The Furies (26 page)

A white woman.

Once, he’d practically been able to forget about that. But gold had drawn men to California. Men who bore hatreds. The source—the way they’d been taught, or the lack of any teaching at all—didn’t matter. Either way, they were dangerous. He’d begun to feel the fear again—

He heard the tipsy young miner, Flaxtop, saying
coon.
The memories tumbled one upon another. The crack of the whip at the gin house. The feel of it flaying his back while he clenched his teeth and struggled to keep from crying out. Cissie’s screams as she lay with her belly in the hole, taking her punishment—

Confused and angrier than ever, he jerked Louis through the entrance to the Exchange. His yellow face looked thunderous in the hazy lantern light.

He knew he was in a bad temper. Told himself so—and that he ought to simmer down. He made an effort—

Then he saw who was on duty behind the bar.

The preceding year, San Francisco has been plagued by ruffianism unusual even for a boisterous frontier town. The source of the trouble was a group of men once called the First New York Volunteers—the last word hardly being appropriate since most of them had been forced to join up or languish in eastern jails.

The Volunteers had been shipped to California to reinforce Kearny during the Mexican trouble. When they arrived, the fighting was over. The unit had disbanded, and some of its members had drifted north a few months after the discovery of gold.

In San Francisco, the men boastfully called themselves the Hounds—because they roamed the streets in packs, harassing women and foreigners with obscene remarks and their favorite weapons: slung-shots and metal knuckles.

The men professed an affiliation with a splinter political party in the east, the American party, which had sprung from an earlier group calling itself the Native American Association. The title capsuled the group’s purpose, and that of the party which emerged from it—to keep America the exclusive preserve of those white Protestants who had been born there. Members of the party had secret rituals, passwords and handshakes—never revealed when they were questioned: “I know nothing.” An eastern editor—Mr. Greeley, Israel believed it was—had contemptuously christened the party Know-Nothing.

For months, the local counterparts of the Know-Nothings had occupied a tent headquarters at Commercial and Kearny. The tent, its nickname, Tammany Hall, also borrowed from the east, was gone now, torn down as the result of a public outcry when the Hounds invaded Little Chile up on the hill called Alta Loma the preceding July. The Chilean immigrants had been beaten, their women raped, their hovels demolished—and San Francisco had finally risen in outrage. Amanda had contributed fifty dollars to help organize a company of volunteer peace officers who razed Tammany Hall and drove the Hounds out of town.

Officially, they were gone. But some had come back. One, a bald, blue-chinned man named Felker, had found employment as a bartender at the Exchange.

Israel approached Felker warily. He was sure the man would recognize him. Amanda had once used her Colt revolver to back down three Hounds who tried to come into Kent’s for a meal; she wouldn’t allow the hooligans on the premises. But an offense to one Hound was an offense to all.

Felker was busy telling a story to a trio of miners leaning on the bar. “—and so the nun says to the priest, let’s fuck now, Father, and you can hear my confession later.”

Scurrilous jokes against Catholics were a staple of the Know-Nothings. Two of the bearded miners laughed.

The third, dressed much like the others but standing a little apart, fiddled with his whiskey cup. The man’s blue eyes registered his dislike of the story.

Israel stepped between Felker’s cronies and the loner. Behind him, Louis watched the conclusion of a three-card monte game. The pale-skinned dealer raked in a two-thousand-dollar bet from his glum victim, whose loss the watchers cheered and applauded.

Felker kept talking with the two miners. The lantern hanging from the canvas directly above him cast an oily light on his bald head. The thin, weathered loner scratched his almost pure white beard and studied Israel, then Felker, who continued to ignore the Negro. Israel in turn scrutinized the miner from the corner of his eye. The man’s long hair showed a few streaks of yellow among the gray. He was a decent-looking sort. And Israel guessed he might need help handling Felker.

He was correct. The bald man wouldn’t even look at him for the better part of two minutes. Finally, struggling to contain the anger that had been building within him during the evening, Israel slapped a palm on the bar.

“Felker.”

A slow, almost smug smile tugged up the corners of the bartender’s mouth. Behind Felker, Israel saw a knotted rope hanging from a nail in one of the tent poles. When patrons grew too rowdy, men who tended bar used such a rope as a substitute for a ship’s cat.

