After about five or ten minutes Pa followed Almeda outside. It was an hour before the two of them came back inside. Almeda’s face was red, and I knew she’d been crying. Pa was serious, but the rest of that evening whenever he’d look at her, his face was more full of love than I’d ever seen it.
Both of them were quiet, and neither said a word about their time alone together outside.
Chapter 40
A Surprise Letter
The rest of that week things were pretty sullen and quiet around the office and at home. We were all disappointed and angry, yet there was nothing we could do. Mr. Royce had us over a barrel.
I didn’t write a word or interview anyone. As much as I hated to quit on something I’d started, a dollar or two wasn’t worth getting Almeda or Pa in trouble with a man like the banker of Miracle Springs. As for what he’d said about me, I have to say I didn’t think of it that much. I didn’t see how anything I wrote could possibly put me in any danger. Almeda didn’t say anything to Mr. Royce, though she took the banner down from our office window.
The thought did occur to me that perhaps I could still write an article or two about the election, even maybe with some of the quotes from talking to people, if I showed it to Mr. Royce first and he didn’t see anything wrong with what I’d said. I would hate to do that! But it did seem like a possible way to be able to do the article. Maybe this was the other side of the question Almeda had put to me before I went to Mariposa: How bad did I want to write? Did I want it bad enough to crawl to Mr. Royce for approval? I didn’t know if I wanted it that bad.
Fortunately I didn’t have to decide. All of a sudden I was thrown into the middle of a new story, one that made the Miracle Springs election—or what was left of it, anyway—seem small and far away.
The following Monday a letter arrived for me in the mail. I immediately recognized the Alta envelope. I opened it and read:
Miss Hollister,
A major story is about to break which will doom Colonel Fremont’s chance for election. We can still stop it, but time is short and I need your help. After your article on Mrs. Fremont—which I must confess turned out to be worth the $8 from all the favorable response it has received—it could well be that you have the necessary contacts to get to the bottom of this scheme to ruin the Colonel’s reputation.
I must warn you, however, there could be danger. Powerful men with great resources behind them are involved. If you want to help, the Alta version of the story will be yours to write. I hope this reaches you in time. If interested, I will be at the offices of the Daily and Weekly Sacramento Times at two o’clock on the afternoon of Wednesday the 12th. Meet me there.
Edward Kemble
September 8, 1856
I could hardly believe my eyes! Mr. Kemble was asking me for help!
I ran across the street and burst through the door of the office. “Look at this!” I cried, waving the letter in my hand.
Almeda took it and scanned it quickly. Then she just looked up at me with raised inquiring eyebrows.
“I’ve got to ride home and pack my things,” I said. “I’ve only got forty-eight hours to get there!” I reached for the letter and was ready to head back out the door.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Corrie?” asked Almeda.
“This could be my big chance!” I answered.
“And the danger?”
“How bad could it be? No one would try to hurt me.”
“People do awful things sometimes when you try to thwart their plans. You remember what Royce said.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with that.”
“Just be sure, Corrie, that’s all.”
I paused, my hand on the knob of the half-opened door, and looked back at Almeda. Her eyes were filled with concern.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But maybe the only way I’m going to be sure is to go ahead, and see what God does. But I’ll talk to Pa . . . and I’ll pray. I’ll try hard not to do anything foolish.”
“Then God go with you, my daughter. I love you . . . and I too will pray!”
For one moment our eyes met, and in that moment worlds were spoken between us. The next instant I was out the door, onto my horse, and dashing toward home as fast as Raspberry could gallop, my hair streaming out behind me, the early autumn wind chilling my nose and ears.
I was at home in less than an hour. I threw together what food I could find, rolled up three blankets, and repacked my little tin fire box. It wasn’t cold yet, but the nights would be chilly so I dressed up as warm as I could, and put extra clothes, a warm coat, an extra pair of boots, a rain slicker, and several old newspapers in a bag. Then I got together my writing satchel.
