Zachary's Gold

by Stan Krumm

  I made an early start in the morning and was able to see the sun rise into a clear blue sky as I rounded the ridge and began the descent into the low flat valley that angles down from where Summit Creek joins Antler and eventually runs parallel to and west of the Spectacle Lakes.

  When I describe it as marsh or swampland, I hope no picture arises of gloomy, foul-smelling bogs, for it is more accurately a sort of pleasant and lovely lowland—water meadow entwined with higher ground of shale, and all blanketed with a thick layer of moss and lichen. The leaves of the few birch trees were turning yellow, and an unearthly sort of mist coiled and skirted on the ground as I broke the silence of that morning with my heavy tread. My spirits were light. Once again I was on the edge of the unknown—a pleasant place to spend an autumn day.

  It amused me to think of the more official search party. The sheriff and his Indians would all be trying to pick up the bandit’s spoor going downstream and to the south. Their logic was good enough. Who would want to take ill-gotten gains anywhere but south, towards cities, civilization, comfort, and freedom?

  I happened to know that the trail led north and east, through the wildest of wilderness, over Mount Nelson, then probably via the Willow River valley and Summit Creek until it reached the place where I would begin. By that time, I supposed that my quarry would have dropped a certain amount of his caution, and I would be in no need of Indian experts to track him.

  My entire train of thought was speculation, but it seemed reasonable to me to believe that if my fur trapper friend was actually returning from a holdup, then he was headed for a hideout in this region. This mountainous route led to nothing but more mountains, so I didn’t think he was merely passing through. In point of fact, I thought that his lair was probably relatively close. Following this direction, the country became almost totally impassable within only a few miles.

  If my suspicions were correct, he was hiding his criminal activities behind the facade of a simple mountain man, and his cabin might be just around the next bend. He was certainly not being secretive about his path. Almost at the spot where I had spied him a few days previously, I found a whopping stack of mule dung—a blatant, malodorous road marker.

  As I walked, I toyed with the idea of walking up to him quite openly and in a friendly manner when I found his abode, then quietly checking out the place for anything suspicious, but the memory of Greencoat’s threat when I innocently crossed his claim made me review the plan with caution. What, after all, did I know about this man? I could not be sure that he was indeed a highwayman, but neither had I any reason to think that he would have reservations about blasting anyone who crossed his path unexpectedly.

  I decided to follow the rules I had been given when working for the Pinkerton Agency in Illinois, the first of which was always to assume that the suspect was armed and dangerous. (This is a redundancy that never ceased to amuse me, for anyone who is armed is also dangerous. The bishop’s grandmother is dangerous if she has a revolver.)

  Examine at leisure, I was always told, and approach with caution. Be quick to get your firearms at the ready, but slow to shoot.

  In three years at that job, I had hunted down a dozen men, alone or with partners, but I had never been fired upon. This new errand was more exciting for me because I was embarking on it for my own benefit and of my own volition, but there was no reason to believe that I was in any greater danger. If I couldn’t find this fellow, or if he turned out to be nothing more than he appeared, then I could return to my work at Binder Creek with nothing to regret but a day or two of pleasant travel.

  Man and mule were following the little creek bed in an easterly direction, and their tracks were easily spotted in any of the sandy stretches, so I was able to make good time and enjoy the sunshine for several hours. As if their footprints were not obvious enough, the pack animal continued to drop memorials at regular intervals. I marvelled at the digestive capacity of that brave animal!

  By noon I had covered about eight or ten miles, and I was thinking about stopping to have something to eat, when I found myself at a dead end—a sort of cul de sac—where the stream widened into a shallow lake, with tangled dead spruce all around its border. I could see where the valley would continue farther ahead, but not how I could get there, let alone how I might lead a mule through the bog and brush. After looking the area over carefully, I decided that I must have lost the track earlier on and needed to backtrack.

  About a half mile back I found the spot where the trapper had given me the slip. It was a simple manoeuvre, but nicely done in a well-chosen spot. If the way had not been so fully blocked farther downstream, I might have ambled on for hours. Here, only a single reversed hoofprint by the water’s edge told me that the deception had taken place.

  They had cut across along the top of a sandbar, leaving a trail a blind man could have found with his cane; then, when the ground was rocky again, they had walked into the creek and stayed in the shallow water as they returned westward.

  This is the point in the hunt where a tracker must use his logic, as well as a quality some would claim as intuition and others call luck. I had no way of knowing where man and beast had emerged from the stream—whether upstream or down, north side or south—and there were plenty of places all along where the signs could be easily hidden. These signs were now four days old as well. Far from discouraging me, however, this new development gave me extra enthusiasm and confidence in my assumptions. What reason to disguise his trail did my man have, unless he was afraid of pursuit?

  The hoofprint I had seen led me to believe that they had turned back upstream, and logic told me that he would most likely have his base camp somewhere in the higher ground to the north of these lowlands, so I concentrated my search along that bank, thinking as well that he would probably not have doubled back too far.

