Zachary's Gold

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Zachary's Gold Page 24

by Stan Krumm


  Farrell returned in less than a minute and passed me a full bottle of spirits, the paper seal unbroken.

  Without a word, May Sang and I rode across the field towards a double-rutted track that led to the road.

  We followed the horse path down to the main road, then doubled back to where we had left our own pack animals in the shelter of the trees. There we quickly transferred all the baggage onto one of Farrell’s horses, then rode out of the trees, across the road and due south over the open desert hills. With five horses and a mule, we left a trail that a blind idiot could follow, but such was our intention. I knew that I would be pursued sooner or later, but if my followers travelled along the route I laid out for them, and if they did not catch me up too soon, I might still survive the week.

  I felt badly about the way I had treated the old couple, for I knew that their life’s task of trying to raise a few cattle and vegetables on a barren hinterland was difficult enough as it was, without the intrusion of malicious strangers. Gold seekers and gold robbers will come and go, but if a country is to be made fit for humanity, it will be up to folks like the Farrells to make it so. The loss of the horses must have been a great inconvenience to them, although I had left behind a glass jar with enough gold in it to buy the four best animals in the colony. I had left it sitting on a fence post, for the old man wouldn’t deign to touch it in my presence.

  I was not in high spirits as we rode, the encounter with the Farrells having left me feeling dirty and depressed. I suppose May Sang must have sensed this, for she proceeded to thank me at great length for bringing her husband safely back to her from the wild Cariboo regions, and to compliment me repeatedly for the kindness and generosity I had exhibited in dividing up the gold. Like any other man, I admire the observant wisdom of anyone who wishes to compliment me, and I listened carefully to her speech.

  Unfortunately, May Sang did not stop talking once I had lost my gloomy demeanour, but went on and on, telling how the gold I had deposited with her and Rosh would benefit each individual friend and family member both at home and abroad. She was indeed a strange sort of conversationalist, alternating between wistful silence and unrestrained ramblings.

  Finally I interrupted, as much to stop the monologue of genealogies as to ask a question.

  “This Evans fellow—how do you come to know him, if he lives so far into the back and beyond?”

  “Jack Evans? Well, he is a man of a most colourful reputation—very wild, you understand, and prone to drink and all sorts of foolish excess. Mr. Cox assures me that he is harmless, although he has been imprisoned for lawless behaviour more than once. There was a time, for instance, that he used blasting powder to explode the toilets behind the government agent’s office, for no reason at all. I believe he simply enjoys the noise and the flying smoke. Very frightening to the government agent. For this reason Mr. Evans is often known as ‘Blasted Jack.’ He comes to Ashcroft House about once a month for beans and coffee and such, and the rest of the time he’s out at his ranch. He calls it a ranch, but I think he has three, or maybe four, cows.”

  “He just goes down there for supplies?”

  “And to drink.” She wrinkled her nose, as if she had detected a foul odour. “Drinking is definitely what Jack Evans does best, but he will suit your plans quite nicely. He is not as stupid as people think. Also he hates the sheriff and spits on Governor Douglas—very bitter and mean, and very sneaky. You and he should work well together.”

  She carried on to tell me about how Evans had arrived in the area after being tricked into buying worthless land by a confidence man in New Westminster. The accepted story was that he was the youngest son in a wealthy family and that money was sent to him regularly by messenger, on the condition that he did not show his face among his relations.

  I did not pay close attention to her narrative. I cared about the man only as far as he could assist me in my plan, and if he could ride a horse and hide when someone shot at him, then he was capable enough. Being thus deep in my own thoughts, I was surprised when May Sang informed me that it was time for us to part company.

  “That is the way you must go,” she said. “Through that gap, and keep to your left where the trail is on the dry creek. When the trail separates from the creek, you follow the creek, not the trail. It will take you up a sort of canyon, maybe a half mile or perhaps a bit more. I was there only once with Mr. Cox when we took Jack home to sober up.”

