Calico Palace (28 page)

“Ma’am?” said Ning.

“I mean, if we can’t hide it any other way, we’ll each wear an apron with a bag of dust underneath.”

Ning burst out laughing. “I declare, Marny, you’ll get along.”

“I always have,” she said.

At Ning’s instruction each of them put a few ounces into a little buckskin tobacco bag. These bags were to be hung around their necks and tucked under their clothes. “When you gotta pay for something,” said Ning, “pull out your poke and do it slow and stingy, like this is all you’ve got. Take out the dust a pinch at a time, and squint at every grain on the scale. Talk poor-mouth. Look shabby.”

They promised to talk poor-mouth. Looking shabby was no problem; they could not possibly have looked anything else. Most of their clothes were too tattered to be worth loading on the packhorses. Kendra and Marny each chose one dress, the least dilapidated they had; Kendra washed and Marny mended them, and they stowed the dresses in one of the packs so as to be at least fairly neat when they rode into town. Kendra in particular did not want to look like a ragamuffin when she had to face Alex and Eva and tell them they must take her in again.

As they had so little to carry they sold their wagons. After standing all summer the wagons were not as stout as they had been, but they would do as sleeping shelters for men who planned to stay here all winter. Marny sold her surplus liquor to Ellet. Now they were ready to go.

Early one morning in the third week of September they rode out of Shiny Gulch. In the party were nine persons: Ning and Pocket and Hiram, Marny and Kendra, and the two Blackbeards with Lulu and Lolo. The men had let their hair and beards grow wild. They wore their ragged shirts and trousers and their broken shoes; the girls their tired old dresses, and sunbonnets from which all color had long since faded out. Ning said they could expect a short ride and an easy one. Their journey from San Francisco to Shiny Gulch, with loaded wagons, on a route that led steadily uphill, had taken twelve days. The journey down, with horses lightly packed, should take only six or seven.

They rode down the strip, past men calling that they’d better change their minds and stay, and other men kissing their hands to the girls and lamenting the end of the Calico Palace. They passed Mrs. Posey, scrubbing the pan in which she had fried bacon and pancakes for breakfast. As Mrs. Posey glanced up, Kendra looked the other way. Marny, calmly and deliberately like a bad child, poked out her tongue.

Kendra thought of the day she had come to Shiny Gulch, in the green of May. How different it was now—brown, teeming with people, the hills torn and scarred by men digging for gold. But she had a feeling of homesickness. A chapter in her life had ended. What lay next she did not know, but she did know that when the time came for her to go eastward around Cape Horn she would not be the same girl who had doubled the Horn going west. She would be older, in more than time. And wiser? She hoped so.

Marny cast a wistful look at her old Calico Palace, torn and dirty now, and flapping in the wind. Already men were pulling the tent apart so they could use the canvas to make shelters against the winter storms. “I had a good time there,” said Marny. “But never mind. When I get to San Francisco I’m going to open a real palace.”

They went past Ellet’s trading post, and past a group of Abs dressed up in gaudy junk they had bought for its weight in gold. And on past the turn of the stream, where two loners were silently twirling their pans. Then on, through the blowing dust, out of sight of Shiny Gulch.

Marny glanced around to make sure nobody was near enough to hear what she was about to say. Moving her horse close to Kendra’s, she spoke in a low voice.

“Kendra, on this ride, do something for me.”

“Of course,” said Kendra. “What do you want?”

Marny spoke with grim humor. “I want a chaperone.”

“What on earth—”

“Kendra, don’t pretend you’re as innocent as an unborn calf. I’m still mad with Delbert and I’m not in the mood for a man. Pocket and Hiram are grand fellows, but they’re men. So is Ning. When we put out our bedrolls, stay by me. Stay by me day and night all the way. I don’t want any trouble.”

Kendra glanced at Pocket and Hiram, busy with the packhorses. The dry weeds crackled under the horses’ hoofs. “Do you really think they’ll bother us?”

“Not you, dear. They wouldn’t offer you anything but marriage and I don’t believe any of them is in a marrying frame of mind. But I’m a doxy.”

“You’re not!” Kendra exclaimed. “You’re a fine person—why call yourself by such an ugly word?”

