Ghosts in the Gulch: An Evergreen Cemetery Mystery (Evergreen Cemetery Mysteries Book 1)

by S. L. Hawke

  Sloan frowned at Faustino and moved his lower jaw back and forth, a gesture Faustino would come to know as exasperation. He spoke: “Did Sally Towne mention to you what her plans were for her brother?”

  “She wanted him to die at the hands of the law.”

  “And her relationship to Rufus Ingram?” Sloan pushed. He was speaking English and they all had been. Faustino felt the heaviness of his heart.

  “He did not find her…attractive.” This information made Sloan somewhat happy, Faustino noticed. He nodded and gathered all the letters together. Then he stared hard at Faustino.

  “So why hasn’t John Towne noticed these very important letters are missing?” Sloan asked with that impish smile of his. Faustino took a breath.

  *******

  “Tino, you wouldn’t play a trick, would you?” Emma sounded disappointed more than anything else. I myself wondered why Towne wouldn’t have at least checked his strong box for these. Especially as the war progressed, the information in these letters would be needed.

  Lorenzana surprised me with this cleverness. Were these originals, but with Sally’s help, somehow John did not seem to notice that the contents of his strong box were missing?

  “I…” Here Lorenzana fiddled with a horn button on his shawl. I waited patiently. He was very young, and made me think of my son. “I made copies. It was hard, but I was able to make them look like that and then, well, the seals, they were harder, but we stole a few from the courthouse, so I hoped he did not look closely at them, and I also thought that by the time he did need them I would be–”

  “Gone, or dead, maybe.” I finished the sentence for him. Lorenzana shrugged. A strange youth, one that I began to see might not be welcome among his own people. His intellect was quick, his insight too clear, causing others to be fearful because he could not easily be deceived. He was also too fastidious, too much like a woman. The way he used the term of love with Emma sounded more like one used with a sister or cousin, and Emma herself spoke of him as if he were her child.

  I studied the letters of instruction and deliberation of certain establishments, plantation owners seeking asylum like McKenna, and covert transference of monies to hidden accounts, fraudulent currency instructions, and of course a letter of introduction to a high ranking man of the Golden Circle, but the last letter I had not had a chance to study. I picked it up and opened it.

  It was a will. Not just any will, but my sister Beth’s first husband Elijah’s will. I studied it carefully. The will left all of his estate to my sister in trust for his son Frank, to be released when Frank turned of age.

  “My God!” I said. Emma took the will out of my hand. She gasped.

  “I knew it!” she exclaimed.

  “Knew what?” I turned to her. Lorenzana made a motion for her to continue.

  “John’s condition upon his marriage proposal to Beth was for Frank to be ‘returned’ to his grandparents and for Beth to trust John to send Frank his inheritance when he arrived in Oregon. Cynthia received a letter thanking her for the receipt of three hundred dollars. Elijah owned his store and he had substantial supplies of metals and gems for his work. All of those were sold at his death. Beth had inherited four thousand dollars. Sophia invested some of that profit in the local bank for Beth’s future, but the rest was put in trust for Frank.” Emma put both hands over her mouth.

  “He stole,” Lorenzana stated, but I had to admit, he was right. This young lad was not to be underestimated.

  “John claimed that the will was burned in a fire at the attorney’s office.”

  “Yes, I remember that because my case notes were also missing,” Lorenzana added. I studied this young man. His eyes were amber, much like Emma’s, large, and quick. No wonder Fergus liked him. I had a thought, a disgusting one, but my training reminded me that sex and power sometimes were one, were used as a means to an end. Is that the power Fergus had over Lorenzana? As if the vaquero read my mind, his face reddened and he looked away. Well, what men did with each other of their own free will in the privacy of their own places was not for me to care or judge. One of the bravest samurai I had ever known preferred men. And then of course, Alexander the Great…

  I grabbed the pile of letters and tidied them. Then I studied the schedule. It had a special compressed seal in addition to a wax seal, both very hard to forge. “How did you copy this one?” I said with a half-smile, already knowing the answer.

  “No.” Lorenzana waved his hand and laughed somewhat. “That one I stole. From Charlie, when he passed out.”

