Both of his warm hands fold around mine, and he pleads. “Please, please, let’s get out of here and run away before we have to do a big wedding. I already feel sick every time I look at a plum.”
I flash back to Helena Russell’s plum-colored eyes.
“Lee?”
I blink to clear the memory. “Becky will be so disappointed in us.”
“Becky lives to be disappointed in people. If we get out of her way, she’ll expand her horizons. She’ll find all sorts of new people to be disappointed in.”
I chuckle while Jefferson leans back against the railing. “You know, I think that baby girl is going to be full-grown before she gets a name,” I say.
“The Major’s been calling her Rosy, ’cause of her rosy cheeks. Becky caught him doing it the other day, and I thought she was going to rip off his other leg before she was done.”
“Jeff!” I say, but I’m laughing.
“I’m serious. She wants to control everything, so nothing can go wrong. She won’t even give that baby a name because she’s afraid it’ll be the wrong name.” He takes a deep breath, like he’s carefully considering his next words. “You can’t get so scared of doing the wrong thing that you don’t do anything at all.”
I let that sink in for a moment. Jefferson’s voice has changed. It’s deeper than it used to be. Warmer. A voice a girl can trust. “That’s not why I’m scared,” I tell him.
“Then what are you worried about?”
“Something happened tonight. When Henry and I followed Hardwick.”
“Tell me.”
And just like that, my heart starts pounding all over again.
“Lee?” His fingertip traces my left eyebrow.
I wanted to keep this to myself a little, hold tight to it, let it stew. It feels so monumental. So personal. But this is Jefferson. I can tell him anything. “It’s about Helena Russell, Hardwick’s associate. I think she knows what I can do.”
Jefferson sits straight up, his fingers leaving my face. “You mean, your witchy powers?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I explain what happened at the gambling parlor.
He rubs his chin with a hand, pondering my words, and it turns out it’s a relief to tell someone I trust, to share the burden of thinking with him. At last he says, “That thing about the eyes. More than a little bothersome.”
“Yeah.” I scoot closer so our thighs touch. He’s like my own personal woodstove, a shield against the cold night.
“You think she can find gold? The way you do?”
“No. Not exactly. I mean, she asked me how I did ‘that thing with the gold.’ If she could do it herself, she wouldn’t ask, right?”
“That makes sense.”
“But I do think she has . . . magic. Something miraculous and amazing that she can do. And Jeff, I have to tell you. I talked to Jim today.” It pours out of me, everything about Hiram and Mama and her ability to find lost things and how, one time, the lost thing she found was Jefferson.
Jeff is silent a long time. “So this kind of thing is passed down, generation to generation.”
“Maybe.”
“And Helena Russell can recognize it in someone else.”
“It’s possible.” A bit of wonder tinges my voice.
“Does that mean Hardwick knows about you?”
I force myself to consider this sensibly, without panicking. “He noticed my particular affinity for gathering wealth, for sure and certain,” I say. “But he always seems baffled by it. Maybe Helena knows but hasn’t told him for some reason.”
His arm drapes my shoulders again, and I lean into him. “So that’s why you’re so scared,” he says.
“We need to tell everyone. If Helena knows . . . things . . . it will be very hard to make a good plan.”
He’s silent a long time. “But maybe, also, it’s a little bit wonderful? It must be hard to hold those two things in your heart at the same time. Fear. Delight. All about the same darn thing.”
I can’t help it; I turn my face and kiss him hard on the lips. Because he understands without me having to say. I’m not the only girl with witchy powers. I’m not alone.
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning I wander to the galley, drawn by the smell of coffee and the sizzle of bacon. That alone would leave me more than satisfied, but the big table also contains platters of scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. My mouth waters. Before I take the first bite, I know that Becky didn’t cook this meal. I pour some coffee, cup it in my hands, and hold it to my face, just breathing in the aroma.
The lanterns are lit, and a candle brightens the table. If we’re here for any length of time, maybe I should commission some windows. And it’s as though I summoned him with a thought, because Melancthon enters with a huge platter of flapjacks and thumps it down on the table.
“I hired you to be a carpenter, not a cook,” I tell him. “You’re under no obligation to feed us.”
“Who’s feeding you? All of this is my breakfast.” We both grin. “No, seriously, I just wanted to show my appreciation.”
“It’s no problem for you to stay here. There’s more space than we need.”
“It’s not just the room and board, and giving me honest work for honest pay, although I appreciate that. It’s my thanks for saving the Charlotte. This was my home for three years, and I’ve worked on every part of her—I know every beam and strake, every inch of timber. Thought I’d see her torn apart and used for lumber. But you saved her.”
“So you’ve forgiven me for wanting holes in her.”
“Let’s not get carried away.”
I sip the coffee. “Have you given any more thought to your long-term plans?”
He sits beside me and pours a cup of coffee for himself. “It’s been on my mind. This meal is a bit of a thank-you, yes, but it’s also a bid-thee-well. Word has it the Argos is setting sail for New York next week.”
The thought of losing Melancthon saddens me. I barely know him, but he’s already proved himself a decent fellow, and pleasant company besides. “Do you have enough to purchase passage?” We’ve paid him fairly for his work, but I have no idea how much it costs to sail from San Francisco to New York by way of the Panama Isthmus.
