Dakota Gold

by Tim Champlin

By daylight the snow was still falling straight down, and had developed into large, fluffy flakes. And Wiley was running a fever to go along with his cough. By silent, common agreement we didn't attempt to go outside or do any sluicing that day. We sat, wrapped in our coats and blankets, near the glowing stove and drank hot tea and coffee. At Wiley's insistence, we laced his black coffee with whiskey and sugar, but Curt was hesitant to do that, fearing it might make his condition worse. He gave in only after he had stoked Wiley with a good breakfast of flapjacks, maple syrup, and bacon.

  Shortly after, Wiley rolled up in his blankets and was dead asleep again in a couple of minutes.

  "What do you reckon's wrong with him?" I asked Curt as we looked at the sleeping form.

  "Don't rightly know. Could be most anything. Exhaustion. Maybe some sort of mountain fever."

  "Well, we have nothing to treat him with, even if we knew."

  "Oh, yes we do," Cathy said. "We have love and concern. We can keep him warm and well fed. We'll let him sleep a lot. We can give him hot tea and hope the fever will break. And we can pray." Her eyes were bright with tears, but her voice was firm.

  As she spoke, she was dipping a cloth into a pan of water, wringing it out and wiping her brother's flushed face.

  I think all of us were glad for a day off from our prospecting. We spent the hours cleaning up our neglected tent, airing out our blankets, changing and washing our clothes. Curt hauled water from the creek in buckets and heated it on the stove. We also washed ourselves as best we could, and Curt and I shaved. I, for one, felt a hundred percent better after I had cleaned up.

  Wiley slept off and on through the day. He was restless, and apparently dreaming, but he slept.

  "I think I'll go back to Kentucky for a visit," Cathy announced as we were cooking supper late that afternoon. Curt and I stared at her with our mouths open. She didn't look up from pulling at some loose threads on her blanket.

  "Why?" Curt asked finally.

  She took a deep breath before she answered. "I've been thinking about it for some time. Wiley can come with me if he wants to. But I haven't been home in over a year, and I'm sure that none of the family knows about my father's death. On second thought, they may have heard about it through the New Hope Mining and Milling Company, where he worked. The company probably got the news from the official dispatches of the battle. In any event, we need to settle up his affairs if it hasn't already been done. We were his closest kin."

  She looked at Wi1ey's clammy face where he lay sleeping. "I don't want him to die in this wilderness. And I'm afraid that's what will happen if he stays. Of course, it's up to him what he wants to do. But I'd like to get him home for a visit, anyway."

  "If you're going, you'd better not wait too long," Curt said, obviously disappointed. "The stages to Cheyenne will only be running on an irregular schedule from now on until winter shuts them down completely. And that probably won't be long."

  "The first thing is to get Wiley well, or at least well enough to travel. That is, if he decides to go."

  "Will you … will you be back in the Spring?" Curt asked, as if he were afraid to voice the question.

  "I might. I'm not sure at this point. Now that my father is gone—and I had been traveling with him--1 need to decide what I'm going to do with myself."

  At this point supper was ready, and no more was said on the subject. We fell to as though we hadn't eaten for days.

  The snow continued that night and most of the next day. It stopped the second night, and the sky cleared, but it then grew bitterly cold. We had not bought any heavy winter clothes, and we spent a miserable night sleeping as close to our small sheet-iron stove as possible, while wrapped in everything we owned. The only good thing that happened was the two feet of drifted snow insulating our log foundation and the base of the tent prevented the rising wind from whipping in around the corners.

  Wiley's fever rose during the night, and we took turns swabbing him with cool, wet cloths. He became delirious and mumbled and spoke unintelligibly, sometimes with his unseeing eyes wide open. Between caring for him and hauling wood from outside the tent to stoke our voracious stove, we got little sleep that night.

  Sometime in the early morning hours, his fever broke in a flood of perspiration. We dried him off and wrapped him up again. About an hour after daylight he opened his eyes weakly and asked for something to eat. His handsome face was pale and covered with stubble, and his cheeks and eyes looked sunken. Cathy fed him hot broth and a small piece of corn bread, and he lapsed into another sleep, but-this time he appeared to be resting comfortably.

