Blood Gold

by Michael Cadnum

  I did not recognize these varieties of sea life. I was starving for a beefsteak, but Dr. Merrill said that he had heard that the bonito was “the queen of fish.”

  “The king, sir,” corrected the shopkeeper amiably. “The very king of sea fish.”

  The proprietor’s daughter was a dimpled young woman, her shoulders covered in a shawl fastened with a brooch. She was pretty, in her modest dress, and Ben gave her one of his radiant smiles.

  “The ladies always take a liking to Ben,” I explained for Dr. Merrill’s benefit.

  “It fills Willie with purest jealousy,” said Ben with a wink, “that they scarcely give him a look.”

  I didn’t dare respond to that—it was too close to the truth.

  I sampled the chichi and gave a happy nod, at which Ben drank his straight down. I was wary, after having seen what ardent spirits and tropical heat could do to someone like Mr. Rushworth. But this drink contained little, if any, in the way of alcohol. It was both cool and sweet, with a residue of pulp at the bottom of the cup when the drink was quaffed. Dr. Merrill tasted a little of the chichi, and then asked for a bottle of rum.

  Bonito is a delicious fish, not as pale-fleshed as cod, and more meaty. Ben and I dined with pleasure, and even ate a form of vegetable our proprietor explained was called plantain, a white-fleshed starchy vegetable that fries up golden brown and which he sprinkled with lime juice.

  The doctor ate well, but not as heartily as the two of us. While Ben entertained me with stories of long-ago pirate raids on this historic town, Dr. Merrill kept a polite expression on his face, drank rum, sucked on portions of green lime, and for a long while said little.

  Ben and I agreed it was the best meal we had eaten in our lives, although I realized as soon as I had said this that I was forgetting Aunt Jane’s cooking, fine roasts of chicken and beef. I was also overlooking the meals I had eaten with Reverend Josselyn and Elizabeth, mallard and pheasant a local shopkeeper claimed to be “fruits of the fowling piece,” but which I had always suspected had been caught in snares.

  “It’s a blessing for Mr. Sweetland,” said Ben, “that he was traveling with a doctor.”

  Dr. Merrill gave a thoughtful smile. “Any wound in the torso invites sepsis.”

  Ben had been leaning forward, bright with apparent faith in Dr. Merrill’s skill. Now he sank back in his chair. “But you sold Mr. Sweetland a pint of liver tonic.”

  “May his liver, in any event, remain sound,” said Dr. Merrill.

  Ben tried to ask the question as though the answer mattered little to him. “What sort of plague do you suppose troubles the miners?”

  “Perhaps plague isn’t the word I would use,” said the doctor.

  “What would you call it?” asked Ben.

  If you didn’t know Ben well, you’d mistake his sunny countenance as one easily deceived. Ben was the one who used a dictionary to inform me they called the California nuggets placer gold after the Spanish verb for to please.

  “Maybe you would call it pestilence,” suggested Ben, with just a touch of pepper in his voice.

  I offered an attempt at humor, putting on a scholarly voice and intoning, “What is the exact meaning, gentlemen, of the phrase every one of you will look death in the eye?”

  Ben laughed, but not loudly.

  “I believe it’s time,” said the doctor with something like a smile, “that we sought livelier entertainment.”

  Afternoon cool filtered through the shadows as we followed Dr. Merrill down a long, cobbled lane.

  The doctor bought cigars, which he shared with the two of us. Speaking an amalgam of French—which any educated gentleman knew—and simple Spanish, he inquired from one shop to another, asking questions I could not begin to understand.

  I was unused to smoking cigars, although I had taken to chewing tobacco since leaving home. A cigar takes more mental effort, making sure the smoke draws well and that the ashes don’t spill on your shirtfront. And there is always a certain awareness of the figure one is presenting, a man-of-the-world jauntiness that can keep the smoker from observing his surroundings too closely.

  I became aware, however, of a certain tawdry cheer in the streets we now wandered. Beautiful women leaned in the doorways and made soft noises with their tongues, the way some people attract the attention of their favorite cat.

