The Drop Edge of Yonder (9 page)

Zebulon looked at Delilah, who was staring back at him, her eyes narrowing, as if she had been seized by a premonition.

"If you guide us to the gold fields," the Count went on, "I'm prepared to pay your passage to San Francisco. First we will travel to Sutter's Fort to meet Captain John Sutter, whose courage I have long admired. I have had discussions with his wife in Switzerland about possible business ventures - ranches, commerce, that sort of thing. Then, after our visit with Sutter, we will press on to the gold fields. I assume you've heard of Sutter?"

"Heard of Sutter?" Zebulon said. "Everyone's heard of Captain John Sutter. When they found gold on his land, it bumped off the whole damn stampede."

Delilah turned to Ivan. "Are you sure about this offer, Ivan? You know what happens when you act impulsively."

Absolutely, I'm sure," the Count said, his voice rising. "We need an experienced man to help with supplies and transportation, someone who will protect us from dangers as they arise. A man like...."

"Zebulon Shook," Zebulon heard himself say, "A su ordone.Z. At your service. I'll take steady wages and a thirty-seventy split on whatever gold comes your way."

The Count hesitated, looking at Delilah as she considered the offer, then shook her head.

"Twenty-eighty," the Count said.

"Done," Zebulon replied.

The Count shook his hand. "The ship is The Rhinelander. German. Well appointed. You can't miss her: she's a threemasted merchant with a bare-breasted woman mounted on the bow and a row of three-headed snakes around her neck. A goddess favored by mariners. Or so they say. Our Captain informed me that she represents the beautiful woman in Greek myth that calms the cruel sea."

"Here, here," the Englishman said. "Although with a beautiful woman, one can't be too careful. Wouldn't you say? In any case, we welcome you aboard, Mister Shook."

From an adjoining room, Zebulon heard the click, click of billiard balls. Stepping around Delilah, he walked across the lobby and through the restaurant to a lounge hosting a billiard table.

He maneuvered the cue ball around the table just to prove that he still could. Then he put down the cue stick and, without a look at his new patrons, made his way out to the harbor.

HE RHINELANDER SAILED SOUTH OVER TURBULENT SEAS, her hatches loaded with supplies for the California gold fields. Zebulon, confined to his cabin with seasickness, was only dimly aware when the wind suddenly shifted to the west at gale force, tearing the rudder loose with a raw screech and threatening to punch a hole in the transom. After the ship's carpenter cut the steering lines the ship drifted for two days, finally ending up off the west coast of Florida.

When Zebulon finally appeared on the deck, the sea was a flat blue sheet without a ripple and the carpenter was fixing the rudder. Most of the passengers were grouped by the starboard rail, staring at a spit of land lined with tall undulating dunes shimmering beneath heat waves, their valleys dotted with mangrove and scrubby pine.

A voice spoke behind him: "A rotten ailment, mal de mer. Makes one loathe the sea. Much better for the world to be flat. Easier to sail off the edge and be done with it, wouldn't you say?"

The Englishman from the hotel in Vera Cruz extended a limp hand. "Archibald Cox. I don't believe we've been formally introduced."

Zebulon barely nodded, his attention fixed on Delilah, who was standing with the Count near the stern railing. She was wearing a white muslin dress that reached to her bare feet and a black scarf tied loosely over her hair.

"An odd duck, the Russian," Cox went on. "Used to be a military attache at the London embassy. A bit much the way he carries on with that Egyptian whore, or whoever she's pretending to be these days."

He pointed to the poop deck where a portly figure in a cocked hat and black high-necked uniform was looking down on the crew as they prepared to lower a lifeboat. "Perverse old bastard, our captain. Always insisting on exercise and philosophy: Now he's ordering us ashore for a walk about."

They joined the Count and Delilah in the lifeboat, along with the first mate, three sailors, and the rest of the passengers: two middle-aged German merchants specializing in picks and shovels, a Polish clothing merchant, a Finnish soldier wanted in three European countries for forgery and arms dealing, and finally, a New York journalist hired to write a series of articles about the gold rush. All of them were curious about Zebulon, who, they had learned from the Count, was not only a legendary mountain man, but a veteran army scout, Indian fighter, and explorer.

The Count was the first to wade ashore. Kneeling on the ground in the imperial manner of a conquistador with Delilah holding an umbrella over his head, he intoned a solemn prayer.

He was interrupted by Zebulon, who had noticed three Indians standing on top of a dune, along with a towering Negro in cut-off sailor pants and a straw hat.

