Gold (16 page)

“
On second thought,” Rhynne said, “maybe I
won’t need the hinges after all. Tell Abe I said
to serve you one on the house when you deliver
the lumber.”

“
That I will.”

John Griswold watched Rhynne leave the yard
whistling What Was Your Name in the States?
I should have asked for a dollar to start off with, Griswold thought. He was charging one-twenty
now, that was true enough. Rhynne, though, was
a man to stay on the right side of. Lumber to
build himself a bookcase. A bookcase with
hinges? Now that was a queer notion. What would
a man want with a hinged bookcase?

When Rhynne got back to the Empire, he
found Tom Horobin waiting for him on the porch.
Inside the hotel he heard Selena practicing on the
piano.

“
You asked me to stop by before I left for
Sutter’s,” Horobin said after shifting his cud of
tobacco to his right cheek.

“
That I did. Care for a drink, Tom?”

Horobin shook his head.
“Four years back I
broke a leg hauling supplies down into a defile
while I was tight as a drumhead. I’ll do my drink
ing after I get to Sutter’s tomorrow.”

“
I’ve a special order for you, Tom. That’s the
reason I asked you to stop by. Don’t know where you’ll be able to get it filled, though.”

“
San Francisco?”

“
Perhaps. Then again, you may have to send
to Monterey. Or inquire at the ranches down that
way.”

Horobin spat tobacco juice over the porch rail.
“You’re rousing my curiosity, W.W.,” he said.
“What is this special order?”

“
A bed.”

“
A bed, is it? Well, now, a bed shouldn’t be
too hard to come by. Have you thought of having Griswold build you one?”

“
I need a special bed. A one-of-a-kind bed.”

“
All Griswold’s beds are one-of-a-kind. Every
thing Griswold makes is. I don’t think he ever
followed a pattern in his life.”

“
Anybody with a few dollars can have Gris
wold make him a bed if he’s got the time to wait.”

“
John never was one for hurrying. What sort
of bed did you have in mind, W.W.?” Horobin
raised himself up to sit on the porch rail.

“
I want the grandest bed ever seen in Hang-
town, the biggest and most elaborate bed you can find in all the West. I want a bed with high posts
and a canopy, a bed with a carved headboard
and a carved footboard, a bed fit for a king, yet
with room enough for the king and the queen
and three or four others besides. I don’t want a bed you can flop into. I want one that you have to climb up onto a step-stool to get at. I want a
bed so magnificent that after this California gold
rush is forgotten, W.W. Rhynne and his bed will
be remembered.”

“
W.W.,” Horobin said admiringly, “now that is
what I’d call a real bed.”

“
It’s what I mean to have.”

“
A bed like that would cost as much as a man
earns in three or four months.”

“
I know, Tom. Just find the bed for me. I trust
you to drive a hard bargain. I’ll pay you what the bed costs and ten percent for your trouble. Plus
your regular cartage fee to haul it here to the Empire.”

Tom Horobin hunched himself from the rail.
“Anything else, W.W.? I’ve already got Miss
Pamela’s order for the store and Abe’s for the saloon. Anything else special for you?”

“
Only the bed. The next time you come up
Hangtown way, I’ll expect you to bring it.”

“
I’ll have your bed, never fear. You’ll notice
I’m not asking what you want the bed for. I know
you’ll tell me when the times comes. Is this some
thing between the two of us and the gatepost?”

“
No, it’s not. On the contrary, you might men
tion the bed around town, what kind I want and
all. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you would.”

“
I take your meaning. The word will be all
over Hangtown by nightfall.” Horobin turned.
Staring along the street, he said, “Now if that
doesn’t beat all.”

There were four persons in the procession com
ing toward the Empire, three men and a woman. A man on horseback led the way, a man of per
haps forty, dressed elegantly in black with flow
ing black hair tinged with grey. The horse side
stepped as the rider reined him toward the hotel.

“
Mighty fine looking animal,” Horobin said to
Rhynne.

Rhynne nodded, looking past the rider to the
two men who followed him. Both sat stolidly
astride mules, an older man and a younger, the
older with a grey moustache and a short grey
beard, the younger clean-shaven, muscular, and
huge. Rhynne stared at his hand—he’d never
seen such hands. They were twice the size of an
ordinary man’s. Both of the men were black.

Behind them were two heavily laden pack
mules and behind the pack mules was the woman.
As they came closer, Rhynne realized she was
very young, certainly less than eighteen, dark-skinned, Spanish most likely, with a black shawl hiding her hair and covering her upper body. She
too rode astride a mule, her long brown skirts
torn and soiled.

The horseman looked about him with frank curiosity, taking in the rough log structures, the
men in the streets and those lolling in doorways. The two blacks stared straight ahead, yet Rhynne
sensed they missed nothing.

The girl, though,
stared down at her hands clenched on the reins,
almost as though she was in a stupor. Rhynne
was about to look away when he noticed she was
a pretty
girl with high cheekbones and delicate
dark features. If she smiled, he thought, she would
be beautiful.

