Hard Gold

by Avi

  Looks like Gold Hill to me.

  Still following the mule train, Lizzy and I wandered down the steep trail toward the settlement, watching as Mr. McFadden’s bugle calls brought in men—and a few women—from all directions, enough to remind me of a stirred-up nest of ants. We went slowly, not sure what we should do or what we’d find.

  We did see many houses and tents, but so randomly placed it was hard to number them. Many lay in the yet uncut forest. The houses—if you’d call them that—were crude, hastily constructed log cabins, as if no one had time or inclination to do better. Only a few were chinked. Doors and windows were merely holes. Roofs were logs thrown on top, layered with pine boughs. No chimneys were visible, which meant cooking was done outside.

  An arastra wheel used for crushing ore. This one was powered by a horse.

  Fortunately, no one paid attention to us. It was the mule train that brought excitement. And whatever value the supplies held, letters were the treasures. As soon as McFadden reached the town center, he retrieved the letters from one of the mule packs and started bawling out names. The men who received letters snatched at them as if they contained life itself. No matter what they had been doing, they went off to read. Those unable to read called upon those who could. We supposed they came from families back in the states and could have been written months ago.

  It was fortunate that the community assembled as it did. All attention was on Mr. McFadden. Lizzy and I were able to stand uphill and watch. I scrutinized the men closely.

  “Any sign?” she whispered. She meant Jesse.

  “No. But I see Mr. Mawr.”

  “Where?”

  “Over there,” I said, not wanting to point. “At the far side. By that lean-to. He’s watching the crowd, too. Must have been waiting for the supply train to arrive.”

  “Think he sees Jesse?”

  “He isn’t moving. Come on,” I said, “don’t want him to notice us.”

  “Sometimes I wish I didn’t have red hair,” murmured Lizzy. We moved up the hill and stepped behind a broken- down cabin. While Lizzy remained completely out of view, I kept poking my head out to watch.

  “What’s Mawr doing?” she asked.

  “He’s gone among the crowd. Talking to people.”

  “See anything of your Jesse?”

  I kept surveying the milling crowd, not sure how I was to find Jesse—if he was there—among so many.

  “Do you?” Lizzy said impatiently.

  “No. Wait!”

  “What?”

  “Hold on!”

  Standing apart from the large crowd was a man. He was dressed like the rest: slouch hat, old shirt and trousers, boots. Bearded. But unlike the other miners, it did not seem as if he had any expectation or hope of getting anything from the train. He simply remained in place, looking on, one hand in a pocket, his posture suggesting resignation. But though I could not be sure, there was something about him that looked familiar.

  As the crowd began to break up—the letters distributed—this man turned and began to walk uphill toward a grove of trees. Halfway along he took off his hat and appeared to wipe away perspiration. His hair was golden. I knew then I was seeing Jesse’s hair as well as his walk, that ambling, shambling gait I would have known anywhere.

  “Jesse!” I managed to whisper.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Jesse

  IGLANCED BACK to Mr. Mawr. He was still in a conversation with a miner, paying no mind—as far as I could tell—to the one I was sure was Jesse.

  “Did he see you?” Lizzy asked.

  “Don’t think so.”

  I shifted around. Jesse was continuing up the hill. I turned again. Mr. Mawr was still talking with that man.

  “Early,” cried Lizzy, “tell me what’s happening!”

  I shifted my look to where I’d last seen Jesse. He was out of sight. I felt panicky.

  “Early, please!”

  “He’s gone. Don’t know where. I just know what direction.” I looked back to Mawr. To my great relief he was going off in a different way, caught up in his talk.

  “Come on,” I said.

  “Where?”

  “After Jesse.”

  All but running, my heart pounding, I hastened up the hill, moving in the direction I’d seen Jesse move. Lizzy stayed close. I kept turning around to watch for Mawr. I didn’t see him.

  After we had gone up the hill some ways, I cut over to where I’d last seen Jesse. What I found was a well-used path. I took it. Lizzy followed.

