Gold (35 page)

“
Pamela…”

She turned back to him.

“I--I’m sorry.”

“
La, Captain, and for what?” She left him then, knowing if she stayed, she’d disgrace herself by crying.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO                                         

Rhynne strode into Pierre’s on Dupont Street with a folded newspaper in his hand. He waved
the maitre'd aside. Spotting King Sutton eating
alone on the far side of the room, he crossed the
restaurant, oblivious both of the waiters scurrying
out of his way and the stares of the diners.

Sutton started to rise with his hand out
stretched. Ignoring him, Rhynne threw the paper
onto the table so hard the silverware rattled,

“
What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded.

“
Now, W.W., how can you expect me to know?
I haven’t seen today’s Californian yet.” Sutton ran
his hand through his grey hair.

Rhynne pointed to the editorial on the front
page. “TIME FOR ACTION,” the headline read.
“
Local Gambler Implicated In Mining Scheme”
was the subhead. “The citizens of San Francisco
have stood idly by for too long!” the story began.

When Sutton finished reading, he shook his
head. “I have no idea how such a story came to
be in Curie’s sheet,” he said. “You know he’s been
itching for a fight with someone to boost his cir
culation.”

“
This is your doing, Sutton. It’s not the first
time you’ve spread lies about me and the Gol
conda Mining Company.”

Sutton started to get up.
“Are you calling me a
liar, sir?” he asked.

Rhynne grasped the front of Sutton
’s frock coat
and shoved the bigger man back into his chair. “Take it any way you damn well please. I’ll have no more. We’re quits.”

King Sutton glanced around the suddenly
hushed dining room. “W.W.,” he said placatingly,
“not here. We’ll go down the street to my place
and discuss the matter over a drink.”

“
We’ll go to the Californian office where you’ll
tell Fred Curie the truth.”

“
Let’s go to my rooms at the Fremont. I can ex
plain what you see there.”

“
I’ve heard enough of your explanations.
They’re a mix of lies and half-truths.”

Sutton stood up, toppling his chair behind him.
“I’ve killed men for less than that,” he shouted.

“
Are you challenging me to a duel like you did
young O’Lee? Think long and hard before you do.
I’m not a lad who’s never fired a pistol in his life before.”

“
Gentlemen!” Pierre DuBois stepped between
them. “I beseech you. My two friends, two of my
best customers, two of the most esteemed of my
clientele. Please.”

“
I apologize, Pierre,” Sutton said. “This was
none of my doing.”

“
Monsieur Sutton, Monsieur Rhynne,” Pierre
said. “How many times have I seen you eating here
together, drinking the wines of France, laughing
one with the other? And now this unfortunate con
tretemps. I, Pierre DuBois, cannot permit it. Not for myself, not for Pierre, not for the serenity of
my other guests, but for yourselves. I cannot allow
brother to turn against brother.”

“
You’re right, Pierre,” Rhynne said. “This
should be of no concern of yours. We’ll settle our
differences elsewhere.” He looked at Sutton. “But
settle them we will. King?” He started for the
door.

King Sutton sighed, threw his napkin to the
table and followed. “Add the dinner to my ac
count, Pierre,” he said. “With my usual tip.”

Pierre
seemed about to object but shrugged in
stead. “As you wish, monsieur,” he said.

Rhynne and Sutton talked in silence to the
Fremont Hotel where they climbed the stairs to
Sutton’s second floor suite.

“
Whisky?” Sutton asked when they were in the
parlor.

Rhynne shook his head.

“I’ll have one.” Sutton poured whisky and
drank, putting the glass on a table marred with the
rings left by many other glasses.

“
Sit down,
W.W.,” he said.

“
I prefer to stand.”

Sutton walked about the room turning up the oil lamps. He shuffled through the papers on a
desk then threw them down again. Opening a door
at the rear of the room, he called, “Jed! Jed!”
There was no answer. “Where the hell’s that black bastard gone now?” he asked no one in particular.

Rhynne tapped the folded newspaper against
the side of his leg as he watched the other man. Finally Sutton slumped into an overstuffed arm
chair. The only sounds in the room were the
ticking of the wall clock and the night noises of
the city coming through the window.

