Port Hazard (20 page)

Tulip accepted the hat from Wheelock and carried it into the wings. A moment later, he reappeared in the far left aisle and held out the hat, which was taken reverently by the man seated nearest him, who reached inside without lowering his head, rummaged about, and withdrew his closed fist. During the ten minutes it took for the hat to make the rounds, Wheelock entertained his listeners with an account of Jeb Stuart's activities during the war that stirred even me, ending with the general's own delirious refighting of all his old battles during his last moments and his one-sided conversation with his eldest daughter, who had died at the very moment he was deploying his troops on the Rappahannock.

“I offer this epitaph, spoken from the heart by General Lee upon learning of his old friend's death,” the alderman concluded: “‘I can scarcely think of him without weeping.'”

Someone in the audience sobbed for the fate of a man who had died when he himself was too young to lift a rifle. Wheelock was a first-rate political hack, there was no doubt about that. He could wring tears from a doorknob.

When Tulip had finished his errand and returned the hat to its owner, Wheelock dismissed him to the wings. Wheelock cradled the hat in one arm, gripping his stick in his other hand, and called for more light. The gas globes in the corners must have been fed from a central pipe; they glowed more brightly, illuminating the orchestra as if the sun had rolled out from behind a cloud.

“Please oblige me by holding aloft the coins you selected so that I may see them.”

Clothing rustled. The light found dull silver in most of the upraised hands; the hat had contained forty or fifty cartwheel dollars. However, even at that distance I could pick out the gold double eagles glittering among them. I counted eight.

“Will the gentlemen
who drew the gold pieces join me?”

Some toes were stepped on and a couple of forage caps dislodged from a couple of heads, but the eight men found their way to the aisles and proceeded up the stairs that led to the wings and onto the stage. Most of them appeared to be in their twenties, self-conscious in their uniforms. One was nearly my age, wearing a corduroy coat rubbed shiny at the elbows over civilian trousers reinforced with leather and custom-made boots, the last worth more than everything else he had on put together. His sandy hair spilled to his collar and he wore a Custer moustache that concealed his mouth and most of his chin. There was something about his pigeon-toed walk, his backward-leaning posture, that suggested a lifetime in the saddle, and not necessarily with a lasso in his hand pursuing stray calves. I knew a guerrilla when I saw one; and I knew without having to think hard on the subject that here was the source of that bone-chilling rebel yell.

Wheelock made a show of examining each coin, as if looking for signs of counterfeiting, then returned it to its owner, leaning forward as he did so to whisper something. Some of the faces paled. In these cases, he stared at them until they nodded, then turned to the next man. When he was finished, he raised his voice to address the audience. The men with the double eagles stood strung out on either side of him like an unrehearsed chorus. A number of them were still shaken.

“I will not announce the names of the loyal members of the Sons of the Confederacy who stand before you,” Wheelock said. “This is a precaution, and I trust an unnecessary one, as you have all sworn an oath of secrecy concerning what takes place beneath this roof, as well as to come to the assistance of a brother of the order under any and all circumstances. I remind those of you who know their names of the penalty of violating that pledge. We are at war, gentlemen. Make no mistake on that point.”

A murmur thrummed through the orchestra. He raised his stick and it trailed off into silence.

“As each of these soldiers presented himself, I spoke a name in his ear. I did not speak the same name twice, and all will be known to the membership presently. Each man has committed the information to memory.

“At this time I ask Sergeant Tulip to return to the stage.”

The Hoodlum came out from the wings with a hesitating step. He looked puzzled. This wasn't in the programme.

Skin prickled on my back. I wasn't sure why. My hand closed around the grip of the Deane-Adams in its holster. I hadn't willed it to.

Wheelock placed a hand on Tom Tulip's shoulder. “Sergeant, this meeting is about to adjourn. I ask you to lead the membership in singing ‘The Bonnie Blue Flag.'”

