The Ladies of Sutter's Fort

by Jane Toombs

  When he began to play the miners stomped their feet in time to the music. “Selena , Selena,” they chanted. The clapped their hands and banged their glasses on the bar.

  Rynne jumped to the stage and raised his arms. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I give you the Empire’s own, the most beautiful girl in the whole of the western hemisphere, performing on our new stage.”

  As Rynne walked about the room, turning down the lamps, Ned played a fanfare, the men stared above the stage, where, on a platform seemingly suspended in midair, Selena stood framed by lights.

  Danny stared up at her, too, as the crowd hushed.

  Selena stood perfectly still, as if performing in a living tableau. She was dressed in a formal gown of dark blue velvet, with frills of lace at her neck and wrists. Around her shoulders was a wispy silk scarf of lighter blue. When she smiled it was like a portrait coming to life.

  She’s changed, Danny thought.

  It wasn’t just that she stood high above the crowd, out of reach. Nor that she was dressed elegantly, almost primly, a lady from her toes of her strapped slippers to the tips of her white gloves. It was more than that. There was a difference in the way she held herself, in her poise, her seeming disdain for her surroundings. As though in the last few weeks she had become a woman.

  Then she sang, sad sentimental ballads for the most part. The miners cried and cheered and cried some more. She sang Home Sweet Home and they sang along with her and Danny could feel the heartache in the room, the loneliness of men thousands of miles from the women they loved. Tears filled his own eyes even though he had no home to return to. He ordered another whisky and sipped it.

  For the first time in months he thought of his little brother, Burke, waiting back in St. Louis. Like as not the lad believed himself deserted for good and all. Their father going, their mother dying, and now he, himself, had been away for over three years.

  Danny wiped at his eyes. Best not to fret over the boy. Wasn’t he living with kin, after all? He was called O’Lee now too. There were no more Kennedy’s now, only O’Lees. Danny O’Lee and Burke O’Lee. Well, Uncle Hornung would keep Burke O’Lee safe and raise him decent.

  Danny thought some more about his own name. He didn’t feel like a “Danny” any more. He’d done fairly well for himself and he felt himself growing. He felt more like “Dan.” Dan the man. Dan. He liked the shortened version of his name. All he had to do was call himself that and everybody else would too. Well, he would see. He would think about it. Meanwhile, he downed his drink.

  He looked up. Now Selena was singing Sweet Betsy From Pike:

  “Out on the prairie one bright starry night

  They broke out the whisky and Betsy got tight.

  She sang and she shouted and danced o’er the plain,

  And showed her bare arse to the whole wagon train.”

  As the miners howled their approval of the rowdy refrain, calling for more, the lights on the platform dimmed and Selena was gone.

  “Selena,” Danny cried, pushing his way past men crowded below in front of the platform. “Selena,” he shouted, remembering his vow to speak to her. He stumbled against someone, muttered apologies, and at last found the stairs to the platform. Selena was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where is she?” he asked Ned, his voice slurred.

  “Laddie, she’s gone.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  Ned shook his head. “She keeps to herself these days.”

  Danny pushed his way back to the bar. Ordered another drink and finished it in one swallow.

  “You can have a roll in the hay with her for a hundred dollars,” The man next to Danny jerked his thumb at the pine box behind the bar. “If you’re the lucky one.”

  “A hundred dollars?”

  “It’s a lottery. Ned there will tell you if any are left or not.”

  “I’ll buy a ticket. I’ll buy five tickets.” Danny left the bar in search of Ned. He wasn’t at the piano. Danny felt confused, he felt as tight as Betsy had been in the song. He wanted to cry or sing, he didn’t rightly know which. He stumbled over to the faro game.

  The dealer looked knowingly at him from across the table. “No luck with the women tonight, bucko?” he asked. “Then you’ll be lucky at cards.”

  “I’ve never played,” Danny said.

  “Had a man in here last night,” the dealer said as he shuffled. “He’d never played before. Went away a three hundred dollar winner.”

