My claim had always been a consistent little thing. Kinda like me. I won’t tell you where it is, though. Not that you’d find it on any map of Calveras County. I acquired the claim from a man I called Uncle Joe. Never learned his last name. He was proud of his claim. Even made a deal with the Mi Wuk Indians to leave him alone on it. A deal they have kept with me—even though I know I amuse them greatly. Uncle Joe was pretty lonely when he came here. Just about everyone is lonely. Family and friends are all “back East”—wherever that means. You have to pick your friends carefully up here in the Sierras. Especially in the gold towns like this one. I picked Uncle Joe. I seemed to fill a spot he had and he more or less adopted me. Too bad he insisted on “teaching” me how to play poker. I felt kind of bad to win the claim and his cabin from him. And I felt a little worse when he left here shamefaced.
The water feels freezing cold this morning as I plunge my beat-up pan into the bottom gravel. The only sounds I can hear is the soft rush of the water, an irritating, moaning breeze that has kicked up, and a few birds here and there. The breeze irritates me because I know what is coming behind it. Still, I have to smile at the flakes that appear regular as rain in the bottom of my pan as I sluice it around in the water. Uncle Joe knew what he was doing when he picked this spot. It will never be the Mother Lode. We both knew that. Just sure and steady like the mule I let Uncle Joe keep when he left. But, sure and steady is good. It all works towards my goal.
What’s my goal, you ask? I know you’re curious by now. Don’t laugh, but I want a respectable life in a big city like San Francisco. And that takes money. I figure two more years and I’ll have enough. The closest big city here is Sonora, but that doesn’t count. I never go there. No need. But San Francisco! Just saying it sounds elegant. No, I haven’t been there yet. But I’ve heard about it. I know how to listen in the camp town—especially in the one respectable place there. Hotel Dorado. I’m a good listener and I know what I want. I just don’t want to keep having to dip my hands into the freezing water any longer than necessary. It’s not so bad in the summer when the temperature rises to the nineties. But now? No, it’s almost time to bring my stash into camp town and start my winter mining. The last Wells Fargo coach of the season will pass through next week. I have a deal with one of the drivers.
I’m almost ready to go the Hotel Dorado for the evening. My hands irritate me—both figuratively and literally. They’re still all red and chapped from my last days at my stream. Oh, well. That’s what gloves are for. And these white, open weave gloves seem to be a hit with the burly miners. Of course, the more educated ones know it’s too late in the year to be wearing white, but they get their share of attention, too. And I get some of their share of gold.
Yes, the rumor you heard about the gold camps are true. There is a major shortage of women up here. There are a few girls in the saloon tent, but I don’t have anything to do with them. Don’t need to. And then there are the wives in Sonora. I don’t know them, either. They would turn their Eastern noses up at my skirts that I keep two inches short of respectable. Plus, I gave up on wearing corsets. Not much to push up, so why keep pushing?! My friends here don’t complain when I might bump against them during a dance they paid for. I have all my teeth and a moderately pretty face. Plus, like I told you earlier, I know how to listen. That’s basically all I need.
I’ve learned never to rest on my laurels. Since I wasn’t endowed with too many laurels, I have had to be creative. I learned to know each miner by name and where he came from. Sometimes all they want is a little female attention, someone who thinks what they say is important. Then, drop a hint that you are out of sugar or soap and, voila, you have groceries for the next two weeks. Or find a good family man who misses his wife and kids. You don’t need to even touch him on the arm, let alone dance with him. A tear in the eye when he mentions Little Susie getting bigger without him can get you enough dust for “rent” for a month.
It’s never boring in this camp town. I was at my claim when a celebrity came through. All anyone could talk about was Mr. Clemens this and Mr. Clemens that. I didn’t do well those evenings when I came in to the El Dorado. That was all forgotten, though, when Big Ted hit a rich vein. I could never do much with Big Ted. He liked the tent girls. Too bad. He could have knocked a year off my stay here. Well, I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
I haven’t had any trouble yet. I say ‘yet’ because there are always new miners coming in and my old friends leaving when their stake runs dry. I guess my air of respectability helps. It’s pretty clear I don’t go upstairs. And I keep a close account of what I get from whom. Mustn’t tap the well too often.
