Zachary's Gold

by Stan Krumm

  Finally I reached the level of the cliff top and scrambled over until I was next to a single stunted pine tree on a little patch of ground overlooking the ravine. I leaned the rifle against one great grey rock and sat down on another. I would be inconspicuous enough up there, I thought, but I could see the far half of the clearing beneath me, including both animals, and more or less the entirety of the trail to the wagon road.

  I knew that Bill might return from his scouting expedition at any time. If I climbed up the little pine tree, I might be able to see all the way down to the last turn of the wagon road, which would give me enough advance warning to return to the clearing and meet the fellow on level ground.

  While I was still considering this, I heard the sound of gunfire.

  I was too startled to be sure of the exact order, but there were several shots, some from a rifle, and more than one from the Colt handgun. My mind went into a spin, and I couldn’t decide what to do, not knowing what had happened. If Squealer had somehow escaped, I should go back down by a different route, or he would be waiting for me at the cliff base. Then again, by the time I made it down to the clearing, would everyone have disappeared, just as at the last ambush?

  During the short time I was thinking this and peering down from my perch, the shooting stopped and two men ran across the clearing into my field of vision. Bill hadn’t come down the path, but he was back. He ran directly for the horse and mule, while Squealer, still trailing rope from one wrist, dodged over to pick up his rifle where it lay on the ground. He scooped it up, worked the bolt, and turned around to where I had left Rosh. He hadn’t time to finish aiming before I pulled the trigger on the buffalo gun and knocked him a full six feet backwards.

  In the time it took me to realize that a second shot at Squealer wasn’t necessary, Bill had decided that it was no use for him to try to help the man, and he danced past the frightened mule and into the trees. I fired one more shot at his shadow as he hurried through the bushes, but there wasn’t much chance at a clear angle through the timber.

  I watched him all the way back to the main road, where he made the mistake of stopping and peering back like Lot’s wife. Maybe he wanted to see if he were being pursued, or maybe he was having a hard time leaving all that gold behind. It should have been a mortal mistake, for the Sharp’s rifle is engineered to kill at distances up to a mile. I had no practice with the thing, though, and merely kicked up a good handful of dust a few paces from his feet. My only satisfaction was to see him disappear like a scared rabbit. He looked like a man who was heading for home, not simply running for cover.

  It was just beginning to get dark. The sky was still clear, but the wind was building into strong, chill gusts.

  When I made it down to the clearing, I found I was shivering, although I was not really cold. All my movements seemed stiff, and my mind likewise would not move swiftly or willingly.

  Rosh lay half under a scrub alder bush, against the log where he had been seated when I left him. Blood flowed from his left side and his hip. He was in great pain and obviously frightened, but he was alive.

  MY PARTNER’S INJURIES EFFECTIVELY DESTROYED all my plans just as I had begun to relax in the belief that they might actually be successful. My plans were ruined beyond retrieval; I could only hope that the same was not true of my partner. I was no doctor and could not even measure his chance for survival, but his condition was definitely serious. I managed to stop the bleeding from his wound, and once I had made his bed as comfortable as possible, his breathing steadied and he lapsed into a deep sleep.

  Whether he lived or died, he would not be ready to carry a burden before winter, and I certainly could not manage transporting him as well as the gold. I had recovered completely from my shoulder wound and my bout with fever, but one man can manage only so much. For that matter, even though we were far from Barkerville and could relax our secrecy to some extent, carrying such a huge quantity of precious goods made it necessary to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

  Watching Rosh sleeping at the edge of the campfire light, these ideas settled on me like blizzarding snow, and my mood sank steadily. I knew I should keep a better watch, for Bill the Badman might yet return under cover of darkness, but I didn’t have the energy to try to out-think him. I merely hoped that he had either given up on the project entirely or that it would take him some time to round up new accomplices.

