“There’s an empty bed roll here, Raush,” the one called Grimes said in a shrill, nasal kind of voice and I knew he was talking about my blankets.
“Get him,” the low voice of Raush ordered.
Grimes would find me soon. Then they would hang Stoddard. I knew I couldn’t let that happen. Raush was only five feet away, tightening the rope around Stoddard’s neck. I stepped out from behind the tree and cocked the Colt. “Let him go, Raush, or I’ll shoot,” I yelled in the bravest tone I could muster.
“What?” he barked. “Who the hell are you?”
“Just let Stoddard go. I mean it,” I ordered.
“Hah,” he laughed. “It’s the boy,” he said to Grimes and then looked to me. “You got the guts to pull that trigger, boy? You brave enough to kill a man in cold blood?”
“You’re planning on killing Stoddard aren’t you?” I yelled back.
“He killed my brother!” Raush bellowed.
“He says Indians killed your brother,” I retorted.
“He’s a damn liar!” A burning rage spewed from the big man’s mouth.
Then I felt cold steel against my temple, and heard the incredibly loud click of another Colt cocking close by my ear. It was Grimes. Somehow he’d managed to sneak up beside me without me having any idea he was coming.
“Put the gun down, boy,” he said in his reedy, whiney voice.
“No! If you shoot me I’ll still shoot Raush,” I cried, and regretted it at once.
A wave of terror washed over me and I was ready to fall to my knees and beg Grimes for mercy when I heard another gun hammer clicking loud and sounding all too familiar. “Ever seen what a big bore bear gun’ll do to a man’s head, Grimes?” said Bird, who must’ve had the drop on Grimes, and so welcome relief flooded back into my heart.
But then came another loud, big bore bear gun hammer click, “But, mon ami, you know well what such a gun will do, oui?” And the dread washed over me again. Someone had a gun trained on Bird, I was sure, someone who had an accent like Michelle Reynard, and it bothered me no end that anyone whose voice reminded me so much of her could be threatening my friend Bird, and then, I guess, me too.
“Frenchy Chabot, as I live and breathe,” Bird said, still sounding as calm as he always did. “I thought the Piutes south of the Truckee did you in two years ago,”
“Mon Dieu, they came very close, monsieur, but Chabot, he knows the trick with the melt water too,” Frenchy Chabot said with a smug chuckle.
“That’s too bad,” Bird groused. “I should’ve known Raush would dig up a skunk like you.”
“It is too bad for you, mon ami,” Frenchy went on.
“Maybe not, my friend.” It was Anderson and he’d stressed the words my friend real loud just as his own Colt revolver cocked.
Then he added, “I take it you’re the last of this little party of murdering swine, Frenchy, and that makes me the only man here without a gun aimed at his head. Am I right, Raush?” Anderson yelled out the last few words.
Then came a silence that seemed to go on forever.
“I ain’t saying,” Raush finally growled.
“Oh, so you’re not saying, Raush,” Anderson reflected. “How about you, Frenchy? Are you the last one of this little party of pigs?” There was an edge in his tone that I hadn’t heard before, a fierceness he’d never shown in the year we’d been together.
“Mon Dieu,” was all Frenchy could say.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. There’s only the three of you. It seems we have situation here, gentlemen.” Anderson continued. “Well, I got nothing to worry about, so how about I just shoot you, Frenchy?”
“Sacrebleu!” Frenchy exclaimed.
I’d never heard Anderson talk like he just had. Sure that he’d lost his mind and that the fat would soon hit the fire, I thought about Michelle Reynard once more, convinced I’d never see her again. The hand that held my Colt shook harder than ever.
Then Raush yelled out. “I don’t care what ya do to the damn Frenchman. I paid him to find my brother’s killer and he’s done it. Now I’m gonna hang Stoddard.”
“And all those men following you will be real happy that you killed the only man here who knows where the lake of gold is, right Raush?” Anderson replied.
“They can find their own gold,” Raush hollered back.
“Maybe they will,” Anderson agreed. “But maybe some of them might be mad enough at you to string you up beside Stoddard. What do you think, Frenchy?” Anderson asked and at once I realized his plan. Maybe I would see Michelle one more time after all.
