I say, “She’s working with that group of children who bumped into us. I bet she walks down the street and identifies the targets—”
“Marks,” says Becky. “Mr. Joyner always called them marks. Gullible gamblers. Different situation, same principle.”
“So she walks down the street and identifies the marks—”
“Probably while the two of you were staring all googly-eyed at one another,” Becky interrupts again. She’s clutching her purse tight in both hands, knuckles white as she comes to grips with the fact that she nearly got robbed.
“And then she sends the little urchins out to play in the street and pick pockets. They bump into her coming back the other direction, but it’s really a handoff. That way, if anyone catches the children, they don’t have any evidence.”
“Anything incriminating,” suggests Becky, who never heard a fancy word she didn’t want to flaunt. “There was a pack of orphan children back in Chattanooga that functioned much the same.”
Maybe that’s what my life would have been like if my uncle Hiram had murdered Mama and Daddy and left me an orphan when I was five instead of when I was fifteen.
“She almost got away with it,” Jefferson says.
“Well, she didn’t,” Hampton says, climbing back onto the wagon bench. “Let’s get on with it. I want to check the post office when we’re done, see if there’s any word of my Adelaide.”
Hampton started out his journey on the California Trail as a slave. When his master died, he followed the wagon train west, secretly aided by the Illinois college men. Once we got to California and found gold, he bought his own freedom, with Tom’s help.
“What ship are we looking for?” Jefferson asks.
“It’s supposed to be right here at Washington Pier,” Becky says. “It’s called the Charlotte.”
“Then let’s have a look around.”
Chapter Three
Calling it Washington Pier is being optimistic. A long, muddy street winds down the marshy hill until it meets the bay. Toward the end, where the mud gets so bad it’s almost impossible to walk, a boardwalk begins, jutting well into the water. To either side of the boardwalk are abandoned ships run hard aground. People dump wheelbarrows of dirt into the soupy muck, turning it into land and trapping the ships right where they sit. On our right, a crew swarms over one of the hulks, stripping the wood like a pack of termites devouring a pine shack. On our left, a lonely twin seems to await a similar fate.
At the end of the dock, men swing precariously over the water, hammering boards into an empty framework. An anchored ship waits to tie alongside, just as soon as the dock is ready. A foreman hollers at us to step aside as a group of workmen rumble past, carrying a huge log smeared with pitch on their shoulders—another pile to drive into the water and extend the dock even farther. The whole structure sways precariously from side to side as they go.
“I think I’d rather stay here,” Hampton says, eyeing the dock with distrust.
“Sure,” I reply.
“I’m not sure those fellows know a single lick about building piers.”
The workmen drop the new pile, and the dock shakes so hard one of the boards pops loose and falls into the water. “We need someone to watch that wagon and the horses anyway,” I assure him.
Jefferson and Becky and I step onto the rickety dock, which feels more solid under my feet than I expect. I can’t help gawking at the ships as we go. Jefferson, never one for shyness, cups his hands to his mouth. “The Charlotte!” he hollers. “We’re looking for the Charlotte!”
Sailors shake their heads. One rakish fellow leans over the side of his ship and shouts in an Australian accent. “Oi! If you find Charlotte, tell her I’m looking for her, too!”
“Rude humor is a mark of low character,” Becky shouts back.
“Of course I’ve got low character,” the sailor responds. “I come from down under!”
His crewmates laugh. Jefferson looks to me as if to share a grin, but I shake my head. Becky Joyner is on a mission, and this is no time to cross her.
The sailor wisely returns to work. We pass another ship and reach the end of the dock. Still no Charlotte.
“Maybe this is the wrong place,” Jefferson says.
“I’m sure this is it,” Becky says. “I reread the letter and checked the directions with people at the mission before we came down to the waterfront.”
If Becky says she’s sure, she’s sure. “Maybe they left already?”
“I made inquiries,” Becky says. “The Charlotte was expected to remain in port.”
Her knowledge doesn’t surprise me one bit. Thanks to her restaurant regulars, Becky now has more connections and better information than anyone I know.
“We must have missed it,” I say. “We just need to head back and start over.”
We return to Hampton and the wagon. “Things got mighty precarious,” Jefferson tells him solemnly. “But the dock didn’t fall into the bay.”
“But you didn’t find anything either, so I was better off waiting here, wasn’t I?” Hampton says.
“I think this is the ship right here,” Becky says.
“What?”
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?”