  All day the sun shone on the dazzling white snow, but the wind gusted bitterly, and little, if any, melting took place. Curt and I took turns breaking through the snow to tend the animals, who had found shelter under a rocky overhang at the head of the valley, about eighty yards from our tent. Here, what little snow had swirled underneath was shallow, and easily pawed away by the animals for the still-green grass beneath.

  It was three more days before the weather moderated sufficiently to travel. It was muddy, and our stream was gushing full to overflowing, but more bare patches than snow patches were showing.

  Wiley had recovered almost completely, although he still looked very thin. He was eating everything in sight and joking, so we knew he was his old self again. When Cathy proposed the trip home to him, he didn't have to weigh the decision for more than five minutes. He would go. He expressed some regret at leaving us, but the prospect of enduring one of the high plains winters the northern Hills were subject to appalled him even more.

  The next day the thaw continued, with some sunshine and a temperature in the high fifties. The horse carried Cathy and Wiley double while Curt and I rode the mules, as we set out for Deadwood. We arrived there shortly after ten, and a drearier sight we could hardly have imagined. The weather had slowed activity in the town considerably, and just getting around was a major problem, since the main street was a quagmire of sticky gumbo.

  Curt and I had decided to go down to Cheyenne on the stage with them to see them off on the Union Pacific. We needed a break ourselves, and we were all a little tired of looking at the Hills and Deadwood.

  We turned our animals into the nearest livery stable to be grain-fed and cared for while we were gone, and then walked to the Wells Fargo office to buy our tickets.

  "That'll be a hundred and twenty-three dollars each, one-way," the blond agent, Bundy, told us.

  "Two one-way, and two round-trip," Curt said, pulling out one of our pokes to pay.

  The agent weighed out nearly seven hundred dollars' worth of our hard-earned dust, wrote out our tickets, stamped them, and handed them over to us.

  "If you're carrying any valuables or dust on your persons, I have to warn you that you do so at your own risk. The company assumes no liability for anything except express packages or bullion."

  "Does that mean we're liable to get robbed?" Curt asked.

  "We've had a few holdups," Bundy conceded. "We're able to take measures to protect treasure shipments, but we have no way of protecting passengers in the same way. We do everything we can to safeguard our passengers, of course," Bundy assured us, "but we must warn you that there is some risk involved."

  "Hell, Bundy, you can level with us," I said. "Is there gold aboard this coach?"

  He looked at me closely, and then a flicker of recognition crossed his face. "Oh, yes. You two were in here the last time we had a robbery."

  "That's been three or four weeks. Is that the last time there was a holdup?" Wiley asked.

  "That's the last time a treasure coach was held up," Bundy replied evasively.

  "You didn't answer our question: Is there gold aboard this coach?"

  "I'm sorry, but company policy now dictates that we cannot give out that information."

  "Don't worry," a bewhiskered miner in the room said as he overheard the conversation. "If you see a lot of guards and outriders, you know there's gold aboard." He ambled on outside
to prop a chair in the wan sunshine and work a fresh chew into his cheek.

  "How long will it take us to get to Cheyenne?" I asked Bundy.

  "You'll have to check with the driver. It's hard to maintain any kind of a schedule this time of year. Could be as little as two and a half days, on up to six days, depending on the condition of the roads and the weather."

  "In that case, I think I'll get a little food to carry along."

  "Oh, there is food available at the stations along the way," Bundy said.

  "We've heard," Wiley replied, making a wry face.

  Two more people came into the office, and the four of us went outside into the chilly air and started toward the nearest grocery store, being careful to stay on the sidewalk to avoid the gumbo of the street.

  "How do you feel, Cathy?" I asked as she walked on ahead of me. "You look like you're a little fuller in the hips than you were yesterday." Her short doeskin jacket barely reached her hips.

  She grinned at me over her shoulder. "I feel heavy. My thighs and hips sure didn't need any more padding."

  "That's about the most expensive outfit you're ever likely to wear," her brother said.

