by S. L. Hawke
“Sounds like he came from Spain,” Andrew added. I shifted on my saddle.
“Why?” I removed my dark glasses and cleaned the lenses carefully. Putting them back on was a relief.
“We’ve had problems with the land ownership, deeds, that sort of thing. Thieving too and well, just drunkenness, fights…I’ve broken up too many in the streets myself.”
“You don’t have someone to keep the peace?” Andrew asked.
Bratton laughed bitterly. “Let’s just say we are glad you Marshals are here.” He used the plural. I looked over at Andrew. Bratton watched us both. Guilt by association. Denying it would aid suspicion.
“Let’s see the process, shall we?” I interrupted, feeling nervous at the direction the conversation seemed to be going. We cantered on towards the main processing house.
The original ‘Mexican’ style mining was now being replaced by methods of the modern scientific age. Pulleys and rail cars were being installed in lieu of the head strap baskets of the natives. Miners with spear axes (made out of a long pipe of metal with a flat blade edge) replaced the ungainly wooden-handled two-sided pick axe. Two hundred men each day went down into those narrow hell holes and came forth at the end of the day, blinking at the light like dead rising from the earth.
But it was the lack of trees that gave me pause. The hills, according to Bratton, were once covered with oaks, bays, manzanitas (the Spanish word for the red scented wood), and a few redwoods. Bratton went on to lament that at some point the furnaces needed to be fueled by coal or something more sustainable if they were to cook the quicksilver out of the kettle. Fortunately, Bratton droned on, a blacksmith created a better design for the process of reduction and heat.
I stayed outside, conscious of the toxicity of the fumes. Andrew bravely went inside the furnace area then came out taking notes in the journal I had given him.
The heat of the day was rising and I truly felt, watching the endless trek of miners from beneath the ground, the rumbling of the furnaces and rail cars, and the spew of dark clouds from the equally tall brick chimneys, that I was in Dante’s Inferno. This was Hell on Earth.
“Well, we should return to the house. The wife will be expecting us for luncheon.” Bratton did not sound enthusiastic at all. We turned back to the town to find soldiers in place and the mine’s president stock still while the General ‘officially’ handed the writ to him. Miss Towne was nowhere to be seen and the General announced that today, no one would leave until the Army issued travel papers.
So that was the favor Sally had asked for.
“Makes you wonder why she was in such a hurry to leave?” Andrew mumbled at me.
“Never mind that, what about us?”
“We have a poker game to play and can’t move forward until we know who to follow.” Andrew wrote a few things down in his journal. We remounted our horses and continued towards the hotel along the creek bank. I straightened in my saddle, feeling stiff, and wondering how we were going to accomplish finding the Rebel camp.
And what did Sally Towne have to do with all this? The impression of my brother-in-law was quickly declining. Bratton shifted in his saddle and moved closer to us.
“Anything you gentlemen need, just ask. The mine store can provide most anything including a telegraph. My friends in San Francisco will make sure you have both the ways and the means to accomplish the securing of this mine as a safe place for American money and interests.”
“No one is accusing anyone of takin’ sides,” I added watching Bratton. He shifted in his saddle then took off his hat and wiped the sweat that had accumulated on his forehead. “But have you heard otherwise?” Trying to sound conversational was harder than it sounded.
“Rumors, mostly.” Bratton let his horse direct him to the riverbed and the wild oats and thistles coming up there.
“What kind of rumors?” Andrew came alongside, putting Bratton in the middle.
“How old are you?” Bratton scowled at the young man. I found myself smiling and decided to look down at my saddle for a minute. Andrew cleared his throat.
“Old enough to deliver a writ.”
“Mrs. Bratton will be cross if you keep her waiting, son. Mr. Sloan and I will be along presently.” The tone was clear, a young son dismissed so the men could talk of important matters. Andrew looked over at me. I nodded my control of the situation. He spurred his protesting horse and cantered ahead towards the hotel. Bratton made for the cool shade and the murmur of the creek. His horse grabbed at the oats as if she’d never been fed. My mare, to show her quality, let me lead her to the budding thistles and cattails. Delicately, as if to say that she came from better stock, she sniffed the edge of the stream, nudged me for permission, and then walked into the creek to slake her thirst after the heat of the hills. I gave her a few smooth pats on the neck, feeling proud of her antics. Bratton was struggling with the reins.
