Beautiful Lies (3 page)

 

John Garth had two luggers that worked independently, with the largest under his direct command. He had begun
pearling two years ago, increasing his fleet by one lugger this season, and if he continued to find good shell, soon he could afford a schooner, which would act as his mother ship. Then he could store and dispense supplies out on the water, so that the valuable days when the ships could be at sea would not be wasted. The pearling masters with the largest fleets had the tightest control over their crews and an enviable income.

But even the smallest lugger, with a skeleton crew, could bring in a fortune if a diver brought up exactly the right shell.

“
Pinctada maxima.
” Tom let the words roll off his tongue.
Pinctada maxima
was the name of the oyster that lived in the coastal waters of Western Australia, the oyster that produced the finest pearls in the world—the oyster that was about to provide the two Americans with a place to sleep and food in their bellies. “Did you ever think you'd be prying open shells to make your living?”

Archer favored him with a grin. With a little money in his pocket, Tom had discovered, Archer was always more agreeable. “No, and I never thought I'd see a place as un-holy as this one, either. Will you have a look at that?”

Dampier Terrace in Broome's Chinatown, like a small sliver of Singapore transported to the Australian continent, was overflowing with people. The street itself was so narrow only a few men could walk abreast. It was lined with whitewashed shops and dwellings of galvanized iron and timber, leaning one against the other. Rickety balconies strung with laundry perched above their heads, and the smoke of cooking fires and perfumed joss sticks darkened the humid air.

Tom obediently gazed down a dusty alley. “What exactly am I supposed to see?”

“What do you suppose those bastards are doing? Christ, I'll never get used to men wearing dresses.”

Half a dozen dark-skinned men in brightly-colored sarongs huddled in a circle in one of the numerous narrow alleys snaking to either side. Judging by their rapt concentration, they could have been gambling or performing a religious ritual.

Tom was swept by nostalgia. He knew these smells from the Chinatown of his boyhood in San Francisco. He had gone there occasionally with the family cook, when his mother was otherwise occupied and didn't suspect. Ah Wu had guided his fascinated charge through lanes of shops adorned with paper lanterns and brightly colored silks, around carts piled with tantalizing vegetables and fruits that would never appear on the Robesons' table. Now, surrounded by familiar sights and smells, Tom could almost feel the firm hand of Ah Wu on his shoulder.

“Can you imagine what this place will look like in the lay-up season?” Tom tried to picture it. Since a majority of the men in Broome made their living in the pearling fleets, they were gone during the months from April through October, when the fleets were at sea. When they returned to Chinatown and the camps beside the water, Broome would take on a different flavor entirely.

Archer made a sound of disgust. “Typhoons will come when the crews do, and the heat, as well. This place stinks now. Christ almighty, imagine the stench in a month or two.”

Tom admired the colorful vitality of Chinatown, but he was accustomed to his friend's narrower vision of the world. He knew Archer to be basically fair-minded and steadfast, even though he was occasionally intolerant. Archer was a contradiction in many ways. He was an impulsive man, but he could still calculate the odds in a situation and come out a winner. He was a man whose self-interest was paramount, but he would also cheerfully lay his life on the line for a friend.

Tom knew the last from experience.

Now he rested his hand on Archer's shoulder, and gently steered him, as Ah Wu had guided him, past the alley. “Be sure you don't miss the good Broome has to offer.”

“A job finding pearls I can't own myself?” Archer spat in the street.

“We have to learn the business one way or the other. We'll find out how it's done, and maybe by next season we'll have a lugger of our own. I still have funds in California.”

“Not enough for a lugger, you don't.”

“But enough to help us get a start. In the meantime, we have to keep an eye open for the main chance. That's what Garth said he did. Don't forget, this is just the beginning.”

Archer's dreams were big ones and not easily deferred, but, as Tom knew, he wasn't one to brood. He shook off Tom's hand. “Right now I'll settle for something to eat.”

John Garth had given each man an advance on the pay he would receive at the season's end. They had already moved their meager belongings to the Roebuck Bay Hotel, more suitable quarters than the hovel where the skipper had found them. All that remained was to find a laundry that would return their clothes by the morning. Then they could go back to the hotel to fill up on cheap, nourishing food. John had warned them to expect nothing better than rice and fish once they were on board the
Odyssey.

“There's the laundry John recommended.” Tom pointed out the sign at the end of the block. “Sing Chung's.”

