The Highbinders

by F. M. Parker

  “Enough talk,” said Pak. “Show us the place.”

  “Come,” said Ying.

  The rolling fog was thick on The Embarcadero. The flare from the streetlamps helped but little to light the way. Tan Ying walked hurriedly, moving through familiar territory.

  He led them to a giant warehouse, one among many lining The Embarcadero, and to a door in its side. “In there,” whispered Ying. “They are in there.”

  “Be quiet and listen for a moment,” said Tom.

  On the seaward side of The Embarcadero, a ship creaked as it wallowed at its moorage. The waves could be heard pounding the pilings of the piers. All was quiet in the warehouse.

  “How many entrances to the building?” Pak asked Ying.

  “Four. One on each end wide enough for the largest wagons to pass through. There is another door the size of this one on the opposite side from us. This is the place the guards enter and leave. All but this one are secured by very strong padlocks. Only the owner has a key to open them. The guards lock this door on the inside.”

  “Where do the guards stay when they are on duty and not patrolling the pier?” asked Tom.

  “Come, you can see for yourself,” said Ying. “There is a broken board where a wagon hit the wall and you can see inside.” Ying guided them to a splintered hole in the side of the warehouse.

  “Look through here,” said Ying.

  Tom and Pak stooped and peered inside. A lamp on a table cast a yellow stain on the dark cave of the warehouse. Six men sat around the table playing cards.

  “Luck is with us,” said Tom. “They are the ones. I recall four of them from that day on the Snake River. The leader of the gang is not there.”

  “Let me look,” said Ying. He squatted to peer inside. “Only two of the men are on guard duty at any one time. The others come and go, but often gather here to play cards. The one you described sometimes goes to that big saloon on The Embarcadero to drink and gamble.”

  “These men are trapped within the building. They can be killed now and then we find the last one,” said Pak.

  “How do we get in with all the doors locked?” Tom asked.

  “You mean how do I get in,” said Pak. “The dead men were my countrymen.” His voice became edged. “One was my cousin. I must be the one to take revenge.”

  Tom stepped close to better see Pak. “There are six men with guns in there. We both must do the job.”

  “We would only get in each other’s way. Further, you need light to shoot and that would make a lot of noise. Everyone would know your location. I will knock out the lamp and fight them in the dark. My sword will be better than your gun.”

  Tom’s face was hard as he evaluated Pak’s position. He wanted to be part of the attack.

  “I will not allow you to go inside with me,” Pak said. “You would be a hindrance.”

  Tom gauged the unblinking stare of the Chinaman. He would have to fight the little man to make him change. Tom could not do that.

  “Then go kill them, my Chinese friend,” said Tom.

  “We must discover a way for me to get inside,” Pak said.

  “I can help you,” said Ying. “The children sometimes come to the docks and play tricks on the guards of the warehouses. They run around the buildings and hit on the walls with sticks and rocks. It is all a game with the little ones. The guards do not like it. But one always comes outside and chases the children away. The door is unlocked during the short period the guard is doing that.”

  “Can you make the same racket?” Pak asked.

  “It is nothing special. I will show you.” Ying hunted about on the ground until he found a stone of a size that suited him. “Get ready,” he said.

  Tom and Pak moved into the shadow of the nearby warehouse. The Chinaman began to bind up his hair on the top of his head.

  Ying ran along the side of the warehouse, striking its wall with the rock and yelling in a high-pitched, childish voice. He circled the building and came back past the door. A tall man flung it open and raced after the smaller figure of Ying.

  Pak stared at the gaping black hole of the door as he finished binding up his hair. He felt the tingle and slither of his anger and hate like a great snake uncoiling in his stomach.

  He said to Tom, “Tonight I may die. But before I do, I will inflict terrible punishment upon those murderers. Guard the door. If I am not the one to come through the door, kill that man for me.”

  “It would be a pleasure,” Tom said.