Marny gave her a stare of mock seriousness. “Dear me, lady, I thought
that
word was real cultured.”

Laughing in spite of herself, Kendra promised that they would stay together. After supper that night she laid her bedroll close to Marny’s. The men had to take turns keeping awake for guard duty, and as each man was relieved he tumbled down and fell asleep in dusty weariness. This, Marny remarked as Kendra made coffee in the morning, might have been one reason why their own sleep had been untroubled.

That afternoon they reached Mormon Island, now a bustling camp of about two hundred men and a few women. The next day they rode to Sutter’s Fort.

The fort had changed. Long before they got there they saw the dust before them hiding the walls like a curtain. From beyond the curtain they could hear yells and shouts and firing of guns and lowing of animals, and when at last they rode into the dust cloud, they found a howling confusion of men and women and mules and cattle and swarms of flies. Most of the men and a good many of the women were drunk. Or at least, from the way they were singing and staggering and quarreling they seemed to be. Kendra saw Marny’s hand go to her gun, and wished she had a gun of her own.

Ning said they would not go inside the walls of the fort itself, but would go directly to Smith and Brannan’s store, to buy food for themselves and their horses. With him as leader, they made their way through the pandemonium. The Blackbeards fiercely sheltered the Hawaiian girls, while Pocket and Hiram, holding their guns in sight, moved to ride close to Marny and Kendra. Marny murmured, “Thanks for the fireworks, boys.” Hiram grinned, and Pocket said softly, “Glad to use ’em any time they’re needed, ma’am.”

They passed many so-called trading posts—crude shacks or tents or sometimes merely counters set up outdoors. Most of the traders seemed mainly concerned with selling liquor. Piles of bottles lay around, flies buzzed over them and bugs crawled among them, and men in various stages of drunkenness sat or sprawled or lay in sodden heaps on the ground. They called out as the girls rode by. Some of them said “Hi, you beauties!” Others used phrases Kendra had never heard before and hoped she would never hear again.

But when at last they reached Smith and Brannan’s, the store looked like an oasis of calm. The building had always been strong, but now the windows had stout wooden bars, and shutters that could be closed and padlocked. At the entrance stood a guard with his gun ready. The men going in and out looked respectable. A few of them were even escorting women, hardy sunbonneted women carrying market baskets.

Ning gave instructions. Hiram and the Blackbeards, with Lulu and Lolo, would stay outside to guard the horses and packs. “Me and Pocket will go in with the other two ladies,” Ning went on, “and see about fodder for the horses and somp’n good for Miss Kendra to cook.” He smiled at Kendra, such a friendly smile on his whiskery earth-brown face that though she was tired and sweaty and crusted with dust, she smiled back. “And then,” said Ning, “we’ll stand guard while you folks go in and pick up whatever little things you might need.”

They agreed, understanding that the “little things” would be their own deposits of gold dust.

The door guard told the men to put their guns into the holsters before going in. They obeyed, and he let them enter.

The front room was crowded with people and merchandise. Behind the counter stood six clerks, all well armed. One of the clerks was Gene Spencer.

Gene hurried over to serve them. While Ning loudly complained about the prices, Gene drew a box from under the counter and put in beef and bacon, along with squash, potatoes, onions, cans of coffee, and a bag of corn for the horses.

“AH right, folks!” he called when the box was full. “Now we’ll go into the office and settle up. Come along.”

Another clerk stepped out from behind the counter and picked up the box, and they all followed Gene. The office was a small room furnished with a table, a bench, and a strongbox in one corner. On the floor was a stack of ledgers, and on the table were a pen and ink, a candle, and scales for weighing gold. The room was dim and stuffy, for it had only one window, and though the shutters were open, wooden bars were nailed across the window close together, leaving only slits to let in light and air.

The clerk carrying the box set it on the floor. Gene closed the door and locked it. In a low voice he said, “I guess you’ve come to get your dust.”

“Right,” said Ning.

“Fine,” said Gene. “This is my friend Curtis. We call him Curt.”

Curt was a big muscular fellow, and while he did not look surly he did look stern, like a man with an important job to do. Moving to stand near another door, this one evidently leading to a back room, Curt took a pistol from the holster at his belt. He said nothing. He simply stood there.

Gene said to the others, “Take off your guns.”

