Calico Palace (11 page)

Shortly before the
Cynthia
reached Honolulu, Marny’s partners had left for California to look over the territory, leaving her to close the gambling rooms and follow them. Marny had applied for and received an exit permit, to be ready for the first California-bound vessel that had good accommodations. When she read in the papers that the
Cynthia
was in port and would take passengers on her return voyage to San Francisco, Marny asked for passage.

She did not do so in person. A man named Galloway, a merchant who had been doing business in Honolulu for years, was planning a business trip to San Francisco with his wife. As Marny had a lot to do before the ship sailed, she asked him to buy her ticket when he bought his. Mr. Galloway had reason to be grateful to Marny. Once when he had been playing vingt-et-un at her place she had observed the dealer using a daubed card. The players had not seen it and might have gone on losing money, but Marny had promptly stopped the game and returned all they had lost that evening, while the dealer was thrown out by two burly employees known as the Blackbeards. Remembering this, Mr. Galloway was glad to do her a favor now. His wife was too young and pretty to be jealous, and he did not know Captain Pollock well enough to be aware of his scruples.

All this Loren had learned after the ship sailed. In Honolulu, Mr. Galloway came into his office and said he would like to take one of the
Cynthia
’s staterooms for his wife and himself, and the other for a friend. He presented the exit permits, all in order. But Marny’s permit had been issued in her full legal name: “Miss Marcia Roxana Randolph, native of Philadelphia, U.S.A.” It did not occur to Loren that this meant the red-headed enchantress of the gambling parlor.

It did not occur to Captain Pollock either. Loren submitted the names of Mr. and Mrs. Galloway and their friend Miss Randolph, and received the captain’s approval. Pollock knew Mr. Galloway was a respectable man of business. He did not know Miss Randolph, but he assumed that the three of them were traveling as a party, since it was hardly proper for an unmarried woman to take a journey unchaperoned.

Here Kendra interrupted the story. “If Captain Pollock meant to be so proper himself, he shouldn’t have ‘assumed’ anything.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have either,” Loren said, laughing a little, “but I was working so hard with the cargo I didn’t have much time for the passengers. When Marny came on board I checked her ticket, showed her the stateroom, and didn’t think of her again.”

“You didn’t recognize her?” asked Kendra.

“How could I? I’d never seen her before.”

“You had never been to her gambling place?”

“Never. I don’t mean I’m righteous, I just don’t like to waste money that way. But when Captain Pollock saw her, he simply would not believe I hadn’t known who she was when I let her board the ship.”

“When did he see her?” Kendra asked.

Loren said not until the next day, for Marny had not come to table that evening. This surprised nobody; passengers often had no appetite for the first meal or two on shipboard. When Pollock did catch sight of her, strolling in the sunshine of the quarterdeck, the ship was well out to sea. Pollock had stormed into his own quarters and sent for Loren.

“He was in a rage,” said Loren. “I couldn’t persuade him that I was as surprised as he was.” Loren turned his chair so as to face Kendra, speaking with puzzled thoughtfulness. “And do you know, there
was
something surprising about her. I had been told Marny was a siren who sent men out of their heads. But the Miss Randolph who came on board that day looked like a perfect lady and talked like one. She wouldn’t have attracted any attention at a church tea party.”

Remembering Marny’s opinion of church tea parties, Kendra was astonished. This did not sound like the girl she had seen in that gush of sunshine.

Loren said Captain Pollock had summoned Marny and asked what she meant by daring to board his ship.

“What did she say?”

“She talked back to him,” said Loren, “like a soldier. And not,” Loren added humorously, “like a perfect lady. Marny has—I guess you’d call it a double personality. I never knew anybody like that before.”

“What did Captain Pollock expect to do?” Kendra asked wonderingly. “He couldn’t throw her overboard like Jonah and hope a whale would come along.”

“No,” said Loren, “but he did threaten to turn the ship back to Honolulu and put her off. She told him if he did she’d take him to court and he wouldn’t get his precious
Cynthia
out of the harbor for six months. When he accepted her money for a ticket he had made a contract to take her to San Francisco. And of course, she was right.”

“Then what happened?” Kendra asked.

“Then,” said Loren, “for ten days we had smooth sailing. The weather was perfect. Marny spent most of her time on the quarterdeck. At meals she was pleasant and quiet. And yet—” Loren frowned and bit his lip—“everything was going well, and yet there was a kind of tenseness on the ship. You might almost say Captain Pollock
knew
something was going to happen. And when the captain is uneasy everybody else is.”

