I bounded down the cabin steps two at a time, hopped on the dun and led the chestnut downhill toward the log bridge. I’d taken Lacey riding up the creek till near noon. We’d talked to a lot of miners, but no one had news of Webster Lawson.
Lacey said her pa left home weeks ago, but every day more and more men showed up here to mine and they found gold everywhere they went. The territory folks called gold country grew bigger and bigger. Web Lawson could be anywhere.
I dropped off Maggie’s chestnut at the stable and rode towards town. Several miners had pointed out something that might help, a group called the California Mining Cooperative, the same bunch the man outside the Round Tent Saloon had talked about. It started in Coloma a while back and now they had an office here. A lot of miners went by there. Maybe Lacey’s pa had too.
I saw the small sign hanging beside a staircase right past the Round Tent. One of the first businesses in town, the saloon still operated out of the same big tent it started in. They had a lot of customers too, especially on Saturday night and Sunday, and today was no different, but I still managed to find an open rail where I could tie the dun.
When I turned to climb the staircase a door at the top opened and a fellow came out. I recognized him as the same man who complimented my cooking the day Lacey showed up.
“How do you do, sir?” I called out while he locked the door. He must work here, I thought. I was in luck. “Are you with the mining cooperative?”
He put his key into a vest pocket and glared down the stairs at me before his face softened. “You’re the boy from the cafe, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes sir. I’ve been helping out there for a few days.”
“Well, I’m pleased to see you again, son. I’ve heard a lot of good things about that cafe since I’ve been in town. Is there something I can do for you?” He started down the steps.
“Well, maybe, sir. I’m looking for a miner. His name is Webster Lawson and I wondered if you’d seen him.”
The man stopped one step above the walkway so that I still had to look up at him. “It could be,” he said without mulling things over much. “But I do see an awful lot of miners, and that name isn’t familiar to me right off.”
I craned my neck back to look into his eyes. “He’s a tad taller than me, sir, and skinny.” I said. “He wears a neat brown goatee with a thin moustache and has dark piercing eyes with really thick brows and a high forehead.” I didn’t know what dark piercing eyes meant exactly, but Lacey had told everybody we’d met today about her pa the same way so many times that I’d just repeated what she’d said.
“That could be a hundred men around here, but I’ve only been in town a few days now. You should check with our Coloma office. It’s been open a lot longer,” he offered.
“I guess I’ll do that, sir. Thanks.” I started to leave but the man called after me. I stopped and turned back.
“What’s your name, son?” he asked.
He’d stepped down onto the plank walkway and I could look in his eyes easy now. “I’m Tom Marsh, sir.” I held out a hand.
He took it and shook. “Pleased to know you, Tom. I’m Reid Harrison. When you do get to Coloma just tell my man there that I sent you. His name is Frank Barney. He’s next to the Golden Nugget and he’ll take good care of you.”
The man still had a hold of my hand and for some reason I felt real uneasy so I pulled it away. I gave him an awkward wave as I took a step back. “I’ll do that Mr. Harrison. Thanks a lot,” I said as honestly as I could.
“Just call me Reid. Everybody does.” He cracked a big smile and something about him put me more on edge. Maybe his missing front tooth made him look more like a brawler than the high-toned businessman he appeared to want folks to see him as. Then again it might have been something in his eyes that didn’t play straight. I couldn’t put a finger on it, but it seemed like he had too much oil in his words.
“Thanks again, Reid.” I said and hurried back to the dun. While I untied the reins I watched him disappear inside the flap of the Round Tent Saloon. I remembered how he’d met Lacey in the doorway to the cafe Friday. He must’ve done something to her because she swatted at him with her purse. He’d ducked and went away laughing. And now, after I’d mulled it over, I’m sure I would’ve had the same fidgety feeling about Reid Harrison then except I’d been way too smitten by Lacey to think about anything else.
Horses were tied on each side of the dun so I backed him into the street to have more room to mount up, rubbing his neck as I did. I turned east toward the stable and grabbed the saddle, but just as my foot hit the stirrup a hand yanked my shoulder and spun me around. Before I could blink, a fist smashed into my left cheek exactly where Lacey kissed me yesterday. I tumbled backward into the dun’s hindquarter. That caused him to bolt up the street and I landed on my rump in the dust.
