Fortune's Journey (15 page)

“Civilization requires money,” said Fortune.

Which was how the matter was decided.

Two days later—following directions provided by Abner Simpson (who seemed both amazed that they had made it this far and somewhat disappointed that they were leaving)—they separated from the wagon train and headed for a mining town.

Becky Hyatt walked a half a mile or so with them, and for a little while Fortune thought she was going to ask to come along. In the end she hugged them all, then threw her arms around Aaron, kissed him on the lips, burst into tears, and ran back toward her family's wagon.

Aaron stood looking after her in astonishment, until Mr. Patchett clapped him on the shoulder and asked him to get the wagon moving again.

They had made it to California. Now it was time to start digging for gold, the Plunkett's Players way.

Chapter Fifteen

Nothing, not all they had read, all they had heard, all they had imagined, had truly prepared them for what they found when they rolled into Mad Jack's Gulch. The town was a rowdy, roaring collection of bustling saloons, seedy hotels, makeshift cabins, and a lonely whitewashed church. The streets were filled with the wildest collection of folk they had ever seen—the fabled forty-niners, dressed in everything from flannel and blue jeans to silk and top hats. Music tinkled from behind the barroom doors. A beautiful woman leaned down from a second-story window in one of the hotels, calling out to the men in language that made Fortune blush.

And rooms were ten dollars a night.

“Ten dollars!” exploded Fortune. “What is this, a hotel or a palace?”

“This is gold country,” replied the clerk. “Take it or leave it.”

She went into a hurried conference with Mr. Patchett. After a series of negotiations, some of them carried out at the top of her lungs, she managed to rent two rooms for twenty dollars, a victory for the clerk—with the addition of extra mattresses for the men's room at no extra charge, a victory for Fortune.

About that time Walter came into the lobby, his face ashen.

“What's the matter?” asked Fortune.

“I found a building.”

“Then what's the problem?” she persisted, feeling like a prompter.

“The owner wants a hundred dollars for one night.”

“He wants
what?”

“A hundred dollars,” repeated Walter glumly.

“Come on,” said Fortune, grabbing him by the arm. “The rest of you get our things into the rooms. I'll be back in an hour.”

The owner of the building was a tall Irishman named Jack Burns. “Look, lady,” he said, when Fortune complained about his price, “it ain't worth it to me to let you use the building for less than that. You'll probably burn it down anyway, using candles or lanterns or something so people can see your show.”

“We will not!” said Fortune, blushing at the memory of the fire in Busted Heights. “Now look. I can't possibly pay you a hundred dollars to use your building for one night. You can let it sit empty, and make nothing, or you can give me a reasonable price and we'll both be happy.”

Forty-five minutes later she and Walter headed back toward the hotel, having hammered out a deal where they would pay Burns fifty dollars in advance and another hundred after the show—a deal that had somehow seemed less painful after Burns told Fortune they could charge ten dollars a seat for the first four rows and still fill them.

“We eat what we came with till after tomorrow night,” she told the group when they had assembled in the room she was sharing with Mrs. Watson. Once the groans had died down, she added, “Then we'll know whether coming west was the best thing we ever did—or the craziest.”

She didn't add that at the moment she herself had decided it was the craziest.

By the next night Fortune was beginning to think maybe they weren't so crazy after all. Walter had spent the day putting up signs to advertise the show. Edmund and Mr. Patchett had stationed themselves in the hotel lobby, selling advance tickets. And—at the advice of Jack Burns—she, Jamie, Aaron, and Mrs. Watson had spent some time practicing their scenes on the front porch of the hotel. As Burns had predicted, this attracted a crowd that then dispersed to spread the word a show was in town.

“I don't know how well you're going to do,” the clerk had said gloomily that morning. “We had a troupe through here just two weeks ago. Had one of what they call them ‘Fairy Stars' with 'em—little girl, maybe eight, nine years old. She sang, acted…everything. Even did scenes from
Hamlet,
all dressed up like a prince!”

