this already?”
Monk felt a chill inside him. There was no answer he could afford to make.
“He worked up and down the coast.” He made the observation as if indeed he did know.
“Or across the oceans,” Clive answered. “Went across the Pacific to the China Seas, at least once that I heard of. Round the Horn to Britain several times, and that’s a damn long voyage. You think the Bay of Biscay’s rough, try rounding Cape Horn.” He smiled. It was a warm, charming expression, and seemed utterly natural.
“I was just thinking of it,” Monk said quickly, bringing himself back to the present and the warm room. “Trying to,” he amended. His sense of it had been violent, consuming. It made him wonder if he had ever been in a storm at sea, off the coast of Northumberland, in that part of his life that had disappeared. Perhaps such seas were the same anywhere on earth.
He went back to Gillander and the conversation with Clive.
“So he’s a man who might walk on either side of the law?”
Clive laughed abruptly, but with genuine humor. “San Francisco in the gold rush didn’t have much law, Mr. Monk. A lot of the tall stories you hear are probably just that, but they have roots in truth. At the time gold was discovered, in 1848, California was part of the Mexican territory of Alta California, although it had been occupied by the United States. The area was annexed by us at the beginning of February ’48, a matter of days after they found gold. It became a state as part of the Compromise of 1850. For a while we were literally lawless. The town of San Francisco grew from about two hundred people in ’46 to thirty-six thousand in ’52. Nobody could control that.”
Monk’s imagination stirred with efforts to visualize the settlement smaller than an English village, suddenly overwhelmed with people of all sorts: adventurers, traders, prospectors, and builders, fortune seekers, drifters, all the human flotsam of any ocean port. There would be both the making and losing of fortunes. Gold could be picked up off the shallow riverbanks, in panning the sand and shale. There would be gunfights, drunken brawls, gambling, theft, itinerant preachers, suppliers of every kind of food and equipment, quack doctors and real ones. And banks would spring up to deal with all the new money, assay officials to weigh gold, and tell the fool’s gold apart.
He could almost see it in his mind’s eye, the bright light, the huge bays and inlets with the blue water in all directions. Of course it would be lawless for a while. And that was what Gillander had been as a very young man. Monk might have done the same himself, had he been given the opportunity. Californian gold rush, instead of…what? As far as he knew, fishing off the coast of Northumberland. A beautiful coast, but a different light, different tides and currents, and certainly not a land of violence, adventure, and gold.
“What is Gillander doing here?” Monk asked.
Clive shrugged. “No idea. Probably scraping a living as he can. If that schooner is his, then he’ll have a good business with it. I started out with one ship. But I had a fortune in gold behind me by then.”
“You’re American?”
“My parents were French and British, but yes, I’m American.” Clive said it with some pride, which Monk found pleasing. A man should be proud of his heritage—not arrogant, as if it made him superior, but happy to own it and live up to the best in its promise.
Monk rose to his feet. “Thank you. I’ll find out what else I can. In some ways, the river is a small place. I’ll see what other inquiries can turn up. I’ll see Gillander himself, but if he took Owen on purpose rather than simply rescuing a man from the water, I doubt he’ll tell me.”
“Good luck,” Clive said wryly, standing also and giving Monk his hand again. “Let me know if I can be of any further help.”
—
A NOTHER TWO DAYS OF searching and questioning turned up various scraps of
Monk felt a chill inside him. There was no answer he could afford to make.
“He worked up and down the coast.” He made the observation as if indeed he did know.
“Or across the oceans,” Clive answered. “Went across the Pacific to the China Seas, at least once that I heard of. Round the Horn to Britain several times, and that’s a damn long voyage. You think the Bay of Biscay’s rough, try rounding Cape Horn.” He smiled. It was a warm, charming expression, and seemed utterly natural.
“I was just thinking of it,” Monk said quickly, bringing himself back to the present and the warm room. “Trying to,” he amended. His sense of it had been violent, consuming. It made him wonder if he had ever been in a storm at sea, off the coast of Northumberland, in that part of his life that had disappeared. Perhaps such seas were the same anywhere on earth.
He went back to Gillander and the conversation with Clive.
“So he’s a man who might walk on either side of the law?”
Clive laughed abruptly, but with genuine humor. “San Francisco in the gold rush didn’t have much law, Mr. Monk. A lot of the tall stories you hear are probably just that, but they have roots in truth. At the time gold was discovered, in 1848, California was part of the Mexican territory of Alta California, although it had been occupied by the United States. The area was annexed by us at the beginning of February ’48, a matter of days after they found gold. It became a state as part of the Compromise of 1850. For a while we were literally lawless. The town of San Francisco grew from about two hundred people in ’46 to thirty-six thousand in ’52. Nobody could control that.”
Monk’s imagination stirred with efforts to visualize the settlement smaller than an English village, suddenly overwhelmed with people of all sorts: adventurers, traders, prospectors, and builders, fortune seekers, drifters, all the human flotsam of any ocean port. There would be both the making and losing of fortunes. Gold could be picked up off the shallow riverbanks, in panning the sand and shale. There would be gunfights, drunken brawls, gambling, theft, itinerant preachers, suppliers of every kind of food and equipment, quack doctors and real ones. And banks would spring up to deal with all the new money, assay officials to weigh gold, and tell the fool’s gold apart.
He could almost see it in his mind’s eye, the bright light, the huge bays and inlets with the blue water in all directions. Of course it would be lawless for a while. And that was what Gillander had been as a very young man. Monk might have done the same himself, had he been given the opportunity. Californian gold rush, instead of…what? As far as he knew, fishing off the coast of Northumberland. A beautiful coast, but a different light, different tides and currents, and certainly not a land of violence, adventure, and gold.
“What is Gillander doing here?” Monk asked.
Clive shrugged. “No idea. Probably scraping a living as he can. If that schooner is his, then he’ll have a good business with it. I started out with one ship. But I had a fortune in gold behind me by then.”
“You’re American?”
“My parents were French and British, but yes, I’m American.” Clive said it with some pride, which Monk found pleasing. A man should be proud of his heritage—not arrogant, as if it made him superior, but happy to own it and live up to the best in its promise.
Monk rose to his feet. “Thank you. I’ll find out what else I can. In some ways, the river is a small place. I’ll see what other inquiries can turn up. I’ll see Gillander himself, but if he took Owen on purpose rather than simply rescuing a man from the water, I doubt he’ll tell me.”
“Good luck,” Clive said wryly, standing also and giving Monk his hand again. “Let me know if I can be of any further help.”
—
A NOTHER TWO DAYS OF searching and questioning turned up various scraps of
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