Blood Gold

by Michael Cadnum

  And leveled the firearm at me.

  CHAPTER 42

  The toothless man took a step back, drawing a weapon from his belt.

  Such burly men are without teeth not because of age or infirmity, I knew, but through fighting. His nose had been broken at some time in the past, and he had the scarred eyebrows of an experienced pugilist. He held a fierce, jagged weapon—a broken saber.

  I was breathing hard, and took a long moment to break my silence.

  Murray gave in to the impulse to speak, like a man of business interrupted by a footman. “What are you looking for?”

  This was said with his old manner of abrasive authority, with emphasis on you, giving the impression that the only person with a rightful purpose was Murray himself. I gripped my knife hard, wondering if I could throw it and pierce his heart.

  Murray squinted, to draw a bead with the big pistol in his hand—or so I assumed. But it’s hard to keep a heavy weapon like that steady, and he lowered the flintlock just slightly. Besides, as weary as I was from my climb, Murray was even more flushed and winded than I was—as though he had hauled a great weight onto this mountain ridge.

  “I know you,” he said at last.

  He searched his memory.

  “You’re that fellow,” he said with something like a wondering smile. He gave me a you-can’t-fool-me wink. “From the carriage shop back home.”

  I said nothing.

  People like Ezra and Samuel Murray were from established, genteel families. My station in life was well above that of a servant—as a skilled craftsman I was destined to occupy some middling rung in society. But while Ezra had taken the time to give me a smile and a bit of conversation, Murray had always glanced at me as he would a doorstop or a bootjack, an object.

  Murray’s smile faded just a little as he queried, “Aren’t you?”

  No one arrived in California, and traveled the foothills, looking the way he had on Walnut Street. My coat was flecked with long-dried mud, stained with horse sweat, and my boots were scuffed. I had not studied my suntanned, whiskery face in my tarnished mirror long enough to register more than a glimpse of a lean stranger.

  I said, “I’m William Dwinelle.”

  Murray looked partly satisfied at this, but he needed further confirmation. “And you’ve come all this way?”

  My intention until that moment had been to use my knife to gut Murray like a fish, and take great pleasure in the act.

  Now, hearing his voice, and observing his manner, I changed my mind. I saw the way he looked at his big friend for approval, the gun trembling in his hand.

  I couldn’t, in all conscience, hurt him—not just yet.

  “Where will you run?” I asked.

  “Why should I run?” he asked. I knew, as well as he did, that the sons of rich families who violated even the most potent taboo could sail off to Tahiti, or even Paris, and live the grand life.

  “Your family will wonder what became of you,” I said—before I could think.

  At once I silently cursed my bad judgment.

  Uttering the word family had been a blunder. Family honor was plainly an obsession for Murray. Furthermore, I had inadvertently reminded him that I was a witness to the nature of his revenge. I would be able to tell all Philadelphia, and any legal proceeding, that Ezra had most likely not died in an evenhanded duel.

  My newest, still developing plan was to keep him talking, win his confidence, and take his life before he could hurt me.

  CHAPTER 43

  At the same time, in some half-mad way, I was glad to see Samuel Murray, happy to encounter someone from back home. I could almost will the present circumstances out of my mind.

  Almost.

  Murray was shaking his head with a nearly affectionate smile. He was sweating and breathing hard. “I’m sorry we don’t have any refreshments to offer you, after your climb. I’m sure you’d like a glass of sherry right about now.”

  “Sure he would,” said the scarred, toothless man.

  It was as though a moss-clad boulder had spoken.

  “So would any of us,” said the big man, “or any kind of liquor.”

  A glance from Murray silenced him.

  There was something forced and feverish about Murray, despite his surface calm. “Billy,” he began, then caught himself, and continued, “William, I do remember you pretty well. You’re a capable hand.”

  I made no further remark.

  “I recall you putting the rim on a wagon wheel, William,” he continued, patronizingly, “with a certain flair.”

  I used to be proud of my ability, knowing that Murray and his kind were particularly incapable when it came to mending things.

  “And you can repair a firearm, as I recall,” Murray was continuing, in a self-controlled manner, his hand steady now.

  He wanted me to say something at this point, but for the moment I would not give him the satisfaction.

  “That’s a useful skill,” he added. His speech was that of a creature of money and leisure, habitually captured by his own confidence. For a moment I could see why a tough former boxer might prove loyal to such a man. Murray was unblushingly arrogant, and this made him a natural leader.

  “I’ll pay you five dollars a day, William,” he went on, “to take up with me.”

  The pistol was easy in his hand now, pointed down toward the sandy ground. He moved the weapon a little as he spoke—an expensive-looking, rosewood-stocked gun—to give emphasis to his words.

  “To travel around with me,” he added. “And perform any little duty that might fall your way.”

  Some people can throw a knife hard enough to do harm, but it takes long practice. I had stropped my blade once or twice a week, and wiped it with gun oil from time to time, but doubted I could hurl the thing with any accuracy. I estimated the remaining distance between us. He was six long paces away from me—very long strides. I stayed right where I was for now, and did not make a sound.