Sutton reached for his glass and drank the rest
of his whisky. “You were right to take me to task,”
he said. “The fault’s mine and mine alone.”

“
Then you were responsible for the story?”

“
A couple of nights ago I was bucking the
tiger and having a few drinks and one thing led
to another the way it does. I must have spun a tale
or two about Hangtown and the Golconda. How
was I to know I was talking to Curie’s brother?”

“
Some tale! A gross libel.”

“
You did lend me the money to start the ven
ture. And the idea did come from your coup with
the lottery. You have to admit that, W.W.”

“
I lent you the money to buy mining properties.
How did I know you intended to sell shares, give
the first buyers handsome profits with the money
from new investors, salt the mines, sell more
shares, get in over your head, turn belly up and
lose everything? I have a question for you. Some
thing that’s bothered me for some time. King,
how in the name of hell did you ever manage to run a cotton plantation?”

“
Don’t forget our slaves. We provide for them but there’s no wages to pay. They’re valuable
property.”

“
You’ve lost Joshua now. And I shouldn’t think
you’re planning to sell Jed.”

“
Joshua was a damn fool. And, no, of course I won’t sell Jed. As for the cotton, we never much
more than kept our heads above water, Beckworth
and I. When I tried to raise money on the planta
tion last year I came up dry.”

“
I need some of the money I lent you, King.”

“
You need money? Wordsworth Rhynne?”

“
Coleman’s pushing me hard, shutting off my sources of credit to try to force me out. I’m a mite
over-extended. The Golden Empire didn’t come
cheap.” Rhynne saw no reason to mention that he
could perhaps borrow more from Danny O’Lee. Danny was already in with so much he’d had to give him a quarter interest in the hotel.

Sutton looked away from him.
“There’s always
Pamela,” he said. “That land she bought over the
years with the profits from the Hangtown Empire
fetched her a pretty penny.”

“
I wouldn’t ask Pamela for a cent, King. I
wouldn’t accept money from her if she offered it.”

“
Because she’s a woman? She didn’t hesitate to
go to you in the beginning. Everything she has
came from her partnership with you in Hangtown
or Placerville or whatever they call the place
now.”

“
Money pollutes just as badly as an open sewer.
I’ve never felt about a woman the way I feel about
Pamela. I’d do nothing to put our friendship in
jeopardy.”

“
W.W., I still have assets. Don’t raise your eye
brows. Give me a day to see if I can help you.
Will you do that? Will you give me twenty-four
hours?”

“
Do I have a choice?”

“
Not much of a one. You could always kill me,
I suppose. Sometimes I think I’d be better off
dead. Not only me. Everyone else would be better
off as well.”

“
You’re talking like a fool.”

“
I’m tired. I’ve been drinking too much, gam
bling too much, losing too often, taking chances
I never would take if I were in my right mind. I
used to see life as sport, a contest where I won my
share of the time and more. I don’t seem to win
any more.”

Rhynne nodded slowly.
“I think I will have a
drink before I go,” he said.

Sutton got up and poured a shot for Rhynne and another for himself.

“To the glories of the past,” Sutton said.

“
No, to the future.”

They drank in silence.

“I shouldn’t have bearded you in Pierre’s,”
Rhynne told him. “If I have any excuse at all,
which I don’t, it’s Ned dying as suddenly as he
did.”

“
Cholera, I understand. There’s talk of three
more cholera deaths since yesterday.”

“
The Californian denies there’s an epidemic.
Claims cholera isn’t contagious.”

King Sutton almost smiled.
“You can’t believe
what you read in that sheet,” he said.

“
We can agree on that.” Rhynne put on his hat.
“I’m not one for giving advice, King,” he said,
“but I think your string’s run out here in San Francisco. It’s time for you to ask for a new deal
by leaving.”

“
Even though the next card might be the one
I’ve been waiting for?” Sutton’s voice held none of
the hope of his words.

“
I’ll stop by tomorrow evening,” Rhynne said.
“For the money. Or as much of it as you can
raise.”