  Like a child escaping from unpleasant reality by hiding in fantasy, I spent much of that sleepless night dreaming of what I might do with the small mountain of raw gold sitting behind me in the dark.

  I would buy myself a steamship, I thought, big enough to carry a profitable cargo up and down the coast of California to Mexico. It would have staterooms enough for a couple of dozen affluent guests, and a fine restaurant with room for them to dance in the sea breeze under the warm stars. I would busy myself with the details of international trade, and perhaps meet some elegant young lady who was accompanying her father on a cruise. There would be much to occupy my time, but no danger.

  I roused Rosh when he began to squirm in his sleep, and gave him the last of our water to drink. I would have given him some whisky as well, but the bushwhackers had finished that off before I caught up to them. When it appeared that Rosh had returned to a restful unconsciousness, I left him there and found my way in the moonlight over the half mile of path and roadway to the big creek, where I refilled our water containers. The night hours in that desert place were absolutely majestic, and my mood changed from bleak depression to a sort of melancholy.

  It was a state of mind that had its own dangers. As I walked I thought, for instance, how unusual it was that during that entire afternoon and the course of my confrontation with our ambushers, not a soul had come within sight or hearing. In my sad and fatalistic atmosphere of thought, I half wished that some congregation of onlookers had arrived to bring my long struggle to a halt.

  In the small hours of the morning, in the heaviness of predawn, my patient awoke. He was in great pain, for which I could do nothing, but I did have two bowls of warm liquid prepared—the oriental medicines that had done so much good for me. I presumed that such medicaments would do roughly the same good for gunshot wounds as they had for gangrenous fever. Since I was not overly anxious to undertake the removal of his bandages to clean his wounds, I began by giving him the bowl of the other brew to drink. At first he refused it, and I let him know that I would not allow him to deny me the pleasure of administering the atrocious stuff. Eventually he made it clear that I was giving him the wrong potion to be taken internally, which brought about a lengthy disagreement. The two elixirs had equally nauseating but quite distinct odours, and I felt certain that the one he chose to drink was the one that he had regularly used to cleanse my infected shoulder. I didn’t want to worsen his condition with a prolonged argument, however, so I allowed him to gulp down his chosen bowlful while I gingerly removed the strips of torn shirt that sufficed for bandages and bathed the entry and exit wounds the bullet had gouged in his lower left abdomen. Not much new blood flowed, and after rinsing the dressings in warm water, I reapplied them as well as I could. I lectured the man severely, telling him that I knew very well by sense of taste that he had just convinced me to wash him with oral medication, but he was by that time asleep.

  When proper daylight arrived I was no closer to deciding on our long-term plan of action, but I knew what was immediately necessary, and I forced myself from under my blanket just when I was starting to feel like sleep might finally be possible. Once I had the bundles of gold loaded on the mule (I discarded most of the rest of our supplies except for some bannock and dried venison), I returned to the fireside to find Rosh awake, and I explained our situation to him.

  Someone might come looking for us at any time. We had no choice but to move out and try to find a hiding place as far from our present location as he could physically manage.

  I gave him more water and another dose of his medicinal tea, and he stoically limped,
with my help, to where I could lift him onto the ancient grey horse we had obtained from our attackers. He assured me that he was fit enough to ride, and I led the procession towards the wagon road, the horse on a short rope, the mule on a long one.

  I toured the animals in a roundabout path, across the roadway, among the trees, and towards the creek, along whatever strips of gravel or hard pack I could find. When I reached the creek’s banks I left the animals tethered to a snag, broke off a willow broom, and ran back the way we had come, erasing as many signs of our passage as I could see. If I had learned to recognize a track when I worked for Pinkerton’s, I had also learned a trick or two for disguising one.