  Ben leaned against a lime-washed wall near one of these brightly clad women and said something in Spanish, flashing one of his smiles.

  He got a smile right back in return, and only when I tugged at his arm would he break off conversation.

  I asked what he had said to these dazzling, strangely alluring women, and he said, “Something poetical out of a book. Something in Spanish about starlight, wine, and dark eyes.”

  “And what,” I ventured with both heat and curiosity, “did they say to you?”

  Ben laughed.

  “You let them toy with you, Ben,” I said.

  “Certainly not,” he protested, with a show of false innocence.

  “All a woman has to do,” I continued, “is roll her eyes at you, and you’re a puddle at her feet.”

  “I’ll start calling you Reverend Willie,” said Ben, with more than a touch of impatience in his voice.

  Dr. Merrill was waving us through a large door.

  Lamps illuminated our passage down coral-stone steps. Through the atmosphere of cheroot smoke I smelled feathers, a cloying dustiness in the atmosphere, and the ammoniac tang of bird droppings.

  Most of all the odor of sweat and liquor struck me as we descended into a room. A crowd of men yelled, howling in several languages, gazing down at a pit soaked in blood.

  CHAPTER 11

  Two scarlet-and-blue roosters were circling each other, the spurs of the claws already stained red.

  Feathers spun about them like scythes, and soft stars of feather down floated in the air. The two cocks stalked each other in a caricature of the jauntiness I had been feeling not long before, their heads held just so, each stride a jerky, self-aware swagger.

  A blur of feathers, and a struggling, confused tangle of wings broke up with both roosters sprawling. One of them flapped his wings, not to fly but to swing himself up off the wet, clawed soil. The brilliant, iridescent creature’s tail feathers shook, beautiful ink-blue arcs of plumage.

  But only after a long moment was it clear that the stiff-legged march the cock recommenced was following a frantic course. The bird’s head was at an angle, and as each step took the rooster from the center of the cockpit, the head disengaged a little further from the spine. By the time the rooster began circling crazily, the head was dangling upside down from the spouting hole of its neck.

  Ben shook his head at the sight of this carnage, and the doctor rolled his eyes.

  “Keep your pennies in your pockets,” called the doctor through the din, “until we go next door.”

  Now we crowded our way into a wide room, less raucous but nevertheless filled with Americans. A courtyard beyond held a splashing fountain, and a large, thick-branched tree, glossy leaves reflecting lantern light. In the center of the room was a roulette wheel, which I recognized from stories about the evils of gambling.

  I had wagered twice in my life. Once was in a horse race along Maybeck’s Green, when the filly Athena’s Glory beat the entire field at the summer fair. Even Aunt Jane had placed a bet that day, and her sporting bid hardly counted as gambling. The other, more illicit bet was at a prizefight, a sport frowned on by the law.

  Jack Tiernan of Boston had fought Mike Ryan, late of County Mayo, for over two hours, until the bout was stopped by the police. While both bare-fisted fighters were beaten bloody—so badly I had to close my eyes at times—and Tiernan looked about ready to drop, all bets were off because of the interruption.

  I had sworn off gambling. I had made my oath on Holy Scripture, just one week after my confession to Aunt Jane that I had gone to an illegal sporting event. I believe that a sworn oath is a vow a man simply cannot break.
I did, however, recognize that betting on the turning of a brilliant wheel, or the turn of a card, was by no means as low as gambling on the life and death of a pathetic, drunken bird.

  “Show me how to play this game,” Ben was saying over the din.

  I decided to seek adventure elsewhere.

  I found it soon enough.

  CHAPTER 12

  I breathed more easily when I was out in the soft air of the street once more, leaving the doctor and Ben to their sport.

  Maybe Ben was right. Maybe I was turning into a stiff-necked sort—Reverend Willie indeed!

