Blood Gold

by Michael Cadnum

  Timothy smiled within his black beard.

  CHAPTER 27

  This was the sort of raw Western behavior I had once anticipated but, as before, the potential violence was soon dissipated.

  “Gentlemen,” cried Captain Deerborn in a robust, senatorial tone, staring from one to the other of the two combatants. “I beg your kind attention, if you please.”

  The captain had the gift of natural authority, unfeigned and easy. Every voice fell silent.

  “Gentlemen, if you please,” he continued, liquor having perhaps given him a regard for his own speech. “Justice in California is quick, and rarely needed. A killer faces the noose or the garrote, and the thief earns twenty lashes.” A garrote was a wire or cord used to throttle the victim from behind. Twenty lashes was scarcely a more merciful punishment—many criminals died from being whipped.

  “We find in California,” added the captain, “that the best proof against bloodshed is good manners.”

  “I’m sure my nephew is sorry for any harm,” said Nicholas in a firm, gentle voice. The Barrymores had gathered, a silent gang.

  Timothy was bleeding from his scalp and gave no sign of being anything but silently amused by the captain’s address.

  I stepped forward, placing my body between Timothy and the aggrieved passenger.

  “I know these people,” I said.

  What possessed me to protest the harmlessness of this unsavory Barrymore I could not name—perhaps that taste of whiskey. But as I spoke, I looked around at the swarm of faces and caught Florence’s eye. She gave me a smile.

  And I felt the strangest warmth flood through me.

  “And who are you?” asked the red-bearded passenger with heavy emphasis, looking me up and down.

  “Willie here is one of the crew,” Captain Deerborn replied.

  “Oh, well, I guess that makes all the difference,” said Redbeard sarcastically.

  But perhaps it did. Besides, the passengers were already losing interest, spitting over the side, drawing on their tobacco pipes and cigars. A small group settled back to a game of dominoes; somewhere a deck of cards was being shuffled.

  I worked my way over to where Florence was knotting her bonnet, making a ladylike show of making sure it was secure on her head.

  “I’m not sure California is prepared,” I said, “for an invasion of Barrymores.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Just making a casual observation,” I said, worried that I might have offended her. The truth was that I wanted to talk with her very much, and see her smile at me again.

  “I swear to you,” she said, “that we are by no means as coarse as you must think us.”

  Ben would have had some witty rejoinder to this pretty speech, but I could do little more than touch my finger to my hat and pull a twist of tobacco from my pocket. I felt as I did so, that this was not an appropriate offering for a young woman in such a handsome—if slightly worn-looking—headdress.

  But she accepted a chew—a good pinch of tobacco disappearing into the shadowy interior of her bonnet.

  “My mother passed away last winter,” she said. “And we see little reason to stay out of trouble in her absence.”

  I expressed my sincere condolences. But then I heard myself ask, shocked at my own bluntness, “Is that why you steal from drunken schoolmasters?”

  She took a long moment before she spoke again. “Please don’t think so poorly of me. I was putting a coin back into that poor man’s pocket—it had fallen out, along with some papers and a broken watch fob.”

  I thought about this. “Why did you run so hard, if you were innocent?” I asked, unable to disguise my skepticism. But I hated myself at the same time, wishing I could banter with her, like a gentleman of the world, and win yet another smile.

  “Because some big brute with a knife strapped to his leg came galloping along—hollering out of his face.”

  I wondered if I could have mistaken what I had seen in the Panama street.

  Galloping. The word stung. I had fancied myself quite a nimble runner. And surely I had not made much noise.

  “I swear on my mother’s grave,” she added, “that I am no thief. Although,” she added, “I am not sure most gold seekers are much better than robbers, hurrying like crazy men to dig nuggets out of the ground.”

  I explained my own particular reasons for coming to California, speaking as plainly as delicacy would allow. I was not just another gold seeker, I told her. My journey would be complete, I told her, if I found Ezra and explained to him why he was required back home.

