Fool's Gold

by Steve Stroble

here to settle all my debts. To do that I’m giving up 100 city blocks and over 100 lots.”

  Thomas sighed. All that he had read or heard of Sutter and his fort had been filled with adventures: of those settlers who had ended their overland journey there or of those snowbound in the Sierra who had been rescued by search parties that had been sent from the fort. To see and hear of its devastation overwhelmed him. Even more disturbing was the brokenness of his hero. After a few moments of silence, Thomas asked if Sutter knew where he might buy a donkey or mule. This brought a smile to the old man’s sad face.

  “You’re in luck. They don’t taste as delicious as the rest of my stock did. Let’s go to the stable and see what’s left there.”

  James and Thomas spent the remainder of the day talking with anyone with fresh knowledge of the gold fields. One of the fort’s last remaining employees told them that most who had passed this way had gone to the Middle and South Forks of the American River. A miner on the way back to Sacramento told of how crowded those two forks had been.

  “Might want to try the north fork instead,” he advised.

  Armed with a map of how to get there, James and Thomas loaded their supplies on the newly purchased mule the next morning. James convinced the impatient Thomas to wait a little longer to buy equipment.

  “If’n we finds someone who’s struck it rich they ain’t gonna want to be carrying all that equipment all the way back to Sacramento so they can whoop it up. And since they be rich now, they sell it real cheap.”

  Thomas nodded. “Between the two of us, we’re going to get rich. What I don’t think of, you do.”

  “And if’n we meet someone who’s done give up on finding gold and being rich the rest of their lives and who’s hungry and ain’t got no money at all left, we buy his equipment real cheap. Either way we be turning out like fat rats.”

  Sutter had one of his men row James, Thomas, and their mule to the north side of the American River. Their map kept them on a northeasterly course about half of a mile from the river so that they could avoid its many twists and turns. Daniel, the newly christened mule, set a leisurely pace. They stopped once for dinner about 11 a.m. At twilight they had come to steep bluffs that rose high above the American River. James pointed to the campfires down by the water.

  “Think we should see who be down there?”

  “Okay.” Thomas held out his arms to balance himself as they descended the steep hill.

  “Who that be?” Someone demanded when they were about 200 feet from the closest campfire.

  “We be a couple gold seekers like you all.”

  As James and Thomas drew closer in the fading light they were surprised to see two black men approaching them.

  “Is your camp all like you?” James asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell you what, Thomas. Let me go on and talk with ‘em. Might be best if I meet you back on top of the hill.”

  “Uh, yes.” Thomas had learned to rely on James’ judgment, especially when dealing with strangers.

  “See you in a bit.”

  Thomas led Daniel back up the hill and unloaded the burden off of his back. While Daniel feasted on the dry grass and leaves from the bushes and lower limbs of the trees Thomas prepared supper. He gathered nine stones and formed a ring for the fire. Inside of the ring he placed a mound of dry grass. On top of the grass he laid ten handfuls of twigs. He then broke up a few dead branches by bending them over his knee, stepping on them, and banging them against the ground. From that supply of wood he built a small teepee over the bed of grass and twigs. He then retrieved the flint from his backpack. Taught years earlier by his father in the art of building a fire, Thomas expertly handled the flint until the resulting sparks lit the grass. A few exhaled breaths of air spread the tiny flame. The fire began to send plumes of smoke and flames into the night. Thomas added two larger stones on which to rest the skillet at either side of the fire.

  Using the light from the fire to see, Thomas found the frying pan and the choice piece of beef that Sutter had given them as a gift. Tonight they would feast. The three pounds of beef sizzled in the large frying pan as Thomas cut up an onion and four potatoes and placed the pieces in the skillet. After he turned the meat over he added half of the water from his canteen to the pan. Steam rose from it as he stirred the vegetables that boiled around the meat. For the next half hour Thomas fueled the fire with more dead wood and turned the meat, potatoes, and onions every ten minutes. Halfway through cooking the meal he added a handful of flour to thicken the gravy of the stew. It and the coffee were ready by the time James came trudging into camp.

