The Ladies of Sutter's Fort

by Jane Toombs

  Rhynne tapped the folded newspaper against the side of his leg as he watched the other man. Finally Sutton slumped into an overstuffed armchair. The only sounds in the room were the ticking of the wall clock and the night noises of the city coming through the window.

  Sutton reached for his glass and drank the rest of his whisky. “You were right to take me to task,” he said. “The fault’s mine and mine alone.”

  “Then you were responsible for the story?”

  “A couple of nights ago I was bucking the tiger and having a few drinks and one thing led to another the way it does. I must have spun a tale or two about Hangtown and the Golconda. How was I to know I was talking to Curie’s brother?”

  “Some tale! A gross libel.”

  “You did lend me the money to start the venture. And the idea did come from your coup with the lottery. You have to admit that, W.W.”

  “I lent you the money to buy mining properties. How did I know you intended to sell shares, give the first buyers handsome profits with the money from new investors, salt the mines, sell more shares, get in over your head, turn belly up and lose everything? I have a question for you. Something that’s bothered me for some time. King, how in the name of hell did you ever manage to run a cotton plantation?”

  “Don’t forget our slaves. We provide for them but there’s no wages to pay. They’re valuable property.”

  “You’ve lost Joshua now. And I shouldn’t think you’re planning to sell Jed.”

  “Joshua was a damn fool. And, no, of course I won’t sell Jed. As for the cotton, we never much more than kept our heads above water, Beckworth and I. When I tried to raise money on the plantation last year I came up dry.”

  “I need some of the money I lent you, King.”

  “You need money? Wordsworth Rhynne?”

  “Coleman’s pushing me hard, shutting off my sources of credit to try to force me out. I’m a mite over-extended. The Golden Empire didn’t come cheap.” Rhynne saw no reason to mention that he could perhaps borrow more from Danny O’Lee. Danny was already in with so much he’d had to give him a quarter interest in the hotel.

  Sutton looked away from him. “There’s always Pamela,” he said. “That land she bought over the years with the profits from the Hangtown Empire fetched her a pretty penny.”

  “I wouldn’t ask Pamela for a cent, King. I wouldn’t accept money from her if she offered it.”

  “Because she’s a woman? She didn’t hesitate to go to you in the beginning. Everything she has came from her partnership with you in Hangtown or Placerville or whatever they call the place now.”

  “Money pollutes just as badly as an open sewer. I’ve never felt about a woman the way I feel about Pamela. I’d do nothing to put our friendship in jeopardy.”

  “W.W., I still have assets. Don’t raise your eyebrows. Give me a day to see if I can help you. Will you do that? Will you give me twenty-four hours?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not much of a one. You could always kill me, I suppose. Sometimes I think I’d be better off dead. Not only me. Everyone else would be better off as well.”

  “You’re talking like a fool.”

  “I’m tired. I’ve been drinking too much, gambling too much, losing too often, taking chances I never would take if I were in my right mind. I used to see life as sport, a contest where I won my share of the time and more. I don’t seem to win any more.”

  Rhynne nodded slowly. “I think I will have a drink before I go,” he said.

  Sutton got up and poured a shot for Rhynne and another for himself.

  “To the glories of the past,” Sutton said.

  “No, to the future.”

  They drank in silence.

  “I shouldn’t have bearded you in Pierre’s,” Rhynne told him. “If I have any excuse at all, which I don’t, it’s Ned dying as suddenly as he did.”

  “Cholera, I understand. There’s talk of three more cholera deaths since yesterday.”

  “The Californian denies there’s an epidemic. Claims cholera isn’t contagious.”

  King Sutton almost smiled. “You can’t believe what you read in that sheet,” he said.

  “We can agree on that.” Rhynne put on his hat. “I’m not one for giving advice, King,” he said, “but I think your string’s run out here in San Francisco. It’s time for you to ask for a new deal by leaving.”

