. A need so long denied.
She stepped away, drying her eyes with her handkerchief. “I’ll be late opening the store if I don’t go,” she said.
She saw him glance down at his pocket watch on the desk. The store wasn’t supposed to open for another half hour, but he said nothing. Pamela stopped at the door, hesitating before she spoke.
“You will write to your friend? To Charlie Sung?”
“Of course I will.”
She closed the door. Hating him. Hating herself. Hating her need for him.
When Pamela found the lobby of the hotel deserted, she placed her carrying bag on the counter and listened for the sound of footsteps. Hearing none, she took out the laudanum bottle and a whisky glass, filled the glass half full and drank it. She stood, breathing hard, waiting for the exhilaration she knew would come.
By the time she walked into the street she felt better. So much better that she was able to smile almost gaily at the young man sitting on the log railing in front of the store.
“I’ll be open in a minute,” she told him, taking the key from her bag.
“To see such a pretty face, I’d gladly wait the rest of the day,” he said.
“Enough of your blarney.” She preceded him into the store and sat on the stool behind her desk.
“And how in the name of all the saints does everyone know I’m Irish?” said Danny O’Lee.
Pamela looked at his face and smiled. He couldn’t be anything but Irish. She remembered him now. Danny O’Lee.
“A wild Irish boy,” Selena had called him. “I sang for him, for him alone, and what did he do? Started a great brawl. And there’s more besides, but never mind that. I never want to set eyes on him again. Do you know, Mr. Rhynne suspects O’Lee isn’t even his real name? Who knows what crimes he might have committed back in the States?”
Pamela smiled, trying to imagine the misdeeds this devil-may-care lad could be guilty of. Nothing more serious than breaking a few colleens’ hearts, she was sure.
“And have you the luck of the Irish?” she asked him.
Shoving aside a stack of tinned beef, Danny sat on a counter facing her. “That I do not. For three weeks I’ve been at the diggings here and around Coloma and all I have to show for it is eighteen dollars and fifty cents. I could earn as much in a day by pounding nails into boards in town.”
“The luck I referred to was with the lasses.”
“If lasses were gold, I wouldn’t have even the eighteen dollars and fifty cents. I’d have nothing.’ Color rose to his neck and face.
Pamela didn’t know what to say. “Well, you’re a fine-looking lad,” she told him comfortingly. But this only seemed to increase his confusion, so she opened her ledger and wrote the day’s date at the top of a new page.
“I thought you might be able to help me,” he said at last. She stopped writing to look up at him.
“And how might I do that?”
“Let me tell you how it’s been with me these last weeks. I staked a claim and I panned for gold and there was nothing in the stream so I moved on and still there was nothing. So the next week I joined up with English Bob, he being a friend of mine, and we built a cradle. Took us all of one day it did. Then we took turns with one of us shoveling the sand and gravel into the cradle while the other poured in the water and rocked it. I’m not complaining, but it was a hard week’s work. Point is, between us we made thirty-seven dollars what with gold at fourteen dollars to the ounce, and half of that was Bob’s. We split up then, Bob and me, and I went down the south fork of the river looking for where the diggings might be good. Yet whenever I asked, ‘Any luck, mate?’ the men shook their heads, not wanting to tell me, and they chased me off if I waited to watch. So I figured I had to use my head better if I wanted to find gold. So that’s why I’m here. To ask for your help.”
Pamela, though charmed by his youthful earnestness, was puzzled. “And how might I help you?” she asked, smiling.
“As you know,” Danny went on, “some sand bars—they’re called placers—are rich with gold while others lie barren. And the men mining the rich placers won’t let on they’re doing that out of fear thousands more will flock to the site.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that.”
Danny reached into his shirt pocket, took out a much-folded paper and spread it on the desk.
“This is a map of the diggings,” he said. He tapped his finger on her open ledger. “And in here are the accounts of most of the miners . . .”
“And,” she interrupted, “my records of who pays in gold and who asks for credit.”
“Right. If I knew who paid in gold I could find out where their mines are. Then I could go to the rich diggings to make my claim, not to the poor ones.”
Pamela placed the ledger on top of the map. Should I help him? she asked herself, then shrugged. What would be the harm? She began leafing back through the pages. “Danny O’Lee,” she told him, “you were right to use your brain and not your brawn. Here I’ve been keeping these accounts all these weeks and an idea like yours never occurred to me.”
“You’ll be helping me then?”
She nodded.
“Miss Pamela,” he began. He leaned over as though to kiss her on the cheek, then drew back, his face reddening, “I just want to say that you are a very grand lady.”
On a night two weeks later Pamela was in her cabin writing by candlelight.
“My dear Mr. Gowdy,” she wrote, “I believe that I closed my last letter by informing you that I was safely ensconced under the magnificent roof of my own cabin in the quaintly-named settlement of Hangtown. The central attraction of the cabin, which is shared by Selena and myself, is a fireplace built of stones and mud, the chimney finished off with
alternate layers of rough sticks and this same rude mortar ...”
There was a rapping. Pamela put down her pen and crossed to the door.
“Who is it?’ she asked.
“Danny O’Lee, ma’am.”
She unlatched and opened the door. Danny stood smiling at her, his hat in one hand, his other hand behind him.
Pamela’s eyes softened. “I’d ask you inside,” she said, “but I’m alone.”
“I wasn’t expecting to visit long in any case. I’m fresh in town and heading for the Empire where I’ll seek lodgings and then celebrate my good fortune.”
“Your plan worked then. Oh, Danny, I’m so glad.”
“In ten days’ time”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—”I’ve taken two thousand dollars and more of the dust from a placer on the creek not far from here. And there’s more to be had in the same spot.”
“You do have the luck of the Irish after all.”
“Thanks be to my secret partner.” He grinned at her. “So I brought you a gift from the diggings.”
“Danny, I didn’t expect anything for helping. I don’t want anything.”
“A gift to match the gold of your hair,” he added, smiling broadly. From behind his back he brought forth a bouquet of yellow flowers.
“Oh, Danny.” She took the flowers in her arms. “They’re so lovely. They’re like daisies, yet not exactly like any I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t know their proper name myself.”
“But what do the miners call them?”
Danny said gravely, “With sorrow I have to tell you they’re known in the diggings as Mule Ears.”
Pamela laughed. “Oh, Danny O’Lee, I love them, Mule Ears or not.”
After Danny left, Pamela put the flowers in a vase and returned to her letter. She found she had to force herself to go on, sighing with relief when she came to the last few sentences. “By messenger,” she wrote, “I am sending a portion of the profits from our venture here in the mountains. I will be deeply indebted to you, even more than I already am, if you will buy land for me in the town as close to Portsmouth Square as possible. Use your best judgment. I do not wish to speculate or to have you trade in my behalf. My desire is to add to my landholdings as I did years ago in England, the country which will someday, God willing, once more be the home of “Pamela Buttle-Jones.”