Gold (28 page)

“
Rhynne, you are one smooth son of a bitch.”

“
Which, I take it, is considered a compliment
in the state of Georgia.”

“Sometimes I wish I were back in Athens,” Sut
ton said as they left the room. They went down
the stairs to the porch. “Here I am with two slaves
to work my claim and what do I have to show for
it? I promised Jed and Joshua their freedom when
we made our fortune in gold but we’ve mined
barely enough to cover expenses. And then there’s
this O’Lee lad who’s hardly weaned yet from his
mother’s milk who seems to have found Eldo
rado itself.”

“
Beginner’s luck.”

“
I wish to God I had some.”

“
You have had. Jed’s recovered, hasn’t he?”

“
That man’s as strong as an ox. And Joshua’s
a good nurse. They’re half-brothers, you know.
Jed was working the Long Tom the week after
Braithewaite took that bandit’s bullet out of his
chest.”

“
I hear Joaquin Murieta’s been busy in the
south. They say he robbed a gold shipment and
killed the driver.”

“
I wish we’d get law and order in this benighted
Territory, He’ll not be caught until we do. When
he is caught they should sever his head and charge
admission to see it.”

“
A charming idea, colonel.”

“
Anyone who’d deliver Miss Selena over to that
madman Varner deserves no less. She seems to have finally recovered, though.”

“
The young have short memories. Did she actu
ally kiss that Lieutenant Sherman like they say?”

“
On the cheek, Rhynne, on the cheek. I think the lieutenant was quite taken with her. He told
her he’s thinking of resigning his commission.”

“
Because of Selena?”

“
No, no. He can’t make ends meet on his army
pay. The prices in the gold country are outrageous. I don’t see how anyone can prosper.”
“Mr. O’Lee appears able to.”

“
Damn O’Lee and his cherub’s face. All the
women want to mother him. They seem to think
he’s incapable of taking care of himself and here
he is doing better than the rest of us put together.”

Rhynne smiled, recalling Selena
’s overly casual
questions about Danny O’Lee. Sutton had cause
to be jealous.

“
She’s a beautiful woman,” Rhynne said. “And very young and very much in love. With the idea of being in love, that is. No one man can hope to
hold her for long. No man should try.”

“
You’re right, of course. Absolutely, completely
correct.” King Sutton looked at a group of miners
passing on the road. “She’s a contagion worse than
our lust for gold. She’s like a fever. You think the
fever will break and you wait and wait, yet it
never does. And there’s no known cure. You burn
until you’re consumed.”

“
Have you considered marrying the girl?”

Sutton gave Rhynne a strange look, seemed
about to speak but instead shook his head, turned
abruptly and walked away.

Rhynne stood staring after him. That man
’s
luck has turned for the worse, he told himself, yet
King Sutton was refusing to recognize the fact.
He was like an ill-made candle that yields a mag
nificent light only to gutter after a few short hours.

Rhynne shrugged. He left the porch to stroll
along the road, nodding right and left to the
miners going by.

“
Tomorrow’s the big day?” one asked him.

“
Three o’clock sharp.”

“
I’ll be there. We’ll all be there.”

Rhynne stopped in front of a cabin where a
blue sign with red lettering had been nailed to the
door: “Dr. Samuel Braithewaite, Surgery and
Physic in all branches. Sets bones. Draws teeth
painlessly. Bleeds. Advice gratis.”

Rhynne knocked, opening the door when he
heard Braithewaite’s, “Come in.”

“
I need your help,” Rhynne told him.

The doctor tilted his chair back.
“As the
sign says, my advice is gratis.” Behind the doc
tor Rhynne saw a shelf displaying a microscope,
stethoscope, a glittering array of other instruments, a mortar and pestle, and a great jar of
leeches.

“
It’s not so much advice I need,” Rhynne said.
“It’s more to do with the lottery at the Empire.
The drawing’s tomorrow afternoon at three.”

“
I’ve kept informed of your venture even
though I didn’t buy a ticket myself.”

“
Precisely why I’m here. I need an unimpeach
able citizen of Hangtown, one who didn’t enter
the lottery, to draw the winning ticket.”

“
There’s always Reverend Colton.”

“
I doubt if he’s available.”

“
I’d have to take time from my practice,”
Braithewaite said.

“
Yes, I thought of that, doctor. Would an honorarium be in order? I had in mind two bottles of
my best forty-rod. For medicinal purposes. A do
nation to the advancement of the well-being of
Hangtown.”

“
I think I can arrange my schedule so I’ll be on
hand to draw the winning number,” Braithewaite
said.

Rhynne held out his hand.

***

King Sutton waited until the Empire closed
sometime after midnight before he made his way
to the shed behind the hotel. When the last light
winked out upstairs he crept across the yard to one of the windows at the rear of the gambling saloon.

He pushed up on the window. The sash, which
he’d unlocked earlier in the evening when he
stopped in the saloon for a drink, slid up easily.
Sutton hoisted himself over the sill and into the
room.

