GOLD RUSH DREAM

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  “That’s part of the problem, I guess,” Rose said. “You heard how all the rivers and streams are set up with claims up and down them. Some of the best finds have already been claimed. We can learn more from Uncle Doug, but if he gave it up, there has to be a good reason for it.”

  Rose worried Travis was about to collapse into pessimism just as they were near the end of their journey. She felt they were close to home where they could settle down and find happiness. He didn’t know how much her family loved her and how they would take her in and do whatever it took to get her on her feet. Maybe Travis didn’t understand because he didn’t have any family and he’d always been on his own. He didn’t trust the idea there might be someone who was open and giving.

  “Travis, it’s going to be all right, I promise.”

  “I hope so. I’m awful tired. I really wasn’t sure we’d ever make it.”

  “Well, we did, and now it’s almost over. You’ll like my people. My aunt is my mother’s sister and even looks a lot like her. My uncle’s always been kind to us. They’re good people, Travis. And when they find out I’m with child…”

  Travis smiled over at her. “When do you think it’ll come, the baby?”

  “Beth said I’d have it in late spring. That’s a good time of year, she said. Everything is new and green, the bad weather has passed and the air has warmed.”

  “Have you thought what we’ll name him?”

  “I…I don’t know yet. Maybe Mary if it’s a girl. Mary Rose. Do you like that? And for a boy…”

  “Mary’s a nice enough name,” he said, grinning. “But I like the name Rose very much.”

  “For a boy,” Rose continued, “I was thinking maybe you’d like to name him after your father.”

  She watched his face and saw how the suggestion touched him.

  “That would be good,” he said. He tried not to think about the possibility of the baby being part Indian. Even if he was, his father’s name would help protect him from the prejudice he’d endure as a half-breed.

  Rose kept her thoughts aimed toward the future as they rode up the trail through the forests north of the river. Shadows danced through the woods. They often passed horse and wagon traffic going down to Sacramento, so the trail was well-traveled. The air was chilly, but not too uncomfortable. She was grateful to note winter did not seem harsh in California.

  She placed one hand on her belly in a loving gesture and straightened her back as she rode. She couldn’t stop smiling. She was almost home.

  #

  Joanna Feadley fussed over Rose, a kettle of peas in her hands as she hovered over the table. “Are you sure you don’t want more to eat? You need to build your strength.”

  Rose sat at the table alone in the center of the rather large cabin. Travis had already finished his meal and had followed Douglas outside. She had eaten two biscuits, a fried chicken breast, and two helpings of black-eyed peas. “I can’t eat another bite, Aunt Joanna!”

  “You look starved. I know how hard it is to make that trip from Galveston. There were times I thought I’d eat a lizard or a snake if I could find one. I still don’t know how any of us made it without dying on the way.”

  Rose remembered the wagon train they’d traveled with across Texas. She remembered the gypsy Maisey and the old Rangers, killed in the ambush. She remembered Whitley in the mountain cabin who had saved them from certain death in the snow. He had paid with his life.

  “A lot of us did die.”

  Aunt Joanna crossed herself and scurried with Rose’s plate away from the table. “Well, we won’t dwell on that,” she said, keeping her voice light. “God has his reasons.”

  To change the subject, Rose asked, “Why did you and Uncle Doug never have children?”

  Joanna laughed a little as she returned to the table and sat down. “It wasn’t for want to trying. I guess God just didn’t feel inclined to giving us little ones. We used to grieve over it, but you know, things happen the way they should. We’ve been happy together all these years, and that’s that matters, isn’t it?”

  Rose thought her aunt was right. Things happened just as they should, no matter what. She hadn’t told her about the horror of her abduction and the humiliation she’d suffered. She would never be able to tell her she didn’t know if the baby’s father was Travis or the monster who took her against her will. They had not seen any sign the Indian still tracked them after leaving Whitley’s cabin. She hoped the savage had died in the snow or of slow starvation or maybe he had fallen off his horse and died alone somewhere in a lonely gulch on the desert. She would never understand why he had come after her and why he’d stalked her for so many months over such a long distance. There were crazy things in the world, crazy people, and there was no logic in it.

  At least she was still healthy and she now felt her baby kick inside her. The baby and Travis were alive, that is what mattered, nothing else.

  “Now listen,” Joanna said, returning Rose to the present. “Douglas and I discussed your situation last night after you and Travis had gone to bed. We’ve laid claim on two hundred acres and there’s plenty of room for you here. We can help build a new cabin. Travis will be a great help to your uncle and they can share in the crops.”

  “Well, Travis has never farmed, Aunt Joanna. He was a trapper in Texas. But he’s a hard worker and smart…”

  “Of course he is! He got you all the way here from Texas, didn’t he? He’s a fine-looking man, too, with all that hair off his face.”

  The first thing Travis had done as soon as he rose in the early morning hours was to sharpen his razor and shave himself. Rose watched while he did it and when he finished she put her hands on his smooth cheeks and turned his face to her. “You look wonderful,” she said.

