Calico Palace (23 page)

Kendra shrugged. “What do you want them to do?”

“They ought to be quiet,” said Mrs. Posey. “Here comes Nathan Larch. Somebody ought to speak to him. Letting his own son break the Sabbath.”

Kendra drew a sharp breath. Mrs. Posey always brought out her temper at its worst. “Why don’t you let other people alone?” she snapped.

“Why don’t you mind your manners?” Mrs. Posey snapped back. With another shake of the curls she toddled on over to where her husband sat passing Sunday in proper idleness.

Nathan Larch, riding up the strip, called to Kendra. When she went to meet him he told her the men were back from the fort. Nathan had just been down to the trading post and had seen them coming around the turn with several new gold seekers. Nathan was now on his way to the Calico Palace to play cards, and seeing her he thought she’d like to know.

Kendra thanked him and went to tell Ning and Ted. Before long she too saw the party, ten or a dozen men and a string of pack-horses, making their way up the strip among the trees and tents and wagons. Pocket and Hiram caught sight of her and waved.

The newcomers scattered; Delbert and Blackbeard rode toward the Calico Palace. Pocket and Hiram came on up to their own campsite. With the help of Ning and Ted they set about unloading their horses.

Yes, they said, they had had a good journey except that the sun had nearly roasted them. Yes, the gold was all safely on deposit with Smith and Brannan. The day they left Sutter’s Fort the temperature there had been a hundred and six. Yes, they had brought plenty of beans and salt meat and coffee, and new boots for them all—and such prices as things cost these days! You wouldn’t know the fort, full of men coming and going, and oh Lord was it hot.

To unload the horses and picket them in reach of grass and water took more than an hour. Worn out with heat and hard work, the four men flopped beside Kendra in the shade of a tree. Hiram gave her a weary grin.

“Kendra, I’m ashamed to be around you, dirty and sweaty as I am. Forgive me. I’m just too tired to wash.”

Sitting on the grass by him, Kendra smiled. “It’s all right, Hiram.”

“She’s a nice lady,” said Pocket.

Reaching into some stuffed corner of his raiment, Pocket took out a tin box holding dried apricots, a gift he had brought her from Sutter’s Fort. Kendra exclaimed, for it had been weeks since she had had such a luxury as dried fruit. How at ease she felt with these friends of hers. Strange to remember she had been married less than three months. Everything that had happened in that small time seemed more real than all that had happened before. And she felt so well—not a mere absence of sickness, but an extra awareness of being alive. She still was not going to have a baby and she was glad of this. Getting pregnant now would change things, and she did not want any change before the end of this golden summer.

“Shall I make coffee?” she asked.

“Coffee, hell,” Ted said with a chuckle. “They need a drink. I’ll take my canteen down to Marny’s and get it filled.”

“What a brilliant idea,” murmured Hiram. He lay on the grass, his big hands clasped under his head, his jutting chin pointed skyward. Ted went off toward his wagon to get the canteen.

“Ted looks so gentlemanly,” Pocket said to Kendra, “with his beard gone.”

As Kendra told him about the barber Pocket stroked his own hairy chin. “Maybe I’ll get him to shave me next Sunday,” he remarked. “Why, here comes Miss Marny!” Tired as he was, he sprang up.

Marny was coming toward them with Gene Spencer, the clerk they had seen at Smith and Brannan’s store. While Pocket went to meet them Hiram explained that Gene had come up to Shiny Gulch with their party, to try his luck at gold digging. Mrs. Posey gave a frosty stare as Marny walked past her, while Orville dutifully gazed over to the other side of the gulch. Pocket introduced Gene to Ning, who had not been to the store when they came by the fort, and Marny said,

“It’s hot and I’m tired of dealing. When Gene came in I decided to rest and hear the news.”

“Did you meet Ted?” asked Kendra. “He went to buy drinks.”

“No,” said Marny, “we were peeking into our wagon, where Delbert is now sleeping like a baby. But Ted didn’t need to buy liquor, I’ve brought some.” She showed them a coffee pot, which she had filled from one of the casks at the bar. “Hold your cups, boys.”

Hiram sat up. “Between the two of you, we’ll be nicely boozed up before dark.”

“After that ride to the fort and back,” said Marny, “you deserve it. Hold your cup, Gene.”

He grinned. “Well ma’am, a
good
Mormon would say no, but I guess I’m not a very good Mormon.”

