Zachary's Gold

by Stan Krumm

  My chances of talking my way out of the situation were becoming too slim to consider; my own handgun rested deep in my coat pocket, and there wasn’t a friend in the world to stand beside me.

  Ned, I thought. You’ve ruined us both, you detestable dog. Even if I managed to tell the whole truth to the law right now, they’d probably hang me as your double-crossing accomplice, rather than treat me as any friend of justice.

  There wasn’t much point in worrying about how my explanation might be received, because the man at the next table was obviously within two or three minutes at most of blasting me into the hereafter.

  I smiled broadly and, I hoped, confidently.

  “Just calm down there a minute, friend.” I deliberately picked up the pocket watch and snapped the cover closed. “This watch is not your brother’s. It was given to me by my father when I myself entered the navy. It has my name and birthdate engraved on the inside.”

  A hint of uncertainty appeared on his face like a crack of light entering a dark room.

  “Here. Take a look.”

  Again, very slowly, I flipped the timepiece in his direction, on his gun hand side.

  It skidded across the corner of his table and began to fall to the floor. Like any civilized man, this fellow reflexively followed his impulse to stop a watch from being dropped, and when he grabbed for it, I kicked a chair against his arm.

  A half second later, I had overturned both tables on him, knocking him flat on his back on the floor. His gun discharged into the ceiling, spreading gunpowder smoke and sawdust over the patrons, most of whom were howling and diving for cover. My adversary was between me and the front door, trying to regain his feet, so my only path of escape was past the bar and down the hallway, where I expected to find the rear exit. I had no such luck. The perverse designer of that building had ignored the necessity for a back door. There was only the base of a stairway at the end of the hall.

  I had no choice nor any time to choose, so I ran up the stairs three at a time, leaving the shouts and commotion below me, and found myself in another corridor, with doors down each side. The two I tried were locked.

  I was running like a rat from a cat, heedless of direction as long as I could keep running. There was a window slightly ajar at the back end of the building and I raced for this, even as I heard the sound of boots pounding up the stairs behind me.

  Outside the window was a three-foot-square wooden landing that I had thought would be a fire escape, but instead of a ladder leading down, the demented Barkerville architect had installed three steps leading upwards, onto the roof. Again, I simply followed my own momentum and climbed up.

  My pursuers were almost upon me. The nearest one came through the window just as I was scrambling up the wood shingles on all fours. I reached out and grabbed the tin bucket I found at the roof’s peak, and swinging it by its rope, I clobbered the man hard enough to knock him back into the building.

  The saloon, like most Barkerville structures, had a high, steeply pitched roof, with a flat walkway two feet wide running down the length of the peak. On this were kept large barrels to catch rainwater and the aforementioned bucket to lower it down. The system worked both as plumbing and fire protection.

  I now found myself stranded up there, twenty-five feet from the ground, with no way down except through an angry mob. Prospects were not pleasant.

  The building had a false front on it, and I supposed there might be some possible descent at that end, so I charged madly along the walkway, leaping over the low wooden rain barrels as I went.

  My last leap was not successful. I clipped the toe of my boot against the lip of the barrel’s rim, bounced once on the walkway, then rolled and skidded down the steep pitch of the shingles in a diagonal line that bumped me head first into the false front at the edge of the roof. Bruised and bewildered, I was able to grasp onto the corner by my fingertips for about one heartbeat, with my legs flailing and searching for purchase beneath me.

  I knew I was about to fall a full two stories, and my mind quickly brought back to me the advice of a man I knew who raced horses in California. “Spread out your fall,” he advised, “and turn it into a roll, so your bones don’t take a full impact.”

  My grip gave out, and I plunged downwards. Halfway down, my heels caught on a horizontal flagpole and this spun me upside down, so that I landed flat on my stomach on the boardwalk.

  Gasping and choking, I leaped to my feet and hurtled forward—directly into a man who had started towards me. We went down together in a thrashing pile of arms and legs; then we both scrambled quickly to our feet. I had my fist already raised to slug him, intending to one-punch him back down, when I realized I had just knocked over a preacher. It is for instances like these that they wear their collars backwards.

  He had a look of confusion and horror on his face, and I confess, I was myself taken aback by my own actions.

  “Excuse me, Father. Excuse me!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t see you, Father, and . . .”

  “No, no. Please. I am a Presbyterian. You needn’t call me Father. You may call me . . .”

  A gun blast sounded somewhere above me, and once again I was on the fly—across the street, under the boardwalk, and then underneath the buildings. Here I was quite thankful for another of the peculiarities of Cariboo builders. The fact that most larger structures were raised off the ground on posts allowed me to scurry beneath them and out of sight.

  Crossing an open space, I was again fired on from behind, but the shot missed its target. My Colt .45 was still in my pocket, banging like a hammer against my knee with every step, but a gunfight with the whole town was not what I wished.

  I could hear shouting and commotion in the distance, but whoever was pursuing me was well behind, I supposed.

