The Gold Seekers (7 page)

Mercy glanced up at the darkening sky, only half hearing what Jemmy Kemp was saying to her concerning the evening meal. The old ship’s cook fed his lodgers very well, and there were half a dozen others, apart from her and Luke. But few stayed on board the Nancy Bray for long; they obtained their grubstakes, purchased their supplies, and set off for the fields, succeeded by new arrivals, whose sojourns were equally brief. Like Luke, they spent their days in town, returning to the hulk only to sleep, and their presence had not troubled her, since, without exception, they had treated her with respect… . She shivered, remembering the attitude of the men in the Sacramento saloon when she had worked there. And … Jasper Morgan’s.

It would be a long time before she was able to forget the manner in which Jasper Morgan had treated her.

“Beef stew an’ taters,“Jemmy Kemp concluded, with pardonable pride. “Some farmers drove in a herd o’ steers—on the skinny side, they was, but still it’s good red meat, ain’t it? See the boy don’t miss it.” His head vanished.

“Luke’ll be here soon,” Mercy called after him. She crossed the deck, the worn, ill-fitting boards creaking even under her light weight, and halted at the head of the rickety gangplank that linked the Nancy Bray to the foreshore. Luke usually returned before nightfall, fearing to leave her alone, but already there were lights shining through the misty haze that shrouded the town, and she could see no sign of him. He was a strange young man, she thought indulgently; shy where women were concerned, to the point of embarrassment in their presence. And although their careful husbanding of their resources required them to share their sleeping accommodation, Luke never so much as touched her when they were alone together. True, he would take her arm when

they went walking in the town, but this was rather in order to protect her, she knew, than any sort of gesture of affection or intimacy.

He was eighteen—a year her senior—but in many respects, and certainly in experience, he was an innocent child, whereas she herself … Mercy was conscious of an ache in her throat. Thanks to the cholera that had deprived her of the love and support of her parents, she herself had undergone a swift and painful transition into womanhood. And there could be no going back. She was what a cruel fate had made of her—what Jasper Morgan had made of her, with his glib tongue and the promises he had given but had not kept.

“On my word as a gentleman,” he had said, “you will be safe with me.” And she, in her foolish innocence, had trusted him, until disillusion had come with the first of many brutal beatings and demands that— The sound of running feet distracted her from her thoughts, and she peered into the gathering darkness, relief flooding over her as she recognized Luke.

He came splashing through the mud toward her, waving excitedly as he reached the foot of the gangplank and saw her standing there.

“You’re so late,” she began anxiously. “And I was worried, Luke. You—”

He brushed her words aside and, to Mercy’s surprise, hugged her. “You were right!” he exclaimed. “Morgan has gone to Australia. I’ve found proof of it at last.”

“Oh, Luke!” She could only stare at him, a prey to conflicting emotions and suddenly afraid. “Are you sure?”

“He was here only for a few days,” Luke asserted. “Mercy, he bought a ship—a small brig called the Banshee—and sailed for Sydney a month ago. I met the man he bought the ship from, so there’s no mistake.” He made a wry grimace. “He bought her cheap, because her master could not keep his crew and couldn’t replace them.”

“But Jasper Morgan could?” Mercy suggested, an edge to her voice.

“Yes. It seems that Mr. Brannan’s committee of vigilance has put the fear of God into Australian ex-convicts—the ones they call the Sydney ducks—who’ve been blamed for

much of the robbery and violence here. They lynched two of them before we left Thayer’s Bend, and they’re holding another for trial. Some of their fellows reckoned it was time to quit San Francisco before the vigilantes caught up with them. The Banshee’s old owner said that more’n a score of them signed on to crew for Morgan, just to get away from here.” Luke shrugged. “Double-dyed rogues they were, according to him, and I believed him!”

He did not enlarge overmuch on the story the old sea captain had told him of the ghastly scenes attending the execution of one of the “ducks” by the name of Jenkins, who had eventually met his end dangling from a rope suspended from a beam of the old Customs House in the plaza. That example had apparently been sufficient to make the other Australians understand that for them the time had come to leave California.

Mercy was silent for a long moment, studying his face in the dim light and reading the determination in it. She asked flatly, “What will you do, Luke?” knowing what his answer would be before he gave it.