  Back at the creek, I checked again on Rosh, who could still manage to affect a smile, then moved off downstream, walking either in the shallow skirts of the water or on the cobblestone of the flat banks. We travelled a weaving route, going east or southeast, but at that stage one direction was as good as another, as long as our footprints weren’t easily seen and Rosh was able to stay on the horse’s back. Periodically I asked him if he needed to stop and rest, but each time he shook his head in casual refusal. It seemed that he might actually be able to relax as he stretched over the animal’s back, and I gradually lapsed into a sort of hypnotized plodding, watching my boots and concentrating on my own fatigue.

  When we arrived at the little island in the stream, some three or four miles from our starting point, it was for my own benefit that I felt we must call a halt, but when I turned to speak to my partner, I found him gritting his teeth like a death’s head, sweat mixed with tears covering his face. He did not respond to my voice, and once I had waded the pack animals over to our new landing, he almost caused the placid grey to bolt by refusing to release his iron grip on its mane and hair.

  Seeing him in such a state made me suddenly alert and animated, but I knew that fatigue would soon recapture me, so I busied myself making the invalid a soft bed of reeds and rushes. Then I unloaded the animals, tethered them to graze on the far bank of the creek, and gathered a stock of firewood. While walking along the north bank, picking up dry branches, I was surprised to see an ox cart at the far edge of the meadow, only a quarter mile or so distant. The watercourse ran parallel to the wagon road through here, it seemed, so we had not actually put much space between ourselves and the main thoroughfare, which bothered me at first. We had done the best we could, though, and anyone looking for us had no reason to carry their search down this route.

  When I returned to the island, I gathered tinder and twigs and started a small fire. It was not cold; in fact, it was pleasantly warm in the sunshine, but I hooked a cooking pot full of water onto its stand and fetched the little bags of powder and herbs in preparation for another batch of Chinese medicine. Rosh was still sleeping, but his breath came in hurried little puffs, and his forehead was hot.

  I lay down and closed my eyes, trying again to envisage a trim white steamboat cutting a clean line across blue waters under a tropical sun.

  When I awoke, the sun had changed sides of the sky. The fire was out, the water cold, and the cottonwoods cast shadows from one creek bank to the other.

  There seemed to be no change in my partner’s condition, although he had rolled from his back to his side, where he lay slightly curled, with one arm over his head. I covered him with a second blanket and set to work finding fresh tinder.

  When the new bowls of Chinese liquid were at last prepared, I attempted to change his bandages and wash his wound without actually rousing him. He awakened gradually as I did this, mumbling to himself and shaking his head.

  He was aware of my presence, but I am not sure that he knew who I was. In a desultory monotone he spoke quietly to me in Chinese, not inviting conversation, but rather as if to recite some sad story. I hurried the bowl to his lips at every pause. His lengthy speech worried me.

  The clear sky and the breeze brought cooler weather that night, and protection from the elements was not an advantage that our island campsite afforded. I left both blankets covering the invalid, and lay as close as I could to the fire, covered by my coat and an oilcloth normally used for packaging the baggage.

  I’m not sure which of us was the first to open his eyes, but before dawn was all the way down into the valley, I became aware that Rosh and I were watching one another across the fire’s glow. He didn’t move or speak, but I felt somehow that there was a bit more clarity to his aspect, and I was able to drift back to a more peaceful sleep.

  When full daylight arrived, I found the change less substantial than I had thought. Rosh was awake and aware while I boiled water for tea and medicine and washed myself in the creek, but he made no attempt to communicate and showed no sign of vitality whatever. His fever was evidently not so consuming as it had been at its peak, but speckles of sweat still stood out like pox on his face. He stared sullenly at the ground beside him. After the twin bowls of medicine had been dispensed, he stretched out again on the reed bed and closed his eyes. For my part, I ate a slab of bannock and realized that our food supplies were almost totally depleted. The countryside around our little hideaway was mostly rolling desert, painted in bleak pastels with clay and sagebrush, and I was not too optimistic about what kind of game I might be able to hunt. There were probably deer in the pine forests farther up the hillsides, but I didn’t want to travel that distance. Rabbits and gophers were around, no doubt, but it was quite doubtful that I would get close enough to shoot one with a handgun, and if I used the buffalo rifle, I might never find the fragments. I could put a couple of fishing lines in the creek, I thought, and check them from time to time while I kept watch over my sick companion.