  “Even though the next card might be the one I’ve been waiting for?” Sutton’s voice held none of the hope of his words.

  “I’ll stop by tomorrow evening,” Rhynne said. “For the money. Or as much of it as you can raise.”

  “I swear to God I’ll have it for you.”

  After Rhynne had gone, King Sutton paced from the parlor to the dining room and back. He looked at the clock and sighed. Still another hour. He opened the door at the rear of the room and called Jed’s name. Again there was no answer. He went to the sideboard and poured himself another drink and sat sipping it, staring morosely into the whisky.

  When he held his right hand in front of him, the opal in his ring caught the light from the lamp on the table and the gem glowed a fiery red. Jed and the ring, he thought. They were his only assets. He had nothing else except debts. He laughed. The black slave and the fire opal. Somehow the combination seemed incongruous to him. Jed and the opal, he said to himself. Jed and the opal.

  An hour later, Pamela unlocked the door and entered the hotel room. She laid her shawl over the back of a chair, unpinned her hat and put it on the chair seat.

  “You’re late,” King Sutton told her.

  She said nothing.

  He took her in his arms and kissed her.

  “You’ve been drinking,” she said.

  “One or two, no more. Rhynne was here with me until an hour ago.” She waited, expecting him to go on. Instead he asked, “Would you like a drink?” She shook her head and walked across the room to the other door. When he followed her, she turned and said, “No, King. Wait here.”

  “Is something the matter, Pam? I’ve never seen you in this mood before.”

  “I’d just rather you waited.”

  “Ten minutes?”

  “I’ll be ready by then.”

  She shut the door behind her and went into the dining room. There were two doors facing her, the one beside the dumbwaiter leading to the rear hall and back stairs and the one to the bedroom. Pamela went into the bedroom. The large bed looked even more massive than usual in the shadowed light coming through the drapes on the windows overlooking Fremont Street.

  She unhooked her shoes and placed them side by side on the floor. Unbuttoning her black taffeta, she stepped out of the dress and laid it on the back of a rocker. She took off her crinoline and removed her underclothing. Naked, she went to one of the windows where she slid the drape aside. Standing out of sight, she looked down into the street.

  Two torches flared in front of the gambling hall across from her. In front of the hotel at the end of the block a man in colonial costume pealed a bell to lure passersby. She saw only men on the street, miners from the gold fields, mostly, but also Chinese with their hair in long queues, frock coated gamblers, seamen, Mexicans, an occasional Indian or Californio.

  Pamela’s hands came up along her body to cup her breasts. King had been right. She felt so strange tonight. So alone, almost bereft. So emptied of feeling. She folded her arms under her breasts and shivered.

  She left the window, pulled back the covers of the bed and slid between the sheets, drawing the blanket up until it was below her breasts. She laced her hands behind her head and waited.

  King opened the door and stood at the foot of the bed looking down at her, his body glimmering whitely in the light from the window. He was naked. He drew in his breath when he saw her exposed breasts. After all this time, she thought with satisfaction, she could still excite him. He knelt beside the bed, kissing her breasts, his tongue circling her nipples. She did not move.

  He took the cov
ers and flung them off the bed onto the floor. Spreading her legs with his hands, he thrust at her roughly. She gasped, but she was ready for him and rose to meet him, her arms and legs enfolding him, expecting the throbbing rise to ecstasy. Nothing happened. What was the matter with him? She caressed him, her hands stroking his hair and back. What was wrong?

  “Turn over,” King told her.

  She shifted in the bed until she was on her stomach, then raised herself to her knees. She felt his arms go around her waist, his fingers searching for her, his sex trying to enter her from behind. She moaned as the fingers of one of his hands caressed her; she trembled beneath him. His other hand sought her breast and she rose on her elbows so he could caress it with his hand.

  Still nothing happened. All at once he rolled away and lay at the edge of the bed.

  “King, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

  “Later?”

