The Golden Gate, page 25
George sat where he was bidden. “The Corinthian was scheduled to depart New Bedford five days ago, bound via the Azores and Cape Horn for the Pacific. She remains here owing to the failure to appear of a certain harpooneer.”
The brown-skinned man raised his brows and smiled. “I assure you sir, I am not your missing harpooneer. I arrived in Boston from Liverpool aboard the America only yesterday.”
George shook his head and smiled. “I did not take you for that liar, sir. I am here to meet a replacement harpooneer who has already completed negotiations, through the keeper of this establishment, with the Corinthian’s first mate.” George’s smile drifted into a frown. “My task is to conduct him back to the Corinthian with all deliberate speed.”
“I have some experience of Marquesans. You may find him disinclined to deliberate speed, particularly when commanded.”
George shook his head again. “I hope not. The mate says that if Coalbeard is lost so is my share.”
In that moment another man entered the public room from the street. He did also wear a seaman’s monkey jacket, although so broad were his shoulders and so massive his arms that the jacket’s sleeves had been cut away.
But his biceps, although round and hard as coconuts, were not the features that caused all eyes in the public room to fasten upon him.
He stood easily a full six feet in height, his skin gleamed as dark as anthracite coal, and swirls and circlets blacker than his skin made a pattern on his cheeks and chin where a white man’s beard would be. In one outsized fist he clutched the iron shaft of a harpoon’s business end.
The Englishman said, “Mr. Weeks, I believe you have found the man you seek.”
George stood and raised his palm. The fierce black giant nodded, strode to George and thumped his great chest with a fist. “Man Well CoalBeard.” He pointed a thick index finger in the direction of the waterfront. “Corrint—ian?”
George stood and pointed at the harpoon. “Temple iron?”
To a whaleman, the shop of the free negro blacksmith Lewis Temple, where Temple crafted harpoons of his own ingenious design, was as appreciated an address on Walnut Street as the address of any inn.
The Marquesan grinned and flicked the harpoon’s tip, so that it rotated about a bolt that penetrated the harpoon shaft. Then he clenched his fist. “Whale pull. This hold whale tighter.”
The small Englishman stood and leaned to examine the harpoon as he said to George, “In England they say that when the Royal Navy sails to the ends of the Earth, it finds Americans hunting whales already there.”
Manwell Coalbeard pointed to the heavens, or more probably to the room in which he slept, which was located on the floor above the public room, then said, “Sea bag. Then go Corrint-ian. Then go kill whales.”
As the giant savage departed, George nodded to the Englishman, “When the English arrive at the gates of hell they will find a New Bedfordman lighting the porch lamps. But he may be a cannibal like that fellow, rather than an American. The streets of New Bedford are awash in black foreigners in the way that a whaler’s decks are slick with oil when her pots are lit. Is that what brings you here? To seek a berth aboard a whaler?”
The Englishman who did not look like an Englishman shook his head. “They say that today New Bedford is the richest city in the world. I have come up from Boston to see it for myself. Then I am bound from here south to New York. And from there aboard the steamer Prometheus for San Francisco, thirteen days from now.”
The Englishman sat, and returned to his paper.
The door from Walnut Street opened again, and two full-bearded white men entered. Neither wore a seaman’s monkey jacket or pea coat, but rather both wore broad-brimmed hats and long, loose coats the color of sailcloth that reached below their knees.
The pair took seats in the corner opposite George and the Englishman and conversed in low tones.
When Coalbeard appeared again in the public room, his sea bag under his left arm and his new harpoon in his right hand, one of the men stood and walked toward the bar.
As Manwell stepped forward and allowed the bearded man to pass behind him, the man drew an object from beneath his coat, drew back his arm, and struck Manwell behind the Marquesan’s left ear. The blow caused Manwell to stagger and to drop his sea bag to the floor.
The bearded fellow seemed shocked that Manwell remained upright. He fell upon Manwell from behind, the arm in which the man held his truncheon now barred across Manwell’s throat. With his other hand, Manwell’s attacker clutched the hand in which Manwell gripped his harpoon.
