Power in the Blood (41 page)

To whom it may consern,

Owner of this note, Clay Dugan, did bury in Poloma semetery Wyoming Teritory two dead outlaws, Jerome Deidsheimer & Bob Zweig which are wanted by law and are the same, with obsene tatoo on one and horse on other as per federil flyer for same. I sertify this is a true statemant of actuel fact this day, septembr 21 1880

Douglas Onderdonk

Mayor, Poloma Wyoming T.

On his way out of town in the afternoon, Clay passed by a picket fence overgrown with milkweed. The desiccated brown pods had split to reveal the white seed-bearing spores within. Clay thought he was looking at a flock of headless sparrows with fluffy white chests, until he was close enough to make out the pods.

He had been aware for some time that his eyesight was deteriorating, along with his teeth. A world in which a hunter of men could mistake milkweed for decapitated birds was a dangerous one; he would have to eat his pride and get himself a pair of eyeglasses, like some spinster schoolmarm. His body’s betrayal of its youth made Clay angry, and anger made his teeth hurt even more.

The mayor watched him leave. Poloma’s first visit from a bounty man had left two more bodies in the graveyard, and a lingering smell of death in the air.

22

The El Dorado Engineers were Leo Brannan, who had hired Zoe; his cousin Lewis, and John Chadbourne and Sell Yost. All four were from California, and all were educated men with considerable experience in mining, although to Zoe’s eye they looked too smooth, too clean to be miners. Leo told her, as they trekked uphill to Glory Hole, leading their pack mules laden with equipment and supplies, “The day of the grizzled forty-niner with his lowly pan is gone, Mrs. Dugan. The esteemed Gumpe, who has sent us scurrying to his discovery, is likely to be the last of the breed. Science, not the blessings of Lady Luck, is the way of the future. My colleagues and I will use our combined learning to make our fortune.”

“You seem very confident, Mr. Brannan.”

“And I am what I seem. You’ve heard of the Little Dollar mine?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“The third-most-successful operation in California. We have all worked there in one capacity or another. Now we have the opportunity to find our own Little Dollar.”

Zoe admired the zeal of the El Dorado Engineers, but could not bring herself to trust their leader. Leo’s mismatched eyes were a source of confusion and doubt. Zoe had taken Omie aside and asked her if this man with the eye of blue and eye of brown was the man in her vision of the loss of Zoe’s money on their first evening in Leadville, the thief Omie had indicated was somewhere inside Gods of the Dance, but now Omie had no clear memory of what it was she had seen, let alone said. “I think he’s very handsome,” was her only confirmable opinion. Zoe was left with her suspicions. Leo seemed an unlikely robber, equally unlikely as a habitué of such low places as dance halls. His implausibility in these roles made Omie’s assertions at the time of the theft appear less credible, but Zoe could not forget the precision with which she had delineated the gravestones yet-to-be in Pueblo.

All in all, Zoe’s feelings toward her employer were confused. The man’s companions comported themselves as earnest, no-nonsense types who, if far too shy in their dealings with Zoe and her daughter (a typical day’s conversation consisted of a morning greeting and a “Thank you, ma’am” for each meal Zoe dished up), were certainly courteous and uncomplaining. If an individual could be judged by the company he kept, it seemed likely that Leo Brannan was honest and true blue. Still, she wondered.

Many hopeful souls had preceded them up the arduous mountain trail, and many more followed behind. Glory Hole was the nation’s newest mining Mecca, word of its riches already inflated beyond the realm of the possible, already causing upheaval among the restless of the planet. Anything was possible if a body could just get to the fabulous camp in the clouds and plunge fingers into the gold-laden soil, kick over those few worthless rocks hiding the wealth mere inches beneath, and scoop an instant fortune into one’s shabby pockets. Glory Hole’s allure lay in the color of its bounty; whereas Leadville was mined for its namesake and for silver, Glory Hole was a repository of the earth’s most favored metal, and so shone more brightly in the minds of men.

The journey required four days. As the crow flies, the party traveled fewer than twenty-five miles, but those miles were elongated by the Rocky Mountains to a number approaching fifty, most of them a series of thigh-torturing ascents that seemed endless. The groves of aspen at that altitude already were turning to their own kind of gold, and the nights were chilly enough to set teeth chattering well before dawn.