Chinatown, called Japtown by some, was the home of a dozen Asian nationalities, with various social clubs and businesses, but here, as in other parts of the world, the Chinese had honed and bartered marketable skills they had brought with them from the old country. The Chinese washed and pressed the uniforms and incidental clothing
of those pearling masters who couldn't afford to send their laundry to Singapore.

“Do you suppose the poor bastards work all night long? Don't they need sleep the same as you and me?” Archer said.

“They're exactly like any man. They do whatever they can, whenever they can, to survive.”

“I wouldn't stand over a kettle of boiling water in this heat.”

“You would if that was all you could do to support your wife and children.”

Archer flashed a winning grin. “I'm planning to marry a woman who can support me.”

“And I'm sure you'll find a dozen like that in Broome. If you can find a dozen women.”

“I won't be staying in this hellhole long enough to find anything except a pearl. I'll make my fortune quick, then I'm going to Victoria. I'll buy a place, settle down and raise cattle. That's what I know. And when I'm done, I'll have a kingdom to leave my sons.”

Tom understood where his friend's ambitions had originated. Archer was the only child of immigrants who had traveled to Texas with dreams of their own. His father had died in a West Texas jail with nothing to show for years of struggle except a prison sentence he hadn't deserved. His mother, destitute and sickly, had been forced to place her young son in an orphanage. Archer had spent the remainder of his childhood on the ranch of the local mayor as an unpaid laborer.

Tom clapped him on the back. “Let's dispose of the laundry, then you can fortify yourself so you'll have the strength to build that kingdom.”

Archer was laughing as they walked through the door.

The room was dark and cramped, and the heat was al
most unbearable. Tom supposed the wash was boiled in the curtained partition behind this one, adding ten degrees to the temperature. The only light came from the doorway behind them. As his vision adjusted, he saw a slender figure behind a low table. As it sharpened, the figure became a woman, a young woman with a delicate heart-shaped face and eyes that were modestly fixed on the table before her.

Archer, who was in a hurry to get back to their hotel, stepped forward, slinging his bundle to the table. “We have to have this back by tomorrow morning. Early. Can you have it finished by then?”

Tom joined him. The girl hadn't answered. “She may not speak English,” he said softly.

“I speak very good English.” The girl still didn't look up. She had a musical voice, and although her words were accented, they were clear.

Archer tapped his foot. “I don't want a runaround. If you take them, they'd better be done on time.”

Tom spoke. “Look, go back to the hotel. I'll take care of this. Order something for both of us. I'll join you in a few minutes.”

“There are plenty of laundries in Chinatown,” Archer warned as he headed for the door.

Tom waited until his friend was gone before he spoke. “He's in a hurry to eat. He doesn't mean to be rude.”

“And you are not in a hurry?”

Tom was in no hurry at all. He had seen few beautiful women since arriving in Australia. He was certain there were many, but they didn't live on the vast tracts of land that the Australians called stations, nor did they inhabit the gold fields. And Broome was heavily populated by men.

This young woman, with her long black hair, her smooth ivory skin and feathery eyelashes, rivaled any beauty he'd
ever seen. Even with perspiration dotting her forehead and staining her clothes.

Tom placed his bundle on the table beside Archer's. “We wouldn't ask you to have these finished so quickly, but we were just hired to work on a lugger, and we're leaving in the morning. This is our last chance for clean clothes. Not that they'll stay that way very long.”

He smiled and hoped she would lift her eyes. She did, and her gaze was surprisingly candid. “I will do them tonight.”

“You're very kind.” Despite the heat, he wanted to stay and gaze at her. He was reminded of the rare lovely Chinese women he had seen as a young boy. The merchants' wives with their embroidered clothing and festive holiday headdresses, the servant girls in their drab tunics and trousers. This woman wore similar garb, a black cotton tunic with only a thin line of embroidery ringing the high collar. But the stark contrast to her skin and the accent of a silken braid falling over her shoulder made her even lovelier.

She didn't seem to be in a hurry, either. Perhaps she enjoyed the escape from the laundry tubs in the rear. “You are not from here?”

He was pleased at the question. “No, I'm from California. And you? Have you always lived here?”

“No. I come here from China, just ten year ago.”

“I miss California. Do you miss China?”

“I return soon to marry a man from my village.”

He felt an absurd stab of disappointment. “He'll be a lucky man.” Color rose in her cheeks, and he knew he had overstepped the considerable boundaries between them. “I'm sorry.”

“Perhaps that is how things are said in California.” She began to untie Archer's bundle.

Since Tom had already stepped into forbidden territory,
he ventured a little farther. “No, in California I would say something like, are you sure you want to go all that way home to China when you could stay here and marry me?”

