Calico Palace (83 page)

Pocket went to the door, waving goodby over his shoulder. He had an air of quiet confidence, like a man on his way to a task which he felt himself quite capable of performing. Pocket had a heart full of kindness, but as she saw him now Marny was reminded of what the poet Dryden had said long ago. “Beware the fury of a patient man.”

In the days that followed, both Pocket and Hiram made frequent visits to the Calico Palace. Often Kendra came with them. On these occasions they brought steaks or chops, and Kendra cooked dinner for them all. Kendra was glowing with happiness. She and Hiram had chosen the site of their permanent home, and had engaged an architect to draw plans for the house they would live in. Meanwhile the readymade cottage, cramped and drafty though it was, gave them a joyous haven.

Hiram sometimes left Kendra with Marny while he went to the meetings, and Marny told her the news of the Calico Palace. Kendra was glad to hear that Hortensia’s divorce was under way. Hortensia’s friends Jeff and Daisy Quellen had come down from Sacramento, and were being lodged at Norman’s expense in one of the rooming houses that had shot up since the fire. The Quellens were a witty and amusing pair and the four of them were having a good time together. Marny thought it likely that Hortensia was no longer locking her bedroom door, because Norman’s temper was so much improved of late.

Pocket and Hiram rarely spoke of what went on at their meetings. If Hiram had told Kendra anything she did not say so, and Marny did not ask. It was enough to know these men were making ready to clean up San Francisco.

Marny knew, as well as they knew, how desperately San Francisco needed cleaning up. Except in the central district where businessmen hired their own guards and patrolled their own streets, the hoodlums had turned the town into a place of constant terror. Robberies, assaults, and even murders occurred nearly every day. Taxes were high, but policemen were meanly paid and often they quit because they were not paid at all. Few lawbreakers were arrested; still fewer were ever convicted; and the men who did go to jail had little trouble getting out.

With the horrors of the May fire, the decent citizens had reached the end of their endurance. They no longer doubted that the “government” was sharing the spoils of crime, and nothing would be done to stop the rampage unless they did it themselves. Five weeks after the fire, Marny and the rest of San Francisco learned what had been going on at the meetings.

A group of two hundred responsible men made the announcement. They asked that their names and their intentions be published in the papers. They said they had organized a Committee of Vigilance and they were going to make the town safe to live in.

Their program was definite. They had a written constitution, a meeting place, and a signal. One of their number was to be always on duty at a fire engine building on the plaza. The signal—two quick strokes on the firebell, repeated at one-minute intervals—would call them together at any time.

The hoodlums were warned. But they were not impressed. For so long they had been having their own way, carousing in crime while honest men worked, that few of them could believe the carnival was over. The first day after the Vigilantes were formally organized, the bell rang to tell them they were needed.

It was late in the afternoon. Hiram and Pocket and Kendra were all together in the kitchen of the Calico Palace. While they waited for Marny to take a break from her card table, Kendra was arranging steaks in a pan, Pocket was drinking coffee, while Hiram was holding a glass of whiskey and water and grumbling because there was no ice in it. For some months now the San Francisco bars had had ice, cut from the frozen mountain lakes and brought down on the river boats, but this week the boats were late. The bars had no ice and patrons of the bars were loudly complaining.

Marny came into the kitchen, and Hiram greeted her with a lift of his glass. “Join me in a warm drink?”

“No thanks. Your day’s work is over, mine has just begun. I’ll take coffee.” She shook her head at him. “And if you don’t like warm drinks don’t buy them.”

Hiram laughed as she spoke. “Yes, I’m a spoilt brat.”

“So am I,” said Marny. “I miss the ice as much as anybody.” Pocket brought her a cup of coffee and she began to sip.

Kendra set the pan of steaks aside. “When do you want dinner?” she asked.

The men glanced questioningly at Marny. “At my next break, if that’s all right,” she said. “Hiram will have time for another of our warm drinks.”

“Fine,” said Pocket, and Hiram added,

“Suits me. Maybe I’ll have time for two of your—”

His words were interrupted by a sharp noise from outside—a double clang, and then a pause.