  “Tino!” Emma looked indignant but with a comical smile. Obviously they knew something about this Charlie that I didn’t.

  “That is not a real schedule.” Lorenzana seemed to glow a bit. I noticed he often got animated when he had a chance to show off his skills. My son was the same way. The fact that Fergus was alive, that both of us were roped together by this deception, made me feel less rage towards him. Fergus did say I could trust him. I needed someone. I leaned on my elbow and tapped my finger against my lips.

  “How do you know that?” Emma asked for me, but I knew the answer. Still, to watch this young man look proud of himself amused me. Lorenzana took the schedule from me and held it up.

  “Charlie told me that the next stage’s payload was so large that they wanted to prevent anything from happening to it. They knew that they could get robbed on the way to San Jose and then to Sacramento. So they changed the route but put the changes in code.” Here he opened up the schedule and showed us the columns of times for regular stages and cargo transports run by Wells Fargo.

  “Tino, how did you get him to confess like this? “ Emma took the schedule and peered at the columns trying to find an answer. Here Lorenzana did a strange thing. He lost his sparkle and then swallowed tightly. “We share the same fate.”

  Well, that was what I thought. So Lorenzana was effeminately oriented. The relief I felt could not be described enough. Emma was truly safe in his company. I put my arm around her and kissed her forehead. I took the schedule from Lorenzana.

  “This is the key.”

  “Ey! You steal my thunder, Gringo!” Lorenzana pouted. “If you look closely, you will see errors in the sheet. I figured out that the keyword was highlighted here.”

  To my astonishment, Faustino pointed out where the errors were in the column and their consistency of occurrence.

  “Then I counted the place in your alphabet, where the letter lives.”

  “Such as ‘A’ is equal to 1,” Emma added. She gave me a mischievous look. “Women have been accused of speaking in code.”

  It was hard not to show how impressed I was. This type of code required an abnormal ability to juggle numbers and letters in the air simultaneously, which explained his ability with cards. This young man was brilliant.

  “Good work,” I said. He needed to know Fergus was alive, because I needed him in my corner. Right now, I was feeling like I could not trust the Army either, not where gold was concerned. Our arrest at the cemetery had proven that.

  We left the cave in silence. I told Faustino to wait until he heard from me. Emma took my hand.

  “There is someone I need you to meet,” she said quietly. I did not question her, but followed without speaking until we came up to the gate house of the Estate. She took a secret pathway, well maintained I gathered, by General Sweet as it crossed his land. She had a key to the gateway and we suffered no harassment from using it. But I was not at ease until I saw what appeared to be massive walls and a Japanese style gatehouse.

  An old black man came out from within as I dismounted. He went to my horse, followed quickly by a Japanese servant. I helped Emma down, more out of manners than necessity. She smiled at me and made the gesture into a loving hug, which I embraced, kissing her as I did so.

  “Well, now, you done right, A.J.” A familiar voice startled me. I turned and looked at the shadow of the powerful man I had once admired and learned from. The stalwart tree had become a wizened stump.


  “Josiah…” I choked. Emma released me with a grin on her face as I embraced the old ex-slave. This was truly home now.

  5

  Downtown Santa Cruz, two days later.

  “Observe this small ordinary item.” Shaw-Jones held up a red paper cylinder the size of a hand-rolled cigarette with a thread hanging off its end.

  Fergus, Andrew and I sat in chairs in front of Shaw-Jones. We had come for ‘tea’, and after a brief meal, found ourselves seated in a theatre, as if observing sleight of hand. The Lord lit its thread with a candle and dropped the red cylinder onto the table top. It exploded with an ear-shattering bang. It also left a scorch mark on the wooden surface.

  “We all know this is gunpowder, but it is a sophisticated blend.” Here Shaw-Jones produced another red cartridge, as I liked to call them, and cut off the end. A black, finely ground powder came out the other end. “As you are aware,” here his deep voice sounded diabolically ominous, “grinding can be an explosive endeavor.” Fergus shook his head and stood up in exasperation.

  “This formula already exists at the local Powder Works.”

