“Because everybody’s done found the gold over there.”
“I guess that makes sense, but how are we going to know where the gold is?”
“You look for a place where the water might have been blocked by something, a log or a rock. The gold is heavy and it drops down when the water eddies.”
Pa’s explanation confused him. He didn’t know what water eddies were and why they would cause the gold to drop anyway. “If you say so. I guess I’m still fretting about them killers.”
“No reason to be upset. They got any sense, they’re long gone by now.”
“But that Injun feller was hurt. Jess shot him.”
“Jess just winged him. He’ll be able to ride.”
Jess, out in front as usual, pumped the flintlock at a spot along the bank. “A horse left the stream here, and not too long ago.” He kicked the pinto and charged onto the shore near a boulder. A small stream ran into the river just past it.
Hank followed Jess ashore, his rifle cradled in his arm. “You watch yourself, Jess. It could be one of them killers.”
Jess looked down at the boulder. “There’s blood here, a lot of blood. Maybe it’s from that Injun I shot.”
Still in the river, Pa moved so he was in front of Tom. “Get off your horses and look around, careful like. They could still be around.”
Jess and Hank hopped down and searched for any signs of the killers.
From the edge of the woods, Hank held up a canteen. “Somebody must’ve just tossed this here. It’s still got a touch of whiskey in it.” He tossed it toward the river before walking into the woods.
Jess knelt near the small stream. “There’re tracks of two horses here. They must’ve split up somewhere and met here then got away by riding up this creek. Only one horse came out of the river.” Jess always bragged he could track a squirrel up a tree.
“There’s blood here, on some leaves. That Injun must’ve come in from this side.” Hank’s voice came from back in the trees somewhere.
Pa rode out of the river. “Come on, Tom. I reckon them killers must‘ve left here by now.” He got off the gelding and looked around the boulder with the blood, then he moved to the riverside and started to scrape it with his knife. He wasn’t looking for the killers at all. “Tom, come here. Right now.”
Tom hopped from Sadie and hurried over, keeping an uneasy eye toward the forest behind him. “Yeah, Pa.”
“Tell me what you think about this stuff stuck in the rock here.”
Tom got on his knees and took a careful look where Pa had scraped. Streaks of yellow ran down the cracks in the rock.
“Damn Pa, is that gold?”
“You watch your mouth, Tom. Yeah, I reckon it’s gold. Start scraping around more of these rocks. I’ll see if I can pry some of this out.”
Tom forgot all about the killers, thinking only about the gold that was out in plain sight like that, and it wasn’t even in the river like Pa had said. He ran to the next big rock he saw, scraped away the moss like pa had and pried out the gold with the tip of his buck knife.
As the fading twilight turned full dark, Pa stood. “Boys, that’s enough for today. Jess, you start a fire. Tom, you get some grub going. We’ll camp here tonight.”
Suddenly Tom got cold shivers all the way up from his toes. “What about them killers, Pa? They might come back.” He looked around, just to make sure they hadn’t.
“Now don’t you go stewing about them killers. They’re gone. They ain’t coming back. But we’re going to stay here as long as we have to and get as much of this gold as we can. Tomorrow, Hank, you and Jess ride back and pick up our mule. Tom and me will keep looking for this gold. What do you say, boys? Are you up for getting rich?”
Jess’s arm shot in the air. “Yeah, Pa. You bet.”
Hank, always the quiet one, nodded. “All right with me, Pa.”
“Hot damn, were going to be rich!”
“You mind your tongue, Tom.”
In spite of Pa’s chiding, Tom was sure he had never been more excited.
Just before sunset, Maggie rode with Joshua and Eban down the North Fork of Weber Creek. The Indians had melted into the hills for the night, and only Daylor and three Mexican vaqueros were sitting by the campfire.
Daylor introduced her to each man. The first swept his straw sombrero from his head with a flourish and bowed. The second kissed her hand and showered her with compliments in a mixture of Spanish and broken English while the third ushered her to a seat close to the fire then, in a strong reedy tenor, serenaded her with lovely Spanish ballads, accompanying himself on a guitar.
