California Bloodstock

by Terry McDonell

  Sutter, of course, smiled back at him and, in the end, put his hand gently on Millard’s ragged shoulder. He led Millard to the door and even opened it for him. Remember, Sutter whispered, just between you and me.

  With Millard gone, Sutter sent for Joaquin Peach and began pacing in a small circle around his writing desk. Things could be worse, he told himself. And if he couldn’t handle some half-wit, then he didn’t deserve to become king.

  59

  Millard’s Brain

  Serious and crucial talk between Sutter and Brannan over the next two days. Both obviously had things to hide. Millard, meanwhile, hurried back to the scene of his wonderful discovery, unaware that he was being followed.

  He splashed into the shallows, collecting an assortment of nuggets, and then took up a position from which he could keep a sharp watch on the claim as Sutter had instructed. He sat on the riverbank, dangling his toes in the water and twanging away on his mandolin.

  Millard had been what was called marked in the brain at birth. And most men he met, Sutter for example, found his reason sadly lacking. Millard never understood insults or the dangers of a bad reputation, and it was almost impossible to hurt his feelings. He had never been in love. Few things ever moved him one way or another. It was not understood back then that a person like Millard might appear stupid for any number of reasons, or that in rare cases the brain produces its own morphinelike substance that acts as a natural pain-killer. Millard’s was such a case, and it should be pointed out that so far he had lived his life not so much stupid as stupefied.

  Then, bang!

  The rifle ball that lodged behind his ear with a thud as he sat there on the bank of the American River changed everything. It hurt, of course, and stunned Millard for a moment, but it did not kill him. Rather it dammed the reservoir of renegade enzymes that had been drowning his synapses for so many years, and he began to get smart. He began to think.

  He knew at once who was responsible for the attempt on his life and a lot of others things as well. Punch lines of wit and reason fell through his head like confetti. In a flash he was on his horse and away, riding with thoughtful purpose toward the coast, making plans.

  FIFTEEN

  60

  Other Changes

  It wasn’t just old Millard’s mind that was changing, no siree, cabron! Things were up all over. Take T. D. Jr., por exemplo. His clear young artistic eyes were doing a fandango with a fortified mix of Sierra Nevada landscape, and the muckworms of greed were hatching in his heart. A man’s first view of his promised land inevitably hits him with the fear of being somehow cheated out of it, and that’s exactly what was happening to T. D. Jr.

  He was standing on a flat white slice of granite overhang, staring down maybe three thousand feet on the most beauteous slash of wilderness he’d ever seen. His mind hollered at him. Look at that lake, and the way those two silver rivers slide into it all smooth and heavy like milk, or bloodlines maybe. It was spectacular. Delicate feathers of mist floated up the canyons that spread out from the basin like the spokes of a wheel, and the sunlight was shooting in and out of it all like a hail of arrows. Tiny rainbows everywhere and it was all so quiet and weighty. And natural?

  All T. D. Jr. knew was that he wanted it. No, needed it. All of it, the ponderosa pine and the golden trout and the air itself. He’d build a stone house, a castle. And sire strong sons who would sit with him at a heavy redwood table and together they would…well, for one thing, they’d keep everybody else the hell out of what was his. Naw. It wasn’t all that bad. The sons would be more than brutes and he himself would run the show with a lot more style than all those rough-handed partriarchs dreaming that same old dream of isolated empire. His kingdom would be refined, tempered with the inquisitive sensibilities of science and art. One son a botanist, another a poet, another a geographer, another a student of archeology; and his daughters would be blessed with the natural grace that makes pianists and lace-makers superb wing shots. Each morning he would kiss Taya’s fingers one by one and life would proceed as an elegant seminar into the natural order of things. Even the no trespassing signs would be done with taste.

  He kicked a small rock off the ledge and walked back up to the narrow ridge where Taya was resting with the horses. He looked at her and saw his future as a tableau, a tapestry of fine threads. If he could just set up the loom in time, the weave would take care of itself. He felt nervous with luck.

  It’s steep, he told Taya, pulling his map from the saddle pouch. But there’s a pass on the left and there’s a lake. It’s perfect.

  Perfect?

  Yeah, hurry.

  Hurry indeed. She couldn’t figure him. Ever since the American River he’d been playing a sucker to his own whims. Maybe she shouldn’t have grabbed him. She turned and looked west, where they had been. A line of mountain sheep stared up at her from the switchback below. She stared back until shadows thrown from above skimmed over the sheep and they spooked. Condors, she figured, but when she looked up the sky was empty.

  Wait up, she yelled, turning to follow T. D. Jr., who was now carelessly breaking trail a quarter of a mile ahead of her.

  But he didn’t wait, and it was hours before she came up on him. He was on the last steep rise above the lake, studying his map. He looked up, smiling, and waved his arm in an arch.

  It’s not even on the map, he said.

  There are lots of maps, she told him.

  And she was right. In fact, there were far more accurate charts of the area, some even delineating their own history; and it wouldn’t be long before T. D. Jr. would have to face a few facts about who owned what. And not just in terms of real estate.

