Janet Quin-Harkin

by Fools Gold

  “Not in your sense of the word,” Libby said. “A gambler.”

  “Oh, I see,” Hugh said, looking amused. “No wonder he hasn’t paid any social calls since I’ve been here.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “A lady of your upbringing could hardly be seen to associate with a gambler, could she?” Hugh asked easily.

  The incident was over and Hugh did not mention Gabe again. He continued to work on the girls’ manners and deportment, but not with too much success.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Libby said. “They’ll pick it up very quickly when we’re in England. Children ape what they see. They’ve only been exposed to miners with no manners for so long that they think it’s the correct way to behave. When they see English gentle-folk, they’ll want to be like them.”

  “I hope so,” Hugh said with a sigh.

  Eden came running up the path toward them, her pigtails flying and her gingham dress billowing out. She had grown tall in the past months and no longer looked like the pale, skinny child of Boston.

  “Look at her,” Hugh said, shaking his head critically, “she’s like a little Indian child, brown and skinny and running barefoot. Her aunts in England will die of heart failure when they see her.”

  “Mama, Papa, there are horsemen coming up the trail,” Eden was yelling as she ran. “A whole bunch of ‘em.”

  “Eden, you can’t have a bunch of horses. That’s not correct,” Hugh said, but Libby interrupted.

  “What do they look like?” Libby asked nervously. She had never told Hugh about the lynch mob and the way she had escaped death.

  “Like an army,” Eden said. “They’ve got uniforms and guns and things.”

  “Maybe they’re a new company arrived at the gold fields,” Hugh said, not showing much interest. “They often dress in military style. I’m surprised new companies are still coming out here. Don’t they hear how overcrowded California already is?” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Well, I can’t wait around all day. This load of produce has to get down to the hotel before it spoils in this hot sun.” He went around the house to begin loading the mule for its daily trip to town.

  They could all now hear the chink of bridles and the muffled thud of horses hooves, moving fast. A horse snorted, the sound echoing loudly from the hills opposite. Then a well-armed band of men appeared, wheeling to a halt in front of the cabin.

  “Keep those horses off my vegetables,” Libby called out, moving around to protect her precious patch.

  As they wheeled to a halt she could see that the men at the front were smartly turned out in uniform but those behind them were a ragtag company riding an assortment of skinny horses and mules.

  “We haven’t come for your vegetables, lady,” the leader said, a lean, weathered man in a blue uniform with a thick gun belt and rifles on either side of his saddle. “We’ve come for your husband.”

  “My husband? What has he done?” Libby asked in amazement.

  “He ain’t done nothing, lady,” the man went on, grinning. “We just need to borrow him a while.”

  “Borrow him, what for?”

  “Injun uprising, north of here near Lassen’s place,” another of the men said. “They murdered a bunch of settlers and set fire to a couple of towns. We’re recruiting a force to go teach them varmints a lesson.”

  “I don’t think Hugh would be interested,” Libby said. “He’s been very sick. He’s only just walking again.”

  “Is he the guy who takes around the vegetables?” the first man demanded. There was no longer a pleasant tone to his voice.

  Libby nodded.

  “Then he can walk. Where is he? Tell him to go get his things.”

  “He’s not going to fight any Indian uprising,” Libby said, annoyed now. “Go and find somebody else.”

  The second man who had spoken urged his horse forward and showed her a badge. “United States Cavalry, ma’am,” he said. “I have an authorization here from the President to recruit any men I need in case of emergency. Your husband doesn’t have a choice. Tell him to get his things.”

  Hugh appeared at this moment, leading the mule. “What’s all this, Libby?” he asked.

  “Hugh, they want you to go fight Indians with them.”

  “No thank you,” Hugh said. The men all laughed.

  “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you,” the leader said. “You’ve just been recruited, mister. Now get your things and saddle up that mule. We need to get going.”

