Calico Palace (30 page)

They saw the unfinished buildings Foxy had told them about. Saws were still in the boards, hammers lay unclaimed, nails were rusting on the half-made floors. A few men were working on a few buildings, but only a few. Along the street, signs offered jobs to cooks, waiters, bartenders, men to cut wood or take care of horses. But remembering how she had felt when she found her nugget, Kendra understood why few men wanted regular jobs. When a man worked for wages he knew what to expect. At the placers, any day something wonderful might happen.

They stopped in a lot next to an unfinished building. Hiram and Pocket said they would go on to Chase and Fenway’s and put their dust on deposit. When they came back they would guard the packhorses while the Blackbeards went to deposit their own dust. As soon as the Blackbeards returned, Hiram added, he would ride with Kendra up the hill and see her safely to the home of Colonel and Mrs. Taine.

Meanwhile, Hiram continued, didn’t Kendra and Marny want their dust put on deposit too?

“I’ll go with you,” said Marny.

“Don’t you trust us?” asked Pocket.

Smiling sweetly, Marny shook her head.

“Do you trust us, Kendra?” Hiram asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “But—” She put her hand on his arm. “Deposit it in the name of Kendra Logan. Explain why I want it that way. And tell them I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Right,” said Hiram.

Kendra gave him the saddlebag where she had carried her gold, and watched the three of them ride away. Lulu and Lolo and the Blackbeards had dismounted, and were making a lunch of beef and hardtack from their supply bag. Lolo’s Blackbeard—Troy—came over and asked Kendra to join them, but she declined. She had something else to do.

She was going to ride up the hill now, without waiting for Hiram. She did not want anybody with her when she had to face Alex and Eva and tell them about the wreck of her marriage.

She turned her horse. Troy urged her to wait, but Kendra shook her head. She was a determined person when her mind was made up, and it was made up now. She rode out of the lot and along Kearny Street to the corner of Clay, and here she started up the hill. She remembered that she had once said it was like riding up the side of a steeple.

Along Clay Street she saw new signs, new shacks and sheds, and new groups of men talking about gold. The men looked at her with curiosity but they did not stop talking.

The porch of the City Hotel was full of men. In front a sign announced that a South American brig, now in the bay, would be sold at auction this afternoon. “Just right,” a man was shouting, “for taking supplies to the camps!”

In the plaza she could see more signs, offering more deserted vessels and their cargoes “for cash or gold dust.” Around the army barracks in the plaza she saw no soldiers, and she recalled what she had been told about desertions.

She came to Stockton Street. Here, high above the waterfront, the air smelled damp and clean as she remembered it. She had an odd, surprising sense of coming home.

She rode past the dwarf oak where Captain Pollock had left his horse when he came to call, the day after he arrived from Honolulu. As she looked toward their little square white house she felt a flutter, wondering if Alex or Eva would be on the porch. But as she looked, she started and caught her breath.

The porch was full of men. Most of them had on red shirts and corduroy breeches.

In front of the house several horses were waiting at the hitching post. As she drew near, a big bearded fellow came down the steps and was about to mount one of the horses when he caught sight of her. Astonished, he pulled off his hat and bowed, exclaiming, “Howdy, ma’am!” As she stopped her horse he inquired with rough politeness, “Looking for somebody, ma’am?”

“Yes—thank you,” said Kendra, wondering if she was showing how bewildered she felt. “I’m looking for Colonel Taine.”

“Colonel?” the man repeated with a frown.

“Colonel Alexander Taine. Doesn’t he live here?”

Slowly, the stranger shook his head. “Not that I know of, ma’am. Still, I’ve just come down on a boat from Oregon, I wouldn’t be sure.” Turning, he called to the others, several of whom had now come down the steps. “Any of you folks know of a colonel living around here?”

He received nothing but head-shakings. Another man suggested,

“Might ask Mrs. Beecham.” He said to Kendra, “They come and go, ma’am. You know how it is in a boarding house.”

Kendra started with dismay. “Is this a boarding house?”

“Yes ma’am,” said still another fellow in a red shirt. “Run by Mr. and Mrs. Beecham. But there’s no army officers living here.”

