Mendoza in Hollywood (45 page)

“An ichthyosaur,” I said in disappointment. He wasn’t going to tell me what they’d found on the island.

“That was its name, to be sure,” he said, squinting at me in the sunlight. “Don’t tell me you were trained in palaeozoology as well!”

“No, of course not,” I said. “I saw an article in a San Francisco newspaper.”

He nodded slowly, a speculative look on his face. “I do look forward,” he said, “to the leisure for more of these conversations with you, my dear.”

So much for artlessly digging information out of him. How much did he know about what had been found? I was never to find out. But I daresay you know, señors.

The sun was well up now, the little boat sped on and on, and with each hour the island became more than a blue outline. We could see the steep canyons and vast mountains in the interior. We were going directly across, in the shortest line, to the west end of the island: not near the future site of Avalon, but to the double harbor where the Union Army would build its barracks soon. From the sea, you might think Catalina was two islands here, a little range just west of the main mass; but they were connected by a half mile of level isthmus
just above sea level, making a neck you could cross in five minutes’ lazy walk.

It looked brown and dry, terribly overgrazed by sheep—not like a place you’d find fascinating endemic species of plants. But, then, there was more to this island than met the eye, wasn’t there?

Edward took out his field glasses and scanned, and I scanned right with him. A few miles west of the isthmus was where the construction was going on. It was no simple field camp. I could see where they were preparing gun emplacements, and really the little bay they’d chosen was superbly suited for a defensive position. Neat field shelters and some kind of equipment, too, though it didn’t look like anything connected with mining. A couple of plumes of smoke: small tidy breakfast fires, I’d bet, preparing kippers and whatever else Englishmen were eating for breakfast these days. I shuddered at the memory of the sardine tacos. Could I see the mysterious Silver Canyon from here?

No, it was back on the windward side of the island. Well, perhaps I’d have a chance to explore the area on foot.

I became aware that Edward had turned beside me and was peering at the far western end of the island, up the coast from the fortifications. I turned too.

There was a ship out there, rolling at anchor, her sails furled.

“Ah,” said Edward with satisfaction. “Now, what should this be but the good ship
Chapman
, bearing her crew of traitors and pirates? And the slightly competent Alfred Rubery. Have the boatsman change course. Let’s go cheer on the gallant Confederate cause, shall we?”

I gave the order to Souza, but my heart was in my mouth. That couldn’t be the
Chapman
, because history had recorded that Rubery and the other conspirators were caught before they could leave San Francisco Bay. They should be in jail cells by now. So there was no way the
Chapman
could be arriving here at its appointed rendezvous, right on schedule. But if that ship wasn’t the
Chapman
, what was it?

“Why is she just sitting out there, señor?” I asked. “Oughtn’t she have moored in the bay before the camp?”

He shrugged. “Alfred may be following orders at last. He was to wait until I came aboard before taking her into the bay. I’d have been here by now, if all had fallen out as planned. So there he waits, like an obedient boy, for me to bring the valise and further orders. I daresay he’ll be glad to see the money. It’s rather difficult to recruit a crew on promises.”

I scanned the ship. There was a crew on board, but at this range I couldn’t tell much more. Nothing to do but sit and wait as we sped across the blue water; nothing but access the historical record.

I hurried through data files. What was the source Imarte found?
The Great Diamond Hoax
, here it was. And other stirring incidents, supposedly, in the life of Asbury Harpending. Just who was Harpending?

Liar, traitor, and swindler, according to historians; scion of a fine old Kentucky family of wealthy landowners, according to himself, as well as a philanthropic speculator, developer, and crusader for truth. In this year of 1863 he was only about twenty-one, though, with a long career of shady dealing before him.

I sped through the chapters. Here were the abortive attempts to stage a Confederate uprising, failed because of hysteria, lack of nerve, and the discovery of the Comstock lode. Just as Imarte had said. Here were the gallant Confederate sympathizers attempting to regroup with an eye to privateering, under the leadership of Harpending. Here Mr. Rubery entered the picture—callow British youth (I’ll say) with a sympathy for Southern aristocracy and a love of adventure. Even Harp-ending made him out to be something of an idiot; though I wondered how much of the privateering scheme had come into shape
after
they met and not before, and whether Harpending was really their leader.

