But that evening, a handbill was slipped under our door, addressed to the Citizens of San Francisco: “For too long, murders, robberies, and arsons committed in this city, without the least redress from the law, have brought anarchy! When thieves are left to rob and kill, the honest traveler must fear each bush a thief! Are we to be attacked and assassinated in our domiciles while the law allows aggressors to perambulate the streets merely for the payment of straw bail? If so, let each man heed the remedy of OLD JUDGE LYNCH!”
I was reading this screed and Janiva was knitting by the woodstove when there came a knock. I greeted it with a cracked door and Colt Dragoon. But it was our friend, Sam Brannan, come to persuade me to join his new committee, to consult with authorities, and report to the mob.
Before I could refuse, Janiva said, “James, you cannot turn this down.”
But I smelled violence, no matter that the committee was comprised of men from all the best walks of city life, attorneys, merchants, bankers.
Brannan said, “There’s too much lawlessness here, James. The police and courts are enfeebled, so our committee will make an investigation and report to the citizens. If the report is of guilt, I say we hang the guilty. And are you pouring brandy this evening?”
I filled three snifters. Then I said, “You would hang men for robbery?”
“For attempted murder. They beat Jansen half to death.”
Janiva, focused again on her knitting, gave me that look from under her brow. “We’ve lived long enough with these outrages, James. How many more nights do we stand guard with guns loaded while the city burns?”
She could put steel in your spine for certain, especially if you knew of the steel in hers. But I sipped the brandy and sought a path to mediation, for I knew how easily anger could grow into the kind of violence that left a girl named Maria twisting from an oak tree in the mining camp called Broke Neck.
Our American freedoms were protected by thin veneers of law and civility. In places like New England, many layers had been applied across many decades. But here, society had so recently been set down that no more than a light shellac covered it. Each bow to legality, each nod to public decency, each gesture of mercy, represented a fresh coat. So I suggested that we call upon the mayor to convene a grand jury.
Brannan’s snifter was halfway to his nose. “Grand Jury? Good Lord, man, but I’m sick of such talk. The courts have never yet hung a man in California—unlike your friend the sea captain.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“He treats you as if he is,” said Brannan.
“And so must we treat him,” said Janiva, “for there are men outside the circle of civilization who do society great favor by doing the distasteful and the dangerous. He’s one of them.”
“Indeed, ma’am,” said Brannan. “And the captain would agree that some old-fashioned noose-knotting would concentrate a lot of minds.”
“You’re talking about lynching?” I said.
“I’m talking about honest punishment. Hanging without mercy or technicalities. The committee should hear evidence and let the decision be final. If we find those vagabonds guilty, let Trask fashion two nooses and hang them within the hour.”
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, WE heard evidence before the terrified and tearful defendants. Then Brannan made a recommendation for hanging … without technicalities.
The ayes and nays were called. Ayes—four, including Brannan. Nays—eight, including Spencer. One man was pardoned outright, since Jansen could not identify him. The other was taken to Sacramento to face new charges. And the mob, after some remonstrance, accepted our deliberation and dispersed. The veneer had not cracked.
Brannan was angry with me, I knew. But I demanded proof of guilt before punishment. What could be worse than knowing we had consigned an innocent to ignominious death? Outside the courthouse, he said, “The time is coming, James.”
“Coming for what?”
“For him.” Brannan pointed toward the middle of Portsmouth Square, toward the grassy plot where the city well promised to slake the thirst of any man.
There stood Nathan Trask, a dark sentinel with a noose draped over his shoulder.
“The time must come when we make of ourselves true vigilantes,” Brannan said, “when we take the law into our own hands and execute it promptly.”
* * *
BUT IT WAS A bad law that was soon executed: the Foreign Miner’s Tax, perhaps because it was so hard to enforce. Soon, hundreds of Chinese were going back to the diggings, unaware that within a year, the tax would be levied again, but only on them. Wei Chin and many others stayed, however, because they were becoming great somebodies in the eyes of their countrymen and solid, if second-class, citizens in the eyes of white San Franciscans.
