The Gilded Age, a Time Travel
Page 4
“I don’t know,” Muse says. “I will analyze, okay? Ask her name. We believe she was called Wing Sing.”
Zhu seizes the girl by her shoulders. She’s much bigger than Zhu expected, as tall and thin as Zhu. Are they attracting attention? No. No one promenading in the park pays any attention to a woman dressed in Western clothes taking forcible custody of a scruffy Chinese girl. ”What’s your name?”
“I Wing Sing.” She points toward the Pacific Ocean. “I go home, Jade Eyes!”
“Wing Sing.” Zhu sighs with relief. “Thank goodness. Yes, home. That’s exactly where we’re going. We’re going to the home, Donaldina Cameron’s home. The nice mission on Sacramento Street.” Zhu points downtown, in the opposite direction.
“Not go to fahn quai!” Wing Sing cries, struggling. “I die first!”
“You’re going to be just fine.” Alternately pushing and pulling, Zhu wrestles the girl to the Park and Ocean Railroad station where they can catch the steam train downtown. Zhu puffs, sweat drizzling beneath her corset. The stays gouge her ribcage, making her breath catch. “When is the next train, sir?” she asks the conductor.
Now people in the passing crowd begin to take notice of her struggle. A buxom blond woman watches them shrewdly. The woman wears elaborate pink flounces and a grotesque hat studded with carcasses of Brazilian humming birds. A black brougham drawn by two lathered geldings waits at the curb. The driver of the brougham notices Zhu and Wing Sing, too.
“Well, miss.” The conductor, a well-whiskeyed fellow in a rumpled uniform, clicks open his pocket watch, checks it with drunken precision. “I reckon it’ll get here when it gets here.”
Zhu catches his small gesture to the driver. The driver knocks his whip handle on the brougham’s door. The conductor pockets the watch. He turns a gold coin through his fingers.
What is going on? A chill runs through Zhu. She picks up at once the covert communication between the conductor, the driver, and whoever waits in the brougham. All of them, on the lookout.
Suddenly three Chinese men leap out. Dressed entirely in black, they wear queues tightly braided, oiled, and wrapped in buns at the napes of their necks. Black slouch hats are pulled low over their foreheads, black slippers on their feet. One is a wiry little fellow, tattoos covering his hands, a curved knife tucked in his belt. The second is a fat man, diamond rings on every finger. Silent and steely-eyed, he surveys the crowd. The third is tall and gaunt, a black eyepatch over his left socket. Beneath his black overcoat, bandoliers of bullets are slung across his chest, two pistols visible in his belt.
The eyepatch spots Wing Sing first. In an instant, the men in black surround Zhu and the struggling girl.
“Highbinders!” shouts the buxom blond woman. “Say, fellas!” she says to the gentlemen standing around. “You gonna let them goddamn highbinders ruin our Fourth of July?”
The men laugh nervously, look away. Chinese business is Chinese business.
“Z. Wong, please exit immediately,” Muse whispers. “These are hatchet men. Enforcers for a tong.”
“Boo how doy,” Wing Sing whispers, going limp.
“Queues coiled to the left,” Muse says, opening a file. “Chee Song Tong.”
“I say, fellas!” shouts the buxom blond woman. “What kinda lousy cowards are ya, anyway? You gonna let them highbinders trouble a lady?”
“I’ve got no quarrel with you,” Zhu says to the eyepatch, boldly staring into his eye. “Let us go.”
“This our girl,” the eyepatch says. “We pay gold for her. We take now.”
“I don’t think so,” Zhu says, circling her arm around Wing Sing’s shoulders. “She’s mine.” The girl huddles passively, casting her eyes to the ground.
“Z. Wong, preservation of your person is the first priority,” Muse whispers. “Please review ‘The CTL Peril’.” Muse posts the text in her peripheral vision.
“I don’t think I’m going to review files right now, Muse,” Zhu whispers, jerking away when the eyepatch plants his hand on her shoulder.
“Our girl.”
“Chee Song Tong,” Muse whispers, “sponsors slavery, opium smugging, and assassination. These are assassins, Z. Wong.”
“What about the girl?”
“Let them take her.”
“Damn it, Muse, she’s the reason I’m here!”
“It appears you have no choice at the moment,” Muse whispers.
“It’s a goddamn shame!” the buxom blond woman shouts at the crowd. “You all oughta be ashamed!”
