Tales from the Promised Land: Western short stories from the California gold rush

by John Rose Putnam

  “How’d you know where I was?” I asked.

  “Ya spend a lifetime in the wilds ya learn to read sign, son,” he said and pointed to Buddy’s feet.

  Even I could see where I’d turned and left the trail. A heavy horse with a rider atop leaves a deep print in soft earth. “Okay, but how’d you know it was me?” I asked.

  “Every animal, every man, leaves a clear mark on the land—personal like. Ain’t hard t’ see once ya learn how. Besides I been followin’ ya all day.”

  Along the trail to California I’d heard endless tales of the mountain men and how they knew the wilderness nearly as well as the Indians did. It seemed a pretty good skill to have, especially in the midst of the rugged country we were in now. “Do you think you could show me a little about how you read these signs, Mr. Bird?” I asked.

  He looked at me with squinty eyes and the grin he’d had turned suddenly sad. “The days of men like me are done, son. Won’t be long ‘fore the wilderness is gone, a lotta the animals too. The gold brung all these men to California. It’ll bring others.”

  “But everyone I know plans on going back East as soon as the gold is gone. Most say it can’t last more than another year.” I offered, hoping to provide him some comfort.

  “Men say a lot, then mostly do the opposite. They’re here now. More’ll come. They ain’t going back. There’s too much in California. It’s a rich country, mighty rich. And it ain’t just the gold.”

  He nudged the mustang to a walk and I rode alongside him since the trail was wide enough here. I wanted to learn more from this down to earth man who had such a deep love for the wild and seemed so convinced that his way of life would soon end. “What are you going to do then? I mean when the wilderness is gone,” I wondered.

  “Oh, men like me’ll find a way to stay alive, but this ain’t no time for a young, smart feller like yourself to turn to what I do. The world’s changing and it’s folks like you what’s got to lead the way. Anderson says you got a gift, says you’re special, and he’s ‘bout the smartest man I ever met. You’ll be stayin’ in California I ‘spect, and like as not you’ll do somethin’ important too.”

  I felt the blood rush to my face. Back on the farm, Jacob had always told me how I didn’t know anything, that I was stupid. Now Bird tells me Anderson thinks I’m special. Well, I didn’t feel special. Here I was, just twenty years old, miles away from any but the most rustic trappings of civilization, a continent away from home, and feeling awful puny under the shadow of the mountains towering above me. But knowing that someone I respect as much as I do Anderson could feel that way left me feeling real pleased.

  Still I had a lot of questions, so I started in. “How long have you been here, I mean in California?” I asked.

  “Been a long time son. Started out working the Rockies twenty year ago, been here near ten. But it’s been some good years,” he said with a wistful sigh.

  “How do you make money,” I continued. Bird sure didn’t look like he had much of it. Except for his felt hat and leather boots his clothes were hand made from deerskin. Still, he had a fine horse and saddle and, with the bear gun and the huge knife he carried, it all must’ve cost a pretty penny.

  He eyeballed me with the same broad grin he’d had before. “Sort of had a job, son, trappin’ beaver and other critters and sellin’ ‘em at the Hudson Bay Company’s Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Territories,” he said, sounding like a man who loved his work.

  “But you just said you had a job,” I pointed out. “What happened to it?”

  “Things are changin’ everywhere, son. Oregon is a part of the States now. Don’t know what’ll happen to the fort. Hudson’s Bay Company’s out of Canada ya know. Maybe I’ll just take some of this here gold we’re after and settle down somewhere. It’s a hard life and I’m gettin’ on in years.” And then a strange sadness crept into his eyes.

  “Do you know where Stoddard’s lake is, sir?” I asked, to change the subject.

  He looked to me again, the sadness replaced by a sudden sparkle. “I ain’t sure, but it just could be I do,” he boasted without a whiff of bluster about him.

  The trail we were on had gradually climbed along the side of the ravine high above the level of the river. I’d been so enthralled in my talk with Bird that I’d paid little attention, but now, riding abreast of him, I realized how close to the edge of a sheer cliff I was and how far down the rocky stream seemed. It gave me an uneasy feeling, a fall would be deadly, but I’d not had such a good opportunity to talk to Bird and I still had one abiding question for him for which my sense of survival demanded an answer.

