Blood Gold (6 page)

But we were heading toward three or four lamps hanging in a clearing, and I had a shadowy impression of a smoking campfire, figures crouching, perhaps a dozen men along with a few women.

I put my hand on my knife handle, even though this gesture caused me momentarily to shift my pace and lose ground behind the fleet, slightly built thief. I resumed my steady stride again when the blade was in my grip, unwilling to enter a camp of strangers without a weapon drawn and ready.

Wide as my open hand, with a gently curving cutting edge, the blade was long and heavy, suited—in the words of the window advertisement—“for both the needs of the hunter and self-defense.” I had bought it on Chambers Street in New York City just before hurrying off to the docks.

The knife was my most expensive possession. Some men paid as much as four hundred dollars for the trip to San Francisco, with a complete treasure-hunting kit of picks, shovels, and gold pans thrown in. Ben and I had signed on for less than a third of that, because we didn't need mining equipment, and were willing to help load trunks into the ship's hold.

But despite my heavy knife, I was beginning to doubt the extent of my allegiance to Mr. Rushworth. The derelict schoolmaster's troubles were not exactly mine, and his manner that afternoon had been less than completely polite. I was tasting the beginnings of real apprehension as the quick-footed robber reached the edge of the camp, where lamps were hanging from the trees.

He looked back at me, his face in the steady lamplight. And then he vanished.

Before he disappeared I had a vivid glimpse of anxious green eyes, a shapeless hat pulled low, lips parted, breathing hard. I had an impression of youth, and I realized further that he looked more like a Yankee gold seeker than a local citizen.

American voices were raised. “What's the matter? Who's after you?”

A man strode to the edge of the camp, armed with a wagon spoke.

“Who's out there?” called the man, his jaw working around a mouthful of food. He had a shock of white hair, and bristling white eyebrows.

I knelt, sweating, trying to grow invisible in the grass.

I counted at least twelve people sitting around the fire, spit sizzling among the embers. The miscreant was now obscured by the larger, lumbering bulk of these Americans—yet more gold seekers, evidently, and too poor to hire beds in a hotel.

“Show yourself,” said this commanding individual, his tone one of a man accustomed to being obeyed.

I was tempted to consider myself outnumbered, and go back for Ben's support. But some power pulled me to my feet, and marched me toward the lamplight.

I took a few heartbeats to further catch my breath.

“Good evening there,” said the big, white-haired man, sounding perfectly at ease now that he saw that I was alone.

I am named after a brave man, who was killed when a steamboat blew up. He had rescued a dozen women and children before he was scalded to death—and I am no particular coward.

“Sir,” I said, “I believe a thief is hiding in your camp.”

CHAPTER 14

The stout, white-haired man adjusted his grip on the club.

The dense evening air muted my voice, but it made the words I had just spoken all the harsher. There was a long silence, and, in the thick air, mosquitoes beginning to find the flesh of my neck and arms, I had time to study my decision to speak.

And regret it. I should have gone back and stirred Ben and the doctor from their amusements, or let Mr. Rushworth's poor purse remain with its new owner.

“I find that hard to accept,” the man was saying gently, with just the slightest suggestion of challenge.

He was well-fleshed, his white hair giving him a benevolent appearance. His worn, sagging boots flapped open at the toe, and his shirt had been mended, old rips stitched and gradually fraying open again.

This evidence of household care—that a wife or sister took trouble over his tired homespun—made him look both more approachable and easier to offend. The wooden club in his capable-looking fist, and the ax in the hands of an associate who ambled forward, were the only visible weapons.

But they were weapons enough, as other well-built men stood up from around the fire, stretching and hawking, scratching, in no hurry, taking their time coming over to see who was troubling their evening quiet.

“I believe I'm right, sir,” I said, but I felt that I was in the beginning of a long, losing argument.

Furthermore, I was aware of the menacing appearance I presented, the hefty twelve-dollar knife in my hand. I slipped the blade back into its sheath, but kept my hand hooked on my belt, close to the handle.

