Hard Gold

by Avi

  But what choice was there? You either put one foot in front of your other foot, or you would be left behind.

  So it was that at last we reached Fort Kearny, a place meant to protect those that passed by. But it was there that Mr. Mawr tried to murder me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Stampede!

  June 12, 1859

  FORT KEARNY lies on the south side of the Platte River, set back perhaps half a mile, not far from what they called Grand Island. It’s an island—Mr. Boxler informed me—fifty miles long!

  The fort was built on a slight rise of ground, the only height thereabouts, which gives a long view of the prairie. From it, to the north, we saw a great dark herd of buffalo.

  The fort was nothing to speak of: some frame houses, big and small, as well as a few sod houses, all set around a forlorn parade ground. In its center was a flagpole from which hung a wind-tattered flag of thirty-three stars. Two troops of foot soldiers were stationed there.

  Fort Kearny was only a little more than ten years old in 1859.

  It seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

  We remained at the fort for two days, along with other trains. In some there was considerable sickness: dysentery and cholera. Bad water was blamed. Folks from other trains spoke of contaminated food. At this point, a fair number of people gave up and headed back toward the states. Some of those going on still insisted on calling the returnees “go-backers” or “stampeders,” as if they were frightened buffalo.

  I stood with Mr. Bunderly as we watched them go.

  With a sigh, he said, “Mr. Early, as the poet wrote, ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'” Which he thought we were, fools or angels, he, for once, did not say.

  Another reason emigrant trains liked to pause at Fort Kearny was that people were able to purchase some goods from its storehouse. Being the last mail post before Cherry Creek, it was the place where Jesse had sent out one of his letters.

  Remembering that, and watching the go-backers, made me think about my family—how far away they were, how much I missed them, even Adam. So I set myself down and wrote a letter:

  TO MA, PA, BROTHER ADAM:

  I AM AT FORT KEARNY IN THE NEBRASKA TERRITORY ON MY WAY TO THE CHERRY CREEK DIGGINGS. FOR SURE I SHALL BRING JESSE AND HIS GOLD HOME. DO NOT FRET.

  YOUR LOVING SON,

  EARLY

  Letter in hand, I wandered around the fort trying to find a place where I could post it. Unfortunately, I met Mr. Mawr. Perhaps he had been watching for me.

  “A letter, Early,” he said. “Who are you writing to?” he demanded.

  “A kindly neighbor, back home.”

  “Not to your uncle Jesse?” he asked.

  “He doesn’t know I’m coming,” I said before I thought what I was revealing. When he made no response other than to look hard at me, I went on to post the letter. As I was to learn, my words to Mr. Mawr were a blunder.

  That afternoon, Lizzy appeared with her father’s pepperbox pistol.

  “Why’d you bring that?”

  “Do you know how to use one?”

  I shook my head. “I told you, just a rifle.”

  “What if we find a lot of gold and someone tries to take it from us?” I supposed she was thinking about what I’d told her about Jesse.

  I grinned. “Think that might happen?”

  “Mr. Early, I intend to find pounds of gold,” she said and insisted upon my firing the pistol a few times.

  We went out on the prairie, and after choosing a target—the stump of a tree—we commenced, each shooting six times. In the silence of the plains, the noise was thunderous. But in all that banging, I think we managed to hit the tree but once. “Hard to hit anything with a pepperbox,” Lizzy said.

  “Then what good is it?”

  “You can scare people off.”

  “You don’t need that gun to do that.”

  “Mr. Early,” she shouted, “I think I hate you.” But she was laughing as she chased me all the way back to the wagons.

  June 14

  On the second day of our stay at Fort Kearny, Mr. Mawr approached me. “Early!” he barked, for that was his way, reminding me of Adam. “We’re in need of buffalo chips. Come with me!”

  I was reluctant to do as he ordered. But Mrs. Bunderly, who was reclining in the shade cast by our wagon, called out, “Mr. Early, you must do the bidding of your elders.”

  I looked about for Lizzy but did not see her.

