The Rock Child

by Win Blevins

  Had a good talk with my employers, too. After Daniel and I played through the late hours at the Heritage, we spent the extra-late hours visiting with Tommy Kirk in his office behind the opium den. We sorted and sorted the copies, and we read ’em and read ’em, and we surely did some learning.

  Things were easier those days. Since the telegraph was brand-new, the Washo mine managements hadn’t yet started sending information in code. Later some boys tried to run the trick again and got stumped. But these were the early days, and all the mines and some investors did business by telegraph.

  At first the stuff seemed worthless. If you want to know the most boring stuff in the world, just look in on everybody’s secrets. Soon, though, Daniel and Tommy taught me what to look for. If I saw the word “assay,” I was to come running to Tommy’s place quicker than peas. I was to go perk-alert also about a strike in a new shaft, or petering out in an old one. Facts about needing to hire more miners, or lay some off. Any facts indicating bonanza or borrasca. Any facts savvy investors would buy or sell on. When they found out, which was supposed to be after we found out.

  Sorry to say, we didn’t find anything like that the first couple of nights. I went home near dawn very sleepy, with a heart low in my chest and fifty bucks in gold in my pocket, which generally will improve a man’s outlook.

  The third day my fingers were running ahead of my ears—I could tap that key so it made some sense—maybe the lack of sleep affected my ears. The fourth day I could send a message on the wire slowly but accurately. And that night I gave Daniel and Tommy their first useful bit. The Sergeant was expecting a shipment of eight oversized cars in a week.

  They knew enough to make sense of this information. The Sergeant had sunk an extrawide shaft in a new direction. They’d brought up oversized cars to haul out all the country rock while they were looking for a rich vein. If they were receiving more cars, it meant they intended to haul a lot more of something out and a lot faster. Daniel didn’t think they’d make that investment without indications, damned good indications.

  The next morning I watched the crowd outside the telegraph office when we posted the San Francisco Stock Exchange prices. The Sergeant opened slightly off, as folks in the stock game put it. Soon as everyone saw the prices, the curbside stock exchange got going, bidding, buying, selling, and the rest of it. Tommy bought two hundred shares of Sergeant, I didn’t hear the price. I walked over to the Heritage with him and saw Daniel get half the stock certificates. So that was how they were working their end of the scam. Daniel was behind the scenes, Tommy out front. Daniel got hold of righteous information, Tommy put up the cash. They split the take. In the end Daniel would keep his windfall a secret, and Tommy would crow.

  Watching them, I tucked my thumb in my pants and rubbed my gold coins. Last evening I’d split the waistband of my pants and sewed them in. I wondered, When I get all my pay, should I buy Sergeant?

  After a week or so I got into a routine. I worked until the office closed, made music with Daniel at the Heritage for a couple of hours, and then slipped back to the telegraph office to check the day’s messages, sort and copy, put them back on the spike to make things look right before Alvord missed them.

  I was glad it was dark, though, when I left the office. What would I say after all, if someone caught me? What I was doing wasn’t against any Washo law, nor any other. But it might run against the notions of a mining-camp jury, which is the hardest-hearted kind. So on that Saturday night I put Alvord’s copies back on the spike, slipped my copies under my shirt, looked carefully out the window, and eased out of the door, nifty as you please. (Nifty was a mining-camp word, and I liked it.)

  “I’ll take them papers,” says the voice.

  First I felt a rush, a whooshing wind in my head that said, PORTER ROCKWELL.

  Then the wind quieted, because Rockwell wouldn’t have asked for the papers.

  The demand came from a under a big, black bandanna on the face of a tall man with slitty eyes. He was dressed all in black, with a black slouch hat covering his features. I knew what must be in his gun hand, pointing straight at me. And something was peculiar about that voice—it gave me the willywoollies.

  I made a quick calculation of my wages against my lifeblood and handed over the papers.

  “Now, Asie,” the voice said in a normal tone, “I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll look these over.”

  The gun hand opened and showed me what it held, just a piece of scrap board about the right size. Off came the slouch hat and the bandanna. Underneath was Sam Clemens, grinning like he’d cornered a rising market on fun.

