by Daniel Knapp
Throughout that summer Carter treated Moses like his own son, teaching him mechanical skills, telling him of the outside world. In September the boy pleaded to stay on for several more months, telling Solana he was still undecided about what he wanted to pursue. Esther consented. Moses seemed so happy she could not bring herself to send him back to Marysville.
He had stayed with Solana in the apartment over the school the entire time, coming to dinner with Esther and her husband each Sunday afternoon and occasionally during the week. In early December Esther asked that they spend a weekend at her home. It was time to help him come to a decision. Solana had gone to bed after dinner on the Sunday Esther finally mustered the courage to bring up the subject.
"Moses don't want to be no priest, do you?" Bull Carter responded, slapping the boy on the shoulder.
"I would rather work for you, Mr. Carter—"
"Come on, boy, I told you you could call me Bull. We're friends."
"—or fight with the soldiers in the war."
"Now who put that idea into his head?" Esther frowned at her husband.
"He ain't gonna be no fool as to volunteer," Carter said, laughing. "Are yuh, boy? Wants to learn all about the railroad business. Be a railroad man. Don't yuh?"
"I want to stay with you, Bull. You're… better than a father."
"See? What I tell you, Esther? I told him about the California Battalion they're formin' up in Frisco. But he knows how much fun this railroad buildin's gonna be once we get started next month, don'tcha boy?"
"Well, Mr. Carter and I will discuss this further. I think it's time for you to turn in, Moses. Don't you?"
Moses kissed Esther on the cheek and obediently left the dining room. At the foot of the stairs, he decided to go back into the kitchen for a glass of water. Returning, he stopped for a moment near the dining room door, not believing what he was hearing.
Carter was certain the boy was upstairs in his room. "Why don't you stop fightin' it? He may be a goddamn half-breed Injun, but he's not as stupid as his mother. He don't want to be no namby-pamby priest. Damn Catholics. Can't stand them hardly no more than Injuns."
"Bull…!"
Carter rolled right over Esther's words. "Goddamn it! The only reason you're talkin' this stand is… Esther, I've done what you asked, put my arm around that goddamned, stinkin' little Injun bastard and made him feel welcome. Against everything I feel about them heathen…"
Moses eased backward in the hallway, stunned, tears spilling down his cheeks.
"You have no right to speak about another human being that way," he heard Esther say. "The boy thinks you're really fond of him…"
Moses needed to hear no more. Going up the back stairs, he quietly packed his bag, looked at Solana for a moment as she lay sleeping, then started down the hall. At the door to Esther's bedroom, he stopped and stared at the daguerreotype sitting on the night table next to her bed. Moving quietly, he walked to the table, removed Esther's picture from its frame, then stole down the back stairs again and out through the kitchen door.
They didn't discover Moses was gone until the next morning. It took Esther the better part of three days to journey up to the school at Marysville and then return after learning he was not there. An hour after coming home she finally put two and two together, turned around without unpacking her bags, and, taking Solana with her, boarded the paddle-wheeler Sacramento for the trip downriver to San Francisco.
When she arrived at the recruiting center at Platt’s Hall, the officer in charge told her the California Battalion had sailed for Boston two days before, December 10, 1862. No one recalled a young, dark-haired boy with somewhat sharp features. In any case, she was told, there was no possibility that a fifteen-year-old would be accepted for service.
She hoped Moses would be there, at her house, or at least at the school for Indian children, when she and Solana got back. He wasn't. Only when she sat on the edge of her bed, damning Bull Carter and crying for Moses, did she notice that the daguerreotype was missing from its oval frame.
