I don’t know what exactly is behind Callie’s sudden change of heart. But I just purse my lips and nod.
“Okay, we’ll bite,” Callie says, walking slowly back to Perry. “But none of this telegram business. You tell us where he is now.”
“Fair enough,” Perry says. Callie unties him and he digs a vellum card out of his coat pocket. “This is the man who is funding Gideon and giving him shelter.”
Callie takes the card and laughs, the sound hollow. “Thurman Leakes? We might have only gotten to California a few days ago, but we ain’t stupid.”
I put my hand on my hip. We’d heard a whole earful about Leakes as we’d walked north. The newspapers are obsessed with him, a relative unknown who quickly became the most powerful man in the state. Didn’t matter that everyone knew he’d made it there by climbing over the bodies of others, greasing palms along the way. “You want us to believe that Gideon Carr is hiding out with the King of California?”
“Thurman Leakes is a dear friend of mine, and it was only because of these complications in Carson City that I am here and not relaxing at his estate.” Perry straightens his waistcoat and stands. “Trust me when I say that is where you will find Gideon Carr. Thurman enjoys the company of . . . interesting people.”
I can’t help but wonder just how a bastard like Perry befriended Leakes. I have some ideas, though. “So that’s it? A calling card for some robber baron? You think we’re going to let you go for that?”
“Yes, I do,” Perry says. “A deal is, after all, a deal.”
“Well, a deal is only a deal so long as everyone is sticking to their end of the bargain. You didn’t tell us where Gideon Carr’s laboratory is.”
Perry blinks at me owlishly. “That, my dear, is not something I am privy to. I gave you what I know.”
“No, you didn’t,” I say, drawing my revolver and pointing it at Perry. “Sit.”
“Jane . . . ,” Callie begins as Perry sinks back into his chair.
“Tie him up,” I grind out.
Behind me, the ghost of Jackson chuckles. “Now, there’s my Jane,” he says. “None of this making deals with criminals. Callie’s losing her edge, you’ve known it ever since Denver. Shoot the bastard. The first chance he gets, he’s going to carve up some woman the same way he did Ella May.”
“Did you kill Ella May before you carved her up?” I ask, once Perry is secured again. “Or did you start in on her while she was alive?”
Callie’s eyes widen, and she takes a step toward me. “Jane.”
“Sweetheart, why don’t you fetch the sheriff so he can verify these bounties,” I say. My gaze flicks to Callie just long enough to see the tremor that has set into her. For a moment I’m afraid that she will fight me on this, that she won’t leave.
But then I see the resignation set in, and she does as I ask, just like she always does.
“Oh, Jane, I see what you’re about,” Jackson says. He disappears and reappears beside me, and his whisper in my ear sends a chill down my spine. “You never were one for half measures.”
I shrug and holster my revolver. Perry relaxes just a bit, but only until I pull my knife from the sheath on my belt. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“Now, I believe you were going to tell me the location of Gideon Carr’s lab?”
He shakes his head so hard that his hat comes unsettled. I knock it the rest of the way off with the flat of my knife, his hair mussing from the violence of the movement.
“I don’t know, I swear,” Perry says, talking fast. “Look, I already told you everything I know. If you’re going to kill me, please, just make it quick.”
I give him a grim smile and tilt my head, placing my blade next to his right ear so that the flat presses against his skull. “Now, where is the fun in that?”
To Perry’s credit, he doesn’t start screaming until I start in on the left ear.
The bounty of California is most evident in the sprawling grandeur of San Francisco, a city for the modern age. The wall surrounding the city was designed by the brilliant inventor Thomas Edison and has attracted settlers from all around the world with its promise of safety.
—Russell Carpenter, Westward into the Sunset, 1871
—KATHERINE—
Chapter 26
Notes on an Arrival
San Francisco is nothing like I had expected.
Fog covers the bay, heavy and wet, and we disembark at Angel Island. Although there are docks closer to the city, all passenger ships delivering visitors must send their passengers through the central processing station on the island to ensure that we are free from bites. There is another facility in the southern part of the city as well, but Carolina assures us that Angel Island is faster and better staffed. I am not looking forward to an afternoon of poking and prodding, but it is a necessary precaution, if an irksome one.
The center is small but heavily armed. Artillery guns point out toward the sea, defense against a military opponent, not the undead. I expect to see dead washing up on the shore as they do in just about every single other place where I have been, but the rocks are free from debris as we paddle past in the boat that tenders us from the Capitán to the shore. Perhaps the stories we have heard about California, a sun-soaked land of opportunity freed from the undead plague, might actually be true.
Once the tiny rowboat bumps up against the dock, Sue, Lily, and I climb out. Our baggage, which contains only a single knapsack and a good collection of weapons, sits in the bottom of the boat. We grab our gear while Carolina and another man hold the craft steady.
“I’ve got to go back and get a few more folks. Are you going to be okay?” he asks, ever concerned about our safety. Ironic, considering our job these past few months has been to protect passengers against the threat of the dead.
I nod. “We have your directions; it should not be an issue to find the boarding house. Thank you so much. For everything.”
