Janet Quin-Harkin

by Fools Gold

  “The fire won’t get to our cabin, will it, Mama?” Eden asked.

  “I hope not,” Libby said, “but we can’t take any chances.” She looked around in alarm. “Where’s Bliss?”

  “She was right here,” Ah Fong said. “She was sitting there playing with the pebbles a second ago.”

  Libby scanned the empty stretch of beach. “Bliss!” she shouted. The only sound was the distant roar of the fire.

  “Where can she be?” Libby screamed in panic.

  “Perhaps she went back to get her dolly,” Eden said.

  “She did what?” Libby almost shook her.

  Eden’s frightened little face stared up at her in alarm. “She asked me if all our stuff would get burned up and then she said she didn’t want her dolly to get burned.”

  “And you let her go?”

  “I didn’t see her go,” Eden said, starting to cry. “I didn’t know she’d go.”

  “Just stay here with Ah Fong,” Libby shouted.

  “Missee, you no go. I go for you!” Ah Fong yelled but Libby was already wading back, not attempting to pick up her skirts this time, which clung in a sodden mass around her legs. Gasping and panting, she scrambled up the hillside, steadying herself on the manzanita bushes which jutted across the path. The fire was all too real a danger now. She could hear the crackle of burning grass, the roar as it consumed a new tree and she could taste the smoke. Ashes floated and fell, some igniting new fires as they landed in the dry grass. When she glanced down the hill, it seemed as if the whole valley was burning and all the anger of hell was sweeping up to swallow her.

  “Bliss!” she yelled hoarsely. “Bliss, come to Mama right now!”

  The cabin door was open. Libby sprinted across the clearing. Bliss was crouched down on the cabin floor, her doll on the floor beside her.

  “I can’t find dolly’s shoe,” she complained. “I think it fell down the side of the bed.”

  “Come with me right now,” Libby said, grabbing her daughter’s hand. “Quickly.”

  “But dolly can’t go without her shoe,” Bliss said, starting to wail. “I want dolly’s shoes.” She struggled to get away from Libby’s grasp.

  “Damn dolly’s shoe,” Libby said, slapping her hard across the bare leg. “Do you want to get burned up?” She swept the crying child under one arm and staggered out of the house with her. Tongues of flame were licking up the hillside and sweeping along the creek ahead of them, barring the way they had come. Libby looked around in panic, then put down the frightened child.

  “Don’t leave me, Mama. I’ll be good,” Bliss screamed in terror.

  Libby had already run back into the house and came back with a bucket of water, which she poured over the little girl, then over herself. Then she ran with the trembling child to an old oak tree, hollowed on one side by a lightning strike. She thrust Bliss inside first then crouched next to her, holding her wet apron over both their faces. She felt the heat as the grass around them burst into flame. Flames licked hungrily at the tree trunk and sizzled against the wet cloth. The roaring was louder than a storm wind and the smoke choked them, making them cough and retch. She heard the crackle as a branch above caught on fire. Sparks rained down. Libby’s head was singing as she fought unconsciousness.

  Then she noticed that the roaring had died down. Cautiously, she lowered her apron. The ground around them was blackened, but there was no more grass to burn. “It’s all right, Bliss. It’s passed by,” she said, standing up and giving her hand to the child. Bliss came out, looking with fear and wonder at the black and smoldering world. “Dolly didn’t get burned at all,” she said happily. Libby’s gaze went back to the cabin. A black stove jutted out above a pile of charred timber.

  “It’s all gone,” Bliss said and started to cry. Libby started crying too. I didn’t cry when my husband was killed, she thought, but I’m crying because I’ve lost my house. It doesn’t make any sense at all.

  After a while they made their way cautiously back down to the river, Libby carrying her daughter because the ground was still hot in places and Bliss wore no shoes. Eden met them with hysterical joy.

  “I told her she no have to worry, you one very smart lady,” Ah Fong said, but Libby noticed that he wiped away a tear when he thought she wasn’t looking.

