How to Moon a Cat (20 page)

As he began to back out of the courtyard, Harold scanned the state park employees, particularly those in period costume, for signs of any additional imposters. Satisfied that the Mark Twain impersonator was the only addition lurking among the fort’s regular play actors, he turned and limped toward the exit. He gave a short finger wave to the tiny whiskers poking out of Clem’s shirt pocket before retreating from the fort’s walled interior.

Despite Harold’s careful scrutiny of the grounds, he had missed one unscripted costumed character.

As Harold disappeared through the gate, a pasty-faced John Sutter emerged from the exhibit area near the courtyard’s inner perimeter.

THE FIGURE DRESSED
as John Sutter ambled casually around the outer edge of courtyard, his dusty overcoat and frumpy collared shirt giving him the convincing appearance that he belonged with the other period actors inhabiting the fort. He approached a bench about twenty feet behind the crowd circling Clem’s wagon and slid noiselessly into the seat.

Sutter watched as Clem strode back and forth across the wagon, his rosy cheeks glowing from the direct sun shining down on his peppery mustache and flyaway eyebrows.

“Of course, Frémont wasn’t the only one with his eye on California,” Clem advised his listeners. “The U.S. President was eager to incorporate the Mexican Territory into the American fold.”

He let loose a low whistle and pumped his eyebrows at the audience. “James Polk. Now, there was a rascally devil if I ever saw one—”

Clem’s face froze as his gaze landed on the man seated on the bench at the rear of the crowd. After an awkward pause, he coughed nervously and resumed his dialogue, but his voice began to sound hurried, as if he were skipping ahead in his lecture.

“Polk came to the presidency with a single-minded obsession,” Clem said, spreading his arms wide. “Expanding America to encompass the whole of the land stretching toward the western shore. He believed it was our destiny, our manifest destiny.”

Clem dropped his hands to his sides, but barely paused to catch his breath before pressing on.

“That being said, in the spring of 1846, the Polk administration’s military agenda was fully occupied by the situation in Texas. The U.S. had recently annexed the fledgling independent state, and a confrontation with Mexico appeared imminent. Polk was in the process of marshalling the nation’s ragtag army down to the Rio Grande, the battlefield that would likely determine the fate of the President’s expansionist ambitions.”

Clem stroked his mustache, once more glancing anxiously toward the back of the audience.

“While the White House geared up for the coming confrontation in Texas, the California Territory was put on the back burner. Polk had spies on the ground—American Consul Thomas Larkin in Monterey and his Vice-Consul William Leidesdorff in Yerba Buena. He knew from their reports that the Mexican presence in California, particularly the northern region, was almost nonexistent. Moreover, they’d assured him that many of the Mexican generals stationed here were amenable to becoming U.S. citizens. All the while, hundreds of Americans continued to move into the area. Future U.S. annexation of California seemed inevitable to almost all observers. Polk reasoned that if he could wrangle the Mexicans to the negotiating table on Texas, he could lump California in with any resulting treaty.”

Clem crossed his arms over his chest, strumming his fingers against the sleeves of his jacket.

“In the meantime, the Polk administration issued clear instructions to its California operatives to maintain peaceful relations out West. A couple of navy ships were positioned out in the Pacific, so that they could move in and secure the most important California harbors should the U.S. and Mexico formally declare war over Texas. Larkin and Leidesdorff were under strict orders to encourage an amicable transition for the California Territory—one that would avoid any unnecessary military involvement, because those resources were already stretched thin.”

Clem drew in a deep breath and locked his gaze upon the John Sutter character before concluding. “That was the strategy of President Polk and his advisors. That was
their
plan. They didn’t count on the Pathfinder.”

THE MAIN GROUP
of riders sped around the corner of L and 26th near the edge of Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park. The peloton, containing eighty or more cyclists, was about to begin its second downtown lap toward the finish line for Stage One of the Tour of California.