  “No, I can’t. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  She got out of bed and began dressing.

  Later, King began to complain.

  “You haven’t said two consecutive sentences to me all night,” he told her. “Come to think of it, we haven’t had much to say to one another at all lately.”

  “I don’t feel like talking tonight.”

  He watched her. “When did it start to go bad between us, Pam?” he asked. “Was it because of Joshua? I don’t understand exactly why but nothing was quite right after that.”

  “You promised them, King. You told both Jed and Joshua you’d free them.”

  “Yes, I did promise. When we made the money we came to California for. Only then, Pam.”

  “They thought you were going to free them after a year.”

  “A year? Never. I might have mentioned a year, I don’t deny that. I never dreamed it would take longer. How could I have foreseen the bad luck we’ve had? I kept thinking maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next month.”

  “Joshua waited almost two years.”

  “I always expected Jed to be the one,” King said, “not his brother. If either of them was to run off, I thought it would be Jed. He’s young, he’s strong, he’s cheeky. But Joshua never said a word, never complained. And then one day he was gone.”

  “You could have let him go. Not tracked him down.” “We’ve discussed this a hundred times. If I had let him go, Jed would have been next. I couldn’t have that.”

  “Joshua’s no good to you dead.”

  “He didn’t have to try to swim that god-damned flooded river. He never was much of a swimmer. Jed loved the voyage around the Horn. He made a good sailor. But Joshua was always afraid we’d run aground. Why didn’t he give himself up? Did I ever mistreat him? Did I flog him? Joshua was a fool.”

  “He wanted to be free.”

  “You’re not a southerner. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Besides, you’re a woman.”

  Pamela said nothing. She scratched her ankle.

  “Rhynne’s after me again for money,” Sutton said.

  “You’ll get no more from me, King. I told you that after the last time.”

  “I know. Once a man’s down, everyone turns his back on him. After they’re through kicking him.”

  “Oh my God! King Sutton, I will not listen to that. You know what the matter is, what’s truly wrong between us.

  “You know it’s not only Joshua. Certainly not the money. I could live with those things, much as I’d rather not have to. The real trouble’s your broken promises. Your lies.”

  “I love you, Pam. That’s no lie. And I need you.”

  “Oh, King, don't. You've killed whatever feeling there was between us just as surely as you killed Joshua. You love me? She shook her head. “ You love no one but yourself. King Sutton can love no one except King Sutton. He never could and he never will. Why not admit it? ”

  “What you really mean is I didn’t marry you.”

  “You know I wanted to marry you. I never believed I would want to, not after the first time. But when I met you it was different. How long have you been promising to marry me? I’ll never forget your asking me after the quarrel we had when Joshua drowned. A year ago, at least.”

  “I wanted to marry you, Pam. I still do.”

  “King, you’ll never marry. You’re not a marrying man. I thought you were at first. I realized you were down on your luck and needed help, needed someone to talk to, someone to encourage you and stand behind you. Yes, someone to love you. And I did love you. I wanted you. And later I wanted to be your wife. We were so good together that first year in Hangtown. I wanted to be your wife more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. You didn’t seem to understand that.”

  “I understood, Pam.”

  “Then why didn’t you do something about it?”

  “I couldn’t marry you then. I can’t marry you now. I’m already married.”

  She stood still for a long moment staring at him.

  “I should have told you in the beginning. After I didn’t, every day made it harder until it became impossible. How could I tell you without losing you?”

  “You’re married.” A statement, not a question.

  “My wife is in Georgia.”

  “All this time, these two years and more, you’ve been married and you’ve never told me. What kind of man are you?”

  “She’s not well.”

  “Your wife’s ill and you left her alone in Georgia to come to California?”

  “She has melancholia. Involutional melancholia, the doctors call it. They say it has to do with her time of life. She sits for days on end staring at the wall and crying. That’s all she ever does. I had her to every doctor in the state. They can’t do anything for her. They give her medicine and it does no good, none at all.”

