The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (29 page)

Zhu
turns to her, disgusted and outraged. “Don’t encourage him!”

Daniel
tips the flask again, rum restoring his smile. “You’re completely right, Miss
Malone. I want more.” He gallantly helps Zhu back onto the seat beside him and
solicitously smooths her tunic. “Don’t be cross with me, my angel, but truly
I’m not tired. Indeed, I’m rather bored with this evening. Miss Malone, I’ve
heard that some gentlemen hold jousting tourneys at night. Quite the devil’s
work. Is it far?”

“They
joust,” Jessie says, “at the top of Telegraph Hill.”

Daniel
grins. “By God, then, let’s see some real blood tonight.”

*  
*   *

They
clatter north up Kearny, the uneasy street where Chinatown meets the Barbary
Coast, past the shooting galleries and fan-tan parlors, opium dens in basements
beneath laundries and produce markets, the Chinese brothels catering to white
men, the cribs where the Chinese men go. Past the bustling intersection of
Broadway and Dupont.

Jessie
turns into the Latin Quarter where Italian and French, Portuguese and Spanish,
Mexican and Peruvian crowd chaotically together. The rich in row houses or pink
stucco villas angling up the steep slopes of Telegraph Hill, the poor in shacks
along the waterfront where the bagnios offer Mexican girls who net the fishermen’s
trade.

Tonight
the quarter spills onto the streets and narrow alleys in celebration of
Columbus Day. Red wine and oregano scent the air. Everything is open late, the
markets and shops, fish and vegetable stalls, noodle and sausage factories,
cheese makers and wine presses, bakeries and pensions.

In
the backseat of the rockaway, Daniel sits bolt upright, silent now, smoking
cigarette after cigarette, and flicking half-smoked butts onto the street. Zhu
perches on the far side of the seat, keeping her distance. She carefully tucks
strands of hair into her queue or under her fedora, and straightens her
trousers. The tinted spectacles hide her eyes. What a masquerade! Jessie clucks
her tongue as Zhu composes her face, transforming herself into a pale, shadowy
person of indeterminate gender.

“Say,
Rosita! Can I hitch up here for a while?” Jessie waves to the noodle-maker she
knows, a nice widow whose husband—known for his appetite and his cruelty—dropped
dead at the Mansion last winter. Ticker up and went, butter still on his chin,
one hell of a bruise on Li’l Lucy’s rump. “Well, he won’t trouble none of us no
more,” Rosita had said when she came to collect his corpse. She had opened her
purse. “What he owe you?”

Now Rosita
seizes a gelding’s bridle and leads the pair into the narrow courtyard behind
her warehouse. “
Ciao, bella.
”

“Two
hours, tops,” Jessie says and slips her two bits. “Take good care of my boys,
and there’ll be more of that later.”

“Sure,
sure.” Rosita loves horses. Jessie trusts her.

Then
she, Zhu, and Daniel stroll through the festive crowd to Greenwich Street.
Tracks of the Telegraph Hill Railroad Company go up to the silvery half-moon
rising in the crystalline night sky. A neat little cable car rumbles down the
track and stops for a load of passengers. They climb aboard, and the cable car
groans and clanks and sways up the torturous grade, zigzagging slowly up and up
and up.

At
last the cable car breaches the crest and lumbers onto level ground. They
disembark at the tiny shingled station perched at the very edge of the
precipice and walk across the dusty brown grass. Daniel is green from the ride,
Jessie is feeling none too frisky herself, but Zhu’s gaze is riveted on the spectacle
before them.

San
Franciscans call it the German Castle, this hulking medieval turreted
monstrosity at the top of Telegraph Hill where Mr. Duncan C. Ross presides as
king of the broadsword contest. The Bear flag flaps from the western turret and
four American flags decorate the eastern tower. Feeble gaslight does little to
illuminate the men milling about the grounds deeply drunk, whooping, tipping
flasks, jostling one another in giddy anticipation.

