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

by William Martin

  Flynn squinted and said, “If you come to baptize us, Moses, we’ll have water as soon as we pull the chocks.”

  Moses Gaw studied the flutter wheels, the elaborate sluice works and the trench, and he said, “What’s that Chink down there fixin’ to do?”

  “That’s Little Ng,” said Flynn. “Give ’em a wave, Ng.”

  Ng stood reluctantly, as if expecting a blow, though he was fifty feet away. Then he tentatively raised his hand.

  “Muscular little rat, ain’t he?” said David Gaw.

  “Little yellow rat,” said Sloate.

  “Don’t stand too close,” said Flynn, “or he might start the wheel and baptize you.”

  Moses Gaw leaned forward. “We been baptized. Not like these heathens.”

  Attorney Lyons said, “You know why we’re here, Spencer.”

  “You’d best tell us.” Cletis had picked up his blunderbuss and come from his spot along the trench.

  Lyons dismounted. He was gentleman enough that he would meet us eye-to-eye. He said, “I’ve brought the new law. Read out at San Jose on March twentieth.”

  “We’re spreadin’ the word,” said Moses Gaw.

  “Fulfillin’ our promise to the miners of Broke Neck,” added David Gaw, always finishing his brother’s thoughts.

  Lyons looked at Flynn the way a man might look at a dog he was about to poke with a stick, then read, “‘By order of the California Senate, under recommendation of the Finance Committee, foreigners are now obliged to pay twenty dollars a month for the privilege of taking from our country the vast treasure to which they have no right.’”

  “No right?” said Flynn. “No right?”

  Deering Sloate put his hand on his pistol.

  “Easy, Michael.” I had seen enough of Sloate to know that the boy from Boston Latin, who would pour lamp oil on a cat and strike a match, or find cause to pummel anyone who did not stand up to him, or find followers enough to pummel anyone who did, that boy had not matured. He had merely intensified.

  Sloate said, “Don’t pull your pen, Spencer, or I might have to shoot you.”

  Lyons kept reading: “‘We expect that said foreigners will cheerfully pay this fee to tax collectors appointed by the state. Effective on April 1.’”

  “Cheerfully?” Flynn looked at me. “They’re out of their fuckin’ minds.”

  Lyons ignored him and kept reading: “‘Foreigners are generally considered to be the worst population of the Mexican and South American States, Australia, and the Sandwich Islands, including the convicts of Mexico, Chile, and Botany Bay who are daily turned upon our shores.’”

  “It don’t say Chinks or Irishmen,” said Cletis. “That’s what we got here.”

  “It says Australians,” answered Moses Gaw. “They’re just Irish convicts. And if Chinks ain’t mentioned, they should be. They will be. That’s how we read this law.”

  “But if it ain’t written,” said Cletis, “how can you read it?”

  “It’s implied,” said Tom Lyons.

  “Implied?” I said. “It’s a law. It says what it says. You know that, Tom.”

  “It implies what we say it does.” Moses lifted his whip from the pommel of his saddle. “And we say that the Broke Neck miners want no foreigners takin’ treasure they ain’t entitled to, unless they pay a tax. So”—he looked around—“I count six Chinks. The one by the wheel, the four down by the claim, and this one comin’ down the hill.”

  Chin was striding toward us, showing not a shred of subservience. I put myself in his way and said to Tom Lyons, “You want a hundred and twenty dollars a month from these people, just so they can work?”

  “Plus one Irishman. Twenty dollars for him, too.” Moses Gaw pointed the whip handle at Flynn, all but daring him to make a move.

  “And,” said David Gaw, “if you’re hirin’ Chinks, you’ll pay a tax of ten dollars for each. So saith the Lord.”

  “The Lord got nothin’ to do with it,” said Cletis.

  “You’ll hang a long time before I pay any tax,” said Flynn.

  “You’ll hang first, Mick,” answered Moses Gaw.

  Lyons put up his hands, “Now, boys, let’s calm down. This is the law. We waited till it was read out in the senate. We’ve been fair about this.”

  Cletis cocked the blunderbuss. “Here’s my law. Get off our claim.”

  Sloate kept his hand on his gun and his eyes on Cletis.

