Tales from the Promised Land: Western short stories from the California gold rush

by John Rose Putnam

  Soon we were enveloped in a deep forest of sugar pine with trunks as a large as twenty-five feet around. I thought of the sawmill not many miles from my home in Kentucky and how just a few of these monstrous trees could keep it in timber for a year. In this one stand of pines alone there must be enough wood to build a thousand towns each a thousand times as big as Nevada City. The wealth of California lay not only in its gold, it seemed.

  One of the new mules we’d picked up Saturday caused me no end of bother and I’d fallen behind the rest of the group. But I had no trouble following their track; eleven horses and twenty-one mules leave a clear trail along the forest floor. Near sundown I came to a small creek running southwest down from the ridge. I stopped to let the animals drink their fill of the cool, clean water. Anderson rode up from behind me.

  “Any sign of Raush,” I asked as he jumped to the ground and led his pinto to the creek.

  “I saw no indication of Raush or anybody else following us,” he said and then pointed upstream. “But he sure looks interested in something down our back trail.”

  I turned to look and there, atop a large rocky prominence above us, sat Bird on his mustang, peering into the valley we’d left just hours earlier.

  “Yeah, he seems real engrossed in something,” I agreed. “He’s a strange one. He’s the only man here who only brought one mule, and I’d bet everything we found last winter that he’s never washed out a single pan of gold in his whole life.”

  “If you’d been more interested in what Stoddard said and less in what Madame Reynard looked like that night in the Bella Union you might remember how we were told that Bird was a trapper who worked around here for years and he’s supposed to help Stoddard find this lake we’re going to,” Anderson said in the condescending tone he always used when I’d not been paying attention to business like he thought I should. And he was right.

  “Do you think he’s looking back at Raush?” I wondered.

  “Why don’t you ride up and ask him. I’ll take care of the mules. They don’t seem to cause me as much trouble as they do you anyhow,” he said.

  “But you had them all morning,” I protested, always one to pull my fair share.

  “Go on now. We’ll both rest easier if you know what’s happening down in the valley.”

  I grinned. “Thanks Anderson,” I said sincerely, then hopped on Buddy and sped up the hill. Near the top of the outcrop Bird’s mule stood at the forest’s edge contentedly chomping at the lush saw grass that grew there. I saw no sign of a pick or shovel handle sticking out anywhere from the pack, it seemed like Bird didn’t have any plans to mine.

  He sat there on top of his horse as still as the statue in front of our county court house back home. He didn’t move a muscle, not even a twitch, as Buddy’s iron shoes clattered across the rock to his rear. And when I stopped beside him he didn’t turn to me, but instead calmly raised his big bore bear gun to point down the hill to where a thin blue ribbon of the South Yuba slashed across the dark green tops of sugar pine. “That what you come up here to see?” he asked.

  Far below, in the middle of the stream, I saw a man on horseback, looking no bigger than an ant, headed this way. And as he passed from view behind the treetops another man, this one leading a mule, rode into the river, and then another, and after him still more until I had counted fifteen men and maybe twice as many mules, and I knew others had crossed before I got here. If it was a mining party it was awfully big and very well supplied. “Is it Raush?” I asked.

  “Like as not,” Bird said with a voice as smooth as a traveling tent preacher, and completely lacking the faintest tinge of fear.

  “How many did you see,” I asked as my hand instinctively caressed my Colt.

  “Four dozen, maybe more,” he said then turned to me. “You scared, boy?”

  I looked deep into his cold gray eyes and knew he could read me like a book. “I guess I’m a little on edge,” I muttered. It was all I could force myself to admit to.

  “If that’s Raush you’d damn well better be more than a little on edge. The man’s more dangerous than a mad dog,” he asserted, still without a hint of fear about him. Then, as he calmly turned and rode away, I broke out in an icy, bone shivering sweat.

  For the next two days Stoddard pushed us relentlessly, leaving me little doubt that he thought Raush was indeed following us, but I’d heard no mention of it among the other members of our party. I’d also talked with Anderson about wanting to go back to Nevada City. He pointed out that if I did I would run smack dab into Raush on the way. So I continued on, much like I had the first day, sharing time leading our mules or bringing up the rear of the column and keeping a watchful eye to our back trail.