A
slender little woman in a beribboned, tightly corseted dress and a wide hat
with a veil drawn over her face wanders about the crowd, her gloved hand poised
demurely at her throat. The helpless little thing approaches a man in the
rough, ill-fitting suit of a laborer, his collar unbuttoned for air, his straw
boater pushed back on his sweaty forehead. She engages him in conversation,
touching him hesitantly at elbow and wrist. The rough man sways on his feet,
fascinated and charmed, his mouth hanging open that this frail lady would speak
to him. Then she suddenly collapses into his arms. He catches her, clearing a
space for her in the crowd. She awakes just as suddenly, clutching him, her
hands darting boldly over his body. The rough man blushes. She lurches to her
feet and swiftly escapes, pushing through the crowd, which grows larger and
noisier as the contestants mount their horses in a paddock on the eastern slope
of the hill.

“There’s
your little sweetheart,” Jessie teases Daniel.

“Who?”
Daniel peers through the gloom.

“Fanny
Spiggot, the faintin’ pickpocket. Ah well, the biz is the biz, and this is a
fine night for it. Miss Spiggot probably started out as a poor girl like me with
no family or husband.” Jessie salutes the dip. “Get what you can, darlin’. Make
‘em pay.”

Daniel
sputters. “I’ll have a word with her! Where is she?”

“Gone,”
Jessie says and pushes impatiently toward the field of combat illuminated by
much brighter gaslights. “Look, they’re starting!”

A
huge muscular man canters onto the field on a husky dapple-gray stallion. He
wears a Prussian helmet crowned by a gleaming spike, a blue military jacket
hung with a vest of chain mail, breeches, and black leather boots. His face is
obscured by a fencing mask, but Jessie spies his bushy black mustache and eyebrows,
his bared teeth. To thunderous applause and cheers, he circles the field,
brandishing a cavalry saber.

“Ross,
Ross, Ross,” roars the crowd.

Mr.
Duncan C. Ross promenades, cutting the air with his saber. Jessie can hear the
weapon whistle through the air as he canters past. Once enlisted with the Royal
Scots Greys, Ross sweats out a living in San Francisco as a professional wrestler
and an instructor of swordsmanship. Every week in the summer and the balmy days
of autumn, he takes on challengers at the German Castle.

“Twenty
on Duncan bloody Ross!”

“Fifty
on Ross by ten!”

Fists
full of silver and gold, gamblers furiously place bets with the croupier below
the western tower. The croupier sits at a rickety table, his quill pen savagely
scribbling odds and point spreads on a ledger, four bruisers packing pistols
standing guard around him.

Now another
tremendous rider gallops onto the field on a lithe black horse. Slighter in
build but no less charismatic, he wheels and rears his horse. His fencing mask
cannot conceal his bright gold beard. Gold hair protrudes from the rim of the
helmet fitting over his ears to his jawbone like the gear of an ancient
gladiator. A vest of solid armor is strapped over his gray padded jacket and
festooned with burgundy braid and gold epaulets.

“Walsh,
Walsh, Walsh!” shout the contender’s partisans.

Jessie
can feel the blood lust coursing through her veins, though it’s awfully
barbaric. Better that men should spend their hard-earned cash on the sport of
love. Still, the excitement infects her, too.

“That’s
Charlie Walsh! He’s my favorite!” she shouts in Zhu’s ear. “Ain’t he a daisy?
He rode with General Sherman in Atlanta. They say he won a dozen duels by sword
in Mexico.”

Walsh
whips out his saber. He and Ross rein in their horses at the opposite ends of
the field.

“The
points is dull, that’s what I heard,” Jessie says. “But the edges is
razor-sharp.”

A
referee clad in a scarlet vest and top hat steps into the center of the field.
“Gentlemen!” he shouts above the din of the crowd. “The rules are these! Each
contestant will approach the other at full gallop and endeavor to strike his
opponent’s armor! A proper blow to the armor scores one point. A blow to the
helmet is disregarded! Striking a man below his armor or striking his horse is
penalized by minus one point. He who scores one and twenty points is the
victor!” The referee raises a whistle to his lips. “Ready! Steady! Go!”

They
charge! The horses gallop, hooves thundering across the grass. The contestants
raise their swords. In less than an instant, they cross paths in a whirlwind of
dust. A tremendous clang, as metal meets metal, and the horses gallop to
opposite ends, where boys leap up and seized their lathered bridles. The crowd
shouts its lungs out, and a knot of men scramble back as Ross’s stallion lashes
out with a hind hoof.

