Blood Gold (14 page)

“Solitude can be a hardship,” I ventured.

Jeremiah surprised me with a gentle smile. “I grow a little used to it,” he said. “But I think our natural condition is to have human company, and plenty of it.”

Jeremiah had a pig of lead beside the mound of embers—a large brick of the soft metal. He had been working in the shelter of an outcropping, springwater splashing down the granite escarpment. He had been about to make bullets—buckshot, judging from the mold sitting on the damp earth.

“If you don't mind me making an observation,” I said, “your shot mold is wet.”

If you pour molten lead into a wet mold, the hot metal will sputter and splash dangerously.

“You try making do with one hand,” said our host, with just a trace of testiness. “It isn't easy.”

I said that I would make him some buckshot, if he would let us bed down near his fire and share just a little of his corn bread. It was the sort of cordial barter that typified the gold country, and Jeremiah saw the fairness of it.

As we gazed into the campfire, sparks ascending into the mountain dark, I asked if he had seen a red-haired gentleman and a couple of companions heading upriver recently.

Jeremiah was cooking our evening meal. The corn bread was frying in a big black skillet, an operation that took some concentration. Bacon sizzled as he turned it over with a stick. Real bacon was prized by gold diggers—even the most leathery rind of ham flavored the bread fried alongside it, and gave a delicious savor to the smoke. The remnants of preserved meat Johnny and I had been chewing on recently had been rank, and tough as razor strops.

I assumed Jeremiah had not heard me, and I was about to ask again, when he responded, “How can I tell a gentleman from a working man, up here?”

“By their boots,” said Johnny, one of the first statements he had made since we had arrived at this camp. “And their guns.”

“Is that right?” said Jeremiah dryly.

“Gentlemen have calfskin boots, and English pistols,” said Johnny. “And when they talk they say, ‘I have to admit' and ‘I'm of the opinion.'”

Jeremiah and I laughed at the accuracy of Johnny's observation.

Johnny went into the briefest of sulks.

Jeremiah said, “I have to admit I watch every man who passes this camp. I don't recollect any three travelers like that.”

The bacon was delicious, and the fried corn bread, too, our supper washed down with a little whiskey mixed with American River water. Jupiter and Minerva on their thrones did not dine any better.

I shared a taste of the Dutch gin from the flask in my breast pocket, introducing it to Jeremiah as proof against fever. It was a good thing the tonic was good for our health—it tasted bad, and as a result there was plenty left in the container even now.

I was weary enough to sleep well, a mindless, deep slumber that ended abruptly.

A step woke me.

As I watched, Jeremiah knelt by the fire, gazing down toward the river. He wore a blanket like a cloak, the glowing coals illuminating his profile.

I asked him what he had heard.

“What business do you have,” he asked, “with three men traveling upriver?”

“What did you see?” I asked.

Gold miners often used language to forestall communication as well as give it. If you asked how successful a man's claim was, he might offer a friendly but vague remark: “Not too bad” or “Could be worse.”

Jeremiah was no different. “It's hard to say.”

“Did you see them?” I insisted.

Jeremiah considered. “I think I did. Making slow progress along the river trail in the dark.”

I peered downslope, all the way down to the white water of the river, a source of reflected starlight.

“Who are they?” he asked.

CHAPTER 36

Jeremiah offered us some of his very hot coffee well before dawn, thickened as before with brown sugar. Johnny and I swallowed gratefully, although the stuff was nearly too hot to consume.

I was shivering, and stiff from lying on the ground, and I felt eager to hurry upriver to Spanish Bar. At the same time I wanted to stay where I was, in the crackling warmth of Jeremiah's campfire. I was finding Jeremiah a good companion—steady, alert, measuring out his words.

He searched in the tent, and brought out a coarse horsehide sheath. He gave it to Johnny, who accepted the gift with wide eyes.

“Take her out and heft her,” said Jeremiah.

A brilliant Bowie knife gleamed in the faint early light.

“I can't keep it,” protested Johnny.

“Then bring her back,” said Jeremiah cheerfully, “when you're done with her.”

This puzzled Johnny. “When will that be?” he asked.