  “What’s her name, King?”

  “Betsy.”

  She went to him and knelt beside the bed, taking his head in her arms. “I don’t know what to say, King,” she told him.

  “I loved her so much. I remember the first time I ever saw her, she was so ...” He broke off, sobbing, and she rocked him in her arms. After a long time he quieted.

  “Lie back on the pillow,” she said. When he did, she drew the blankets up around him.

  “Go to sleep now,” she said.

  “Will you kiss me goodnight?”

  She leaned down and their lips met. When he put his arm around her shoulders and held her to him, she gently removed it and stood up.

  “Not goodnight, King,” she said. “Goodbye.”

  She walked through the parlor, picking up her hat and shawl, locked the room behind her and slipped the key under the door. In the street, she looked up at his window. She thought she saw King watching her but couldn’t be sure. She walked to the corner where her carriage waited. She didn’t look back again.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  “And what do you have to report?” William Coleman asked.

  “Not much as yet” Barry said, “On the surface Wordsworth Rynne is operating within the law.”

  “You talked to Sutton? You saw the story in the Californian, didn’t you?

  “Yes to both questions. King Sutton was evasive and the investors I’ve questioned about the Golconda would just as soon forget about the whole business. Sutton or Rynne or whoever bilked them made them look like proper fools. As for Curie at the Californian, he has hearsay back up his story, nothing more.

  “I’m disappointed.”

  “As far as the mining scheme goes, all things considered, I think Rhynne was more a victim than anything else.”

  “If only gambling were illegal in California. It wasn’t under the Mexicans and now that were a state we haven’t been able to outlaw it. We will, we well.”

  “When I have more definite results,” Barry said “I’ll let you know.”

  “If Rhynne makes one slip…”

  Barry finished the sentence, “Then we’ll have him.”

  W.W.
Rhynne hummed to himself, tapping his cane on the boardwalk in time to the tune. He liked his new German tailor. Strauss had delivered the first order of miners’ shirts and trousers for the Hangtown store a week ahead of the promised date. Good quality cloth, too. The tailor had told him he brought the denim west to sell as tenting. Only to find the miners didn’t want tents as much as they wanted good durable pants.

  Rhynne nodded to the clerk behind the desk in the lobby of the Fremont. What excuse would Sutton find tonight for not having the money for him. Or would he have it? He might have pawned or sole his opal ring. Or gone to Pamela again. I’ll never understand women. Rhynne thought. Still he smiled, thinking of her. That best part of a woman’s life, he thought, paraphrasing Wordsworth, her little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. He was at the top of the stairs when he heard the shot.

  He listened, expecting another. He heard nothing. The sound had come from the hall ahead of him. From Sutton’s rooms? The thought of Sutton killing himself leaped unbidden into Rhynne’s mind. He rejected it. King Sutton? Never.

  He strode along the hall and knocked on Sutton’s door. There was no answer. He tried the knob, found the door unlocked and pushed it open. He sniffed. Gunpowder. A single lamp glowed on a table on the far side of the parlor. Sutton lay face down on the floor beside the table.

  Rhynne quickly crossed the room, knelt, and turned Sutton over. He was breathing quick, shallow breaths. There was a wound in his upper left chest and the hole in his white shirt was rimmed with red.

  Hearing a sound from the rear of the suite, Rhynne stood up. He threw open the door to the dining room and hurried through that room to the rear hall, shifting the cane to his left hand and taking a derringer from his pocket with his right. He went to the top of the stairs. He saw a fleeing figure in the shadows at the bottom of the stairwell. Rhynne fired, deliberately aiming too low to kill.

  “Stop,” he shouted.

  The door at the bottom of the stairs slammed shut. Rhynne pounded down the steps, opened the door and ran out into the night. The alleyway was dark. He saw no one, heard no one, so he turned and climbed the stairs to Sutton’s rooms.