California Bloodstock (8 page)

Crabbed and wasted came Galon Burgett to Fort Ross. Twittering sarcastically back at alarmed birds and hawking heavy plugs of yellow phlegm into the foxtails, he scuffed his way around the perimeter of the abandoned fort. Multicolored fungi drove silently between cracks in the log wall like wedges.

Galon was feeling better. He searched through the various sheds and lean-tos for a new home. There was one large cabin that might do. Two rooms, actually, with smooth plank floors and a scatter of furniture that Galon eyed with satisfaction. But he couldn't have everything. The place reeked of fish oil.

Pinecones, Galon thought, perhaps pinecones placed in the corners would get rid of the scaly odor hanging in the tight air. And he could make his bed
of boughs and redwood shavings and the fire would help and then—hold everything! There in the far corner of the smaller room he saw a bed, a nest really, of fresh pine cuttings.

Someone or something was recently holed up in the old czarist outpost. Galon drew his pistol and turned cautiously back toward the larger room. Suddenly the front door slammed. Galon fired at the noise, splintering a half-inch hole through the door at eye level. He charged forward, reloading, to take cunning advantage of the smoking new peephole, but it was a wasted squint. There was nothing new out there, or so it seemed.

He stepped out into the windless dusk. Something was fishy. An old sensation stalked along his nerves, a tingle he had felt many times before. He tasted his own spittle turning to cotton on his tongue. He was not alone, he could feel it. He was being watched.

Shaboom Watanabe, lost son of Yedo and a stranger all these years in this strange land, squinted through the thorny bushes overgrowing the front gate. At last a man alone had come to him. Shaboom studied the man, remembering. He ground his teeth. He cursed the wretchedness of his curious mind, the mad hunger that so long ago had made him turn his back on the fine points of feudal honor and sail out of Yedo Bay craving travel and knowledge.

He had hung around Deshima, listening to Dutch
sailors paint wide visions of a world beyond, and when he got the chance he had shipped out. And then shipwrecked, and the Russians and the insults and insidious oblivion of this stupid coast on the edge of the world. He had tried to escape once and had learned his lesson, an expensive lesson that had resigned him to stay put.

How long ago, he wondered, had he snuck down to the beach at night and stolen that kayak? It was a treacherous memory, but not without its moral, the lesson he knew only too well. He had paddled south, gobbling raw fish for strength, nosing ashore each night to sleep in sandy caves. He had hoped to find refuge and passage home in the bay of San Francisco, but floated past its narrow gate in a rainy morning fog. He kept going. Thirteen days out of Fort Ross found him bobbing, exhausted, off Monterey. The next thing he knew a ferocious squall was blowing him further south and within an hour the wind was surfing his delicate craft straight for the rocks of Point Pinos.

Fished out dripping and disoriented from the churning shallows by some fun-loving Californios, Shaboom had been asked but one question.

You got any money?

When he shook his head, trying to collect his wits, they tied him facedown over a horse and galloped into Monterey. And then, before he could explain himself, they had thrown him into a large wooden cage where he spent the next three months. Yes, he shuddered to think about it. The Californios had started a zoo around him.

On display between a three-legged horse and a
gila monster that slept all the time, Shaboom had gone predictably mad in a matter of days and become a great crowd pleaser. He shrieked and threw his own excrement.

The exact circumstances surrounding his escape remain a mystery, but under the headline
CRAZED JAP AT LARGE
, the
California American
had suggested that perhaps the Russians were involved. Was there not a Russian ship in the harbor, the paper argued, and had not some of its officers been observed conversing in front of the fugitive? And had it not looked like he understood whatever the hell they were saying? The paper's editor, T. D. Slant, knew good copy when he saw it and his news judgment told him to ignore the fact that he had seen someone he knew very well tinkering with the cage on the very night of the Jap's escape.

The paper's innuendos naturally resulted in a call for action, but an intense search of the Russian vessel had turned up nothing but sea otter pelts. Shaboom, meanwhile, had been cutting a zigzag trail north, determined on an elegant suicide to show the Russians. Just to show them.

But he had found Fort Ross deserted. The Russians were all gone, having sold out to Sutter, who had come with his Worm Eaters and carted everything movable back to his fort while the Russians sailed away with a small chest of gold nuggets that Sutter had told them came from Mexico. Shaboom had stood alone in front of the fort and decided to wait. It was his fort now and he would command it one day at a time, waiting for a visitor and a chance to get even.

