by Fools Gold
He fell silent and they both stared out into the blackness while the wind sighed through the rocks.
“So tell me about your Hugh,” Gabe said at last. “He must be quite a man to make you come so far after him.”
“Hugh is . . . Hugh is different,” Libby said. “Have you ever seen a drawing of Puck? You know, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Hugh is like that. He’s somehow not affected by the real world. He goes through money like a sieve, and he will have forgotten to pick me up from the milliners because he was writing a sonnet. He can be quite exasperating at times. He’s quite impractical. That’s why I have to go to him. He won’t have a clue how to survive in a mining camp. He probably won’t have a clue how to dig up gold—he wasn’t born to be a laborer.”
“And you were?”
“I was born strong,” Libby said. “I was headstrong, even as a little girl. My governess said I’d come to a bad end.”
Gabe laughed. “Seeing you here, she’d probably say that she’d been proved right.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“So you’re off to rescue an impractical, exasperating man who spends money and writes sonnets,” Gabe said. “He must have some good qualities too, or you’d have said good riddance and begun searching for a replacement.”
“He has many good qualities,” Libby said. “The most wonderful curly hair, for one thing.”
“Has anyone ever crossed a continent for curly hair before, I wonder?”
“And he has the nicest nature,” Libby said firmly, conscious that Gabe was teasing her. “He looks at me as if I am the most wonderful thing on the earth, and he adores the children. He acts as if they can do no wrong, and as if he is the only man who has ever fathered a child.” She smiled at the memory of him, suddenly sharp and clear, with Bliss astride his shoulders, playing at horsey. “I’m a very lucky woman,” she added. “Not many women can say they’ve a husband who still adores them after seven years.”
“I’d say he was a very lucky man,” Gabe said quietly. “Not many men have a wife who would tramp halfway across the world in search of him.”
“As I told you before,” Libby said, “I was brought up on duty and loyalty, although had I known what terrible things lay ahead, I doubt I would have been so eager to set off.”
“Yes you would. Once you’d made up your mind to go, wild horses wouldn’t have stopped you. You are the most stubbornly determined woman I’ve ever met, Libby Grenville.”
“Am I to take that as insult or compliment, Mr. Foster?”
“We’ve known each other for a thousand miles and the nearest person is a half-mile away. Can’t I now be Gabe?”
“Very well—Gabe,” she said softly.
“Much better.”
“I still have to thank you for what you did for Luke,” Libby said. “You showed that you could be very caring and very kind. I really appreciated it.”
“Thank you,” Gabe said. “So does that mean we’re not enemies anymore? You don’t hate me?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever hated you.”
“Is there then a possibility that we can be friends for the rest of this journey at least?”
“I think I would be unwise to turn down any offer of friendship right now,” Libby said.
“Shall we shake on it?” Gabe asked and extended his hand to her.
As she took his outstretched hand and it closed around hers, it was as if a jolt of electricity ran up her arm and spread throughout her whole body.
“I, er, really should go back now. My daughters might wake and wonder where I’ve got to,” she said shakily, pulling her hand away.
“I’ll walk down with you,” he said.
They came down the hill in companionable silence.
CHAPTER 13
AUGUST 5, 1849. At last we are moving along at a good pace, now that the weather is cooler and there is enough water. I was despondent at first when I learned that we had half our journey ahead of us, but the air up here is very bracing and everyone is in good spirits. I think we all reason that downhill is preferable to uphill! Beautiful, majestic scenery—mountain peaks tipped with snow and strange rock formations that look like the columns of an ancient city. The men are shooting plenty of game at the springs we pass. I have a horrible feeling that I’ll have to learn to pluck wildfowl and skin rabbits before long. So far the men have been kind enough to do this for me.
The days in the high country were the most pleasant portion of the journey so far. There was no more mention of cholera and everyone seemed to have overcome the mountain sickness so that they went about chores whistling and addressed each other with good-natured insults. There was feed for the animals and everyone seemed to think that California was almost within reach, if they kept up a good pace.
It was hard to say when all this changed. One by one the good springs died out. There were several frightening descents into steep valleys. The drivers would lock the rear wheels and let the wagons slither down behind their terrified, complaining teams while everyone else stood well out of the way. But then came the terrible descent to Goose Creek. From above it looked insane to even consider taking wagons down.
“There must be a better way,” Rival shouted.
Jimmy shrugged. “If there is, nobody’s found it yet. We have to follow the valley and this is the valley.”
“Take good care of my provisions, you hear,” Rival shouted after him. “You better not spill one sack . . .”
They took down the first wagon with teams of men using ropes to keep it from sliding into the animals, who could barely keep their feet. It took agonizing minutes to get it down and then the same thing had to be repeated with the second wagon, and then the third. When it came to the water wagon, either the ropes had been tried to their limits or the cargo was just too heavy. Suddenly, there was the groan of snapping rope, the cries of the men, and the wagon going faster and faster. The men on the other rope tried to hold on, but they were dragged down the rocks as the wagon slithered sideways, hit a rock and tipped, rolling over and over, dragging two of the screaming oxen with it and spilling water barrels which bounced and broke in a cascade all the way to the bottom.