The color deepened in her cheeks, but she smiled shyly. “My father does not let me talk to men. Now I understand.”

“Where is your father today?”

“He is ill and sleeping.”

“I'm sorry. I hope he feels better soon.”

She looked down at the clothes spread out in front of her now and named a price.

“I'm sure that will be fine,” Tom said.

“The same for yours.”

“But you haven't even counted mine. There might be more.”

“The same or less.”

Clearly she didn't want to spread his clothes in front of him. He smiled his acceptance. “Shall I pay you now?”

She looked up again. She had winged brows and lovely dark eyes, but it was the intelligence in them that captivated him. “You may give me money when you return tomorrow.”

“Will you be here? Or will your father?”

She shook her head, as if to say she didn't know.

He told himself it was despicable to hope her father would remain ill. “Will you still be here for the lay-up? Or will you be in China by then?”

“If my father is ill, I will stay and care for him.”

“I'm sure you'll be sorry to delay your wedding.”

As he expected, she didn't answer.

“I keep saying things I shouldn't,” he said. “I'm sorry again.”

“The man I am to marry is old, already with two wives.”

The idea of this young woman—hardly more than a girl—marrying an old man upset him. Even more, he did
not want her to marry a man with wives who would treat her as their slave. He didn't understand Chinese customs, but he knew this lovely young woman deserved better.

“Please, you leave now. Come back tomorrow.” Before he could respond, she gathered up the clothing and disappeared through the faded curtains into the rear of the shop.

He stared after her until the curtains stopped swaying and the heat finally drove him outside.

A
rcher ordered dinner for himself and Tom, then found a table in the corner where he could sit with his back to the wall. The Roebuck was primitive by city standards, but a great improvement on the boardinghouse where he and Tom had met John Garth.

Here, for the most part, he was surrounded by his own kind, although there weren't many of them. Men in informal khaki and dusty moleskins and men in formal white dotted the room, talking and drinking with their mates. No one had paid attention when he entered, but he was sure that he was already known here. In a town like this one, no stranger went unnoticed.

From his vantage point he could see into the billiard room, which was already crowded, and around the rest of the dining area, where most of the tables were empty. But as he waited idly for service, a middle-aged man in pristine white strolled in, accompanied by a hatchet-faced woman in a dark dress so stiff it didn't even rustle as she moved. They were seated quickly, and although Archer
wouldn't have guessed deference was part of the town character, the couple immediately had two fawning hotel employees at their sides.

“A bit of royalty there, hey?”

Archer looked up at the publican who dropped cutlery in front of him along with a healthy shot of whiskey. “Who is he?”

“Him? That could be you one of these days, if you just found a pearl or two fit for Her Majesty's crown. Or a maharajah's.”

“One of your pearling masters?” Archer had figured as much on his own.

“Top o' the heap. Sebastian Somerset and his missus. Has his shirts tailored in Singapore, his cigarettes rolled in Egypt and his champagne bottled in France.” The publican, bell-shaped and sweating profusely, gave the table a quick flick with a rag and lowered his voice. “Me, I wouldn't trade all the pearls in the world for living with the likes of her.”

Archer imagined the starch in the woman's dress was limper than that in her soul. Somerset, a dark-haired man who held himself as straight as a mast, looked every bit as unyielding. His features were even and fine, but his scowl was permanently etched. “So Somerset's been successful?”

“Captain Somerset's got a fleet of sixteen luggers and at least two mother ships, with a big camp up by Pikuwa Creek. Regularly pulls out pearls as big as emu eggs.”

Archer laughed. “And enough mother-of-pearl to pave the streets of heaven?”

The publican gave the table another swipe. “He's a rich man, that's no joke. The richest in town. There's not a bachelor between here and Perth who doesn't dream of marrying his daughter.”

“Does this daughter look anything like her mother?”

“Viola? She's pretty enough, I suppose, but she's got a tongue like a death adder. Poisoned every man in town.”

“Sounds like she needs taming.”

“T'will take a rich man to do it.” The publican wandered back to the bar at the same moment Tom wandered through the door.

“The laundry will be ready by morning,” Tom said as he pulled up a chair.

“Good, because I'm planning to take an early stroll before we set sail.”

“Stroll?” Tom looked perplexed.

“Yeah. It seems there's a part of Broome we haven't yet seen.”

“Where, exactly?”

Archer crossed his arms over his chest and grinned. “The part where my future wife is living.”