The horseman stopped at the foot of the steps.
“I’m Kingman
Sutton of Georgia,” he drawled,
“by way of Cape Horn and San Francisco. Could
either of you gentlemen tell me where we might
set up camp? I’d prefer a location convenient to
the diggings.”

“
You could go on another half mile,” Rhynne
told him, “then take the right fork and climb to
the pines at the crest of the hill. Good a spot as
any.”

“
I’d be careful if I was you, mister,” Horobin
warned. “Some folks hereabouts don’t take kindly
to bringing slaves into the diggings.”

“
Some folks should pay heed to their own
affairs and not meddle in matters that don’t con
cern them.”

“
No harm intended. I was only passing along some friendly advice.”

“
I heard the same kind of talk in San Francisco.
They’re hypocrites, the lot of them. Ready to
shoot an Indian for sport, they are. What do they
say? The only good Indian is a dead Indian. And
then they turn around and threaten the protectors
of a race less fortunate than our own. I don’t give
a damn what hypocrites think.”

Rhynne glanced at the two blacks behind Sut
ton, noting they bore a family resemblance to one
another. They stared back at him, expressionless.

“
And what can you tell us of the state of affairs
in San Francisco, sir?” he asked quietly.

“
They’re damnable. The city’s fair on its way
to becoming the hell-hole of the Pacific. No
decent lodgings to be found, rats and fleas every
where. So many rats, in fact, they’re selling cats
for ten dollars each to hunt them. All the prices are outrageous. I paid a dollar for an egg and a five-
cent loaf of bread sells for seventy-five. The food,
what there is of it, is abominable. They’re beach
ing the abandoned ships and using them for
sleeping quarters. Men live in shacks and tents,
they sleep in the open or on bales of hides waiting
shipment east.”

“
They call that section of the town ‘Hide Park,’
I believe,” Rhynne said.

“
It’s a town no longer. These days San Fran
cisco styles itself a city. Not a city of houses that
would smack of sense, though. No. They’re build
ing bordellos and gambling saloons instead. Not
that they don’t have their place, sir,” he said with
a nod to Rhynne. “Yet a man doesn’t want to
spend the whole of his life drinking, gambling and
whoring.”

“
I can’t quarrel with that,” Rhynne said. “If
only we could become children again we could
avoid the problem. That’s impossible, I know.
‘Nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in
the grass, of glory in the flower.”

“
I doubt if we’ll ever see grass or flowers grow
ing in San Francisco again,” Sutton said. “Not
only do more ships arrive daily to be abandoned
by their crews, now one hears reports of a great
overland migration this year. Wagon trains from
all parts of the East are gathering in Missouri
waiting for the grass on the plains to sprout high enough to feed their livestock on the way across.”

“
Gold fever can be an extremely contagious
disease, Mr. Sutton.”

“
And deadly as well. If it weren’t for certain unfortunate circumstances
...”
He stopped, look
ing past Rhynne and Horobin. Rhynne glanced
over his shoulder to see Selena standing in the
doorway dressed in her green gown. Her loosened
hair fell over her shoulders in a golden cascade; her blue eyes sparkled.

Sutton dismounted and sprang up the steps, hat in hand. At the top he paused to sweep his
hat across his body and bowed with a flourish.
“Colonel Kingman Sutton at your service,
ma’am,” he said to Selena.

Rhynne looked closely at Selena as she smiled up at Sutton. Somehow she seemed different this morning. She had never looked lovelier, yet the
change he had noted wasn’t only in her appear
ance. Her whole manner was subtly enlivened.
She looked radiant. Could it be because of Sut
ton? he wondered.

“
You have the advantage,” Sutton was saying to her. “I don’t believe I know your name.”

“
Selena. Selena Buttle-Jones.”

“
I’ve traveled fifteen thousand miles from the state of Georgia. Until this moment I’d wondered
whether the journey had been in vain.”

A month ago, Rhynne knew, Selena would
have blushed and been afraid to breach propriety
by speaking to a strange man. Not now. Though
she inclined her head, her eyes continued to look
up into Sutton’s.

“
You should always wear green,” Sutton told
her. “The colors of springtime suit you.”

The two of them acted as though they were
alone, Rhynne thought, as though no one else
were near. As though no one else mattered. His
eyes narrowed. Would Sutton threaten the plan
he had in mind?

“
Mister—perhaps I should say Colonel—Sut
ton has brought an imposing crew with him to
help search for gold,” Rhynne said to Selena.

She blinked, looking at Rhynne as though she
hadn’t heard him. “A crew?” she asked.

“
There,” Rhynne said impatiently, nodding to the street. For the first time Selena looked at the
two blacks and the Spanish girl. She drew in her
breath and walked past Sutton to the porch rail
to stare at the girl on the mule. The girl raised her black shawl to cover the lower part of her
face.