Poltroon is the basest sort of coward, and I could not see how lack of courage had anything at all to do with the mishap. The remark had been made as though to the surrounding, cigar-smoking observers.
But the words were just loud enough so the opposing driver—a tall, clean-shaven man—could not keep from hearing them.
The tall driver’s jaw worked angrily at the tobacco in his mouth. He continued examining his mules, and checking over the harness, bending down to observe the singletree under the wagon. Cordial voices called out for the two drivers to calm down and get the wrecks out of the street. A burly man with a gray beard and a businessman’s gray frock coat strode down out of a shop and said, “Let’s hurry up and get these wagons out of the way.”
I stepped in to lend a hand with one of the wagons, which were badly balanced on their three wheels and beginning to teeter. Ben joined in with the attempts to keep the adjoining wagon from falling over. There was still one mule in a troubled mood. The angry animal showed its teeth again, and lunged at the gray-coated businessman. The mule’s harness jangled, and the white teeth snapped together with an instant corona of mule sweat and spit. The gray-clad man wheeled his arms as he retreated, staggering, bystanders breaking his fall.
But we were too many, too close together, and two men tumbled backward, puddles splashing. I was one of them.
I landed hard on my rear end.
I sat there feeling embarrassed, but aware that no one was taking any special notice of me. I was about to hoist my body up off the street, when a well-polished boot struck my ribs, and a large body tumbled on top of me.
The breath was shocked right out of my body, an elbow in my chest.
“God damn it,” said a strong male voice, his chin right beside my ear.
He picked himself up.
“God damn it,” he repeated, looking down at his trouser knees, which were wet, and gazing critically at a streak of street spatter along one sleeve.
He was a neatly mustached, square-jawed man in a black frock coat and a top hat, which had been knocked forward onto his forehead by his collision with me. He removed his hat, examined its shiny black brim, and resettled it on his head.
He was far more concerned with his hat than with me, but as he adjusted his clothing he exposed a pistol tucked into his waistcoat pocket. This was the sort of small pistol with a large bore most people keep at home in a rosewood case.
Ben gave me his hand and helped me to my feet.
“Are you hurt, my friend?” the gentleman asked warmly.
I said that of course I was not hurt, not wanting to have anything to do with this armed stranger.
“You’re bleeding,” Ben confided to me.
My teeth had bit into my lip, and I spat some blood onto the rutted, muddy street. A small speck of the blood flew wide, and splashed on the toe of the gentleman’s boot. He said, with every evidence of trying to remain patient, “For God’s sake.”
I was sure that I had made a fatal mistake. I had walked right into this city full of bustle and violence, encountered a man who carried what was probably a loaded pistol—and I insulted him by spitting on his boot.
“My apologies, sir,” I said, my voice breathless. I tried to take comfort in the weight of my knife at my hip.
He was still not satisfied with his hat, taking it off, readjusting it.
“Please do accept my apology, sir,” I offered again.
“We’re just in from Panama City,” said Ben. “On the steamer California, fourteen days’ passage.” He beamed, making such a display of friendly conversation that I felt thankful for my friend’s breezy good cheer.
“In Panama City they have more bandits than rats,” I exaggerated, implying that Ben and I had hacked our way through an army of armed and desperate men. My intention was to make us sound tough, and not appear to be a couple of rank novices.
The man showed his teeth, white and even under his mustache, and smiled as he said, “Oh, in California we have cannibal-bandits, an entire army of them. They roast up their victims, and serve them in a kind of chowder.”
Ben gave an easy laugh, but I never know what to do when I’m being made the object of rough humor.
“Nevertheless,” continued the gentleman thoughtfully, “two young men fresh from the jungle may prove useful.”
The clean-shaven driver was sorting out his reins, and I stepped over to hold the nervous mule steady, speaking soothingly to the sweating animal. Already dray-company boys were fitting on new wheels, with the help of mechanically gifted bystanders, but the animals were still quite unhappy. The bearded driver’s animals shook their harness and he swore at them, but the clean-shaven driver was the picture of professionalism.
