Silver

by Graham Masterton

‘Ah, but you never have.’

  Alby poured himself a brimful glass of wine; the sure sign of a man who believes that if the free drink is going to run out quite shortly, then he had better make the most of what’s left. He lifted his glass, and said, ‘Good health,’ and Henry quickly but neatly snatched it out of his hand and lifted it up himself.

  ‘Good health,’ he echoed, with a smile.

  Alby didn’t look particularly upset. He was obviously used to having his winning streaks cut abruptly short. He thrust his hands into his pockets, and sniffed, and looked out at the passing landscape as if it never occurred to him to drink wine, or cadge meals from strangers, or pretend that he had lost his wallet.

  Henry said, ‘Tell me what you’re up to.’

  Alby turned around and looked at him narrowly.

  ‘I want to know,’ said Henry. ‘Is it a confidence trick? Or a bogus sale? What is it?’

  Alby wouldn’t answer, but continued to stare at Henry as if he were deeply offended.

  Henry said, ‘I could always call the conductor back.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ replied Alby. ‘And, besides, I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not a criminal; I’m just trying to make my way to Kansas Territory.’

  ‘What’s in Kansas?’ asked Henry.

  ‘What’s in Kansas?’ Alby retorted. ‘That’s like asking, “what’s in Pennsylvania?” Or, “what’s in Nevada?”’

  ‘Well, there’s silver in Nevada,’ Henry suggested.

  ‘That’s perfectly correct, and coal in Pennsylvania. The natural resources of a rich nation.’

  ‘And what’s in Kansas?’

  ‘You already asked me that.’

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t tell me the answer.’

  Alby petulantly crossed his arms and stared out over the landscape. Henry hesitated for a moment, and then handed him back his glass of wine. ‘Go on,’ he coaxed him, ‘tell me what’s in Kansas.’

  Alby regarded the wine out of the corners of his eyes. ‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘there are certain interesting minerals. One in particular that I shouldn’t mention out loud.’

  ‘Nobody can hear us. Not out here.’

  Alby shook his head, tightly. ‘You never know. Anyway, you don’t believe anything I say. I don’t have any money; and I’m a liar; and apart from that I’ve just panhandled a meal, and a bottle of wine. The best thing you can do, my dear fellow, is to return to your seat and forget that you ever saw me.’

  ‘Not until you tell me about Kansas. Come on, I do think I deserve some return for my dollar-ninety.’

  Alby took a long, thin breath through pinched-in nostrils. He pouted out his lips. ‘No.’ he said. ‘I really don’t think so. I’m sorry. Leave me your address, and I shall make absolutely sure that you receive the dollar-ninety by mail, just as soon as I’m flush.’

  Henry grinned. ‘Listen, Alby,’ he said, ‘it seems to me that you’ve got your hook in me, and now you’re reeling me in. I know what you’re up to; I don’t have any illusions. But I’d still very much like to know what you’re playing at.’

  Alby jerked his head around and stared straight into Henry’s face as dramatically as if he were a woman, announcing that she was pregnant by a Russian prince. ‘Gold,’ he said.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Henry. ‘So that’s why you’re going. But don’t you think that’s too much like hard work, for a fellow like you? You’re used to luxury, the Fifth Avenue Hotel. I can’t really picture you digging in the Rocky Mountains, with a pickaxe.’

  ‘I won’t be digging with a pickaxe,’ Alby replied, shaking his head mechanically from side to side. He reached into his inside pocket, and produced a folded sheet of paper. ‘I have my mine already, the Little Pittsburgh. All it needs is exploiting. The gold’s there already; first-grade ore. It was found by a German called Brüchner, but he lost it in a poker game to a fellow called Frost; and when I played with Frost in Omaha, Nebraska Territory, the last time I was there, I won it from him. And here it is: look, the deed of claim, legally sound.’

  Henry said, ‘Let’s go inside. It’s getting dark out here. I want to look at this properly.’

  Under the gas-lamp in the bar, with two fresh whiskeys, Henry spread the deed out on the table and examined it. It was a single document, as most mining claims were, signed by a storekeeper called Tennant and marked with a cross by a man described as ‘Fritz Brüchner’. The claim was ‘on the western bank of California Gulch, a mile south from Mosquito crossing, in Kansas Territory’.

