GOLD RUSH DREAM

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  He crept out of the arroyo and along his belly, approaching closer to the camp. He circled the wagons, looking for the couple he had followed for so many long weeks.

  He halted yards from them—the trapper and the Red Hair. His whole body stiffened and he thought his heart had stopped. The man was on top of the woman, almost on top of her where she lay on the ground near the fire, and they were kissing.

  His woman! The mighty hunter they called Travis had pinned his prey and was about to take her.

  Broken Bear felt along his thigh for his knife in its leather thong. He had his hand on the hilt, murder in his eye, when the Red Hair pushed Travis away and he withdrew.

  I should kill him now, Broken Bear thought. Resentment at another man touching the Red Hair made him want to murder the entire group of whites for the transgression. She was too much of a beauty to belong to the tall, scruffy trapper. She deserved to belong to a chief of a nation. And although he was not a chief, he at least came from great chiefs and had hope of one day heading his tribe, so she should belong to him. Not to the white man. Not to the trapper. Only to him, to Broken Bear.

  He could not hear their talk and even if he had, he would not have understood the language. He knew very little of the white man’s words, for they were guttural and ugly to his ears. He wondered if the trapper was apologizing for his animal instinct and if the woman was accepting of that apology. She should have taken a knife to his heart, Broken Bear thought with fury. She should defend her honor with instant lethal action. But she did not, he could see. They sat across the fire from one another, talking as if nothing had happened.

  As Broken Bear slunk back through the shadows to his arroyo, he fumed and fretted. Any native woman who had been so thoroughly abused would have fought to the death. That sort of intimate contact would have required the letting of blood. Whites were nothing like the People. Nothing! They were more like dogs, it seemed to Broken Bear, rutting out of season, rutting with one and all, indiscriminately.

  This acknowledgement nevertheless did not lessen his determination to own the Red Hair. Once he got her, he could teach her the right way and beat her if she strayed from it. In fact, he would beat her for this mishap she’d just let pass without defending herself.

  He slipped his knife from his side and made a tiny slice along his scarred arm. It hardly welled blood, it was such a small cut.

  She was his, he thought, wiping the cut clean. Her lips were for his lips. Her body made for his body. And soon he would take her away from the debased trapper who would leap upon her at the slightest provocation, out in the open in front of prying eyes, like a dog. Travis was no more than a wild dog.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Traveling into the dry mountains of New Mexico territory was where disaster struck. First came a downpour that flooded the canyons. The wagons were clogged to their wheel caps in mud and incapable of moving forward. One of the old Rangers tried to race up an incline to help one of the wagons and was thrown from his horse, hitting his head on a boulder. He was killed instantly.

  A hurried grave was dug as soon as the rain let up a little. Right there on the side of the mountain, in all the slushy mud and gravel, the old Ranger was laid to rest and given a crude cross made from broken wagon panels to mark his grave. The remaining three Rangers stood around the new grave until twilight, their dark slickers shining wet in early starlight. They looked like three old black scarecrows in the ebbing light.

  Travis had put down a tarp on the wet ground and gotten the tent erected over it. Now he wished they had a wagon like the others. Inclement weather was nothing new to him, but it couldn’t be pleasant for Rose. As soon as he’d seen the dark clouds gathering he had made her put on an overcoat and a slicker. She had protested, but not for long. The rain came only minutes later, falling in sheets that turned the ground to mush. He thought the wagon train should have halted immediately, but for some while they continued struggling up the mountain’s incline.

  Travis had seen the Ranger fall. He had even reached out an arm, though he’d been at a distance--just as if he might have prevented the tragedy. He shook his head at how people instinctively reacted under crisis. Others stopped and turned, then ran headlong to raise up the Ranger. But he would never rise again. The Ranger was a man who had spent a lifetime fighting Indians and outlaws, Mexican bandits and city gamblers, yet he had been felled by a slick incline, a stumbling horse, and a massive boulder. No matter how much experience a man had, Travis knew accident could strike anyone at any time.

  It rained all night. None of the group could even make a campfire or cook suppers. Travis and Rose huddled together in the tent pummeled by the rain and chewed at hard tack. The one good thing the rain brought was fresh water. Their water barrels had been opened and set out to catch the rainfall. Everyone drank to his heart’s content. The stock and the horses moved nervously in the downfall, but couldn’t stampede because they’d been hobbled or tied to the backs of wagons.

  All in all Travis thought the storm had been equally good and bad—providing much needed water, yet taking the life of one of their crew and miring the wagons down in mud. He knew it would take them all the next day to extricate the wagons and get them on the way again.

  When he lay down that night to catch a few winks of sleep, he marveled at how well Rose was holding up. She was not a complainer; he could say that about her. She took these conditions and upsets with an equanimity that belied her age. Luckily they were both young and not prone to catching fevers and chills, for this certainly was a damp, cold night on the side of a mountain.

  It was dawn when the second, and worst, tragedy struck. Travis was asleep and heard a sharp scream that tore through his body like an iron shaft. He leaped from his covers, already pulling closed the button on the top of his pants and staring around with wild eyes. He saw Rose sit up, too, looking afraid. “What was that?” she asked.