As Manwell bent and spun, the man was lifted off his feet and his legs dangled behind Manwell as if the large man were no more than a small dog.
In those moments the other long-coated man ran forward, drawing from beneath his own coat a revolver, a Colt Franklin five-shooter, long and dull, oiled gray. “Hold up there, nigger!”
The other man cried out, “For God’s sake don’t shoot me!”
When Manwell saw the pistol aimed at him, and heard the man cock back its hammer, the powerful black man ceased his struggles, and his harpoon clanged to the public room’s plank floor.
While the man with the pistol held it pointed at Manwell’s face, his partner withdrew from his coat a pair of iron cuffs, with which he secured Manwell’s hands at the small of his back.
The man with the pistol kept it pointed at Manwell while he turned his head and shouted to the silent, stunned room. “This negro is a fugitive slave. Pursuant to federal law he will be returned to his rightful owner. Stand clear!” The man waved his pistol and, in response, feet shuffled as bystanders made way. “Stand clear!”
“Hold where you stand, slave hunters! Or I shall fill your bellies!” The innkeeper, a small and thin old man whose bald head was wreathed with a monk’s halo of bristling white hair, shuffled forward out of the bar’s dark shadow. In each hand he held a pepperbox pistol, their multiple barrels open toward the two men like steel honeycombs.
The man who had handcuffed Coalbeard stepped away from him and the man with the pistol lowered it.
The innkeeper said, “My son has gone to fetch the marshal. This man is no runaway slave. We shall see about this.”
The man who held the Colt nodded. “We know the law, old man. It is you abolitionists who will see.”
* * *
When Russell, the Deputy U.S. Marshal arrived, the first thing he did was to remove the firearms of all concerned and place them on the bar. Then he turned to the man who had held the pistol. “It is your sworn testimony that this man is a fugitive slave?”
“It is. He escaped his owner in Cumberland County, Tennessee, two months ago. I recognize him.”
George stepped forward and touched the marshal’s elbow. “That is a lie! I say there is no slave in Tennessee—there is no slave in this union—who possesses such a facial aspect as this man! Mr. Russell, you know as well as I that on any street in this town at any hour of the day you may encounter men of dark skin of the south seas and of Africa. And none are or were ever slaves!”
The marshal turned to the innkeeper. “Josiah, just because a law is new, it is no less the law. And upon my oath I have therefore been bound since last fall to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. And it says that on sworn statement of any white man I am bound to stand aside and allow him to reclaim his property.”
“These men have not come to New Bedford to apprehend runaways. They have come to kidnap free men and enslave them.” Josiah the innkeeper went to Manwell and took hold of the man’s great arm. “Mr. Russell, it is plain that this man has been chosen and kidnapped simply because he is strong of limb.”
“Josiah, you summoned me to enforce the law. Now you would have me do otherwise because neither you nor I find the law to our liking.”
“Very well. When he is brought before a magistrate this wrong will be righted.”
The marshal said, “He will not be brought before a magistrate. He has no right to speak in his own defense. No black denounced as a runaway has that right.”
The innkeeper barked a bitter laugh. “Well, at least there’s no harm in that!” The innkeeper spat on his own floor. “This man could not speak in his own defense if he were allowed to. He is so foreign to this land that he could not pronounce Cumberland County, Tennessee, much less deny that he has run away from it.”
And so the two slave hunters were allowed to haul their bewildered prize away.
Afterward, the marshal said to the innkeeper, “You know I believe as you do, that slavery is a sin before almighty God.”
The Englishman, who had hovered in the corner watching the play unfold, said, “Then what are men of good conscience to do?”
When the marshal turned and looked upon the Englishman, he stared. Then he said, “I do not know you, sir. But in good conscience I warn you that a negro of your light aspect and erudite manner is prized by slaveowners as a house negro. Equally as is that brawny harpooneer. I expect that this Fugitive Slave Act will attract to New Bedford more like those two, in the way that blood in the water attracts the shark. I do not wish to be the unwilling party to further sin. I counsel you to leave New Bedford immediately.”