Sue nods in agreement and then Carolina and the deckhand turn the boat back toward the Capitán. And we turn our attention to the facility before us.
It is so early that the sky still has not shaded beyond the gray of the dawn, and yet there is already a long line winding up the steps to the building. Armed soldiers patrol up and down the line, rifles at the ready and a backup weapon of a machete tucked into their belts. The building beyond is white and squat and looks less like a government building and more like an Army barrack.
“This place looks like Fort Riley,” Sue says.
“It does,” I murmur.
“It gives me the creeps,” she says, spitting for luck.
The processing station segregates by gender and race, and as Sue, Lily, and I make our way to the line for women, a woman in a uniform waves me over. Sue and Lily follow as I approach the official. The woman is Chinese, and my shock is very quickly replaced by delight.
This is something new after all.
“Do you speak English?” she asks, her tone brusque and dismissive.
“Yes,” I say. “I am sorry, is there some sort of issue?”
“No, of course not, Miss . . . ?”
“Deveraux.”
“Miss Deveraux, there’s no need for Americans to wait in line with the immigrants. You and your girls can follow me.”
I open my mouth to tell the official that neither Sue nor Lily are my girls, but Sue gives me a half headshake. The line is very long, and it seems as though I am once more enjoying the boon of my fair skin.
The official leads us into a small room and closes the door. The room contains a single chair and a desk, but that is all. There’s a small fire burning in the hearth, chasing away the chill of the morning, and it is strange to be taken aside into such a place. She pulls forth a ledger and opens it before me.
“What is your business in San Francisco?”
“Oh, well, I am planning on establishing myself as a businesswoman—”
I break off when she stops scribbling and pushes the ledg
er across the desk at me, handing me a dripping pen.
“I wrote down marriage. Please print your names in the empty space and follow me.”
I do as she asks, the scrawl barely legible in my haste, and after a quick perusal she nods and puts the ledger away. I exchange a glance with Sue, but she shrugs and we follow along behind the woman without another word.
We are led out a different door than we entered and down a path that leads to yet another set of docks. There is a gate with a guard between us and the waiting area on the docks, but the gate opens at a wave from our administrator.
“The ferry arrives at the top of each hour, and it will cost you each two bits to get to San Francisco,” she says.
“That is it?” I ask, clutching at my satchel.
“Was I unclear?” The woman turns toward Sue. “You understand that slavery is illegal in the Republic of California, so if you are not being compensated you are free to leave at any time.”
Sue’s lips twist as she fights to hide a grin and she nods.
“Excellent, welcome to California,” she says before striding back down the path from which we came. I walk through the gate to the waiting area. The young soldier guarding the gate tips his hat at us.
“Ferry should be along in a few moments,” he says, his gaze lingering on me a bit too long to be appropriate.
We make our way toward the boarding area, and I shake my head. “Sue, what just happened?”
“Same thing that always happens, she thought you were white,” Lily says.
“Good to see things here in California work the same as everywhere else,” Sue says, chuckling mirthlessly.
Indeed, that is what I fear.
I have visited a number of varied cities, from the mishmash of Spanish and French architecture in New Orleans to the staid stone structures of Baltimore. And I had expected something similar when I arrived in San Francisco: imposing stone buildings, wooden clapboard houses, and sprawling grounds with manicured lawns.
But there is no clapboard or stone in San Francisco, at least as far as I can see. The Spanish influence is clear in the stucco and rounded arches of the Presidio that greets us when the ferry docks. The orange of clay tiles seems odd to me, even though I saw its like as we traveled overland through Central America. But it is the landscape beyond that captures my attention. The steep hills rise up and down, and multihued buildings with intricate scrollwork and sweeping roofs that curve up into points at the four corners cling precariously to those inclines, like barnacles to a hull. San Francisco’s architecture is part Spanish and part Chinese, and it is beautiful. I have never seen anything like it.
“Is that a dragon?” Lily asks from next to me, squinting at a carved arch that welcomes us to San Francisco in a half-dozen languages, only two of which I can read.
“Most definitely. The Chinese got a thing about dragons, well, about all animals in fact. They have a calendar that assigns a different animal to each lunar year.”
I turn, and leaning against a piling is Carolina, looking fresh as a daisy.
“I thought you were returning to the Capitán?” I say.
He shrugs. “I figured I should see you girls to your lodgings first.”
“How’d you make it through clearance so quickly?” Sue asks. “They think you were white as well?”
Carolina barks out a sharp laugh, because he is equally as dark as Sue. “No, I know a few fellows in the center.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and Sue looks away, a tad bit scandalized. “But good to know that Katherine can still pass.”
I shrug. “I suppose there are times when my pale skin comes in handy.” This is my least favorite topic of discussion.
“Are there a lot of Chinese in the city?” Lily asks. She has no patience for our conversations, and her eyes still hungrily drink in the beautiful arch and the words and symbols carved into it. From where we stand there is no sign of San Francisco’s fabled Great Golden Wall, a relic from the Years of Discord when officials thought that the hordes in the East would make their way to the western coast of the continent. Perhaps we will see signs of it as we move farther into the urban landscape.