  And so I dared ask. “I wonder, sir,” I began. “You just rode up pretty fast from behind me somewhere and without your mule, would I be correct if I thought you’d looked into Raush and the men with him? Are they still following us?”

  A raised brow enhanced the sparkle in his eye, and he chuckled softly. “I can see how what Anderson said about you was right. You do have a way about ya, son,” he said. “Raush is still behind us all right but—”

  Then the chilling scream of a man came from the trail ahead, and another scream in a different voice that went on far too long and was mixed with the roar of some deep-throated and fierce sounding beast.

  “Damn!” Bird exclaimed and immediately galloped off. I followed as best I could, afraid to ride fast so close to the sharp edge of the treeless cliff. In no time all hell had broken out, shouts, more terrifying screams, mules braying wildly, two gunshots, the appalling squeal of a badly hurt horse or maybe two horses, then the loud boom of a rifle—Bird’s bear gun—and another deep-throated roar, a pistol shot, then another and finally only the bray of the mules and the voices of men trying to calm them.

  Then the path widened and I came upon Anderson, feverishly trying to settle our four skittish mules and his own panicky horse. He waved me on without a word and Buddy and I managed to squeeze by. Next I found the Oregon boys, Carl, Thomas and Zeke, hard at work soothing their panicked mules and horses. All of them had faces as white as the stars on our flag. But here the trail had narrowed again so I tied Buddy to the branch of a small fir, checked my new Colt revolver and pulled out my rifle.

  As I wound through the unsettled pack animals I looked directly at Zeke, “What happened?” I asked.

  But he gazed back at me with blank eyes and slowly shook his head like he didn’t want to talk about it, so I hurried on until I could see Bird’s mustang standing twenty yards ahead in the middle of the path, completely calm and untroubled by the frightened animals all about, a remarkably well trained mount. Another thirty yards on Stoddard stood on the trail holding a rifle. Behind him his horse and three mules were tied to a branch, one mule I recalled as Bird’s from that first day when he’d waited beside the rock outcropping where Bird and I had watched Raush and his men cross the South Yuba.

  But I’d seen no hint of Lem, his father Jedidiah, or their animals. Normally they would be traveling between Stoddard and the Oregon boys. Then, as I passed the mustang, the scene that unfolded in front of me turned my stomach. Bird was bent over Lem, at least I thought it was Lem. The skin had been ripped from his face and blood was everywhere.

  I turned my eyes from this spectacle of horror and saw Lem’s pretty mare lying beside the cliff, guts spilled onto the ground, a gunshot wound in her head from someone who’d taken pity and ended her suffering. Just past the mare lay the brown body of an enormous grizzly bear who, on her hind legs, must have stood over twelve feet tall, and undoubtedly was the cause of this whole ghastly scene. Blood dripped from a huge hole in her head, a reminder of why Bird called his large bore rifle a bear gun.

  As I stood there, trying to stifle an almighty urge to bring my breakfast back to the light of day, it came to me that I hadn’t seen Jedidiah or any of their other animals. And though my mind was near numb from all the death around me, I knew without asking what else must have happened here. While it wasn’t hard to look away from this scene of gore, I sho
ok like a leaf in the wind as I walked to the edge of the cliff.

  Loose flour, sugar and coffee covered the rocky face of the ravine. Tools, supplies, pots and pans were strewn everywhere along the descent. Jedidiah lay near the water’s edge, dead without a doubt. No human body could contort itself in such a way. Close by him the rear end of a mule could be seen on the shore, it’s head under water. A few hundred feet downstream another mule had hung up on a rock in an eddy. The rest of the animals were gone, likely washed away by the power of the North Yuba.

  I raised my head a bit and gazed out into the emptiness of the ravine. Several small flat objects floated on the up drafts, playing cards that had fallen from Jedidiah’s pocket. My mind, perhaps seeking escape or relief or some simple semblance of sanity, harkened back to that last night of gambling with Michelle Reynard at the Bella Union. I could feel the pressure of her lips as she kissed me. I heard her voice, as clearly as I did that night, as she urged me to look for her when I returned from this fateful undertaking.