“I don't think you'd find that there are any criminals here,” said the big man in the easiest manner possible. He approached, and I stood my ground. He shook my hand, and introduced himself as Nicholas Barrymore. “With a whole family of Barrymores, heading out to join my brother in the goldfields.”

This was the point at which I was expected to admit my mistake, but I kept my mouth shut.

“I'm a carpenter by trade,” he continued with a studied but jovial manner, “out of Elmira, New York. I've had my fill with glue and wood planes, I can tell you.”

Good manners forced me to introduce myself, but as I spoke I kept trying to glance around the burly family chief, toward the campfire.

“Maybe you'd like to join us,” said the man with a Sunday-morning smile I could make out even in the bad light. “We don't have much in the way of drink and victuals. Bandits took most of our supplies. But sit with us and have a cup of coffee.”

The bandits must have been a bold, heavily armed gang
, I nearly said.

Nicholas chuckled, perhaps reading my thoughts. “Oh, we cut a piece or two out of the robbers, don't worry about that.”

Broad bodies interposed between me and the camp, with its tumble of frying pans and pots, and yet I sensed the extra presence in their midst, someone hiding. The thief's companions blocked my view, but I could see exactly where the criminal was, among the remnants of johnnycakes, fried pats of cornmeal, and a large, rust-pocked coffeepot. A new stranger—a gaunt, black-bearded man—sauntered over, his hand on his hip, where a knife nearly as long as mine was thrust naked through his belt.

I thanked Nicholas for the offer. A cup of the sweet, thick coffee Elizabeth and I used to drink together would have been most welcome just then. “Perhaps some other time,” I added, sounding as polite as possible under the circumstance.

I turned on my heel, and walked away.

My nape tingled with both the whispering of mosquitoes and the expectation that with every step, there within sight of a remote, plaintively bleating goat, a heavy club was about to strike me down.

Someone was calling my name, and I ran toward the sound. I covered ground all the more quickly, having an excuse to run fast.

CHAPTER 15

A smudge in a gray shirt and gray trousers resolved, as I hurried toward it, into the most welcome sight I had ever seen.

Ben said he had been certain that bandits, or at least a panther, had dragged me away.

When Ben heard the story of the fugitive, he said, “Willie, we don't have time to catch a robber.” Sometimes Ben assumes that because he reads books about botany and wild animals, he is much wiser than I am. He adopted a tone of aggrieved patience when he added, “Dr. Merrill needs us.”

I was less enthusiastic to return to Dr. Merrill than I might have expected. His secretiveness, and his choice of sport for the night, had made me, for the moment, cool toward my medical acquaintance.

But I walked quickly through the trailing vines and low-hanging branches with my friend, until we stood in a room like a stone jailhouse—bare earthen floors and white-painted walls. Smoking candles illuminated the stricken men in rows along the walls, the stink of dysentery in the air.

Dr. Merrill stepped with labored care through the groaning, feverish patients of this improvised hospital. It took him a long time, and I made every effort to draw only shallow breaths. As the doctor approached us, he raised a nearly empty bottle of local rum to his lips.

“There are men like this in every hotel in the city,” he said, unsteady on his feet, but his words as precise as ever. “I received word from Dr. Hauser as I was about to teach Ben here the joys of filling an inside straight.” The obscure poker term struck me as devilish and frivolous under the circumstances. “The hospital is filling up rapidly. I need you and Ben to bring sick men here.”

I was tired. My feet were sore. Some tonic or other would bring these men to life overnight. I wanted to lie down on a cot somewhere and close my eyes.

“This isn't just another plague, is it?” Ben was saying. “This isn't some unknown pestilence with no name.”

“These men are suffering profound fevers,” said the doctor, by way of answer, “and what medical books call rice-water stools.”

I had heard more than enough already.

“Their diarrhea is so severe,” said Dr. Merrill, examining the contents of his rum bottle in the smoky light, “that their intestinal lining is wrung out of them, in little bits that resemble grains of starch.”

“It's cholera,” said Ben in a whisper.

The doctor did not deny it.