Still, it’s not all fun and games as you might be thinking by now. Some of the miners are pretty decent folk. I do well with them. Then there are the others. They’re pretty rough characters. They don’t take to bathing very kindly, their breath could down a horse, and their beards are downright itchy. It might take me an hour to get a good sized nugget out of them.
Sometimes it’s not easy being a gold digger.”
Wals put the paper down with a chuckle. He was surprised someone wasn’t standing behind him saying, “Gotcha!” The article had mentioned Samuel Clemens, or Mark Twain as he was more commonly known. As Wals tucked the paper under his arm to leave, he wondered if Clemens could have penned the article himself. Hey, nothing beats a little self-promotion, he acknowledged with a grin.
His chuckling stopped when he began humming “Darling Clementine.”. It mentioned the miners of 1849—a year after gold was found at Sutter’s Mill in Northern California and the start of the California Gold Rush. Frowning as he thought back, he tried to remember something about the Fort. He didn’t know the exact date for sure, but Fort Wilderness was supposed to be set around the year 1815 or so. How could this newspaper be mentioning an event that wouldn’t happen for another thirty years or so?
Before he could work out the discrepancy, the ground beneath him began to rumble again, just as it had done when he and Mato first came into town. No one else in the saloon seemed to give it any attention, as if it were a common occurrence to them. Jumping to his feet, he rushed through the saloon doors to see the same phantom dust cloud go roaring past him as if a runaway train had just gone screaming through the center of town.
Whispering, “Big Thunder,” he stared wide-eyed at the newspaper and wondered what was happening to Time.
The Island – 1817
Doctor Houser fit in as easily at the busy encampment as he had in New Orleans, the Fort and at Rainbow Ridge. Naturally amiable and gregarious, he made friends easily. His looks also made him popular with some of the women who made sure he had plenty to eat and a variety of choices of where to sleep. In an attempt to avoid complications while waiting for the missing security guard to show up, he opted to stay with the Shaman in his tipi and was given a comfortable fur-covered pallet by the fire.
He wondered how they knew he was a medical man when they started coming to him with various cuts and ailments. Not knowing the wolf had told his entire story, it was yet another mystery to him.
One more growing mystery was the wolf he had found in camp when he arrived with Mato and Wals. He had, of course, heard about the black wolf that guarded the woman in the cabin. Having never personally seen the animal, he hadn’t put too much weight in what the soldiers had said about it. At first, the huge animal had terrified him, but he soon saw that everyone else accepted it as if it was a member of the tribe. He could never see any signs of aggression or any activity that would indicate this wolf would have been considered a dangerous animal. In fact, he never saw any signs at all of what he thought would be normal wolf behavior.
The longer he observed this wolf, the more baffling it became. Wolf, as he was told was its name, would spend a lot of time with the leader, whom Wals referred to as the Shaman. Off by themselves, he would see them at the rocky overhang with the Shaman appearing to be in deep conversation with the wolf, even stopping as if he was
being answered. Then, when the doctor would join them, the wolf would get up and quietly leave or just sit back out of the way. He also began to notice the same odd behavior occur with Mato. The man and the wolf would walk off into the forest together, Mato talking and gesturing to the wolf, and then apparently waiting for a response. One day, the doctor attempted to follow them, hoping to unravel this mystery. He hadn’t anticipated Wolf’s keen hearing. Noisily bumbling after them, the two brothers quickly sensed his attempts to shadow them and immediately lost him in the dense forest.
Claude finally found an opportunity to have a private moment with Wals and Rose. “Have you noticed anything odd about that wolf? Everyone seems to talk to him. And it always looks as if they expect an answer.”
Wals and Rose both just shrugged. “We do that all the time.” Rose gave him a bright grin. “He just seems to be so intelligent and such a good listener. I think he kept me from going mad all alone in that cabin when I had no one to talk to. I wish he could have answered me,” she giggled. “That would have been nice—silly as it sounds!”