Carolina gestures toward the arch. “There surely are. The Chinese pert near run this city, and those peaked roofs are their contribution to the landscape. Vexes the white folks that ran up in here during the rush mightily. Of course, they ain’t doing us any favors, either. The Negro sector is farther south. Unless you plan on heading to the white sector?”
I take a deep breath and let it out. It is not a sigh, but it is close. This is an old argument between Carolina and me. He has been urging me to pass since I boarded the Capitán. He simply will not accept that I can no longer surrender the Negro part of myself, any easier than I could give up an arm.
Sue strolls up beside me, her sword strapped to her back and a small carpetbag in her hand. In New Orleans she had traded her scythe for a broadsword. Same deadly reach, but a bit more versatile in a fight. She squints at the city before us and makes a sound somewhere between a snort and a sigh, mulling over Carolina’s words. The fact that she is still by my side says much more about her than it does about me. She is loyal to a fault.
“I hope you ain’t planning on playing Polly Plantation Owner again because I’m about done stepping and fetching,” Sue says, her voice low. “You heard that lady back at the island. Slavery is illegal.”
Mirth dances in Sue’s eyes, but I am not laughing. I know the toll these small indignities can take over time. “Negro sector,” I say to Carolina. And we begin to walk.
My nerves jangle as we enter the city. Lily carries a small sword and a pistol on her hip, and I have my Mollies, a rifle, and a pistol. But no amount of weaponry ever feels like enough.
“You weren’t lying about the Chinese folks,” Sue says, taking in an old woman tending a crowded market stall full of fresh fruit and fish. Her tone is not one of dismay or disgust, but wonder. My sentiment matches hers. I have never been to a place with so many different kinds of people living side by side.
“Yep,” says Carolina. “The Chinese came here in the forties for the gold rush, just like everyone else, and when the dead overran Asia even more of them came. The West Coast is dotted with small settlements of Chinese folks, as well as people from Japan, India, and the Dutch East Indies. But San Francisco is the oldest and the largest Chinese community in the West. At first, the white folks who had settled the city welcomed them, since the Chinese worked cheaper than the Negroes or the Irish. They dug ditches, built levees, killed the dead, the hard work of establishing civilization. But then most Negroes moved on to Sacramento, a lot of the Irish headed north to the Willamette . . . and the Chinese got organized.”
“Organized how?” I ask.
Carolina digs a cheroot out of his waistcoat and lights it as we walk. “They set prices for work and told the rich white folks who hired them that they could either pay those prices or go without. And every time new Chinese immigrants came into the city there were people who were already here to welcome them and give them the lay of the land. The white folks in charge got mad and tried to keep the Chinese out, even passed some laws up there in the state capital. But without the Navy or any kind of army to enforce them, it didn’t matter.”
“That is brilliant,” I say. “To organize in such a way.”
Carolina shrugs. “Unless you’re a Negro. Our people have somehow ended up with the worst end of this market war. Whites refuse to pay us as much as they would pay the Chinese, and the Chinese refuse to hire us. To say nothing of how it’s impacted the Californios, who were here before either the whites or the Chinese and have had to mostly leave the city. Don’t let San Francisco fool you. It might seem pretty, but it’s been built on the same volatile mixture of greed and exclusion as the rest of this country. Now, it’s a powder keg just waiting for a spark.”
We navigate our way down a side street, staying clear of the gutters, which are thick with muck. There are no cobblestones here, ju
st red bricks that are curiously uneven, as if something had pushed them up from below. A breeze blows in from the water, taking away some of the stink of the city and leaving the scent of the ocean in its place. I shiver. I had not expected San Francisco to be so chilly, especially since the rest of our stops along the California coast had been so temperate. It is nothing compared to the winters I spent in Maryland, but there is a bite to the air that makes me wish I had a shawl.
We turn another corner and Carolina gestures toward a three-story building that dominates the block. It is painted red and the roof is emerald green, with inlaid writing on the front in what looks to be actual gold. A couple of very large men stand in front of the doorway, holding halberds and giving everyone who passes by a once-over. “That’s the Sze Yup Society. It’s run by the oldest established Chinese families in the city. They coordinate the labor pricing and negotiate contracts. There are smaller ones in places like Sacramento and down south in Los Angeles and San Diego, but this one is the biggest and most powerful in all the state. Nothing happens in the city without their okay.” His lips twist, and his gaze goes far away for a moment. “And that includes in the Negro sector.”
“This city is starting to sound like every other place I’ve been,” Sue says, staring at the men as we pass. They wear their dark hair in a long braid in the back, but the front part is shaved. I try not to stare, but I am only partially successful. They are striking and imposing.
People from all over the world lived in New Orleans, their ships lying in the mouth of the Mississippi before they took their wares upstream. But very few stayed, and I am starting to realize how little time I have spent with anyone who is not white or colored. Now I wonder if it was because there were reasons I never considered, and I think of the way folks tend to group up with folks like them. Even on the Capitán I was careful to keep to myself, very rarely spending time with the Spanish-speaking men that worked in the engine room or on the decks. Some of them were from places in South America, others were from various towns in Mexico or California, but everyone had always stayed with those with whom they shared a cultural connection. It was just easier that way.
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