  We’d crossed the Middle Yuba late Tuesday and camped up the ridge on Kanaka Creek, named for the Sandwich Islanders from Honolulu who were mining there. And like so many others we had passed, the place had all the indications of gold, but Anderson urged that we press on, assuring me that Stoddard’s mythical lake would, in the end, bring us a bounty we could find nowhere else. But I wasn’t the only one who saw missed opportunity. The four men of the Natchez Mining Company had begun to openly carp over passing by so many prime locations to mine such easily available placer gold.

  The next day saw more of the same. We were in the saddle before sunup, crossed a stony Oregon Creek at midday, then another high ridge beyond and by sunset were descending into the valley of the North Yuba River alongside a small brook that tumbled from rocky pool to rocky pool under a thick canopy of fir trees. After skirting a large boulder I led our four mules into a small clearing where I saw a stranger dressed like a miner talking with the men from Natchez.

  It was clear right off that Ike and the rest of the Southerners were grilling the man about the amount and location of gold strikes along the North Yuba. News of gold in the California mines traveled by mouth faster here than it could on the newfangled telegraph wires back east. Practically everybody had heard how a Scotsman named Downie and the handful of colored men partnered with him had spent last winter at the forks of the North Yuba, and how they got snowed in and almost starved to death. Even the two Goodyear brothers, who’d worked a gravel bar downstream from the forks since last summer, had stayed the winter. Nobody would tolerate cold Sierra snows without a reason. Miners were pouring into this area now. That likely meant a lot of rich finds around here.

  But if you cornered a miner working a good paying claim and asked him straight up, face to face, if there was much gold around, he’d hem and haw worse than an old mule bedeviled by a swarm of horse flies in the middle of August. And as soon as I got within earshot I heard the fellow rambling on about all the rich finds on Rock Creek and the South Yuba, or Kanaka Creek and the Middle Yuba, and how he thought that smart fellows like us should head back south where a lot more gold could be found.

  “I see your point,” agreed Ike, the oldest and cagiest of the Natchez boys. “But we’ve heard of a brand new mining town nearby and could all use a drink or two and maybe a good meal that ain’t been cooked over an open fire before we go.”

  The miner stuck his thumbs into his waistband and grinned wide. “Oh, yes sir, we got a town alright,” he bragged. “More saloons than you can count, bakeries with fresh bread, butcher shops with lean beef, a whole passel of tasty places to eat, a number of hotels, if you’re a mind to sleep with the bed bugs, and everything here built since the winter snow melted. Some folks already call it Downieville, after the Scotsman.”

  He climbed up on a pretty mustang filly then looked back to Ike. “Heading there myself to play a little faro at Craycroft’s Saloon. Look me up. Name’s Tucker.” He gave a quick tip of his beat up felt hat and rode off down the hill.

  Ike watched until the miner was out of earshot. “Well, you heard what the man said. Is there anything else you need to know?” he asked the rest of his companions. When no one spoke out he continued. “Are we all of one mind then?”

  To a man the three other members of t
he Natchez Mining Company sounded their agreement with him.

  “Good,” he continued. “We still have an hour or so before dark. Let’s make sure we find the right spot to camp tonight,” And the four of them rode off down the stream, leaving me feeling like a fly on the wall. It sure seemed like they’d made some sort of pact and were all agreed on doing something. Whatever it was must be pretty important because they’d been so wrapped up in it that nary a one of them had noticed me, even though Buddy and I’d been right behind them with all four of our mules for a good while.

  Later, over a simple supper of beans and salt pork, I told Anderson about what Ike had said earlier to the Natchez boys and my suspicions that they had made a plan to do something that they weren’t letting the rest of us in on.

  “Micah, you worry too much,” he’d told me in his warm but reproving way. “First it was the Indians, then Raush, and now it’s the Natchez crew. You need to learn how to take things as they come. Worrying over what might be is nothing but a waste and causes a man too much unnecessary consternation. We’ve had a hard day and tomorrow is apt to be worse. Get some sleep.” And with that he rolled over and pulled his blanket tight.

