Curse Of The Spanish Gold (The Mountain Men Book 2)

by Terry Grosz

  Amid the good smells of their meal, the men dumped their find onto a hide stretched across a makeshift table. There was so much gold that many nuggets fell off the table and onto the dirt floor in a glittering array.

  “Do you know what we have here, brother?” asked Martin, grinning.

  “Sure do,” replied a grim-faced Jacob. “We have the ruination of our life as we know it in this neck of the woods if word of this gets out.”

  “That’s true, but if we do it right we can make sure we have plenty for any kind of life we care to live. And that includes buying some land to settle down on before anyone realizes what is here,” replied Martin with a knowing grin. “I suggest we haul the meat we have on the hanging poles down to Harold tomorrow so he can make his sausage and the like. Then we should beat it back to our creek and get some more nuggets before anyone else discovers our find. After all, that creek isn’t far from the mouth of the canyon and all those people in the fort.”

  “As usual, brother, you make good sense,” said Jacob. “At first light we’ll haul the meat down to Harold, and once that is done we need to go to the emporium and purchase some tanned elk skins to make into large sacks in which to haul our gold without raising any suspicions. After all, we need the room in those saddlebags to haul jerky and our possibles,” said Jacob as he began to really get the gold bug.

  The next morning the men hid their gold, burying it in two green sheep hides above their cabin and covering the spot with a large rock that took both of them to move. Later that afternoon they delivered the sheep meat to a very happy Harold. Then, trying to act casually, they went to Jake’s Emporium like ordinary shoppers. They purchased several kegs of powder, more primers for their rifles and pistols, another shovel, flour, cornmeal, jugs of honey, and four tanned elk hides. That evening, as usual so as not to arouse any suspicion, they slept at the corrals just outside the fort and, as before, were gone at first light.

  From about noon on, the two men mined the surface gold in their little creek, finding enough loose gold to fill their eight saddlebags once more! When they arrived back at their cabin in the evening, Martin tended to the horses as Jacob went inside with the four tanned elk hides and began cutting and sewing together long tube-like leather pouches that could be filled with gold nuggets and easily carried on pack saddles. That evening after supper they filled several of the tubes with gold nuggets, sewed the tubes shut, and hid them in a hollow tree above their cabin.

  The next day the two men found a herd of elk and killed four. They spent the remainder of the day quartering the elk and bringing the meat back to their cabin to hang on the meat poles so it would cool and glaze. Dawn the following morning found them on their gold-nugget-littered creek, filling their saddlebags once again. This time they started on Clear Creek at the mouth of their little stream and worked upstream. They figured if they picked that end of the smaller stream clean of gold, anyone who came prospecting up Clear Creek might pass it by. That way they might be able to postpone a major gold rush in the canyon. Once again they quickly filled all their saddlebags with the precious yellow metal. On the way home they crossed paths with a small herd of bighorn sheep and managed to kill three rams. Arriving late back at their cabin, they unloaded the meat, cleaned it up, and hung it on the remaining meat poles. Then, after a meal of cold beans and sizzling hot fried bacon, the two worked late into the night cutting and sewing together elk-skin bags, enough to hold their gold nuggets from that day’s prospecting and the previous days’ finds still buried in the green sheep hides under the boulder above their cabin.

  As they sat there in the candlelight, Jacob figured they had a small problem. They now had at least 400 pounds of gold nuggets stashed away on the hillside and in their cabin. In addition, they had at least 125 pounds of gold in the Spanish ingots their parents had saved for them, although they didn’t intend to do anything with that gold at the moment. They figured their current pack string would be doing well just to haul all their goods and equipment, so they didn’t really have any way to transport another four hundred pounds of newfound wealth.

  “The next time we are in Fort Vasquez, we need to see if we can buy at least two more good riding horses and a couple of hell-for-stout mules,” said Jacob, trying to calculate their new ‘gold discovery’ needs.

  “I agree, and if we’re able to purchase extra stock, it shouldn’t arouse any undue suspicion because we’re hauling in so much meat for Harold,” Martin answered with a grin.

  The next morning the men buried their latest hoard of gold nuggets under a burned-out log and then urinated on the freshly turned soil to discourage any curious digging animals. They loaded their entire pack string with meat and headed into town. On the way Jacob killed a fat cow elk, and they loaded its hindquarters and back straps onto the already groaning and loudly complaining mules as well.

  If nothing else, we’ll look more like the hunters we are, arriving with this huge load of meat, thought Jacob with a devious smile that barely showed through his massive beard.

  That afternoon the two brothers unloaded their pack string in front of Harold’s Butcher Shop as the happy merchant did a jig in front of his meaty riches. The army was coming by at the end of the week for the first installment of sausage and hard salami, and with the meat he now had, he could fill the order. In addition, a farmer who had just given up farming and ranching on the eastern plains had brought all his cattle and pigs into town to sell before the hostile Indians stole them. Harold and his employees were in the process of butchering those meat producing stock animals, which would go into his meat market as well.

