Escape From Gold Mountain

by Zina Abbott

  “It’s good you’re getting an early start, Shorty. Don’t draw attention and hurry back. Then it’s up to you whether or not you use her.”

  Luke kept his eyes on cinching his saddle while he replied to Charley. “I suggest we all keep away from her. She might be a whore, but maybe those Chinese will refuse to pay for her if they think she’s carrying a half-white child when they get her back. Besides, who knows what kind of pox she’s picked up from the men she’s been with?”

  Charley considered his words. “You might have a point there. If I assure that Chinaman running the brothel she’ll be coming back in the same condition we took her, it might put us in a better bargaining position.”

  “No worry here,” Tex muttered under his breath. He turned to study Loi. “She’s too small for my taste. Looks like a skinny kid to me.”

  Tex disappeared into the cabin and Luke followed. Luke watched him pull a strip of leather from his saddlebag and step over to Loi. He grabbed her arm. “I’m tying your hands up now, Chinawoman. We don’t need you taking off that blindfold and running away on us. You’re going nowhere until the boss gets back.”

  In spite of her heaving breaths, the woman made no sound as Tex pulled her hands behind her back.

  “Maybe you ought to let her have some privacy behind the bushes first. She can’t manage her clothes with her hands tied like that.”

  Tex walked to the doorway and called out to Charley. “Boss, I’m no nursemaid. I want no part of watching over this Chinawoman.”

  Luke shook his head with disgust. “Her name is Ling Loi. I’ll take her before I go.”

  Jardine walked in and tossed a length of rope to Tex. “Sooner Shorty gets back, sooner he can tend the woman. Tie this around her neck and lead her to a thick stand. You’ll know she’s up to no good if the rope goes tight or gets too slack. “Besides, where’s she going to run to with those feet?”

  Tex grumbled as he tied a slipknot in the rope and tightened it around her neck. “Since when did I stuck with her?”

  Charley barked out a high-pitched laugh. “Since it was you who grabbed her. If this deal doesn’t pan out, you’ll be the one in charge of taking care of her, if you know what I mean.”

  Luke suspected he knew what Charley meant, and he did not like it one bit. Being caught up in an abduction was bad enough. Charley hinted at murder.

  Tex’s face darkened with a scowl. “We’ll see about that.” He next took his gun from his holster and held the barrel against Loi’s cheek. He ignored her startled flinch when she felt the cold metal. “Y’all feel that, Chinawoman? Y’all leave your blindfold on…” Tex tugged at the knot in the blindfold to help the woman understand what he was talking about. “…nothing bad is going to happen to y’all.” He pulled the gun away from her face. “Y’all take it off…” He started to lift the knot as if to remove it while at the same time he put the end of the barrel against her cheek and clicked back the hammer. “…Y’all will be dead. Hate to have to kill y’all for taking a look-see at us, but I’m not swinging on the end of a rope for stealing no Chinawoman.”

  Luke stepped over to Tex to catch his eye. “No need to threaten her like that. She won’t give you any trouble as long as you let her know what you expect of her.”

  “You better hope you’re right, Shorty. She gives us any trouble, Tex will eliminate the problem. None of us needs to swing over this.”

  Luke turned to study Charley to see if it was a bluffing. He lost almost all trust in Charley once he realized he and Tex were rustling cattle, but he knew for certain he dared not trust the man now when it came to Ling Loi. He kept himself busy around the cabin until he watched Charley ride off to begin the task of negotiating a ransom with the Chinese in Lundy. Only then did Luke mount his horse. He had several hours of riding ahead of him if he were to get to Bodie and buy their food and supplies.

  Supplies included blankets. The night before he had given Ling Loi his bedroll and had spent the night huddled in front of the fire with a couple of horse blankets wrapped around him for warmth. He’d rather have them under him and his own bedroll back. He thought it best if Loi slept on the third pallet. That meant he needed to buy the woman her own heavy wool blankets.