Perhaps my willingness to help calm the mules resolved some question in the gentleman’s mind. Ben and I stooped to heft our steamer trunk out of the way of a dray wagon full of barrels, but the armed stranger put a hand to the pistol in his pocket, perhaps to check that his weapon was still there, and gave a sharp whistle. Four boys gathered, each dirty but looking both well-fed and eager. They all seemed to know him, and were anxious to help.
It was hard to read the intention behind the stranger’s smile when he looked back at us and said, “You’re coming with me.”
CHAPTER 20
As we walked through the hectic streets, he gave us handsomely engraved cards that announced him as “Horatio Castleman, New York and London, theatricals.”
He sat us down in the dining room of the Hotel Olympian and ordered steak and potatoes for the two of us, with champagne being served at the astonishingly high price of one dollar per glass. The dining room was too filled with laughter and boasting in several languages for much conversation among the three of us. Every time we tried to shout out some polite comment, Mr. Castleman would smile and cup his ears with his hands, and shake his head. The amount of noise was prodigious, as was the speed with which food was both served up and eaten, forks scraping against dishes, wine glasses clinking.
Mr. Castleman enjoyed a few oysters along with his champagne, but Ben and I were hungry beyond anything I had ever experienced. My beefsteak was succulent and huge, with potatoes sliced and fried, so much the way Aunt Jane used to fix them that I blinked tears of memory and gratitude.
After the conclusion of our meal, puffing on fine little cigars, we strode quickly in Mr. Castleman’s wake, down one alley, and up another, until we had reached a back staircase, so recently painted the white surface was tacky.
It was a rambling house, with unoccupied side rooms right beside chambers fully decorated with furnishings. Each room smelled of freshness. We found ourselves now in one such sunny sitting room, carpeted and featuring the statue of a nymph or other wood maiden in a state of undress. The chairs were upholstered with what I recognized as the finest chintz, and a plush footstool stood beside an elegantly polished cuspidor. Our trunk had arrived before us, and sat there on the fine purple rug.
“I gather, Willie,” said Mr. Castleman, applying a silver-handled clothes brush to the sleeves of his coat, “that you have some experience in handling livestock.”
I agreed that I could manage a team, up to six horses, and added that I dreamed of running a carriage shop some day.
“And you can use a knife,” he added, with a glance at the blade at my belt.
“He’ll skin a thief alive,” said Ben, “if he has a chance.”
Mr. Castleman poured a glass of port wine for each of us, and then set to work on his boots with an ivory-chased brush.
I allowed that I had some experience as a gunsmith, but added, “I would rather work on carriage springs than firearms.”
“You’re a man of peace, Willie?” said Mr. Castleman.
“Guns don’t work very well, in my view,” I said. “Even most rifles are badly made, with a fixed sight, so you can’t elevate the sight to adjust for distance.” I didn’t want to mention the danger of shooting the wrong person in the dark.
As he finished b
rushing his boots, Mr. Castleman explained that California was as yet a bleak but promising place for a man of culture. “But I’m doing all I can to repair that condition.”
The dark wine stung my lip, which began bleeding again. Mr. Castleman handed me a bit of gun wadding, the sort of soft cloth used to tamp down musket loads. This convinced me further that I was in the presence of a gentleman of potential violence, and I determined to make no foolish remark, or any idle talk of any kind. But at the same time I was fascinated by him.
He encouraged me to talk about Panama City, and so, warmed by a few sips of port wine, I did.
I was struck by his combination of manly directness and generosity, and his fussiness over his belongings, his boots now gleaming again. Some people dislike a dandy. It seemed to me, however, that a man who polishes his buckle will also keep a sharp edge on a knife. I felt guarded whenever his eyes met mine, and something about the way he tilted his head, and made a great show of listening to our shabby adventures through the jungle, made me wonder how much of his charm was genuine.
