Calico Palace (33 page)

“Wonderful exchange,” said Marny.

While she was glad to cook dinner in return for a place to live, Kendra wanted to be altogether independent. She had come to San Francisco with three hundred ounces of gold, but prices were soaring. She told Marny she would like to make cupcakes and cheese rolls, to be sold at a coffee table in the Calico Palace.

Marny was doubtful. To her, the words “cakes and coffee” sounded like a church social. But Kendra reminded her that men had to eat. They could not eat gold. They could, however, exchange gold for food, and they would if the food was good. Hers would be good. Archwood’s two lots, on Kearny Street and Washington, touched at the back in the middle of the block. This meant that she could bring in her cakes and rolls several times a day, hot from the oven. “They’ll be sold,” she insisted, “before they’re cool.”

Marny began to be interested. Though Lolo was going to have a baby, Lulu was not, so Lulu could sell the cakes. Marny said she could put the table just inside the entrance of the tent, where the odors would tempt men to come in from the street. A noble fellow who thought he did not gamble would step in for a snack. Once the noble fellow got inside, he would ramble over to watch the play—no harm in that. Then he would lay a bet, a little bet, only a dollar or two, just for fun—

“It’s an idea,” said Marny. Her eyes had a soft glow like the eyes of a purring cat.

At last the miners moved out of Archwood’s house and took a launch back to the gold country. Marny had bought some usable if not stately furniture, and she and Archwood and Kendra moved in.

Archwood ate Kendra’s dinners with relish, but otherwise he did not notice her much. He had a great deal to do, all new and interesting; and he had Marny, also new and interesting. He was charmed by her linking of bedroom art with drawing room grace, and equally charmed by her talent for making money.

Marny opened her gambling parlor on an evening in November, 1848. It was a neat little tent fifteen by twenty-five feet, with a floor of redwood planks and the words “Calico Palace” in bright red paint on the outside. Facing the entrance, so every man who walked past on Kearny Street could see her, Marny dealt her card game. In front of her was a pile of treasure—lumps of gold, Yankee dollars, British sovereigns, gold and silver coins from Mexico and China and Peru. As coins had to be brought in by the ships, there were not nearly enough of them in town. People were used to taking any sort they could get.

Also near the entrance Lulu sat by a table spread with Kendra’s cupcakes and cheese rolls. Coffee pot and teakettle steamed on a brazier beside her. At a spot farther back the Blackbeards took turns, one dealing while the other kept guard. There were two tables for rent, and at the back was the bar. The bartender, known as Chad, was a stoutish man with a thick neck, curly black hair, and a pink jovial face. Chad had been lured from the bar at the City Hotel by the promise that he could sleep in the tent, on a bug-free cot with clean blankets.

Two Mexican youths strolled about, strumming guitars. Archwood had found them and he told Marny they played well. She said, “I’ll take your word for it.” As far as Marny was concerned music was merely another kind of noise. Not that she minded it, so long as it brought in the gamblers.

Everybody who worked in the tent wore a gun. The men had big murderous-looking pistols at their belts, Marny wore the pretty little Colt given her by the gambler from New Orleans, Norman Lamont. But they rarely had any disorder. The Blackbeards were competent guards, and Chad was glad to help when needed because he liked a quiet life. Archwood came in often to look things over, but he seldom stayed long. Gambling was not his talent. His kingdom lay in the account books, and he had no complaints. Every launch that came down the river brought more men from the mines. Here in town they were squandering gold in a crazy carnival.

A week after the gambling tent opened, Hiram and Pocket said goodby. Drinking coffee in Kendra’s kitchen, they told her and Marny they planned to leave tomorrow to start their workshop at the fort. They were going to cut down trees, make rockers, and get rich.

Marny wished them good luck, gave them each a kiss to remember her by, and went back to her card table. Leaving Lolo to watch the fire, Kendra walked with them to the hitching post in front of the house.

His hand on his horse’s bridle, Hiram scowled down at her. “You’re all right here, Kendra?” he asked.

“Yes,” she assured him, and as he still looked doubtful she added, “Really I am, Hiram.”

“You have a gun?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Under my apron.”