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  Chapter 14

  ~o0o~

  Robinson Creek, Big Meadows, California ~ September, 1884

  L uke ended up being gone two days. His only consolation about leaving Ling Loi alone with Tex that long was, as much as Tex talked tough and was quick to reach for his gun, he was more even-tempered than Jardine. He had admitted to crimes of robbery, burglary and stagecoach robbery—one that ended up in a couple of men getting shot and killed—but he was not downright mean-spirited in the same way Charley Jardine could be. After Luke had thrown his lot in with Charley and Tex, he had, much to his dismay, heard stories about some of the times Charley had gotten stinking, rotten drunk. He tended to grow vicious when under the influence. It was nothing for him to pick a fist fight, stab a man several times, or threaten to shoot someone. As long as Charley stayed away from whiskey, Ling Loi would probably be all right with Tex looking out for her.

  Luke bought most of what he needed, including two wool blankets, an extra plate and a couple pair of heavy wool socks he figured Loi could wear on either her hands or her feet as the nights grew colder. Once she went back to Lundy, he could use them. He saw some rice at the mercantile, but dared not buy any. The last thing he needed was for someone to remember later on and make a connection between his rice purchase and the captured Chinese woman. He did buy some winter vegetables. He recalled the Chinese used them in the foods he had eaten in Chinatown. Plus, he bought a brick of black tea along with ground coffee.

  Luke grunted with disappointment when he discovered the egg basket was empty. Eggs were hard to transport without breaking, but he enjoyed making his flapjacks with an egg rather than relying only on baking powder to lighten them.

  “Just missed the eggs. Mrs. Cain bought the last of them. Bad time of year for eggs, the chickens not laying as many as in good weather.” Luke nodded in acknowledgement, only half listening to the clerk’s chatter until he mentioned the name Lundy.

  “What did you say about Lundy? I hoped to get up that way and look for work.” The clerk laughed and shook his head. “No work up that way, not after the May Lundy Mine went down, and especially not this time of year. What I was saying was, it’s getting so bad one of the women from up there moved to a homestead down west of Bridgeport along Robinson Creek. She used to cook up there, but now she raises chickens and sells her extra eggs in Bridgeport. Widow-woman, from what I hear, not all that old. She’s engaged to one of the Caldwell brothers, but she’s sure not rushing the wedding.”

  Luke bit back the question he wished to ask. He realized any interest he showed might be remembered later if someone started asking about him. He knew the Caldwell name. Several of the yearlings Charley had claimed were mavericks had been with mamas wearing the Caldwell brand. Still, Luke wondered if he could find this woman’s place. He resisted the prospect of going to Bridgeport only for eggs. Maybe she might sell him some and possibly a chicken.

  No trees grew in or around Bodie. The ground supported little else but sagebrush. The only crop the locals found they could raise were hops, which, along with the exceptionally clear spring water available, made it a good place to brew beer. However, it was not a good place to ride under cover. There was a lot of open ground between Bodie and the Robinson Creek area that butted up against the timberline of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Between him and her land was the Caldwell Ranch, a place he planned to avoid. Luke knew he had to be careful and take a circuitous route as he worked his way towards the location of the woman’s house the clerk had volunteered.

  However, Luke had not been in luck. While riding several yards inside the forest of Jeffrey pines and aspens, he heard a voice call out to him. He halted his horse and held his hands out in the
open as two men rode towards him. They stopped on either side of him. One who appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties held a rifle pointed in the air with the butt resting on his thigh. A glance at the brand on the haunches of both horses told Luke these were Caldwell men.

  The younger man spoke first. “Howdy, stranger. What brings you to these parts?”

  Luke nodded and offered a tentative smile. “I’m not looking for trouble, only a job. By chance am I anywhere near the Caldwell Ranch? I was told in town it was out this way, not far from Robinson Creek.”