  The man next to Danny took a cheroot from his mouth. “Bet any card to win or lose,” he said. On the table Danny saw a box the size of a deck of cards along with a printed layout picturing one card of each rank.

  Danny laid a five dollar gold piece on one of the pictured cards. “The lad bets the six,” the man standing next to the dealer on the other side of the table said. The players were putting their money on other numbers. One placed his bet on the ace and put a penny on top of it.

  “What’s the penny for?” Danny asked.

  “He’s coppering his bet. Means he’s betting the ace to lose.”

  “The lad cuts,” the dealer said, slapping the cards on the table. Danny cut.

  “Cut ‘em deep, see ‘em weep,” one of the players said.

  The dealer placed the cards face up in the box. “Bets down,” the lookout man next to the dealer said. The dealer removed the first card from the box and placed it to one side. An eight.

  “That’s the soda,” the cheroot smoker told Danny. “Doesn’t count.”

  The next card was a four. The dealer laid the four beside the soda. “Four loses,” he said. The card now on top of the deck was a six. “Six wins.”

  The lookout laid a five dollar gold piece on top of Danny’s. “A winner,” he called out. “Gentlemen, place your bets,” he said in a bored voice. Danny noticed the lookout carried a derringer in his shirt front.

  “I’ll let it all ride,” Danny said, remembering hearing his father say those same words.

  The dealer removed the six from the box and placed the card on the win pile. A two was the next card. “Two’s a loser” the dealer said, “and” he removed the two, six wins again.”

  “If I was you,” the man beside Danny said, “I’d move my bet to another card.”

  Danny shook his head. “Let it ride,” he said. Two aces came up, win and lose. “A split,” the dealer called out as the lookout took half of every bet on the ace.

  “Rynne’s money,” someone said.

  After Danny won five more times, he had six hundred and forty dollars in front of him. A crowd began to gather around the table, some men betting with him, some against.

  “Seven straight wins on the six.” The word passed from man to man.

  “Eight straight wins on the six!”

  Danny won again and still again. The dealer called for more money for the bank and suddenly Rhynne was behind the table shuffling and dealing the cards himself. Danny won twice more. And still again. As each card was taken from the box, the crowd around the table cheered or groaned. There were thousands of dollars scattered over the playing surface.

  Rhynne shuffled. “I’ve never seen such a run of luck,” he said to Danny. “Sure you want to go on?”

  “Quit now,” the man with the cheroot said. “Don’t be a fool. Quit winners.”

  Danny stared down at the money. “Let it ride on the six,” he said.

  While Rhynne took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, Danny sipped at a whisky that had appeared beside him.

  The cards were cut, the soda set to one side.

  “The jack loses,” Rhynne said. “The six wins.” The men at the table cheered.

  “Make your bets.”

  “I’ll let it ride once more,” Danny said. “One more win and I quit.”

  “You’re faded,” Rhynne told him, removing the winning six from the box. Another six, the six of diamonds, lay beneath it.

  “The six loses,” he said. “The ten wins. The lad loses.”


  Rhynne raked the money toward him. The men around the table clapped Danny on the back, shook their heads, drifted away. Danny walked stiffly and precisely to the bar. He found only one man there, his head resting on his hands.

  Blearily the man looked up. “Been bucking the tiger?” he asked.

  Danny knew he was asking whether he had been playing faro. “Yes,” he said.

  “How’d you do?”

  “Lost five dollars,” Danny said. The man once more settled his head on his folded hands.

  Danny woke in his room at the Empire in the early hours of the morning. His head ached, his stomach churned, his tongue felt thick. He got up and groped his way outside to the privy. Then he walked to the well, raised the bucket and drank from the dipper. No more whiskey for me, he told himself, it’s the devil’s own drink.

  The night air felt clean and cold on his face as he walked down the hill away from the hotel. Selena. He’d promised himself he’d seen Selena. What matter the hour? Was he a man or wasn’t he?

  Ahead of him he heard horses galloping away. Was it morning already? he thought blearily, seeing the sun through the trees. No, he realized, not the sun. Fire. He ran a cabin was on fire, the flames licking up the sides to the roof. He’d been to that cabin before. He’d pushed Selena in through that door.