  61

  Slant Lake

  The autumn dusk came nesting down on the lake like a great soft animal. Pine shadows dissolved in the rich purple twilight. Small clean waves licked quietly at small stones on the narrow beach. Taya sat watching the horizon move toward her over the water, pushed by the darkening sky.

  They had been three days at the lake. At first she had welcomed the rest, admitting finally that she was tired. The fall days were warm and dry and the creeks were ice cold and wonderful for drinking. She had rested and stitched at their tattered clothes while T. D. Jr. roamed about the lake carving his name in trees.

  She tossed a pebble into the water. She was rested now, strong again, anxious. Funny how the body gives and takes in its own rhythms, teasing the will. And stranger yet how spirits or pieces of spirits are always trying to crosscut those same time streams of the body renewing itself. Taya wanted to move on once again. She had to, even if it meant dragging her body like a bone at the end of a rope, plowing beneath the soil on the Sierra edge of California.

  T. D. Jr. came out of the trees and sat down beside her on the narrow beach. He picked up a flat rock and skipped it across the water.

  You like it here? he asked.

  It’s all right, she said. She did not look at him.

  I like it here, he said, sweeping his eyes over the darkening lake. I could live here. I’d like to live here.

  When?

  The question surprised him, embarrassed him somehow, drained at his enthusiasm, made him feel silly. Sometime, he told her. Just sometime.

  There will be snow here soon, she said. Her voice was flat.

  So that was it. She was worried about giving up. Maybe even afraid that he….His mind raced. Didn’t she know? He had known the moment he had seen her again at Sutter’s Fort, and now more than then. It had to do with his destiny. You bet. He rested his arm over her shoulders. It was the very first time he had done this, but he did it with confidence. She could tell.

  Don’t worry, he whispered to her. We’ll find him.

  And for the first time in all the months that they had been together, she leaned on him.

  As the darkness closed in around them, he felt her relax into sleep. He looked up at the stars, an infinite scatter of twinkles winking down at him. Something definitely tricky going on up ther
e. He had no god, but Lord, he thought, don’t mess with me now. He bent closer to Taya, asleep against him, and was about to venture a kiss when they had a visitor.

  62

  The Immigrant’s Guide

  It was Lansford Hastings, a definite face card in California’s fresh deck of knavery. Yes, an author, lawyer, and character assassin, Hastings was destined to distinguish himself in a high propaganda capacity with the Confederate States of America. But first, he had fortunes to seek in California. He rode boldly into the shrinking light of their campfire.

  Children, Hastings announced, if you’re heading down into California, I do hope you’ve a copy of my indispensable guidebook to see that you get your rightful jump at fortune in that shining land.

  Taya drifted back into sleep. Hastings said he was riding straight through, bound for the Humboldt Sink, to intercept as many frontier amateurs as he could find arguing in their wagon trains as to the relative opportunities waiting for them in California as opposed to Oregon. He figured to turn them south via a shortcut he had invented for his book and eventually herd them into the Central Valley, where arrangements had been made with Sutter.

  The plan called for Hastings to lay out a town to be christened either Sutterville or Hastingsberg, depending on the outcome of further negotiations between the two men. He had accomplished a dog-walk survey for the development in less than a week, complete with piles of dirt clods indicating future intersections of importance. Sutter, meanwhile, had dispatched as many Worm Eaters as he could spare to the American River to cut wood. Sutter planned to sell the lumber to his future neighbors at a substantial profit, and Hastings had part of that action as well. Everything seemed to be falling into place. All Hastings needed now was a couple hundred immigrants to seed the place with their small-scale dreams.

  He banged T. D. Jr.’s ear tirelessly for hours. And when he finally left, he told T. D. Jr. to look him up if he was ever interested in a corner lot in a good neighborhood.

  Thus, T. D. Jr. heard about the future, and Taya woke at dawn to find him in a grumbling depression. He was like the kid who finally determines to jump off the roof of the barn only to discover that some other kid has already done it.

  Hastings said he’s going to bring hundreds of wagons through here, T. D. Jr. said. He says he might even stake out a rest stop here, and then a town. Right here.

  He’ll never make it, Taya said.

  And they rode on into days that became routine. He woke depressed each morning and seldom spoke to her. She would build a small fire and he would brew coffee. They would drink it watching the fire die and then head north once again. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore. He began to doubt his own sanity. She told him that it went with the territory.

  SIXTEEN

  63

  Haiku and Seek

  Galon Burgett was heading out of his mind. The sun was in and out all day, playing peek-a-boo with him from behind dusty white clouds. And Shaboom was dabbling in the same game. He popped from shadow to sunlight and back, erasing himself, giving Galon just the faintest image to wander after through the otherwise deserted outpost of Fort Ross.

  Light to dark, sunlight into shade, yin-yang and the edge in the middle; it was insidious. Each time Galon crossed the line he went blind for at least a second, and it was then that Shaboom hooted haikus at him:

  Dead belly crying

  Full of fish for you

  California

  Just noise to Galon, like clipped animal snorts flying on the wind, but there was something in the pitch, the rhythm maybe, that made him shiver. He felt his own death. Was it sneaking up on him?

  The games people play….

