Auraria: A Novel

by Tim Westover

  Chapter Fifteen

  The hydrocannon filled an entire boxcar, and Holtzclaw spent much of the day supervising its unloading, transport, and installation for its first test. The bulk of the cannon was canvas hose, carefully sewn into a long tapered shape. At the river end, where the water was collected, the opening was as wide as a man’s shoulders; a thousand feet later, at the end where the cannon nozzle was fitted, the hose diameter was only a palm span.

  The cannon nozzle was made of twenty feet of brass. Its operation was simple: a large lever controlled an internal valve, and eight handles allowed four men to lift and aim the cannon. The only adornment was “Lawson Foundry,” stamped in raised letters along one fitting. The catalog from which Holtzclaw had ordered this cannon offered various decorated forms, the most fanciful of which was a dragon maw that bellowed water, not fire. The operators held on to various spikes, wings, and horns. Perhaps some tyrant might order the dragon’s maw edition to obliterate the ancestral terrain of his enemies—wash their homeland into the sea.

  The target for their hydrocannon was a knobby outcropping called the Hag’s Head. From certain angles, the rock did resemble an old woman’s profile. A smooth wall, peaked at the top, was her cowl. Craggy ledges formed her cheekbones and nose. A peculiar jut, high enough that a trail could run underneath, represented her chin, and a tuft of hanging roots were the hairs of her wart. Holtzclaw felt a tickle of joy at being able to reduce the ugly image to gravel.

  Johnston and Carter, the twin railroad men, had come out to see the operation of the hydrocannon. They had recommended this device to clear the valley, extolling its cost efficiency and reputation for rapidity. If all went well with these tests, the hydrocannon could be turned to general cleaning work. Swaths of small trees, brush and bracken, and even fences, sheds, and springhouses could be washed away.

  A runner took the message down the length of hose that the operation was ready to start, and soon the hose began to plump with water. The four men at the brass nozzle braced themselves. The weight of water behind the canvas tubing bucked and swayed, and the operators struggled to hold on to the device. Inside, it was ready to explode. Holtzclaw gave the order to open fire.

  The force of the water cleanly decapitated the Hag. Her nose, eyes, and the top of her cowl came down as one piece, then were shattered by a second blast from the hydrocannon. Holtzclaw was stunned that the formation fractured so neatly. He wondered if it had been solid rock after all. The hydrocannon filleted the mountain face, cutting like a chef’s best knife. Granite boulders tumbled through the valley. Trees, severed at the trunk, rolled down the mucky hills. Geysers of mud splashed back to drench the hose operators, spattering even Holtzclaw and the railroad twins standing at a distance. Gravel like grapeshot ricocheted around their ears.

  Then, like someone turning off a spigot, the jet of water ceased, and the operators stumbled forwards.

  With the creek powering the cannon at a constant rate, the pressure shouldn’t have dropped. The only explanation was a leak, then, or the sudden disappearance of the creek. Holtzclaw was relieved to see water pouring forth from a tear in the hose a few hundred feet away; it was simpler to repair a rip than appease an angry water princess.

  “You’ve sprung a leak, Holtzclaw,” said Johnston or Carter, who followed his gaze.

  “Quite a mess,” said the other.

  Holtzclaw excused himself from the presence of the railroad twins and went to investigate. The flaw in the hose was total and catastrophic, beyond repair, and strengthening this patch would only transfer the next rupture to another place on the line. The hydrocannon was worthless here. Auraria’s water was too powerful; it was naturally resistant to being bent and worked. Holtzclaw hadn’t seen any water wheels or mill races anywhere—perhaps they had been rejected as well.

  He’d washed away time and money—both scarce resources—to no avail, for now he’d have to go back to the old ways of men and shovels, as though nothing had been improved upon since the days of the pharaohs. He ground the ends of the hydrocannon into the mud beneath his boot. That this incident was not sabotage made him feel even worse. People can be bribed or cajoled. Nature has no real master.

