Son of Fortune (10 page)

“It was a long voyage,” Aiden said. “And a big whale.”

“True.” Christopher tossed back the rest of his drink. The bartender immediately brought him another. “And one for my friend here.”

“No thanks.” Aiden held his hand over his glass. The bartender glowered, nudged his hand out of the way and poured another one anyway. He was quick to add two ticks to the tally card.

“How are the bears, then?” Aiden asked. “Are they all right? Are they eating?”

“Oh, they're fine, I suppose. But what a stupid showboat that was! Father owes me big, I do say.”

“What do you mean?”

“Greeting the bears! And with the ducklings in tow!”

“Ducklings?”

“The sisters. Dear sweet things. I do love them. But you saw it, didn't you? All those nannies, and still at least one always escapes. Father was meant to go himself, of course, holding court and all that—what do I care about bears—but he came down with a bad cold.”

The younger boy pushed his way back through the crowd. “Come on, Christopher! It's nearly ten, and you know Lawrence and I have to be back by ten!”

“Little Tom Tom, if you can't sneak into your own house after curfew, you don't deserve to go out,” Christopher said sharply. “Getting through your pantry window is like dropping a marble down a well.”

“But we have exams tomorrow!”

“I know the capital of Egypt!” Christopher said. “And the square root of pi or whatever. Go on without me if you want. I can certainly find my own way home.”

“Not from here!” The boy looked genuinely worried and glanced nervously back to his brother and friends, who were waiting near the door. “You'll be murdered!”

“Go on.” Christopher shooed the boy off.

“I'm serious, Christopher,” Tom Tom said. “We will leave you.”

“Fine.”

Tom Tom turned away.

“I should go,” Christopher said, looking at his friends. “We do have exams this week, and some of them aren't as rich as me.”

“Why does that matter for exams?”

“It means that someday they'll have to work at real jobs, and if they're not smart, they'll be doomed to being minor bank managers or to sitting on the city council for the sewer department or on the commission to teach poor boys to read or something.”

“I'm poor,” Aiden said evenly. “And I like to read.”

“Well, there you have it!” Christopher gave him his brightest smile. “We can stay out all night and fail everything and not be worthless after all!”

Aiden saw Christopher's friends apparently arguing over what to do. Lawrence craned to see over the crowd and waved at Christopher; another just shoved Tom Tom out the door, his rigid shoulders betraying a resigned frustration with Christopher Worthington's antics.

“Ah, well. I suppose I should join them.” Christopher reached into the shabby coat and took out a fine leather wallet. The bartender brought over the bill. The total was a week's wages in the lumber camp, but Christopher pulled out the notes as if they were play money. He got unsteadily to his feet and stumbled into a man standing nearby.

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Sorry,” Christopher muttered.

“Who do you think you are?”

Aiden stood up between them, experienced by now in defusing a fight. “No harm meant, sir. Have this with our compliments.” He slid his untouched drink to the man and steered Christopher aside. “Come on, I'll walk out with you,” he said, grabbing Christopher's arm and holding him up.

“Fine. If you like. But
Moby-Dick
was still too long.”

“Not if you live in Kansas.”

The cold night air felt good. The streets were quiet, with most of the men settled and drunk inside by now. Aiden guided the wobbly Christopher down the two stairs into the street and looked around for his friends.

“They won't really have left you, will they?” he asked.

“I suppose they did. We came in Lawrence's carriage. His parents are out at some fete. If they come home and see the carriage gone, he'll be—I don't know—scolded.”

“Where do you live?”

“Just point me toward Pacific Street. There will be cabs there.”

Aiden paused. He certainly couldn't let Christopher stagger off through the streets of the Barbary Coast alone, but he didn't want to disappear without telling Fish, who was still inside playing faro.

“Wait here a minute,” he said, propping the young man against the side of the building. “I'll be right back, and then I'll walk with you.”

It wasn't even a minute later when Aiden returned, but Christopher was almost out of sight, swaying drunkenly up the muddy street. The blue-coated bouncer leaned nonchalantly against a porch railing, watching him with the cool disinterest of a vulture eyeing a lame bunny, his muscled arms folded across his bulky chest. Aiden felt a rush of anger.