After the marshal left, George bent and picked up Manwell Coalbeard’s harpoon and sighed. “I was charged to return with a harpooneer, not a harpoon.”
George, Josiah the innkeeper, and the Englishman peered out through the window into the street. In the fading light, they saw the two slavehunters advancing toward the inn’s front door again.
Josiah took George and the Englishman by their arms and hurried them back through the bar and to the inn’s rear door. The innkeeper took the harpoon from George, handed it to the Englishman, and said, “Mr. Weeks, as a man of good conscience, I have a suggestion that may solve a problem for each of you.”
* * *
Watson, the Corinthian’s first mate, stood blocking the way to the whaler’s gangway with his arms folded across chest. He looked the Englishman up and down as he said, “Mr. Weeks, Manwell Coalbeard, the harpooneer who you were sent to fetch, is a Marquesan. This man appears as much white as negro. And he certainly does not appear strong enough to stab out a whale’s heart.”
The Englishman raised the harpoon. “If I am not Manwell Coalbeard, why do I possess this? I assure you, sir, one true-aimed harpoon is worth three hurled forcefully to the wrong target.”
The man who had become Manwell Coalbeard, and who now stood on the brink of a voyage to California much more roundabout and less pleasant than aboard a steamer out of New York, said, “And Mr. Watson, I put it to you, in America, what white man in his right mind would impersonate a negro?”
George glanced up at the Corinthian’s afterdeck, where her master paced. “Mr. Watson, we can still make the tide. The captain will be displeased if we are delayed further.”
The first mate sighed, then stood aside and welcomed aboard George, and then also the Corinthian’s new harpooneer.
THIRTY-NINE
Shepard turned to Kate in the dark, narrow cross aisle on the Aquatic Park Bathhouse’s lower level and sighed. He peered at the rusty harpoon in his hand and said, “This thing tells us nothing about Manuel Colibri that we didn’t already know. And it certainly doesn’t change the disposition of his estate. Nothing in this collection of his has taught us anything, so far.”
“Then put it down. Let the ranger repack it. We’ll go back to your place. After you massage the circulation back into my extremities I’ll teach you plenty.” Kate led Ben by one hand from the dark toward the main aisle’s light.
In the main aisle, a white server’s jacket flashed in front of the cross aisle’s narrow opening, its wearer carrying an object. The draft from the main aisle carried to Kate the sound of a sharp metallic clang and the pungent odor of something that wasn’t hors d’oeuvres.
Ben jerked her back from the door by her wrist so hard that she rolled an ankle.
“Ow! Shepard! What the—?”
Ben pressed her back flat against the wall of crates as he clamped his big hand over her nose and mouth so hard that she couldn’t breathe.
“’Oppit!”
Ben hissed in her ear, “AK-47. Gun oil.”
Kate stiffened as adrenaline shot through her like an electric shock.
Ben whispered, “You hear it and you smell it enough you never forget it.”
From the hallway Kate heard women scream, then heard running feet.
Ben stared hard into Kate’s eyes as he slid his hand away from her mouth and maneuvered his body past her. “Stay in here in the dark. Call 9-1-1.”
“I—”
He stabbed a finger into her cleavage. “Do it.”
As Ben turned to the main aisle she grabbed his sleeve with both hands, leaned her weight back, and whispered. “You idiot! Some lunatic out there’s got a machine gun.”
In the distance Kate heard the first rattle of gunfire.
“Yeah. Well, I’ve got a harpoon.” Ben tore his arm free, shoved her back into the cross aisle so hard that she lost a shoe, dropped her clutch bag, then he was gone.
The damn flashlight was gone, probably with Shepard. She knelt and felt along the floor for her bag, couldn’t find it, and so not her phone either.
She realized that not only was Ben out there but so was her father.
Gunfire crackled again, followed by the sound, first of glass shattering, then of screaming.