  Hurrying along, first under buildings, then behind them, I covered a long stretch of Main Street, then struck up the hill along a muddy footpath. I tried to stay hunched over and look inconspicuous, which is not easy when you are running as fast as your legs will carry you. At the crest of the first hill, the track turned sharply right and snaked between the posts that held up an overhead aqueduct for a hundred yards or so, before it petered out at a group of shacks and shafts. At that point, even as I started to slow down, someone off to my right hollered something, and I dodged behind a scrubby clump of juniper bushes at the top of a little gully. I was suddenly standing on a very steep incline, treading unsteadily through a sea of greasy, grey clay muck—the discharge of the pumps emptying the nearby mine shafts. I couldn’t halt myself and pitched forward onto my belly, then slid down the hillside like a child on a toboggan, with my face ploughing through soupy mud.

  I never knew who had shouted, but I presume it had nothing to do with me. I stood up, dripping filth, and walked away unseen. It might have been a decent disguise, if I needed one. I looked the perfect image of someone who has just come up from wading through a flooded drift.

  A half mile away, on the other side of the hill, I holed up in an empty tool hut and waited until it was nearly dark.

  Since I no longer had a watch with me, I could only presume that it was six-thirty or seven o’clock when I crawled out of my hole. It was dark enough that my features would not be distinguished easily by a passer-by, but light enough for me to find my way through that labyrinth of trails and human burrows, where lanterns were too widely spaced to facilitate walking at night.

  I headed first to Carl’s place. I had some things I needed to say to him and a question or two to ask as well.

  He was still bunking in the equipment shed at his mine, although the tools had gradually been moved out to other locations in deference to his comfort, and enough improvements made to render the building livable for a future partner in the operation. The walls had been filled with sawdust for insulation, a bigger stove installed, and a window cut in the south wall.

  When I arrived, darkness was nearly complete, and I felt quite secure lingering about in the shadows of the main bunkhouse, where I
had a view of my friend’s entrance door. It was more than an hour, or so it seemed, before I saw him approach from the far side of the workings, carrying a lantern and accompanied by another man. I couldn’t see their faces, but I easily recognized Carl’s walk—a slow stroll, swinging his legs loosely like a seaman. The two men separated, and the other fellow went into the bunkhouse. I intercepted Carl as he reached his own quarters.

  I called his name in a low voice and slipped behind the building, out of sight. He followed me, holding his lamp at shoulder height.

  “Well,” he ventured at last, “I’m a little surprised to see you.”

  “I’m sorry about last night. I was rude and thoughtless, and I should have known better. I guess I was tired and not thinking straight, but that’s no excuse, I know. Please accept my apology as a friend.” I rattled it off, all in one breath.

  He set the lamp on the ground and hunched up against the building. I could see him shaking his head in the dimness. “Last night was no big affair. I suppose I was a little short myself. It wasn’t proper to grill you like that, and I shouldn’t have let them keep on when I saw you were bothered by it, but . . .” His voice trailed away.

  He wasn’t comfortable, in spite of the exchange of regrets.

  “That wasn’t why you’re surprised to see me.”

  “No.”

  There was a long pause, during which he drew a chunk of chewing tobacco from a twist of paper. “The sheriff’s man was here to see me not two hours ago. Hec Simmonds.”

  I whistled faintly.

  “That’s ruddy quick.”

  Barkerville was not as big a town as I gave it credit for. In the space of an hour or so, they had identified me and determined who my closest associate was.

  “What did he ask you?”

  Carl shrugged.

  “He wanted to know anything I knew about you—what you did, where you lived, where you came from, that sort of thing.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him that after I thought it all out, there wasn’t much I knew about you—not even where your claim was.” The remark had a sad reality about it. “If you’re in trouble, you needn’t worry about me. I told him what I knew, which was very little. I didn’t figure it would hurt you at all. I don’t think he actually believed me, since I admitted that we were friends and that you usually stayed with me when you came to town. He said he’d be back again maybe.”

  This turn of events put me into a quandary. I had been ready, up to that point, to tell Carl the whole story and to ask him if he wished to take a share in my venture. The two of us would have had a good chance of getting the stolen gold safely out to civilization and disposed of, but if the law had an eye on him, he would be too much of a liability. I myself was still an enigma to the sheriff’s office, but Carl could be traced and tracked. He was too well known in the town.

  “This sheriff’s man,” I asked, “did he tell you why they wanted me?”

  Carl’s reply was still guarded.

  “Well, it was Hec Simmonds, was who it was, so I didn’t put a lot of stock in what he had to say, but he said a bit, and somebody who’d been in town said a bit . . . I don’t know how much I believe . . .”

  “What, then?”

  “They say you were in a saloon and you tried to pawn a watch that was known to belong to a dead man—some fellow that had been shot in the back for his gold. Hec says when they asked about the watch, there was a big gun battle, and you escaped. Someone claimed you stopped to beat up a preacher.”

  He had to smile when he said that, as did I, but I was feeling rather sick. Carl was waiting for a true account.

  “Someone saw me in possession of the watch. I wasn’t trying to pawn it, I just had it. I ran off because I couldn’t afford to wait around and explain. There was no gunfight. No preacher was beat up.”

  Even in the flighty shadows of the kerosene lantern I could see relief on my friend’s face.

  “Where did you get that watch, then?”