  Nevertheless, I relished my solitude. The air was pleasantly warm, and from the gently glowing interiors drifted laughter. A Spanish song, lilting and sweet, made me believe I could understand the lovely foreign verses. And perhaps I almost could, discerning longing and love in the verdant rhymes.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, puffing on the remnant of my cigar. I let the stub fall into a puddle, where it sizzled and gave off a faint ghost of smoke in the muted dark. I had set forth on this journey toward the goldfields with a definite, very determined purpose, and once again the world I was traveling through took me by surprise.

  I took a step up the street, startled out of my tobacco-induced reverie. I cocked my head.

  There it was again, that sound.

  Someone groaning.

  When I saw Jacob Rushworth, he was lying beside an ivy-laced wall.

  He was muttering in his drunken daze, groaning, his face lit by a candle in a nearby window. A shadow worked at his clothing, a hand darting, searching. As I approached, a figure ran, leaving Mr. Rushworth’s trouser pocket cut wide open.

  I ran hard after the thief, without wasting a breath in calling out. I suspected that this at last was one of the Spanish-speaking bandits we had been fearing so long, and that my shouted demands would fall on uncomprehending ears.

  The thief was nimble, splashing through puddles, startling a row of tethered mules, racing along stone church steps. He led me deeper and deeper through the angling streets of the sprawling, night-sodden town.

  And I ran right behind him.

  CHAPTER 13

  We sprinted through the slumped, vine-ravaged remains of old walls.

  A mound of charred sugarcane gave off a sick-sweet perfume, and a large stone wheel gleamed in the starlight, crusted with the remnants of sugar stalks. In the darkness a billy goat shied from the fugitive, and as I sprinted past, the animal made a tentative complaint, turned and tried to run, kept in place by an invisible tether.

  The thief glanced back—a pale, thin face in the starlight. I ran even harder. But as we approached the edge of the jungle, roughly tilled fields and sleepy shacks, I began to grow uncertain. My quarry was not far ahead of me—I had been able to keep the pace.

  But we were heading toward three or four lamps hanging in a clearing, and I had a shadowy impression of a smoking campfire, figures crouching, perhaps a dozen men along with a few women.

  I put my hand on my knife handle, even though this gesture caused me momentarily to shift my pace and lose ground behind the fleet, slightly built thief. I resumed my steady stride again when the blade was in my grip, unwilling to enter a camp of strangers without a weapon drawn and ready.

  Wide as my open hand, with a gently curving cutting edge, the blade was long and heavy, suited—in the words of the window advertisement—“for both the needs of the hunter and self-defense.” I had bought it on Chambers Street in New York City just before hurrying off to the docks.

  The knife was my most expensive possession. Some men paid as much as four hundred dollars for the trip to San Francisco, with a complete treasure-hunting kit of picks, shovels, and gold pans thrown in. Ben and I had signed on for less than a third of that, because we didn’t need mining equipment, and were willing to help load trunks into the ship’s hold.

  But despite my heavy knife, I was beginning to doubt the extent of my allegiance to Mr. Rushworth. The derelict schoolmaster’s troubles were not exactly mine, and his manner that afternoon had been less than completely polite. I was tasting the beginnings of real apprehension as the quick-footed robber reached the edge of the camp, where lamps were hanging from the trees.

  He looked back at me, his face in the steady lamplight. And then he vanished.

  Before he disappeared I had a vivid glimpse of anxious green eyes, a shapeless hat pulled low, lips parted, breathing hard. I had an impression of youth, and I realized further that he looked more like a Yankee gold seeker than a local citizen.

  American voices were raised. “What’s the matter? Who’s after you?”

  A man strode to the edge of the camp, armed with a wagon spoke.

  “Who’s out there?” called the man, his jaw working around a mouthful of food. He had a shock of white hair, and bristling white eyebrows.

  I knelt, sweating, trying to grow invisible in the grass.

  I counted at least twelve people sitting around the fire, spit sizzling among the embers. The miscreant was now obscured by the larger, lumbering bulk of these Americans—yet more gold seekers, evidently, and too poor to hire beds in a hotel.

