The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (55 page)

We could move a lot more dirt this way, and didn’t have to rock, because the water from the canvas hose ran down the trough in a steady stream. After a couple of hours, we hauled out the box to check, and had nearly two ounces, which wasn’t bad at all. Then we moved to another spot, to make shoveling easier, and pitched in again. Altogether on that first go-round we took out about sixty-five dollars, and called it a pretty square day’s work. It was fining out, though. By the end of a week we had nearly two hundred and fifty dollars, but the ravine was emptied, unless you were in a position to sluice it. Of the two hundred and fifty dollars, we spent about a third on supplies, so we had a tidy sum left over. Only thing for it now was to change locations, which we did, but the next two ravines didn’t cough up a thing richer than color.

In the third, we struck good dirt, and in three days took out something over two hundred dollars. As my father said, we were making a living, but we certainly weren’t making it very fast. Not with the way prices were. But we kept plugging, and always in the air, to keep us going, was the feeling that in that
next
ravine, just over the hill, lay a fortune. This sort of thing can give you a pretty good push of energy, the business of
looking
for something, with the idea of getting it free. It was the same feeling I used to have on the Ohio during spring rise, when we’d nab drift logs from the mills up above, along with boxes full of things, and now and then a skiff or a canoe. It beats making a regular living any time.

On Sunday we knocked off, didn’t do a thing. Left our Long Tom standing there with claim signs all around, and went on home to rest up. Mr. Kissel reckoned he’d never get a farm this way, but he said he wasn’t complaining, it was the decree of Providence. We had a jolly good breakfast, but missed Mr. Coe; we all said so and talked about him some. He was due back in about four days. It being a Sunday, as stated, I decided to ask permission to wander
around, then I remembered they had taken a vote against that sort of thing once before. They said there were so many foreigners here that it mightn’t be safe, and particularly Chinamen. “A body can’t tell to look at them whether they’ve been converted or not,” Mrs. Kissel said. “I’ve heard it said that the heathen element smokes dead rats.”

“They smoke opium, ma’am,” my father said, “and
eat
rats.”

“Well, for the Lord’s sake, I wouldn’t let that boy stir a foot out of this camp,” she cried.

I knew about Chinamen, of course. There was a laundryman in Louisville, name of George Yat, and we commonly stopped in the back doorway of his place when traveling up the alley and yelled, “Chink-a-chink-a Chinaman eats dead rats, uses their tails for baseball bats,” until my mother heard about it and gave me a licking.

Anyway, I was standing over near the water barrel at the time, under a clump of trees, and concluded that I’d ask permission later, when I got back. That way, there wouldn’t be any chance of causing a disturbance, and as my father always said, there’s few things more of a nuisance in this world than a troublemaker.

So I threw out the water in my dipper, muttered something about trying to locate my knife, which I’d misplaced, and drifted away, taking care not to stumble over a root. Somehow, I had to get away for a while. To tell the truth, I was a little sick of gold. It was fun to look for, but we’d overdone it. It smelled nice here in the hills. There were pine trees twelve feet and more thick, and birds were just going it every place. This was May, and fine weather, a very good time to be in California. Most all of the miners had gone into Marysville, but about two miles from our camp, up a winding stream, I came out into a beautiful little gulch and there was a tall, lanky, brown-haired man and a tow-haired boy working a cradle. They didn’t see me, so I turned to go on, but a rock scudded out from under my foot and went hopping down that piny slope to land right at their feet.

“Well, howdy,” said the man, with his eyes kind of squinted up in a humorous look. “Just passing through, stranger?”

“Why, no, sir,” I said, gulping a little, because I was intruding here, you know. “It’s a Sunday and I was taking a stroll out from camp.”

“Come on down, son. Rest yourself. How’d you like a cup of coffee?”

They had a pot hung from a forked stick over a fire that was burning low.

“My father won’t let me have it, sir. He claims that taken to excess it will rupture the blood vessels.”

“That wouldn’t apply in this particular case,” said the man. “There ain’t enough outright coffee in it to rupture a grasshopper. To haul it down to cases, it’s made out of tanbark and sassafras.”

I’d been clambering down, holding onto scrub, and I noticed the boy up close for the first time. But he beat me to it and let out a yell that shook the tree branches.

“He’s the one with them that killed Ma and Pa! Shoot him, Uncle Ned!”