  I grabbed for those papers. He snatched ’em away and held ’em far back. I grabbed him like I was going to wrestle him down. Sam shook like a dog and threw me off. He was a big man. “Asie,” he said, “I’m gonna have a look at these papers.” I could see I’d got his dander up. “Regardless,” he said.

  We went to the hotel rooms, where the whole world couldn’t look over our shoulders. I looked in on Sun Moon (it was one of her poor days) and turned the bodyguard loose.

  When Sam had gone through the papers once, me steaming next to him, he leaned toward me and gleamed those eyes at me. I saw now that the gleam could give you a chuckle or the cajoolies, for he could put fun or malice in it. “Asie,” says he, “I’m gonna save you some lyin’. I got a tip you and Gentleman Dan was up to something. I been watching you in the telegraph office evenings, and you ain’t been practicing on that key. These papers are confidential information about the mines. You fellers got something going, a money-making scheme.”

  He paused for breath. “No harm in that, now. Hardly a man in Washo without a money-making scheme, ’less he’s a sky pilot or a dimwit, and I’d judge you to be too smart for either.”

  He leaned back expansively, delighted with himself. “So let’s not go circling around about morality or shame, which neither of us gives a fig for. Just come straight out with the truth.”

  Now he gleamed his teeth, too, and they shined even from behind the bush of mustache.

  “I can’t,” says I. I was nervous that Sun Moon would wake up and want to know what was going on, or Sir Richard would walk in on us.

  “You can’t? You can’t not!” says Sam Clemens. “You want me to tell Alvord Smith in the morning what I caught you at? You want me to take them papers you stole and hand ’em back to him?”

  I considered Tommy Kirk. Sam didn’t know about him. If I gave up the game, Daniel would merely be mad as a bear. Tommy Kirk might cut my jewels off with a wee dagger.

  I shook my head. “I can’t,” I said.

  “So,” said Sam Clemens, “you’d sooner be cashiered and maybe run out of town than talk. So there’s something you’re more afraid of. What would that be?” He was talking to me, but his mind was off spinning notions, juggling possibilities like balls in the air. He hadn’t found anything he liked yet. “What say,” he started in, teasing out word after word, pulling me along with his style, “you tell me the truth and I keep my mouth shut until you’ve got the boodle?”

  “I can’t.”

  He tilted his chair back and regarded me from afar, between bushes of mustache and eyebrow.

  I had the willywoollies. Maybe Sam and me were friends, but he was also after the news, and by God that makes a newsman crazy. It’s like getting the story is a higher morality.

  “Friend,” he says, “you don’t leave me a lot of choice.” He nodded to himself awhile, cogitating. “OK. I’ll tell everyone I’ve seen you with. Alvord, of course. Gentleman Dan. Captain Burton. The Tibetan woman. And the sovereign of Chinatown, Tommy Kirk.”

  The cajoolies did cartwheels in my belly.

  Burton’s martial energies rose as he strode. They saluted and stood at port arms. He loved danger.

  They were walking downhill into Chinatown, Clemens on the left, the Missourian of easy manner and a quick but vulgar wit. Asie walked in the middle and Burton on the far side—it was Burton’s task on this excu
rsion to protect them. He cast his eyes about for trouble—rooftops, windows, corners, shadows…. He didn’t expect difficulties yet. The sovereign of Chinatown wanted something, had asked for a meeting. If he chose, the bugger could simply have done Clemens in. Nothing was more common in Virginia than a dead man for breakfast.

  That was how Burton had struck his deal. Instead of giving an interview, Burton would save Clemens’s hide.

  The captain wore a long coat, and under it held a pistol in one hand and his assegai in the other. He whirled about and gazed uphill, his eyes probing the darkness restlessly. At this absurd hour any movement would be suspicious.

  He faced downhill again. He listened, which was often more informative than watching. He smelled. He sensed. He breathed the cold mountain air in and out. He was ready.

  In a higher state of readiness than necessary, he thought. If our fate is trouble, it will come on the return journey.

