Escape From Gold Mountain

by Zina Abbott

  Fortunately, his last foray into the woman’s house had not persuaded the owner to put a padlock on her door. He once again found her food crocks full. He brought in the baskets he had bought and filled one with beans and the other with almost all the rice on hand. He used a needle and thread he found in the living area to stitch them shut. He brought in the one glass jar that had survived from the time the Caldwell hands had sent it off with him full of the rice and bean leftovers. He filled it, along with another jar he found, with flour. He used an almost clean neckerchief he owned to hold some of the sugar. He gathered up a few root vegetables he knew Loi would enjoy with her meat and rice. He also spotted two cans of peaches and a can of pork and beans. He’d take that, too, for when they had to make a cold camp.

  Before he left, Luke placed two small bowels on the table. As he counted out fifty dollars in half eagles into the one dish, once again his conscience jabbed him with the realization that the horse he was “buying” without the knowledge or consent of its owner, was worth more than the fifty dollars he had allotted for it. The half eagle he left in the other dish he knew should cover the food he took.

  Even if the woman disliked his business dealings with her, Luke hoped she felt compensated well enough to not report it. After all, this would be the last time. Tonight, he intended to collect Loi, and they would leave the county for good.

  Using some of the fur clothing to cradle the eggs, Luke secured his foodstuffs to the pack saddle now on his mare’s back. He spent time with the new horse to persuade it to trust him. Luke stepped up into his saddle he now had on the gelding, and sighed with relief when the horse chose not to buck him off. Lead rope for his mare secured around his saddle horn, Luke started the two horses down the drive towards Bridgeport. Once he reached Robinson Creek, he lead the horses into the water, and double-backed towards the timberline. From there, he took a circuitous route around the east side of Bridgeport until he could rejoin the main road leading down to the turn-off for Bodie and, further on, the canyon road to Lundy.

  It would be a long travel day. However, if all went well, he should be back for Loi by that night.

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  Chapter 45

  ~o0o~

  Lundy, California ~ Late October, 1884

  E very muscle in Luke’s body ached as he made his way to the northwest end of Lundy past where most of the current residents lived. He found the remnants of a cabin that had probably been damaged by an avalanche and abandoned. Surprisingly, the logs had not been dismantled or cut up and hauled away for firewood. It would not serve as a permanent shelter, but sufficed to get the horses out of the wind and give them a place to rest for a few hours.

  The rock chimney had toppled over, but enough of a stone hearth remained. Luke built a fire and cooked a hot meal. When he had stopped at Virginia Creek to rest the horses on his way down, he had taken the time to gut the chicken and pluck the feathers. Along with some potatoes, he now fried the organ meat he had saved in a bit of side pork. As he watched the sky grow dark, he savored the coffee, knowing he needed what it provided to stay awake and alert until he accomplished what he had returned to Lundy to do—rescue Loi and start their journey back to Minnesota before Ah Chin aroused the town people and pursued them.

  The quarter moon rose and provided scant light as Luke put out his fire and scattered the ashes. He worked to leave the place with few signs of recent habitation. He found his short shovel he had bought and used it to remove horse droppings. He knew he might need to scatter more before he left.

  Luke once again reviewed his plan. He risked being seen when he cut behind the west end of Mill Creek Canyon and crossed the road leading to the abandoned May Lundy Mine. He hoped after their hurried trip back from Bridgeport it would not take much urging for him to convince the horses to make the steep climb up the trail to Lake Canyon as if going toward the old town of Bennettville. However, before he reached that high mountain town, he planned to cut south and east until he caught the Lee Vining Creek and followed it down to the Mono basin. Luke did not realize it, but on a short distance of his planned trail until they reached Rush Creek, they would be traveling the same route taken by Tex while pursued by Deputy Sheriff Bill Callahan. However, instead of continuing east, Luke intended for him and Loi to travel south towards the Owens Valley—away from Mono County, away from Tex Wilson and Charley Jardine, and away from Ah Chin and all he represented. Luke hoped they would eventually reach slightly warmer daytime temperatures in spite of the cold nights that are typical in high desert regions.

