Read Online The Gold Seekers by William Stuart Long - Free Book Online

California.
    Australia—Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, was surely more likely to be his destination. He had talked often of Sydney and the prospects of finding gold in the colony, she remembered, although at the time she had paid little heed to what he had said to her.
    Old Jemmy Kemp poked his grizzled head through the open hatchway and, seeing Mercy, gave her a friendly wave.
    “That brother o’ yours ain’t back yet?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “Not yet, Mr. Kemp.”
    Luke spent his days in the seemingly profitless search; no one in the town had been able to offer him a single clue, and lately, under her prompting, he had begun to make inquiries on the waterfront, frequenting the seamen’s bars and boarding ships that had not been entirely deserted, in the hope that if their quarry had left San Francisco, he had. sought to take passage in a Pacific-bound vessel.
    Mercy glanced up at the darkening sky, only half hearing what Jemmy Kemp was saying to her concerning the evening meal. The old ship’s cook fed his lodgers very well, and there were half a dozen others, apart from her and Luke. But few stayed on board the Nancy Bray for long; they obtained their grubstakes, purchased their supplies, and set off for the fields, succeeded by new arrivals, whose sojourns were equally brief. Like Luke, they spent their days in town, returning to the hulk only to sleep, and their presence had not troubled her, since, without exception, they had treated her with respect… . She shivered, remembering the attitude of the men in the Sacramento saloon when she had worked there. And … Jasper Morgan’s.
    It would be a long time before she was able to forget the manner in which Jasper Morgan had treated her.
    “Beef stew an’ taters,“Jemmy Kemp concluded, with pardonable pride. “Some farmers drove in a herd o’ steers—on the skinny side, they was, but still it’s good red meat, ain’t it? See the boy don’t miss it.” His head vanished.
    “Luke’ll be here soon,” Mercy called after him. She crossed the deck, the worn, ill-fitting boards creaking even under her light weight, and halted at the head of the rickety gangplank that linked the Nancy Bray to the foreshore. Luke usually returned before nightfall, fearing to leave her alone, but already there were lights shining through the misty haze that shrouded the town, and she could see no sign of him. He was a strange young man, she thought indulgently; shy where women were concerned, to the point of embarrassment in their presence. And although their careful husbanding of their resources required them to share their sleeping accommodation, Luke never so much as touched her when they were alone together. True, he would take her arm when
    they went walking in the town, but this was rather in order to protect her, she knew, than any sort of gesture of affection or intimacy.
    He was eighteen—a year her senior—but in many respects, and certainly in experience, he was an innocent child, whereas she herself … Mercy was conscious of an ache in her throat. Thanks to the cholera that had deprived her of the love and support of her parents, she herself had undergone a swift and painful transition into womanhood. And there could be no going back. She was what a cruel fate had made of her—what Jasper Morgan had made of her, with his glib tongue and the promises he had given but had not kept.
    “On my word as a gentleman,” he had said, “you will be safe with me.” And she, in her foolish innocence, had trusted him, until disillusion had come with the first of many brutal beatings and demands that— The sound of running feet distracted her from her thoughts, and she peered into the gathering darkness, relief flooding over her as she recognized Luke.
    He came splashing through the mud toward her, waving excitedly as he reached the foot of the gangplank and saw her standing there.
    “You’re so late,” she began anxiously. “And I was worried, Luke.