“But you’re good company,” said Marny, pouring his drink. “Kendra?—oh come on, you can thin it with water, a teaspoonful won’t hurt you. Ning?”

Ning held out his cup and she gave him considerably more than a teaspoonful. Pocket gently declined. Marny poured a drink for herself.

“Cheers!” she said as she raised her cup. “Kendra, isn’t it good to have the fellows back safe!”

Kendra said it certainly was. Gene spoke to her, a little shyly.

“You’re all such old friends—I hope I’m not in the way, Mrs. Parks.”

“Of course not!” she exclaimed. “I’m glad to see you again, and I want you to meet Ted.”

“On the way up,” said Gene, “I heard a lot about Ted. And about Ning too.”

Ning sipped his drink, and his leathery face brightened with enjoyment. “I hear you’re getting crowded at the fort,” he remarked.

“Well, no matter where they’re headed,” said Gene, “it seems they all come by the fort. Looks like the whole country is on the way to the hills. As soon as the gold news hits a town, they leave. Monterey is empty, and San Jose too. I don’t know if the news has gone all the way to Los Angeles yet.”

“Have they heard it in Honolulu?” asked Marny.

“They’re getting it about now,” said Gene. “Two schooners left San Francisco for Honolulu the last week in May. They’ll spread the word.”

“The schooners almost didn’t leave,” said Hiram. “The captains had to give big pay raises to keep the seamen. All the vessels are having crew trouble. The men go ashore in San Francisco, they hear about gold, and they run.”

“They’re even deserting the army and navy,” said Pocket. “Tell them about Colonel Mason, Gene.”

Gene said Colonel Mason, military governor of California, was making a tour of the gold country. There were rumors that the fighting had ceased in Mexico, and officers with Colonel Mason had told Gene they were dreading the day when they would get word of a treaty of peace.

“But why?” Kendra asked in surprise. “Don’t they want the war to be over?”

“No, Mrs. Parks, they don’t,” Gene answered seriously. “I mean, they don’t want to get any official bulletin
saying
it’s over. Because then all the volunteers will have to be mustered out, and there aren’t enough men of the regular army to keep order, the way things are going. The thievery is awful.”

“That’s odd,” said Marny. “Nobody steals gold up here.”

“Not gold,” said Gene. “They expect to find plenty of that. But they steal horses and mules, to get here. Same for launches and rowboats, or anything that will take them across the bay. Same for cattle—they raid the ranches for meat. And when they start for the mines they’re in such a hurry they gallop right across fields and ruin the crops. And all over California, married men have walked out and left their families. They expect to come back with bags of gold and maybe they will, but in the meantime the kids haven’t got anything to eat.”

Gene sighed. Marny started pouring another round of drinks.

“And everybody,” said Gene, “wants Colonel Mason to do something. The ranchers want guards. The traders want their boats. The shipmasters want their sailors. The women want their husbands back.”

Ning twisted his lips to one side in a half humorous, half sympathetic smile. “What’s he gonta do?”

“Lord knows. He’s sending a report to Washington, but it’ll take months for the courier to get there and more months to bring back instructions. And in the meantime, if he loses half his men—” Gene shrugged.

“He’s doing his best,” said Hiram. “But I don’t believe there’s a man on earth who would know what’s best to do.”

Gene chuckled suddenly. “You know who’s one of the officers touring the mines with Colonel Mason? That quartermaster, Captain Folsom—the one who looked at gold in the early days and said it was yellow mica.”

They all laughed. “Have a drink, Gene?” asked Marny.

“Not yet, thanks, I haven’t finished this one. Well—Lord bless my soul! Here comes a man I used to know way back in New York.” Gene began scrambling to his feet. “Timothy Bradshaw, as I live and breathe! When did you get to California?”

Gene was taking a stride forward, his hand out. The others turned to look, for they had met nobody in camp named Timothy Bradshaw. But they saw only Ted, in his battered boots and trousers and the clean gingham shirt Kendra had washed as his reward for getting his whiskers off. He was carrying the canteen he had had filled at the Calico Palace bar.

Ted had stopped short. He looked like a man who had been kicked in the stomach. It seemed to Kendra that his face had turned a strange color. Certainly it had a strange look, hostile, nothing like the look of careless good humor she was used to. Ted began to say,

“I’m sorry, I believe you have made a—”

At the same moment, as though to stop their speaking any more, Hiram had sprung to his feet and was saying, “Gene, let me introduce—”

But neither Gene nor Ted was hearing him. A broad grin on his face, Gene had clapped his hand on Ted’s shoulder. “This is a real surprise! Is Della with you?”

