by Zina Abbott
“Thank you.” The effort to speak sent her into another fit of coughing.
Kendrick addressed Benny this time, figuring he had stepped in to manage the situation. “You may wish to try the tea room a block over or one of the restaurants along Main Street. In the meantime, I can butcher and prepare the chickens and have them available when you return. Since this is a special order, I’ll need payment in advance.”
The strain visible on her face, the woman came out of her coughing spell. “Should we have him pluck the chickens, too, Benny?”
Kendrick felt his back stiffen. He was a butcher, not a feather-plucker. His tension eased with Benny’s next words.
“No, Madam. Eva Mae wishes to stuff a new pillow. She’ll want the birds to come with all their feathers.” He turned to Kendrick. “We would like them cleaned, but please send the giblets for each chicken.” The man smiled for the first time since the pair arrived. “I’m partial to batter-fried gizzards, myself.”
Kendrick nodded as he raised his hand in the direction of his gate. “That’s fine. I’ll package them in cheesecloth and tuck them inside the cavity.” Maintaining his salesman smile, he ushered them out of his backyard. “Also, I’ll…um…” Kendrick eyed the woman, wondering how well she would react to the chickens once they were butchered. He turned to the man. “I’ll tie the feet of the two birds together and wrap the works in cheesecloth. That will help keep the dust off them until you get them to your cook.”
Dust seemed to be a strong possibility, Kendrick decided, as he closed and secured the gate before he walked back to the rear door of the building. Even in his enclosed yard, the wind kicked up swirls of dirt and leaf debris. Yes, a storm prepared to blow in, and he expected rain by nightfall.
As much as the late March storm would be welcome to the miners, it would also be welcome to him if Columbia received enough moisture to fill his rain barrel. More than once, he had toyed with the idea of buying a second one in order to keep a supply of rainwater longer before necessity required him to draw his water from the public cisterns along Main Street or travel miles to the west past Springfield to Mormon Creek.
Kendrick met Benny in the front of his shop where he accepted payment for the two hens. He shook the man’s hand and followed him outside. Just beyond his door, he appreciatively eyed the fanciest carriage with a matched team he believed he had never seen since he had entered the gold fields.
Inside the carriage, the woman sat in the back, but leaned forward as Benny climbed into the driver’s seat in front. She graced Kendrick with one last smile as the couple continued down the street where, he assumed, Benny would turn to the right on Main Street to take his passenger to one of the restaurants.
An hour later, Kendrick heard the carriage pull up and stop in front of his shop. He grabbed the twine he used to tie together the two birds so he could hand them to Benny. Kendrick halfway across his shop floor, the door opened.
In walked Benny.
Another one of Kendrick’s frequent customers, Jeb Cardwell, entered behind him.
Jeb stepped to the small window next to the door where, most of him still hidden by the wood plank wall, he craned his neck to look through the glass at the woman sitting in the carriage. With a raised eyebrow, he turned back to face Kendrick.
Annoyed at the man’s curiosity about his other customers, Kendrick jerked his head toward the side of the room away from the window. “Wait over there. Be right with you, Jeb, as soon as I finish here.” He turned and transferred the cheesecloth-shrouded chickens from his fingers to Benny’s. "I hope you and your family enjoy them.”
The man nodded. “I’m sure we will. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take Madam home.”
Once he heard the carriage roll away, Kendrick walked behind his counter and waved over the man who had returned to the window after the door closed behind Benny. Kendrick knew Jeb ogling the departing carriage should be expected. With the shortage of women in Columbia, particularly pretty women nicely dressed, he realized it was not unusual for men to gawk when one came within sight. Then there was the expensive carriage, an almost unknown sight for this part of the world. Still, he did not appreciate Jeb behaving in a manner that might cause his customer any discomfort. He made no attempt to keep the irritation he felt out of his voice. “I’m free now, Jeb. What can I get for you?”