“Mustang bitch. Goddamn native bred horse.” He looked up at me after struggling with the mare to go into the shady, and less plant filled creek edge. “The army got here not a moment too soon. Some Latino Rancho sons arrived last week and have been running a local poker game.” Bratton burped and groaned. “One of them’s a dandy, cleans everyone out. There have been some accusations of cheating.”
“I take it you were,” here I paused for the right word, “checking out these ‘accusations’?”
Bratton blew his nose into the water, then used his handkerchief. “Damn right I was. I’ve played at the Royal House in Monaco, mind you, on the French Riviera.” Bratton kicked his horse in the flank with Mexican style spurs. “I tell you, Sloan, these two hermanos are running some sort of wicked game.”
“So you recommend I check this game out, see if it’s straight, maybe keep an eye or two on the young fellas?”
“You’re a man of the world, Sloan. Certainly didn’t get charmed by a pair of lacy tits and a talented mouth,” Bratton muttered then looked down at my belt. “Or is that where our guest was last evening?”
For a moment I didn’t say anything. I shifted in my saddle. Bratton watched me carefully. “I didn’t think so. Once you get a taste of a good marriage, you don’t look for the next meal.”
The statement surprised me. Bratton was not to be underestimated. He was, after all , a self-made man. “Believe it or not, it was good between me and the Missus once. Once. Then some larger than life cattleman came through and she almost went with him. I forgave her, almost. But it made me weak, prone, I should say—” Here Bratton coughed. “It cost me a few shares of the mine. I’ve regretted it ever since.”
“American interest is still maintained. No harm done.” I wanted to believe that, but it wasn’t what I was feeling.
Bratton spat again. “I didn’t like Lincoln, all his policies, his anti-business crap. Slavery built the new world, I agreed with it. Take away slavery, and the economy folds. Look at this place. How do you think I make a profit? The only ones who work are the Chinese. Or the Ohlones.”
“Go on.”
“I sold some shares to Sally’s brother and his business partner, a man by the name of Thomas Ingram or Rufus Poole — or what the hell. Anyway, all they do is draw their dividends. Sally comes here to collect, and then she goes to visit her aunt in San Juan.” Bratton’s face fell. “I’m a weak, old man now who still needs an occasional pipe cleaning now that the wife has closed her shutters for good.”
“Enough said.” I patted my mare on the neck and pulled the reins up as she chomped the last of the wild oats down. “Best get to lunch. By the way, where did you find your chef?”
“Luke?” Bratton joined me on the down. His mare reluctantly followed mine. “Quebec. No French frog would come here. They’re rebels in Canada and hate the Crown as much as we do.” Bratton wiped his forehead again. “Heard he was a fugitive from the Emperor’s court. If I have to die, I’d do it eating his food. That would almost make up for a shuttered bed.”
The smile on my face grew into a grin. So, that
swearing chef I heard last night truly was Pierre Marie-Croix. He might know a few things about the goings on here, like he did at the Daimyo’s castle when we were in Japan. He owed me.
8
“They will kill us, Andre, they will.”
“Relax, Pete, just offer the Lord your food.”
“But they eat with sticks and have no butter, no cheese, non non non!!!” Pierre squirmed around in the dark of the pit where we were being held. Suddenly the door of the floor prison opened up. The guard, wearing a skirt-like set of pants, a long steel sword, and hair tied back and oiled, threw down a rope. I grabbed it.
“Idiot! They will kill us, vraiment! Mourrons!” He clung to my filthy shirt with long, strong fingers.
“Just cook for the Lord. Like they do, only in the French methode.” I had mastered French long ago and sometimes spoke both English and French together. Pierre never noticed, frankly. “I mean, look at the place—it’s clean, delicate, and artistic. Are you saying the French can’t be like that? That the French are what they are calling us: Barbaric?”
