Gold (41 page)

“
Anything I can do, I shall.”

“
When the time comes, Mac and Jed will pro
vide the muscle. I’ll be in charge of distractions,
as will you, Pamela.”

“
You haven’t told me what my part will be,”
Selena complained.

“
Ah, well, Selena, you will have to eliminate
the greatest danger of all.”

“
And what might that be?”

“
Not what. Who. Captain Barry Fitzpatrick.”

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

The trial of Wordsworth Rhynne was held at the
office of the Committee of Vigilance on Battery
Street a few mornings after King Sutton had died.

Raymond Curie, brother of the owner of the
Californian, described meeting Sutton at Bidwell’s
Saloon several days before the shooting. Sutton,
Curie said, claimed he had lost a considerable
sum of money in Rhynne’s Golconda mining
scheme.

Jacques Chavalier, a waiter at
Pierre’s, told of
the angry exchange between the two men the
evening before the shooting. Wordsworth Rhynne,
he said, threatened Sutton in a loud and abusive
manner.

Floyd McGregor testified that he was at the
desk in the lobby of the Fremont when he heard
what sounded like a shot. Going upstairs, he
found King Sutton on the floor of his room,
mortally wounded. A few minutes later the de
fendent, Rhynne, appeared from the next room
with a derringer in his hand. Rhynne had fled by
the time McGregor returned to Sutton’s rooms after sending for a physician,

Dr. Warner Phillips stated that he was the first physician to treat King Sutton.
“The wound ap
peared to have severed an artery below the clav
icle,” he said. “The patient lingered almost four
days before succumbing.”

“
Did Kingman Sutton recover consciousness?”
William Coleman asked.

“
Only once to my knowledge and then he was
but semi-conscious.”

“
Did he speak?”

“
Yes, he did. He repeated a name several
times.”

Coleman seemed surprised.
“And that name
was?”

“
Betsy,” Dr. Phillips said. “From a later ex
amination of his effects it was determined that
Betsy Summers Sutton of Athens, Georgia, was
his wife.”

Coleman nodded.
“Death was a direct result of
the bullet wound in Sutton’s chest?”

“
Yes.”

Captain Barry Fitzpatrick described attempts
to find Rhynne after the shooting. “His quarters were searched, the Golden Empire, all the places
he was known to frequent. He wasn’t to be
found.”

“
And where was he apprehended?”

“
On the Long Wharf boarding a riverboat for Sacramento.”
“How was Mr. Rhynne dressed?”

“
As a woman. He wore a black dress, a large
hat, and a black veil.” Barry did not mention Levi
Strauss, who had been warned by the Committee
and released.

“
Not exactly what you would describe as the
attire of an innocent man going about his busi
ness, was it, captain?”

“
No, sir.”

“
Was a derringer found on the suspect?”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Had the gun been fired recently?”

“
Yes. In my opinion sometime in the two days
prior to Mr. Rhynne’s apprehension.”

Wordsworth Rhynne testified in his own behalf.
He admitted he had quarreled with Sutton, denied
a role in the mining scheme other than as an in
vestor, and described finding King on the floor of
his parlor at the Fremont.

“
I pursued someone to the alley at the rear of the hotel,” Rhynne said. “I fired at him but he
escaped.”

“
A man?”

“
I couldn’t be sure although, yes, I believe it
was a man.”

“
When you first came upon Mr. Sutton, had
anything on his person or in the room been disturbed?”

“
His opal ring was missing.”

“
That ring has not been recovered,” Coleman
told the fifteen men who had been chosen to sit
as the jury. “I suggest,” he said, turning to
Rhynne, “that you took the ring to make the
crime appear to be a robbery. That’s the truth
of the matter, isn’t it?”
“No.” Rhynne rose from his chair and faced
the jury. “I did not kill King Sutton,” he said
emphasizing each word. “I had no reason to kill
him, no profit to gain by his death. Do you kill
a man who owes you money? Of course not. The
reverse is more likely to be the case. If you hang
me, and I know you fully intend to, an innocent
man’s blood will be on your hands.” He looked
at each juror in turn. “On all your hands.”

He sat down amidst silence.

At eleven o’clock the jury began its delibera
tions and reached a verdict at eleven-twenty.

“
We find Wordsworth Rhynne guilty of mur
der,” the chairman said.

The men gathered in the Committee rooms
cheered.

“
The punishment?”

“
He’s to be hanged tomorrow at sunrise.”

Shortly after one o
’clock, Danny O’Lee and
Pamela joined the throng gathered in front of
the Argonaut. It was an orderly crowd, men for
the most part. They stared at the beached ship
with avid curiosity, little different from the crowds
that gather at the scene of a particularly brutal
murder or to view the charred remains of a fire.
They talked quietly, recounting details of the
shooting of King Sutton and the trial and naming the Vigilantes who came and went past the guard
at the foot of the ramp leading to the ship.