They spent money feverishly, buying the
Chapman
, buying cutlasses, cannons, firearms, and ammunition, and probably a Jolly Roger and cocked hats too. There was no mention of Rubery’s making a trip to Veracruz to obtain more funds, but he must have done so,
with a stopover in Los Angeles on his way back. Thanks to Cyrus Jackson’s jealous passion, Rubery fled back to San Francisco empty-handed; and not only had he left the money behind, he’d come away without the list of contacts who would have helped the next part of the plan along.

For here it was in print: the conspirators were unable to find a navigator anywhere in San Francisco. They’d made inquiries, they’d had friends and acquaintances make inquiries for them; and word had evidently gotten around to the authorities that a band of young men with known Confederate sympathies was looking for an able-bodied navigator likewise eager to overthrow the Union government.

So one came forward, courtesy of the San Francisco Police Department, a man named William Law (surely a broad hint if ever there was one). The conspirators took Law into their confidence. He signed on readily and just as readily took all details of the plot to Captain of Police I. W. Lees.

Lees, being a wise man, opted to wait until all the birds were in the net. If Edward could read this, his hair would go gray. Law went along with all the preparations and agreed to be on board the
Chapman
well before her scheduled sailing time of eleven o’clock in the evening of March 14, 1863. That had been the meaning of the coded telegram Edward picked up the following day.

At ten o’clock on the 14th, I had been sitting in front of the cook-fire, listening to Juan Bautista play his guitar. Edward had just arrived from Veracruz and was settling into his room at the Bella Union. And Alfred Rubery and Asbury Harpending were just going on board the
Chapman
and discovering that Law was nowhere to be found.

Was this enough to warn them off? No, they left a sentry to watch for Law and went to bed in their bunks on the
Chapman
. The trusty sentinel dozed off too, it seemed, because the next thing they knew, it was broad daylight on March 15 and the U.S. warship
Cyane
had her guns trained on them. Boatloads of marines were bearing down on them from all sides, to say nothing of a tugboat full of San Francisco police.

And then? Off to Alcatraz with them for interrogation, at just about the time Edward was watching me undress.

News of the foiled plot went out over the telegraph that same day, to the whole world, as Edward and I lay in bed together. If we’d been in any other city, we’d have heard the newsboys crying the story under our windows; but we were in a coaching inn on the edge of nowhere, and we never knew a thing.

What did Rubery tell the police, under interrogation? Something to occasion those two Pinkerton men to go hurrying into the Bella Union as Edward and I approached it that evening? Were they tipped off by an alert telegraph operator, who compared the names on Edward’s yet unclaimed message with the names in the breaking story? I cringed inside. No wonder there were bounty hunters after us the following day. Everyone must know now, Queen Victoria on her distant throne must know by now. Everyone knew but Edward.

I fast-forwarded through the details, desperate to see what would happen. The conspirators would be convicted of treason. Possibly because it would seem so obviously a stupidly boyish game, they would be sentenced to fines and imprisonment instead of death. Alfred Rubery’s Parliamentary uncle would step in and wheedle a free pardon for him from Abraham Lincoln. Rubery would be thrown out of the country all the same, though, shipped out on one of the Pacific Mail steamers and transferred to a British vessel at Panama.

And that would be the end of the matter.

No villainous British plot to invade the state would ever be publicly uncovered, no scandal of foreign nationals preparing fortifications on Catalina Island. No mention at all of an Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax.

And yet the secretary of war would know enough to send the Army to Catalina. How would he make the connection between a bunch of silly young men wanting to play pirates for the Confederacy, all the way up there in San Francisco, and the activities of certain Britons on an obscure island off the coast of Los Angeles? All Harp-ending ever said in his memoirs was that they had a general plan to
base themselves in some islands
off the coast of Mexico
. But then, he hadn’t known about the whole plot, had he? And had he protested when he discovered the use to which his pirate ship was to be put, my smiling Edward would have been there to slip an inconspicuous knife between his ribs.

Did the authorities tell Alfred Rubery that he faced the prospect of being shot as a spy? He must have sung like a damned canary.