  Florence leaned against the rail, and I joined her, both of us watching an egret as it hesitated, startled by the approach of the schooner.

  “And is this Elizabeth back home a special friend of yours?” she inquired.

  “A good friend,” I agreed. But then I found myself adding, “But not in the way you might mean.”

  “Is it possible, then, that you did not leave a lady back in Philadelphia?”

  “No, you could say, in all fairness, that I didn’t.” I was afraid that the truth made me sound plain and unworldly.

  Timothy made his way along the rail. I realized that I had never heard the voice of this darkly bearded member of the clan.

  The blood was drying to a long bright wrinkle along his cheek. He gave me a conspiratory nod, with the same combination of gentleness and danger displayed by his father, his eyes twinkling but studying me, perhaps wondering if he would have to cut my throat to keep me from barking—or doing anything to harm Florence.

  At that moment the white-feathered egret took to the air, circling over the auburn marshland. Timothy made a show of holding an imaginary fowling piece, following the water bird’s flight.

  Florence stood very close to me.

  “William,” she said, “the women of Philadelphia must be as dumb as oysters.”

  I couldn’t keep myself from laughing. “Florence, what would make you say such a thing?”

  “Because,” she said, “you seem to me like a person very well worth knowing.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Captain Deerborn gave me a quick verbal sketch of California geography, between sips of fiery corn liquor.

  A long inland valley, scored by a few navigable rivers, was skirted by rugged foothills. Beyond the ascending hills, to the east, lofted the mighty Sierra Nevada. It was in the streams and culverts of the mountain foothills that the gold was being found. Word was that soon California would join the United States. Meanwhile, the American government did what it could to deliver mail and defend California waters from theoretical foreign intrusion—British, Russian, Spanish. Nevertheless, as anyone could see, no central government operated with any coherence in this lively land.

  “There’s a newly situated U.S. courthouse in Monterey,” said the captain, “but communications being mostly slow, mining camps deal with felons independently, as the need arises.”

  “On the field of honor,” I suggested.

  The captain shook his head emphatically. “If there’s a death there’s an inquest, Willie, and a sensible trial if one is needed. I saw a legal proceeding in Benecia a couple weeks back, and read about one down in Jamestown. We’re gold seekers, not barbarians.”

  I spent most of the time during our short voyage up the Sacramento River belowdecks. The bilge was no longer so black and foul-smelling—it was running clear through the pumps, a bad sign. I liked my fellow laborers, a cobbler from Albany, a glassblower from Toronto.

  It was the second morning upriver.

  I was on deck washing down a mouthful of corn bread with thick, sweet coffee, the landscape around the river low and flat. An autumnal mist obscured the horizon, and waterfowl veered up out of the sere marshland. As I looked on, a large golden-furred creature raised up out of the rushes, marsh water streaming from his fur.

  The bear watched our passing vessel, his brute presence radiating silence.

  At last the effort of standing on his hind legs wea
ried him, and he lowered his bulk back down again, into the thick autumn-brown vegetation.

  The creature continued to graze, in a meditative, cowlike manner.

  A few of the Barrymore clan, leaning over the side of the schooner, saw him, too. By their gestures I discerned that they were discussing what firearms they would use to bring down such a bruin.

  Florence was among them, and when I approached she came forth to meet me.

  “What would you hunt a bear with, Willie?”

  “A friend with a wide-bore gun,” I answered at once.

  She gave me a smile and laughed, and put her hand out to mine.

  And kept it there for a good long time.

  When I saw Captain Deerborn again, I managed to ask, “Are there many bears in California?”

  “Of course there are bears,” he said, “both grizzly bears and brown.”

  He went on to name the genus and species of the large omnivores, and I wondered once again what sort of wild land I was about to encounter, and how I could make Florence a part of my life here.

