by Dutchman
“To the hotel,” Weiser replied. “I’m not sleeping in that goddamn tent anymore!”
“You’re sleepin’ in that goddamn tent and liking it,” Waltz responded firmly. “Now hand over the money you just won.”
“I’m not giving you my money,” Weiser snapped. “I earned it an’ I’m keeping it!”
Lowering his voice Waltz said, “You’re handing over your money unless you want me to spill the beans about Webber.” Raising his voice loud enough for everyone to hear, he continued, “I’m glad you had a good evening playing poker, partner, since you an’ me are sharing everything we get!”
Clenching his fists so hard his knuckles grew white, Weiser’s thin lips tightened and drew down at the corners, but he had no choice. The other men would string him up if they even suspected he was the one who killed Webber.
From that evening on, Waltz made sure Weiser understood he owned him, or at least thought he did. Every time Weiser thought he could slip a bit of poker winnings into his pocket, Waltz was there with his hand out to intercept it. It made Weiser crazy to see Waltz lurking in the background, ready to ruin his day. It got so bad, Weiser almost expected Waltz to wipe his backside when he went to the latrine. He would have liked to take Waltz out right then, but it was too soon.
Weiser turned his murderous thoughts to Joe Green. Green liked his privacy, and had pitched his tent far enough upriver for Weiser to kill him and make it look like an Indian raid. But first, Weiser had to put Waltz temporarily out of commission.
Spying some small plants that looked like parsley but were an American cousin to hemlock, Weiser gathered a few seeds, ground them finely with two rocks, and watched for an opportunity to season Waltz’s stew with them.
A few days later, when Weiser was sure Waltz was disabled with diarrhea, he concealed a hunting knife in his boot, helped himself to a few flakes of gold from Waltz’s pouch, and made his way up to Green’s tent.
As soon as he was within earshot, Weiser made a show of sneaking past Green’s tent. To make sure Green noticed him, Weiser stepped on a cluster of dry twigs that crackled in the otherwise quiet afternoon.
Green put aside his gold, picked up his gun, slid the bolt, and waited.
He heard more crackling. Rising from his camp chair, he went to the opening of his tent and saw Weiser. Dismissing Weiser as no danger, Green laid his rifle aside. “What’re you doing up here, Weiser?” Green sneered. “You’re a long ways from your poker table.”
“I’m not doing nothin’,” Weiser said quickly, sticking his hands in his pouch as if it concealed something.
“Gimme that,” Green demanded, snatching the pouch from Weiser’s hands and rifling through it.
When Green saw the gold glistening in the late afternoon sun, he was momentarily mesmerized. Weiser took advantage of his state to slowly and cautiously reach toward his boot, remove his knife, and inch his way around until he was in a position to strike.
Green never knew what hit him as Weiser drove the knife deep into his back.
Moving quickly now, Weiser took off his jacket and laid it aside while he separated Green’s scalp from his skull and buried it under a rock at the edge of the forest. Then he went to the stream and washed the blood from his hands. Finally, doing his best to think like an Indian, Weiser didn’t disturb Green’s personal possessions, except for a few small nuggets that would never be missed.
Half an hour later, Weiser was in the saloon, taking his usual place at a table in the rear. He preferred having a solid wall behind him to discourage spectators from giving away his hand. A man can’t be too careful.
The evening was well along before Green was missed. It was Joe the bartender who first sounded the alarm. When the grandfather clock in the corner sounded nine o’clock and Green hadn’t shown up for his usual bottle of Old Tub Kentucky Whiskey, Joe turned to Hutton and asked, “Where’s your buddy Green?”
Hutton’s forehead puckered as he tried to remember the last time he’d seen him.
“He’s probably upstairs with Rosie,” Adam Peeples said, grinning.
“Naw,” Hutton said, “he wouldn’t be doing that before getting his whiskey.”
They all laughed.
A few minutes later, Weiser said, “I saw some redskins near Green’s tent yesterday. I told him he ought to move his tent closer to town, just to be on the safe side.”
“What did he say to that?” Peeples said.
Weiser looked sideways at Peeples and said, “He told me where I could stick my advice!”
Everyone laughed.