  Curt looked around to make sure we weren't being overheard. "That was a good idea of yours to sew that gold dust into thin strips up and down the inside of your pants," he told her. "Besides being inconspicuous, I doubt that any would-be robber would search a woman that close."

  "I'm at least six pounds heavier," Cathy said. "My legs feel strange."

  We bought a small block of cheese, some bread, and some canned oysters. Curt had a two-quart canteen of water slung over his shoulder.

  We all had our warmest, and only, coats on. But we still shivered in the damp, chill air. Snow was still piled between the buildings and on the shaded hillsides. The only remaining green was provided by the firs and pines. We stepped into Rosenthal's Jeweler and redeemed our repaired watches.

  When we got back to the Wells Fargo office, the stock handlers were leading the six-horse hitch out into the street. They began tightening and adjusting the traces. The team had in tow a beautiful red Concord coach with gold trim and lettering. Across the top, above the windows, were the words, Wells Fargo & Co. Overland Stage, and on the door, above a symbolic white eagle with spread wings, the words, U.S. Mail. The eight-foot high coach appeared to have been recently washed and was gleaming in its red paint and big yellow wheels, with its brassbound lanterns on either side.

  Only after I had pulled my eyes away from the graceful curves of the coach did I notice the other passengers waiting on the wooden boardwalk. Besides the four of us, there was a miner with a full, bushy, salt-and-pepper beard. He was dressed in heavy canvas overalls and a blanket coat. A black hat was pulled low on his head, effectively hiding the part of his face that wasn't already covered by the beard.

  The remaining passenger was a well-dressed man of medium height who wore a thick, squared-off mustache of dark brown that hid his mouth. He was wearing glasses that were silver-rimmed, with lenses of an unusually large size, compared to normal reading glasses. He had on a black, medium-crowned hat with a rather narrow brim, a white shirt and tie, a short overcoat of black wool that reached only halfway between his waist and knees, and stylish, polished boots. I took in all this in a casual sort of way, trying not to be too obvious about it. The man stood aloof, his overcoat thrown back and one hand thrust into an inside pocket. He seemed a little agitated as he paced a few steps back and forth on the boardwalk, chewing on the ends of his mustache and occasionally slipping out his watch to check the time.

  Stacked on the edge of the walk were some small packages and boxes, a canvas mailbag, a leather valise, a canvas sack tied at the top, and our own luggage in two small canvas packs. After the driver had stowed all of this except the mailbag in the rear boot and tied it shut, Agent Bundy and the shotgun messenger came out the door, carrying the familiar Wells Fargo green strongbox between them. They lifted it into the front boot. The mailbag was flung in after it.

  I was surprised to see that the shotgun messenger was none other than Sheriff Ben Pierce. He looked grim and businesslike as usual.

  "Reckon he's working for the company now, or do you think they can't get anybody else to ride guard?" Wiley voiced my own question quietly to the four of us.

  "Don't know," I replied. "He's still wearing his badge."

  "Maybe this is a special run."

  "Well, if that strongbox was full of gold, they're taking no pains to hide the shipment."

  "It did look pretty heavy," Curt put in, "but it could be a decoy. I don't see anyone getting ready to escort us as outriders, as the oldtimer said they would."

  "Okay, folks, let's get aboard. We're movin' out!" the driver called sharply as he stepped up on the hub and swung himself deftly onto the high box. The six of us climbed in, Curt holding the door for Cathy to go first. She sat facing forward between me and Curt, as we sat facing the miner, the well-dressed man, and Wiley opposite. Thank God we weren't crowded enough to have someone on the middle bench between us. Bundy slammed the door and signaled the driver.

  I pulled out the watch I had just gotten back from Rosenthal's. It was 11:05.

  Before I could even snap the case shut, the driver's shout came through the open windows, and a crack of his whip sent the team and coach lunging away toward Cheyenne.

  CHAPTER 10

  After the first flourish of leaving town, the horses settled into a trot, and the corduroy road kept us from getting bogged down in the soft gumbo. The wheels were spinning off a fine spray of, mud and water past our windows, and the coach rocked fore and aft on its thick leather thoroughbraces as we wound down the valley. It had been a long time, I reflected, since I had reclined on red leather upholstery.

