Zachary's Gold

by Stan Krumm

  To emphasize his point, he stood me to a good meal at a hotel, then spent the evening putting beer into me and several other fellows who suddenly seemed to know him well. After this I followed him home and curled up in the corner of his new living quarters—the tool shed at his place of employment.

  During those hours of food and drink, Carl advised me strongly that I should try to make an arrangement such as his. He even said he knew of a place that needed men and might turn out to be a good opportunity. I was convinced and the next day followed his suggestion to a large underground outfit on Lightning Creek, which employed at that time eleven men.

  I lasted exactly one day, working in the cold and dark alongside a bunch of Frenchmen from Canada. At some point in the middle of the afternoon I came to my senses and remembered that I had come to town to escape the toil and tedium of mining, not to pursue it in a more repugnant form. I took my wages at the end of the shift.

  There were indeed other occupations to try, and I hired on at a couple more over the next few days. It took me again only one morning as a tinsmith’s assistant to realize that it would be a most unsatisfactory career, particularly if one were apprenticed to a pompous buffoon who drank while he worked and wept about the wife he had left in California.

  I lasted twice that long as a carpenter, working for the firm of Masters and Carson, putting shakes on the roof of a new hotel. The work was better, the air was cleaner, and I got along well with the men. The bulk of them spoke English and did not smell worse than myself or carry any more exotic forms of vermin on their persons.

  My sojourn in the city was going well enough. Whether at work or at leisure, I felt a certain enjoyment in the company of my peers. In the evenings, men would eat and drink in crowded saloon bars, or stand around open fires on the backstreets, or just sit on the planks of the sidewalks and talk pleasant nonsense, but I found myself spending much of my time in quiet contemplation.

  On one particularly pleasant evening I was standing outside the back door of Top George’s saloon, watching a group of fellows toss coins. I fell into conversation with the fellow next to me, a miner of some years’ experience named Ben, whom I had met briefly on a previous occasion. He had the habit of cursing so foully and continuously that I dare not transcribe his exact words, but he expressed great surprise when I happened to mention that I was not working my claim at present.

  “There’s plenty good gold country all different directions,” he suggested. “Head yourself out and find a new claim if the first one don’t work out!”

  “Oh, I don’t suppose I’d be likely to do much better at any other spot.”

  “Then you wasn’t gettin’ totally left dry at your claim?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You was makin’ wages?”

  “Good wages, sure enough.”

  “Then you’re plain stupid, ain’t ya?”

  Ben had a way of saying this that made it seem unlike an insult. In fact, I had a good laugh over it, even while I tried to defend my actions. “Looking for gold is not the only thing a man can do in the world,” I said. “Right now I’m making good money as a carpenter. I’m enjoying the job, too. It’s something different.”

  “It won’t be something different after you done it for a week or so,” Ben replied, and I had to agree.

  “There’s always something new to try my hand at if I get fed up with building hotels, though.”

  “But why would you come all the way up to the goldfields to do that for? That’s plain stupid! You think you’re gonna get lucky and get yourself rich in one day, poundin’ nails? Not a chance! But you get back to workin’ that claim of yours, and you just might!”

  And with that, Ben proceeded to launch into an hour or more of stories of miners who had been on the verge of abandoning their efforts when they finally made the big strike.

  I returned to Binder Creek the next day, and the inference might easily be taken that the old mucker had convinced me of the error of my ways. In reality, he had only reminded me of what I already knew to be true, and I would soon have followed that route with or without his advice.

  I was being paid six dollars per day—three times what I would make in San Francisco—but good wages were not what I came north to find. I had come for excitement, plain and simple, and it was the idea of sticking a pan in the ground and lifting it up as a suddenly rich man that had seemed exciting. Ben’s stories had been effective in one way, of course. As I trudged my way back up the valley, I was once again filled with a dreamy sort of expectancy. Unfortunately the attitude did not last. Within a few days of my return, I had reverted to my habit of spending every third or fourth day away from the business at hand—hunting when I really had no need of meat, or exploring territory I had no real need to know.