“What’s that?” cried Kendra, and Marny gasped,

“If it’s another fire—”

“Hush!” ordered Hiram. Both he and Pocket had sprung to their feet. Hiram took out his watch and held up a hand for silence. The double clang sounded again.

“It’s not a fire,” said Pocket.

His voice had an ominous note. He and Hiram looked at each other, stern-faced.

Hiram said, “It’s our signal.” He put away his watch and felt his holster as if to make sure his gun was there. He turned to Kendra. “My darling, I don’t know what this means, but I’ve got to leave you.”

She was trembling, but she made herself speak steadily. “I know you must, Hiram.”

Hiram put his arm around her. Marny and Pocket stood silently while he said, “If I don’t come back tonight, you’ll understand it’s because I can’t.” With regret as deep as Kendra’s he spoke to Marny. “If I don’t come back, she can stay here?”

“Of course.”

The double clang sounded again. Hiram tightened his arm around Kendra and kissed her. “It’s a war, Kendra,” he reminded her. “If we don’t win now, they will.”

He and Pocket went to the door. On the threshold Pocket turned and waved goodby, and Hiram blew Kendra another kiss. Pocket closed the door, quietly, as he did everything.

Marny put a hand on Kendra’s shoulder. “Hiram’s right, dear,” she said. “This is a war.”

“I know,” said Kendra.

“Go on and cry,” said Marny.

Kendra answered with sudden force. “I don’t feel like crying. I’m mad. I’m burning up inside. Those miserable wretches.” She drew a deep determined breath to calm her nerves. With a glance at the steaks that now Hiram would not share, she asked, “Dinner at your next break, as you said?”

“Yes, please,” said Marny. She made herself be casual. “Well, time I got back to work.”

When she returned to the parlor most of the men she had left there were on their way out. One or two were leaving because they belonged to the Vigilance Committee, others because they wanted to see if the committee was serious in its intent, the rest for no reason except that the signal bell had promised some excitement and they wanted to be on hand.

But the men of the Vigilance Committee were not only serious, they were too serious to act in haste. They gathered at their temporary headquarters in a hotel just beyond the southern limit of the fire. Here they went into their meeting room and closed the doors.

The men who had rushed out of the Calico Palace began to drift back. They stood around, talked, went out again to ask for news, came in again to discuss what they had heard. Marny continued her game, pausing now and then to hear the talk. By bits and pieces she learned what was going on.

The men told her the Vigilance Committee had been summoned to sit in judgment on a well-known desperado, one of those who had been keeping the city in fear. He was a man named Jenkins, a big fellow of enormous strength. Jenkins was an Englishman who had been deported to one of the convict colonies of Australia. Hearing of the gold strike in California, Jenkins had taken ship from Sydney to San Francisco. There was no record of his having earned an honest dollar since he got here.

Late this afternoon Jenkins had crept into a shipping office on the waterfront, grabbed a safe heavy with money, and made off with it in a rowboat. Men at work on the wharf had seen him and shouted an alarm. In two or three minutes half a dozen other boats were chasing him.

He was strong, but he was outnumbered, and his pursuers managed to tie him up and take him to the fire station. The committee member on duty there gave the signal. When the committee had assembled at their meeting place, Jenkins’ captors presented their case.

Here, they said, was a man whose latest crime had been seen by scores of witnesses, most of them present and ready to testify. Did the gentlemen mean what they said or didn’t they?

They did.

Jenkins was put on trial. The trial lasted a long time, for there were many witnesses to be heard. They made their statements, while outside the building hundreds of persons, both men and women, gathered to wait for the verdict. There was no disorder among them. There was almost no sound. They spoke in hushed voices. They waited tensely. They waited through the long June twilight and they were still waiting by the light of the moon.

In Marny’s parlor, men were restless, uneasy. They fidgeted about, now at the bar, then at a card table, then making bets at dice or roulette, then starting the round again. With her usual self-possession Hortensia played the piano, but tonight even her most devoted hearers did not sit and listen. They wanted to keep moving. The bartenders poured drinks, and said almost nothing except an occasional “Sorry” when a drinker lamented the lack of ice. At the bar, some men said Jenkins would never get out of this. Others said the hoodlums would surely put up a fight, and rescue him. Like the crowd waiting outdoors, they spoke in undertones. They walked softly. Marny had never known the room to be so quiet. This was a moment of crisis. War was declared and they were waiting for the first gun.

