The Coves

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The Coves Page 12

by Whish-Wilson, David;


  The men stood to drink, and Sam nodded to Clement and Keane, and bent down to his feet.

  ‘Mr Duane. Does this belong to you? It was on the ground here.’

  Sam held up the leather purse and Duane’s face blackened and his eyes went fierce as he checked his pockets. He looked at Sam and at the purse then back at Sam again. He spat on the floor and made a fist, and the men around the table stiffened. Sam tossed the purse to Duane and thereby broke the man’s posture of attack, but Duane’s aggression was just a ruse, weighing the purse in his hand and winking at Keane.

  ‘The lad’s under training?’

  ‘He is, Charlie, although…’

  ‘No offence taken, Thomas. It’s good to be reminded.’

  And with that he tossed the purse back to Sam. ‘Boy, it’s yours. You earned it. There’s forty-three dollars in notes within and seven gold eagles and the purse itself is made from the nut-sack of one of my enemies back East. It’s brought me good fortune, and may it continue in your ownership as a marker of your apprenticeship attained this day. Come here and embrace me like a son.’

  Sam looked to Clement who nodded, and Sam accepted the embrace from the older man who leaned down and hissed in Sam’s ear.

  ‘You return that purse to me as soon as we’re alone or I’ll gut you and throw you in the Bay.’

  Sam flinched, but pretended the threat was not made. He still felt elated at stealing the purse, and his heart beat strongly, and his skin tingled with the pleasure of his first success. When he turned, Yankee Sullivan was beside him, kneeling among the backslapping to stroke the ears of Sam’s dog.

  ‘This is the native Australian dog, is it not?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I found him in your old haunt, at Sydney Rocks.’

  ‘Boy, will you tend to me today, with water between rounds and a cloth to wipe the blood?’

  ‘Yes sir, I will.’

  ‘Good lad.’ With that Sullivan leaned closer and said, ‘Give me the purse to return to the brute. I know him well. If I return it he may forego his revenge.’ Sam passed the purse and Sullivan stood amid a new round of cheering, and headed toward the block of dusty light that marked the doorway into the crowded street.

  Sam followed once he’d secured cotton slops from the infirmary upstairs, and a stoppered jug of water from the bar, heavy enough to make him stagger the several blocks to the plaza square, where already a crowd of several hundred had gathered. Mollies from Sydney-town and workers from the nearby streets stood beside the regular sailors and miners and itinerants while Casey stood at a loading dock and proclaimed the arrival of the Southlander champion who would take all comers on this square. He offered a purse of five hundred dollars for any man who bettered Sullivan by way of pugilistic combat. This stake cheered the crowd, who looked among themselves for a willing opponent for the Australian, standing barefoot in the mud within a cleared space of several yards while the crowd jostled for the better position.

  Presently, a giant Russian sealer stripped himself down. He too was cruelly scarred, and his black moustaches glistened from the clear spirit he drank before raising his fists. The move was a ploy however, and he put his head down and charged Sullivan, who stepped aside and then the crowd closed in and Sam couldn’t see. Sullivan must have won, however, because the next time the crowd cleared, Sullivan was trading blows with an American, distinguished by the red sash at his waist and Oregonian hat, which was shortly dislodged from his head.

  There was no pause for water or cloth despite Sam’s presence, and one after another Sullivan fought every comer throughout the afternoon and into the darkness. The crowd barely abated or lost voice, and it hurt Sam to witness Sullivan’s exhaustion and the sneak attacks that new fighters made to Sullivan’s kidneys as he bent over and caught his breath. Finally a gunshot sounded, and it was Keane and his colt raised, shrouded with gunsmoke, calling an end to the bout.

  Sullivan was hefted onto shoulders and sagging drunkenly was carried out of the plaza square toward Sydney-town. Sam followed with the dog at his heel, the cloth unused and the water shared only with spectators.

  Sullivan was taken to a Kathleen McGarry molly-house. The notorious proprietor guarded him with her famous truncheon, which she waved at all who dared follow. The crowd dispersed along the shoreline street and into the groghouses where the festive atmosphere and marvelling at Sullivan’s endurance continued long into the night.

