Gold Mountain (38 page)

“Yes, my darling. I do. It’s part of my charm and one of the reasons you love me to such distraction. But I wish you wouldn’t murder Ralph Gallagher. I admit he deserves it, but let the law track him down. Human law or God’s law, it will get him in the end.” For the first time I turned to look at Gallagher, standing with a posture of elegant indifference to Jake, who stood in front of him with a pistol pointed at the banker’s chest.

“I’m glad to see you well, Miss Hudson. You don’t look any the worse for your shocking experience.” We might as well have been exchanging pleasantries in the sumptuous front room of his Nob Hill mansion.

“For which I have you to thank, I believe.”

He almost acknowledged my words with a nod but thought better of it and said without inflection, “I really don’t understand your meaning.”

“Saving my life doesn’t balance out all the other lives you’ve ruined.” I went on relentlessly, “I’m grateful, of course, but the truth is that I wouldn’t have been at risk at all if it hadn’t been for you and your unsavory cohorts. That fact makes me resist crediting you for my survival, but fair’s fair.”

“Dinah,” Jake interjected, “what are you talking about?”

I continued to gaze at Ralph Gallagher gravely. “How did Colin O’Connor put it? ‘Someone must have talked a blue streak,’ he said, ‘because at first they wanted you to disappear completely, dead and in the Bay and no one the wiser.’ But Colin also said that my advocate moved in high circles and wouldn’t let that happen. That advocate was you, wasn’t it? So I suppose I should thank you, only I can’t. I just can’t.”

Ralph Gallagher remained silent, and I continued to study him soberly, finally concluding, “You are a wicked man who preys on children for selfish gain, and I will do everything in my power to see you held accountable for your actions, but I won’t let Jake kill you today. Not today. Now we’re even.” As an afterthought, I added, “And by the way, I plan to give Jake Pandora much more than the time of day.”

I stepped toward Jake and took the gun from his hand, which he allowed me to do without resistance. I placed the weapon on a stack of boxes behind him and went to stand very close in front of Jake, my back pressed against his chest. Almost with a will of its own, Jake’s good arm went around my waist and pulled me even closer. I felt him inhale deeply, breathing me in—not like I was some fragrant elixir but more like I was his oxygen, his life-giving air. We simply stood there, two people so close we might have been mistaken for one figure.

In a very low voice, Jake asked, “Are you sure about this, Dinah? Do we owe this man something?”

“His life for mine, Jake, but just this once.”

All this time Ralph Gallagher had stood immobile, but with those words, he picked at the edge of his suit coat and rearranged its folds, then straightened his hat. What an inconvenience all this has been, his actions telegraphed, but only an inconvenience. Inconsequential. Trivial. A bother and nothing more.

“I imagine the chief of police would find your threatening my life to be of interest, Pandora, but for your sake, Miss Hudson, I won’t mention this experience to anyone.”

“Just our secret?” I asked and at his nod added, “Agreed. Martin will continue with his job like this never happened, and Jake will run his business without interference. My sister and your wife will sit on the same charities and no one will hear—at least from us—what a scoundrel you are. But I can’t help but wonder, Ralph, if you ever think about what you could have been and what you could have had and if you ever wish you were more than the pathetic man you are.”

He shrugged in answer and walked past me as I stood held tightly and very willingly by Jake’s strong arm. Yet a part of me felt, perhaps shamefully, a grateful warmth to that cold man now departing. I lived and I was loved and for whatever reason, he had played a role in that. When I said Gallagher’s name, he halted with one foot over the threshold, but he did not look back at Jake and me; he just stood there.

“I said you can’t make up for all the damage you’ve done, for young girls scarred and young lives ruined, and I meant that, but it doesn’t mean you couldn’t try. You could see what it’s like to be generous without expecting something in return. You could surprise someone with a totally selfless and unexpected act. You could change a life for the better. God’s given you the power and the means to make a difference. How can you squander that opportunity?”

For just a moment, I saw his shoulders tighten. From the gesture, I might have thrust a dart into the small of his back, but then he stepped through the doorway and out of view without speaking or turning around.