“Let me see it.”

She took the gun out of its holster and gave it to him. This was a gun Archwood had bought from a man who had run short of coins to gamble with, a little Colt with a barrel four inches long and a revolving cylinder with five chambers. Hiram examined it, nodded with approval, and gave it back.

“Stout little weapon. Do you know how to use it?”

“I’m learning,” said Kendra. “It still scares me, but I’ll keep trying.”

“Keep trying till you know how,” Hiram ordered her sternly. He shook his big shaggy head. “I don’t like all this,” he said. “Your living next to a gambling spot that’s half saloon. But—” He shrugged. She had nowhere else to go and he knew it. He added, “As I’ve remarked before, Kendra, you have guts.”

Standing by his own horse, Pocket spoke in his wise quiet way. “Folks need guts around here,” he said.

The men mounted their horses. Pocket smiled at her gently. But Hiram was still scowling. His big hand on her shoulder, he said,

“You’re sure you don’t mind being here, Kendra?”

She smiled up at him. “I’m sure, Hiram. I’m quite safe. They never leave me alone in the house. I’m busy, I’m independent, I’m happy here.”

At last Hiram smiled at her too. He squeezed her shoulder. With Pocket, he rode away toward Kearny Street. At the corner they waved goodby, and Kendra waved back.

As she watched them go, she felt shivers. She had said she was all right, she was happy here.

It was the biggest lie she had ever told.

S
HE WAS NOT ALL
right. She was scared and lonely and half sick with wondering what was going to become of her. Hiram had said she had guts. She felt about as gutsy as a bowl of jam. The best she could do was pretend it wasn’t so. She pretended to herself as well as to other people.

Kendra was not good at pretending, and she could do it now only because her days were so full that sometimes she herself was hardly aware of her own thoughts. She cooked the meals, and between meals she made her cakes. At best this would have left her scant leisure; but as it was, she not only had to cook, she had to search for something to be cooked.

Flour and sugar and meat she could buy, but fresh foods were rare and sometimes she could not get any at all. The boats that used to bring produce from the ranches now stood idle for days or weeks at a time, waiting for men to sail them. While some miners had run short of gold and so had to take jobs, most men still carried heavy pokes and wanted to celebrate instead of work. When she looked out of a window and saw a launch approaching, Kendra ran to call one of the Blackbeards. If he found any milk on board, or eggs, he was to buy them at any price. Sometimes he found them, sometimes not.

However, she did her best with what she could get, and in spite of Marny’s fantastic prices men bought her cakes as fast as she could bring them in. Kendra worked nearly every minute of every day, but this was the way she wanted it. Work kept her from thinking. It was like a drug.

But like any other drug, hers could not always hide the truth. She knew her work kept her from thinking and she knew what it kept her from thinking about. About how lonesome she was, and how scared.

This fear was not what she had felt at Cape Horn. That fear had been real, certainly, until Loren with his cheerful confidence had eased it, but that had been the simple bodily fright that any animal in danger might feel. This fear was more complex, more shattering. She felt like a lost child, among strange people, strange sights and noises in meaningless confusion.

Never had she felt so alone. Kendra was used to being lonely, but at Shiny Gulch, while she had still believed in Ted, she had found out what it meant not to be lonely, and this made loneliness harder than ever to bear. It was not Marny’s fault. Marny was as friendly as ever, but Marny had the exhilaration of her cards. She also had Archwood’s backing. “He won’t last,” Marny whispered to Kendra, “but as the smart old Roman said,
Carpe diem.
Which means, Make hay while the sun shines.”

Marny’s spirit had never been deeply stirred. She would not have understood Kendra’s yearning terror now, any more than she had understood, last summer, Kendra’s pain at the loss of Ted.

“I believe Pocket would understand how I feel,” Kendra said to herself. “Hiram? I don’t know.”

But Pocket and Hiram had gone to the fort. She had nobody to talk to.

Archwood was making plans to go to Honolulu. This was no longer an impossible dream. Men who had come from the islands last summer were now willing to sail the vessels that would take them home. Also there were deserters, who had gathered their pokes of gold and wanted to get away before they could be caught. The captains were so eager to move their ships that they would take almost any man they could get, asking no questions. Archwood took passage on the ship
Rhone,
which now had enough crewmen to promise a sailing before the end of the year.

