Comstock Lode

by Louis L'Amour

“You can have the oxen—there are eight head—for two hundred dollars. The wagon should be worth fifty.”

  Val’s father had squatted on his heels to study the underpinning. There was a spare wagon-tongue lashed there and a sheet of canvas, suspended by its corners and almost the length of the wagon. It sagged a little.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Buffalo chips,” a bystander said. “The womenfolks walk behind the wagon and pick up buffalo chips and toss them onto that canvas. They’re the only fuel you are likely to find.”

  “Buffalo chips?” Mary Trevallion’s distaste was obvious. “But aren’t they—”

  The man grinned. “They are, lady, but they’re very dry…old ones. They make quite a good fire. Ask any plainsman.”

  They bought the wagon and the animals. A man in a store-bought suit, a pale man with hollows at his temples, stood by and watched the purchase completed. He was neatly dressed but he did not smile, merely watched through pale eyes. His beard was sparse but carefully trimmed.

  A farmer standing by lighted his pipe and glanced at Tom Trevallion. “You made you a good deal. Mighty lucky to have that much. Two hundred dollars is about a year’s income for a farmer, these days. I’d like to go west, m’self, if I could afford it.”

  The woman took the coins Tom Trevallion paid her, and the man with the pale eyes stepped quickly forward, reaching for one of the coins. “May I see that?” He looked at the woman. “I’ll give it back. It is a rare coin, I think.”

  The coin was gold, quite heavy. “A doubloon,” the man said. “One sees very few of them.” He looked around at Tom Trevallion. “Where did you get it?”

  “Something my father brought from the wars. Had it for years,” he added.

  The man with the pale eyes handed back the coin. “Interesting,” he said. “Have you more of them?”

  “No,” Val’s father spoke stiffly, and turned away. The man lingered, watching them.

  It took the Trevallions another week to prepare, to buy what was needed in tools, ammunition, and food supplies.

  The woman from whom they bought the wagon had a prepared list. Her husband had talked to several wagonmasters and frontiersmen before compiling the list and it was, she assured them, as complete as they were apt to find.

  For each adult 200 lbs of flour, 75 lbs of bacon, 30 lbs of pilot bread, 10 lbs of rice, 25 lbs of sugar, ½ bushel to a bushel of dried beans; 1 bushel of dried fruit, 2 lbs of saleratus, 10 lbs of salt, ½ bushel of cornmeal, 5 lbs of coffee, 2 lbs of tea, ½ bushel of corn, parched and ground, a keg of vinegar, and assorted medicines. They also bought a cast-iron Dutch oven and skillet as well as a small sheet-iron stove and boiler that could be used inside the wagon when rain or strong winds made outside cooking impractical. Added to that was a pair of ten-gallon kegs for water, to be fastened one on each side of the wagon, a churn, cups and plates of tinware, and tools.

  “I will sell you my husband’s rifle,” the woman said. “It is of a calibre that uses about thirty-two to the pound. There is also a pistol.”

  “We had thought of staying in the States until June,” Mary said. “We have so much to learn.”

  “It is too late,” the woman told them. “Not earlier than April fifteenth as there is no grass to feed your stock, and if you leave after May fifteenth you won’t make it through the Sierra passes because of snow.”

  There wasn’t much to Westport, just a cluster of log and frame buildings on the bank of the river. Tom Trevallion moved his family into the wagon to save money. Beside the fire that night he put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “It is a different life, this. The people are different. We’ve got to learn to do things right the first time, because where we are going there isn’t much room for mistakes. Keep your eyes open, Val, and you will learn fast.”

  “That man who asked you about the gold, he was in the store when you bought things.”

  “I saw him.”

  “He started talking to me,” Mary Trevallion said, “asked when we were going.” She looked up at her husband. “I told him we had not decided, that we might decide to stay here and farm.”

  Tom Trevallion smiled. “Good girl. No reason to let anybody know our business.”

  “That man bothers me. I don’t like him.”

  Val’s father shrugged. “Just nosy…lots of people are.”

  Val helped load the wagon. He learned to build a fire, to grease the axles, to care for the oxen. As was his way, he said little. When two or three of the wagonmasters and trail guides got together, Val managed to sit close.

  On the day after they bought the wagon, Val went into the street to pick up a coil of rope his father had bought. The man with the pale eyes was seated against the side of the store-building eating a piece of bread. He seemed to have nothing else.

  Walking back there were several young men from fifteen to twenty-five years standing in a group, talking. “…says he pays for everything in gold.”

  “Damned furriner!” another said. “How’s he have so much when we’re down to our last?”

  Were they talking of his father? Val hurried to the wagon. “Papa? I heard some men—”

  His father listened. “They could have been speaking of many a man here, Val. But I have no choice. It is gold that I have, although little enough of it, so it is gold I must spend.”

  Later his father came to him. “Do you watch over the little Redaway girl. Her father and I must go up to town on business. Your mother is resting and Mrs. Redaway will be bathing in her wagon. We shall be back soon.”

  “But, pa!” Val protested.

  “Do as you are told. She is a fine little girl and you can play—”

  “Play!” he scoffed. “She’s only eight!”

