Auraria: A Novel (3 page)

“Yes, ma’am,” said Clyde, from atop the turnips.

That was four hundred acres in all, the whole hillside. Five fewer trips for Holtzclaw, five fewer negotiations. It was the first lucky stroke of the trip, but it would be a fivefold catastrophe if he couldn’t persuade her to sell.

Holtzclaw was prepared to fight. In cases of refusal, the land purchaser has many options. If coercive talk and emotional arguments fail, he can appeal to neighbors and family. A confederate can be found who has both a connection to the owner and a personal motive, even if the motive is no more than a finder’s fee. Failing that, a host of legal remedies can be applied. A judge will often see reason before an owner, or a mayor will think of the greater good. Once, Shadburn cleared several acres upwind of a stubborn homesteader and introduced a breed of malodorous swine. And there are many silver-tongued and colorfully named maneuvers known to the profession: the Charleston Chomp, the Cincinnati Slip-off, the Asheville Attitude, the Fitzgerald Flip. But Holtzclaw trusted none of them in his present situation. For this key moment, he thought back to Shadburn’s office, where he’d been entrusted with a potato sack of gold coins. If they did have a particular power in Auraria, as Shadburn had claimed, let them work it here.

“Perhaps these would be more to your liking.” Holtzclaw made a flourish with his hand; he wished he’d worn white gloves, like a magician’s. From his traveling bag, he withdrew a handful of the local coins. He tilted his hand, as though he were going to let the coins fall, and the widow reached out against her will.

Her eyes became radiant as the coins tumbled into her palms. “Well, now, that’s some pumpkins.” She held the gold coins as if they were living things.

A wet breeze from somewhere on the mountain rustled everyone’s joints. The widow put a hand on the small of her back, pressing it against her pain. Clyde came over and put his thumbs into her shoulder blades to work out the aches. Thus settled in body and in heart, she turned back to Holtzclaw.

The look in the widow’s eye was her agreement to sell. The rest would be paperwork. She plopped down on the porch stoop. “You wanted to buy the whole lot, fields and buildings and all? There’s the house here, the barn, the smokehouse, the root cellar, the springhouse.” She was distracted, staring at the coins. “Clyde’s cabin, which isn’t much of anything. He’s got an iron shop out the back, all rusted out. We’ve got a hundred acres in corn, twenty for sorghum, ten in oats, and twenty acres for pasture.”

As she spoke, Holtzclaw noted each item in a ledger, requesting dimensions for the structures and providing a value. The widow Smith Patterson pressed hard only on the smokehouse, which she claimed had a supernatural ability to preserve a ham against all corruption, and for which Holtzclaw let her win a price that was double his estimate. He tallied up the numbers, double-checking for mathematical mistakes. He had not made any, either accidentally or on purpose. For some speculators, the common man’s unfamiliarity with numbers and figures represented a source of profit, but Holtzclaw could not abide an error with his name signed to it.

The final contracted amount was substantial. The widow Smith Patterson and her helpers could not hope to earn its equal in five years of hardscrabble on the mountainside. Holtzclaw counted out the sum into towers of gold coins and gave the contract over to the widow Smith Patterson for her mark. Instead of an illiterate’s scrawl, though, she executed a florid signature that shamed Holtzclaw’s.

“I do hope,” said Holtzclaw, “that you’ll be discreet concerning our transaction. I have a few more lots to purchase, here and there.”

“Why should I keep it a secret?” said the widow Smith Patterson, caressing a coin.

“Because your neighbors might take it on themselves to be greedy, beyond the value of their lands. Then, I will have a difficult choice. I would have to pay them more than I paid you. And they wouldn’t deserve it. You have been more clever and productive than they have. Why should they have the reward?”

Holtzclaw tried to make the speech sound fresh and lifelike, though he’d asked the same of every landowner he’d met in his career. The widow nodded her understanding; she wanted justice just as much as he wanted cheap land.

The deal was done. Holtzclaw had accomplished it as easily as if Shadburn had been standing beside him. The weight of his traveling satchel pleased him as he hefted it back over his shoulder. It held less gold, but more wealth.