Sixty-eight
Sacramento
December 20, 1863
No sign of Moses in over a year. I pray the boy is safe. Not a word from Alex since his letter of June 28, at which time he was preparing his battalion for Gettysburg. I fear, no, by now I am almost convinced, that he rests in that bloodied earth where Pickett's long gray line was finally turned back. Save for the fact that young Todd, who will be a year old in February, is robust and healthy and brings me a measure of joy each day, there is little to kindle the Christmas spirit. Thank God Mr. Carter has informed me he will remain at the railhead through the New Year…
She continued to busy herself at the school, where she had begun teaching again as soon as she had weaned the infant. Blessedly, Bull Carter was rarely home, and Esther spent most nights in the apartment over the school with the baby and Solana, who cared for him during the day. When Carter was in Sacramento, she moved over to his house and went through the motions of their marriage. She would keep their bargain, but she hated him now, rarely spoke with him unless it was absolutely necessary.
It went beyond Carter's part in Moses' disappearance. She loathed all of them now—Huntington, who had duped his own country in time of war; Hopkins; Stanford, whom they had successfully stuffed into the governor's mansion; and Crocker, whose brutality toward his laborers sickened her. She knew Carter vied with his half-brother in these horrible acts out at the railhead each day. What they had done to Judah she could never forgive them for. The fiery little genius had finally taken a stand against the false survey. They had in turn offered to buy him out for $100,000 or let him buy them out, if he could raise the millions they asked for. Optimistic until the very end, Judah had started on a trip east with expectations of rounding up the necessary investors. But his long battle with the Big Four had taken its toll. Crossing the Isthmus, he contracted cholera. Esther read of his death in New York in the Sacramento Bee just as 1863 came to an end.
In the same edition she learned that General John C. Fremont had been relieved by Lincoln of his supply command in the wake of a kickback scandal. It was only one of many articles about the war she read avidly. She followed the progress of the Union Army southward and prayed that Alex would be mentioned.
By late summer of 1864, she gave up even the remnant of hope for him she had somehow maintained. For distraction she turned her attention once again to the Comstock. Almost miraculously, Ralston had stayed on his feet and kept the value of their investments rising through several crises. When the mines were flooded in late 1862, dropping the bottom out of what had been partially an inflated market built on worthless desert land, Ralston bought up depressed shares on credit after prices were driven down, then helped finance a pump system, and came out ahead of almost everyone. Somehow he walked the wire over the most rapacious mining market the world had ever seen. Dozens of men around him had fallen, ruined by swindling, natural disasters, lawsuits, and the luck of the draw. But Ralston not only kept on making money for himself, Esther, and two dozen other investors, he made enough to establish the Bank of California.
By the time she stopped in at Ralston's new offices during a visit to San Francisco in the summer of 1864, his bank had millions invested in foundries, suppliers, factories, and forges as well as the mines themselves. Stocks in the Ophir, Yellow Jacket, Gould and Curry, Chollar, Belcher, Kentuck, and Empire mines were selling for as much as $22,000 a share; dividends were exceeding an unheard-of $100. Twenty thousand men working for huge companies had already ripped $20 million-worth of ore out of the Nevada earth.
Esther frowned when she recognized the real estate man, William Sharon, as he hurried out through Ralston's crowded, buzzing waiting room. Ralston leaned out of his office and glanced around. There was an uncharacteristically troubled look on his face when he spotted Esther and quickly motioned her inside.
"Do you know the man who was just in here very well?"
Ralston frowned. "Sharon? Well eno
ugh. Former real estate man who just lost his shirt—one hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of shirt. Just like I may lose mine in that damn Comstock. I should say my shirt, and, ah, possibly your dress, if you'll pardon me."
"He's a dishonest man."
"Sharon? Never heard that before. Sharp poker player. Hardnosed. The meanest expression I've ever seen. But dishonest?"
"He tried to cheat me once when I was looking for a house in Sacramento."
"Well, there's a little dishonesty in most of us, isn't there, Esther?"
"I suppose there is." More than a little in my case, she thought.
"I'll be wary of him. But in a way, I hope he's dishonest enough to deal with that pack of sharks in Virginia City. I'm banking on Sharon."
"Banking on him?"
