Gangway! (2 page)

    "Two hundred bucks?"

    "Yeah. Of course you could always walk. Only take you a month or so."

    Gabe looked down at his shoes. The soles needed repairing right now. One day's hiking, let alone a month's…

    "I've got to think on this." He swung away.

    The clerk's voice followed him cheerily. "Think quick, friend. New World sets off in ten minutes, and she's always on time, she is. Next boat ain't till tomorrow this time and you don't…"

    Whatever it was the clerk had to say, Gabe didn't catch the rest. He was suddenly very busy avoiding being trampled.

    It was a small wagon. Small but drawn by ten teams of mules. Each mule seemed to have forty hoofs. Clots of mud ricocheted off the ticket office and off Gabe's suit. There was a great swell and rush of movement, and the wagon went caroming by him as if it had a boat to catch.

    It was all noise and wheeling confusion but as Gabe leaped back his eyes whipped across the words YANKEE BAR MINE painted on the side of the wagon. He tumbled back against the ticket window and gathered breath to yell something unfriendly, but the remark died on his lips.

    What curbed his tongue was the size of the ten horsemen escorting the little wagon.

    They were armed to the teeth and they looked like boulders hewn out of granite mountains. They all had expressions like closed doors. Rifles and shotguns in their fists, great spurs on their boots, revolver handles sprouting from their waists like weed crops.

    The horsemen went thundering by like agents of the Apocalypse. While Gabe got his balance and started to dust himself off-mud myself off?-the whole army came to a swirling halt around the wagon at the end of the wharf, at the foot of the wide freight gangplank.

    The big guys on horseback made a tight circle around the wagon, facing outward with rifles and shotguns propped against their thighs. They all kept looking around in all directions as though they'd just received word that something fun to shoot was about to appear.

    Anything guarded that zealously deserved Gabe's attention. He moved that way, easing past various wagons, stevedores and spectators. Beyond the wharf the river cut through town and disappeared into a valley of trees and mud. Little boats churned up and downstream. It was all busy and noisy under the August sun.

    Half the horsemen were dismounting now. The rest appeared to grow larger to fill the gaps. The guys on foot slung their rifles over their shoulders and began to unload small wooden boxes from the wagon. The boxes were no bigger than shoes but the big guys were lifting only one apiece. It was clear from all the grunting and heaving that they were not filled with gossamer and lace. Gabe drifted closer for a better look. Immediately two of the mounted guards fixed their glares on him with obvious and belligerent expectation of trouble.

    Gabe smiled disarmingly and took another step.

    The nearest guard's flinty stare drilled into him, but then it slid away without change of expression. Obviously he didn't consider Gabe a threat. A dude, and alone.

    It irritated Gabe to be dismissed lightly. But on the other hand it might not be bright to change the guard's opinion right now. Gabe rose above injured pride-and moved a step closer to the wagon.

    The boxes were moving up the gangplank, one by one. He watched a guard pick up one of them from the wagon. Made of rough wood, the box had a tag hanging from it. The tag was stenciled in black:

    TO: U. S. MINT, SAN FRANCISCO

    "Hey, friend."

    Gabe looked slowly toward the big guy on the horse.

    "Me?"

    "You."

    "You want something from me?"

    "I want you should get back away from that wagon."

    "I just wanted to look," Gabe said reasonably. "There's no harm in looking."

    "You want to look at that gold," the big guy said, "you can visit it at the Mint."

    Gabe looked at the wagon and back up at the big guy. "Thanks," he said. "Maybe I will."

    The big guy lowered the muzzle of his rifle an inch. Gabe backed off and made a half turn, back toward the ticket window. That brought the stern of the riverboat into view, past the side of the wharf. The stern was riding slowly up and down. Gabe fixed his eyes on it, mesmerized.

    He just didn't like the motion of that boat. Three gangplanks connected it with the pier; passengers and freight were going steadily aboard and the boat was moving softly up and down, up and down, up and down. Not even in a regular motion like the click-click-click of the train wheels, but in a sickening rolling manner that first attracted Gabe's eye, then his mind, and then his stomach…

    Oh, no.