Chapter Two

Holtzclaw borrowed a ride back up the hill from Clyde and his turnip wagon, parting with him at the main road. Clyde was not going to town, but to a merchant’s barn where turnips were bought at wholesale. Holtzclaw turned south, heading down into the valley along the road that he assumed was the Post Trace.

So far, this lumpy end of the state had done little to endear itself to him. In the Wire-grass, every hummock in the road provided a view of gentle fields where homes bloomed like tiny white flowers. It was a tamed landscape, a garden of a hundred thousand acres, and Shadburn found that pleasing too. “They have plowed it down and raised it up,” he would say as they traveled between claims, passing farms with neat corn rows and fences at right angles. Shadburn loved the industry; Holtzclaw, the order. Here and there sprouted old plantation homes, and one could be assured of country refreshment, a mint julep served by a pale woman in a white dress. The mountains, though, had yet to offer him a julep of any sort.

But the mountain valley did share one essential trait with the Wire-grass: every inch was owned. Holtzclaw’s map showed claims by Ode Peppers, Luther Wages, and Pigeon Hollow—the last, Holtzclaw hoped, was not a personal name, but a geographic one. And if every inch was owned, then every inch could be bought.

Something caught the corner of his eye. Holtzclaw paused midstride and looked down. Between his feet was a coiled snake. Holtzclaw leapt into the air, kicking and flailing; the snake sprang too, striking out, making contact with Holtzclaw’s leg. He felt fangs sink into his flesh, and he landed to a wince of pain. The snake was a green flash streaking into the underbrush.

Holtzclaw’s heart beat faster, and a jolt of agony streaked up his leg. He rolled his trouser cuff and lowered his stocking to reveal his swollen and angry ankle. Seeing the wound sent a fresh spasm of pain shooting out. But the pain must be put aside. If it was a poisonous snake, then he had to act. In his traveling satchel were a few implements which, he supposed, could be turned to surgery: a knife, a quill pen, and a small flask of high-proof liquor. But he had no water, which would be needed in great quantities to flush out the poison.

Holtzclaw looked for a stream or a spring near him, and instead, he saw a small post with a sign on it: “water” and an arrow. This wasn’t luck, but inevitability. He’d seen several others like it along the path. He hobbled with as much speed as his injury would permit.

After just a few paces on the side path, the landscape had been transformed. Old chestnuts loomed overhead. Tree trunks were coated on the windward side with a verdant moss, layered like ice. A cool, wet breeze blew against his cheeks. The contrast with the fiery pain of the poison made both sensations sharper.

The frosted path widened into a clearing, and a narrow beam of sunlight illuminated a spring. Rough rocks were built up three feet high to enclose a pool thirty feet across. In the center of the spring was an irregular island. In a more refined garden, it would have been topped with an Italianate gazebo and connected to the mainland by an arched Oriental bridge, but here, in the wild, the island was deserted.

Holtzclaw removed the shoe on his affected foot. He noted the ruined polish and a deep scuff mark along the saddle. Even if he survived this journey, the shoe would not. Sitting on the rock wall, he plunged the wound into the water. The cold water brought relief, but Holtzclaw knew that this was only a surface cure. Inside, the poison was working its baneful duty. He could hear the hissing of the corruption in his blood.

He glanced again at the island and started in surprise. A girl was perched there, her bare feet submerged and splashing in the glassy water. He’d overlooked her, preoccupied with mortal matters.

“I am very sorry to have stumbled into your bath,” said Holtzclaw, through gasps of pain. “And if circumstances were other than they are, I would leave. But you’ll have to excuse me. If you have delicate sensibilities, you may want to look away. I am about to perform a surgery on myself to remove the poison of a snakebite, and the waters will run red with my humors.”

“Where were you bitten?” The girl came nearer, stepping through the shallow water. She was so calm in the face of Holtzclaw’s imminent death; this must be the sorry life of the mountain-folk.

“It isn’t proper, mademoiselle,” insisted Holtzclaw. “The scene will be gory, and time is short. Please, give me space, and do not mind me if I scream. The cries are necessary, since there is no ether to be had.”

“There, on your ankle? That’s not a snakebite.” She sat down on the rock wall next to Holtzclaw and drew up his foot by the big toe. “The swelling and color are wrong. A snakebite would have turned black. And you haven’t been bleeding either. The fangs would have opened a wound.”