Since then Shaboom had dug out the necessities of his increasingly moribund existence like a common Worm Eater. He caught fish with his hands. He dug roots on the ridge and gathered kelp-heavy mussels from the rocky tide pools. Only his spiritual training saved him from fading into the thick wilderness like an extinct animal.

Twice each day he stared west in meditation and managed somehow to find the ordered vacancy of the gardens of Kyoto in the fog that rolled in below him like a curtain closing over the ocean.

Now he contemplated his visitor, his guest. The man was obviously not a Russian or even a Californio. No matter, he would have to do.

Gathered around the gate at Sutter's Fort, Millard Burgett found an assortment of Californio layabouts bemoaning the arrival of the Mormons. Willing to work harder for less money, the Mormons, it seems, were grabbing all the good jobs.

But Millard was not discouraged. He was determined to make his fortune for Galon. He rode inside looking for Sutter, the man himself.

John Augustus Sutter would probably have wound up very rich were it not for two egregious dings in his generous and otherwise progressive character: (1) he gave advice in crowds and (2) he had a tendency to play both ends against the middle. Thus, he was eternally overrun by the weak and indecisive while the people he should have been able to count on didn't trust him. Old T. D. Slant was given to referring
to Sutter, in print, as a toadying sycophant. Millard Burgett, on the other hand, came to admire and esteem him. Such were the whim-whams of Sutter's public image as he sat in his office adding a long column of figures.

Outside he heard the evening bell clang and put down his pen. It was his favorite time of day, feeding time for the Worm Eaters. He smiled to himself and walked outside.

Running along the fort's eastern wall was a shallow wooden trough, one hundred feet long. Sutter noted with satisfaction that very little of the warm gruel poured into it by the heavy-ankled women who worked in the cookhouse was spilling to the dust. Waste not want not, he always said. He walked the length of the trough, stopping only once to dab a thick finger into the soft mixture of beans and corn to measure the consistency. He didn't want it too thick.

Presently, the first wave of Worm Eaters came pouring through the side gate. Close to two hundred of them crowded into long lines behind a rope that had been stretched waist-high, parallel to the trough. All eyes were on Sutter. He backed out of the way, and with a sweep of his arm signaled that the rope be dropped to the ground.

Feed yourselves, he said, smiling benevolently, and reached in his vest pocket for his pipe.

Millard had never seen anything like it. The Worm Eaters surged to the trough and began scooping its contents into their mouths with cupped hands. And already a second wave was forming at the gate.

Close to an hour passed before the last Worm
Eaters had jogged in from the most distant fields to gobble down payment for a day's labor. Forty-nine huge caldrons of the bean-and-corn mixture had been poured like slurry into the trough, and through it all Sutter had quietly smoked his pipe.

Millard was overcome with respect. When Sutter set out on the rest of his evening rounds, Millard followed at what he hoped was a respectful distance, gathering nerve to approach the great pioneer. Sutter toured his storerooms, checking the number of hides and candles and sacks of wheat. Millard dogged him with growing admiration. Finally, when Sutter was on his way to his own supper in his private dining quarters, Millard tugged at his sleeve.

What do you want? Sutter demanded gruffly.

A job, Millard told him. I want to work for you.

So does everybody. What can you do?

Millard was stumped. He hadn't worked it out that far and could only stand there toeing silently at the ground as Sutter walked away from him.

The times were ripe for frenzy and, knowing what he knew, Sutter found himself in a very busy and rather delicate position. Acting as go-between for the various factions of Californios, Americans, Mexicans, and assorted other interests in this joke of a revolution, he cursed the fact that it had come before he was ready and he stalled for time. Like most people who find themselves cast in the role of middle-man,
Sutter had much bigger things in mind for himself.

In only eight years he had built his New Helvetia into a medieval barony, outsmarting an endless string of Indian raiders, Russian interlopers, French plotters, English trappers, and American adventurers, not to mention his Mexican hosts and Californio neighbors. Now he faced the biggest test, and it all depended on keeping one secret until he was ready for what he knew would follow its disclosure like a storm.