  Mr. Mawr must have guessed my thought, for Lizzy and I were always together.

  “I suppose a boy can go without a girl,” he said.

  Feeling taunted, I pulled myself up, grabbed an old flour sack for the chips, and began to follow, noticing as I did that Mr. Mawr had his pistol on his hip.

  We walked along the wagons that made up our train until, to my surprise, Mr. Mawr, who had not spoken to me since we had left Mrs. Bunderly, mounted a horse and headed on to the prairie. I hesitated, but he turned in his saddle.

  “Let’s go, boy!” he shouted and moved along at a pace which I could follow, his saddle creaking, his Spanish spurs sounding a harsh jangle.

  Once, twice, I looked back at the fort, wishing Lizzy was with me, but felt compelled to continue on. Now and again Mr. Mawr glanced back as if to make sure I was following.

  I soon realized we were moving ever closer to that herd of buffalo we’d seen. They were grazing, great heads down, moving slowly in our direction. By then we had come so far that the undulating land made it impossible to see either our wagons or the fort. Nor, I realized, could anyone see us. There was nothing else on the prairie save a dead cottonwood tree, which stood like some lost, forlorn creature.

  Feeling isolated, I felt a tickle of fright and stopped. “Where are we going?” I called.

  Without pausing, Mr. Mawr turned in his saddle and said, “You can start collecting. Plenty of chips here about. I’m going to scout on farther. Maybe shoot a buffalo.”

  There being nothing out of place in that, I merely nodded, and watched, relieved, as he put heels to his horse and galloped toward the great herd.

  I set about my task, throwing the dry chips into the bag, though occasionally I looked up and around to see where Mr. Mawr had gone. He was out of sight.

  Meanwhile the buffalo herd continued to drift closer to me, so close that I began to wonder if I—who had no desire to be among the beasts—should not start going back on my own. In any case, my sack was almost full.

  Resolved to pick up a few more chips, I bent over, only to hear two sharp pistol reports. I looked up and searched in the direction from which the shots had come. My first thought was that Mr. Mawr was at his hunting.

  The buffalo lifted their great heads.

  Two more shots rang out.

  Something else happened so very quickly, I wasn’t sure I was seeing right. In an instant, or so it seemed, the buffalo transformed themselves from a tranquil, grazing herd into a panic-driven mass galloping in my direction, the sound of their feet striking the ground with tremendous thundering.

  They had been startled by the shots.

  For some few seconds, I stood transfixed, until my disbelief gave way to an understanding as to the grave danger I was in: the mass of beasts was stampeding, and I was directly in their way. They would not stop or turn from me—so very insignificant—but trample me to death.

  If you took this picture and multiplied it fifty times fifty, you might get a sense of all those buffalo we saw on the plains.

  Even as I stood there, horrified, I recalled that solitary tree some yards away. In less time than it takes to recount, I dashed toward it frantically, running as fast as I have ever sped. As I ran, I kept glancing at the beasts that were closing in on me, their shaggy horned heads low, bellowing and braying, foam spewing from their mouths and large nostrils, the beat of their hooves making a calamitous noise that shook the earth itself, even as a cloud of dust and clods filled the air.

  At the last moment, I leaped up
on the tree and climbed faster than any cat could climb. Some eight feet above the ground, I held to a branch, with little doubt I was clinging to my life.

  Like a river on a rampage, the buffalo flowed all about me, an immense moving dark brown mass, churning up clouds of choking dust and deafening sound, thunderous enough to make the dead tree shake as if to come back to trembling life.

  I am not sure how long I stayed on that tree, my heart doing its own pounding, my arm muscles aching with my desperate hold. The sheer number of the animals seemed infinite. But it was almost impossible to see because of the dust that whirled and whipped around me.

  Their passing may have lasted for as long as twenty minutes. But after charging by and going on, and with no further shots to alarm them, they began to calm themselves. I soon saw them grazing peacefully not half a mile away, as if nothing untoward had occurred.