  “I don’t have to do anything of the sort,” Hugh said angrily. “I’m an English citizen. I’m not bound by your American laws.”

  The cavalry man with the badge started to get something out of his shirt. “My orders say any able-bodied man. They don’t specify what kind of citizen. Now get your things, or I’ll shoot you on the spot.”

  “But you don’t understand,” Libby said, running over to the leader and tugging at his bridle. “He’s been sick. He’s not well enough to go and fight.”

  The man looked down at her, noting her condition. “Ma’am, it will all be over in a couple of days. I’m not asking him to come to the north pole with me. If we can round up a big enough force, we can blast those devils to hell and come back home again. But if we let this one tribe get away with murder, then the others will all try it and you and your children won’t be safe up in these hills.”

  Hugh went over to Libby and led her away from the man. “It’s all right, darling,” he said. “If I must go, I must. I’ll just pack some things together.”

  “Take the rifle,” Libby said. “We don’t have much ammunition.”

  “He don’t need no rifle,” the leader said. “We supply the arms and the ammunition,” the first man said. “All we need is men to shoot them.”

  Hugh went into the house. When he came out again, he looked very pale and fragile, but he seemed calm as Libby helped him saddle the mule. “Don’t worry,” he said to her. “I’m sure it will all be over very quickly. Take good care of the girls for me, won’t you? And take care of yourself . . . and my son.”

  “I will,” Libby said.

  He kissed her gently on the lips, then mounted the mule. The troop began to move off. At the edge of the clearing Hugh looked back and blew her a kiss.

  It was a week later before Libby got news that he had been knocked from his saddle by an Indian arrow and trampled to death under the hooves of his companions’ horses.

  CHAPTER 28

  LlBBY RECEIVED THE news of Hugh’s death with surprising calmness. Her overwhelming feeling was one of guilt, that she was not grieving more deeply for the man who had been her husband for nine years. She would miss him, she was sad for him, but her heart wasn’t broken as it had been when Gabe left. If she felt anything else, it was anger at the waste and stupidity of his death. She accompanied the cavalry officer up north to see his grave, on a wild, rocky hillside, overlooking a narrow canyon. It was such a remote place that she almost accepted the major’s offer to rebury the remains where she wanted them.

  Poor Hugh, she thought, looking down at the crude wooden cross and the fresh yellow earth. It’s not fair that your last place on earth should be so far from what you wanted. She seriously considered having his remains shipped over to England to be buried with his family, then she dismissed the idea. Hugh wanted to return home in triumph or not at all. If she took the children to England later, she would take him with her. Not that it mattered very much. She felt very strongly that Hugh was not there. He was already very far away, probably laughing at the irony of his stupid, unnecessary end.

  When she came home again she was strangely lethargic, unable to show any interest in the profits which came in from the garden or for Ah Fong’s great ideas for expansion.

  “You going to leave this ground doing nothing, after I put all that good dung in it?” he asked her.

  “We might not be here next year,” Libby said. “It doesn’t make any sense to plant stuff now.”

  “Doesn’t m
ake sense to leave good ground for the weeds,” Ah Fong said. “How about we put in winter cabbage? Then if you go in winter, still get some money.”

  “If you like, Ah Fong,” Libby said. “Do what you like.”

  The one positive outcome of Hugh’s death was that it brought her community sympathy for the first time. Men made a point of stopping off at the cabin on their way to and from town, expressing their condolences, cursing “them varmints,” and often leaving a present or even a gold nugget “for the girls and the little one that’s coming.” She had offers of firewood for the winter and a replacement for the mule which had been lost in the heat of battle. Libby never did hear whether the skirmish had been a success. She didn’t want to know. If she had any emotion at all it was anger at the stupidity of wanting to punish a whole tribe for what must have been the anti-social actions of just one or two members, and was most likely a justifiable retaliation for brutal treatment by settlers in the first place. She knew that many of the miners talked of shooting Indians for sport, just as they would talk of shooting deer, and in her heart, she was on the Indians’ side.