“Please step away, Z. Wong,” Muse whispers. “They don’t want you. I said go!”
“Too late.”
The wiry fellow and the fat man seize Zhu’s elbows. The eyepatch smacks Wing Sing across her face with the back of his hand.
“Jade Eyes,” Wing Sing whimpers.
Heart pounding, Zhu shoves the hatchet men away. She clutches the girl, anger parching her throat. Can she protect her? Or is she too late?
The girl clings to her, murmuring, “Jade Eyes.”
The eyepatch stoops, stares at Zhu. He flips up her veil, his eye widening when he sees her Chinese face, her irises gene-tweaked green.
The hatchet men hustle them into the brougham. The driver yells, whipping the horses.
With a lurch and a jolt, the brougham speeds away.
2
A Toast to the First and Last Chance Saloon
Daniel J. Watkins lights another ciggie as the Overland train bound from Saint Louis speeds down the last miles to the Port of Oakland, California. He plays with a miniature Zoetrope, a little drum whirling on a spindle. He peers at slits cut in the drum’s cardboard sides all around its circumference through which he can view watercolor paintings rendered in a sequence. The sequence merges through the persistence of vision, producing the illusion of continuous motion. Typically a toy like this shows a parrot on the wing or a peasant in country dress capering about. The clever fellow who marketed this toy in Paris painted a whore drawing black stockings up her bare legs and down again. Up and down, up and down.
But even the Zoetrope—which usually fascinates him—cannot cheer him now. The jolt of nicotine does little to relieve the throbbing in his head. Bloody train. Well. The Overland was a very fine train till he ran out of whiskey early this morning. Now the train lurches and rolls from side to side like a ship in a restless sea, and his stomach rolls in sickening counterpoise.
Daniel drags the ciggie down in three great gulps, stubs it out. He tucks the Zoetrope in his ditty bag, finds and lights another, humming the waltz from Sleeping Beauty in a scratchy tenor. Poor Tchaikovsky kicked the bucket in Mexico in ‘93 from that vile pox called cholera, which they say is contracted by drinking filthy water. Tchaikovsky had not been an old man. Daniel has resolved to drink nothing but bottled fluids during his sojourn in the West. Wouldn’t you know that Father—the eminent Jonathan D. Watkins of Saint Louis, London, and Paris—calls the waltz the work of the Devil. An inspiration for lurid passions among the young and impressionable. How very true. He hums more vigorously. Daniel adores works of the Devil.
In the dawn sometime after he discovered his grievous shortfall of potables, the Overland had stopped in Sacramento to pick up passengers. But the stopover wasn’t long enough to scare up a little hair of the dog. By the time he’d roused himself to a functioning consciousness, they were on their way again. Daniel pulls frantically on the ciggie. Must he arrive in San Francisco on vital family business shucked out, half-crocked, and airing his paunch like some overindulgent schoolboy? He is nearly twenty-two, after all, heading for old age and senility by swift and sordid leaps and bounds.
This will not do, sir, indeed it will not. Daniel stands, groggy, and surveys the passenger car. He roams the narrow aisle, spies the old cowboy who’s ridden the Overland out from Saint Louis, same as Daniel. A grizzled coot in rustic togs that have never known soap and water. Nor has the old cowboy bothered to shave since their departure from that thankfully distant city.
Skinny bowlegs sprawling, he hunkers down in his seat, talking to himself, cackling, conferring with an invisible companion now and then. And, oh yes, nipping at something under his greasy topcoat.
In a word, the old cowboy looks promising. Daniel slides onto the seat facing him, grinning like all get-out with what he knows is a manly mustachioed face that charms the ladies and the gentlemen. Oh, he charms them all. He gives the old cowboy a wink, taps out a ciggie, and offers it.
“A long haul, sir?” Daniel says, leaning forward on the leather seat, striking a match for the coot, then lighting up another for himself. “But I suppose you’ve knocked about this great continent of ours by harder means than the Overland train. In the good old days, eh?”
“Them was the days,” the old cowboy agrees, drawing down hard on the ciggie like a proper smoker.
“The glory, the wild glory, eh? Knocking about like that. I don’t suppose you’ve got a drop to spare of that libation you’ve been nipping at?” Daniel grins when the old cowboy squints at him with a bloodred eye, openmouthed that a stranger has discovered his closely guarded secret. “I’m dry as a bone, sir, and we’ve haven’t yet reached the coast.”
