Calico Palace (13 page)

“But you didn’t think so?” Kendra asked. She wanted to hear more. All this was a matter she knew nothing about.

“I don’t know—I’ve never been there,” said Marny. “But I do wish Norman had come to Honolulu. He could have been with us now, going up to the gold fields. Smartest gambler I ever saw.”

Marny paused, thinking back.

“There never was anything between Norman and me,” she added thoughtfully. “He always had a girl of his own. But I admired him. He had real talent.”

“More than Delbert?” Kendra asked.

“Yes,” Marny answered with amusement, “but don’t say I said so. Life is dangerous enough as it is.”

Kendra laughed and promised. She added admiringly, “And you can really shoot?”

“Certainly.” Marny gave her a knowing smile. “You’ve never had to take care of yourself, my dear, but that’s what I do all the time.”

That afternoon as they rode, Kendra wondered how it would feel to be in need of a gun. She had never taken care of herself. As a child, while she had not been loved, she had been well cared for. The journey to California was a long one but she had made it on one of the finest ships in the world; San Francisco was a rude town but she had not once been in the street unguarded. And now she was on her way to a wilderness but she was going there with Ted.

She and Marny were riding together, with Hiram on the other side of Marny. Marny was saying, “If there isn’t such a lot of gold, we’ll come back and set up shop in San Francisco.”

“There’s plenty of gold,” Kendra exclaimed. “Ted saw it.”

Hiram chuckled dryly. “I believe him. If I didn’t I shouldn’t be here.” His big hand gestured toward his own two packhorses. “Everything I own is on those.”

“You’re a brave man,” said Kendra, “to risk everything.”

Hiram shrugged. His russet beard had begun to grow and the prickles glistened in the sun. “I came to California,” he answered genially, “to seek my fortune. I’m a minister’s son. As you may have heard, ministers send their children to school but they don’t make ’em rich.”

How strong and self-reliant he looked. He was now telling them he had packed some Chinese firecrackers, to scare any Abs who might come prowling around his belongings. Marny, as usual, was laughing.

Kendra envied them both. Hiram and Marny sounded like such independent people. People who did not need anybody, who were complete in themselves.

—And I, thought Kendra, am not complete. I need other people. I want to be loved. I
need
to be loved.

Ning was driving the wagon today and Ted was on horseback leading the train. Kendra hurried her mount and caught up with him. She felt a sudden fright at the thought of how much she did need Ted. Without him she would be lonesome again, as lonesome as she had been all her life. But as he saw her riding into place beside him Ted puckered his lips to blow her a kiss, and Kendra thought,—I am not alone any more. I need him, yes, but I’ve got him.

T
HE NEXT DAY THEY
ran into a shower, which slowed the wagon teams and swelled the creeks they had to cross, so they did not go far. But the morning after this was clear. Ning had them up at daybreak, and by eight o’clock they came to the strip of water called Carquinez Strait. This strait, about eight miles long and two miles wide, linked two inland bays, all part of the eastern branch of the great bay, reaching in to meet the Sacramento River. Here an enterprising giant named Semple, straight from Kentucky and seven feet tall, ran a ferry to the settlement of Benicia on the other side.

Semple lived across the strait at Benicia, but he kept a boat on this side, and a supply of barley and corn for horses, guarded by several youths who were the only visible inhabitants. These guards would take a man across to Benicia, but if a party was waiting, Semple himself came over on the return trip and took charge. His ferryboat was a broad flat-bottomed affair, big enough to carry a dozen horses. For each horse he charged a dollar, for each person fifty cents, and six dollars for a wagon.

Along the waterside the country was bright with flowers and lacy with willow trees. The men stopped the wagons near a creek that ran down into the strait about half a mile from the ferry landing. The Blackbeards enclosed a group of willows with the “Ladies Only” sign, and Ning went ahead to arrange for the crossing.

This was their fifth day out. They were now twenty-three miles from San Francisco. Twenty-three miles as the crow flies, but they had traveled nearly ninety miles to get here, because, not being crows, they could not fly across the bay.

Ning told Marny and Kendra that getting the horses and wagons over would mean four trips. Kendra suggested that she go over on the first trip, to start dinner and have it ready by the time the crossing was done.

“No ma’am,” Ning replied firmly. “You ain’t gonta let loose no smell of cooking till you’ve got men to guard the pot. Otherwise you’d have every do-nothing in the neighborhood coming up to sponge a meal.”