He began to run lickety-split, crying and yelling, toward a tree where they had a pistol and rifle hanging, and I figured I was about to collect my judgment. I was so scared it took me a minute to muster my wind. I’d seen that boy take a pot shot at Shep Baggott, and he did it handsome, expert and cool. I cried, “Hold on! Stop him! I hadn’t anything to do with those scoundrels!”

The boy paid no heed whatever, but yanked the rifle down and swung it up to his shoulder.

Then the man stepped in front, holding me back there with one hand. “Lay that rifle down, Todd. We’ll hear his story.”

But the boy was sort of frothing at the mouth, he was crying so, and he screamed, “Stand aside, Uncle Ned. If you don’t want to get shot through the belly, shove aside so I can kill me a skunk.”

“Put that rifle down
!”

I was shaking so, they could have heard my knees in Marysville.

The boy hesitated a second, then the man turned around and said easily, “Now, son, come over and set on this log and tell me
your account. And make it true, because I’ll tell for sure if you’re lying.”

I didn’t need any second instruction, but blurted out, “I was kidnapped! They took me off the trail and tried to ransom me to Pierre Chouteau in St. Louis. I’d shot them myself if I’d had the chance.” Then I rushed on and told it all the way it happened; told how they hung Joe Slater, how we’d found John and Shep in Independence, and all about my troubles later in the Pawnee village.

The man never interrupted or even changed expression until I’d finished, and it wasn’t any short time, either.

“Joe Slater gave me your father’s watch to return you if we ever met up,” I said to the boy, and I hauled it out. I’d carried it first in my wagon pouch and then in my pocket from that day to this. It was dented in two or three places, and it wasn’t running, but Mr. Coe had said it could be fixed by any reliable jeweler.

The boy brushed his eyes with his sleeve and took the watch, holding it by its chain. Then he opened the back to show the fresh young faces of his father and mother on their wedding day. He looked at them a few moments, blinking back the tears, and said, “I reckon I misjudged it. I don’t mind begging your pardon.”

“I wish there could have been something to do,” I said, and meant it. “But there wasn’t, not a blessed thing. I was in the same fix myself.”

“Of course there wasn’t, boy,” said the man. “We’ll just thank you for the watch. Now, how are you called?”

“Jaimie, sir.”

“Jaimie it is, then. Now what I suggest is this—we’ll amble over and meet up with your folks. Pay our respects, like. And maybe your paw’ll know something else about those murderers. It don’t plague me to acknowledge that I’m about halfway bent on finding them afore I’m done. To go a step further, you might even say we been tracking them. We got wind they were heading this way. But we didn’t know all the dee-tails,” he added politely.

“Uncle Ned,” said the boy, “you promised you wouldn’t hog the show, once we caught up.”

“You’ll get your shot, boy, same as me. A promise is a promise. I don’t believe in holding out a delight to a child and then withdrawing it. It’s deeleterious for character. No, you take the stout one, being as I’m a mite better shot, and I’ll take the skinny. Fair’s fair.”

Hearing them talk, my blood ran cold. I never heard killing discussed in just those tones. I think maybe any of us could kill somebody, if they get mad enough at the moment, and my father says the same, but these two sounded like they were fixing to butcher a sheep. I wouldn’t have been in Shep’s and John’s shoes for a million dollars, because if this weathered old string bean didn’t get them, the boy would; there wasn’t any doubt about
that
.

We started back down the woody ravines, the man walking a little behind, and the boy said:

“Don’t suppose you care for hunting and fishing and such.”

“It’s about all I do. Along the Ohio River, at Louisville, Kentucky,” I said.

“I don’t recall as I’ve heard it mentioned. Small stream?”

“Small stream, my foot. Haven’t you ever been to school?”

“I certainly have,” he said warmly. “I was there near about eight weeks three years ago, but my paw tooken me out to help with the crops. I was going back the next fall, but the teacher they had, he stepped on a cottenmouth and it left him kind of addled. It didn’t surprise anybody—he was a foreigner anyhow.” He said it “furriner.”

“Which country?”

“Place called Pennsylvania, so they said.”

He was a nice boy, but he seemed uncommonly ignorant, even for a Missourian. For the first time, I was glad I’d taken the trouble to get an education before I started on my travels.