After closing the window behind him, he went
to the shadowed recess behind the stairs leading to the platform, He sat on the floor, prepared for
a long wait. The clock in the hotel lobby chimed
twice. Otherwise, there was no sound in the build
ing. Could he have misjudged Rhynne?

He heard footsteps near the bar, saw the out
line of a man carrying what appeared to be a box.
Sutton smiled. No, he hadn’t misjudged his man.
Wordsworth Rhynne, with his Louis XIV bed and
his lottery, was undoubtedly a clever man.

King Sutton enjoyed outwitting clever men.

Selena and Pamela stood in an upstairs window
of the Empire watching the crowd on the road
outside. Rhynne had set up long plank tables and
was serving venison, salmon, beef, beans, oyster
soup, coffee, and, as long as they lasted, brandied
peaches. He had closed the saloon until after the
lottery.

“
You look tired,” Pamela said. “Are you sleeping any better?”

Se
lena sighed. “Oh, mother, I’m so tired it
seems I’ll never summon up the energy to laugh
again. If only there was some magic potion to make me sleep without dreaming, I’d take it.”

“
No!” Pamela’s voice was sharp. “Best not to
rely on pills and potions. You’re young, this will
pass.”

Selena glanced at her, then turned her head
away. “The dreams are different now. Not those
nightmares I had just after Lieutenant Sherman
and the others rescued me, when I’d wake up still
smelling the awful burning stench . . .” Selena
broke off and covered her eyes with her hand.

“
You don’t have to talk about it,” Pamela said.
“I understand.”

“
You used to tell me I always slept like a baby,
no matter what. I never will again.” Selena
touched her left breast delicately. “Even though
his knife barely cut through the skin and the scar
is almost invisible, I feel it inside like it’s cutting
into my heart.”

“
Oh, Selena, my poor little girl.”

“
And last night I dreamed about a comet like
the one you saw when you were young. The comet
came to earth, plunging into the forest. I ran toward it in my bare feet over pine needles. The
woods were on fire all around me. I ran and ran.

“
Suddenly the fire was gone and I heard men’s voices calling me. ‘Selena, Selena.’ I was afraid
so I kept running and wherever I looked there
were men watching me. They didn’t do anything,
just watched and called to me, but I could tell they
were waiting until I fell to—to
...
I don’t know
what.”

“Then somewhere in the woods I heard crying
I wanted to run away yet I couldn’t. I had to see who it was. I came to a glade in the forest and
there, beside a stream, was a cradle and somehow
I knew there was a baby inside crying for its mother. For me.”

Pamela put her arm about her daughter
’s shoul
ders.

“
It was my baby, mother. The one I had on the trail. The baby I’ve tried to forget. She needs me,
mother. My baby needs me.”

“
Selena, it was only a dream.”

Selena turned and put her arms around her
mother, holding to her and sobbing. They em
braced, both crying now, Pamela murmuring,
“Oh, my baby, my baby.”

At last Selena lifted her head.
“There’s more.”

“
To the dream?”

“
That, too. In the dream I ran to the cradle
and looked inside. It was empty. There was no
baby after all. Where is she, mother? Where is my
baby? Where is Lydia May?”

“
Wherever she is, I’m sure she’s all right. Her
grandfather Tedder would see to that.”

“
She needs me, I know she does. And that’s not
all.”

Pamela waited.

“I need her, mother,” Selena said. “And it’s too
late. I need her and it’s too late.”

Danny O’Lee sat on the steps in front of the
Empire watching the miners mill about in the
road. Rhynne, Danny thought, seemed on edge.
Testy. Was he worried about the drawing? Why should he be? He must have cleared a bundle. In
eluding five hundred dollars from Danny O’Lee.

And King Sutton, strutting around like the
cock-of-the-walk. Strange. Danny didn’t know what to make of it. He had seen the way King
looked at Selena and the way she looked at him,
old as he was. What did he have to be so pleased
about today? And here he was, coming toward
the Empire.

“
Ah, if it isn’t that fine broth of a lad, Danny
O’Lee.” King Sutton extended his hand. Danny
got up and reluctantly shook it. “The lad with the
golden touch. The King Midas of Hangtown.”

“
You’ll not hear me complain.”

“
And why should you, young O’Lee? A handsome broth of a boy such as yourself? I imagine
any day now you’ll him yourself off to San Fran
cisco to sample the forbidden fruit of the city.”

“
I was thinking of traveling there on the river-
boat once the rains set in.”

“
Good, good. You’ve earned it. I hear Madam Reba has ten new girls direct from Paris at the
Union. That’s Paris, France. There’s nothing to match a mademoiselle, they say, for a lad’s first
dip of his wick.” He clapped Danny on the shoul
der. “Tell Madam Reba that King Sutton sent
you. She’ll see you get nothing but the best.”