“You lousy polecat,” the hitter yelled. “Stay away from my gal or you’ll get more of this than you can stomach.”
I didn’t recognize the voice right off so I shook my head to clear the cobwebs, but a boot caught me in the side. I grunted loud and rolled away. I found my feet, my mind fired up in a fine fettle, ready to fight, not about to abide anybody that sucker punched me in the face. I ducked a slow roundhouse blow aimed at my head, but I saw my attacker now—Jeremiah Wiggins who stank like an upturned whiskey still.
He let out a belch and wobbled some, almost toppling over. “Lacey’s my gal,” he slurred. “You stay away from her.”
Wiggins didn’t merely seem drunk, he looked totally stewed, three sheets to the wind. I took a step back. “Go home, Jeremiah, and sleep it off. You’ll feel better tomorrow,” I said. Though older and beefier than me, I still knew that liquored up like this I could take him easy.
“The hell you say!” He reached back and rolled out a long left hook that I stepped away from easy. I punched him hard in the jaw. He swore at me like the bully he was but he’d already had his chance. My time to repay him for what he’d given me had come. I hauled off and pounded him square in the nose as hard as I could. A loud oomph blew out of his mouth. He toppled clean off his feet, landed flat on his bum, blood spewing from his snout. He grabbed his sneezer with both hands and moaned.
I kept my dukes up and clenched, but hoped he would quit. “Stay down, Jeremiah. You’re too drunk to fight,” I warned, ready to smack him in the beak again if I had to.
Wiggins wiped at the blood with one sleeve, shook his head and tried to push up with his other arm. It looked to me like he hadn’t had enough, so I squared up to throw another right, just in case.
“Jeremiah, stop it!” The cry came from west of where I stood. I ventured a look. It was Jed Wiggins, heading this way at a full out gallop. Younger and smaller than Jeremiah and if push came to shove I thought I could take him, but I sure didn’t want to fight both Wiggins’ boys at the same time.
Without even a glance at me Jed raced up to his brother and pushed him back to the ground. He pulled off his yellow bandana and wiped it across his brother’s bloody snoot. “Pa wants you back home right now,” he yelled. “He’s spitting more venom than an overheated rattler. You know how he gets when you drink like this.” Then Jeremiah pushed Jed’s hand away and mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out.
It seemed like the fight was over so I glanced back over my shoulder for the dun. Eban’s gray horse waited about fifty feet up the street. I backed up a step, ready to get out of here.
The motion must have caught Jed’s eye and he looked over. “You go on, Tom,” he said. “Jeremiah ain’t going to fight no more. I’ll take care of him. I’m sorry about this, but he just drinks too much sometimes, that’s all.” Jed shook his head, turned back to the drunken roughneck and yanked him to his feet.
While Jed struggled down the road, his brother draped over his shoulder, I saw how Jeremiah wore a pair of handmade Mexican boots like Reid Harrison had on. I noticed them at once because Jeremiah’s dark blue pants were way too short and right in the middle of his rear end s
omebody sewed on a triangle shaped red patch that pointed straight down at them.
To me it seemed awful peculiar that a fellow would wear such high priced boots with homemade pants so badly mended. Still, I heaved a relieved sigh that the fight was over and trudged off to get the dun. He acted a bit skittish at first but calmed down when I stroked his neck and talked soft into his ear. My cheek ached some and when I wiped it with my hand a streak of blood showed up on my palm. Jeremiah’s punch had cut me. There would be explaining to do when I got home.
I left the dun at the stable and walked down toward the log bridge. Past the freight office I glanced up the hill to the cabin. My gut growled from hunger, but I didn’t want to answer all the questions I knew would come when everyone saw my face. Besides I needed to think so I headed for the cafe.
In the kitchen I built a fire under half a pot of coffee then stretched out on the cot and rubbed my side where Jeremiah kicked me. I ached some but it didn’t seem like any serious harm came from the scuffle. Now I worried about any other love struck miner who might decide to fight me over Lacey, even though she wasn’t even my girl or anybody else’s for that matter.