Once Pa read the letter, he figured it was too late to try to stop me. He probably wouldn’t have tried, anyway. The look in his eyes said to me that he thought I was ready to face whatever the world might throw at me. And if I wasn’t, then maybe it was high time I learned to be.
“You go and do your name proud, Corrie Hollister,” he said. “You’re a Belle and a Hollister. And when anyone tries to give you a hard time, you just remember that, and remember you’re tougher’n any of ’em. And you’re God’s daughter and Drummond Hollister’s little girl too—and I figure that gives you a winning hand against just about anybody. Now you go and show that fella Kemble what kind of stuff you’re made of!”
“Thanks, Pa,” I said.
“I love you, Corrie Belle,” he added. His voice was soft and shaky.
I wheeled Raspberry around. I couldn’t say anything back because of the big lump in my throat and the tears in my eyes. I dug my heels into my mare’s sides and took off down the road. Before I was out of sight, I glanced back and waved. There was Pa still standing in the same place, his hand in the air.
Chapter 41
Sacramento
I walked into the office of the Sacramento Times at ten minutes after two on Wednesday.
I had ridden my mare as hard as I dared, spent both nights on the trail, and arrived in Sacramento just in time to go to Miss Baxter’s to take a bath, change into presentable clothes for seeing an editor, and get directions where to go. I didn’t know Sacramento very well, and it was growing so fast that it seemed to have changed every time I came.
A man sat at a desk inside an open office just inside the main door. He walked out and looked me over.
“I’m here to see Mr. Edward Kemble of the Alta,” I said.
“Yes, I was told to expect you,” he replied. “Right this way, Miss Hollister.”
He led me down a hall and opened a door for me. I walked inside. He stayed outside, closing the door behind me.
Mr. Kemble sat at a table in the center of the small office. There was no one else in the room.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said. “I came as quick as I could. I left the minute I got your letter.”
“Good . . . good, Hollister,” he said. “Sit down.” He pointed toward the chair opposite him.
I sat down and took off my coat. He started right in.
“I don’t know how much you know about California politics,” he said, “but it’s a real mess this year. You would think that with Fremont’s ties to the state, he’d be a shoo-in to win California.”
“That’s what my pa says,” I added. From the look on Mr. Kemble’s face, I gathered this was a time he wanted to listen to himself talk, and wasn’t particularly interested in my responses. I settled back in my chair and listened.
“Well, it isn’t necessarily so. Fremont’s in a bunch of trouble here, and California’s one of the critical states that’s going to decide this election. It’s all split right down the middle of the Mason-Dixon line—Fremont and the Republicans above it, Buchanan and the Democrats below it. But even with all Fremont’s exploring and connections to the West, and the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, his chances are still shaky in some places—like California and Pennsylvania. The Republican party is too new. The Democrats are j
ust plain a stronger party. They’ve got the South all sewed up, while at the same time there are bad fractures in the northeast and west.
“The trouble is, there’s a lot of folks who don’t like the idea of slavery, but they have always been Democrats. And there’s some of us who are afraid that in this election we’re going to find out they’re more for being Democrats than they are against slavery.
“Now, you take the Germans. There’s likely a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty thousand Germans who are going to vote next month; most of them are Democrats and always have been. They don’t like slavery, but they’re Democrats and nobody knows how they’re going to go. And so both parties are trying to win them over and are giving them money, and there are editorials aimed at the immigrant vote in the New York Tribune and the Cleveland Herald and the Ohio State Journal and the Detroit Free Press and the Cincinnati Enquirer and every other paper in the country. And the Democrats are stirring up fear of a Southern secession from the Union if Fremont wins. The Philadelphia Daily News and the Pittsburgh Post and the Washington Daily Globe are full of that stuff. The fear is worst in Pennsylvania. Listen to this.”
He stopped a minute and rifled through several papers on the table in front of him. I didn’t understand everything he was saying, but it was interesting, and I didn’t want to interrupt again. He found the paper he was looking for.