“There’s a cabbie waiting at the foot of the alley for you,” I called before I heard the front door of the office open and then close. I never saw Ralph Gallagher or spoke to him again, and I have no reason to believe that my words had any effect on him at all.

At that moment, however, Ralph Gallagher was the farthest thing from my mind. I turned in Jake’s embrace so that my face was very close to his. “You are such a blockhead,” I said.

“Why? Because I wanted to kill a man who abused you?” The husky tenderness I heard in Jake’s voice sent a small shiver down my back. What I heard there was promise enough for a lifetime.

“Well, perhaps that wasn’t the wisest idea you’ve ever had, but no. Not that.”

“What then?” He had lowered his mouth to my face so that when he spoke I could feel his breath against my skin.

“Because you said you refused to ask a woman like me to settle for a man like you. What does that mean, anyway? And who made it all your business? I have a say in my own future, you know.”

“Do you?” he whispered, so close by then that only a breath separated our lips.

“Yes, I do. I—” My words were cut short at exactly that syllable and as far as I could tell, neither of us regretted the interruption.

Much later, I decided I hadn’t been quite accurate in my prediction but that the miscalculation wasn’t entirely my fault. From his words and actions that afternoon in the back room of the Pandora Transport Company, I was certain that Jake Pandora wanted me. Passionately. And I can honestly say that I have never had cause to doubt that certainty since. My mistake—made from ignorance and a perfectly understandable error under the circumstances—was expecting the word
glorious
to describe what it would be like to be loved by Jake Pandora because that experience held—and continues to offer—so much more than any one word could ever convey, even for a woman fluent in two languages. Not glorious and not perfect, but something better. Freedom and faithfulness and friendship and still more than that. When I discover the right word, I’ll recognize it. But I haven’t found it yet.

Epilogue

I
can hardly believe it’s true and, of course, I’m happy about it, but in an unforeseen way, the scar that gracefully curved down my husband’s face did nothing to detract from his attractiveness. I would have loved him no matter how the wound healed and fully expected the result of his injury to mar his physical appearance. All it did, however, after healing quickly was give him the look of a dashing and dangerous pirate. He has my quick action at the time to thank for so smooth a scar, of course, and I am not shy about reminding him of that, but Jake is not usually suitably grateful, countering that he wouldn’t have been injured at all were it not for me. A stalemate, I suppose, when it comes to that particular topic. Women still watch him covertly imagining heaven only knows what. Well, that’s not exactly true. I knew what they were imagining because I married Jake Pandora, pirate extraordinaire, and enjoy the benefit of imagination become reality. Poor women. Nothing imagined, no matter how fanciful, could ever match the real thing.

Several things interrupted our wedding plans. In September, President McKinley was assassinated and the entire nation went into mourning. Walking down the aisle with a black armband woven into the ivory lace of my wedding gown would not do. I told Jake we would need to wait a little while, at least until the shock to the nation wore off, and was entertained by the expression on his face as he digested the fact that the wedding would be postponed. He is not a patient man.

Then my nephew was born and I couldn’t leave Ruth to cope on her own. That’s why I was in San Francisco in the first place, after all, and despite her protests and Jake’s exaggerated sighs of longsuffering, I suggested we wait until Father could make the trip to California to meet both his new grandchild and his new son-in-law.

“I could abduct you,” Jake said conversationally, seated before the fire in the Shandlings’ front parlor. Ruth, Martin, and baby Teddy—my sister is a great fan of the new president—were all upstairs preparing for bed because Teddy had not yet mastered sleeping through the night and entertained us at odd and very early hours. I was half asleep myself, yawning unattractively and nestled comfortably against Jake’s chest.

“I’ve already been abducted, thank you, or have you forgotten?” His arm, healed and strong, tightened around me.

“Forgotten what it felt like when that woman showed up in my doorway to tell me you were behind bars on Morton Street? Not hardly.”

“Bea. Her name was Bea.” I turned in his arms to ask, “You paid her something, didn’t you, and you didn’t skimp? I told her you’d be generous.”