An hour later, the clock struck ten and Green still hadn’t showed up. Fearful, now, for his safety, the men took their guns and went cautiously out to his tent, where they found his scalpless body and Weiser’s carefully constructed scene.
An Indian raid was determined to be the obvious cause of Green’s death.
Waltz, however, was not so quick to jump to that conclusion. He remembered Weiser killing Webber and passing it off as having been done by an Indian. He had let Weiser get away with it at the time, thinking he wouldn’t dare kill again, but apparently he was wrong.
“I thought I could manage Weiser,” Waltz thought, “but he’s obviously out of control. Green may have provoked him, but only a crazy man would kill because he was being taunted.”
Two days later, Waltz picked up his panning pan and a small shovel and went for a walk beside the river. Weiser saw him go and followed, unaware Waltz was using his placer pan as a mirror.
Waltz was so calm and relaxed as he ambled down to the riverbank, one could never suspect the dastardly deed he was planning. He watched as Weiser followed him, ducking from tree to tree.
When he reached a place where the river narrowed, Waltz squatted down on the bank. Whitewater foamed a few feet away, where the current quickened.
Before dipping his pan in the water, Waltz made sure he could see Weiser lurking in the trees. Then he scooped out a little gravel, sloshed it around, examined the resulting sediment, and nodded his head in approval as if he saw something he liked. He repeated this several times, moving a little closer to the rushing current and showing more enthusiasm for what he found.
At first, Weiser stayed at the edge of the trees, but Waltz’s pantomime soon succeeded in enticing him to tiptoe closer.
The river hissed and churned as it swept past them, drowning out all other sounds.
Waltz continued to watch Weiser’s progress in his improvised mirror. And the instant Weiser was close enough, in a flash Waltz dropped his pan, spun around, and hurled Weiser into the river.
Weiser’s scream was smothered by the rampaging water.
Waltz grabbed a log and used it to keep Weiser’s bobbing head underwater, unaware that Adam Peeples had come along. To Waltz’s chagrin, Peeples, seeing what he assumed was an attempt at rescue, waded into the rapids and helped drag Weiser to shore.
Furious at Peeples’s interference, Waltz felt like using his log to bash both Weiser and Peeples, but came to his senses and dismissed the idea. There would be other opportunities to kill Weiser.
For his part, Weiser was shocked at the boldness of Waltz’s attack, but not ready to cut and run. He hadn’t come this far to leave with nothing.
As renegade Indians increased their attacks, rumors of new goldfields in the Arizona Territory reached Whiskey Flat, motivating Gideon Roberts to organize an expedition into this uncharted region.
Weiser almost choked on his cigar when Waltz signed them up to go along. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going with you,” Weiser exploded. “I’ve had enough of these goddamn wilderness adventures.”
Waltz shrugged and said, “I don’t give a damn if you go, Weiser. I’m going with Roberts an’ I’m taking my lockbox with me.”
“You ain’t taking my gold!” Weiser shouted, not caring who heard him.
Waltz’s mouth tightened into a sadistic slit as he said softly, “I’ll do as I damn well please with your gold, an’ you can’t sto
p me. If you try, I’ll tell everyone you killed Webber. I’ll get your gold anyway, while you’re hanging from the nearest tree.”
There was nothing Weiser could do but ungraciously follow his impounded gold and vow to kill the others one by one. For a weapon, he bought a roll of wire and hid it in his pants pocket.
Roberts hired Pauline Weaver to act as their guide. Weaver was a successful prospector, so well-known the first mining district in the Territory had been named after him. He was also a man who inspired confidence in his men. Spirits were high on that brilliant April morning in the year of Our Lord 1863, as Weaver and seven men from the original Roberts group crossed the Colorado River into the dangerous and previously unexplored Arizona Territory.
Weaver led the way in his high-domed, wide-brimmed hat, fringed buckskin jacket, and leggings. Gideon Roberts would have liked to ride beside Weaver, but dropped back after an hour of silence from Weaver. The Peeples cousins shaded their heads with broad-brimmed Mexican sombreros; Oscar Hutton wore a handsome black military hat decorated with a peacock feather; Weiser had somehow acquired a stylish, high-crowned Stetson; and Waltz brought up the rear wearing a battered, yellowish-brown miners hat with a wide brim.