  “No matter. Each must do his bit and that is for you. Be kind, now.”

  Her name was Marguerita, she told him politely, but her papa called her Grita.

  Val started by telling Grita stories, and what followed was horror.

  CHAPTER 2

  Never before had Val talked to a strange girl. Those he had known at Redruth or St. Just-In-Penwith knew all the stories he knew, and it was not much different at Gunwalloe, although he had known almost nobody there. This was different.

  Grita Redaway was a very thin girl with large eyes that seemed dark in the darkness. She listened wide-eyed as he told her of working deep underground, of the tommy-knockers who haunted the mines, and then of shipwrecks and storms along the rocky coast of Cornwall.

  The two wagons stood isolated, the next closest wagon was at least two hundred yards away, beyond a roll of the hill and some trees. Their campfire had burned low. Val could hear the water splashing in the tin tub where Grita’s mother was bathing.

  Val and Grita were seated back at the very edge of the brush inside the circle of darkness. Trevallion’s voice was low, so as not to disturb his mother who rested in their wagon. He was in the midst of a shipwreck off the Lizard when he became aware of a mutter of voices, drunken voices.

  “We’ve got to move fast,” somebody was saying, a voice not at all drunken. “The wagons will be empty and that gold is hidden—” The sound trailed away, and several men came into the circle of light. Instinctively, Val put a hand over Grita’s mouth and pulled her back under the brush.

  One of the men took a pull at a bottle, and another grabbed it from him. “Hey! Gimme that! Share an’ share—”

  “George?” It was Grita’s mother. “Is that you?”

  One of the drunken men lurched toward the wagon and jerked back the canvas. “No, this here ain’t George, this here’s—” His voice broke off sharply and then…a scream.

  Holding Grita tightly, keeping her face against his chest, young Val watched in horror. The first man leaped into the wagon and others scrambled after him.

  There was a stifled scream and th
e sounds of men brawling and angry.

  At least four of them were in the wagon and others were struggling to get in. Suddenly Val’s mother thrust her head from the rear of their wagon. “Edith? Edith? What is it? What—”

  The men outside the wagon turned and rushed at Mary Trevallion. All but one. That one drew back in the brush opposite the children and seemed to be waiting.

  Several men came from the wagons, almost falling over each other, and suddenly, into the glare of light came Grita’s father. He came striding into the circle of light totally unaware. Stopping suddenly he looked around wildly. “Wha—”

  “Kill him,” somebody said, and suddenly they rushed at Redaway, striking and clubbing.

  He struck out wildly, landing a grazing blow. He struck again, and then a club drove him to his knees. Redaway tried to rise, his head streaming with blood, and he was beaten down again.

  Frozen in fear the boy clutched Grita to him, knowing if he released her she would run to her mother and be killed.

  Suddenly someone shouted. “Look out! Run! Here they come!”

  The violators scattered. One man toppled from a wagon, falling full length, then getting up, looking around, obviously frightened. There were bloody scratches on the side of his face. For an instant he was staring hard right at them, and Val recognized him as the man who had spoken of those “damned furriners” only that afternoon.

  As quickly as they had come, they were gone. And then the lone man came quickly from the shadows and scrambled into the wagon. There was a shuffling around and then a muffled scream and a thud. The canvas curtains parted and the man came out, holding his father’s money-box in his hands.

  The thief took a quick look around and started away when George Redaway groaned. The man stopped, then turned slowly. Drawing a pistol, he stood astride the fallen man. Holding the money-box under his arm, he held the pistol in two hands and shot Grita’s father between the eyes. Then he thrust the pistol behind his belt and walked away.

  Grita tugged at Val. “Please! You’re hurting me.”

  He released her slowly. “Don’t look,” Val said sternly. He took her by the hand. “We’ve got to go get papa.”

  * * *

  —

  Afterward Val could never remember the days that followed. They had found his father, loaded with a few last-minute purchases, and somehow he had blurted out his story of what had happened. His father dropped his purchases and ran. The storekeeper folded his apron, caught up a pistol, and ran after him.

  The storekeeper’s wife caught him as he started to leave. “You…you two stay here with me. It’s for the men to do now. There’s nothing you can do. It’s awful!” she said. “Just awful!”

  During all those days he stayed close to Grita. She was younger, he told himself, and she had lost both her parents. She clung to him, and he comforted her as best he could.

  “Boy,” one man advised him, “you be careful who you tell that you recognized one of those men. If they find that out, they’ll try to kill you.”

  “Not much we can do.” The man who spoke wore a badge. “Drifters, more than likely, scattered to the four corners by now. Him with the scratched face that the boy saw coming out of the wagon, he won’t be showing himself until it’s healed.

  “Anyway,” he added, “that crowd trampled out any footprints.”

  “I’ll find them,” Tom Trevallion said.

  “Be careful when you do,” the man with the badge said, “there’s some rough men in that lot.”

  The storekeeper’s name was Kirby. He reached into a drawer and drew out a pistol. “Tom, you take this. You may meet them close up where a rifle won’t be much use. You take this—it’s a gift from me—and good luck to you.”

