Tuesday morning comes, cold and plodding. Five of us attend the auction under a grim gray sky—me, Jefferson, Becky, Henry, and Mary. An auctioneer’s platform has been set up in Portsmouth Square, near the Custom House. A body hangs from a hastily constructed gallows, swaying in the wind. A group of dirty children makes a game of throwing pebbles at it.
It casts a pall over me, a long shadow that seems to follow me no matter where I stand or the angle of the shrouded sun. There’s no way to look at the auctioneer’s platform and not notice the limp body out of the corner of my eye. I can’t help staring at it, feeling that the dead man is staring right back, accusing.
“It’s not your fault,” Jefferson says as we wander through the milling multitude. “It’s Hardwick’s.”
“Are you sure you should be up and around?” Becky asks. She’s wearing a beautiful dress of soft green calico, which she gleefully chose in spite of it being an inappropriate color for this time of year. Her own minor mutiny, I suppose. “Jasper says you should rest and take it easy for a couple days.”
“I’m fine,” I say. It’s true. I do feel fine. Maybe I feel better than fine, the way you do after you run a mile to the neighbor’s house, chop an extra cord of wood, carry two full buckets from the spring instead of one. At first, the day after, you’re tired and sore. But then you get busy again, feeling stronger than ever.
Henry slipped away for a moment, but now he returns, handing out sheets of paper to all of us. “These are the preliminary auction items,” he says. “The map shows plots of land for sale, along with their estimated values. The other list is marked with opening bids.”
Mary skims the list and glances over the map. “Why did you say preliminary?”
Henry and I exchange a glance. The preliminary lists circulate first, and that is part of our plan. But I shut the thought down as soon as it forms. I don’t see Helena Russell anywhere, but she’s sure to be near.
“At these auctions, they often circulate one list early to see what people’s reactions are, then print another, final list, with prices higher or lower, based on what they think they can get,” Henry says.
“They’ll hand out the final list right before the auction starts,” Jefferson adds.
“Well, that’s clever,” Mary says.
“There’s my house!” Becky says. “They have no right to sell my house.” She turns toward the crowd and shouts it again. “They have no right to auction off my house!”
“Right doesn’t come into it,” I say.
“It’s whatever they think they can get away with,” Jefferson says. “Speaking of getting away with things . . .”
He tenses, like his hackles are going up, and I follow his gaze.
Two workmen in muddy coats stomp up the platform steps, hauling an auctioneer’s podium. They’re followed by a thin man in a blue-striped shirt and a pair of round spectacles. He wields a gavel, like a judge.
Following the auctioneer is Frank Dilley. The burned half of Dilley’s face shimmers with glycerin, making his sneer gleam like the edge of a knife. His jacket is pulled back to reveal the guns in his holster, one on each hip.
Dilley is the last fellow I care to see, but I’m a little relieved at the same time. If he’s here as Hardwick’s representative, then maybe Hardwick won’t be coming at all. Which means we might be clear of Helena’s second sight for a spell.
The workmen deposit the podium in the center of the stage. Frank Dilley drops a lockbox beside it; it thumps hollowly. It won’t be hollow by the end of the auction. And from here, it’s just a short walk to the bank, where he’ll add it to the rest of Hardwick’s money.
Watching it all makes me wish our practice run had gone a whole heap better. There’s still so much we don’t know, and tonight will be for real.
Dilley twirls the key to the lockbox on his finger, bored as he surveys the crowd. He gaze lands on me. He snaps his fist closed on the key and shoves it into his pocket.
“We’ve been spotted,” I say, remembering that we have as much right to be here as anyone, that of course Hardwick and his people knew we’d come. I shuffle my feet and fight the urge to run.
“At least Miss Russell isn’t here,” Jefferson says, softly, soothingly. His calmness is an anchor as my emotions roil like a storm. “After our failed practice run, we deserve a spot of luck.”
I glance around for Helena one last time, but as far as I can tell, Becky, Mary, and I are the only women here. Still, I discipline my mind, just in case. I will think only of my tiny role today. Concentrate on my outrage. Nothing else.
“Final prices! Final prices!”
A towheaded little boy, not much bigger than Andy, scampers into the crowd from the direction of the printer’s office. He lugs a huge stack of papers and hands them out to everyone he sees. The crowd murmurs at the updated sheets.
Henry grabs a handful. “Well, this is it, then,” he says, distributing them to us. “We should probably split up for better effect.”
Jefferson grins and heads off to the far edge of the crowd, in the opposite direction of Henry.
“This should be interesting,” Mary says, then weaves nearer to the podium.
Becky reaches out to squeeze my hand. “Good luck,” I tell her.
“We don’t need luck.”
The little boy hands the remaining copies to the auctioneer. I watch for his reaction. He stares at the price list, then takes his glasses off, wipes them clean, and stares at the sheets again.
A voice whispers at my side. “Are you ready?”
I look up and find Jim Boisclair. “Ready, willing, and able. You?”