  Clement came to Sam at The Stuck Pig. Instead of chastising him for robbing Duane, he congratulated him, although his voice was grave.

  ‘You know you must return the purse.’

  Sam nodded. ‘It’s done. Sullivan conveyed its return.’

  ‘Good lad. Although you should leave this tavern, and keep your distance until Casey and Duane have sobered up. Go now to Mrs Hogan and request her to make up a room for Sullivan. Go now, and don’t return tonight.’

  Charlie Duane and Casey were seated at their table and counting their takings. They were still drinking freely, and as Sam passed he caught the cruel glint in Duane’s eye, who immediately stood and broke a bottle upon the edge of his bench and turned to the nearest table and plunged the broken bottle into the arm of a sailor and stood back and laughed. The sailors rose as one but were soon dispersed by Keane’s men, because they didn’t want the American hurt on their home territory, despite his being the aggressor. Sam took that as his cue to return to Missus Hogan, who beamed at the news and berated her husband into assisting her to clear her best room of a Welshman’s belongings. He was a pickpocket who she never much liked, she said, and whose possessions she threw into the alley where they were set upon by men from the street.

  13

  Sam held the quill and pressed upon the page as another gust blew through the doorway of the tavern. It made writing difficult but at least Keane was patient with him. Sam’s benefactor sat on a bench seat and drank his coffee from a tin mug and smoked a cheroot. He looked into the face of the next supplicant and waved for him to begin, although it was clear from his expression that his reading of the man in woollen undershirt and braces was complete before the miner opened his mouth.

  The man began his tale of woe, and Keane nodded and eventually cut him off with a raised hand when he tired of the story. Now it was Keane’s turn to speak, which he did by asking a series of questions. Yes, the miner answered, he had a trade. He was a fellmonger before his transportation, and a stoneworker throughout his years of slavery. He could tan any hide or build any chimney.

  Keane looked to Sam, and that was the signal to start writing. Keane reached into his purse and withdrew a golden eagle, and passed the coin over, and gave the name of an Australian brickmaker who needed labour.

  The miner was grateful, and took the coin and stood beside Sam. He gave his name in a shaky voice. ‘Bevan Gillespie,’ he said, and then he thanked Keane one last time and was gone, and it was the next man’s turn.

  Sam recognised the sailor from earlier in the week. He’d been enslaved by an English captain and forced to work the passage from Boston to San Francisco before he’d jumped ship. Keane had given him money for clothes and a revolver, and here was the man returning that money to Keane after only two days.

  Sam was only now beginning to understand how the society of the Coves worked. They were mostly the original Australians who’d been in the colony for six months, and worked in a gang of two dozen men, who were commanded by Keane and Mannix, depending on the manner of crime. Keane no longer participated in the armed robbery of money-boxes from within the town, or bushranging the inland tracks where gold was transported by stagecoach and mule-train. That was Mannix’s preference and he had his favoured men. Keane instead looked after the Coves’ interests in the shoreline streets; collecting tribute from merchants and Australian businesses, and paying off councillors, the sheriff and Mayor Bannon. It was Keane who ran the teams of forgers and confidence men that plied their trade against the greed and gullibility of the newcomers.

  Sam p
ut down his quill and looked over at one such unfortunate, a middle-aged man with a bald head, a mutton-chop beard and pale watery eyes, who sat on his own at a corner table and stared miserably into his empty ale mug. It was Clement who had played the lead hand in the drawn-out game of fleecing the newly arrived gentleman from Boston. The man was first played the oldest trick in the book. On his second night in San Francisco he was seduced by a molly, and in the midst of his pleasures, another man claiming to be her husband had kicked down the door and threatened the Bostonian’s life and demanded recompense for his humiliation. The man was then handed over to the Coves’ regular card sharps for further parsing. Finding himself in debt, he was then suborned into a deception incorporating the man’s good name in the establishment of a sluice-mining company, designed to draw investor money from the eastern union, based upon fraudulent mining leases and property papers. The man was tolerated in The Stuck Pig because of the bounty that was soon to be realised, and he was given a daily stipend that he drank within the hour, but he was a pathetic sight with his despairing eyes and flinching at every sound.

