“Yeah, she can cook, that’s a fact. And right now I’d give a month’s pay for some of her roast chicken and giblet gravy.”
My grin came back. I’d loved the chicken and gravy too.
“Later you’ll have to tell me more about this cafe you’re so fond of,” he added.
Then I heard Boyd Riddle cry out, “Pa, we’re going to have company tonight.”
Boyd’s pa turned from where he sat at the top of the ravine. Instead of looking at his son he stared straight at Webster Lawson and nodded, like they knew each other. “That’s just fine,” he said in a flat, dry tone that didn’t have a thimbleful of feeling to it. He turned back to the river and swung the hatchet into the hard packed earth again and again, bent only on the gold he sought.
I led Rojo toward where Eban waited, sitting on the dun ahead of me near a small stand of pines that crept across the ridge. “I’ve got to get that load of lumber delivered,’ he said. “I’ll give you a hand getting the Major settled and we’ve got to go.”
The idea of going to Hangtown rattled my mind almost like the vultures had. K.O. Manuel might be out there somewhere waiting to shoot me as I rode back with Eban and the wagon. In the stir around finding Lacey’s pa I’d forgotten all about the man in the red shirt, but now I recalled how lucky I’d been so far and knew that luck wouldn’t hold up forever. “I’m going to stay here, Eban, if it’s all right with Boyd.” I muttered. “I promised to cook some pan bread for Major Lawson anyway. He’s real hungry.”
With a pained look across his face, Eban shook his head hard from side to side. “No, Tom!” he snapped. “If something happened to you while I wasn’t here, so many folks would be after me I’d have more holes in my carcass than one of Maggie’s pincushions.”
“But Eban, K.O. might be waiting—”
“K.O. Manuel?” It was Lacey’s pa, interrupting in a voice stronger than he’d shown before. “How do you know him?”
I shrugged. “Well sir, he wants to kill me. He shot at me day before yesterday,” I yanked off the sombrero, “See,” and pointed to the scab on my head. “But he missed. This morning a fellow who was there told me it was him. Then later today, on the trail here, I heard K.O. riding like the devil, heading towards Hangtown, so I hid in the brush. I think he was looking for me.”
The Major shook his head and turned to Eban. “If K.O. Manuel wants someone dead, he usually gets what he wants. He could easily be waiting on that trail for Tom to ride back. No one knows Tom is here. He’d be better off to stay.”
I gulped. Hearing the Major say what he did caused a chill to run right through me.
It must have scared Eban too. He gave a little jump in the saddle that made the dun take two quick sideways steps to the left. “Whoa, boy, whoa,” he yelled. The horse stopped and Eban looked at the Major. “So you know this Manuel feller?” he asked.
“Only by reputation, but he’s a bad character, real bad.” Major Lawson turned back to me. “He’s the one that put this hole in my leg. Did he snipe at you from the trailside, son?”
“Yes sir. He would’ve killed me if I hadn’t been lucky.” My eyes stared down at the top of my beat up boots while my feet shuffled nervously in the dust.
The Major inhaled with a wheeze, “Well there you have it,” he said to Eban. “Tom has already been ambushed along that trail. It would be stupid for him to go there again. In my opinion he’d be safer here.”
“You bet he’d be safer here.” The yell came from my left. I turned to see Boyd’s pa leaning on a homemade crutch at the top of the ravine, waving a large bore Hawken rifle in his other hand. “I’ll blow that lowdown rattlesnake straight to hell if he comes across the river. You bring me a Bible and I’ll swear in front of God that there won’t be no harm come to the boy or the Major as long as I’m here. You can count on the word of Bug Riddle. I ain’t never gone back on a sworn oath and I ain’t going to now.” Boyd’s pa held up the heavy rifle and pumped it into the air, wobbling back and forth on the crutch as he did. “Bring me a Bible so I can swear. Bring it you hear,” he yelled to Boyd.
“Pa, take it easy now,” Boyd cried. “Ain’t no use for you to get so riled, we all believe you.” He jumped down from the mare and rushed to his pa. “Why don’t you sit back down? All this hopping around ain’t good for your leg.” He took the rifle and crutch and helped his pa sit where he could keep on with his digging.
