Fool's Gold

by Steve Stroble

basin that contained Los Angeles. Not knowing Spanish, he had pointed at his bloodstained pants and said “Dr. McBride” to every one whom he met. Finally, one whom McBride had treated earlier smiled when he heard the doctor’s name and led Rudolph to him.

  He first had informed the doctor of Thomas and James’ roundabout route and of how Thomas would most likely need his medical skills also. He then had lifted his pant leg to reveal the rotting flesh that surrounded the wound. Even after the amputation, which had taken place within an hour after meeting the doctor, Rudolph had spoken of his intent to return home. McBride had shuddered.

  “And I thought us Scots-Irish were stubborn. Lad, those with two legs are lucky if they can make such journeys. There is only one way you could do it, by taking a ship back home.”

  Rudolph had pondered the doctor’s advice for only a moment. “Then I am stuck here forever. With only one leg to balance myself I would get even more dizzy and seasick than the last time. I would then stumble around until I fell overboard.”

  He then sank into a dark mood for two days. Only McBride’s optimism saved him from putting his revolver to his temple. The good doctor spun tales of better days ahead when both would finally hit their strike in the mountains to the north. McBride claimed he could only do it with Rudolph helping him. Rudolph had no choice but to rehabilitate, the doctor said.

  The doctor’s orders included Rudolph walking as much as possible with wooden crutches. McBride had seen too many amputees stay in bed until they wasted away and died. During one such walk, McBride sensed Rudolph’s still unfulfilled dreams of finding gold in abundance. So the doctor promised to occasionally take him to the best sites that he had mined during the small gold rush about a decade earlier. Because those mountains could be seen from the proposed 100-acre purchase that the doctor was willing to share as home sites and farm with any partners, Rudolph eventually had succumbed to the generous offer and handed over one-third of the purchase price.

  “You know what they says,” McBride had intoned. “Two’s better than one. So that can only mean that three’s better than two. With you, me, and Thomas working together we’ll be able to live out the rest of our lives maybe a wee bit happier than if we goes our separate ways. Especially you. You’re tough enough that you won’t ever let the loss of your leg slow you down much. Anyone can see that. But, by God, having friends nearby is worth more than a whole mountain of gold. You know you got that here. Believe me when I tell you I speak from bitter experience. There’s been many a time I wished I still had the friends from my youth close by me now.” He stared at the waves of the Pacific as his mind wandered back to them and their faces appeared from his memory. “Come to think of it that must be why I’ve taken to you and Thomas so much. You both remind me of them, you really do.”

  It was Thomas’ condition that convinced Rudolph that staying was the right decision. McBride told him that it was unlikely that Thomas could survive any journey, by land or sea, back to his family. Even if he did survive the journey the cold damp winters back east would kill him instead. Rudolph wrote to his wife and asked her to join with Thomas’ family and journey to New York City and then around the southern tip of the Americas by steamship. He promised that homes would be awaiting both families when they arrived.

  The letter took six months to reach Jane. She immediately sent a return letter. After she had telegraphed Harriet to tell of their husbands’ condition, the two wives sold everything but clothing and a few precious items and met in New York. Less than two months later the two women and their children boarded a steamship that would deposit them and their eight steamer trunks filled with keepsakes and clothing in Los Angeles about five months later. By then the houses had been finished and James was crafting the beds, tables, dressers, cabinets, and chairs that would furnish them.

  James mostly supervised his employees at his thriving furniture shop; his arthritis left him little choice. Once the first rancho owner had shown off his new furniture, orders from his neighbors started to pour in to James. It was he who had carved Rudolph’s first set of permanent crutches. He was visiting Rudolph the day before the steamship with the families would arrive. Rudolph was certain that Los Angeles would never grow as large as the cities on the East Coast. By his reckoning it would never have as many people as Sacramento or San Francisco or even Elmira, for that matter.

