by Amy Lillard
He checked the sky once more. “You’ve got an hour.”
An hour later, Jed wrapped the reins around one hand and tugged the donkey into motion.
“Lin Sing can lead him, Mr. Evans.”
Jed managed not to stop and not to ask her one more time to call him Jed. She had some sort of aversion to him, and there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing he had done to deserve it. But he knew. Some things just were.
But why she was so determined to keep him away from the donkey was something he hadn’t completely figured out yet. He reckoned that she had found some gold and was doing everything in her power to protect it. But he had no interest in gold. He had learned the hard way; it was nothing but trouble. And he had lost his brother in the process. He supposed he’d lost his girl as well. Only time would tell if Ginny had waited for him. But deep down he knew she hadn’t.
“If that will make you feel more comfortable,” he said. There was no use in arguing. The trip was going to be long enough without adding any more bad feelings into the air around them.
He handed the leather straps to the Chinaman who in turn gave the ones in his hand to Jed. Those were the ones connected to her mule.
Her pale blue eyes widened. Apparently, that was something she hadn’t thought about, but since there were two able men, there was no need for the Chinaman to have to concern himself with both beasts.
She settled herself back in the saddle, but her mouth was pulled into a straight line. Not quite a frown but nowhere near a smile.
Pity, she would be really pretty if she smiled. And didn’t dress like a man. Not that he cared about such things. Even if she wasn’t a lady of ill repute, the last thing he needed was a woman depending on him. He couldn’t be trusted with the life of another. He’d already proven that. And he would have never taken this trip on had he not needed the money.
“Do you have plans when you get to Sacramento?” Jed asked. He hadn’t thought much about the words, but there they were.
She pulled her hat a little lower over her eyes. “I don’t see how that’s—”
“Bird. She get married,” the Chinaman interjected.
Cora Mae looked mad enough to strangle him. Now her mouth was truly a frown.
“Bird?” Jed asked.
Cora Mae stiffened. “A nickname,” came her curt explanation.
Jed nodded. “You’re getting married?” I guess it takes all kinds of people to make up the world.
Cora Mae tugged on her hat again, a clear sign that she didn’t want to talk. It was going to be a long trip with no conversation.
“I’m glad for you,” he said. “Changing your life around like that.”
“It’s really none of your concern,” she started.
“Bird.” The one word from the Chinaman was a clear warning.
“I apologize, Mr. Evans. But I don’t go in for idle chit-chat. I guess I’ve been on this mountain too long.”
“Are there any more of you up here?” he asked.
She frowned. “More who?”
His face flushed a bit. He could feel the heat of the color in his cheeks.
Cora Mae’s frown deepened.
“Prostitutes.”
“You—I—” she sputtered. “You think I’m a prost—” She was having problems saying it. “A fallen dove?” She whispered the words.
“You’re not?”
She glared at him.
“What else would a lady be doing up here on a mountain?” Probably not the best thing to say to a woman like Cora Mae Hawkins. She was unconventional for certain.
“Mining perhaps?” She raised her brows.
“I—I suppose,” he stuttered. He hadn’t really thought about it all that much. Now that she mentioned it, he did hear tell of a lady miner, but he thought she was a myth like a ghost or a fairy tale. “I meant no offense,” he said. “Everybody’s got to do what they have to do to make it. California is tough.” He had learned that the hard way.
“So if I was a prostitute, then you’d forgive me?”
“That’s not what I meant either.”
“Well, you meant something.” She pulled her reins from his grasp. The land was flatter, so he let her take control. Plus, he had the feeling that if he didn’t, he would pay for that insolence. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
She pulled her mount to a stop.
Jed kept walking. She was trying to get away from him, and there was nothing he could do about it. So best now to give her the distance she wanted and hopefully everything would calm down before nightfall. He had heard terrible stories about the lady miner and how mean she was. He just prayed none of them were true.
Instead of a midday meal, they ate a small snack of corn pones and cheese as they walked. Birdie was glad that they kept moving. She was more than ready for this trip to be over.
Prostitute? He thought she was a prostitute? The thought was unthinkable. What would make a man come to such a determination? She couldn’t fathom. She had done nothing but be a woman in a man’s domain. The mountains and hills of California were filled with men, but the women there were either very brave wives—and those were few in number—or ladies who were taking advantage of the gathering of men. She didn’t want to judge them. Everyone had to make a living somehow, but she did pray for them every chance she got. Pray that they found a better life, a more holy life filled with both God and love.
And that he thought she was among their number...
She pushed the thoughts away. They were only making her angry and using up all the energy she had to remain alert. She didn’t think anyone would attack them during the day, but she could watch for signs that someone was tracking them, following them and simply waiting for them to make camp before coming after them and the gold.
The gold. Curse it all. It was making her a little wacky. As was Mr. Jedidiah Evans. She watched him walk ahead, picking a trail for them to follow. He might have offended her Christian sensibilities, but he hadn’t said those horrible, accusing words with any malice or judgment. He merely said them.
Not that it mattered.
