pans, and rockers—all shakin’ for pay dirt. This coon gambled away more gold in three days than most pilgrims make in a lifetime. Yessir. I been on the Feather and South Fork and down to the Agua Fría, went bust on the Mariposa, struck pay dirt on Sullivan’s Creek, bought me a saloon and lost it the next week in Placerville, struck a fat vein north of Virginia City and was robbed down to my boots by my partner; took me a year before I nailed his scalp to the church door in Sutterville. Spent every haul faster’n I made it. Call it what you want: greasin’ the trail for salvation, or any damn thing. Now you take Tucker’s Bend or Hangtown or any one of them half-assed shanty towns of blue-belly pilgrims not knowin’ a pick or a shovel from a wagon wheel—all of ’em are bottomed out and gone back to where they come from. Good riddance, I say.”
He looked at Delilah. “If you dream of gold, chances are you’ll wake up and all that’s left will be the dream. And then not even that.”
She nodded, as if she knew all about dreams.
Gaslights were turned on as the dining room began to fill up with customers, all of them stunned and excited from the day’s events. On the street there was a sudden volley of shots that sounded like a firing squad. A dog barked and a lonely drunk sang a love song about a two-timing lover. Then silence.
Delilah pointed to the nugget hanging around Zebulon’s neck, the same one he had ripped off a clerk’s neck in Broken Elbow.
“Is that from California?”
“I picked it off the ground,” he replied. “Go ahead. Take it. There are plenty more where that came from.”
When he handed her the nugget, she hesitated, then gave it back.
“I prefer to gather my own,” she said.
“Delilah, for god’s sake,” the Count said. “The man gave it to you from his heart. It’s bad form not to accept such a spontaneous gift.”
“Bad luck, too,” Zebulon added.
Modestly, she bent her head, allowing him to slip the nugget around her neck.
“Then you’re headed for California?” the Count asked.
“One way or the other,” he said. “As soon as I gopher up enough chink for a passage. It ain’t that easy for a gringo to find wages down here.”
“Then you’re not a guest at the hotel?” the Count asked.
Suddenly Zebulon wanted to get shut of this Count and his strange consort, or whoever she was. He was singing for his supper and waiting for a bone to be thrown his way, but hustling dumb foreigners wasn’t a trick he favored, even though he had managed it more times than he cared to admit.
“Where on earth have you been?” asked a strident English voice behind him. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
A tall emaciated man wearing a bright red serape, yellow sombrero, and brand new polished turquoise belt buckle stumbled toward them, accompanied by a local whore who was having trouble walking on one shoe.
“Don’t you know there’s a bloody revolution on?” the man asked. “Apparently some local politician was blown up in a park. Never mind! The ship is sailing on the tide, compadres! Muy pronto!
Zebulon knew the whore; she was an experienced and obliging professional that he had spent a few nights with before he had tied in with Miranda.
“Who’s the dumb gringo, Lupita?” he asked in Spanish.
She shook her head, forcing a smile as she took off her shoe. “Muy loco hombre. Many bad habits. You don’t want to know. As a favor to me, for all that I have given to you from my heart to yours, I am asking that you kill him. Or at least get him to pay what he owes me.”
“What exactly is she saying?” the Englishman asked.
“That she can’t live without you and that if you try to leave her she’ll shoot you and then herself.”
Lupita pulled on the Englishman’s sleeve, stroked his cheek, and held out her hand until he reached into his pocket and handed her seven silver dollars. The transaction completed, she turned her tongue slowly inside Zebulon’s ear, then hobbled back to the street.
As Zebulon started for the door, the Count took him by the arm. “I have a proposal that will relieve your financial dilemma.”
Zebulon looked at Delilah, who was staring back at him, her eyes narrowing, as if she had been seized by a premonition.
“If you guide us to the gold fields,” the Count went on, “I’m prepared to pay your passage to San Francisco. First we will travel to Sutter’s Fort to meet Captain John Sutter, whose courage I have long admired. I have had discussions with his wife in Switzerland about possible business ventures—ranches, commerce, that sort of thing. Then, after our visit with Sutter, we will press on to the gold fields. I assume you’ve heard of Sutter?”
“Heard of Sutter?” Zebulon said. “Everyone’s heard of Captain John Sutter. When they found gold on his land, it bumped off the whole damn stampede.”
Delilah turned to Ivan. “Are you sure about this offer, Ivan? You know what happens when you act impulsively.”
“Absolutely, I’m sure,” the Count said, his voice rising. “We need an experienced man to help with supplies and transportation, someone who will protect us from dangers as they arise. A man like…”
“Zebulon Shook,” Zebulon heard himself say, “A su ordonez. At your service. I’ll take steady wages and a thirty-seventy split on whatever gold comes your way.”
The Count hesitated, looking at Delilah as she considered the offer, then shook her head.
“Twenty-eighty,” the Count said.
“Done,” Zebulon replied.
The Count shook his hand. “The ship is The Rhinelander. German. Well appointed. You can’t miss her: she’s a three-masted merchant with a bare-breasted woman mounted on the bow and a row of three-headed snakes around her neck. A goddess favored by mariners. Or so they say. Our Captain informed me that she represents the beautiful woman in Greek myth that calms the cruel sea.”
“Here, here,” the Englishman said. “Although with a beautiful woman, one can’t be too careful. Wouldn’t you say? In any case, we welcome you aboard, Mister Shook.”
From an adjoining room, Zebulon heard the click, click of billiard balls. Stepping around Delilah, he walked across the lobby and through the restaurant to a lounge hosting a billiard table.
He maneuvered the cue ball around the table just to prove that he still could. Then he put down the cue stick and, without a look at his new patrons, made his way out to the harbor.
The Rhinelander sailed south over turbulent seas, her hatches loaded with supplies for the California gold fields. Zebulon, confined to his cabin with seasickness, was only dimly aware when the wind suddenly shifted to the west at gale force, tearing the rudder loose with a raw screech and threatening to punch a hole in the transom. After the ship’s carpenter cut the steering lines the ship drifted for two days, finally ending up off the west coast of Florida.
When Zebulon finally appeared on the deck, the sea was a flat blue sheet without a ripple and the carpenter was fixing the rudder. Most of the passengers were grouped by the starboard rail, staring at a spit of land lined with tall undulating dunes shimmering beneath heat waves, their valleys dotted with mangrove and scrubby pine.
A voice spoke behind him: “A rotten ailment, mal de mer. Makes one loathe the sea. Much better for the world to be flat. Easier to sail off the edge and be done with it, wouldn’t you say?”
The Englishman from the hotel in Vera Cruz extended a limp hand. “Archibald Cox. I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced.”
Zebulon barely nodded, his attention fixed on