As Jeb approached, more than once, he craned his neck to face the now-closed door. As he reached Kendrick’s counter, he canted his head and clicked his tongue, an expression of awe on his face. “You keep some mighty fancy company, Rick. I can see you wanting to visit her place, but to have her come all the way to yours? Whooee!”
Kendrick wrinkled his forehead and shook his head. “You’re making no sense, Jeb. Except for a few of the boardinghouses and restaurants in town, you know I don’t make home deliveries. She’s a nice lady. She and her companion stopped by and ended up buying a couple of fryer chickens.”
“Oh, she’s nice, all right—considers herself too nice for the likes of most of us, no matter how much gold we flash. As for the companion, you don’t never want to get on the bad side of him. You mistreat her or any of her girls, you can bless your lucky stars if you’re still breathing once he gets finished with you.”
Kendrick threw his hands in the air as he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jeb. ”Once he realized Jeb eyed him with suspicion, he clenched his jaw.
“You honestly don’t know who that woman is?”
Kendrick ground his teeth through several deep breaths before he trusted himself to speak. “No, Jeb, I have no idea who she is, other than I can tell she has plenty of money. I don’t recall seeing her around town. She didn’t introduce herself, and I didn’t ask. Now, I can tell you’re biting at the bit to say something, so go ahead. Enlighten me.”
“That there was Miss Pearl and her muscle, Benny Womack. She’s only got the biggest, most high-dollar parlor house in all Sonora.”
“Parlor house? You mean, like a brothel?”
Instead of giving him a straight answer, Jeb broke out into hysterical laughing.
It took all of Kendrick’s self-control to suppress the urge to wrap his hands around Jeb’s neck, drag him to the door, and shove him out of his butcher shop. He gritted his teeth. “Say your piece, Jeb, or get out. Just because I don’t spend all my money and free time in brothels, like so many of the men around here do, it doesn’t mean I don’t know what goes on inside. I sure don’t need to know about the ones outside Columbia.”
Jeb wiped tears from his eyes. “It’s true. They say she came to San Francisco from some blue-blood family back east. She ended up in the business there. Why she came to Sonora, I have no idea. Maybe that’s where she felt she could set up her own house and do well without the criminal bosses along the Barbary Coast controlling her. Got three girls besides her working there.”
His hands on his hips, Kendrick eyed the man with suspicion. The story had the sound of a tall tale, something many of these miners seeking out the gullible and unsophisticated often indulged in as a source of amusement. “How do you know all this, Jeb? You don’t strike me as the kind of man who moves in those circles.”
Jeb’s expression transitioned from one filled with mirth to a scowl. “She and that Benny fellow thought the same thing. After hearing about her and how good those girls were at pleasing a man, figured I’d give them a try. Paid for a bath and shave, and I even put on brand new clean clothes, too. Benny didn’t let me in, said I wasn’t up to their standards. Said I should try the brothels on the other end of town. Mostly Mexican and Chilean women in those, although more and more French women are coming up this way.”
“I’m aware of that, Jeb. There should be enough places where you can find a woman here in Columbia without riding five miles south to some fancy parlor house in Sonora.” He declined to point out that Jeb made no secret he left a wife and two children east of the Mississippi when he traveled to the gold fiel
ds. It was not to the man’s credit to brag about his experiences in the area’s whorehouses.
Only, now Jeb eyed him like he was the one who should be ashamed of his conduct. “If you know so much about brothels, then tell me why the most exclusive madam in the Southern Mines made a point to show up in your butcher shop?”
Flummoxed, Kendrick shook his head and spread his hands. “I have no idea.”
Chapter 1
Stockton, California – Monday, May 22, 1854
H er throat choked with emotion, Lydia held her two sons next to her.
“You really going to leave us, Race? Why can’t you come with us?
Her youngest, William, asked the question to which she herself wished to know the answer.