“Merry Christmas,” Felker said in a sarcastic way. Israel started to dig in his pocket, then remembered he was supposed to put the order on credit. Felker misinterpreted the move, reaching across the bar to fasten a hand on the mulatto’s forearm. “I know the rules around town say a nigger is entitled to one drink in any public place. But the rules are suspended when I’m tending the store.”

Israel’s hand clenched. He jerked free of Felker’s grip.

“I came to buy twenty gallons of Thirty Rod for Kent’s. We’re out.”

“So am I.”

His stomach starting to hurt again, Israel pointed to a keg on a cradle “Doesn’t appear that way.”

“Empty.” The balding man shrugged. “You try somewhere else. Niggers give this place a bad odor. ’Course, I have a pretty keen nose. I can smell coon twice as sharp as any hunting dog.”

That brought a snicker from one of the two miners on Israel’s right. He knew he should leave. Perhaps on a different evening, he would have. But everything that had happened tonight had made him testy.

“All right,” he said. “But first I’ll have a whiskey.”

“No,” Felker said. “No, you won’t.”

“Israel, I think we’d better go along,” Louis said.

His brow hot, Israel drew a coin from his pocket. Felker seemed to be bouncing up and down, almost expectantly.

“Pour me one, Felker.”

“I said no.”

“Pour me one or I’ll pour it myself.”

Dennison’s Exchange grew still. The racket from the street only heightened the silence as the mulatto and the white man stared at one another.

For a moment, Israel didn’t believe what he was seeing. Felker shrugged again, as if giving up.

The two miners had stepped back just a little in case of a confrontation. The lone miner, hunched over his drink as he had been ever since Israel and the boy walked in, watched the bartender. Felker wiped his hands on his apron, started to turn and reach for a cup—

Israel’s astonishment slowed his reflexes. He wasn’t prepared when Felker grabbed the rope from the tent pole, whirled and lashed at Israel’s face.

The rope’s knotted end nicked Israel’s left eye, made him yell in surprise. Blinded and enraged, he shot his hands out to fasten on Felker’s neck.

Israel gripped hard, his height helping him lean halfway across the bar. Felker squealed, hit at him with the rope. Israel heard Louis pleading with him to let go, then caught the sound of men rushing forward. But the flick of the rope on his eyeball had shattered his control. He choked Felker harder—

The two miners reached for him. The loner stepped away from the bar. Israel heard the cock of a pistol, then the miner’s voice.

“You two stay out. And that goes for everyone else. Let them settle it.”

Slobbering curses, Felker tried one more slash with the rope, bringing it up and over his shoulder. The end snapped against the hanging lantern, knocked it off its hook, sailed it behind the kegs where it broke and spilled oil that ignited a second later.

“Jesus Christ, a fire!” one of the monte dealers shouted as flame spurted up the canvas wall.

The canvas caught almost instantaneously, the whole rear wall of the Exchange turning to flame. Israel held Felker’s throat, taking satisfaction from the way the man’s eyes were starting to water. He applied more pressure, the heat from the canvas popping sweat onto his yellow face—

He wasn’t choking Felker alone. He was choking the drivers who had beaten his mother so that she died before her time. He was choking the owner who had sold Cissie. He was even choking old President Polk, who had turned a sleepy little village into a stink hole—

Felker’s eyes bulged. Time held still for Israel, the hate in him almost intoxicating. The fire reached the tent’s side walls and ceiling. A pole behind the bar became a column of flame, gave way—

Louis shouted,
“Israel!”
as the ceiling started to buckle.

Israel let go, shoved Felker backward against the kegs. The bald man fell, flailing. The lone miner seized Israel by the shoulders, pulling him away.

“The ceiling’s coming down!”

The patrons had started a wild trample for the street. Somewhere a bell began to clang. “Go on, Louis!” Israel yelled, shoving the boy out of danger as the miner leaped away too. Israel stumbled against a rickety table that collapsed beneath him, tumbling him to the dirt floor—

A third of the canvas ceiling ripped and fell, enveloping Felker. He shrieked and disappeared in roaring flames. Lying on his belly, Israel screamed too when scorching canvas struck the backs of his outstretched legs—

“Burned that white man to death!”

“—own damn fault—”

“Get moving, get moving!”