  “Stay put, let me find out.” He had his boots on and his rifle in hand as he pushed out through the tent flaps.

  The sky was pink and gold with the first rays of sun. There was a frenzied world outside his tent. More screams erupted and horses whinnied in alarm. Looking around swiftly, Travis was able to see at once what was happening. They were being attacked—ambushed by Indians. All along the boulder outcroppings that lined the trail Indians were sailing arrows in waves.

  Travis hunkered to the ground to present a smaller target. He did not know this tribe, expecting it must be an aggressive one from the local area they were traveling through. An arrow lodged in the ground near him. He turned and pushed back the tent flap. “Hurry and get your things. We have to get out of here!”

  Guns blasted from the mired wagons and there was a smell of gunpowder in the air. But there was a huge problem and Travis saw it right away. The small wagon train, bogged down by the rain, had not been able to find level ground for a camp. They had not even been able to arrange the wagons in some kind of defensive position. They were scattered up and down the incline in various stages of abandonment, stranded where their wheels had sunk to the rims. They were all easy prey for the vicious band of Indians.

  We have to get out of here. That is all Travis could think. Fighting back from their untenable position on the mountain was out of the question. They would all die. He hollered up the mountain at the others. “Get the horses! Go uphill now!”

  He did not know if they could hear him above the hoots and screams of the warring enemies. At any moment they would be swarming over the boulders and onto the wagon train like ants over a bit of spilled sugar.

  “Rose!”

  She flung herself out of the tent, supplies already packed in the bag she had slipped over her shoulder. “What about the tent?” she asked.

  “Leave it. We have to get out now.”

  He took her hand and together they crawled to the back of the tent where they were out of sight of the marauders. They had always camped on the edge of the wagon train and now that routine might have saved their
lives. Travis realized he would have to leave his donkey, Dorry, behind, along with all their supplies. The donkey would slow them down and prevent their escape.

  He got his horse’s rein where it was tied around the base of a shrub of brush. He saw Rose was doing the same for the horse he had bought for her in Galveston. They both slipped into the saddles at once. Travis pointed up and slapped his reins on his horse’s rump to force it into a run up the face of the mountain. They were exposed, but on the far side of the wagons and where the war party hid on the other side.

  Gravel and mud flew from the horses’ hooves as he and Rose raced up and away from the wagons. Just as they were about free of the last wagon in the lead, Travis saw the wagon master. He heard him ordering everyone to mount the horses and flee. He was a mountain man and, like Travis, he knew taking a stand this time was hopeless. The ambush had worked too well against them and they were too disorganized to fight their way out. They had to run for it.

  Travis felt his heart beating hard in his chest as he expected an arrow in his back at any moment. He beat at his horse to hurry and kept his face toward the mountain summit.

  #

  Rose could hardly get her breath. She was shaking all over, from head to foot. They had narrowly escaped the raid on their camp. Now they sat astride their horses on top of the mountain, pausing only briefly to turn and look back. Two of the wagons were on fire and the Indians had come from the rocks to engage the travelers in hand to hand combat.

  Travis said, “Come on, we can’t help them. We’re not safe yet.”

  Rose turned her horse and followed him. Soon they were picking their way down the other side of the mountain through strewn boulders, cacti, and sagebrush. Small rocks avalanched beneath their horses’ hooves and it sounded as loud as crashing cymbals to Rose’s ears. She wanted to look back, afraid of the enemy behind them following, but she didn’t have either the time or the courage.

  Tears blinded her. What if they were shot in the back? What if their horses faltered or stepped in a hole and fell with them? What if they never got back with the wagon train? What if they could never recover their supplies and they starved to death?

  Every possible catastrophe she could think of flooded her mind. It made her rigid with fear. She clasped the reins of the horse so hard her knuckles turned white.

  The sun had broken over the mountain range and now it heated their backs, a disk of gold. Fog rose from the ground all around them where the night’s rain in the earth met with warmer temperatures. The farther down the mountain they rode, the quieter the morning grew until they could hear nothing at all from their comrades on the other side of the ridge.

  Tears now slipped down Rose’s cheeks. Death seemed to follow her. It had taken her parents and now the wagon train. She must be a jinx. Maybe it was all her fault. She was a lightening rod for Death, drawing it to her.

  Once at the bottom of the mountain, Travis did not let up. He galloped west, away from the rising sun, just as hard as his horse would take him. Rose could do nothing but follow. He was all she had left between her and the specter of death that kept company at her side.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Travis debated going back to see about the others. “I don’t think we can do anything about them.” He said this more for his own benefit than for Rose’s. Guilt tore at him. He thought some of the wagon train had been able to escape, but from what he’d seen, he had little hope.

  He and Rose had ridden most of the day, stopping once to water the horses at a small trough of water left from the rain. Now they had taken shelter in the lee of an outcropping at the base of another mountain. Travis could not build a fire, but he had bundled a blanket around Rose’s shoulders to stave off the cooling night. He only hoped it would not rain as they had left their slickers behind, along with most everything else they owned. The future looked grim.

  “But what if some of them are alive?”