  I thought it would be better for both of us if I gave him an abridged account, if any account at all.

  “I got it from my partner.” Carl nodded, as if that explained many things. “My partner is not altogether a nice fellow. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken up with him, but it’s too late now. I didn’t ask him where the watch came from.”

  “You have a partner! You should have told me that last night, Zach, when you wouldn’t tell us what you’d struck and all that. I would have understood if you’d just said that much. I mean your partner isn’t going to be out bragging to all his friends, is he?”

  I shook my head. “No, he doesn’t say a thing to anyone.”

  We talked a little longer about this and that, but sidestepped any direct description of the nature of my “lucky strike” or my future plans. When I finally said it wasn’t wise for me to stick around and stood to leave, Carl asked, “You really are leaving the goldfields, then, I presume?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “Soon. It’s getting colder.”

  “I reckon I won’t see you, then.”

  “Maybe. Remember to check your mail though, Carl. I promise that at the very least, I’ll write a letter when I reach my next home. Just to say I made it.”

  It was agreed, and we shook hands on it.

  There was one more thing.

  “Carl, I don’t dare stay here tonight, but would you have a blanket you could spare me? I don’t have cash, but there’s plenty of gold in this poke, so you can replace it.”

  He gave me what I knew to be his best blanket and said he would consider it an insult if I suggested that he should accept payment in return.

  I never saw the man again, although I saw his name mentioned in a copy of the Cariboo Sentinel dated about two weeks later. He was working in a drift at the forty-five-foot level, when the earth chose to exercise its prerogative to act with random malice, and swallowed him, along with two others. I have heard that sort of scene described before, and it holds a horror that is the more intense for its subtlety. The men on the surface hear no roar and see no crashing rock and timber. There is simply a very slight flexing of internal earthen muscle—a ripple almost unnoticeable along the ground skin—and perhaps a whisper of dust floating up from the main shaft. Before anyone can react, the poor creatures down there are dead and buried, sucked into the darkness below.

  It was an obvious fate for Carl, for he, unlike myself, was a true gold miner. Many of the men who travelled north in that gold rush—most of them perhaps—were not of that genuine fibre. Some were adventurers, some escapists, and some were desperate characters driven by a greed they could not hope to placate in any other fashion. Some, incredibly, were lazy and travelled that long, hard road in hopes of finding easy money.

  Most of these characters would, like myself, escape at the earliest opportunity, but I’m sure that Carl would have made a home and a long life there, had a more lengthy life been granted him. Barkerville in the sixties was a perfect environment—a heaven on earth—for men of his peculiar caste.

  These gold miners had very little in common with, for instance, the New England coal miner. They were much more of a type with the mule skinners, trappers, guides, and gamblers who formed the northern community. They lived their life in love with the feeling of expectation, and they somehow experienced an ongoing fulfilment from their days spent cold, wet, and muddy, stealing a spoonful of sparkle on a good day.

  I stumbled off to find some place in the shadows where I could rest until morning. It was cloudy and too dark to see even the outline of a footpath, except for the storm lanterns that were spotted around the more prosperous claims close to Williams Creek. These operations worked twenty-four hours per day, partly because their daily return was so great, and partly because they flooded so quickly if the pumps were shut down.

  I followed the trails from one of these little circles of light to the next, never allowing the full brightness to illuminate me, until I had reached the outskirts
of the town proper. There I crawled into a dark thicket and pulled the blanket around me.

  I can’t say I was able to get comfortable there, with twigs and stones poking at me every time I shifted my weight, but I did manage to manoeuvre myself into a position where I would have been able to sleep if I had not allowed myself to think about my predicament.

  I realized I was now well on my way to being a notorious and sought-after criminal. The forces of justice in that country were neither brilliant nor well organized, but they had my name, and they could therefore find my claim easily enough at the registry. I could not return to Binder Creek. More disturbing to me was the thought of what they would find when they looked through the belongings I had left on the mule tied outside the saloon. After a cursory perusal of Ned’s collection of papers—his victims’ diaries and letters—Sheriff Stevenson would no doubt come to the conclusion that I had murdered not one but at least a half-dozen unfortunate souls. He would also assume that I was still in possession of their gold.

  I WAS ON MY FEET and moving before it was light, but I still thought it advisable to change my appearance as much as possible. I tucked my trouser legs into my boots, tied my hair back into a pigtail like a sailor, and removed my coat. I carried it wrapped in my blanket as I skulked past the sleeping small claim holders, around the fringe of Cameronton, and away from civilization.

  I was still in possession of my map, and I plotted a course west-southwest, towards Mount Greenberry. This would allow me to skirt around the lower levels of Sliding Mountain and back down to the course of Antler Creek, not too far from Ned’s cabin.

  The sun was out when I reached Wendle Lake, but there wasn’t yet much warmth to it. The water was freezing cold, but I stripped to the buff and waded in, scrubbing myself with black sand, and whooping with anguish and ecstasy. I felt a bit like I was punishing myself for the foolish mistakes that had made my last few days so disastrous, although the chief reason for my oblations was simple personal cleanliness. I smelled even worse than I felt.