  Pak dashed for the opening. Tom saw the cold, polished steel of his sword wink as it caught a ray from the nearest streetlight. Then Pak melted into the gloom of the warehouse, a lone warrior to fight six men in the vast blackness. If Pak could put out the light without getting shot.

  The guard returned empty-handed and entered the warehouse. Tom heard the door being barred from within. He crept to the broken board in the wall and knelt.

  Ying came up beside him and spoke in a whisper. “It happened just as I said.”

  The guard reseated himself and picked up his cards. “How many of you looked at my cards?” he asked.

  “Nobody touched them,” said a man testily. “The bet is a quarter to you. Call, raise or fold.”

  Tom saw Pak’s dark figure rushing toward the card players. His arm was outstretched. The extended sword slashed the lamp from the table. Glass crashed and complete darkness engulfed the cave of the warehouse.

  A volley of gunshots reverberated from the walls of the building. The pitiless battle in blackness had begun.

  CHAPTER 20

  Tom moved to the door and pulled his six-gun. He waited, his ear tuned to the smallest noise, and watched intently for motion in the fog among the warehouses or on The Embarcadero. The shots had been substantially deadened by the enclosing walls of the building, but still a policeman might have heard the gunfire and come to investigate.

  From inside the warehouse, a shrill cry broke the silence, to be abruptly cut off. A few minutes later there was a commotion of falling crates.

  In the next hour, Tom heard three pistol shots. Each was from a different part of the warehouse. The second hour was entirely silent.

  Tom wondered who was yet alive. Had Pak crept up on the white men one after the other and slain them with his sword? Or had one of the pistol slugs torn a hole in him and he lay dead? And were the white men uncertain of their foes” whereabouts and afraid to make a light?

  Tom stiffened as a slight noise came from behind the door and someone whispered. He began to back away from the building.

  The door was flung open and a man charged out. He held a pistol in his hand. A second man sprang through the opening.

  The first man saw Tom outlined in the fog by the distant streetlight. He snapped a shot at him.

  Tom heard the zip of the bullet past his cheek. He lifted his gun and fired at the man.

  As the man fell, the second jerked up his pistol. Before he could trigger the gun, Tom killed him.

  Hurriedly Tom ran to the side entrance. Pak must be told that two men had come outside. Tom jumped through the black hole of the open door, sprang sideways and hunched low.

  “Pale, two men are dead outside,” Tom called into the murky depths of the warehouse.

  “Good,” said Pak not twenty feet away.

  Tom was startled by the nearness of the man. If he had hesitated to call out, Pak could have unknowingly cut him to death with his sword.

  Pak spoke again. “I heard them whispering and moving, but I was too slow to overtake them before they found the door.”

  “I stopped them,” said Tom.

  “Tom, I am hurt and will need some help to get out of here.”

  “Talk to me so I can find you.”

  “Come this way. We must hurry and leave this place.”

  “Got you,” said Tom. He put one of Pak’s arms over his shoulder and, half carrying him, left the building.

  “Let us go to a light so I can see your wound,” said Tom. He continued
toward the nearest streetlight. Ying came out of hiding and tagged along.

  “My luck was bad and one of the bullets struck me when I knocked out the light,” Pak said. He was silent for a few steps. “There is still one more of the killers. We must go and find him.”

  “You are not in condition for more fighting,” Tom replied.

  Pak laughed a faint chuckle. “Correct. But you are strong and brave. I would hire you as a Triad Warrior. I leave the last killer to you.”

  They halted under the light and Tom opened Pak’s coat and blouse. A bullet had torn through the flesh of his chest under his left arm. Blood welled freely from both the entry and exit wound.

  “The gunshot by itself is not all that bad,” said Tom. “But you have lost much blood. Your pants are soaked with it. That’s why you are weak. The bleeding must be stopped or you will die.”

  “There is a doctor not more than six or seven blocks from here,” Ying said.