“Zero
up!” shouts the referee.

The
crowd groans. Gamblers scramble to the croupier, placing new bets.

The
contestants wheel their horses.

“Ready!
Steady! Go!”

Again
they thunder across the turf, kicking up clods of dirt. This time, Walsh doesn’t
raise his saber, but holds it down on his thigh. A lump rises in Jessie’s
throat. What in tarnation is he doing? As he passes Ross, he ducks away from
Ross’s flashing saber, which Ross, taken aback at the lack of resistance, aims
poorly. Walsh turns at the waist as Ross gallops past and clips him smartly
across his shoulder blades.

Men
cheer, others boo. When Walsh wheels at the opposite end of the field, Jessie
spies blood leaking through his breeches in a bright red line.

“One
point for Sergeant Walsh! One penalty for Mr. Ross!” shouts the referee.

The
tumult grows louder, and a fracas breaks out at the croupier’s table.
“Cheatin’! That’s cheatin’, he can’t friggin’ hit ‘im from behind!” The armed
guards hustle the protesting gambler away, toss him out into the crowd.

The
contestants rein in their horses, whirl, and pause. A boy offers Sergeant Walsh
a rag, but Walsh waves the rag away, sneering behind the fencing mask.
Ah,
darlin’,
Jessie thinks, her heart pounding in her breast.
Be careful.

“Ready,
steady, go!”

Jessie
shouts as they charge again. “Get him! Get him! Get him, Walsh!”

Ross
brandishes his saber at shoulder level, yelling, “Face me, you bastard!” He
whacks Walsh as he gallops past, striking him full across the chest

In
the instant of passing, an enraged Walsh whips his saber up and heavily down
again.

Ross
roars in agony, plummets off his stallion. When the dust clears, Jessie can see
that his Prussian helmet is split in two. A mob descends on the fallen man.

“Did
you see that?” Zhu shouts. “Did you see what he did to his helmet? His skull
must be shattered!”

Jessie
seizes her hand, and the two women push toward the wounded man. “Step aside!”
Jessie shouts. “I know a thing or two about injuries. Clear the way. Stand
aside, I say!”

Indeed
she does know a thing or two about the healing arts, as any madam must if she’s
to stay in the biz. She’s seen enough fisticuffs to fill a book.

“Die,
die, die!” chants a contingency of the crowd, guffawing, spitting, slapping
shoulders. Certain gamblers will win a very nice premium should Ross go to his
ultimate defeat.

Another
contingency, red-faced with rage, throw off their topcoats, fumble with cuff
links and buttons, roll up sleeves. “We’ll not hear your taunts!” the gang
yells, advancing through the shadows.

The
crowd reluctantly lets Jessie and Zhu through. Jessie kneels next to Duncan
Ross. A skin-and-bones fellow with tobacco-stained hands weeps as he cradles
Ross’s bloody head.

“’Ere,
it’s that scarlet woman,” says another fellow standing over them both. A rat of
a man, with pink eyes and a pointed face beneath his cheap bowler, he’d be a
crib customer, Jessie thinks. She would never let a rat like this into the
Parisian Mansion. “Don’t let ‘er touch ‘im. She’s likely to give ‘im the pox.”

“And
who in hell are you?” She restrains herself from spitting in the rat’s eye.

“We’re
‘is trainers, chit,” the rat says, “and you’ll do well to leave ‘im alone.”

“Take
your hands away, you lunk, and let me have a look,” Jessie commands. Zhu kneels
beside her.

Duncan
Ross’s proud head is drenched in blood, nearly making Jessie retch from the
stink of life leaving the body. She smooths back his black hair, smooths away
the blood, working her fingers down in the tear in his scalp till she can feel
the cracked wound. A jagged edge is etched across his very skull, each portion
of bone canting away from the other.

“Jar
me,” she whispers. “It’s hopeless. He’s a-goin’ to meet his Maker.”

But
Zhu gently places her hand over Jessie’s, works her fingers down, and feels the
wound for herself. Suddenly she’s got a knife in her other hand. She bears the
blade down on poor Duncan Ross’s head.

“What
the devil are you
doing?
” Jessie whispers. What will the mob do to them
both if they find a strange Chinese woman, dressed as a coolie, hastening the
demise of their champion?