Ning and Pocket and Marny obeyed. Gene raised the lid of the strongbox.

“Put ’em in here.”

They obeyed again. Gene spoke to Kendra.

“What about you, Mrs.—er—”

“Call me Kendra,” she said, smiling as brightly as she could.

“Well, Kendra,” said Gene, using her name quickly as if glad to know what name to use, “haven’t you got a gun?”

“No,” she answered, “I haven’t.”

“Better get one, ma’am,” said Gene. “It’s dangerous country.”

Locking the strongbox, he looked around at them all.

“And by the way,” he said tersely, “keep your hands in sight. Curt knows all the tricks. If you need something out of your pocket, let me know and I’ll take it out for you. Get the point?”

They got the point. While they stood with their hands in front of them, Gene searched among the ledgers until he found the right one. Turning the pages till he came to their names, he sat down on the bench and began to calculate the deposit charges. After a few minutes he stood up.

“Ready, Curt,” he said.

Holding his gun in one hand, with the other hand Curt unlocked the door to the back room. Even smaller than the office, this room was airless and midnight dark, for it had no windows at all. Gene lit the candle, and carrying it, he took a step toward the door. “You stay here,” he ordered, “with Curt.” They stayed, but he had to leave the door open so he could breathe, and by the candlelight they could see what he was doing.

In the back room were three large heavy safes. Setting the candle on the floor, Gene knelt and opened one of these. Inside was a jumble of containers—bags, bottles, tin cans, glass jars, chamberpots—anything that would hold gold dust. Gene took out a chamberpot, closed the safe, and got to his feet. Holding the pot in both hands he came into the office, and Curt locked the door behind him.

Gene grinned around at them all. “Ladies first?” he asked.

“Sure,” said Ning.

“Start with Kendra?” Gene suggested.

“I haven’t anything on deposit here,” she said.

Still holding the pot, Gene gave her an astonished look across it. “Why yes you have!” he exclaimed, then as she caught her breath in surprise he said, “You didn’t know?”

Kendra shook her head. She looked from Gene to Ning and Pocket and Marny, but they knew no more about it than she did. Pocket spoke to Gene.

“When we brought in the dust, we left Ted’s whole share on deposit in his name. Has be been here since then?”

“Why sure,” Gene answered. “I thought he’d told you.” The pot was heavy, and he set it on the table. Awkwardly patting Kendra’s shoulder, he went on, “Tim Bradshaw—I mean Ted—he’s not a bad fellow, ma’am. He came to the store one day not long after I got back from Shiny Gulch. Said he’d come to get the dust Pocket and Hiram had put on deposit for him. But he said he wanted only half of it, we were to keep the other half for you.”

Kendra felt a choke in her throat. Gene went on.

“When the charge is paid you’ll have about two hundred ounces. That’s not bad, ma’am—”

He said no more because Kendra had crumpled up on the bench and was crying helplessly into her grubby red bandana kerchief. Ted was not a bad fellow. Then what was he? She did not know; her heart was asking more questions than her mind would ever answer.

Ted had run away because he could not face her. But he had left her half his gold. After this, how could she ever reach the tranquility Pocket had promised her, when Ted would hurt her no more because she no longer cared? Oh, life would be so much simpler if people were only good or bad, instead of such a mixture of both.

She heard Ning saying, “Gene, you can put Kendra’s dust into one of those coffee cans.”

Kendra jerked up her head. “No!” she cried.

Gene was already reaching into the box for one of the cans he had put there to disguise the fact that they would be carrying gold out of the office. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t want it!” she blurted.

Pocket put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Miss Kendra, you did earn it.”

Kendra looked up at him, shaking her head. A tear rolled down and dropped off her chin. “I don’t want it,” she repeated.

As she spoke she heard Marny say to Pocket, “Let me tell her something. And you—all of you—get back. This is private.”

The men drew away. Marny sat on the bench by Kendra and spoke into her ear.

“Kendra, listen to me. Are you listening?”

Her voice was low but forceful. It reminded Kendra that Marny was her friend. “Yes,” she said, “I’m listening.”

“My dear,” said Marny, “this dust, added to what you have already, will give you about three hundred ounces. That’s a neat little fortune. Maybe you don’t want it, but there’s something else you do want.”