  My creek-bank operation rewarded me well enough—yielding some days an ounce and a half of gold, which at sixteen dollars per ounce amounted to ten times a good day’s wages where I was born and raised. Still, it was too predictable for me, and I say this to my discredit, for I know I should have been more than happy to spend every waking moment toiling for those returns. I did not, though—usually leaning my shovel against the sluicebox long before darkness compelled me to do so, and spending the last hours of each day eating a leisurely meal or sitting on the ridge of land upstream from me, where I could watch the setting sun plate the broad valley to the north with that more ethereal form of gold.

  In late August I took a few days away from my labours to travel into that valley and prospect down some of the creeks and gulches along its near side. Some places I found no colour at all when I panned, while in others the tantalizing flecks of brightness would appear, but never in any amount greater than Binder Creek had to offer. As far as I could tell, the Negro barber had been correctly informed.

  Returning from one of these forays, about four or five o’clock on an afternoon of cold spitting rain, I was just about to start up the hillside towards the ridge boundary of Binder Creek when I saw a man leading a pair of mules along the far side of the swampy meadows. It was the same man I had seen a couple of times before, the man I originally had taken to be a prospector but later had recognized as a trapper. Again, both his mules were laden with pelts. He was evidently on his way to town to sell them. Uncharacteristically for me, perhaps, I felt like a bit of casual conversation, and I shouted across to him, setting down my pack under a stunted pine tree. At first it looked like he might ignore me and carry on, but after a second look in my direction, he stopped. He didn’t speak or take a step towards me, but he half-saluted with one hand and spun the animals’ lead ropes around a twig while he waited.

  Because of the scattered swampy pools that dotted the meadow, I was slow covering the ground between us and had to keep both eyes on the path ahead, so that after five minutes, I was only halfway across. Looking up, I saw him waiting patiently, twisting the strands of his beard between two fingers. He seemed to be thinking, perhaps smiling, although I couldn’t say for sure, at that distance. As I approached, he circled behind the near mule and began to rummage around in the saddlebag. The idea crossed my mind that he might be looking for a bottle or a flask, and the notion of sharing a drink was quite appealing, cold and tired as I was. Then suddenly he caught sight of something behind me and straightened up abruptly. Without a word, he took hold of his mules and started away down the valley at a brisk pace, ignoring my further calls to him. I turned my eyes to see what he had spied behind me and found that it was none other than Greencoat, looking down at us from that particular viewpoint I considered part of my personal domain. His presence there irritated me greatly, although I could not have done anything about it, even if he had still been around when I got there.

  Two uneventful days of work passed, and once again I happened to be seated on a log on the ridge eating an evening meal of cold grouse meat and bannock when I chanced to see someone far across the valley moving eastward along the creek. I had my telescope with me, and in the failing light I was
able to see the same trapper, this time accompanied by only one mule, still carrying furs, or so it seemed at that distance.

  His progress across my field of sight was slow, and I was given ample time to wonder at the sequence of events that might bring him back along that path in that manner. Why with one less animal, I thought, and why should the remaining one still carry its full load of goods? My best speculation was that he must have disposed of both his beast of burden and his furs at the same time and was unable, for some reason, to sell the remainder. It was too late in the day to pursue the matter, and I returned down the creek bed to my claim, guessing that I would never know what the true story was.

  As usual, time proved me wrong.

  Two days later I decided to weigh my gold stores as accurately as I could. I was fairly close, I think, considering that my scales were made of a teapot lid, a straight stick, catgut fishing line, and a lump of lead I knew to weigh a half ounce. I discovered that my coffee can contained just over thirty-five ounces of mixed flake, flour and nuggets. I gave myself one more day of working after that and headed into town to celebrate my reaching the sum of three pounds of gold discovered.

