Читать книгу The Tide of Empire - Peter B. Kyne - Страница 6

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For two reasons Dermod D’Arcy had found it expedient to refrain from joining the early rush to the placer-diggings. One was the necessity for rest and recuperation for himself and his animals, following their long trek overland; the other was lack of capital.

His training as a soldier in the war between the United States and Mexico had taught him that it is fatal to embark upon a campaign without taking into consideration the requirements of equipment, rations, bases of supply, transport and intelligence; and during the month he had been the guest of Carlos Montalvo he had been much impressed, in view of all he could learn of conditions in Alta California, with the necessity for proceeding cautiously in the campaign for gold upon which he had decided to embark.

Day after day men en route to the placers had rested for the night at the Montalvo rancho, and although D’Arcy had questioned these men closely, his inquiries elicited no information likely to be of much benefit to him. He discovered that of even the crudest methods of placer-mining one and all were ignorant. Nor did they have in mind a definite objective.

The report that gold had been found in the American River at Coloma appeared to be substantially authenticated, but beyond the pertinent fact no other information had seeped into the southern part of the territory. It was assumed, however, that if gold had been found in the bed of one stream it could be found in the beds of all streams.

As they progressed north the gold-seekers confidently expected to obtain definite information; also mining equipment, of which at present they had none. Food, picks, shovels, spades, and other necessary tools they planned to purchase in San Francisco; the problem of transport was one which, seemingly, they were content to leave in the laps of the gods. Seemingly too the magic word gold had robbed them of reason; they were concerned solely with getting on the ground; thereafter they would decide what to do and D’Arcy gathered that in some vague, inchoate manner Providence was expected to arrange all things pleasantly thereafter.

As he fared up El Camino Real, D’Arcy resolutely retracted his thoughts from Josepha Guerrero and centered them upon the problem of his future. Thanks to his pleasant sojourn at the Montalvo rancho he had gained in weight; he was rested; once more he felt himself fit to essay arduous enterprises. His stock, too, was fit.

In the horse-race run that morning he had staked his all upon Pathfinder, and because the noble animal had not failed him, he found himself now with a cash capital of one thousand dollars. In Pathfinder, Shawneen, and Michael he had transport to the diggings, provided no untoward accident befell them. All that worried him was the problem of rations and mining equipment, and in anticipation of being able to purchase both in San Francisco, he was content to await the crossing of that bridge until he came to it.

Nevertheless, he was worried. His common sense told him that since hitherto no extraordinary demand for mining equipment, wagons, pack-animals and pack-saddles, boats and portable foodstuffs had developed in California, the recent sudden demand must have denuded the dealers of their stocks and in consequence the market would be bare until the arrival of new goods ordered from the East. Also, prices had undoubtedly risen to unprecedented heights.

He pondered his predicament, and eventually decided that since a large majority of the adventurers en route to the placers had little capital, being adventurers all, a man with one thousand dollars might reasonably hope to secure what he sought, even in a bare market, provided he cared to pay the price. Indeed, it had been an earlier consideration of this problem that had decided him to take his time and condition Pathfinder for the race at San Juan Bautista, since in that race lay his sole hope of augmenting his fortunes to the point where, with thrift and sound judgment, he might hope to survive in this helter-skelter rush.

Don Carlos, too, had given him much sound advice. The don had reminded him that the wise gold-seeker would make careful preparations if he would winter in the Sierra foot-hills, and hazarded the guess that inadequate shelter, cold, and starvation would be the portion of many a hare-brained hopeful.

“This adventure will be a great deal like that which confronted settlers from the Atlantic seaboard when they moved to Kentucky and Tennessee,” D’Arcy soliloquized. “Their first consideration was the erection of a habitation; their next, the clearing of land whereupon to raise foodstuffs. Thereafter they tempted fortune. Food purchased in San Francisco and transported to the Sierras for resale will be extraordinarily dear, because of the lack of adequate transport and a demand far in excess of the supply. Dermod, my boy, what you require is six more pack-mules!”

