Devil's Canyon

by Ralph Compton

  * * *

  After breakfast the following morning, Collins, Faro, Isaac, and Josh rode downriver to the place Collins wished to investigate. Isaac and Josh had brought picks and shovels.

  “The bank here is not more than half as deep as the bank upriver,” Collins said, “and we’re only about two miles below the claim.”

  “Let’s find out just how solid that bank is,” said Isaac. “Come on, Josh.”

  They dismounted, and with picks they attacked the riverbank. The picks went in deep, and withdrawing them, Isaac and Josh tested the ground in several other places, with the same result.

  “Unless there’s rock deeper down, we can level this bank in a day,” Isaac said.

  “It sure looks better than what we’ve been blasting,” said Faro. “Eight of us with picks and shovels should make short work of it. Why don’t we start today?”

  “There’s no reason why we can’t,” Collins said, “but I’m a bit nervous when all of us are away from camp at the same time. Suppose four of us work half a day at a time, with the others watching over the horses, mules, and wagons?”

  “That’s likely a good idea,” said Faro. “Josh and Isaac already have picks and shovels. You and me can ride back for ours, and tell the others what we have in mind.”

  They rode back to camp and Collins told the rest of the outfit what he and Faro had decided.

  “Dallas, you’re in charge here,” Faro said. “If there’s trouble of any kind, three quick shots will bring us on the run. When we ride in and the noon meal’s done, then the rest of you can ride downriver and pick up where we leave off.”

  Taking picks and shovels, Faro and Collins rode back to join Isaac and Josh, and found them using shovels instead of picks.

  “Saves time,” said Isaac. “Unless we hit rock, we may not need the picks at all.”

  “You’ve started back far enough for a decent slope,” Collins observed. “That should be sufficient.”

  “One thing we must keep in mind, and what we must tell the others,” said Isaac, “is that none of the dirt from our digging is to be thrown into the riverbed. We don’t yet know where we’ll be mining for gold, and I can’t see moving this dirt again.”

  They spent two days leveling the riverbank to the extent that the wagons could safely be taken down to the now dry riverbed.

  “It should be packed hard,” Faro said, “and the mules can take care of that.”

  All the mules were brought downriver on lead ropes and were led repeatedly up and down the newly dug slope until the surface was packed hard.

  “Now,” said Faro, “we’re ready to move the wagons down here, into the riverbed, and back upstream near the claim.”

  “I don’t want to get in the way of progress,” Collins said, “but shouldn’t we first be sure the riverbed’s solid all the way, and that there’s no pockets of deep mud?”

  “That might not be a bad idea,” said Faro. “Let’s you and me find out. We’ll ride up there as far as we aim to take the wagons.”

  They did so, and while there was some remaining mud, the riverbed beneath it seemed solid enough. Collins was satisfied, and within an hour the five wagons were making their way along the former bed of the river, toward the gold claim. Faro positioned his wagon well under the protective overhang and the rest of the wagons were drawn up in similar fashion.

  “All we’ll need is a rope from bank to bank,” Dallas observed, “and we’ll have a corral for the horses and mules, and when there’s snow, there’s plenty of overhang where they can take shelter.”

  “I suppose it’s time to drop all those logs over the edge,” said Collins. “Then we can take turns working the claim and chopping wood.”

  “Yeah,” Dallas said. “Them that’s takin’ a rest from working the claim can chop wood while they’re resting.”

  “Just a damn minute,” said Tarno. “If you’re the segundo, I quit.”

  Faro laughed. “I think we’ll all work the claim for a few days. It’s time we had a taste of the reward that brought us here in the first place.”

  “I’m in favor of that,” Felix said.

  The rest of them quickly shouted their agreement.

  “I see I’m outvoted,” said Collins in a jovial manner. “Tomorrow we’ll begin working the claim.”

  * * *

  After breakfast, eagerly seizing picks and shovels, they followed Collins to the place from which the original ore samples had been taken.