  Wiley, sitting opposite me, still looked wan and weak. He just drew his coat closer around him against the draft and stared out at the passing scenery. The man next to him in the middle was the well-dressed, nervous passenger. He seemed oblivious to everyone else in the coach. The faraway look in his eyes denoted some problem I could only guess at. In spite of the presence of a lady, he pulled a long, slim cheroot from an inside pocket and struck a match to it, cupping his hand around the flame until it was well-lighted and glowing. The bearded miner was also silent, his hat pulled low over his face as he appeared to be almost dozing. Everyone seemed to be engrossed in his own private thoughts.

  It was going to be a long, lonely winter in Deadwood for me without Cathy and Wiley. I felt I had known them for years, instead of the few short months that had passed since our lives became so intertwined. Curt, who never let his emotions show very much, must have been feeling an even greater sense of loss than I from Cathy's leaving. I could only guess at how close their relationship had grown, either emotionally or physically or both, in the weeks since we had deserted the Third Cavalry. If they were contemplating marriage, I had gotten no wind of it. But then, I never was the type to pry into another man's or woman's personal affairs. My reporter's nose didn't lead me to inquire into affairs of the heart. But besides being good-looking and sometimes emotional, Cathy Jenkins was, above all, practical.

  My thoughts drifted off Curt and Cathy, and I began to wonder what was happening on my old newspaper in Chicago. Could it be possible that my editor didn't yet know I wasn't coming back? From what I had gathered from the Deadwood weekly, The Pioneer, the companies that had fought the summer campaign had just disbanded at Fort Robinson, in Nebraska. Maybe I had been reported missing in action against the Sioux, and was presumed a dead hero. I smiled at the thought. A hero rather than a man who helped a cowardly deserter. Then a sudden thought occurred to me: Maybe I should telegraph my editor that I had resigned, and request my summer's pay, I would tell him I had decided to prospect for gold. I tried to estimate what my salary would amount to for three or four months. It should be at least four hundred dollars. That would sure help offset the damnably expensive stage fare and the cost of the basic staples in the Hills. I re
solved to give it a try when we reached Cheyenne. I had nothing to lose except the cost of a telegram.

  About twelve-thirty we reached the first stage station, a log affair with a barn and a small corral, about ten to twelve miles from Deadwood. We all alighted to stretch our legs while the teams were being changed by the station keeper and stock handler. With the story of the robbery at this station still fresh in my mind, I paced around with my hand on the walnut butt of my Colt under my corduroy coat. I didn't go near the log station, but just stepped behind a tree at the edge of the woods to relieve myself.

  The teams were changed quickly and without incident as I looked around at the silent wilderness of wooded hills that closed in on every side of the clearing. In about fifteen minutes we were on our way again.

  It must have been almost an hour later when what I was secretly dreading finally happened. The gentle rocking of the stage was lulling me into a doze, in spite of the chilly breeze puffing in the right-side window where I was sitting. The horses had slowed to a walk on a long upgrade when the coach suddenly lurched to a stop.

  I snapped fully awake, thinking we had jammed a wheel against a boulder. But just as my eyes focused, I found myself staring into the open end of a double-barreled shotgun pointing in the window on my side.

  "Everybody out!" came the abrupt command. Even though I had halfway expected a holdup, I'm sure my face reflected my surprise at the suddenness of it. "Move!" the voice snapped when we were slow to obey his first command. The masked robber backed his horse as I swung the door open and stepped stiffly out, followed by the other five passengers. The road was narrow at this point, dropping off a few feet to the right into a steep, pine-covered hillside.

  The mounted robber wore a sugar sack over his head, with only two holes cut for his eyes. He wore a hat over this. He held his horse with his left hand, and the short, double-barreled shotgun never wavered in his right.

  We lined up alongside the coach, with our hands in the air. Glancing slightly to my left, I could see another masked rider holding a Winchester on the guard and driver. The driver had his right foot on the brake and still held the reins in one hand over his head. Sheriff Pierce's shotgun was nowhere in sight. Apparently, he had been caught as much by surprise as those of us inside.