“I shall go after him. I have to, Mercy—I owe it to Dan and the others.” Diffidently he laid a hand on her arm. “You knew that when we started.”

“How will you find a ship?” Mercy’s voice was still carefully controlled. “You can’t buy one, like he did.”

“Every other ship in this harbor is seeking hands,” Luke told her. “And the masters don’t care if the men they sign on are landsmen—or ignorant farm boys, as Morgan used to call Dan and me.” He shrugged. “I heard of a vessel that is bound for the Pacific islands and Sydney as soon as her master can sign half a dozen more hands. She is partly crewed by Javanese or Malays, and they’ve stayed with her. She’s a fine new schooner, built in a Boston yard—the Dolphin—registered in Sydney, and her master is the owner. His name is Van Buren, and—” He broke off, avoiding her gaze. “That’s why I’m late, Mercy. I went out to her with a couple of others from the diggings—Australians who want to go home.”

“And you signed on?” For all her efforts to control it, Mercy’s voice was not steady. She had always known where

the pursuit of Jasper Morgan might lead, she told herself, just as she had known that Luke would follow his brother’s murderer wherever he might seek to hide. “Did you sign on with—with Captain Van Buren, Luke?” she persisted wretchedly.

Luke nodded. “I had to—there might not be another Australia-bound ship for months. The Dolphin’s not going direct to Sydney—she’s a trader, and as I told you, she will be calling at ports in the Pacific islands on the way. But she’s the only one, Mercy. If we wait any longer, Morgan will be too far ahead of us… . I’ll never catch up with him.”

Mercy’s small hands clenched convulsively by her sides. She wanted to plead with him not to abandon her, but no words would come. They had never discussed what they would do if the pursuit of Jasper Morgan were to lead to a journey halfway across the world; it was a subject she had been afraid to broach, lest the fear that Luke would leave her behind were to become reality. But he was looking questioningly at her now, she realized, and she forced a tremulous smile. He had said we and us… .

“You—you’ll take me with you, Luke?”

“Did you suppose I’d leave you here alone?” he countered reproachfully. “Of course I’ll take you, if you are willing to come. But it will mean leaving America, Mercy. Perhaps forever.”

To abandon the only existence, the only land she had ever known would not be easy, Mercy realized, but what had life here given her, save heartbreak and despair, the grinding poverty of her childhood, the loss of the mother and father she had loved—and the humiliation that had been her lot with Jasper Morgan?

“I’ll have few regrets on that score,” she managed, her throat tight. “And I’m not afraid. I’ll go with you gladly if Captain Van Buren is willing to take me. But my passage will be costly, and—” She had been about to remind him that she was female and that the Dolphin’s master might not welcome a female passenger, but Luke, she saw, was smiling, and instead, she asked uncertainly, “Luke, did you tell him about me? Did you ask if he would take me?”

“I told Captain Van Buren that I had a young sister, and I

offered to work my passage in return for yours. The Dolphin is carrying a few passengers—there is cabin accommodation on board.” Luke’s smile widened. “The other passengers are missionaries, with their wives and children—good folk, who were stranded here when the crew of their ship deserted. Captain Van Buren is carrying them for the cost of their food only, and he says he will take you on the same terms.”

Mercy stared at him, again bereft of words. Finally she said in a small, choked voice, “He must be a very good man, this Captain Van Buren.”

“I reckon he is,” Luke confirmed. “I can sell the horses tomorrow—the man at the livery stables will give me a fair price for them. That should cover the cost of your food, near enough, and we shall not be penniless when we reach Sydney. There’s just one more obstacle in our way.” He hesitated, eyeing Mercy with a hint of uncertainty. “The captain wants to see and talk with you before he agrees to give you passage.”

“To make sure that I shall be fit company for his missionaries?” Mercy suggested wryly.

“I guess that’s the reason. He has his crew to think of, too. He said he would send a boat for us later this evening. Don’t worry, little sister.” Luke reached for her hand and clasped it between his own two work-roughened palms. “You will pass muster … I’m the one that may not. I’ve never been to sea in my life, and I’ve signed on as a seaman. We’re lucky to be here, Mercy—no ship’s master would take me in any other port.”