  Her words, which had at first seemed a plea, now sounded more like a command that I should live in order to return and marry her, as Anderson had once suggested. And for a man who’d fled across the continent to avoid the oppressive orders of my own brother on a farm left to the both of us by our father, I suddenly felt this mandate from Michelle to be the very breath of life itself and the only reason for hope amongst all this despair. I would live. I would find the gold we sought, then I would find her again. She was now my reason to survive against Raush, the Indians, and the very wildness of the country we crossed, and what an enticing motive she was.

  How long I stared into the void of the canyon, I don’t know, but at last I heard Anderson. “Micah, we need you over here,” he cried. “We have things to discuss.”

  I walked back toward where I’d heard his voice, back to where Buddy waited tied to a tree, and found all the members of our party already gathered except Zeke. The Oregon boys were adamant; they’d had enough. The death of Jedidiah and the mauling of Lem were too much for any of them to digest. We all understood.

  As we talked, Zeke was tending to Lem’s broken bones and patching up his many gashes, including sewing his face back together. No one really thought Lem would live, except Zeke and he wouldn’t leave his friend. Carl and Thomas would stay with their brother and meantime they would rope Jedidiah back up the cliff and give him a proper burial. Even Anderson agreed this was for the best.

  Stoddard, however, was beside himself after Bird informed us all that Raush was still a half-day behind, but along the way more and more miners had joined his cause. Now there could be four of five hundred men with him. It was a testament to the vast pull of temptation that a mere tale of a lake full of gold could have on the minds of men.

  With heavy hearts those of us who were left moved on, our numbers reduced from thirteen to four in less than a day. But I went with a new resolve. I would find the gold we sought and live to see Michelle Reynard again. It’s what she wanted. I knew it now.

  After an hour of hard riding we passed the last miners working the river below. That night we made a cold camp with no fire and only leftover beans and biscuits to eat. Well before sunup we were on our way again and by midmorning we’d come to the southern edge of a huge valley covered with sagebrush, dotted with bright, sweet scented wildflowers and ringed by snowcapped peaks that loomed thousands of feet above us. Except for the marshes fed by melt water from the winter snows, the whole place resembled the high deserts Anderson and I had crossed on the way to California.

  Again we stayed in the saddle until the last of the daylight had faded, but as we prepared for another cold camp all of us noticed a red glow that spread wide across the horizon from somewhere along our back trail.

  “Campfires,” said Bird. “Looks like a whole army’s behind us, don’t it?”

  “Mount up,” yelled Stoddard. “It’s Raush. We gotta ride all night.”

  “No!” countered Anderson. “We’re all dog tired. We need rest.”

  Stoddard started in again. “But Raush—”

  “Raush ain’t gonna catch us just yet,” Bird interjected as calm as ever. “I got a little trick in store for him, if you fellers can stand more hard mountain ridin’, but it’ll save us three, maybe four days at least.”

  Bird’s idea cheered us all and well before the next sunrise we rode out of our camp heading slightly east of due north so we would give the impression that we were going to follow the valley as far as the flat land would take us. Then, when we came to a marshy area fed by snow run off flowing from a gap in the mountains, we turned and rode northwest through the stream, thereby leaving no tracks for Raush and his followers to find. But to add to his ruse, Bird took all our mules with him and continued on in the same direction we’d been going. He seemed sure there would be yet another stream coming in from the west that he could take so as to rendezvous with us later.

  And sure as shooting by midday he’d caught us. Together we climbed steadily up a ravine that drained the melt water of two peaks, one to our right and the other to our left, the flanks of both covered with the same sugar pine and red fir we’d seen all along the way. There was no trail and our progress was slower than it had been.

  That night we all camped together in a narrow canyon sheltered from the view of the valley. Somehow, while he led our mules off in the wrong direction, Bird had managed to bag two prairie hens and we enjoyed a hot meal of fresh meat for the first time in days. Our spirits were high, even Stoddard seemed to think that Raush and the men with him might have been fooled by Bird’s clever ploy.

