by Sharon Sala
***
The land at Cherry Creek and the surrounding areas had been given to the Arapaho under the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, but once gold had been discovered, the treaty was as good as gone. The Arapaho were a small tribe with light skin and a predilection for chest tattoos, and they had learned long ago that to get along, they went along—often despite misgivings.
Their chief, Little Raven, had welcomed the white men, whom the Arapaho referred to as the “spider people”, which was an oblique reference to the white man’s constant habit of leaving roads, survey stakes and fences behind them as they went. The Arapaho even went so far as sharing their women with the miners, as was the custom of the tribe, in hopes that they could learn to live together. But it seemed evident that Indians and whites were never going to live side by side in harmony when the whites couldn’t even accomplish that among themselves.
***
There were men and tents and horses on the other side of the creek—and noise—noise at such a level that it seemed impossible any one word could be distinguished from the other. A few rough-cut buildings had been erected. Letty could read the signs from here.
One was an eating house. The only sign above the doorway said MEALS. Another was a saloon called ARLIE’S BAR. The third was a dry goods store, with a sign stating the obvious. They could see another two other buildings in different stages of completion. The rest were tents. There was a sign outside one of the larger ones that read BATHS, which made Letty smile.
“Look, Eulis. They got a bath house.”
Eulis resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“Baths down there ain’t gonna come free.”
“I know,” she said.
“Things are gonna cost a whole bunch more than they’re worth.”
“I know. I heard Mrs. Cocker at breakfast this morning, too, you know.”
“That means we’re gonna have to watch the little bit of money we got left. We’ll need to outfit ourselves for huntin’ gold.”
“How so?” Letty asked.
“I don’t know,” Eulis said. “I ain’t never went huntin’ for gold before, but there’s bound to be things we need.”
“I guess… only I don’t think hunting is the right word. We can’t exactly go out there and track it and shoot it down like we did those squirrels we ate.”
Eulis rolled his eyes and refused to answer.
Letty sniffed politely, convinced that she’d had the last word, which she took to mean she was right.
Then a gunshot rang out and they looked back into the valley, watching as one man staggered out of the water, threw down what looked like a big flat pan, then punched the guy standing on the bank. That man fell backward onto his butt, then shook his head, yanked off his hat, got up with a roar and started swinging.
“Mercy,” Letty said. “Wonder what set them off?”
“The Tower of Babel,” Eulis said, unaware that he’d spoken out loud.
“What? Where?” Letty asked. “I don’t see any tower.”
Eulis shook his head. “Not here. In the bible.”
“I don’t get it,” Letty said.
“I don’t remember all the details cause I only read about it once, but there’s this story in the bible about some people all being forced to build this big stone tower. It was to honor some king or somethin’ and I think he swore he was gonna build it all the way to heaven. So God put some kind of spell on all the workers and all of a sudden they began speakin’ in different tongues. They could no longer understand each other, and the work came to a halt because orders couldn’t be followed. They called it the Tower of Babel. I reckon that’s where we got the word, babble. You know… doin’ a lot of talkin’ without really sayin’ anything.”
“Oh.” She looked down at the chaos below and then nodded. “I get it.” Then she smiled. “Way to go, Preacher Howe.”
Eulis frowned. “Not anymore… and don’t make a mistake and call me that again. We done run into one fella from our past out here. We don’t want to come across someone from back home who knew the preacher from Lizard Flats, cause they will likely have known of me, too. I know I don’t look like I used to, but I reckon there’s not two Eulis Potters who would be runnin’ with a woman from the White Dove Saloon.”
Instantly, Letty regretted her words.
“I’m sorry, Eulis. Sometimes I talk before I think.”
“Wouldn’t be a very smart thing to do out here.”
She thought back to the hanging man and shivered.
“I’m sorry. Real sorry.”
Eulis patted her knee. “It’s all right, girl. Just wanted you to think a bit, you know?”
She nodded.
He flipped the reins across the mules’ backs, and the wagon began to roll down the hill into their future.
***
Letty had been awake for hours, waiting for daylight. It was sometime after midnight when she’d heard moisture dropping from the leaves onto their tent. She’d rolled over with a muffled curse, and reminded herself that she and Eulis had to make different sleeping arrangements soon because there was no way they could spend the winter in this tent and survive.
Already the population of Denver City was less than half what it had been when they’d arrived two weeks ago. Men who’d given up the gold fever had headed out before winter. Almost overnight, the leaves on the trees had turned, and once in a while, there was a thin crust of ice on the creek at first light.
When they’d picked a place to camp and pan, it hadn’t been based on any scientific reasoning. They’d just gone to the land office and registered their claim. Picking it had been a simple case of availability, with as much privacy as possible, and that had meant going up creek to a somewhat higher elevation. Letty hadn’t minded, although it meant hitching up the wagon and mules every time they needed supplies.