His purpose in sailing was twofold. The Calico Palace was not the only gambling tent on the plaza, but Marny had made it the most enticing one, and it was over-full every evening. Archwood was eager to put up a building large enough to take care of all these men who wanted to risk their gold. But his problem was how to get something to build with. There was a sawmill in Bodega, north of the bay, and the sawmill had lumber in plenty, but there was no plenty of sailors to bring it down. However, men newly arrived from the islands had told him Honolulu was not yet swamped with gold. There he would find an abundance of brick and lumber. Also, while in San Francisco the price of gold was bobbing up and down every day, in Honolulu gold was still worth its normal value in coin. Archwood had therefore determined to leave for Honolulu as soon as he could, taking his gold dust with him. He would buy what he needed and bring back the change in real money.

He offered to take the girls’ dust too, and change it for coins. Kendra consented gladly, and Marny gave him her share of the dust they had earned in the Calico Palace, keeping back only coins to gamble with. Kendra was surprised that Marny had become so trustful. She said so, over a pot of chocolate while Marny was taking a rest from her card table.

The weather had turned cold and damp and they sat in the kitchen. This was the only warm room in the house, for firewood was as hard to get as every other article requiring men’s labor.

At Kendra’s remark Marny gave her a wise look across the cups. “Darling, he’ll come back. He hasn’t sold his lots yet because prices are going up. He won’t sell the lots until he’s ready to go back to New York, and he won’t go back till he’s bored, and right now he’s not bored. Look.”

She set her cup on the kitchen table. Reaching inside her dress she drew out a little bundle wrapped in a handkerchief, and put it into Kendra’s hand.

The little bundle had the weight of gold. While Marny watched her, Kendra unwrapped the handkerchief and took out a gold chain, of a length to fit around a woman’s throat. Attached to the chain, under little caps like acorns, were five fat lumps of gold, so pure and soft that Kendra felt as if she could almost have dented them with her fingernail.

“The newest thing,” said Marny. “A nugget necklace. He had it made for me at Buckelew’s watch shop.”

“It’s lovely!” said Kendra. “Not lovely like anything I’ve ever seen before. But like—like California.”

“Exactly,” said Marny. “I’m proud of it.”

She took the necklace and stood up.

“You know, Kendra,” she said thoughtfully, “I used to think I’d never want to go back to Philadelphia. But some day, I might. To—show my trophies.” She touched the nuggets with affection. “I’m beginning,” she said, “to understand the Indian braves, going home with scalps on their belts.”

Kendra remembered that once she had felt like this. She had wanted to go back to her aunts and uncles, with a fur cloak and a muff pinned with a spray of opals. And Ted. Now she did not care if she ever went back or not.

She thought—I wish I could be like Marny. But I can’t. I don’t want a nugget necklace. I want somebody to love me.

To hide her face she stood up and put a stick of wood into the stove. Marny said,

“Those cupcakes smell so good! I wish they were ready. I’d like one.”

“They’ll be done in about twenty minutes,” said Kendra. “I’ll bring them over.”

Marny put on her shawl and left for the tent. A few minutes later Lolo came in to watch the fire. Leaving her at work on a garment she was making for her expected baby, Kendra went into a front room and looked out toward the bay.

Dark against the sky she could see the tall masts of the deserted vessels. She wondered how many of them would ever go to sea again.

Still, more kept coming in. Some came from ports where people had not yet heard of California’s gold; others were brought by captains thinking, “It can’t happen to me.” Out there in the bay Kendra could see a schooner called the
Hope,
which had arrived yesterday from Honolulu, full of gold-hunting passengers. The passengers had come ashore, and no doubt the crewmen had already started to slip away.

The cakes were done now, so she went back to the kitchen. Arranging the cakes on a big tray, she covered them with a cloth and started toward the tent.

The ground was rough and she had to take care about every step. Ahead of her the tent was full of light, a bright island in the gloom of the day. She could hear the guitars. Those Mexican boys did play well, whether Marny knew it or not.