  It was Selena’s cabin ablaze in the night.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Danny ran to the cabin. The door hung from one canvas hinge; smoke boiled from inside. Putting a handkerchief to his mouth, he plunged through the doorway.

  And tripped, falling to his hands and knees. He groped behind him until he touched . . . what? A body. He found a man’s arm, gripped him under the shoulders and dragged him outside. In the flickering light from the fire he recognized Rhynne, a red weal on his forehead. Rhynne groaned and sat up, his hand going to his head.

  Danny swore, tugged Rhynne several yards further from the fire, then left him and ran back toward the cabin. In the distance the fire bell clanged and he heard men shouting. On hands and knees he crawled into the cabin. Though the air was clearer near the floor, his eyes stung. He could see nothing. Flames crackled in front of him and the heat seared his face.

  His searching hands found a bed and on the bed a woman. Danny stood and lifted her into his arms, staggering toward where he thought the door must be. The odor of lilacs mingled with the stench of the smoke. He saw the yellow tongues of flame to his right, then he stumbled against the wall, choking, tears filling his eyes. With one shoulder touching the wall he walked toward where he thought the door should be. He almost fell through the doorway when he reached it, lurching out into the clear air. Hands held him, while others took his burden from him.

  “Is it, is it Selena?” he gasped.

  “It’s Miss Pamela,” someone told him. “She’s alive.”

  Danny rubbed his eyes, looking behind him. The entire cabin was ablaze. Flames licked up the sides and leaped from the roof, and smoke was whirling off on the early morning breeze. Men began passing buckets from hand to hand, not to save the cabin, for it was too late for that, but to prevent the fire from spreading.

  Danny ran to the cabin door. The heat struck his face like a blow. Covering his eyes with his arm, he crouched and was about to dash inside when hands grasped him. He shook them off. Someone caught him around the legs, hurling him to the ground.

  “Selena,” he cried out as he was pulled away.

  “She’s not in there.”

  Danny blinked and looked up dazedly.

  Rhynne stood swaying in front of him, wincing as he touched the bruise on his head with his fingers. “They have Selena,” Rhynne said flatly.

  “What happened?”

  It was Ned the piano player who answered. “There were three of them. They burst into the cabin and overpowered me. I was there because the women were afraid. Because of what happened to Pike. One of the men held me while they bound Selena. Pamela was . . . asleep. They took Selena. I saw them. They must have knocked me out before they started the fire. I don’t remember.”

  “Bring horses. We’ll get them,” Rhynne said.

  Danny pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going along,” he said.

  Diego led the way, his two companions just behind him. One, a woman dressed like a man, led Selena’s horse. Selena was slung face down on the horse’s back with her hands tied to her feet beneath the animal’s belly.

  A mile from Hangtown, Diego turned off the trail and led them into foothills. The dark of night slowly gave way to a grey dawn. Selena clenched her teeth to keep from moaning. The rope chafed her wrists and ankles, her arms and legs ached, her head pounded. Every jounce of the horse sent pain jolting through her body.

  She opened her eyes to see the ground rushing by in a blur of dirt and rocks and horse’s hooves. She couldn’t tell where they were.

  As they climbed into the hills they crossed deep dry gulches where, during the winter rains, streams had hurtled down into the valley. The ground became rockier, the going rougher and slower, and the horses were forced to pick their footing with care. Selena saw a scattering of boulders and shrubs on the slope behind them. Far below in the valley, a dwindling finger of smoke curled upward.

  The trail turned abruptly back on itself in the first of a series of switchbacks. They finally crested a rise and came out on a rocky mesa. A strong breeze there pulled at Selena’s hair and parted her dressing gown.

  Diego held up his hand and they stopped. He dismounted, climbing to an outcrop of rock to gaze back along their trail. When he returned he spoke to his two companions in Spanish, calling one of them Ramon, then came to Selena, pulling a knife from his belt. She shut her eyes.