  She had said before that Evans’ place was very remote, so it surprised me that we did not travel far that morning. In reality, of course, our starting place at the Farrell homestead was already ten miles from nowhere. We were a long way from any landmarks, but I thought I could follow her directions easily enough.

  “I will follow this ridge down past those round hills,” she said “and ride back in a circle, so I come to Ashcroft from the south. The men chasing you will hear about me soon enough, and I will say you let me go when you reached the Fraser, some distance to the south. They should ride off and begin the chase down there. Goodbye, Mr. Beddoes.”

  I was not prepared this time to say goodbye, and for a moment I just stared down at the leather horn of Mr. Farrell’s best saddle. When I looked up, she had already started to ride away, leading two more horses and the mule.

  “Goodbye,” I said to her back.

  I watched her ride out of sight until my own horses started to get restless. They hadn’t been fed or allowed to graze at all that day, but I didn’t wish to stop until I found Blasted Jack Evans.

  I couldn’t find a good piece of ground to disguise my tracks when I turned north across the fields towards the gap May Sang had pointed out. I trusted that when the trackers reached that spot, they would follow the trail of four animals going southeast, rather than two going north.

  An hour later, I reached the dry creek bed; another half hour brought me through sharp gullies and wind-blown clay cliffs to a depression like a giant’s thumbprint in the hillside. A section of three-rail fence lay along one side of the meadow. Scattered, spindly pine and poplar formed the opposite boundary, and at the crest of the slope, like a discarded, empty plank box, stood Jack Evans’ shack. Beside it was a small corral, where one horse and one cow stood shoulder to shoulder like old friends, watching me ride towards them. When I was still a fair ways away, the man of the house strolled around from behind the shack, and the three of them observed my approach in silence.

  “Good day,” I said when we came face to face.

  “Hello.” He said it as if it were a question.

  “You’re Jack Evans.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  He was maybe an inch or so taller than me, not so much skinny as bony. He looked as if he might rattle when he walked. His belt had to be cinched well up to keep his trousers above his hips, and he wore no shirt in the bright sunshine. Down the length of his left arm were the sort of crude tattoos that jailbirds draw with a pin or a sharpened bed spring. I pegged him for the sort of fellow who has been driven by drink to places where civilized men should never go.

  I was eminently satisfied with him.

  “I’m Zachary Beddoes,” I said, and paused, waiting to see if he recognized the name. He showed no such sign.

  “This ain’t the kind of place you run into by accident, you know. You don’t mind me asking—who told you how to get here?”

  His eyes showed a spark of intelligence, in spite of his bedraggled physical appearance.

  I shook my head.

  “Best if you don’t hear the answer to that, Jack. If you don’t know it, then nobody could ever make you tell. Easier to keep a secret you don’t know, don’t you think? I have a job of short duration that I’d like to hire you for.”

  “I don’t work for nobody but myself.” He said it with a bit of hesitation. I had captured his interest with the hint of secrecy and intrigue.

  “It’s not really normal work, Mr. Evans, more like a favour I’d like you to do for me.”

  “Now
why should I do you a favour? Mostly when people ask for a favour it’s ’cause they been fool enough to get themselves stuck in trouble.”

  I smiled and tapped the bottle in my coat pocket with my knuckles.

  “We could have a drink and talk about it, don’t you think?”

  His face relaxed instantly into a half smile and he ran his fingers once through what was left of his blond hair.

  “Don’t normally touch a drink before nightfall, what with the animals to tend to and such. Still, it might not be so bad, you know. I been working since sun-up. Should take a morning off now and then. I’m only forty-two, and I could still die young and miss all the joy in life if I’m not careful, you know?”

  I tied the horses to the top rail of the little corral. I didn’t remove the saddle or baggage, but I cracked open the bag of oats for them and left them enough line to reach the trough of stagnant water that serviced the cow and the other horse.