Tulip appeared relieved and nervous at the same time. He probably hadn't sung in public since the last time he'd been drunk in a saloon, and from his unease it was clear he was as sober as a parson. However, he stepped forward, removed his cap, held it over his left breast, and raised his voice in an uncertain tenor:

When the song began, a few voices joined in from the audience, but the spirit didn't spread, and by the end of the second line Tulip was singing alone. He noticed it; his voice broke on “threatened.” But he continued in a wavering tone. The first “hurrah” came out as a sob. He knew what was coming before I did.

The long-haired guerrilla stepped up behind him, hauled a Navy Colt from beneath his belt, and shot him through the head.

Tom Tulip's chin snapped down as if he were taking a bow, then jerked back up. He sank to his knees and fell on his face. The powder-flare had set his hair on fire, but it smoldered out quickly. Almost immediately the entire theater stank of sulfur and scorched hair and flesh.

The echo of the report rang through dead silence. Most of the faces onstage were pale now to the point of translucence. One of the younger men turned and vomited. A new stench joined the others.

The Deane-Adams was in my hand. I took a step back into the shadows of the box and drew a bead on Wheelock's chest. Then on the guerrilla's. I couldn't decide where to begin.

Wheelock was speaking again. I held off.

“Shed no tears for Sergeant Tulip. He was an opportunist, who joined the Sons merely to curry my favor and advance his own larcenous interests. However, that is not why he died.

“War is not won on the field of battle alone. The tragedy of Appomattox Courthouse taught us that, if it taught us nothing else. Diplomacy is a weapon as powerful as steel and shot. The Confederacy failed the first time because it had no allies in this hemisphere.

“This morning, I met with Owen Goodhue. You cannot fail to have heard the name. He has posted his vigilante manifesto throughout San Francisco, along with a list of the names of those whom he believes must die if the city is to live. To carry out this sentence of death, he was prepared to put the entire Barbary Coast to the torch, and to slay as many as attempt to stand between him and the condemned. Tom Tulip's name was near the top of that list.”

I lowered the revolver. This was one politicial speech I wanted to hear to the end.

“The Reverend Goodhue has agreed to call off his crusade if the Sons of the Confederacy will carry out the sentence he has imposed. With Barbary at peace, we will be able to wage our war against the Union without interference from the vigilantes.”

He passed his stick along the line of men standing beside him. All were rapt, except the guerrilla. He was busy replacing the charge he'd fired from the Navy.

“Each of these men has drawn a gold coin issued by the United States Mint here in San Francisco,” Wheelock said. “It is symbolic of the enemy we have sworn to oppose, as well as the individual he has by his acceptance of the token agreed to destroy by his own hand. The names are as follows:

“‘Little Dick' Dugan, murderer;

“Tom Tulip, procurer;

“Ole Anderson, shylock;

“‘Hugger-Mugger' Charlie, counterfeiter;

“Fat John, Chinaman;

“Axel Hodge, procurer;

“Nan Feeny, harlot.

“One of these has fallen. The others must die by sunset tomorrow.

“You will, of course, have noted that there are seven names on this list, and that eight gold coins were drawn. I have added one more; a redundancy, I must confess, because his death was ordained two months ago, but he has thus far eluded his fate. He is in Barbary at present. His name is Page Murdock. He is a deputy United States marshal, and he is a dangerous man. The soldier who slays him will rise far in the ranks.”

More murmurs. Under other circumstances I'd have felt the compliment.

“General, sir, I volunteer for that there duty.”

The guerrilla had a Missouri accent, no surprise. He had Centralia and Lone Jack written all over his lean sunburned face.

“That won't be necessary, Lieutenant. You've discharged your responsibility. Your brothers have not yet tasted blood.”

“I'll do it for one of them plug dollars. It wasn't Lieutenant when I rid with Arch Clements. I finished out a captain. I won't hide from my name, neither. It's Frank Hennessey, and I cracked a cap on my first bluebelly before most of these here children was borned.”