  The path led farther uphill, taking us among the thick trees and countless stumps. Hereabout there were log houses tucked everywhere. Tents, too. Any number of men were attending to their business. No one I saw resembled Jesse.

  Out of breath, I halted, and looked around.

  “Any idea where he went?” said Lizzy.

  “Don’t know,” I panted. “And don’t want to ask anybody. Anyway, he’d be a fool to use his real name.”

  Being on the only visible path, I chose to keep going. After perhaps a quarter of a mile, the trail narrowed considerably. Log houses were no longer around. I stopped, not sure where to go.

  “You certain it was him?” said Lizzy.

  “Positive.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t know. But either we find him, or Mawr will.”

  Then I noticed what seemed to be a clump of closely packed trees some twenty yards off the path where we stood. When I looked down, I saw the tracings of a faint path that led in its direction.

  “Come on,” I said.

  As silently as we could we moved along the narrow path. When we drew close, I realized that what I’d seen was a small log house set in a grove of trees. Its door was nothing more than a gap.

  I halted.

  “Jesse?” whispered Lizzy.

  I stood there.

  “What’s the matter?” Lizzy asked.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Lizzy, I know what happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Unable to speak I shook my head, muttered, “Come on,” and went forward.

  Followed by Lizzy, I stepped inside the tiny house. With a glance I took in all there was to see: a small, dim room with a dirt floor. No window. In the far corner, a cooking pan, panning tin, flour sack. Nearby lay a Sharps rifle. Down along the right-hand wall, some boards had been laid out. The boards were covered with pine branches. On the branches lay a man.

  Soon as we came in, the man bolted up into a sitting position. His hand went right to his rifle, which he leveled at me.

  For some moments we stared at one another, he squinting—the light was behind me—as he tried to figure out who I was. I had no doubt who he was. Though he looked older and was bearded, filthy, weathered, and worn, it was Jesse.

  For a moment, neither of us spoke. I couldn’t. And it took him a while to realize it was me. When he did, his face blossomed into that smile of his, that golly, good morning! grin that made folks glad he was around. He flung down the rifle and just laughed. Oh, how he laughed, finally sputtering, “Well… hel-lo … little brother!”

  My heart hammering so hard it hurt, I gulped deep and said, “Jesse, why’d you have to rob that bank in Wiota?”

  Jesse kind of blinked. His smile faded.

  “You … you shouldn’t have done it,” I cried.

  Jesse shook his head. “Hey, Early,” he said, “that’s no way to greet your best friend. Not after so long.” He pulled himself to his feet and came forward, hands extended.

  I couldn’t help it. I held back, my eyes smarting with tears. “You shouldn’t have done it!” I shouted. “It was wrong!” I was bursting with anger I didn’t know I had had. Trembling, actually. My outburst was strong enough to make him hold back. He looked at me with puzzlement as his right hand combed through his beard and then his hair. He shook his head slightly, then he turned and nodded toward Lizzy. “Who’s this?” he sa
id.

  “My friend.”

  His bright smile came back. “Hey, I thought I was your only friend. Is Adam here, too? Sister? Brother Daniel?”

  “Just me,” I said.

  “You? Alone? All ‘cross Nebraska?”

  I nodded.

  “What made you do that?”

  In the time since I’d last seen him, I had grown some, but I still had to look up to him. “You,” I said.

  He stood there, as if unsure what to say or do.

  I said, “You … stole the money so you could get out here, right? So you could find enough gold to pay our mortgage debt.”

  “Hey, Early, remember what they said? That gold was here for easy pickings. Well, I wanted to get some, fast. Before it was all gone. Only, you know what, it wasn’t easy. Nothing like they wrote.”

  “Did you … really get enough gold?”