  Lyons blanched, backed away, got on his horse. “I’ll be back in four days as the state-appointed tax man.”

  “You keep talkin’ about the ‘state,’” said Cletis, “but I ain’t heard news about no California statehood.”

  “California has petitioned,” said Lyons. “So we’ll conduct our business in the appropriate way.” He turned his horse and started down the slope.

  But Moses Gaw did not turn. He backed his horse down, telling the others, “Don’t take your eyes off that crazy old man.”

  “Good advice. Just keep watchin’ all the way off our claim,” said Cletis.

  Moses kept his big, black horse moving backward but his eyes on Cletis. That way, he could deny any intent over what happened when his horse bumped against his brother’s, and his brother’s horse lost its back hoof and stumbled.

  David Gaw whipped the horse around, as if to get control of him, and all but threw him into a nine-foot-high stilt. Flynn tried to grab the stilt, to stop it from tipping and taking the sluice with it.

  Sloate, seeing the chance to shoot Flynn, reached for his gun, so I drove my shoulder into the flank of Sloate’s mare. Sloate tried to hold his horse on the steep bank, but the mare screamed and fell over sideways.

  David Gaw’s horse was now caught under the sluice, flailing and whinnying as its rider frantically—and, I thought, purposely—whipped its head back and forth.

  Flynn smacked Gaw’s horse on the rump, sending him shooting out from under the sluice, but right into another support, so that half the structure came crashing.

  And now Moses Gaw went to work with his whip. He fired it at one of the wobbling stilts and pulled another section of sluice down. Then he fired it at Flynn, caught him by the neck, and pulled. But Chin sprang forward with his knife and slashed down on the whip, cutting it in half and freeing Flynn.

  Moses Gaw almost fell off his horse, he had put so much weight behind the whip.

  Meanwhile, David Gaw swung his horse back, got control, and turned on Chin.

  Cletis cried. “Sam, get down!”

  The Chinaman dropped, giving Cletis a clear shot at both Gaws.

  But instead of shooting, Cletis shouted, “We’re done!”

  “Done.” Lyons waved his hands to get the attention of Judge Blunderbuss. “Done.”

  “Just remember, old man, you all got taxes to pay,” said Moses Gaw. “If you shirk ’em, this whole camp may get ruined, just like we ruined your sluices.”

  “Get out,” said Cletis.

  The only gunfire came when Deering Sloate, uninjured but for his pride, put down his horse, which had managed to stand and was hobbling about on three legs. The animal crashed to the right, onto the broken foreleg, dead before it hit the ground.

  Sloate said, “That horse cost two hundred dollars.”

  “So did that sluice,” I answered. “So we’re even.”

  As Sloate doubled up with Lyons, Flynn said to me, “Someday, somebody’ll have to shoot that Sloate feller. Mark my words.”

  * * *

  AROUND SUNSET, FLYNN AND I sat on stumps, listening to the river and looking at the destruction. Weeks of hard work shattered in minutes …

  Sloate’s dead horse was already beginning to bloat. At least the Chinese had cut the meat from the haunches. But we would have to burn the carcass.

  Flynn said, “I’ll be payin’ no taxes to men who’d put me out of business.”

  Cletis loped up the bank, bringing the jug and a bad mood. He sat on a stump, took a swallow, and offered the jug to me, all before he said to Fl
ynn, “You don’t pay that tax, we’ll all pay. Us and the Chinks, too.”

  I sipped—I could not drink Grouchy Pete’s rotgut like water—and passed to Flynn, who said, “They won’t go. They’ve taken sixty pounds out of them diggin’s.”

  “Then they can pay,” said Cletis. “So can we. But I’m for movin’ on.”

  Flynn swallowed and passed the jug to Cletis. “If you go, who’ll burn our coffee? Who’ll hold the claim while we get to diggin’ this trench again?”

  “Diggin’ a six-mile trench is fool’s work, even if we hire all them Chinks.” Cletis took the jug again. “Look at them, workin’ down there like there’s no tomorrow.”

  “Maybe for them, there ain’t.” Flynn rubbed at the welt that had risen around his neck, where Gaw’s whip had grabbed him.

  “Ain’t our problem,” said Cletis. “Time to move on. We made enough.”

