Calling it Washington Pier is being optimistic. A long, muddy street winds down the marshy hill until it meets the bay. Toward the end, where the mud gets so bad it’s almost impossible to walk, a boardwalk begins, jutting well into the water. To either side of the boardwalk are abandoned ships run hard aground. People dump wheelbarrows of dirt into the soupy muck, turning it into land and trapping the ships right where they sit. On our right, a crew swarms over one of the hulks, stripping the wood like a pack of termites devouring a pine shack. On our left, a lonely twin seems to await a similar fate.
At the end of the dock, men swing precariously over the water, hammering boards into an empty framework. An anchored ship waits to tie alongside, just as soon as the dock is ready. A foreman hollers at us to step aside as a group of workmen rumble past, carrying a huge log smeared with pitch on their shoulders—another pile to drive into the water and extend the dock even farther. The whole structure sways precariously from side to side as they go.
“I think I’d rather stay here,” Hampton says, eyeing the dock with distrust.
“Sure,” I reply.
“I’m not sure those fellows know a single lick about building piers.”
The workmen drop the new pile, and the dock shakes so hard one of the boards pops loose and falls into the water. “We need someone to watch that wagon and the horses anyway,” I assure him.
Jefferson and Becky and I step onto the rickety dock, which feels more solid under my feet than I expect. I can’t help gawking at the ships as we go. Jefferson, never one for shyness, cups his hands to his mouth. “The Charlotte!” he hollers. “We’re looking for the Charlotte!”
Sailors shake their heads. One rakish fellow leans over the side of his ship and shouts in an Australian accent. “Oi! If you find Charlotte, tell her I’m looking for her, too!”
“Rude humor is a mark of low character,” Becky shouts back.
“Of course I’ve got low character,” the sailor responds. “I come from down under!”
His crewmates laugh. Jefferson looks to me as if to share a grin, but I shake my head. Becky Joyner is on a mission, and this is no time to cross her.
The sailor wisely returns to work. We pass another ship and reach the end of the dock. Still no Charlotte.
“Maybe this is the wrong place,” Jefferson says.
“I’m sure this is it,” Becky says. “I reread the letter and checked the directions with people at the mission before we came down to the waterfront.”
If Becky says she’s sure, she’s sure. “Maybe they left already?”
“I made inquiries,” Becky says. “The Charlotte was expected to remain in port.”
Her knowledge doesn’t surprise me one bit. Thanks to her restaurant regulars, Becky now has more connections and better information than anyone I know.
“We must have missed it,” I say. “We just need to head back and start over.”
We return to Hampton and the wagon. “Things got mighty precarious,” Jefferson tells him solemnly. “But the dock didn’t fall into the bay.”
“But you didn’t find anything either, so I was better off waiting here, wasn’t I?” Hampton says.
“I think this is the ship right here,” Becky says.
“What?”
She’s staring up at the abandoned hulk, the one that’s never setting sail again because the bay’s been filled in right around it. The faint outline of weathered letters appears on the bow, obscured by soot and mud. They might have once read the Charlotte. I’m almost certain of the A and the R.
There’s no way to climb aboard, so I pound on the side, which I recognize for the long-shot hope it is. The hull echoes back at me like a giant kettledrum. “Hey! Anyone aboard?”
A thump, like a body falling out of a hammock, then an apple-shaped face pops up over the side, surrounded by a rat’s nest of gray-black hair.
“Whaddayawant?” he says.
It comes out as one angry, messy word, but I reckon that’s a natural state of things, rather than any specific anger being directed at us. I’ve heard the same New York accent from other miners we’ve met.
“We’re looking for the Charlotte,” Becky says. “It sailed out of Panama, carrying cargo that came across the isthmus, including my disassembled house.”
As the stylish Southern lady addresses him, the New Yorker stands straighter and combs fingers through his hair, though without noticeable effect. “I have some good news and some bad news,” he says.
