Bones of the Barbary Coast

  "Tell me what happened!"

  "I'm not sure myself," he said. "I got a message and went to her. All I know is, she's afraid she's dying, and she needs to see you. She says she loves you dearly and wants you near. I'm just doing what she told me."

  We drove on breathlessly, my mind full of terrible imaginings. To my surprise, we did not turn south toward her place of work but on Bay Street continued east. We rolled past drays loaded with shipped goods, and then came close to the bay shore and the old docks, where the city slopes down and falls away. To the south, closer to Market Street and the steam ferry docks, the piers are newer and very active, but at this end they are smaller and in poorer repair, and many of the boats moored are old sail ships, some out of commission and abandoned. Coming toward the waterfront, one passes poorhouses and shanties, then some warehouses, and then the broad frontage where cargo is stored as it is taken off ships. The quay appears as a maze of piled crates, bales, stacks of lumber, a few tiny shacks and roofed sheds, cut randomly with avenues just wide enough for wagons.

  I had never been to this section, but Dr. Mahoney once told me it is called the Morgue by the police, a dark joke, because dead men are so often found here. Some are killed at the place, while others are brought by their murderers, to be tucked under cargo or among crates where their bodies are not found until the goods are moved or the smell alerts some stevedore.

  "What could she have been doing in this place?" I exclaimed.

  "God only knows, ma'am. I'm sorry. But we're only a minute away."

  Percy slowed the horse and brought us onto the quay, then into the labyrinth of crates and bales. Near the inland side, we passed a rough man who sat on a tall stack of raw lumber, whittling a stick with a big knife, who lifted his chin at us as We passed. Farther in, we passed another man, walking quickly out; otherwise the avenues of the quay were deserted but for a gull or two perched atop a stack or an occasional stray cat. The sun was still above the western hills of the city, but low enough to fill the avenues with shadow. Percy chose his way carefully, pausing, then deciding, until we were deep among the stacked goods, mostly lumber in long boards and beams of irregular length.

  He stopped the carriage at an intersection of lanes. It was silent but for the panting of his horse and the faint slap of rigging against masts I could not see over the stacks. I looked around for Margaret.

  "Where is she?"

  "Well, let's talk about that," Percy said. "This seems like a good place to talk, doesn't it? Quiet and private?"

  His tone confused me, and when I turned to him I was astonished at what I saw. No longer was he flustered and anxious, but suddenly self-possessed and sharp-eyed again.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You," he said deliberately, "are a woman who has gone a long way out a very slender limb. And I'm guessing it'd be worth a good deal to you to climb safely back in."

  "I have no idea what you are talking about! I think you had better return me to my house this instant or my husband will—"

  "Will not know you're gone until he returns from Sacramento, tomorrow afternoon or evening. Don't waste your breath, Lydia. You're a whore's sister, and you're the daughter of a whore, and you don't want your husband to know about that. And do you think your church community will embrace you when they hear about your night-time activities? There's a lot of room for misinterpreting. So you have a lot to lose."

  I started to bolt from the carriage, but he caught my arm so hard it seemed I felt my bones creak.

  "We're in a quiet little spot here. The men you saw are with me. The dock patrol has been paid to be elsewhere and to be deaf and blind in any case. No one can help you, so you'd better do what I say. What you're going to do is, you're going to make a bargain with me on what it's worth to keep your house and husband and marriage and fine upstanding reputation. I would think that's worth a good deal."

  "I have no money! My husband manages all the money!"

  "But you're so clever—look how much you've hidden from him already! You can manage to pry some free, I'm sure."

  "You can tell my husband anything you please! He won't believe you."

  "I thought of going to him first, you know—maybe bringing Mag with me so he could see the resemblance. He would probably pay nicely to keep the world from knowing what he married."

  "He would strike you down on the spot!"

  Percy tipped his head side to side, doubtfully. "More likely to strike you. For making a fool of him in front of the whole world? Probably ruining him? He would be justified."