He stopped that night at the ranch of John Gilroy, who had settled in California in 1814. From Gilroy he purchased six good mules, broken to pack, paying therefor fifteen dollars each. The ranch saddle-maker made his pack-saddles and kyacks of cowhide and D’Arcy waited a week for them. Here, also, he engaged a half-breed Indian to accompany him and help care for the stock, the native supplying his own mount. Then with a light heart he proceeded to the pueblo of San José.

Here his earlier apprehensions were found to have been justified. Dealers in foodstuffs and hardware had naught but empty shelves to show him. In San José, however, he was fortunate enough to secure definite information as to the best route to travel in order to reach Sutter’s Fort at the junction of the Sacramento and American rivers, this being the base of supplies and point of departure for all points in Alta California.

Two days later he was in San Francisco and camped for the night in a field near Mission Dolores. In the morning, leaving his servant Francisco in charge of the mules, he rode into town.

He found the hamlet of San Francisco—for it was little more—almost deserted, while those who remained were desirous of disposing of their inhibiting businesses as fast as possible and following the gold-rush. In the harbor a half-dozen ships swung at anchor, some entirely deserted but the majority with a loyal captain aboard, hoping against hope that the man-power of San Francisco would soon return from the gold-fields, hungry and disillusioned, and discharge the cargoes. D’Arcy learned too that fully fifty percent of the garrison at the Presidio had deserted, and that provost-guards sent to bring back the deserters had themselves deserted. Food was purchasable, albeit at extravagant prices, but hardware of any kind was unobtainable.

In a cantina near Portsmouth Square D’Arcy met the saddest citizen of San Francisco. He was seated at a table in a corner moodily playing solitaire, when D’Arcy breasted the bar.

“Hello there, friend,” the latter saluted him. “Have a drink?”

“I suppose I ought to help you out,” the sorrowful one replied without enthusiasm. “A feller can’t drink alone, can he?”

“It isn’t done in the best social circles,” D’Arcy admitted.

“I shouldn’t do this,” the other complained. “When a feller’s low in sperrits he’d ought to stay away from the danged stuff, or first thing he knows he gits to dippin’ his nose in too deep.” He leaned across the bar and surveyed the bartender with a morose eye. “A little cookin’ whisky, Jim.” Then turning to D’Arcy: “You’re a recent arrival, ain’t you? Well, you’ve sure come to a dead town.”

“My name’s D’Arcy,” his host volunteered. Beneath the melancholy of the other he discerned a broad streak of homely, honest philosophy, good nature, and whimsicality. Here, he reasoned, was a man who would talk—one who evidently had time to talk. It occurred to D’Arcy that this man might be able to lead him to some picks and shovels.

“I’m B. Jabez Harmon. I’m the jailer in the local calaboose,” the melancholy one countered, not to be outdone in friendliness.

“Is that why you feel so downhearted, Mr. Harmon?”

“Call me Bejabers. Most folks call me that. I’m the joke of the town. Yes, bein’ jailer is what hangs the crape on B. Jabez Harmon. Here I am, wild to pull out for the gold-fields—and I can’t go.”

“Why? Lack of capital?”

“No. Too much conscience. The sheriff, who’s my superior officer, pulled out for the Sierra three weeks ago and left me in sole charge. The magistrate, the alcalde and most of the city council went with him, and I can’t resign because there’s nobody to resign to. There’s no city government functionin’ and I have eight human jackdaws in my bird-cage and don’t know what to do with them. I can’t quit my post until properly relieved. Grub’s runnin’ short at my jail, prices are sky-high and I don’t know where to get any more, even if I could afford to buy more—which I can’t. I’ll be danged if I’ll put up my own money to feed those prisoners, and yet I ain’t got the heart to let ’em starve to death. Besides, they’ve all been in jail close to two months now; they’re entitled to a speedy trial and they can’t get it. ’Tain’t right.”

“I should imagine that imprisonment without trial is unconstitutional. Have they been indicted?”

“Nary indictment. Three of ’em is accused of hoss stealin’, two killed their men in street duels, one’s accused o’ bigamy and two are runaway sailors and could be returned to their ship if the dog-goned captain hadn’t deserted her and gone to the Sierra.” He sipped his cooking whisky sadly. “Did you ever hear of a feller in my fix before?”

D’Arcy laughingly assured Bejabers that he never had. “Have you been paid recently?” he added.