  Travis looked at Rose and knew she had only said it to make herself feel better. They both knew the probability of anyone left alive back on that mountain was very slim. It had been a vicious ambush, catching them unprepared and wearied from a night of wrenching thunder and pelting rain.

  “Rose, we’re on our own.” He said it with a finality that should end the subject. He did not feel all that well. His chest felt tight and he was suffering from running shivers that came and went. If he were to get ill…

  “We don’t have any of our things,” she said. “What…what are we going to do?”

  Travis pulled out a second blanket and wrapped himself in it. He scooted closer to Rose so they were both looking out at the empty moonlit plain. “I’m a hunter. I can find food. We’ll get by.”

  “But it’s a long way to California, isn’t it? Isn’t it a long way yet? Hundreds and hundreds of miles?”

  Travis slipped an arm from beneath his blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her beneath his arm. “Rose, don’t worry so. I’ve been on my own most of my life. We have horses and canteens and the guns. We have blankets and a set of clothes. We’ll make do for the rest. I’ll get deer or bear or buffalo skins to use in inclement weather. We’ll make it, don’t worry. I told you I’d take you to California and that’s just what I’m going to do.”

  Rose fell silent, but he knew she was fretting. He shivered and she reached out and took his hand, holding it in both of her own hands. Her fingers felt cold to the heated flesh of his hand. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. He felt as if he hadn’t slept in months.

  #

  Rose bathed him with a strip of cloth torn from her bloomers. The water she found was muddy, but at least it was cool. He had fallen into a fevered stupor during the night. She woke to his groans and tossing and found he’d thrown aside his blanket. When she tried to wake him, his eyes remained closed and he did not respond to her. She panicked at first, fear like a prickly cactus flower opening slowly in her chest until it was in full bloom. Besides covering him with the blanket, she sat still not knowing what to do. She had tended her mother once when she’d taken to the bed with influenza, but that did not mean she could cure or heal anyone. And Travis was all she had.

  Finally she snapped out of her lethargy and began to do whatever she could to make Travis comfortable. She cleared away all the little gravel bits beneath him and cushioned his head with her own blanket rolled into a pillow. She tucked his cover all around him. His forehead felt hot to the touch. She scrambled out of the outcropping, startling the tethered horses. She shushed them, then reached down and lifted her skirts. She took the bottom of her bloomers around her left knee and tore a swatch away. She found water in a small rocky basin nearby and wet the cloth, wringing it out. Back with Travis she bathed his face and neck until the cloth warmed. Then she went out again, re-wetting and wringing, bringing the cool cloth to his face.

  She did this the rest of the night, humming softly to herself to keep the panic at bay.

  They hadn’t much food. No one to help them. No shelter except the rocks. No water except what was left in the canteens and the basins out on the mountain. They only had one another and she would not let him go.

  #

  Broken Bear lost track of the Red Hair when the People attacked the wagon train at dawn.

  He had seen the other tribe creeping up the mountainside in the dark. If he’d had his band of brothers with him, they could have stopped them easily. But being alone he was helpless to derail the ambush.

  When they began the attack, Broken Bear had managed to sneak up behind them and take first this one and then that one in a violent duel. He dispatched four of the braves with his knife before the rest of the pack turned to attack him.

  He fled before their barrage of arrows and escaped into the boulder-strewn mountainside. He knew they must wonder why an Indian would attack his own People instead of the whites. Let them wonder, he thought savagely. They had ruined everything! They were threatening the object of his greatest desire.

  From that t
ime forward during the ambush all he could do was watch and hope they did not overrun the wagon train and take his Red Hair. She would surely be scalped for her brilliant mane. This tribe did not take white slaves. This tribe hated the whites enough to kill them all, man, woman, and child.

  By the time the sun rose flush and full above the horizon, it was over. It took some time for the war party to finish their victory with the taking of scalps and goods that they packed on the backs of horses to take away.

  Broken Bear stayed where he was in his hidden spot, his heart breaking in two. He feared the worst. He watched without hope. He watched for the flash of a red mane of hair.

  He never saw her in the melee, but his heart did not lighten. Her death could have happened behind the wagons and on the other side of them where he could not see.

  Soon the party of warriors picked their way down the mountain, bareback on their horses. They chattered in their language and although Broken Bear did not understand them, he understood the sound of victory and joy in their tone. They had made a successful raid and come away with great bounty. Food, clothes, scalps, weapons, ammunition, and even a fiddle one brave carried across the front of his horse as if it were a small child.

  Once they were gone across the plains, Broken Bear crept from the rocks and clambered up the mountain. He searched everywhere for the body of the woman. He could not find her. Again, he searched, going over old ground, wondering what could have happened. He did not find the body of the trapper either. He studied their abandoned tent site and noticed the trapper’s horses were missing. He hadn’t seen them in the group of stolen horses the raiding party had taken with them.

  Hope only slowly infused Broken Bear’s thoughts. Could the couple have escaped? It seemed no one else had. Of course the trapper was a smart man, sure to have seen at the outset their chances of taking a stand were nil. Could he have gotten them out quickly enough to save their lives?