Holtzclaw glared at his ankle. It was red, but from irritation. There were no signs of bleeding punctures. The pain, which had risen as high as his breastbone, ebbed.

“But I saw the snake …”

“What color?”

“Green. Bright green, with a yellow belly.”

“There are no green snakes here that are poisonous, just copperheads and rattlesnakes. But it doesn’t matter. You weren’t snakebit. You leapt up when you were startled and twisted your ankle when you landed.”

“I suppose that could be possible,” admitted Holtzclaw. “But if you’re wrong …”

“You’d already be dead. The best cure for you is cold water. Sit as long as you like and let the swelling go down.”

Holtzclaw let the affected part relax in the spring waters. He felt an immense relief, then an immense embarrassment. The girl fetched him a wooden cup, and he filled it from the spring water, bringing coolness to his addled brain.

“You’re right, of course, mademoiselle,” said Holtzclaw at last. “I’ve had a day overfilled with exertions. Then there was a snake, and the surprise of it all led me to certain hasty conclusions. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

The girl dismissed his apologies with a wave. She was young—Holtzclaw took her for fifteen or sixteen. The skin was tight on her face, especially around her eyes and brow. Her eyes were set deep; her cheekbones were strong; her eyes—grey? blue? A long curtain of black hair, streaked with silver uncharacteristic for her youth, fell down her back. Her clothing was cut in the rustic style Holtzclaw had seen worn by the widow Smith Patterson, but the fabric was cobalt blue.

“May I trouble you for your name?” said Holtzclaw.

“Princess Trahlyta,” she said.

“How lovely,” said Holtzclaw. “Mine is James Holtzclaw, at your service. ‘Princess’ as a given name is popular right now. Your parents picked a fashionable one for you.”

“Pleased to meet you, James. Princess isn’t my name. It’s my title.”

“Princess, eh? Where is your kingdom?”

“This spring and the others like it,” she said. “The valley. An hour upriver; the same downriver. And thousands of miles beneath my feet.”

“You own all that?”

“To be princess doesn’t mean to own it.”

Holtzclaw’s respect for her command of natural lore turned to contempt at her childish answers to his questions. She was playing a game with him, trying to draw him into her fun. It was a waste of time. A small pocket of gratitude resisted these annoyed thoughts, but it was overwhelmed. The girl had not saved his life; she’d only splashed a little cold water on his face. She’d done nothing of consequence.

“Well, Princess Trahlyta, I suppose that I should leave you to resume your ablutions. I have work to do. Thank you for letting me share your spring.”

The girl examined her wet toes, then started with sudden remembrance. “I have a present for you.” She skipped across the water like a flying stone, coming to only a momentary pause beside a thicket of leaves and brambles, and then returned with the largest peach he had ever seen. It was colored like sunlight. Holtzclaw had to accept it with two hands.

“A piece of customary hospitality,” she said. “For the journey.”

#

Holtzclaw left the spring and continued toward Auraria. His wounded ankle did not let him hurry, much against his will. The sun was setting, time was slipping.

For a long while he ruminated about the peach, since it took a long while to eat it. There must be some trait in the water, the soil, or the climate of the Lost Creek Valley that produced such fruit. Peaches like these would be sought after in Milledgeville, not only for the novelty but also for the dramatic color. After a few appearances in the cornucopias of prominent families’ tables, every party host would want a bushel from James Holtzclaw, sole supplier!

But how to deliver the peaches at the peak of their freshness? A peach couldn’t withstand a bumpy cart ride out of the valley. He would need a train line. To lay the rails, he’d have to invert mountains into valleys, carve winding serpent tracks up sheer cliff faces, blast tunnels through the granite hearts of mountains—just to transport a few wagonloads of peaches into Milledgeville. Even a novice speculator would find the financial calculations unfavorable. Ah, but peaches could just be the start. What if the whole valley were turned to industry? Cotton gins, sawmills, furs and game. Add a mail car twice weekly, and a profit could be made. One of the rail companies may even invest, lessening the capital risk. Could this be what Shadburn had in mind for Auraria? Fruit?