At midmorning on the fifth day, the party was able to overlook the high valley enfolding along its single stream the antlike activity of Glory Hole. All timber adjacent to the water was gone, stripped away to build cabins and to reinforce the shafts boring down through rock and soil in search of a golden seam. The much-used trail leading down to the camp was of the same reddish mud that scarred both sides of the creek and polluted its waters. Even at a distance, the enterprise below appeared excessive, so many men crammed together along so short a stretch of land, jostling for nearness to the site of Gumpe’s original strike. Each hundred-foot-long claim had already been divided into subclaims and leased for a percentage of the profits to come, in order to finance the firstcomers” own continuing efforts to duplicate Gumpe’s phenomenal success.

The Engineers set up camp at some distance from the stream, their object being to locate a likely claim by way of their professional expertise well in advance of the general run of miner, whose method consisted for the most part in working as close to a confirmed strike as possible, on the assumption that where gold had already been found, there was sure to be more gold nearby.

Leo instructed Zoe and Omie not to mention anything of the Engineers’ occupational history, for fear of alerting their competition for whatever gold remained to be found in the vicinity. “One wrong word and none of us will be able to take two steps without being shadowed,” he warned.

“I understand.”

“You’ll certainly be questioned. I haven’t seen another female in the entire camp. My partners have agreed to spread the mistruth that we are all former shipping clerks from San Francisco, come to try our luck like all the rest. I hesitate to ask that you propagate this lie, but it may be crucial to our success.”

“I have no qualms, Mr. Brannan.”

“I have to tell you, it’s also been decided that you are my sister. I feel it’s necessary to keep tongues from wagging.”

“Thank you for informing me.”

“I believe we should begin addressing each other on first-name terms, to maintain the fiction of our relationship. One never knows who is listening.”

“Very well, Leo.”

“Can I too?” asked Omie, when she learned of the arrangement.

“Certainly you may,” said Leo, “in that you’re my niece, so to say.”

“Why are your eyes that way, Leo?”

“Because my mother and father couldn’t decide which color they should be, so in the end I was given one of each.”

“Oh.”

Leo picked up his equipment; his three partners were waiting. “We’ll return before sundown,” he said. “Please have a substantial meal prepared.”

“I will, Leo,” said Zoe. She could tell he was unsettled by her immediate and casual adoption of his name.

“Until then,” Leo said.

The men left, and Zoe began arranging their supplies inside the two small tents that had been erected in a clearing among the pines. “Which one will be ours?” Omie asked.

“I don’t know; perhaps neither.”

“I want a tent. It’s too cold at night.”

“The decision belongs to Leo and the others. You and I are hired help, nothing more. We must do as we’re told, like it or not.”

“Well, I don’t, not if we don’t have a tent. I’ll tell Leo we want one, then he’ll give us one.”

“And why should he do that, just because you want it so?”

“He talks to me all the time. Well, sometimes.”

“I haven’t noticed the two of you conversing.”

“He’s the one that talks. I just listen. He doesn’t really talk to me, it’s more like he’s talking to himself.”

“Leo doesn’t strike me as being that kind.”

“Not talking out loud. Talking inside his head. Thinking.”

“You know what he’s thinking?”

“Sometimes. Once he thought it was sad about my blue mark, but he thinks I’m pretty anyway. He thinks about you too.”

“Me?”

“He thinks you’re very brave for never looking down, even if Papa is dead. You fibbed to him about that, Mama. He likes the way you hold your head up so high. He thinks you’re pretty too.”

Zoe considered this, then asked, “Can you see the things in my thoughts?”

“Only sometimes. When we were on the train you were hating Papa for what he did that made us go away like that.”

“Is that the only thing you’ve seen inside my thoughts?”

“There was a man with blood coming out of his neck, but I only saw him for just a little bit. Who was he, Mama?”

“A bad man. You don’t need to know more. What else does Leo think about us?”

“Nothing else. He thinks about his cousin a lot. Lewis is not very well. Leo didn’t want him to come, but he wanted to, so Leo let him.”

Zoe had noticed that Lewis often became red-faced and short of breath on the trail to Glory Hole. “Will he be all right?” she asked.

