The Indian swung down and took his horse by the lead, pulling it over the crumbling bank into the slashing roar of white water cutting over splintered rocks. He led the horse across the slippery run of the granite bottom. He felt the reins tug in his hand and spun around, an iron hoof of the horse hit a loose rock, throwing his front knee out as his head slapped down into the swirling foam. The Indian whipped the reins up, forcing the horse’s neck back, dragging the weight of its falling body off the buckled knees.
“Get that woman off!” The Bummer screamed over the fierce white current. “She’s going to throw him over!”
The long hair of the woman whipped from side to side as she held the saddlehorn with both hands, her body swaying back and forth over the horse’s back. The Indian flung an arm around her waist, splashing her down into the water. He slipped to his knees, supporting the weighted balance of the animal behind as his boots shoved into the slipping rocks for a hold. Then he pushed up to his feet, running through the thick current to the bank, he heaved the dripping hulk of the horse onto the shore, swung up on his back and knifed his boots into the wet belly, “GIT ON YOU!” The horse reared back, almost flipping over into the current. Its front hooves slammed to dry rock as the high whinnying knocked from its chest slit the air. “Git!” The Indian banged his knees into the horse’s sides and felt the body bolt out from under him and up the bank as the blast of pain in his back knocked him off onto the sharp rocks. The Bummer stood over him with the barrel of the shotgun still clutched in his hands, the heavy wood stock held high over his head like a club. “I shouldn’t have just knocked you off you lying thieving redskin. I should have blasted your heart right out your chest!” He kicked the blunt toe of his boot deep into the Indian’s stomach, “You tried to get away from me you red snake!” He yanked the Indian up by the hair and pushed his sharp gold teeth into the brown face, “You lost a horse and all our supplies. Honest to John Injun, you bet your boots you’re going to pay all your dues this time. Then I’m going to take this shotgun, ram it down your throat, pull the trigger, and blow you to Kingdom Come!” He brought the bone butt of his knee slamming into the Indian’s face and watched him roll over onto the jagged rocks with the blood flowing from his mouth as the strong white current roared past his head.
The Bummer leaned back on his saddle propped against a tree and tipped the glass flask to his lips, “Ahhhh. Yes sir, I’ve got a fondness for squaws.” He sloshed the whiskey around at the bottom of the flask as he peered through its amber glass at the blaze of the campfire leaping into the night sky. He could see the Indian woman through the glass as she held her wet leather dress out to the flames to dry. The Bummer twisted the glass around so it appeared the woman’s smooth skin was burning, the hardnippled swell of her breasts blazing. “John C. Luther is a gentleman though, a well bred Southern gentleman, I know what civilized women are like too. I was married to a well bred lady, she was a high priced ticket. It took all the current funds I had available just to give her a proper wedding in Galveston Texas. That was back in ’55, then I brought her West to watch me get rich, but everything was pretty well staked by then, there wasn’t one diggins that didn’t have at least two hundred men standing on top of it with pistols. Well my Texas lady always was a restless sort. She’s the one begged me from the beginning to come West, she didn’t want to live with me in Galveston society. There weren’t too many women around the mines in the first days, and there were no ladies. Eggs were five dollars apiece in the winter of ’56, plus she was getting blue in the face from the cold, so she went into one of the boom town theaters just to keep warm, she always did admire the stage, so it didn’t take much coaxing from the proprietor to get her up on it. She sang a pretty tune, her bosom swelled out like a robin and everybody stamped their boots and threw chunks of Gold up on the stage. I didn’t want her to lose anything that was her due so I scurried in the background to pick it all up. From there she went on the stage circuit, clean around the West she went, getting famous for the classy French Dance she was performing. She hit all the boom towns, you couldn’t get in the hall where she was playing. I was a good gent to her and tagged along for three years. Then in Colorado she stopped acting like a lady and I found out. So I did what any civilized gent would do, I got mad at her and gave her a