CHAPTER 16

The
California
departed Panama City before noon.

Her side wheel thrashed the water, stirring it until it was the color of coffee from silt at the bottom of the harbor. Hundreds of Americans stood on the wharf, waving and cheering halfheartedly, full of hope that another ship would soon set forth for San Francisco.

Captain Wood had allowed the steamship her full complement of passengers, more than three hundred—already too many for the ship to safely carry—and then allowed nearly one hundred more to clamber up the gangway, hauling trunks and staggering under overstuffed bags.

Dr. Merrill raised his hat from among the crowd looking up at us from the wharf, giving us as much of a smile as he could manage—he was eager to return to his patients. His small hospital had swelled with patients overnight, and he assured us that he would sail in a week or two, if a ship was available.

As we had boarded the steamship, the doctor had pressed a flask into my hands. “Dutch gin,” he had said. “Some praise
genever
as a tonic. You and Ben take a hearty drink of it at the first signs of a fever.” The flask was pewter, and fit snugly in the inner pocket of my coat, right over my heart.

The word that cholera had been confirmed had not caused panic so much as a determined desire to leave for California at once. Everyone had already guessed that this deadly illness, long the scourge of frontier villages, had taken its place among us. To be able to name it openly was a relief. We had all expected hazards along the journey, and people in towns and cities died of cholera without the least opportunity for adventure.

We were all quite relieved, however, to be departing the jungle.

To my happy surprise, Aaron Sweetland continued to show increasing signs of life. Mr. Gill and Mr. Kerr, the lens grinder, handled Mr. Sweetland down into steerage, strapped into a stretcher. Mr. Cowden, the rotund former law student, hovered nearby, keeping overeager fellow passengers from stumbling into the patient.

Aaron smiled up at me, reaching out his one good hand, and his touch was neither warm nor cold, his fever past. His pupils were huge—the opiates that sustained him and kept him from pain gave him a mild, almost saintly countenance.

Aaron gave my hand the ghost of a squeeze, and croaked, “We're off to the Golden Shore!”

I agreed that indeed we were. Smoke billowed from the tall, shiny black smokestack, and the Stars and Stripes lifted languorously over our wake. Cinders from the smokestack bit our skin and made our eyes smart.

Stewards descended into the steerage, to help arrange the stowing of mining equipment and clothing. They answered complaints that there ought to be laws against such overcrowding with reasonable humor, and generally held their own against an excited, eager crowd that did not look likely to sleep much during the passage anyway.

The great vessel began to heave slowly from side to side, and plunged deliberately into the brine, the ocean swells carrying her now. As waves misted over us, the men enjoyed a promenade on deck. At times we were so jammed together, we were unable to turn around without apologizing for treading on a boot.

The last outline of land sank to the east.

At twilight of the first day Nicholas Barrymore bumped into me along the rail. The sight of him brought my hand to the handle of my knife, an involuntary gesture.

It was not lost on him—he crinkled his eyes in a knowing smile. I wanted to ask him if he'd managed to get all of his kin and equipment on board—frying pans, kettles, and thieves. But instead I simply wished him a good evening, like any gentleman out for a promenade downtown, and he greeted me likewise in return.

I told him that I worked with my hands, too, repairing carriages and guns. “I can do a bit of carpentry, too,” I allowed.

“I'll take my chances shoveling Sierra gravel,” he said amiably. “But I respect a young man who can use his hands.”

“Your entire family is going to the gold country?” I asked, still determined to root out the identity of the thief.

“Every one of them,” he said. “All but the family dog. The poor mutt died on the way.”

I made a remark regarding last night's offer of a cup of coffee.

“That will be something to look forward to,” he said, cordially enough. “We'll have a good sit-down talk—when we have the space to stretch out and feel at home.” He looked me in the eye, both kindly and deeply amused. “Willie, I don't mind telling you that some of my children are little better than rascals.”

“I'm sorry to hear it.” Nevertheless, I couldn't help feel a stab of compassion for this family man, keeping his tribe fed and out of trouble on this long journey.