“Wait till they see
our Hamlet,
” said Fortune confidently.

“I saw that Lola Montez a few months ago,” continued the clerk, ignoring Fortune's comment and apparently feeling she should be made aware of his broad experience with the stage. “Down in San Francisco. She did that Spider Dance of hers. Funniest thing I ever saw. She didn't take it too kindly when folks laughed at her, though.” He shook his head. “Gotta have a sense of humor if you want to stay alive out here.”

The clerk's words had stuck in Fortune's mind, and she recalled them that evening as she looked out at an audience composed of rough-and-ready mining men, elegant dandies, and a scattering of women who ranged from a severely dressed minister's wife to a gaudy creature Mrs. Watson referred to as a “painted strumpet.”

“My, doesn't
he
look ripsniptious,” said Mrs. Watson, pointing out an elegant-looking man seated in the center of the audience.

“What did you say?” asked Fortune.

“That's miner talk, gosling,” said Mrs. Watson, as if she had been in California since the first month of the Gold Rush. “Means he's all spruced up and looking fine.”

“I'll remember that.”

Then Walter stepped onstage to introduce the show.

Things went well until the third act, when someone in the audience started making whispered comments to his neighbor about the performance. His neighbor's laughter emboldened him, and soon the comments got louder, until there was a circle of laughter in the center of the audience that made it hard for others to hear.

“Quiet!” bellowed someone in front. “I want to hear the show!”

Things did quiet down for a few minutes. Then the self-appointed wit decided to make fun of Edmund's costume, a shabby thing he had patched together to replace one lost in their mountainside accident.

Edmund's eyes grew dark and angry. Fortune, anticipating trouble, began to rush her lines, hoping they could get through the act, which was nearly over, and let things calm down.

No such luck. One more comment from the audience was all it took to push Edmund over the edge. Seething with indignation, he jumped from the stage and barged through the audience until he reached the heckler. Then he drew back and landed a powerful haymaker on his jaw.

After that it was pure pandemonium. Half the audience was on the side of the actors, having been enjoying the play. The other half was all for the locals, no matter what they had done. And both halves, Fortune suspected, enjoyed a good brawl at least as much as a well-done play anyway.

Walter waded into the fray, roaring and swinging his massive arms like an enraged bear. Mrs. Watson hung back until she spotted someone struggling with Mr. Patchett, at which point she picked up a chair and hit the man over the head.

The low point of the whole fiasco came when Fortune decided to join the battle, too. Ducking under the flying fists, most of which were well over her head anyway, she pushed her way toward the oaf who had started the whole problem. Spotting him, she wound up and let fly with a solid punch, which landed squarely in Jamie Halleck's eye.

“I was on my way to rescue you from the mob,” he told her the next morning as he poked ruefully at the spectacular shiner that decorated the right side of his face. “I should have let the mob rescue me from you instead!” He winced and added, “I think I would have preferred another fire.”

“That would have cost more,” replied Fortune glumly. “As it was all we had to do was pay for the broken chairs.”

“I suppose you've got a point,” said Jamie. “Is there anything left?”

“A hundred dollars.”

“Well, that's more than we started out with.”

“Breakfast cost thirty.”

“Ouch!”

“Are you referring to the price tag, or your eye?”

“Both.”

They walked in silence for a while. It was a beautiful morning, golden and sundrenched, with just enough of a late September chill to make the air almost painfully sweet. They had left the hotel separately after breakfast and run into each other at the edge of town. By mutual consent they had walked together up the bank of the river, eager to be away from outsiders.

“Mrs. Watson says it was the biggest conbobberation she ever saw,” said Fortune after a while.

“Beg pardon?”

“That's miner talk,” said Fortune, imitating Mrs. Watson perfectly. “It means a brawl.”

“Well, I'll agree with her on that. What got into Edmund, anyway?”