As I passed along Clay Street one night, I saw Chin escorting one of the more beautiful Chinese doves back to Ah-Toy’s.
We exchanged bows, and I asked how he fared.
He gestured to the girl. “I fare well with one like her.”
“And your sister?”
“There are none like her,” he said.
I agreed, as would Flynn, I thought. Then I asked if Mei-Ling was happy.
“She live in house of Jon-Ling, live better than any other China girl.”
In that there were few Chinese girls, the truth of this was not easily disputed. Neither was Chin’s growing power. His reputation as a former member of Sam He Hui had spread among his countrymen, many of whom came to him for advice, protection, or loans. As other Chinese passed by that night, they offered deep bows, which Chin returned with a dismissive nod. He had learned how to conduct himself in the Mandarin fashion, too. And loyal Little Ng—silent, unsmiling, angry—was always nearby.
April, 1851
Good News, Vengeful Visitors
The sun was high and bright on the morning that Janiva and I headed to the daguerreotype studio of H. W. Bradley. Almost a year after the darkest day a woman might endure, I would capture her beauty after she gave me the greatest news a man can hope for. We were so young, so much in love, so happily conjoined in the certainty of our purpose. And now she was with child.
Dressed in our wedding outfits, we stepped into the reception area—a table, a worn carpet, two hard-back chairs, and a stairway leading up to the studio. As we were early, Bradley called down that he had other clients and would be with us presently.
We entertained ourselves by studying the daguerreotypes on his walls: images of our growing city, our ship-filled harbor, our friends and neighbors, all captured in mercury vapor on a polished silver plate.
Janiva liked Group of Miners—nine men, five seated, four standing. She said, “This is how I imagined the Sagamores back in Boston.”
Above us, feet and chairs were moving and scraping, voices were rumbling. I said, “It sounds as if they are almost finished.”
To which Janiva responded, “I have to vomit.”
I took her arm to lead her outside.
But she pulled away. “Not in public. I can’t be seen vomiting in public.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time on Montgomery Street.” Then I called up the stairs to Mr. Bradley. “Do you have a bucket, sir?”
“I will be with you in a moment,” said Bradley from above.
Janiva gasped and told me to hurry. It would be a great embarrassment for her to leave her breakfast on Bradley’s floor, so I looked about frantically for a basin, a waste basket, and—yes—the spittoon.
But before I could fetch the tobacco-stained tureen of saliva, Janiva made a gulping sound, brought a hand to her mouth to hold in a burst of morning sickness, and rushed outside. Passersby stepped around her as she left a deposit in the mud. A few rats scuttled from under the boardwalk to inspect her leavings. I shielded her from the rats and led her back inside, reminding her that every woman with child suffered from this sickness.
But she would have none of it. Home we should go. Home, she insisted, to clean the splatter from t
he front of her dress and the back of her glove.
So I ran up the stairs to inform Mr. Bradley.
He was finishing a session with four men, while a fifth watched.
The four were arranged—one in a chair, three standing—before a gray canvas backdrop, with the skylight illuminating them. Mr. Bradley, an officious man in a long white coat, stood beside a polished wooden box mounted on a tripod. An assistant was moving mirrors to fill the stage with reflected light. The subjects appeared as actors playing a scene, their weapons shining, their hair pomaded, their beards combed. And actors is what I wished they were, for when I recognized them, I nearly vomited myself.
Samuel Hodges, in a fine black suit, occupied the position of power in the chair. Behind him, with his Walker Colt cradled in his arm, expressing power of its own, stood Deering Sloate. Doctor Beal stood to Sloate’s left, and one I did not recognize, a slender, sleek-featured young man with yellow hair and a petulant expression, stood to the right, his hands perched on the pistols in his belt.
From the shadows, Sam Brannan said, “Why, Spencer! You were to be our next stop.”