We were near the ship now, and there wasn’t a soul on deck. She looked as deserted as the
Mary Celeste
. I realized, as we drew near, that whoever had anchored her in that particular little cove chose the spot with coy discretion: we were able to spot her from the open sea, but the men at the British camp on the other side of Arrow Point could have no idea she was there.

There were men on board, alive, alert, and waiting for us.

“Edward,” I said, “this isn’t right.”

He didn’t lower his field glasses, for he was studying the ship intently. “Not right? Moral qualms, my dear?”

How could I tell him what 1 knew
? “Not that—there’s something the matter here. Why isn’t your friend on deck, watching for you?”

“That’s a good question,” he said, slowly adjusting the long focus. “How can you tell there’s no one on deck at this distance, my dear?”

It was like a faceful of ice water, señors. He hadn’t mentioned what he was seeing, and he knew I had no field glasses of my own. There was a sadness in his face when he lowered the glasses to look at me, but a certain shivery distance, too.

Nothing to do but brazen it out.

“I have trained eyesight,” I explained, as though impatiently. “I was raised to count cattle on hills five miles away, señor. Can’t your English shepherds do the same? Look.” I pointed to the ship. “See the stain on her jib sail? See the red rag tied to her wheel? The three belaying pins on that rail there at the left, and the five at the right? Look there, that’s a brown pelican lighting on her aft deck now. Stupid creature expects someone to toss it a fish. Do you see it, señor?”

“Yes,” he said, looking through the glasses again.

“And do you see a living soul on deck?”

“No, my dear, I don’t.”

“And does that seem reasonable to you?”

“No, it doesn’t.” He lowered the glasses and looked at me again, not quite sure what to think. “You never cease to amaze me, Dolores. It should make our continued acquaintance interesting indeed. However—Alfred hasn’t much experience with maritime customs such as leaving a watch on duty. Neither, I suspect, have his fellow privateers. They may all be belowdecks playing whist.” He looked through the glasses again. “Or there may be something wrong. I doubt it, though. Sails reefed, anchor down, everything in order, both boats there.”

“How do you even know that’s Mr. Rubery’s ship?” I was in agony. Nearer we flew and nearer, across the lovely clear water, closer to the ones who were waiting for us.

“That is another good question,” he said coolly. He didn’t know what to make of my terror, but he wasn’t about to panic himself. “Let’s just see, shall we? You!” he addressed Souza in Spanish. “Take us in, under her stern.”

Souza looked inquiringly at me—though he understood Spanish perfectly well—and I nodded weakly. We made straight for her now, then angled around so that we were coming in with a good view of the aft cabin. There was her name, in big blocky letters:
J. M. CHAPMAN.
Her boarding ladder was down, in open invitation.

Behind my eyes, a line of text jumped out at me, Harpending peevishly complaining that the name of the vessel was the plain
Chapman
, though for some reason journalists had seen fit to refer to it in all the papers as the
J. M. Chapman
.

“It’s she,” said Edward briskly. He said to Souza, “Bring her alongside.”

I stared up at the painted name. Freshly painted name. Wait, no. The
J.
and the
M.
and the
CH
were duller; only the
APMAN
gleamed with new enamel. I subjected it to infrared scanning and saw, underneath,
the letters
ISHOLM
. This ship had been the
J. M. Chisholm
not long ago. Who had altered her name, and why?

“Señor,” I said, keeping my voice as reasonable as I could. “Call it woman’s intuition. I fear treachery here. What if Mr. Rubery has met with some misfortune?”

Edward gave me a long speculative look. “Then he’ll need my assistance,” he said. “In any case, it’s my duty to find him. Are you frightened, Dolores? You needn’t go on board if you are. This shouldn’t take long.”

He took up his saddlebag and caught hold of the ladder, climbing nimbly despite his awkward grip. I sat there and watched him a dull moment, before rising and scrambling after with a sob of desperation. If I couldn’t prevent him from walking into the trap, perhaps I could get him out of it. Perhaps nothing very bad would happen after all. Mr. Rubery, twit that he was, would come out of this with no more than a slap on the wrist and deportation, so perhaps Edward and I would escape once more, sailing free into the sunset after amazing adventures.