Silver in the Blood (6 page)

AMONG the first prospectors to discover silver in the Sierra Nevada was a man with the unlikely name of Pancake Comstock and because he was a fast talker who showed more enthusiasm about the find than anyone else, they named the lode after him. The lode ran through the center of Sun Mountain and in 1859 the miners laid out a single street of tents and cabins on the slope. One night an ageing Easterner named Old Virginia came home drunk, stumbled in the doorway of his shanty and broke the bottle of rye he was carrying. As he saw the whisky soaking into the dirt he shouted: "I baptize this ground Virginia Town." Not long afterwards silver-hungry residents changed the Town to City and the site became Mount Davidson after the first man to buy ore from the Comstock.  

The city now had many more drunks among its twenty thousand or so inhabitants, and Edge happened to find one sitting on the edge of a sidewalk on B Street who insisted upon slurring out a potted history of the area before imparting any information. He cried a lot in the telling, blaming water and the rich mine owners for his downfall. But really, he told Edge, Mason Wilder could be found at the Ritz Hotel on Main Street. His bloated face formed into a grimace as he spoke Wilder's name and he emphasized, his feeling by spitting into the gutter, immediately replacing the powerfully expelled moisture by sucking up the remaining liquor from his bottle. An emaciated mongrel appeared from the shadow of a building across the street and the drunk hurled the empty bottle towards it. A pained howl told of a direct hit.

"Be kind to man's best friend," Edge rebuked with a grin. "Remember, dog is God spelled backwards."

The drunk blinked up at him. "What you say, stranger?"

"Somebody said it to me once," Edge answered. "I've never been able to figure its significance either. Obliged."

He urged his horse forward. It was the early hours of the morning in the big town and a lot of it was sleeping, many of the buildings presenting an unlighted, blank facade to the wide, wagon-wheel rutted streets. But a muted, far-off din and a halo-like glow in the sky over the rooftops signaled the location of the tenderloin section. In a town the drunk maintained was dying because of mine cave-ins and flooding, one street was very much alive and kicking. Windows blazed with light, pianos rattled out raucous music, girls sang hoarsely and men laughed and cheered and shouted. There were six saloons on the lower end of Main Street and in each of them a horde of barflies was acting as if there were no tomorrow.

Edge walked his horse down the center of the street, glancing to left and right through the misted windows, relishing the prospect of the warm, smoke-laden atmosphere behind them and the glow of whisky in his throat and stomach. But none of the saloons had the name Ritz over the batwings He passed the sheriff's office which was only dimly lit, the lawman sleeping peacefully behind his desk. Then two livery stables advertising the same rates, a barber's shop and dress store closed but displaying lights. Then came the Ritz Hotel.

It was a three-story building, as wide as it was tall. The top two floors were blacked out but below, the action was still happening, albeit in a more subdued tone than further down the street. There were maybe two dozen horses tied to the long hitching rail at the edge of the canopied sidewalk and some buggies were parked on the vacant lot next to the hotel.

After hitching his horse among the others, Edge went through the plate glass doors and, if he had been of such a nature, would immediately have felt conspicuous by his travel-stained appearance. He was in a lobby with deep pile carpet on the floor and framed pictures on the paneled walls. Through an archway on the left was a restaurant furnished with elegantly laid, white-covered tables around which expensively clad men and women used silver cutlery to eat from bone china plates as a three-piece band of piano, violin and cello aided their digestions with subdued music. A second archway to the right gave on to a high-class gambling saloon, fitted with a long mahogany bar complete with stools, and tables for poker, faro, roulette and craps. The drinkers and gamblers were as well turned out as the diners across the lobby. Edge spared a mere glance through each archway before heading between the over-stuffed chairs and sofas towards the hotel desk tended by a blue-liveried porter. It was apparent from the expression on the smooth, very pale face of the young porter that he recognized Edge as an intruder amid such surroundings.