She looked so fetching Friday. I could easily imagine every unmarried miner in Hangtown, and a lot of the married ones too, lining up to pop me in the face because of her. All at once she seemed a lot more dangerous than I’d ever dreamed a pretty girl could be. Still, I wanted to help her find her pa, even if I had to fight the whole town to do it.
But she had never told me why her pa came to the gold country. I’d always figured he wanted to mine. But when I thought about it, maybe there could be some other reason Webster Lawson left his beautiful young daughter alone in San Francisco to ride to the rough, unruly gold country—some really important reason that only an army officer could deal with. The trouble was Lacey had no idea about that. She didn’t even know her pa was still in the army until I told her what Eban had said.
Then there was Reid Harrison and whatever seemed so bothersome about him. When he’d said he liked my cooking I’d taken a fancy to him at first. And today he acted real pleasant, downright sociable, yet something about him raised a pile of bafflement that gnawed deep inside my craw. But if Web Lawson didn’t come here to mine he should have no interest in Reid Harrison’s California Mining Cooperative. So I didn’t rightly know what to think about anything that happened.
The coffee started to sizzle. It would come to a boil real quick and that would spoil the taste. With a groan I hopped up and rescued the pot from the stovetop, poured a cupful and put the pot back where it would stay warm and sat at the kitchen table.
The bell on the door rang about the same time I’d downed the coffee in my cup. I heard heavy boots thump on the dining room floor and Eban called, “Tom, you in the kitchen?”
“Yeah, Eban.” Here it comes, I thought. He’ll see my face and want to know what happened. I felt the cut on my cheek and sighed.
He stopped in the dining room doorway. “I saw the smoke from the stove and figured it was you,” he walked to the table and pulled out a chair. “You plan on coming up for lunch? Lacey’s making fried chicken and corn bread. I think she’s doing it special for you.”
“I went to town to talk to a man there. After that I came back here.” I mumbled, worried now about why Lacey would want to cook for me. That made me even more edgy than the fight and I started to fidget. “There’s still enough coffee left for both of us. Want some?” I asked, mostly to keep Eban from noticing my jitters.
“A cup of coffee would go nice right now,” he answered.
I stood, filled both cups and handed one to him.
He took a small sip. “You been in a fight, Tom? Your face’s cut.”
I looked down to dodge his eyes. “Yeah, I got Sunday punched by Jeremiah Wiggins,” I knew getting into a set-to with anyone but my brothers was downright disgraceful. I’d never done anything like it before.
“That’s Doak Wiggins’ oldest boy ain’t it?” Eban asked without so much as a why so or what for.
“Yeah, I guess,” I answered knowing I’d have to explain the fight to Eban, but somehow I’d still rather face a grizzly bear protecting her cub than talk about it.
“Well, if that’s the only mark you got, you must’ve won,” he said nice and easy.
I scrunched my mouth around as I recalled what happened. “He was drunk. I got lucky and hit him in the nose. That pretty much finished it,” I took a sip of coffee, not so much because I wanted it but more because I still didn’t want to face Eban.
“Folks say Jeremiah’s got a fondness for the hard stuff.” Eban went on. “Old Doak must hate it. He really walks the straight and narrow.” He sat his cup on the table. “So what was Jeremiah’s beef with you?” He pointed at me with his finger out and his thumb up, like a kid does when he pretends he has a pistol.
I glanced over toward the stove and sulked a bit, knowing this would be hard to talk about. “Oh, I don’t know. Ask him,” I said, hoping Eban would forget it.
“I’m asking you,” he demanded, firm sounding but still gentle. He put his hands together, one palm flat against the other with his thumbs tucked in, like he was praying for an answer, or maybe for the right answer.
“Aw, Eban!” I whined and squirmed in my chair. I couldn’t look at him face to face. The whole hoo-ha embarrassed me too much. Me, fighting with a drunk in the middle of the street on a Sunday afternoon, my pa would never have put up with it. But I had to tell him something, and it had to be the truth. “He says Lacey’s his girl. He wants me to stay away from her.”