“I’m three months behind. City treasurer’s flew the coop, too.”

“In that event I should say you are entitled to fly the coop also. In all probability, should your prisoners ever come to trial, they will be acquitted, because their accusers will not be present in court. Can you imagine a man leaving a fortune to come to San Francisco to testify against somebody who stole a five-dollar cayuse?”

“By the holy poker, I never thought of that. You reckon, Mr. D’Arcy, folks won’t criticize me and call me a faithless public servant if I turn them fellers loose, lock up the jail and drift?”

“In my opinion, when a municipality fails to pay its faithful servants the wages due them and long overdue, that servant is justified in leaving the employ of the municipality without notice—particularly when there is no one to whom he may give notice.”

The light of a new hope commenced to dawn in the dolorous countenance of Bejabers Harmon. “By the Lord, I’m glad I met you, Mr. D’Arcy. Shows what a mistake it is for a feller to decline to drink with strangers. You’re sure a comfort to me, boy. Got any more bright suggestions?”

“Any number of them. What do your prisoners do for exercise?”

“Well, up until the last rain I been workin’ ’em on the streets, scraping the mud off down to hard-pan, makin’ sidewalks out of sand-bags, doin’ a little quarryin’ over to Telegraph Hill—”

“Have you got picks, spades, and shovels in your charge?”

“Two dozen of each.”

“What else have you got? I mean in the way of hardware?”

“A lot of plain buildin’ tools, handcuffs, leg-irons, chains—oh, a hell of a lot of stuff, including ammunition, pistols, knives, shotguns, and rifles. It’s a pretty good jail, if I do say so.”

“You are entitled to appropriate all of that property which we require in our business. You can leave a receipt for it in the sheriff’s office with instructions to the sheriff to deduct the value of it from your overdue wages as jailer.”

“What you aimin’ at, man? A partnership?”

“I’m headed for the diggings, but I haven’t gone hog-wild about gold, and I intend to arrive there with the necessary equipment, including food. I’ve purchased the food—more than I will require, in fact. But I cannot buy mining equipment for love or money. Now, the thought has just occurred to me that a good, honest, conscientious partner would be a distinct asset. I’m willing to finance the expedition provided you furnish the mining equipment and the labor.”

“I’m busted, mister. I couldn’t pay wages to nobody.”

“It is not my intention to have you pay them. Come, Bejabers, me lad, use your head. Furnish the labor. You have eight prisoners. When you join fortunes with me, take your prisoners with you. I am sure they would much prefer to be with us than in jail, and as they have no capital and are doubtless fairly mad to join the gold-rush, the prospect of securing a good job when they get there will appeal to every man Jack of them. At least they will be assured they will not starve to death, and they will, of course, realize with gratitude that their troubles with the law are at an end.”

“What’s your first name, boy?”

“Dermod.”

“Dermod, it’s a go. Put her there, pardner.”

They sealed their partnership after the ancient frontier fashion and cemented the union in another drink, after which they sat down at the table to draw up a list of their requirements.

“There’s a good team of horses in the jail stable,” Bejabers confided, “and a good strong covered spring wagon that we use as a combination ambulance and black Maria. We can load our truck in that. I reckon the team and the black Maria will overdraw my credit with the city, but if a feller’s goin’ to help himself to a dollar’s worth of goods from the city he might as well stretch his credit limit as not.”

“Bejabers, you’re the shadow of a rock in a weary land. One of your prisoners will drive the team, and another will sit on the seat beside him. The other six can ride my mules. I have eight. That will leave two mules to pack cargo, and the Black Maria will accommodate the remainder. We must find some saddles.”

Bejabers scratched his ingenious head, and the last vestige of gloom departed his countenance. “Pendin’ proof of the ownership of them horses alleged to have been stole by my three hoss thieves, the evidence, consistin’ of three mustangs, saddles and bridles, has been reposin’ in the jail stable. Reckon the fellers preferrin’ the charges sort o’ got the gold-fever after preferrin’ ’em, and concluded not to have their movements hobbled and their time wasted by havin’ to appear in court to prosecute the accused.