  Evans led the way into the cabin, and we sat on the floor in the gloomy half-light of the windowless building while we passed the bottle. It was almost humorous to see the abrupt change in his attitude once the whisky appeared. We were suddenly fast friends, there was nothing unusual about my unexpected arrival, and he had never had a suspicion about me in the first place.

  His shack was a sad little place, with no furniture at all except for a couple of wooden crates, and a solid layer of dirt and straw over the floorboards. After a drink or two it didn’t look so bad, however, and my host held forth with great pride about his estate.

  “Won it in a card game down south, you know.” He laughed brightly, already loose and a bit sloppy after the third swallow. “Next day, this guy wants his deed back, like. He’s come up with some money, you see, and now he wants it back, but no chance. I wasn’t giving his land back until I see it for myself. So I can tell what’s it’s worth, like, you know? I come up from the coast and looked it over, and I been here ever since.” He laughed again, drank again. “Had good offers to buy the place, too. Five hundred bucks, even eight hundred bucks cash, but no way. They like it ’cause it’s got good water, and that little canyon on the way up protects it, you know—from Indians, from the weather, all that sort of stuff.”

  Dedicated boozers are unpredictable. Some can soak up drink like a sponge and never wobble; others fall over after a whiff of the cork. Jack Evans was fast fading away from rationality, and we hadn’t yet talked business.

  “Would you like to hear my proposition, Jack?” I enquired, holding on to the bottle for an extended time.

  We were leaned up against the wall near the open door, and before he responded, Evans stared out for a while at the clearing in front of his home with a satisfied, lopsided grin.

  “Seems to me,” he said finally, “that when a fella takes this long to get around to talking about what he wants to do, usually it means something’s gonna get lifted or someone’s gonna get hurt.”

  Alcohol had not burned his brain entirely to cinders.

  “Believe it or not, Jack, there’s nothing technically illegal about what I want you to do, but I admit that if the agents of the law discover you doing it, they might not be altogether pleased.”

  “Hmmm. Now I don’t know you or where you come from, but around here anything that makes the sheriff mad is illegal, you know?”

  “I’m willing to pay you for the risk.”

  “Risk! Yup, everything’s risky for me. I got this problem, partner. I’ve already been on the wrong side of the bars once or twice, you see, and every time I go back there, they seem to like me better. They want to keep me around a little longer. Money is money and all that, but I try to be pretty careful these days.”

  My big coat pockets were full of surprises that day. I drew out a canvas pouch with a bulge in it the size of a crabapple and dropped it in front of him with a resounding thud.

  “As near as I can guess there’s about a pound of Barkerville gold there, my friend, and I don’t want to buy your ranch; I just want you to wear my coat and hat, take my horse, and ride down towards Fort Hope making enough noise along the way so that the news gets around that Zachary Beddoes has gone south through the canyon.”

  I passed him the bottle. His eyes kept returning to the pouch of gold, but the clever part of his mind wouldn’t let him touch it until he had made a decision.

  “I gather you aren’t all that popular with the law, then, Mr. Beddoes.”

  “Yes sir, putting it mildly. There’s been some nasty stories go around about me, I must admit. Rumours, lies, and such.”

  He took another drink.

  “And the risk of this thing—it’s like I might get a hole shot in my back or something, I suppose.”

  “The idea, of course, is to make the deception last as long as possible, but I would expect you to tell the truth of the situation, loud and long to anyone necessary before any shooting started. I just need a head start. Yours is a small risk, in my opinion.”

  When he laughed, he jerked about like a puppet gone out of control.

  “They say an opinion is only just a lie that ain’t been proved yet.”

  I laughed along with him. Between the effects of the whisky and the gold, I was pretty sure I had Blasted Jack under control. He said nothing directly, though, just ambled outside into the sunshine. After a moment, I followed.

  He stood with hands on hips, head bent back, looking straight up into the sky. I couldn’t help but follow his gaze, but there was nothing but blue and grey above us. I handed him the bottle, which he took without looking at me, and stood beside him surveying the countryside around his homestead.