  “Didn’t you get my letter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then, I sure did get enough gold. But it was hard, Early. You can’t believe how hard. You think working for Adam is hard? You don’t know the word. The hardest work I’ve ever done. You know what panning is?” he asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “Simplest way of getting gold. Get yourself a pan. Hey, some use a frying pan. Tin is better, because it’s light. Find yourself a bend in a fast-moving creek. Make sure it’s a sandy spot. Or gravelly. Best be sure no one else is around, either. Scoop up some sand or gravel and water into the pan. Swirl it. Let the sand, gravel, and water trickle out. Slowly. Gold—if there’s any—separates out. Because it’s heavy it sinks to the bottom. Follow me?”

  I just stood there, staring at him, listening.

  “You get up at dawn, stand in that freezing cold mountain water till your toes pucker white and ache with chills. All the while you swirl that pan, maybe—what? Ten million, billion times. By the end of the day, when there’s no more sun to burn your neck, and you’re weary, starving, and got more mosquito bites than hairs on your head, when you’re asking yourself who you are, where you are, and what awful sin against almighty God did you do to bring you to such a wretched place, you may have, what? Ten cents’worth of gold. Then again, you might have five dollars. Word is that Gregory, on his first strike, made six hundred! But that was placer gold. Digging.

  The artists who drew this put in all kinds of ways of getting at the gold. Panning, sluicing, using long toms, and digging.

  “Early, let me tell you, you eat miserable food—whatever grub you might have at hand—sleep on the hard ground, and come the dawn, guess what you do?”

  “Can’t,” I said, feeling miserable.

  “You start all over again. Is it hard? Oh, it is. Will it make you rich? Probably not. But then again …” he added almost wistfully, “for some … But, Early, I did get enough. Enough to pay that debt. To make that farm ours. Or at least Adam’s. To pay back Fuslin for his … loan. But…” Jesse’s voice trailed away to nothing.

  After a moment of silence, he said, “Someone stole it. I guess I wrote you that, too, didn’t I?”

  I nodded.

  He hesitated. “You … you hear the rest?”

  “You shot the thief. First you robbed the bank, then you killed a man. For gold.”

  “Early,” he said with sudden anger, “it’s not like back home. Nothing like. No law out here. None.”

  “They put you in prison.”

  “Thieves put me in prison!” he cried. “Considered great sport to hold a hanging, especially in the winter when there’s nothing else to do. I wasn’t going to wait for that. No, sir! Got away and came up here,” he said. “No one really cares who you are up here. Or what you did. I go by the name of Adam. Don’t that make you laugh?” He broke into his smile. “And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve made enough gold—again, Early—to clear the debt. The folks—even old Adam—don’t have to worry. I can give it to you right now.”

  “But, Jesse,” I cried, my heart feeling as if it were breaking, “why did you have to do what’s wrong!”

  “Early, I’d have thought it would make you glad I got enough gold. Worked hard for it. Twice! Ain’t that worth something more than you snapping at me? You should be thanking me. The whole family should be thanking me. Adam, most of all.” He had stopped smiling.

  “Jesse,” I said, tears coming down my cheeks, “I came here to help you. To tell you there’s a man who has stalked you all the way from Iowa. Here, now, in Gold Hill. Judge Fuslin sent him. If he gets to you he’ll take you back—or kill you.”

  He glared at me. “How did he know I was here?”

  “He … he followed me,” I said, full of agony.

  Jesse looked at me, and in that look I saw such hateful fury—something I’d never seen before in him. It tore my insides as if it were a knife.

  He turned to Lizzy, then back to me again. “Early, that true? You brought him here?”

  “Honest.”

  “You always so stupid honest?” he spat out.

  Jesse …

  “Hey, Early, we ain’t little kids no more. Start living what’s real!” His scorn hurt me so.

  “Jesse,” I cried, “Fuslin’s man tried to kill me. I think he wants your gold for himself.”

  Jesse gazed at me, then turned abruptly and went to the far corner of his little house, knelt, and dug at the dirt floor like a dog digging up a bone. The earth gave way with ease. In moments, he had worked out a hole, reached into it, and pulled up a wooden box maybe six inches square. He hefted it and then held it out to me.