Dust rose lazily from their horses’ hooves and brittlebush bloomed bright yellow, stretching like a carpet toward a distant green stripe that suggested a stream. Jackrabbits watched them pass and didn’t bother to run. On the horizon, mountains rose boldly to a cobalt sky, and streaks of skinny white clouds cast no shadows on the rocky, grey-brown desert floor.
The second day crossing the seemingly endless desert, Weiser noticed Adam Peeples and Oscar Hutton riding side by side ahead of him. “You couldn’t miss Hutton in that ridiculous hat,” Weiser thought. “But since when was Hutton an’ Peeples good enough friends to ride together?” He couldn’t recall seeing them drinking together back at Caldwell’s in Grass Valley. In fact, now that he thought about it, you didn’t see Peeples at Caldwell’s hardly at all. But here he was riding with Hutton and the two of them looking back at him every so often, like maybe they knew it was Weiser who killed Green. Maybe they were going to do something about it. Weiser sucked in his breath sharply as an inner voice asked what if they suspected he had something to do with Webber’s death too? “I’d better keep an eye on those two,” he thought, “because now it’s a kill-or-be-killed situation here.”
They camped that night and the next without seeming any closer to the mountains. Apache Indians lurked on all sides, but did not attack because they respected Pauline Weaver from his earlier trapping expeditions.
On the fourth afternoon, the terrain began to rise. Grey-green chaparral grew closer together, slowing their progress, and tantalizing traces of gold gleamed on the dusty earth. The distant green stripe became a swift-flowing stream that they followed into a forest of mixed pine and juniper. Antelope appeared among the trees, the first fresh meat they’d seen in weeks. Pauline Weaver promptly named the area Antelope Hill, and shot three young bucks that were drinking in the stream that tumbled past.
As the men made short work of the first fresh meat they’d had in weeks, a pair of pack mules wandered off to forage. No one bothered to chase after them, as they could be trusted not to stray far.
After dinner, Weiser saw Adam Peeples and Hutton with their heads together again, looking over at him and whispering behind their hands. There was no doubt now in Weiser’s mind — they were plotting against him. Weiser fingered the wire in his pocket and the corners of his mouth tightened.
The next morning, Waltz and Roberts got up early and went looking for the wayward mules. Tracking was difficult on the hard ground, but ahead was a hill that promised a good view of the area. They each took a different side of the hill to search. The spicy scent of juniper filled the early-morning air as Waltz crested the hill and looked down the far side into a small arroyo. Waltz saw no stray mules, but the sides of the gully were covered with peculiar-looking rocks that looked like potatoes. As he gazed on this odd-looking hillside, the rising sun’s rays struck the potato-rocks and they began to glow. Waltz rubbed his eyes in disbelief as they took on the semblance of gold. “This is crazy,” he thought. “You don’t find gold nuggets near the top of a hill.”
The missing mules were forgotten as Waltz stooped and picked up a medium-sized potato-rock. It was too heavy for an ordinary rock.
As the sun rose higher, the entire hillside began to sparkle. “Mein Gott,” Waltz whispered to himself, then louder, “MEIN GOTT! THESE ROCKS ARE GOLD!”
Roberts heard Waltz shout, and ran to see what he was so excited about. He found the usually unflappable Waltz jumping around and waving his arms like a crazy man.
Roberts squinted at Waltz’s antics and said, “Have you lost your mind?”
“Come up an’ see for yourself,” Waltz shouted. “This whole goddamn arroyo is covered with gold. Take a look at this!” Waltz picked up a rock that looked like a yellow potato and gave it a vigorous push, but instead of rolling downhill, the rock barely moved.
Astonished at the obvious density of that rock, Roberts climbed up and stood beside Waltz. Awestruck, he bent and picked up a potato-rock, examined it closely, and said in a hushed voice, “You just found the most peculiar, richest hill I ever hope to see!”
