It was a cold morning in the winter of 1850. Five weeks had passed since the deaths of Ezra and the others. Cholera and rising river waters were devastating Sacramento City. I didn’t go down there to observe the disaster at first hand, occupied as I was helping the Barrymores working the Nevin-Follette claim. The family had bought the claim at an auction at Welsh Flat, the proceeds to go to the kin of the two gentlemen back in Philadelphia, along with the tidy fortune we had found on Murray’s body.
I liked the Barrymores. They paid me a fair share of the gold flakes I dug out of the sodden ground, but my future was in repairing the iron tools breaking and losing their edge all over the Sierra foothills. Captain Deerborn had a new shipment arriving any day from Baltimore. He could use a younger partner, he had said, who could hawk ironware from Shirt Tail Canyon to Grass Valley and back, and I agreed with him that the sale and repair of such items was the smartest way to put color in my strongbox.
Captain Deerborn had held an inquest at Welsh Flat the week before Christmas. I testified at the outdoor legal proceeding, which the captain himself—resplendent in newly polished spurs—had presided over as acting coroner. I put my hand on the Bible and told what I had seen.
The jury of Forty-niners, including Aaron Sweetland and Jeremiah Barrymore, delivered a verdict of homicide, and charged the late Samuel Van Buren Murray of Philadelphia with the crime. The unknown toothless pugilist was listed as an accessory and was still at large. Most observers were of the opinion that his luckless remains would be found during the spring thaw, wolf-gnawed in one of the mountain passes.
I had used my best penmanship in describing Ezra’s good fortune and untimely death to Elizabeth, but I kept tossing the half-completed letters into the campfire. I was running out of blank pages in Ezra’s journal, and I accepted the fact that any letter writing would have to wait. I would send a good portion of my own earnings back to Elizabeth, to help Ezra’s child get a start in life, but the young woman I had known in Philadelphia was already changing from a living presence to someone I had trouble remembering.
Now I was standing outside our lean-to, watching as the makeshift structure swayed, the creature inside just visible through the slats in the wooden walls.
I struck the side of the shed with my shovel, and the animal responded by leaning nearly all his weight on the plank wall, forcing the square-headed nails to loosen with a chorus of squeaks.
“He’s very stubborn,” said Johnny, already prepared to forgive my failure.
Not wanting to disappoint Johnny, I struck the shed again. The shovel blade made a sour clang against the planks.
The bear gave a windy sigh, and made its way out of the structure, but as it departed it caught a glimpse of me.
It must have seen a youthful gold miner going pale—two of us, standing there without a hope in the world.
Good luck had failed us.
Our visitor was a grizzly.
CHAPTER 49
The beast’s distinctive, upturned Ursus horribilis snout was thickly glazed with brown sugar. The unexpected sight of such a potentially threatening bear made me grow very quiet, the shovel a feeble potential weapon in my grasp. The bear turned, huge, its breath steaming in the morning air, observing me once more with its tiny black eyes.
“If we don’t do anything unexpected,” said Johnny, keeping his voice from shaking too much, “it should move off.”
“I’ve heard that they will,” I agreed.
Although I kept my composure, I was terrified. An ax leaned against the woodpile, the nearest thing to a lethal weapon in the camp. Our hatchet was long since beyond repair. The mining tools stacked over by the campfire were the sort of implements that would annoy a bear before they drew blood. I would never have considered using my knife against such a great beast.
The bear shuffled upslope, slowly, taking its own good time.
“Don’t yell at it,” I cautioned.
“I was standing here perfectly quietly,” Johnny answered.
He was right. I gave him a nod of apology.
“Unless it rushes us,” added Johnny. “Then I’ll start yelling.”
The bear made imperial progress, stopping to bite the head off a winter-blanched weed among the graves we had dug for Ezra and the others.
The Barrymores had helped make the resting places of the two gentlemen as handsome as possible, bordered with pretty rose-veined quartz. There were worse places on earth to be buried, no doubt. Nevertheless I hoped that when I lay down my bones, it might be in a town somewhere, near carriages and the passing footsteps of neighbors.
The grizzly chose a route between two pines, and with surprising ease and swiftness he vanished.
I waited for a long time.
A gray-and-red woodpecker alighted on a tree stump.
When I was certain that the bear was well away from the camp, I accepted the printed circular Johnny was holding out to me. I had to wonder what opera singer or tragedian had made it as far as Welsh Flat, the farthest east any performer could comfortably travel.
“Great Ladies of Shakespeare,” proclaimed the theatrical bill. “Performed by Sarah Encard, direct from London and Paris. With Love Scenes of the Bard, reenacted by Constance Castleman and Benjamin DuLac.”
I gave a delighted start.
DuLac. Ben had grown shameless. But this was wonderful news.
“Everyone’s excited about the stage play,” said Johnny, “all up and down the river.”
“They ought to be,” I said. My heart was beating hard, and I remembered that I had once lived far away from this muddy hole beside a river, in a city with tall, shady sycamores.
It had been difficult to court Florence, but I was capable of a sort of friendly stubbornness. I had not mustered the power of speech that would allow me to ask her to marry me, but I was well on my way. We sometimes met beside the river, after dark.
“Johnny,” I said, “I wonder if there’s a boot brush in Ezra’s trunk.”
“A fine ivory-handled one,” said Johnny.
Johnny was smart and strong, for his size, and capable in every way. But sometimes he had lapses in his understanding.
“Why do you need a boot brush?” he was asking, as though none of us were soiled through to the skin and in need of every sort of cleaning implement ever manufactured.
I was too thrilled to stand there any longer, but ran to get ready.
Tonight I was taking Florence to the theater.
About the Author
Michael Cadnum is the author of thirty-five books for adults and young adults. His work—which includes thrillers, suspense novels, historical fiction, and books about myths and legends—has been nominated for the National Book Award (The Book of the Lion), the Edgar Award (Calling Home and Breaking the Fall), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (In a Dark Wood). A former National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is also the author of award-winning poetry. Seize the Storm (2012) is his most recent novel.
Michael Cadnum lives in Albany, California, with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Michael Cadnum
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1969-9
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Blood Gold Page 13