So after a few remarks about snakes and jungle fever, I kept my silence. Ben conversed easily, as usual, asking, with a glance in my direction, “How hard will it be to find any particular individual up among the mines?”
Mr. Castleman poured himself another glass of port wine from the heavy crystal decanter. “There are forty thousand men up and down the Yuba and the American Rivers, some of them digging precious ore to the tune of ten thousand dollars a week. They aren’t really mines, you know. They dig the nuggets and what the books call ‘auriferous sands’ right out of the ground.”
“Have you found any gold yourself?” asked Ben.
“Ah, no, Ben—not I,” replied Mr. Castleman in an air of worldly sadness. “The goldfields are all upriver from here, two or three days by schooner, and I hear that the best claims are taken. But I’ve seen nuggets brought into the city as big as horse apples, and there is still plenty of the yellow stuff to be had.”
“William doesn’t want to see a single pinch of gold dust,” said Ben, a little pointedly. “He’s looking for satisfaction from a man somewhere up in the foothills.”
It was like Ben to embellish the truth a little. Looking for satisfaction meant that there were matters between us that could only be settled by a duel, with either swords or firearms. It was a dignified phrase, though, and despite the fact I wished Ben did not talk so openly to this stranger, I liked the sound of it.
“But you haven’t actually seen any placer gold yet,” said Mr. Castleman, a calculating glint in his eye.
“I know what the stuff looks like,” I retorted. But I softened my manner and added, “We’ve seen very little California gold, it’s true.”
“We’ve seen none of it,” said Ben.
Mr. Castleman slipped a leather pouch from his pocket, the sort used to carry pipe tobacco. He let a tiny amount of golden flakes spill out onto the plain pine table. The sound the dust made arrested me, a baritone whisper.
They were coarse grains the size of roughly ground wheat. He stirred the mineral with his finger. It was more like grains of wheat than I would have expected and less obviously shiny than everyday coins or watches. But I could not avert my eyes from it. The precious element uttered another heavy whisper on the pinewood table as Mr. Castleman soothed it flat. This was a treasure right out of Nature herself.
“They pay for theater tickets with this dust,” he said huskily.
Ben’s eyes were alight.
Mr. Castleman soothed the gold flakes back into his pouch.
“I took you for a pair of adventurers,” said Mr. Castleman, “as soon as I set eyes on you.”
The sight of the gold had stirred something in me. I felt an instant lust for the ore, an unexpected hunger to have some.
“What are you telling us?” prompted Ben.
Mr. Castleman gave us a smile. “Gentlemen, I can make you rich.”
CHAPTER 21
Our steps echoed as we followed Mr. Castleman.
Before us, in the darkness half-abolished by steadily burning candle flames, was an expanse of empty plank flooring, closed off at one side by a heavy curtain.
Our host strode across the boards, flung open the curtain, the material of the cloth plush purple in his hands. He held the curtain open, and rows of empty seats gleamed in the half-light, wooden chairs lined up, bank upon bank.
“For three and a half months,” he said, “we’ve dazzled men from around the world, gold seekers from Chile and France, Peru and China.”
Ben and I had been in theaters many times before in Philadelphia. My favorites had been a performance of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet—with a rousing sword fight—and The Killer Duke, about a man who had many dramatic escapes. We had seen DeQuille the Wizard in the St. James’s Theater on Chestnut Street. The man had worn a laced white shirtfront and had made playing cards disappear and reappear. He had a pig that would spell out words using lettered wooden blocks, and he would let the sow answer questions from the respectful audience.
The pig was as wise as any almanac, and when Ben asked if the millpond would freeze before December, the pig spelled out If it snows. As it happened, there was a blizzard on November 30, and you could crawl most of the way out over the pond.
“Is it usual in California,” I asked, interrupting Mr. Castleman’s description of the theater-going public, “for actors to carry pistols?”
“Oh, I’m not an actor,” said our host, perhaps a little sadly. “But this is, there is no question, a pistol. I am a producer, manager, and artistic director of—” He gestured artfully.