  After procuring powder, lead, beans, bacon, dried apples, and two freshly made pies, the brothers headed for the corrals outside the fort. After polishing off their pies, they approached the owner of the corrals, who was also the busiest local blacksmith in town. Two of their mules needed new shoes, and after arranging for that service, Jacob asked the blacksmith if they could purchase more horses and mules for their meat-hauling pack string. As it turned out, the same farmer who had brought his pigs and cattle to town had also brought his draft horses and plow mules to sell. As luck would have it, he had just sold those animals that morning to the blacksmith.

  “Well, you boys came at a good time. I am of a mind to sell everything to anyone with enough hard cash to pay for ’em,” he said as he carefully looked over the heavily bearded, muscular mountain man standing before him.

  “Care if we take a gander at them?” asked Jacob.

  The liveryman continued to look doubtingly at Jacob and Martin as if they had a good case of the “graybacks,” or lice.

  “Where the hell a couple meat-hunting drifters like the two of you gonna find enough hard cash to pay for such animals?” he asked suspiciously.

  “We have some money left over from our earlier meat and fur sales at Fort Bridger and some from the butcher in town,” replied Martin, a bit pissed at being treated like the drifters who hung around the fort looking for handouts.

  Sensing that he had angered a couple of potential customers, the liveryman backed off a bit and began to act like the astute businessman he was.

  “Well, them is very valuable animals. Which ones might you be interested in?” he asked.

  “If they are good and sound, we might like at least four mules that are hell-for-stout and a couple extra riding horses in case we cripple one of ours going up and down those rocky canyons. Them two draft animals might just be what we need for hauling heavy meat loads out from the mountains as well,” Jacob said in a flat tone designed not to arouse any interest in the real need for the unusually large purchase by two men who were not farmers.

  “Well you can take a look at them, but I will need $1,600 in trade for the lot you just described or $1,000 in hard cash,” the liveryman said, still looking intensely at the two brothers and prospective customers. “That is what I would ask from the army when they come by at the end of the week, if they be interested and could get it, they being so hard on t
heir horses and all.”

  For the next half hour Jacob and Martin looked the animals over and were pleased with their condition, teeth, and ages. There were four strong mules broken to pull a plow or wagon, three good-looking riding horses, and the two heavy-boned draft horses. Going on intuition and knowing the army would purchase the riding stock posthaste once the supply officers were aware of their existence, Jacob and Martin made a quick decision. They arranged to purchase the animals and their tack on the spot, leaving $50 as earnest money from their recent sale of meat to Harold, with a promise to pay the balance once they returned in a week.

  At dawn the next morning they departed, Jacob leading their original pack string and Martin the horses and mules purchased from the liveryman. Although they made a conspicuous sight, everyone knew they were major meat suppliers for Harold, so no one suspected the real need for the extra horseflesh. On the way home Jacob and Martin killed two fat elk, and by the time they arrived at their cabin, it was dark. Martin cared for the animals while Jacob began dinner with a pot of cold beans as a starter, an entire elk back strap staked over the coals, and a Dutch oven full of biscuits.

  At dawn the next morning, after a breakfast of the other elk back strap and biscuits, the men took the two new mules and hunted their way down to their golden creek. Working above where they had left off the time before, they continued picking up the rich surface gold until they had once again filled their eight saddlebags to bursting with the precious nuggets. They hunted their way back to their cabin in the afternoon, killing a large bull elk and a full-curl bighorn ram on the way.

  That evening, as supper was cooking, Jacob used up the last of the tanned elk hides purchased at Jake’s Emporium to make storage pouches for the nuggets. Upon finishing the pouches, he filled them with their latest discovery. When he had sewn the open tops together, they had compact leather tubes full of gold ready for hiding or easy hauling on their pack animals.

  Sitting back and looking at their latest lumpy bundles of gold pouches, Jacob said, “Martin, near as I can figure, we have at least five hundred pounds of gold nuggets! We are rich men.” (This amount of gold would have been worth about $128,000 in the money of the day, with raw gold bringing $16 per ounce.)

  Martin smiled, remembering the day when they had innocently watered the horses and washed off in their little stream of riches. He quietly thought that if the Indian raiding party hadn’t attacked their adopted parents’ at their cabins all those years earlier, they would still have been in the Fort Bridger area and never would have stumbled over this source of great material wealth.

  “I don’t know how much further our little stream will run gold, but I suggest we keep working it because it’s just a matter of time until people coming from Fort Vasquez or new arrivals from back East heading for the gold fields in California fan out and discover our secret,” said Jacob.

  “I agree. Let’s ride this horse just as far as we can, and when the hills explode with gold seekers, we need to take what is ours and get the hell out of the area,” said Martin, looking introspective as he realized the changes a gold rush and thousands of clamoring people would bring to their quiet backwoods lives.

  Dawn the next morning found the men on their horses climbing high onto the ridge overlooking their creek and the now golden changing aspens in the canyons and hills below. They spooked a moose out of a drainage heavy with springs and willows just below the ridge top, and it took both of them shooting their heavy Hawkens to bring down the beast before it ran deeper into the canyon, which would have made it a chore to haul out. It took them the better part of the morning to get the animal cut up and loaded onto the two stout mules. Both animals had been used extensively before the men had acquired them, as was apparent in their gentle nature—especially when asked to take on such a task as carrying heavy, bloody, and strong-smelling animals on their backs in rugged mountain country that was almost straight up and down.