Kendra nodded. She remembered how, at Cape Horn, the captain’s confidence had given confidence to her. Certainly it would work the other way.

“And then, eleven days out of Honolulu,” said Loren, “the storm broke. That storm was really a shocker. We came through it, but by the time the wind calmed down and we got back on course—Kendra, Captain Pollock was like a man with a demon. The storm was her fault, and my fault for letting her come on board, and Mr. Galloway’s fault for buying her a ticket.”

“How did Mr. Galloway like that?”

“He was amazed. He had seen Captain Pollock in Marny’s gambling place, he couldn’t understand that this was any different from having her on the ship. But the person Captain Pollock was really angry with was Marny herself.”

“How did she take all this?”

“She laughed at him.”

“To his face?”

Loren nodded. “She told him he was the biggest fool she had ever seen.”

Kendra reflected a moment. She thought making fun of the captain directly was not wise. “Did you laugh at him when he blamed you?” she asked Loren.

“No, I couldn’t,” he replied soberly. “I know him better than she does. I understand how seriously he takes this. But I can tell you, the rest of the voyage wasn’t comfortable. By the time we got to San Francisco I knew he and I couldn’t work together any longer. So I told him I was willing to tear up our contract.”

Loren left soon after this, and Kendra went indoors to make a shortcake with his gift of strawberries.

While they were at dinner that evening she repeated Loren’s story to Ted. As she finished she noticed that Ted’s lips were quivering with amusement. “What are you laughing at?” she asked.

Ted said, “Loren is too nice to tell you all that went on aboard that ship. Or possibly he’s too nice even to realize it. But I’m not.”

“What went on?” Kendra echoed. She gave him a puzzled look across the shortcake.

“Simple,” said Ted. “Between Honolulu and the storm, Pollock and Marny spent a night together.”

“Oh—I see!” Kendra nodded. Now that Ted had said this, it seemed so plain that she wondered why she had not thought of it herself.

Ted smiled, that cool little flicker of a smile that amused her so much. “Didn’t Loren tell you Pollock liked to go to Marny’s place in Honolulu because he liked Marny?”

“Why yes. He said that on shore Captain Pollock was different about everything.”

“I believe it,” said Ted. “Agreeable sin—on shore yes, on shipboard no. But in Honolulu, Marny was surrounded by men. Probably at least one of them had a prior claim and was ready to defend it with a gun.”

Kendra listened. Ted went on.

“But on the ship she had her own stateroom and Pollock had no rivals. The minute he saw her he knew fate had caught up with him.”

“But how could he know Marny would be willing?”

“Darling,” said Ted, “Marny doesn’t think of these things the way you do. To her, I’m sure, it was a trivial incident. On shore it might have been the same to Pollock. But not on the ship. When the storm came he knew it was because his virgin
Cynthia
had been insulted.”

“So then,” Kendra exclaimed indignantly, “he said the storm was Marny’s fault, not his.”

Ted shrugged. “Plain old human nature, Kendra. When we do what we shouldn’t we always try to blame somebody else. Started with Adam. Don’t you remember, when the Lord asked him about eating the forbidden fruit, he said, ‘That woman Eve, she gave it to me, it’s her fault.’ So with Pollock. My dear, would you think I was a pig if I asked for another slice of strawberry shortcake?”

Kendra laughed happily. “You’d better eat cake while you can,” she warned him. “Cooking outdoors, I won’t have much chance for baking.”

“Make it a
thick
slice,” said Ted.

Two days after this, on the twenty-fifth of April, 1848, Ted and Kendra set out for the land of gold. They had been married nine days.

T
HERE WERE SEVERAL WAYS
to go from San Francisco to the golden hills. On Ning’s advice his party planned to go by land, riding down to the southern tip of the bay and then north and northeast by way of Sutter’s Fort. This would take longer than sailing a launch up the Sacramento River, but Ning reminded them that none of them knew how to sail a launch, except maybe that sailor from the
Cynthia,
and he couldn’t do it by himself.

They loaded wagons with their food supplies, their clothes and bedrolls, guns and tools; and a lot of beads and face-paints for trading with the savages. Most people called these savages Digger Indians, but Ning would not. Ning knew the stalwart red folk of the prairies. He said calling these creatures Indians was an insult to his friends. As he was firm about it, Ted had suggested that they call this variety the Aborigines. Ning had never heard this word before and found it hard to say, so he shortened it to Ab. From there on, to Ning himself and the rest of his group, a California wild man was an Ab.