  They spent the night on the bar in mid-river, not knowing where else was safe to go. Nobody came past, all the miners being presumably busy with their own tragedies. The children and Ah Fong managed to sleep, the little girls snuggled like puppies on Gabe’s wolfskins, but Libby lay awake, her body racked with pains.

  I won’t lose this baby, I won’t! she commanded herself as a tight band of pain shot across her stomach and back again. She lay awake all night, as if her will alone could prevent her from miscarrying the child. By early morning the pains had subsided although her back and side still ached. She watched the dawn come with a sense of wonder, as if she had fought a long battle and won. The child was still there, moving restlessly inside her as it had done for the past couple of months. She realized that her pains had not been premature labor at all, but more likely strained muscles as she carried a sturdy, squirming five-year-old across a rugged hillside. She was sleeping peacefully when the others woke.

  The scene that greeted their eyes was one of utter devastation. As far as the eye could see in any direction was blackened earth and charred tree trunks. Only the biggest oaks had managed to survive with some of their leaves still green and unburned. There was not a blade of vegetation and the air still smelled of burning. Libby went with the children and Ah Fong back up to the remains of the cabin.

  “Oh, Mama,” Eden said, tears running down her soot-blackened cheeks, “it’s all gone. Everything you worked for is gone. Now we’ve got nothing again.”

  “It’s not all gone,” Libby said, “Don’t cry, Eden. We have plenty of money in the bank to start again,” she said, “only this time it will be much better.”

  “Missee going to build new house?” Ah Fong asked suspiciously. “Here?”

  A glorious vision swam into Libby’s head: herself and Gabe standing on a hillside, looking out over the valley that went on forever. She heard herself saying, “I’d like to build a house someday.” Now there was nothing to stop her from doing it.

  “No, not right here,” Libby said. “I’ve nothing to keep me near Hangtown anymore. We’ll find a better place for a house, farther south where the miners haven’t had a chance to sample my excellent produce yet. There are a lot of little towns all in a row there and it’s easier to get around, a more gentle countryside than this. We’ll go look for a site to build down there.”

  “So we won’t be going to England now?” Eden asked.

  “Would that upset you very much?”

  Eden chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “I’d like to see Papa’s house,” she said. “And I’d really like my own pony, but sure don’t want to learn all those manners.”

  Libby burst out laughing and hugged her daughter to her. “Exactly my feelings,” she said. Then she attempted to look stern. “Of course, if we stay here long, we’ll have to get a governess for you two. You can’t grow up too wild.”

  “That’s all right,” Eden said, “as long as I don’t have to wear shoes too often . . . and maybe I can still have a pony one day, if you grow enough vegetables?”

  Libby smiled again. “We’ll grow enough vegetables to feed the whole of California,” she said. “We’re going to be the richest women in the state.”

  CHAPTER 29

  THERE WAS NOTHING left of Hangtown as they made their way through it. Only the big safe in the Wells Fargo office and a couple of brick chimneys stuck out from blackened earth and rubble. Hastily pitched tents were the first signs of rebirth. Libby found herself feeling glad that it had all gone. The place held too many memories, both bitter and sweet, and she was anxious to put them all behind her. She noticed, however, that Ah Fong did look back, and realized that with all her own concerns, she had given l
ittle thought to him or his future.

  “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to, Ah Fong,” she said. “If you’d rather stay in Hangtown with your friends.”

  “You don’t want Ah Fong around no more?” Ah Fong asked, surprised.

  Libby laughed uneasily. “Of course I want you. I could never have survived this long without you. But I want you to know that you don’t owe me anything any longer. You’re free to leave whenever you want to.”

  “Where you think I go?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Libby said with some embarrassment. “I just thought that maybe you’d rather go back to your Chinese friends and try your hand at gold mining again.”