Sheldon Rival was beside himself with impotent rage. “Fools! Incompetent fools! Look what you’ve done! My water! My precious water,” he yelled, running to try and salvage the last drops from shattered barrels. He paid no attention to the dying oxen, thrashing to free themselves from the shafts, nor to the men who clambered down with scraped arms and legs.
“You were paid to get my stuff through safely,” he shouted to Jimmy. “Now I’m damned if I’ll pay you at all.”
“You’ll not live to finish the journey if you don’t pay the men what you owe them,” Jimmy shouted back. “They did their best. The wagon was too heavy. I kept telling you that. Now you’ll just have to drink spring water like the rest of us. You’ll survive.”
The camp was in a somber mood when they stopped that night. It had been very reassuring to have a wagon full of water barrels. Now there was no guarantee of fresh water, no way of carrying it if they found it, and the true desert lay ahead. The six oxen from the wrecked wagon all had to be shot and the men stewed the tough, stringy meat, putting out strips of meat for jerky to dry on the hot rocks.
When they set out again, they travelled as fast as they dared, eager to reach the Humboldt River. That river was supposed to take them almost into California, through many miles of near desert. But the meeting up with the Humboldt, as August was drawing to a close, added to the depression that settled over the company. They had been looking forward to following a major river down to the lowlands, confident that a constant source of water flowed beside them. The Humboldt turned out to be a muddy, salty stream, not much more than a trickle in places, too bitter for humans to drink. On a rock beside it was scrawled Humbug River, so obviously previous parties had been equally disillusioned.
Each day Libby could sense that morale was getting worse. The men slunk a
bout their chores muttering to each other. Nobody whistled. A scout was sent out ahead to look for a camping site with good water. When he didn’t come back, a search party was sent for him. They found him among rocks with an arrow in his back. There was no sign of his horse. “Digger Indians” was whispered around camp and that night the guard was doubled. Rumors about the Diggers spread and inflated in the darkness. It was said that they crept into camps and murdered everyone in their sleep, or that they stole all the animals and left expeditions to die. They could move so silently and invisibly through the rocks that they could get past any lookout.
“I say we go after ‘em and hunt ‘em down like the animals they are,” one of the men yelled. “We should avenge poor old Joe.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Jimmy’s big voice answered. “They know this country like the back of their hands. They’d melt into the rocks and you could spend a month looking. We’ll just press on as quickly as possible.”
Gabe brought his bedding roll and saddle over to Libby’s wagon. “I think I’ll sleep better away from all that noise,” he said. Libby recognized that he was guarding her and the children and she was grateful.
For the next days they moved with armed guards riding up and down the column but they saw no more signs of Indians. There were dead animals in plenty beside the trail, but these had obviously died from exhaustion rather than arrows. The trail began to be littered again as parties ahead had to consolidate provisions into fewer wagons with fewer animals to pull them. The smell of spoiled food and other human debris, as well as the dead animals rotting quickly in the scorching sun made the going very unpleasant.
“Mama, it smells bad,” Bliss complained. “There’s bad drains here.”
“Stay inside the wagon and hold up your handkerchief like I do,” Libby said, laughing at the thought of drains in the middle of a desert.
The two girls let down the wagon flaps and Libby held her scarf to her mouth, trying to stare at the majestic skyline of bare mountains ahead rather than look at the pathetic sights beside the trail.
At last the Humboldt River petered out into a scummy salt marsh in a desert. The animals tried to drink, then backed away again. There was no choice but to press on.
“No more good water between here and California,” someone muttered.
Just before nightfall they saw a magnificent lake stretching out ahead of them, covering the whole valley with blue water. Distant peaks were reflected in it and it shimmered in the pink evening light. The men jumped from wagons and mules and rushed forward yelling like schoolboys on the last day of school.
“Come back!” Jimmy yelled, spurring his horse after them. “It’s only a mirage. It’s not real.”
The sun set and the lake vanished. The men came back dragging their feet, hot, dusty, tired, and embarrassed to have been taken in so easily. There was no singing around the campfire that night.
Libby knew something was very wrong the moment she emerged from her bed in the wagon. Although it was light, no campfire was blazing with coffee cooking for breakfast. The oxen were still foraging nearby. Angry voices were coming from Sheldon Rival’s tent. Men hurrying past Libby looked scared.
“What is it?” Libby asked.
The man glanced back over his shoulder at her. “It’s Johnson and his mob. They’ve beat it.”
Still not much wiser, Libby hurried over to Rival’s tent.
“And you just let them go?” Rival was screaming.
“I knew nothing about it until I woke this morning,” Jimmy answered, his own voice shrill with anger. “I can’t stay awake all night, you know.”
“I thought I told you to post guards. What about them? They just let half my men walk out of here?”
“The guards were with them,” Jimmy said. “It was Bob Barclay. He’s a great buddy of Johnson.”
“Fools!” Rival shouted. “What do they think they can accomplish alone?”
