Calico Palace (10 page)

“All right,” he blurted. “I came here because of you. I tried to get away from you. God knows I tried. I went up to Sutter’s Fort and that wasn’t far enough. I went beyond the fort, up to the sawmill in the mountains. That wasn’t far enough. I went beyond the sawmill to Shiny Gulch. I panned gold from dawn to dark, trying to get so tired I’d fall down and go to sleep instead of thinking about you. It didn’t work. I wanted you too much. But I did try, Kendra!”

She was laughing now. “Oh Ted, what makes you so serious? I love you and you love me and I’m not concerned with anything else. Why should you be?”

Ted did not turn around. Slowly he pulled the petals from a yellow poppy on the table. “Kendra, I know the kind of fellow I am. I’ll wreck your life.”

She said stubbornly, “It’s my life.”

He began to argue, with himself as well as with her. “Kendra, you don’t want to go to Shiny Gulch! It’s wilderness. Men are sleeping outdoors on the ground. They fry bacon over campfires—”

“I’d like to try that.”

“But the discomforts!” said Ted. “Ants and grasshoppers, washing clothes in the river—”

“I want to go with you,” said Kendra.

She said it forcefully because she meant it. Every word he spoke made her more eager. Her eagerness was in her words and her voice and in the urgent atmosphere around her. Ted could not doubt it nor withstand it. Abruptly he turned around, and his hands gripped her shoulders so fiercely that he hurt her.

“Is it my fault I can’t go back without you?” he exclaimed. As he drew her to him she heard him say again, “God knows I tried.”

And so, on a bright April afternoon, the American alcalde of San Francisco read the wedding ceremony. He read it in the parlor of the little house on Stockton Street, in the presence of Alex and Eva, several army officers, and other friends they had made in town. Mr. and Mrs. Chase were there, also Mr. Fenway, sitting with a dour look as if he did not approve of people’s getting married. Afterward there was an hour of wine and wafers and good wishes, then Alex and Eva went to spend a few days with Mr. and Mrs. Chase. Ted and Kendra were left alone.

For Eva had said firmly, “You are going to do this right. No slipping off to the alcalde’s office.”

In this Alex had concurred. Alex would have felt disgraced if a marriage in his household had not been rightly performed. A good Episcopalian, he would have preferred a clergyman; but there were none available in San Francisco except the Mormon elders, and no military chaplain nearer than Monterey. Alex agreed that the alcalde would have to do.

As for the marriage itself, Alex and Eva would have chosen one of the young army men, but if Kendra wanted to marry Ted Parks, why shouldn’t she? Ted was a man of education and good behavior. He did not get drunk; he did not spend his evenings loafing around the gambling tables at the City Hotel. And Shiny Gulch, wherever that was, could not be much more primitive than some of the frontier posts where Alex and Eva themselves had lived. When Ted and Kendra got tired of roughing it they could always quit. Before the
Cynthia
left New York, Congress had authorized a contract for regular steamboat lines on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, to be connected by a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. Soon, coming home would be easy.

The fact was (and Alex and Eva both knew it) they could not have prevented the marriage if they had wanted to. American women were so scarce in California that they could do about as they pleased. When a wagon train came near Sutter’s Fort, if word got out that there was a girl in the party, or a woman whose husband had been killed by Indians on the way, men rushed out to meet the wagons and propose marriage before she had had time to take off her sunbonnet. Married women too had their own way. Nearly every week the papers carried notice from some angry husband saying his wife had left his bed and board. In the older communities of the States, such an announcement would have made a woman an outcast. Here it merely meant that she set up housekeeping with a man she liked better, and life went on.

If Ted and Kendra wanted to get married, all they had to do was walk into the alcalde’s office and say so. Alex and Eva admitted this to each other. What they did not admit quite so frankly was that they both felt a certain relief. Eva was not by nature maternal. When Alex had wanted her to leave their two sons in New York so she could follow him to California, it had required no great wrench for her to do so. She was fond of the boys, but she was in love with Alex. As for Kendra, all Eva had ever felt about Kendra was a guilty embarrassment, and this was all she felt now. Both she and Alex were glad to have Kendra married to a suitable young man.