  “And I been chased enough,” said Flynn. “Chased out of Ireland. Chased out of Boston. Even deserted some fine wet cooch to come back to my claim … so I ain’t bein’ chased off of it, and that’s for damn sure.”

  “Then get ready to fight.” Cletis pointed his whiskered chin at me. “You, too. You proved you can take a whuppin’. You need to prove you can give one.”

  Perhaps Cletis was right. He was right about most things that he opinionated upon.

  But again, I chose what I hoped was the more civilized course, to prove something better about myself and the men who had come to this valley.

  March 29, 1850

  More Civilized?

  And so, I went in search of help and good counsel. On a chilly Wednesday night in Broke Neck, the best place to find such things, along with plenty of unsolicited opinions, was at Grouchy Pete’s.

  The saloon was quiet. Only a dozen or so stood at the bar. Another dozen worked the gambling tables. The murmur of voices was low, the mist of cigar smoke light.

  I spied Drinkin’ Dan and bought him a whiskey. I bought myself a brandy, which tasted suspiciously like the whiskey, which I am told tasted like the rum, which I never drank. After a few swallows, I asked him if he had heard that the new law had been passed.

  “About damn time. Makin’ the district safe for white miners.”

  “The law says nothing about Chinamen or Irishmen, but the Council—”

  “The Council’s doin’ right.” Drinkin’ Dan drained his glass.

  I’d get no moral support from him, so I turned to Grouchy Pete, who wore a shiny new vest, unstained, and a new beaver hat, jauntily perched, offsetting the old steady scowl.

  I said, “Have you read the new law?”

  “Do I look like a man with time for readin’?”

  Someone at the end of the bar called, and Grouchy Pete went grumbling away.

  So I ambled over to the woodstove, where Micah Broadback hunched on his customary bench, close to the warmth.

  “Whip scar healed up nice,” he said. “See you don’t lose your eye next time.”

  “There’ll be no next time, if you take my part on this Foreign Miner’s Tax.”

  “Can’t choose you over the law.”

  “The Broke Neck Council is overreaching.”

  “Hodges has promises to keep, and the Gaws will see they’re kept. So saith the Lord.”

  “The Lord has nothing to do with it,” I said.

  “The Gaws outvote me, too.” Micah spat on the wood stove. “I come to California for gold. But I seen the need for fair dealin’ in a place where law and order is wantin’. Somebody had to make a council. So I did, me and Drinkin’ Dan and the others. Now, these Triple MWs, they take the business a lot more serious. If they want to do the work, I’ll vote what they want.”

  Grouchy Pete came over, picked up a split of wood, shoved it into the stove, which caused a shower of sparks to pop. He stamped them out, then slammed the stove door. “See what I done to them sparks? That’s what Hodges and Gaw will do to you if you dinna stand down, young Spencer.”

  Most of the drinkers at the bar, most of the gamblers at the tables, most of the loud talkers all around, most of them were white. But here and there, I saw a serape, a dark complexion, a different demeanor. And foreigners paid in dust, too. I told him as much.

  “Foreigners dinna sell shares in water companies,” answered Grouchy Pete. “But Hodges, he means to build somethin’ that’ll last. So I bought four preferred shares of the Triple MW. So long as they stay in business, so does Peter McDougall.”

  I had not anticipated this. But it made sense. If Hodges was going to take control of our water, he should make sure that the most powerful men in the Miwok Valley were slaked with money … or the chance to make some.

  I said to Micah, “They’re working like beavers up there, building that dam.”

  “It’ll be the fellers in Rainbow Gulch who’ll pay the price, and you boys, too, if you think you can win a shovelin’ race against two dozen men.”

  * * *

  DETERRED IN THE SALOON, I crossed the street to Emery’s Emporium. It was quiet, but I sensed a new presence. I even smelled it, something clean, like soap, and then I saw it, not merely a presence but a whole human female. She looked up and smiled. A slender, sunburned woman she was, younger than George Emery by a decade. She was cutting carrots into little slices, bright orange carrots, the first carrots I had seen in a long time. I was not sure if I was more impressed to see her or the carrots.

  Then Emery himself appeared from the back with an armload of potatoes. He dropped them on the counter and said, “Spencer, meet the little lady. Meet Mrs. Patricia Emery.”

