My uncle Hiram wanted to be rich because he thought it would make him important. He thought money would make people show him the respect he wanted. He had a picture in his head: politicians and businessmen asking for his opinion. A big chunk of land. A wife, servants, maybe even a daughter like me.
And everything he did, from speculating down in Georgia, to murdering my mama and daddy, to following me out to California and making me dress up and parade around his gold mine—it was all about building that picture in his head.
We all have something like that. I’ve got one, too. The picture in my head includes me and Jefferson together, neither of us hungry, in a nice cabin with a woodstove and a big bed with a pretty quilt like my parents had. It makes me blush a little to think about that bed.
Hardwick has something he wants, too. Some picture in his head that requires all this money. Something he does with the gold coins besides pile them up in banks.
So that’s why, come nightfall, Henry and I are waiting in a hired carriage outside Hardwick’s San Francisco mansion. I’m wearing a nice dress Becky picked out for me—she spent part of the day searching the best shops for wedding dresses—and the bodice makes me itch. Henry is wearing yet another new suit. I had to pay for it, but he insisted it was necessary.
Hardwick is the last fellow I care to get to know or spend any time with, but for our plan to succeed, I have to learn more about him. I have to figure out what picture he sees in his head.
I pull aside the curtain in the carriage window and take another look: adobe walls, tile roof, several sprawling wings and outbuildings, nested in a garden property, all surrounded by a wall. The only entrance is a wide iron gate. Guards shadow the gate, the orange glows of their cigars and cigarillos like stars against the night. This was once the villa of some Mexican official, and it survived the recent fire without any damage.
“I wonder how much a place like this costs to buy,” I say, not really expecting an answer.
But Henry says, “He didn’t buy it. He rents it from one of the local dons, a man who prefers to live on his ranchero than in the city.”
I can’t imagine renting a place so huge. “So he’s not putting down roots.” Just like Jim suggested.
“Maybe,” Henry says. “He’s been here less than a year. He was living in Sacramento, but when the weather turned cold last year, or maybe when they had the convention for statehood, he sold off a chunk of his interests in Sacramento and elsewhere. Shifted his operations to San Francisco.”
“How do you know so much?”
“I always come home from a night of cards poorer in cash,” he says solemnly, “but richer in knowledge.”
“I’m glad that’s . . . paying off for us. For some reason, I thought Hardwick had been here a while.”
“His interests are spread out all across the territory,” Henry says. “But his activities here have increased noticeably. Seems like he’s old friends with the new sheriff, and they figured out some deal with the auctions.”
“I keep hearing about this sheriff,” I say.
“He and his deputies used to be part of a notorious gang of steamboat robbers.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I peek out the curtain again. Hardwick will leave his compound eventually, and we aim to follow him. Surely the guards have noticed our carriage by now, skulking here in the dark. “Do you know how Hardwick came to be here in the first place?” I ask, to pass the time and keep my mind off what might happen if the guards grow suspicious.
“He probably landed in San Francisco with the navy in 1846. He was a war profiteer, buying supplies on the cheap and selling them at marked-up prices to the army. His nickname was John Mealy Hardtack.”
“Hardtack? Like the biscuits?” We ate an awful lot of it on the trail to California. If I never do battle with those molar breakers again, it will be too soon.
Henry nods. “He bought old hardtack biscuits, usually filled with mealworms, and sold them to the army, who didn’t have a lot of other options.”
“And the sheriff—wait, something’s happening.” Beyond the wall, lanterns bob across the property. A team of horses noses toward the gate, ready to leave.
“Seems like the army is how Hardwick met Sheriff Purcell,” Henry says, dropping his voice, though I’m sure no one can hear us from all the way across the street.
“How much do you know about Purcell?”
“Not much. After the war with Mexico, he and his gang left the army and returned to their old ways, only this time they robbed and terrorized Mexicans and California Indians. Apparently that qualified him to be elected sheriff. That’s why you don’t see too many Indians here in the city, outside of the mission anyway, and the ones you do see are most likely to be Sioux or Cherokee, come west like the rest of us.”
“You found out all of this by gambling?”
