Fool's Gold

by Steve Stroble

prospectors. He asked the beast if he knew of the best places to look for the shiny metal. Daniel plodded along. He occasionally turned his brown eyes toward his master. This was acceptable for Thomas. He had never met any person who listened as well as this mule. They had gone a little less than a mile when off to the right Thomas spotted the Mormon settlement James had spoken of the night before.

  Thomas studied his map and judged that the amount of time it would take to alter his course to the wooden structures and tents was not worth his while. He still wanted to delay purchasing tools until he could buy them for as little as possible, especially because he only had $20 left.

  Besides it would put extra weight on Daniel if I buy them now from over there. And that would slow us down from getting to where the gold is at.

  His path became steeper as it twisted into the foothills of the Sierra. After seven more miles he stopped for a short lunch. While Daniel grazed on the shrubs Thomas ate cold flapjacks leftover from breakfast. He sprinkled them with sugar to add a little more flavor. While he was finishing the last one two miners, headed downhill to Sutter’s Fort, came into view. Thomas was amazed at how tired and skinny that they looked. Their clothes were filled with holes.

  “Howdy, lad,” the elder one said. “Have ye got any vittles you can spare for us?”

  “Vittles?” Thomas’ grasp of English did not yet extend to the strange forms of the vernacular that it took in America.

  “You know. Grub. Chow. Food.” The miner gestured as if he were eating.

  “Oh. Yes. You can have flour, yah?” Thomas walked over to Daniel and retrieved the bag of flour from the makeshift saddlebag. “Do you have something to put it in?”

  “Sure do. Plop it in this here frying pan after I grease it on up. Ronnie, you git us a fire going. If we don’t eat right quick now we’ll faint dead away ‘fore we reach Sacramento.”

  “Okay.” The lad of fourteen obeyed.

  While he built the fire, his companion pulled out a jar from his tattered backpack and gazed at his most valued possession. He opened the jar and spread the rancid bacon grease into the pan. After the fire was going and the grease had liquefied the cook added the one and only course. Into the pan went small balls of flour dampened by enough water to turn the white powder to dough. Thomas glanced sideways at the concoction.

  “You want some, too?” The stranger pointed to the frying meal. “Not real tasty but it’s better than starving.”

  “No thank you. I have to go.” Thomas walked toward Daniel.

  “Where to?”

  “I’m headed up to the north fork of the river.”

  “Hot damn! That’s where we just come from. Name’s Ken. This here’s my nephew Ronnie. You look like you came by boat. I can tell ‘cause you still got fat left on you. Where your home be at? We hail from Indiana.”

  “New York.” Thomas returned to the fire and sat down. He calculated that he could spend a short time in conversation. What I learn might help me. “Why don’t you have any tools?”

  “We used to. Had to sell them. We got to the diggings last fall. It was good at first. Real good. Found quite a bit along the south fork. When that got too crowded we moved over to the middle fork. Built us a cabin with three other fellers and spent the whole winter there. But before winter was even over the middle fork was crawling with miners, too. Looked like ants picking the bones off of a dead cow. So a couple months back we moseyed on up here to the north fork.”

  “Did you find a lot of gold there?”

  “Nowhere near as much as we did last year down on the south fork. Not enough to survive on. Huh, Ronnie?”

  “Amen, Uncle Ken. We ain’t found our pot of gold yet. Shoot, we ain’t even found a rainbow to lead us to it neither, tell you what. This here gold business be like trying to catch a greased pig.”

  “Like I was saying, we was down to this here last jar of bacon grease when you comes along. Boy, you’re like an angel from the Lord. My stomach’s been growling like a bear for a day now.”

  “Mine too.” Ronnie grabbed for another fried ball of dough.

  Thomas hesitated but then acted. “Wait a minute before you eat that, Ronnie. I have something to make it taste better.” He returned to Daniel and fetched his bag of sugar. “Please put it back in the pan.”

  “Okay.” Ronnie dropped it into the pan. His eyes widened as Thomas poured a little more than a cup of sugar over the remaining 11 balls of dough. “Oh, my God! He sure as hell has got to be an angel! Who else out here is so damn generous?” Ronnie grabbed Thomas’ arm and felt it. “Uncle Ken, is angels supposed to have flesh and bone? I thought they be spirits.”