baby. She run off to Frisco then to have it cut out by a Russian, but he cut out a big chunk of her belly too. I took her body back to Galveston and disposed of all my available funds giving her the funeral a lady deserves.” He tipped the bottle back up to the delicate curve of his mouth and sipped on the golden liquid. “Now this squaw here,” he pointed the bottleneck across the fire. “She looks just like the lady I had once. If you was to cut her head off and paint her body white you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.” He stood and swayed before the fire, digging the tip of his cane into the earth for support, “But that isn’t what I bought her for.” He walked around the fire pointing the Gold tip of the cane before him, “That isn’t what I bought you for, is it Molly Moose?” He hooked the cane into the long wet fringes of the dress and flung it to the ground. He brought the gold tip of the cane up and rested it on her chin, then ran the warm metal down her neck and circled a breast, pushing in the hard nub of a nipple. “Molly was meant for other things. She’s no bird to be shut in a cage. I’ve already had her photograph taken by a professional camera, the fame of that photograph has spread around the Horn and back to the East Coast. There’s one fate for Molly Moose,” he drew the line of the cane between her breasts and over the curve of her stomach to the thick brown line of her hair. “Some gent who is getting up a Wild Injun Show wants to pay cash money for Molly Moose in the sum of solid Gold bricks. This gent will buy her and display her around the Country, even across the water to old Europe. This gent wrote me he intends to parade her naked red body in front of Queens and Kings.” He drew the cane tip down on her thigh, “Then you know what John C. Luther is going to do Captain? I’m going to take all the Gold bricks and all the Gold from the lake you’re taking me to, and I’m going to run for Senator.” He glided the cane down to her knee then brought it across and ran it up her other thigh, poking through her dark hair, slipping the gold tip between her legs. “Yes sir Captain, no matter which eye you look at this red beauty from, she’s one long breasted cut of meat.” He drew the cane out and turned his back on her as he swigged the last of the whiskey. “But not for me, I’m a civilized man.”
The Bummer rode his horse to the top of the rise, the rope anchored to his saddlehorn pulling the two Indians tied together close behind. He stopped his horse and lit up a cigar as his eyes widened in a smile at the river running below him. Above the river through the high clouds rose the distant fingers of stone thrusting themselves into the sky. The Bummer blew a big cloud of smoke, “ ‘Stone touches sky.’ Those are the Sierra Buttes, and that’s the North Yuba running below us. ‘Beyond two rivers. River coming out of mouth of lake.’ Honest to John we’re almost there!” He spurred the horse down the rocky slope toward the rushing slash of river, puffing away on his cigar and tapping a tune out with his finger against the black stovepipe hat He didn’t see the two lines of men on horses and mules coming in at him from both ends of the slope. His finger stopped tapping and he spit the cigar out. Below in the trees along the river a line of riders moved out. He wheeled the horse around, slapping it on the rump and digging his spurs deep into its sides. The horse’s hooves clattered on the loose stones as it dragged the two Indians up the slope behind it. The Bummer spun around and slashed at the rope with his knife as he heard the distant muffled pops, then the sucking swishes of lead striking the air around his head. He rose high in the saddle and threw both arms straight up.
The riders closed around the Bummer from all sides. Three lassos spun through the air and dropped over his head, cinching together on his neck. Reverend Jake rode up and pulled his shotgun from the Brummer’s saddle holster then put his blue eyes on him. “You Bummer, I should have cut you off at the beginning and hung
this Indian red devil. But now we’ve come this far. The Lord’s Will be done. We go to the Lake of Gold.”
The Bummer pushed hard at the delicate curve of his lips until they twisted up in a smile, “Well Reverend Jake, no man wants an honest opinion of a horse after he’s bought it.”
Reverend Jake slipped the shotgun back in his own saddle holster and reined his horse around so its tail slashed at the Bummer. “If we ride hard we’ll be at Goose Lake after nightfall. Then in the morning we can go up to the Lake of Gold. There’s nobody between us and the Gold now. If we ride hard enough we’ll beat this rain.”