***
The first time they’d found color, Letty had been absent. She’d taken a break and gone into the bushes to pee, leaving Eulis ankle deep in water. He scooped a fresh pan of sediment from the bottom of the creek, then began circling the grit and water, letting the silt and rocks sluice out with the assumption that the gold, which was heavier, would stay on the bottom. But it called for a sharp eye and the knowledge of how to tell floss from dross. More than one man had made a fool of himself over iron pyrite, often called “Fool’s Gold”, by running into town waving a poke of the stuff. By the time the assayer’s office had verified the ‘strike’ as worthless, the miner’s face was red, and he was sneaking out of town a lot quieter than the way he’d come in.
Eulis’s hands were cold, but his feet were colder. The water was getting colder and colder by the day. Panning was soon going to be impossible once the water froze, but they had yet to find even a nugget. If something didn’t happen soon, they would have to leave. They’d never make it through the winter without food and shelter, and at the present time, they had no money for either.
With her bladder protesting, Letty tossed her pan onto the creek bank and stomped out of the water.
“Headin’ for the bushes. Be right back.”
Eulis nodded without comment. Letty’s frequent trips into the trees to pee, was a common occurrence, and no longer a source of amusement for either. He was too busy watching the bottom of his pan and the circling water as it washed out the dirt and pebbles, when it suddenly dawned on him that this time, there was something in the bottom that hadn’t been there before.
He straightened abruptly and almost ran out of the creek, afraid that he was mistaken, and then afraid if he’d really found gold that he would spill it back into the water from which it had come.
“Oh man,” he muttered, as he dug through the tiny grit and sand, then pulled out the small nugget. It was a bright spot of color, and appeared as if it had once been liquid before hardening somewhat flat.
He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, then laid it in the palm of his hand and tilted it toward the sun. It didn’t exactly sparkle, but t
here was a slight glimmer, and that was good enough for him. He curled his fingers around the rock and yelled.
“Letty!”
“Just a minute!” she yelled. “I’m busy.”
“Letty! You gotta come here!”
“For pity’s sake, Eulis! I said… I’m busy!”
“Leticia!”
She stood up from behind some bushes, holding up her pants with one hand, as she parted the bushes with her other.
“What?”
He held out his hand. “I think I found gold!”
Letty gasped as she ran from the bushes, forgetting that her pants were not fastened. Two steps later she was flat on her face, with her pants around her ankles.
Eulis ran to her.
“Dang, Letty! Are you all right?”
Ignoring the fact that Eulis had a more than ample view of her bare butt, Letty rolled over and got up, pulling her pants as she went.
“Let me see! Let me see!”
Eulis grinned. “Soon as you button your britches.”
“Eulis!” she begged, and then began fumbling with the buttons.
He laughed again, filled with joy, and a hope that he’d thought himself too far gone to ever know again, and opened the palm of his hand.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
Letty extended her hand as Eulis laid the nugget in her palm.
“Oh lord,” Letty whispered. “Just look! Oh, Eulis… just look!”
“I’m lookin’,” Eulis said, but he was no longer looking at the nugget. He was looking at Letty.
She was bone thin, with a scrape on her nose where she’d just taken a fall, and her hands were callused and rough, even cracked and bleeding in places from the water and the cold. There was a bit of red leaf stuck on the braid down her back, and she was about the prettiest woman he thought he’d ever seen.
Letty turned the nugget over and over, mentally marking and weighing it in her mind.
“Reckon it’s some of that Fool’s Gold?” Eulis asked.
“No. I looked at that stuff real close in the assayer’s office. This is the real stuff, Eulis! The real stuff!”
Then she threw her arms around his neck and started jumping up and down.
Eulis grabbed the back of her britches to keep them from falling down around her knees again, and grinned.
“Here!” he said, and handed her a small leather pouch. “I been savin’ this for our first find. I reckon this is it.”
Letty opened the bag and dropped in the gold, then handed it back to Eulis. Her eyes were shining and there was a look in her eyes he’d never seen before.
A funny feeling came in the pit of his stomach—a kind of knotting, drawing pain that made him want to cry and laugh all at the same time. A feeling that swelled his heart and caused him to choke on whatever he’d been going to say next.
“You did good,” she said softly. “You did real good.”
He swallowed nervously and turned loose of her pants. Letty grabbed them before they fell again, and by the time she was buttoned back up, he’d put the pouch in his pocket, buttoned the flap, and the moment had passed.
That had been then, and this was now. Weeks later, their tiny pouch was only about half full. Enough to know that they would be able to afford food for the winter, but not enough to buy them a decent place to stay.
***
Little Bird was sad. She’d been sad for many moons now—ever since the spider people had come to Cherry Creek. Before, it had been a joyous place to be. Game had been plentiful, and the chokecherry bushes for which Cherry Creek had been named were always heavily laden with the bitter-sweet cherries. Now everything was wrong. This season the chokecherries had been sparse and the ones that had ripened were small, with a tendency to rot on the bush. The deer that had survived the white men’s indiscriminate hunting practices had gone up to a higher elevation, and the pure water of Cheery Creek that had sustained The People for so long had been fouled by the spider people and their thirst for gold. But what bothered Little Bird even more was that she no longer felt safe in her own tipi.