  Luke knew Mammoth was the next town of any size to the south. It had dwindled in population since its gold boom ended in the years that immediately preceded the gold boom that hit Lundy in 1880. He planned to skirt the local population and keep Loi out of sight. They had a long journey ahead of them—many miles to travel until he reached the southern trail leading east across the Colorado River and through Arizona and New Mexico Territories to Texas where he hoped to catch a train traveling north.

  Luke made rescuing Loi from Ah Chin his first priority, followed by getting her safely out of California. He also dared not leave a trail either the Chinese hatchet men from Chinatown or Charley Jardine could follow.

  Luke jerked awake. The position of the stars and moon told him it was early morning. He exhaled in disgust. He had missed Loi. He must wait until the next night.

  Luke tried to look on the positive side. Considering what he would be expecting of them in the weeks to come, he knew the rest would be good for the horses. His challenge would be to remain out of sight. He only hoped Loi had faith he would make every effort to come for her.

  The following night, Luke packed everything and prepared for the journey before he crept to the back of the necessary behind the Chinese brothel. Once again, he left his furs with the horses and wore dark clothing with his back derby pulled low on his forehead. The dark scarf wrapped around his neck hid most of his face. With moonrise coming closer to morning, he should remain hidden. His patience was eventually rewarded when he heard the back door open and close. Staying out of the beam of light cast through the window next to the door, Luke peered out from behind the small structure and watched Loi, a chamber pot in her hands, walk towards the necessary. She looked bulkier under her black quilted coat than he recalled. He smiled as he realized she had put on the clothes she wished to bring with her that had been all but ruined during the time she was held for ransom.

  Loi barely opened to the door of the necessary, and Luke prepared to circle the structure to get her, when Ah Chin burst out the back door. He left it open and hollered at her in rapid Chinese. Through the cracks between the boards of the back wall, Luke watched as Loi, chamber pot still in her hands, bowed and responded in her quiet voice.

  Whatever issue raised Ah Chin’s ire, he rejected Loi’s explanation. With all his force, he backhanded her across her face. The chamber pot she held flew across the yard. It hit the ground and shattered, releasing its contents with a splash.

  In one smooth motion, Luke pulled the tomahawk from its loop on his belt. His right hand reached for his knife. He rounded the necessary and slammed his body into the bent form of Ah Chin just as the man reached out to Loi with one hand while other remained raised, poised to strike her again.

  Ah Chin rolled and landed on his feet. In a fluid motion Luke almost missed, the man’s right hand slid up inside the sleeve of his left arm and jerked back out, a dagger gripped in his fist. Without hesitation, he ran at Luke, his movements rapid and efficient.

  Although he had always prided himself on being fast and coordinated using his weapons, Luke soon found himself in battle with a man just as quick and proficient as he was at wielding a knife. He felt the blade cut through the thick wool of his coat sleeve and slice at the flesh of his left forearm. Without conscious thought, he jerked that arm back as he thrust with his right hand. The knife sliced Ah Chin’s cheek open. The Chinaman stepped back a
nd quickly shook his head. He charged at Luke again. This time, in spite of the pain in his arm, Luke managed to heft the tomahawk so when he swung it, the flat back crashed across Ah Chin’s temple. The blow knocked Luke’s foe unconscious. Ah Chin dropped to the ground.

  Still wary, Luke held his weapons ready for an attack as he side-stepped towards Loi who had crab-crawled away from the two fighting men. Luke reached her as she struggled to her feet. Before he could wrap an arm around her to help brace her as she stood, movement from the back doorway to the brothel caught his eye. He looked up to discover another Chinese man standing in the doorway surveying the scene. Luke assumed a fighting stance and waited to see if the man planned to rush out and join Ah Chin in the fight. When the observer turned and fled into the bowels of the building, Luke once again checked Ah Chin. Confident the man would not regain consciousness within the next few minutes, he returned his weapons to where they belonged on his belt.

  Luke scooped Loi up into his arms. A surge of satisfaction and relief filled him as Loi clutched his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. He ran with her for the cover of the trees.