 

Viola Somerset despised Broome. For that matter, she despised Australia. When she was a young girl her mother had promised to send her to England to finish her education, but her father had never allowed it. Viola was too willful, he claimed, too intent on having her own way. He was certain that if he allowed her to leave the Southern Hemisphere, he would never see her again. And any chance he had for influencing future generations would be gone forever.

Pleading with Sebastian hadn't helped Viola. When she was fourteen she'd starved herself for a week, and in response he had taken to eating all his meals in front of her without offering up a morsel. At fifteen she had given up hope that England might be in her future and begged him to send her to a finishing school in Perth. Viola had claimed
that she needed refinement, that she required all the skills of a proper lady so that someday she could take her place as the wife of the man who would succeed Sebastian.

Her father had claimed that no finishing school could make a lady out of a girl who was so obviously deceitful.

Sebastian Somerset was as stubborn as his daughter, and although Viola despised him right along with town and country, she also admired his tenacity. He had gone against conventional wisdom to establish himself in Western Australia, building his empire one lugger and load of pearl shell at a time, until now he was a wealthy man. He had brought his wife and newborn daughter to live in Broome when the town was thought to be no place for white women. And by establishing his family before it was the fashionable thing to do, he had been in the best position to reap the rewards when others followed suit.

When her father had finally relented long enough to allow Viola to spend her sixteenth year visiting a cousin who lived on a large sheep property in South Australia, Viola had thanked him like a dutiful daughter, while silently promising herself that she would disembark in Adelaide, sell the pearl necklace she was taking as a gift to her aunt and find another ship sailing anywhere that wasn't Australia.

She hadn't, of course. Her cousin Martha had been waiting when she arrived in Adelaide, and Viola had seen immediately that Martha was a kindred spirit. The two girls had spent the next months caught up in the social whirl of the South Australian pastoralists. Viola had attended city balls and country race meetings, whipped high-spirited thoroughbreds over rock-strewn pastures, and danced and flirted at week-long house parties. Martha had taught her to wear her golden curls high on her head and her evening
dresses low on her shoulders, but the art of making a man fall in love with her had come as naturally to Viola as wildflowers in the Wet.

Finally forced to return to Broome, Viola had carried with her the knowledge that she could control her future by the toss of her curls and the sweep of her long, pale lashes. Sebastian might have plans for her life, but she would find a man who gloried in the pastoralist's life and leave pearling and Broome behind forever.

Now, months later, she was beginning to despair that she would find that man. As she watched her parents step out of their buggy and start toward the door of the family bungalow, she told herself not to pout. Her father was always displeased with her. No good would come of making him more so.

“Did you enjoy your tea?” she asked her mother with a strained smile.

Jane Somerset sniffed. “There was no one of consequence at the hotel.”

“That's a pity.” Viola offered an arm to help her mother up the stairs. As always, stout Jane wore an old-fashioned corset that was laced so tightly it restricted her movements.

Even with Viola's help, Jane breathed heavily as she climbed to the lattice-shaded veranda. “The roast was tough. I don't know what their cook could have been thinking of.”

Sebastian ignored his wife and removed his hat. “Viola, I don't approve of the way that dress bares your chest.”

“Don't you?” she asked sweetly, abandoning her resolution not to upset him. “Would you prefer it bared more?”

“I would prefer that you speak to me the way a daughter should speak to a father!”

“And I would prefer that you not criticize me for every
little thing.” Viola tossed back her curls. “There is no one here to see what I'm wearing. There is never anyone here who matters.”

“Then what do you call young Freddy Colson? He's here often enough to suit even you, I wager.”

Freddy Colson did not suit Viola in any way. He was her father's choice as a potential husband, a slight young man who devoted himself to overseeing and investing her father's profits. Freddy knew the price of every nail that studded the Somerset luggers, every barrel of rice carried on board and every basket of shell removed. She was certain he dreamed of pounds and shillings.

She was also certain that Freddy did not dream of her or any other woman.

“Freddy would be happiest if he could marry you,” Viola said. “If this were a race, I would finish a distant second.”

Her father began tugging angrily at a mustache that was more luxuriant than his hair. “You're determined to infuriate me, aren't you, girl?”

“I am determined to point out I won't marry Freddy Colson, no matter how much he knows about Somerset and Company.” She settled her wheezing mother on a chair. “If I marry any man from this town, it will be one who wants to leave it!”

“And if that happens, I will disown you!”

“And if
that
happens, I will consider myself blessed!” She turned away, angry at her mother for remaining silent, angrier at herself for becoming provoked, angriest at her father, who was determined to ruin her life. She left her parents on the veranda and retired to her bedroom.