“Of course,” he says. “There’s no more popular topic of conversation in all of San Francisco right now than Hardwick. Every man of money either wants to work with him, copy what he does, or avoid him like the measles. But he has an advantage, something no one can quite put their finger on.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Henry lifts the curtain and points. “I think it’s her. Most folks think he’s courting her, but no one is sure. I’d bet my first edition of the Coquette there’s more to it than that.”
Guards pull open the iron gate to let out the carriage. Hardwick, dressed in a suit and top hat, offers his newest associate, Miss Helena Russell, a hand as she climbs inside and takes a seat.
“Henry, what’s an associate?” I whisper.
He looks puzzled. “Someone who associates?”
“No, I mean, is it a polite way of saying something else? Does it mean something like . . .”
“Business partner?” he suggests helpfully.
“Prostitute? Mistress?”
“Not as far as I know. Why?”
“When Hardwick introduced Helena Russell to me, he described her as his newest associate. I’ve been struggling ever since to figure out what that means.”
“You’re not the only one.”
Hardwick’s carriage pulls out of the gate and clatters down the street. Henry sticks his head out the door and tells our driver to follow, not too closely, and to stop when it does. Our carriage lurches forward. The road is not as smooth as I’d like, and I find myself grateful for the seat cushions.
“From what I can gather,” Henry says, “Hardwick has never been married, and never been publicly involved with any woman. It’s a common problem here, seeing as men have outnumbered women ever since the war. So a month or two ago, when Miss Russell showed up, everyone assumed that Hardwick had finally found himself a lady.”
I think of her strong arms and calloused hands. “I don’t think she’s a lady.”
“Lee! Are you being catty?”
“No! I didn’t mean it like that. I mean she’s not . . . refined. She’s . . . like me, I guess.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” he says sternly.
“I wasn’t fishing for reassurances.”
“Well, Miss Russell is an odd one, that’s for sure. She doesn’t accept lunch invitations from the wives of the other rich men and politicians. She’s not engaged in charitable work for the improvement of the city. She hasn’t hosted any parties.”
“What does she do?”
“She accompanies Hardwick to all his business meetings. She’s met every one of his partners and major clients and political allies. Some find her unnerving.”
It is unnerving, the way she always whispers in his ear.
The carriage rattles to a stop. Henry peers out the window. “Ah, the Eldorado. Miss Helena Russell is accompanying him to a gaming house.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Not lately. But before she arrived, Hardwick never gambled. Now he plays high stakes every night. Apparently he’s as lucky in cards as he is in business.”
The door opens, and Henry tips the driver as we step down.
The world shifts beneath my feet, and I grab Henry’s arm for balance. “Henry, there’s an awful lot of gold in there,” I whisper.
He gives me a sympathetic look. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
I take a deep breath, letting the gold sense surround me, pass through me. Things have been a whole lot easier since I learned not to fight it. “I’m sure,” I say, already steadier on my feet.
A huge crowd is gathered outside, and we start to push past elbows and cigars to reach the entrance. But the dress I’m wearing is like magic; men part for me and tip their hats like I’m a one-woman Fourth of July parade. And maybe I am. All the gold here is setting off fireworks right behind my eyes.
Inside is a high-ceilinged, smoky parlor. Eight gambling tables take up most of the space, and an excited mob surrounds each one. Lots of Mexicans here, in dusty serapes and more elaborate boots than I’m used to. White men in shirtsleeves and suspenders shout in a variety of accents, announcing their origins from the Yankee north, the cotton south, the Irish isle, and faraway Australia.
A long bar runs the length of the parlor. On the wall behind it are shelves with row after row of bottles. Lots of men and a very few women crowd against the bar, drinking and laughing. In a little balcony above, a pretty Negro woman plays the fiddle.
The room smells of sweat and booze and cheap tobacco, which I’d normally find distasteful, but this time I inhale deep, letting the scents ground me. Because otherwise I’d be overwhelmed by gold, not just by the amount of coins in play, but by their constant movement. It’s like a whirlpool of stars.