  They stood outside at the wash stand while fog swirled along the ground and owls hooted in the near forest. He drew her to him and kissed her so sweetly. She hugged him close and didn’t want to let him go. “We’ll get married in Sacramento before the baby’s born,” she said. “Married for real, by a real preacher. We don’t have to tell anyone we’re not really married yet. They’ll never know.”

  “Absolutely,” he said, holding her to him and kissing her neck. “It’s our secret.”

  “Travis, I do love you.”

  He kissed her again because she knew he couldn’t say it better with words. She felt as if the world had been tilted on its axis before reaching her uncle’s farm. From the hour the Indian raiding party had attacked and killed her parents in Texas until this moment in Travis’s arms, she had been moving toward a new life. She felt ready to let go of her old life and the past. Finally she had arrived. She was safe, she was in love, and the world had righted itself in the universe.

  #

  Broken Bear understood his advantage. The Red Hair thought she was safe and that would make her careless. She knew the people in the cabin; they were probably relatives, the way they all acted together. The older woman even favored the Red Hair in some ways. Her hair was red, too, but shot through with silver. She had the same blue eyes, though not as clear or bright. It was this place the couple had been hoping to reach and now they would stop traveling. He had reached the end of the longest pilgrimage of his life, Broken Bear thought.

  He moved off into the woods and found a small clearing where he could expect not to be discovered. He must bide his time, just as he had done all the long way. He had spent months waiting to catch the woman alone again, taking no chances. He couldn’t afford to get himself shot by Travis when he was this close to winning his campaign.

  He took off the white man’s vest and pants and buried them. He felt much better in his loincloth and the buffalo skin robe. Something about the dead man’s clothes had made him nervous and kept him fidgeting around inside the rough cloth. He could smell the drunken man’s body scent, smell spilled and dried liquor, scents that were a miasma clogging his nostrils. Once he had the clothes buried, he breathed freer.

  He planned to spend a few
days observing the cabin and the fields that surrounded it. He would study the people who had taken in the couple in order to learn their routines. Sooner or later the Red Hair would wander away from them and that is when he meant to be at hand. She’d be gone so quickly, they’d never know what happened to her. He was so close to victory it made his heart beat fast.

  But right now he had to find food. The forest was rife with wild game so it shouldn’t be a problem. There was a small clear stream not far distant where he could fill his water bag. Even the weather was cooperating, remaining mild despite it being late winter. He could survive without fire to warm him.

  Besides, he wouldn’t be here long.

  As he adjusted the buffalo robe over his shoulders he winced. The festering wound in his shoulder was worsening. He had looked in vain for the herbs he needed to cure the infection. He didn’t know this country and found it lacking in flora that he recognized. He placed his palm flat against his forehead and felt the heat there. All he could do was wash the wound and hope it did not worsen until he could capture the woman. Then he would make her care for him, show her how to dig out the corruption, and force her to aid in his healing.

  He tamped down the disturbed earth where he’d buried the clothes and then took up his bow. A rabbit would give him strength. He would go find a rabbit and eat it raw as he had done so many times before. He was almost growing to prefer his meat raw rather than cooked. It was so much easier and efficient that way. He was akin to the animal world, akin to the great bear he had once defeated, eating whatever he felled without stopping to cook it.

  #

  Travis saw the rabbit race across the field toward the trees. Doug said, “They come for whatever bits of corn they can find in the stubble. There’s field mice, too.”

  “I have to tell you the truth,” Travis said, “I know more about hunting that rabbit than I do about what you grow in this field.”

  Doug had taken him around the farm so they could decide where to clear a spot for a cabin. Travis thought he’d never met a more generous man. He offered them a home of their own and a share in the farm. He was offering them a new life, but Travis had to earn it, too, though it was pretty evident he’d be of little use for other than labor. Doug told him he would not have to feel beholden to anyone. There was more land than any of them could ever want. Most immigrants to the territory wanted nothing more than a small stake along a riverbank for mining gold. That left the majority of land free for the taking. So far there were precious few homesteaders and farmers, though food was of paramount importance in keeping the miners fed. “That’s where the real profit is,” he told Travis. “The merchants pay more for my corn than I ever got for a potato crop.”

  “What about all the stories we heard back east about miners striking it rich?”

  “It’s true there have been some astounding finds.” Doug moved slowly across the field toward his own cabin, Travis in tow. It was late afternoon and time to take some wood in for the fire. “The Sacramento paper screams with headlines of fortunes found, but much less often than when we first came here. A goodly percent of the miners find hardly enough gold to keep them in supplies. Thousands have left defeated and broke, heading back to their homes back east. It’s a gold dust dream out here—a thousand miners dreaming for every single decent gold strike.”

  “I didn’t run into that many going back,” Travis said. “But then we were off the main trail, so maybe we missed them.”

  “I hear many take ships down to Panama and cross the country through snaky swamps and then take another ship to New York. They don’t want to chance the journey across the whole country again. For the ones who can afford passage to Panama and brave the seas and the ship-laden diseases, there’s supposed to be more disease waiting for them down in the jungles of Panama. If they survive those perils, there’s murderous bandits lying in wait for the Americans, hoping to steal their gold.” Doug shook his head. “I don’t know why they want to leave this territory. It’s got good rich land and a lovely climate for growing crops. But most of the miners left their families behind. They have to go back.”

