Bound for Gold--A Peter Fallon Novel of the California Gold Rush

by William Martin

  “I snuck down there one night myself. She was takin’ a bath in the river.”

  “Why, you dirty old man.” I said it with admiration, and we got to work.

  Mid-morning, Chin came across with two pots. One contained ginger tea, the other soup. “My sister say you look like you been sick. Skinny like handle of shovel. She think you need tea for to make stomach better. Chicken soup for to make full.”

  “I lost weight. I did not die.”

  “Good not to die. Where Flynn? She want to know.”

  “In San Francisco. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

  “My sister sorry to hear. Not me.”

  So Mei-Ling had liked Flynn’s peppermints more than my longing gazes. So much the better.

  February 7, 1850

  Samuel Hodges

  There was music in the turning of the wheel. A steady rhythm of push and whoosh, push and whoosh, push and whoosh and splash, all the day through. And nothing brought more focus to a distracted mind. When the wheel was turning and the water was flowing and we were spreading gravel in the Long Tom, Cletis Smith and I were engaged right to the bottom of our souls.

  We ignored the weather, the Chinese, and the stream of men now traveling on the road above our piece of river. Miners went on foot, on horseback, and in wagons laden with supplies, all headed for the big upstream claim of the Triple MW.

  At midday, Cletis and I were sitting in the cabin, spooning Chinese chicken soup. I had my back to the open door, so I noticed his reaction first. Then he said, “What the hell is this?”

  They had come at last. There were four of them:

  Moses Gaw was running his finger along the riffles in the Long Tom. His brother David was standing nearby, holding their horses. And another mounted man was up at the road, watching everything, like a guard.

  But the real presence was the big man on the black horse at the edge of the river. His hands were folded on the pommel of his saddle. His head was turned because he was studying the Chinese, who were working hard at pretending he wasn’t there.

  Samuel Hodges was still as handsome as Byron, though much changed. His hair curled to his collar, his beard had grown full and thick. His black coat had been torn and mended. But one thing had not changed: the square of his shoulders bespoke more power than the turning wheel or the river that drove it.

  As Cletis and I came down the bank, Moses Gaw held up a finger covered in dirt and gold dust. “Rich damn diggin’s. No wonder you like it here.”

  Cletis had his scary old blunderbuss crooked politely in his arm, but his tone told everything. “How long you been in this country, mister?”

  Moses grinned. “Long enough.”

  “Not long enough to know you don’t touch a man’s tools or his pay dirt ’less you’re invited. Now wipe that finger on the edge of my sluice and take a step back.”

  Moses Gaw did as he was told, though by his motions made it plain that he was not ordinarily so compliant.

  Hodges gave Cletis a glance, then said to me, “You seem to favor hotheads, James. Where’s the Irishman?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “So he deserted you? I hope that this old veteran serves you better.”

  Cletis said to me, “Is this the Boston windbag? The one who wants to mind everybody’s business?”

  “I mind my own,” said Hodges. “And my friends’. Isn’t that right, Mr. Gaw?”

  “It’s why we threw in with you, Mr. Hodges. Shrewd Boston Yankees and strong-backed Missouri muleskinners. We make a good team.”

  “What do you want?” asked Cletis.

  “Your vote,” said Moses. “We’re visiting claims in the district, telling what we’ll do for you boys, so you’ll vote for our slate on Sunday.”

  Cletis said, “What can you do for me that I can’t do for myself?”

  David Gaw said, “Guarantee a white district for the white Americans.”

  I knew that Chin, squatting downstream, was listening while pretending not to.

  Hodges swung his big head toward the Chinese. “Things might not go so well for them, but … we’ll be humane. Maybe we’ll hire them to dig a trench to Rainbow Gulch.”

  “Mindin’ Chink business, too?” said Cletis. “A man starts mindin’ other men’s business, he may get to likin’ the idea.”

  Hodges ignored Cletis and said to me, “I’ll count on your vote, Spencer. We want to make this the best damn mining camp in the Mother Lode.”