"I just gave him a job as our branch manager there. I have a hunch he'll come through with his promise to find ways to get the mines working, and the profits rolling in again. Just out of pure hatred. He was sold back his own shares in one mine just before it closed down."
"I don't understand. It's summer? What's happened?"
"The mines are flooded again. They reached about five hundred feet and ran into an underground river. No one's figured a way to get past it."
"What does that mean to us financially?"
"It means a nightmare for me, considering all the bank has invested. You? I've restricted your Comstock investments to one-quarter of what's coming in. But I have reinvested all the mining profits, as you agreed. Some of the other things I've sold and shifted to mine-oriented items. Of the two million you're worth on this end, Esther—"
"Two million dollars?"
"Two million dollars. But I'd say about three quarters of it is in mining paper and allied stock-holdings."
"Billy, this frightens me."
"Don't worry, Esther. We'll find a way out of it."
"I hope so, for your sake. You've done well enough for me, despite this setback. And I'm well taken care of now, no matter what happens in Nevada. But I don't like it, Billy. And I think you'll be sorry you ever got involved with Sharon."
"You'll be worth three million after we pull out of this!"
Esther smiled. She had grown attached to Ralston, wishing only the best for him. "Billy, listen to me. I don't really care about that. It's you I'm concerned about. I see you looking at the calendar, getting ready for your next meeting before this one is even through. Harried. Worried. Tired."
"Esther—"
"Listen to me! Please! I don't care half as much about what happens at the Comstock as I do about what's happening to you. It's changing you, all this. And it worries me."
She was right about Sharon, and right about Ralston as well. Just as right as he was about pumping the value of her stock even higher than it was before Virginia City's second Mount Davidson flood. She didn't like what he was doing any more than she cared for the increasing changes in Ralston as the months quickly passed.
Esther had moved back into her own house after the tenant who replaced Stanford pushed on with the hordes moving to Virginia City. She had reached a tacit understanding with Carter—she would not bring down the scandal of divorce or the embarrassment of a formally announced separation if she saw him only when he picked up young Todd for an occasional outing. Once settled into her old home, she resumed teaching and kept track of Ralston's increasingly indefensible tactics.
She learned that Sharon had discovered tons of hastily dumped waste at the mills as well as the mines. The leavings were loaded with ore. It was also evident, he reported, that the veins ran well below the water level. Rather than solve the underground water problem immediately, he suggested the Bank of California take advantage of it in a way that would result in control of practically every mine in the Comstock.
Ralston went along with Sharon's scheme. When other San Francisco banks refused to lend small-mill owners additional funds, the Bank of California offered it to them at 2 percent a month interest. With pumping stalled, the owners quickly failed to meet their notes. Sharon then foreclosed, and Ralston took the small mills over. They worked the same financial squeeze on as many of the still partially operating mines as they could, then forced their new partners to send their ore to the bank-controlled mills. The larger processing plants soon went into bankruptcy. In turn, they were bought out at depressed prices as well.
Esther pondered the vicious cycle of starving and buying out competitors as she sat on her porch watching young Todd, now three and a half years old, playing in her fenced front yard with a new puppy. It was Indian summer, the foliage was still green, and the atmosphere of warm peace that had followed the end of the Civil War and the death of Lincoln was in sharp contrast to events just across the Sierras in Virginia City. The tactics Ralston and Sharon were using were just as inexcusable as the bullwhip, bone-crushing approach Crocker and her husband were employing as they pushed the railroad farther up into the Sierra foothills toward Dutch Flat. She could see little difference between men dying from exhaustion at the railhead every other day and others who starved financially in Virginia City and took their lives in the wake of ruin.
She knew she was a part of it, at least indirectly, and her conscience demanded she remove herself once again from involvement of any kind. But, clinging to the undefined notion that her wealth, her connection with the railroad would be of use when Mosby inevitably returned to California, she rationalized, found arguments for her position, and finally repressed all though of disengaging herself…
Until that Sunday morning, early in 1866, when Bull Carter arrived at her house to pick up Todd and take him to see his first locomotive.