  The older man spoke. “Robinson Creek is north and just east of here. You go straight east a ways, you’ll be on my land. You’re on Caldwell land now, although the main ranch is south of here. You riding the grub line?”

  “I’ve still got some provisions, but I’m getting close to doing that if I don’t find work soon.” Luke nudged his horse forward a step and held out his hand to shake. “Name’s Dan Mackey. Do you know if the Caldwell’s are hiring?”

  The man shifted his rifle into his left hand and reached over to shake. “Name’s Hank Weston. We work for the Caldwell Ranch. This here is Frankie. Afraid you won’t find the bosses here. They made a run up to Lundy to haul some hay and grain up there to a couple of the liveries.”

  The other man grinned as he reached forward and shook Luke’s hand. “Sorry if we didn’t seem too hospitable. Been having a problem with rustlers lately.”

  Luke gave a silent sigh, grateful he had nothing on him to tie him to the cattle thefts. “Figure there’s any value in sticking around until they get back so I can ask them about work?”

  Hank shook his head. “Afraid not. They have more men than work now. They don’t like to cut good hands loose, so they keep them on during winter even though it’s not busy. As soon as they get back, I’ll pack up and start working my homestead so they’ll have one less man to feed. I can always work for them again next spring if I don’t have my mule team business going yet.”

  Frankie looked at Hank, who nodded, then motioned towards the south. “Let’s head back to the bunkhouse. We don’t got us a cook, but Mrs. Dodd, Val’s fiancé—he’s one of our bosses—she was supposed to drop off a kettle dish to go with our steaks for supper. Probably have some good bread and a pie or two, too. There’ll be enough for one more, especially with both our bosses gone.”

  Luke smiled as he turned his horse to ride with the two men. “Don’t your bosses eat at the main house?”

  Frankie turned back with a toothy grin and shook his head. “Naw. Neither one of them have wives—yet—so they take their chances with us. Val, the oldest, is due to marry soon, but she don’t want to tie the knot until after she goes back east to fetch her little sister. Until then, at least she cooks and bakes for us and brings a big meal by three to four times a week. Beats anything we manage to throw together.”

  Luke couldn’t help but like these two men. He felt much easier around them than he ever did with Charley and Tex. However, he suspected their easy, friendly manner would turn to just the opposite if they discovered he played a role in the missing Caldwell cattle.

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  Chapter 15

  ~o0o~

  A t the Caldwell Ranch, Luke stopped at the bunkhouse long enough to throw his blanket roll on the bed Hank pointed to. Then he volunteered to help muck out the stable in exchange for feed for his horse and to pass the time until supper. Once Hank came and called him to eat, he settled at the table where Frankie introduced him to the other hands.

  Hank wasn’t the oldest man there. One, a grizzled old cowhand said he’d been hired on by the father after the war with Mexico and been there ever since. Luke came to the conclusion that if a man was a good worker, the Caldwell brothers were the type who kept them on as a show of loyalty, even as their hands aged and started to slow down some. Most of the men were closer to Frankie’s age—somewhere in their twenties—except for one who looked to still be in his teens.

  After introductions, Luke tried to stay quiet. He soon learned the men were curious, and he was that evening’s entertainment. They plied him with questions about where he came from and how he had ended up in their remote little section of California.

  Luke felt himself caught in a dilemma. First, he had given them the alias he had been using, one Charley and Tex knew him by. If Charley turned on him, which Luke considered a strong possibility, and dropped his name as being behind either the cattle rustling or the abduction of Ling Loi, these men would remember him. The other concern was his story. He had pretty much told Charley and Tex how he had come to California. Did he dare tell these men the same tale, or make up a new story about his travels?

  What decided him was the rice. He looked at the cast iron Dutch oven in the center of the table and saw the side dish was made of some kind of rice and bean mixture with onion and herbs. As soon as a scoop landed on his enamel plate and he separated the grains with his fork, he knew for sure rice was the grain he would be eating, although the way it was prepared did not resemble any Chinese food he had ever eaten.