But the arrogance died from his eyes as the stranger drew close enough to reveal his latent threat.

"Yes, sir?" the porter asked, with a rasp in his tone.

"Wilder," Edge said softly.

The porter swallowed hard. "Mr. Wilder is the owner of the Ritz, sir."

"He around?"

The porter was about twenty-five but looked a lot younger as he glanced nervously from side to side, as if, seeking aid in potential trouble. "In his office, I think."

"Where's that?" Edge locked his narrowed eyes on the porter's gaze and the young man felt compelled to meet the look, as if hypnotized. It was obvious to Edge that he had crossed some invisible demarcation line which existed in town. People were supposed to know their place and stay with it.

The porter hooked a finger between his starched collar and his neck. "Mr. Wilder does not like to be disturbed at night, sir."

Edge leaned across the highly polished top of the desk until the tip of his nose was only inches from that of the porter. The porter's lower lip trembled. "There's a guy out on the mountain," Edge said softly. "It is cold out there and he looks like a man used to the sun. He did me a favor and I wouldn't like to see him die of exposure. I want to see Wilder."

"What is it, John?" The, woman spoke quickly but with no hint of nervousness in her tone.

Edge sighed and turned to look at her. The porter gave a gasp of relief. "Gentleman wishes to see your father, Miss Martha," he said and suddenly found an urgent need to look at the register.

The woman was about thirty, tall and inclining to fat which the long, high-necked gown of a white frothy material did little to camouflage. Her hair was the color of straw, pulled back severely from a high forehead and held in a bun at the back of her head. Her features regarded Edge with a sour-eyed expression that seemed to carry a tacit warning.

"Perhaps I can help you?" she asked, coming away from the arched entrance of the restaurant. "I'm Martha Wilder."

"You know a big Negro who needs a new tailor?" Edge posed.

A look of concern flitted across her face. "Anatali!" she exclaimed. "He works here. He prevents trouble from entering the Ritz."

The implication was clear, but Edge ignored it. "Someone better go out on the mountain and get him."

She stopped immediately in front of Edge, her anxiety very real as she studied him from all almost equal height. "What do you mean? Why can't Anatali…?"

"He's kind of tied up," Edge interjected.

"Come," she said at once. "I'll take you to. See father."

Her dress swished as she turned and gave off a perfume too sweet for Edge's taste. He followed her around the end of the reception desk and through an unmarked door. It gave on to a short hallway with another door at the far end. This one was marked PRIVATE. Martha Wilder led him through without knocking, then stepped quickly to the side. Edge found himself looking into the muzzle of a solid-frame Whitney revolver resting on the top of a desk in a meaty hand. Out of the comer of his eye he could see a big black man in a too-tight dude suit.

"I've come to give you some money, Mr. Wilder," he said, showing his teeth in a grin as he lifted his eyes to look at the man behind the desk.

"In a pig's eye that's why you came," the man said.

"No, on a horse."

Mason Wilder had the frame of a heavyweight prizefighter gone to seed and a face that showed the scars of the struggles he had survived to get where he was. He was on the wrong side of sixty with leathery features cascading down as
if they had slid off his completely bald skull and taken up random positions. One eye seemed larger than the other, his nose had been broken in two places and his mouth Slanted. The teeth were crooked behind his twisted lips. Edge realized that his daughter had not stood a chance in the beauty stakes.

"Two-and-a-half thousand dollars isn't joke material," Wilder said, The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to show thick, hair-matted arms. Edge could also see a black velvet vest with silver buttons. He wore a silver ring on every finger of each hand.

"It's only money," Edge answered and looked at Anatali. "You got loose?"

The Zulu still showed no resentment towards the man who had treated him so badly.

"He's a strong boy," Wilder answered.

Edge looked around the room and saw the Zulu's 
assegai
leaning against a chair piled with back numbers of
The Atlantic Monthly.
He spotted the club on a window sill.