“That’s just it; I wouldn’t have to buy passage. The captain and I sailed together before, on a whaling ship out of Newport. He says the ship is privately chartered. Won’t say for who, but he did say that the customer is paying very well for his privacy. He wants to hire me as a carpenter—his last one caught gold fever.”
I am now fully awake and alert, and it has nothing to do with coffee. Well, maybe not everything to do with the coffee. “That’s . . . interesting.”
Melancthon stares into his cup. “He also says they have valuable cargo that might create some problems, and they’ll need a steady hand moving all of it once they get to Panama.”
This definitely sounds like Hardwick. “When exactly are they sailing?” I’m willing to bet the rest of my savings it’s not before Tuesday’s auctions.
“End of the week,” Melancthon says. “After the auctions.”
Time enough to collect all the money first. Sometimes you have to quit when you’re well and truly ahead, he told me.
“Do me a favor, Mr. Jones,” I say. My mind is churning, churning, churning. Hardwick leaving so soon could present an obstacle. Or maybe . . . an opportunity. “Wait a day or two before you accept that offer.”
He opens his mouth to ask why, but Jefferson wanders into the galley, whistling like a yellow warbler with a mouthful of spring. He pulls up a chair and sits beside me.
“You’re in a good mood this morning,” I say glumly. “Like every morning.” This is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life: Jefferson’s morning cheer assaulting me like a bag of bricks.
“Yep.” He grabs a plate and helps himself to a large serving of everything.
Becky enters carrying the baby, who is most certainly not named Rosy. The Major follows
behind, guiding Andy and Olive toward the table. He and the children eye the flapjacks with distrust. I reckon they’re not used to seeing such a fine, evenly cooked repast. Henry stumbles in a moment later.
“I’ll make myself scarce,” Melancthon says, gathering up his plate and coffee.
“You can stay,” I tell him, but I don’t enthuse too hard.
“I expect you all have things to talk about,” he says. “And I like to sit on deck in the morning.”
He leaves, and everyone starts eating. Once we all have a bit of food and coffee in us, I spring the bad news. “We have to move up our timetable.”
“We had a timetable?” the Major says around a mouth of flapjacks. He’s chewing them uncertainly, like a cat with a feather stuck in its mouth, and I get the strangest notion that he might prefer Becky’s.
“But we’ve barely started gathering information,” Becky says.
Jefferson nods. “I’m still trying to find an angle on Mr. Keys. I’ve never seen him alone, without at least two guards. And he doesn’t gamble or have any bad habits, as far as I can tell.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not our timetable; it’s Hardwick’s.” I tell them everything I’ve learned over the past few days. Hardwick selling off his other properties in the state, wringing every dollar out of his San Francisco interests, bragging to me about getting out while he was ahead. “And then there’s this news: according to Melancthon, someone’s chartered a ship called the Argos to take valuable cargo out of San Francisco to New York. It has to be Hardwick, leaving town with all his gold.”
“Why would he do that?” Jefferson asks.
“People sometimes make rash choices when they’re in love,” Becky says. “He’s got that new lady friend, right? We met her at the law offices. What’s her name?”
“Helena Russell,” I say. My voice squeaks a little.
“So maybe he’s ready to get married and settle down. Maybe they want to start a family.”
I shake my head. “They have a closeness, an . . . intimacy, I suppose,” I say, thinking of the way she hung on his arm, drank from his whiskey glass. “But I don’t think they have marriage in mind.”
“Why not?” Becky asks.
“He calls her his associate, and she goes with him to all his business meetings.”
“Like a secretary?” Becky says.
“Not exactly like,” I say. “She watches everything. She . . .” I hesitate. I should tell them about her eyes, about my suspicions, but the words lodge in my throat.
“Last night I learned that she used to be a fortune-teller,” Henry offers. “A few months ago she was running a scam, mostly on miners, pretending to tell their futures, if they’d find gold, that sort of thing.”
I give him a sharp look. “Who told you that?”
“That girl Sonia.”
“The pickpocket?”
“She and Billy and their mob of runaways were hanging around the Eldorado last night. Looking for easy takes, I suspect. She didn’t have any information about Mr. Keys. But she and Helena Russell targeted some of the same people.”
“Marks,” Becky says.
“Yes, they targeted some of the same marks. So she knew all about Russell’s scam.”
The air around me is suddenly hot and tight. I’m not sure I’d discount Russell’s fortune-telling as a scam.
“I asked about Hardwick,” Henry continues, “but Sonia said they avoid him—his guards kill anyone who crosses them. Or worse. When I told her he was back in the private room she and her crew made themselves scarce.”
“That explains what Helena wants with Hardwick,” the Major says. “She’s trying to run some kind of scam on him and take his money. But what does he want with her?”
Silence around the table. Beneath it, Jefferson grabs my hand and squeezes, as if to say, “Go ahead. Tell them.”
Before I can change my mind, I blurt the previous evening’s events, leaving nothing out.
Another silence follows.
“The second sight,” the Major says at last.
“Huh?” I ask.