A motorcycle hummed along in front of the pack, the driver carefully navigating the race route as a cameraman hung off the back of the machine, angling for the best shot of the action. Another camera crew hovered in the sky above, videotaping wide-angle views from a helicopter. All these visual feeds were looped back to a mobile computer center near the finish line, where technicians spliced them together for the live television broadcast.

A wrinkled old man in ragged overalls stood on the curb, watching as the peloton swept toward him, a zinging buzz of high-tech gears grinding away at top speed. In one hand, he held the handle of a glass-walled terrarium containing two distinguished-looking frogs wearing feathery orange mustaches. The frogs’ heads swiveled on their short, stubby necks as they tried to follow the blur of motion.

A stiff, man-made breeze ballooned against the frayed fabric of the man’s overalls, pressed back the skin of his loose hanging cheeks, and nearly knocked the green baseball cap from his greasy-haired head. One of the riders tossed a plastic water bottle into the air, causing the man to duck and the frogs to tumble inside their jostled cage. The discarded bottle rolled to a stop at Harold Wombler’s feet as the tail end of the group zoomed past.

Beneath the sea of bobbing plastic helmets, the riders’ faces were chiseled into expressions of intensely focused effort. The peloton had easily caught the ten riders from the original breakaway, but as the racers pedaled the first downtown lap, a lone rider had made his own individual sprint away from the pack to take the lead. He had managed to jump out nearly a minute in front of the peloton, but they had no intention of letting him stay there.

The collective speed of eighty riders aerodynamically grouped together was a force no single cyclist could hold off—at least not for any substantial amount of time. For over a hundred miles of riding, the teams had been preparing themselves for a sprinter’s finish, and they weren’t about to let this renegade rider spoil the plot.

Several blocks ahead, the lone cyclist rode down the stretch leading to the finish line, desperately wishing he were one lap farther down the course. Eager crowds three and four people deep lined the route, cheering as he pounded at his pedals. The finish-line banner stretched over the street in the distance, a heartbreaking illusion of glory. He tucked his head down and begged his screaming muscles to continue their effort.

If he could just hold on to this slim lead . . . if he could just stay out in front of the charging peloton . . . if he could just make it one more lap . . . he would start the next leg of the race wearing the coveted yellow jersey.

 

 

IN THE BROADCAST
booth above the finish line, Will Spigot shook his head ruefully.

“It’s a funny thing, what the yellow jersey can spur a man to do. Our little friend here has no chance, none, of making it to the finish line ahead of the pack, but he’s let that elusive yellow lady blind him to reality. The lure of the yellow jersey—that’s what I chalk this up to.”

Spigot licked his lips and leaned over the counter of the broadcast booth. “For all of you neophytes watching at home, let me explain how the yellow jersey is awarded. As we progress through the eight stages of the race, the time each rider takes to go from the day’s starting point to its finish line is added together for a total race time. At the end of each racing stage, the yellow jersey is awarded to the rider with the lowest overall time.

“In order to succeed in the competition for the yellow jersey, a rider has to perform well on flat, windy stretches, like we have on the run in to Sacramento this afternoon, as well as steep mountain passes, like the ones we’ll see in the days to come. It takes a rare combination of skill and endurance for one rider to be able to succeed across multiple road conditions, but even that’s not enough to win a stage race like the Tour of California. Each elite rider with a chance of competing for the overall win needs a hardworking team to help him through the inevitable difficulties that will crop up over the course of the week.”

Leaning back, Spigot tapped a pencil on the top of the counter. “That’s the primary storyline, if you will. The overall headliner. Each day of the race, however, one or more of the lesser riders will form a breakout group in front of the peloton, putting all of their efforts into winning just that day’s stage. It’s a tiring and exhausting endeavor, because the riders in the breakaway don’t get the aerodynamic benefit of riding in the peloton. And, as we’ve seen today, the attempt rarely pays off. Tomorrow, they’ll be back in the pack, working to support their team’s overall contender. But it’s that slim hope that they might make it to the finish line ahead of the main group that keeps them trying for it. And for stage one, of course, the prize is extra special. At the end of today’s racing, the overall time and the Stage One time will be the same—meaning that today’s stage winner will also earn the yellow jersey.”