Late that night, Sutter sat at his writing desk. A tiny fire smoldered in the corner of the stone fireplace. It was too hot for a fire, but it kept him alert, lest he forget the humiliation of a shotgun wedding and bankruptcy in Switzerland, the land of fireplaces. Never again, he mused, looking into the flames. Rich and powerful, he called himself captain now, and wore the uniform of an officer in the French Guard which he had picked up somewhere. He would win out in the end if he could just keep his balance. He took his pen in hand and began to list his problems. It was a list of names.

There was Fremont, of course….That mercenary glory hound was mucking up everything with his swagger and entirely too much ambition. Fremont had even locked up Vallejo right here in New Helvetia, telling Sutter to keep the dignified Californio as a guest for a while, or else.

Valejo, yes…he was another problem. The man had controlled too much to simply give up. He read too much and he had powerful friends, Larkin for example.

Larkin, hmmm….Hard to understand but definitely sneaky, that Larkin, with his secret land deals and contracts. He was no friend of Fremont, yet they seemed somehow to be working toward the same end. But then Larkin had warned him about Brannan.

Brannan, well….It was too soon to tell about Brannan, but if it was true, as he had heard, that Brannan had hired that son-of-a-bitch Slant and given him a newspaper to run, then something had to be done.

Slant, shit….That crazy propagandist had been a pain in the ass from the beginning with all his talk about the dangers of concentrated power and his dirty connections.

Dirty connections, of course…all those self-serving revolutionaries browsing at the edges of everything, crisscrossing the countryside from one nefarious rendezvous to the next clandestine deal. And some of them were probably working for him, even as they worked against him.

So…Sutter read over his list and decided to make deals with everybody he could, just in case. He'd show them. He wadded the piece of paper and tossed it into the fire.

There was a knock at the door. Sutter waited until his list darkened into charcoal before answering. It was Joaquin Peach, one of his new labor bosses.

I hired another man, a funny little American, Peach told him.

Sutter frowned.

Don't worry, Peach insisted, he's too old and stupid to cause any trouble.

He's an American. What's his name? Sutter asked.

Burgett, and he's got a good gun. I can use him to guard the Worm Eaters cutting wood on the river.

Very well, but keep him away from me. I don't like Americans.

Taya missed running into Millard at Sutter's Fort by less than a day. As it was she ran into Joaquin Peach. She rode through the front gate and was surprised to see the roto walking around giving orders. When he saw her, he bowed with a flourish.

I have moved on to bigger things, he said.

She could see that, but was in no mood to listen to how. Early that morning, she had come across a band of Worm Eaters. They had been shouting at the sun, talking to it as if it were listening, encouraging it to continue its rise as if it might not. Then suddenly a bunch of Sutter's men came and herded them off. That the Worm Eaters could be so straightforward all the time, and so vulnerable, had struck Taya somehow. They had such simple ideas, worshipping everything they saw in the hope that more would appear. And then lying down in front of any stranger to be stepped on like the dirt itself. It made her uneasy. She didn't want to think about it anymore, and Peach's success obviously had something to do with it. He was carrying a whip.

How's it going? he wanted to know.

Where's Zorro? she shot back.

The question threw him. Why, he didn't have to feel guilty for leaving the old hero, but that's how she had made him feel. On purpose, he imagined. He'd show her:

Where's your husband?

Husband? The roto was getting out of hand. She brushed past him into the main office and took a room for the night. Husband? T. D. Jr.?

The next morning, Taya ran into Peach at the corral. He was probably waiting for her.

I'll bet you don't even have a husband, he said with a smile. I'll bet you're pretty loose too.

He was trying to be funny, trying to flirt a little, but it was definitely the wrong approach. Taya slugged him in the arm and turned abruptly, just in time to see T. D. Jr. come riding through the gate. No big surprise really, she had expected him to catch up sooner or later. She glanced back at Peach, who was not smiling, and ran to meet T. D. Jr.

T. D. Jr. was pleased. He had followed her, less than a day behind, in spite of himself, and if she was glad to see him, then it was worth it. He hoped she needed help.

Hi.

Hi.

How sweet, Peach said, and smirked at T. D. Jr.

Ignore him, Taya said. He has bad manners.

Bad manners! Peach was outraged. If there's anybody here with bad manners, he said to T. D. Jr., anybody who forgets who their friends are, it's your wife.

Wife? T. D. Jr. said he didn't have a wife.

Oh, I get it, Peach said. He whistled through his teeth and started swiveling his hips at Taya like an aroused dog. Boys will be boys.