Hodges, whose head was held by a metal brace at the back of the chair, thereby to keep him from moving and spoiling “the exposure,” rolled his eyes in my direction and said, “Spencer, is it? James Spencer? Late of Broke Neck?”
“The very one,” offered Brannan. “A leading businessman of the town.” And those words were the most important that Brannan could have uttered on my behalf.
But Mr. Bradley was growing impatient. “Gentlemen! Hold still. One more exposure. Now look at the camera eye and … hold…” He removed the cap from the brass-necked lens, studied his watch, counted, “Hold … still … another fifteen seconds…”
… which seemed like five minutes before Bradley replaced the cap and said, “Done. Please wait to be sure the image took. Meanwhile, we’ll have the Spencers—”
“We must cancel,” I said. “My wife is ill.”
“Wife?” said Deering Sloate. “What will the girl from Long Wharf say?”
“You may ask her yourself,” I said. “She’s downstairs.”
“Spencer,” said Brannan, “you know these men?”
When recalling a conversation, we often inflate our acumen and wit. But a wise man thinks on what he will say and anticipates exchanges before they happen, like a playwright. I did not, just then, feel like a wise man or a playwright, for I was struck speechless.
“Yes.” Hodges came over. “We sailed together. We knew each other.”
Brannan looked at me, perhaps for signs of weakness, as he did in any conversation. “Knew each other? Without much liking, I sense.”
“Or too much,” said Hodges.
Brannan said, “I’d include Spencer in your stock offering, Hodges.”
I tried to drop my voice to the businesslike baritone I had used in my first negotiation with Brannan. But it cracked like a schoolboy’s. “Selling stock? Again?”
Janiva’s retching broke the tension beneath the skylight.
And Deering Sloate showed that he still knew how to needle. “Your wife is calling, Spencer.” Then he pursed his lips in a kiss.
Doctor Beal stepped forward. “May I offer her my help, Spencer?”
Bradley said, “Gentlemen, back to your places, please. Another image.”
But Hodges kept his eyes on me. “What about it, James? I’m prepared to do business with you. Business is business.”
“I prefer to do my business here in San Francisco.” I hurried down the stairs with Brannan close behind.
Janiva stood in the middle of the room, a miserable look on her face, vomit on her dress, spittoon at her feet.
Brannan said to me, “I thought you’d appreciate a new opportunity, Spencer.”
“I usually do. But not—”
The heavy step of Samuel Hodges clumped down after us. He walked now with a distinct limp, thanks no doubt to a bullet from Cletis Smith.
At the sight of him, Janiva’s face filled with such shock, I thought she might vomit again.
But Hodges greeted her like a beloved uncle, asked after her health, and said, “I’ve come to offer an olive branch to your husband, Mrs. Spencer.”
“Olive branch?” Her voice trembled, whether from her “episode” or shock, I could not tell.
“The Sagamore Water Company is growing, despite earlier setbacks.” He shot me a look loaded with buckshot. “Water is our first order of business. But we mean to start a line of small river steamers to navigate above Sacramento, to capture the market where the streams narrow and the bigger boats cannot go. We’d welcome partnership with a trading house that has Boston roots.”
Sloate came down and stood in the shadows, followed by the doctor, then by the young pistoleer, who managed to look both somnolent and arrogant at the same time.
Janiva glanced at them, at Brannan, then at me, as if for direction.
I said nothing. I wanted to be out of this conversation and out of the gunsights of Deering Sloate and his silent friend as quickly as possible.
But Hodges continued to charm Janiva, in his fashion. He said, “I will offer this opportunity only once, ma’am. Business may be business, but pride is still pride.”
She looked around this room of men, some presenting a distinct threat, and for a moment I thought she might flee from them and the memories they must have inspired. But as I have written, she had steel in her. She fixed her eyes on Hodges and said, “My husband understands pride, sir. He is a proud man.” Her words made me proud of her and of how well she knew me and of how nimbly she phrased things.
