Fool's Gold

by Steve Stroble

into small groups. Shouts and curses arose from two groups; shrugs and blank stares from others. Dan brought a plate of beans and bread to hand to the only one who could help him now.

  “Look, pardner. I seen the same kind of thing when I was trapping fur in the Rockies. At first it was great. Then more and more folks kept showing up making the injuns madder and madder so I give it up to be a guide. Guess what? Being a guide is even worse than trapping ever was. At least when you’re trapping you can move around to git away from those that be wearing you down to death. I been stuck with this bunch for months and months now. I got to leave them in peace or I might not be leaving them at all with the money they promised me. Some of them be down right mean.”

  “I sort of got that feeling, too.”

  “I ain’t no miner. You are. Trappings what I know best. I need yer help real bad.”

  “Depends on what you need.”

  “I’m supposed to deliver these here yahoos down at Sutter’s Fort afore they pay me. But I’m a feared after what you been telling them they might not pay me everything or even anything at all.”

  “I git the picture, friend.” The miner nodded. “If I was you I wouldn’t take them all the way down to Sutter’s Fort. Then they has to backtrack back up to the diggings. Besides his fort got overrun real bad during the first rush. The miners passing through there ruined all of the crops around the fort. There’s something about gold fever that makes men lawless and mean and crazy and greedy and wild and evil all at the same time. It’s bad enough when a man is only one of those. That’s why I’m heading over to the east slope. I’ve had a bellyful of what I left behind. You can have it. All of it. And any gold you find, too.”

  “Well where do you think is their best chance to find at least a little gold, then?”

  “They won’t be finding much of anything till the fall and winter rains wash more gold down from the mountains to the foothills. If I was you I’d either take ‘em down to Sonora or Angel’s Camp or maybe over to Dry Diggings, some place like that.”

  “Where about they be at?”

  “To get to Sonora or Angel’s Camp keep heading southwest from here till you get to Jackson, then you go south.”

  “Where’s Dry Diggings at?”

  “To get there you take that trail the Mormons cut last year where it turns off to the northwest a ways down the hill from here. I can draw you a map.”

  “I’ll be needing it. This be my first time to Californy. Furthest west I ever got was to Oregon.”

  The miner’s laughter caused Alice to hee-haw in response. “Your first time here? And you’re guiding a whole company of greenhorns? Man alive I always hear tell that you mountain men like to take risks but you plumb takes the cake, friend.”

  Dan lowered his voice. “Well I been on the Oregon Trail both ways and trapped up and down the Rockies. I figgered that give me the smarts to be a guide. Figgered I’d pick up what I didn’t know along the way. Like I’m doing with you now.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.” The miner handed the empty metal pan to Dan. “Got any more of them vittles? Haven’t ate since breakfast before sunup this morning. Walking uphill is hard work, you know. It’s even harder than mining is.”

  “Sure thing.” Dan fetched another heaping pan of food and brought it back to his guest.

  “Which place of the three you told me about you think to be best?”

  “Well, I hear they be getting ready to change Dry Diggings name to Hangtown on account of all the hangings they does there. Maybe your boys being city slickers and all would feel more at home where there’s at least a little bit of law and order?” The miner continued wolfing down his best meal in days. He motioned with his empty cup for a refill of coffee. Dan obliged him as he again lowered his voice.

  “Just between you and me. Has there bin a strike where yer heading now?”

  “Finding gold is like playing cards, I guess. You has to take what you is dealt. Ain’t no choice. Comes to think of it I guess life be that way too. I think the secret to prospecting is like the secret to any other business. You got to know when to throw in your cards and move on. If there’s gonna be any strike where I’m a headed I aim to be the one who finds it first.”

  Dan arose, stretched his sore muscles, and surveyed the 55 men still under his care. A few sat alone eating dinner. Others sat in pairs as they ate. The rest had forgotten dinner and were still gathered into five groups. One group consisted of the banker, businessmen, and lawyer from the company. A second was made up entirely of farmers; a third, of skilled carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, and the like; a fourth, of the youngest members of the company. It was the fifth group that most concerned Dan. In it were those most given over to drinking, cursing, gambling, grumbling, and fighting. They were louder than the other four groups combined as they passed around what liquor, bought at Rag Town, remained.