He bends, and with a grunt and heave, he slides a gangplank down to the dock. It lands hard and sets the dock to swaying. The man puts hands to hips and says, “Well, come aboard. I’m not gonna shout at you from way up here.”
I look to Hampton. “I volunteer to watch the horses,” he says.
The gangplank is sturdier than it looks. Becky, Jefferson, and I make the steep climb single file and step onto the deck. It’s an old ship, and because of the faded paint and soot marks on the hull, I expect it to be in disrepair, perhaps even in the process of being scavenged. But everything is tidy and well stowed, the deck clean of debris and dirt.
“Name’s Melancthon Jones,” the sailor says. “What can I do for you?”
We introduce ourselves. “I have to ask,” I say. “What happened to . . . ?” I glance over the side at the faded lettering.
He shrugs. “We made port, and the captain and the rest of the crew jumped ship to go find themselves a fortune.”
“But not you?” I say.
He shrugs. “I dug ditches to help build the Erie Canal. So much digging. A lifetime of digging. If I never touch another shovel in my life, it’ll be too soon.”
“So you’re just . . .” Jefferson glances around the deck. “Here?”
“I’m no sluggard, if that’s your implication,” Melancthon says with a glare. “Hoping for a chance to catch passage back east, but no one’s hiring. The ships keep coming in, but most never leave. The few that do leave don’t need crew.”
Becky steps forward. “You said there was good news and bad news?”
He slips his thumbs beneath his suspenders. “Good news first. This ship here is—or was—the Charlotte, and we had your cargo aboard. Loaded it myself down in Panama. I was the ship’s carpenter, and I admired the way everything had been taken apart, labeled, and stored. A fine bit of work.”
Becky nods. “My husband supervised everything himself. He was very particular. What’s the bad news?”
“Because the ship has been abandoned, the Custom House holds claim to any cargo left behind. You’ll have to get permission from them to collect it, and you’ll need to hurry before they auction it off.”
“They can’t do that!” Becky says.
“Oh, they can and they will,” Melancthon says. “They’re going to auction off the ship, too—sell it right out from under me.”
“Will they let you stay?” Jefferson asks.
“Seems unlikely. Too much money to be had. If you have the means, you can buy a piece of property here for ten thousand dollars, then turn around two months later and sell it for twenty.” Jeff and I exchange a look of consternation. Back east, a body can just about buy a whole town for ten thousand dollars.
“Where will you go?” I ask Jones.
“Don’t know,” he says. “Been nice having a free roof over my head. Better quality than any boarding house in the city, too. Good thing, because the captain took off without paying my wages. I might have to look for work ashore soon.”
Becky smoothes the front of her dress, adjusting the pleats. “So my cargo can be found at the Custom House?”
“No, ma’am, I’m sure it’s stored in one of the warehouses. The folks at the Custom House are just the ones in charge.” A seagull lands on the railing, but Melancthon shoos it away.
Jefferson is stiff in the space beside me, and I can practically sense his frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“This whole state,” he grumbles, “no, this whole country—is based on stealing things from people, starting with their land. And if you don’t have land, they’ll take whatever you do have.”
“I reckon you’re right.”
He’s been dwelling on this a long time. Jefferson is the son of a poor white man and a Cherokee woman. His whole family on his mama’s side was forced to march west after their land was stolen out from under them. Jefferson was left behind with his good-for-nothing daddy; legally, his mama didn’t have options on that account. He hasn’t seen her since she left, and he doesn’t even know if she’s alive. Now the same thing is happening to the Indians here in California. We’ve watched their land get taken, watched them forced into slavery, even watched them die.
“And where will I find the Custom House?” Becky persists.
“A block up the street, at Portsmouth Square,” Melanchthon says, pointing. “Follow the sound of hammers. The city burned near to the ground on Christmas Eve.”
“That was barely two months ago!” I say. No wonder there’s soot on the hull.
“That why they’re in such a hurry to rebuild.”