Ning made sense, as usual, so Kendra sat with Marny on the grass and looked on. The ferry guards took the first horses over, with Hiram to watch them on the other side. On the next two trips the boat carried the Blackbeards with Lulu and Lolo, Delbert and the two wagons loaded with everything he and Marny had brought (including the “Ladies Only” sign, now rolled up and stowed away), and Ning to supervise the camp. Still waiting to cross were Marny and Kendra, Ted with his own wagon, and Pocket, who had stayed to help him guard the team.

By now it was past noon and the sun was hot. Ted and Pocket, tired from the work of getting horses and wagons on the ferry, were enjoying the luxury of having to watch only a single team and wagon. Pocket had tethered the horses to a tree by the creek, and rested near by while they cropped the grass. Twenty yards away Ted lay stretched in the shade of the wagon, his gun at his side. Between them Marny and Kendra sat under a tree, their big riding skirts spread around them, watching the ferry as it made its way over the water toward the fifteen or twenty shacks that composed the town of Benicia.

The birds chirped and pecked at the grass, and a thousand bees were buzzing among the flowers. “I have only one complaint,” said Marny. “I’m hungry.”

Kendra was hungry too. She remembered the dried fruit in her wagon. “I’ll get some figs,” she said, and began to stand up. “Oh—
rats
!”

“If you mean damn,” said Marny, “why don’t you say so?”

“Damn!” said Kendra.

“What happened?” Marny asked laughing.

Crossly, Kendra showed her. As she stood up she had stepped on the hem of her riding skirt, and ripped several inches of the seam where the skirt was gathered to the belt.

“No tragedy,” said Marny. “Easy to mend. Haven’t you got a sewing kit?”

“Yes, my mother made me bring one, but I can’t sew.”

Marny smiled understandingly. “I’ll mend it. Bring me a needle and thread.”

Kendra brought the sewing kit from the wagon, and went with Marny into the cluster of willows that had served as their bathroom. Here she took off the skirt, and watched as Marny competently stitched up the tear. “I wish I could do that!” she exclaimed.

“You can’t have all the talents, darling, it wouldn’t be fair. You should see me trying to cook. My best coffee tastes like mud.” Marny snipped the thread. “There, that’s as good as new. Put on your skirt and you can go out in public again. Oh my Lord,” she broke off—“see what we’ve got now!”

On the last line her voice had dropped to a frightened whisper. Closing one hand around Kendra’s wrist, with the other she pointed to the grassland beyond the willows.

Out there in the sunshine Kendra saw two men, tattered and shaggy-haired, who had rambled down from the wooded hills. Their clothes were dirty and their shoes broken; one man was bareheaded and the other wore an old hat on the side of his head. They were still a good way off but they were coming nearer.

Kendra smothered a gasp of dismay. Still whispering, Marny added,

“Sailors. I know by the way they walk, I’ve seen hundreds in Honolulu. Some of those deserters Ning warned us about. Kendra—our men don’t know they’re here.”

Through the willows Kendra saw Pocket, his back to them, re-tying a loose tether. In the other direction Ted lay on the grass by the wagon, but the sailors were approaching from the opposite side and he had not seen them. Apparently they had not seen him either, and they had not noticed herself and Marny behind the willows. But they had seen the wagon and they were heading for it. A covered wagon meant travelers, and travelers carried stuff worth stealing. Maybe they thought this wagon, waiting its turn for the ferry, had been left unguarded—foolish, but some people were fools. The sailors’ pockets sagged as if they held guns. Knife-handles stuck up from their belts.

“They want the wagon,” Kendra whispered. Her lips were dry with fear.

“Wagon your grandmother,” Marny retorted. “They want us.”

Kendra started with terror. “They haven’t seen us!”

“They will,” Marny said wisely. “And when they do, they’ll forget about the wagon.”

Kendra thought of the little gun in the pocket of Marny’s belt. “I don’t want you to hurt anybody—but couldn’t you shoot so as not to hit them? Ted and Pocket would hear the shot.”

“I could fire, of course,” Marny said doubtfully, “but those men would know the shot came from this direction and they’d shoot back. And they wouldn’t be squeamish about not hitting anybody. I’d feel safer with some helpers. If Ted and Pocket would only look around!”