  “I got a favor I need from ye, real bad.”

  “First you need help. Now you need a favor. You must be in real big trouble, friend.”

  “I’ll give you $13 if you take these hotheads off my hands and along with you.” Dan shoved the money toward him. “It’s all I got left. Spent most of it in Salt Lake.”

  The miner smiled kindly. “Don’t ever believe in taking a man’s last dollar. Give me $10 and I’ll do it.” He winked. “I know a trick.”

  After all had finished eating Dan called the company back together. He explained that based on the advice that he had received from the miner a place called Dry Diggings might be as far as he should take them.

  “I hear tell that Sutter’s Fort is pert much destroyed by squatters, thieves, and such.” He continued his pitch. “Besides if you stops at Dry Diggings it’ll save you from having to walk another 50 miles down to Sutter’s Fort. If you go all the way to the fort you have to backtrack back up to the gold fields. And they got so much law and order at Dry Diggings they be thinking of changing the name there to Hangtown. You all would fit right in there, seems to me. What do you think?”

  This plan seemed acceptable to all but the group of hooligans that Dan hoped to be rid of with the miner’s help. Their self-proclaimed leader snorted as a buffalo whose territory has been invaded. His boots dug into the ground as they shuffled back and forth. His fists punched the air.

  “Ha! We think you knew all along how bad it was gonna be. I ain’t paying no dollar for one egg.”

  “Now boys. I only bin to Oregon and then trapped the Rockies. This here is my first time to Californy like the rest of you. I had no idea what it’d be like once we got here. I believed what the papers said about the rivers being full of gold.”

  The miner came to Dan’s rescue. “Give Dan a break, boys. He might be a mountain man but he shore ain’t no miner. But if he got you this fur least ways he’s some kind of guide.”

  “He ain’t neither that much of a guide.” The neer do wells’ leader jerked his head backward and let out a mocking laugh. “It was him that told us to travel light. We should’ve brought tents and such from home where they don’t be costing a arm and a leg!” He fingered his revolver. That caused Dan to cock his rifle.

  The miner stepped in between the two. His boldness and outstretched hands seemed to stop the rising tension. “Tell you what. I could use men to help me work the claims I aim to be settin’ up real quick like. But I kin only take five honest hard workingmen along with me. Any more would slow me down too much.”

  The ringleader turned and counted his companions and then himself. They quickly formed a powwow. The most level headed of the rest of the company immediately shook their heads no as they had no desire to retrace their steps back through The Pass, Devil’s Ladder, and The Canyon. Those with less commonsense talked it over among themselves before likewise rejecting the offer. The meanest bully of the company rejoined his conversation with Dan.

  “Who needs you?” He sneered at the guide. He turned toward the miner. “Me and my boys makes five so you’ll be taking us along to your next big strike
. We’ll get rich way before these other jackasses ever does.” He then drew his gun and glared at everyone. “Any objections?”

  Heads shook from side to side. Only a few answered.

  “Nope.”

  “It’s all yours.”

  “Not me.”

  An hour later the miner handed Dan a detailed map showing their present location, Dry Diggings, Jackson, Angel’s Camp, and Sonora. “Just in case you decide to go where it’s a mite bit wilder,” he explained. “Or maybe your bunch won’t like the looks of Dry Diggings. They shore is a temperamental bunch, ain’t they?”

  “Shore hope I didn’t go and burden you too much with those five yahoos.” Dan glanced at the ones who were slowly sobering up for their trek back across the Sierra with the miner.

  “Don’t worry. I seen their type trying to mine before. They’ll git tired real quick and probably wander off to Rag Town for the winter. Or maybe they’ll try to head back across the Sierras before it snows. Either way some of ‘em most likely end up dead. Keep yer powder dry, pardner.”

  “You do the same.” Dan shook the outstretched hand. He concluded that in all of God’s creation there was at least one miner as righteous as mountain men were.

  The first lake that the company passed during the descent was Silver Lake. Its fish proved to be tasty. By one of the springs that overlooked the lake, they found a huge mound of rocks. The story