Eban scratched his chin and looked back to me. “Sounds like the Major’s on your side, son, and so is Mr. Riddle.” He sighed real loud then went on, “I’ll figure out something to tell the women. Meanwhile you keep out of sight. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Boyd walked up to us after he’d had gotten his pa settled. “I reckon I ought to apologize for Pa. He ain’t been right since he busted that leg. That’s when he wanted to camp here. Now he sits there every day digging in the dirt, and always with that bear gun beside him. I do what I can.” Boyd shook his head.
I had to ask, “Is his name really Bug?”
Boyd nodded, “Yeah, leastwise that’s what folks call him. They say he’s like one of them pesky little gnats back east. Once they latch on to you, you can’t get shed of them. That’s how he is. Gets a notion in his head and just keeps at it.”
Eban gave the dun a nudge. “Well, I got to get back over the hill before sundown. What say we get you settled, Major, and I’ll take a look at that leg before I go.”
I handed Rojo’s reins up to the Major. “Will you be okay, sir?” I asked.
“I can make it, son,” Web Lawson took the leather straps in his left hand and followed Eban to the pines that nosed over the ridge.
At the top of the ravine Bug Riddle chopped at the dirt again with the small hand ax, his eyes still honed in on the ford where we had crossed the river and looking for all the world like he was waiting for somebody special. I wondered who that somebody could be as I walked over to him.
“Hi, Mr. Riddle. My name’s Tom Marsh. I want to thank you for letting us stay at your camp,” I said and squatted down on my haunches beside him.
Bug looked over at me through bitter, sad eyes. “You’re right welcome,” he mumbled and took another random hack at the bare earth with the ax before he looked back to the river like he didn’t want to talk. He had on a battered brown hat with a hole worn through the crown and a brim that had long ago lost any hint of its original shape, going up in some places and down in others for no reason. Frayed green suspenders strapped over a faded blue shirt held up ragged homemade pants so caked with the dirt he dug day after day that they seemed to be a part of the hillside.
But I wasn’t about to let things go so easy. There was something about Bug Riddle, something I couldn’t wrap my mind around, something important. “I don’t know how much you know about our, ah, well, our problem, sir, but it could be dangerous for you to have us here. You need to know that,” I explained, figuring he had a right to the truth about why we were here.
Bug hacked at the earth again, eyes still trained off in the distance. “You’re the one my boy loads wagons for,” he said kind of quiet and unexpected like. “He likes you. Say’s you’re good folk. That’s all that matters. Good people got to band together against that black-hearted son of Satan. He ruins all he touches, brings suffering and death to everybody he meets.” The ax slammed into hard clay again and again and again.
I wasn’t quite sure who the black-hearted son of Satan that Bug Riddle talked about was exactly, but I understood the difference between good people and bad people real clear now. K.O. Manuel and his cronies were definitely bad ones and guys like Boyd were as good as a man could find, and even if Bug sounded a little off his feed right now, I was dang sure he must be good too.
I got to my feet. “I’m planning on fixing something to eat, sir. Are you hungry?” I asked.
Bug Riddle didn’t look up. He kept his hard gaze on the river and continued to chop at the earth. “Don’t you worry, son,” he assured me. “I’ll put a ball through
that red shirted spawn of Lucifer as soon as he rides into the river. I’ll blow him back to Hades where he belongs and good riddance to him.” And then he spat off toward the water.
My eyes were wide now. Even though Bug Riddle sounded like the apples fell off his tree way too early he’d used almost the exact same words that Doak Wiggins had used to describe K.O. Manuel. Still, I was a guest here and didn’t want to wear out my welcome right off by asking all the questions that he’d just provoked in me. “I’ll come back when the food is done, sir.” I offered instead and didn’t wait for him to answer but hurried up to the ridge where smoke already rose from a small campfire.
My mind churned, chock-full of thoughts from my short talk with Bug Riddle. One thing stood out clear. Bug was powerful mad at somebody he called a red shirted spawn of Lucifer—the devil’s child in a red shirt. I’d bet Maggie’s chestnut horse against a horny toad that Bug Riddle was talking about K.O. Manuel, and doing it just like Doak Wiggins had.