“Apparently they think we’re travelling too slowly with wagons. They want to make a quick dash across the desert. They thought you wouldn’t pay them when they got to California, so they’ve taken mules and supplies instead.”
“What did they take?”
“Whatever they could carry,” Jimmy’s tired voice answered. “All the mules, spare rifles, a couple of sacks of flour and the dried meat. They’ll probably make it.”
“I hope they rot.” Rival spat. “I hope we come across their bloated corpses. I wish them damned to hell.”
“Wish all you want,” Jimmy said. “It doesn’t alter the fact that we’re down to ten men and we’ll have to leave wagons behind.”
Rival strode out of his tent before Libby could move away. He caught sight of her and pointed. “You! You think you could drive a team?” he asked. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I suppose I could try,” Libby said. She had been watching the drivers for so long that she was sure she could imitate any command. Besides, the tired oxen were reduced to such a slow plod that she reasoned all the driving required was an occasional flick of the whip.
“Good,” Rival said. “That’s one more wagon we can take. What about Foster? Did he go with them?”
“Foster’s still here,” Jimmy said, following him out of the tent.
“He can drive too, and so can you. Tie your horses on behind.”
“So can you, for that matter,” Jimmy said.
“I will, if I have to, dammit,” Rival said.
“Let’s get going, then,” Rival added, “before the day gets too unbearably hot.”
“If you take my advice, which you haven’t so far,” Jimmy said in a tired voice, “you’ll rest up during the day and make the desert crossing by night.”
“And what if we lose our way?” Rival asked. “What if we pass the Carson River in the dark?”
“If we make for the mountains, then head south, we can’t miss it,” Jimmy said. “Anyway, that’s less of a risk than losing all your animals to heatstroke.”
“Very well, do what you want,” Rival said.
They spent a miserable day, lying in the shade of the wagons to get away from the sweltering heat. As the sun sank they set off. Eden and Bliss were delighted that their mother finally had been promoted to wagon driver and wanted to sit beside her on the driver’s seat. Libby remembered all too clearly the child who fell under the wagon wheels and made them stay inside.
“But it’s so hot in here,” Eden complained.
“I’m thirsty, Mama,” Bliss said pitifully. “My mouth’s all dry and crackly.”
“You have to be patient, darling one,” Libby soothed. “We’ll find water soon and then you can take a lovely long drink.”
Gabe came over to her as the first wagons set off. “Are you sure you can handle this?” he asked. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. You could ride in my wagon and let Rival’s supplies go to hell.”
Libby managed a weak smile. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “I used to handle a pony and trap pretty well in the park at home.”
Gabe shook his head. “I don’t think the two have much in common. If you lost your way in the park you went on until you hit the railings.”
“I’ll manage,” she said.
“I knew you’d be stubborn,” Gabe muttered. “Very well. I’ll go right ahead of you. Stay close behind me. We’ll stick together, no matter what.”
Libby nodded. She cracked her whip and the oxen lumbered off, grunting unwillingly. The last light faded and it was hard to make out the shape of the wagon in front. The animals’ hooves crunched through the crisp salty surface into sand beneath.
Libby’s own mouth was painfully dry and her tongue felt as if it were swollen to double its real size. Her eyes stung with blowing sand and when she rubbed them, no tears came. At first the thought of driving a wagon had seemed like a challenge, almost like a game, but as the night deepened around her, she realized how very easy it would be to stray from the track and become lost in wasteland. With nightfall th
e temperature dropped rapidly and her hands became so cold it was hard to hold the reins. She sat shivering as she strained her eyes for the ghostly white shape ahead. Then she heard the sound of singing: “Oh Susannah, don’t you cry for me. I’m off to Californee with my shovel on my knee!”
It was the song she had heard many times from many camps along the trail, but the voice was now unmistakably Gabe’s. She smiled to herself and urged the oxen to catch up with him. All through the night the snatches of song floated ahead, rousing her every time her eyes began to nod shut. The desert trail seemed to go on and on, unchanging, plodding hooves, ghostly rocks, sand and grit. In the darkness Libby’s eyes played tricks on her and she saw Indians moving between rocks, rattlesnakes slinking across the path, even lights dancing in the distance.
As the night wore on, she was even glad of the cold, because she was too uncomfortable to fall asleep. Every time Gabe’s singing died down she tried some of her own or she recited every childhood poem that Miss Danford had made her learn. In this way she managed to keep going until the sun came up, rising as a harsh red ball behind the eastern mountains. They continued on as the whole valley was lit with flame and only called a halt when they finally struck water. Her mouth parched and her head singing with tiredness, Libby climbed down stiffly from her hard perch and staggered down to join the men. The water turned out to be a hot spring, boiling as it came from the ground. It was a strange place of rising steam and twisted mineral columns. The smell of sulfur hung heavy in the air.
“Do we have to camp here?” Rival demanded. “There must be a better spot than this.”
Jimmy shook his head. “No more water until the Carson,” he said.
“Then let’s press on and try to make the Carson by nightfall.”
“The animals would die.”
“But they can’t drink this.”