So Eva said, “All right, Kendra.” After giving Kendra some good advice about what a bride ought to know (Kendra thought—She sounds like a teacher explaining French verbs), Eva added, “You’ll be married here at home, and you and Ted can have the house to yourselves until you leave town.”

Kendra would have been willing to spend her wedding night in the covered wagon Ted had bought for the journey to Shiny Gulch, but she was glad to have it this way instead. The house did look like a honeymoon cottage, with its pretty rugs and curtains and the cushioned chairs by the fireplace. She would start her marriage like a bride in New York or Baltimore.

And then such an adventure as no bride in New York or Baltimore had ever looked forward to. Then—up to the land of the golden rivers!

I
T WAS A HAPPY
time they had in the little house on Stockton Street. They were in love, and now Ted spoke no more of doubts. He was a joyous and adoring lover, and Kendra had never been so glad she was alive. Now at last, at last, she was important to somebody.

Ted and his partner Ning wanted to leave soon, while there were still only a few men scattered in the fields of gold. Kendra bought sunbonnets, and sturdy shoes for climbing over the rocks; and horn spoons, which Ning said were best for outdoor eating. These were made of cattle horns cut spoon-shaped at the big end while the pointed end was left for a handle. Ning told her a horn spoon was useful all day long. A man could use it for scraping up flakes of gold, then at mealtime the pointed end would spear his bacon and the spoon end mix his pancakes.

Mr. Chase sold her all these with indulgent smiles, convinced that she and Ted would soon tire of this foolishness and come back to town. Mr. Fenway warned her that the savages back there in the woods were a miserable lot, full of sin and vermin. But Mr. Chase said, “Now now, don’t get her scared. All youngsters ought to have a little fling before they settle down.”

Kendra laughed at them both. Ted loved her and wanted her, and more, he needed her. He told her there were men in the gold fields so impatient to get rich that they would not take time to prepare decent meals. They tried to live on bacon with dough fried in the bacon grease, and then groaned with bellyaches.

“But I needn’t worry,” said Ted, “I’ve got the best cook in California.”

Ning came to dinner, and he too said Kendra was going to be mighty handy. Ning ate with his knife and poured his coffee into the saucer to cool, but Kendra liked him. In her present glitter of mind she was in a mood to like everybody, but even in her soberest moment she would have recognized that Ning was no fool. With him as a guide they need not fear.

He went with her into the yard and taught her to build a cook-fire outdoors. Kendra knelt beside him and watched as he laid two green sticks in a V, placed two smaller sticks across them and piled twigs on the cross-sticks.

“Keep in mind, have the open end of the V toward the wind,” said Ning. “Now you squat by this open end, like so. Before you strike your match, make your hands like a cup upside down—no ma’am, don’t do it till I’ve showed you, this is tricky—and light the little twigs from below. Wait till it’s burning good before you put on any sticks of real firewood. Now ma’am, you can try.”

Kendra tried, scorched her fingers and got her nose full of smoke, coughed and laughed at herself and tried again, and at last she did manage to make her fire burn. It was fun.

Ning had made up a party to go to Shiny Gulch. This was safer, as the journey would take them through a lonesome country. He had carefully interviewed their traveling companions. Ning had himself made the long journey across the plains to California, and he knew some people were good travelers and some were bad. The bad travelers would not do their share of the work, they would not obey the leader, they were always complaining, always having a fuss with somebody. The good travelers—well, Ning said Kendra would be a good traveler. He also said if he had not thought so he would have gone back to Shiny Gulch alone and let Ted shuffle for himself.

Ted told Kendra that besides themselves and Ning, there would be eight persons in the party. One of these would be Pocket, who was tired of waiting to hear from his employers, Smith and Brannan of the store at Sutter’s Fort. Pocket wanted to go to the fort himself and find out what was happening there, and maybe move on to the hills and pick up a little gold.

“I’m glad he’s going with us,” said Kendra. “I like him. Who else besides Pocket?”

They were sitting at table after dinner. Ted was in a happy mood. Kendra had served him a meat pie, and now they were sipping coffee while the fire crackled and the wind outside was like music.