  “Then we will take Pak there,” said Tom.

  “Ying can help me to walk that distance. You go and finish our task.”

  “The saloon where the crooked-neck man drinks and plays cards is the Seamen’s Joy on The Embarcadero, just south of Market Street,” Ying told Tom.

  “Where’s the doctor’s office?” Tom asked.

  “On Fremont, near Minna. His name is Traverson. He has treated many gunshot wounds and is very good,” said Ying.

  “I will be there later,” Tom told Pak.

  * * *

  Tom entered the Seamen’s Joy Saloon. He slowed and blinked at the unfamiliar brilliant white flames in the gas lamps that illuminated the interior.

  The saloon was outstandingly spacious, being quite wide and open upward for the height of two stories. Tom estimated there were two hundred people in the building. Men stood shoulder to shoulder at the long bar stretching away on his right the full length of the room. Beyond a chest-high wooden partition were twenty-five gambling tables, all chairs occupied and men standing, waiting for a seat at the game of chance. Twenty couples on the dance floor swung to wild and loud music. Several white women, all of them clothed in short, brightly patterned Chinese silk dresses, served drinks or talked with the male patrons.

  Tom removed his coat and draped it over his left arm. He walked along the bar looking at the reflections of the men’s faces in the mirror on the back wall.

  At the edge of the dance floor he stood and waited until all the dancers had circled, promenading past him. One of the girls noticed the scrutiny of the tense young man and winked at him.

  Tom did not respond to the girl’s flirtation. He walked to the partition of the gambling area. Methodically he began to run his sight over the men at every table. The standing people blocked his view of some of the seated players. He changed positions so he could see every face and not miss his quarry.

  At one of the tables in the far back sat a man with his head canted upward a little and twisted to the right. His back was turned, but still Tom sensed something familiar about him.

  He laid his coat on the partition and checked his six-gun in its holster. When Guofeng had first described the deaths of Sigh and the others on the Snake, Tom had held his grief and anger under control. Now as he went toward the man that might be the leader of the killers, all his hate burst out.

  For a fragment of time, Tom was glad he was going to kill a man. His father had told him not to get to like killing. Did that apply when a man deserved to die?

  Five players and the dealer were at the table. The pot had been opened and the initial round of wagers made.

  “Cards?” said the dealer.

  The players called the number they wanted. The dealer flipped the red pasteboards from the deck and sent them spinning to each man.

  Tom had wound around through the crowd. Now he could see the face of the man he had spotted across the room. Tom’s lips drew back and his teeth showed cruelly white as he recognized the outlaw chief. He felt joyous in a ferocious sort of way, anticipating the coming battle. He pushed two men aside and came near the players.

  “I bet three hundred dollars,” said a man in a naval officer’s uniform.

  The next three players folded their cards and dropped out of the game. It was Keggler’s turn. He riffled his cards and eyed the mound of paper and gold currency on the table.

  He counted his money lying on the table. “I call and raise you three hundred dollars.” He shoved all his money into the pot and grinned at the naval man.

  “I’m dropping out,” said the dealer.

  The naval officer placed gold coins in the center of the table, hesitated and then added some more. “I call and raise you again by one thousand dollars.”

  Keggler scowled as he checked his cards. Then he smiled. “I guess I’ll have to go into the bank.”

  He unbuttoned the front of his shirt. His hand fumbled there a few seconds and then came out with a golden cube covering most of his palm.

  A wave of astonished voices came from the players and onlookers. “God, ain’t that beautiful,” someone said in a worshipping tone.

  “I cover your bet with one thousand dollars in this,” said Keggler and laid the heavy cube of gold on the pile of money already on the table.

  “No damn bet!” Tom said in a savage voice.

  All eyes in the vicinity jumped to fix on Tom. A shocked expression swept over Keggler’s countenance.

  Tom shouted in a strident voice. “This man killed thirty-one of my friends in Oregon for that gold. He cut off their heads with an ax.”