“Mon ami,” said the Frenchman quietly, like he was talking directly to Anderson. “I think I will shoot Raush myself, s'il vous plait.”
“Oh yeah, Frenchy, you go ahead. Shoot away,” Anderson sang out, loud.
“I’ll still kill the boy,” yelled Grimes and pushed the pistol hard up against my temple. My newfound hope instantly drained away.
“Before I blow your fat head into little tiny pieces, Grimes,” Bird chirped in. “What axe you got to grind here?”
“It’s family,” answered Grimes. “Raush is my cousin.”
“Wait up!” barked Raush suddenly. “Don’t nobody shoot. How about we sit tight till sunup. Then we can settle this right.”
“What do you think about that, Stoddard?” Anderson asked.
“Yeah, anything, anything, just don’t let him hang me,” Stoddard whimpered. He sounded like a young schoolboy who’d been pounded on by the class bully.
“All right, Raush,” Anderson hollered out. “Let Stoddard go. We won’t shoot.”
Raush looked around warily, but pulled the noose from Stoddard’s neck then gave him a hard shove toward me. Stoddard tumbled to his hands and knees and started blubbering like a two-year-old baby that hadn’t been fed all day.
“There’s your killer,” Raush growled. “Grimes, you and Frenchy get over here.”
I felt the hard steel of Grimes’ Colt leave my temple. “Be careful, boy. I still got my eye on you,” he whispered in my ear before he slithered away.
“Frenchy, you comin’?” Raush snarled.
“I stay here, s'il vous plait,” Frenchy said real calm like.
“To hell with ya,” Raush snapped back. “We’ll string you up too. Come on, Grimes.” And both men disappeared into the darkness.
In spite of my own fear I ran the few feet to Stoddard and knelt in front of him. His eyes were wild and unfocused, spit dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He mumbled over and over again, “Don’t let him hang me, mama. I’m a good boy. I am. Don’t let him hang me.” And for the second time on this journey I felt pity for Stoddard.
“Sacrebleu,” whispered Frenchy and I realized he stood beside me. I looked up into a round, frowning face with a bushy moustache that drooped below the chin. “This Stoddard, he knows. There are more of the Grimeses,” Frenchy held up four fingers, “and more of the Raushes,” three fingers now. “They will be here after the sunrise.”
“No,” I blurted. “I won’t let that happen. I can’t.” I turned back to Stoddard. “Can you ride?” I asked in a soft voice.
“I can ride, Mama,” he said. “I can ride real good.”
Oh, Lord, I thought, he’s lost his mind but he still deserved a chance at least. I found his horse and in no time had him saddled and ready. Then I filled the saddlebags with as much food as I could cram into them and led the horse back to Stoddard.
Anderson grabbed my arm. “But the lake, Micah?” he whispered.
“I can’t let him hang,” I protested
Then in a hushed, confident tone Bird told Anderson, “We’ll find the gold.”
I pulled my arm free. “Here’s your horse, sir,” I said to Stoddard, and helped him into the saddle.
The panic flashed in his eyes again. “But the Injuns are out there,” he cried.
“Don’t worry about the Indians,” I said, thinking fast. “They’re on our side. They like you but they don’t lik
e Raush and Grimes. Just remember not to shoot at them.”
“I won’t shoot at anybody, mama, I promise,” he muttered.
Then Bird walked up and pointed into the distance. “Do ya see the bright star just above that dark mountain peak?” he asked and Stoddard nodded. “Just ride towards it till ya get to the river then turn downstream. You’ll be fine.” And he whacked the horse’s rump so hard that Stoddard near tumbled off as he galloped into the night.
“It’ll be light soon enough. Best we get an early start,” Bird said as he tossed a pile of kindling onto the smoldering embers of our campfire and stuck a large pot of leftover beans close by to warm. The small fingers of flame quickly grew bright.
“I hear horses coming,” I announced, pointing to the direction we’d come from.
“Sacrebleu!” Frenchy exclaimed. “Raush has heard Monsieur Stoddard leave, I think. We’d best stay out of the light. He will shoot if he can.”