“What the hell are you doing letting him wander off like that?”

The man shrugged. “I'm not a nursemaid.”

“He can barely walk!”

“Bother me anymore and you won't either.”

For a moment, Aiden considered the pure pleasure of punching the bouncer in his fat nose, but he could see a more urgent fight brewing down the street. Men were already coming out of the shadows after Christopher. This little drunken bunny was hopping straight into the stew pot. The man that reached him first started groping at his coat. Christopher barely reacted, perhaps thinking it was his own friends come back to play a trick on him, but when he saw the stranger, he ducked and pivoted away more deftly than Aiden would have expected. But the real danger was just arriving: two more thieves, one armed with a club. Aiden had not clearly seen the faces of his own attackers, but something about this man's posture and the way he carried that stick was all too familiar. Even the initial pickpocket was frightened and took off running. They didn't even bother trying to sneak up on Christopher—they simply grabbed him.

“Hey!” Aiden yelled. “Let him go!” The man with the club turned to meet Aiden's charge, weapon raised. Aiden ducked, spun around and tackled the man at the knees, taking him down. The man lost hold of the club. Aiden drove the heel of his hand hard under his chin and followed with a hard punch to the gut. This wasn't boxing. Damage was the point. It was a messy brawl, but short. Christopher managed to pick up the club and wave it around. He did not manage to actually hit either of their attackers, but his wild swings distracted them enough to help Aiden a little. Even with two against mostly one, Aiden landed more blows than he received, and when he felt the slippery warmth of blood on his knuckles, he was pretty sure it was not his own. Men came out from the nearby saloons to watch, and finally a couple of the bouncers stalked over waving their own clubs, and the two attackers gave up and dashed off into the darkness. As quickly as it had started, it was over.

Christopher Worthington sat in the middle of the road looking confused. He pulled his coat back up into place and wiped dirt off his mouth.

“Did we just have a fight?” he asked.

“Something like that,” Aiden said. The energy rush was starting to make his muscles tremble, but he felt unbroken—he felt good, actually.

“Did we win?”

“Can you stand?”

“Was I standing before?”

Aiden laughed, offered a hand and pulled him up. Christopher brushed the dirt off his coat and pants, standing fairly well now, the attack having sobered him up quite a bit.

“Did they get your purse?” Aiden asked.

“Of course not,” Christopher said indignantly, pulling out a handkerchief. “It was in my boot. I'm not entirely unacquainted with the practices of the Barbary Coast, you know.” The crowd that had gathered quickly evaporated, back to the warm interiors and ready drinks.

“You did much better this time.” A familiar voice came out of the darkness. Aiden squinted and saw the old woman and her gigantic dog standing nearby.

“Thank you, Blind Sally,” Aiden said, still panting. The old woman tapped her stick in the dirt and The Moon sat down.

“It's nice to see you again,” Aiden said. “I have come looking for you—since that day.”

“Not at the right time, you haven't.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Better late than never.” She held out her palm with a regal gesture. Aiden dug into his pocket for some coins.

“Who is that?” Christopher strained to focus.

“This is Miss Blind Sally,” Aiden said. “Miss Blind Sally, Christopher Worthington.”

“Is that some kind of real animal?” Christopher stared at The Moon. “Or a very shaggy piano?”

“Don't try to make sense of it,” Aiden whispered. He placed the coins into the old woman's palm. The skin was soft and papery. In a flash she closed the witchy fingers and stuffed the payment into her pocket. Aiden jingled a couple of other coins so she could hear.

“Blind Sally, would you happen to know where we could find a cab to take my friend home?”

ish was disappointed that he had missed the drama, but he had done well at cards, so they both came home winners. Magnus said nothing to them the next morning about their late night out, though he twitched more than usual and barely let his brother finish breakfast before dragging him off to the boat.

“We have two days in port,” he said as he stomped into his boots. “Last man on deck will be scraping barnacles!” He was out the door and halfway up the street by the time Fish got his coat off the hook.

“Maybe I
will
be an ordinary sailor if it gets me on a real ship!” Fish grumbled. “Hell, I'll be a galley slave! I've got to find something else.”