  ‘This is no guarantee that there’s any gold to be found,’ said Henry.

  ‘You’re right,’ agreed Alby, and folded up the claim again, and tucked it back in his pocket.

  ‘But you’re still going out there? To Kansas, I mean?’ Henry asked him.

  ‘I have the assay, too,’ said Alby. ‘Frost wouldn’t take the German’s note until the German had produced a sample of ore, and he could have it tested. Well, I wouldn’t have taken the note from Frost, would I, if I hadn’t been sure of its worth?’

  He reached into his pocket again, and produced a certificate from W. de Kuyper’s Assay Office, Denver, K.T., which read ‘I hereby certify that the specimen of ore said to have been taken from F. Brüchner’s claim in California Gulch in Summit County K.T. assayed by the undersigned gave the following result; Gold per ton of 2,000 lbs 7/80/100/ozs, coin value $203.25; Silver per ton of 2,000 lbs 2/10/100/ozs, coin value $5.70.’

  Henry looked at the assay for a long time. The train was drawing close to New York now, and every now and then it let out a hoarse, high, drawn-out whistle.

  ‘All you have to do is dig it out?’ he asked Alby.

  Alby carefully retrieved the assay, and folded it up. ‘All I have to do is pay four or five labourers to dig it up for me.’

  ‘But if you own a gold-mine,’ said Henry, ‘why are you struggling around in the east, in worn-out clothes, without even the price of a meal?’

  ‘I did have the price of a meal, when I first came back to New York,’ Alby explained. ‘But, well, my luck began to run against me. I played and I lost; and then I started drinking because I was worried that I was on a losing streak; and so I started losing faster. Going up to Troy was just about my last chance. I do have an aunt in Troy; not as rich as I told you; and a darn sight meaner, too. She gave me enough for the train ride back to New York, and that was all. I wouldn’t have spent my last penny on a posy for her. I wouldn’t have spent my last penny on a stinkweed to drop on her grave.’

  Henry listened to all this, and then sat back and smiled at Alby, and said, ‘So now you’re off to make your fortune. You’re going to sit back while four or five hired hands dig up your gold for you; and get rich as Croesus, without even doing a stroke?’

  Alby patted his coat pocket, where the deed and the assay were tucked away. ‘That’s the plan.’

  ‘How are you going to get out west, without any money? The railroad fare from New York to Chicago is $78. I don’t know what it costs to travel on to Denver, but it can’t be very much less than $50.’

  ‘I shall manage,’ Alby asserted. ‘I have friends enough, in New York.’

  ‘Don’t think that I’m going to loan you the fare, because I’m not,’ said Henry.

  ‘You wouldn’t perhaps be interested in a share of the mine?’ asked Alby. ‘A hundred dollars will take me to Denver. Stake me for that much, $100 and I’ll sign over a tenth of everything the mine produces guaranteed. Now, that could be a bargain for you. A rare investment indeed.’

  Henry shook his head, still smiling. ‘A good try, Alby; but I’m going to San Francisco, and that’s all there is to it. I have just enough money to get me there, and to set myself up; and I’m not risking any of it on you.’

  ‘Well, it’s up to you, of course,’ said Alby, and lifted up his empty wine glass, and stared into the bottom of it as if staring alone could refill it. Henry beckoned to the waiter. It would be the last drink he would have to buy for Alb
y before they arrived in New York. Already the train was clanking its way through the brownish rocky landscape of northern Manhattan; and in the distance he could see the scattered lights of New Jersey, and the grainy horizon where only ten minutes ago the sun had burned its way west. Just think: in San Francisco it was still daylight.

  At last the train slowed down to a shuddering crawl, and made its way past the rocky fields of Harlem and into the railroad yards of Park Avenue. Henry stood by the window, holding tightly on to the leather strap beside him, enthralled by the gas-lights and the noise, and the rows of houses and factories which passed him by. New York had been built up residentially as far north as Thirty-seventh street; but Park Avenue in the East Forties and Fifties was one of the ugliest parts of the city, with factories and garbage dumps and stock-enclosures and switching-yards. They passed the F. & M. Schaefer brewery at Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets; and the potter’s field which occupied the block bounded by Park Avenue, East Forty-ninth street, Lexington Avenue, and East Fiftieth street. The train let out a last steamy scream, and clanked into the New York Central terminus, and all the passengers gathered their valises and their carpet-bags and prepared to disembark.