  “Why?” I said. “Men mine and make money, or they don’t and move on.”

  “We’re after building something more than a camp,” said Moses Gaw.

  “Much more.” Hodges kept his eyes on me. “But you knew that back in Boston.”

  The rider on the road inched his horse down, “Sir, we’ve other claims to visit.”

  I recognized my old friend, Christopher Harding. I waved to him.

  He had grown a black goatee and pulled his hat low. “It’s good to see you, James.”

  I said, “Thank you for not shooting me the night I left the ship.”

  Moses Gaw mounted his horse and said, “Harding wouldn’t do that. He’s one of them Boston gentlemen. But I ain’t.”

  Samuel Hodges, backing his horse across the stream, said, “We’ll take it kindly if you vote for us. Then you may interview us for the Transcript.”

  February 10, 1849

  Election

  Too much democracy can be a dangerous thing. That is why the framers of our Constitution chose a republican form of government, with checks and balances to keep the baser instincts of the voter—or of him who would court the vote—in check.

  While Californians at the coast had convened a legislature and awaited news of statehood, up here in the hills where such aspirations had been born, democracy functioned on its most basic level. One man, one vote, majority rule.

  And would the majority vote for Samuel Hodges?

  The miners turned out on that pleasant Sunday to keep holy the California Sabbath in all the usual ways. They came from claims up the river and down. They loaded their wagons and burdened their mules at Emery’s. They lined up outside Abbott’s Express to post letters. They brought high spirits or got into them soon after they crowded the outdoor bar that Grouchy Pete had set up. And when someone started strumming a banjo, someone else pulled out a harmonica, and a squeeze-box started to wheeze, and soon, miners were jumping about and pounding their feet in a rough imitation of dance, though it appeared more likely that they were trying to stomp an army of roaches.

  Micah Broadback and the Johnson brothers came through this crowd, pumping hands all about and promising that things would be as they always had been in the District. But Drinkin’ Dan had decided to sit this one out, a decision made after Moses Gaw stood him to a night’s worth of whiskey in Grouchy Pete’s.

  “You got our vote,” Cletis told Broadback.

  “Thank you,” said Micah. “Never seen miners wanted to be on the council so much as these Triple MWs. Most of us is here to dig for gold, but these boys—”

  Whatever Broadback was about to say was drowned out by the bang-boom of a big bang-booming kettle drum coming down the road.

  All the other music and talk and politicking stopped, and every man turned.

  Bang-boom-boom-boom-boom!

  Into town marched two dozen men of the Massachusetts and Missouri Mining and Water Company. I noticed Sloate and Christopher Harding, Doc Beal, Attorney Tom Lyons, two of the Brighton Bulls, and half a dozen others. The only mounted men in this group were the Gaw brothers, and Samuel Hodges himself.

  They paraded through the crowd, and Sloate fired his Walker Colt into the air, all as if it had been planned, stage managed like a Boston play. (For that, I credited Christopher Harding, whose love of amateur theatrics at Harvard was widely known.)

  “If this don’t beat all,” muttered Micah Broadback.

  Moses Gaw shouted, “Drinks all around, as soon as the votin’ is done!”

  Th
at brought a mighty cheer.

  Micah Broadback said to Cletis, “My claim ain’t rich enough for buyin’ drinks.”

  “The boys’ll vote for you still,” said Cletis. “They know you done the job.”

  I knew otherwise. Hodges had won already. If the drinks hadn’t done it, his promises would. He asked to speak first, proclaiming that the newcoming challenger should defer to the incumbent.

  Cletis and I retreated to the little porch in front of Emery’s for a better view of Hodges, who climbed onto the makeshift speaker’s platform—a flag-bedecked buckboard in front of Grouchy Pete’s—and eyed every man as if he could see into their hearts and know their frustrations. His rock-like presence seemed to comfort men, even calm them. All the disappointments and defeats of the last year had not diminished him, especially when he wore his black coat with a clean white shirt and a red cravat.