When we reached camp, they were getting ready for the noon meal, with my father and Mr. Kissel fanning away at the fire, coughing as they always did, and the women bustling around with the cooking. I stepped up and said, “These here are some friends from
back on the trail in Missouri—the boy named Todd was the one I was telling you about, and this is his Uncle Ned.”

My father got up and shook hands grandly, saying:

“We’re happy to meet you, sir. If I recall the circumstances correctly, this is quite a coincidence.”

“Your boy gave us back the watch,” the uncle replied. “We’d be obliged for any further information you might have. I and my nevvy here, who is a fair hand with a squirrel rifle, was hoping to catch the men and talk things over. According to Missouri notions, they done an unfriendly act.”

“Unfortunately, we haven’t any information whatever. But we’ll keep our eye out—we’re sorry for your trouble—and in the meantime, we hope you’ll join our mess.” And he introduced all of our company, with a great deal of style, using the highest-sounding titles he could invent.

This Uncle Ned gave a long sigh, looking at the women’s preparations. “To tell the bare truth, I was hoping you’d ask us. I make a mighty poor out at vittling. We’ll stop for a bite and grateful, then shuffle ourselves along.”

“Nothing of the sort,” said my father. “Come join us as often as it suits you. There’s plenty of good camping space hereabouts.”

We had a good dinner, eating our best meal at noon on a Sunday, and had compone, fat bacon, boiled beef, pickled pork, and salad that Jennie and Po-Povi picked in the woods. I never saw a man eat so. And the boy did the same. They were starved down to a point where they were just barely moving and that’s all. Every few minutes the man made an apology for “gormandizing” and tackled another plateful. He must have laid in twelve pounds, more or less.

And afterwards, by George if he didn’t insist on washing up, he and the boy. They wouldn’t let the women touch a thing, shooed everybody right out to the chairs Mr. Kissel had made, and then I’m blessed if they didn’t light in and chop about half a cord of firewood. When they finished, toward three o’clock, Uncle Ned came up to Mrs. Kissel with his hat in his hand and said:

“Ma’am, I don’t hardly know how to tell you what that meal
signified. We ain’t had a thing in any way approaching it for three months. I’ll hope to square things up someday.”

“Square up!” cried Mrs. Kissel. “Why, you’ve done a full day’s work already. It’s we owe you. You’ll be back here for supper, or I’ll know the reason why.”

I may be crazy, but his eyes looked downright damp in the corners. “Ma’am,” he said in a voice that shook a little, “you ain’t planning to vittle again
today?”

“Indeed we are—we eat thrice daily. So does everybody, I hope to goodness. Don’t you?”

He seemed embarrassed and said, “Here lately, we’ve had tan-bark coffee in the morning, et bacon and greens at noon, and munched acorns for the rest. It serves, but it’s right hard to work on.”

“Supper’s at seven on a Sunday,” said Mrs. Kissel. “If you and the boy aren’t here, we’ll get them to send for you with guns.”

The man signaled his nephew, and they took off their coats all over again. Then they chopped up another half cord of firewood.

After this, he sat down and talked with my father and Mr. Kissel about mining, saying they’d had thin luck recently but knew of a slopy place that might be given to sluicing. They discussed it up and down and sideways and agreed to give it a try, since our ravine had run its course. Next morning we went back three miles in the hills, to a place where a stream ran winding along under some pines, then hopped down a series of natural tenaces. We’d picked up Todd and his Uncle Ned on the way, and they had seventy feet of sluice boxes they bought during the fall, after cradling some gold. But they hadn’t had a chance to use it yet, being shorthanded.

These we carried to the new location, and spent the day setting them up, connecting the narrow end of each box (or trough) to the upper end of the one below it, and placing, altogether, four riffle boxes underneath at the connections. It was like a Long Tom, but you could move a lot more dirt, and you didn’t have to knock off and empty out the boxes so often, because there were so many.

By the middle of the afternoon we were able to start work. The
stream was directed into the first trough, and the men began throwing in dirt. Todd and I were put to running up and down along the seventy-foot length, spading out rocks and other things that got jammed now and then. In an hour’s time we made an inspection and had about two ounces of gold: thirty-two dollars. This was fair pay. When we quit in the evening, Uncle Ned and the boy moved their traps up, so as to camp by the sluice boxes, and we divided the gold fifty-fifty, as we agreed to do at the end of each day.