  She felt Diego cut the ropes binding her hands and feet. He pulled her from the horse. When she tried to stand her numb feet betrayed her and she stumbled and fell to the ground. She struggled to her feet as Diego watched her with his hands on his hips. She had to brace herself against the horse to keep from falling again.

  The woman dressed like a man came to stand at Diego’s side. She was as slim as a boy, her face lean and taut and beautiful, her hair black as the night. Her brown eyes studied Selena and Selena thought she saw a flicker of emotion in the sudden downward curl of the woman’s mouth. Pity? Disdain? She couldn’t tell.

  “Selena,” Diego said, “this is Rosita. She is my wife.”

  Selma stared at the other woman. She was confused. His wife? Then why had Diego abducted her from the cabin? She had assumed, without really thinking, that he had carried her off as he had the year before in San Francisco. To marry her by force. Or ...

  “What do you want with me?” Selena asked.

  “You deceived me,” Diego told her. “I have vowed vengeance on you and on all Americanos. You have no honor. You are all animals and I must treat you as I would an animal. Americanos killed my sister, Esperanza. Whenever I find an Americano alone, I will kill him. I will kill him without question, without warning, without mercy.”

  “Diego,” she said, “I didn’t kill Esperanza. I loved her. Diego ...”

  “I am no longer Diego. He is dead these many months. In English Diego is called James. Jamie. J.M. It amused me to take J.M. as my initials. I am now Joaquin Murieta.”

  “Diego,” she said, going to him. The name Joaquin Murieta, though the mere mention of it would soon bring more fear to the frontier than any other outlaw of the era, meant nothing to her. He was Diego.

  “Joaquin.”

  “Joaquin.” She put her hand on his arm. “I tried to save Esperanza. My heart ached for her.”

  For a moment his eyes seemed to soften and he looked at her almost with longing. Then he stepped away and spat at her feet.

  “You’ll be no better than a bandit,” Selena said. “You’ll be hunted down and killed.”

  “No,” he said, his eyes glinting. “Not a bandito. Never. I’ll be a hero to my people. I will take only from the rich and give only to the poor.”

  Before she could a
nswer he turned from her and spoke harshly to Rosita. Taking the rope from the ground, Diego’s wife tied Selena’s hands behind her back, then thrust a cloth gag in her mouth and knotted the ends behind her head, making the corners of Selena’s mouth sting.

  Grasping the rope, Diego pushed her forward. Diego. She couldn’t think of him as Joaquin. She would never think of him as Joaquin. Taking the reins of his black stallion, Diego signaled to Rosita and Ramon and the two mounted and rode on along the trail.

  Selena’s bare feet stung from the rocks underfoot as Diego shoved her in front of him. They went down a narrow track among scrub pines. After a few minutes Diego left her, tied his horse behind a clump of bushes and returned with a rifle. When he motioned Selena to the ground, she dropped to her knees and turned to look up at him. He put his hand at the nape of her neck and shoved her forward so she fell face down on the rocks. She gasped with pain. Twisting around, she saw Diego climb to a ledge where, stretched full-length on his stomach, he looked back the way they had come.

  Only then did she hear the clatter of hooves far down the mountainside. Diego, tense and alert, waited with the rifle cradled in his arms. Selena saw a rock near her foot. Just beyond the rock the bank dropped steeply down into a jumble of stones, leaves and broken branches. She stretched her foot until her toe touched the rock.

  The horsemen—surely, she thought, they were from Hangtown—came closer. Now she could hear the creak of leather, the occasional jingle of spurs, the sound of voices. They must be at the crest of the hill where Diego had halted to cut her free. She could no longer hear the horses. Were the men on foot now, searching for their trail?

  Now! She shoved the rock as hard as she could and felt a surge of hope as she heard the rumble of a small landslide. Diego turned toward her, cursing under his breath. Selena listened, hoping to hear the approach of the men.

  There were no shouts, no cries. Hadn’t they heard the slide? Again hooves clattered over the rock shelf. The sounds receded, grew faint. They had not heard her. They were leaving, following the false trail of Rosita and the man called Ramon. Selena shrank within herself.