  Summer was already fading away. I wanted to be south of Quesnelle Mouth before serious snow fell, which meant that I must plan on being gone somewhere in the middle of October—a thought that should have caused me to use every day with careful stewardship as long as I was earning money so quickly. Mind you, I was already wealthy by the standards of my limited experience of life, and this made me ever ready to dole myself out another luxury. One day off to lie in the sun would be nothing to a rich man like myself, I thought. And what was the use of gold in the poke, if I couldn’t buy myself a pound of bacon for a dollar and a half or a jar of maple syrup for two dollars?

  On a Saturday night somewhere around the thirtieth of August, I paid twenty-five cents and allowed myself to be boiled and steamed in a Chinese bathhouse, then met my friend Carl for supper in the George Washington Hotel. The meal was delicious, and after several pieces of pie, we sat for another half hour smoking cigars before exiting into the shadowy evening.

  Barkerville was sometimes referred to as Middletown because the main street more or less continued south to Richfield and north to Cameronton without a sharp break, and Carl and I strolled leisurely the entire length that evening, enjoying the cool late summer breeze, and ended up, as darkness became complete, in a saloon in Cameronton. My friend recognized some people there, and we were soon seated at a table of six, drinking and talking.

  The man next to me was a fellow named Hector Simmonds—sometimes miner and sometimes deputy to Sheriff John Stevenson. I happened to mention that I had once worked for the Pinkerton law enforcement agency, and he proceeded to hold forth for the next hour as if we were longstanding colleagues, telling me what a tedious dandy Stevenson was and how Judge Begbie would no doubt soon give him the job of making the region safe for civilized persons.

  In every profession there are men like Hec Simmonds—men who must promote their own greatness without cessation, more often than not to convince themselves that they are not the failures that they appear. To be fair, it would have been difficult to do a law officer’s job in that region, for petty crime was rampant, major crime abundant, and resources to enforce the law limited indeed. There was a wildness in the air, bred by greed, and one could see where a young buck like Hector would find the situation exciting and challenging. He thought it a shame that he was given only occasional employment as a deputy, and then with no real responsibility, but few people in that money-loving populace were willing to part with taxes to pay for any substantial security force. Instead, they did their best to protect themselves and settle their own disputes.

  The real law of the goldfields was Judge Matthew Bailey Begbie—a man who no one failed to respect and who was generally feared more than he was respected. He was called a hanging judge, but he was never known to hang a man not given a proper trial by his peers, nor was he ever accused of being harsher than necessary—necessity, of course, demanding a very harsh attitude.

  “He’s the smartest, best looking, best speaking, strongest and toughest man in the Cariboo,” was Hector Simmonds’ deduction. I don’t know whether he ever met the good magistrate, but he admired the fellow so much he tried to mention the name regularly, linking it with his own in some tenuous fashion.

  “Judge Begbie sent me and Stevenson down to Van Winkle on Tuesday to investigate the robbery of the Barnard’s Express wagon. Curious affair, that—real curious. We talked a spell to the driver and the swamper at the roadhouse there, then went with them to a place almost at Beaver Pass, where the holdup took place. One man. Scarf over his mouth. Driver says tall; swamper says medium/short. Driver says Winchester .30-.30; swamper says army carbine.

  “He picked his spot good. Just over the top of a ravine there, the beavers have dammed up the crick, and to get around the pond, they got to take the wagon kind of up on the side of the slope, you see. And the land being swampy, they’re all three of them—there was a passenger along—they’re all three watching the wagon so as it don’t tip over into the beaver pond, and this guy with his rifle just ambles up behind and hollers at them. It’s a lonely spot to meet your maker, so none of them makes a fuss.”

  Hec’s greatest joy in his part-time occupation appeared to be palming a beer and telling a story, and this one seemed particularly pleasurable to him, even if I was his only listener.

