by Avi
Leaving the remaining fish by the entryway, I went into our tent. On hands and knees — I couldn’t see a thing — I felt on the left side of the dirt floor for my sleeping space. When I found it, I untied my money belt from around my waist, checked to make sure I had my knife, and poked all under my bed.
I lay down and drew Mother’s shawl up to my chin. It being chilly, I was happy to be covered. As I listened to the wind luffing our tent cloth, I hoped that Jacob — wherever he might be — was warm.
For a while, I thought about my day with Thad. I had so enjoyed it, not the least because I was free of clinging Jacob. That thought brought me to remember his idle chatter about seeking employment on a departing ship. Could he have done that?
No, not in a million years.
Then, where is he?
I told myself he was not a baby and in all likelihood, I’d see him in the morning, grumbling as ever. I even told myself that he might well have chosen to be away from the tent to vex me, to make me worry about him.
So it was that I pushed aside my feelings of uneasiness and rolled over to my right, sleeping side. A few moments later, rain began to splatter hard against the tent cloth. Its steady beat lulled me.
As I began to drift off, Father’s words came into my head: “I’m depending on you to take care of the boy. Mother is depending on it. Is that clearly understood?”
My last waking thought was: Nothing has happened to Jacob. Nothing. That comforting idea eased me into sleep.
IN THE MORNING I LAY ABED, LISTENING TO THE soft, steady patter of rain upon our tent. The sound reminded me that the weather was outside. I was within, dry and warm: a sweet and soothing feeling.
I’d been so tired the night before that I’d fallen asleep in my clothing. A night of dancing followed by a day of hard rowing will cause fatigue. That led me to think, with more pleasure, about the day before. I recalled too that Mother must surely come soon. And Father was due in a few days. They would, I hoped, be proud of me for having managed myself and Jacob so well.
All this put me in such good spirits that I called out a “Good morning!” to Jacob but received no reply. Belatedly, I remembered that when I returned late the night before, he was not in his bed.
I lay there, choosing to believe his absence was his way of showing resentment for my spending the day with Thad. Moments later, I told myself surely by this time he would have come back. I decided he was most likely with Señor Rosales.
I also considered the possibility that he had gone to Portsmouth Square to look for gold. The low angle of the sun — if there was sun — sparked lost grains. Mornings were the best time to look since drunken men stumbled about late at night. If I found Jacob there, I knew he’d tease me: he was working when I slept. That reminded me I’d promised Mr. Lyall, the carpenter, that I’d work with him that day.
I drew out my money belt from under my bed, checked for my money and knife, fastened it around my waist, and told myself that I needed to make sure Jacob was all right before I set off for work.
I stuck my head out of our tent. It was still drizzling, and too overcast to establish the time. Across the way, despite the inclement weather, the San Francisco Café Restaurant was open for business, with a few customers waiting in line to be served. As always, Señor Rosales was at his stove, cooking, smoke rising up through his tin chimney.
“Buenos días, Señor Rosales,” I called as I walked over. It was clear right away that Jacob was not there. I told the señor what happened to Thad and me, that when I got back Jacob was gone. “Have you seen him?”
“Lo siento — sorry to hear what happened, corderita,” said Señor Rosales. “All I can tell you is your hermano — your brother — was worried about you.”
“He’s always worried,” I said.
“True. But this time, más. To tell you my thoughts, señorita, I think el se siente solo. He was feeling lonely. More than usual. It’s what I told your father. Not wise to leave him solo — alone.”
“I told Jacob he could come with us,” I said, somewhat uncomfortable, aware that I had not truly encouraged him to come down the bay.
“Can I give you some breakfast?” Señor Rosales offered me a piece of beef, which I quickly ate.
“I have to go to work,” I announced. “If you see Jacob, por favor, señor, tell him I’m working with Mr. Lyall. Ask him to come to me.”
“Absolutamente, corderita.”
I stood before our tent, not sure what to do: work or find Jacob. A younger brother who hampers one’s life is most irritating. All the same, I felt I should locate him, tell him where I’d be, that we should have dinner together — my way of absolving myself for slighting him the day before.