  “Something sure smells good.”

  “I guess it’s the first meal cooked by me on our adventure.”

  James sat down and thanked the cook as he handed him a metal plate that was filled with the stew. Thomas loaded a second plate and sat down next to him. He waited a moment for the stew to cool.

  “What did they say?”

  “All sorts of things. That place down there has quite a bunch of people like me staying there. They all be looking for gold, too. Says they feel safer staying together like they doing.”

  “Why?”

  “They say there ain’t hardly nothing in the way of police or sheriffs to keep law ‘n’ order way out here. They say it be something they call vigilante law.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They say that where anybody who done feel like it gits to be the law. One feller told me he saw a bunch of miners catch someone they think be a claim jumper. So they gits up a trial with all the other miners being the jury. They say he be guilty. Then they hang him. Whole thing took less’n an hour.”

  “I didn’t know it was like that here.”

  “And that ain’t all. Some folks has got slaves they done bring along with them. I was thinking there be no slaves way out here.”

  “The way I heard it, that won’t be decided until California becomes a state.”

  “Anyways from what they tell me down there one ol’ master bring his slave out here. Seems the slave keep on dreaming ‘bout gold being under a cabin nearby where they be staying at. Then the master has the same kind of dream so he up and buys the cabin. Then they tears out the floor and starts to digging. They find more than $20,000 in gold in the dirt they digs out!”

  “Twenty thousand! You been having any dreams? I only dream about home.”

  They shared a laugh.

  “Nope. My only dream is to be where there ain’t no slaves and to have myself ‘nough money to live off of.”

  “They say anything else?”

  “Yup. Best to be avoiding the South Fork of the American River. They says there a place nicknamed Hangtown right close to where they first find gold last year. Guess it a good thing we was told to go to the north fork instead.”

  Thomas nodded.

  “Another thing they say is the white miners lately be getting mighty nasty at any foreign peoples like Mexicans or Chinese peoples. They don’t like my kind neither.”

  “Maybe they think there isn’t enough gold.”

  “Maybe. Anyway you slice it I got to stay on. I stay up here with you tonight. But tomorrow I best head back on down there. A feller the name of Paul says I can join them. Says I be living longer if’n I do.”

  Thomas frowned. “But I need you.”

  “I figgered you say that. I’m real sorry but I only be making it harder if’n I stay with you. Best this way.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, sir. They tell me there be a whole mess of Mormons living together not too far up this trail. You probably pass by ‘em tomorrow. Best I kin tell, it be the same everywhere you go. People naturally be with their own kind. Remember back in New York how all the peoples from your country be in the same place? Same for all the Ireland and Italy peoples. Same way with my people. Besides I figgers if white miners be hanging other white miners like they tells me then it ain’t safe for me to be going on.”

  Thomas sighed. “I
was hoping it would be different here.”

  “It be the same all over. I remember how much you talk about how nasty yer old boss in New York be.”

  Thomas blushed.

  “And he even be one your peoples.”

  “He was Prussian! They’re the aristocrats even here in America.”

  “Don’t fret none. Be the same where my folks come from. When I ask them how come they don’t fight against the white slave traders who comes to steal them from Africa they just shrug and say some other tribe in Africa be the ones catching them and selling them to the white folks who come in the big boats.”

  In the morning they shared a quick meal of flapjacks and coffee. They parted as friends do, with a handshake and a promise to reunite, if possible, at a later time.

  “You are one of the few people I know I can trust,” Thomas said. “I feel lonely already.”

  “You know I feel that way about you.”

  James sauntered down the hill with a backpack of food, a blanket, metal plate and spoon, and $26. Because the mule had cost $50, the skillet $2, and James had put up half to buy them Thomas had given him back his investment. That left Thomas with only one $20 gold piece. He wondered how long it would last for him. A sense of loneliness crept over him, alone for the first time since leaving New York. So he did what countless miners before and after him have done, he conversed with his mule.

  He told Daniel that at times he wondered if all the trouble that he had gone through so far was worth it or if he was merely one of untold thousands of foolish would-be