  “Here,” he said, standing up. “It’s everything I got. Take it and get on back home. It should be enough.”

  “What is it?”

  “What do you think? Gold! Got it fair, Early!” He was shouting at me. “All honest work. No stealing. No killing.”

  When I held back, he spoke softer, almost pleading, “Look here, little brother, I did it for you. And for my sister and your Pa. Not for Adam, though I guess he’ll keep the farm with it, won’t he? You just make sure and tell him I’ve taken on his name. That’ll make him wince,” he said with a grin.

  When I still didn’t move, Lizzy took the box. From the way she held it, I could see it was heavy. She knelt and put it in her sack.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked Jesse.

  “If what you say is true, if you brought this man out here to—”

  “I didn’t mean … He’s still down below,” I said.

  “Then don’t you think I’d best get moving? Somewhere. Maybe to the Gregory diggings. Don’t matter. Out here, people don’t ask much. Unless,” he added, his face close to mine, “it’s their little brother.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “I suspect you’d be too preachy on me,” said Jesse. “All that honesty.” He was hastily gathering up his pot and pan, putting them into the flour sack. Took up his rifle, too. “Anyway I need you to take that gold back. They’ll love you for that.”

  I stood there, angry, wretched, bewildered, not knowing what to say.

  He pushed past me to the door. “Look here, Early. I’m sorry for what I did. Truly am. Maybe it’ll all work out. And I’m glad you came. We still best of friends, little brother?” He held out a hand. “Yes? No? You going to forgive me? Only got a minute.”

  I stood there for a moment, then leaped forward and hugged him. “I just wanted to help you!” I cried.

  He dropped his stuff and hugged me back. “Hey, Little Brother, you saved me from a hanging, here or home. You can’t be more loving than that, can you?” He broke away and turned to Lizzy. “He’s the good one,” he said. “The best.” Then he gathered up his sack and rifle, turned, and rushed out.

  I ran to the door. “Jesse! Will you ever come back?” I called. “Jesse!” But he was running so he didn’t answer.

  Lizzy was at my side. We watched Jesse rip up the path, saw him make a turn heading higher, then disappear among the trees. Au
tomatically we both looked the other way, and that’s when we saw Mr. Mawr and three other men coming toward the cabin. They had rifles in their hands.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Escape!

  “LIZZY, ” I cried. “It’s Mawr.”

  She ran back into Jesse’s cabin and the next moment returned with the pepperbox pistol in both hands. Red hair streaming, green eyes fierce, she lifted that pistol, aimed high in the direction of the approaching men, and pulled the trigger six times.

  Six explosions, one after the other. The loudest sounds I ever did hear.

  The men, taken by surprise, came to a quick halt, turned, gawped, and fled back down the hill.

  Lizzy snapped back her hair and said, “Mr. Early, I can’t hit anything with this stupid thing.” That said, she flung the pistol among the trees.

  Oh, my Lizzy was a beauty then!

  I dove back into the cabin, grabbed up the sack with the gold, and bolted out. “Come on!” I yelled.

  We scrambled off the path, into the woods, running some twenty yards or so before squatting down behind some trees.

  I peeked out. Mr. Mawr and the other men were creeping back, but very carefully. They were skulking behind trees, supposing that whoever shot at them was still in Jesse’s place. I don’t think they ever saw us.

  “Come on!” I hissed to Lizzy.

  We backed off quiet and fast as possible, moving downhill. When we got to the edge of Gold Hill, we skirted around it, then went around the valley. Anytime we thought we’d run into people, we went another way, until we came around to the trail by which we had come from Boulder.

  And let me tell you, that gold was heavy.

  Constantly looking behind, we made our way until it was too dark to go any farther.

  In all that time we hardly talked. It was only when night had truly come—as if, perhaps, Lizzy didn’t want to see my face—that she asked, “Early, did you always know that Jesse robbed the bank?”

  “I thought it, but didn’t want to.”

  “Starting when?”

  “Back home.”