The distant bell grew louder. Sobbing, Israel dug in his elbows, dragged himself out from under the canvas. His trousers smoldered, caught fire. He rolled over, thrashing the backs of his legs in the dirt. Overhead, another section of canvas tore loose—

“Boy, help me!”

That was the lone miner. Israel felt hands at his collar, vainly tried to focus his eyes. All he saw were leaping tatters of flame and, deep in the center, a charred, crawling thing that bleated like an animal as it died, Felker—

Hands hauled him along. His head banged against the ground. The ceiling glowed red-orange. He wondered whether he was going to hell for murder—

The flames disappeared in total darkness.

When Israel regained consciousness, he was lying in the mud of Portsmouth Square. He was dimly aware of people milling against a backdrop of glaring light. He heard loud crashes as the fire swallowed frame and canvas structures near the Exchange.

Bit by bit, his awareness returned—bringing pain that consumed him from his thighs downward. He writhed, groaning.

“Lift his legs, lift his legs! Where’s that damn lard they sent for?”

He thought that voice belonged to the miner who had pulled him out of the blazing tent. He felt hands on his brow, then a cheek pressed to his forehead.

“You’ll be all right, Israel. We’ll get you fixed up—”

The words grew incoherent as Louis broke down and cried.

“Stand back! Here come the pumpers!”

If he hadn’t been in such agony, Israel might have laughed. San Francisco’s fire equipment was worthy of nothing but laughter, and no one had taken steps to remedy the situation, even though people were extremely conscious of the hazard posed by the town’s shoddy buildings. He thought he saw spokes blurring as men dragged one of the hand-driven pumpers toward the conflagration. Was it the antique from Hawaii, or the old wreck from the east that President Van Buren had once used to water his garden?
Odd
, Israel thought,
odd how your mind works when you’re hurt bad—

“I think we got him out soon enough,” the lone miner said, sounding far away. “I hope so. Let’s turn him—”

Israel screamed when men rolled him over, tore away the remains of his trousers and began to smear lard on his calves.

“Ma, Ma—this way!”

That was Louis. With a great effort, Israel lifted his chin from the dirt. Sure enough, elbowing and pushing, there was Amanda—

Oh God,
he thought,
she’s getting mud all over that pretty yellow dress.

Unconcerned, she hiked up her skirt and dropped to her knees beside him. Through his pain, he felt an almost overpowering happiness. She didn’t care about her fancy dress. She cared about him. Maybe he’d been too hard on her—

He started to cry, just like Louis. Even the agony of hands patting lard on his legs didn’t bother him now—

Somewhere out of his field of vision, the lone miner asked, “Ma’am, does this man belong to you?”

“No—that is—he works for me—dear God, Israel, what happened?” She stroked the side of his face. He felt the roughness of that old, worn bracelet of rope. “Louis—someone—
tell me what happened!
”

A half dozen voices babbled at once. To Israel, the men around him were no more than fire-etched silhouettes. But Amanda’s face was visible. He saw her flame-lit eyes widen when the miner grabbed her arm.

“What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy? Let go of—”

“Where’d you get this piece of rope, woman?”

“Damn you, let go!” She started to punch the miner.

“Where did you get it? What’s your name?”

Curious, Israel thought, his pain so intense that it actually numbed and soothed him and sent him drifting back toward sleep. Most curious, the way Amanda Was staring into the dark where the miner must have been standing. Her face had the strangest expression—

“My name’s Amanda Kent. I don’t see why you—”

“Amanda—”

Very strange, how that miner sounded as if he were about to weep too.

“I’m Jared.
Jared Kent—
”

Israel heard no more.

J
ARED ADAM KENT COULDN’T
remember when he’d celebrated a more remarkable and joyous Christmas day.

He didn’t feel the least bit tired. His occasionally crippling rheumatism—a legacy from the years of trapping with Weatherby in the cold streams of the beaver country—hardly bothered him at all.

He should have been exhausted. He was already weary when he reached San Francisco after the long ride from the mining camp called Hopeful located all the way up on the east branch of the north fork of the Feather River. He hadn’t slept a single minute since glancing up outside the burning saloon and seeing a woman whose face stirred a memory—a woman whose wrist, circled by a worn bit of rope, brought a miracle he’d never dreamed he’d witness.