  I opened my mouth to reply, but then felt a terrible doubt. I have rarely seen Hans angry, but then he glowers so that his face turns as black as his beard, and I have known him to take stern measures with his employees. As for the members of my church, too many are like the Thompsons, and they would never tolerate me again. It is their way to construe the moral impoverishment of women like Margaret as an inborn trait that runs with the blood, not a tragic accident of circumstances; were they to hear of my visits to that brothel, especially given a suggestion from Percy, they would readily believe I was in the trade myself, through some corrupt taste or proclivity. Every strange word I had uttered, every variance from doctrine ever expressed, would be remembered as proof. I do not know how long Hans would resist this same conclusion, or how long his business could endure the gossip of his community.

  Still, I could not bear Percy's plotting, and would almost endure the shame and loss just to deny him his goal. Feverishly, I tried to think of a way to defy him, to escape and somehow gain the upper hand.

  "I will never give you anything."

  Percy shrugged and looked around us, the branching ways between stacks, with some satisfaction. "You know what they call this place?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Good. Listen, Lydia, I'm a lazy man. I like things easy. If you make this too hard, if you convince me there really is no hope of a goddamned deal, I'll just kill you. It wouldn't be the first time." He turned toward me with an expression of such reptilian coldness, such ruthlessness, that I could not doubt him. "Don't ever push your luck with a lazy man."

  At that I broke into tears of despair. There seemed no way out. I loathed Percy's oily, dapper, venomous presence on the seat beside me, the trap he'd lured me into so easily. There could be no limit to the perfidy of a man who would use Margaret like this, someone for whom he should have held some affection, or to exploit a sister's love, for such ends.

  Then it occurred to me that there could only be one way for Percy to have learned my name, my residence, my husband's name and work: Margaret must have told him. The thought of her complicity broke my heart into a thousand pieces. Abruptly I was that sailor again, drowning on the dark sea, not realizing until too late its merciless depth.

  Percy gave me time to work this through in my thoughts. Not far above us a gull hovered against the wind, orange-lit in the lowering sun, looking down at us curiously, as if wondering what strange creatures these could be; then it let the wind gust it away.

  We are such paradoxical beings. My helpless sorrow was so extreme that, with the gull's lifting and vanishing, my emotions suddenly reversed, the way laughter can suddenly give way to tears or tears to laughter. In another instant all I felt was an angry, diamond-hard resolve to die rather than let this awful man have any satisfaction from me.

  I wept more piteously, and groped in my bag. "Please! Take anything! I have a few dollars here. I have a brooch of some value. Just let me go. Please! Let this whole thing pass and I promise I will say nothing to anyone. You needn't fear that I—"

  "Tomorrow we meet on Market Street, and you've got a thousand dollars with you. You can go to the bank first, or you can bring your jewelry—I'm sure your uncle left you something nice. If you don't show, we can do this ride again and I can be more persuasive. Or I can visit your husband's office with this news. Or maybe just go straight to Reverend Wallace and tell him a tale that will curl his collar stays."

  I pretende
d to be too upset to hear him and continued groping in my bag. I came out with some coins and bills and thrust them at him, then reached into the bag again as he greedily counted them. My fingers found what they sought, and when I brought my hand out, it was with the iodine bottle clenched in it. I quickly pulled the stopper and flung the stuff at his face.

  He screamed like a woman as he put up his hands up to claw at his eyes. The horse half-started, but in that instant I hurled myself out of the carriage, fell, recovered, and ran into the nearest cross-avenue. I scurried along the line of stacked crates and then turned into a narrower way between two piles of raw boards three times the height of my head. Behind me I heard him cursing murderously, and knew that if his earlier willingness to kill me had been exaggerated, it was no longer.

  My one thought was to head inland, to some point at which I might slip into the streets or find myself among a crowd of people with whom I could plead for help. But I heard Percy's shout behind me, apparently calling to one of his confederates, and then the noise of his boots as he jumped from the carriage. I turned into a crevasse between a line of crates, edged my way deep in, then saw a man's form cross the other end. I went at a right angle, ducked under the overhang of stacked boards, turned again, trying to find some place where no one could see me. I had no idea of the landscape beyond what I could see before me at any moment. It seemed a treacherous and random maze.