“Perhaps you can persuade him to overcome his pride, as I have mine.” Hodges took her hand in both of his. “May I count on the help of such a beautiful Boston treasure?”
Janiva smiled. Then her smile turned to shock at what was suddenly rising. And it rose right out of her, right onto his black suit.
* * *
THAT EVENING, DOCTOR BEAL came to visit us at Market Street and offer his ministrations. After examining Janiva, he stepped into our little parlor and told me how well she was doing, despite the morning sickness. “I’d say you’ll be a father in November.”
I did not tell him that from time to time she slipped into a blue funk that lasted for days. I did not think there was much he could do for that. So I thanked him and asked how he fared in his foothill practice.
“I make my rounds from Hangtown to Sonora … Fix broken bones, treat venereal diseases, patch up gunshots unless they’re too severe.”
“Like the one that killed Stinkin’ McGinty?” I poured two brandies.
“The Walker Colt makes a terrible hole.” Doc Beal took a brandy, sat by our woodstove, and offered this: “So be careful of Sloate. His appetites are different from most, but he considers the merest whim of Samuel Hodges an order to fulfill.”
“And what is Hodges’s whim at the moment?”
“You rejected him today in front of the richest man in California.”
“Rejected him and vomited on him.”
At that, the straight-faced doctor cracked a smile. “We return to the gold country tomorrow, but if you answer the door tonight, lead with your pistol. Hodges will be drinking. When he drinks … Do you remember Jack Abbott of Broke Neck?”
“A good man.”
“He fell into a dispute with Hodges over the amount of gold that Hodges had deposited with him. Abbott made good on the shortfall, but Hodges remained angry. Then, one quiet night, an errant gunshot killed Abbott in his office.”
So many men who had passed through my life had died violently, I found it hard to keep count. I hid my shock behind the snifter and said, “Sloate?”
“Or his acolyte, young Hilly Deane.”
“The yellow-haired boy?”
“Yes. Very dangerous. Meaner than Sloate. That’s why Sloate likes him.”
We froze at the sound of men on the outside staircase. I led with my pistol, but again, it was Brannan, who
took off his top hat and stepped in. As I have said, Brannan was known for gruff manners and blunt talk and both were on display as he bellowed, “You blew up a dam? You blew up the Hodges dam?”
I stammered, glanced at the doctor, then at Janiva, who had just joined us.
And Brannan gave a booming laugh. “Good Lord. The man wants to dig sluices across gold country and run steamboats, too, and he wants my money to do it. But he lets Harvard toffs and China boys blow up his dam? I may demand harsher terms.”
“He won’t be happy about that.” The doctor finished his brandy and made for the door. “He’ll blame you, Spencer. So remember. Until tomorrow keep a sharp eye—”
Brannan said, “My Mormons will be on the stairs all night. That man with the Walker Colt has the look of murder about him. So does his blond friend.”
“You are very perceptive,” said Doc Beal. “Goodnight.”
Brannan said to me, “I didn’t think you had it in you, Spencer.”
Hodges left without further incident the next morning, but I knew that I had not heard the last of him.
May–June, 1851
Communication from Gold Country
At the beginning of May, I received a letter at last from my truest friend:
Dear Jamie,
The Lake of Gold turned out to be bollocks, a yarn spun by digger Injuns and spread by Yankee sharpers. Water so clear you could see gold nuggets on the bottom and flakes on the shore? Ha! But the papers printed the tale, and the gulls come flocking. And where there’s gulls, there’s sharpers. For two hundred dollars a man, they led the gulls up into the mountains, up between the headwaters of the Feather and Yuba, up where that lake was supposed to be, and left them to find their own stupid way home.
I smelled a rat, so I stopped at a place called French Corral, on the San Juan Ridge. That’s where I found something better than a faker’s lake of gold. I found a feller who showed me how to look for rivers of it, which I’ve always told you are as real as the rocks.
Bound for Gold--A Peter Fallon Novel of the California Gold Rush Page 52
