The Furies (21 page)

“Does seem funny, doesn’t it?”

Bart changed the subject. “How are you coming along with your studies?”

“Pretty well. Ma helps me three nights a week. I’m good with sums—I can make change fast in the tavern. My handwriting’s only fair. And I don’t like all that poetry and those stories she makes me read—”

“Well”—he tousled the boy’s dark, curly hair; in the blue shadow of the stoop, Louis might have passed for a Mexican, so coppery were his cheeks—“you’ll have to suffer. Reading’s the mark of a cultured man. I brought a new batch of books. Maybe you’ll like that Poe fellow’s eerie concoctions—”

The door opened behind them. Bart rose. But even before he swung and saw Amanda’s smiling face, he was gratified by her calm voice.

“Come in, Bart. And forgive me for carrying on a while ago—?”

Her smile was so warm, he promptly forgot the worry and turmoil caused by her reaction to the Kent books.

“Nothing to forgive, sweet—’less you refuse to pour me a good strong drink.”

The remainder of the day was merry and satisfying. Amanda cooked up some beef brought in a few days earlier from the fort of the somewhat bizarre European, Captain John Sutter. The fort lay beyond the central valley, where the Sacramento and American Rivers flowed together.

While Amanda worked, Bart told her all the news he could remember from the previous fall—old news, to be sure, but she welcomed it. There were some newer tidbits as well, the most recent concerning the failing health of the famous Mr. Astor.

He was dying at eighty-four, so enfeebled he could take no nourishment except milk from the breast of a woman hired for that purpose. To provide him with exercise, his household servants laid him on a blanket and lined and lowered him. But sick as he was, the legendary millionaire still kept track of payments made by individual renters of his various real estate properties—and demanded his agents collect a small amount of money owed him by a widow who had fallen on hard times. The gossips said Astor’s son had taken the sum from his own pocket, and sent it to his father by special messenger. The dying man was well pleased, Bart said.

He and Amanda exchanged eastern and western perspectives on the war just concluded under the leadership of two Whig generals, the military commander of the southwest, Zachary Taylor, and the commander of all United States forces, Winfield Scott—both avowed political opponents of President Polk.

Though both men were Virginians, a greater personal contrast could hardly have been found. Scott’s preoccupation with protocol and proper dress had earned him a national nickname—Old Fuss and Feathers. Taylor, unassuming and unspectacular, seldom wore a uniform, preferring farmer’s clothing, with only a cap carrying a general’s emblem identifying his rank. While cogitating, scanning dispatches or issuing orders, he usually sat with both legs hanging down one side of the old white nag he rode. His style won him a nickname too—Old Rough and Ready—and Bart said some in the east were already calling him presidential material.

Like previous American wars, the one against Mexico had been unpopular in certain quarters. Many northerners saw it as a means of guaranteeing the presence of a huge slave state, Texas, in the Union. Bart spoke with some derision about a rustic philosopher of Massachusetts, a chap named Thoreau, who had actually refused to pay a poll tax to protest the “immoral” war. He had gone to Concord jail instead.

Amanda had a somewhat more personal, less political interest in the outcome of the war. She’d had firsthand experience with the Mexican president, Santa Anna, back in Texas in the thirties. Bart knew the story; he knew who had sired young Louis, and under what circumstances.

With relish, Amanda described Santa Anna’s abdication after the capture of Mexico City in September of ’47. “I only hope they’ve gotten the treacherous son of a bitch out of office for good this time!”

She said conditions in California were settling down now that Mexico had renounced claim to the land. The territory was currently being governed by a garrison at Monterey under the command of one Colonel Mason. Exactly as Louis had said, she dismissed the rumor of gold at Sutter’s mill as just that.

She served supper in the late afternoon, while the sunlight began to diffuse behind the fog gathering out on the Pacific. At Amanda’s request, Louis pronounced the grace. Then the boy asked, “Isn’t Israel going to eat with us, Ma?”

“No, he has a touch of the stomach complaint.”

She and Bart both knew it was an excuse. Israel didn’t enjoy the captain’s company. Bart was glad the former slave wasn’t around.