“Good thinking, Frenchy,” Bird said and we all moved away from the fire.
I hid behind the same oak tree as before and watched as Raush slowed from a gallop to a walk along the dim shadows across from the flames.
“Frenchy,” he yelled. “Was that Stoddard who rode outta here?”
“That was Monsieur Bird, mon ami,” Frenchy called back, lying through his teeth.
“Like hell!” Raush roared. “Come on Grimes, let’s ride,” he yelled back and spurred his mount just as Grimes rode up. In no time they’d disappeared into the dark.
After a quick meal of leftover beans, and in the dim twilight before the sun rose over the mountains, we also rode out of camp, following the prints of three horses pressed deep into the soft earth. Not long afterwards we heard a gunshot from somewhere ahead of us, then came frightened shouts and another shot. Soon terrible screams began, chilling my blood to the very bone. But I couldn’t tell who it was. None of us could.
Then Frenchy stopped. “Mes amis,” he began with a somber look on his face. “I think maybe the Indians have killed Raush and Stoddard. So I am safe now. I will go back and tell the men behind you that Stoddard is dead. They will not follow you then.”
Bird nodded. “Much obliged,” was all he said as Frenchy turned and rode off.
Soon more tracks came from the west. Bird said they were from unshod Indian ponies. It looked like they followed the same path as had Stoddard, Raush and Grimes, but there were so many that they covered the marks of the shod horses. Then the prints got all muddled together like everyone had stopped and milled around some. There was a lot of blood on the ground, and two sets of tracks led off, one to the west and the other on up the valley in the direction we were going, like the Indians had split up. We all figured that somebody had given up the ghost here, but had no idea who.
We’d all heard the terrible screams earlier this morning, and now we were sure some Indians were ahead of us so my hand never got far from the handle of my Colt and my head whirled constantly from side to side. No wild, savage Indian would sneak up on me, not if I could help it. Yet Bird and Anderson rode along as cool as could be, totally unruffled by what I knew to be our impending doom. By late afternoon the soft ground gave way to hard rock again and the tracks vanished.
Soon we rode northwest atop a deep, steep chasm thick with red fir, with a river at the bottom that ran a calm deep blue in some spots but mostly roared along spewing white foam across the many rocks in its path. The country here struck me as even more rugged than what we’d encountered around Downieville, and we were certainly much farther from any hint of civilization. Yet, in spite of keeping as close an eye out as I could, I’d still seen no sign of Indians, Raush, or Stoddard.
After two more days we came to a narrow valley, a half a mile long by thirty paces wide, at the bottom of a gorge hemmed in by near perpendicular hills thick with fir where the river plunged past a bar of gravel that even from the height at which we rode seemed to sparkle with the luster of gold. Unable to believe my eyes I stopped and stared. But I’d mined gold for a whole year now and never had any mining site I’d ever seen shown as many signs of wealth as this one, in spite of it sitting so far down the bluff.
The others had ridden on, like they hadn’t noticed. “Anderson, Bird,” I cried. “There’s gold down there. I’m sure.”
They stopped and looked into the gorge. Suddenly Bird grinned like he’d just gotten a plate of the best beefsteak in California cooked by the prettiest girl around. “This might be the spot Stoddard found, son,” he said more excited than he’d ever been.
“But this isn’t a lake, sir,” I replied.
“Naw,” he said. “Stoddard lied about the lake. He had to say something to throw folks off his trail.”
Then Anderson added, “I think you’re right, Micah. It sure looks like there’s gold in that gravel. Why don’t we find out?”
Leading his mule and the two Stoddard left with us, Bird began to work his way down the cliff face to the river. I followed Anderson, each of us with two mules, something we’d decided to do because of the incident with Lem and Jedidiah. This way, if anything happened to one of us as we snaked our way along the steep descent, the other would still have supplies.
Then, as I neared the bottom, I noticed both of them had stopped alongside the river. They stared up into an ancient dead fir tree that had grown stunted in rocky ground, with two twin trunks splitting from a single base about eight feet up, the tops of each long since broken off, one at fifteen feet and the other a little higher.