“I told you—” said Ted, but his lips were so stiff that he could hardly make plain words, and Gene had already turned his head to speak to the others.

“Hiram, Pocket—why didn’t you tell me Tim was at Shiny Gulch? I used to work right in the same office with this fellow!”

By this time Ted’s shock had eased enough to let him speak clearly. He said,

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His voice was as harsh as the scrape of a horn spoon on a rock. His face was lined, as if he had suddenly grown older. His hand holding the canteen looked tense enough to crush it.

By this time they were all standing, Ning and Hiram and Pocket and Marny, and Kendra too. Kendra did not remember getting to her feet. It seemed to her that she did not remember anything about this whole day except Gene’s springing up to greet an old friend. “Timothy Bradshaw, as I live and breathe!… Is Della with you?”

Her throat was dry and her mouth had a bitter taste. She was conscious of the rub of her clothes on her skin. She felt hot all over, and then in spite of the warmth of the day she felt cold. She did not know what Gene’s words meant. She did not know who Della was. But she did know her magic island was breaking to pieces under her feet.

As Ted spoke, Gene’s grin had faded. He took his hand off Ted’s shoulder, and his sunburned face showed a blush of embarrassment as he stammered, “Gee—what—what’s wrong, Tim?”

Quietly, Pocket said, “Maybe
you’re
wrong, Gene.”

Gene shook his head, plainly mystified. “But gosh—I never—what’s the matter, Tim? Are you sick or something?”

In that same strange voice Ted said, “I don’t know you.”

Gene passed a hand over his forehead. “Well, say, I never was so surprised in my life. I could have sworn—if you’re not a ditto for Tim Bradshaw—”

Through her daze Kendra heard a rustle of skirts. Marny came a step closer and took Kendra’s hand in hers. Kendra felt it but did not turn. She was staring at Ted as if under a spell.

Gene was talking, floundering around among his own words. “Tim Bradshaw was a fellow—I mean this was back in New York before I took the Mormon ship—I knew him well—went to dinner at his house—his wife was named Della and she was a good cook, had an idea about apple pie—she would soak raisins in wine and put them in—”

That first day in San Francisco, when the errand boy had brought the box of groceries. “May I give you a hint? Soak a few raisins overnight in wine and add them to the pie filling.” —“What a good idea! Who told you that?” —“Oh, a woman I used to know.”

Gene stood looking helplessly at the ring of faces around him.

Hiram spoke firmly. “You heard what Ted said, Gene.”

Gene scratched the back of his neck. “Ted?” he repeated.

“This man’s name,” said Hiram, “is Ted Parks. You made a mistake.”

Gene gave a bewildered look at Kendra. She had told him she wanted him to meet “Ted.”

Kendra heard herself speaking. Her voice sounded rough in her own ears.

“He did not make a mistake, Hiram.”

She felt Marny’s hand tighten on hers. At the other side, she felt Ning take her free hand in his. She noticed how different their hands were. Marny’s was smooth as silk; Ning’s hand felt like the bark of a tree.

There had been an instant of silence after she spoke. But only an instant. Now Gene was exclaiming,

“Gosh, I’m sorry!”

“Damn your soul,” said Ted. He turned around and strode off, toward the highest end of the strip where the river flowed down around the higher mountains. He did not look back. He simply walked on and on till he was out of sight among the trees.

For the first time since Gene had sprung up to greet Ted, Ning spoke. He said,

“Well, boys, it looks like I don’t pick ’em as good as I thought.”

Kendra felt as confused as dust in the wind. Her only clear thought was that she had to run away and hide somewhere alone, and get used to knowing that she was alone again, and would be alone as long as she lived. Jerking her hands from Marny and Ning, she turned to go, but before she could do so she felt herself held again. This time it was the big powerful hand of Hiram, and he had grasped her shoulder with a grip she could not break.

“You’re not leaving yet,” said Hiram. He spoke in a voice of command.

“Yes, I am!” she cried. “Let me go!”

“No,” said Hiram. “Not until I’ve said something. Wait, Gene. You hear this too.”

With his free hand he beckoned Pocket and Ning and Marny. They all came close. Holding Kendra where she was, Hiram spoke.