Sons of Some Dear Mother

by Matt Cole

  John Bishop knelt down like a very old man to cup his hands and drink at the stream. When he stood up, Frank could see the pain in the deeply drawn lines around his mouth. Frank could imagine the striated back shorn of flesh and stiffening in the cold. John was like some thick trunk of tree bitten cruelly by the axe.

  ‘You should have stole a horse instead of tanglin’ with Ben Allridge,’ John said to Frank. ‘They beat my hide off, but I still got my beautiful face.’

  Frank grunted. ‘Ben’s in poor shape this morning, too,’ he said.

  John Bishop nodded. ‘You was doing fine till the two of you went twenty feet down that coyote shaft.’

  Frank winced at the recollection of that plunge, the rock sides of the shaft burning his hide raw and the slag heap landing that came near to unhinging him.

  ‘You’ve busted me up for fair, John,’ Frank said accusingly. ‘I was a respected man once . . . with a mother and a nice lady who loved me, and brothers who worshipped me, and respected here in the community till you stole that nag and I got mad at Ben Allridge as he demanded that we hang you.’

  ‘You’ve got a fair, sensible streak in you or I’d be danglin’ from a tree this very minute,’ John said.

  Frank shook his head, and then hung on to it a moment with both hands to stop the throbbing. ‘They don’t want a bailiff that doesn’t want to hang a horse thief. That’s why I was told to git when they dragged me from that hole.’

  ‘Thing is, I ain’t a real horse thief,’ said John. ‘You got a mind and could see it. You’re a man of justice. . . .’

  ‘Justice . . . justice can cost a man everything,’ Frank replied. ‘And you would have done until a real horse thief came along.’ He got to his feet, rolled a little with his dizziness, and then started north.

  From Mt Bullion, to Bear Valley, to Bagby, to Coulterville and on north he marched in the coming days. And it was a painful journey to a man of pride. Frank felt the deep pity for himself – a man without his parents, without a woman to love, and without his brothers: that’s what he was now – a man alone.

  He looked the odd figure in rough pants and jacket cast off by some camp along the way; a filthy flop-brimmed hat partially obscuring a battered face thick matted with a tawny beard.

  The two found refuge in a lonely Sierra camp. Though most in the camp wanted to sing and dance around the fires, Frank had one single drink and brooded in the shadows.

  Next morning he pushed on again, and behind him labored John Bishop. John had been beaten too, and driven out, but was not broken. ‘You’re a man of justice, Frank,’ he would say.

  But Frank Daniels knew that this was not so. He knew he had acted outside the law when he hunted Henry Lowe and the Murlock Gang, killing nearly every last one of them at the cost of his brothers’ lives.

  The Dramatic Hall at the camp of Hogleg had a low ceiling, with a slab-timbered roof that tilted south to shed the rains, and a rough board floor that tilted north to shed tobacco juice and the tears that flowed copiously on nights of rich drama. The slightly elevated stage rested precariously on wooden horses, and a painted female figure of some bosomy munificence graced the calico curtains that drew the thin line between audience and player.

  Hogleg was a larger camp than Mariposa, and to John Bishop’s practised eye, even less well organized. It had the feel of an ornery, brawling camp, and John was surprised that Frank would linger there. And he was purely astonished when, on the third day, Frank filed a small pan and shovel claim on a stream a mile out of camp, and on that Saturday night followed other citizens of the camp to the Dramatic Hall.

  Booming laughter, oaths and gunfire collided mightily with wind bolts from tall mountain peaks as miners crowded toward the hall. A large, soiled banner, pummeled by the gusts, proclaimed:

  THE GLOVERS

  LOVELY MARLENE AND GRAND WINFIELD

  WITH COMPANY

  IN

  LADY OF LYONS AND OTHELLO

  Frank sat well back in the hall, a curious sickness in him, the like of which assailed him at curtain time. Marlene had drawn him here, even in his present sorry condition – and Grand Winfield, the man who’d married the love of Frank Daniels’ life.