“
I swear to God I’ll have it for you.”

After Rhynne had gone, King Sutton paced from the parlor to the dining room and back. He
looked at the clock and sighed. Still another hour.
He opened the door at the rear of the room and
called Jed’s name. Again there was no answer. He went to the sideboard and poured himself another
drink and sat sipping it, staring morosely into the
whisky.

When he held his right hand in front of him,
the opal in his ring caught the light from the lamp
on the table and the gem glowed a fiery red. Jed
and the ring, he thought. They were his only
assets. He had nothing else except debts. He
laughed. The black slave and the fire opal. Some
how the combination seemed incongruous to him.
Jed and the opal, he said to himself. Jed and the
opal.

An hour later, Pamela unlocked the door and
entered the hotel room. She laid her shawl over
the back of a chair, unpinned her hat and put it on
the chair seat.

“
You’re late,” King Sutton told her.

She said nothing.

He took her in his arms and kissed her.

“
You’ve been drinking,” she said.

“
One or two, no more. Rhynne was here with
me until an hour ago.” She waited, expecting him
to go on. Instead he asked, “Would you like a
drink?”
She shook her head and walked across the
room to the
other door. When he followed her,
she turned and said, “No, King. Wait here.”

“
Is something the matter, Pam? I’ve never seen
you in this mood before.”

“
I’d just rather you waited.”

“
Ten minutes?”

“
I’ll be ready by then.”

She shut the door behind her and went into the
dining room. There were two doors facing her, the
one beside the dumbwaiter leading to the rear
hall and back stairs and the one to the bedroom. Pamela went into the bedroom. The large bed
looked even more massive than usual in the shad
owed light coming through the drapes on the
windows overlooking Fremont Street.

She unhooked her shoes and placed them side
by side on the floor. Unbuttoning her black taf
feta, she stepped out of the dress and laid it on
the back of a rocker. She took off her crinoline
and removed her underclothing. Naked, she went
to one of the windows where she slid the drape
aside. Standing out of sight, she looked down into
the street.

Two torches flared in front of the gambling hall
across from her. In front of the hotel at the end of
the block a man in colonial costume pealed a bell to lure passersby. She saw only men on the street,
miners from the gold fields, mostly, but also Chi
nese with their hair in long queues, frockcoated gamblers, seamen, Mexicans, an occasional In
dian or Californio.

Pamela
’s hands came up along her body to cup
her breasts. King had been right. She felt so
strange tonight. So alone, almost bereft. So emp
tied of feeling. She folded her arms under her
breasts and shivered.

She left the window, pulled back the covers of
the bed and slid between the sheets, drawing the
blanket up until it was below her breasts. She
laced her hands behind her head and waited.

King opened the door and stood at the foot of
the bed looking down at her, his body glimmering
whitely in the light from the window. He was
naked. He drew in his breath when he saw her
exposed breasts. After all this time, she thought
with satisfaction, she could still excite him. He
knelt beside the bed, kissing her breasts, his
tongue circling her nipples. She did not move.

He took the covers and flung them off the bed onto the floor. Spreading her legs with his hands,
he thrust at her roughly. She gasped, but she was ready for him and rose to meet him, her arms and
legs enfolding him, expecting the throbbing rise
to ecstasy. Nothing happened. What was the mat
ter with him? She caressed him, her hands strok
ing his hair and back. What was wrong?

“
Turn over,” King told her.

She shifted in the bed until she was on her
stomach, then raised herself to her knees. She felt
his arms go around her waist, his fingers search
ing for her, his sex trying to enter her from be
hind. She moaned as the fingers of one of his
hands caressed her; she trembled beneath him. His
other hand sought her breast and she rose on her
elbows so he could caress it with his hand.

Still nothing happened. All at once he rolled
away and lay at the edge of the bed.

“
King, I’m sorry,” she said.

“
It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

“
Later?”

“
No, I can’t. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

She got out of bed and began dressing.

Later, King began to complain.

“
You haven’t said two consecutive sentences to
me all night,” he told her. “Come to think of it,
we haven’t had much to say to one another at all
lately.”

