Gangway! Read Free

me?"
        "I want you should get back away from that wagon."
        "I just wanted to look," Gabe said reasonably. "There's no harm in looking."
        "You want to look at that gold," the big guy said, "you can visit it at the Mint."
        Gabe looked at the wagon and back up at the big guy. "Thanks," he said. "Maybe I will."
        The big guy lowered the muzzle of his rifle an inch. Gabe backed off and made a half turn, back toward the ticket window. That brought the stern of the riverboat into view, past the side of the wharf. The stern was riding slowly up and down. Gabe fixed his eyes on it, mesmerized.
        He just didn't like the motion of that boat. Three gangplanks connected it with the pier; passengers and freight were going steadily aboard and the boat was moving softly up and down, up and down, up and down. Not even in a regular motion like the click-click-click of the train wheels, but in a sickening rolling manner that first attracted Gabe's eye, then his mind, and then his stomach…
        Oh, no.
        He wheeled around and locked his eyes on the first stationary object: a sign next to the ticket window, which said:
        
         Fares:
        Pittsburg - $2
        Port Chicago - $4
        Richmond - $9
        San Francisco - $16.50
        
        Sure, he thought.
        The clerk at the window leered at him. "Four minutes, friend."
        They had a language of their own out here, and Gabe was beginning to learn the vocabulary. When a guy called you friend, it was like when a tiger showed you his teeth. It didn't pay to assume he was smiling.
        Over on the wharf the gold wagon was empty and the muleskinner was bellowing a rich stream of oaths at his animals. The wagon curled away. Four characters in overalls came out of a shed and took the reins of the big guys' horses. All the big guys were dismounted now, half of them up on the forward deck and the other half stomping toward the gangplank.
        So the guards were traveling with the gold, not with the wagon. They were all clustering around the pile of gold boxes on deck now and keeping the passengers away.
        Passengers. Gabe looked off to his right, and it seemed as though just about everybody who'd been on the train was already on the boat. If he didn't hustle himself, he'd get left behind and not make it to San Francisco. And if there was one thing worse than being on that riverboat it was not being on it, if the alternative was life in this place. What did that fat fellow say it was? Sacramento.
        Plus there was Twill, and that associate of Twill's waiting for Gabe to show up in San Francisco. It would be a very very poor idea to disappoint him.
        Also, there was that gold. For some reason Gabe liked the idea of traveling with a wagonload of gold for companionship. It made a voyage by boat almost worthwhile.
        Almost. Taking a step closer to the ticket window, Gabe gave the sign beside it an affronted look. To hear that sign talk, you'd think California was nothing but major metropolises. Pittsburg, Port Chicago, Richmond indeed. The truth was that these gully-jumpers wouldn't know a city if it fell on them.
        The ticket clerk said, "You goin' someplace, or you just practicin' your lip-readin'?"
        Gabe lifted one eyebrow in a big-city stare. "You in a hurry?"
        "No, I'm not, but you ought to be. The boat's about to leave."
        Gabe looked over at the boat, and damn if they weren't starting to pull the gangplanks in. "Yeah," he said. "I'm going to San Francisco."
        "You are if you run for it." The clerk slapped a ticket down on the counter. "That'll be sixteen and four bits."
        "Ah. Well, I…"
        Gabe hadn't known about this extra expense at the end of the line and wasn't sure exactly how much cash he still had. He'd left New York in something of a hurry and hadn't been able to scrounge together too much of a road stake. Did