Spigot cocked his left eyebrow at the camera. “That’s what has sparked the imagination of our little friend out there—the hope that he might win today’s stage and wear the yellow jersey at the starting line tomorrow. It’s a rogue move, I’ll give him that. But the peloton is surging full speed behind him, and I’d wager a fine steak dinner that he won’t be able to hold them off.”

The camera panned out to pick up Spigot’s broadcasting partner in its frame.

“Now, Will,” Harry Carlin prompted gently. “That’s a nice summary, but don’t forget to tell our listeners about the sprinters. We expect one of them to win the stage today.”

Spigot raised a bony finger. “Ah yes, the sprinters. Because so few cyclists are capable of competing for the overall win, many riders have developed specialties in a specific type of racing. Their goal is not to win the overall race—instead their objective is to hone their skills to a specific type of racing in order to improve their chances at getting a win on stages that best suit their abilities.

“Today we’re going to see the sprinters showcase their talents. These riders have trained their muscles to kick their bikes forward in a last spurt of extreme speed a hundred meters or so in front of the finish line. A stage like today, with a long flat finish, is tailor-made for the sprinters’ teams, but in order for them to have a shot, the peloton will have to catch this last breakaway rider before he finishes the final lap.”

Spigot glanced over at Carlin. “Does the computer think he’ll be caught?”

“The computer says he’ll definitely be caught,” Carlin said, a chagrined smile on his ruddy face.

“Yes, well, the computer is usually right about these things,” Spigot replied, nodding his head wisely. “And I don’t think the sprinters fancy letting him steal their thunder on this one.”

He leaned out over the edge of the booth, looking down at the finish line as the lone rider sped past. “Don’t tell
this
bloke it won’t work. He’s a stubborn one, that. He’s going to give it his all, right up until the end.”

CLEM STRODE TO
the far side of the wagon and reached for a water bottle from one of the park personnel. Thirstily, he unscrewed the plastic cap, brought the opening to his lips, and tilted his head back. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he guzzled half the bottle in a single gulp.

I stood next to the stroller, near the rear of the audience, puzzling over Clem’s strange behavior. Midway through his routine, he’d begun acting as if something had shaken his confidence. What’s more, every so often, he appeared to glance back to where I was standing. I pushed my glasses farther up my nose, perplexed. Surely he couldn’t see Isabella inside the stroller from that angle and distance.

Clem wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his linen jacket and turned toward the spectators with a sideways smile. “When we last visited with our Pathfinder, he was fleeing the rain-soaked forests of Oregon for the warmer weather of California. After a brief stop in Yerba Buena, the settlement that would later become San Francisco, he headed down to Monterey to meet the American Consul, Thomas Larkin.”

Pumping his eyebrows, Clem paused for a wry smile. “Consul Larkin was an odd little fellow. He was a timid, bookish man who fretted constantly. He worried over breakfast; he worried over lunch. By the time he got to dinner, his stomach was so knotted-up from his day of worrying, he could hardly bring himself to look at a plate of food, much less eat it.”

Clem leaned back and thunked his hands across the plump girth of his stomach. “Larkin took one look at Frémont and nearly collapsed into a fit of anxiety.”

Tugging on his collar to loosen his bow tie, Clem bent down toward the children standing in front of his wagon. “Our Pathfinder had already assumed the character he hoped to play in Jessie’s next book, and he was eager to show off. He’d outfitted himself with a pair of buckskin pants and a floppy, wide-brimmed hat. The hair on his head and beard had been growing wild for months. He looked like a cross between a gunslinging outlaw and a woolly-haired gypsy.”

Clem’s mustache twitched as his eyes flicked once more to the back of the crowd. I watched as a steadying expression passed over his face. It was as if he’d mentally determined to ignore whatever was throwing him off his routine. His voice strengthened as he continued.