  “And, as proof of my confidence in you,” Murray was saying with an air of breezy confidence, “I’ll pay you a bonus, William. Forty dollars down.”

  His gaze flicked from my eyes to the knife in my hand, trying to read my intentions.

  “Forty U.S. dollars,” he continued. “Or the equivalent in gold dust.”

  He hesitated.

  “Or,” he said, “perhaps I can offer you more.”

  I rushed forward, angling the knife so the blade would drive upward—into his heart.

  He brought up the pistol as my shadow was about to fall over him.

  He pulled the trigger, and there was that characteristic split-second delay of such weapons, a flint spark and a sputtering whiff of smoke rising from the pan.

  I never heard the shot.

  CHAPTER 44

  Time had passed, but I did not know how much.

  I lay flat on my back. The sky stretched blue and empty overhead, and tall pines rose up on either side.

  I believed that I was alive, but I was not sure. I breathed the enduring scent of gunpowder, an odor of sulfur and carbon. The sandy ground was hard, grit rasping against my cheek as I turned my head. I could not move my arms or legs for a long time. I lay there knitting together the time of day, and the events that had led up to my current condition.

  I was in pain, and I was aware of a nagging, but still badly scattered sense of danger. It was afternoon, I reckoned, and I was alone. I had been unconscious for a good long while, perhaps hours.

  After a very long time, I did manage to lift one hand and flex my fingers. I touched my coat buttons, trying to take reassurance from the fact that my hand answered my will. I groped up toward the charred wool of my jacket breast. I felt revulsion at the sensation of frizzled fiber, and the round, charred crater over my heart.

  I could not move my left hand, my arm and my ribs paralyzed. But at once I contradicted this discovery, forcing myself into action as I struggled to my feet. I was exposed there, high above the campsite, and Murray could return at a
ny moment.

  I could move my arms after all. And I could walk, although shakily, first one step and then another. My ribs throbbed. My knife lay on the ground, and I groaned involuntarily as I snatched it from the sandy soil. I vomited, an agonizing spasm, but what my mouth emitted was the transformed relics of bacon and corn flour. There was no blood.

  I cringed at the thought of probing a wound in my chest, but I made myself begin to do just that, feeling within my coat and gasping when I touched the warped, deformed metal there, what was left of my pewter flask of Dutch gin.

  I extracted the wrecked container with effort, the dent left by the pistol ball clear and perfect, as though the round peen of a hammer had struck the metal. The bullet had flattened, and the flask dribbled what was left of the medicinal spirits. I was bruised and numb, but there was no wound.

  Trees murmured and twigs sighed, the woodland breathing all around. Every tiny abrasion of branch against granite could be Murray and his companion, on their way back to finish me.

  CHAPTER 45

  I half climbed, half fell down the shrub-choked slope, all the way down into the camp. In my shaky condition, even this desolate ruin of a site was an improvement over the rocky woodland above.

  By then the flies were thick around the two bodies, the sun brighter than ever. I half stumbled to the river, all the way out on the black sand of Spanish Bar, and splashed cold water on my arms and my face. I cupped some of the chilly water in my hand, and poured it over the fierce bruise on the white skin of my chest.

  A sense of duty made me survey the delved and shoveled site, wondering which hole would be a suitable grave for my old friend and his fellow gold seeker. But then I reminded myself that it would be unwise and perhaps even illegal to bury them until civilized people had examined this scene. Somehow, there would have to be some sort of lawful proceeding—an inquest.

  At the same time I felt naked. My Bowie knife now seemed puny. How little I could do to fight Murray off, I realized, if he returned. Something about the bloody mining tool made me cringe—I did not want to lay a hand on it. I found myself rummaging through the tent and found a hatchet, the iron edge grimy with pine sap.

  As I let this tool fall, I heard a voice call out over the rush of the river. I turned to gaze at the shambles of the tent, telling myself I was certainly mistaken.

  It rang out again—someone calling my name.

  I stepped into daylight.

  The source of the cry was a figure in gray: a miner’s gray shirt, loose-fitting trousers, and a slouch hat. This individual called my name again, and bounded over the torn ground, carrying a shotgun.

  I wondered where, exactly, I had dropped that perfectly good hatchet.

  Well, then, I would die twice in one day, I thought, standing upright in the warm sunlight. I steeled myself for a charge of lead from both barrels.

  The figure approached, her green eyes bright.

  CHAPTER 46

  I followed Florence on weak legs, my boots slipping from time to time as we made our way upriver.

  I offered her a breathless, fragmented version of events as we hurried over the rocks and pine roots of the trail. She had much to tell me, too. Florence had snatched the gun off the ground before Jeremiah could stop her, and run to find me. She said that, as usual, she was much faster than any of her relations. “They’re probably a mile or two off, even now,” she said, “falling down in their hurry.”

  “I’m grateful to see you, Florence,” I said.

  “Watch your step here, William,” she said. “Don’t stumble on that broken log.”

  She leveled the shotgun every time we rounded a boulder on a bend in the river, lifting a hand to caution me.

  We found them before long.