The riders moved down the slope and along the river. They rode over a narrow wooden bridge toward the fingers of stone reaching into the sky. When it turned dark the rain spit down in cold stinging pellets at them, bouncing off their hats and the backs of their horses. The winding trail flung itself straight up, the new cuts of water running under the horses’ hooves until the mud thickened into a suck and the men swung off the horses and led them up, turning their heads down to the invisible clouds above them scattering a long held burden of water back to its source. The riders could hear the rain punching into the surface of a lake and they looked up through the swirl of water in the black night before them to the sudden sight. All around the lake were lights. The lights glowed through the flapping roofs of tents. The rain stopped. The clouds relieved of their burden, blowing away as quickly as they had blown in, exposing the moon, its own light following the same path the rain had taken, illuminating the calm surface of the lake. The riders could see the men from the tents coming for them with their gun barrels flashing in the moon’s light. The leader stopped before the riders, his boots sunk up to their tops in the mud, two lanterns were held to his face and caught the red glint of his sharp beard, “Which one of you is the Bummer?”
“You mean John C. Luther, don’t you gent?” The Bummer kneed his horse out in front of the riders, the lantern light showing his arms roped down and his hands tied up behind his back.
“Cut the Bummer loose.”
“Sure thing Colonel.”
The Bummer rubbed his freed hands and slipped off his horse into the thick mud.
“We’ve been expecting you Bummer. We don’t like to be kept waiting. Cut the two Indians down tool”
“Who are you gents?”
“I am Colonel Buck Plant of San Francisco, recently retired of Grant’s Army.”
The Bummer’s laugh rang out in the night, the gold flash of his open mouth shined in the light thrown from the lanterns and over the riders. He slapped the side of his checkered pants and turned around in the mud, “Well Reverend Jake, when the Lord closes one door he opens another.”
“You get on down too Reverend Jake, and come with us. Your Nevada boys made a long trip for nothing, there won’t be any pay day for you,” the Colonel pulled at the red point of his beard. “Bummer, you care for some eats?”
“I’d be much obliged Colonel, honest to John it would be civilized of you.”
The Colonel led the way back through the mud and in between the rows of tents to a large canvas cabin built high up on a log platform, a board painted sign lit up by a hanging lantern was nailed to the broad tree before the open flaps of the cabin: “LOOK HERE! For Fifty Cents YOU Can Get A GOOD SQUARE MEAL At the Howling Wilderness Saloon! WALK IN GENTS!”
The Colonel pushed his way through the flaps into the noise of the cabin full of men, “He’s here! We’ve got the Bummer!”
“What took you so long Bummer!”
“Hey Bummer, we could have told you a shortcut!”
“Much faster than that old Fishback stageroad Bummer!”
“Good to see you got your Injun friend Bummer! It looks like you took good care of him!”
“We didn’t expect you to bring his squaw along too! She could have come with us Bummer!”
The Bummer blinked his eyes at the strong kerosene light of the many hanging lanterns, “How long have you gents been here?”
“HaH!” The Colonel pushed himself back on the heels of his boots, “Two days! There are over two thousand tents pitched around this lake. Men coming in at least a thousand a day. You should have known no one man could have a whole Lake of Gold to himself, let alone taking a whole townful of others to help him fish it out. Yes sir Bummer, the word of Gold Lake was all over California before you got out of Nevada, it was even in the Frisco papers. You’ve started a whole new GOLDRUSH. Men are jumping off their jobs in four States. I thought you were an educated man Bummer. You should have known from the start that trying to keep a secret about Gold is like shoveling shit against the tide.”
A short man made his way through the crowd of men, a shiny black coat was stretched and hung by two buttons over the fat hill of his belly, he held up in his arms like a baby the fat stub of a dog with a wide flat mouth showing the vicious knives of its teeth.
“I’ll buy that dog!” the Bummer shouted.
“He aint for sale Mister Bummer,” the man stroked the bullet head of the dog.
“You ever use him for Badger baiting? You could get rich putting that critter up against a badger.”
“I would never put him up agin a badger Mister Bummer, this is an English dog, special bred he is.”
“Bred for what, gent?”
“Bred for Bulls.”
“You mean this little critter goes for Bulls? Why he’d get stomped!”