  Ah Fong pursed his lips in distaste. “What I want to do damn fool thing like that for?” he asked. “No place for Chinese gold miners here. Chinese only allowed to dig when everyone else has finished. I like better making things grow. How you going to start new farm without Ah Fong?”

  “Not very well,” she said, smiling. “But if you stay you’re not my house servant. You’re now my farm manager, understood? I want to pay you the proper wage.”

  She held out her hand to him. Very cautiously and solemnly he took it.

  A few days later they were bumping along in a newly purchased buckboard down the very route that Libby had gone with Gabe. She had not realized how hard it would be to retrace those steps, but every inch of the way cried out with memories. Here they had seen a kingfisher, here they had stopped to water the horses and Gabe had lifted her down from the saddle as if she were made of finest porcelain. “If only . . .” she found herself saying and wondered what she meant by it. If only he was still around here? She remembered his commenting that the southern mines would be good for a gambler. Is that why I want to come down here? she wondered.

  I mustn’t hope for too much, she told herself severely. It was just that if he ever came back to their hillside again, she wanted him to find her there.

  She found the place without difficulty and brought the horse to a halt, looking out over the hazy flat lands below. Libby sighed as she climbed down from the trap.

  “You want a house here?” Ah Fong asked.

  “Yes. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Ah Fong looked at her suspiciously. “No good for growing things,” he said, kicking at the dry earth. “Too dry.”

  “But there’s a creek we’ve just passed,” Libby said. “It still had water in it and it’s the driest time of year.”

  “You need flat land so water won’t run away. We go farther down hill.”

  “But I want my house on a hill.”

  Ah Fong sighed expansively. “So we go down until we meet flat land. Then you build house up a bit and plant vegetable on flat.”

  Libby had to smile. “Very well. We’ll go down a bit and see if we can find a place that you like as well as I.”

  Cautiously, she drove the trap down the slope, following the creek until it slowed its descent and meandered between willows.

  “How about this, Ah Fong?” she asked excitedly. “This must suit you too. It’s flat enough for crops down below and I could build my house right beside the creek here. Then I’d have a view of willows on one side and down to the plains on the other.”

  “Not wise build here,” Ah Fong said. “Too near river.”

  “But I like it near river.”

  “River flood, sweep house away,” Ah Fong said. “See. River get this big in spring!” He pointed across to the other bank which was cut away steeply high above the water level.

  “Anyone would think it was your house, not mine,” Libby snapped, feeling hot and tired now.

  “Fine. So build house here. Enjoy trip when you float down to Sacramento,” Ah Fong said, turning his back on her.

  “All right. Have it your way,” Libby said, “Only I want my view.”

  They paced up and down along the river until they found a spot that satisfied both of them. It was high enough to be clear of floods, Ah Fong thought, but the soil was good enough for crops down below the house. Libby had Ah Fong drive some stakes into the ground where the house was going to be, so that they had some sort of claim on the land.

  “We must find out how we register land like this,” she said. “We don’t want someone coming in and digging up our backyard for gold. Although I don’t think they’ve been finding gold this far down the valley.”

  As they were walking back to the trap, Ah Fong stiffened. “Horsemen,” he whispered, “coming this way fast.”

  Libby followed his gaze, shielding her eyes against the fierce sunlight. She remembered rumors of bandits and wished she had not left the rifle under the seat in the buckboard. There were two horsemen, riding magnificent steeds. Their tails streamed out behind them as they galloped and the riders sat so well, they seemed to be part of the horses. Silver glinted from rider and horse in the sunlight so that they made Libby think of gods of some pagan religion, riding to bring vengeance. She watched entranced as they came nearer and it was only as they reined in the horses and drew their guns that she felt any fear.

  “What you want here?” one of the men shouted in strongly accented English. Now that they were no longer moving, Libby could see they were Mexican Californios, wearing big black hats, dressed in fringed leather decorated with silver. Silver adorned their spurs and bridles and even their saddles; Libby couldn’t ever remember seeing anything as exotic or as handsome. The faces, however, were not friendly.