He ate and ate, complimenting the cook frequently. After the meal he lit a Cuban cigar and moved to the room’s most cherished object, the small, compact piano he had freighted from New York.

Before going to sea as a cabin boy in the Far East trade, he had been forced to study music. Despite his youthful dislike of practice, he was accomplished. Music had become a companion for his adult years—a companion who never argued over damn fool
ideas
, or got net up, except as the composition and the performer dictated—

He ran through the popular song he’d mentioned in the morning, a lively novelty called “Oh, Susannah!” that everyone in the east was whistling. Louis and Amanda quickly learned the words. The trio sang the song four times through, with foot-stomping and hand-clapping to hide the flaws in their voices.

Next Bart played some Chopin for Amanda, finishing with a fiery yet somehow melancholy fantasy—Opus 66 in C sharp minor—whose central passage seemed to speak of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Amanda rocked in the rocker, her eyes closed, her sun-burnished face golden in the light of the lamp.

Bart finished the piece and looked around. Louis had slipped out, not caring for “fancy” music. He watched Amanda rocking for a moment.

“Amanda.”

“Mm.”

“What are you thinking about?”

She opened her eyes. “Gold.”

“You said there wasn’t any.”

“I know. If there were, Captain Sutter would certainly have made more of the fact by now.”

“Unless he’s afraid the gold might bring a lot of people tramping over his ground.”

“You know, I never thought of it that way. You’re right. He’s a farmer at heart—”

“A farmer who pretends he was once a soldier.”

She smiled. “Everybody calls him captain out of respect. No one really believes he served in the Swiss Guards in France—any more than they believe in the gold. Still, it’s a lovely dream—”

“What is?”

“Owning a piece of ground with a lot of gold in it.”

He didn’t like the brief, predatory expression in her eyes. He puffed on his cigar, rose and stretched. “Who does own this country? One of the men on the lighter sounded like nobody’s sure.”

“That’s true. Anyone who wants land around here can claim it, except in town.”

“Let’s hope they don’t want it. Changing the name of this place is too much change already. I prefer Yerba Buena just like it is. Quiet—”

He walked to her side, bent and kissed her forehead.

“With you always here.”

She reached up to touch his face, her fingertips warm against his skin. How soft and beautiful she looked in the lamplight. The predatory quality was gone. He stroked her hair. “You’re an amazing woman, Amanda.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I want another free meal tomorrow.”

They laughed together. Then he went on. “I say it because most females would have tried to lash me up legally long before this.”

She shrugged, the movement tightening the fabric over her breasts and reminding him of his long-unsatisfied need.

“You said one marriage was enough. Besides, even though I’m regarded as something of a loose creature around here, I continue to believe it’s the loving, not the document, that counts most. If you wish to consider that an invitation, Captain McGill, please d— What on earth’s wrong? Why did you pull such a terrible face?”

“Just thinking of the poor devils still on board the clipper. They don’t get leave till morning. While I wallow in debauchery—” He grinned.

“No debauchery permitted until children are in bed. Do you want to help me find Louis?”

“With speed, sweet. With the utmost speed.”

As she stood up, he leaned forward to kiss her mouth. She caressed his face again.

“Make sure of that,” she whispered.

He wheeled and sped out into the clammy fog, shouting her son’s name.

She was full of eagerness and heat too long contained. With Louis bedded down in the smaller cubicle, and the curtain carefully pulled across the entrance to hers, they made love with almost desperate haste, Amanda not even allowing Bart to slip out of his trousers before her hands were on him, pulling him to her.

The alcove grew warm. They lay together drowsily afterward, Amanda laughing about how shameless it was for a woman midway through her forties to enjoy a man’s body. She teased him about the difference in their ages, calling herself a seducer of innocents—whereupon he rolled over and kissed one of her breasts while his other hand slid down the smoothness of her belly.

“I’ll show you how innocent I am. Would you care to learn a certain way Chinese girls make love?”

She laughed and poked him. “What Chinese girls, you deceitful bastard?”

“Unimportant. Just pay attention—”

“And I thought southerners were honorable men.”