  Ken’s laugh echoed off the nearby hills. “Don’t rightly know. All I knows is that this boy’s an answer to prayer. For the past five miles I’ve been talking to the Lord. You know, silent like so’s you couldn’t hear, Ronnie. I was a pissing and a moaning and a groaning and a crying the worst I ever has in all of my 48 years. I told the Lord straight out that if’n He didn’t bring us some kind of food, any kind of food our way real quick like that you and me be goners for sure. You know I ain’t no godly man at all, Ronnie. But all I knows is that the Lord done gone and answered my prayer.”

  Between mouthfuls of the sugary makeshift donuts, Ken spent the next half hour giving an education to Thomas. He passed on all that he knew about gold mining in general and doing it along the North Fork of the American River in particular.

  Thomas learned that in excellent yielding areas claims often were limited to as little as ten square feet. At poorer locations claims as large as 100 square feet were allowed. Any miner leaving his claim usually had to place his tools on it to mark it as his, otherwise another could come along and claim the spot. Most mining camps had laws posted. They usually defined the boundaries of the camp, the allowable size of claims, how many claims per miner, reasons a claim could be forfeited, and acceptable ways to mark a claim (such as stakes and a written notice). There were rules governing companies of more than one miner, and procedures to settle the disputes that would invariably arise. Ken told Thomas to read all of them carefully and ask that any that he did not understand be explained to him.

  “Otherwise you might end up swinging from a tree.” Ken pointed to a nearby Digger Pine. “I seen it happen three times. Most dangerous part of mining is getting lynched. No offense boy, but I kin tell you be some kind of foreigner. Your English be sounding good but you still got one hell of an accent. If you can find one of your kind who speaks what you talked back in the old country ask them to explain the dos and don’ts of where you be mining. I’d hate for you to end up dead ‘cause you didn’t know the camp’s laws.”

  The miner went on to explain the difference between pyrite, known as fool’s gold to most miners, and the genuine mineral. The worthless imitation would shatter if pounded; gold would flatten. Fool’s gold would feel gritty when bitten, gold smooth. Lastly, real gold would shine evenly while fool’s gold would have an uneven shine. Most importantly, Ken shared where to look. Soil with a red color was more likely to yield pay dirt. The top of hills and their bottoms were also good spots to stake a claim, he said.

  “Look for a small stream or creek bed that runs off a hill down to the river. Even if it be all dried up sometimes there could be gold lodged up at the top that the winter and spring rains didn’t get a chance to push all the way down the hill. And there should be lots of flakes and dust where the creek bed runs into the river.” Ken grinned. “And if you want to buy a claim, beware of the gun that won the West.”

  “Yah. A cowboy I met showed me his Colt revolver. He used to be a Texas Ranger. He said it would be the gun to win the West. So I will beware of the miners that have them.”

  “No, no, no. That cowboy feller is talking about being in a gunfight with some desperado that be thinking he’s faster on the draw than you. That’s real bad all right. But what I’m talking about is when a skunk of a miner loads his shotgun with gold dust and shoots up a worthless claim with it.
Then the buyer thinks he is gitting a good claim. Another thing I forgot to tell you. Once you git yerself a claim, work it. Don’t be like Ronnie and me. We got ourselves lump fever more than once and took off where the grass was greener.”

  “Lump fever? That is like scarlet fever?”

  “No, no, no. Sure ain’t no doubt you is still a babe in the woods when we be talking mining and such stuff like that. Lump fever is when you believe every tall tale, story, and rumor comes along about how good a new find is and you quit your claim and take off for the new find. Take all of what you hear with a grain of salt. Some people like to tell whoppers so they kin look real important. Other people tell tall tales for the pure pleasure of telling a whopper. Then there is those who does it ‘cause they got nothing better to do, I reckon.” Ken stood and patted his stomach. “Finally quit growling like some fired up hungry grizzly bear that just woke up after hibernating all winter. Well, we best be heading down the hill to Sutter’s Fort and then Sacramento. Old Sutter got the place back in shape yet? When we passed that way last year all the dishonest miners were tearing it up real bad.”

  Thomas’ head sagged. “No.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Terrible when a man pours his heart and soul into something like he did only to have a bunch of morons come along and destroy it.