“Listen—this is from the Daily Pennsylvania just a couple months ago: ‘There is no disguising the fact that the great question of union or disunion has been precipitated upon us by the mad fanatics of the North, and that it is a direct and inevitable issue in the presidential contest.’”
He put the paper down and glanced across the desk at me. I think he was almost surprised to see that he’d been delivering his political speech to no one but me, who barely understood half of it.
“Do you get what I’m driving at, Hollister?” he asked.
“Some of it,” I answered.
“I’m talking about this country splitting apart—that’s the kind of fear the southern Democrats are putting into the people of the North. They’re blackmailing the voters, threatening to pull the South out of the Union if Fremont is elected. But if Buchanan is elected, then the South wins . . . and slavery wins. The Democrats are saying, ‘Give us the victory, put our man in the White House, let slavery remain, and we won’t destroy this nation.’ Now I ask you, can we allow this country to submit to that kind of blackmail? Of course we can’t. Slavery is wrong, Hollister, and that’s what John Fremont stands for, and that’s why he must be elected in November. The Southern states will never secede from the Union, even over slavery. The secession issue is a bluff.”
He stopped, took a breath, but then went right on.
“It’s the Southerners, the Democrats, these blackmailers holding the threat of secession over the rest of the country, who are trying to ruin Fremont. They’re spreading all kinds of lies and rumors about him—saying that his parents weren’t married until after he was born, ridiculing him for his beard, claiming that he had once been a French actor, saying that he is secretly a Catholic, that he hates Germans because of his French blood, and hinting at improprieties, even illegalities, in how he came by his wealth. And the rumors involve his wife too—that’s where you come in, Hollister. There are reports circulating that Jessie Fremont has never forsaken her Virginia upbringing, that she still keeps slaves and even watches while they are beaten at her orders, and that she herself was suckled by a slave mammy on her father’s plantation.
“They’re all lies. Vicious lies. But they are damaging Fremont’s chances. And I don’t have to tell you what that means to California. Buchanan stands for the interests of the South. His election will mean that the West will be forgotten.
“Many people feel that the future of California depends on a rail line between Chicago and Kansas City and the Pacific. Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, C.P. Huntington, and others like them are backing Fremont for that reason. They know that the only hope for a transcontinental railroad lies with the Republican party. And that’s why our paper, the Alta, and the Daily and Weekly Times here in Sacramento are doing our best for him. But our competitors are working just as hard to discredit him. The Sacramento Union, the Courier, the Democratic State Journal are all backing Buchanan. And the worst is the Morning Globe in my own city, where some of my own former colleagues have defected.
“Fortunately, I have a spy at the Globe who keeps me informed, and only last week I learned that they are planning a major story to run just a week before the election, a story they hope will utterly ruin Fremont and insure his defeat. Their timing is intended to sway last-minute voters, and I fear they may have similar stories they will break in some of the eastern papers as well.”
He paused and gave me a long, serious look.
“You understand what it’s all about, don’t you, Hollister?” he said after a minute. “It’s slavery . . . and power . . . and greed. You’ve got to understand all this so you’ll know the kind of men we’re up against. We may be fifteen hundred miles from the nearest slave plantation, and California may be a free state. But there are men here who work for some of the most powerful and wealthy men in the South. And they’re doing whatever it takes to put Buchanan in the White House and keep their power from eroding. The South controls the country right now, and they don’t want to lose their hold on Washington. Men like Fremont, and that young lawyer from Illinois, Lincoln, who aren’t afraid to speak up, are in danger. And we may be in danger too. But we’ve got to do what we can, and we’ve got to try to scoop them on their story before they print it. We’ve got to discredit everything they say before they say it, and print our own major new pro-Fremont piece. We may not be able to change what they do in Pennsylvania. It’s too late for that. But if we can swing the vote in California, it may be enough to put your friend Jessie Fremont in the White House.”
“I didn’t say she was actually my friend,” I corrected him.