  He began by telling of our journey from Boston, the collapse of our company, and its rebirth when he met “these good men from Missouri and their God-fearing wives.”

  “You got wives?” shouted someone.

  “We sure do,” answered Moses Gaw.

  “Are they pretty?” shouted someone else.

  “Who cares?” shouted a third.

  “They sure are,” said David Gaw.

  “How come you didn’t bring ’em?” shouted another.

  “’Cause of how pretty they are,” answered Moses Gaw.

  And everyone laughed. Oh, but there were high spirits in Broke Neck that afternoon.

  “Now, boys,” said Hodges. “We have no desire to change any of the good things that Micah Broadback and his council have done. So we’ll interfere with none of the hard-working white American miners. But for foreigners, there’ll be changes.”

  And that brought an ear-splitting, jaw-cracking yowl in the dry air.

  Hodges raised his hands. “Who denies that white Americans took this place from Mexico?”

  “Nobody!” shouted Deering Sloate from the back, bringing a cheer.

  “Who denies that white Americans discovered the gold?”

  “Nobody!” shouted Christopher Harding, in the middle, bringing a louder cheer.

  “So who denies that we have the right, the right—”

  The cheering was growing so loud that Hodges had to stop, while Moses Gaw walked back and forth on the buckboard, like a bear in a cage, waving his hands for the men to pipe down.

  Then Hodges shouted, “Who denies that we have the right to limit the number of Mexicans comin’ into our district to look for gold?”

  More cheering and general shouting.

  Hodges cried over the noise: “God put American gold in American ground so good Americans could dig it up.”

  “It’s prophesied”—Moses Gaw held up a Bible—“in the good book.”

  And from the booming shouts and gunshots that greeted Gaw’s gesture, I knew that his argument was good enough for most of the men of Broke Neck, even though Cletis whispered, “I guarantee there ain’t no such prophesy in my Bible.”

  Hodges continued, “Therefore, I speak for all of us, from New England and Missouri and the good states of the South, when I say—”

  Cletis whispered in my ear. “Here it comes—”

  “—that from this day on, any foreign miner who wants to work a claim in Broke Neck will have to pay a tax of twenty dollars a month at the Abbott Express Office.”

  The cheer was so loud it brought a chill up the back of my neck.

  Micah Broadback leaned over to the Johnson brothers and said something that looked like, “Wish I thought of that.” He and the Johnsons conferred a bit more, then he put up his hands and shouted, “I concede. Let the Hodges slate have it by acclamation.”

  Now came more celebratory gunshots and hats skimming into the air, then Hodges, with a grand air of noblesse oblige, accepted his election and invited Micah Broadback to join him, “for his good counsel and opinions.”

  “Very smart,” said George Emery, standing next to me on his porch. “Bring your rivals into the fold.”

  Hodges waited for quiet, then said, “I will run the council like a New England town meeting. So I’ll ask for a voice vote. Be it written by David Gaw, our secretary.”

  “Can he write?” shouted one in the crowd.

  Yes, spirits were still climbing, and jokes were flying.

  “He can write and shoot,” said Hodges. “Be it written, all Mexicans, Chileans, Chinese, and other non-Americans will have to register and pay or get out of our district.” Hodges let another ovation subside, then he said, “I have it on good authority that every miner’s district in California will be levying a tax on foreign miners. That’s word from the assembly in San Jose. So let Broke Neck show the way.”

  And the subsequent roar was punctuated by more gunfire and the beating of the big kettle drum.

  They say that in 1848, right after the discovery of gold, California was a place of almost religious harmony. The horde had not yet arrived. There was gold enough for everyone. So men tolerated each other, overcame their prejudices, and devoted their energies to rewarding labor. But resentments had begun to simmer with the rising population, and they overflowed before the end of ’49.

  I should not have been surprised in early 1850, then, that Samuel Hodges would seek to expand his power by playing on the fears of men for whom there was less and less to share with more and more strangers, many of whom looked, spoke, and dressed strangely, too. But I was not merely surprised. I was infuriated. Chinese had become my friends. Californios had threatened me only later to save my life. And what they wanted for themselves and their families was no more than what white men wanted for theirs.