For a brief, fool-headed moment, I imagine calling all of that gold toward me. Part of me wants to do it. But this time, it wouldn’t be a cloud of soft dust, coating me, turning me into the Golden Goddess of miners’ tall tales. It would be a deadly hail of coins. Enough to bury me.
Or I could push it all away. It would be a relief.
I close my eyes. Sweat rolls down my forehead. My hands shake.
Maybe, with one burst of power, I could send every gold coin, every lucky nugget and pin and button in this room flying.
“Lee,” Henry whispers. “Lee? Are you all right?”
“I’m . . . not sure.”
“People are staring. Let’s keep moving.”
The size of the crowd makes it hard to see the players at each table, so we circle the room once, and then twice, looking for Hardwick and Russell. Henry pauses to talk to a number of people he recognizes, and then gets distracted by one of the games. A cherub-faced miner is on a winning streak, and the crowd cheers as he keeps doubling his bet and winning.
“He started the night with a fifty-dollar coin,” explains a redheaded man standing beside us. “And now he has more than three thousand dollars.”
“Maybe he should quit while he’s ahead,” I say.
“He should keep going while he’s lucky!” Henry says, exchanging a grin with the redheaded man.
Two hands later, the miner has doubled his money again. On the third hand, the cards fall against him, and he loses everything. A collective groan of disappointment sweeps around the table on his behalf. Several bystanders offer to buy him drinks.
But he looks crushed. He’s a boy barely old enough grow a beard, not even Jefferson’s age. Tears roll down his sunburned cheeks.
Under the nearest table, trapped beneath the shoe of a man who’s doubling down on a losing streak, I sense a small coin, dropped and lost. I bend down to pretend to adjust my boot, focus my energy very carefully, and call the coin.
The coin skitters across the floor and into my hand. But my control isn’t as focused as I would like; on the table, the loser’s stack of gold coins topples over.
I rise and turn to the young boy being consoled by his friends. I press the coin into his hand and say, “So you won’t leave broke tonight. Here’s a second chance.”
His jaw hangs open. I expect, sooner or later, a thank you will emerge.
Instead he spins around and shoulders his way back to the table. “I’m in the game,” he says. “I’m back in the game!”
“That was very kind of you,” says Henry.
The boy sits down and scrubs away the tears with the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m not so sure,” I say. “Where’s Hardwick? I don’t see him anywhere.”
“Oh, he’s almost certainly in the private rooms in the back.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“Because we won’t be able to get in, at least not until much later in the night, when they start to relax the rules. In the meantime, we should just enjoy the entertainment, and if Hardwick leaves, we’ll follow him to the next place.”
“Why can’t we get into the private rooms?” I ask.
“It’s high stakes. You need at least a thousand dollars just to walk through the door.”
When we came into San Francisco, with my saddlebags full of gold, I had thought I was the richest woman in the world. Now my resources are rapidly dwindling before we’ve even put a dent in Hardwick’s enterprises.
But I came here to see him in action. I need to know who he associates with, how he spends his leisure time, figure out what he cares about.
“What if I happened to have twenty gold pieces with me? The fifty-dollar gold pieces.”
He grabs my arm, then promptly lets it go again. “Are you teasing me?”
“Henry, am I a person who teases?”
“But you have a thousand dollars in gold on you?”
Slightly more than a thousand. The weight of it tugs at me, both physically and mentally, from the small purse hung over my shoulder and tucked inside my sweater. “I always carry gold with me now. Jefferson keeps some of my stake. A fair bit is with Peony. Even Mary has some, back in Glory. Never keep all your money in one place, right?”
“True enough.”
“So, where do we go?”
He stares at me, as if torn. I don’t get to ask him what he’s torn between, because he grabs my hand and leads me through the parlor and down a long hallway.
Two men in wool suits stand outside a door: my old friends, Large and Larger.
“There’s a thousand-dollar minimum,” Large says.
“Do I need to count out the coins for you, or will you take my word for it?” I ask.
The two behemoths glance at each other. Finally Large shrugs.
“We can take your word for it,” Larger says.
“Mr. Hardwick thought you might be coming tonight,” Large explains. “Told us to look for you.”