Weeping tears of joy, Waltz grabbed Roberts’s arm and whirled him in a dizzy circle, laughing and whooping. His shouts awakened the other men, who jumped out of their bedrolls and ran to see what the excitement was about. Reaching the summit, they came to a screeching halt. At their feet was a hillside covered with gold rocks gleaming in the morning sun. Stunned at what they saw, they picked up rocks and hefted them in disbelief. These rocks were just as heavy as the purest gold any of them had come across in all their years of prospecting!
Once again, no one bothered to wake Weiser. They just grabbed their picks and shovels, and ran to the hill.
Accustomed to the usual early morning sounds of men waking up hawking and spitting, making coffee, and grousing about it taking too damn long to find a decent strike, Weiser stuck his head out of his bedroll and looked around.
The camp was deserted.
But he could hear laughter and excited shouts.
“Goddammit,” Weiser thought, “somebody’s found a strike an’ left me out again.”
His eyes narrowed to slits as he pulled on his pants and headed toward the laughing and cheering. “If these men think they can get away with this, they’re sadly mistaken. They won’t be laughing when they’re dead,” he muttered as he approached the foot of the hill.
The morning sun was blinding. Shielding his eyes with his hand, Weiser peered up and saw his companions waving their arms and prancing around like madmen.
Climbing as fast as he could, Weiser topped the rise and saw the entire hillside sparkling in the sun. This couldn’t be real, could it? He bent over to pick up one of the loose rocks with his right hand, but it was too heavy. The damn thing actually took two hands to lift; it was gold all right, no doubt of that.
For the most part, these “potato” nuggets popped loose with little more than a nudge with a pocket knife. Weiser watched as the men filled their pockets with smaller nuggets, afraid their eyes were betraying them and the treasure would disappear.
But the nuggets were the real McCoy all right, and there were plenty of them. Caught up in the excitement, Weiser ran back to camp, grabbed a bucket, and ran back to get his share.
In the excitement of picking up these nuggets old hostilities were temporarily forgotten and Waltz didn’t confiscate the gold Weiser gathered that day.
It wasn’t until later that evening, after the sun had set and he was sitting at the campfire with the others, that Weiser’s earlier anger began to return, and, like an incurable cancer, it festered as he asked himself why no one had bothered to wake him up when they first found the gold.
He looked at the other men stuffing warmed-over pinto beans into their mouths, and his comradely feelings faded. They’d sh
owed their true colors this morning, and he wasn’t fooled by their feigned friendliness around the warmth of the fire.
The next day, the group went to work trying to collect as much gold as possible before the rest of the world found out about their find. Although it might have been more efficient to set up a bucket brigade and hand buckets of nuggets down the line, the sight of that much gold gave every man an overwhelming craving for his own personal treasure chest. The flame of communal cooperation flickered and went out, and it was every man for himself.
Working more enthusiastically than he had ever done up to now, Weiser filled his bucket to the brim. To his dismay, the bucket was too heavy to lift, much less carry back to his tent. What should he do? If he divided the nuggets and took half the gold to his tent at a time, he would have to leave the other half untended — an open invitation for someone to steal it. He put his hands on his hips and looked around. What if he dug a little hole and put half his nuggets in it? Unable to come up with a better plan, Weiser proceeded to do just that, too blinded by greed to recognize the irony of his actions.
The third morning’s gold gathering was nearly as frantic as the first two, but by mid-afternoon, Hutton was ready to take a break. Oblivious to Weiser and his hostility, Hutton settled down for a nap under a pine tree, out of sight of the group but only a short distance away from where Weiser had buried his gold.
“Why is he resting here, so close to my gold?” Weiser thought. He had grown even more determined to protect his share, and his life. He remembered how Hutton and Peeples had kept staring at him on the road. Now he was convinced Hutton obviously knew something and was purposely spying on him. Having made his mind up to end the threat, Weiser took his wire in hand and made his way up to a nearby bluff, where he ran the wire between two trees.
Hutton was a simple man, incapable of distrust and probably the only man in the group who didn’t hate or suspect Weiser. So when Weiser called down to him, “Come here, Hutton. You gotta see these nuggets I just found up here, they’re big as ostrich eggs!” Hutton picked up his offending hat, placed it on his head, adjusted its feather, and started up the hill without a thought.