She glanced around, checking once again to see if they were being followed. Word had gotten out that she had found gold. They had managed to keep it hidden for a couple of years—long enough for her arm and leg to heal. But her father hadn’t been ready to leave then. Just a little more, he wanted. And another little bit more. And that became “maybe tomorrow” and the next thing she knew it was two years later and he was dead. Killed over the gold she now carried in her saddle bags. She didn’t want any more lives to be taken for what was essentially a pile of rocks. Very valuable rocks, but rocks nonetheless.
She felt vulnerable out there in the open, and her back and jaw were tense. She felt as if she were simply waiting for bandits to realize who she was and come after them. There were men in the area who wouldn’t think twice about slitting all their throats and taking off with the saddle bags. She also was nervous around their guide. He wanted to talk and the more they talked the more chance they had of exposing their secret.
Lord help her, this gold was a curse and she couldn’t wait to be rid of it. It could ruin a person’s life if they didn’t have any and ruin a person’s life if they had too much.
The hot sun beat down on them as they picked their way along the trail. It had been worn out over time, but it was still treacherous. Every so often she caught Mr. Evans looking her way, a small, thoughtful frown pulling his brows together just under the brim of his hat. He was like most of the men in the mountains, dun-colored trousers held up by tattered suspenders, no coat, and a hat that had seen better days. Hats were important up on the mountain. A body needed them to keep the sun off their face and neck. His shirt was definitely on the ratty side, but remarkably it was clean. It might have been a bit stained, but no one stood on ceremony when panning for gold.
She looked down at her own tan pants. She had been wearing men’s clothing since she had been in California. It
was unorthodox, she knew, but she had promised herself that when she got back to Sacramento she was buying a new dress first thing. A lovely blue one. Even before Nelson could see her. Especially before Nelson could see her. Then the second thing was to—
“Are you really getting married when you get to Sacramento?” Mr. Evans’s question cut through her thoughts.
He sounded as if the thought were ridiculous. She knew she wasn’t the prettiest woman, but she wasn’t ugly either, merely somewhere in between. She supposed even that much was hard to tell through all the dust and grime of the mountains.
“Yes,” she said, simply when she really wanted to ask him if he thought she wasn’t worthy.
He nodded, then turned back to face the front. “Just curious. Haven’t you been up in these mountains for a while?”
“Yes.” Her mule swayed as the terrain grew rough. The trail was steeper than they had encountered before. “Hold up.”
Mr. Evans stopped, and Birdie slid to the ground.
“You going to walk?” he asked.
“Better than rolling down the mountain.”
“I just thought—”
“I am not a cripple, Mr. Evans.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
They walked in silence, picking their way along the steep incline. Birdie tried to pretend that it was because they were concentrating. She tried her best not to allow her limp to show, but all she succeeded in doing was making her good leg ache. She shouldn’t have bothered; he wasn’t watching her at all.
“What happened?” he asked.
A first she wasn’t sure he was talking to her. He never once turned to look at her, just kept stepping along, carefully placing each foot on the rocky path, allowing her time to see his trail and follow it.
“I fell.” It was the simplest explanation. Of course it left out the pertinent details of where she fell and what she had found afterwards.
He glanced back, catching her wince as she followed behind him. “That must have been some fall.”
She nodded. “I also broke my arm.”
“Is that where the scar came from?” He motioned across his eye, demonstrating where he saw it.
She nodded. “Yes.” She did all within her power to hide the scar as well. Had done everything from rub lard on it to drinking a bottle of snake oil in order to help the jagged slash not look so prominent. She didn’t want Nelson to be repulsed by it. What if he hated it? She hadn’t had it the last time he had seen her. She had written to him about it and her leg, hoping and praying the while that he wouldn’t call off their engagement. He was a kind and decent man and his head hadn’t been turned by her sudden wealth. In fact, he could care less what sort of dowry she would bring into the marriage. Just another one of the many reasons that she loved him. Surely something like a small limp and a tiny scar wouldn’t make any difference to him.
Probably not, but she had more than a tiny scar and a small limp.
“I’m surprised you didn’t go home right then. You were here with your father, right?”
She nodded.
“Why didn’t he take you home straight away?”
Birdie slowed her steps. Not because the ground had turned rougher than before, but so she didn’t have to answer him immediately. She needed time to think about this one.
He stopped.
Drat the man! He was a gentleman, she grudgingly admitted. She slowed down, so he did too. She couldn’t find fault in that even if she wanted to. And she tried. Oh, how she tried. She mulled it over so long that she forgot to answer his original question. And the time that she would have used to devise that answer had been filled with trying to cast Jedidiah Evans in a bad light.
Lord, please help me keep my thoughts straight and help me know right from wrong. The line was getting blurred. Amen.
“Cora Mae?” His brow creased with a concerned frown, and it took her a moment to realize that he was talking to her. She would never get used to being called anything other than Birdie, or Bird, as Ling Sin preferred.
“Yes?”
“Did you injure your head when you fell?”
Lord, please tell me he’s not being serious.