  “We are just travellers and we have no gold on us,” she called to them.

  She saw the younger say something to the elder and the guns were lowered. They urged their horses closer. “My pardon, señora,” the older one said. His face was tanned and lined like old leather, his hair was gray, but his large drooping moustache was still black. The younger must have been his son, because his face was a younger copy of his father’s. “We took you for cattle bandits.”

  Libby laughed. “Do we look like cattle bandits?”

  The man smiled too, even more lines creasing his face. “Now that we see you, no. But everytime we see strangers on our land we cannot be sure. These gringos, these strangers who come here for gold—they think they can help themselves to our cattle too. Half our herd has been stolen since they came here. My best herdsman was shot in cold blood.”

  Libby was just taking in what he had said. “So this is your land?” she asked.

  The man nodded. “I was granted this land twenty-five years ago by the government in Mexico. From the Cozumnes River south is all mine.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Libby said. “I had no idea I was trespassing. I was looking for somewhere to build my new house. This seemed so ideal.”

  “Why you want to build house here?” the son asked. “Your man is digging at the gold?”

  “My husband is dead,” Libby said, “and I have been making money by growing vegetables. My cabin was just destroyed by fire. I was looking for a place with better soil and more room to start again.”

  “How much land you need to grow these vegetables?” the man asked slowly.

  “Not too much to start with,” Libby said. “There is just myself and my assistant here to work the land at the moment.”

  The older man said something quickly to his son. The son nodded, then spurred his horse into a gallop, disappearing quickly through the tall grass.

  “Please,” the older man said. “I am Don Miguel Flores. My son Manuel has gone to tell my wife. You come to my house and we talk.”

  She followed the Mexican across the golden hillside and down into the valley. Ground squirrels popped up from their burrows and vanished in terror as the buckboard’s wheels passed by. The Mexican’s horse danced impatiently at the slow pace. Then, in a dip in the grasslands, they could see a glimpse of red roof, surrounded by trees. Ten minutes later Libby drove the buckboard in through a white gate in a hedge of ferocious-looking cactus and up to a low white house with a red-tiled roof. Hens ran squawking in all directions from the hor
ses hooves, dogs jumped up, barking from the shade of a big feathery tree. Don Miguel sprang from his horse with agility and helped down Libby and the girls. Ah Fong looked suspiciously at the house.

  “I wait with horse, missee,” he said.

  Libby nodded. “Thank you, Ah Fong. I’ll have them bring you something to drink.”

  “Please, come inside,” Don Miguel said. “My wife will be so happy to see another woman and little children again.”

  He pushed open a heavy studded door and Libby stepped into a stone- floored room. It was a large room with deeply recessed windows. The furniture was all dark wood and leather and the floor was dotted with animal skins. A magnificent pair of horns and a fine spotted skin decorated the white wall. The surprising coolness made her gasp.

  “Something is wrong?” Don Miguel asked in alarm.

  “No. It’s wonderful,” Libby said. “It’s just so cool in here.”

  He smiled with satisfaction. “Yes. It is always cool. That is the adobe walls. They keep out the heat.” He looked around. “Conchita? Donde es?”

  A little round woman came scurrying out of a back room, wiping her hands on a cloth, smiling nervously at Libby.

  “My wife, Dona Conchita,” Don Miguel said, holding out his hand to present her to Libby. “Conchita, Señora Libby Grenville.”

  She saw the children and her eyes opened wide with pleasure. She went over to them, releasing a torrent of Spanish.

  “You must forgive my wife. She speak no English,” Don Miguel said. “But she very happy to see children again. My daughters have married far away and my son have no wife yet.” He turned to glare at the young man who had come in behind his mother.

  The young man muttered something in Spanish, then turned to Libby. “I tell him, how I find a wife when I spend all day only with cows?” he asked.