  Marlene’s round, full voice jerked Frank back into the present. He was on his feet and roaring with the rest when she took the stage. He’d seen her perform numerous times – as a dancer, and in burlesque and other performances – and still she took his breath away. Her little speech was mainly cut off, and she just stood there smiling and inclining her head, and sweet-looking enough to squeeze a man’s heart.

  She raised her hands finally. ‘The show’s on,’ Marlene called out, ‘and we’ll do our best for you handsome gentlemen. We’ve only one request – no shooting till the final curtain!’

  The clamor rose again, and Frank blessed the anonymity of his hat, beard and battered face – for Marlene was close in that little hall: too close, and he felt like a sad dog of a man.

  The evening sped by while Frank dreamed, and Marlene and Winfield spun their magic for lonely gold seekers. It was near the end of the program when Frank made his grievous error. Grand Winfield, fortifying himself between scenes with hot water and whiskey, had overdone it and become befuddled. When he labored to a tortuous halt in mid-speech, Frank from far back in the hall intoned, ‘. . . then must you speak, of one that loved not wisely but too well. . . .’

  Winfield Glover snorted dead center, swung around and stared. Frank struggled to his feet in confusion and scuffled out into the windy night.

  Frank squatted three hours next morning over the streambed and panned a lucky ounce of gold and was ignorant of just when John Bishop arrived to sit in the tree shade and smoke and contemplate him.

  ‘You know them Glovers, don’t you, Frank?’ John said finally. Frank nodded, sifting rhythmically at his pan.

  ‘I figured so,’ said John. ‘Else why do we stop here and file a claim and go down to a showing at the Dramatic Hall. . . .’

  ‘I stop here,’ replied Frank shortly. ‘You can go where you please, John.’

  ‘Why do you keep hid under your hat and bush whiskers, Frank? You afraid of her?’

  Frank stopped his sifting. He set the pan down on a rock and looked over at his companion. John, in some special way, had become a part of Frank during their long trek north on the Mother Lode. He’d become an honest, dogged, goading presence who reminded him of his brothers – especially Casey – and who at first had followed and had later driven Frank, like a conscience. He was prodding now – but too hard.

  ‘You think too much, John Bishop. Either pan gold or get out.’

  ‘The girl’s in trouble, Frank. Her and that man of hers are in a claim fight with a dude named Rush Fetters. He’s about to beat them out.’

  Frank picked up his pan again and resumed sifting.

  ‘It’s an odd point,’ John went on. ‘Rush was working quartz ledges on both sides of a little gulch. The Grand Glover tracked a rich placer run in the stream between the ledges and claimed it. Fetters raised hell, of course, and some of the boys think he’s mean, but in his rights. Most don’t give a hoot, to be honest.’

  ‘I don’t give a hoot either,’ Frank shot back.

  ‘They say Marlene Glover brought the husband into the gold camps because the stage was killin’ him off. They say if Rush takes this strike away from him, it will kill him, sure as I am sitting in this shade. Don’t seem just, somehow.’

  ‘Hold court and settle it then,’ Frank snapped.

  John got up and knocked the ashes from his pipe. ‘They are holding court tomorrow night, and Rush is already spending the gold he’s gonna be awarded.’

  Frank sifted on, head bowed, still searching his pan for the tell-tale glitter. He was mightily relieved when John Bishop walked away.

  CHAPTER 18

  LOVE AND THE LAW IN HOGLEG

  ‘It is not in my heart to dispossess a lady of such charm as Mrs Glover of any rightful claim she may have on a fortune
to match her rising fame,’ Rush Fetters was saying smoothly. The late afternoon sun struck a lively gleam in Rush’s over-large black eyes and broad, toothy smile. He was a big man sure in the knowledge of his shrewdness and arresting good looks.

  ‘This matter of a placer strike her and her husband made directly in the midst of my quartz ledges can be easily resolved,’ Rush added.

  The men of Hogleg stirred and nodded to one another, and Jed Agler, the presiding officer, looked hugely comforted. To be caught in the middle of a dispute between the adroit and sinister Rush Fetters and a purposeful husband and wife team like the Glovers was neither pleasant nor healthful. Jed was a simple and honest man who was well aware that a wrong move could ruin him.