  I had cut my line into two lengths and was in the process of attaching them to a dead branch long enough to cross one arm of the creek when Rosh’s eyes opened. He shifted himself so one arm was behind his head and spoke to me in our usual blend of words and gestures.

  His voice was low and his movements awkward, so it took me a few moments to grasp his basic meaning. Ashcroft was not far away, he said, and he was very sick. I must leave him, and go on alone.

  I growled my refusal and walked away, dragging my tree branch to set my fishing lines.

  The layout of my equipment was poor. There were probably fish in the creek, but I saw no reason that they should be attracted to a pair of hooks so close to the surface in a quick-flowing channel. I could find no better arrangement or location within walking distance, however, and returned to the camp to keep the fire alive. I had passed an hour on my angling outing, but Rosh was still awake when I returned. He gestured for me to come closer, which I did, bringing a cup of water for him. He drank peremptorily, let the tin cup fall to the ground, and grasped my hand in his. His eyes seemed unfocused, but his grip was strong. With one hand he held me by the wrist, then reached across with the other and carefully placed the two coins symbolizing his share of the gold in the centre of my palm.

  I didn’t know what to say or do. Was it a sign of gratitude or one of fatalistic surrender? In the end, I said nothing at all, just stepped across to the water pot and busied myself with making tea. My hands shook, and I spilled half the water into the fire.

  Once I was seated again with my cup of mud-brown tea, Rosh began to speak at length. “Ashcroft,” he said at one point, and held thumb and forefinger just an inch apart. “Go. Go. Go,” he told me in impeccable English, then lapsed back into Chinese. Quite irrationally, I found myself leaning forward, clinging to the rise and fall of his tone.

  I was to carry on alone. That was the upshot of it all. I told him to forget the idea, adding a rather crude epithet that I trusted he would not be able to translate. I was staying here, I said. I would look after him. He would be fine.

  We sat in silence for a few moments, until he interrupted my thoughts to add further argument.

  I must go. Ashcroft was just over there. I should leave him my revolver.

  Why did he want my revolver? I threw the dregs of my tea on the ground and went to check th
e fishing lines. They were empty and badly tangled, which was no surprise to me. The freezing water chilled my fingers, so it took me a long time to right them, but I kept stubbornly at it, trying not to visualize Rosh making a gun out of his thumb and forefinger.

  Finally I left the fishing apparatus and walked the hundred feet to the downstream tip of the little islet, where I crouched on the gravel, throwing pebbles into the current.

  After a half hour I returned to build up the fire and heat more water.

  Now, just when I figured I had pacified the man, he burst again into a pleading monologue.

  Ashcroft. I must go. Then he muttered fervently at some length in his own language, with the words “go,” “Ashcroft,” and something that sounded like “mang sang,” which he repeated several times.

  I managed to keep my composure as I stood, setting the cup down on the ground within his reach.

  “No,” I said quietly. “Drink up. Drink your stuff like a good fellow.”

  He flopped back onto his bed and began to weep feverish, frustrated tears. I took my gun and started walking.

  I was hunting, I suppose, or that is how I would have rationalized my lengthy wanderings down the stream bed, then up to high ground, travelling with my eyes fixed blankly on the ground before me. I passed an hour at this, or perhaps more.

  When I arrived back at camp the fire was out, but Rosh was asleep, his breathing deep and even. His cup was empty, so presumably he had consented to swallow his medicine, but when I straightened the blankets over him I saw fresh blood on them, as well as on the tattered side and front of his shirt.

  I didn’t eat any supper, but it was about that time of day—nearly dark and rather chilly—when he awoke and spoke to me again. He spoke quietly this time, with less emotion.