Fortune

by Craig W. Turner

  “People talk,” Dexter said, keeping it short, knowing well enough not to engage with him in lengthy conversation. “What’s it gonna be, Wilton?”

  A ruckus came from the rear of the wagon, where Abby in her full cowgirl regalia dragged out Wilton’s partner, Jacob Pool, who was apparently scrawny enough to be manhandled by a mathematician, by the bolo. He had no weapon in his hand. One down, Jeff thought, provided Mrs. Wilton wouldn’t come out of the wagon guns-a-blazin’, which was unlikely.

  “Dammit, Jacob,” Wilton said, shaking his head before turning back to Dexter, who he was clearly assuming was the leader of the operation. Jeff didn’t mind – he had no pride in ownership. “You know you can’t get away quick enough. My men’ll track you.”

  Jeff cocked his revolver with a dramatic click. “There’s no need for this to get ugly.”

  “Mr. Wilton?” Fitzsimmons said, Emeka’s knife still pressed to his face, the blade leaving an indentation high on his cheekbone.

  They heard a whimper come from inside the wagon. Wilton looked backward for a moment, then front again. “Can I check on my wife?”

  “We know what you’re doing, Mr. Wilton, and it won’t work,” Dexter said. “We ain’t got time for shenanigans.”

  Wilton held up a finger and ducked into the wagon. A moment later, he burst out the rear end of the canvas cover in a full sprint toward the trees. He disappeared in seconds, leaving the road completely quiet and Jeff’s team stunned, staring at each other in disbelief. It was an odd play for a man with a historic reputation for machismo. Self-described, of course, but still…

  They didn’t have time to contemplate historical inaccuracies, however, so Emeka pulled the driver to the ground and sat him Indian-style on the side of the trail. Abby maneuvered Pool into the same position, then retrieved the now-abandoned Mrs. Wilton from the back of the wagon. Jeff thought she was pretty, looking great for a woman in the midst of a 2,000-mile journey whose wagon had just been overtaken by bandits. Though clearly affected by what was happening – and probably even more so by seeing her husband skedaddle – she didn’t say a word.

  Quickly, they blindfolded the three of them, bound their hands, and instructed them not to move until the rest of their team came back for them. Abby cocked her revolver to let them know they were being supervised. The three men then hopped up into the wagon.

  The sun was descending quickly, so the inside of the wagon was dark. Dexter pulled matches from his pocket and lit one. The gold was not immediately evident, and Wilton smartly had not written in his diary exactly where the gold was stashed. Using the limited light from the flame, they tossed personal items around the wagon until Jeff found a metal handle ratcheted to the floor. He pulled hard and a small door opened, dumping a small pile of cast-iron pans loudly to the side.

  “What was that?” Abby called from her post. They ignored her.

  Inside the door was pay dirt. The light from the match reflected off of the top layer of the gold, which was cleverly hidden in a compartment hanging from the underbelly of the wagon.

  Jeff looked up and smiled at his partners. They were beaming. They’d done it. Dexter whooped and Jeff high-fived Emeka.

  “Alright, we’re running out of time,” Jeff said. “Let’s get this party on the road.” It had been at least fifteen minutes since they’d approached the wagon. Wilton’s sharpshooters would be headed back this way down the trail. Dexter had estimated the terrain would force them about a half-mile beyond where they were, so the team would need to unload the gold and be gone within minutes.

  Forming an assembly line, they piled 60 gold bricks onto the ground about ten feet from the wagon and then called to Abby to join them. Jeff pulled from his trousers a metallic stick with buttons on it, all told about the size of a ruler and set it on top of the pile of gold. Then they surrounded the bricks. Each of them reached a hand forward to touch the stick.

  Jeff made eye contact with Dexter, then Emeka, and then Abby, and smiled. “Almost home,” he said.

  They heard a shout – a man’s voice – coming from some distance away to the west. They couldn’t see anyone past the wagon, but knew the sharpshooters would be on them in a moment. Jeff pressed a button on the device.