  “So why don’t we just buy some?” Andrew added.

  “Because it will alert them to our presence,” Shaw-Jones growled back. Andrew frowned at him.

  “You’re suggesting we steal it.” My contributions to these discussions always got me roped into some errand I did not want to do. A look of self-satisfaction came from Shaw-Jones. Fergus looked at me as well and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

  “Well, you’re going to need a reason to go up there.” Andrew produced a letter. I took it and opened it. “They claim they are still constructing the site. We have proof that they have been shipping out large amounts under the guise of ‘accidental combustion’ accidents.” Fergus pointed to the letter. “Your job is to sketch a site map, for the owner.”

  “A map artist?”

  “I believe the word is ‘cartographer’,” Shaw-Jones elucidated.

  “No, this says ‘map artist’. They want a general layout.”

  “I want that map,” Fergus said in a voice I’d never heard him use before. A confident, orderly, no wiggle room, demanding voice. He was, by all evidence, in charge of this intelligence gathering.

  “I’ll need to take an assistant.” I looked at Shaw-Jones.

  “My job is procurement, not easel carrying,” Shaw-Jones once again said calmly.

  “No women,” Fergus said. The comment startled me, but by the way Fergus looked me in the eye, the secret was out. If he knew, then McKenna most certainly did. “Use Faustino.”

  “Let’s get this done, gentlemen,” Andrew said, taking the words I would have said right from me. The next two days we carefully walked through our plans, one of which involved some extraordinary magic.

  ********

  California Powder Works construction site, Upper San Lorenzo River

  Faustino carried the wooden drawing easel and a box of paints, pencils, and brushes across the hillock. Sloan was studying the valley below them and the town of the Powder Works. A low growl, a groan, and sounds of men calling to each other drifted up to them like those strange voices he sometimes heard in the middle of the night near the Gulch or on trips deep into the Mountains. From where he and Sloan were standing, one could see the great water flume descend from the upper reaches of the river to the city itself.

  “How are you going to draw a map on a bed sheet, cabron?” Faustino spoke Castellano because he loved hearing Sloan use it as well. But Sloan answered in English.

  “Like this.” Sloan took the bed sheet out and found the edge that was sewn up like a hem on a dress. He inserted a dowel into that end and then tied a rope on both ends of the dowel. He hung the bed sheet from an oak tree limb (after grimacing and brushing off cocoons that were there). The oak tree had no leaves left. In fact, when one looked across the river basin, one could tell which trees were oaks by the empty brown spaces of blighted trees.

  Faustino noticed now that Sloan used his left hand to draw. Quickly he painted in the trees with a few dabs and licks of a paint brush, then took a pen and made small, quick marks that turned into houses, buildings, tree trunks, fence posts, and even graves. The most amazing thing about all of this was that Sloan was painting all of it backwards. When it dried, which it did quite quickly, he held a block of smooth wood, the size of a brick on one side, then carefully on the other side labeled the map.

  “Any sign of our Englishman?” Sloan asked as he worked. Faustino looked across the way. Shaw-Jones said he would light a Chinese noisemaker when he had stolen the gunpowder. He also said they should run for their lives when he did so. What a strange man Shaw-Jones was. He was like Sloan, meticulously clean, but different. English.

  “Mr. Sloan!” A voice hailed them. Sloan turned and Faustino generally ignored the conversation about who they knew in common and the map’s needs, and then Sloan had called him over to help take down the bed sheet and roll up the painting in a special paper tube. They did so and bade the man goodbye. Sloan suddenly looked upset.

  “What?” Faustino prompted.

  “I forgot to sign my work.”

  A whistle and a bang exploded above them.

  For one long breath Faustino saw the glowing tendrils of the Chinese noisemaker wind their way down towards the buildings below. Then like flowers, fireballs began to blow upward.

  “SHIT!” Sloan yelled. He grabbed Faustino by the back of his jacket and they ran. Sloan slapped his mare on the hindquarters and she galloped off while he, pushing Faustino ahead of him, ran ahead of what looked like a dark black-clouded monster following them. Heat blew towards them, and the air smelled like charcoal and rotten eggs all at once. The blast pushed them the rest of the way down the side of the hill until they fell into the river.