  As it turned out, all three of my guesses were correct, but it still took me several hours to once again pick up their route. They left few signs of their passing, but to my good fortune, the mule once again proved his singular talent for defecation. Beside a scarcely visible game trail heading straight up the hillside, I was pleased to see a small brown cairn of organic matter.

  The trail from there was easily followed, albeit a bit steep and slippery with wet birch and poplar leaves, and I must admit that at that stage I was enjoying myself immensely. The feeling was something I had not felt for years. It was what I had hoped for years before when I had first joined Pinkerton’s detective agency—excitement, expectation, and a pleasant sense of danger. Alan Pinkerton, on the one occasion when I met the man, had commented that “Whenever you can find something everyone else considers lost, or catch up with someone that everyone else has given up on, you can expect to command a good reward.” I think that on that cool, sun-speckled autumn afternoon as I strolled through the mountain forest, my mind was more on the prospect of that reward than the situation at hand. As a matter of fact, I remember reprimanding myself for not asking Hec Simmonds about the express company reward, as if it were already my due.

  I followed the game trail farther than I would have expected, uphill and down, through poplar then pine forest, until I came out on a crest of land in a ravine that centred on a small stream flowing east, which would probably flow into the little lake I had been stopped by at noon. I stood there for a long moment, wondering whether I should turn left or right, upstream or down, when I suddenly noticed that the much-travelled mule was grazing unconcernedly in a clearing directly across from me. Fifty yards from him was a cabin, half hidden by trees.

  Mentally cursing myself, I dodged back out of sight and peered more carefully through the branches at the scene across the creek. There was no smoke coming from the little tin chimney, but that was normal for this season and time of day. The mule continued to graze as if he had not noticed me, but those beasts do not normally pay attention to anything they do not intend to eat or anyone who is not threatening them with a stick.

  I watched for about ten minutes, w
hich seemed a very long time, and nothing stirred to indicate any life on the premises. A small window faced me, but at a hundred yards distance, it was only a black square. Ideas and plans tumbled through my mind three and four at a time, but nothing ideally suited to the moment stood out, except to try for a closer look at the little building.

  I circled carefully to my right through the bush, crossed the little creek several hundred yards upstream, and worked my way as close as I dared to the far side. There was not enough water in the creek flow to make sufficient noise to disguise my approach, and the ground was well scattered with leaves and debris, so I was slow in my progress and not altogether silent, but I was satisfied that I had not been heard or spotted by the time I was crouched in a thicket of willows on the far side of the cabin, watching the door.

  Again I waited while nothing happened.

  It is one thing to know that patience and care are advisable, but another matter completely to actually spend any amount of time staring at a static scene. One of my legs went to sleep. It wasn’t easy, trying to shake and flex some feeling into it without making any noise, and for a moment I recalled some of the frustrating aspects of my former employment with Mr. Pinkerton. After a certain length of time, a person feels downright foolish just watching and waiting—like a man fishing in a rainbarrel.

  I made another short circle, positioned myself behind a large, rotten poplar stump, and got a third view of total inactivity for another few minutes.

  It seemed fairly obvious that the man was either away from home or asleep within, so I released the safety catch on my rifle, hunched slightly forward, and started towards the cabin.

  I had taken precisely one step when a deafening roar split the still air—an overpowering blast that seemed to come from all directions at once. I would not have believed that my reflexes were so good, but I was instantly behind my poplar stump again, just as another shot was fired and a chunk of rotten wood the size of a frying pan flew up into the air. It was definitely not a .30-.30 he was shooting. The gun sounded like it was being fired from inside a well.

  I fell to my knees, stabbing my rifle barrel into the dirt, then realized that my backside was exposed and stood up. Flattened thus against the poplar trunk I sensed that my head was sticking up, and I half crouched. Then, amongst all the other thoughts rushing at me was the recognition that I did not know where my attacker was or where he was shooting from. For that matter, was he sitting still, or was he at that moment stealing through the trees to get a clear view of my back? I had no experience of being the hunted party, rather than the hunter. I didn’t like it.

  “Wait!”

  Irrationally I shouted it, as if we were friends playing a game. Then again—“Wait!”

  I hoped this might make him pause for a second or two—long enough for me to think. No clever new plan arrived, so I had to settle for an old, very risky one.

  “Don’t shoot!” I hollered once again. “Just hang on and don’t shoot, ’cause I’m coming out. I’m going to throw my gun out onto the ground, and then I’m coming out into the open. I just want to talk, all right then, friend?”

  He did not answer, but I did not expect him to. As I was shouting, I was removing the big Colt .45 revolver from the holster that held it tucked against my chest under my jacket.

  “Is that okay, friend?” I called good and loud to cover the sound of the handgun being cocked. Then I slid it into the back of my boot top, very gently. I was already in a tight spot, and it would do me no good to shoot my own foot off.

  “Come on out, then.” The voice sounded reasonably human. He was somewhere to the left of the cabin door.

  I threw my rifle onto the ground, well away from my position, took a long, deep breath, which I knew might well be one of a very few left to me, and sidled out of my cover like a frightened dog, keeping my right arm slightly behind me and half dragging my right leg.