Ted and Pocket, however, had noticed nothing amiss. For though the wagon seemed untended, the sailors were taking no chances. They were walking carefully. On the thick grass their footsteps made no sound. The birds chirped, and in the clover the bees made a song of their own. Kendra shivered. Those birds and bees had seen the sailors—if only their songs were words, calling Pocket and Ted! Words—the wish gave her an idea.

With one hand she reached for the skirt she had taken off to be mended, while her other hand closed on Marny’s elbow.

“We can step outside,” she whispered. “Then we can pretend we don’t speak English and don’t know what they’re saying. That will give us time, and the men will hear us talking.”

Marny’s face brightened. Dangerous or not, Marny enjoyed adventure. “I get it. No spik Inglis. But let’s not go out together. I’ll hold them—you put on your skirt and run to call Ted in case he doesn’t hear.”

Kendra nodded agreement. Marny stood up and pushed aside a willow branch. She stepped out into the sunshine, took a few idle steps, and paused before a cluster of blue lupin. Bending over, she reached as if to pick the flowers, and the sailors caught sight of her.

As she had foretold, they forgot there was a wagon in the world. They rushed toward her, and in front of the willow group they met her. They could have seen Kendra too if they had looked through the willows, but they did not look; they saw nothing but Marny with her green eyes and her freckles and her lissom figure and her blaze of hair.

Quivering all over, Kendra drew on her skirt.

The bareheaded man loudly kissed both his hands at Marny, the one with the hat pulled it off with what he thought was a gallant bow. The first said, “Howdy, beautiful!” The other, “Say, ain’t you a sight to behold!”

Marny looked at them blankly. In a toneless voice she said, “No spik Inglis.”

They were not listening. They were gazing, and making plans to make love. They both began to talk at once. “I’m named Joe,” said the man who had kissed his hands. “He’s Bill. What’s your name?”

“Where’d you come from?” demanded Bill. “Where you going? Where’d you get that red hair?”

“Where’d you get all them freckles?” asked Joe.

Marny answered, “No spik Inglis.”

“We been everywhere all over the world,” said Joe, “but we ain’t seen nothing like you.”

Marny said impassively, “No spik Inglis.”

Bill and Joe were not very bright, but they did begin to hear what she said. “She don’t speak the language,” Bill said to Joe. “Foreign lady.”

Joe nodded. With a broad smile that showed several broken teeth, he inquired, “Mamzell, parlez-vous français?”

His accent was dreadful, but Kendra had learned enough at school to recognize that he was trying to speak French. Whether or not Marny knew this, she remained blank.

“She don’t speak Franch neither,” said Bill. “Lemme try.” With another low bow he asked, “¿Habla español, señorita?”

Marny gave him no answer.

“Hell,” Joe reproved him, “she ain’t no Mex. There ain’t no redheaded Mexes.”

“Well, she’s something, ain’t she?” Bill exclaimed. “Look, lady, we been all over. Sprechen Sie deutsch?”

Marny continued to look blank.

But Bill and Joe had sailed the seven seas, they had made love to girls in a hundred ports. They spoke no language well, but in their travels they had picked up a smattering of tongues in half the countries of the world. Bill demanded, “Parlate l’italiano?”

“I told you,” said Joe, “she ain’t no Mex, I bet she ain’t no Dago either. And she sure ain’t a Chink.” He pointed his grimy finger at Marny. “Look here, lady. You can talk something. Snakker De norsk? Spreekt U Nederlandsch? Come on now, wake up and
talk
!” As he spoke he clapped his dirty hand on her shoulder and gave her a shake.

Angrily Marny wrenched herself free and swallowed the plain English words she felt like saying to him. Behind the willows Kendra was trembling so hard that her fingers were having trouble pushing the buttons through the buttonholes. She did not know what languages those men were speaking but she did know Marny could not hold them at bay much longer. In another moment Marny would have to start talking, and how was she going to do it? She could not gabble “Fe fi fo fum”—they would know she had been making fools of them, they might really start shooting. Joe was now demanding,

“Er De dansk? Oh, come on now, lady!”

With a grin of inspiration Bill twirled his hat and suggested, “Maybe—Roosky?”

Kendra gathered up her unwieldy skirt. —Run, she commanded her legs. Run and don’t fall down.

“Talk!” Joe was yelling at Marny. “I said, talk!” He grabbed her again.