He wipes his mouth with a napkin; before keeping company with Becky, he would have wiped it with his sleeve. “I mean, what if Hardwick keeps her around because her fortune-telling powers are real?”
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
“I knew some women like that, not on the Craven side of my family, but the O’Malleys. Something passed down from the old country. We called it the second sight. They could find lost items, tell a person’s future just by looking at him, dream about things far away. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
I lean forward. “Seen what?”
He takes a sip of coffee and considers his next words. “When we were small, my little brother fell out of a tree and broke his right arm. The same day it happened, my mother got a letter from Aunt Lizzy, her sister, warning that she had had a dream about my brother breaking his arm, and telling my mother to be careful. It’d been written days before.”
“That’s not exactly proof,” I say.
He shrugs. “No, but there were other things, too. Even now, for example, there’s this girl . . .” He gives me a knowing look. “Who can sniff out gold better than a bloodhound on the trail. When she does, her brown eyes turn the most mesmerizing shade of gold.”
“Really?” Becky says. “I never noticed that!”
Everyone is suddenly staring at me, as if expecting my eyes to shoot daggers. Like I’m dangerous.
Something inside me breaks just a tiny bit. Sniffing out gold is the most valuable, wondrous thing I can do. But even the people closest to me, the people I love with all my heart, sometimes view my power with suspicion. And maybe they’re right to do so.
Mama was the same way. She loved me, for sure and certain, but she never wanted to talk about what I could do, even when it was just me and her and Daddy all alone by the box stove. Magic makes mischief, she always said, and left it at that. If she’d had her way, I never would have used my powers, even if it meant holes in the roof and a bare cellar.
She changed her mind at the very end, but it was too late. She was murdered for my gift. So I don’t blame my friends one bit for being a little bit scared sometimes.
“It’s one of the prettiest things I ever saw,” Jefferson says, breaking the silence.
“A marvel, truly,” the Major agrees.
“Well, I’ve never noticed Lee’s eyes,” Becky says, “but her particular abilities have been an incredible blessing, and I’m grateful to be among the lucky few who benefit.”
Henry raises his coffee mug. “To Lee and her . . . second sight.”
Everyone grins, raising their own mugs, and I look around at them all, tears filling my eyes as it slowly dawns on me: I misread their stares. They’re not afraid of what I can do. They’re not like Mama at all.
“In any case,” the Major says, “I’m concerned about Miss Russell, but I’m even more concerned with how Hardwick is using her. Her fortune-telling is giving him an edge in all his dealings.”
Becky shakes her head. “I bet she can’t do anything at all. Not like our Lee. It’s a confidence game.” She’s feeding bits of scrambled egg to the baby, who tries to grab them from the spoon with her chubby hands. “She’s fishing for information,” she explains. “‘That thing with the gold?’ That’s just her way of getting you to reveal how you attained so much. I mean, you were in a gambling parlor owned by Hardwick, and she said that you aren’t going to get any of his money.” She waves the spoon in the air. “I could make that prediction.”
The Major says, “But the things my aunt Lizzy knew . . . of course, with her, it was only family members. Or people she was well acquainted with. I don’t think her sight ever worked on strangers.”
Becky reaches over and pats the Major’s hand. “Now, Wally, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to impugn the memory of your beloved aunt Lizzy. I just think there are good reasons to be skeptical.”
He covers her ha
nd and smiles at her, and she smiles back. Maybe Jefferson and I aren’t the only ones who think they invented falling in love.
I grab the napkin and wipe my mouth to cover my smile.
Henry taps the table like he’s forming a message in Morse code. “I think we’re missing the point here. What is Hardwick’s goal?”
This is exactly my question. What’s the picture in his head? The perfect life he envisions for himself?
Henry’s eyes light up like a city on fire. “What if . . . ?” And then his mouth stops, to make room for his spinning brain.
“What if what?” I ask.
“What if he’s going back to New York to get into politics?”
“Then good riddance to him,” I say. “But why would he have to go to New York to get into politics? He already controls every politician in California.”
“No, think about it,” Henry says. “California isn’t even a state yet, not officially. And it’s way out on the far edge of the country. It takes weeks or months for news to reach us. Being governor here is like being a bullfrog in a washtub. It makes a big noise, but it’s still just a washtub. But New York is different! Just think about who ran for president in the last election.”
We all shake our heads until the Major says, “Well, Zachary Taylor ran—that’s how he ended up being our president.”
“But why did the Whigs put Millard Fillmore on the ballot with him? Because he’s from New York. Why did the Free Soil Party pick up ten percent of the vote with Martin Van Buren on their ticket? Because he’s from New York.”
This is the most passionate I’ve ever seen Henry on a topic. But I’m pretty sure everyone else is staring at him just as blankly as I am, because I don’t know what he’s getting at.
Seeing our confused expressions, he opens his hands, like he’s begging for understanding. “New York has thirty-six votes in the electoral college—no other state is even close. Didn’t any of you vote in the election of 1848?”
Becky folds her hands on the table and sits up primly. “Henry, dear, I’m not allowed to own my own property, much less vote.”
“I’m not old enough, but if I was, I’ve got the same problem,” I say.