I hurried over to Portsmouth Square, but he was not on the grounds. I eyed the gambling places. Whenever I passed by the entryways of the Parker House and the El Dorado, I heard shouts, laughter, screams, and music. Often, horrid fights broke out among the men. Once, when passing a saloon, I heard pistol shots. Greatly frightened, I had watched as a dead man was borne away on an old door. Alas, such violence was common in this wild city.
Though I much doubted Jacob had gone into either place, I told myself that if I was going to solve the aggravating puzzle of his whereabouts, I should make sure.
I went into El Dorado.
Unlike the night of the dance, gambling and drinking were already going on. I was bumped, shoved, and generally stomped on by the crowd of tough, loudmouthed men and a few women.
It didn’t take long to determine that Jacob wasn’t there. Then I did a quick check of the post office. He was not standing in the lines waiting for mail.
I made a return trip to our tent, in hopes he had come back. He had not. Nor had Señor Rosales caught sight of him.
It was about then that I began to truly worry. It was absolutely not like Jacob to stay away for so long.
The rain had lessened and the morning fog had thinned, enough so that I could look down at the bay and Rotten Row. I saw the ship that Jacob had pointed out, the Yankee Sword. She was still there.
Remembering our last conversation, I wondered — could he have, in fact, signed on? No, I refused to consider such a possibility. Jacob would never do something that would be so unusual for him.
Seeing that new ships had arrived, I considered that he might be at the cove beach, in hopes Mother had arrived. That would be something he would do.
Going downhill, I passed some frame houses being built, on places which had been mud a couple of days ago. I even passed Mr. Lyall, the carpenter I’d promised to help.
“Hey, Miss Tory,” he called. “You’re late.”
“I need to find Jacob,” I called back. “Have you seen him?”
“Nope. But I can use him too.”
“Soon as I find him, I’ll come,” I said, gave a wave, and continued on.
At the cove beach, lighters were hauling in throngs of newcomers and their baggage. Other boats were bringing men back from the diggings. The contrast was extreme: newcomers happy and excited. Returning miners emaciated, filthy, and dispirited, shivering with malarial fevers. I suddenly felt a twinge of Jacob’s apprehension: What if Father did not return? What if he was ill? Injured? Had found no gold? All were real possibilities.
There was no sign of Jacob among the onlookers at the cove. Nor, for that matter, of Mother.
I did remind myself that I had an obligation to replace the oar I had broken the day before. Then it also occurred to me that perhaps Jacob, in search of me while I was looking for him, might have gone to see Thad.
I hurried over to the store where Thad clerked.
The Howard & Mellus store sold all kinds of the dry goods that miners needed, from slouch hats to shoes, picks to pans and the things ships required. The store even posted ship arrivals and departures.
As usual, it was crowded, and it was almost comical to watch the faces of newcomers when they were told the prices of the things they desired: Fifty dollars for a pickax. Forty dollars for a poun
d of coffee.
I found Thad at the back of the store piling up canvas trousers.
“Morning,” he called when he saw me. “I put aside a new oar for that boat we used. Forty dollars. But I lost twenty-five at the tables this morning. I’ll owe you. Jacob back?”
I was annoyed by his betting but, being more concerned with Jacob, I only replied to his question. “Not yet.”
“You ask Señor Rosales?”
“He said Jacob was looking for me. Thad, if he comes by, tell him I’ll be working with Mr. Lyall, or to go back to the tent and wait.”
“Ayuh. He’ll show up.”
He fetched the new oar, which I signed for and brought back to the cove and left in the boat we had borrowed. Then I sat in the boat. Dejected, growing ever more concerned, I tried to think where I might look for Jacob. I needed to find him to settle myself.
Near the building where Thad worked was the Mercury saloon. The Mercury was one of those ships that had been left in Rotten Row. Somebody had purchased her and hauled her hulk over the Yerba Buena Cove flats. With pilings made from her masts, she was fixed against the new Central Wharf and turned into a building — a gambling saloon.