  The bodies of Grita’s mother and father and Mary Trevallion were buried side by side on a little hill not far out of Westport. Val clung to his father’s hand, his other arm around Grita. Numbly he stared at the casket being lowered into the grave, and he could associate none of it with his mother. She was gone…that was all.

  When it was over he asked, “What will we do now?”

  “We’ll go west,” his father said. “Mary would wish for it to be that way.”

  “What about Grita?”

  “We will take her with us. She is one of us now.”

  The minister spoke up. “She may have kinfolk who would take her in. Did they ever speak of anybody else?”

  His father frowned. “Come to think of it, George did speak of his wife having a sister. We shall go through her things. In fact, Marguerita may know where she lives.”

  Slowly, Val walked back to where Grita stood alone. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and frightened. She was alone now, all alone. “You will be one of us,” he said. “My father has said it. Although,” he added, “he says you have an aunt.”

  “Yes. Aunt Ellen. She lives in New Orleans.”

  “We’ll have to go through your folks’ things to find her address.” Val hesitated, hanging his thumbs in his pants pockets. “Wish you could stay with us, though. I never had no girl around before.” He flushed. “You’re kinda nice.”

  His father wrote a letter, and it went down the river on a steamboat, and then they waited.

  Kirby came around to see them. “Tom,” he said, “if you’re figuring on going west, you’d best go. Time’s short if you want to make it through the passes.”

  “I’ll wait until I hear from her aunt,” he said.

  Kirby studied him. He had grown thinner, the bones in his face seemed sharper. “You’ve got a fine boy, there,” he said. “He’s going to miss his mother.”

  “Aye.” Tom Trevallion stood quiet for a minute or so, and then he said, “I miss her, too. God, how I miss her!”

  Ellen Devereaux arrived on the next boat from New Orleans, and she was not at all what Tom Trevallion expected. She was slim and very lovely, with cool eyes and an easy, gracious manner. “Thank you, Mr. Trevallion, for taking care of my niece. She tells me you have both been wonderful.” Ellen Devereaux looked down at Val, smiling. “She has quite a case on you, young man, and I can see why. You’re a handsome lad.”

  She turned to his father. “They got away? The men who did this?”

  “They did. The boy here, he saw some of them, but nobody recognized any of them from his descriptions. We didn’t talk about that much,” he added, “being fearful they might come back and kill the boy.

  “That sort of thing is rare. They were a bunch of drifting scum, but even so, they were drunk.”

  “My brother-in-law? He was killed outright?”

  “They beat him down,” Val said. “With clubs and fists. There were eight or nine of them. Then later one man stood over them and shot him right between the eyes.”

  “Afraid of a witness,” Tom suggested. He frowned. “From what the lad says there was something peculiar about that. The man who did the killing had stood aside during most of it, but he was the one who got our money and he was the one killed George.”

  “They should be punished!” Ellen Devereaux’s eyes were no longer cool. “Every one of them!”

  “There’s no law out there. No way to reach them.”

  Val spoke suddenly. “I will kill them. I will kill every one of them. I will kill them or die trying.”

  Startled, they looked at him. Grita clutched his hand suddenly, and Ellen said quietly, “I know how you feel, Val. I could kill them, too, but you must not let it ruin your life. You’re young. You’ve much to live for. Someday you will have a nice home, you will get married—”

  “I want to marry Grita.”

  She laughed. “Now, there, Grita! You have your first proposal! If you could call it that.”

  * * *

  —

  The next morning they joined a wagon train for California.

  Ove
rhead was a vast blue dome of the sky, around them an ocean of grass, rippling away in endless waves when touched by the wind. Day after day the oxen plodded on. At night there were campfires, the circle of wagons, and wolves howling. Several times they saw Indians, but they were not molested.

  Then the rains came, and the prairies became muddy; they made slower time. Once they camped within sight of the previous night’s camp.

  Val drove the oxen at times. He took them to water, built the fires. His father had become morose and silent, speaking rarely and then in anger. Val learned to keep silent and to keep his distance. Sometimes at night, watching the campfire from near their own wagon, his father would start to talk, and for hours he would ramble on about mines and mining, about drilling, breaking rock, using explosives. Long afterward Val would remember those times and realize that his father was trying, in the only way he knew how, to pass on what knowledge he had, and he would understand how inadequate his father felt at suddenly becoming an only parent, trying to fill the roles of both father and mother.

  He had ever been a solitary man, totally involved with his wife and child but depending on his wife to offer their son the gentleness and warmth that he somehow could not impart.

  Val had always understood that his father loved him, but somehow that feeling had always come to him through his mother.

  Westward they went, day after plodding day, moving at a pace that never exceeded about two and a half miles per hour. Over the long flatlands, up the low hills, down steep declivities, gathering buffalo chips as they went against the fires of the night, and ever alert for the Indians that never came.

  Never until one morning they awakened to find some of the saddle-stock driven off. Because of Val’s affection for their mare, it had been kept inside the wagon circle and so was safe.

  Nobody saw an Indian, nobody heard an Indian, only the horses were missing and there were unshod pony tracks. Several of the men were for pursuing them and trying to recover their stock. The guide advised against it.