  Percy, in his rage, uttered murderous curses, and his hard boots made a solid footfall. As I scurried and ducked, always trying to keep some pile between us, I heard another set of footsteps arrive and a few low words exchanged; then I knew the other man had arrived. I was sure that if they could not find me outright they would think to block my way to the west, where the city would provide me with better refuge.

  So I began to work my way south. I took off my shoes so that I would not make any noise, and crept stealthily between stacks. At intervals I would hear one of them and wedge myself beneath some overhang of boards or into some crack between crates. After a few minutes of this deadly hide and seek, too afraid to continue, I found a particularly deep overhang where the longer boards had been stacked upon the shorter. I crowded myself back under them and into the furthest shadow. Once there, I ripped the lace from my sleeves so that no trace of white would betray me, and tucked my skirt around my feet. I wished desperately I had worn my cloak.

  And there I crouched, terrified almost to death, certain they would soon find me. But though I sometimes heard them close by, their passing came at longer and longer intervals. Within another hour it had gotten dark, and soon it was black in the cleft where I hid.

  Still I was afraid to move from my place. I was hunched into a little cave of raw boards, surrounded by their woody scent which on every other occasion I have thought among the most lovely in the world and which I now loathed. I knew that having failed to find me immediately, they would patrol the first quayside street to watch for my emergence. So I resolved to stay put. I wept and prayed continuously to God for forgiveness and mercy; not in any faith or belief it was deserved, but only in hope that, just one more time, it might be forthcoming.

  At length a fog drifted in and further decreased the likelihood I would be discovered. The distant noise of the steam ferries ceased, to be replaced by foghorns out in the Golden Gate. Hours passed, and in my exhaustion, my head began to bob.

  I awoke suddenly when it seemed a brilliant light was cast upon me. But when I opened my eyes, I realized it was only the early dawn, the first brightness of the eastern horizon lighting the ways between the stacks. I had spent the entire night there, and felt badly chilled and cramped; but I had lived.

  I was about to straighten my aching legs and crawl out when I saw a slight movement not far away. Abruptly I saw that there was someone crouching in the shelter of another stack of beams, diagonally across from me. I almost choked on my own heart, for it seemed to jolt out of my chest. It was the creature from the gangway, the wolf-man.

  Clearly he was not aware of me; I must have been asleep when he arrived, and with the wind from the west my scent was being carried away from him. He had settled into a niche like my own, and he appeared comfortable there, as if somewhat habituated to the place. The light was young and indirect, but was enough that I could see most of his anatomical form except where boards blocked my view. He did indeed appear to be half a man and half a wolf or dog: he sat with short, rounded upper legs bracing lower legs far too slender, and short feet more like paws. His arms were like a man's but his fingers clumsily short and thick. Most strange was his head, which was marked by the long muzzle of a dog but lacked the pointed ears of a wolf; I could not see whether he had human ears, however, because his hair was long and he had a dark beard that covered his chin. Yet his face was not hairy except in the normal places a man grows hair, and his arms were mostly clear of it, showing skin of a pale color. As I watched, he lifted something to his mouth with both hands and gnawed on it with his fearsome teeth. A flutter of white feathers revealed it to be a gull, no doubt fresh-caught.

  I froze with fear and plummeting spirits, realizing I had escaped murder at the hands of Percy only to face some unimaginable horror far worse. I recalled the terrific energy he had displayed as he'd swarmed over the Wall and knew that if he saw me now, he could cross the space between us in a single second.