It seemed a long time, though the Harvard man came promptly at his regular hour to take her place so she could go to dinner. Marny finished her deal and spoke to him.

“Can I talk to you a minute, Harvard?”

Harvard went with her into the back hall. He had been out, and he was expecting her question.

“How is it going?” she asked.

“All quiet so far,” he answered. “Now and then a man comes out on a balcony and urges everybody to be patient. He tells nothing. But rumors get around, you know.”

“Rumors of what?” she asked in a low voice.

With a swift gesture, the Harvard man drew his hand across his neck.

Marny was not surprised, but she felt a chill.

“It had to come to this sometime,” said the Harvard man.

“Yes,” she answered, “it had to. All right, you can take over. We’re having no trouble here.”

Marny went to the kitchen. At another time the aroma of the steaks on the fire would have been tempting; tonight she only wished she did not have to eat. Kendra sat by the table, trying to read this morning’s
Alta.
She stood up as Marny came in.

“I’ve made some soup to start,” she said.

“Thanks,” said Marny.

She took a chair. Kendra brought her a cup of soup. Marny’s throat felt tight. She wondered if she could get the soup down.

She knew she would feel better if she did, so she tasted it. The soup was a clear vegetable broth, brewed with Kendra’s customary skill, and Marny tasted it again.

Kendra too had heard the rumor, brought by Lulu and Lolo, who had heard it from the Blackbeards. When she had poured a cup of soup for herself she sat down facing Marny at the table.

“Are they going to hang that man?” she asked abruptly.

“That’s the talk,” Marny told her.

For a few moments they were silent. Marny sipped the broth. Kendra asked, again abruptly, “Marny, if you were on that committee—would you vote for execution?”

Marny looked at her cup. She looked at the sugar bowl. She looked at a scrap of paper that had blown into a corner. She looked up at Kendra. She said, “Yes.”

Kendra knitted her fingers on the table before her. “So would I,” she said.

Marny continued. “It’s terrible. But we’ve found out, there are some men so evil that nothing but terror will stop them.”

“They’re going to be stopped,” said Kendra. She spoke almost fiercely. “Marny, Hiram and I have both been through a lot of storms. Now we want peace. We love each other. We want to have children and we want a home where they can be safe. We mean to have it.”

“I think,” Marny said firmly, “right now the Vigilantes are giving you a chance to have it.”

She finished the soup. It did make her feel better, so that she ate the rest of her dinner with appetite. She went to her room to tidy up, and returned to the parlor.

In the parlor there were more men than before, and through the evening the number kept increasing. But there was still that strange lack of noise. Marny thought the very air felt tense with expectancy.

The time went on and on. Marny dealt cards, Hortensia played the piano, the barmen poured drinks. The roulette ball clicked on the wheel, the faro players sat in blank silence. At last, the parlor door burst open and Troy Blackbeard almost threw himself into the room. Every soul there stopped and stared. Troy shouted,

“Trial’s over. Jenkins is guilty. They’re going to hang him in the plaza.”

Before his words were finished, drinks were splashing, glasses breaking, chairs falling over as men sprang up and rushed to the door. Such was their haste that as the lucky gamblers swept up their winnings, if they dropped a coin or two on the carpet few of them paused to pick it up.

Marny gathered her cards and walked across the room to the bar. Only Wilfred the chief bartender was still there; his assistants had dashed out with the rest. “It looks like the end of my working day,” Marny said with a sigh of relief. “I’ll have a nip. A good one.”

With an understanding smile Wilfred poured the drink. Still standing at the bar, Marny looked around. Beside the piano Hortensia and Norman were talking in low tones. Troy Blackbeard was coming toward the bar, and with him was the Harvard man. As they reached the bar Troy was saying, “No need for such a hurry. They’re not going to hang him this minute.”

“I wish they’d get it over with,” Marny said fervently.

“They will, before long,” said Troy. “But Mr. Brannan—he made the announcement about the verdict—he said they’d sent for a minister.”