  “Because of the river’s water, we only had a small area in which we were able to dig,” Collins said. “Now we have the entire riverbank. Felix, why don’t you do the honors?”

  Felix Blackburn swung his pick, and driving it deep into the riverbank, brought forth a small landslide of earth and rock. The rock came loose in flat chunks and the surface of it was honeycombed with thin threads of gold.

  “My God,” said Dallas Weaver, “I’ve had a little mining experience, but I’ve never seen anything the equal of this. That’ll assay at ten thousand dollars a ton.”

  “Let’s see if it continues,” Felix said, swinging the pick at a different portion of the riverbank.

  There was more of the brittle rock, with threads of gold becoming visibly wider.

  “Maybe we can find it somewhere else,” said Dallas, seizing a pick.

  A dozen feet beyond where Felix had begun digging, Dallas drove the pick deep into the riverbank. There was more of the strange rock, crisscrossed with threads of gold. Aflame with excitement, the others began driving picks into the riverbank, with the same astounding results. So frantic were their efforts, they were soon exhausted, and when they sat down to rest, they stared at their discovery with unbelieving eyes.

  “I believe this may be one of the lost treasures I’ve read about in history books,” said Felix. “Some of them were supposed to be so rich, threads of gold could be broken loose from the ore by hand. There have been legends of strikes such as this, back in the days when Spain owned this territory.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a strike in Utah,” Faro said. “What in tarnation possessed any of you to look for gold here?”

  “Felix believed there was a rich strike here somewhere,” said Collins, “and he persisted in looking for it, long after the rest of us were convinced we were wasting our time.”

  “It’s a lot like salvation,” Felix said. “It never comes to you, unless you believe that it exists. Only then can a dream become reality.”

  “I just wish you’d dreamed it was closer to Santa Fe,” said Josh.

  “This would be worth the effort if it was a thousand miles from Santa Fe,” Isaac said.

  “This claim should have been registered with the assayer’s office in Santa Fe,” Faro said.

  “We thought of that,” said Collins, “but we were fearful of starting a gold rush before we knew exactly where the gold was.”

  “That,” Isaac said, “and the fact that we just didn’t know if our claim would be legal, since it’s in Utah Territory, and we would have had to register it in New Mexico.”

  “Utah Territory is part of the United States,” said Faro, “and someday Utah will be a state. Federal law should protect you here.”*

  “I’m not too sure of that,” Dallas said. “Remember the renegades who ambushed us, and them eight varmints Durham put on our trail? They didn’t care a damn for the law, and all that protected us was our loaded guns. I reckon the time’s comin’ when a man won’t be allowed to protect himself, when the world becomes civilized and law-bound. Then the men we pay to protect us will nuzzle up to the politicians, and the lot of ’em will sell us out to the very varmints who want us dead. I hope I don’t live so long that I can’t load my gun and stomp my own snakes.”

  “I reckon you’re right,” said Faro, “but I still think this claim should be registered in Santa Fe.”

  “We might as well register it when we return,” Felix said. “Once we roll into town with four wagon loads of the wealth we’re lookin’ at,
there’ll be no keeping this claim a secret. We’ll have men following us day and night.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” said Faro, “but we’ll defend what’s ours as we have so far. With guns, if there’s no other way.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Shanghai said. “Right now, I reckon we’re lookin’ at another problem. Loadin’ this ore into the wagons will be something different. Barrels and crates, sides of bacon and the like is one thing, but wagon beds ain’t deep enough for the ore we aim to haul. Pile it too high, and we’ll lose a lot of it along the way, and if we don’t pile it high, it means we can’t haul near as much.”

  His companions looked at Shanghai and then at one another. Faro spoke.

  “It’s something we should have considered before leavin’ Santa Fe, I reckon. There we could have bought lumber and built sideboards for the wagon bed.”

  “But we had no idea the strike would be this rich, or that we’d be hauling so much ore,” said Dallas.

  “Perhaps we’ll just have to make the best of it, and haul what we can,” Collins said.

  “Do we?” said Felix. “After all the challenges we’ve met, there has to be a way to add to the depth of those wagon beds, using materials that we have.”