 

Archer's bed was hard and narrow, but better than anything he'd slept on for weeks. The bedding was clean, and
the window was covered with a light gauze that kept out the bulk of the mosquitoes but not the night breeze. He had slept soundly at first, his stomach filled with mutton stew and his head foggy from too much whiskey. But just before dawn something had awakened him. Now, just seconds after he had been pulled from slumber, he lay tense and alert.

At first he heard nothing out of the ordinary. Dogs barked in the distance, but the town was filled with mongrels who fought over every scrap tossed their way. He heard the dull thud of a gong from some pagan temple in nearby Chinatown, and from the hotel itself he heard the clanging of glasses and cutlery as someone in the dining room readied it for business. But none of these sounds could have disturbed his sleep.

“No, don't, Linc. I don't want to fight…not you. Don't be a fool—” Tom mumbled the words, then turned restlessly on the bed next to Archer's. “Linc…No…”

Archer realized what had awakened him. In the first year after the war with Spain, Tom's nightmares had been frequent and occasionally so violent that restraining him was necessary for his safety. Even if Archer woke him, it sometimes took Tom minutes to realize the nightmare had been only that.

Now, from the words he'd uttered, Archer knew what his friend was dreaming about, and he debated what to do. Sometimes, after minutes of tossing, Tom fell into a deeper sleep. But sometimes the nightmares consumed him, and for Archer's own peace, he was forced to shake his friend to bring him awake.

Archer lay still and waited to decide which would be best.

“We're not here…to fight each other.” Tom mumbled something else; then, for a moment, at least, he fell silent.

Even in his sleep, fair-minded Tom got the story right. The men of the Volunteer First Cavalry, known to the world as the Rough Riders, hadn't been sent to Cuba to fight each other. They'd been an odd mixture of trail-roughened cowboys and idealistic aristocrats guaranteed to have both the brains and brawn an Army unit needed. Despite the difference in their education and background, they had come together to fight a common enemy, the Spanish, who were said to have sabotaged the
Maine
and enslaved the Cuban people.

Archer hadn't enlisted because he gave one damn what happened to the dark-skinned denizens of an island too distant to be a threat. When the call went out from Teddy Roosevelt, Archer had signed on because the army was a way out of trouble. A certain rancher wasn't pleased that he had lost most of his hard-earned savings to Archer in an Amarillo poker game, and he had threatened to prove that Archer had cheated. Since Archer
had,
he had seen the free trip to Cuba as a way to hold his head high and still keep his neck out of a noose.

Of course Tom hadn't joined the Rough Riders because he was in trouble, or even because he wanted to explore the world. He was a man who felt the suffering of others as if it were
his
stomach that rumbled with hunger,
his
throat that was parched with thirst. Tom, a skilled athlete, horseman and sharpshooter, was also the sole heir to a fortune. His father was a railroad tycoon in boomtown San Francisco, and someday Tom would inherit a significant part of the city. Without thought of the riches that would someday be his, he had pledged his destiny to Roosevelt even after his father had threatened to pledge Tom's inheritance to distant relatives.

Although both men were assigned to K Troop, at first
neither had taken notice of the other, content to seek out their own kind. Then one night, in a beer garden near Riverside Park in San Antonio, K Troop's drill sergeant, a miner named Linc Webster, began to turn his considerable talent for torment against Tom.

Despite the hardships of training, Linc had always managed to find enough liquor to stay one drink beyond belligerent. That night he had objected to an innocent remark of Tom's, and without thinking, Archer, who always relished a fight, inserted himself between the bully and the aristocrat. Linc threw a punch, Archer pushed Tom out of the way, and Linc was thrown by the force of his own swing to the ground, accompanied by the laughter of everyone who witnessed it.

Tom and Archer, bound together by Archer's action, became firm friends. But from that moment on Linc made revenge against Tom his life's mission. In San Antonio, and later in Tampa, Tom was given the dirtiest jobs. When mounts were assigned, Tom's, not surprisingly, was a knock-kneed, walleyed gelding he was glad to leave behind when the Rough Riders discovered they were going to ride shank's mare during their conquest of Cuba.

Linc's campaign against Tom grew dirtier as the days passed. As often as he could, Tom ignored the escalating hostilities—which infuriated Linc still more. When Tom discovered that the buttons had been slashed from his blue cavalry shirt, he sewed them on again without a murmur. When someone stuffed his slouch hat with horse patties, he emptied and cleaned it without protest. Tom was not immune to anger, but he reasoned that too much was at stake to lose his temper. He believed that reason and patience would win the day.