A Tyranny of Petticoats (26 page)

“Desperate, high-risk friends.”

His lips curve very slightly, not quite enough to call it a smile. “And what will I do with your gold dust? We Tlingit don’t value it.”

“A trader like you?” It feels good to joke, however badly. “I can’t imagine.”

Exactly one week after we shook hands, Soapy Smith storms Garrett’s Saloon. He doesn’t kick the door in; his henchman does that for him. Both their guns are drawn. And while Clara and I are braced for something just like this, we still scream in genuine terror. After all, if he knew what we were planning, he’d shoot us on the spot.

“Miss Lily and Miss Clara,” he says in that smoky-soft drawl. “How delightful to see you again. I’ve been meaning to drop in for a drink, all this past week, but you’ve been keeping different hours.” He pauses and looks around the saloon. “I can’t help but wonder why.”

Clara, who’s been on digging duty, drops her tools into the hole. We stand together, shoulder to shoulder, in a pathetic attempt to hide the mouth of the tunnel. “We have your sh-share of the money,” I say, stuttering in earnest. “Our nightly p-profits have actually gone up. I think it’s because of the new hours.”

Soapy isn’t listening. “What are you doing hiding behind the bar? Walk out slowly, both of you.”

I obey, keeping my hands in plain sight. Clara follows, but not until she’s kicked the trapdoor cover into place.

“What was that sound?” yells the hoodlum. I recognize him from the hotel: short, squint-eyed, none too bright. Maybe it’s borderline hysteria, but despite the pistols aimed our way, I begin to feel mildly optimistic. If Soapy has brought only one thug, one from the farm team at that, he doesn’t consider us much of a threat.

Soapy strolls behind the bar and looks down. “I suspected as much,” he says. “Miss Clara, didn’t you know that all the gold is buried in the creek beds, not the town?”

He’s still chuckling at his own joke when Clara sticks out her chin and says, “Shows what you know.”

“Shut up!” I hiss, elbowing her.

Soapy’s gaze sharpens. “Cover them, Red.” He kneels, and the trapdoor creaks open. He whistles long and low. “My, you girls have been busy. This is practically a mine shaft. Red, you got a candle on you?”

“No, boss.”

Soapy sighs. “Fine. Get over here.” He keeps his gun loosely trained on us, but his attention is on Red.

“Can’t see nothing, boss.”

“Then climb in, you idiot.”

“’S awful dark in there, boss.”

“Guess you should’ve brought a candle.” Soapy turns to us and says with a simper, “Good help is so hard to find.”

Red gives a muffled grunt. “It’s real deep, boss. Height of a man, at least. And that’s not the end of it.”

Soapy strides behind the bar to look for himself. Then he turns to us, hands on hips. “Seeing as this is now my bar, why don’t you girls tell me what’s going on? Why the hell would you spend your last week in Skaguay digging a tunnel to China?”

“Our deal was for two weeks!” I object. “We shook on it!”

“New day, new deal: tell me where this tunnel goes and what you were planning to do with it, and you get a pair of one-way tickets on the next steamer out of town.” He pauses. When he next speaks, his voice is viper-like. “Refuse, or lie, or try to double-cross me, and you dear, sweet girls will wish you were never born.”

Clara blanches to the lips. “We understand,” she whispers.

“You changed your mind once,” I say, not even trying to control the shaking of my voice. “How can we be sure that you won’t change it again after we’ve told you?”

His smile is even more frightening than his voice. “You can’t.”

There is a long silence. Then, as though against our wills, Clara and I step toward the bar. From my position at the side, I can see both the hole and Red’s head just inside it.

I take several deep breaths. “It’s simple, really. Our neighbor Madame Robillard runs a boardinghouse. She has a safe where she keeps valuables for her lodgers: jewelry, gold nuggets, cash. And, well, we happen to know the combination.” Most of this is true.

Soapy’s eyes gleam. “How did you learn the combination?”

I fidget. “Her maid told me.”

“So you girls
were
digging for gold after all.” Soapy sounds impressed.

“If you had a light, you could see the direction of the tunnel,” Clara says helpfully. “Maybe if Red goes in deeper and sort of waves to you?”

Soapy motions Red to obey. The henchman slides farther into the tunnel and lets out a howl of pain.

“Oops,” says Clara. “Sounds like he spiked himself on the pick. I threw it down there when you first burst in. Sorry, Red!”

As Red inches through the tunnel — it’s a tight squeeze for a man, especially a broad-shouldered one — Soapy dips his head and watches. His grip on the pistol slackens.

“We’re making a beeline for Madame Robillard’s private parlor,” I explain. “See how the tunnel curves?”

“It’s at the very back of her house,” adds Clara. “About twenty paces from this wall, we reckon.”

Soapy kneels, pushing his face into the tunnel’s mouth. His gun lies just beside his right hand. “How far along did you get with the tunnel?”

In one practiced motion, I slip our loaded rifle from its hook on the side of the bar and press the muzzle to the back of his head. Hard. “About this far.”

Soapy freezes.