Ted continued. Another of their traveling companions would be a sailor—not a deserter, but a hardy honest fellow who had worked his way out from New York. “On the
Cynthia
,” Ted added with a chuckle, “and he told me to ask if you remembered him. Said you flirted with him one day at Cape Horn.”

Kendra began to laugh as she thought of the big sailor with the rust-colored beard who had grinned at her from the rigging. “Of course I remember. What’s his name?”

“Hiram Boyd. He’s from the country somewhere near New York. Wanted to come to California, had no money to pay his way, signed up as a seaman on the
Cynthia.
”

Ted said Hiram and Pocket would be in charge of the pack-horses and spares. They both understood horses, and Pocket especially was a crack shot. Pocket had grown up in the Kentucky hills, where a boy learned to shoot as soon as he was big enough to tote a gun. He would be mighty useful if they met horse thieves or other troublemakers on the way.

“Pocket and Hiram,” said Kendra. “That’s two. You said eight. What about the others?”

“The others—” Ted began to refill his coffee cup, giving her a teasing look across the pot as he asked, “Kendra, how straitlaced are you?”

“I don’t think I’m straitlaced at all,” Kendra said with some surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Remember that girl from Honolulu?” asked Ted. “You saw her at the store.”

Kendra set her cup in the saucer with an eager rattle. “Why Ted! Is Marny going with us?”

“Yes, Marny and her partners.” Ted was laughing. “I see you don’t mind.”

“Mind? I think it’s wonderful. I’ve never known any people like that. Why are they going to Shiny Gulch?”

“To set up a gambling tent. Delbert spoke to Ning—”

“Don’t tell me,” said Kendra, “Delbert can open his mouth and talk.”

“Yes he can, and quite sensibly too. He said that since they were strangers here they needed guides to the gold country. He offered to pay a good price if Ning and I would guide them.”

Ted spoke practically, but Kendra felt a thrill. Ted was saying,

“When I lived in Honolulu I used to drop into Marny’s place once in a while to play cards. Marny’s good-tempered and she minds her own business. She and her friends won’t give us any trouble. So—” Ted shrugged.

As she cleared the table Kendra wondered how a girl ever happened to choose the career of dealer in a gambling house. She wondered where Marny came from and how she had learned all she knew. This was going to be a real adventure. Strange to remember that she had not wanted to come to California.

The next day Loren called to see them. As Captain Pollock had said, Loren had come to San Francisco when the
Cynthia
returned from Honolulu, but he had left the ship when she reached port. Loren congratulated Ted, whom he had not met before, and gave Kendra a basket of wild strawberries. These grew in the open lands above town, and were brought in by Mexican boys.

Today Loren wore a business suit that made him look quite unlike the blue-clad seafarer who had shown her Cape Horn, but he had the same pink cheeks and the same genial candor. He said he had been down to Monterey to consult a friend, who had recommended him to a San Francisco trading firm. He was planning to work there a while, and make up his mind whether to stay in San Francisco or seek another position on a vessel going back to the States. No adventurer, Loren was not interested in looking for any hills of gold.

As Ted knew Kendra was eager to hear what Loren could tell her about Marny, he went indoors to check a supply list, and left them together on the porch. The wind was blowing and the air was clear, so they could look down and see the
Cynthia
at anchor in the bay. Kendra asked how Marny had boarded the ship.

Leaning back comfortably in one of Eva’s rocking chairs, Loren gave her a good-natured smile as he answered, “She came aboard like anybody else.”

Kendra frowned. “Then she didn’t—sort of—
slip
out of Honolulu?”

Laughing, Loren shook his head. He was such a cheerful fellow, thought Kendra, so easy to be with. “Nobody can ‘slip’ out of Honolulu,” said Loren.

He explained. Honolulu, halfway between Asia and North America, was the central Pacific trading point. People were always coming and going. But this made it an inviting spot for drifters who wandered in and then wandered out, leaving debts and other obligations piled up behind them.

To stop this, the Hawaiian government had decreed that when a person wished to leave the country, he must get an exit permit. Any sea captain who took a passenger without this would find himself in rich trouble if he ever came to Honolulu again. When you applied for a permit, notice was published in the Honolulu papers. Thus, if you were running away from anything, your creditors could notify the passport office, and your permit would be refused until your affairs were settled.