  He was right about the hard day and likely about tomorrow too. Each day had been like that as we climbed up from the last river valley and over a higher and a rockier ridge. We were heading deeper into the Sierra and Stoddard said that now we would follow the North Yuba east directly into the high backbone of the mountains.

  I snuggled dog tired into my bedroll, but sleep didn’t come so easily for me. And, like Anderson had said, it was because of the worry that boiled and churned in my mind much like the water in the small stream beside our camp that sloshed and spumed as it scurried down the steep, rocky slope of the river valley. But my turmoil wasn’t from Indians, or Raush, or even Ike and the Natchez boys. It came from a blue eyed, brown haired French girl who’d somehow stolen my heart with one fleeting kiss on a moon swept night outside the Bella Union, and whether she’d be waiting if I ever returned.

  But at last my exhaustion overcame my fixation with the beguiling Michelle Reynard and all too soon I woke into the half-light before sunrise to the smell of wood smoke and the sizzle of bacon frying. Anderson looked over to me but before he could offer a morning greeting a string of wild oaths erupted from downstream where the Natchez party had camped in a small clearing separated from us by a large rock outcropping. Instinctively I grabbed my Colt revolver and cocked the hammer.

  Anderson held up his flat palm to stop me. “Easy, Micah, that sounds like Stoddard and he’s coming this way.”

  Trusting my friend I put the pistol down, but close to hand, and tugged on my boots just as Stoddard rode into our camp, his face as heated as the embers of the cook fire. “Did either of you see them damn Southerners sneak off last night?” he yelled.

  Anderson glanced at me with a raised eyebrow then turned to Stoddard. “No, but I take it they’re gone,” he answered.

  “Ran off in the dead of night like thieves. Ought to shoot ‘em.” Stoddard shouted.

  Anderson grabbed the skillet in a gloved hand and, with one sure motion, flipped the salt pork to brown on the other side. Then he calmly asked, “What did they steal?”

  Stoddard sat on his horse and spewed and sputtered, unable to answer.

  So my wise friend stepped in to help him out, as was his wont. “I believe Ike and his crew have stolen nothing. They are all honest and upright fellows, but they did make an agreement to this expedition that they’ve reneged on. Since there was no binding contract there is little we can do. We still have enough men to find the lake, but I think an open and frank talk with everyone is called for before we start out today. And if any more of us wish to leave, there isn’t much we can do to stop them either.”

  “But we’re shorthanded now,” Stoddard fumed. “What about the Injun’s?”

  “What about the Indians?” Anderson retorted.

  “Yeah,” I piped in. “Worrying about what might happen will cause unnecessary consternation.” I said, suddenly seeing the truth in what Anderson told me last night exposed in the creases across Stoddard’s face that read as clear as the lines in a book.

  “But they killed my partner,” Stoddard rebutted with fury.

  “And you’ve never mentioned his name, have you?” Anderson countered. “Could he have also been a Raush, and could it be that it’s his brother who follows us now?”

  “Damn you,” Stoddard yelled. “How do you know that?”

  “I guessed, but now you’ve confirmed it. Do you care to tell us what happened?”

  Stoddard’s face paled, but he looked Anderson square in the eye. “My group crossed the Sierra by Lassen’s northern route, a big mistake. We were starving. Two of us went hunting, got lost and wandered for days. Then we found the gold. I was high up the ravine when I heard his shot. He didn’t have a chance. They were all over him, so I snuck away. Raush thinks I killed his brother for gold. I didn’t, but I did run out on him.”

  And with that short speech I took pity on Stoddard for the first time.

  Just before sunup we met with all the men who were left, except for Bird who wasn’t around much anyway. Anderson did most of the talking and made as fine a job at it as any famous orator I’d ever heard of. He informed everyone about the Natchez crew’s leaving for what they thought was the easy gold at hand around here, and then went on to explain why he believed in what Stoddard had said and how, if we just held together a little longer, we’d all have more money than some old king named Midas, who could turn anything he touched into pure gold.

