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.
“And where will I find the Custom House?” Becky persists.
“A block up the street, at Portsmouth Square,” Melanchthon says, pointing. “Follow the sound of hammers. The city burned near to the ground on Christmas Eve.”
“That was barely two months ago!” I say. No wonder there’s soot on the hull.
“That why they’re in such a hurry to rebuild.”
We were headed toward Portsmouth Square anyway, since the best hotels are found there. We thank Melancthon for his help and wish him well, then make our way back to Hampton and the wagon.
“Was the good news good enough, or was the bad news worse?” he asks, giving Peony a pat on her nose.
“Not sure yet,” I say.
“Our next stop is the Custom House,” Becky adds. “We have to clear some things up.”
Jefferson says, “Hampton, if you want to go check the post office, I’ll lead the horses and the wagon. Meet up at Portsmouth Square?”
Hampton brightens. “I’d be obliged.”
As he hands the reins over and takes off, Becky says, “Don’t you worry, Lee. We still have plenty of time to get this straightened out and shop for the wedding.”
I look to Jefferson for rescue, but he is wholly focused on tying up the horses to the back of the wagon. “Please, let’s not hurry,” I say. “All I need is Jefferson at my side, and my friends there to witness.”
She waves this off with a flutter of her hand. “Yours is going to be the first wedding in Glory, California. Ever. Not only will it set a precedent for a proper wedding to everyone that follows, but it’ll become part of the town’s history, and that will make it part of the history of the new state. Your betrothal was a bit . . . unconventional.” That’s a kind way to put it—I was the one who did the proposing, during the Christmas ball in Sacramento. “I wish I could have been there to guide you. But as your friend and bridesmaid, I have a responsibility to make sure everything else is done properly.”
I definitely consider Becky my friend. But she used to be my employer, and I will always remember the Mrs. Joyner who, on the wagon-train journey, served her husband’s every meal on a fancy table set with a perfect tablecloth and fine, fragile china. I sigh. “Yes, ma’am.”
It’s a short walk to Portsmouth Square, just as Melancthon promised. The Custom House is a long, low adobe building stretching the full length of the square. An American flag whips from a high pole out front—thirteen red and white stripes, and thirty stars in a block of five by six. They’ll have to figure out how to add another star once California officially becomes a state.
Along a wide veranda are three evenly spaced doors. The nearest is marked OWEN AND SON, BANKERS, the door in the middle has a sign for law offices with a much longer list of names, and the entrance at the far end is the Custom House. Jefferson offers to watch the wagon, and Becky and I line up behind a dozen others waiting to get inside.
The orderly, colorful crowd represents every corner of the globe—Peruvians and Chinese and a whole family of Kanakas from the Hawaiian Islands. It makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself, something that involves the whole world.
The door opens onto a room with a long counter made from ship planking. Facing us from the other side is a small line of white men in starched shirts and perfectly barbered hair. Becky and I listen as, one after another, the people ahead of us receive answers to their problems.
The men in starched shirts are very sorry.
It isn’t their fault.
The claimant will have to take it up with the original ship owner.