We were headed toward Portsmouth Square anyway, since the best hotels are found there. We thank Melancthon for his help and wish him well, then make our way back to Hampton and the wagon.
“Was the good news good enough, or was the bad news worse?” he asks, giving Peony a pat on her nose.
“Not sure yet,” I say.
“Our next stop is the Custom House,” Becky adds. “We have to clear some things up.”
Jefferson says, “Hampton, if you want to go check the post office, I’ll lead the horses and the wagon. Meet up at Portsmouth Square?”
Hampton brightens. “I’d be obliged.”
As he hands the reins over and takes off, Becky says, “Don’t you worry, Lee. We still have plenty of time to get this straightened out and shop for the wedding.”
I look to Jefferson for rescue, but he is wholly focused on tying up the horses to the back of the wagon. “Please, let’s not hurry,” I say. “All I need is Jefferson at my side, and my friends there to witness.”
She waves this off with a flutter of her hand. “Yours is going to be the first wedding in Glory, California. Ever. Not only will it set a precedent for a proper wedding to everyone that follows, but it’ll become part of the town’s history, and that will make it part of the history of the new state. Your betrothal was a bit . . . unconventional.” That’s a kind way to put it—I was the one who did the proposing, during the Christmas ball in Sacramento. “I wish I could have been there to guide you. But as your friend and bridesmaid, I have a responsibility to make sure everything else is done properly.”
I definitely consider Becky my friend. But she used to be my employer, and I will always remember the Mrs. Joyner who, on the wagon-train journey, served her husband’s every meal on a fancy table set with a perfect tablecloth and fine, fragile china. I sigh. “Yes, ma’am.”
It’s a short walk to Portsmouth Square, just as Melancthon promised. The Custom House is a long, low adobe building stretching the full length of the square. An American flag whips from a high pole out front—thirteen red and white stripes, and thirty stars in a block of five by six. They’ll have to figure out how to add another star once California officially becomes a state.
Along a wide veranda are three evenly spaced doors. The nearest is marked OWEN AND SON, BANKERS, the door in the middle has a sign for law offices with a much longer list of names, and the entrance at the far end is the Custom House. Jefferson offers to watch the wagon, and Becky and I line up behind a dozen others waiting to get inside.
The orderly, colorful crowd represents every corner of the globe—Peruvians and Chinese and a whole family of Kanakas from the Hawaiian Islands. It makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself, something that involves the whole world.
The door opens onto a room with a long counter made from ship planking. Facing us from the other side is a small line of white men in starched shirts and perfectly barbered hair. Becky and I listen as, one after another, the people ahead of us receive answers to their problems.
The men in starched shirts are very sorry.
It isn’t their fault.
The claimant will have to take it up with the original ship owner.
No, they can’t help find the original ship owner.
The claimant might wish to go to a bank to solve that problem. They can recommend the one two doors down, the oldest and finest bank in San Francisco.
Unfortunately, the claimant will need to acquire legal advice to solve that particular problem. There are law offices all over the city, but perhaps they might care to try the services of the office next door.
Tears do not bring different answers.
Becky and I exchange a dark look. I’m starting to get a bad feeling.
Outrage doesn’t help the Chinese man in line ahead of us, although it does tend to quickly mobilize a couple of rough-looking men who stand at the ready in case of trouble.
The cheerful and helpful-sounding men in starched white shirts have an answer to every question, but no one leaves satisfied.
The line moves efficiently, and soon Becky and I reach the front. My view has darkened, as though I’m in a state of about-to-be-angry, but Becky stands patiently and confidently, with all the assurance of a person who is used to having things work out for her.
“Next!”
We step up to a clerk with a face as angular as a wedge of cheese, framed by a pair of bushy sideburns. Small wire spectacles sit on the end of his nose. When he looks up from his ledger and sees us—or, rather, sees Becky, who is a fine lady in California, and therefore dearer than gold—a delighted grin spreads across his face. He reaches up and straightens his collar.
