The Furies (22 page)

Oh, she painted an elegant picture for him. She said the printing business her family had once owned would be his one day. She promised him fine clothes, and marvelous sights, and an existence that no longer included a broom, scalding water and garbage scraps. He supposed it might be nice to have some friends his own age. And it would be interesting to see the huge cities at the other end of the continent, though truthfully, he couldn’t imagine any place as large and crowded as New York. He hardly believed half of Captain Bart’s descriptions.

And could faraway Boston give him the fine, free feeling that swept over him when he and Israel roamed the hills of the peninsula, sniping at jackrabbits with the mulatto’s antique squirrel gun? He doubted it.

His reservations sprang from something other than simple fear of the unknown, however. When his ma spoke of Boston, a peculiar, almost ugly look came into her eyes. She seemed like a stranger, somehow.

He finally figured out that his mother’s absent air was directly connected to the furor over the gold, though Boston might be mixed up in it. He knew a lack of money was all that prevented their return to the east. And now there was a kind of money available right in the inland rivers.

He didn’t like the whole business one bit. Practically overnight, his ma stopped smiling—and she always smiled a lot whenever Captain Bart visited. She grew a little curt with him, and with everyone—Israel commented on it. Louis wished Mr. Brannan hadn’t raised such a fuss and set the whole village buzzing. He wanted his mother gay and easygoing again—

But things were never to be what they had been before.

Two days after Brannan’s return, Captain Bart stormed into the public room about ten a.m. Louis, pushing the straw broom, glanced up and saw the captain wham his peaked cap onto one of the tables.

“Where’s your mother?”

“In—in the kitchen, I think,” Louis said, next to speechless.

The captain sank into a chair. “Tell her to fetch me a cup of coffee. Then you can uncork that rum keg and pour me—” He jumped up. “No, I’ll get the damned rum myself. You get your mother.”

Louis put down his broom and raced for the curtain separating the front from the kitchen. He discovered Amanda in the center of a cloud of steam. Perspiring, she was stirring a kettle of beans with a horn spoon.

“Captain Bart wants coffee, Ma.”

She laid the spoon aside. “I thought I heard someone come in—” She lifted the lid of the battered pot. “The coffee’s gone. We had so many customers this morning, we ran through four gallons.”

“Where are all those people coming from?”

“Up from the south—out of the hills—from the sky! There must be fifty more men in town than there were this time yesterday.”

“Maybe that’s why the captain’s in a bad temper. I’ve never seen him so stormy—”

“Louis, for Christ’s sake, the rum keg’s empty!” McGill shouted.

“Ma, you better hurry—”

Amanda wiped her hands on her apron. “Find Israel. Have him bring another keg from the storage shed. We drained the one out in front last night.”

She disappeared beyond the curtain. As the boy headed out the back way, he heard McGill thunder, “I sent Louis for you
and
some coffee, goddamn it!”

“Don’t you talk to me that way, Bart McGill! What in the world’s become of that reserve you’re so proud of—?”

Her voice faded as the boy darted into the sunlight.

He hailed Israel, who was emptying a tub of dishwater behind the privy. A few minutes later, the two reentered Kent’s, the lanky mulatto balancing a small keg on his shoulder.

Israel removed the empty from its cradle behind the plank counter and set the new one in place. Captain Bart was tapping his cap against his knee while Amanda studied a piece of paper. In a moment, she shook her head. “It’s almost ludicrous, Bart.”

“A man does ludicrous things when he smells easy money. Jesus, I need
something
to drink—” He jumped up again and stalked toward the counter.

“I’m sorry about the coffee—” Amanda began.

McGill paid no attention. Israel reached for a tin cup. The captain snatched it from him.

“I’ll pour my own, if you don’t mind.”

He put the cup back on the shelf and picked up another. He maneuvered the cup under the bung and got the keg open. But his hand was shaking. Rum splashed, soaking the cuff of his blue jacket. He swore under his breath, oblivious to Israel’s venomous stare.

The boy realized Israel was mad because the captain refused to let him handle his drinking cup. Louis saw that his ma noticed, too. She tried to blunt Israel’s anger with an explanation.

“Two of Captain McGill’s crew jumped ship last night.”