"Letter came for yuh up to the house," Carter said, picking the child up in his arms. "Somethin' in it besides words. Here… I'll, ah, have the boy back to you by midafternoon."
She waited until Carter had driven off with her son in the buckboard before opening the unsettlingly heavy envelope. Enclosed she found the daguerreotype of herself that had been missing since Moses' disappearance. Quickly, she unfolded the letter itself.
Dear Mrs. Carter:
Please forgive the long delay in getting this to you. I have been preoccupied with reestablishing myself here since the close of hostilities, and at first did not even know your name. The enclosed tintype was among the personal effects of Private Moses Cable, who gave up his life in battle at Aldie, Virginia, while serving under my command. Upon returning to San Francisco, I took the liberty of inquiring at the shop of Mr. G. R. Fardon, whose imprint I found on the back of the daguerreotype, as to your identity and address. I do not know your relationship with young Private Cable, but assume you are family.
I deeply regret bearing such sad news, but be assured that Private Cable was conspicuous in his valor and died bravely for his country. I have several of Private Cable's personal effects, including an exquisitely wrought stone spearhead, a set of rosary beads, and a heart-shaped amulet, woven, apparently, from the fur of a wild animal. Since I am sure you would want these articles, I have enclosed my new address at Bear Point, just across the bay from San Francisco. Should you find difficulty in locating my home, it is just up the shore to the west of General James Atterbury's former residence.
Please feel free to call on me at your convenience, as I expect to be here preparing a report of the battalion's experiences in the late war for the State Adjutant General during the coming weeks.
Once again, I am so deeply sorry, and share with you the grief I know you must be experiencing with this unhappy news.
Your most obedient servant,
D. W. C. Thompson, Major (ret.)
California Battalion
2d Massachusetts Cavalry
Esther fingered the stone spearhead set in a base of bear claws, as Thompson tried to explain why he could tell her very little about the circumstances surrounding the boy's death. There could be no other reason for Moses adopting her last name unless he instinctively knew.
"I had no idea he was so young. He seeme
d to have attached himself to a fellow, eventually given a field commission as a lieutenant, in San Francisco. Lied about his age, I suppose, and got away with it in the confusion of early '63."
"Didn't anyone bother to check his age?"
"Madam, please forgive me, but I must point out it was an extremely hectic time. Had he been more closely connected to me, personally, I might have noticed."
"You didn't know him well, then?"
"Well enough. I knew all my men. But he was not among the cavalrymen and officers I spent most of my time with. There were four hundred men under me, you understand."
"You say he wasn't with your cavalry?"
"No, he was assigned to a detachment of unmounted. They served primarily as picket guards. In battle he was a flag-bearer."
"And you didn't actually see him killed?"
"No, madam. I was told of the peculiar nature of his death by his friend, Lieutenant, then Sergeant, Harlan Cooper."
"What do you mean, peculiar?"
"We were unexpectedly overrun by a superior force of Mosby's guerrilla cavalry at Aldie. Most of our engagements were with the raiders, as they were called. Very difficult business for almost a year. Back and forth across the Potomac and just about every hill in northern Virginia."
Esther's mouth was suddenly dry.
"Mosby?"
"Yes. Colonel John Singleton Mosby. In any case, they caught us by surprise. Overran us and took quite a number of prisoners. Killed and wounded many of our men, Lieutenant Cooper among them, and then they were repulsed. The battle was over, and we were peppering their retreat from across a meadow when Private Cable inexplicably dashed after them across the field. He was ordered back several times. At least once by Lieutenant Cooper. To no avail. For some reason he seemed to have lost his senses. Kept rushing across the field in an apparent attempt to kill one of the Confederate officers with the point of his flagstaff. He was carrying the regimental colors, you see. They were already in the woods, continuing their retreat, when Private Cable reached them and was—killed."