But she could tell from the look on his face, he was more than serious. He thought she had a brain injury? Just what she needed. Thousands of dollars worth of gold in her saddle bags and an escort who thought she was addle-minded.
Father, please let me get off this mountain safely. Amen. And once again she was praying for herself instead of thanking the Lord for her blessings.
“I am perfectly...” What was the word? Sane? Coherent? “Not brain injured.” Though he might not be able to tell with that sentence. She closed her eyes, counted to five, then opened them again.
He was still staring at her.
No mind. She knew that she wasn’t deficient. She knew that she hadn’t injured her brain. Just her arm, her forehead, and her leg. And her heart. This gold might just be the death of her. After all, it had been the death of her father.
Jed picked a spindly plant from the ground beside him and tore off a piece and tossed it into the fire. They had stopped before sundown, made camp, built a fire and now the Chinaman was cooking up something in a crazy-looking pan. The food looked normal, bean, fatback, and cornpones that she had brought with her. He had some food of his own, venison jerky, some bacon, and strange loaf of bread that one of the German miners had given him. He wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with his homeland, or if the bread was so foreign looking because it was impossible to bake bread on a campfire. That didn’t stop the men from trying though.
The Chinaman looked up and caught him staring. “Be ready soon, yes?”
Jed wasn’t sure if he was supposed to answer that or merely agree. He gave a swift nod and that seemed to be enough for the man. The Chinaman bowed, then squatted down next to the fire to stir the contents of the weird pan.
He didn’t care how weird the pan was, he was just hungry. All day on the trail with nothing but a bowl of mush and a hunk of cheese to keep him going...he was ready to eat his fill, then turn in for the night.
But that wasn’t going to be possible. Not with him, the only one capable of keeping watch. He supposed Cora Mae could keep watch, but what happened if they were set upon by bandits or robbers? He didn’t know if she could handle a gun. And the Chinaman...well, he tried to be fair to all men, but he couldn’t see him putting his life in that particular man’s hands. And it had nothing to do with the country of his birth. Jed was just...well, the man...see, he was so small. Even smaller than Cora Mae. There was no meat on his bones. If he could shoot a gun Jed was pretty sure the recoil would knock him flat on his back. It might do with giving a warning, but it surely wouldn’t protect them from desperados. And the California mountains were full of those.
In no time, the meal was ready. They ate hungrily, though no one spoke. He chewed his food and contemplated broaching the subject of the night watch.
The Chinaman stood as Birdie gathered up their bowls and spoons. “I sleep now,” he said. “You wake me when the moon goes there.” He pointed to a spot in the sky.
“What happens then?” Jed asked.
The Chinaman grinned. “You sleep.”
Don’t count on it.
“Good Night, Bird,” Lin Sing called as he stretched out on his bedroll.
There was that nickname again. For some reason it bothered Jed, though he had no idea why. Maybe because such an intimacy meant they were well known to each other and maybe he wanted to know Cora Mae a little better himself.
Ridiculous. He’d had his chance at love and thrown it away. Now he could only hope that Ginny would be waiting for him when he got back to Texas.
Cora Mae came back to where he sat and stored the dishes in the saddle bag, the one on the donkey. The left side. Lin Sing had taken his bedroll from the saddle bags on Cora Mae’s mule. The left side again. Did that mean there was something else—somethi
ng other than supplies—in the right-hand saddle bags of both beasts?
And what else other than supplies would they be hauling from the mountain?
Gold.
He looked over to where she stood. If both bags were filled with gold...
Well, that was a lot of gold. A lot lot. But surely...
“Care to join me?” he invited.
She jerked her attention to him, almost startled as if she had forgotten he was there. “I-uh...”
“Come on,” he said gently. “I don’t bite.”
She swayed a bit as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether to join him at the fire or not.
“It’s still early,” he added. Just three words, but it was a challenge and she knew it.
“Yes, fine. I’ll join you for a moment. Thank you.” She plopped down across from him but didn’t look the least bit grateful.
“I think we made pretty good time today,” he mused, hoping to draw her into some kind of conversation. He was a social person; he liked people. But for some reason this person didn’t seem to like him back.
“How long do you think it will take us to get there?”
“Maybe four days if we can keep making time like we did today.”
“Four days,” she mused. From her tone it sounded like a lifetime.
“There’s a little bit of coffee left, if you want cup.”
She shook her head. “You drink it. You’re the one who needs to keep watch.”
“This is true.” He nodded and poured himself a cup of the brew. It was terrible. Lesson learned today: never let a Chinaman make coffee.
“Anyway,” she said. “I prefer tea.”
He about fell over backward in surprise. It was the first piece of information about herself that she had given voluntarily.
He glanced around. “Tea’s a little hard to come by up here.”
She nodded. “I ran out two years ago. Never could find any supplier who handled it.”
There was always someone coming up the mountain with supplies, looking to make their own gold on the backs of the miners. But he could see where tea might fall to the bottom of the list in importance. Most men he knew drank coffee and the occasional snort of hooch, but no one drank tea.