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  Chapter 46

  ~o0o~

  S till unhappy about the nighttime telephone call he had received at the time of the two shooting affrays up in Lundy, Sheriff McKinney again rode towards the town that had been the scene of all the trouble. He grieved over the loss of Bill Callahan as his deputy sheriff in Lundy. The man had almost single-handedly kept law and order in the rowdy mining town in recent years, a town that grew increasingly unruly with the uncertainty resulting from the closing of the May Lundy Mine and the May Lundy Millworks. In addition, the diminishing returns from some of the other mines as the gold played out worried many. Now, although his deputy sheriff still lived and was being taken care of by Dr. Walker in Bodie, McKinney didn’t have much hope for him. With his hip damaged badly, Callahan certainly would never return to law enforcement work.

  Then there was the matter of the shootout between Charley Jardine and Kirk Steves. Although McKinney held a low opinion of Steves as a lawman, he had been deputized. Jardine, however, was one of the trouble-makers who had run rough-shod over the good citizens of Lundy and other Mono County towns for years. McKinney looked for any excuse to put the man behind bars. And this latest scuffle with Kirk Steves had provided him with a reason. He had put Charley Jardine under arrest. He assigned a deputy sheriff in Bodie to guard the scoundrel who now recuperated in the county hospital in Bodie. He had been brought there from Lundy after Dr. Walker tended to his wounds and stabilized him as much as possible. As soon as he recovered sufficiently, he would be transferred to the county jail in Bridgeport.

  Bill Callahan, though, barely clung to his life in another hospital room. It left him short of deputies, necessitating him keeping Jack Murray on as a deputy sheriff in Lundy since the first shooting scrape also incapacitated Kirkus Steves.

  That business taken care of, he had returned home in order to see to pressing business and to check on his family who lived in the house attached to the back wall of the stone jail which the county provided for the sheriff. However, once more he found himself called to go to Lundy to handle the latest nasty task associated with the Lundy shooting affair. George Lee languished in the Lundy jail where Callahan had formerly held Tex Wilson. The man would be charged with attempted murder for shooting Bill Callahan. If Callahan did not make it, the charge would be upgraded to murder. Did he dare leave him attended by the town’s good Samaritans or unreliable temporary deputies like Jack Murphy until the circuit judge could hold a hearing to see if he should be bound over for trial? Or, should he transfer the bartender turned shootist to the county jail?

  Sheriff McKinney thought he had trouble enough to deal with in Lundy. Once he arrived, the Chinaman who ran the Chinese brothel with its opium den and gambling parlor, Ah Chin, sought him out. McKinney raised an eyebrow at the sight of the bandage wrapped around Ah Chin’s head. It covered the left side of his face and half of his left eye. Reluctantly, he agreed to meet with the man at Jim Toy’s Chinese restaurant.

  At the eatery, the Chinaman bowed in a show of respect, but McKinney detected an undercurrent of disdain beneath the man’s demeanor. He listened as Ah Chin told his version of how a man stole the woman, Ling Loi, from the brothel. He rambled on about the injustice of the situation, and the value the prostitute. He demanded the sheriff take steps to recover her. He also insisted the man who had abducted her be caught and tried for his crime. However, if the sheriff preferred to not punish the man, he could turn him over to Ah Chin for Chinese justice.

  The sheriff pulled out the small journal he kept tucked in his jacket pocket and carefully made notes. He kept his facial expression neutral, not wishing to let Ah Chin know how much he hated dealing with the Chinese. He had been discredited as sheriff a couple of years earlier before the new jail with its thick stone walls was built when a Chinese prisoner escaped by building a fire on the old jail’s wooden floor. However, he had heard enough to know the Chinese were slow to help bring their own to justice, and only sought out white lawyers and lawmen to bribe when it suited their purposes. Although slavery had been outlawed in the United States, he knew the Chinese still practiced it. Most of the women who worked in places like the one run by Ah Chin were women who had been abducted from their homes in China or sold into slavery by their families. He could not fathom any decent person doing such a thing. He certainly felt little compunction to help this hoodlum Chinaman regain what he considered his “property.”