“Your former rank is irrelevant. The order stands.”

The way Hennessey rolled his pistol before he put it away spoke pages about what he thought of Wheelock's order.

That made up my mind. I took aim on Hennessey's broad chest.

A hand closed around the revolver. I nearly tripped the trigger from shock.

Beecher's voice was harsh in my ear. “We'll be up to our chins in baby rebels.”

“Did you see it?” I said.

“I seen it. I heard what came after, too. Now ain't the time. Let me work around to the other side. After you take your shot I'll pin 'em down while you hit the stairs.”

“What about you?”

“I started out a brakeman. I've clumb up and down freight cars and hot boilers going seventy. I reckon I can find my way down a building standing still.”

“Where's Nero?”

“He's out like the cat. I give him another tap just to make sure. Count to thirty.”

“Twenty's all you get,” I said. “My aim's better when I'm mad. And I don't intend to stop with that shaggy bushwhacker.”

“I never thought you would.” He slipped out of the box.

While counting to
twenty, I set up my shooting stand.

I tugged the Peacemaker I'd taken away from Nero out from under my belt, where the curved walnut grip had been digging a hole in the small of my back, inspected the chambers, and laid it on the polished mahogany of the box's railing. That made it handy in the unlikely event I managed to empty the five-shot before someone in the theater located the source of the reports and returned fire. I didn't expect to leave that box alive.

Shooting men isn't like shooting birds. With birds, you start with the one farthest away and work your way to the nearest, that being the sure target. With men, you pick out the most dangerous first, because you might not get another chance. Standing partially behind one of the side curtains, I lined up the Deane-Adams' sights on the third button of Frank Hennessey's shirt, drew back the hammer on the count of nineteen, and squeezed the trigger.

I didn't wait to see if I'd hit him. Trusting to the self-cocker, I swung the muzzle toward Wheelock and fired again. For a ward-heeler, he had fast reflexes; at the sound of the first shot, he'd flung away his stick and hurled himself toward the floor of the stage, and I couldn't tell if he was nicked or if the slug had missed him and gone through the Stars and Bars behind him. It seemed to me the flag snapped as if struck by a gust, but that could have been the wind of the bodies scrambling for cover.

Three shots barked on the other side of the auditorium. I ducked, but none of them came close to my box, and when I heard the wham of a shotgun blast I knew it was Beecher, giving me cover with his Le Mat from a box opposite. I saw the smoke there and knew it was time to leave.

I didn't. I had to know if I'd hit Hennessey.

The stage was a hive, Confederate Sons colliding with one another trying to get to the wings, slipping on blood, which may have been Tom Tulip's. They were bailing out of the seats as well, trampling their fellows and making a mess of their pledge to come to the aid of brothers in need. For Beecher, it was like shooting fish in a bucket.

I searched the stage—and drew a sleeve across my eyes to clear them of smoke. I thought I'd seen Tom Tulip rise from the floor. He was still there afterward, in a cautious crouch. I couldn't fathom that. A head shot at close range leaves no room for uncertainty. Then I saw him sliding backward on his heels, spotted a corduroy sleeve across his chest under his rag-doll arms, and I knew it was Hennessey using Tulip's corpse for cover as he tried for a vantage point. At that instant, smoke puffed over Tulip's right shoulder and a fistful of splinters jumped up from the railing a foot to my right. The guerrilla had spotted me.

I sank down on one knee, steadied my arm in a downward slant across the railing, and fired at Tulip's throat. It offered the least amount of resistance to a bullet intended to pierce his body and hit what was behind it. The Confederate flag jerked. I was hitting high and to the right. I'd messed up the sights when I struck Nero's skull with the barrel instead of the butt. I made the mental adjustment and tried again. Just as I fired, one of the Sons who had drawn a double eagle crossed in front of Hennessey. The Son threw up his hands, ran out from under his body, and fell on his back. I caught a flash of corduroy slipping around the edge of the flag and punched a hole through one of the stars.