  The gold-seeker next before them was an eerie-looking fellow with grey skin and black bags under his eyes, and fingers that kept clasping and unclasping his cabbage-tree hat. He made his argument for charity, and took his gold coin and offer of a free meal, and agreed to head to the docks where he was needed to work on a bullock-team. Keane made this final pronouncement and turned to Sam, and winked. Because of the muddy streets with their treacherous slides and bottomless sinks, working on the bullock-teams was the job that Keane favoured for those he disliked most. The man he sent was a schoolteacher back in New South Wales, and was malnourished and gaunt after weeks of humping his pack, but despite his begging showed a clear disdain toward Keane. Keane and Sam shared a smile because they knew that the man would be back the following morning, having learnt a hard lesson.

  But Sam didn’t understand the teacher’s disdain toward Keane, because Keane and Clement were two of the finest men he’d met. When the teacher was dismissed, Sam gladly accepted Keane’s invitation to join him for coffee and a plate of stew. The dog sat on the bench-seat beside them, and ate off its plate like a man, and Keane rewarded its superior table manners by patting its head.

  Today’s bag of gold dust was for the town clerk, who was paid off every Friday. Sam clucked to the dog and they set off through the streets toward the plaza square. It had rained overnight, and there was a mule-train loaded with tea-chests that was bogged just outside the Australian quarter. The first pair of mules in the train were buried to their necks in a sink. It looked like they were swimming in the mud, and their eyes were rolling in their heads and their mouths were frothing with exertion and crazy fear. The other mules were refusing to go backwards. There were fifty or so men with nothing better to do than watch the spectacle, and the driver and his labourers were arguing with the crowd, who were beginning to jeer.

  Sam skirted the crowd and continued up the street and nodded to the shopkeepers that he knew. He was given an apple by the Jewish dry-goods merchant, Schloime Harris, whose store on the corner of Pacific Street was the first that pilgrims off the boats encountered. He stocked all kinds of things that a miner could need, and plenty they didn’t. The prefabricated wooden shed was crammed with goods and even on the outside walls there were ropes hung with whips and harnesses and ribbons and sashes. Old Schloime spent most of his time outside on the street smoking and watching, until a ship came in and then his spruiking could be heard from a block away.

  Sam bit the apple, which was spotted with bruises and tasted floury but was a rare treat. As he did every morning, he approached the porch opposite the Chinaman’s tailor shop, his fingers in the pockets of his waistcoat practising his future craft, and his hat cocked so his face caught the sun. But there was no sign of the girl, and Sam finished eating the apple and passed the core to the dog, who chomped it down. Next Sam stood for a few minutes in the alley beside the haberdashery, right beneath its single side window, smoking a pipe with his hat cocked and his hand in his pocket, hoping that he didn’t look as foolish as he felt.

  But that didn’t work either, and so Sam went into the Chinaman’s shop to collect his new shirt. He had ordered the shirt two day’s previous, his third in as many weeks. He had four shirts now, and three of them had never been worn, but there he was in the Chinaman’s parlour again, unbuttoning his waistcoat and suspenders, shedding his used cotton shirt while the Chinaman unwrapped the new shirt to test its size. The Chinaman was no fool, and lately spoke gruffly to him, making sure the interior door was shut. From behind it the muffled sounds of domestic chores, and once, a snatch of song that made the Chinaman wince and clench his jaw. The man now held up the new shirt for Sam to try on. He caught Sam’s glance at the door, and muttered in his language and stood watching Sam robe, his arms folded, his chest proudly cast.

  Back outside the haberdashery, the dog sniffed at Sam’s trouser legs and fell in behind. Another customer entered the shop, and through the smudgy window Sam saw the Chinaman occupied with his bowing and scraping. Instead of taking his usual route up to the plaza square, Sam went again down the side-alley, and seeing no movement behind the window entered the rear yard of packed dirt and cages of Muscovy ducks, and a single pig staked in a corner. The pig grunted at the sight of the dog, who went rigid with one paw raised. Sam knelt and patted the dog, and looked about the dirt. He saw a gravel scrape in some hardened mud beside a puddle, and prised loose a pebble. With one hand on the dog’s ears, he cast the pebble against the rear window, and waited. The fog had misted the glass, but the sound was clear against the thin pane. He tossed another stone underhanded, and then another, and finally those eyes peered out at him.