Eban picked his coffee cup up again. “A pretty girl like Lacey can cause a peck of trouble among young men your age. That’s the gospel truth.”
For the first time I dared to peek at him. He didn’t smile exactly but he sure didn’t frown either. He had a faraway look, like he was chewing over some dark secret or maybe remembering something from a long time ago. Leastwise he didn’t seem mad at me for fighting Jeremiah and I felt a powerful sense of relief.
But now that Eban knew about the fight, I wanted to make sure he knew the meat and potatoes of it. “Jeremiah had been drinking something fierce. He could hardly stand up. He Sunday punched me when I started to mount the dun. I didn’t hit him hard but once and he flopped over like he’d slipped in bacon fat.”
Eban’s eyes snapped back into the here and now and he chuckled. A grin spread across his face, too big to be caused by what I’d just told him. “Yes sir, a pretty girl sure can get a man into a rumpus so big there ain’t no possible way to wiggle out,” he said and from the look that went with the grin maybe Eban had been remembering. “I reckon you’d best come up with a better story for Maggie though,” he went on. “She ain’t going to cotton to you scrapping in the street. Could be the dun kicked you, I suppose?”
Now I took my turn to smile. Eban had made light of my scuffle and wanted to help keep it from Maggie. “Okay, if she asks I’ll tell her I got kicked. She’ll believe that.” In a way I felt a heap better now. Eban could make something real serious look like just a part of the everyday way. So maybe he would do the same with my other imponderable. “Have you heard of a place called the California Miner’s Cooperative? It’s run by a man named Reid Harrison?”
“Reid Harrison?” Eban blurted the name out real loud and scratched his chin whiskers. “I ain’t sure but that might be a guy I knew of during the war. But I did hear talk about how the mining cooperative is a way for new miners to hedge their bets if they ain’t sure what they can do here. They all pool together the gold they mine and split the pot every so often. Maybe I heard wrong cause in any situation like that there’s bound to be those what don’t pull their share. I’ll look into this Harrison feller for you though. Probably he ain’t the same guy I’m thinking of.”
“Thanks, Eban. I’ve seen him a couple of times and he leaves me feeling like I’m stepping in fresh horse leavings. It might be nothing, but when I asked him about Lacey’s pa he said to s
ee a man in Coloma. How about I take a wagon over in the morning?” I asked, already feeling a lot better after Eban came down on my side.
“Hallelujah! You’re welcome to it.” he grinned wide then stood up. “Let’s you and me walk up to the cabin. The women folk are looking to see you.”
“All right Eban. I’ll go,” I said. Talking to Eban had helped boost my frame of mind a lot.
4
“Easy mules, whoa now!” I pulled hard on the brake lever to keep the heavy wagon from rolling out of control down the hill. Off to the left huge redwoods towered high above the road, but to the right the ground fell off into a blanket of brambles and brush covered by a thick stand of pine. The air here had a clammy smell, even in summer. Not far ahead ran the American River, another sharp turn and I would be in Coloma.
I’d left home way before sunup so I would have more time to look up this Frank Barney fellow at the California Mining Cooperative and ask him about Lacey’s pa. I was used to the early mornings. For a month or more before Maggie had little Josie I did the same thing every day so I could make it back to the cafe early enough to give her a hand with the noon rush.
I caught a quick glimpse of the river ahead flashing through the trees. The trail took a hard turn to the left. “Haw Mules, haw here. Come on now, haw!” I pulled hard on the reins. The two lead mules did as I wanted and in no time the wagon rolled into the boomtown of Coloma.
It knocked me off my feet at how fast the town had grown. When I first got here this time last year there were only a handful of shops. Now Coloma had become a dyed-in-the-wool city, with hundreds of buildings bustling with shopkeepers and miners. The saw mill lay ahead, tucked inside a big loop in the river, with piles of fresh cut lumber in its lot.
I passed the Golden Nugget Saloon and saw the sign for the California Miners Cooperative hanging near a staircase that led up beside the butcher shop next door. I knew the saloon well, too well maybe. I’d worked there last year, cleaning out the place in the mornings. It had been a hard summer. Things were much better now.
Into the face of the devil: A love story from the California gold rush Page 4