"We got company," Zebulon said. "Look up slow and easy and keep your irons lowered."

The Indians continued to stare down at them, their sallow faces pockmarked from typhus and parasites. All three, as well as the Negro, carried feathered lances and wore calico cotton shirts and beaded belts over their leggings and breechcloths.

When Zebulon raised a hand in greeting, they slowly walked down the dune. Using sign language, he asked where they came from. After one pointed to the north, he questioned them in Kiowa, then tried a few words in Arapahoe and Sioux, none of which they understood.

Finally Delilah stepped forward and addressed the Negro in an African tongue. When there was no response, she tried another dialect, then two more until the Negro suddenly laughed and clapped his hands, telling her along with dignified pauses that even though the Seminoles helped him escape from Portuguese slavers when their ship ran aground, they had treated him as if he belonged to an inferior race, refusing to recognize him as a man of wisdom, especially when it came to war and agriculture. When he first saw her from the top of the dune, he was immediately aware that she represented an ancient and royal lineage and despite the fact that she was surrounded by obviously incompetent white men, he was sure that her journey, whatever its secret intentions, was not without courage and honor. He ended his speech by saying that he would be pleased to join her on the ship.

"He's an African chief," Delilah explained to the others. "Because the Seminoles are an ignorant people who don't treat him with the respect that he deserves, he wants to return to the ship with us."

"Absolutely not," the Count said.

The crew and the rest of the passengers, who had all become increasingly anxious, insisted that the ship was fully booked and that the Captain would never accept another passenger, particularly a black man without means, unless, of course, he would agree to become a slave.

Delilah advised the Negro that unfortunately all of the ship's passengers were obsessed with greed and conquest. Not only that, but she had been having ominous premonitions about the man she was traveling with - a man who, she confessed, had once owned her, but who now, even though he had finally released her from bondage, had become increasingly cruel and unhinged.

The Negro pulled himself up to his full height, his sad blazing eyes staring into hers. Perhaps she was right. If she was foolish enough to become involved with such confusion and venal behavior, he would be better off where he was.

He walked away, then paused and slowly turned back, asking if he could buy or trade for her. He had plenty of beads and skins to bargain with, as well as all the fruit the ship would need. He looked over at Zebulon. Not only that, but it was clear that she should run away as soon as possible, as one of the men she was traveling with was possessed by a very strange spirit, unlike any he had ever witnessed.

Delilah replied that having been given her freedom, she was no longer for sale and that if she ran away it would be on her own terms, no one else's.

The Negro nodded, not believing a word. Removing a handful of cowry shells from a small bag hanging from a string around his neck, he tossed them high in the air, then knelt to study the patterns they formed on the sand.

She was owned, he told her. But not by a man. She was owned by a curse.

Impatiently, the Count took her arm. "Are you coming, or do you prefer the company of a savage?"

When she hesitated he stomped after the others, all of whom - except for Zebulon, who had remained behind - were already halfway to the lifeboat.

"Would you consider abandoning the ship?" she asked, only half-joking.

"Not hardly," Zebulon replied. "Not when there's gold to be found."

The Negro, who had been watching their exchange, nodded abruptly to Delilah, then walked back over the dune with the Seminoles.

ebulon and Delilah were in the lifeboat and halfway back to The Rhinelander when the Negro reappeared on top of the dune.

Bending a long bow, he shot an arrow in a high arc towards them, a flight that missed the lifeboat by less than a foot.

EBULON LAY ON HIS BUNK LISTENING TO THE SHOUTS OF men climbing into the rigging. Hours later, the ship under full sail, he heard sounds coming from the next cabin; they were sonorous and melancholy chords from an instrument he had never heard before. As he listened, he remembered the shape of Delilah's ankles and the slow sway of her broad hips as she stepped out of the lifeboat.

That night at dinner she was sitting next to the Count at the end of a rectangular oak table supported at each corner by ropes hanging from the ceiling. The Captain sat in the middle of the table, expounding on his favorite topic: the world's obsession with gold at the expense of freedom and happiness.

"Gold is a curse," the Captain pronounced, "a dangerous mistress seducing everything in her path. I am now on my third voyage to California. Going there is always hope fueled by addiction and greed. Returning, all is loss and desolation."

Most of the passengers were no longer listening, having heard this speech all the way across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean.

The Captain shifted his focus to Zebulon, who represented, among other curiosities, a new ear. "I understand that you have been in California, Mister Shook. I'm curious why you have chosen to return?"