  ‘Well, Alby, it’s been an education to know you,’ said Henry.

  ‘I wish I could say likewise,’ Alby replied, holding out his hand.

  ‘I shall watch the newspapers, when I’m out west,’ said Henry. ‘If I ever hear of a gold baron called Monihan, then I shall know that it’s you; and I shall thoroughly regret not taking up your offer of a tenth share in the Little Pittsburgh mine.’

  Alby bit his lip. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I know this is barefaced impertinence, especially seeing that I’ve touched you for supper, and all of those drinks, but do you think you could see your way clear to grubstaking me for just $20, so that I can get into a decent game of poker? Henry, I promise you, I’m feeling lucky. I don’t drink any more, well, not to excess. If I could just borrow the $20, I promise you faithfully, on my honour; cut my throat and swear to drop dead; strangle my dog, Henry, that if you come to the gentlemen’s bar at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, at seven o’clock tomorrow evening, I’ll pay you back the full $20, plus $5 interest. Now, is that a fair deal, or isn’t it?’

  ‘Alby,’ said Henry, ‘I can’t spare it. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.’

  Alby ran his hand quickly through his bedraggled hair, and looked to one side, and then looked back again, and said, ‘Please. I won’t lose it for you. I promise. No fancy games, no risks. Just plain straightforward poker.’

  Henry thought for a moment. The train was already squealing to a halt, and the conductor was walking through the aisles announcing, ‘New York Central—New York Central!’

  Alby said nothing more, but buttoned up his coat. Henry took out his wallet, opened it, and counted out $20 in bills, which he tucked into Alby’s handkerchief pocket.

  ‘I’m going to be there,’ he warned Alby. ‘When seven o’clock strikes tomorrow, I’m going to be there. And, believe me, you’d better be there, too.’

  Alby clasped his hand over his pocket, and his heart. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered, almost silently. ‘I knew you were regular, the moment I set eyes on you.’

  ‘Well, I’m beginning to wish that you never had,’ said Henry, testily. He considered that $20 was sufficient charity, without having to be pleasant too.

  Without staying around to try his luck, however, Alby descended from the train, and hurried off into the crowds. Henry had to find a porter for all of his trunks and his bags, and a waggon to take him to the Collamore Hotel, where he hoped that he was booked. The Reverend Jones had recommended it to him because he had stayed there himself during an ecclesiastical conference, and found it comparatively free of whores. Most of the fashionable brothels had already moved northwards to the Madison Square district to take advantage of the new hotels that were being built there, like the Fifth Avenue, and the Albemarle.

  From the moment he stepped down from the train, Henry found the chaos of New York overwhelming. The terminus teemed with people, jostling and shouting and laughing. He caught hold of a porter at last, a bandy-legged Negro with a grin like a parlour piano, and counted himself lucky that he was tall enough to be able to follow the man’s head as he whistled and sang, and propelled his barrow at an almost hysterical rush through the crowds.

  ‘Busy today,’ Henry remarked, breathlessly, as the porter wheeled his luggage out into the street, and whistled for a waggon.

  ‘Busy today, busy yesterday, busy tomorrow,’ replied the porter. ‘Nevah standin’ still, always runnin’, always tryin’ to catch up. The only time you ever catch up, that’s when they lay those pennies over yo’ eyes.’

  The waggoneer was gruntingly fat, with a green Derby hat and a coat so tight that it looked as if it would burst open at any moment, and spill the man’s stuffing across the street. The black porter heaved Henry’s trunks on to the back of the waggon, and helped Henry to climb up on to the lumpy leather seat. Henry tipped him a nickel, which the porter flicked up into the air, caught, bit between his teeth, and then dropped into his pocket, as neatly as if he were a candy-machine.

  ‘Well, now,’ puffed the waggoneer, ‘where is it to be?’

  ‘The Collamore, please.’

  ‘Good enough. Hold tightly, then. Some of the roads are torn up, just now, and I wouldn’t want to lose you over the side.’

