7
" There was an old woman tossed up in a basket
Seventeen times as high as the moon
Where she was going, I could not but ask it,
For in her hand she carried a broom
‘Old woman, old woman, old woman,’ quoth I,
‘Oh whither, oh whither, oh whither so high?’
‘To sweep the cobwebs from the sky,
But I’ll be with you by and by. "
― Rae Carson , Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy, #3)
8
" 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. "
― Rae Carson , Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy, #3)
9
" There’s Tom,” Becky says. He’s been tromping around the city half the day, but I don’t see a speck of mud on him. Though he dresses plain, it always seems he rolls out of bed in the morning with his hair and clothes as neat and ordered as his arguments.
We walk over to join him, and he acknowledges us with a slight, perfectly controlled nod.
He’s one of the college men, three confirmed bachelors who left Illinois College to join our wagon train west. Compared to the other two, Tom Bigler is a bit of a closed book—one of those big books with tiny print you use as a doorstop or for smashing bugs. And he’s been closing up tighter and tighter since we blew up Uncle Hiram’s gold mine, when Tom negotiated with James Henry Hardwick to get us out of that mess.
“How goes the hunt for an office?” I ask.
“Not good,” Tom says. “I found one place—only one place—and it’s a cellar halfway up the side of one those mountains.” Being from Illinois, which I gather is flat as a griddle, Tom still thinks anything taller than a tree is a mountain. “Maybe eight foot square, no windows and a dirt floor, and they want a thousand dollars a month for it.”
“Is it the cost or the lack of windows that bothers you?”
He pauses. Sighs. “Believe it or not, that’s a reasonable price. Everything else I’ve found is worse—five thousand a month for the basement of the Ward Hotel, ten thousand a month for a whole house. The land here is more valuable than anything on it, even gold. I’ve never seen so many people trying to cram themselves into such a small area.”
“So it’s the lack of windows.”
He gives me a side-eyed glance. “I came to California to make a fortune, but it appears a fortune is required just to get started. I may have to take up employment with an existing firm, like this one.” Peering at us more closely, he says, “I thought you were going to acquire the Joyner house? I mean, I’m glad to see you, but it seems things have gone poorly?”
“They’ve gone terribly,” Becky says.
“They haven’t gone at all,” I add.
“They’ll only release it to Mr. Joyner,” Becky says.
Tom’s eyebrows rise slightly. “I did mention that this could be a problem, remember?”
“Only a slight one,” I say with more hope than conviction.
“Without Mr. Joyner’s signature,” Becky explains, “they’ll sell my wedding cottage at auction. Our options are to buy back what’s ours, which I don’t want to do, or sue to recover it, which is why I’ve come to find you.”
If I didn’t know Tom so well, I might miss the slight frown turning his lips. He says, “There’s no legal standing to sue. Andrew Junior is of insufficient age, and both his and Mr. Joyner’s closest male relative would be the family patriarch back in Tennessee. You see, it’s a matter of cov—”
“Coverture!” says Becky fiercely. “I know. So what can I do?”
“There’s always robbery.”
I’m glad I’m not drinking anything, because I’m pretty sure I’d spit it over everyone in range.
“Tom!” Becky says. “Are you seriously suggesting—?”
“I’m merely outlining your full range of options. You don’t want to buy it back. You have no legal standing to sue for it. That leaves stealing it or letting it go.”
This is the Tom we’ve started to see recently. A little angry, maybe a little dangerous. I haven’t made up my mind if I like the change or not.
“I’m not letting it go,” Becky says. “Just because a bunch of men pass laws so other men who look just like them can legally steal? Doesn’t mean they should get away with it.”
We’ve been noticed; some of the men in the office are eyeing us curiously. “How would you go about stealing it back, Tom?” I ask in a low voice, partly to needle him and partly to find out what he really thinks.
He glances around, brows knitting. “I suppose I would get a bunch of men who look like me to pass some laws in my favor and then take it back through legal means.”
I laugh in spite of myself.
“You’re no help at all,” Becky says. "
― Rae Carson , Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy, #3)
10
" This is a good thing, right?” the Major says. “He’ll be out of California and out of our hair. We can go back to living our normal life.” “How can you think that?” I snap. The Major looks at me, genuinely confused. “He paid to exterminate Indians—whole tribes of them, all of their families, destroyed. Muskrat is probably dead, and it’s because of him. He ignores the rights of free men, and profits off buying and selling people’s lives. He takes advantage of the poor and people without legal protection, and gets rich by using the law to rob people of their hard-earned wages.” I point across the table at Becky and the kids. “He steals from widows and children. It’s bad enough that he does it out here, but what if he’s in charge of the whole country? Think about everyone he’ll hurt. "
― Rae Carson , Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy, #3)
11
" Jefferson and I bring up the rear, leading the wagon, which is loaded with our bags, and Peony and Sorry, who seem relieved to be let out of the stable. It’s our first private moment together since the walk back to Portsmouth Square the other day.
“I think Becky’s forgotten about the wedding dress,” I tell him. Softly, so there’s no chance of Becky overhearing.
“Not a chance,” he says.
“How can you be sure?”
“Well, this is Becky we’re talking about.”
“Good point.”
“Also, she asked Henry if he’d be willing to help me find a proper suit.”
“Really?”
“I tried to dissuade him, but without luck. He knows just the place. And he’s certain he knows just the color for me.”
“What color is that?”
“I’m pretty sure he said plum.”
“Plum?”
“Plum. Which, until that moment, I could have sworn was a fruit.”
I want to ask if any other colors were mentioned, but it’s a very short parade route and we have arrived at our destination, which is the Charlotte. "
― Rae Carson , Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy, #3)
12
" What can you tell me about this ship?”
“She’s one hundred fifteen feet in length, with a beam of twenty-eight, and a depth of sixteen—”
“I meant, more generally, what can you tell me about the ship?”
“We were a whaler, came sailing around Cape Horn, where we put in at Paita in Peru. The captain received an urgent letter from the American consulate there, enjoining him to pick up passengers and cargo at Panama and bring them to San Francisco. We sold off or unloaded all our stores right there, and converted the ship as well as we might en route to Panama. Once we got here, the captain decided to run the ship aground at high tide. . . .”
Again, not exactly what I need to know. “Maybe it would just be better to take us on a tour.”
“I can do that,” he says.
“Olive! Andrew!” calls out Becky. “Gather around. We’re going to take a tour of the ship.”
Our group, which had been wandering and inspecting independently, converges at the center of the deck. Melancthon points to the front of the ship. “That’s the foaksul . . .”
“Pardon me, the what?” asks Tom. “Could you spell that please?”
“F-O-R-E-C-A-S-T-L-E.”
“Ah,” says Tom, as if this makes perfect sense.
“Forecastle?” I ask.
“That’s what I said!” Melancthon points in the other direction. “And that’s the quarter deck, and there in the rear, that’s the poop deck.”
Olive turns to her mother. “Ma, did he just say poop deck?”
“I’m certain you misheard,” Becky says.
“It’s from la poupe, the French word for the stern of the ship,” Henry explains. “Which, in turn, is derived from the Latin word puppis.”
“La poop, la poop, la poop,” Andrew says. His mother turns scarlet.
This is all going terribly off track. “Maybe I can just tell you what I want, and you can tell me if it can be done, and, if so, how fast you can do it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Melancthon says. "
― Rae Carson , Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy, #3)