Not satisfied, Claude just nodded. With all the strange occurrences he had witnessed and had been told about, a talking wolf seemed to be the least of their worries. Choosing not to pursue the issue, he went over to the community fire when he saw one of the braves come limping into camp.
Glad to have someone else to talk to, Wals spent a lot of time in the doctor’s company. When he felt like he could trust the man, he asked Claude something that had been bothering him about Rose. “Have you noticed anything particular about Rose’s looks?”
Claude smiled. “You mean other than her stunningly beautiful appearance?”
“Is she?” Wals tried the innocent approach and then grinned. “Yeah, besides that…,” he broke off, looking self-conscious. “This is going to sound lame, but, does she look at all familiar to you? Like you might have seen her before in a movie…or in a cartoon?”
Claude’s eyebrows went up. He wasn’t expecting that. “Cartoon? Do you mean does she look like a cartoon character or an actress?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Wals ran a hand through his messy hair. He let out a gush of air and plunged in. “I had this feeling a while back, looking at her,” he broke off at the look on the doctor’s face. “Not those kinds of feelings,” he protested, and then quickly added, “…well, I did, but that isn’t what I mean!” Wals was getting flustered.
“I’m sorry. Go on.” Claude tried to sound scholarly to put Wals at ease.
“She reminds me of Aurora.” Wals lowered his voice. “You know, the Sleeping Beauty princess from the cartoon? With some of the things she said and remembered…I’ve been thinking…it all kinda fits. I showed her my nametag, like I told you, but she didn’t recognize it at all. She can’t be from Disneyland like I am, but it is also obvious she isn’t from here either. She just talked about moats and castles and drawbridges and a little about seeing her mother who, strangely enough, lived in a castle. Am I nuts?”
“My field is…was…is cryogenics, so I can’t tell if you are nuts,” he answered, keeping his face straight. At the exasperated look on Wals’ face, he held up a placating hand. “Sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. The animated movie Sleeping Beauty came out in the year 1959, just a few years before I came here, so I did see it. Walt was all enthused by the movie, I remember.” He broke off and looked away, momentarily saddened as he thought about his boss. “Do you think she could have been the model the animators used to draw the princess?”
Wals thought on that for a moment. He slowly shook his head. “Well, maybe, but I think she might be the real deal, you know, the real princess. But I can’t put my finger on it, because she hasn’t said anything like you or I did in remembering our real lives.”
Doctor Houser just stared at him for a moment. “I was going to say, ‘How can that be?’ However, we have seen a lot of discrepancies in logic lately, haven’t we? I honestly don’t know.” He looked over and saw Rose trying to frolic with the wolf. The wolf was having none of it. Rose put her hands on her hips as if she simply couldn’t understand why Wolf didn’t want to play. It was obvious to all of them that he would have done so in another place and time. “Look over there, Wals. That just doesn’t look too regal to me.” The little ‘princess’ was clearly upset with the wolf when he turned his back on her and walked away.
Wals was amused. “But remember that Briar Rose, as she was known in the forest, did get along with the animals.”
“Have you asked her to sing?”
“Okay, now you’re mocking me.”
Claude laughed. “Well, I didn’t mean to, but I guess it did sound like it.” He shrugged in a very unscholarly way. “I have no idea, Wals. You said you came here from the year 2007. I came here from 1966. We were both brought here by a security guard named Wolf who…well, no one has seen since. ‘Here’ seems to be a replica of Frontierland back at Disneyland. Is she the real Sleeping Beauty? Well, if any of this is possible, well, perhaps that also may be. What if she is?”
Wals opened his mouth and left it open, as if not sure what should come out of it. What if she is? The words bounced around in his brain. What would happen? Would he lose her when Wolf finally did arrive and take them all back to Disneyland? Did Wolf bring her here in the first place? Was it possible that Wolf drowned in that maelstrom that brought him here?
“More questions than answers.”
When the doctor nodded in agreement, Wals looked over at Rose again. She gave up trying to play with Wolf. When she walked back into her tipi, Wals unconsciously muttered the same plea he had said earlier: Please don’t let her go another direction in time!