Pierre straightened, then pushed me away from the rope.
“Humph!” he declared. Then he climbed out of the prison.
I translated sparingly, still not understanding some of the vocabulary. Structure didn’t seem to really matter, but I did notice that the order of the words mattered if you were addressing someone above your station. We came seeking enlightened new ways. We were not wanted in our homelands. We wanted to learn about the people of Japan. We did not want to teach them our ways, but learn theirs. We used what little skills we had, and here I tried hard to be as humble as I could, mimicking the gestures, keeping my head low, talking to the spotless vermin-free bamboo mats, remembering that we had nowhere to go and could work hard. The truth was far worse. We refused to comply with our Captain’s raid and destroy campaign. Luckily it was a privateer and not the Navy or we would have been shot. The Captain simply marooned us in hostile territory and sailed up the coast.
The Daimyo, whose name was Ikebara, asked us about our weapons, our military might, our Western philosophy, by suddenly switching to perfect English. I maintained my poor grasp of Japanese, for reasons I couldn’t explain, but I felt it would help us live in the end.
We were given baths. My first truly hot one left me almost unable to work because I fell into a stupor from the pleasure of it. I assisted Pierre in the kitchen, clumsily, but he did not want me to leave his side.
Pierre blanched vegetables I’d never seen, and then he sliced eels. Asking for some sesame and soybean oil, he coated the eel, or unagi as they called it, in rice flower with a scraping of red pepper, the fermented juice they called shoyu, and some gratings of a hot radish called daikon. He also sprinkled a dried fish powder in the flour. The long lengths of eel were dipped in the oil, then coated with the flour, then cooked again in oil. These he placed alongside a delicate squat orange, arranged like a hand. The dishes we were given to place food upon made Pierre exclaim with happiness that heaven was here in Japan, and using a tea powder, Pierre, taking a bamboo brush with hard bamboo bristles whisked the green foam into a paste, added some honey and delicately covered the oranges in a droplet pattern that looked like rain.
He paused before the dish went out to the Daimyo or Lord, hung his head and prayed.
I still could not shake the memory of my French Chef de cuisine friend. Bratton’s words also hit me hard. My resolve to marry again, marry for sex, love, food, a safe place to sleep, became paramount, IF I lived through this mission. Bratton didn’t see me as anything but a Marshal. My cover was blown before it ever began.
“So you must be a man of means to have the Marshal Service in your employ,” Bratton commented. “I trust you’ll make good investments in Santa Cruz. I hear the lumber industry and the lime works can give good returns. If you get a chance, call on the Powder Works.”
“Powder Works?” Art had mentioned this business.
“The only gunpowder on this side of the country is made right there on the city’s big river. The owner is from Louisiana.” Bratton steered us back to the hotel. “That young Marshal better do his job or he’ll have me to answer to. Then again, I’m sure he’s just there to make ya look good. Us businessmen don’t need a lawman when a good rifle will do.”
Well, safe for now.
Fergus was so gleeful at the idea of attending the poker game, I was worried we wouldn’t be able to keep our covers intact. But the allure of trying to empty the pockets of Army officers, a US Marshal ‘still in nap cloths’, and a wealthy business traveler bought our own way in. The game was set to meet at 10pm in the back of the mine store.
“Let’s see how the telegraph is.” Andrew pulled all of us aside to go inside the mine’s company store. The building was mostly brick with sturdy redwood sides. The joists were well put together and in some places lacked nails. In the nails’ place were remarkable dovetail wood cut joints done in a method I’d seen back in Ohio.
The building was wide and open like a barn; the large doors allowed the wagons to come inside and unload their supplies and the stock boys could simply stack them in aisles, some to the ceiling, accessible by ladders, if necessary. A pulley system moved the higher boxes and their contents quite easily from top to bottom by the use of a wire basket.