“How can I help you, ma’am?” He eyes me over the top of his glasses and amends: “Ma’ams.” I’m still wearing my travel trousers, sure, but my hair has grown long enough to put up in a proper bun, and I’m no longer binding my chest with Mama’s old shawl, so the fact that I’m of the feminine persuasion is obvious to anyone paying attention.
Becky smiles at the clerk like he’s a perfect piece of cake. “I believe that a house, disassembled for shipping, was delivered aboard the Charlotte out of Panama, and before that from New Orleans, and originally Chattanooga. Mr. Melancthon Jones, formerly the ship’s carpenter aboard the Charlotte, reports that unfortunately, due to the irresponsible behavior of the captain, who, I understand, also neglected his duty to compensate his crew, the cargo of the ship has now been entrusted to your authority for rightful delivery to its proper owners. Here is the letter we received stating that the cargo was ready for collection.”
She hands the letter over, and I want to whistle my appreciation. That was a mouthful to be sure, but Becky made it flow like fresh cream over strawberries.
The clerk appreciates it also, to judge from his childlike grin. “That’s an excellent summary, Miss . . .”
“Mrs. Joyner.”
His face falls a little. “Of course, Mrs. Joyner. You have to understand that very few people come prepared with all the appropriate information.” He reads the letter and hands it back to her. “So the house is in the name of . . .”
“My husband, Mr. Andrew Joyner Senior.”
She doesn’t mention that he’s dead. She may be scrupulously honest, but I notice that doesn’t extend to volunteering information that hasn’t been requested.
“Of course,” the clerk replies. He rises from his seat and goes to a stack of record books on another table behind the counter.
“I’ll be so glad when this is resolved,” Becky says.
“I thought we’d have more trouble.”
“I did, too. But these are clearly very capable, competent men doing their best in difficult circumstances.”
I gape at her. Becky sees men with authority as associates. I see them as adversaries. It might be the biggest difference between us. Rather than explain, I say, “You must have really missed that house, sleeping in the wagon for months.”
The corners of her eyes crinkle. “It was our honeymoon cottage, on Andrew’s father’s plantation. I was seventeen when we got married—just a little older than you and Jefferson.”
“You must have a lot of happy memories of it.”
“Oh, goodness, no. We were far too young to marry, even Andrew, who was eight years older. It’s one thing to be in love at that age, but it’s another entirely to go live with someone.”
I stare at her. Becky has never been forthcoming about her marriage.
“Don’t act so surprised. Men are difficult and uncouth. And it didn’t help that Andrew’s father didn’t approve of me, and he didn’t want us living in the big house with them. Andrew was wild then—always a gambler. I suppose I was a bit wild, too.”
I’m not sure what Becky considers “wild.” Daring to go without a hat or bonnet on occasion? Using the dessert fork first? Before I can ask, she says, “I had several miscarriages before I became pregnant with Olive. That’s when I finally began to settle, I think. After she was born, Andrew’s mother put her foot down, and we moved into the mansion. And finally, after I bore a male child, we were set up with an inheritance and a place of our—”
She doesn’t finish because the clerk returns, his thumb marking the spot in an open ledger.
“Found it,” he says. “So many people have unsolvable problems. It’s a pleasure to help somebody with an easy solution.”
Becky smiles at me as if to say “I told you so.”
“Now if you’ll just have Mr. Joyner come in and sign this release form . . .”
Becky reaches for the pen on the counter. “I’ll sign on his behalf.”
The clerk jerks the ledger away, and his smile falters. “I’m sorry, but I can’t allow that.”
“But I’m his wife.”
The clerk’s smile fades a little more. “Have you heard of coverture, ma’am?”
Becky’s answer has a strong streak of vinegar. “Are you a lawyer, sir? Do you presume to lecture me on the law?”
“If you know the law, you know that a wife has no legal standing. All her rights are covered by, and thus represented by, the rights of her husband. Thus, coverture. It’s the law everywhere in the United States, and California will soon be confirmed as part of the United States.” He slams the ledger shut. “Mr. Joyner’s signature is absolutely required.”