Wheelock had spotted me, too. He was standing again, near the front of the stage, shouting something and pointing his stick toward my box. This time I overcompensated, shot low, and shattered a footlight. Fire licked out and found something it liked; a decorative curtain tied back to frame the stage caught. Flames raced up it, across the tassels hanging down in a straight line across the top of the stage, and lapped at the gilded wood of the proscenium. The alderman put the stick to its intended use and hobbled offstage on the double. I tried for him a third time. The hammer snapped on an empty cartridge.

A bullet pierced the side curtain just above my hat and slammed into the plaster near the door of the box. Hennessey, firing from cover, or someone else who had seen Wheelock pointing, had joined the fight. It was time to make my exit.

I leathered the five-shot, scooped up Nero's Peacemaker, tore open the door, and threw myself across the carpeted passage, flattening my back against the wall on the other side and looking both ways with the Colt raised. I was alone. I ran for the stairs.

Two men in gray were coming up from the ground floor. The one in front had a pistol in his hand. A slug from Nero's .44 struck him like a fist and he fell backward, taking his partner with him. I clattered down, leapt across the tangle they made on the floor at the foot of the stairs, snapped a shot into a crowd of Sons barreling my way toward the exit, and ran out through the foyer. It was filling with smoke. Somewhere on the edge of hearing, a fire bell clanged; that would be Captain Dan's own company, on its way to prevent Barbary from burning down yet again.

“Here's where I make good on that Yankee gold.”

That harsh Missouri twang cut through the smoke like water gushing from a hose. The guerrilla's rangy figure stood across the open door to the street with feet spread and his Navy Colt thrust out at shoulder height, the muzzle six feet from my face.

I jerked the Peacemaker's trigger. Both shots roared simultaneously, and I knew we were both dead.

Then the doorway was clear. Frank Hennessey lay on his face on the floor of the Bella Union with a dark stain spreading like crow's wings between his shoulderblades.

Beecher stood on the boardwalk, smoke uncoiling from the Le Mat's top barrel. His left arm hung limp and covered with blood.

“First white man I ever shot,” he said. “They'd lynch me for it in Louisiana.”

Then he collapsed.

I knelt over him, found a weak pulse in his neck. The volunteers vaulting down from the firewagon, shining in their oilskin capes and leather helmets, were too busy uncoiling hose and hoisting their axes to help. I shouted to them that there was a man bound and unconscious in one of the boxes upstairs.

“Who the hell done that?” one of them asked. But he was in too much of a hurry to wait for the answer.

Beecher was still conscious. He said he'd shattered his arm when he lost his grip while climbing down the outside of the building and fell ten feet. A shard of polished bone gleamed white where it stuck out of the skin above his elbow. “I think the building hit a downgrade.” He grinned weakly.

“Save it for a pretty nurse.” I tied my neckerchief around his upper arm and used the barrel of the Colt to twist it tight.

“That ain't proper. Shove over. I seen it done.”

Something hard bumped my shoulder. It was an iron ball attached to a chain. Axel Hodge bent over Beecher, undid the tourniquet one-handed, tied a different kind of knot—it looked nautical—and twisted the barrel until the bleeding slowed. Flames were shooting through the Ancient's roof, flickering off his bowler and bearded face.

I said. “He needs a doctor.”

“They're all drunks and hoppies hereabouts. He needs the Chinaman.”

“What Chinaman?”

“Fat John, who the hell else? Who you think saved me own arm?”