    He wheeled around and locked his eyes on the first stationary object: a sign next to the ticket window, which said:

    

    
Fares:

    Pittsburg - $2

    Port Chicago - $4

    Richmond - $9

    San Francisco - $16.50

    

    Sure, he thought.

    The clerk at the window leered at him. "Four minutes, friend."

    They had a language of their own out here, and Gabe was beginning to learn the vocabulary. When a guy called you friend, it was like when a tiger showed you his teeth. It didn't pay to assume he was smiling.

    Over on the wharf the gold wagon was empty and the muleskinner was bellowing a rich stream of oaths at his animals. The wagon curled away. Four characters in overalls came out of a shed and took the reins of the big guys' horses. All the big guys were dismounted now, half of them up on the forward deck and the other half stomping toward the gangplank.

    So the guards were traveling with the gold, not with the wagon. They were all clustering around the pile of gold boxes on deck now and keeping the passengers away.

    Passengers. Gabe looked off to his right, and it seemed as though just about everybody who'd been on the train was already on the boat. If he didn't hustle himself, he'd get left behind and not make it to San Francisco. And if there was one thing worse than being on that riverboat it was not being on it, if the alternative was life in this place. What did that fat fellow say it was? Sacramento.

    Plus there was Twill, and that associate of Twill's waiting for Gabe to show up in San Francisco. It would be a very very poor idea to disappoint him.

    Also, there was that gold. For some reason Gabe liked the idea of traveling with a wagonload of gold for companionship. It made a voyage by boat almost worthwhile.

    Almost. Taking a step closer to the ticket window, Gabe gave the sign beside it an affronted look. To hear that sign talk, you'd think California was nothing but major metropolises. Pittsburg, Port Chicago, Richmond indeed. The truth was that these gully-jumpers wouldn't know a city if it fell on them.

    The ticket clerk said, "You goin' someplace, or you just practicin' your lip-readin'?"

    Gabe lifted one eyebrow in a big-city stare. "You in a hurry?"

    "No, I'm not, but you ought to be. The boat's about to leave."

    Gabe looked over at the boat, and damn if they weren't starting to pull the gangplanks in. "Yeah," he said. "I'm going to San Francisco."

    "You are if you run for it." The clerk slapped a ticket down on the counter. "That'll be sixteen and four bits."

    "Ah. Well, I…"

    Gabe hadn't known about this extra expense at the end of the line and wasn't sure exactly how much cash he still had. He'd left New York in something of a hurry and hadn't been able to scrounge together too much of a road stake. Did he even have sixteen dollars and fifty cents?

    He watched the gangplanks sliding upward over there at the boat while he fumbled in his pockets. A ten-dollar eagle. A five-dollar half eagle.

    He dug. He dug fast now because he had sudden thoughts of the telegram that would go out to Twill if Gabe didn't show up in San Francisco. He dug through every pocket and, counting the dime in his left trouser cuff, he had seventeen dollars and five cents.

    "There you are," Gabe said at last, dumping a double handful of coins onto the counter.

    "And there you are," the clerk said. "Have a great trip."

    That just had to be sarcastic. Clutching his ticket Gabe peered at the clerk's face, but saw only a guileless smile as the man closed the board shutters over his window.

    And a lot of shouting was taking place over at the riverboat. Gabe saw only one gangplank still connecting ship to pier, and he made a run for it, waving the ticket and shouting, "Hi! Hi!"

    The scenery was moving. Hills were going by. There was open water between Gabe and the nearest land. And the water was moving and the boat was moving.

    Slowly, like a statue toppling off a pedestal, Gabe bent over the rail.

    

    

    She came walking happily along the deck, smiling in the sunshine. It was good to be sailing the Sacramento River once again. I really ought to do it more often, she thought. A change of air, a couple of days in the sun-it could do wonders for a girl's complexion.