Mrs. Neils gave him a gentle slap and said something in Swedish—clearly a scolding for his ungratefulness to his brother.

Aiden spent the morning as he usually did, walking the city, making the rounds of the laboring jobs, looking for work and coming up empty. As he headed to the cheapest of the saloons for a free lunch, he ran into Bobby O'Brian, one of the men he knew from the moving job, hurrying out.

“Hey, laddie,” Bobby said. He gave a quick, furtive glance up and down the street. “A word?” A little boy dashed out of the saloon behind him, jumped down the step, stopped and stood with his palm open. “Here you go.” Bobby pressed a penny into the child's hand. “Breathe a word to any other and I'll turn you inside out!” The child ran off. “Come on with me,” Bobby whispered to Aiden. “There's a nag just gone down on Second Street by the greengrocer's—knackerman will need hands. Hurry.”

He set off at nearly a run, and Aiden followed.

“The boy's mum works in the kitchen there,” Bobby said. “He knows to come with news of work. He's a fast one, but anyone can well enough see a dead horse in the street.”

The horse was not yet dead, but Aiden knew it was not going to stand ever again, despite the angry whipping of its owner. It was old, and like too many cart horses had been overworked for so long that it had finally simply given out, collapsing, still in its harness, in the middle of the road. Bony ribs still moved as the animal drew shallow breaths. The cart was blocking the street, with two other wagons and a carriage already backed up. The greengrocer was shouting at the horse's owner. A small crowd had gathered.

“The knackermen always hire off the street,” Bobby explained. “It's a quick job with two strong men.” There were a couple of other men heading purposefully down the street, even as they spoke. “We'll stake our claim,” Bobby said. “You stand by the arse end. I'll take the head.”

As they went to their posts, another man stepped out of the crowd and glared at Aiden.

“Back off, boy,” he growled. Two other men arrived and stopped to size up the situation. Bobby gave Aiden a worried glance. They weren't really going to brawl over a dead horse, were they?

“Sir.” Aiden turned quickly to the owner. “Shall I unharness it for you?” The man stopped whipping the horse. He was sweating from the exertion. “It'll be quicker for when the knackerman arrives,” Aiden went on. “Then we can move your wagon over there—clear a bit of the street.”

The man spat, looked with disgust at the fallen horse and threw the whip in the wagon. “Go on, then. Goddamn worthless animal!”

Aiden made quick work of unbuckling the harness, then Bobby helped him drag the shaft out from under the beast and back the cart up. The horse lifted its head and looked at Aiden. Its eyes were sad but still luminous. Foam flecked the sides of its mouth. Dust had settled on its hide in stripes between the protruding ribs. It kicked feebly and drew its forelegs up as if to try once more to stand, but the effort was little more than a spasm. Aiden shuddered. A child in the crowd shrieked and began to cry.

“Goddammit, man—put the beast out of its misery!” the grocer yelled.

“How long before the knackerman gets here?” Aiden asked.

“Could be soon, could be an hour,” Bobby said.

“If you can bring us a gun, I'll take care of it,” Aiden said to the grocer.

“I don't keep a gun in the onion bin!” the man snapped. “It's his damn horse! He should shoot it!” There were some more arguments, more cries from the crowd, more jostling for position as more men arrived wanting the work. Finally someone did show up with a pistol and handed it to Aiden. Aiden said nothing, but waited a few minutes until all the bystanders had seen the gun and understood what was about to happen. It was a job someone had to do, so Aiden did it. He knew where to shoot. You had to get the angle just right.

The knackerman arrived about ten minutes later. He was a tall, blocky man with small, piercing eyes and a head bald as the moon, oiled and polished so it glistened. The cart was brightly painted and pulled by a fine, strong horse with a plume on its head, like the ones funeral horses wore. The knackerman said nothing at first. He walked over to the dead horse and pressed on its eyeballs, checking to see that it was really dead. He looked up at the owner. The man nodded at Aiden and Bobby.

“Them,” he said tersely.

“Fifty cents each,” the knackerman said.