“It is very grand,” I admitted, remembering my manners.
I envied Mr. Castleman, despite my misgivings. In an era of scarce entertainment, both educated and uneducated folk thronged to the theater, especially here in the West. I had heard that everything from Dr. Faustus to the most thrill-ridden melodrama would be welcome here, and I knew why. For the price of a ticket, a traveler could view handsome women, enjoy the flights of poetry—and for a short time cure that nagging homesickness each of us felt.
“I intend to construct a portable stage,” he was saying, “of pine boards and canvas, and take our show to the distant reaches of—”
“—the gold country,” said Ben.
Castleman gave a nod.
“Father,” interrupted a young woman’s voice, “I can’t get my trunk open to save my soul.”
A young lady in what I took to be a dressing gown—a whispering, silken mantle—swept across the bare boards of the stage, and stopped when she caught full sight of me and my companion.
“You’ve found the two brutes we need,” she said. “Two well-proportioned young men,” she corrected herself.
I hitched at my belt and wished I had glanced in a mirror at some point earlier in the day.
Her father performed the necessary introductions. Her name was Constance, a young woman about my age and, as Mr. Castleman put it, “both Ophelia and Portia in our Feminine Portraits from William Shakespeare, just completing its run. My daughter,” he concluded, “is gifted.”
Elizabeth would have demurred, compliments making her blush.
But Constance took this praise without a change of expression. “It’s my mother the audiences come to see,” she said. “She performs as Sarah Encard—you may have read of her performance in Fortune’s Frolic in New York last year.”
“We’re two ignorant travelers,” said Ben.
Constance stepped forward, and put her hand on Ben’s arm. “Two gentlemen of the world, I would suspect,” she said.
Ben replied smoothly, “I have been studying the fauna and flora of the American tropics.”
“Snakes and bugs,” I interjected.
“Are you a naturalist, then?” Constance asked smoothly, looking at Ben appraisingly.
“Perhaps I am one, in the making,” responded Ben, with a quiet little laugh. Then he added, barely glancing my way, “William here wants to
fix carriage springs for a living.”
“One of these capable gentlemen,” added Mr. Castleman, “survived an accidental attack from me. I believe I kicked you, Mr. Dwinelle, and then I fell on you.”
“It was a rough introduction,” I said with what I hoped was good humor. Ben and Constance stood very close to each other.
“William fell down,” Ben added, I thought unnecessarily. “And your father—” Ben made an amusing imitation of a comical collapse.
Constance laughed, a musical and, I think, much practiced sound, a trill of notes from high octave to low. I didn’t like her, and I didn’t like the way she was laughing again at something Ben was saying, how everyone in the street had size fourteen boots and it was a wonder they didn’t all stumble and fall flat.
“I’d like to offer you a job, the two of you,” said Mr. Castleman. “But first you’ll need to endure an employment interview with Lady Macbeth herself.”
“Father,” interjected Constance, “just hire them on the spot.”
“The duties involved would include helping me protect the honor,” Mr. Castleman said, “of two beautiful women, and driving a carriage encumbered with theatrical equipment.”
“William could drive an Abbot and Downing coach blindfolded,” said Ben. Abbot and Downing made the famous Concord coaches, and most of the other coaches and wagons I both drove and repaired.
“And what can you do?” Constance inquired of Ben.
A woman’s voice sounded from the darkness. “Good lord, Horatio, there’s another behemoth rat in the hallway.”
A larger—and even more shapely—version of Constance, likewise garbed in an almost embarrassingly intimate dressing gown, breezed onto the bare stage. “If I had something to kill it with, I’d mash it flat.”
“The creatures come off the ships,” said Mr. Castleman, whispering. Perhaps it was not considered polite or wise to hurt an eavesdropping rat’s feelings. “All the abandoned vessels in the harbor. Thousands of rodents from all around the world, starving and curious.”
“Bold,” said Constance. “They stare at one, right in the face.”
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