Horace Meyer, Jr., better known as Race, her stepson even though he was only nine years her younger than she was, dropped to his haunches and gripped William’s eight-year-old shoulders. His eyes pleading for understanding, he kept his voice soft. “I’m going to miss you, Will. But, remember, we planned all along that I would travel with you boys and your mother as far as Stockton. Now it’s time for us to go our separate ways. You are going to live with your Aunt Dorcas and Uncle Simon in Columbia. I’m taking a different stagecoach to Coloma to check out gold prospects there and farther north.”
. “Columbia is a gold-mining town, Race. At least, that’s what Mama read to us from Aunt Dorcas’s letter. Why can’t you go there to look for gold?” Cole, Will’s older brother by two years, asked the question he and his brother had discussed more than once while on the Pacific Mail Packet that had picked them up on the Pacific Ocean side of the Panama route across the isthmus to bring them to the San Francisco Bay
Race stood and placed his hand on the taller of his two half-brothers. “Because, Cole, your Aunt Dorcas is not my relative like she is yours. I’m sure she’ll have her hands full taking on three new people in her household. She doesn’t need me underfoot.”
Race glanced in Lydia’s direction. He wondered if she knew the thought running through his mind. From what I remember of Mama Lydia’s sister, I don’t want to be anywhere around her.
Lydia glanced at the stagecoach long enough to see the driver stuff the last of her bundles in the boot of the conveyance that would take her and her two sons to Columbia. She flushed as she watched his nose wrinkle in distaste. The bundle was damp to the touch held the sheet which she had rinsed this morning, but which she knew still held the faint odor of urine. Dealing with Will’s bed-wetting condition, which had grown worse as they traveled from their former home in Pennsylvania, had proven to be the biggest challenge she had faced on this journey—a journey they must board the stage within the next minute or two to continue.
Lydia turned to Race and choked out the words that needed to be said. “Take care, Race. I can’t thank you enough for escorting us this far.” In a show of affection uncharacteristic of her, she ignored the awkward bulk of her tow sack and the blanket she kept folded and draped over her forearm as she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, clutching him tight to her. “We will miss you dearly, but I realize you need to find your own way from here. You know we love you.”
Race completed the hug by tightening his arms around this woman who had been his mother since he was nine years old. “I love you, too, Mama Lydia. I’ll miss you and my brothers. But…” He loosened his grip and leaned back. “I feel I need to do this. There’s nothing back home for me now. If I’m ever to have anything, I’m going to have to find the money to build it up on my own. Gold mining seems to be the best way to get what I need quickly.”
“I hope it works out for you, Race. If not, please keep my sister’s address with you.” Lydia pulled a slip of paper from her pocket and pressed it into Horace’s hand. “If I’m not still there, she’ll know how to find me. Write any time. If I can help you, you know I will.” She glanced again at the stage driver, who eyed her while wearing an expression she interpreted as meaning his patience had almost run out. “I think we need to board, Race.”
Race turned to Cole and William and, placing a hand on a shoulder of each, he herded them in the direction of the stagecoach. “Let’s get you boys loaded up for the last leg of your trip to Columbia. My stagecoach going north is due to leave within the hour.”
Lydia reached out her hand to allow Horace to steady her while she stepped on the short stool before climbing into the coach. Two men had already claimed the bench that faced forward, so she sat in the one that faced to the rear of the coach. As Race helped each boy inside after giving each a tight hug, she guided them to sit next to her. She eyed the narrow, backless bench bolted to the floorboards in the center. She knew if more adults joined them, she would be expected to instruct her children to sit there. For now, though, she kept them on either side of her.
Lydia blinked back tears as she gave Horace one last nod farewell. She wrapped each arm around her sons as he turned and walked away.
Cole, who sat on the side of the bench next to the door, lifted the heavy leather flap that covered the window. He stuck his head out and, standing by the bench, followed it with his upper body. He called out and waved frantically. “Bye, Race!”
“I want to see him, too.” Will climbed over Lydia’s lap and squeezed his thin form between Cole’s and the leather flap. His entire body wriggled as he waved his hand side-to-side. “Bye, Race. Bye, Race.”