“’Tain’t somethin’ fit to drink fer a young gent like yerself,” the old cowboy grunts, eyeing Daniel’s gray gabardine suit and starched ivory collar, the blue checked silk vest and tasteful French blue necktie, his British bowler of brushed felt. “’Tain’t fit fer a bear, if truth be told.”
“Never fear, sir, I have imbibed the Green Fairy herself.”
The old cowboy peers at him more closely with that painful-looking eye. “What in damn hell is the Green Fairy?”
“Absinthe, sir.” Daniel sighs. What he would give now for a gold-green bottle of Pernod Fils, a sugar cube, a perforated spoon, a lovely bell-shaped glass. What he would give to be back with Rochelle and the gang at La Nouvelle-Athenes sipping rainbow cups, flirting with poetry, lust, and death. “La fee verte, the Green Fairy. The sacred herb. Holy water, sir. A finer, eviler brew has never been concocted. One hundred twenty proof, reeking of wormwood. Tremblement de terre. Earthquake, sir, that’s what we call absinthe.”
“Haw. Well, you’ll find some o’ that out in Californ’, young gent.” The old cowboy is unimpressed.
“Just a hair of the dog.” Daniel offers another ciggie, cajoling the coot. “That’s fine Virginia weed machine-rolled to perfection. Come now, what’ve you got?”
“Hunnert twenny proof is a cinch, young gent.” The old cowboy cackles. From beneath the topcoat, he produces a scummy bottle, a neat piece of glass with flat sides that fit against the chest and do not extrude indiscreetly. The fifth is down to four fingers, but that should last till they reach the Port of Oakland. “This here’s puma piss.”
“Puma piss?”
“Homebrewed rotgut, tobacco juice, an’ a dose o’ white lightinin’. What some call rat poison.”
“Dear sir, you cannot mean strychnine.”
“Yessir, I do, an’ a hunnert twenny proof is a cinch, but ye can’t prove it by me.” The old cowboy consults with his invisible companion, cackling and nodding.
Puma piss! Daniel will have to remember that! “Let’s have a taste, then. Just a drop, sir.” With sunlight gleaming off his teeth, he offers a third ciggie. Damn bloody coot! But Daniel can purchase more machine-rolled cigarettes in San Francisco. The American Tobacco Company is spread out all over the West. He can get anything he wants in San Francisco. Or so they say.
But right now, right now, what he needs is a drink.
“Ah, hell.” The old cowboy hands over the bottle.
“It’s a cinch.” Daniel winks, knocks back a swallow.
Vile cannot approach the taste of stagnant well water infused with putrefaction, but the sting of newly distilled grain alcohol mangles the inside of his mouth and his tongue. The taste swiftly becomes irrelevant. He knows the stuff is liquid, but the sensation in his throat is of scorching fire. Or fangs. Fangs of a ravening beast.
In less than an instant, his heart begins to pound like lunatic desperate to escape his chains. Pure vertigo seizes him, whirls him around. A black satin curtain drops over his eyes. Oh, no! Has he suddenly gone blind? Sometimes homebrew steals your sight along with your sanity. But no, the black satin curtain is abruptly whisked away.
And he stares out at the golden-brown hills of California, curving like the bodies of women. Golden-brown women lolling about like whores with their golden-brown breasts and hips and swooping waists. The ill-starred Sioux, perhaps, or the Apache. Or the fabled Celestials, the Chinese. Golden-brown women harried and driven by the brute forces of rape and slavery and murder till they have fled, disguised themselves, mysteriously reincarnated into the landscape itself. He sees their awful transmogrification, their anger parched and mute save for the testimony of the hills, the golden-brown hills in which a man could get lost and die. He hears them screaming now—by God!—feels them reaching for him. They mean to tear him limb from limb with their curved fingers of thorn. They mean to drive him mad with their anguish.
That high rending sound? It’s only the train whistle.
Daniel shuts his eyes, and the black satin curtain falls again. But the blackness is so dizzying, his lids pop open at once. Now the landscape changes as he speeds toward his destination. The hills grow greener, studded with shrubs and sturdy trees. Abundant palms that are the rage in fashionable houses back East grow wild by the track bed. Flowering bushes shamelessly offer up pink and purple thunderheads, and huge, twisted succulents are so vibrant and filled with a peculiar presence that they seem like living creatures in some cunning disguise, waiting in ambush for the unwary. Waiting to pounce like pumas do.