Aiden and Bobby both nodded without even thinking. What was there to think about? Twenty men could be plucked from the crowd at half that price. It was surprisingly quick work. The cart was just a flat platform on two large wheels. There was a roller fastened at the front between the braces. They tipped the platform down, wrapped a chain around the horse's rear legs, then just cranked the levers until the body began to slide up. Aiden could feel the weight slowly dragging up over the boards. He heard the creaking of wood and iron as the weight transferred to the axle. Inch by inch it came, and this was oddly worse than actually shooting the horse. Once the body was hauled up, they tilted the cart back up level, braced it into place and hitched the knackerman's horse back in. The drama over, the crowd drifted away. The knackerman paid them.

“Who shot the horse?” he asked.

“I did, sir,” Aiden said.

The man gave a quick nod of approval. “Farm boy, were you?”

“Some.”

“You're idle in the midday,” he said. “So you must need a job. I'm short a man in the yard.”

“I don't know the business, sir,” Aiden replied. He didn't know, but he could guess, for the stink of it clung to the knackerman. It would be foul and revolting work.

“Not much to it,” the knackerman said. “We skin off the hide. Hair goes to the mattress factory, butcher off the meat for dog food, boil up the rest for tallow and glue. Burn the bones for fertilizer. Five dollars a week to start. But if you last a month and do well, I'll offer seven.”

Flies were already massing around the dead horse, lining up like piglets at the edge of the eyeball to suck the juice.

“Could I come by in the morning and take a look?” Aiden said, desperate to get away.

“Suit yourself. Plenty of men looking for work.” He climbed up on the cart, slapped the reins and drove off. The dragging tail of the dead horse scrolled curlicues in the dirt.

Bobby suggested they go get some lunch with their wage, but Aiden wasn't feeling hungry anymore. He turned up his collar, shoved his hands deep into his pockets and set off down the street. The day had been gray as usual, but now the afternoon felt especially cold and bleak. He wasn't sure exactly what he had expected to happen in two weeks in this big new city, but somehow it should have been more than this—begging and bribing to get a shovel job or boiling dead horses into glue. He couldn't complain, really—he was better off than he'd been most of his life, and better off than more than half the people he had ever met in his life. But better off than dying of starvation or smallpox or cold just didn't seem like much of an achievement now that he wasn't actually in danger of any of those things. He felt angry and wanted to smash something. He was tired of always being at the bottom of the pile. There was fortune everywhere in this city, and he had just as much right to try for it as anyone. Who decided all this anyway? Was it just luck? Were some just born sons of fortune?

He walked back to the boardinghouse in a dark mood. Though he had not felt terribly thumped the night before, Aiden was tired and aching and cold to the bone. But when he got home, he found excitement in the air, as there was a package waiting for him.

“It's from Mr. Worthington,” Mrs. Neils said excitedly, pointing to the return address. “Such beautiful handwriting he has! A man brought it to the ship this morning, and Magnus sent him along here.”

She watched eagerly as Aiden pulled open the string and carefully unfolded the brown paper wrapper. Inside was a book:
A
Journey
to
the
Centre
of
the
Earth
by Jules Verne. It had just been published in 1864 and looked expensive, bound in good leather, with the pages edged in gold. Aiden had never seen a book so new. The binding creaked and the pages smelled rich. Tucked inside the cover was a folded note, written in elegant script on thick, creamy stationery with a fancy crest embossed at the top.

Please accept this as a small token of my appreciation for your welcome companionship and assistance last night. I think you will find it an interesting read. My father is hosting a party this Saturday night for the grand introduction of our polar bears, for whose company we are forever in your debt. We would be honored if you would attend. Enclosed is an invitation. I understand that you lost many of your possessions in the dramatic events of the voyage with our bears and do beg you to accept the services of our tailor, who has been instructed to manufacture new apparel for you.

Respectfully, Christopher Worthington

Just then the door swung open and Fish, Magnus, Sven the Ancient, Jonas, Gustav, two other cousins, four sailors from the boardinghouse and the barkeep from the Viking pub crowded into the room.

“Well?” Fish said excitedly. “What is it? We've been wondering all day. Give us a look!”