“Always,” he says. “Might even pick up a lot for my general store.”
“Better be careful—I hear they’ll sell the same lot right out from under you.”
“You don’t say?”
The auctioneer places the list on the podium before him. He stares at it one last time. Then he picks up the gavel and bangs. “We’ll begin with the sale of future lots!”
Jim steps forward, lifting his sheet high. “Hold on! They’re auctioning off a lot I already bought and paid for!”
I give it a few seconds to sink in, listening to the growing unease around me. Then I wave my sheet in the air like a battle flag. “They’re trying to rob us! Selling the same property twice!”
From across the crowd, I hear Becky’s voice. “They’re selling my house! Which I own free and clear!”
From another direction, Mary, with a strong Spanish accent: “They’re robbing us! Ladrones!”
The voices of women in peril have gotten everyone’s attention. People in the crowd bow over their lists, studying them with a critical eye.
Henry yells, “Is that my trunk you’re selling?”
Jefferson: “You can’t sell my land without my say-so!”
The auctioneer bangs his gavel, but the crowd is provoked now. The murmur swells to a roar of angry voices. Frank Dilley’s right hand moves to his gun belt.
“I already own this lot on Front Street! I paid for it last week!”
“Lot twenty-two on Fremont belongs to me!”
“What’s going on here?”
“Crooks!”
Jim leads a surge toward the podium, and I follow in his wake. “I demand an explanation,” he says. “What’s going on here!”
“We have a right to know,” I shout. “Why is Hardwick trying to rob us?”
Someone, a stranger, hollers, “Hardwick’s trying to rob all of us!”
The crowd is riled up, turning into a mob. The auctioneer bangs his gavel and shouts, but nobody listens. Frank Dilley hollers, “Pipe down! Pipe down! Hardwick ain’t robbing nobody! Shut up or clear out of the square! We’ve got an auction to run!”
Jim and I push all the way to the front of the crowd. “Hardwick is selling the same property three and four times!” I shout.
Frank Dilley sees us. Smiles.
“I demand an explanation,” Jim shouts.
“I got your explanation right here,” Frank Dilley says. And he draws his gun and aims.
I don’t know if Dilley is aiming at me or at Jim. All I know is Dilley is capable of killing in cold blood as easily as you can say boo.
I yank on Jim’s sleeve. “Jim, get d—”
The crack of gunfire. A puff of smoke. The sharp scent of gunpowder.
Jim drops to the ground like a sack of flour.
The crowd goes dead silent.
Everyone steps back, and I’m kneeling in a semicircle of aloneness while a scarlet flower blooms on Jim’s side. We lock gazes, and God help me, but I’ll remember this look on his face for the rest of my life. “Damn fool, he shot me,” he mumbles. “This . . . not part of our plan. . . .”
Frank Dilley holsters his Colt, yelling, “We’ve got an auction to run here! If you don’t want to buy anything, then clear out. If you got a problem with the items for sale, then go talk to the sheriff!”
Everyone stares, cowed. After a moment, the crowd begins to thin as several slip away, quiet but fast.
The auctioneer picks up his gavel and bangs it again. “Our first lot up for sale is . . .”
Why is no one helping us? A man lies bleeding on the ground and no one cares. It dawns on me: because he’s a Negro.
Jefferson and Mary appear at my side. Jefferson says, “Jim, are you . . . is he . . . ?”
“Alive,” Jim murmurs. Flecks of blood land on his lips. “Stings a fair bit.”
“We have to get him to Jasper,” I say. “Now.”
“I could fetch the wagon,” Jefferson says.
“No time,” Mary says.
“He didn’t shoot my legs,” Jim says. “Help me up.”
I’m terrified that letting Jim walk is an awful idea, but I’m not sure what else to do. Jefferson squats to put Jim’s arm around his shoulder. “Jasper’s office is in Happy Valley,” he says, lugging Jim to his feet. “Nearly ten blocks away.”
“Then we better get going,” Jim says, and he starts toward Kearney Street.
“Walking will just make him lose blood faster,” Mary says.
Becky and Henry rush over. “We’re coming with you,” Becky says.
“Here, let me help,” Henry offers, reaching for Jim’s other arm, but Jim shrugs him off.
“Someone needs to stay,” Jim says. “If we can’t shout the truth, we can still whisper it where people will hear. Stay here and finish what we started.”
“We can do that,” Becky says.
“You’re a born performer,” I tell Henry. “You stay with Becky and help her.”
He nods solemnly. Behind us, the first tentative bidders are shouting offers for a scrap of land that’s still ten feet underwater.
We move fast for the first four or five blocks, with me and Jefferson helping Jim along while Mary presses a handkerchief to his side. Maybe that bullet just grazed Jim, I tell myself, but there’s a hole in the front of his shirt and nothing in back. More worrisome is the way he’s coughing up blood.
By block six, Jim is flagging. Mary bolsters his armpit and grabs his belt in her fist. “Run and get Jasper,” she says to me. “As fast as you can.”