It was my first time in the room behind F'an Chu'an's tearoom in the White Peacock. It contained a cot where I assumed the tong leader slept, some good lamps with glass shades that shed clean light from oil not obtainable from the local pushcart peddlers, a Persian rug ancient by standards unknown in California, and polished teakwood shelves lined with bottles and jars labeled in Chinese characters. It smelled like an apothecary shop. Shau Wing and Shau Chan, the knickknack cousins, helped us lay Beecher on the cot and fetched items from the shelves. F'an Chu'an snapped orders at them in Chinese. He cut off Beecher's sleeve with steel scissors, removed shreds of cloth from the wound with forceps, and poured chloroform into a clean handkerchief, which he spread over his patient's face. When Beecher was breathing evenly, he removed the handkerchief, opened a morocco-leather case, and spread it open on his workbench, revealing a glittering collection of saws, scalpels, and bone chisels. I was feeling faint already, from the fumes and exhaustion, and as the Shaus stepped forward to hold Beecher down by his shoulders in case he woke up in the middle of the operation, I removed myself to the tearoom. That was when I realized Axel Hodge had left. I would not see him again for a very long time.

At the end of an hour, the leader of the Suey Sing Tong joined me. He had removed his apron and put on his green robe. His face was drawn. He was too tired to reach up and pinch his lip when he spoke, and I had to ask him to repeat himself in order to understand what he was telling me. He'd had to remove the arm. Beecher was sleeping, but he'd lost a lot of blood and his recovery was in the hands of the gods. I offered to pay him, as his earlier debt had been discharged. He declined, explaining that there were others to whom he was still obliged. That meant nothing, but then I might not have heard him right. That cleft lip was one more barrier between us.

The night was overcast, but Barbary's jagged edges stood out starkly against the glow of the Bella Union in flames. Fire bells clanged, residents in varying stages of undress bustled about hauling baskets and wheelbarrows piled with clocks, clothing, and other personal possessions, in case the flames spread to their homes the way they had so many times before. I was too tired to care if the place burned down around me. I wobbled back to the Slop Chest and threw myself into my berth. I didn't bother to take off even my boots, but I'd reloaded the Deane-Adams and I lay with it on my chest and my hand on top of it, ready for any of Wheelock's Hoodlums and Confederates who came looking for me. I'd left Nero's Peacemaker in Chinatown.

I awoke well after sunup and went into the saloon without stopping to change clothes or splash water on my face. I was anxious to learn if Beecher had survived the night, but I needed a drink more than news.

The room was deserted except for Pinholster, who was busy playing a game of two-handed Patience against himself. He appeared to be winning. I plunked myself down across from him.

“You look as if you just crawled out from under a charred beam.” He laid a six of hearts on a seven of clubs.

“I did. Where is everyone?”

“Billy's helping put out the fire. I'll wager you were unaware he's a volunteer with Wheelock's brigade. The town is filled with such ironies. I haven't seen Hodge since yesterday.”

“I saw him last night. Any news about Wheelock?”

“He seems to have vanished. It's unlike him not to make a show of himself on these occasions, directing the pumping crews and working the winch; man of the people, so long as he doesn't expose himself to actual danger. Unlike him, I say, but not surprising. One hears rumors.”

That was an opening, and a pretty obvious one for as good a gambler as he was, but I didn't walk through it. “Fire under control?”

“They contained it to the Ancient. I understand it's a dead loss. They'll rebuild it, of course. I heard they pulled a body out.”

“Wheelock's bodyguard?”

“No, a stranger. They say he was shot. Another local mystery, like Sid the Spunk's disappearance.” He looked up from the card he'd just laid down.

“You forgot that one's solved. So the number of mysteries stays the same.”

“I think there are some more. However, it's not up to me to investigate any of them. I'm to Chicago on the noon train. They can spread my ashes on Lake Michigan.”

“I thought you intended to stay through tonight.”

“There is no tonight. Tonight is canceled. You didn't hear?”

I was tired of hearing him ask questions he knew the answers to. I was just plain tired, but this morning I was more tired of Pinholster than anyone, even Daniel Webster Wheelock. He was too quit of life to make good company.

He went through his deck, looking for the black deuce he needed to win the game. “This morning's edition of the
Call
will be late, I'm afraid. They had to remake the front page twice: first to report the fire, then to carry the tragic news of Owen Goodhue's death.”