  “We don’t give a damn about showin’ the way,” shouted a miner. “We just want better claims for the white men. And free drinks!”

  “Before the drinks,” answered Hodges, “the vote. All in favor of taxing foreigners, signify by saying, ‘Aye.’”

  And hundreds of men roared out the word, as if this would solve all their problems in the California diggings.

  Hodges nodded, “Any opposed?”

  I could see beards shaking, heads turning, eyes shifting. A few Chileans, who had been mining and minding their own business, lowered their heads and discreetly moved off.

  I was not by nature a man who separated himself from the crowd. But I was learning to speak out, and I could not stop myself. I called, “Before the vote, a question.”

  Cletis whispered, “Watch it, Harvard.”

  I asked, “What do you plan to do with the money this tax brings in?”

  “You serve your New England upbringing well,” said Hodges. “Your Harvard professors would be proud of your questioning nature. So would your mother.”

  This brought a big laugh. Mama’s boys were a favorite target of the self-styled toughs who strode around any mining camp.

  Cletis whispered, “You got ’em laughin’. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  But once entered upon a thing, I did not know how to back away. So I kept talking, perhaps to my detriment: “You have no right to drive a man off his claim because you don’t like the color of his skin.”

  “The miners of Broke Neck have given me that right,” shouted Hodges.

  Cletis said it again. “Time to leave.”

  But everyone was watching. I could not back down. I said, “That’s money they worked hard for, just like every man here has worked hard.”

  “The money will be shared in the district, until the government in San Jose asks for it. We’ll use it to dig trenches to keep water flowing to the places where men need it.”

  “Who will control this water?” I heard my voice echo.

  “The laws are clear,” said Tom Lyons from the edge of the crowd.

  “He who has the water controls it,” said Hodges. “The council will mediate disputes.”

  I was growing bolder. “So you set yourself up on the Miwok, above all our claims, then get control of the government, j
ust to control the water?”

  Moses Gaw hopped down from the buckboard. “If you don’t like it, you should’ve stood for the council yourself.”

  The miners parted before him as he strode into the street and stopped where all could see him. Hodges had surrounded himself with henchmen: Moses Gaw, burly bully from Joplin, Missouri, in front of me, Sloate to my left, Christopher Harding to my right, others all about. I hoped that no one noticed my kneecap shaking.

  Moses Gaw told me, “I don’t like what you’re sayin’, mister.”

  “Then be like me,” said Cletis from our perch. “Don’t listen.”

  A few men got a laugh from that.

  “If the California assembly says the tax is legal, it’s legal,” proclaimed Hodges.

  “So wait for them to say it,” I answered. “It’s too big a law for one district.”

  “These men voted us the power to back the laws up”—Moses Gaw unfurled the bullwhip—“with force, if need be.”

  I had heard that he could use his whip the way I used a pen. He could snatch a fly from the tail of an ox at twenty paces or put out a man’s cigar with the flick of a wrist. And before I could say another word, the whip snapped, wrapped around the pistol in my belt, and pulled it clear out. In another instant, it took the hat off my head.

  I came down from the porch, tried to grab my pistol, but the whip snatched it away.

  “We’re whippin’, not shootin’,” said Gaw, “so keep your hands off that gun.” And he snapped again.

  I saw the tip of the whip, heard it, then felt my cheek open and the blood spill down.

  At the same moment, Cletis was moving quick and certain toward his saddle and the blunderbuss that could end any argument.

  But every other face was turned to me, some twisted with derisive laughter at another Silk Stocking meeting a real man, others contorted in shock or awe at the speed and skill of the whip master, and at least one gratified that Moses Gaw knew just the man to whip. Yes, Hodges was letting it all play out as if there was a lesson here for everyone.

  The next snap of the whip went around my ankle and yanked my leg, so that I flew off my feet and hit the ground. When I banged my head, I wished I had my hat.