“Yes, love, I paid her. Not nearly enough for what she gave me, though.”

“We should try to find her, Jake. Maybe we could help her.”

“I did try, but I wasn’t able to trace her. She seems to have disappeared.”

I kissed him lightly. “What a good man you are!”

“That’s an improvement.”

“Over what?”

“Over being immodest and shameless. I distinctly recall you telling me I was the most shameless man you’d ever met.”

“You were. You are. For which I am eternally grateful because I don’t think I could love a man who was consistently and everlastingly correct.”

“Do you, Dinah?” I had attempted a mild joke, but his words held no humor.

“Do I what?”

“Love me. I don’t know why you would.”

I had already learned that Jake Pandora was not a man given to a great deal of introspection and the slightly bemused tone of his voice made me push away from him to question, “Are you asking me to enumerate your virtues?”

The idea caused him to laugh low in his throat in the way that I had discovered caused an interesting physical reaction on my part. Before Jake, I had had no idea that a man’s laugh could affect parts of one’s body in such a delectable way.

“That would take a full ten seconds of your time at most. I’m not a virtuous man, Dinah, that’s the problem. I got my education on the docks and some of my education would not be fit for your ears. I’m not all that different from the Ralph Gallaghers of the world, and I’m afraid that someday you’ll realize that and want nothing to do with me.”

“I can’t stand it when you get humble. Thank goodness it happens so infrequently. You are nothing like Ralph Gallagher. Nothing at all.” I felt very tender toward Jake at that moment and wanted to say all the right things but was caught off guard by another yawn. “I’m sorry, dearest. I’d recite Browning and explain all the reasons I love you, but I’m exhausted. As you probably know, Teddy—like babies everywhere—keeps to a schedule of his own, and there’s no arguing with him.”

“I don’t know, and I’d like to discover about babies the natural way, with my wife participating,” Jake muttered.

This time I laughed and leaned to whisper something into his ear that made him take a quick breath, turn toward me, and push me back onto the sofa cushion. “I’m not a patient man, Dinah, and you would be wise not to tease me.”

“I’m not teasing, “ I retorted, made slightly breathless by his proximity. Really, I didn’t think I would ever get used to the effect Jake Pandora had on my mind and body. “I mean it. Let’s go to the justice of the peace tomorrow and get married.”

“But your father—”

“—will understand, and he can respeak the ceremony when he gets here if it would make him or you feel better. I’m no more happy with the situation than you are, Jake. Life is so short, and every night we spend apart seems a terrible waste. Let’s get married tomorrow. Don’t we need a license or something?”

“I’ve had a license—and a ring—for weeks.” Jake pulled away from me. Despite the crackling fire, I was cold without his touch and suspected it would always be so. “Are you sure, Dinah?”

I gave one final yawn before struggling to my feet. “Yes, love. As sure as you are. Now go home. I promise that tomorrow night I will not send you away, but tonight I simply have to go to bed.”

Jake rose, too, and reached for me one last time, saying into my ear before he kissed me good night, “Oh, you’ll go to bed tomorrow night, too, my darling, but it won’t be the same.” And he was right about that. It wasn’t.

I suppose what I’ve had with Jake Pandora these past years is a happy ending of sorts, though it doesn’t feel like an ending. With Jake, with his energy and ambition and passion, every day since that afternoon at the justice of the peace has seemed like a beginning.

It hasn’t always been happy, either, but that’s not for Jake’s lack of trying. Sometimes I lie awake in my husband’s arms and remember Mae Tao, a plump and bossy little girl now all grown up—or more likely dead. I never found her, and I grieve for her loss. Some of the blame for her disappearance must be laid at my feet, but I’ve learned from Jake how to separate responsibility from guilt. I know in my heart of hearts that I didn’t do all I could for her, and I wish I had acted differently, but I can’t change the past, only learn from it. I lost track of my young friend, Johanna Swan, too. Time and children got in the way of all my good intentions, but I still wish her happy. She had so much grief in her young years I can only pray she found joy, as well.