  “Maybe there is,” Faro said. “There’s the wagon canvas.”

  “The bows ain’t strong enough,” said Tarno. “Throw the weight of that ore against ’em and they’ll snap like matchsticks.”

  “We won’t be depending on the wagon bows,” Faro said. “We’ll have to cut uprights maybe five feet long, using available timber, and spacing them three feet apart, anchor them to the wagon beds. The wagon canvas is less than six months old, and when it’s taut against those uprights, it’ll hold as much ore per wagon as the teams can pull.”

  “That’ll take some time,” said Josh Snyder. “It’ll delay work on the claim.”

  “No matter,” Levi Collins said. “Without the extra depth to the wagon beds, the time saved to work the claim won’t mean anything. For that matter, with all the firewood we have, we can build enough fires to work on both the wagons and the claim at night, if we have to.”

  “Bueno,” Faro said. “That’s the kind of thinking that leads to success.”

  “Then we’d better put our heads to it and figure some way to increase the depth of the wagon tailgates, and to build a barrier behind each wagon box,” said Dallas. “Them canvas puckers won’t do a thing to keep the ore from slidin’ over the tailgate at the back, or from comin’ down on the wagon box like an avalanche, when we go down a slope.”

  “I reckon we can solve that problem, too,” Faro said. “We have the canvas that served as shelter between the wagons durin’ storms, and we can use as much of that as we need. We’ll have to add some of those wooden uprights to the tailgates of the wagons and stretch canvas tight over them. A similar barrier will have to be built behind each wagon box, too. We still have plenty of those spikes, don’t we, Dallas?”

  “Yeah,” said Dallas. “They’ll work, if we cut only three- or four-inch firs and flatten the ends where they’re to be anchored to the wagon.”

  “We know the ore’s here,” Collins said, “and I believe we should devote our time to modifying the wagons. Now that we have shelter, they must be unloaded.”

  “Yes,” said Faro. “We’ll need several of them to haul in the timber for the uprights.”

  So they set about unloading the supplies from the wagons, piling them up against the riverbank, under the protective overhang.

  “It occurs to me,” Felix said, while they rested from their efforts, “that we may have too much of this grub left, when it’s time to return to Santa Fe.”

  “I’ve thought of that, myself,” said Collins, “but our original plans called for us to be here for at least a year, and we would have needed the extra supplies.”

  “But when we joined your outfit,” Dallas added, “you had eight men to work the claim, and that cuts the time in half. But we’ll need grub for the return to Santa Fe, so at least some of our wagon space will be needed for that. Why don’t we go ahead and build sideboards for all the wagons, but count on using one of them as a supply wagon?”

  “That’s a practical solution,” said Collins. “What do the rest of you think?”

  “It makes sense to me,” Faro said. “From what we’ve already learned, there’s no way we can take as much of this ore as we’d like, even if we were able to use all five wagons. The best we can do is load four of them as heavily as we safely can, and like Felix has suggested, add more wagons when we return.”

  Quickly they all agreed to the proposal, and finished unloading the wagons. Early the next morning, Faro told them how he believed their plan should proceed.

  “Four of us will take two of the wagons and begin cutting timber for the uprights. I think I’ve figured pretty close to how many we’ll need. A couple of days and we should have all we’ll need. Shanghai, Isaac, and Josh will go with me today. Tomorrow, the rest of you will finish the job.”

  “I like that arrangement,” said Collins. “Those of us remaining in camp can continue to work the claim.”

  “So do I,” Josh said.

  The others quickly agreed. Faro and Isaac took one wagon while Shanghai and Josh took the second, and they set out to begin cutting the necessary timber.

  * * *

  Cutting, hauling, shaping the timber, and shoring up the wagons took them a week, and then they began working the claim in earnest. So that Felix might work with the rest of the outfit, Mamie took over cooking for them all.

  “Tarnation,” said Dallas, one night during supper, “at the rate we’re goin’, we’ll have these wagons loaded and ready to go, long before April.”