I reined up behind them and followed their eyes. There I saw a well-worn felt hat tied down tight over a tattered black coat and a pair of ragged wool trousers, and all wedged between the trunks with a lot of feathers and the rear end rattles of sidewinders hanging in front. Then I realized that bones were inside the clothes. I could see the lower part of a skull under the hat and a shinbone stuck out from one torn pant leg. I started to shake. This had been a person, and whatever happened hadn’t been pleasant.
“It’s Raushes’ brother isn’t it?” I asked to no one in particular.
“Likely,” said Bird.
“How did he . . .” I mumbled, unable to finish.
“Injuns,” Bird answered. “They caught him then tied him up there. The snake rattles kept the buzzards off. That way he’d die real slow after they’d had their fun.”
“Fun?” I moaned, not understanding Bird’s sarcasm at all.
Anderson dropped to the ground. “Let’s give him a proper burial,” he suggested. Bird went with him but I couldn’t bring myself to help with such a gruesome task. Still, I aimed to do my share so I pulled out a pick and shovel and began to dig. When we were done Anderson quoted some bible passages from memory and said a short prayer.
I wanted to get away from the gravesite as quick as I could. The whole thing had my mind bouncing around like a kid’s rubber ball. I didn’t know what the Indians had done to Raushes’ brother exactly, but it had to be downright horrible and I felt sure now that Stoddard had seen the whole thing, but here we were right on top of the place where he’d found those huge nuggets and I was determined to get what we came for.
So right off I rode toward the gravel bar I’d seen from above. After pulling the packs from both mules I left them to water in the river and walked over toward a likely looking spot and sank my shovel into the sand, slopped it into my gold pan and squatted at the edge of the river and began to wash out all the lighter sand and dirt and pick out the rocks with my hands. It didn’t take that long until I realized I had gotten rid of everything but the gold and I still had a whole pan brimming with stuff, all of it gold.
“Anderson,” I screamed. “Look here!”
He was beside me in no time. “My God,” he exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Most men feel real good to find an ounce of color in their pan. You must have nine or ten here. That’s a hundred and fifty dollars at least, in one shovel full of ore.” Then he turned and pointed to the gold for the benefit of Bird who’d just
rushed up beside us. “Take a gander at this, Bird!” he crowed.
A look I knew well swept instantly across Bird’s face, just like I’d seen in so many men when they got that first sight of pure gold that came from the bare earth around them and the idea instantly started to percolate inside their head about how much more gold could be buried in the gravel of the very bar where they stood. It’s called gold fever and like all the others that glint of gold gleamed bright in Bird’s eyes, eyes that grew as big as the very pan they stared into. He’d had caught the fever all right, hooked like a trout in a mountain stream.
We started panning with the single-minded zeal that the fever metes out in large doses to its victims, and in what seemed like no time Bird yelled out, “Here they are, Stoddard’s nuggets. Look at ‘em! Look at ‘em!”
Both Anderson and I dropped our shovels to rush over by Bird. He’d only run a splash of water across his ore, enough to clean the dust away, and the whole pan gleamed of gold in huge lumps just like the ones Stoddard flashed that day in Nevada City.
I pulled one out and held in front of my eyes, lost in its special lure, my heart pounding like a racehorse. “That pan full must weigh five pounds,” I said.
“More,” added Anderson. “Stoddard was right. This place is loaded with gold.”
“Just in case the Indians didn’t get him, shouldn’t we put a quarter of what we find aside for Stoddard?” I said. “We wouldn’t be here except that he told us about this.” It came over me quick. My mother had called it the goodness of my soul.
Bird and Anderson both nodded. “Done,” said Anderson. ”There’s plenty here for everyone. We’ll save a share for him until we know for sure.”
We worked the bar all summer, and though a lot more men showed up, many who were with Raush, we never said a word about finding the body, or let on that this was the spot Stoddard had found and that there was no lake of gold. Then, that fall, we loaded our mules with all we’d mined and made our way down the North Feather River to where it joined the Yuba. There we came to a new town, Marysville, growing rapidly by supplying miners in places just like where we’d been and so we decided to stay.
Tales from the Promised Land: Western short stories from the California gold rush Page 8