  The captain interrupted his recitation of animal lore when he saw that I was preoccupied. He rested a hand on my shoulder. “The Western bear does not bother visiting a lawyer, it’s true,” he said. “But the really dangerous creatures out here are all human.”

  The voyage against the river current was only expected to take two days—three if the wind was utterly contrary—and the labor at the pumps was enjoyable, in a rough sort of way. My fellow pump mates were good-spirited men who swore at the pumps, the smelly water, and the cheap whiskey, but sang about the sun being so hot they froze to death, and other popular tunes. I joined in, even when the liquor made my head ache.

  I wanted to have another talk with Florence Barrymore. But I was so hard-worked—and so drunk with whiskey, like every other crew member—that I saw only the slopping water around my feet, and the cheerful features of Captain Deerborn when it was time to swig another dose of spirits.

  But the memory of her smile—and the way she had taken my hand—stayed with me.

  As we approached the crowd of river vessels along the wharf at Sacramento City, Captain Deerborn led me into his cabin.

  He opened an oak chest with a stout iron key, picked out a coin about the size of a shirt button, and placed it in my hand. It was a gold U.S. dollar, and I closed my fist around it thankfully. He cocked his head, and gave me another just like it.

  I thanked him sincerely—I was being generously paid for what was, after all, unskilled labor. Passage from San Francisco to Sacramento itself usually cost ten dollars.

  “If you can drive a team of horses, William,” said the captain, “you’ve got passage up into the goldfields proper.”

  I could not hide my eagerness. “I can drive any sort of coach, sir.”

  After Mr. Ansted had repaired a wagon, I’d drive it out under the chestnut trees, just to make sure the wagon was sound. I knew how to handle reins and carry a whip—no mean accomplishment.

  But in my heart I was not sure I was equal to the rugged gold-country roads.

  “Are you sure you can handle a six-horse hitch?” he asked. We were both crowded around by crates and dreadfully warm, the iron stove throwing out more heat than we needed.

  “Horses or mules, on any sort of road,” I insisted, nearly convinced that it was true.

  “This will be uphill,” he cautioned, “all mire and boulders.”

  This made me hesitate.

  I had once forded a spring-flood creek while delivering a wagon to a drayage company in Frankfort, but I had no experience driving horses over mountains. I had driven well-mannered Philadelphia teams along the roads around town, and I had never had to lash the horses excessively. An experienced carriage man was called a whip—for good reason. To master stubborn, spirited animals, a skilled use of the lash was mandatory, and I was a novice at such driving.

  I had barely enough pride and stubbornness to allow myself to add, “I think you’ll find me equal to the task, sir.”

  Captain Deerborn smiled. “I’m very glad, Willie. This is an advance against your wages as a wagon driver.” He gave me one more gold coin. “Although I’m close to being a pauper, except for my expectations.”

  “We won’t spend any time at all in Sacramento City?”

  “You don’t want to spend any time there,” he said with a wave of his hand, a man dismissing an utterly disagreeable subject. “That place is a cess-hole, and no place at all for a hardware merchant.”

  I explained that I was seeking an old companion, and wanted to give him good news.

  “You’ll find him easily enough,” said the captain in his rough but kindly way. “Drop by the New York Hotel, not far from the river. But remember,” he added, “be back by noon, or I’ll be forced to hire some other whip and be off without you.”

  CHAPTER 29

  The dockside was lined with abandoned vessels, schooners and flatboats.

  From what we could see of it from the wharf, the entire town had the look of a place that had been set up just the night before.

  As we disembarked, a few townsfolk splashed down through the wet encampment to spit tobacco juice and comment cheerfully to one another on the character and dress of the newcomers.

  The Barrymore party, their tattered greatcoats and mantles wet with the rain, milled about near the river-bank, while travelers who could afford them hired boys to carry their trunks into town. I tried to catch a further glimpse of Florence, but except for Nicholas, his white hair streaming wet, the group was now an indistinguishable mass of wet folk.