  The Missourian told a ribald story about the moon, then another about the Virgin Mary. Burton imagined him the first man in America in his storehouse of ribald stories, but the captain was busy running his eyes through the dark, hunting assassins.

  As they came into Chinatown, Burton sucked the smells in deep, the spicy, alien aromas of Asia that to him always meant danger, drugs, sex, and delight.

  Asie led the way around a corner, slipped down a narrow way to a door, and entered. Immediately Burton recognized the bittersweet odor made by the opium smokers. As they passed through the room, he worked his fingers on the hilt of the assegai within his coat. Men lay in every bunk, apparently in the lotus state. But any one, or any half dozen, might be ready to spring upon the visitors.

  Asie led the way past the old man at the table with the smoking paraphernalia—Burton felt a pang at the sight—and to an obscure door and thus to a back room.

  After all the men acknowledged Asie’s introductions, a low voice spoke in Chinese behind them.

  “Captain Burton,” said Tommy Kirk in English, “will you set your weapons aside? You are among friends here.”

  Burton hesitated for effect and stared at the Celestial leaning against the wall, a villainous-looking thug, probably a mate of Q Mark’s. Such men were loyal to whoever paid them.

  Point made, he handed the assegai and pistol to an underling. His hope was to look bereft enough that they wouldn’t think of the additional knife in his boot. Whether that worked or not, they were not bold enough to search his person.

  At Tommy Kirk’s gesture they took seats in front of the desk.

  “Captain Burton,” Tommy Kirk began, “may I inquire the nature of your business with me?”

  “I have no business in Chinatown, Mr. Kirk, other than to assure the physical safety of my friends. The night is dark, the time late, the streets hazardous.”

  Tommy Kirk nodded, as though to himself. “I may be obliged to ask you for a word.”

  Burton nodded back.

  Tommy turned his regard to Samuel Clemens. (Burton could not think of Clemens by the nickname “Sam.” He found that American custom silly.)

  “Mr. Clemens,” said Tommy Kirk, “what is it you want?”

  “I know our boy Asie has been snitching messages from the telegraph office. Since he’s brought me here, I reckon this thievery is something to do with you.

  “Mr. Kirk, you are a legend in this city. Though no one knows anything about you, everyone has stories. Diplomat father, beautiful mother, child of sin, king of Chinatown, all that sort of palaver. I want to whet people’s curiosity with some truth and a few lies, and end up making them still more curious.”

  “What does this have to do with the telegraph messages?”

  “If they’re a clue to a bold and dashing enterprise, a clever scheme to make a few million bucks, that would make the story even better.”

  “Why?”

  “For the amusement of the world, which loves rascally endeavor, and will pay to read it in the Territorial Enterprise.”

  “What if I do not care to tell the world my business?”

  Burton stiffened a little, and carefully did not let it show. If the American took a belligerent tack here, surely there would be dead men for breakfast.

  Samuel Clemens shrugged. “I’ll sing a song of how good it is for you.”

  Burton relaxed. Clemens was no fool. Although he was a newsman, which often meant foolhardy.

  “We Chinese traditionally keep things to ourselves.”

  “You Brits conquer the world and brag about it.”

  “If I have schemes, as you suggest, perhaps I should maintain privacy.”

  “Man on a Mississippi riverboat explained this one to me. Charming cozener, he was, traveled up and down the river selling patent medicines. I believe they consisted variously of Missouri crick water and home-brewed whisky, Arkansas crick water and home-brewed whisky, Tennessee crick water and home-brewed whisky, and Louisiana crick water and home-brewed brandy, which was whisky with a Frenchy tang.

  “I asked him how come people didn’t catch on to his medicines and run him out of town on a rail.

  “‘Sam,’ says he, ‘people want to be slickered. They love to be slickered. They crave to be slickered. But they want their slickerin’ with style. I give ’em a show. I tell ’em how the secret of this potion came from the thirty-third caliph of Baghdad, handed down in his family through the centuries. It was given to my great-grandfather for a service a man can’t hardly mention, but the thirty-third caliph was over seventy at the time, and he had twenty-one more children after that. In brief, I make sure they get their money’s worth, and laughter is worth more than money any day.”