Unease fills me. We didn’t go to huge pains to keep our presence a secret, but even if he had noticed the carriage, how could he have known it was us inside? Maybe someone had spotted me peeking from the window.
Henry and I move to enter, and Larger places one of his huge, meaty hands on Henry’s chest. “But your thousand dollars, we’ll need to see.”
“Mr. Hardwick didn’t say anything about you visiting tonight,” says Large.
Henry’s eyes plead with me for a moment. I’m not carrying enough for both of us, and I doubt Henry has more than one or two coins left. “He doesn’t intend to gamble,” I say. “He’s my associate.”
Larger rolls his eyes. “Nice try.”
My heart sinks. It’s one thing to be brave when you’re with a friend; it’s another thing entirely to do something brave all by yourself. “I’m sorry, Henry.”
He squeezes my hand. “I’ll wait for you in the main parlor.”
My gold sense flutters my stomach as I enter the room. This parlor is much smaller. In one corner is a short bar manned by a single bartender. Even so, there’s a lot more gold in this room. Four tables play host to a number of distinguished-looking gentlemen who are sipping from glass tumblers, smoking fragrant cigars, laughing. Each one has a stack of gold coins at hand.
I feel like a fish in a tree, and everything in me wants to escape. But then I spot Hardwick, sitting at the farthest table from the door. He’s as impeccably dressed as ever, with a gold watch chain swooping across his left breast. His stark-white sideburns are combed flat over gaunt cheeks, and a cigar dangles from thin lips. Helena Russell stands beside him.
She notices me first and whispers in his ear. My heart rocks in my chest as Hardwick says something to everyone at the table. In response, the other gamblers gather their coins and stand. Staring quietly at me, they disperse to other tables.
One fellow pauses to smile. “A pleasure to see you again,” he says. “Still golden, I hope.”
It’s the governor of California, and the pleasure is all his. I met him once before, at the Christmas ball in Sacramento, when all the tall tales about the Golden Goddess were spinning around. If they’re still spinning, I’m in a heap of trouble.
But the governor tips his hat and moves on without another word. I breathe relief.
Hardwick beckons, and I stride over and sit like it’s the most natural, normal thing in the world. I open my purse and set my coins on the table while the dealer shuffles the cards.
Miss Russell seats herself on his left, slightly behind him, with one gloved hand slipped through his arm. Perfect for leaning forward to whisper in his ear.
Hardwick watches me the way a cat watches a bird’s nest in an apple tree. “How would you like to come work for me, Miss Westfall?”
My heart hammers in my throat, and the air suddenly seems a bit thin because all I can think is He knows. He knows what I can do.
After too long a pause, I manage to say, “Doing what?”
He takes a sip of whiskey, then wipes his mustache with a handkerchief. “I’m not sure. I admit, I don’t quite have you figured out.”
Well, that’s a mercy.
“But you keep showing up in the most interesting places,” he continues, “and it’s clear that you have some ability for accumulating resources.”
So maybe he doesn’t know after all. I try to keep the relief from my face. “In other words, you’ve determined that I have some gold, and you’d like to take a portion of it.”
His sudden laugh is surprising for how genuine it seems. “No one acquires gold by accident,” he says, eyes twinkling. “I have gold, you have gold. There’s a chance that both of us could acquire a lot more gold by working together. How do you want to bet?”
The dealer has turned up a pair of cards. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to play. You’ll have to teach me.”
Hardwick makes a small circular motion with his finger, and the dealer reshuffles the cards. “This game is called Spanish monte,” Hardwick says. “The rules are simple, and it’s almost impossible to cheat.”
I only half listen to Hardwick’s instructions, because Miss Russell is peering at me in the most peculiar way, like she’s seeing through me, or beyond me, and—most disconcerting of all—her irises are saturated with a deep shade of violet.
I could have sworn her eyes were blue.
The dealer lays down two cards, a two of hearts to his right and a jack of diamonds to his left. He places the remaining stack of cards between them.
“And now we bet,” Hardwick says, tossing a fifty-dollar coin onto the jack.