  The scenery around them blurred.

  A moment later, Jeff, Dexter, Emeka, Abby and a pile of gold bricks sat in the middle of a paved road. Desolate, except for a nondescript white van parked on the westbound shoulder.

  They were silent for a long time, simply taking in what had just happened. Jeff examined the terrain around them – it was eerily similar to where they’d just been. The rock, the large piece of granite that Dexter had been hiding behind not fifteen minutes before, was there, unchanged. The trees were much larger, though, hovering over them like giants. To the left and right, other than the paved road, the path looked the same. Just as narrow. Just as vulnerable.

  “I don’t believe it,” Abby said, finally breaking the silence. “We did it.”

  Jeff smiled, nodding. “Yes, we did. What a team.”

  “That was really something,” Dexter said. “I could’ve stayed there for a long while before coming back. You have no idea what that experience means to me.”

  “I do, though,” Jeff said. “Because without the research you did we never could’ve made that happen. I can’t believe how smoothly it went. You made this happen.”

  “Oh yeah, I invented the time travel device to send us back to 1849. Jeff, this is all your baby.”

  “Well,” Jeff said, shrugging, “like I said, it was a team effort. Let’s not celebrate too much, though, yet. Can’t just leave this gold out in the middle of the road.”

  They began carrying gold bricks to the waiting van, parked there only about an hour before. Within minutes, Emeka placed the last brick in and slammed the van’s rear door shut.

  “Hey, check this out,” he said as he walked around to the passenger side of the van. Jeff and the others strolled to his side to see a sign standing next to the van. “Anyone remember seeing that there before?”

  No one answered. The sign was a State of California historical marker, with brass letters emblazoned on a dark background. It read:

  “Wilton Pass – 1849: On this site, pioneer Joe Wilton and his party were ambushed by bandits in one of the largest heists in California history. Over $1 million in gold bricks was stolen.”

  “Wow,” Abby said. “That’s crazy. That happened like five minutes ago.”

  “One million...” Jeff said, then turned and smiled. “I bet we get about fifteen.” Emeka and Abby laughed. Jeff noticed a change in Dexter, however, who couldn’t hide the new concern on his face. He slapped him on the arm. “C’mon, what’s the matter?”

  “We changed history,” he said. The gravity of his voice seemed to echo through the pass. “We weren’t supposed to do that. That’s not what we were there for.”

  Jeff laughed again. “You worry too much. It was inevitable we would change something,” he said. “Let’s philosophize about all of that later. Right now, I need a bone-in rib eye at the closest mountain lodge we can find. We’re celebrating – and dinner’s on me.”

  “I would hope so,” Emeka said, climbing into the van.

  “Can we make sure this place has something for me to eat this time?” Abby asked. “I can’t eat these hungry-man meals like you boys.”

  After Abby followed, Jeff watched Dexter solemnly get in and slide the side door shut. A moment later, Wilton Pass was as deserted as it had been a century-and-a-half before.

  CHAPTER TWO

  September 14, 2015

  “Can we try that again?” Dr. Erica Danforth adjusted the microphone pinned to her collar, though she had no way of knowing if it was actually improving anything at all.

  “I thought it was a good take,” Cindy Kramer said, looking over at her producer and giving a petulant look, just what Erica would expect from a former first runner-up Miss Alabama, now cable TV pseudo-journalist. “No?”

>   Connie Rich nodded. “Sounded good from here. Erica, what’s the problem?”

  “I feel like I missed making my point on that one,” Erica said. They were taping a segment for The Mystery of History, a weekly History Channel series on which Erica was a regular expert guest. She was a nationally-renowned historian on all topics of American History, particularly those related to the expansion of the nation in the 1800s. She got the call whenever the show’s script dealt with the Pioneers, Lewis & Clark, the Alamo, etc. The episode currently in production had a California Gold Rush theme.