  Then Anderson did what he’d always done with me and told us that it was our choice and each man had to make up his own mind. He explained how nobody would hold it against anyone who backed out. I’d long thought Anderson had a quality that made him special, but now I saw firsthand how he held a power to persuade men to his way of thinking that was far beyond what most others could ever hope to achieve. Every man among us cheered and eagerly vowed to continue on no matter what lay ahead.

  The sun still hung low above the mountains to the east when we came within view of the North Yuba. The dark silence of the forest was broken by the loud splash of water, white and fast, breaking over a host of boulders and snags in the riverbed then boiling together in great convulsions at the forks where the North Yuba, rushing in from the east, collided with the Downie River ramming into it from the north. At the edge of the Yuba stood a tall stand of fir trees with graceful willows on each side, and above them, across the flanks of the deep ravine, sturdy oaks interspersed with towering pines and a few white flowered dogwoods climbed high into a clear blue sky as broad as all eternity.

  Nestled in the forest east of the Downie and just across the Yuba lay the town, a motley collection of several log buildings, a few crude shacks, and a number of tents in all sizes and shapes, and all mostly hidden by the trees. Yet to me, the tiny settlement exuded a wonderfully brave demeanor. Humbled by the majesty of the mountains, cowed by the sheer power of the swirling water, and shrouded under the thick cloak of nature’s foliage, the town seemed to bravely lift its collective face to us and say, “I am here, built by the hand of man, and I intend to stay.” Although there lurked an understated fragility to the place that led me to wonder if it would all blow away in a strong wind.

  But in spite of the lure of multiple saloons, fresh meat, a soft bed—bedbugs excepted—or a more savory meal, we kept heading east along the river. By a unanimous vote of all who remained with us we had determined that the town, as tempting as it appeared, would only be a time consuming distraction likely to cause more problems than the small comforts it provided would be worth. And, after crossing to the north shore at the first good ford we found, we rode on, climbing ever higher into the mighty Sierra along the frothing torrent of the North Yuba River.

  I soon realized we rode on a well-used path and, judging from the amount of fresh mule droppings I came across, it must be frequented by t
he supply trains, often fifty animals long, that traveled the river valleys all the way from Bidwell’s Bar supplying miners with food, clothing, tools and just about everything else a man needs to survive so far from civilization. It was a clear sign that more mining was happening upriver. But traveling a clearly defined trail was easier than cutting through the raw country like we’d done the first three days and we made good time.

  It was near midday when I heard the hoof beats pounding from my rear. It sounded like one horse coming at a run. My old fears of Raush overwhelmed me and I spurred Buddy off the path and into a narrow defile in the steep side of the ravine. No sooner had I gotten turned back toward the trail than the hoof beats stopped and a chilling quiet descended over the forest. The birds stopped their endless prattle, even the wind refused to rustle the leaves; the only sound the deafening chatter of my teeth.

  I looked all around me but saw no one. Sweat oozed from under my hat, stinging my eyes. The man on the trail had simply stopped riding and the only reason I could think of was that he knew I was here. Who was he? What was he planning on doing? Then came the unmistakable click of a gun hammer cocking. It had to be the most bloodcurdling sound I’d ever heard. I pulled out my new revolver and held my breath, hoping that would stop my whole body from shaking.

  “I eat rattlesnake raw and rassle grizzlies with my bare hands,” the rider yelled. “I can shoot the eyes out of a hawk and gut a deer quicker than a mountain lion. I know where ya are. Come out, ‘fore I come in and get ya.”

  Oh, Lord, I’m dead, I thought. Then it dawned on me that I knew that voice. “Bird?” I asked in a weak but ever so hopeful tone.

  A loud roar of laughter erupted from the trail. Bird was enjoying himself mightily at my expense. But right now I didn’t mind a bit, so happy was I that he wasn’t Raush or some other rapscallion. I nudged Buddy and rode out onto the path. Bird sat on his mustang, the bear gun across his lap, and wore the biggest grin I’d ever seen.