For San Francisco that was not unusual. Right across the way, another ship, the Euphemia, still afloat, was being turned into a new city jail. Other empty boats had become hotels, warehouses, and hospitals. One was becoming a church.
As for the landlocked Mercury, her bow had been sawed off and squared. Over the entryway was a sloping roof, where the name MERCURY SALOON had been painted in huge letters.
Since the saloon was right on the cove shore, miners came directly from the diggings up-bay and began to gamble with their newfound gold. Some won. Most lost, and did so quickly. As a result, the place was always full of the frenzy of hope and desperation as these men cast away what they had worked so hard to get.
The Mercury fascinated many, including Thad. Jacob knew he liked going in. Hadn’t Thad even gone in this morning? Jacob also knew I had been there any number of times, trying to get Thaddeus to leave.
It occurred to me that perhaps Jacob went to the Mercury to look for us and that someone had seen him. But with the Mercury’s reputation for being one of the worst saloons, you may be sure I liked it no more than the places on Portsmouth Square.
I was reluctant to go inside.
Stop making excuses, Tory, I told myself. You need to find Jacob.
I went in.
THE MERCURY WAS ALWAYS SWARMING DURING late afternoons and nights, but when I went in that morning, the crowd was sparse. Despite the early hour, the glass chandeliers were already lit. Huge wall-size mirrors were polished, there to make everything bigger, brighter. Behind drinking counters were shelves set against the walls, displaying great numbers of liquor bottles as well as glass jars full of free peppermints. The air smelled of whale oil fumes, which mingled with the odor of whiskey and stale tobacco. It made me wrinkle my nose.
It was almost impossible to believe the place had been a ship, not unlike the Stephanie K., in which I had come to California. Yet its transformation was so like San Francisco.
There were multiple roulette and billiards tables, as well as gambling tables covered with green cloth, behind which — though it was just morning — sat professional gamblers. Around these men were stacks of coins and piles of gold dust, worth, Thad had told me, as much as five thousand dollars. The money was there to tempt miners to try their luck at games of chance.
During crowded times, enthusiastic men would line up three, four deep, shoving forward so they could place bets. There were just as many stumbling the other way who, having become abruptly impoverished, had faces that were maps of misery.
If I had learned anything about San Francisco, it was this: the men might have been in a fever to get gold, but they were just as feverish to wager it away.
As I stood in the middle of the long hall — the ship’s hull — and observed the entire sparkly place, I saw no sign of Jacob. But I did notice that on a stage in the back, where musicians performed, a solitary Negro boy was sitting on a chair, playing a brass-keyed bugle. The melody was that sad “I Often Think of Writing Home,” which I recognized as the one Jacob had been whistling. Willing to make any connection to my brother, I wandered back to the stage.
I thought the bugler somewhat the same age as I, skinny like me, with coffee-colored skin and bushy, curly hair. He wore frayed trousers and a flannel shirt somewhat large for him, the cuffs rolled back over thin wrists. Boots. Though his face was narrow, his cheeks, as he played, bulged like chicken eggs. His fingers were long and slender and moved with great assurance over the keys, bringing forth the song with a smooth, melancholy tone.
As I stood there, dressed for work, which is to say, not in my feminine attire, looking and listening to him play, I was sure he noticed me, but he didn’t do or say anything.
“Good morning,” I finally called.
The boy, without stopping his playing, glanced over to me and gave no more than a bob to his instrument to acknowledge my presence.
It was only when I continued to stand there that he abruptly stopped playing, lowered his bugle, and considered me with angry eyes, as if to say I was interrupting him. Though I suspected he wished I’d go away, I chose to take advantage of his pause as a chance to say something.
“Do you play in the band?” I asked.
He lifted his horn as if to say that was obvious.
“The tune you were playing, ‘I Often Think of Writing Home’— my brother likes it.”
His face softened a little. “OK,” he said without emotion.
“My name is Victoria Blaisdell. Tory.”
After a moment, he gave a nod. “Samuel Nichols. Sam.”