"Money's in my hip pocket," Edge said. His hands were held loosely at his sides, the right one close to the butt of the Colt. But he knew he didn't stand a chance in such a situation. "I'll have to make a move to get it."

Wilder studied him in. silence for awhile. "Let it stay awhile. What's your name, stranger?"

"Edge?" His tone added the query and he watched Wilder closely for a reaction. There was none.

"Just Edge? Nothing else?"

"I travel light."

Wilder nodded and suddenly put down the gun. It rested lightly on a copy of
The Territorial Enterprise.

"You read a lot," Edge said.

"Paper- hasn't been the same since Sam Clemens went east. You heard of him, Mr. Edge?"

"I do things instead of reading about them. The two don't mix; Never the twain shall meet."

"Shall, I order some coffee, father?" Martha asked.

"If it will improve Mr. Edge's humor," Mason Wilder answered. He waited for his daughter to leave the office then nodded to Anatali who pushed forward a chair. "I apologize for the gun, Mr. Edge," he said as Edge sat down, beginning to feel the numbness of the night ride in the mountains ebb from him. "But I heard you were a fast man in a dangerous situation. You seeing Anatali again might have made you nervous."

"I never get nervous," Edge answered, watching Wilder more closely, trying to anticipate his line of thought.

Wilder cracked his mouth in a crooked smile. "Wrong choice of word. Perhaps I should have said apprehensive?"

Edge took the makings of a cigarette from his shirt pocket and began to roll a cylinder. "You're the one with the literary mind," he pointed out.

Wilder refused to have his confidence shaken by Edge's quiet lack of response. "I have a proposition to put to you, Mr. Edge."

"I get claustrophobia down mines," Edge answered.

"The silver's out," Wilder said. "We dug out the ore before the inside of Davidson Mountain began to flood. It's been through the stamp mill and smelting plant and now it's in neat little blocks ready loaded on a wagon."

Edge scratched a match along the front of the desk and set fire to his cigarette. Anatali took a step forward, but Wilder held him back with a raised hand. "I saw a piece of the town on the way here," Edge said. "I noticed the Pioneer Stage Line's got an office a few blocks away. Wells Fargo's here, too. And one of your local historians told me awhile back that Crocker's brought the Central Pacific almost to your front stoop."

Wilder smiled. "I don't trust railroads, Mr. Edge. Don't trust the Chinese labor to build them properly. And freight lines ain't safe for big hauls. Sierras are thick with outlaws. Couple of wagons on the trail are likely to attract less attention."

Edge drew deeply against his cigarette. "Thought you made mention of just one wagon at first?"

"One with the silver aboard," Wilder answered. "Second one's for Martha."

Edge said nothing. His expression spoke volumes of what he thought about escorting a woman across dangerous country.

Wilder brightened his smile. "I'd like you to take the wagons to San Francisco. There's a clipper waiting there. Soon as Martha and the silver are aboard she'll set sail for China."

"Thought you didn't trust Chinese."

"I don't. That's why Martha's going to take care of my Oriental investments."

"Why me?" Edge asked as the soft sound of distant music filtered into the room. A young girl in a waitress outfit entered the office, carrying a tray loaded with coffeepot, milk jug, sugar bowl and two cups in saucers. Edge noted they were made of silver and china.

The coffee smelled as good as the girl looked.

"I need a hard man," Wilder answered. "But one with a sense of honor. When Anatali came back and told me about you I knew you were hard. And if you came to tell me about Anatali it figured you were honorable."

"I didn't intend to give you the money back," Edge pointed out.

"You
didn't steal it from me. If you take the job you can keep it. And Martha will draw a like amount from my bank in San Francisco at the end of the trip."

Edge looked at the waitress, blonde and pretty and looking lost standing just inside the door with the heavy tray. He was heading for San Francisco anyway. To arrive with a stake of five thousand dollars wouldn't be a hardship. "Why don't you send him?" Edge asked, jerking his cigarette towards the Zulu.