  64

  Vallejo

  One hundred tricky miles inland, Vallejo was dreaming of Worm Eaters. He saw long lines of them, stacks of his hides balanced on their heads. They were trotting naked over unfenced land, through hills swaying with wild mustard, toward the embarcadero.

  Sutter shook him awake.

  It’s me, Captain Sutter.

  Vallejo opened his eyes and nodded. He recognized Sutter right off. The bastard.

  Look, I’m sorry to have to keep you locked up here at my fort, Sutter said. You know it’s all Fremont’s idea. Were it up to me….

  Vallejo nodded again. He was good at nodding. Indeed, he had nodded his way into a position of great authority on the northern frontier. When as a handsome Californio he had nodded to the Spanish padres and dealt sternly with their runaway Worm Eaters, he had been well rewarded. Then he had nodded to a string of Mexican governors and was rewarded again. At the age of twenty-seven he had held the title of Military Commander and Director of Colonization. His civil and military power blanketed the north. All he had to do was nod and things happened for him. His wealth of land and Worm Eaters multiplied. Then, suddenly, the Americans, and try as he might to nod along with whatever they had in mind, his empire began to fall apart. Now he was middle-aged and in jail. Imagine his chagrin.

  Sutter winked at him.

  You and I have always been honest with each other, Sutter lied. Right?

  Vallejo nodded to the lie and waited for Sutter to get to the point.

  We have always been in harmony as to our own interests and the interests of this fair land, Sutter continued. In fact, the only reason you are detained here now is that you convinced me that our best interests lay in supporting the Americans. Is it my fault that they don’t trust you as much as they trust me?

  Again Vallejo nodded, but now he was thinking that Sutter and the Americans deserved each other. The only American to be trusted was Larkin, and he knew that Larkin thought Sutter was a toe-counting nincompoop. And his old friend Slant had told him all about the broader American view of Sutter.

  Glad you agree with me, Sutter said. But I didn’t wake you up to talk about that. The way I see it, you and I still have the same interests: protecting our holdings. It is true that yours have been somewhat, shall we say, trimmed? But I think you will have to agree that the last thing either of us needs is an influx of undesirable citizens. I am speaking of capitalistic engineers, get-rich-quick speculators, the kind of men who have traditionally been drawn to certain economic rumors. I fear such possibilities exist here, and I am asking you to help me keep the lid on.

  Sutter paused, then slipped his secret into the conversation like a fishhook.

  I have heard there might be gold around here, his whispered.

  Sutter searched Vallejo’s face for something given away in surprise, a meaningful reaction that would help him plan his next move, a clue. Something, anything! But the Californio didn’t even nod. The two men stared at each other like sentries.

  Of course, Vallejo finally said sarcastically, all kinds of it, just lying around. El Dorado, don’t you know. We Californios have jokes about it.

  Ha, ha, ha….

  Sutter relaxed and produced a paper from Larkin for Vallejo to sign if he wanted to get out of jail. It transferred the ownership of a number of acres on the eastern lip of San Francisco Bay. Vallejo nodded and signed.

  65

  Sacks Without Seams

  Vallejo was only half kidding. Seeds of the sun, as the Worm Eaters called the flakes of the baleful yellow metal, were not uncommon. Californio women of all classes wore little golden pebbles as ear drops, and most Californio men who cared for jewelry had a ring or two fashioned out of the stuff. And there was a joke that if you wanted to take the trouble to look for it, gold was easy enough to find. It was just that it took too much trouble. The Californios, you see, were repulsed by any labor that could not be accomplished on horseback. Thus there was no fishing and even less scratching around in the dirt looking for gold. A chunk found lying around was naturally picked up and pocketed, but nobody every really went looking.

  Unfortunately for Sutter, however, California was filling up with men who didn’t mind doing a little looking for whatever they heard might be free. Millard Burgett, for example, and he wasn’t the only one.<
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  There were others peeking into the golden future. A few nuggets and small quantities of dust were popping up in unlikely hands. Stashing began. A certain roto made plans to pass the word to Valpariso when the time was right. It was obvious that there was at least some gold in California. The question was, how much? And more important, would there be enough to go around? But there had been no substantial discovery, at least as far as anybody knew. Gold became a sensitive subject inside slapstick rumors. A man had to appear well informed on the matter or risk not being let in on something big, if something big ever happened. A man had to bluff.

  And there were ways of telling if a man had more than a wishful-thinking understanding of the possibilities. Take the regulars at Cargo West, for example. In sizing anyone up these days they looked for a sack without seams. More than just handy containers for carrying around one’s future gold dust without fear of losing any, the little bags became symbols of those in the know.

  It had all started when the rotos introduced the traditional dust purse of Chilean prospectors, leak-less little sacks fashioned from the scrota of butchered rams. The stylish and masculine accessory was an immediate hit. Everybody who was anybody just had to have one. Especially old T. D. Slant. He was naturally skeptical about the rumors of vast amounts of gold, but he saw in the soft little sacks a chance to redefine his masculinity, and to make up for a certain vacancy that no doubt preoccupied him. Early on, he purchased a faded pink sack from Joaquin Peach, who happened to be in Yerba Buena to confer with the loudmouthed Brannan.