He looked at me crooked for a second. “I thought you did,” he said finally. “Well, that makes no difference. You obviously have some connection.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about politics. I don’t see how I can be of much help.”
“One of Senator Goldwin’s men is supposed to be up in the Mother Lode somewhere, digging up the last of the dirt they’re planning to use against Fremont.”
“Who’s Senator Goldwin?”
“Herbert Goldwin—just about the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate, an entrenched slave owner, and filthy rich from his huge cotton plantations in South Carolina. Also one of the most unscrupulous men in Washington. He’d lie or cheat, steal, maybe even kill to keep his little empire secure. Fremont’s spoken out against him, and Goldwin hates the Colonel. Of course he’d never soil his lily-white hands with his own dirty work. But he has plenty of people to do it for him. And one of them’s up Sonora way rousing up all kinds of mischief—getting falsified documents against Fremont, getting interviews from miners Fremont supposedly ran off the Mariposa at gunpoint. Then there’s the Catholic angle, and the rumors against Mrs. Fremont. My contact at the Globe says this guy’s due back in San Francisco in a week and a half with the last pieces of the article which will, his editor claims, ‘nail down the coffin on the presidential bid of John Charles Fremont.’ We’ve got to locate that guy and find out what he’s got so we can see if there’s any substance to it. If they’re making claims, we need to find out whether they’re true or false.”
“What’s the man’s name?” I asked. This was getting mighty interesting!
“We think Gregory, or something like that. Only heard the name once, so we can’t be sure.”
“And you don’t know exactly where he is?”
“I had someone else on it, but they lost his trail. Sonora’s the last scent we had, which makes sense—there’s a lot of anti-Fremont talk among the miners that close to Mariposa. Lot of ’em think they ought
to be entitled to the gold on Fremont’s estate, and they don’t like him getting rich while they’re scratching away for tiny little nuggets. And just between you and me, I wouldn’t doubt if what Goldwin really wants is the Mariposa for himself! Rich guys like him can’t stand when a man like John Fremont comes into a lot of dough overnight. They want all the wealth and power for themselves, and it makes them crawl to have to share it.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “Why do you think I can help?”
“Maybe you can’t, but it’s worth a try. So here’s what I want you to do. Find this Gregory, or whoever he is, and find out what he’s got. If he has something on Fremont or his wife that’s not true, then use your contact to write an article discrediting Goldwin’s charges.”
“How could I possibly find him? I’m just . . . a girl!”
Mr. Kemble laughed. “Here all this time you’ve been wanting me to overlook that fact. And now when I drop something really important in your lap, you tell me you’re not old enough to do it!”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t old enough. I just don’t know what you expect me to do when your other man couldn’t do it. I don’t have experience tracking someone like that.”
“Don’t you see—you’re the perfect one, Corrie. No one will suspect you of a thing. I doubt if anyone who’s involved with Goldwin will even recognize your name. I could send one of my experienced men. But they’d spot him right off. No, I think you might be able to find out things someone else couldn’t. You shouldn’t even have to lie.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to. But you won’t be able to tell them what you’re after.”
“I still don’t see why you want me to follow somebody.”
“I’m not just sending you to track this fellow. I’m sending you after a story. You’ve got to get on the trail of this thing, find out what’s at the bottom of it, and then write a story that tells the truth and shows up their lies for what they are. Once their story runs, it’s too late. You’ve got to find the guy and uncover what he’s trying to do. I don’t know how, but that’s what you’ve got to try to do. I can’t do it, and none of my regular guys can do it because they know them all. But you can, Corrie—at least I hope you can, ’cause the outcome of the election in California may depend on it. You get to the bottom of it, find out the truth behind the things they’re planning to say, and I’ll make you a reporter, Corrie Hollister. You find this guy and uncover what Goldwin’s up to, and get me the story I want before their charges can appear in the Globe, and I’ll give you a monthly article of your very own, as an Alta regular.”
On the Trail of the Truth Page 23