  Travis filled his arms with firewood and helped stack it on the small front porch of the cabin. He turned around then and looked at the light dimming. The ever-present fog of early morning and evening slipped along the ground. It was a beautiful place. He could see how hard Doug had worked to clear it. He had put up a neat rail fence along the road, a corral where he kept a milk cow, and a large pen for pigs. In the back was a chicken house for a flock that ran free during the day. The cabin was sturdily built and even had real glass in the windows, imported from Sacramento. In little more than a year the man had performed a great deal of work and had even brought in his first crop.

  “It’s pretty here, isn’t it?” Doug asked, seeing his preoccupation with the landscape. “Are you ready for supper?”

  Travis turned and smiled. “I’m ready for anything,” he said.

  Doug slapped him on the back and herded him toward the door. “That’s what I like to hear,” he said jovially. “We’re going to get along just fine, young man, just fine and dandy.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Broken Bear suffered from delusions. His fever raged unabated all through one night and into the next day. He kept thinking he saw the young man he’d killed who had come too close to him at the Bolivar ferry landing in Texas. When that apparition vanished it was replaced with the old mountain man. The features of the mountain man melted to reveal those of the drunken man in Sacramento. His murder victims wanted something from him and their persistence frightened Broken Bear.

  Using cool water, pouring it over his body from head to foot from his water bag, he tried to cool off his over-heated body. He had to lie down most of the day, his feet unsteady beneath him. Even when the fever abated a little, he still felt half out of his mind. He finally prayed to the Great Spirit to spare him, but he couldn’t believe his prayers were heard.

  It was toward afternoon on the fifth day in the woods near the cabin that Broken Bear saw the Red Hair walking across the field with the older woman. An alarm sounded in his thoughts, warning him not to chance abduction of his prize when she was with another, but he ignored it. He was ill. He was going to need help. Once he had the woman, he could ride far away and hide. He could make her hunt for the healing herbs; he could force her to dig out his wound until it was clean of infection. He wanted to do it himself, but every time he came near his shoulder with the knife the pain was so excruciating he almost fainted. He knew it might be risky to have the woman do it, for what if he passed out? She could kill him then or run away. But it was his only alternative since he couldn’t tend to himself. Or he might be able to get them to a tribe of the people where someone there could help him.

  He wet his lips and watched. If they came near enough… If they came within his reach…

  #

  Travis was sweating profusely as he chopped at the tree. He had downed four of the big evergreens since coming to work that morning, but there were a dozen to go before he had the spot cleared enough for the building of a cabin. Doug had taken his mules and carriage to Sacramento for the day. He needed supplies and building materials. When he returned the next day, he could help with the tree felling.

  Travis got the wedge chopped near to the tree’s center, saw it tremble and ran back away from it. When the tree fell it struck the earth with a thunderclap, the limbs quivering in the aftermath. The air was redolent with fresh spicy sap, the smell of deep green. Using his horse, Travis tied off the tree trunk to the saddle horn and urging the horse forward, hauled the tree out of the way.

  This was harder work than he was used to. He was surprised to discover he liked it. The idea that he could build his own home with his own hands was empowering. He had lived most of his life in tents or under the stars in the open. He wondered what it might be like to live indoors all of the time.

  Now and then he glanced toward the fields where Rose and Joanna walked. H
e suspected Rose was getting an education in the planting of seed before spring came. They would all have to work together to make a go of their enterprise. Of course Rose was due to have the baby in the spring, but she still had to learn the art of farming. She had helped her parents, but they had never cropped this large an area.

  Climbing down from his horse, Travis went to the ropes and untied them. He wiped the sweat from his brow, sighing happily. Doug was going to be proud of him for this. He meant to clear half the stand of trees before Doug got back from town.

  Once clear the next job entailed the cleaning of the bark from the downed timber. They would be the first logs of Travis’s new home.

  #

  Joanna wasn’t speaking to Rose of farming. She held her niece’s elbow and guided her over the humped rows of dead corn stalks, steadying her. They were on the way to the pond that lay at the end of the field in a cul-de-sac of towering oak and cedar.

  “This is where I take swims in the hot weather,” Joanna was saying.

  Rose noticed the sparkle in her aunt’s eyes. She seemed very grateful to have a female companion on the place. As for Rose, she felt as if she had come home again. Joanna was as kind and entertaining as her sister, Rose’s mother. What Rose liked best about her was the bright optimism she kept about herself. She minimized every chore even before she began it. There weren’t a lot of dishes to wash—there were fewer than she’d washed from the last meal. The cabin wasn’t cold and drafty—it afforded the inhabitants fresh outside air that was good for the lungs. The winter wasn’t long and dreary---the light of winter was like silver and the fog was a cloud sent to earth from heaven.

  She had a knack for turning the mundane into the poetic and the routine chore into an opportunity for feeling grateful.

  She was like a babbling brook, ever cheerful and clear of muddy debris.