“In public. Shut the bedroom tight and we rut just as hard as the next. Harder, maybe. Better, for sure—”

Laughing, hugging, kissing with their lips parted, they went more slowly this time. The play of hands and limbs drove Bart into a frenzy, until he was floundering on her, parting her legs with insistent fingers, opening the way for himself, thrusting forward with a haste that matched her own—

She cried out happily at the impact—only to jerk her head from the mussed pillow an instant later. Her sudden movement jolted him.

“What the hell’s wrong?”

“Someone’s shouting—”

“Let them shout.”

“I hear people in the square—”

He listened. Caught the unintelligible bellow of a bass voice.

“We’ve had trouble before, Bart. Drifters liquored and starting a scrape. Setting fires—hand me my robe.”

“Oh, goddamn it, all right,” he said, severely peeved.

She lit a lamp on the walnut table. Louis popped out of his cubicle, asking what was wrong.

“You go back to sleep,” Amanda said, reaching past the pile of new books to a board hanging on the wall. Pegs jutted from the board. Two of them supported one of the revolvers manufactured by Colt’s of Hartford. The gun was an 1840 holster model, .36 caliber, with a barrel a full foot long. Amanda handled it expertly, flipping out the fold-in trigger and checking the five chambers to be sure they were loaded. Through one curtained window Bart glimpsed a running figure with a torch—the mulatto, Israel, heading for the square—

Amanda rushed through the kitchen and into the public room, Bart a few paces behind. She unlatched the front door, dashed out on the stoop. Struggling to pull on his shirt, Bart saw her stiffen, silhouetted against the weak glow of several torches being carried through the fog toward the source of the shouting.

He heard the bass voice again. This time he understood some of the words. “By God, I tested it myself! Come and look if you don’t believe me—”

He ran toward the door as Amanda disappeared in the thick fog. Moments later, shivering, he joined a growing crowd of people who surrounded a spent, bedraggled man. The man held up something that glowed yellow in the blaze of the torches.

Sam Brannan’s thick black hair literally bounced on his forehead as he emphasized his words with shakes of his head.

“It’s gold, I tell you—” He brandished the half-full quinine bottle. “Right out of the American River!”

Someone on the far side of the crowd went racing away to summon others. “Brannan’s back! He’s got gold from the American—”

Within seconds, it seemed that a half dozen voices began to bawl the word through the fog.

“Gold!”

“Gold!”

Lights bobbed as people came running with more lanterns and torches. Bart McGill stared at the faces ringing the stocky Mormon displaying the quinine bottle. The faces were sleepy or stunned or stupidly amused—all except one.

Amanda didn’t see Bart watching—nor see him shiver a second time. Her dark hair was lit by the fuming torch in Israel’s hand. She was staring at the sparkling yellow dust in the bottle. Staring thoughtfully—speculatively—

She had the look of a predator again.

T
HE ARRIVAL OF THE
Manifest Destiny
was a welcome interruption of young Louis Kent’s undemanding, if monotonous, routine.

Louis customarily rose before daylight. He laid and lit the fire in the cast iron stove in the kitchen. While his mother cooked for the men who took breakfast at Kent’s, he waited tables, collected money and ran dirty dishes back to Israel, who washed them in two large wooden tubs. When the breakfast business slacked off about eight-thirty, everyone began preparing for the noon trade, which actually started closer to ten.

At that hour, Israel moved out front to take charge of the liquor kegs. A phlegmatic Mexican girl named Concepcion took over the serving chores while Louis was demoted to dishwasher for the afternoon and evening. He wasn’t especially fond of any of the work, but dishwashing was particularly boring. He knew the work helped his ma keep the place going, though, so he accepted his responsibilities with no complaint.

But the nocturnal shouting in the square, followed by Amanda’s departure with her revolver, altered his life more drastically than the return of Captain Bart ever had.

The following morning, he learned the cause of the commotion. Merchant Brannan had rushed back from the American River with a bottle of genuine gold dust.

Almost immediately, Louis noticed a change in his mother. Her mind seemed to be on something other than the operation of the tavern. He hoped she wasn’t finally planning the return to Boston that she discussed from time to time. Even though life in Yerba Buena was far from ideal—he had no playmates, for instance—he wasn’t sure he wanted to go.