Quite a place the mine store was! A man could find any manner of items but had to use mine ‘money’ in order to take advantage of the vast inventory. Fergus simply shook his head. Andrew found the telegraph station and showed his star to the operator. The two men spoke a bit and Andrew wrote down his message to his mother, as he kept insisting to the operator. No, I heard Andrew argue, no message to the Marshals’ Office, just to his mother. After a few more haggles over the price, Andrew watched the message click forth. Finally, when the operator received the double tap that the message was received by the office on the end, we were able to leave.
My mind’s eye turned over the image of the telegraph on the other end, Sweeney being summoned to the Belly of the Whale, Dorcas quickly scribbling down the message, then, with ease and brilliance, deciphering the coded message from her son, an update on our progress. Dorcas would smile and look proud, perhaps holding my son at her side as she did so. The lump in my throat made me cough. Finally we left the building.
For a brief moment I entertained the idea of sending Miles a letter. She would only burn it, that much I knew. She made it very clear that we would never see each other again after our last time together. My thoughts grew darker and I wondered what else I should do. Then I went back into the telegraph office.
“Yes, Marshal?” the operator addressed me. I quickly frowned and shook my head.
“Just a citizen. I need to send a telegram to my sister, in Santa Cruz.” I put a single small gold coin down on the wooden counter that separated us. The clerk’s grey eyebrows wriggled slightly then he got his stub of a pencil and a leaf of parchment paper.
The boys outside were arguing about something from what I could see of them through the dirty window panes. But I didn’t really care. I had posted a letter to San Francisco when Andrew posted his love letter to Estella. Now I had to begin the mission I was sent here to do.
“Coming home,” I said, almost a mumble.
“That’s it?” the officer of the telegraph said with some skepticism.
I sighed. “Coming home in seven days.”
The officer shrugged, then turned to his machine, but only after taking my gold piece. When I received no change, he shrugged again and said: “Company surcharge.”
I scowled at the man who turned his back on me and left the store feeling angry that I allowed myself to feel weakness, needs, and be willing to part with my coin to satisfy it. The boys joined me, Fergus patting my arm in commiseration. “Never expect change.”
We ambled out into the sunlight again and made our way back to the dining room in the hotel where we were stationed. I was anxious to eat again. The Missus was expecting us for luncheon as w
ell.
“We will have to dress for luncheon,” Fergus reminded us. “My uniform has wine stains on it from last night’s dining.” He frowned and fingered something in his pocket.
“We can wear our work clothes. It’s daytime. I sincerely doubt that they will expect us to be that formal.” Andrew adjusted the flaps on his jacket lapels. For myself, I had another clean shirt left and clean pants, but decided to save those for the ride to Santa Cruz.
“We should go check in at the barracks and see what Lam has to say to us.” The boys agreed. We headed back to the barracks and to our rooms.
Lam was waiting for us. He smiled and informed me that there was a bath house in the rear of the hotel. I did not hesitate and followed him back to the bath house room that had a copper boiler and a metal washtub the size of a wine barrel.
“Can you get these clothes washed and dried by tomorrow?” I handed over my soiled garments with a slight bow. Lam greeted me with a serene and warm smile.
“In this dry place, most certainly. The laundry is first rate. The proprietor often sends other workers to Santa Cruz in exchange for goods, lime, and gunpowder. As new workers here are trained to handle westerner’s clothing without damage, those who owe debt to their overlords are sent over the range to Santa Cruz or further south to the Tres Pinos mines.”
At this point Fergus looked very interested. “That’s the other quicksilver mine.” Fergus said something sharp and bursting, in Cantonese, to Lam. Lam nodded, replied with indifference (it seemed to me), then closed his eyes.
“Two laundry workers are headed out to Santa Cruz with tomorrow’s cargo wagon,” Lam said in English.
“Tomorrow?” Andrew and Fergus said at the same time.
Lam continued his patient tone. “There is a laundry house in Santa Cruz that services a large hotel in town. It is run by a Mister Merrill.”
Here Lam waited, as if expecting one of us to say something. Fergus’ eyes glinted. Another burst of Cantonese followed from him. Andrew was following the conversation as well. I was the outsider.