  Two paces into the open I paused, and I knew that one great hurdle had been cleared. He evidently wasn’t going to blast me from cover immediately. I tried to look innocent and feel relaxed during those long few heartbeats, and finally he stepped out from behind a pile of cordwood.

  He was of medium height and very thick, with a bushel of black hair and beard surrounding eyes that looked like they had been sharpened to a point. Wool trousers and checkered shirt, homemade leather jacket with rabbit fur trim, wool socks—I had come upon him with his boots off.

  He could have been any miner or trapper in the Cariboo except for the long-barrelled cannon he swung at his hip. There was a hint of a crouch to his posture, and his eyes darted left and right quickly as he walked forward, although he never completely looked away from me.

  “You alone?” he asked finally in a low voice. It was a liquid drawl that spoke to me of regions far to the south.

  My mouth opened, but I didn’t answer. I couldn’t decide quickly enough whether it was to my advantage to say yes or no; I was too intent on looking for an opening to safely pull out the Colt. If I could convince him to take me inside, I thought, I might get a chance as he went through the door.

  “I’m alone,” I admitted.

  He remained on the balls of his feet, ready to jump to left or right, gun barrel directed straight ahead but weaving just a few inches back and forth. Behind him, I could see the mule, long ears in the air, watching us with great interest.

  If the rifle barrel at any time moved more than ninety degrees away from me, I decided, I would try to get the drop on him.

  At last, he relaxed.

  “You really are alone,” he said.

  I smiled.

  He smiled.

  Then he lifted his carbine into a shooting position, gave one bark of laughter, and blew a hole in the side of my right coat pocket. I don’t remember if I cried out or not, but I jumped and rolled and tugged at my gun handle, all at the same time. The trapper fired again, and a shower of dirt exploded just beside me.

  Then I had the .45 out and pointed in roughly the right direction. I don’t recall if my eyes were open or shut, but I kept pulling the trigger and jerking the gun down as it tried to jump out of my grip, over and over, until it refused to fire again.

  As the stillness returned to the little valley, I realized that at least one out of that magazine full of bullets had managed to connect with the trapper. He wasn’t moving.

  In the distance behind his body, I watched the frightened mule disappear somewhere towards the swamplands. For another minute I remained on my belly, brandishing the empty handgun. Then I stood up, sneezed the gunpowder out of my nose, and dusted off my clothes. First I took a long look at the bullet hole in my jacket and pondered its implications; then I walked over to examine the dead trapper.

  Dead he very definitely was. The long-barrelled Colt .45 is named the “Peacemaker,” and it does make for a sort of peace efficiently enough.

  He was lying on his side—bleeding a small amount from his chest and a great deal more from a fist-sized wound between his shoulder blades. I had plugged him as squarely as if I had known what I was doing, and the result was not a pretty sight. Looking down at the first man I had ever killed brought a confused and distasteful mix of emotions, followed by a wave of dizziness and nausea. I slumped onto his chopping block and kept my head down for a moment until it passed over and through me.

  “Your own damned fault,” I said quietly. I took a deep breath, stood up, and felt my face go hot and cold in turns so quickly that I had to flop back onto my seat.

  “Your own damned fault,” I repeated to the dead man. After a few more minutes, I stood again and headed down to the creek, where I washed my face and hair in the freezing water until my self-control was restored. Unfortunately, this confidence was short-lived. When I returned and surveyed the scene once again, I felt the same sick dread, along with a vague guilt, although I knew perfectly well that I had fired in self-defence. I stood there, about ten feet away from the man I had killed, facing in his general direction, but not looking
directly at his body.

  “Why should I worry about doing in a rotten dog like you?” I muttered.

  I received no response from the corpse; no communication from his departed spirit; no vaporous voice of explanation from the silent, watching forest. Soon, my feelings of nausea and dread turned to a sense of disgust.

  “You are a vicious and an unrepentant varmint,” I told him. “You bushwhacked me before I even had a chance to double-cross you, so don’t lie there looking so offended. I just did what I had to, and you have only yourself to blame. You’re a disgusting, faithless bandit and it’s no wonder I feel a bit sick. You should be glad to be dead just for your own self-respect.”

  For some reason, I felt a little better after blurting this out, although I was still a long way from feeling pleased with myself. The north country was turning out to be a study in depression and frustration. First I had sought gold in the standard way, by means of honest labour on my own claim, and had found the exercise to be unsatisfactory. Now, I had come sneaking through the trees after other men’s gold, solved a mystery, killed a man, and experienced an even deeper dissatisfaction at the end of it all.

  I stood and looked around, more out of restlessness than genuine curiosity.

  His cabin was squat and solid—large logs chinked with moss and roofed with turf, dirt floor, one window. Leaving the door open gave me just enough light to see my way around.

  A bed across one wall was made of poles four inches thick and supporting a sort of hide hammock made of bearskin. Two empty blasting powder boxes, one on top of the other, served for shelves, and a small table with a willow pole chair used up most of the remaining floor space, except for the corner by the foot of the bed where a small cast-iron stove was placed.