My whole body is trembling, but that probably makes things scarier for him. “Now,” I say, “very slowly, slide your right hand away from your gun.”

“What’s up, boss?” comes Red’s muffled voice.

“Tell him nothing, it’s all right, keep going.”

Soapy obeys, his voice stiff with outrage.

“Now stand up very slowly. That’s right. Hands in the air.”

Despite the chill of the room, streams of sweat trickle down Soapy’s face. Still, I admire his nerve. Two feet from the end of a loaded rifle, and he’s swearing at us using curses so inventive that even I, who grew up in a saloon, find them educational.

“Hey, Red,” sings out Clara, “can you catch?” She clocks Soapy over the head with our cast-iron frying pan. His eyes cross, his knees buckle, and with a little shove from Clara he drops, like a sandbag, down into the tunnel.

To the sound of Red’s much less creative swearing, Clara thumps the trapdoor into place and slaps a sheet of iron, salvaged from our woodstove, on top of it. Together, we roll a keg of beer on top of that, to weigh it down. We pause, panting and shaking from our exertions, and listen with satisfaction to Red’s muffled curses.

“Hey, Red,” calls Clara. Her curls are damp with sweat, and she’s grinning like a fool. “Did you find the shovel I left you?”

More swearing.

“You’ll never get out this side,” she says. “Trapdoor’s lined with iron and weighted. I suggest you make your way to the other end of the tunnel and dig straight up.”

We don’t linger to hear Red’s answer. Our supplies are already packed in satchels, our cash folded into oilcloth bags we’ve worn strapped under our skirts all week. We step out onto Broadway, and Clara catches the arm of Old Tom Hines, one of our faithfuls. “Tom,” she says in her perfect hostess’s voice, “the liquor cabinet’s wide open. Why don’t you go treat yourself and a hundred of your closest friends?”

We make our way up the street, spreading the word: drink Garrett’s dry, keep the glasses, take the furniture. By the time we stop at Shaw’s lumber merchants, telling him to help himself to the wood planks the saloon is built of, we have to shout to be understood. We link arms and fight the human tide to the very top of the street, to survey the full extent of the chaos we’ve inspired.

After a few minutes, Clara squeezes my arm. “Hey, why are you crying?”

I touch my face, and she’s right: I am. “It’s all over. All that hard work . . . gone.” I gesture to the saloon. It was more than just our business. It was our life. Our inheritance from Lu.

“It is,” she concedes. “But I think we’ve gained more than we’ve lost.”

I shake my head. “I don’t follow.”

“Look at all those happy people: talking about us, drinking to our future, finishing our revenge for us. We’re forever part of Skaguay’s history now. You and me, Lil. We’re going down in legend. The infamous Garrett sisters.”

I suppose it’s something. Eventually, I draw a shaky breath. “You were very specific about where they should start digging. Where do you have them coming up?”

Her eyes sparkle. “Well, it’s hard to be precise when you’re that far underground.”

“But?”

“If they dig straight up?” Her lips twitch. “They should surface pretty much in our outhouse.”

ANTONIA’S TIMING WAS PERFECT. The sun was just flaming over the horizon, making insects shimmer and lighting the green glass insulators in the new electric poles that marched up and down the empty streets. This far north on the Kings Road, buildings stood at a distance from one another and looked like they’d been thrown together in a day. Everything felt unfinished and exciting, changing minute by minute — blink and you saw something new. Five years ago Tony’s father had brought her here to see horse races at the track — now the same racetrack served as an airfield and hosted flying shows.

Today, Tony was here to see the flying.

There were a few other people waiting across the street from Paxon Field, early risers like herself who’d been lucky enough to get a tip-off about the informal flying show that was going to happen this morning. Bessie Coleman, Queen Bess, Brave Bess — the only black woman in the world with a pilot’s license — was coming out here to do a test flight before tomorrow’s air display.

Tony hesitated for a moment at the closed door of the airfield office. Traffic amounted to a milkman’s horse and one rattling old Tin Lizzie Ford, which didn’t even slow down as it passed, but someone had decided the test flight was important enough to warrant a young white uniformed policeman patrolling the front of the wooden office building. The policeman came out to stand in the middle of the street and waved the car on importantly. As Tony stood wondering whether she should go into the office and explain that she’d been invited, or if it would be better just to wait until Miss Coleman and her escort got here themselves, the policeman turned and saw her.

He tried to shoo her away like a stray dog.

“This show ain’t open to the public,” he told her. “The parachute jump is tomorrow, over at the racetrack. If you want to watch just now, you can stand on the other side of the road.”

“Miss Coleman’s publicity manager invited me,” Tony explained. “He’s Mr. Betsch, from the Negro Welfare League. Yesterday she came and lectured at my school — I go to Edwin Stanton —”

The policeman’s lips parted as though he were about to interrupt. Tony plunged on, speaking fast: “She’s got a moving picture of her aviation stunts in Europe, and yesterday while she was rewinding her film reels, Mr. Betsch told me I could come along today so I can interview her for my Physics Club —” She realized she was talking
too
quickly, sounding a little desperate.