  Into the show’s second season, she imagined they were probably used to her on-screen idiosyncrasies and sense of perfection, and, in truth, she’d tried her best to be a bit cooler for their sake. But, she also hated when her words didn’t come out correctly, and she figured that while the cameras were still rolling, they might as well get it right.

  “What point is that?” Connie asked, stepping out of the shadows of the small, dark-lit studio. Erica liked her as a producer, although she could be a little gruff. Connie was good at pushing projects forward while showing just enough respect for the experts who provided her content. It’s probably why she already had two Emmys on her mantle at home – one for her documentary on the Mayan calendar and their predicted end of the world in 2012; one for her very popular Travel Channel series, Follow the Leader, which took travel buffs on tours through the lives of various world leaders like Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and Genghis Khan. She understood history, which is why Erica didn’t consider it an inconvenience to be on her speed dial.

  Cindy, on the other hand, she wasn’t a big fan of. The tiresome host was the face of the show, her only responsibility being the reading of a script. To be fair, Cindy’s was a very pretty face, but she would rather they’d have hosted the show with more of an academic personality and less of a reality TV feel. Especially with Erica not being your traditional historian, and instead an admittedly youthful and energetic woman, there was enough for her to overcome without a talking head demeaning the show’s credibility.

  Now, her dislike for Cindy made her especially adamant that her part be buttoned-up. “I’m not explaining correctly that the mystery not being solved is actually part of the history. I don’t want people thinking it’s some kind of tragedy that there’s no resolution. That is the resolution.”

  “I got that,” Cindy said.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s not right. And Connie – no offense, but I don’t trust your editors to take what I said and make it right. Let’s do it again. Just the wrap-up. Everything else was good.”

  “Whatever you say, Erica,” Connie said with a smile. Well used to her expert’s desire for perfected content, she motioned to her cameraman to do it again.

  A young woman rushed in and hastily dabbed Erica’s face with some powder, then ducked out of the interviewing area, which consisted of two comfy black chairs and a fichus positioned in front of a very prestigious-looking library of history books. After a countdown from five, they were back on camera.

  “Erica, we’ve talked about three unsolved mysteries from American history today,” Cindy said, bouncing back into host mode. “Is it possible we’ll ever know what happened?”

  “Anything’s possible,” she said, looking at Cindy to produce a shot that would come across as an earnest conversation. “But of course it’s highly unlikely that any artifacts or evidence would turn up after such a length of time. Patrick Miller’s murderer in the middle of the night in Tombstone may very well have been his own wife, but a half-hearted investigation by a sheriff who may have been her lover yielded nothing. Sad as the story is, Annie Donovan never returned home to her parents in Boston, and whether she died on the trip to California or went on to a new life with a new name we’ll never know. And as for Joe Wilton’s gold – once it left his hands, it never turned up anywhere. It was either melted down, recast and recirculated into the system, or it’s still out there somewhere.”

  “Does that bother you, as a student of history?”

  She tried not to smile – to her credit, Cindy had nailed it. “No, it actually doesn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “The fact that there’s no resolution to these three situations – and many others – is part of the history. I have spent my life trying to trace the path of the gold bricks that were stolen from Joe Wilton, and I haven’t been able to come up with anything. But it intrigues me. The lack of evidence is part of the folklore, and it’s not something we should feel badly about or think of with regrets. It is... What it is.”

  Cindy smiled and nodded, then turned to the camera. “That’s all the time we have. Thanks to Dr. Erica Danforth from Stanford University for offering her insight.” She nodded to Erica, who nodded back. “And, visit us next week to help solve The Mystery of History.”

  Once the camera was off, Erica leaned over to Cindy as they unpinned their microphones and asked, “Who do you have doing next week’s show?” Small talk.

  “I’m actually not sure,” she said. “I know we’re doing something about Teddy Roosevelt. Or Franklin.”

  On top of her game, Erica thought. There had to be some special skill it took to host a show about which you knew nothing. Admittedly, though, while she would never trade her mind for Cindy’s looks, she did envy her blemish-free skin.