Kate kicked off her other shoe, then tiptoed barefoot on the freezing concrete and peeked out into the main aisle. It was empty in both directions, except for three female servers who huddled alongside the catering truck outside, weeping but apparently unhurt.
“I said this party was stupid.” Kate ran, limping and barefoot, up the outside stairs toward the gunfire.
* * *
When Kate emerged back into the main party room, people cowered everywhere, behind museum exhibits and overturned auction tables. A bayside window’s frame held only knife-edged triangles of shattered glass.
In the room’s center stood a man with curly brown hair, wearing jeans and a white server’s waistcoat. He had his back turned to Kate and his head was bent over a black rifle with a wooden stock that he held in one hand.
With his other hand the man slammed a curved black ammunition magazine against an opening in the gun, forward of its pistol grip handle. Twenty feet in front of the man a woman wearing a red dress lay on the floor, her body sheltered behind a kneeling man wearing a tuxedo. “Dad! Shit.”
The gunman seated his magazine, then raised his weapon to his shoulder and aimed at Kate’s father and at Julia Madison, behind him.
Kate stood alongside the table where the wine glass that she had set down earlier still stood. A bald older man, who knelt behind the table with a gray-haired woman, grabbed Kate’s ankle and whispered. “Get down!”
In that instant Kate realized that Shepard stood twenty feet behind the gunman and fifteen feet to her right.
“Hey!” Shepard shouted at the gunman, then hurled the harpoon at the man’s back. The iron rod spun through the air, then its blunt end struck the gunman between his shoulder blades and staggered him.
The gunman spun and swung his rifle’s muzzle toward Ben.
Kate started forward, but the bald man clung to her ankle, tripped her and dragged her behind the table. She stomped the top of his pink head with her bare sole. “Fuck off!”
Kate scrambled to her knees and peeked, eyes just above the tablecloth, past her wineglass.
In that moment three security men, pistols drawn, burst from the stairwell thirty feet to the gunman’s left rear.
Ben had made it across ten of the twenty feet that had separated him from the gunman when the man fired.
Blam-blam-blam.
Ben staggered sideways as blood sprayed from the left side of his head. A droplet landed red and warm on Kate’s forearm as she screamed.
In the same instant the three security men fired, each crouched and with two hands on his pistol. Gunfire exploded and never seemed to stop.
Their first shots struck the gunman’s torso, and his eyes seemed to widen as each successive impact struck and buffeted him.
The head shots seemed to strike all at once.
An explosion of red mist obscured the man’s face and blood splattered the room’s ceiling, thick and heavy, like somebody had shaken a laden paintbrush.
Something arced slowly through the air toward her, splashed down in her wine glass, and floated there like a lump of gray sushi.
The rifle dropped from the man’s hands, clattered to the floor amid a sudden, deafening silence broken only by scattered sobs. The man’s body crumpled, deadweight.
Ben lay on the floor facedown and motionless, the left side of his face drenched blood red. He lay six feet short of the dead man whom Ben had failed to reach in time to save himself. Screaming, Kate scrambled across the floor toward Ben on her hands and knees.
Across the room she saw her father and Julia Madison stir, wobbly but animated.
She reached Ben at the same instant that one of the security men did. He holstered his pistol as he knelt, then slid his fingers onto Ben’s throat while he peered at the left side of Ben’s head.
Another security man came and stood over them, pistol still drawn and pointing at the ceiling. As the standing man swiveled his head around the room, he asked his kneeling companion, “Whaddaya got?”
Already Kate heard sirens shriek, then die outside the building.
“Hard headed son of a bitch. It looks like one round grazed his skull and took a chunk off his ear.”
Kate tugged the kneeling security man’s jacket sleeve. “He’s alright?”
The security man looked Ben over, head to heels. “I make it two rounds unaccounted for besides the one that grazed him. But I don’t see any other blood. The medics’ll go over him nose to toes. But if this is the only hit he took, I’d say he’s just in for a hell of a headache, a night of observation, and some stitches. You his wife?”