  Among the procession of men who stopped by at the cabin was Mark Hopkins, looking very prosperous in a city suit with a gold watch chain and riding on a fine-looking horse.

  “I just heard the news when I got back to town,” he said, mopping his brow with a white handkerchief as he dismounted. “I came to say how very sorry I am. I really thought things were going well for you at last.”

  Libby nodded. “Thank you for coming,” she said.

  “What will you do now?” he asked.

  Libby stared out past him, over the golden hills. “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know. I suppose I should take the children to England, because that’s what Hugh wanted. . . .”

  “But you don’t want to go?”

  “I’d be a foreigner there,” she said. “I wouldn’t know anybody. I’d have to wear a corset again.”

  Mark laughed.

  “You know what I mean,” she said, smiling too. “I’ve become so used to living out here with no restraints and no formalities. I’m beginning to wonder whether I wouldn’t suffocate with all the restrictions of English upper-class life. I wouldn’t even know which fork to use after eating from tin plates with spoons for all this while.”

  “If you don’t go, will you stay on here?”

  “I don’t know about that, either,” she said. “I can see that this is not an ideal place to bring up children. It’s very isolated, there’s no school, but at least I’m providing well for my family here.”

  “For the time being,” Mark said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that we’ve already had the gold boom,” Mark said. “From now on it’s all downhill. Too many men and not enough gold. It will peter out and then they’ll all drift away again.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “San Francisco,” Mark said, his face lighting up. “I’m on my way there now. I’ve come to say goodbye. I’ve sold my store here and I’m moving down to the valley. I’m having a store built in Sacramento to supply the mines, but I’m also looking for a home in San Francisco. Sacramento is no place to spend the winter, unless one is a duck. I’m also considering putting money into property down there, where the boom’s just starting. You might consider doing the same.”

  “Me, buy property in San Francisco?” Libby asked.

  “Why not?” Mark Hopkins asked. “Right now you can buy lots for a song. I’m thinking of buying a large stretch of sand dunes.”

  “What on earth for?”

  He grinned, the same boyish grin. “Because the city has got to spread and when it does, my sand dunes will be worth millions.”

  She looked at him admiringly. “You really do like to live dangerously, don’t you?”

  “It’s the only way,” he said. “Risks are good. They make you feel as if you’re truly alive. Calculated risks, of course. You do need a smart head on your shoulders to start with. But I think you have that too.”

  Libby smiled to acknowledge the compliment. “But from what I hear, San Francisco is hardly the place to think of bringing up children right now. All that corruption and violence and bawdy living . . .”

  “It will outgrow all that soon enough,” Hopkins said. “In the meantime, why don’t you speculate a little. I’m sure you’ve made a tidy profit this summer. Let me put some of your money into lots for you. It doesn’t have to be a great deal and I think you’ll be surprised how quickly you can double and triple your investment.”

  “I don’t know,” Libby said. “I seem to have been saying that ever since Hugh died. I just can’t make up my mind anymore. I was so decisive and headstrong when I came here and I seem to have turned into one of my own vegetables.”

  “You’re still shocked and grieving,” Hopkins said gently. “It’s understandable. Healing takes a while.”

  “I think I’m more angry than grieving,” Libby confessed. “And guilty too. I keep thinking I could have done more to stop them from taking him. He wasn’t fit to ride all that way and I knew it. I tried to stop them, but I should have done more—got a doctor to forbid it or even lain down in front of the horses. He looked so frail when he set off. . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  Hopkins put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “This country wasn’t meant for people like Hugh,” he said. “It eats people like him for breakfast and spits out the bones. You have to be tough like us to survive.”

  Libby looked down at the ground. A line of big black ants was attempting to move a grass stalk across the sandy trail. It seemed like a hopeless task but they kept going back patiently every time the stalk got stuck behind a pebble. “I used to think I was tough,” she said in a small voice, “but I don’t think I am anymore. I don’t know what I want or where I want to be. Nothing seems to matter to me.”