  Erica stood and stretched. “We’ll see you next time, Cindy.”

  Cindy touched her hand lightly in a quick goodbye, and then got up herself. Erica turned in the opposite direction and almost ran into Connie.

  “I see what you were trying to get at,” Connie said as the crew around them began to break down the set. “It’s an interesting point, though it kinda screws with the theme of this show, which is ‘solving mysteries.’ When the viewer sees the word mystery, it creates an innate determination to solve it.”

  Erica laughed. “No, see, I’d disagree with that. It’s the wonder of it that makes it an attractive topic. On those ghost hunting shows, they never actually see a ghost. Though the word ‘hunt’ would suggest that you’re actually going to find something, right? People still watch those.”

  Connie held up her hands in defeat. “I’m not saying you’re off base,” she said, “even for the show. I’m just thinking how the comments you just made gel with the opening and closing, where we actually say that we’re here to ‘solve’ mysteries of history. Cindy’s sign-off line slapped me in the face with it.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to screw anything up. I can re-shoot if you’d like.” While a moment ago it had been a joke of sorts, now she was genuinely concerned.

  “No,” Connie said, shaking her head. “You’re right. And I know – you’ve brought this up before. The show’s been good, and viewership has been solid, but we’re not exactly solving mysteries. More like giving people something to think about. In the end, we’re probably going to solve fewer mysteries than we bring up. Maybe I’ll get the writers to tweak the intro and we can change up the sign-off. Then if we solve one – hey, what the hell? Underpromise and overdeliver.”

  “I’m sorry, Connie. I don’t mean to upend anything. I’m not really a ‘why’ person, especially when it comes to this stuff. I’m more of a purist, if that makes sense. Things in history happened, and that history was passed down to us in a way that our forefathers wanted us to understand it. For a purpose. Why would we change that? The information that’s missing? Well, that’s the real mystery of history, isn’t it? It’s the intrigue that keeps people coming back for more.”

  Connie was nodding as she spoke, but it was clear she’d stopped listening. “Alright. This is good. Nobody’ll notice the change.” She turned to walk away, but stopped. “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Oh, and for the record, if I was producing the ghost show, you can bet your ass there’d be ghosts.”

  Erica laughed as she walked out of the studio to her car. She pulled her smart phone from her pocket and clicked it to check the time. As brief as it was, the post-taping conversation with Connie had
cost her precious minutes. It was a sunny, late summer day in the Bay Area, which made her thankful she didn’t have to deal with any weather on the drive to Stanford. She navigated her white Nissan Versa through a series of side streets that she’d mapped out until she was on I-280 South and in the clear with reasonably light midday traffic.

  Normally, when the show needed Erica, they’d fly her down to Los Angeles for the taping of the studio shots. However, with the topic of this episode focused on Northern California, it was convenient for them to come to her. The crew planned on sticking around for a day or two to get B-roll footage of various sites between San Francisco and Sutter’s famous mill, where the Gold Rush kicked off. That enabled her to film on a day when she had a class, without leaving the comfort of her hometown.

  As she drove, a little faster than the posted speed limit – plus a few extra miles per hour to make up lost time – her mind wandered back to the conversation she’d just had. Her thoughts on the topic were certainly ingrained, but were hard to put into words. What did it mean to be a “purist” when it came to history? Certainly the study of history as a social science lent itself to interpretation of the data, and descriptions that had been handed down through time. She’d been in enough classrooms – in the seats and at the professor’s desk – to have been a part of many debates on plenty of related topics. But as she developed herself as a professional historian, she was often frustrated by the fact that despite all of the rhetoric, discussions about history seldom yielded a change in thinking. Pickett ordered his army into a suicide mission, Booth shot Lincoln in the head, and the Titanic sank. Trying to piece together available information from decades or even centuries ago to re-interpret these things was pointless. It was like trying to change history. From the time this frustration set in, her focus as a historian, teacher, and writer had been to focus on what people learned from historical events, and how they altered people’s thinking going forward. That’s where the real message was.