  We started out again just after sunup and soon crossed a flat saddle on the high pass we traveled and began to descend. By midafternoon we came to another valley, long and narrow and vastly smaller than the first, but covered in the same sagebrush and wildflowers and fed by a meandering stream that often jumped its banks and flooded the ground around it.

  Stoddard, his two mules in tow, rode up beside me as I led our string of four along easily. The animals walked willingly now, like they were grateful for the flat, soft earth of the valley after the hard rock of the mountains we’d just been through. But Stoddard seemed unusually nervous and continually looked around in all directions.

  “Is everything alright, Mr. Stoddard?” I asked.

  “It’s the Injuns,” he asserted, fear in his voice. “They’re out there watching us.”

  “Have you seen them,” I wondered as my hand grabbed the handle of my Colt.

  “No, you never see ‘em, not till it’s too late,” he claimed. “But they’re out there.”

  Anderson rode up beside me. It was plain he’d heard what we were talking about. “The Indians here in California are pretty friendly, Stoddard. If we stay peaceable we shouldn’t have any trouble with them,” he divulged.

  “They killed my partner,” Stoddard responded. “Never gave him a chance.”

  “Did he shoot first?” Anderson inquired and I knew it was a good question.

  Stoddard’s head jerked around, his eyes pinched. He was still edgy and ill at ease. “They jumped him, sudden like. They didn’t have no guns,” he said, and then swept his arm across the ridges that rose on both sides of us. “They could be watching us from anywhere out there, we got to keep a sharp eye out, all of us,” he urged.

  “I’ll keep looking, don’t worry,” I promised, just as scared of Indians as he was.

  “See to it,” he declared then yanked on the reins to his mules and loped off toward Bird who rode alone in front of everyone.

  When Stoddard had gotten out of earshot I turned to Anderson. “Is he right about the Indians?” I asked.

  Anderson smiled reassuringly. “I don’t know if he’s right or not, but I think our biggest concern if we do meet Indians is that Stoddard just might do something dumb, like shoot at them. Maybe we should keep an eye on him,” he said.

  “Do you think Stoddard’s partner shot first?” I mused.

  “I woul
dn’t doubt it,” he answered.

  The rest of the afternoon my head swiveled from side to side just like Stoddard’s had, searching the mountainsides for any sign of an Indian. At dusk we camped in a small copse of oak trees and I kept my Colt revolver ready, just in case they snuck up on us in the twilight. Then, when I bedded down, I carefully placed the pistol under the saddle that I used as a pillow where I knew I could get to it quickly if I needed to.

  Still, the idea that Indians could be anywhere around us had me so fretful that I couldn’t sleep. Eventually, perhaps in an effort to escape my fears, my mind returned to the Bella Union and I could see again the soft curls of Michelle Reynard’s hair as it bounced about her neck while she passed out cards at the gaming table. The red glow from the lanterns brought a warm, comfortable hue to her soft skin and cast a dazzling fire into her beautiful blue eyes.

  I could even see her long, thin fingers as she shuffled the cards then dealt one to each player in turn, and still hear her voice, so heavily accented yet incredibly lyrical, as she asked the simple questions of a twenty-one dealer to the players. And I’ll never forget her cozy, almost gleeful smile as she raked in her winnings at the end of each play.

  Somewhere amidst my musings I must have drifted into sleep for the next thing I remember was a loud voice that woke me to the grunts of men scuffling. Immediately I grabbed my Colt and rolled out from under my blankets and hid behind a tree. The Indians were here, I was sure. Then a light blazed into the moonless night. Someone had lit a twig from the embers of the fire. I could see Stoddard’s face in the glow.

  “Yeah, this is him. Get your rope ready, Grimes,” a man ordered in a rough bass voice. I didn’t recognize it but it wasn’t an Indian, that’s for sure, so it must be Raush. My hands were shaking. I knew if I tried to shoot I couldn’t hit anyone.

  Then somebody threw a rope over a limb of the oak tree I hid behind and I could see shadowy figures coming closer. One was a big man who pushed Stoddard toward me while holding a pistol to his head. The same man who’d thrown the rope put a noose over Stoddard’s head. They were going to hang Stoddard right here, right now and right in front of me. Where were Anderson and Bird, I wondered? Were they all right?