  I dropped to the ground, my legs so weak and wobbly, I could hardly stand. I sat down, back propped against the tree that had saved me, struggling to find breath and wits.

  After some minutes, I pulled myself up and began to walk in the direction where I thought the fort was. At one point I stopped and looked about. Where was Mr. Mawr? Though he was nowhere in sight, I had little doubt he had deliberately set the buffalo running with his pistol. That’s to say, it was no less than attempted murder.

  It made me ill to think it.

  I spied the fort. I was still approaching it when I saw Lizzy, red hair fluttering like some signal of distress, running across the plains in my direction.

  Seeing me, she halted. “Early!” she yelled. “You all right?”

  “Think so,” I called and walked on.

  She kept running toward me. When we reached each other she stood before me, panting, her face anxious, her green eyes welling with tears. “Mr. Mawr … came riding into … camp,” she gasped. “He said you had been trampled by the buffalo. Killed!”

  “Almost was,” I said.

  “What happened?”

  I told her.

  “You really think he did that on purpose?” She glanced toward the fort, as if Mr. Mawr might suddenly appear.

  “Remember our talk at Council Bluffs?” I said. “When we were trying to figure out what he was going to do? If he was going to try and keep me from going, or just follow me to Jesse?”

  She nodded.

  “Yesterday I made the mistake of telling him that Jesse didn’t know I was coming out to him. He must have decided he could kill me and go after Jesse’s gold himself.”

  “Mr. Early,” she said with sudden anger, the tears now running down her cheeks, “you must promise me never to go anywhere with that man alone. Do you understand? Never!”

  Though still shaken within, I was touched by her caring. “I promise,” I said, grateful that she was there.

  Then, to my great surprise, she gave me a hug. “Early,” she said with great fierceness, “since the death of Apollo, you are my best and only friend! I won’t have you dead!”

  I supposed I grinned. “I won’t let it happen,” I said.

  “Do you swear?” she insisted.

  “I swear.”

  “Then we are sweethearts.”

  “We are?” I said, taken aback.

  “Yes!”

  “If you say so,” I managed, not knowing what to say otherwise, but feeling glad.

  Together, we went back to camp.

  “Lizzy,” I said, “I can’t prove what Mr. Mawr was doing. I suppose it’s best not to say anything. And since I’m alive, I guess he’s going to have to follow me.”

  She agreed.

  When we arrived, other folks who had heard Mr. Mawr proclaim my death congratulated me on my miraculous survival.

  Then Mr. Mawr approached, but an angry look from me stopped him at some yards’distance.

  We spoke no words but merely glared at one another. For myself I can say no silence ever spoke a more hateful exchange. But then, I suppose mortal enemies require no spoken words.

  So it was on that day that I gained both an enemy and a sweetheart.

  For one, at least, I was gratified.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Going On

  June 15, 1859

  WE LEFT Fort Kearny early, only to have our wagon break down. One of our rear wheels was off kilter. I had forgotten to tar it properly before we set off. As I watched the rest of the wagon train push on, I thought of what Adam would have said, and I expected no less from Mr. Bunderly. All he said, however, was “Mr. Early, it’s been my singular fate to learn that one gains good experience from doleful events. Therefore, good and bad constitute one’s education in equal measure. Let us, therefore, rejoice in the increase of our knowledge and hasten to repair the wheel.”

  In fact, it was Lizzy and I who worked to fix the wagon, which required much unloading and reloading. As for Mr. Bunderly, he took care of his wife, who was doing poorly that day.

  Once done, we hastened on and caught up with the others. As we went, we met a mule-pulled wagon going back toward the states. On its cloth cover was writ large:

  PIKE’S PEAK A FRAUD!

  During the day a new troubling thought came to me. “What if,” I asked Lizzy, “Jesse has already gone back, and we miss him?”

  All she said, could say, was “Don’t know.” But all day, I brooded over such a possibility.

  At campfire that night, the men talked about the repeated bad reports about Pike’s Peak gold. Anxiety seasoned their voices, some with bravado, others with worry.

