Chapter 4

My trip to San Francisco was interesting to me because it dispelled a few mistaken ideas. For one thing, I had not realized that the road from Sacramento to San Francisco actually ended in Oakland, an older city, and required a trip by ferry to reach San Francisco. Oh, it was possible to reach San Francisco by land, but that required a long circuitous route around the southerly arm of the Bay.

I paid the outrageous fee to take the public ferry with my horse across the Bay to San Francisco. When I got there, I found three cities: a "modern" bustling city of affluent business men, a slum representative of the worst possible places to live, and a city of SIN (note the capital letters!!!) known as the Barbary Coast.

The Barbary Coast consisted of virtually nothing but flop houses for men to rest in between visits to the gambling houses and the brothels. This section of San Francisco was originally populated by Australians who had escaped the penal colony across the Pacific Ocean. The British government didn't care as long as the people were no longer in Britain.

Why people went to the Barbary Coast to gamble was way beyond my understanding. Everybody knew that there was not an honest game of chance anywhere in the district. I will admit that a trip to the Barbary Coast was exciting to those who survived, but they rarely left the district with any of their money still in their possession. As for the brothels, they were little more than disease pits, and the women who worked there were rarely more than walking three-holers.

Naturally, with a reputation like that, I had to visit! I did leave my long-guns in the hotel and my horse in the stable. I took a $100 stack of eagles ($10 gold coins) and my hand weapons with me as I ventured into the nastier side of San Francisco. All of my pistols were loaded and capped. I had the hammers set to half-cock and ready to draw at a moment's notice. I even took my two Colts and the derringer in my shirt pocket.

I took some effort and a high fee to find a cab that would take me to the edge of the Barbary Coast district. Very sensibly, none would enter, but there was a taxi-stand a few blocks away from the district where I stood a chance of finding a cab by the time I was ready to return to my hotel. When I left the cab, there was no question about which way to walk: the noise and the bright lights pointed the way with no chance of error.

The streets were well lit at the entrance to each place of business, but it was pitch-dark between them, and the alleys were so dark that one might compare them to the back gates of Hell. Naturally, I was the target of a mugger as soon as I passed the mouth of the first dark alley. I was expecting it, so I was not surprised when a club swung at my head. That was when I was especially happy to have all of that experience as a SEAL with empty-hand combat.

I side-stepped the swing aimed at my head. This mugger must have been a beginner because his swing was overhand and not side-arm. That made the swing of the club easier to dodge, and that was a boon that was always welcome. The downward pass of the club barely missed me, as I had intended. I countered the blow by swinging my arm up to encounter the elbow of the swinging arm.

There was a very satisfactory scream of pain as the elbow was hyperextended just before it broke. The mugger dropped to his knees and released the club. I did not have any sympathy for the mugger since his blow would have killed me had it landed as intended. Therefore, I used the club to smash in the back of the mugger's skull before I dropped the club and walked away.

I stopped just before I reached the mouth of the next alley and said, "I know that you are in there about to attack me. Rest assured that I will kill you if you do attack me. Now, back off!" There was a scuffle of feet moments later, and I safely walked past the alley mouth. Of course, I had not known that a mugger was waiting for me there, but the odds were highly biased in that direction, so I took no chances. I was happy to get away with my bluff, but I decided to walk down the middle of the street between businesses. That way, I could see an attacker coming.

I had no interest in brothels tonight, so I waited until I came to a gambling establishment before I entered a building. This was as loud and chaotic a place as one could find. The floor was covered with tables. Poker was being played at all of the tables near the center of the room, and there were faro tables lining two of the walls. There were benches lining the wall to each side of the door, and there perched the whores who worked in this building. Their rooms were upstairs, and that was reached by an outside stairway. That seemed odd to me, but it did leave more floor space for the gambling tables.

The fourth wall opposite the entrance was where the bar was to be found. Four bartenders were working behind the bar, and they seemed to be constantly busy. Here was another place where I had my doubts of the safety of an individual, since there was no way for a customer to know what was actually in the drinks. Undoubtedly, there was a dash of laudanum in each drink just to make it easier to fleece the customers.

That was brought to my attention because every once in a while, a customer at the bar or at a gambling table would simply fall over into a deep sleep. Two burly men would each grab an arm and drag him through a door behind the bar. I presume that would be when he was robbed. I observed the establishment for about 30 minutes and never saw any of the sleepers return. Were they being shanghaied?

I visited a couple more of the gambling halls and found that they were essentially a duplicate of the first one that I had visited. That was enough to tell me what I wanted to know, so I walked back to the taxi-stand. I did stick to the middle of the street as I left the area. I was fortunate to find a cab at the stand, so I was able to return to my hotel in reasonable comfort. I did find that I had to pay in advance, though. Undoubtedly, that was to be certain that I still had some money.

I slept good and woke up the next morning in a quandary: I did not know what I was going to try to do about the situation at the Barbary Coast. I ate an excellent breakfast, but it was monstrously overpriced. At that rate, my $1,500 in gold would hardly last me the winter, so I had to find a source of income. I had not settled the question of future income when I went into the saloon attached to the hotel. I figured to nurse a beer and catch up on the local gossip.

Since this was during the morning of a Wednesday, there were few customers in the saloon, and the bartender had plenty of time to regale me with the local goings-on. The main topic of conversation for the last few weeks had been the rash of kidnappings. First-born-sons were being kidnapped and held for ransom. Generally, the ransoms were in the $5,000-10,000 range. Hell, if I charged 10% of the ransom to rescue the kid, the parent would come off light, and I would be able to show a profit by the end of the winter.

In fact, the owner of my current hotel was a victim. His son had been kidnapped about a week ago, and the ransom asked was $6,000. I asked where to find the hotel owner's office and went to make an appointment. I was ushered in immediately when I made known the reason for my visit. Yes, the hotel owner would happily pay me $600 to recover his son. I got from him all of the information he had and set out to run it down.

Of course, by being so new to San Francisco, I did not have any contacts, and I did tell that to my employer. However, no one else had offered to help, so he was willing to accept my limitations. The deadline was Friday of next week to pay up, or the boy would be murdered. I had seven days to find the boy, so I had to get my ass in gear.