  “You are a goddamned liar,” hissed Keggler. He sprang erect, his dark eyes furious and squinted almost shut. “I should have killed you long ago.”

  “Do it now, you murdering sonofabitch.”

  Keggler’s hand dipped for his pistol.

  Tom drew, never more swiftly. The six-gun bucked in his hand. A damn pleasant feeling.

  A sudden wind seemed to whip Keggler’s shirtfront and he was slammed backward to the floor. He lay there a moment, then struggled to his knees and stared at Tom. “Damn you to hell,” he said in a voice hoarse and ghastly, like a raven’s croak. He began to lift his pistol.

  Tom said, “You go there first and wait for me. Wait a very long time.” He fired a second shot beside the first in the outlaw’s chest.

  Tom stepped to the table and picked up the golden cube. He raised his hands aloft—the gold in one hand, his six-gun in the other.

  “I take this gold to give to the families of my dead friends.” Tom’s voice cut through the silence of the crowded room like a sharp blade. “If any man here disagrees with that, then let him come forward.” He pivoted slowly, his challenging eyes boring out of his hard, young face.

  No man moved in the saloon. Tom left.

  * * *

  Tom leaned on the pilings at the end of the pier and stared seaward. The clipper ship American Wanderer had caught the wind and was racing for the Golden Gate and the open sea. Though miles away, the ship’s tall masts and the great sails could be seen plainly, a narrow pyramid of white against the blue of ocean and sky.

  Tom felt a loneliness creeping in. Pak and Lian were homeward bound to Canton and the Pearl River Valley. A happy pair, from Tom’s observations. They carried with them the golden cube. Pak would sell it and divide the returns among the families of the dead men who had found it.

  Guofeng had left on his return journey to the valley of the Snake River and his men there. Tom hoped his gold discovery at Triangle Mountain was very rich.

  A gull cried out nearby as it skimmed in searching for bits of sea life with its quick, thin beak. The bird found a morsel and angled up, its wings scooping the wind, pressing it down to climb the soft ladder of air.

  Tom turned away from the bird and the ocean and looked out over the docks and up at San Francisco, the city of beautiful white houses on the sand hills. It was a rich town. He would stay here, find a job. A man could become wealthy in this place, if he was strong and quick.

&nb
sp; EPILOGUE

  The Highbinders is fiction; however, it is based upon a true incident of a cold-blooded massacre of thirty-one Chinese miners on the Snake River near the mouth of Deep Creek in northeast Oregon.

  J. K. Vincent, United States Commissioner, investigated the case. He wrote the Chinese Consul at San Francisco as follows about the wholesale butchery:

  “… was the most cold-blooded, cowardly treachery I have ever heard tell of on this coast, and I am a ‘49er; every victim was shot, cut up and stripped and thrown in the river.”

  Bodies of the miners were found at intervals for some months in the Snake River, as far as Panawawa, one hundred and sixty miles downstream.

  The Imperial Chinese Government, through the Chinese Minister, Chang Yen Hoon, lodged a stiff complaint with the United States. The Minister stated:

  “… as the character of this case, wherein 31 lives were murdered and their bodies mutilated in a most shocking manner and thrown away, differs greatly from a common case of homicide. It is feared other wicked persons may, from their hatred of the Chinese, follow the examples of the murderers if not arrested and punished, which will affect the interest and safety of the Chinese residents there and elsewhere in the United States.”

  The United States paid $276,610 as indemnities, stating the payment was made “… out of humane consideration and with no reference to the question of liability for loss of Chinese life in the Northwest.’

  Though each member of the gang became known, not one was ever brought to justice. All eluded the law and escaped to other states.

  The leader of the gang was killed during an argument in a card game in San Francisco.

  The Highbinders

  Copyright © F. M. Parker, 1986 and 2011

  F. M. Parker has asserted his rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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