Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy #3)(10)

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.