Eban walked up to me, leading the dun. “The Major’s leg is healing up fine but the ball’s still inside. Mostly he’s suffering from too little food and water. If you feed him good he’ll be okay. He asked me not to tell Lacey that we found him. He’s afraid she’ll hightail it over here and get herself in trouble. But I’m more worried about you. Are you sure you’ll be alright here?”
“Yeah, Eban. K.O. doesn’t know where I am. Major Lawson’s right. I’d be in a lot more danger on the trail,” I said, knowing Eban had good reason to be fretful.
He swung into the saddle. “I’ll be back tomorrow, as early as I can get here. Meantime you stay close to camp and take care of yourself.”
“I will, Eban.” I promised, then stood and watched as he rode down the hill, crossed the river and swung west toward the Hangtown Road.
When I turned back to the ridge I saw Boyd bracing pine branches against a log and snapping them in half with his boot so he could burn them in the campfire he was building. “I know my Pa sounds loco,” he said without looking up. “He’s been like that since he broke his leg. Just sits and watches the river. Says he’s looking for gold, but he ain’t, not really. Something happened to him, something bad, but he won’t talk about it.”
What Boyd said boiled together in my mind with what Bug told me earlier like meat and potatoes in Maggie’s stews. Somewhere a bell rang as clear as the one on the cafe door. “Were you camped on Weber Creek, maybe a mile south of the ford, when your Pa broke his leg?”
Boyd’s jaw dropped. “Did Pa tell you that?”
“No, it’s a guess. What happened? Did you see him break it?”
Boyd stomped on another piece of pine. It snapped in half with a pop. “No, I was panning ore downstream when Pa’s hat come floating by me. The creek runs pretty fast and deep there, but I sloshed out and grabbed it. I knew I’d never hear the end of things if Pa lost that hat. Then here he comes washing down after it, arms flailing, gasping for air, face beat to a pulp. He was half drowned by the time I got him out of the river. I had to pump on his chest to get all the water out of him. Then, after I lugged him back to camp, I found out that the horses ran off and I had to chase one down before I could get Pa to town. He said he slipped and the leg broke. But that ain’t what it looked like to me.” Boyd looked down, a frown across his face.
But my ears had perked up. “How long after the three miners got killed?”
Boyd scratched his cheek. “Oh, a day or so after the last guy, not long.”
“And they got killed real near where you and your Pa were camped when his leg broke, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, the two Mexicans was shot just downstream. The old fellow got beat to death a day or two before that. He weren’t too far upstream. How do you know all this? You wasn’t there?” Boyd shot back, his eyes wide with wonderment.
“No, but I think the man that shot the Major and took a pot shot at me Monday is the same fellow who broke your Pa’s leg then likely tossed him into the creek to drown. I can see why your Pa’s mad. I fell off my horse at the Weber Creek ford a year ago, got washed downstream and near died from it. It’s something that sticks with me, and nobody broke my leg and threw me in.”
“Sounds like something I been thinking on for a while, but when I ask Pa about it he tells me to mind my own business,” Boyd admitted, sadness in his voice.
“Yeah, I suppose he would.” I looked back toward Bug Riddle. “How did he get that fancy rifle,” A Hawken cost a lot of money and Boyd and Bug didn’t seem like they’d ever had much.
“He won it in a shooting match back in Tennessee when I was a boy. It’s his pride and joy. There ain’t many who could outshoot him then and that rifle’s the proof.” Boyd said it real plain and I knew he wasn’t just putting a good face on his pa. He really meant it. Then he stood. “Speaking of shooting,” he went on. “How about I slip over the hill and see if I can bag a rabbit or two? I’m a pretty fair shot myself.”
“You bet!” I exclaimed. “That sounds great.” Jess shot a lot of wild critters back on the farm but since I’d been in the gold country I’d mostly been eating beef, pork, a little deer and a lot of chicken. Fresh rabbit would be a treat.
Boyd picked up a small-bore rifle and headed over the ridge. I walked to Rojo for my saddlebags. The horse grazed close to where Lacey’s Pa rested on his bedroll.
He watched me as I neared. “I heard your talk with Bug Riddle and the questions you asked Boyd. You put things together real good, son, and fast too,” he said in a low, quiet way like he didn’t want anybody else to hear him.