  “Show yourself,” said this commanding individual, his tone one of a man accustomed to being obeyed.

  I was tempted to consider myself outnumbered, and go back for Ben’s support. But some power pulled me to my feet, and marched me toward the lamplight.

  I took a few heartbeats to further catch my breath.

  “Good evening there,” said the big, white-haired man, sounding perfectly at ease now that he saw that I was alone.

  I am named after a brave man, who was killed when a steamboat blew up. He had rescued a dozen women and children before he was scalded to death—and I am no particular coward.

  “Sir,” I said, “I believe a thief is hiding in your camp.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The stout, white-haired man adjusted his grip on the club.

  The dense evening air muted my voice, but it made the words I had just spoken all the harsher. There was a long silence, and, in the thick air, mosquitoes beginning to find the flesh of my neck and arms, I had time to study my decision to speak.

  And regret it. I should have gone back and stirred Ben and the doctor from their amusements, or let Mr. Rushworth’s poor purse remain with its new owner.

  “I find that hard to accept,” the man was saying gently, with just the slightest suggestion of challenge.

  He was well-fleshed, his white hair giving him a benevolent appearance. His worn, sagging boots flapped open at the toe, and his shirt had been mended, old rips stitched and gradually fraying open again.

  This evidence of household care—that a wife or sister took trouble over his tired homespun—made him look both more approachable and easier to offend. The wooden club in his capable-looking fist, and the ax in the hands of an associate who ambled forward, were the only visible weapons.

  But they were weapons enough, as other well-built men stood up from around the fire, stretching and hawking, scratching, in no hurry, taking their time coming over to see who was troubling their evening quiet.

  “I believe I’m right, sir,” I said, but I felt that I was in the beginning of a long, losing argument.

  Furthermore, I was aware of the menacing appearance I presented, the hefty twelve-dollar knife in my hand. I slipped the blade back into its sheath, but kept my hand hooked on my belt, close to the handle.

  “I don’t think you’d find that there are any criminals here,” said the big man in the easiest manner possible. He approached, and I stood my ground. He shook my hand, and introduced himself as Nicholas Barrymore. “With a whole family of Barrymores, heading out to join my brother in the goldfields.”

  This was the point at which I was expected to admit my mistake, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “I’m a carpenter by trade,” he continued with a studied but jovial manner, “out of Elmira, New York. I’ve had my fill with glue and wood planes, I can tel
l you.”

  Good manners forced me to introduce myself, but as I spoke I kept trying to glance around the burly family chief, toward the campfire.

  “Maybe you’d like to join us,” said the man with a Sunday-morning smile I could make out even in the bad light. “We don’t have much in the way of drink and victuals. Bandits took most of our supplies. But sit with us and have a cup of coffee.”

  The bandits must have been a bold, heavily armed gang, I nearly said.

  Nicholas chuckled, perhaps reading my thoughts. “Oh, we cut a piece or two out of the robbers, don’t worry about that.”

  Broad bodies interposed between me and the camp, with its tumble of frying pans and pots, and yet I sensed the extra presence in their midst, someone hiding. The thief’s companions blocked my view, but I could see exactly where the criminal was, among the remnants of johnnycakes, fried pats of cornmeal, and a large, rust-pocked coffeepot. A new stranger—a gaunt, black-bearded man—sauntered over, his hand on his hip, where a knife nearly as long as mine was thrust naked through his belt.

  I thanked Nicholas for the offer. A cup of the sweet, thick coffee Elizabeth and I used to drink together would have been most welcome just then. “Perhaps some other time,” I added, sounding as polite as possible under the circumstance.

  I turned on my heel, and walked away.

  My nape tingled with both the whispering of mosquitoes and the expectation that with every step, there within sight of a remote, plaintively bleating goat, a heavy club was about to strike me down.

  Someone was calling my name, and I ran toward the sound. I covered ground all the more quickly, having an excuse to run fast.

  CHAPTER 15

  A smudge in a gray shirt and gray trousers resolved, as I hurried toward it, into the most welcome sight I had ever seen.