  Holtzclaw turned to walk back up toward the former site of the Hag’s Head, where the railroad twins and their men were waiting. From this slight distance back, he could see how completely the hydrocannon had transformed the place. The Hag’s Head had been inverted into a three-story grotto. Men stood inside of it, chatting. Holtzclaw heard their voices as though they were right at his ear. His first thought was that some new spirit had gotten loose, but then he realized that the hydrocannon by chance had carved a perfect acoustic resonator. The men’s voices echoed forth, magnified by the shape of the rock.

  To the railroad twins he confessed the failure of the experiment. There was much agitated grumbling about unnecessary expense, unforeseen delays, and Holtzclaw was entirely sympathetic to their plight.

  The hydrocannon was carted back to the workers’ camp in Asbestos Hollow. The hose was a nasty tangle. Holtzclaw hated the sight of it, a good tool ruined, and he excused himself while the men were still trying to wrestle some of the slippery loops out of the tracks made by the coal wagons.

  Then Holtzclaw turned to look downhill, and a wondrous vision awaited him. Large boulders had been trapped against a harder ridge of granite. Small stones, gravel, and mud had caught in this jam and formed a promontory. It was large and flat, at least a quarter acre.

  New land had been made! No survey map showed it and no deeds yet described it. It had no owner, and thus, it belonged to Holtzclaw as the first to discover it. He had no flag to plant, but in his office, he had the paper to draw up a deed, which was the surer way.

  Holtzclaw had come to believe in wondrous signs while here in Auraria, but none was more wondrous than this happy accident of water, destruction, agglutination, accretion. A soothing peace filled Holtzclaw. Now he was not only working for Shadburn. He was working for a new vision—his own. He could see it: a grand structure of some kind, with his own name. He should have pressed Ms. Rathbun for more details. The form arising in his mind’s eye, upon the little promontory, was hazy.

  •

  Holtzclaw’s intended route back into town—a well-trod path descending from the Brightwater Creek to the Needle’s Eye—was blocked by less felicitous tailings from the hydrocannon. He picked his way instead down the valley slopes, to the Lost Creek.

  At the riverbank, Bogan and Moss were working a rocker box. Bogan, using a shovel, loaded muddy runoff into a hopper. Moss operated a wooden handle that agitated the hopper, forcing the heavier material into a series of baffles. Periodically, one man would fetch a pail of water from the river and pour it over the ridged surface. Most material was washed over the edge of each subsequent terrace. But some—a heavy, rich, black sand—was caught against the terrace edges. When the washing was done, Bogan and Moss scraped the recovered sand into their pans and took it to the river, where they panned out a star field of gold.

  “Looks like a good pan,” said Holtzclaw.

  “Yeah, it’s been good panning all afternoon,” said Bogan. “Whatever you were exploding up there had plenty of metal in it.”

  “We were clearing a ridge for the railroad line under the Hag’s Head,” said Holtzclaw.

  “Aw, the Hag’s Head?” said Moss. “I used to go courting up there. She makes every other girl look better.”

  “Is that what you told them, Moss?” said Bogan. “‘You’re not as ugly as that hag?’ Is that why no one wants to go courting with you nowadays?”

  “No one’s courting with me. I’m too busy working before Mr. Moneybags drowns all the good spots.”

  “Flakes like this are just chips off the big block,” said Bogan. “No one is going to get rich on this runoff. There’s no nuggets, no coins, no ingots. We’ll have some good eating and drinking tonight, for sure, but we’ll be so weary that we’ll hardly be able to enjoy it.”

&n
bsp; “We’re not profiting any by jawing,” said Moss. “Now, Holtzclaw, are you going to pick up a shovel? Or are you going to go away?”

  Holtzclaw demurred. If there were no nuggets or coins or ingots, then his daily wage from Shadburn was greater, and the promise of the new land was richer still.