T. D. Jr. jumped him from the saddle and a fistfight ensued. Taya acted like she wasn't interested. Maybe she wasn't. She walked away from the two of them grappling in the dust and saw to getting fresh horses. When T. D. Jr. and Peach realized that she wasn't watching them, their enthusiasm wilted and the fight was over. The crowd that had gathered jeered at them for not acting like men.

Taya was waiting outside the gate. When T. D. Jr. found her she snapped at him.

I can take care of myself, she said.

Then go ahead.

But he didn't want her to leave. It was a game they had begun to play. Call it go
away closer.

They both gave in. It was determined that if they had not found her father by the time it snowed in the mountains, she would accompany T. D. Jr. back to Yerba Buena, where they would both reconsider everything. That settled, they rode away from Sutter's Fort and made an early camp that afternoon on the American River.

The sky was thin, weatherless. Taya had some questions. She was not sure what she was up against in the puzzles of men.

She heard the fervid ticking of grasshoppers in the
tall grass that stretched back from their camp on the lush river bank. The scratchy breathing of lizards and toads hung in the thick summer dusk like pagan tapestries. When T. D. Jr. told her he'd be right back and walked leisurely upstream, she waited a moment and then followed him. She tracked him silently, a short distance off to his right. He stopped in a grove of ferns, faced a deadfall, and unbuttoned his trousers. She moved closer.

Casually, he drew out his penis and took aim at a line of red ants moving along the rotting wood. His yellow stream squirted out and splattered the insects, tracing their supply line with a smooth stain that began at once to disappear. With a flick of his wrist he was done. As the last drops fell at his feet, he turned his head and there she was, studying him.

Offering no explanation, no apology, nothing, she reached down and took hold of his cock. It felt cold and weightless in her palm, like a small dead bird. He just stood there, unable to move, as she examined him. She stretched him out, noting the suppleness and the tender pink mushroom of a head. On an impulse she suddenly squeezed with all her strength and was surprised that he didn't flinch. She began kneading and soon felt him begin to grow and harden. It seemed to her that he was filling with hot sand. She looked up into his face and saw him trembling.

I…I…he stammmered. You….

She released her grip and walked back to camp. He joined her presently and tried to make small talk. He asked her mundane questions about the weather. She could tell he was embarrassed and ignored him.
She had to think. The river slid past her, hurrying to sneak through the delta and on into the San Francisco Bay. She had no way of knowing, of course, that one of the men she was after would make a discovery of his own at that very spot less than a week later, a discovery that would twist all their lives again. Even old T. D.'s in far-off Yerba Buena.

Dogs barked. Roosters crowed. Early birds lost in a grey sky sailed over the stainless bay of San Francisco searching for the mud flats.

Damnable fog!

Old T. D. Slant tumbled irritably into the morning, the furry residue of last night's brandy hanging in his throat like spider webs. He felt his life moving ahead of him, like the town itself, growing just a bit too fast. And no wonder, he had taken up with Brannan, that landjobbing Mormon from Maine.

Already Brannan had a suburb of adobes squatting among the sand hills at the beach. He had his people slapping up two flour mills on Clay Street with the lumber he had others milling down the peninsula and had his eye on some of the action at Sutter's Fort. Plus, he was initiating publication of a weekly newsletter to be called the
California Star.
That's where old T. D. Slant came in. Consider Slant a consulting editor.

There was much to be done and Brannan had confessed
to Slant his need for someone with hard editorial experience, someone who knew the territory, a nuts-and-bolts, meat-and-potatoes, ball-and-cap, jack-and-hammer sort of fellow to help him whack out his grandstand ideas. The Mormon saw California as a fine country, an ecology favored with a bountiful nature by the Lord himself. A good place for good people. Yet he also perceived waste, both physical and moral, cysting up like so many carbuncles on the fair face of paradise. Something had to be done and, as president of the Associated Immigrants for God, Brannan felt the lance of responsibility heavy in his hands. The decadent Californios and their swarthy Spanish ancestors had accomplished practically nothing in the way of good works, and the Worm Eaters were, of course, beneath consideration. It was time for nature's more worthy children, he told Slant, time for them to step in and set grade for the road to prosperity. And his newspaper would be like a clean wind, blowing away the old fogs of sloth and ignorance, scattering the seeds of development across the land. Brannan heard California singing.