I’m glad, because I need this moment alone to say good-bye. After today, the very last tangible memory of my mother will be gone. Thank you, Mama, I say, hoping she can hear me from wherever she is.
The ship is almost fully loaded by the time Jefferson and Sorry return. He carries a basket of still-warm biscuits, but I only take a few bites. I don’t want nature calling me away. I don’t want to miss a thing.
As gold fills the hold of the ship, the temptation to do something grows stronger, but I have to wait a little longer.
Hardwick arrives with a wagon carrying the last pair of safes. Mr. Keys is with him, slumped over as though half drunk and twice as miserable as the night before. As the penultimate safe swings into the air, I stretch out my hand and think about how easy it would be. Just push and pull, get the rope swinging back and forth in the right direction, then yank it off so it lands right on Hardwick’s head.
But I’m not a murderer. I’m not that coldhearted. Am I?
Plenty of folks have gotten hurt around me. Daddy and Mama, gunned down like animals in their own home. Poor Mr. Joyner, crushed when the wagon rolled down the mountainside. Therese, dying in the desert, giving up her life to save her family. Her brother Martin, killed by my uncle’s men. All of Muskrat’s people, dying in the mining camp—maybe even Muskrat himself, since no one has seen him since that terrible night. Jim, shot before my very eyes, bleeding in the mud at my feet. And Frank Dilley, who even now might be hanging at Portsmouth Square.
The last safe swings over the ship and gradually lowers into the hold, and I let it. I don’t do a thing about it.
Beside me, Jefferson uses his pocketknife to slide a bit of cheese from a wedge. “Want some?” he asks.
“Not just yet.”
This is my last chance to fix that final safe full of gold in my mind, to feel where it fits with the others in the hold of the ship. The ship rocks on the waves, but the safes are tied down tightly. I sense them moving with the flow of water, but their weights don’t shift one bit relative to one another. In the center of it all is the familiar chest, containing a stack of gold bars, all wrapped tight with rope around the centerpiece of my mama’s locket.
I know from Melancthon that the captain wants to take the ship out with the ebb tide, as the moon rises late this afternoon. I feel hollow inside, from all the gold I moved yesterday, from the lack of sleep and food, from the final choice I know I’m about to make.
Hardwick stands on the deck, with only Mr. Keys at his side. Hardwick is smaller than a toy soldier, but I still recognize him. Two days ago, he was arguably the most powerful man in California. Today, no one shows up to wish him farewell.
But it’s not enough to sully his reputation and cast suspicion. The people of New York don’t know him like we do. When he shows up with all the gold he’s collected in California, they’ll fall all over themselves to make him feel at home.
A few loyal underlings wander the deck. I recognize the fellow who was guarding the bank the night they caught the robber. But I’m glad Large and Larger are not among them. I never saw them do anything cruel.
The captain calls out to the crew, and they cast off from the dock. A boat with long oars tugs them out of the harbor and into the bay.
I stand as the ship goes by. “I need to keep my eyes on it,” I tell Jefferson. “Time to mount up.”
Jefferson shoves leftovers back into his saddlebag, and we both return to our saddles. I direct Peony so I can follow the ship around the bay line, always keeping it in sight, never releasing my mental grip on all that gold. As the ship rounds the mouth of the bay, I coax Peony into a trot. Sorry’s hooves clatter behind me.
The air turns cold with the evening, and the bellies of the clouds are burnished red gold with the setting sun. The lighthouse at Alcatraz Island winks on, and behind it stretch the green hills of Rancho Saucelito. The sea is choppy. The waves rock the ship back and forth as it sails toward the Golden Gate and the Pacific Ocean.
I pull Peony up, to give her a quick rest and to reach out with my gold sense. The ship is moving faster than we are, stretching the distance between us, but I can still feel its golden cargo, especially Mama’s precious locket. It’s like a song wafting toward me from a great distance, through a valley in the mountains.
“It’s not far enough,” I whisper to myself.
“What’s not far enough?” Jefferson asks.
“The ship. There are islands. Like Alcatraz. Places it can put into shore.”
“That’s a good thing, right? We don’t want anyone to die.”
“Melancthon took care of that,” I assure him. “The Argos needs to be close enough to shore that lifeboats can reach safety, but far enough away that the ship itself can’t.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I—we—have to get to the fort at the Presidio,” I tell him. “We have to see her through the Golden Gate.”
“Then we’d better move. Fast.”
But I’m already urging Peony forward, and Jefferson quickly falls in behind. It’s almost a mile from here to the army fort at the Presidio, but we’re on land and the ship is going with the tide. Thank goodness it’s sailing directly into a west wind.
I give Peony a light kick with my heels, and she eagerly stretches into a full gallop. She is a wonder, game to run and giving it her all in spite of being cooped up for so long. I lean forward onto her withers, where my weight will be easiest to bear. She recognizes the weight shift and what it means. Without any further coaxing, she lowers her head like a thoroughbred and runs even faster.
Still, it’s going to be a close thing.
Wind chaps my face, and my hair loosens from its braid. People stare as we fly by, and we must be a sight—two people breezing their horses through the San Francisco streets, dodging carts and amblers and puddles. Sorry begins to fall a little behind, but I don’t dare slow down so she and Jeff can catch up.
If we do get there in time, what if my gold sense isn’t up to the task? I’ve done some amazing things with it, for sure and certain. I found a lost boy in the middle of the night on the wide-open prairie. I collapsed my uncle’s mine. Of course, that mine was only a stone’s throw away, and my gold sense was aided by a liberal application of gunpowder. By the time I reach the fort, the Argos will be halfway to the setting sun.
I just don’t know if my second sight, or whatever it is, will be enough.
The white walls of the Presidio rise before us. The flagpoles fly the banners of California and the United States.
“Whoa,” I say, pulling back on the reins. Peony slows, and I dismount. Her coat is damp now. She’ll need a good rubdown as soon as I get a chance.
The flags snap in the wind, which is changing direction to favor the Argos.