I toss a coin onto the deuce, determined to ignore Miss Russell’s violet gaze.
Hardwick makes the go-ahead motion again. The dealer turns over a seven of hearts. “The young lady wins,” he says.
“The odds change as he works his way through the deck,” Hardwick says. “Someone who pays close attention can increase their chances of winning after a few hands.”
The dealer deals, and again I choose the card that Hardwick doesn’t. This time I lose, but so does Hardwick, and both our coins get taken. “I should have quit while I was ahead.”
“That’s the trick, isn’t it?” Hardwick says. “To exit the game when you’re at your peak? But you’re young. You’re just learning how the game’s played, and you’ve barely started.”
I’m not sure we’re still talking about gambling. “What about all the people who never get ahead enough to quit?”
“That’s their problem, isn’t it?” he says. From behind him, Helena Russell reaches for his whiskey, takes a sip, sets the glass back on the table. Hardwick doesn’t seem to notice or care. “But that doesn’t apply to you or me. Your friend Tom is a very good lawyer.”
If he’s trying to throw me by changing the subject abruptly, it might be working, because I lose on the next hand, and Hardwick wins. “I’m not sure I would recommend him,” I say. “He only negotiated the one contract for me, and I thought it was airtight, but it turns out there’s no way to enforce it.”
“Sometimes that’s a temporary problem, with the system, not with the contract. I was just talking with the governor and with California’s new senator. They seem to think that when statehood becomes official—in a few more months, maybe a year at most—we’ll have the rule of law here, as strict as any state in the nation, with honest judges, and checks and balances, and all the other trappings of civilization.”
I can’t tell if he finds the prospect appealing or not. “I didn’t realize you had so much respect for the law.”
This draws another belly laugh. “I respect the laws so much I want to make them,” he says. “Your bet.”
Hearts come up again, and it’s been several deals since I saw them, so I toss two coins down, and this time I win. One hundred dollars, just like that.
Helena’s eyes widen. They’ve returned to their normal blue, which doesn’t make me feel the least bit better. She hasn’t said a word since I sat down, not to Hardwick or to me, but my skin prickles under her gaze.
Maybe it’s nothing. A trick of the light. But maybe it’s quite a bit of something. I know one other person whose eyes change color—me. And only when I’m sensing gold.
In the next round, I lose everything I’d won. I say, “One thing I can’t figure out is why you started gambling. Everything you do is so careful and planned, but this is a game of chance. You can’t help losing.”
He finishes his glass of whiskey and smiles. “Who owns this parlor?”
I think about Large and Larger watching the door. “You do.”
“So when I win, I win. And when I lose, I still win. Excuse me, I need to refill my glass. Would you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
He rises and heads toward the bar in the corner. As the dealer gathers up all the cards and starts shuffling, Helena scoots her chair closer to mine.
Something tingles at the back of my neck, and I freeze, like a ladybug caught in a spider’s web. Helena leans forward, avidly, hungrily, and places a hand on my knee. I open my mouth to ask her what in tarnation she’s doing, but a small bolt of lightning shoots through me. Her eyes are so dark now, the color of ripe plums.
“You have to tell me,” she says breathlessly. “Quick, before he comes back. How do you do it? How do you do that thing with the gold?”
My heart starts racing.
Her gaze is awful. Like she’s looking right through my skin and into my heart. Her nose is a tad too long, her skin a bit too world-weary, her lips pressed thin. But there’s a compelling wild energy about her that makes me shiver just as much as that violet glare.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I manage.
Her eyes narrow. “You’re up to something, and I’m going to figure you out. You’re not going to get his money.”
I shoot to my feet and start gathering my coins.
Hardwick returns. “Quitting so soon?” he asks. “Sweet girl, the first rule of the game is you can’t quit before you’re ahead even once.”
I sway dizzily. There’s too much gold in this room for me to risk making abrupt moves, but I can’t help scrambling backward, away from the table and Helena’s horrible eyes. The backs of my knees knock the chair as I push it back. “Sometimes it’s better to know when to cut your losses,” I say, and I rush out the door before he can respond.