They all seemed eager to help, or at least to take part in the puzzle. Somebody had gone indoors to bring Mrs. Beecham, and now she came across the porch, a strong lean woman in a gingham apron.

Mrs. Beecham was brusque, but not unkind. She had never heard of Colonel Taine. She and her husband had come down from Oregon in a wagon. Hadn’t known about gold before they left home, but when they got here they figured there was need of a good eating place so they bought this house from Mr. Riggs—

“Mr. Riggs!” Kendra exclaimed. “I know him. I’ll ride to his house and ask.”

Mrs. Beecham shook her head. “It’s not his house any more, lady. It’s another boarding house, run by Mrs. Fairfax. The Riggses sold these houses because they were joining a train of Mormons leaving for the Salt Lake. That was quite a spell back—I guess you’ve been away?”

Kendra had heard the saying “her heart sank.” She had never known what it meant. But now she felt as if there were a lump in her chest, heavy, sinking.

“Yes,” she said, “I’ve been away.”

She looked up at Eva’s little calico palace. All at once she felt homesick for Eva’s bright curtains and bedspreads, the rugs she had braided for the floor, the gay flowered cushions she had stuffed for the chairs. —Oh why, thought Kendra, why don’t we appreciate things while we have them?

At this moment a gentleman came to the steps. As Kendra saw him, the word in her mind was
gentleman.

He looked like a man who would be at home in the best hotels, a man who liked money and horses and beautiful women and was an expert on all three. Among these backwoodsmen and red-shirted miners he was like a fine sword among a lot of hunting knives. Though not conspicuously tall he was strongly built; he wore a suit of good cloth and cut; his age was probably somewhere near forty. About the last it was hard to be sure, because while his face was still youthful his hair was almost perfectly white. It was thick wavy hair, not yet receding from his forehead, and its whiteness was made more striking by his dark eyebrows and dark eyes, and a deep outdoor tan suggesting that he had not been long in San Francisco.

But he had not come down from the mines; those well-kept hands of his had never wielded a pick and shovel. As he drew near Kendra, his eyes gave her that flash of appreciation which is in no way rude but is merely a man’s instinctive tribute to a comely woman. He spoke to her gravely.

“Good morning, madam. My name is Warren Archwood. Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

His calm courtesy was reassuring. “Thank you!” she exclaimed, and added by way of explanation, “Mrs. Taine is my mother.”

“I was about to suggest,” said Mr. Archwood, “that you inquire at the army headquarters. The whereabouts of a colonel must certainly be known there.”

“The army headquarters—of course!” said Kendra. “Is it still where it used to be?”

The wind blew a lock of Mr. Archwood’s white hair across his brown forehead. As he pushed back the lock he said with a smile,

“I don’t know where it used to be, but I doubt that it’s still in the same place. Everything in San Francisco is moving and changing. However, I know where it is now, in a cottage on Montgomery Street.” He drew his riding gloves from his pocket. “I’ll ride down there with you.”

“You don’t have to do that!” Kendra protested. “I can find it.”

“You are too young,” said Mr. Archwood, “and—pardon me—too pleasing, to go about alone. My horse is here, still saddled. I’ll go with you.”

Without more conversation he mounted one of the horses at the hitching post. They started riding. To keep the conversation away from herself Kendra said,

“You seem to know your way about, Mr. Archwood.”

“I’m forced to be idle,” he explained genially, “so I’ve been exploring the town.” He told her he had come from New York on the ship
Huntress,
which she could see in the bay. He had brought a shipment of goods, part consigned to Chase and Fenway, the rest to a firm in Honolulu. But the
Huntress
could not go on to Honolulu because her crew had run away.

“We left New York last April,” said Mr. Archwood. “How could we have known what to expect?”

—Last April, thought Kendra. That’s when I was getting married to Ted. How could I have known what to expect?

Thinking of that happy time, she remembered Eva’s telling her that when she and Ted got tired of California they could come home on one of the government-sponsored steamboats. Aloud she said to Mr. Archwood,

“Maybe you can go home on one of the passenger steamers. Congress authorized those last year, to run up and down both coasts.”

“Yes, I know,” he returned. “They were laying the keels for those steamers when I left New York. The first one should get here before long. But—” he smiled quizzically, looking at the deserted vessels in the bay—“will she get out?”