The short man smiled and ran his hand gently under the Bull dog’s drooling chin, “Don’t ever bet on it, he’s bred for all jaws and teeth, bred special for Bull baiting. He’ll jump right up on a Bull’s neck quick as a snake and sink his teeth right into the jug’lar vein, his jaws is so powerful you can’t break their hold with a hammer. Once he gets the taste of blood you have to kill him to get him off, just like he was a cock rooster.”
“We’ve got to get us some Bulls and lay bets on this special bred dog.”
“You watch this,” the short man set the dog at his feet and flung the tent flap back. “See that big sugarpine tree with the sign nailed on it? You just watch.” He pointed his finger at the tree and screamed “BULL!”
The dog sprang out of the tent and landed with his teeth tearing out the bark as a grinding growl churned from the vicious machine of his lungs, the short muscle of his body acting like one big mouth as he ripped through the thick bark of the tree, his bite so powerful it carried him completely off the ground and up the tree like he was gnawing his way up on the meat of a giant leg. The short man ran out and socked the dog behind the neck. The dog fell off the tree, panting and puffing, the pink fist of his tongue hung over the glistening teeth as his bright big eyes looked up to his master.
“That’s some dog gent!” The Bummer ran out and clapped the man on the back. “What’s your name?”
“Poker Charlie.”
“You mean gent, you are the Poker Charlie who won the biggest game of poker ever dealt during the Rush of ’49? The Poker Charlie who run all those shiploads of yellow coolies for the Railroads into Frisco harbor?”
The short man smiled up with his dog, “That’s right Mister Bummer.”
The Bummer screwed down one eye hard and popped the other wide open, the delicate curve of his mouth twirled down in a mean line as he stabbed the metal tip of his cane in the mud, “What are you doing here, gent?”
“Why Mister Bummer, I’ve come to make history. Your Gold Lake is the beginning of a new Era for America. Fortunes are to be made, mansions built, men elected to office. Gold will once again become King over Silver.”
“Well it’s the Injun who said there was Gold in the lake! I’ve never seen it! The Injun’s the one who spread the word!”
“Ahhhh, Mister Bummer,” the short man wagged his head back and forth. “Don’t be so modest and give all the credit to your Injun friend. Don’t try to fool your fellow man at this late hour, every man here knows that lake exists. You said so. I’m here because I love to gamble. We all came here to get rich, but t
hen look at it from the other end of the stick, we’ve all been wildcatted before, if there isn’t Gold in that lake, if you have wildcatted us, why then …” He looked down at his smiling dog, “Why then I’m just going to have to point the finger at you and yell BULL!”
“Come on back in this here tent Bummer and get your eats,” the Colonel yanked his beard and laughed. “We want to make sure that if that dog is put on you at least he’ll get a good meal.”
The Bummer walked back into the cabin.
“What’ll it be Bummer,” a sweating man with a dirty white apron slapped around his waist demanded.
“Steak and potatoes, gent.”
“Beans fried in goose grease is all we got. What’ll you drink?”
“Bourbon, southern and smooth.”
“A whiskey bottle of milk for five dollars is what you’ll get. You pay for your Injun friends too. I closed my hardware store down in Folsom to come up here and strike it, but I aint rich yet, it aint tomorrow yet.”
The Bummer tapped his cane against his checkered pants, “You just hold on gent, it’s coming.”
The Colonel threw his arm around the Bummer, “I’ve got just what you want, have it tucked right here in my pocket.” He drew out a long flask and shoved it to the Bummer, “Here, take a shot off this pocket pistol.”
The Bummer tipped the flask and gulped, “Ahhhhh. What is it?”
The Colonel tugged his beard, took a swallow himself and his eyes lit up, “It’s Poker Charlie’s special import, he brings it down from Port Townsend in Washington country, it’s tobacco juice, cayenne pepper, whale oil, and rubbing alcohol.”
Poker Charlie smiled as he stroked the bullet head of the dog, “Give your Injun friend a pull, it may clear out his head so he can remember exactly where that Lake of Gold is come sunup.”
Rabbit Boss Page 43