  Even worse, McKinney realized partway through the interview that the woman Ah Chin claimed had been stolen was the same woman who had been abducted from the stagecoach weeks earlier. The only reason he could see for it was to keep her from testifying against Tex Wilson or identifying the other men involved. In fact, it had been McKinney’s plan to bring her to Bodie to view Charley Jardine to see if she could identify him as one of her abductors. McKinney could not shake the feeling Charley had been tied up with that mess. He would love nothing better than to gain enough evidence to bind him over for trial right along with Tex Wilson.

  McKinney decided he would search for her, not to please Ah Chin, but to strengthen his chances of convicting Tex Wilson and possibly Charley Jardine. After assuring Ah Chin he would put the word out and have his deputies search for the missing woman, much to McKinney’s relief, the man departed.

  Sheriff McKinney turned, ready to leave the building, when Jim Toy stepped in front of him to block his exit. The man bowed, and then motioned to a table towards the back of the restaurant. “Come. Sit. Jim Toy make sheriff good Chinese food, good tea, no charge. Now Ah Chin gone, I bring witness for sheriff. You listen.”

  Sheriff McKinney eyed the Chinese doctor and restaurateur with suspicion. He decided he would not be fulfilling his duties as sheriff if he did not avail himself to anyone who could provide a witness to the crimes he investigated. “Thank you for your offer, Dr. Toy. It’s a little early for a meal, but I’ll take you up on the tea. Is your witness close at hand, or am I wait for him?”

  “He here. Sit, please. I bring Sing Yang and tea.”

  Soon a Chinese man dressed more humbly in dark blue cotton approached Sheriff McKinney and bowed. At the sheriff’s urging, he told his story while Jim Toy translated. He had been at Ah Chin’s to do a little gambling the evening the woman disappeared. He did not have luck that night, so he did not have enough money to visit any of the prostitutes. Ah Chin no longer allowed Sing Yang’s favorite, Ling Loi, to see men. He kept her busy in the back, like lowest slave. Sing Yang had heard shouting coming from the kitchen that night, and he had gone to check on Ling Loi’s safety. No one was in the kitchen, so he ran to the open back door. He arrived in time to see Ling Loi on the ground and Ah Chin fighting with a strange man.

  When McKinney asked if he could identify the man, the Chinaman shook his head. “Maybe Chinese, maybe no. He
dressed like white man, but wear black fedora with a narrow brim like Chinese men in Dai Fow. He fight with hatchet and knife, like boo how doy, hatchet men.

  Once Jim Toy translated hatchet, the word caught McKinney’s interest. He had heard of the hoodlum Chinese, what some of his fellow law enforcement officers in San Francisco called highbinders. They fought with knives and hatchets. Could this man have been a hatchet man sent from Chinatown?

  Jim talked more to the witness who described the hatchet as something he had never known the Chinese to use. Instead of a large blade with a short handle barely long enough to allow the user to grip it, this hatchet had a long handle. It did not look like the hatchets the white Americans used, either.

  Puzzled by what he heard, Sheriff McKinney frowned as he studied Jim Toy. “What do you make of what he’s saying?”

  ~o0o~

  Jim Toy did not share with the sheriff all that his friend had told him, especially after the man admitted it did not appear the stranger meant Ling Loi any harm. From what Sing Yang had seen, it could have been someone from Chinatown. The witness couldn’t tell. All he knew was the woman wanted to go with the stranger.

  Jim knew Sing Yang was one of the local Chinese men who had fallen in love with Ling Loi. He had visited her as often as he could afford to. As often as he could, he had taken her gifts. He had voiced his displeasure when Ling Loi left for Dai Fow, and he voiced even greater distress to his few friends when he discovered how abominably Ah Chin treated her once she returned. He had admitted to Jim Toy that if he could not have Ling Loi, he hoped whoever stole her treated her well, which would be a far better fate than her being returned to the sewer of Chinatown’s brothel district.