  “Give it time,” Mark said. “Take care of yourself. Have the baby and then decide. I’ll give you an address in San Francisco where I can be reached. Look me up if you decide to come down there. Maybe you’d do better to spend the winter there if the baby’s due soon—better doctors and less chance of getting stranded in the mud or snow.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Don’t leave it too late.”

  “I know. I’ll make up my mind soon.” Libby said.

  “Take care,” he said and shook her hand warmly.

  After he had gone the lethargy returned, enhanced by the Indian summer which came with a vengeance in late September. The sun beat down mercilessly, bleaching the dry grasses ghost white and shrivelling any plant that dared to show its head. The winds that came up from the Sacramento Valley were fierce, hot winds that seemed to snatch away breath.

  “Now are you glad we didn’t start a whole new garden?” Libby asked Ah Fong. “We’d have had to sit by and watch it shrivel.”

  “This not good place for garden,” Ah Fong said. “We need place near big stream or good well. Then dig lots of little ditches and plants grow all time. We go find place like that, yes?”

  “I can’t decide anything until after the baby is born,” Libby said. “It’s too hot even to think.”

  She spent her days sitting under the biggest oak, splashing herself with water and fanning herself. She was sitting there when she saw a spiral of smoke rise from the valley below. It looked too substantial for the usual campfire smoke and was soon rising up and spreading out across the sky.

  “Ah Fong, look. There’s a fire,” she called.

  Ah Fong came running. “That down in town,” he said. “Too bad. Wind’s coming too.”

  As they watched, the spiral turned from white to gray to black, billowing out into angry clouds. Red tongues of flame could be seen dancing among the smoke billows and the smell of burning wood was carried to them on the hot wind.

  “I no like,” Ah Fong said, sniffing the wind like an animal. “Wind getting stronger and
fire comes this way.”

  “Surely they’d put it out before it gets all the way up here?” Libby said, not feeling too much alarm. They continued to watch as the black smoke spread. They could hear the first sounds of fire; the clang of a bell, the neighing of frightened horses, and then the crackle and roar. The wind had live sparks in it.

  Libby was just wondering whether they should do something when a horseman galloped up the trail. “All Hangtown’s burning and it’s racing this way almost as fast as I could ride,” he shouted. “Get out while you still can.”

  “Where should we go?” Libby yelled back. The whole countryside was tinder dry and the wind was gusting as it always did at late afternoon.

  “Get down to the creek,” the man shouted. “Where it’s all dug up and there’s no vegetation. At least you can get in the water if you have to there.”

  He galloped on to warn the next settlers. Libby looked at Ah Fong. “Are the children still down at the creek?” she asked. The two little girls had found a favorite wading pool where they spent the hottest days.

  “Yes, missee,” Ah Fong said, staring at the approaching conflagration as if he were hypnotized.

  “Then get down there and join them,” Libby said. “Take them out to that bar in the middle—the one that’s all gravel.”

  “What you do, missee?”

  “I’m just going to check the cabin first,” Libby said.

  “Don’t wait too long. Fire run faster than horses,” Ah Fong said.

  “I’ll be right down,” Libby shouted after him and picked up her skirts to run to the cabin. She stood inside, enjoying the semidarkness, looking at all the familiar objects. Two years ago she would have despised any of these things, thinking them too coarse. Now she looked with affection at the black stove which had kept them warm all winter, the rickety bed in the corner, the pans she had made her pies in.

  “This is nonsense,” she said to herself. “I can’t risk getting burned alive just for a few objects. Objects can be replaced. People can’t.” She snatched the rifle off the wall and the ammunition pouch beside it, then impetuously took Gabe’s wolfskins and ran down the hill, clutching them to her. Ah Fong looked at her curiously as she waded the shallow water to join him, but he said nothing about the strange selection process of the western woman’s brain.