“Theatrical temperament. He can't stand being laughed at.” Fortune recalled the desk clerk's prophetic words about needing a sense of humor in mining country. As if reading her mind, Jamie started to laugh himself.

“And just what is so funny?” she demanded.

“Oh, I was just remembering Mrs. Watson knocking over that miner,” he said, still chuckling. “She packs quite a wallop.” He poked at his eye again. “So do you, for that matter.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, not for the first time.

“No, no. It's good to know you can defend yourself. I never did like weak women.” He smiled at her. “It's getting warm,” he said, changing the subject. “Let's go wading!”

Fortune hesitated. Back East her mother would have been scandalized at the prospect. But here in California the rules seemed different. She looked longingly at the small stream that bubbled along beside them. Her feet
were
feeling hot and tired.

“Good idea,” she said suddenly. And at once, as though by the very act of shedding her inhibition, the whole world seemed richer and sweeter. She became more aware of the increased warmth of the sun as it had risen in the sky, of the calling birds all about them, the smell of the forest, and most of all the presence of someone very special beside her.

How can he not be angry with me?
she wondered, suddenly feeling very safe with him. For a moment, almost against her will, she remembered the feel of his arms about her when he had carried her out of the fire months ago.

“This is a good spot,” said Jamie. He took her arm and helped her sit on the thick moss.

He has nice feet,
she thought, watching from the corner of her eye as he slipped off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trouser legs. She slipped off her own boots and looked at her feet appraisingly.
These aren't bad, either,
she thought with satisfaction.

“Come on,” said Jamie, jumping up. “Let's go!”

Laughing, they splashed into the water. It was cold, but the air was warm. Great trees arched over them, filtering the sunlight so that it fell in pools and puddles of gold about them.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” said Jamie, gesturing to the forest that surrounded them.

“Uh-huh. Almost scary. It's so big.”

“I don't think anything can seem big after those mountains we crossed.”

Fortune thought of the mountains, and how Jamie had kept the group going at the worst stage of the crossing with his irrepressible good humor. She felt a surge of closeness to him and moved imperceptibly nearer.

Without a word he led her to the far side of the stream. They sat on a rock outcropping, warmed by a patch of sunlight.

Jamie was stiff, almost rigid, as he sat staring into the water.

Say it! Fortune thought. Tell me what you're thinking!

“Fortune, I…” He stopped, then tried again. “Fortune…”

Just then they spotted it, a dull yellow glow in the water between their feet. Without a word they reached for it, their fingers entering the water simultaneously. Then, as if drawn by a magnet, their hands moved from what they had been reaching for and instead closed over each other.

Still not speaking, Jamie stood and drew Fortune to her feet.

She looked up into his eyes. I think I'm going to die. I didn't know my heart could beat so fast…or that his arms could feel so good. What's happening to me?

And then there was no time to think of what was happening as he drew her closer. His arms tightened about her and his hands slid over her dress and his lips pressed against hers.

There were no questions now, no answers, no right, no wrong, no night, no day—only the two of them standing in the ancient forest, clinging desperately to each other, admitting what both of them had known from the very first instant they saw each other…that there was no one else in the world for either one of them.

“I love you,” he whispered, his voice soft and husky. “I've loved you from the first moment I saw you, loved you without stopping ever since, loved you while you tried to make up your mind, loved you while you were laughing at me, wondering about me, angry at me, hating me, teasing me…”

And then he couldn't speak anymore, because her lips had covered his, and words were no longer necessary.

Chapter Sixteen

Fortune sighed contentedly. “Probably you should have just grabbed me and run away with me that first day in Busted Heights,” she said, leaning against him.

“I doubt it would have done much good. You're the type who wants a man to prove himself.”

“I suppose I am,” she said, snuggling closer. “Of course, you did that some time ago.”

“Yes, but you wouldn't admit it!”

She laughed. They were sitting on the bank of the little stream, still dangling their feet in the water. A small bird was flitting back and forth above them, its yellow wings flashing in the sunlight.