  “Go ahead and try it. It ain’t bad.”

  Luke looked up at the teenager who now wore a big grin. He realized the young man had mistaken his gesture to be one of hesitation to eat something unfamiliar. Luke took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Pretty good. What’s in here, some kind of barley?”

  Frankie answered with a guffaw. “Naw, that’s rice—Chinese food. Mrs. Dodd said she never cooked with it until she got up to Lundy. I’m a beef and potatoes man myself, but I got to admit, it makes for a nice break.”

  Luke nodded in agreement and kept eating. At the same time, he began to concoct a story. The one he came up with had him from a family with too many boys to feed and more than what was needed to run the farm. Traveling across on the train, working his way west, until he got to Sacramento. From there, after hearing most of the gold and silver mining jobs were east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, he had crossed over. However, he was finding it hard to get on anyplace. With winter weather coming, he planned to work his way south until he found something.

  “You ever ride herd—work cattle? I noticed the rope hanging from your saddle.”

  Luke turned towards the cowboy with the challenge in his eyes who had posed the question. He had already figured out Caldwell men were loyal to their brand. After several of their herd had been rustled, they were probably suspicious of anything out of the norm. He responded carefully. “Never worked a long drive as a drover, if that’s what you mean. I did herd cows and milk them back home, and I know how to rope a yearling and castrate. I expect I know enough I could pick it up real quick. As for the rope, comes in handy at times. Gotten myself out of more than one fix, thanks to that rope.”

  Satisfied with his answer, the men turned to their own gossip and left him in peace. Luke avoided joining in and remained content to listen. One thing he learned was the woman from whom he wished to purchase the chicken and eggs was the one who had traveled with the Caldwell brothers to Lundy. He started working it out in his head how he would get in and away from her place undetected. Like most people, she probably did not have a lock on her door.

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  Chapter 16

  ~o0o~

  T he next morning, Luke left the Caldwell Ranch. The hands were a good group of men, and loyal to the two brothers who were their bosses. He regretted that he had not been able to find work with them before he met up with Charley Jardine and Tex Wilson. He also felt remorse that he had been a party, no matter how unwillingly, to the theft of some of the ranch’s cattle.

  What had really intensified his sense of guilt was when Frankie had handed him a glass Mason jar filled with food. After supper, and before he poured hot water into the Dutch oven to soak, he had scraped the leftovers of the bean and rice dish plus a small piece of cooked steak into it before he tightened the lid on it. At the time,
Luke had thought nothing about it as the men joked with Frankie about being brave enough to use one of Mrs. Dodd’s bottles and the level of trouble he would be in if it broke. That morning, Frankie had handed the filled jar to Luke for him to pack in his saddlebag. He assured Luke that his boss could buy his fiancé more. Luke felt grateful and unworthy of the friendship of these men.

  One thing the men had unwittingly helped him with was more precise directions to the Widow Dodd’s house along with a description of what it looked like. Evidently, Hank had helped dismantle and haul the building down from Lundy. Most of the men had helped put it back together on her land. Luke had listened without comment as they regaled him with their version of the house-raising the previous summer.

  When he left the ranch, he took their advice and traveled east towards Bridgeport. Instead of turning south like they directed, as soon as he rode out of sight of the ranch, he turned north and west towards the tree line. This time, he worked his way farther north than where he had met up with Hank and Frankie the day before. With the dense growth of trees as a screen to hide him from view, he finally reached a point where he saw the house. He immediately recognized it from the description. The lone horse grazing in the pasture appeared to be the only occupant. Still, Luke watched the place for the better part of an hour to make sure the men were correct about nobody being home.

  The land surrounding the house lay fairly flat with no cover once he left the trees. He rode with his head forward, using only his eyes to scan the area to spot anyone else approaching. Once he reached the small barn, he secured his horse where it wouldn’t be seen by anyone passing by.