  “Once you’re gone, I’ll start off in a different direction, keeping my head down, so to speak,” I said. “Maybe I should even take a different route right from here. What is there out behind your place, Jack? Can I get to a road going that way?”

  He looked at me for a minute, stroking his cheek pensively, then walked briskly back to the cabin, handing me the bottle as he passed. He didn’t go inside, just grabbed the broom that was leaned next to the door, and began to sweep an area of bare red dirt next to the corral. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I already knew the man well enough not to be surprised at his actions. When a space about ten feet square was cleared to his satisfaction, he turned the broom around, and used the other end to draw a one-foot circle in the middle of the space.

  “Ranch,” he said.

  Next, he scratched a long, winding line beside the edge of the corral, with an irregular shape attached to the end of it.

  “That’s what I call Frog Lake, and this here’s the crick that comes out of it.” At this point, I realized he was drawing a map. He trotted all the way over to my horse and kicked at the dirt, frowning in concentration. “Now, town would be about here.” From there, he walked twenty feet to where I stood, dragging his toe in the dust. “This’d be where the road goes,” he pronounced. I nodded agreement, and we both drank some whisky.

  When he recommenced his discourse, he spoke in a low but expressive voice, pacing his way around the cleared area, scratching with the broomstick and occasionally pointing to the horizon beyond his house.

  “If you head down here, or over here, or even through here, you get the miserablest gullies and gulches. Take you forever, and you still get nowhere. This here is swamp. You can’t get too far west here. This is a dry creek bed, leads up to Frog Lake, but you don’t go all the way. Maybe halfway, maybe a mile, and then you go up over the ridge, down to here somewhere, then you look for . . . Damn! Where’s the road? Oughta be somewhere right here, and I got it way over there.” He looked to me, apologetic and mystified, and I handed him the bottle. “Maybe if you got some paper, I could try drawing this a little smaller.”

  “No need, Jack. I’ll just wait a while after you’re gone, then go out the way I came.”

  “You sure? I’m good with maps normally, you know. I just got this one too big, and I now can’t see it quite right.”

  “Let’s n
ot bother,” I said. “I always seem to get mixed up trying to follow maps anyway.”

  He shrugged, tried briefly once more to resolve the discrepancies in his scratches and circles, then came and sat next to me. He leaned against the front wall of the shack, basking in the sunshine, and when I glanced at him a minute later, he was asleep.

  The whisky sat in the sunshine, and it was as warm as afternoon tea when I took another mouthful. I considered waking him up, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. He might as well sleep it off. I realized that I had made a mistake in bringing a full bottle along. I should have made do with just enough for a friendly bracer, an introductory social lubricant.

  Checking my watch, I found it was eleven-thirty. “If I hadn’t started out travelling today, I would be having a tasty luncheon of boiled carrots with my friends,” I thought.

  The world was beginning to feel like a rather unsteady place. I sank down onto a patch of wild grass, closed my eyes, and tried to decide whether one day’s delay would seriously decrease my chances of success.

  Suddenly, I found I was being shaken into consciousness by a tall, balding blond stranger with a jaw like Gibraltar. It took me several seconds to recognize Jack Evans and to remember our plan.

  “If we don’t get started right quick like,” he was saying, “we’ll have blowed our whole day, you know!”

  It was almost one o’clock. My head was spinning, and I wondered how Evans had managed so quickly to be awake and sober.

  “You get a move on now, Zach, if you’re serious about this stunt. I’ve got to look to my cows before I do anything.”

  As he stumbled away I perceived that while he may have been awake, he was still some distance from sobriety.

  Jack brought water to the animals’ trough from a well behind the house, and I had him pour one bucket over my head, which helped my concentration a good deal. Leaving him to complete his farm chores, I stumbled over to the horses and unloaded Farrell’s brown horse.

 

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