White men came into their camp almost every night wanting a woman to lie with. Because it was the custom of The People to share their women from time to time, the warriors obliged. But Little Bird hated the white men and their ways. They were brutal and hairy, and smelled foul, as if their bodies were rotting, although they had yet to die.
And today was no different. The morning had dawned cold and gray. Her man was still sleeping beneath his blankets and her cooking fire had gone out. When she got up to relieve herself, she’d been accosted by a white man walking into the camp. He staggered as he walked, and smelled of the white man’s drink. Before she knew it, she was flat on her back with her legs spread and he was fumbling with his breeches.
Little Bird pushed at the man, trying to get him off of her, but he wouldn’t budge, so she reached for the nearest weapon, which happened to be a large rock, and swung it at him as hard as she could. There was a sound, not unlike that of a clay pot breaking, and then he was still.
Little Bird pushed him off her then crawled to her feet. To her surprise, she was still alone. Afraid of the backlash that might occur between the spider people and the Arapaho, she grabbed the man by the arms and began dragging him into the trees.
***
It quit raining before sunrise. Letty watched the first gray fingers of light pulling aside the curtain of night. As soon as she could distinguish shape and substance, she put on her boots, and crawled out of the tent, leaving Eulis still asleep in his blankets.
After a quick trip to the bushes, she began gathering some dry wood for the fire, although the chore took longer and longer each morning, due to the fact that they were quickly using up all the dead fall. The next time they went into town, they were going to have to buy something larger than their hatchet to cut wood.
Letty didn’t realize how far she’d gone from camp until she heard a twig snap in the bushes. She looked up and then spun around, only to come face to face with a young Arapaho woman.
The woman gasped.
Letty took a step backward and dropped the wood in her arms, just as the woman dropped the man she’d been dragging.
Letty eyed the man, taking in the fact that there was a lot of blood on the side of his head, that his pants were undone and that he reeked of liquor. Also, that the young woman looked scared out of her mind. She knew the Arapaho shared their women and before this, had given no thought to whether the women had been in on the decision. But she thought about it now, and recognized the panic in the Indian woman’s eyes. She remembered how scared she’d been when Howe had died of a heart attack, and had it not been for Eulis, would have probably been hanged. Despite her fear of Indians, she felt a greater bond—that of woman to woman—and pointed to the man at their feet.
“Did he hurt you?” Letty asked.
Little Bird’s eyes widened. She knew enough of the white man’s words to get by, and unconsciously put a hand to her breast, feeling the tenderness where the man had grabbed her as he’d shoved her to the ground.
Letty’s eyes narrowed in anger as she looked down at the man again. Then she looked up.
“My name is Letty.”
Little Bird touched her chest. “Little Bird.”
Letty pointed at the man.
“Is he dead?”
Little Bird nodded soulfully.
Letty brushed off the palms of her hands.
“Then I reckon we’d better get rid of him. Need some help?”
Little Bird couldn’t have been more surprised by the offer, but she was too desperate to refuse. She nodded once.
“All right then,” Letty said. “You take one arm. I’ll take the other. Got a place in mind to put him?”
Little Bird pointed up the path.
“Cave. Bear sleeps in winter.”
Letty frowned. “Reckon the bear is in there yet?”
“Soon,” Little Bird said.
“Then
we’d better get at it,” Letty said, and together, they began dragging the man up the path.
By Letty’s best guess, it had taken the better part of thirty minutes to reach the cave, but she had to admit that once there, it was the perfect hiding place—almost as good as the grave where they’d buried the real Randall Howe.
When they started inside, she had a moment of hesitation, fearing that a bear would already be occupying the spot, but to her relief, it was empty. They dragged him as far back into the cave as they could see to go, then dropped him like a hot potato, and made a run for the light.
Once outside, they were almost giddy with relief, and Letty found herself grinning at her co-conspirator.
“It is done,” Little Bird said, and then sat down at the side of the path, covered her face with her hands, and began to weep.
Letty knew the feeling all too well. She knelt beside her, and then tentatively touched her shoulder.
“Hey… Little Bird… it’s over. No need to cry now.”
“Afraid,” Little Bird said.
“Yeah, I understand. But I won’t tell.”
Little Bird looked up. Tears were hanging on her lashes like dew on the grass.
“It’s our secret,” Letty said. “You know secrets?”
Little Bird shook her head and frowned.
Letty sighed. “It’s something that two people know, but do not tell.” Then she pointed to the cave, then to herself. “I know.” Then she pointed at Little Bird. “And you know.” Then she closed her fists, as if holding something tight. “But no one else knows. Ever.”
Little Bird’s eyes widened as she thought about what the woman had said and pointed to the cave.
“No talk more ever.”
“Right,” Letty said, and then held out her hand. “Come on. Let’s head back down. I need to find wood for a fire.”
Little Bird almost smiled. “I, too, make fire.”