“
I don’t feel like talking tonight.”

He watched her.
“When did it start to go bad
between us, Pam?” he asked. “Was it because of
Joshua? I don’t understand exactly why but noth
ing was quite right after that.”

“
You promised them, King. You told both Jed
and Joshua you’d free them.”

“
Yes, I did promise. When we made the money
we came to California for. Only then, Pam.”

“
They thought you were going to free them
after a year.”

“
A year? Never. I might have mentioned a
year, I don’t deny that. I never dreamed it would
take longer. How could I have foreseen the bad
luck we’ve had? I kept thinking maybe tomorrow,
maybe next week, maybe next month.”

“
Joshua waited almost two years.”

“
I always expected Jed to be the one,” King
said, “not his brother. If either of them was to
run off, I thought it would be Jed. He’s young,
he’s strong, he’s cheeky. But Joshua never said a
word, never complained. And then one day he was
gone.”

“
You could have let him go. Not tracked him
down.” “We’ve discussed this a hundred times. If I had
let him go, Jed would have been next. I couldn’t
have that.”

“
Joshua’s no good to you dead.”

“
He didn’t have to try to swim that god-damned flooded river. He never was much of a swimmer. Jed loved the voyage around the Horn. He made a
good sailor. But Joshua was always afraid we’d
run aground. Why didn’t he give himself up? Did
I ever mistreat him? Did I flog him? Joshua was
a fool.”

“
He wanted to be free.”

“
You’re not a southerner. I wouldn’t expect you
to understand. Besides, you’re a woman.”

Pamela said nothing. She scratched her ankle.

“Rhynne’s after me again for money,” Sutton
said.

“
You’ll get no more from me, King. I told you
that after the last time.”

“
I know. Once a man’s down, everyone turns his back on him. After they’re through kicking
him.”

“
Oh my God! King Sutton, I will not listen to that. You know what the matter is, what’s truly
wrong between us.

“
You know it’s not only Joshua.
Certainly not the money. I could live with those
things, much as I’d rather not have to. The real
trouble’s your broken promises. Your lies.”

“
I love you, Pam. That’s no lie. And I need
you.”

“
Oh, King, don't. You've killed whatever feeling there was between us just as surely as you killed Joshua. You love me?  She hook her head.
“
You love no one but yourself. King Sutton can love no one except King Sutton. He never could and he never will. Why not admit it?
”

“
What you really mean is I didn’t marry you.”

“
You know I wanted to marry you. I never be
lieved I would want to, not after the first time.
But when I met you it was different. How long
have you been promising to marry me? I’ll never
forget your asking me after the quarrel we had when Joshua drowned. A year ago, at least.”

“
I wanted to marry you, Pam. I still do.”

“
King, you’ll never marry. You’re not a marry
ing man. I thought you were at first. I realized you
were down on your luck and needed help, needed
someone to talk to, someone to encourage you
and stand behind you. Yes, someone to love you.
And I did love you. I wanted you. And later I
wanted to be your wife. We were so good together
that first year in Hangtown. I wanted to be your wife more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my
life. You didn’t seem to understand that.”

“
I understood, Pam.”

“
Then why didn’t you do something about it?”

“
I couldn’t marry you then. I can’t marry you now. I’m already married.”

She stood still for a long moment staring at
him.

“
I should have told you in the beginning. After
I didn’t, every day made it harder until it became
impossible. How could I tell you without losing
you?”

“
You’re married.” A statement, not a question.

“
My wife is in Georgia.”

“
All this time, these two years and more, you’ve
been married and you’ve never told me. What kind of man are you?”

“
She’s not well.”

“
Your wife’s ill and you left her alone in Geor
gia to come to California?”

“
She has melancholia. Involutional melancholia, the doctors call it. They say it has to do with
her time of life. She sits for days on end staring at
the wall and crying. That’s all she ever does. I had
her to every doctor in the state. They can’t do
anything for her. They give her medicine and it
does no good, none at all.”

“
What’s her name, King?”

“
Betsy.”

She went to him and knelt beside the bed, tak
ing his head in her arms. “I don’t know what to
say, King,” she told him.