  “It’s almost like desert here,” Rudolph said. “Most of the rivers empty into the ocean instead of lakes and then go dry when the rains stop. The north part of California is where many people will settle. There’s more than enough water and fertile land there to grow anything. Too bad that it’s impossible to move any of that water from there to here. But there is no way on earth to get it over the mountains that surround Los Angeles.”

  “Just hold still a minute while I measure you for your new crutches.” James set down the pair that he was working on. “You sure tore up your old ones looking for gold again with Dr. McBride.”

  Epilogue

  Mr. Yee returned to China and bought his beloved out of her enslavement as a prostitute. Tired of the mayhem that accompanies gold strikes, he brought her to New York City where they began several successful businesses that their children inherited.

  James met his match in a former slave who had come west with her parents. He worried for a time when the California Legislature passed a law in 1852 concerning fugitive slaves who had entered California prior to 1852. If caught, they were to be returned to their masters. But he weathered the law and no one arrived at his door looking for him. One of James’ sons preached occasionally at a small church on Azusa Street during the period when God the Holy Spirit showed up in most unusual ways.

  McBride, semi-retired, continued to treat all who came to him for help. His son became a doctor and his daughter a nurse.

  Rudolph spent much of his free time in the mountains that loomed north of the farm. Annoyed by his absences, his wife and children often accompanied him. Soon such excursions included camping and enjoying the views of the Pacific to the west and deserts to the east and the magnificent sunrises and sunsets when the sunlight transformed the land and seascapes into unearthly shades of color. They were moderately successful during the gold strike of 1860 in those mountains. His grandchildren were very successful when they sold off their share of the farm after World War II.

  His lungs ruined for life, Thomas worked, the little that he was able on the farm. His wife and children filled in as necessary. Thomas kept an abridged copy of The Miner’s Ten Commandments on his kitchen wall until the day that he died:

  Thou shalt have no other claim than one.

  Thou shalt not make unto thyself any false claim.

  Thou shalt not go prospecting before thy claim gives out.

  Six days thou mayest pick or dig all that thy body can stand under.

  Thou shalt not think more of all thy gold and how thou canst make it fastest, than how thou wilt enjoy it, after thou hast ridden roughshod over thy good parents’ precepts and examples.

  Thou shalt not kill thy body by working in the rain.

  Thou shalt not grow discouraged or think of going home before thou hast made thy pile.

  Thou shalt not steal a pick, or a shovel, or a pan from thy fellow miner.

  Thou shalt not tell any false tales about “good diggings in the mountains” to thy neighbor

  Thou shalt not commit unsuitable matrimony, nor covet “single blessedness,” nor forget absent maidens, nor neglect thy “first love;” but thou shalt consider how faithfully and patiently she awaits thy return.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for reading this story.

  Thank you to my wife Jean. She has endured my dream of writing ever since I banged out the first manuscript (never published) on a typewriter on our kitchen table in 1976. As always she offered valuable input for this book.

  Thank you to James, GoOnWrite.com for the cover.

  Thank you to those from the Lodi Writers’ Group that
critiqued the first three pages. Their recommendations were used throughout the book.

  Lastly, thank you to Rick Tanquist. His edits brought it all together.

  Any errors that remain are mine.

  Some of the books read for research include the following:

  The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer and Adolph Hitler by John Toland provide insights into 19th Century Germany even though their main focus is on the following century.

  Migrations and Cultures by Thomas Sowell details African, European, and Russian migration to America.

  Robespierre by Otto J. Scott examines the French Revolution

  Wagons West by Frank McLynn and The Oregon Trail by David Dary chronicle life on the trails in the 1800s. The Age of Gold by H.W. Brands and The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience by Howard Lamar record the experiences of miners during the California Gold Rush.

  The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan by Ben Macintyre is the true story of an American adventurer who inspired Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King.

  The Millenial Maze by Stanley Grenz offers a levelheaded analysis of eschatology, an area where too many Christians end up greatly disappointed.

  For a sample of some free short stories, please visit https://shortstorystop.wordpress.com/