Daniel feels the hand of destiny spinning him round like a Zoetrope. Does he only go through the motions of his life like a pathetic painted little figure? The tracks clack below him. The lunatic again, he’s rattling his cage. A great fate awaits him—he feels this in his heart—unlike anything he’s confronted before. Not in Saint Louis, not in London or Paris. Perhaps he will live, perhaps he will die in San Francisco. What does it matter, what does anything matter? We’re all just painted figures spun round by the hand of God.
Now grief wells up inside him, squeezing the frantic beat of his heart. Well, Mama died. People die. He saw three grandparents meet their Maker before he was ten. It was not as though family had never passed on before. Mama died in the late spring, in the fecund heart of incipient summer. A time he always thought of as a sick time—disease in the air, poison in the water, rotting food.
He should not have been surprised. His mother had been dying for a long time. But why did she wait for him? Why did she have to wait? He did not want to see her face, pale and beautiful as always. Her eyes—what she called her deep sea eyes—beseeching him. Her question, always her question, even on her deathbed, “Danny, haven’t I been good to you? Haven’t I always been good?” And his answer, always the same answer, “Yes, Mama. Of course, Mama. Of course you’ve always been good.”
He takes one more swallow of puma piss, swallowing his grief and rage. “Ish a shinch,” he says, handing the bottle back with as steady a hand as he can muster. A gentleman must observe the niceties of sharing a drink.
“Haw.” The old cowboy grins, showing broken brown teeth through his neglected whiskers. His invisible companion apparently adds a trenchant comment. Daniel himself can just about see the companion. Yes, there he is—a hand from the good old days, long dead and still lively in the old cowboy’s eyes.
“Thank you, shir. Mush oblished.” Daniel stands, the vertigo fading, his pulse slowing. A fine feeling of arousal courses through his veins. When his stomach settles down, his feelings turn to another part of his anatomy he has too often abused. By God, his heart.
There are ladies on the train. He vaguely recalls two fine ladies who boarded the Overland at dawn in Sacramento. How could he have ignored them for so long? What a cad! He should go pay his respects, find out if they’re bo
und for San Francisco, too, and, if so, what in heaven’s name is their address? The pilgrim seeks the comfort of fellow travelers, that is the natural way of the world, is it not? He staggers to the dining car, newly filled with the spirit of amorous adventure, tapping out a ciggie. Where are the ladies? Who are they?
Ah, there. They sit at a table set for tea. The small girl with a narrow mousy face, protruding eyes, and an overbite interests him not at all. She’s dressed in charcoal-gray leg-o’-mutton sleeves and a plain gored dress. She chatters and chirps in broad, ugly vowels. She is much too American for his taste and much too plain. No, her companion, an elegant lady—now she interests him. A high-cheeked face, rose-kissed skin, a lovely mouth with a full lower lip, huge soft eyes. Oh yes, she interests him. A startling streak of white accentuates her brown pompadour, but that doesn’t dissuade him. A lady getting on in her years? In her late twenties, perhaps? Yet still with the spark of her youthful passion, he can see it in her eyes. More passionate than her younger companion, either because she’s experienced more of the world or less than she’s longed for.
She is well-dressed, too, a quality in ladies for which Daniel has the highest admiration. The young companion wears proper travelling togs. But her. The elegant lady wears a full skirt the color of a good French burgundy. An ivory silk blouse with abundant lace spills over the chinchilla collar of a cashmere coat belted tightly around her waist. A gay hat, piled high with ribbons and flowers, perches upon the pompadour. A voluminous veil is drawn over her face and pinned at her throat with a glittering Art Nouveau brooch. And gloves. The elegant lady wears immaculate gloves that accentuate her long, fine fingers, the white cotton unsullied by any mundane contact with the world. Her fingers twitch in her lap as if longing to touch a man.
Indeed, sir, that is the only conclusion Daniel can draw.
“Good morning, ladies,” Daniel says, carelessly tossing himself on the chair beside her. She’s tall, he can see that. Tall with a long slim body beneath the coat, the skirts, the bodice, the corset. Rochelle was tall, too, and her long legs literally went up to her throat when she danced the cancan at La Nouvelle-Athenes. Of course, Rochelle was a whore. But this one, this one. He is smitten. What a marvelous land, this Californ’!