It was true, Mercy knew; the great concourse of abandoned ships in San Francisco Harbor was a stroke of good fortune, at least to them, and she took courage from Luke’s words. If he was willing to work his passage, then— A loud, metallic banging interrupted her thoughts. Jemmy Kemp was beating on a frying pan below, to summon them to the evening meal; and as if they, too, had heard the sound, three of the Nancy Bray’s other boarders came thudding across the gangplank, all of them laughing and evidently in high spirits.

“We’re off to the fields in the mornin’,” one of them said. “Off to make our fortunes, God willing! Change your mind an’ come with us, young Luke—what do you say, eh? We can use you.”

Luke glanced at Mercy and then shook his head. “Thanks,” he said quietly, “but I’ve other plans.” He offered Mercy his arm, and she took it, managing to smile.

The three young fortune hunters stood courteously aside to allow her to precede them.

In the spacious stern cabin of the Dolphin, her master, Claus Van Buren, finished his evening meal and raised his glass in an oddly formal salute, a gleam of satisfaction lighting his dark eyes. He was a slim, tall man, of fine physique and a certain arrogance, who held himself erect, as if even in repose he were defying anyone who might feel inclined to question his ancestry or his claim to the aristocratic name he bore.

“Here’s to a swift and safe passage, Saleh!” he said, addressing the white-bearded Javanese who had served his meal. “Thank God we shall soon be taking this ship to sea again, for I swear she is breaking her heart, just as I am, seeing this harbor full of vessels going to rot. We shall have our full complement by tomorrow evening.”

Old Saleh eyed him pensively but accepted the brimming glass he was offered. His position, on the ship’s books, was that of master’s steward, but it was a privileged one, for he had been friend and mentor to the Dolphin’s owner for more than twenty years. His face was unlined, having the color and texture of ivory, which gave it a serenity that somehow belied the neatly trimmed white beard and the balding head. Saleh, Claus thought, was ageless.

The old man drank the toast and observed, his tone faintly skeptical, “Full in number, perhaps—not in nautical skills. And you will make no profit from your passengers, master.”

“I made a profit from my cargo,” Van Buren reminded him. “A thousand percent on lumber; and the flour sold at forty-four dollars a barrel, the potatoes at sixteen dollars a bushel—San Francisco prices, Saleh. And you know what our eastern fortune hunters paid to be conveyed here. I have almost covered the cost of this ship in a single voyage! Mr. Donald McKay is a genius when it comes to designing fast

sailing ships, and I do not begrudge a cent of what he asked of me. The Dolphin is the finest vessel I have ever owned or commanded—truly the finest. She will pay for herself ten times over when we’re back in Sydney. She will cause a sensation when we drop anchor in the cove. No one will have seen her like, I promise you, and the tea traders will gnash their teeth with envy!”

Saleh’s white brows rose, but Claus Van Buren ignored the implied doubts and smiled quietly to himself, his pride in his new 850-ton Boston-built clipper schooner proof against any criticism. True, she had been costly, but he had sold the old schooner Lydia—in which he had made the passage from Sydney to Boston—for considerably more than she would have fetched in Australia. The demand for ships to carry gold prospectors from the eastern states to California was now almost insatiable, and that had dictated the Lydia’s price, as well as that of the Dolphin herself; and those who had taken passage around the Horn on board his vessel had been willing to pay highly for the privilege of reaching their destination in under a hundred days.

The Dolphin had not beaten the Sea Witch’s record, but she had taken only one day more… .

“Come now, Saleh,” he urged, his smile widening into a boyish grin. “I can afford to be generous to the men of God and their families. Poor souls, they did not deserve to be stranded in this den of iniquity simply because their ship’s company deserted to the goldfields and left them to fend for themselves. Would you have me leave them here? There is no other cargo I can load from this place, and who, save our good missionaries, desires to leave it?”

“The young man you signed on this evening,” Saleh pointed out gravely. “The one whose sister you also agreed to take for the cost of her food. That young man is from the goldfields, master—a farm boy, on his own admission, who will be of scant use as a seaman.”

“Luke Murphy,” Claus supplied. “But the two he brought with him have served at sea—they both are Australians. And they assured me that they would send out three others, prime seamen, tomorrow morning.”