    She turned into the saloon lounge and cast her eye over the crowd. Pilgrims, most of them. The crowd was denser in the men's bar, but she wasn't allowed in there of course. In the saloon lounge ladies in stays and heavy dresses sat fanning themselves against the heat. Fools-but they'd learn.

    She went out again to take a turn on deck; she hadn't explored the port side yet. She knew she was drawing stares from the gentlemen passengers but she didn't acknowledge any of them although she knew how-the droop of an eyelash, the loss of a handkerchief. Today she was not interested in romance.

    Toward the bow she turned past the lifeboat and suddenly a huge tough loomed, blocking her way.

    "Sorry, Miss. You can't go up no further."

    The rifle was large in his fists. His eyes were sizing her up in appreciation.

    She blinked at him. "But I always ride up front. I love to ride up front."

    "Sorry, Miss. Everybody stays back of this line today."

    "Oh," she said. "Another gold shipment."

    "Yes, Miss."

    "They're such a bore."

    She felt the guard's eyes on her when she turned away. She glanced up and saw the Captain on the Texas deck. He was watching her, too. It made her smile a little and it put a little extra bounce in her step.

    She went through the forward corridor to the starboard side. A few gentlemen stood at the rail. She saw a thin young fellow in an Eastern suit, alone. His face was loose and grey and filled with alarm and unease. His shoes looked a bit worn, and he was clutching a cloth cap in one trembling hand. He looked as if he'd come from way back East somewhere, maybe from as far as St. Louis or Indianapolis. From the condition he was in it appeared he'd had a rough trip.

    He might be worth checking out, she thought, but first there were the two prosperous merchants talking business by the davits. She headed sedately in their direction.

    

    

    Gabe clung to the heaving, pitching deck of the boat while it tied up at the dock of Pittsburg.

    Pittsburg, he observed without believing. Maybe five buildings and a pier. If you counted a tack shed as a building.

    He clutched a passing nautical type by the sleeve. "How long will we be tied up here?"

    "Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen."

    Gabe rushed to the gangplank and staggered down to the little pier. Got on solid ground and stood there taking deep breaths. His vision began to clear.

    He looked up toward the forward deck. The big guys stood like trees. So San Francisco had a U. S. Mint, did it? And gold was shipped there.

    That was interesting. Very interesting.

    He was still thinking about that when a sailor in a striped shirt went by bawling, "All aboard-all aboard," which suggested these Westerners couldn't tell the difference between a steamboat and a train.

    Gabe dragged himself aboard.

    He draped himself over the rail as near as he could get to the gold stack, because he thought maybe if he could keep looking at all that gold it would take his mind off being seasick.

    It didn't work out that way. But between spells of being violently sick and spells of dry heaves, there were the occasional merciful moments of respite. During one of those moments he caught sight of a girl drifting unhurriedly along the deck, stopping here and there to look around her with pert wide-eyed interest. A slip of a girl, a delicate innocent flower of a girl. She wasn't looking in his direction; she stopped not too far away, a little beauty of a girl sweetly taking deep breaths of the warm and sunny afternoon air.

    The lovely wisp of a girl, wearing chaste innocence like a clean fragrance, moved daintily past Gabe. He would have turned to watch her go, but his time was up. He lurched back over the rail, clutched a stanchion with one hand, and hung his head weakly, keeping his eyes tight shut so he wouldn't have to watch the water roll past below him. Desperately his mind clung to a vision of the girl he had just seen. The simple dainty frock she wore; the wind gently whipping the long blonde hair around her little face…

    Something jostled him slightly. In his wracked condition, he hardly noticed.

    The first he knew anything was wrong was when he heard the shot and the scream.

    He whipped around, as fast as he could under the circumstances, and slapped his right hand against his hip pocket where his knuckle-duster was.

    Except it wasn't.

    He realized the pocket was empty at the same time that he saw the girl. The same girl he'd been dreaming about, trying to distract himself from his stomach. Damn if Gabe's knuckle duster wasn't in her hand, still smoking at the muzzle as she held it out away from her as though it were a dead rat.