  She wiped her hands on her apron and extended one to me. “They call me ‘Miz Pat.’” And her smile warmed me as nothing had in a long time.

  “Yes, sir,” said Emery. “We’re together now for good.”

  “Didn’t like being apart,” she said. “So we made a deal with Sam Brannan. Buy wholesale in Sacramento, sell retail in Broke Neck. And live like a husband and wife should.”

  She had to be a formidable woman, to have run her husband’s operation in Sacramento. She had to be a loving woman to have joined him here. And she had to be a woman unafraid to work because, as Emery said, “Maybe you seen the big tent I just strung out along the road. Hammered some tables and benches together, too, all so tomorrow, Pat can start cookin’ her famous beef stew. Plannin’ to sell it for one dollar or one pinch per bowl.”

  “Smart women are settin’ up food tents all over the Mother Lode,” added Miz Pat. “Makin’ more money than the miners.”

  Emery threw his arm around his wife’s waist. “Yes, sir, ain’t she somethin’? Come across on a wagon train in forty-eight. Lost her first husband, then found this old soldier when he was mustered out. She can do sums, bargain a Connecticut Yankee out of his breeches, and grease a wheelhub or a bread pan, dependin’ on what kind of lubricatin’ you need. I swear, my Pat can do anything.” He was in an ebullient mood, and why not? A warm body beside him in bed, a hot meal to look forward to, and big money to be made if his wife could cook even passably well.

  “Now,” he said, “what can I do you for?”

  “It’s about the Triple MW.” I twitched my eyes toward the wife, who wisely sensed private talk and returned to her carrots. Then I said, “You and Grouchy Pete and Mr. Abbott, you’re all voices of reason. But Pete bought stock, and—”

  “Hodges came to me, too. I told him my money’s tied up in my goods and the eatin’ tent. So—”

  Shouting in the street interrupted our talk: “Howdy, howdy, howdy!”

  And someone in the saloon yelled, “The nigger’s here!”

  Another voice cried out, “Has he brung the women?”

  Across the street, my old friend Pompey was standing in front of Grouchy Pete’s. He shouted again, up and down the street, then turned and strode into the saloon.

  George Emery said, “Spencer, you should’ve started diggin’ that trench to Rainbow Gulch four months ago, when I told you to. I’d have invested
. I wanted to be in business with you. But not now…” Then he reached under the counter and put a paper bag on the table in front of me. “Peppermints for Flynn. He sure does like them peppermints.”

  I snatched the bag and headed back to Grouchy Pete’s.

  Pompey was standing near the entrance, proclaiming, “I come to tell you boys that we’ll be back tomorrow night. We’ll be pitchin’ our tents like before, wettin’ the pussy, like before. Doin’ it all like before but better than ever. So save your dust!”

  This brought shouts, backslaps, raised glasses, even a few gunshots.

  “Stop the damn shootin’!” cried Grouchy Pete. “You’re puttin’ holes in me roof.”

  Pompey said to Grouchy Pete, “Thank you, sir.”

  The gambler in the corner spun his wheel. As it started to rattle, he gave a shout. “Place your bets, boys. Place your bets. The little ball bounces wild but fair.”

  And Pompey added this: “But y’all just remember, you lose your money at them tables, you’ll get no credit when you line up for a fuck. Gold dust only.”

  And the gambler who wore the white coat and hair pomade put a hand on his spinning wheel and stopped it. His name was Carl Becker, and men who had been in Broke Neck any length of time knew well not to trust him. He said, “You talk awful big for a nigger.”

  “I got a big man backin’ me up,” said Pompey. “A man named Big John Beam.”

  The other gambler, the one who favored silk vests and top hat, looked up from his faro shoe. His name was Tector Bunche, and in any dispute, he backed Becker or Becker backed him. He said, “I just want to know, where does a nigger get a fancy vest as that?”

  Pompey pulled back his coat to reveal the grip of an ivory-handled Colt pocket revolver. “Same place he gets one of these.”

  “Well, this goddamn country’s goin’ straight to hell,” said Bunche, “when a nigger can get his hands on such a pretty gun.”

  “An honest black man,” said Pompey. “Better than a dishonest white man.”