  A step pressed the wet earth nearby, and I turned at the sound of my name.

  “You will stop by Dutch Bar, won’t you, William?” said a woman’s voice hopefully.

  Florence smiled at me from within a heavy oilcloth hood. I would not have recognized her if she had not spoken.

  “You are a mistress of every possible disguise,” I remarked with a laugh.

  Her green eyes peered into mine—she was not about to be put off with an idle remark.

  “Where will I find Dutch Bar?” I heard myself ask. I very much wanted to have greater skill with words—and tell her that parting from her was more than painful.

  “Somewhere up the American River,” she replied, looking around to see an approaching figure—Timothy, his long dark beard streaming rainwater.

  “My uncle Jeremiah has a claim up there,” she continued, “and we’re set to join him.”

  Timothy’s lips took on the shape of a word, and he took a long time in making a sound. “Come along, Flo,” he said, forming the sounds with difficulty, like a man with a crippling stammer.

  If Timothy felt any friendship toward me, he disguised the emotion very well.

  He kept one hand on Florence’s arm, leading her along both protectively and like a guard securing a prize.

  But she tossed her arm free and hurried to me.

  “William,” she said, taking my hand, “I hope we see each other again soon.”

  Some more artful person would have been able to say something poetic. I could only manage, “Florence, I hope so, too.”

  She turned back in my direction, and gave me, I thought, a wave of melancholy—or even of longing.

  And I stayed right where I was, until her family had led her along and I couldn’t see her anymore.

  The New York Hotel was a wooden building with a broad front porch, one of a few structures nailed together. Every other shelter was made of canvas—tall tents, broad tents, tents closed up, others open all around.

  I spied the hotel long before I could reach it, impeded from my progress by the depth and variety of the ruts in the street. The wheel ruts were mountainous, new and deeper ones being cut, as I watched, by great dray wagons leaving long ridges of stiff mud in their wake. Men trying to cat-foot neatly across the street were soon mired to their boot tops. A single such boot stood alone near the edge of the street, where some exasperated pedestrian had extricated
himself and escaped.

  “Late from Paris, the renowned opera tenor Lionel Seymour,” proclaimed one theatrical advertisement, crowded around by others on adjacent buildings. I knew that Ben was bound to arrive here, with his traveling players—but I no longer felt such a longing to see him.

  I was off adventuring on my own, and not doing badly—so far.

  Open-sided tents sold mining equipment. A simple wood-shafted hoe cost two dollars, while a cradle and bucket—necessary gold-processing gear—cost twenty-five. If a gold seeker needed a tent of his own, it would cost twelve dollars, and I realized that if I had come to this country to seek my fortune, I would be too poor to even begin.

  I was directed to the rear of the hotel, where a building resembling a stable leaned up against the two-story inn. Instead of livestock, the shelter was home to shelves crammed with bales and bundles of envelopes and yellowing newspaper.

  “Express companies deliver mail up and down the Sierra,” said the clerk, a young man my age but with a manner so nonchalant and knowing that he made me feel like an unlettered savage. “Private companies deliver the mail,” he explained. “Sometimes just one or two men with a mule go out with the letters, and sell newspapers from the States at the price of a dollar. The U.S. Post Office disapproves, but nobody listens to bureaucrats around here. There’s thousands of pieces of undelivered mail,” the clerk concluded, “right here in this annex.”

  “I’m about to head up to the foothills myself,” I said.

  “Is that right?” intoned the clerk with a show of the mildest possible interest.

  “I could deliver a parcel of letters for you.”

  He studied me for a moment. “Where are you going?”

  I had no idea, and I am afraid my eyes gave away my ignorance. “I’m looking for Ezra Nevin of Philadelphia,” I said.

  The clerk made no further remark.

  I recalled Ben’s comment about bribes—it seemed so long ago. I pulled out my three U.S. dollars.

  I put one of them down on the counter.