Kendra returned his smile. He was so friendly and so courteous, he was making her feel more cheerful every minute. “With all you have on your mind,” she said, “it’s good of you to help me find my family.”

As she spoke she realized that this was the first time she had ever called Alex and Eva her “family.” Mr. Archwood, with casual good humor, was saying,

“My plight is not as sorry as you think. I really came to the Pacific for the adventure of it. The business could easily have been handled by somebody else.”

He told her his wife had died several years ago, leaving no children. In New York he had not been exactly lonely, for he had many friends, but he had grown tired of the same restaurants, the same theaters, the same hotels. He liked travel, but he had already visited most of the interesting places on both sides of the Atlantic. So he had decided that this time he would travel the other way.

“I wanted something surprising,” he said. “True, what I found is more surprising than I could have imagined, but I’m enjoying it.”

On Montgomery Street he guided her to the cottage he had spoken of. An army private stood on the porch, leaning against the wall by the door. He did not look like the smart young soldiers Kendra had seen last spring; he needed a shave and haircut, and his uniform had a bedraggled air. Mr. Archwood went with her up the steps. The private came to meet them.

“This lady,” said Mr. Archwood, “is looking for Colonel Taine.”

“Colonel Taine?” the soldier repeated doubtfully. But as he spoke his face brightened. “Oh, are you Mrs. Parks?”

Kendra winced at the name. “I am Mrs. Taine’s daughter.”

“Oh yes ma’am, we’ve been expecting you. If you’ll wait here, I’ll speak to Lieutenant Vernon.”

In all this strangeness, it was good to hear a name she knew. She thanked the soldier with a smile as he turned to go indoors.

When Vernon came out she saw that he too was different. He was not unkempt, but his boots were worn and his uniform frayed, and his face had lines of weariness. He addressed her and Archwood politely, but without the eagerness of those days when nothing ever happened in San Francisco. Today he was simply too tired.

“I hope you and Ted had a good summer at the mines,” he said.

“Well enough,” she answered, and changed the subject. “Can you tell me where to find my mother?”

“Ah—then you didn’t get her letter?”

Kendra felt a sudden alarm. “Letter? What letter?”

“She gave it to a man setting out for the placers,” said Vernon. “He said he might go to Shiny Gulch, but evidently he didn’t. But don’t worry,” he went on. “The letter isn’t lost. Mrs. Taine thought he might not find you, so she left a copy here.”

Kendra was feeling a chill all over. “But where is she?”

“Colonel Taine was transferred,” said Vernon, “to Fort Monroe.” At her look of bafflement he explained, “Hampton Roads, Virginia.”

Kendra heard herself echoing, as though from the bottom of a well, “Hampton Roads, Virginia.”

He might as well have said “Zanzibar.”

S
HE THOUGHT OF THE
runaway crews. “How did they get out of San Francisco?”

“The order came before the place was quite as crazy as it is now,” said Vernon. “Colonel and Mrs. Taine took a schooner to Monterey, and sailed from there. I’ll bring you the letter.”

He went indoors again. Mr. Archwood began to chat with the private, giving Kendra a chance to adjust to what he recognized as a stunning blow.

Kendra turned away from them, and stood twisting her hands together. She had an eerie sense of having been here before. It was that old feeling of being in the way, unloved, the child nobody wanted.

Vernon brought her Eva’s letter. The letter was addressed to “Mrs. Ted Parks.” When they took ship for the other side of the continent, it had not occurred to Alex and Eva that she might want to go with them. They had thought she was securely married.

Vernon still thought so. Right now he was saying he wished he could stay with her and hear about the adventures she and Ted had been having at Shiny Gulch. But he could not take the time. The ranks were so depleted by desertions that the loyal men had more duties than they could possibly take care of. He smiled wearily. “Remember how we used to complain of nothing to do?”

Kendra tried to smile back.

Vernon went in. She stood where she was, feeling like one of those deserted ships in the bay.

But something inside her head began to demand of her,

—What’s so awful about it? You never did like living with Alex and your mother anyway. You have three hundred ounces of gold. You can go to Chase and Fenway’s and ask them where to rent a room, then you can think about what to do next.