Gold (37 page)

“
I’m going out into that hall,” he said. “And
I’m going to wait there, maybe for one minute and
maybe for five. If you come out while I’m still
there, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

“
Like a guessing game,” McSweeney said.

“
Except it’s a game you can only lose.” Barry
nodded to the clock on the bookshelves behind
Rhynne’s desk. “After five minutes,” he said, “you
can be sure I’ll be gone.”

Barry backed into the hall and along the corridor to the top of the stairs. There was no sign of
McSweeney. Barry went down the stairs, thrusting
the pistol in his belt. With the ledgers under his
arm, he walked through the gambling hall and out
into the fog.

“
How did you know I’d help you?” Strauss asked.             

“
I didn’t,” Rhynne said. “I took a chance. Isn’t
life one gamble after another?”

“
Ja,” Strauss said. “When I come to this coun
try from Bavaria, to my brothers in New York
City, that was a chance.” He spoke with a heavy
German accent, his speech so guttural that at
times Rhynne had to listen intently to understand him.

“
When I sail for California with my denim,”
Strauss said, “that was a chance.”

“
You didn’t like New York?”

“
My brothers have carts. Wagons. Are ped
dlers. I’m not a peddler. I’m a merchant. Someday
I’ll be more than a merchant. Today there is only
Strauss, the poor tailor. Soon I hire another man
to sew with me and then another and another.
One day Strauss will have a floor of a building
with rows of men and women sewing. And not by
hand. No, by machines. Imagine, machines for
sewing.”

“
A sewing machine? Are there such things?”

“
I saw one with my own eyes in New York.”
Strauss shook his head. “Too slow. Too clumsy.
The work is not good. In five years, ten years,
who knows?”

“
You dream dreams, my friend.”

“
Can a man live with no dream?”

“
My dream at the moment is to get from San
Francisco to Hangtown.”

“
Ach, for the moment I forget. When a man
dreams he forgets. Hangtown! Such a name.
There you will be safe?”

“
The Vigilantes have no power outside San
Francisco.”

“
One might hide, perhaps, in a wagon?”

“
I could. That’s slow, especially with the rains and the mud coming. And dangerous. As a last
resort, maybe.”

“
If only I made barrels to ship—or coffins. It
would be easy to put you on a riverboat inside,
with not a question from any man.”

“
How do you send your clothing to the mines?”

“
In bales.” Strauss threw out his hands to show their size. “Too small to hide a man. You couldn’t breathe. Five years from now, who knows, I may
hire ships to send my goods.”

“
Your trousers have been a great success.”

“
Because they are
gut
. Well made. The work of
a German craftsman. I have only one complaint.”

“
And that is?”

“
How would you like men to call their trousers
by your first name?”

“
Wordsworths? I don’t think I’d mind if they bought them from me. Your name sounds much
better than mine for trousers, though. I mean no
offense, but I much prefer Levis to Wordsworths.”

“
Again we talk of Levi Strauss, not Wordsworth
Rhynne. We must transport you to Hangtown.”

“
I have an idea, Levi. Perhaps in some way we
could use your skill as a tailor.”

“
Ja. Gut, gut
. I make you look like another
person. No more Wordsworth Rhynne.”

“
I’ll shave my mustache.”

“
And wear a dress. I could make you a dress
with . . . How to say it? Like a female.”

“
I’ll wear a poke bonnet to cover my head and
hide my face. Wear a veil, perhaps.”

“
Wordsworth Rhynne will be a tall woman. I,
Strauss, would be a better one.”
“Yet what a shame to shave your fine growth
of beard. I’ll walk with a stoop. I’ll be an old
woman with a cane traveling upriver to see my son
in Sacramento.”

“
Your only son?”

“
No, I have four sons.” Rhynne smiled. “Two
live in New York, one in Sacramento. You, Levi,
are my fourth son and you shall see me off.”

***

“
Is Sutton dead?” Barry Fitzpatrick asked.

“
No,” Coleman said. “Curie was at the Fremont only a few minutes ago. King Sutton has at least three doctors treating him. They’re afraid to move
him from his room.”

“
Has he named his assailant?”

“
No, he’s still unconscious. I didn’t see you as
a man who picked nits, captain. There’s no ques
tion Rhynne’s the guilty one.”

“
I like to be sure, though I agree everything
points to Rhynne. And there’s been no word of
his whereabouts?”

William Coleman looked at the other Committee members gathered in the
Battery Street room.
“Johnson?” he said, nodding to a tall, lean man.

“
He’s not at the Empire,” Johnson said. “Never
showed his face there after the shooting. Nor at the Buttle-Jones’ on Rincon Hill. We’ve been to
all his favorite haunts and come up with nothing.
It’s as though Rhynne’s vanished into the fog.”