  Fire had started around them, as did ash, falling down upon them. Faustino swore a man’s leg also fell nearby. He screamed at the sight of it, and the air seemed to go away. He couldn’t breathe and fell to his knees. But Sloan grabbed him and threw him over his shoulder. They went into the river, rode the current, and then scrambled up the other side.

  A bell sounded, more explosions could be heard, smaller, but more, and Faustino saw a severed head float down the river next to him, burned up and grimacing. Faustino screamed again and tried to run away.

  “Stop! Right there. It’s all right.” Shaw-Jones appeared beside them, comically blackened by ash and fire. Faustino wiped his nose on his sleeve. There were tears from the ash and smoke. Faustino bent over and took deep breaths. The air had come back.

  Shaw-Jones scrambled down the bank to where Sloan was, seated and shaking. Faustino had never seen him look quite like that before. He had always been so calm and collected. Blood was running down the side of his face from a cut on his forehead. He tried standing, but fell back down again.

  “Did you find anything?” Sloan’s voice was raspy and he coughed, then retched.

  Shaw-Jones nodded. “Oh yes. I found a complete ledger showing transactions of powder kegs. The numbers do not match the inventory. The periodic explosions were to cover up the movement of the certain number of kegs.” Shaw-Jones then held up a single gold wafer, much like the ones Faustino had been paid with, a wafer stamped K.G.C.

  “What?” Faustino saw the wafer. He finally stopped shaking and rubbed some of the soot from his face with his sleeve, or so he thought, but ink-like drips fell off his fingers and hands, leaving clean streaks across his skin. Here, Shaw-Jones bent over his knees and tried to breathe. Sloan made a gesture to the forest and started to stumble into the greenery. “That’s not proof.” He coughed. “That gold doesn’t mean much without a receipt of payment.”

  “No, but we do have the exact poundage of powder lost in the explosions previous, and this DOES.” Here he pulled out a letter, dated and stamped with a Confederate seal, asking for goods and services in support of the cause. It was a dangerous document to have and was dated two years ago, near
the start of the war.

  “But still it could all be an accident.” Faustino straightened and shook his ears. They rang, but he felt fine. The image of the severed head bouncing along on the current, and then what looked like an arm or a hand, however, made him shudder.

  “No, he’s right, Tino. Those explosions were carefully placed in areas where their impact on the rest of production would be minimized. If something is going to accidentally blow up, it should happen–”

  Here Sloan stumbled to his knees and leaned against a redwood. “–on the production floor.”

  Shaw-Jones nodded. “My distraction, as you can see, created what would really happen if an ‘accident’ happened on the floor.” He pulled out a ledger and placed the letter inside it. “I got this from the home of the owner. It was in a safe.”

  “You broke in?” Faustino was very surprised at this odd gringo. He suddenly looked proud of himself as well.

  “Yes, quite easy actually, it was a French model, of which I have intimate knowledge.” Here Shaw-Jones broke out a metal flask and gave some to Faustino. He took a swig and choked on the whiskey therein. He scowled at Shaw-Jones, who simply pursed his lips to prevent them from grinning. Faustino felt suddenly as if Shaw-Jones were flirting, but quickly squashed the feeling.

  Faustino handed the flask to Sloan who took a swig and nodded, even grunted his pleasure at the salty, harsh flavor. There was more blood trickling down the side of his face.

  The horse was gone, but after they all staggered through the forest, she came to them with a neigh of joy it seemed. With her was a black horse as aloof as her master, Shaw-Jones. Faustino‘s horse would probably make its way back to the rancho, he didn’t worry, but Sloan had trouble getting up on the saddle. With Shaw-Jones’ help they got him up, behind Faustino, and the mare led them all back to the nearest place of safety, the Consulate Estate. Shaw-Jones then stopped before they entered the main carriage road and made a five tone whistle. Six Chinese servants came out carrying bundles across their backs. Inside the bundles was enough powder to make pomegranates, as the English gringo referred to the explosive containers.