  Then a most curious thing happened, and despite all the terrifying and preposterous events of those hours, it is this moment that returns to me more forcefully than any other. From a gap between beams came a young cat—a kitten really, not long from its mother's teat. It came toward the wolf-man's place as if oblivious to him, and I was certain it would be snatched and eaten. But instead, it approached gaily, playfully, and he greeted it in kind, with a gesture of his misshapen hand that revealed familiarity and every attitude of pleasure and fondness. In a moment, the kitten was in his lap and he was caressing it; it rubbed its cheek against his chest. The wolfman offered it a morsel of meat, and the kitten gladly ate one tidbit after another from those stubby fingers.

  The sight had a profound effect upon me. The display of this simple kindness and fraternity came at a moment when all the world seemed bent on doing ill, when it seemed the world capable only of cruelty, violence, and deception. This act of gentleness, so surprising and unanticipated, brought tears to my eyes. The wolf-man acted as though he was the kitten's friend and fellow; or, the way any man might be affectionate with his pet.

  I watched for several minutes, still in terror yet mesmerized, presented with a palette of such diverse emotions I could scarcely accommodate them. When the kitten had eaten its fill, it groomed itself as the wolf-man nuzzled it affectionately with his snout and then used his hand to stroke its fur. His fearsome and deformed countenance was composed in an expression that I can only call contentment.

  And then I heard voices and footfalls. I started and turned to look toward the sound, and when I looked back, the wolf-man's eyes were straight upon me. His nostrils flared, scenting for me, and then he scuttled away in a blur. In half an instant there was no sign of either wolf-man or kitten. I crammed myself farther back into my niche, and immediately saw two Celestials striding purposefully toward the piers. From their lithe movements and the queues wrapped around their heads beneath slouch hats, I knew what they were: boo how doy, the feared bodyguards and assassins who work for the Tong chieftains. In a few seconds they had passed, and there was the mandarin himself, a small man in traditional tunic and cap and slippers, all richly-embroidered, walking boldly down the center of the aisle; and behind him, again, two more baleful boo how doy.

  They passed and were gone toward the docks, and the moment I could no longer hear them I crawled out and ran. There was some risk in this, but I would far rather encounter even the most criminal Celestial and his hatchet men, for whom an attack upon a White woman would risk terrible reprisals and persecutions, than Percy and his like.

  It was only dawn, and I escaped the docks without incident.
Once in the streets, I put on my shoes again and did my best to straighten my clothing and hair and pretend to be ordinary; I walked south until I came to civilization and was able to catch the first cable car of the day. I slipped into my own house like a thief, and old Cook, in the kitchen, gave no indication she heard me. When I came down after changing my clothes and washing, she had a tidy breakfast waiting for me.

  "Haven't you slept in, sleepy-head!" she chided me good naturedly, pleased that for once she had risen before me. And I was so grateful to see her old face and dumpy form, there in her apron at the stove, I could not help but give her a heartfelt kiss, despite the turmoil in my heart.

  25

  TUESDAY, JUNE I I , 1889

  I HAVE SPENT THE last days in an agony of anxiety. At any moment all that I have, my house and the respect of my community and the love of my dear husband, might be taken from me. Either Percy will reappear and abduct me again, or he will make good on his threats and go to Hans or Rev. Wallace with tales of my misdeeds, both real and contrived by him to assure the greatest injury to me: that on those nights I visited my sister I also whored and partook of the poppy and who knows what else. I am certain that though his scheme began with mere greed as its motive, he will now be moved to avenge himself upon me for having hurt him and escaped him, and will not hesitate to do his worst. I would go to Margaret, but I am too afraid she has willingly betrayed me, or truly does not wish to ever see me again; and yet I constantly worry for her well-being. It is an intolerable situation.

  At moments, despite these preoccupations, my thoughts also turn to the wolf-man: what a wonderful and strange thing he is, what we might learn from him. Seeing him with that wild kitten struck me with the force of a revelation. Perhaps it was only that I was so desperate at that moment, expecting only violence and evil, and the sight of his momentary gentleness so directly contradicted my dire expectation. But I also wonder if such a creature, so savage in appearance yet capable of such kindness and camaraderie, might not teach us a great deal about our own paradoxical nature, and how to make better of it.