“My cook and my third mate,” McGill said. “Took off up the Sacramento—” He downed a swallow of rum, then gestured with the cup. “The mate left a note for his father. If he thinks I’m going to see it delivered to New Hampshire, he’s got shit between his ears.”

Amanda glanced at her son. “Bart—”

“Sorry,” the captain muttered in a perfunctory way. He drank again.

In a toneless voice, Israel asked, “What’s the note say, Miz Kent?”

“Go on, you can read it to him,” Bart said to Amanda.

“I can read it for myself,” Israel said. “My mama taught me in the pine woods, even though it was against the law. Bark for a tablet. A white oak stick for a pen. An oak ball soaked in water to make ink—and fifty apiece across the back when the driver finally caught Mama and me sneaking off together for a lesson. There isn’t any nigger more dangerous than an educated nigger, is there, Captain?”

“I don’t need any goddamn sass from you!” McGill exclaimed.

“Maybe you gonna get some anyway. And something else besides,” Israel said, stepping forward.

Bart McGill slammed his cup on the plank counter. Louis saw with alarm that the ex-slave’s fingers were fisted. Amanda rushed between the two, a hand on each of them.

“I forbid that kind of behavior around here, and both of you know it! Israel, you go back outside—Bart, you settle down.” She tugged his arm. “Come on.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Israel, I’m asking you to leave—”

“Asking or telling?”

“Asking. Please!”

His dark eyes resentful, the lanky man finally shrugged, turned and walked out. McGill was still seething. After the door banged, he exploded.

“That snotty son of a bitch acts like I’m one of those Mississippi cotton barons! The McGills never owned a slave. Not one!”

“But Israel sees all white men alike because a few of them treated him badly. Unfortunately you have the same kind of irrational feelings about colored people—”

Louis heard Amanda with only half an ear, having inched his way toward the table where the paper had fallen. He managed to glimpse a few of the scrawled lines:

—frenzy has seized my soul. Piles of gold rise up before me at every step. Thousands of slaves bow to my beck and call. Myraids of fair damsels contend for my love. In short it is a violent attack of what I can only term gold fever—

“Now settle down and think about your men,” Amanda urged. “Are you going after them?”

McGill started refilling his cup. “By every law on the book, I should. But I decided against it. I plan to load the hold as fast as possible and weigh anchor. I can’t afford to lose anyone else—I’ve already got the first and second mates standing guard. They rounded up the whole crew this morning and sent ’em back to the ship. They have orders to shoot if anybody takes a header over the rail. I hope the cook and the mate dig to hell and find nothing but a ton of those pyrites!” He slumped at the table, staring moodily into the cup.

Amanda’s face had acquired that intense look Louis disliked. “How does a man collect gold, Bart? You’ve called in Peru and Chile, surely you’ve heard—”

His head jerked up. “Why the hell are you so interested? You planning to sail off to the American too?”

Louis knew his ma was hiding something when she answered, “No, I’m just curious. Gold-hunting must take some equipment—”

“Not much more than a pick, a shovel and a pan for placer mining. You wash the dirt out of a pan of water and because the gold’s heavier, it stays put. It’s hard labor. Even harder if you’re working solid rock instead of a river. The South Americans have mechanical contraptions—
arrastras
—for separating gold from quartz.”

He finished his drink, jammed the paper in his pocket and his cap on his head. “I’ll see you for supper—provided I get enough hides loaded. I want to get out of this lunatic place—”

When he was gone, Amanda moved quickly to her son. “Louis, I’d like you to do an errand.”

Uneasily, he said, “What is it?”

“I need a new iron pan for the kitchen. Fetch twenty cents and run to the hardware. While you’re there, see how many shovels are in stock.”

“Ma!” he cried. “You haven’t got the gold fever too?”

Amanda laughed in a harsh way. “No, I’m not that addled. But I’ve been noticing how many people have come to town just in the past twenty-four hours—”

She gave him a pat on the bottom. “You hurry along and get that pan.”

“I need an iron pan, Mrs. Holster,” Louis said to the stout woman tending the hardware counter.

She pointed to an empty shelf. “Sold the lot not two hours ago.”

“Who bought ’em?”

“Sam Brannan. He bought every pick and shovel, too. Paid twice the going price for everything. He’s loading them out in back right this minute.”

Disappointed, Louis headed for the front door. Courtesy jogged him into acknowledging the owner’s absence. “Is Mr. Holster feeling poorly this morning?”