The coach dipped and swayed as the driver and shotgun messenger climbed into their seat at the front.
Next, she felt her head thrust forward and then snap back so the back of her bonneted head struck the shell of the coach as the driver called out to his team and started the stage on its journey toward Columbia.
“Come inside, boys. You must sit in your seats now the stagecoach is moving. I don’t need one of you falling out of the window.”
With reluctant groans, Cole and Will pulled their heads back inside and allowed the flap to drop over the window. Guided by his mother’s hands, Will settled back in his place on the other side of her from his brother.
Lydia unfolded her blanket and draped it across her lap and those of her sons. Although the late March weather appeared to be much more pleasant than what she expected back in Pennsylvania, she still felt the cold of early morning air.
“Can we –”
“May we.”
Will heaved a sigh. “May we open the window flaps so we can see outside, Mama?”
“Perhaps a little later, when it warms. For right now, let’s keep them closed to keep the air from blowing through and chilling us. We also have other passengers to consider, and they would get the full force of the wind.”
Closing her eyes to keep from seeing the two men across the coach who studied her intently, Lydia felt a wry smile appear on her face as she recollected previous conversations about hers and Race’s destinations. Race had said he was traveling north, whereas Lydia and her sons, on their way to Columbia were traveling south. The truth of the matter was, from Stockton where they had debarked the steamboat that brought them up the Sacramento River from the San Francisco Bay, she and the boys traveled east. She had been grateful he had come this far with them rather than leave the steamboat in Sacramento. They both were headed toward the gold-rich Sierra Nevada Mountains and their foothills on the eastern side of California.
“Mama, I want to go back home to Pennsylvania.”
Lydia fought back tears as she stroked Will’s soft brown hair, so much like her own. “We can’t go back, Will. Pennsylvania is no longer our home. Our new home will be in California.”
“But I don’t want a new home. I liked our old home. Why did Fritz make us leave? He let Johanna stay.”
To avoid the inquiring stares of the men across from them, Lydia dropped her gaze and lowered her voice. “We’ve talked about this, Will. The farm belongs to Fritz now, and he needs room for his new bride. Johanna stayed because she is promised to be married on her eighteenth birthday, which will be next week. Then she’ll be livin
g in a new home, too. Now, hush, darling. We only have a few more days of travel, and then we’ll be in Columbia.”
New home. The thought caused Lydia to shudder. A new home with her sister, Dorcas, was a return to the old misery of her childhood.
Lydia knew, in spite of the ocean travel in the less-costly lower decks with their foul-smelling, cramped quarters, the mosquito-ridden travel across the jungle of Panamanian isthmus crossing, and the cold chill of the early spring weather while traveling in the northern part of the hemisphere, the worst of the journey lay ahead of her. It did not involve travel. It involved meeting Dorcas for the first time in three years after she and her children left Pennsylvania to join her husband, Simon Thompson, in California.
In the years after her mother’s death, followed shortly by Dorcas’s departure to California, Lydia had not dwelt on how peaceful her life had become without her mother’s and older sister’s continual harping, fault-finding, and disapproval. She had realized at a young age that most people in the community in which the Becker family lived, including her father, avoided her mother, with her sharp tongue. Unfortunately, her oldest sister grew to be just like their mother.
Life married to the senior Horace Meyer, a man the same age as her mother, had been a loveless marriage of convenience but, at least, other than to constantly detail his expectations of her, he rarely spoke to Lydia.
She suspected what awaited her in Dorcas’s home. Dorcas would have much to say to her, little of it complimentary or considerate. No doubt, one of Dorcas’s first demands would be to know why Lydia had not gone to the Ohio home of their other sister, Eunice. She recalled the visit she made there prior to her own marriage in order to help with the coming of their second baby. After being approached for sexual favors by Eunice’s husband, she refused to ask to live with them. Besides, with seven children to her credit, Eunice did not have room in her house for Lydia and her two.