  “Yes,” Collins said, “but the deadliest part of winter will probably be during January, February, and March. We could be laid up on the trail for days at a time, because of snow and the mud that follows with the thaw.”

  “We won’t have any shelter on the trail,” said Shanghai. “We used most of the shelter canvas to help shore up the wagon beds. I favor stayin’ right here until April. God knows, we have plenty of grub and supplies. If we start back too soon, we’ll need more than one wagon for supplies.”

  “Normally I wouldn’t agree with such a delay,” Faro said. “A teamster can’t allow the winter to delay him, but this time, I reckon we ought to make an exception. I won’t be surprised if we have snowdrifts by Christmas that may still be there three months later.”

  “I believe that’s a wise decision,” said Collins. “On the return trip, we’ll be better able to plan what we should do.”

  They all understood and quickly agreed.

  Southwestern Utah, on the Sevier River.

  December 25, 1870.

  “Today,” Dallas Weaver said, “I don’t aim to do a blessed thing but eat and sleep.”

  “Go ahead,” said Faro. “It’s about all the Christmas a teamster ever gets.”

  The entire outfit enjoyed a day of leisure, except for Felix and Mamie, who did all the cooking.

  “I feel a mite guilty,” Shanghai said, “layin’ here doin’ nothin’, while Felix and Mamie do all the work.”

  “If it will ease your guilt,” said Felix wryly, “you can always pitch in and help.”

  “I don’t feel that guilty,” Shanghai said. “Besides, my cookin’ would spoil Christmas for the rest of you, and I just ain’t that mean.”

  “If there ain’t nothin’ else,” said Tarno, “we can always give thanks for this shelter. I look for snow sometime tonight.”

  Tarno’s prediction proved all too true, and by midnight there was a howling blizzard in progress. Several extra fires were built, and the horses and mules huddled gratefully under the protective overhang of the riverbank.

  “Ain’t often a bunch of teamsterin’ mules gets this kind of shelter,” Dallas said.

  “Teamsters neither,” said Shanghai.

  * * *

  The
new year arrived just hours before another storm, piling snow atop drifts that had not only not melted, but were frozen solid. The temperature fell below zero and remained there for days. Two weeks passed before they again saw the sun, and the cold continued. While there was plenty of food, warm fires, and shelter, the camp wasn’t wolf-proof, and one frigid day after the worst of the storms had blown itself out, the silence was broken by the fearful howling of wolves.

  “We can manage with our normal watch,” Faro said, “but we’ll all have to be ready for them. We’ll keep our Winchesters ready. Thanks to the overhang of these riverbanks, I’d say they’ll have to come after us along the riverbed.”

  “We can build up a roaring fire at each end of the camp, durin’ the night,” said Dallas, “and that should help.”

  “It will,” Faro said, “but with everything frozen solid and the scent of fresh mule, they won’t be waitin’ for night.”

  The predators came, a dozen strong, but as Faro had predicted, they ignored the high riverbanks. Instead, they came from two directions, skulking along the riverbed. Collins, Felix, Dallas, and Josh were standing watch on one side of the camp, while Faro, Isaac, Tarno, and Shanghai watched the other side. As though by prearrangement, the wolves came at them from both directions. Winchesters roared, while horses nickered and mules brayed, but the wolves were quickly gunned down.

  “We’ll have to rope the varmints and drag them far enough that they don’t spook the mules and horses,” said Faro. “A little more, and we’ll have a stampede on our hands.”

  * * *

  Time passed slowly, for the sun seldom shone, and it was difficult to tell when one day ended and another began. Dallas Weaver tied a knot in a leather thong, marking the dreary passing of each day.

  “Accordin’ to my count, it’s the first day of March,” Dallas announced.

  “We already have enough ore to load all the wagons,” said Felix. “Looks like we’ll have plenty of time to rest before we leave for Santa Fe.”

  “I think we’ll see what March brings,” Faro said. “If there’s a break in the weather, we may not wait for April.”