Never had Maggie been greeted with so much old-world pomp, and she loved every bit of it. The Mexicans were fascinated with her and regaled her with colorful stories about life in the wilds of California. Nearby, Eban and Daylor talked about changes in their lives since the war with Mexico.
Finally, as the beef was served, the talk turned to gold and how to mine it. Daylor was a wealth of information and had no qualms about sharing his knowledge. Like Joshua and Eban, she listened intently to everything he said.
When the time came to return to their camp, Eban raised the subject of Maggie’s horse. “Well, Daylor, I owe you for the chestnut and saddle that Maggie’s using. Tell me what you want and I’ll take care of it.”
“What are you talking about, Eban? Maggie gave Sarah good money for that animal and the gear before you left. You don’t owe me nothing.”
“That’s not the way I remember it. I promised to pay and I intend to do it.”
She swallowed hard. Somehow she hoped this day would never come, but it had and now she would have to admit what she had done. She stood and looked at Joshua. This would be the hardest of all the things she would have to tell him. “Mr. Daylor is right. I paid for the horse before we left. I also paid Sarah for the dress, the boots, everything she did for me. I didn’t tell you, Joshua, because I was afraid.”
Joshua didn’t smile. “But, Maggie, where did you get the money?”
“That’s why I was afraid to tell you. I took the money from Jack right after the scuffle we had at the tent. The little gun was in the bag too. I didn’t know if you would help me get away or not. I only knew I had to try, and I knew I would need money, so I took it. I’m not a thief. I’ve never taken anything from anyone in my life until this. But I washed for that man, and I cooked for him, and, heaven help me, I did every rotten, evil thing he made me do.”
She stopped and chewed on her lower lip, determined not to cry. “I didn’t tell you because I thought you would think I really was a thief and you wouldn’t stay with me. You don’t know how desperate I was to get away from that place.”
Joshua’s lips pursed as she talked. Maybe what she had done angered him. “I had a feeling there was something like this going on. That’s one reason you were so sure Jack would come after us, isn’t it?”
She nodded, her head down, her eyes peeking up at him.
Then the hint of a smile broke the corners of his lips. “Well, I can’t blame you.”
Eban stood, grinning. “Yeah, I think it’s great. After all that rotten son of a donkey did to you, he deserves worse than losing a little money. Dang if I ain’t right glad you took it from him. Serves him right, I reckon.”
She looked from one man to the other. “You guys mean it, don’t you? You don’t hate me for causing you so much trouble, for not telling you sooner?”
Joshua put his arm around her, but his face was stern, unsmiling again. “No, Maggie. I don’t think we hate you.” He spoke slowly, like he had to put a lot of thought into each word. Then he smiled, broadly. “I think we’re both real happy you’re here.”
“That goes for me, too,” Eban said. “I reckon you two are the closest thing to a family I’m going to get, and I’m real proud of both of you. So, quit sparking and let’s back to our camp. We got a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
Jack, tired, hungry, and way too sober, paced angrily by a small fire dee
p in the forest south of the American River. “I don’t understand. Why pull your gun on that dumb store clerk? He didn’t know who we were. Then you got yourself shot and dropped the whiskey. I’m drier than a Mexican desert.”
Laying on a bedroll with his head on his saddle, Bill hardly moved. “Fool, the man with the muddy boots knew. You seen the posse he rounded up.”
“How could he know us? Nobody saw anything.”
“He did.”
“How can you lay there so cool when we got no food and no whiskey?”
“Need rest. Quiet.”
“I need whiskey!” Jack seethed.
Bill pulled the knife from his boot and glared. “Shut up, or I’ll slit your stinking throat.”
Jack shut up. He was dog-tired. His body ached. His head throbbed, his tongue like a ball of cotton. A lack of sleep tore at his body. A lack of alcohol wore at his nerves. He sweated heavily even in the midnight chill.
He wasn’t afraid of Bill in spite of his threats. Bill was a killer, sure, but Bill’s wound had the best of him. He had barely been able to stay in the saddle after they left the river. Bill might be dead by sunup.