  Tommy Kirk smiled. Then he drummed his fingers on the desk and looked hard at Clemens. “If I say no to you now?”

  “I’d be obliged to talk to Asie’s supervisor, and the sheriff.”

  Excellent, thought Burton.

  Tommy Kirk smiled, conceding a point gracefully. “That would be inconvenient,” he said. “Suppose I were to explain this … maneuver to you later?”

  “How much later?”

  “At most a month. Perhaps less.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “You have my word.”

  “I should trust you for an honest knave? Hell, I don’t trust myself. If I got drunk, I’d cuckold me with my own mistress.”

  Kirk actually laughed. Then he drummed his fingers some more. “In that case I shall offer you a proposition. Invest fifty dollars with me tonight. In a month I shall return it with the dividends and an explanation of this maneuver. I count on doubling my investment, and hope to multiply it by five.”

  Clemens looked at Kirk appraisingly.

  Tommy Kirk beamed. “I will even give you the fifty dollars to invest.” He took a pouch from an inside coat pocket, extracted five ten-dollar gold pieces, and stacked them on the edge of the desk in front of Clemens.

  Clemens slitted his eyes at the fifty.

  Come, man, a writer is by nature a spy and complicitor.

  Samuel Clemens reached out, put a forefinger on the coins, studied them, pushed them toward Tommy Kirk, and said, “OK, partners.”

  Business partners.

  “I’ll want the whole story,” said Clemens. “Telling a good story is even more fun than making money.”

  “Naturally,” said Tommy. He rose, and said gently to Asie, “Thank you for bringing Mr. Clemens. And Captain Burton.” Burton’s spine hairs lay down.

  As the three left, Tommy sent Q Mark and a couple of other rough-looking Chinamen along with them, “to escort you safely.” Burton was sure the Celestials would cut their throats quick as Tommy said so. Burton’s lot labored back up the mountain to the Virginia business district. Burton, Asie, and Clemens bade their escorts good night. Asie said, “Now my cajoolies are settling down.”

  Sun Moon turned onto her right side. She squirmed in the bedclothes. She closed her eyes and opened them again.

  To her fevered mind the hotel was unreal. Muslin walls c
aught and held the bright desert sunlight, so the world was squares of shine. During the day the guests were seldom in the hotel, and the building was silent. A dark, vertical line stood just beyond the hanging at the foot of her bed, and she knew Q Mark was on guard.

  When her mind was clear, she thought that Q Mark gave her little safety, and might himself be a threat. A thug employed by a pimp …

  When her mind was fevered, she dreamed about Q Mark, menacing. She hurried through endless dry creek beds to escape him. He padded silently after her, relentless, a hand on his knife. Somehow she knew that he did not want her body, or her enslavement as a whore, but her death, choking on her own blood. She walked, she ran, she hid, but she would never escape.

  But she knew she would never persuade Sir Richard to get rid of her bodyguard.

  Frustrated, she flung her left arm out, whapping the bed. She turned over onto that side. She was not so hot now. She might be able to sleep …

  She dreamed. She was in San Francisco again, Chinatown. She slipped through a narrow street, watching over her shoulder. She saw nothing. Hopeful for a moment, she slipped into an alley. It was indistinguishable from a hundred other alleys in Chinatown, back doors onto businesses, piles of garbage, rats. Chinese men stood erect, arms crossed, watching her with avaricious eyes. She skittered down the alley and turned left into another.

  This time she did not look back. She could feel the dark man pursuing her. Perhaps he was a block back, perhaps a mile. It made no difference. He was pursuing her, the engine of his life was relentless pursuit of her, he would always pursue her.

  She turned into another alley, knowing the alleys were a maze, and she would never get out. She ran, she trotted, she walked, she crept. She stifled her panic, put it back down into her belly, and held on to it. Onward, endlessly onward—flight, flight to nowhere, flight, flight, flight.

  Panic.

  She fled. She had been fleeing for days, weeks, years.

  She pictured herself turning, slowly, seeing the dark Porter Rockwell. She walked toward him. She opened herself to his hatred. She opened her arms. She opened her throat, and drank in his knife.