  “This guy was clever, you see, a good planner. First he gets the driver to unhitch the horses, and he spooks them off south—takes a shot at their heels and they’re halfways to Cottonwood. Then he gets the three men—this passenger, you know, he’s an Englishman from England, and I think he thought the whole affair was a bit of a lark. Anyway, the outlaw sends the three of them—after they’d emptied their pockets—he sends ’em walking back towards Van Winkle. From the top of that rise he can see ’em for most of a mile, so he knows they aren’t gonna head back and sneak up on him. He’s got all day, pretty much, to root through that wagon and take whatever he likes.”

  At this point, Simmonds leaned forward conspiratorially and spoke in a low voice, not that the other men at our table were at all interested in the story. It was probably a matter of general knowledge by now for everyone but me.

  “He got lucky,” was the word. “That wagon carried two gold bars—each thirty pounds—and a strongbox with twenty more pounds of dust and nuggets. The Ne’er Do Well Company was shipping it down to the Bank of British Columbia at Quesnelle Mouth.”

  I found this interesting indeed.

  “Eighty pounds of gold! That’s fourteen, fifteen thousand dollars,” I estimated, and he corrected me with a nod and a grin.

  “Better than fifteen thousand.”

  “And they were shipping all that on a wagon with one driver and one swamper to guard it? How could they do such a thing?”

  Simmonds shrugged.

  “What else are they going to do? The Cariboo Gold Escort was gave up a couple years ago ’cause no one used it. No one trusted a half-dozen hired guns they didn’t know and that the government wouldn’t even guarantee, so now everyone pretty much trusts to good luck. Good luck, Judge Begbie, and the hangman, of course. Anyway, where’s a robber going to go with his loot anyway? Like this fellow—he’s got a good-sized lump of gold, but he’s also got a troop of deputies checking every man on the trail between here and Lillooet. Every roadhouse will be checking out travellers too—tall and short alike.”

  “Did you try to track the man? How was he transporting the gold?” I inquired.

  “He had a mule—two mules actually—and Stevenson and I did track them as far as Jawbone Creek but once he got on the creek bed—well, you can’t do much.”

  I had to agree with him. The courses of those creeks are like cobblestone—hard and rough, with shallow water spread out to erase what little sign might be left. But Hector Simmonds did have one more piece of information that I found mos
t interesting.

  “We trailed him right up to the creek and we found one of his mules there—he’d shot it dead. We guessed it had gone lame and he ditched it with the clothes and whisky and such that he’d taken from the wagon along with the gold. He shot it and ditched it and carried on. We searched down the creek for several miles, but he either stayed on it or covered his trail too good for us, so Stevenson ordered some Indian trackers from Quesnelle Mouth. They should be here tomorrow.”

  I remembered something I had seen not long previous.

  “The mule you found—what all was left with it?” I inquired. “Just clothes and miscellany? No furs?”

  “Furs?” he said, and squinted at me through the smoky gaslight. “Curious enough, there was some furs, yes. How’d you guess that, stranger?”

  Mercifully my mind was quicker, even after several glasses of beer, than the self-important deputy’s. I told him that I had heard some parts of the story from someone else earlier, and he reluctantly accepted that explanation.

  I asked no more questions of Hector Simmonds.

  WITH MORNING LIGHT I LEFT the gold-rush town on a new sort of search, although I felt the same expectant high hopes I’d had as a prospector.

  In retrospect, I cannot say with certainty what my exact plans were, nor claim to be sure of my motives. My goals were not illegal ones, but I must admit that neither was any altruism involved. I set out to find a bad man who seemed to elude all other legal pursuit. In this I smelled a definite opportunity for personal gain, a gain I hoped would be substantial and readily converted into American dollars.

  I started out on a Sunday morning. There was a light frost on the ground.

  I had originally thought of travelling past my camp and down into the valley, but it was mid-afternoon when I reached Binder Creek, and the sun was already settling behind Mount Greenberry, so I satisfied myself with collecting and cleaning both my rifle and my Colt revolver and making up a light pack, suitable for one or two days’ journey. After examining it and thinking things over, I discarded some of the food and replaced it with extra ammunition for both weapons.