Jeremiah smiled, but his eyes were quiet—even somber.

Jeremiah said it was only three miles to Spanish Bar, “but hard going in the rocks, unless you're a goat.”

A mist had risen over the river in the early-morning hours, a shadowy river of fog that filled the mountain canyons on either side. Small birds with flashing white tail feathers darted among the red branches of the underbrush. Jays fluttered and squalled in the tall, mist-shrouded pines. It wasn't the first time I realized how sharp-edged and rough the ridges and vegetation of this land were, compared with the dales and barrens of the East.

Johnny swaggered along beside me, his hand going to the hilt of our recent acquisition, drawing it experimentally. It was still dark in the shadows of the huge boulders along the river.

“That's quite a knife,” I said, wanting to tell my young companion, without alarming him, that he should appreciate the quality, weight, and beauty of his unexpected possession.

I reasoned that he might need it soon.

CHAPTER 37

It was full morning when we arrived. The shadows were still cold, but the sun was hard off the stones, and glittered off the rills of white water.

Spanish Bar was a long spit of black sand, jutting out into the current. The river made a constant, low rumble, coursing over boulders.

One long tent, flaps wide open to the river, glowed in the brilliant daylight. But some more-or-less permanent structures had been erected, too, shacks and leantos of white pine timbers. An arm of the river had been diverted by an improvised dam of gravel. The earth all around was so pitted and delved that any hasty progress across it would risk injury.

I crouched beside the river trail and eyed the camp. I had promised myself I would confront Ezra with my news before I uttered a word of greeting. I had dreamed of accusing him of betraying Elizabeth, uttering false promises, and leaving her to be scandalized by her condition.

But at this last moment I was grateful to have made it to this place safely, hopeful that I could preserve Ezra's life.

Johnny made a tiny whisper of impatience through his teeth. “Go on up, Willie,” he urged me, “and let them know you're here.”

I thought of a dozen greetings, and imagined lifting a full-voiced call over the sound of the river.

To my surprise, Johnny gave a whistle. This was a sharp, keen sound, heart-stopping so close. Even a deaf man would hear such a shrill, piercing sound.

Johnny lowered his gaze in apology, but I nudged him. “Try it again.”

No one moved from within a tent. Only the faintest thread of smoke lifted from the fire, where a black kettle hung over half-charred wood. This late in the morning, work should be under way, pick hammers flashing.

“Ezra!”

It was my voice, adding to the intermittent shrill of Johnny's whistling. I willed my imagination into hearing his response as I stood and took a tentative step forward.

Willie Dwinelle, is that you?

I wanted to hear the words so badly. Every man's speech got honed down out here in California, fancy talk giving way to a masculine flatness of tone and phrasing. But we were a sentimental lot, too, and old friends shouted greetings and wept with joy, hugging each other after long absence, and every night we had heard singing in the distance, romantic songs about long-lost loves.

Ezra and I would throw our arms around each other. I blinked tears of relief and anticipatory joy at the thought of seeing him, newly bearded and sun-tanned but decidedly his usual, jaunty self, stepping out from the tent right ahead of me. Of course I could not raise a fist against the fellow, and of course he would be the Ezra Nevin I had always known him to be in the old days—a gentleman.

Johnny followed, our boots crunching across the dug-up gravel. I was brimming over with my tidings: Elizabeth expecting a baby, Ezra needed back home, honor requiring him to return at once.

God, it would be good to see him. I wished Ben could be here, too, so we could all trade laughing tales of travel and adventure.

I stopped still. I put out a hand and stopped Johnny in his tracks.

“Wait here,” I said.

“What's wrong?” asked Johnny.

But he stayed where he was, frozen by the tone of my voice.

I went forward to the tent, and looked in. I straightened at once.

I considered what I had just seen.

“William, what is it?” asked Johnny in a voice nearly lost in the roar of the river. I read his eyes, touched with fear, and put my hand out.

Wait
.

While I steeled my will to look again at what I had seen, telling myself that I had to be mistaken.

CHAPTER 38

The interior of the tent had been torn up.