“Oh, no, he’s going to die very soon. It’s a shame, Mama. Leo is very fond of him.”

“You must say nothing of this to anyone.”

“I know.”

The Engineers returned at dusk, talking excitedly among themselves. Their conversation halted as soon as they were enclosed by the firelight. Zoe was irritated by their clumsy secretiveness. “Well, gentlemen,” she said, in a manner so pointed it could not be ignored, “were you successful?”

“We believe so,” said Lewis, after hasty glances at his partners. “There’s a spot not far from here no one has thought to claim, despite its attractions.”

“We’ll do so tomorrow,” added Leo.

“So kindly be quiet about it till it’s all signed and legal,” said Chadbourne.

“Who would I tell?” asked Zoe. “The chipmunks?”

“Just in case someone comes snooping around, that’s all.”

“As you wish,” Zoe told him, looking Chadbourne so fiercely in the eye he was obliged to look away from her.

Sell Yost said, “We all know what to do, even Omie.”

“I’m just making sure, that’s all,” Chadbourne insisted. “Something as important as this can be said twice, can’t it?”

“Enough, John,” said Leo. “Mrs. Dugan … Zoe … knows full well what we’re about. Her discretion may be relied upon.”

“So you say, but I can spell it out again for the lady and the girl, no harm done.”

“Mr. Chadbourne,” said Zoe, “I am not a fool. I wish you every advantage, even if it means avoiding the truth.”

“Good,” he said. “Now we want to eat.”

Zoe waited for one of the men to comment on this particular rudeness of Chadbourne’s, but no one did. She realized then that she had come to expect a modicum of chivalry from Leo; she should have known better than to expect anything resembling consistent behavior from any man. She was a paid servant among these prospectors, and her only friend was Omie. It was disappointing to have to remind herself of this, but then, Zoe was more or less accustomed to disappointment as the prime ingredient to the living of her life. What was, was. She could do little to change anything to suit her own sense of justice. The men had all turned from her and gone about their business, real or pretended, to avoid the look on her face. Only Omie was looking directly at her mother. Zoe smiled at her.

When the meal was done with, and Zoe cleaning the dishes at the stream some hundred yards from the tents, she was approached by Leo. His embarrassment was obvious despite the darkness.

“John expresses himself bluntly. I apologize.”

“None is necessary, and if it were, Mr. Chadbourne could surely deliver it himself.”

“We’ve come a considerable distance, Mrs. Dugan, to chance everything we have. Every dollar we own has been invested in this enterprise. You can see why good manners are sometimes left by the wayside under circumstances such as these.”

“No, I cannot see. I have also invested all of myself in this venture, and am capable anyway of civility, even to such a one as Mr. Chadbourne. I expect there will be other incidents similar to this, unless you become millionaires overnight.”

He laughed. “Little chance of that. In any case, I ask for your indulgence.”

“You have it. Will you help carry dishes for me?”

“If so instructed.” He began picking up the tin plates. “One of the tents is at the disposal of yourself and Omie.”

“Thank you. Who will have the other?”

“John and Lewis. Sell and I are hardened outdoorsmen.”

“Good. Your cousin requires comfort.”

“Canvas over his head is scarcely that.”

“You must take care of him. I believe he is not at all well.”

They began walking back to the camp. Leo said, “Lewis becomes short of breath at this altitude, nothing more.”

“But you are aware that he has difficulties.”

“I am, and I don’t make light of it. Lewis is my cousin, and I care a great deal for him.”

Sell Yost appeared before them. “The little girl,” he said, “she’s behaving … strange.”

Zoe hurried ahead. As she reached the firelight she could see Omie at its furthest edge, staring fixedly into the pine-scented darkness. Zoe went directly to her side.

“Omie? Omie!”

Omie opened and closed her mouth several times.

“What is it?”

“A deer,” said Omie, “only bigger …”

“Bigger?”

“Than a deer …”

Leo and Yost had caught up with her. “What does she say?”

“A deer,” said Zoe. “She saw a deer, that’s all.”

“Plenty of them around,” said Yost. “They’re almost tame.”

“Bigger …” intoned Omie.

“She may mean an elk,” suggested Leo. “We saw one ourselves this afternoon, further up the mountainside.”