  Jesse has his gold, I kept telling myself.

  June 16

  Saw a coyote at a distance. Some of the men went after it. Had more success with a rabbit.

  June 17

  Very hot.

  The men hunted buffalo. They just enjoyed shooting the great beasts. Since the stampede, I wanted nothing to do with the animals.

  The rolling prairie had no shrubbery save along the margin of small creeks, where we found a few stunted trees and smaller brush. The river water was shallow and warm.

  The trail west left many emigrants and their wagons looking mighty poor. These folks don’t even have a matched team to haul them along.

  We again met with discouraged folks heading back east. Some of our train cried, “Stampeders!” I sensed their mockery only masked their own nervousness. But the go-backers made me wonder. If all these people had failed to find gold, how much could Jesse have gathered?

  June 18

  The men killed two buffalo.

  Mrs. Bunderly took to remaining within the wagon all day. Mr. Bunderly was grim. Lizzy held the reins. I walked alongside. Almost no talk.

  June 19

  This Sunday we rested. A good thing, too, for all were exhausted, including the animals.

  Awful hot. Coolest place was beneath the wagon. I lay there, and perhaps because it was so still, I gave hard thought to the possibility that when we got to Cherry Creek, I would not find Jesse. What then? I’d be alone. Without money. Far from home. What would I do?

  With no answer, I just felt sick.

  Lizzy spent more and more time attending her mother.

  June 21

  Traveled for seven hours and reached a place called Plum Creek. Sometimes the thought came to me that we were doomed to travel forever.

  Lizzy jerked some buffalo meat.

  She has talked very little.

  A picturesque early morning scene of a small family on the prairie as breakfast is prepared.

  Other wagons are already under way on another long day’s journey.

  June 22

  On this day we went twenty miles, or so it was reckoned. We pushed so strenuously that some oxen in our train became lame.

  A Mrs. Wulsom in one of the wagons put her day’s milk (they had a milk cow with them) in a can and tied it to the backboard. At the end of the day all the jostling had turned the milk to butter!

  At campfire, the men debated the merits of the abolition of black slavery. Most were
against slavery. Some were vehemently for it. Much talk about the abolitionist John Brown.

  June 23

  We went eighteen miles and camped near Cottonwood Springs. When we got there, we found some fifty emigrants, who, as we learned of their misfortunes, became objects of our compassion.

  They had started going west (from Kansas City) by the Smoky Hill trail. When they realized it was the wrong choice—it being so desolate and scarce of water—they turned north in hopes of reaching the Platte River.

  They had begun with horses, mules, and oxen, but when we found them, most were without any. Their teams, deprived of food and water, had perished. They had eaten some of their animals. Wagons had been broken up so that the wood could be used to cook food. Many were sick and desperate. All cursed the day they had ever set forth.

  We offered such help as we had.

  Later, I saw Lizzy wander off and sit down alone on the prairie. When I went out to her, I discovered she was crying. I had enough good sense not to say anything, but sat by her side in silence as she sobbed.

  “Early,” she finally said, “one of the ladies on that train became a mother when they were traveling. Her poor babe lived only a few hours and was buried on the margin of a brook. They said they named the place Infant Creek.”

  “I grieve for it.”

  “But, Early,” she cried with anger, “how could they give the creek a name and not the child?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Mr. Grostig—” Lizzy went on, “he’s with that wagon from Missouri—is ailing. So is my mother. What if she dies?”

  “You’ll manage, Lizzy. You and your father. You’ll have to.”

  “She has suffered too much to die now!”

  Unable to find words to comfort her, I gazed out at the empty land. “This is all too hard,” she said after a while.

  “It is,” I said, feeling great pain in my chest.

  All of a sudden she clutched my arm and cried, “Early, you must never, ever leave me!”

  All I could say was “I won’t.”

  “And if I should die,” she went on, gulping back her sobs, “you must not abandon me out here. Because if you did,” she said with great fierceness, “I know I’d die anew each day from terrible loneliness.”