“But—” Becky says.
I squeeze her hand, hard, and she falls silent. “But what if her husband is up in the hills protecting their gold claim and working the land?” I say. “He can’t be in two places at once.”
I’m careful to phrase it as a possibility, because I don’t want to lie direct and offend Becky’s sense of propriety. She squeezes my hand in response.
“He’ll just have to make the trip down here,” he says.
“When is the auction scheduled?” Becky asks.
The clerk peers at the calendar on the wall and says, “A week from Tuesday, at the Hardwick Warehouse on Montgomery Street.”
A little chill goes through me at the mention of the name Hardwick—most likely the very same fellow Jefferson is hoping we’ll run into. James Henry Hardwick funded my uncle Hiram when Hiram kidnapped me. Then Hardwick took every penny we could raise in Glory in exchange for a promise to charter our town . . . a promise that hasn’t yet been delivered. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I’ve worried ever since that Hardwick may be no better than my uncle.
“There’s no way we can retrieve Mr. Joyner in Glory and return by then, not with this weather,” Becky says. “The winter roads are terrible—you know this to be true.” I clear my throat, hoping she’ll understand my message: “Stop talking.” Becky is smart, but she’s accustomed to getting her way. She has no idea how, as a woman with no husband and no property, the world is not on her side anymore.
The clerk rubs his cheese-wedge chin thoughtfully. “You could always buy the house at auction.”
I was already thinking the same thing. It would attract more attention than we want, but I can afford it. Thanks to my gold-witching ways, I can afford to do a lot of things for my friends right now. “That’s a good idea,” I say.
“Where will we get the money to do that?” she asks tightly.
He says, “If you need a loan, you might go to a bank to solve that problem. I can recommend the one two doors down.”
“And how am I supposed to get a loan without my husband’s signature?” Her voice is sharp enough to shave with, and I imagine it taking the fellow’s whiskers clean off.
“I see the problem,” he says. “But the law’s the law. Perhaps you might wish to consult with an attorney. I can recommend you to the gentlemen in the office next door.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry. I’ve done everything I can here to help you.” He looks past us to the next group in line, a Chinese family trying to speak through an interpreter who’s dressed in black like a missionary. “Next!”
I’m willing to stand our ground and keep arguing, but Becky, ever conscious of protocol, turns and leaves. I follow her outside to the cold shade of the veranda, where Jefferson waits.
“So, how did it go?” he asks.
Becky’s glare is so withering that he takes a step back.
“Not well,” I say. “They’ll accept Mr. Joyner’s signature only, and no substitutes.”
“Coverture is a barbaric doctrine,” Becky says. “What am I, a piece of property to be handed around from one man to the next like a gambling chit? Now that Andrew’s passed on, I suppose I’m covered by my father-in-law, a man who still despises me. Given half a chance, he’ll take Andrew Junior to raise as his heir and send me off to a convent or something.”
Jefferson and I exchange a surprised glance. We’ve heard more and more of Becky’s opinions since the death of her husband, enough to know she’s been thinking them in the quiet privacy of her own mind for a long time, maybe years. But this is one of the strongest we’ve heard pass her lips.
“We could always buy the house at auction,” I suggest.
“Or have a man buy it for me, you mean,” Becky says.
“Or that.”
“No. I won’t pay again for something that’s rightfully mine.”
“If the law’s involved, we should talk to Tom about it,” Jefferson suggests, and I could kiss him, because that’s the perfect next step. Actually, I could kiss him anyway. “You should have let him come with you.”
“He had his own worries,” Becky says.
“Not sure it matters now,” I say. “He’s out looking for space to rent, which means he could be anywhere.”
“Just saw him,” Jefferson says. “Went next door. Said he was having trouble finding a place in his price range. He’s rethinking his plan to go independent.”
“Fine,” Becky fumes, stomping away. “Let’s go see Tom.”