  The Waggoneer crossed town through a series of shadowy side streets, angles and lights, and then turned southwards on Broadway. It was a humid, dusty, sweltering evening, and Henry found the brightly-lit thoroughfare astonishing. The sidewalks were crowded with brightly-dressed promenaders and hurrying clerks; pedlars and travelling musicians; and the road itself was jammed with heavily-loaded stages, carts piled high with boxes and lumber, growlers, broughams, and scarlet and yellow horse-drawn buses. The traffic was so congested that pedestrians were having difficulty dodging between the horses and the waggons; especially where buildings were being torn down, and bricks and debris had been heaped carelessly on to the sidewalks. The main street was well-swept, particularly outside the shops, but the side alleys and entrances were clogged with old boxes, split-open flour-barrels, tea-chests and earthenware jars brimming with coal ashes. The noise was deafening: the rumbling of hundreds of iron-hooped wheels and the clattering of horseshoes on the hard stone pavement, the shouting and whistling and thundering of boxes being loaded and unloaded at stores and hotels.

  ‘You mark my word, this will all quieten down in ten minutes flat,’ puffed the waggoneer, taking out his brass pocket-watch, and then snapping the lid shut again. ‘This is your Friday-evening scramble; clerks and shop-assistants beetling off home; stores stocking up for Saturday’s trade; clearing up and rushing about, that’s all. But give it ten minutes, give it ten minutes flat, and then you won’t see nothing but walkers, and fashionable varnish, and strumpets, of course, plenty of them.’

  In spite of this last-minute crashing and banging and general pandemonium, Broadway presented itself to Henry as an almost enchanted spectacle. There were gas standards lining the sidewalks like the trees in an incandescent orchard; their mantles reflected by the windows of dozens of stores and houses. It seemed that you could buy anything here: from Huntley & Pargis Toilet Articles to Bartholomew’s Mourning Apparel, and what you couldn’t immediately buy was advertised in a pasted-up poster, Hobensack’s liver pills, George Christy & Wood’s Minstrels, as well as cures for everything from gout to scrofula.

  They passed the St Nicholas Hotel, where the sofas in the lobby were covered in wild animal skins and the curtains in the ladies’ parlour had cost $25 the yard, or $700 a window. And they passed the stores, the magical Italianate palace of A.T. Stewart, the first department store in America; and Lord & Taylor, five gleaming white storeys of extravagant dry-goods. Then there were Ball, Black the jewellers, whose store had been compared with ‘Aladdin’s cave’; and their glittering rivals Tiffany & Co at 550 B
roadway, ‘a blaze of temptations’.

  Several times, pretty-looking girls with white complexions and pinks cheeks winked and smiled at Henry as he rode past on the waggon; dipping their bonnets in mock modesty, and twirling the layers of their bright silk dresses. It took an effort of will for Henry not to raise his hat to them as he passed, as he would have done to any young lady in Carmington, where prostitutes were unknown; even if Mrs Varick out at the old posthouse had been known to be amiable to young schoolboys for fifty cents, and to older friends for a dollar.

  But the waggoneer said, ‘Don’t be tempted by them, my friend. The pretty ones come out later.’

  The waggoneer waited at the curb while Henry went inside the Collamore to the high-polished mahogany reception desk, and registered. He was relieved to find that his letter from Bennington had arrived, and that they had reserved a room for him, overlooking Spring Street. The desk-clerk blotted his signature for him. A bellboy with a nose like a cranberry carried his trunks up to his room for him. ‘What have you got in here?’ he demanded, rudely, as he hefted in the trunk containing Henry’s stonemasonry tools. ‘Your own build-it-yourself locomotive?’

  At last, however, Henry could close the door behind him, and sit on the edge of the bed, and take off his shoes. He fell back on to the comforter, crossing his hands behind his head, and stared gratefully up at the acanthus-decorated ceiling. It was a small room, and noisy. There was a pipe running down one of the walls which seemed to rattle and gurgle incessantly. The curtains were brown, and dusty; but then Broadway was always dusty in the summer. And no matter how modest this room was, no matter how tawdry, it was Henry’s first step towards his future, and the very first place in which he had ever stayed, apart from home.

  He went to the wash-basin, and turned up the gas-mantle so that he could see himself clearly in the mirror. He looked pale and sweaty, and his waxed moustache had wilted to twenty past eight. He washed his face in hotel soap, which smelled strongly of lily of the valley, and dried himself on the rough hotel towel. Then he lifted up the sash window, and looked out over the windowsill at the street, three storeys below.