Remembering some of his lessons in botany, Claude utilized part of his time looking for plants that might come in useful around the camp. The Cooking Woman and the Medicine Woman were already well versed in herbology, but there was always more to learn. Hidden behind the rocky overhang, he was examining the bark of a tree, wondering if it could be used for toothaches when he suddenly heard who he thought was the Shaman speak. Another voice, one he had not heard before, answered him in the same language the doctor had made no progress in learning.
One thing Claude had recently learned from his new friends was how to move stealthily in the stick-filled forest. Using this newly-acquired training, he attempted to get closer, keeping behind the rocks that hid him from their view. Listening intently to the two voices as they continued their animated conversation, the Shaman sounded somewhat irritated. Peering cautiously around the edge of the rocks, he was stunned to see the Shaman was alone—except for that wolf! Their backs were to his hidden location. The older man continued his speech, the wolf sitting silent in attendance.
When one of the wolf’s ears suddenly cocked backwards, the Shaman quit talking. The wolf’s blue eyes shifted slightly, and his father understood that they were not alone. They weren’t sure who was listening, but they knew it was not one of their own. To cover what might have been heard, the Shaman changed his voice to a lower register and waved his arms as if describing a fascinating story to the wolf. Then he switched to his own voice again and sent the wolf away with a grand sweep of his hand. Wolf just sat there and let his father walk away himself, pulling his wolf skin tighter around his shoulders to keep them from shaking with laughter. Surreptitiously sniffing the air, Wolf immediately recognized the scent of Doctor Houser who was hiding behind the rocks. He just didn’t know why.
Wolf found out soon enough when he left to go watch Rose’s cabin to see if the pirates had returned. Doctor Houser pushed through the brush in an attempt to follow him and Wolf wondered who it was that had given him the stealth training he had tried to use when eavesdropping.
The doctor suddenly came to the realization he was alone deep in the forest with a wild animal. Having never been in that possibly precarious situation before, his heart immediately started to race. Unable to regain his composure, Claude began to rethink his master plan. What if the animal d
idn’t recognize him as a friend? What if it could smell fear? He stopped in his tracks when the odd blue eyes swung around to look at him. A tug of memory flitted through his brain of another pair of blue eyes just like those, but vanished before he could put a reassuring hand on the Zippo lighter in his pocket.
Palms out, he advanced slowly towards the wolf. “Hey, there, big fella. Nice wolf. I won’t hurt you. Easy there. Don’t tear me into tiny pieces.” He kept muttering as he slowly walked into the small clearing where Wolf was sitting.
Wolf gave a loud snort to keep from laughing. He wondered what the doctor had in mind.
When the man reached a not-quite-touching distance from the wolf, he squatted down to make himself seem non-threatening. He kept up his steam of meaningless words that did more to convey nerves than be soothing to the wolf. When the wolf’s large head tilted to the side, watching him, his words suddenly stopped. Claude shook his head. “If I ever saw anything that obviously asked ‘What?’ without a word being spoken, the expression on your face would be it.” He laughed nervously and shook his head again. “All right, wolf,” he started, licking his dry lips, “I have seen everyone else talk to you, so I might as well do it, too.”
Those blue eyes narrowed, and, once again, struck a memory in the doctor. “I know I’ve seen those eyes before…. Listen, wolf, I need to know what’s going on around here. Wals isn’t the font of information I had hoped he would be. We all seem to be waiting for someone. Someone…as odd as it may sound…named Wolf.”
The blue eyes blinked as he lifted his head another inch or so.
“This is stupid,” Claude muttered to himself. “This can’t be right. And I should still be in 1966.” With an angry shake of his head, he decided to go on with what he had planned to say. “I want to see if you understand me, to see if you are as intelligent as everyone says you are, all right?” He waited nervously, and then snorted, amazed at himself and what he was doing. “And yet again I await an answer.” He wiped his sweaty palms on the buff-colored miner’s pants he still wore. “All right,” he started again and spoke real slowly, “Wolf, if you can understand me, make a mark in the dirt with your paw.”
Wolf! The Legend of Tom Sawyer's Island Page 26