I even glanced back to the ravine to see if Bug listened, but Boyd’s pa sat in the same spot, still hacking at the ground with his hatchet. “One thing seemed to follow another, sir,” I said. “I mean how many bad men can there be around here anyhow?”
“More than you might think, I’m afraid, but none as bad as K.O. Manuel. You and I need to have a serious talk, Tom, maybe after that pan bread you promised.” The Major gave a little smile then coughed.
“I’ll get you some food, sir, as soon as I can,” I said with a grin and hurried back to the campfire with the saddlebags.
I knelt by the fire pit, well made with flat stones on three sides to hold in the heat. It would be easy to whip up pan bread here. Soon salt pork sizzled in the pan and I had four balls of dough ready to flatten down and fry up. I tossed the first one into to the grease. When it browned on the bottom I flipped it into the air and caught it raw side down in the pan, a perfect flapjack. After it was done I took it over to the Major, along with some of the bacon and a cup of coffee.
“Thank you, son.” he said as he took the tin plate from me. “This smells absolutely fantastic.” He broke off a chunk and popped it into his mouth.
“I’m sorry we got no butter or molasses, sir. It helps.”
A shot rang out from the backside of the ridge. Almost like magic Major Lawson’s hand flew up holding his Colt. I quickly spun toward where the sound came from but didn’t see anything odd so I turned back to the river. Bug Riddle sat at the top of the ravine, chopping the earth with his ax like nothing had happened.
“That shot must have come from Boyd,” I said. “I hope he bagged a rabbit.”
The Major gasped and his hand dropped to the ground, but he kept a grip on the pistol. It was a Paterson Colt, a revolver like a whole bunch of those fresh-off-the-boat miners carried. The Major was well armed.
His head rested back onto his saddle and his eyes closed. He still held the bread in his other hand, but he wasn’t even trying to eat now. Maybe somebody shot the Major, I worried. But as soon as the thought formed his eyes fluttered open and he gave a weak smile.
“I guess today has been a little more than I’ve been used to,” he said softly. “I’ll eat your bread, son, with or without butter and I’ll enjoy every bite.”
I grinned. “I know you’re real hungry, sir, but I’ve heard that you need to eat slow when you haven’t had any food in a while. You might get sick or some
thing.”
“I’ll eat slow,” he said, then his gaze strayed to the top of the ravine. “Maybe you should offer our host some.”
“Oh, yes sir. I’ll make enough for all of us, and I can always make more.”
“That’s good,” he whispered and his eyes closed again.
I thought it best to leave him alone for a while, so I went back to the fire and cooked up more pan bread and headed to the ravine with it. When I got close Bug threw down his ax and grabbed the Hawken, ready to pull it to his shoulder. I looked to the ford and saw what sparked the old man’s interest. Someone in a dark blue shirt, a black hat and riding a pinto splashed into the stream.
From this far above the river the rider looked a lot like K.O. Manuel, yet something didn’t seem right. It wasn’t the shirt or the hat. K.O. could have more than one of those. I reflected back on the man I’d seen only a few times and only at a quick glance. But Bug raised the Hawken, cocked the hammer and sniffed up a deep breath. He was going to shoot.
“No,” I yelled. “Don’t fire. That ain’t him.”
“That’s his pinto,” Bug snarled.
“I don’t think so. His pinto had a brown left foreleg. That one’s white. Besides K.O. Manuel has his hair cut short, this guy’s got long hair. Look at him close.”
Bug stared hard then eased the hammer down. “You know him?” he asked, not saying who he thought the guy was but I knew now he waited here for K.O.
“No, but I’ve seen him a couple of times,” I said. “He tried to kill me.”
The man on the pinto rode out of the stream, turned east and continued along the riverbank, his long black locks flowed out from under his hat and a guitar hung across his back. Bug put the Hawken down and looked back at me. “He shot at you?”
I nodded.
“And missed?” Bug had a real yearning mixed in with his words, like a man with an itch he couldn’t scratch. His eyes lit up like a mountain lion stalking a deer.
Into the face of the devil: A love story from the California gold rush Page 12