“Consequently, I hereby declare said evidence forfeited to the city and county on account of the unpaid feed bill, and I hereby commandeer ’em from the city and county in lieu of the wages I might earn if I stayed on my job as jailer, which it may be years before the city government discovers I’ve quit, and for all the city’ll know my wages will be runnin’ right along! Dermod, this evidence just naturally gets lost in the shuffle.”

“On behalf of our partnership, Bejabers, I accept the sacrifice in the spirit in which it is offered. Select the best horse for yourself. Well, now, you, I, my servant, a Californian named Francisco, and three horse thieves are mounted on horses. The two murderers and the bigamist for their sins shall ride the mules, with a blanket and surcingle until I can pick up saddles for them at some rancho along the line of march. The two sailors shall command the wagon-train, and we will have five pack-mules. I must buy more food and a great deal of blankets and bedding to load them.”

“Add a few cases of whisky,” Bejabers suggested. “Not that we’re drunkards, but in case of sickness, cold, or snake-bite. I’ll rob the jail kitchen of cookin’ utensils and table equipment, arm my prisoners, and from the jail dispensary I’ll take a few simple medicaments. We’d ought to lay in a supply of rough clothing for our labor.”

“I doubt the wisdom of arming your prisoners, Bejabers.”

“I do not. They’ll not shoot us. I’ve hearn tell of a rough element at the diggin’s, doin’ claim jumpin’ and sluice robbin’ and the like. Such fellers steer clear of a sizable, well-armed party. And once we locate a gulch and start pilin’ up the dinero, we’ll come durn close to rulin’ our own roost. Me, I’m for law and order every time.”

“There would be considerable social disorganization at the diggings, of course,” D’Arcy replied thoughtfully. “Not so much now, perhaps, because there is undoubtedly room for everybody to operate; but when the big rush comes—when the adventurers from every land come pouring in—then we shall see the depths to which greed and the lack of law can reduce humankind. Bejabers, tell me about yourself.”

“Not much to tell, Dermod. If you was to run the Harmon family history down clear back to antiquity you’d find they’ve all been smiths. Like father, like son. I was a smith, too, back in Providence, Rhode Island. One day when I was hammerin’ a hot iron on an anvil I says to myself: ‘Am I doomed to do this all my days?’ I waited a bit for the answer and, sure enough, it was just what I suspected it was goin’ to be: ‘Not by a long shot. Let’s have a change.’ So I hove the iron I was heatin’ into a tub of water, took off my leather apron, said good-by to the old folks and went and joined up with the Marine Corps to see the world.

“I was twelve years in the Marines, goin’ hither and yon.

“I come out here with Commodore Sloat, and the day he raised the American flag over Monterey my enlistment expired, so I concluded to go ashore and stay there. Yes, you’ve guessed it. I did blacksmithin’ until here about a year ago when I got this job as jailer. I suppose they figgered an old sergeant of Marines would know how to discipline the prisoners, or mebbe ’twas because nobody else was fool enough to ask for the job. Tell me about yourself, Dermod.”

“I’m Irish, twenty-eight years old. I’m a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. I’m supposed to have a grand education, Bejabers, but one not likely to prove of practical use to me, I fear, unless I elected to live the life of an Irish county gentleman, riding to hounds, breeding horses, entertaining the county gentry and prodding my solicitor to keep the rents collected. I love Ireland and I hated the system of government there, so I mixed in politics—that is, I was guilty of treason, according to the English idea. My father was Anglo-Irish, but my mother was Celtic Irish—old, old stock. I fear I disgraced my father.

“My mother gave me two thousand pounds and got me aboard a ship bound for America. Like you, Bejabers, I wanted to see the world; I did not wish to live as my forefathers had lived—and I liked fighting. So I entered the United States cavalry and fought in the Mexican War, rising to a captaincy. After my discharge I decided to come to California, so I joined an emigrant train at Springfield, Illinois. In the army I’d learned to be an expert packer and to put my dependence on mules; so my worldly goods I packed on two good mules, bought a Kentucky thoroughbred, and rode with the wagon-train.

“There was a captain of that train, a man named Henry Gould. He had a wife and four children, the oldest, a girl named Lizzie, being by a former wife. Lizzie was a red-headed, freckle-faced, green-eyed wench of eighteen who cast sheep’s-eyes at me from the day we started. I doubt if she could read or write. A big, lumpy slattern she was and a great annoyance to me, Bejabers, for I could ill bear the slut.