A portable writing desk had been wrenched open, journal pages—dates and neat, brown-inked entries—ripped and scattered. A telescope had been thrown out of its black leather case, and thick canvas miner's trousers sprawled all over the bedding. A one-ounce gold scale lay beside a smashed strongbox, a few scant grains gleaming where treasure had spilled—and someone had scooped most of it up.

Whoever had done this, I reasoned when I could think at all, was not only a killer. He was also a thief.

As though that distinction mattered. I had seen the red splatter, all over the place, but deliberately did not look directly at the source. I put that event off for a few heartbeats. Blood was everywhere, I had observed that much. It was up along the sides of the tent, along with bits of hair, and something else—dark matter. It was all fresh, flies just now discovering the gore.

I could not wait any longer.

I forced myself. I looked, and glanced away immediately. A man lay arms every-which-way, legs sprawled out, his features largely obliterated. I felt some inner resolve leave me and I made myself look yet again.

I left the tent and made my way to Johnny.

Suddenly I hated the up-and-down terrain of this landscape.
Goldfields
had conjured a vision of pastoral fortune hunting, low hills and sparkling nuggets. This campsite was narrow, like so many others, surrounded on three sides by steep, forested mountainside. Unseen eyes could be studying us, even now.

“I want you to head on back to Jeremiah Barrymore,” I said. I had to stop then and steady my voice.

“What is it?” asked Johnny.

I tried to prevent him, but he rushed forward, stooped and looked inside.

He was breathing hard, too, when he stood upright again, stiff and hearing me without responding.

“Run back,” I told him, “and get Jeremiah.”

He didn't move.

“Tell him to bring his shotgun,” I continued, “and all the buckshot he can carry.”

Johnny stayed right where he was.

I deeply regretted bringing him here, so close to danger.

He shook his head:
Wait
.

I understood Johnny's need to observe it again, bending low to confirm what he had seen.

“Go on, Johnny,” I urged him.

“Who is that?” he asked.

I was trembling. It didn't seem that human speech could be possible at such a time. I said, “I believe it's Andrew Follette. Ezra Nevin's friend.”

I had scarcely known him. He'd been a young man fond of French cordials and well-bred hunting dogs, I had heard—the perfect companion for Ezra.

“Whoever did this will get me, too,” Johnny said when he could speak again. He looked years younger suddenly, a pale and unsteady child.

“The killers don't want to hurt you,” I said, in a voice hearty with false confidence. I wanted Johnny away from that camp, safely downriver.

“They'll run me down,” he said.

I put my two hands on his shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. “Then you better be fast.”

CHAPTER 39

Johnny fled downriver, and I wondered if I should have left with him. I was afraid of what else I might discover in the camp.

It did not take long. I spied what looked like a pair of trousers tossed down, by the edge of the claim. As I approached I had to stop and check my knife in its scabbard. I took one step, and then another, aware as I drew near that I was closing in on a human body, arms flung, face turned away like a man receiving a slap.

He lay flat on the ground, eyes half open. I had heard that dead people resemble sleepers. He didn't. I felt that I had to touch the corpse, to let him know, in some irrational way, that someone with good sense had found him. His hand was not warm, but it was not cold, either. It was wrapped around a miner's pick, a tool with a sharp spike at one end of its iron head and a flat, hoelike blade on the other. The spike was bloody.

One side of his face was lathered with still-drying soap. This attracted my eye only after I had caught a glimpse of the ugly rent in his clothing, something I did not want to examine right away. I took a breath, steadied my nerve, and took it all in.

In the breast of his well-knit, fawn yellow waistcoat was a dark hole, perfectly round. The bullet hole was seared all around, the woolen fibers black and frizzled. I stood over the young gentleman—the man Elizabeth had loved—and I wept.

The top of his head was gone, the skin of his forehead seared, a round hole just below the hairline. The pistol barrel had pressed against his head—the killer had taken extra care to make sure Ezra was dead. I was furious with myself. If only I had pushed on through the night, and had not lingered by Jeremiah's cheering fire, digesting a belly full of bacon. Even as Johnny and I sat savoring morning coffee, Ezra had lost his life.