  •

  The next day, Holtzclaw accompanied Lizzie Rathbun up the ridge to survey the land that he had acquired for their side bet.

  She clasped her hands. “Oh, Holtzclaw, it is perfect! You didn’t even have to compromise your moral principles very much to get it.”

  “Better land could be had, I suppose, but not so cleanly. I put only your name on the deed, Ms. Rathbun. It gives me a measure of deniability in case Shadburn should run across it.”

  “It’s not necessary, but I think it’s wise,” said Ms. Rathbun. “Now, this piece of land—it will be a part of the lake shore?”

  “By my projections, we are the owners of a future peninsula.”

  Ms. Rathbun and Holtzclaw promenaded the length of the promontory. She continued to the very edge, a point of land that jutted above the steep slope of the valley.

  “Is it large enough, do you think, for building?” said Holtzclaw. “I suppose our enterprise will have to be suited to the land, rather than vice versa. I doubt we’ll have another property fall into our laps.” He dropped to his haunches and examined the terrain. He had done this before with more care, but he made a show of it now. “We can’t build upward. The land isn’t stable enough to support it. A guesthouse and tavern of no more than ten rooms. We can charge a premium for the intimacy and proximity to the lake. It is modest, but I could be happy with that.”

  Ms. Rathbun laughed. “That’s not ambitious enough! Your employer, despite his other flaws, at least dreams big.”

  “Ambition cannot exceed the extent granted by Nature.”

  “But we can!” She gestured out into the emptiness of the valley. “We’ll float our hotel. We only need a dock on the promontory. We’ll build a steamship, larger than any of the barges on the Mississippi. Stately cabins, dining rooms, and gaming areas. The novelty! A white and brass mansion reflected in the crystal waters of a mountain lake, cheery white steam puffing above like clouds, and the sound of soft paddling, laughter, and the clink of glasses filled with fine spirits. That’s ambition! Not some tiny guesthouse, but a floating palace.”

  Holtzclaw tried to envision the result, but he couldn’t. There was an essential flaw. “How can we build it?” he said. “There is no room here for a dry dock, and we could not bring in the boat from upriver or downriver. The cataracts to the north and the gorge to the south isolate us from navigable waterways.”

  “We build the base now before the lake is made,” said Ms. Rathbun. “When the floodgates close, our floating hotel will rise with the lake waters. It need not all be finished. Just enough structure to make it seaworthy. All the furniture and supplies and decoration can be added when the hotel is floating at the dock.”

  It was such a simple solution—perhaps that’s why he’d missed it. Her vision was clear and shimmering; all the same words described her eyes. Holtzclaw was glad he didn’t tell her that in so many words.

  “Think, Holtzclaw. No—don’t think. Imagine.”

  Her raptures tugged at sinews inside him. He could not help but read in her enthusiasm for the project an enthusiasm for the partnership, and his thrill at the latter infused the former.

  “Shadburn may even consider it a favor,” said Holtzclaw, striding to the end of the bit of land. “If we built a modest hotel, it would not much help, but a larger project, with its own advertising, could make a significant contribution. The whole area would be given a boost.”

  “You see?” said Ms. Rathbun. “The success continues to flow without a single threat to your moral principles or loyalty.” Then her brows fell, and a watery substance like tears gathered at the inner corners of her eyes. “Only, I fear, a project of this nature needs more money than we have at present. What we have between us, Holtzclaw, is enough to get started, even to finish out the frame of the boat and float it up to the dock if we are careful, and a dock is not expensive. But to finish out the inside in style …”

  “Needs a far greater investment,” said Holtzclaw.

  “How shall we get it, then?”

  “Give me a little time, Lizzie.”

  “There is so little already, Holtzclaw. Like money, we have none to waste.”

  And now Holtzclaw could see the white and brass mansion floating on the lake, puffing cheery steam into the air. He had seen himself, the master, reflected in the crystal waters.