I sprint down the final blocks as fast as I’ve ever run in my life, through the courtyard and into the parlor of the house, where a variety of sick people are waiting to be seen. A clerk or secretary of some kind sees me. “The doctors are busy, but if you’ll have a seat—”
“Jasper!” I shout, running from room to room. In the second room, an older doctor with remarkable whiskers looks up from his examination of a red-faced businessman. I find Jasper in the third room, wrapping plaster around the arm of a little Mexican boy. He’s standing there in shirtsleeves, with his cuffs rolled to his elbows. “Jasper!”
“Lee?”
The clerk appears behind me. “I told her to wait!” he says.
“It’s Jim. Frank Dilley shot him,” I pant out.
Jasper beckons the clerk over and orders him to finish wrapping the boy’s arm. Jasper wipes his hands on a towel while he says, “Where is he?”
“In the street outside, a block or two away.” The words come out in tiny desperate gasps. “We couldn’t get him all the way here.”
He grabs his stethoscope and puts a hand on my shoulder, as calm as I am terrified. “Show me.”
As we dash through the parlor, Jasper calls out in broken Spanish to a couple of men, who grab a stretcher and follow. Together, we sprint up the block.
Jim has collapsed to the ground. A small group of neighbors has gathered around Jefferson, who is kneeling with Jim’s head propped up on his lap. Mary is still doggedly pressing her handkerchief to his wound, but it is now soaked with crimson.
Jasper bends down to check Jim’s pulse and listen through the stethoscope.
“You did a good job getting him this far,” he said. “He has a chance.”
Jasper beckons the workmen over with a wave of his hand, and they put the stretcher down and gently lift Jim onto it. “We’ll take him through the side door and directly to the operating room in the back of the house,” Jasper says. “Mary, keep pressure on that wound as we go. Lee, walk with me and fill me in on the details.”
Blood covers Mary’s hands. There’s even a bit of it matting her black hair, just above her ear.
The workmen rush Jim back to the office, the rest of us following behind. I babble the whole way, telling Jasper everything. I end with, “I think Dilley wanted him dead because he figured out Hardwick’s scam to rob people.”
The older doctor with remarkable whiskers meets us at the side door. He’s taken off his suit coat and is now wearing a clean white apron.
“I suppose this is another one of your charity cases, Clapp,” he says, not unkindly.
“No, sir,” I tell him. “We’ll pay whatever it costs.” Even if it’s the last of my gold.
Jasper blocks the door. “You can’t come in. You’ll have to wait in the parlor.”
“I . . .” I hate feeling so helpless. “You’ll do everything you can for him, right?”
“I always do everything I can for my patients,” he says, turning away.
The door closes. We stare at it a moment.
At last Mary says, “I know you’re worried about Mr. Boisclair, but this may have presented us with an opportunity.”
“What do you mean?” I say, still staring at that door. My oldest friend in the world besides Jefferson is behind that door, his life hanging in the balance.
“I mean, it depends on how things turn out, but—”
“What do you mean, Mary?” Jefferson repeats, more sternly.
Quickly she sketches out the beginnings of a plan. A plan within a plan. Another thing we can’t dwell too hard on, lest Helena Russell pluck it from our thoughts.
“So, what do you think?” she says.
“It’s a good idea,” Jefferson says.
“Better than what we had already come up with,” I concede. “It solves one of our remaining problems.”
Mary wipes her hands on her skirt, leaving bloody smears. “I guess I’ll go find the others. Let them know what we’re about.”
She turns to go, but I grab her arm. “Thank you, Mary,” I say.
“Of course.” She yanks her arm away and heads off at a jog, as if our recent exertions have not winded her even a little. Jefferson takes my hand and leads me back to the parlor, where we find seats. The red-faced businessman is leaving. The clerk escorts the little boy with the broken arm to his mother, and a short while later, he brings Jefferson and me some tea.
Jim is in surgery forever. People come and go while we wait. Gold changes hands, small amounts, unlike in the hotels and gambling dens. It’s a relief of sorts, not to have so much of it around.
The sun is low, shining through the parlor window, when the older doctor with remarkable whiskers appears at the end of the hall, wiping his bloody hands on a white towel. He glares at us and glances away, saying nothing.
“If Jim dies,” I whisper to Jefferson, “is it my fault?”
“Don’t be daft.”
I give him a sharp look.
“You’re scared,” he says. “You’re sad and you’re angry. Dilley shooting Jim is a reason to stay to the course, not doubt it.”
I feel numb, maybe too numb to take in what he’s saying, but a distant part of me knows he’s speaking the truth.
Jasper appears at the end of the hallway, blood on his shirt and pants, beads of sweat on his upper lip.
I jump up, and Jefferson follows. “Can we see him now? Is he going to be all right?”
Jasper’s expression conveys a world of bad news. “Come this way,” he says, gesturing. “We have some things to talk about.”