  Winfield Glover, from across the circle of men, cleared his throat. ‘What is your purpose, sir – your offer?’ he said in a half whisper.

  Rush shrugged, gesturing in comic exaggeration with his large, flat hands. ‘I would like to marry Mrs Glover!’

  The miners howled with raucous laughter. They pounded knees, slapped hats to the earth and jig stepped. And Rush Fetters grinned immensely.

  ‘It is the only answer,’ one man roared rather loudly. ‘Marry ’em up, Jed!’

  Winfield Glover crossed the space in three short jumps. His nose collided agonizingly with Rush Fetter’s suddenly doubled fist. He shuddered, groaned aloud and fell face-forward. Marlene Welch was down beside him swiftly, while Jed Agler took out his gun and fired twice in the air to restore order.

  The sight of the girl ministering to the fallen Glover sobered the men of Hogleg more effectively than Agler’s gunfire. Fun and hell are fine, but no lady is treated like that.

  From the very midst of the crowd suddenly stepped a newcomer to camp, holding up his hands, demanding attention. John Bishop, a flushed and angry man, addressed Jed Agler.

  ‘There is a gent here who can talk on this case,’ he said loudly. ‘He is a man born with a nugget of sense – which is worth more than all the gold we will dig out of this hell-hole. I demand he be heard. I refer to my partner standing right over there.’

  Faces turned toward big Frank Daniels, and a path opened to where he stood. Nervously, Frank pulled his hat brim low and straightened his shoulders. He was painfully conscious of Marlene, still kneeling beside Winfield Glover, but looking intently at him. This was a shameful entrance being forced upon him by the treacherous but well-meaning John Bishop.

  ‘Frank Daniels!’ John Bishop announced, burning all bridges behind him.

  Jed Agler sought to assess Frank. ‘You know about this dispute – Mr Daniels?’ he said cautiously.

  Frank nodded. There was the light now of recognition in Marlene Welch’s eyes, her mouth opening slowly in disbelief. And there was finally an urgent and troubling cue for action. Marlene’s cue pierced a wave of fright and dread such as Frank had never experienced before. He knew the sorry spectacle he must look, but there was no place to run or hide.

  ‘Hogleg is a fair and just camp,’ he managed to say, pulling his eyes from Marlene’s. His mind reached back feverishly into his considerations of the sleepless night before. He had gone over John Bishop’s account of this dispute minutely, and somewhere he had caught a spark of light.

  ‘It has been held in other camps that according to common sense, gold digging is a franchise from the government, free to all,’ he said.

  Frank paused to look around, let his words sink in, to build some impact on the crowd. ‘If Rush Fetters staked a claim on quartz ledges, let him use that placer claim.’

  There was a murmur and shuffling of feet among the miners. They were ripe now for any fair way out. The girl kneeling down by her husband was a plumb embarrassing sight to men instinctively chivalrous; and then, too, this new fellow was talking sense.

  ‘I say this,’ said Frank, warming to his subject, ‘if in that same gulch of Rush Fetters and Winfield Glover I find a breeze and stake a claim on that breeze and strain gold from it, it is against all comers.’

  The final point immensely amused and appealed to the men of Hogleg. They forthwith and loudly voted sanction of Winfield Glover’s placer claim and hauled him victoriously to the tent saloon for purposes of vigorous revival. Jed Agler shouted, ‘The dispute’s settled,’ and led the way.

  But Rush Fetters stayed behind. He intercepted Frank Daniels on the way out of camp and drew a long knife with fast and deadly purpose – but he never got to use it. Frank Daniels’ fist, from out of nowhere, nearly pulverized an ear and drove him senseless to the ground.

  ‘The law is good, and it has to be followed, Rush,’ said Frank, grinning and rubbing at his big knuckles. Then he noticed the girl and promptly hustled toward the gathering where Winfield Glover’s wits were being joyously resurrected.

  But Marlene Welch said, ‘Frank Daniels, as I live and breathe!’ And there was a tender mockery in her eyes as she hurried toward him, which purely captured Frank Daniels.

  ‘I love you, Marlene,’ he said.

  She hugged him tighter, and tears dribbled from her eyes. ‘I know, you big fool! I love you, too!’