Jack knew he wasn’t like Bill. He hadn’t killed that miner. Bill had done it in the same cold way he had killed Norton. To Bill, killing a man was no different than killing a dog.
Yet Jack found the man’s death deeply thrilling. He felt the hot blood splatter across his face. He looked in the man’s eyes as his life drained from the gaping wound and his own heart pounded, a feeling so powerful he had screamed. It was the very horror that had excited him.
He had known it from boyhood. Other boys got thrilled when they won a game or caught a big fish, but he cared less about any of it. The only tinge of gratification he found came from strangling stray kittens he caught near his house.
Through the years he had learned to act like other people, to imitate their reactions to a situation so he could fit into their world, but it was only an act. It was this insulation from humanity that led him to the rim of civilization, to the isolation the wilds of California afforded.
It was with Maggie that he first had any touch of passion. Not like a normal man finds pleasure in a woman. It was the beatings that fired his emotions. She was spirited, defiant, and it made his pleasure more intense.
The first time she fought back like a lioness guarding her young, he felt that surge in his loins. When she stabbed his face with the broken whiskey bottle, his excitement peaked. He took her hard and afterwards beat her with the whip just for fun.
Yes, he wanted her again, but only one more time. He would fight her, beat her, hurt her, then take her, and just at the right moment, the high peak of his pleasure, he would slit her skinny throat like Bill had done the miner. Then he would watch her life pump from her open veins and laugh.
He rubbed his twitching scar and smirked. The slut had cost him the saloon at Sutter’s Creek. And worse, she had stolen all the money he made there. But he knew it would all be worth it, just to watch her die.
Joshua sweated heavily beneath a morning sun blazing in a cloudless sky. He tossed a shovel load of dirt aside then stared into the shallow pit at the bottom of the ravine. The gleam of gold sparkled in the exposed clay. “Daylor was right. There is gold here.”
He dumped the first few shovels full of ore-bearing material onto an oilcloth. Maggie, working as hard as the men, sat and sifted it with her hands, breaking apart the lumps, pulling out the larger nuggets, and setting them aside. In a very short time she had a large pile of gold.
Through the midday heat they toiled on, digging the ore-bearing clay, sifting the precious metal from it, until they exposed a four-by-six-foot section of bedrock. There, wedged into the fissures of the stone, lay the best treasure of the day.
Eban pried the metal from the rock with his knife. Joshua helped Maggie load Clara with the clay she had picked through by hand, and they carried it to the stream. There the fine gold dust that remained would be panned. After Eban picked the rock face clean, he joined them in the creek.
By the time they had panned the last of the ore, the sun hung low in the west and cast long shadows across the valley. On the oilcloth a large pile of gold, with nuggets as small as a pea to as large as a robin’s egg, sat beside an equally large pile of gold dust that needed winnowing from the last silt of panning. It had been a great day, very productive. It far outshined anything Joshua had seen at Sutter’s Creek.
Maggie waded from the stream, dropped her pan on the ground, and flopped down on a soft bed of pine needles just up the hill. “I’ve never worked so hard in my life or been so bone tired as I am now, so how come I feel so doggone happy?”
Joshua dropped beside her and let out a relieved sigh. “I know just how you feel, Maggie.”
Eban filled a canteen with cool water from the stream above where they had panned then walked up the hill and handed it to Maggie. “That’s some pile of gold we got. It must be near two pounds at least, not counting what we just panned. Must be five or six hundred dollars.”
Maggie gave Joshua an enthusiastic hug. “And there’s plenty more, right here for the taking. I can’t believe it. We’re going to be rich.” She broke into a smile so bright that her eyes sparkled like the gold.
Her enthusiasm infected Eban. He beamed like she did. “I reckon you’re right, Maggie.”
But Joshua rolled away, reaching for his holster. “Hold it! Quiet!” He pulled the Colt as he turned to the hill behind them. An Indian stood only ten feet away.
“Easy, Josh. He’s one of Daylor’s.” Eban’s ardor had eased.
The Indian, dressed like a miner, held out his hand palm forward, a sign of peace. “Men come. Be here when sun goes. Daylor say I tell.”