“
There’s Fitzpatrick,” Danny said, nodding
toward the Argonaut’s rail. When Pamela saw
Barry look in their direction, she quickly turned
her head away. After Barry had once more dis
appeared inside the ship’s cabin, Danny and Pamela walked to the far side of the dirt street where
they could talk without being overheard.

“
If we had a cannon,” Danny said grimly, “we
could blow a great hole in the side of that ship.
Then we could rush in and free Rhynne.”

“
We might kill him; we have no idea where he
is. Besides, Danny, we have no way to get a
cannon.”

“
I’m just supposing,” Danny said. “The mind
needs exercise to work properly. If we could only
storm the jail, like the French stormed the Bas
tille.”

“
I’m afraid in this instance the mob’s on the
jailors’ side, not ours.”

“
Ah, if only we knew how many jailors there
were on that ship. With the comings and goings
at times I think four or five, and then again I
think there may be as many as ten or more. Per
haps it’s by stealth we’ll enter the ship, disguising
ourselves first.”

“
W.W.’s disguise certainly didn’t succeed.
What are we to dress up as? Red Indians? They
did that once in Boston. Proper San Francisco
businessmen?”

Danny shook his head.
“A strange place, sure
ly, for a jail. A ship . . .”

“
Well, they’re using other ships as hotels and
stores. Why not a jail? Better, I suppose, than
leaving them to rot.”

They stared at the
Argonaut. The ship, built
with a V-shaped keel for speed, loomed some twenty feet above the ground. Eight timbers had
been placed on each side of the hull to prop the Argonaut upright until the land around her could
be filled.

“
Perhaps,” Pamela said, “something could be
done when W.W.’s taken from the ship in the
morning to be
...”
She hesitated. There was a
catch in her voice when she went on. “To be
hanged.”

“
No, they intend to do their dirty work aboard
the vessel, or so goes the tale in the city.”

As a man, somewhat the worse for drink,
passed them, he lashed out with his cane as
though beheading imaginary flowers. On a sudden thought, Danny was surprised it wasn’t a
guillotine they’d be using on the morrow. How
the mob would relish the sight of blood! A hang
ing’s tame sport unless the trap’s poorly sprung
and the poor bastard dangles at the end of the
rope.

“
Danny,” Pamela said, “we have to do something soon.”

“
There’s one wild notion I have, Pamela, and
who’s to say it won’t work?” He took a gold watch
from his pocket and glanced at it. “Two o’clock. Let’s find the others. We have only sixteen hours left.”

“
Selena said she’d wait at the Golden Empire,”
Pamela told him. “What’s your plan?”

“
Mac will be there too, and Jed. We’ll go to the
Empire and I’ll tell all of you there.”

At seven that evening, Selena, wearing her new
peach gown with a cage crinoline flaring it out
and carrying a peach-colored parasol, walked to
the ramp leading to the Argonaut. The guard barred her way.

“
I must see Captain Fitzpatrick at once,” she
said imperiously. “I’ve been looking for him all
afternoon and finally discovered quite by chance
he was here of all places. I’d begun to believe he
was hiding from me.”

“
The captain is busy, miss.” The guard leered
at the low cut of Selena’s gown.

Selena stamped her foot.
“Barry Fitzpatrick is
never too busy to see me. Never. Now please tell
him I’m here.”

“
I’m sorry, miss. I have orders not to trouble him.”

She laughed.
“Do I look like I intend to
trouble him? Actually I’m only a messenger.
Leland particularly stressed that I deliver his note
to Barry with my own hand.” She held out her
hand, gloved in pearl grey. “Lee said to me, ‘Who
can I trust in these parlous times?’ and I told him he could always count on me, that I would find
Barry Fitzpatrick if it took a year and a day and
personally deliver his message. And so here I am.” She smiled up at the guard.

Involuntarily he smiled back before going to
a rope strung behind the ramp rail. When he
pulled it Selena heard a bell ring on the ship and
in a few minutes Barry appeared at the top of the
ramp.

“
Selena,” he said, coming toward her. “What
in hell are you doing here?”

“
She said she had a message,” the guard told
him.

Selena started up the ramp but Barry took her
by the arm and led her back down. Glancing at
the guard, he drew Selena some distance away.
She heard water lapping against the piling nearby
as she drew off her gloves.

“
All right, Selena,” Barry said. “Do you really have a message?”

“
No,” she admitted. “I’m here to beg you to
release W.W. He’s not guilty, you know he’s not,
and still you’re going to let them hang him.”

“
There’s nothing I could do even if I wanted
to. It’s out of my hands. Now come, Selena, let
me take you home.”