“Owing to the fact that my mules far outstripped the oxen on the day’s march, it became my habit to ride ahead, select the camp-site for the night and—since ’twas my delight—to kill game for the others. Well, Bejabers, the girl Lizzie rode a horse—bestrode the beast as a man would, for she’d no sense of modesty—and, uninvited, she chose to ride on ahead with me one day. I asked her not to, for the sake of appearances, but ’tis little she cared for appearances, so, seeing I could not reason with her, I told her plainly she was of no interest whatever to me and there was an end to it.

“I should have known better, Bejabers. Of course I offended the woman. She turned her green eyes on me and them all ablaze with the anger of the woman scorned. ‘Very well, you fine gentleman,’ she replied, and rode back to the wagon-train.

“In the morning her father waited on me and accused me of attempting to philander with his daughter. I laughed at the fool and brushed him out of my way. ‘Keep your girl in the wagon where she belongs, Gould,’ I told him, ‘and she’ll be in no danger from any man. Meanwhile, I tell you plainly, Lizzie lies.’

“He pulled his pistol and shot me twice—once in the right arm and once through the right shoulder—which was a mistake, because I’m a left-handed man! If he’d had brains he would have observed that I wore my holster on my left hip. He snapped the pistol twice more, but his percussion-caps must have been wet or else were too old, for the pistol failed him, and while he was snapping it I shot him through the right wrist and he dropped his weapon.

“‘Now, then, you blackguard,’ says I, ‘’tis only the thought of your helpless wife and small children that kept me from putting that bullet through your thick head.’

“’Twas not until I was wounded that I discovered how thoroughly I was disliked. There were women in that wagon-train that would have dressed my wounds, but their men would not permit it.”

“You were not their kind,” Bejabers suggested. “They knew you were superior to them—mebbe you didn’t trouble to hide the fact that you knew you were—and besides, you were a furriner.”

D’Arcy smiled sadly. “They held a meeting and banished me from the wagon-train. We’d crossed the Platte by that time. I was too weak from loss of blood to protest, and in the belief that I would die, they took my outfit with them.”

“The skunks! Dermod, it’s a mistake to consider others. You’d ought to have killed that man Gould. The families of men like that aren’t any better off with the feller dead than they be with him livin’.”

“That would not have improved my situation, Bejabers. Remember, I had been wounded twice before I shot and disarmed him. He was a rough, uncouth man, an uneducated frontiersman. Likewise his fellows.”

“We may run into some of them one of these days,” Bejabers murmured a trifle wistfully. “Well, what did you do when they abandoned you?”

“I was picked up three hours later by a party of Sioux hunters. There was a white man with them, a chap who had married into the tribe. He dressed my wounds, Indian-fashion, and they carried me with them in a rude stretcher swung between two ponies. When we caught up with the emigrant train the following day this white man—I never knew his name—gave Gould the alternative of returning my mules, horse, firearms, and equipment or of being attacked.”

“The good old renegade! What followed?”

“I remained with the Indians nearly two months, and paid my way with goods far more precious to the Indians than money. The best mares of the chief and subchiefs will have dropped a number of half-thoroughbred foals by now. When I was recovered they gave me an escort to the Mormon settlement on Great Salt Lake and I wintered there; in the spring I pushed on alone. I had a crude map secured from a member of the Mormon Battalion, who had returned from California last summer, and I had no difficulty finding my way, since all the prominent landmarks were clearly indicated and described. I met a few Indians but they did not bother me.”

D’Arcy then proceeded to relate his experiences since entering the territory of California, while Bejabers nodded interestedly but made no comment until D’Arcy had concluded his recital.

“I’m glad you’re a gentleman, Dermod, and glad you’ve been an officer in the service of the United States. I can understand your kind.” He smiled. “Used to workin’ with ’em. I’m a plain man myself, but none o’ the Harmons have been in jail that I know of, exceptin’ me, and I reckon I’ve disgraced the family by bein’ a jailer. Well, supposin’ we go up to my calaboose and interview my prisoners.”