  Heading down into the steep drainage with their heavy loads, the men took their time in order not to injure the pack animals. When they reached their gold laden creek they continued working upstream from where they had finished the last time as their animals took time to load up on the lush grasses that grew along the banks. As had been the case before, nuggets littered every gravel bar and eddy, and in no time they had once again filled their saddlebags with the precious metal. Mentally marking the spot where they finished, the brothers headed up over the ridge and set a course for home. When they arriving at their cabin, they slid into their familiar mode of work. Martin grazed the livestock on the nearby hillside, curried the animals’ coats, and watered them in the small creek running next to the cabin before putting them into the corral for the night. Once finished, he brought in an armload of wood for their fire and sat down at the table with Jacob, who had taken care of the moose meat so it would cool and glaze. With those chores done, they prepared supper, filling the cabin with delicious smells.

  “Tomorrow we need to go right to our stream and mine it first thing. Then we need to hunt that hogback above the creek by our cabin,” said Jacob as he swallowed a piping-hot biscuit slathered with dark honey.

  “I agree,” said Martin. “I’ve been hearing elk bugling up there for the last few days, and that might be a good place to load up with more venison.”

  For a long time it was quiet as the two men ate, and then Jacob said with a grin, “With what we brought down the mountain today, we have at least seven hundred pounds of gold nuggets— and that doesn’t count the gold we have in our Spanish ingots!” Martin smiled and said, “I still want to see what the old-time mountain men used to call the Big Water, or the Pacific Ocean. Then we can buy that big ranch we always wanted, settle down, quit Indian fighting, and have a passel of kids. I figure our gold will just about do the trick and then some.”

  Jacob shook his head at his brother’s single-mindedness when it came to seeing the Pacific Ocean. But in the back of his mind, he wanted the same things—someday...

  The two men set out before daylight the next day, but this time they took their two larger and two smaller mules. That way, if they found the elk, they could bring back a load of meat, then head to Fort Vasquez the next day to sell it and settle up with the liveryman for their livestock purchase. When they reached the spot on the creek where they had finished gold hunting the last time, the two brothers tied off their stock on long ropes so the animals could feed and headed upstream on foot. For a long time their work was just as before. In every riffle and on the back sides of eddies, they picked up handfuls of loose gold nuggets. Coming to a large cut in the cliff face through which the stream passed, Jacob paused in order to figure a way through the rough terrain without getting wet. Then he saw it! Where the creek cut through the rock formation lay an exposed vein of gold at least a foot wide and a foot and a half high.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Jacob, “will you look at that!”

  Martin scrambled around his brother and stopped short, looking at the riches in the rock formation.

  “What the blazes do we do now?” he asked.

  “Damned if I know, but we can’t leave it here,” said Jacob, dumbfounded.

  They stood looking at the mother lode in amazement. Neither of them knew a thing about hard-rock mining, so they bypassed the rich vein and continued to look for the loose gold in the stream above the cut. However, they discovered none above the vein. Apparently the vein was the source of the loose gold they had found downstream.

  Taking what they had discovered that day, they mounted up and, with the puzzle about what to do about the rich vein swimming around in their heads, hunted their way back to the cabin. They killed a large, fat grizzly bear that they found digging out a yellow-bellied marmot from under a rock. The great bear never heard the shot or saw the man above him pulling the trigger. Jacob and Martin knew they now had almost a full winter’s supply of excellent cooking oil once they had rendered the fat from the great bear.

  Loading the fat bear
tried the patience of the larger mules, who refused to take on the quarters because of the strange smell. The two smaller mules, who had previously been loaded with bear meat, took on the load, but not without rolling their eyes to make sure everything was all right. As they worked down the ridge above their cabin, each man managed to take an additional large bull elk in the rut, and by the time the best parts of those animals had been strapped onto their pack animals, they had more than a load.

  Elk back strap, beans, biscuits, and honey made up their dinner that evening, drowned with large tin cups of steaming-hot thick black trapper’s coffee. Once again the men hid their latest finds of gold, this time in an unused cast-iron boiling pot in the woodpile under some limb wood. They were rich men, and if they could find a way to get at the gold in the vein, they would be rich beyond belief. However, therein remained a puzzle the men would have to work out before someone else beat them to the find of a lifetime. They didn’t dare purchase a pick or a breaking hammer in the settlement because of the risk of catching everyone’s eye and curiosity.

  Little did they realize the key to that puzzle was fast approaching, and from a point on the compass that would be truly amazing.

  Chapter Eleven

  A Black Man Comes, and Trouble Follows

  Stepping outside the cabin at daylight to attend to a call of nature, Jacob saw what appeared to be a black bear feasting on a hindquarter of the moose they had shot two days earlier as it hung swinging from the meat pole. Racing back into the cabin, he yelled to Martin as he ran back out with his Hawken.