“What part of the states do you come from?” I asked. In San Francisco, when you met people, that was the way friendly conversations most often started.
He hesitated before saying, “New York State. You?”
“Rhode Island,” I said, pleased that the Yankee connection gave us something in common. “Were you playing here last night?”
His look grew wary. “What if I was?”
“It’s my younger brother,” I said. “Jacob. He’s gone off somewhere. I don’t know where, so I’m searching for him. Since he likes music — and that song you were playing was his favorite — I thought he might have been here last night and you saw him.”
“Lot of people here last night. What’s he look like?”
I described Jacob.
The boy was silent for a moment and then said, “Last night, a kid like that was standing right where you are, watching and listening to me play that tune. When I stopped, he went off.”
Here, at last, was news. “Do you have any idea where?” I asked with eagerness.
Sam shook his head. “All I do is make music.” As if to make his point, he turned from me, lifted his bugle, and began to play that melody again, “I Often Think of Writing Home.” I took it to mean he was not going to say any more.
Though frustrated, I said, “Thank you,” and turned away, uncertain where I should go next. All I could think to do was to go back up the hill and wait.
I had almost reached the Mercury’s front doors when a man stepped in front of me, blocking my way. With his high stovepipe hat, he loomed over me. He was a tall man, his face shaped like the letter V, with a trimmed dark beard and elegant jacket with black cravat and white collar. His long nose brought to mind a blackbird or a crow. I took him to be one of the professional gamblers.
“Yes, miss, what brings you here?” he demanded as if he had the right to know.
Though I thought him ill-mannered, at least he recognized me as a girl. “Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m looking for my brother.”
“That a fact. What’s he look like?”
I described him.
“A kid.”
“Ten.”
He frowned. “Little young to be here, isn’t he? But nope. Can’t say I ever saw him. Wha
t makes you think he was here?”
“That boy”— I pointed toward the back of the saloon, and Sam — “the bugler, he told me he saw him.”
The man glanced toward the stage. Then he turned back to me with unfriendly eyes. “I was here all last night,” he said. “And I didn’t see anyone like you described. Now, you can trust me or you can trust that colored kid. Hate to tell you: he’s not one for speaking the truth much. Anyway, I don’t think a girl should be in here. You better move on out.”
Not only were his words offensive, but the way he spoke and studied me was intimidating. I almost blurted out what I thought: “I’d trust the boy before you,” but decided I had best leave. In any case, the man — whoever he was — had told me to go. “Thank you, sir,” I managed to say.
The man stepped aside and allowed me to move toward the entry. I had no idea who he was, but as I walked away I belatedly realized that he had a pelican feather attached to his jacket lapel. It was just like the one Father had given Jacob.
NO SOONER DID I LEAVE THE MERCURY THAN I considered returning and asking that man about the feather. But he had made me feel uncomfortable and I took him for a bully, what some people called a ring-tailed roarer. Then — making excuses — I told myself there were a million pelican feathers around. It was simpler — easier — not to go back.
Besides, I was feeling somewhat reassured; that bugler, Sam, had seen Jacob in the Mercury last night. I took it to confirm that, at least, my brother had not signed on — which I had not truly thought possible — with that Panama-bound ship, the Yankee Sword.
Not sure what to do next, I thought the only other place worth looking for Jacob was atop Goat Hill — where he often went to watch for Mother’s ship’s arrival. But heavy rain had recommenced, and I could not imagine him sitting midst that soak. In any case, I decided to go back to the tent, in hopes he’d returned.
Struggling to stay free of mud, crowds, and scattered rubbish, I hurried uphill toward home, all the while telling myself that to worry was ridiculous. And yet I did worry. For let it be admitted: it was my growing sense that I had failed in my responsibilities toward Jacob that made me uneasy. It was as if I, in some fashion, had caused his wandering off. I had spent a day away from him and come back from my trip down-bay with Thad late. Yet, I hastily reminded myself, the cause was the broken oar, not me. Still, when something bad happens and you think it might be your fault, it always seems worse.