“You mean because he’s not here?” The woman sniffed. “He hired Andy Bellamy to pole him up the river to Sutter’s fort. Mr. Kemble the editor went with him. You won’t be reading the
Star
around here for a while—or seeing Mr. Holster selling nails! I swear, I don’t know what’s got into people, traipsing off to nowhere thinking they can wash a fortune out of a stream—”

But Louis knew. He’d read the third mate’s note. The fever explained everything from the influx of strangers and his ma’s odd behavior to the sudden turnover in hardware.

To verify that last, Louis walked around to the rear of the building. Bare-chested and sweating, Sam Brannan was lashing a canvas over the bed of a small wagon. Louis said hello, then shinnied up one wheel for a look into the bed.

“What are you shipping, Mr. Brannan? A whole lot of pickaxes, huh?”

And pans and shovels, he noted before Brannan shooed him off and covered the cargo completely.

“That’s right, Louis. Going to peddle them in the store I lease up at New Helvetia. I figure just one pan will bring me anywhere from half an ounce to one ounce of dust, flake or lump gold.”

“How much is that in money?”

“Oh, about eight to sixteen dollars American.”

Louis whistled. “How can you ask so much for a twenty-cent pan?”

“Because men need ’em, my boy. And what men need, they’ll pay for—handsomely. Like I told Mrs. Holster”—he grinned—“spades are trumps now. If there’s as much gold in the American as there seems to be, it’s going to be that way for a long time.”

Louis ran back to the other side of Portsmouth Square and reported to his mother. She thanked him, but her eyes didn’t seem to be focusing on the immediate surroundings. She acted much the same as she did whenever she discussed returning to Boston.

“You go help Israel,” she said. “I want to look over my account book—”

She left him. He scuffed the toe of his boot against the kitchen floor. Maybe living by herself—without a man—had something to do with these peculiar spells. Maybe it wasn’t entirely the fault of the gold—

Amanda always refused to answer Louis’ questions about his father. She put him off with a promise that she’d clear up the mystery when she thought the time was appropriate. Did that mean he was still too young? He assumed so.

Every once in a while he keenly missed having a father. Now was one such time. A man might help his ma keep a level head. A man who was around more regularly than Captain Bart might help cure his ma of the fever—to which Louis was convinced Amanda had succumbed, whether she’d admit it or not.

That night Amanda completely forgot her son’s lessons. Captain Bart arrived for supper about seven, but the tavern was so busy, she had no chance to serve him until half past nine—which put him in another foul mood. Louis could tell from the sort of music the captain hammered on the piano before and after he ate—wild, noisy music, full of heavy chords in the bass.

Louis couldn’t sleep because of the racket. He pushed the curtain aside and asked whether he could go out to the privy. Amanda didn’t answer. She was seated at the walnut table, her pencil moving rapidly over a sheet of paper. She was doing sums, he noticed. Puffing on a cigar, Captain Bart stared out a window.

“Ma? Did you hear me?”

Without so much as glancing up, Amanda said, “What? Oh, yes, go ahead.”

Frowning, the boy walked toward the back door.

He sat awhile on the rough, splintery board. But the request had been a pretense. Presently he pulled his flannel nightshirt down and stepped out of the reeking little building. The night air was chilly, damp-smelling. Fog drifted. Out in the bay, blurs of light showed the location of Captain Bart’s clipper and a small steam packet that made coasting voyages as far north as Oregon.

A lantern was burning in Israel’s shanty. Captain Bart started pounding the piano again. Louis didn’t especially want to return to the noise. He walked across the damp ground and knocked on the shanty door.

He heard Israel draw in a sharp breath. “Who’s there?”

“Just me, Israel.”

“Oh—Louis. Come on in.”

The place was cramped but scrupulously neat. A table, a chair, a cot and a box for Israel’s few clothes comprised the furnishings. The tall man lay on the cot, one of the new books—Mr. Poe’s—propped on his bare stomach.

As Israel sat up, Louis caught a glimpse of the Negro’s shoulder blade. Like most of Israel’s back, the yellow skin there was a crosswork of hard brown scar tissue. Israel often said—with a certain air of pride—that he’d been whipped more than any other slave on the Mississippi plantation from which he’d run away when he was twenty.