The party met early in the morning at a level spot below town. There were three covered wagons, twenty horses, and eleven travelers. The travelers were Ning, Ted, and Kendra; Pocket, and the sailor from the
Cynthia,
Hiram Boyd; Marny and Delbert, with two men and two women who worked for them. These assistants were the two burly fellows called the Blackbeards, who had thrown out the cheating dealer from the gambling room in Honolulu, and a pair of pretty Hawaiian girls who were probably not their wives.

One of the wagons belonged to Ning and Ted, the other two carried the goods and gambling equipment of Marny and her friends. Pocket and Hiram, who had less to carry, had loaded their supplies on packhorses. Ted told Kendra she would ride horseback while he and Ning took turns driving their wagon. Riding a horse was the easiest way to get anywhere in California, for there were no roads and a wagon bumped unmercifully over the ground.

At night Ning would take his bedroll and sleep outdoors, as he was used to doing, while Ted and Kendra would drop curtains at the front and back of the wagon cover and have it to themselves. These curtains were made of Chinese grass-cloth, brought from Canton on the
Eagle.
They were strong, and artfully woven to let in air but keep mosquitoes out.

Marny and Delbert were on horseback too, while the Blackbeards drove their wagons. This was the first time Kendra had seen Marny and Delbert since that day in the store, and their helpers she had not seen at all. The Blackbeards looked so exactly alike that at first sight of them Kendra decided they must be twins (she found later that she was right). They were a fierce-looking pair, with black hair and thick black eyebrows, and beards like black cabbages on their chins.

The Blackbeards looked like sons of a pirate, but Ted said their father had been a New England storekeeper. He had bequeathed them the plain surname Thompson, but their romantic mother had given them the first names Marmaduke and Murgatroyd. Marny, who by long study had learned to tell them apart, called them Duke and Troy.

Apparently Duke and Troy had inherited their father’s head for business and also their mother’s streak of romance. Before they were out of their teens they had gone off to look for adventures in the Pacific, and now they were as canny a pair of card players as you were likely to meet.

Each Blackbeard had his Hawaiian girl on the wagon seat beside him. The girls were a striking pair, with bright jetty eyes and golden skin. Marny called them Lulu and Lolo. Duke was the protector of Lulu, Troy of Lolo.

All the men wore heavy cotton shirts and corduroy riding breeches, and carried guns in holsters at their belts. Kendra and Marny wore riding dresses of sturdy dark cloth, with leather gloves, and straw bonnets made deep-brimmed to shade their eyes. The Hawaiian girls were dressed in flowered chintz, with ribbons binding their hair.

As the party gathered, Ning rode up and down astride a fine roan gelding, inspecting the wagons, making sure all packs were securely strapped, every horse in good condition.

“Quiet, folks!” he ordered.

Pointing his riding crop at each in turn he repeated their names, beginning, “Ted Parks, Mrs. Parks.” Ted waved from the wagon, Kendra from her horse. Kendra loved hearing herself called Mrs. Parks. It made her feel welcome. In this group she had a place. She had never before had any feeling of belonging to a group, or belonging anywhere.

Ning went on, presenting the company and assigning their places in line. As Marny’s name was spoken she flashed her merry smile and called, “Howdydo, everybody!” Delbert, on a steed so black it looked like a mount for the Prince of Darkness, bowed with a bored formality. The Blackbeards nodded, the Hawaiian girls raised their hands in greeting.

Ning introduced Pocket and Hiram Boyd. Pocket gave them a bashful smile, as if not used to being noticed in public. Hiram pulled off his hat and waved it above his head like the leader of a cheering squad. Hiram was not handsome but he was attractive in a rough-hewn way—strong broad shoulders, enormous hands puckered by wind and sun. He had left his rust-colored beard at a barber shop in San Francisco—though on this journey Kendra had no doubt that he would soon grow it again—and now she could see that he had a rugged face with a strong nose and jutting chin, what some people would call a fighting chin. His hair, like his beard, was a rusty brown, thick and untidy. He sat his horse well, and he had brought the spare horses into line with easy skill. Kendra remembered what Ning had said about good travelers. Certainly Hiram would be one.