“
You have men blockading the roads and
watching the docks?” Barry asked.

“
We have,” Coleman said. “All vehicles proceeding south on the peninsula are being stopped.
No ship leaves the harbor without being searched.
We have boats patrolling the bay in case he tries
to slip away in a small boat.”

“
I misjudged Rhynne once,” Barry said, “and I may again. But I see him trying to outsmart us, using a devious method of escape. Perhaps one
that’s too devious for his own good. A direct,
simple plan is usually the best.”

“
What else can we do?” Coleman asked. “Captain, do you have any suggestions? That, after all,
is why we brought you here.”

“
Only one.” Barry laid the two ledgers from
Rhynne’s office on Coleman’s desk. “These show
Rhynne’s suppliers, the men he does business with.
Men who are, in most cases, obligated to him. I
suggest you identify them, list them and circulate the list, then watch their places of business. And
watch them.”

Coleman nodded.
“A good idea,” he said.
“Consider it done.”

The couple stood on the dock the next morn
ing waiting for the riverboat’s gangplank to be
lowered. The man was short and erect and wore a
black plug hat, the woman, who walked with a
cane, was older and stooped, though still taller
than the man. Her face was concealed by a mourning veil.

“
My son,” she murmured in a low voice only
he could hear. “You have been very good to me.”

“
We Jews,” Strauss said, “know what it is to
be hunted. We know the fear of the words writ
ten on the outside of the shop, the fear of the
knock on the door in the night. In Europe. Even in America. Where there is oppression, where
there are vigilantes, there you will find Jews fight
ing them. You must know this. Why else did you
come to me?”

“
Aren’t you afraid to help me?”

“
What can they do to me, a poor immigrant
tailor? So I make a few dollars less.”

As the gangplank was lowered from the boat,
a hansom clattered along the dock and stopped
behind the waiting passengers. Two men got out.

“
Mutter
”, Levi said, “Are you ill?”

“
I know those men. One’s Fitzpatrick, the
other’s Curie from the newspaper. They’re both
with the Committee.”

Levi offered his arm.
“A dutiful son helps his
Mutter
up the gangplank,” he said. “Safety is
meters away.”

Barry Fitzpatrick watched the passengers climbing aboard the riverboat as Curie signaled
to a man lounging nearby.

“
This is Wilson,” he told Barry when the man joined them.

“
Is there anyone on your list with a shipment
for upriver?” Barry asked him.

“
Only one. Levi Strauss. We checked his con
signment. There’s nothing out of the ordinary.
That’s Strauss there in the top hat boarding the
ship with the old woman.”

“
He’s going to Sacramento?” Barry asked.

“
No, his mother is.”

“
That’s his mother with him?”

Wilson
nodded. “Strauss made quite a point of
it, matter of fact.”

“
Arrest her,” Barry said.

Wi
lson and Curie stared at him.
“Damn it,” Barry told them, “do what I say
before the ship’s halfway to Sacramento.”

Wilson
motioned to another man and they
pushed their way up the gangplank. A few min
utes later they were back with a bonnetless
Rhynne between them, a prisoner.

“
How did you know?” Curie asked. There was
more than a little awe in his voice.

“
Never in my life,” Barry said, “do I remember
seeing a woman who was taller than her son. Do
you?”

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Dr. Warner Phillips was the first physician to arrive at the Fremont Hotel after King Sutton was
shot. A roly-poly man, Dr. Phillips bullied laymen
though he was self-effacing with other doctors.

He had reason to be, for he had never attended
medical college. Twenty years before, in Ashta-
bula, Ohio, when wearied of farming, Warner
Phillips began teaching himself the healing arts by
reading medical texts, since he’d always had a gift
of healing farm animals. Finally he moved to
Pennsylvania, where he nailed a shingle to his
door and used his busy practice to continue his
education.

“
Experience is the best teacher,” became his
motto.

Dr. Phillips found King Sutton sprawled on the
floor, bleeding profusely and unconscious. He away the clothing from the wound and saw that
the bullet had entered Sutton’s chest just above the
first rib.

The doctor felt for a pulse. There seemed to be
none in Sutton’s left wrist, only a feeble one in his
right. The patient’s hands and feet were cold. Dr.
Phillips put his finger into the wound and explored
it. The bullet had slanted upward to emerge under
Sutton’s armpit.

Dr. Austin Dee arrived as Phillips completed
his examination and immediately began his own.
“There’s an artery severed,” he said when he
was through.

“
I beg to disagree, doctor,” Phillips said.
“Look, the hemorrhaging has stopped. I doubt if
the artery’s involved at all.”

“
The artery may be clotted for the moment but
the least movement will tear it open again.”
Dee’s tone was positive.