Joshua lowered his aim. “Men? How many? Where are they coming from?”
“Two men. Ride horse. Same trail you come.”
“What do they look like?”
“Two men. No more. Not miner.”
“Not miners. All right. Thanks for the warning.” He put the gun away.
The grin that lit Maggie’s lips only seconds before had vanished. She grabbed his arm, trembling. Her face blanched white.
He put his arm around her. “Relax, we don’t know who it is. It could be anyone.”
“Maybe it isn’t Jack, this time, but he’ll come. Sooner or later, he’ll come.”
Eban gathered the gold. “It’s almost sundown. We best get ourselves back to camp no matter who it is. We’ve got a lot better cover there than out here in the open.”
Joshua got up and gave him a hand. “We can leave the tools here. If all goes well, we’ll be back in the morning anyway. Let’s just take the gold and go.”
“Good idea.”
The sun had fallen from the sky; the twilight deepened. He was very nervous about his sons. Hank and Jess hadn’t returned from Coloma with the mule. Hank was twenty-one and full grown. He had always been steady, never one to stray. He didn’t take to strong drink, and had always been reliable.
Now Jess had a wild streak. When he drank, he got into trouble. Hank had orders to ride herd on him and get back here well before sunset, but they hadn’t showed up. He would give them another hour then ride out after them.
“Tom, it looks like your brothers got themselves hung up in that town. You best rustle us up some food. I expect they’ll be riding in soon and hungry too.”
“Sure, Pa.” Tom started to stoke the campfire, then stopped. “You don’t think they run into them killers do you?”
It always seemed Tom had an uncanny ability to read his thoughts. Maybe it came from his ma, God rest her soul. Tom had so much of her in him. He even looked like her. He had the same sandy hair and the same clear, deep blue eyes.
He tried to act normal because didn’t want Tom to know he was fearful. “I reckon them killers has lit out for parts unknown by now. Don’t you? No, I figure Jess got himself in some sort of shenanigan in town. They’ll be along. Get that supper going. They’ll
be hungry when they get here.”
He had worked the rocks along the creek all day. Even without the gear they had left in town with the mule, he had found a lot of gold. It was lying around just waiting to be picked up. He pried it from the cracks in the rock all around their camp. The only thing he’d needed was a knife.
At this rate, he would be able to give his sons the better life he wanted them to have. He had promised Mary, their ma, that he would do everything he could for them. He was bound to that promise by an undying love for her.
Tom served the meager supper of beans and coffee. It was now fully dark, and Hank and Jess hadn’t come back. Maybe that blacksmith didn’t get around to the mule and they had to stay overnight. Maybe Jess got drunk. It could be easily explained, but he had a crawling feeling inside his soul, an ominous, black cloud of evil foreboding. Had he sent two fine sons into the hands of the same cold-blooded killers that had but yesterday been where they were now camped? He couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that wrapped his heart. He had to look for them.
“Pa, I’m getting uneasy about Hank and Jess a powerful lot. It ain’t like them to be so late, leastwise not when it’s suppertime.” Tom read his mind again.
“Yeah, we best go looking for them. Jess probably got himself in another scrape, but I don’t like the thought of them being out with them killers on the loose. Why don’t you saddle up the horses, and we’ll ride back up the trail and look for them.”
“You bet.”
With a heart heavy, he led his youngest son into the American River under a moonlit sky. They rode slow and called out loud, but the forest, dark and deep, had no answer to their cries.
Maggie peeked from the flaps of the small tent Eban had picked up in Mormon’s Island. The sun had set. Stars sprayed across the sky. She could see Joshua, huddled with Eban behind a barricade of boulders and brush they put up the day before, checking his pistol to make sure it would shoot.
“Horses are coming,” Joshua whispered.
It might be Jack. It wouldn’t do her any good to hide in the tent. She ran to Joshua’s side, her eyes wide, her little gun tight in her fist.
Hangtown Creek: A Tale of the California Gold Rush (A Tom Marsh Adventure Book 1) Page 16