  They weren’t angry, but neither were they conducive to offering the invitation that he hoped for. Sam didn’t know what to do next, and found himself grinning foolishly, scrubbing the dog’s coat with a vigour that made the animal lean into him. The dog started looking at the pig again, but not like he wanted to eat it, instead play. He stamped forward, and ducked his head. Howled a little. Sam was so absorbed in getting the dog quiet that he didn’t hear the door open. She was already beside him when he noticed her. He stood, and found himself imitating her father, ducking his head, taking off his hat and running a hand through his hair. The girl was taller than he, and dressed in a cotton smock that reached to her sandalled feet. Long hair tied in a braid over one shoulder. Her eyes bore an unmistakable friendliness, but she wasn’t looking at Sam. Lifted her smock and folded her legs into a crouch, reached a pale hand and scratched the dog’s head. The dog glanced at her but kept its eyes on the pig, trying to mesmerise the creature that only had eyes for the girl.

  At this the dog set to whining.

  Since the girl scratched the dog’s ears, Sam ruffed its back. ‘That porker don’t speak dog, silly. Why don’t you direct your attentions to this ’ere new friend you’ve made.’

  She looked under the dog’s belly to its privates. Said, ‘What is his name?’

  A sweet kind of English like he’d never heard. Not bowed under the weight of accent. Plainly spoken, but music in it. She looked at Sam for the first time, and her eyes were friendly. Shy, like his own. A clear intelligence there.

  ‘It doesn’t have a name. It stays with me anyways. I just got to whistle. You want to give it one?’

  The suggestion made her smile. ‘You want me to whistle?’

  Sam’s confusion obvious, backtracked through his words. ‘No, you want to give it a name?’

  She didn’t stop smiling, and her teeth were pretty. Two sharp incisors, crowded around her front teeth. ‘Did he come with you, across the ocean?’

  Sam nodded. ‘Yes he did, though I can’t say he enjoyed the passage, once he ate out all the rats.’

  ‘Then I shall call him Bo. Like a wave.’

  ‘Aye. Like a wave.’

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  Sam blushed. ‘No. I mean yes. I
t’s … pretty.’

  ‘Pretty name is good? For a boy?’

  ‘I mean you are.’

  The words felt like they’d been sloshed out of a bucket. Hadn’t meant to say them, but was glad he did.

  She pretended that she didn’t hear, her eyes on the dog, whose fur she rubbed, the dark-red groove between its eyes.

  ‘Goodbye, Bo…’

  And then she stared at him, and there was expectation and humour in her eyes. And he understood, amid a new blush.

  ‘Samuel Bellamy. That’s my name. Lately of Van Diemen’s Land.’

  ‘My name is Ai.’

  ‘Ai. Aaii.’

  He felt like he wanted to keep saying her name, till he caught the music in it, the way she had. But he already felt a fool. ‘You going to tell me what it means?’

  But she’d already turned, and in three quick strides was through the door. The sound of a latch. And the dog setting to whine again. He took it gently by the scruff and guided it round his legs, pointed it at the alley, and followed.

  There were gamblers all the way up to the plaza square, on the porches of the various shops where sharps had set up tables that dealt monte and faro and vingt-et-un. Men lined up despite the hour, and drank whisky in little glass jars that were sold for a pinch of gold dust, or ten cents or whatever could be traded. Sam walked past them, and the workers constructing new wooden buildings to replace the old canvas tents. Sam had to sidestep into the churned thoroughfare at one point, and get his boots muddied to the ankles, because a carpenter tore off a tarpaulin from a pile of freshly milled planks and discovered five miners sleeping beneath it who had crawled in during the night to escape the rain. The carpenter shouted and kicked the wood, but was otherwise temperate in his actions because the miners looked hard men, and were sick with drink or perhaps the ague that was going through the town. The miners braced their feet and grimaced into the sunlight, and the foreman stood there and waited for them to scarper.

 

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