  A rope had been stretched across the river by some enterprising miner in the recent past. Murray hung suspended from this makeshift crossing, clinging with white fists in the middle of the current. The rope was river-stained and slightly frayed where it dipped into the water. Murray’s weight pulled it further, straining the span of cordage. His toothless companion had made it to the other side, and he cried out encouragement, his mouth working, his words soundless against the rush of the river.

  Florence lifted the shotgun to her shoulder, and cocked both barrels.

  You don’t aim a gun like that so much as point it, estimating range with your eye. For a long moment I was frozen, sure that she was going to judge the gun capable of hitting the red-haired man.

  “Don’t waste the powder,” I said, when I could move my lips.

  When she didn’t respond, I added, “He’s too far away.”

  She said, “I know that.”

  It is the major drawback to scatterguns. Close in they can be deadly, but too far away they are only a source of noise.

  She kept the double-barreled gun pressed to her shoulder, the very picture of menace. Murray waved beseechingly, calling out something in a tone of supplication. I could make out the words on his lips, don’t shoot, and something else: explanation, promise—it was impossible to hear more than the drift of his voice. He patted his clothing meaningfully, indicating something secreted on his bulk.

  She took long strides toward Murray, well out in the water now, the lapping current up round the shanks of her boots. She pressed the gun to her shoulder, and took the stance of a person well used to hunting.

  I joined her, the cold river nearly to my boot tops. “It’s still too far,” I said quietly. I meant: Let him go.

  I had seen enough violence.

  Murray was wide-eyed, motioning with one hand while the hard current dragged him. The rope was pulled downriver by the weight of his body, and Florence kept both barrels steady, the muzzles of the barrels tracking him as he splashed.

  Murray looked around to take in the sight of his imploring companion, then back at us with no further attempt to communicate. He measured the width of the river back and forth with his gaze, and took one more look at Florence, who was up to her waist now in the fast current.

  She fired one barrel, a hard, punching sound over the roar of the rapids.

  The shot went far wide, momentarily scarring the boiling current. But Murray, mouthing a curse, let go of the rope. He sank at once, down below the surface of the water. I expected to see his face again, breaking into the daylight, but there was no sign of him.

  It was one thing to want to kill Murray, but quite another to stand there and watch him drown. I was in the icy water, scrambling over the boulders, wading out into the current. I fought the pull of the current, but as I struggled for better footing, my legs were swept out from under me. I swam hard, my ribs aching, right for the place where I expected Murray to reappear.

  But he did not surface again. Something forced him down to the bottom of the river, and through the streaks of current I could see him struggling, his arms reaching, flailing in the depths.

  CHAPTER 47

  My own garments, my belt and my boots, were dragging me down. I fought hard against my own sodden weight, and against the cold current, until I reached Murray. His arms were drifting now, strengthlessly, but one of his limp hands wafted out toward me, and I clung to it.

  I could not pull him up. The lingering life in him wrenched his hand from mine, and when I found him once more he was a man of stone, a figure I could not lift. I struggled to the sunlight, drank in deep, sweet drafts of air, and then I was underwater again, groping, searching.

  This time I folded him over my shoulder and half swam, half trudged along the river bottom, my feet slipping, the breath burning in my lungs. By the time I saw clear daylight and breathed oxygen, Florence was out in the river again, clinging to the rope, reaching out for me.

  She seized me as I struggled to drag Murray. I was gasping, the cold numbing me, Murray’s bulk impossibly heavy. I was barely able to cling to him against the force of the river, and I wrestled with the slowly rolling form until I heard welcome voices, Johnny and bearded Timothy wading out into the rapids, callin
g to me, lending me their helping hands.

  We dragged Murray out of the water, and higher, all the way up to the torn and shoveled mining claim, and stretched him out there in the brilliant sunlight.

  His mouth was agape and his eyes fixed, the water puddling wide around his body. I tugged my knife from its sheath, and used the blade to cut open the source of Murray’s unnatural weight, his bulging pockets.

  For an instant it looked like blood, the spilling, richly flowing stuff pouring from the gashes in his clothing.

  It was gold.

  PART THREE

  THE RIVER

  CHAPTER 48

  “There’s another bear in the supply shed,” reported Johnny.

  “Talk to it, Johnny. Tell it to go away,” I said, too busy shoveling wet gravel into the mining cradle to bother with an interruption.

  Spanish Bar had turned out to be a veritable thoroughfare for every drowsy, half-starved bear in the Sierra foothills. The incessant mining activity aroused them from hibernation. Word was that a miner from Georgia had been found clawed to death near Iowa Hill.

  “It won’t come out,” replied Johnny.

  He had just returned from the Barrymore camp with a sack of coffee and some plug tobacco, and I had left our supply shed unattended in his absence.

  Grizzly bears, especially she-bears with cubs, could be a menace, but the common brown bears were harmless, if powerful, vagrants, breaking their hibernation with occasional raids on poorly secured larders. We had not seen a grizzly here in the foothills, but the brown bruins had helped themselves to our bacon and our cornmeal, breaking into the shed as fast as I could repair it.

  I made my way across the dug-up claim, hoping a word from me would discourage our most recent guest.

  I was sorry Florence was not here. She was living at Dutch Bar, under the watchful eyes of her family. She would have known what to do with a bear, or any other sort of intruder.