The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (58 page)

Showing it, the man was so ashen and sunk in, he looked pitiful, and his wife had tears in her eyes.

“You sweat, starve, sleep in the wet and cold, dig your hands raw, stave off the roughs and the Diggers, and then, when our be, loved Saviour showers down His bounty, you’re too sick to stand up and respond.”

“What exactly do you mean, sir?” inquired my father.

“Morris!”

He had another glance around, and said, “We’re rich I We’ve struck it rich, a gulch that would give us millions-I learned all the signs this past year—and look at us. What can we do? We ain’t fit to mine. If I kept my dear wife there another month, she’d been in the ground alongside the gold.”

“Morris,” broke in the woman. “I’m stouter than you think. I’ve told you once, and I’ll repeat it here-sooner than give up what we’ve striv this hard for, I’ll stand there and dig till I drop. I’d prefer it.”

“Not while I call myself a man, Bauxie. No, we’ve got only the
one chance—go in and sell, before the jumpers grab it. And we won’t get a fraction of what it’s worth, neither. It’s hard.” I thought he was going to cry.

We felt sorry for them, so we fed them and put them up for the night, since they were traveling light and had only a blanket between them.

Later on, when the others turned in, I saw my father and Uncle Ned getting their heads together, and next morning, up early, he approached the man and said:

“See here, sir, if you have a claim worth selling, we’d take it kindly to have a first look. We haven’t struck pay dirt in over a week, and we’re anxious to resume work.”

“You’ve befriended us, and we’re almighty grateful,” he replied, “but I wish you to understand our fix. I’m mortal positive we’ve got a strike—millions, maybe—so I and Bauxie hoped to get the largest sum we could. To be outright candid, a syndicate in Sacramento—”

“I should have said,” my father spoke up quickly, “that we are not entirely without funds. We’ve had our moments, and rather valuable ones they were.”

“We’re beholden to you, and should give you first show, but I dislike to make commercial palaver with friends.”

“Your attitude does you credit, but let’s leave it at this—we’ll inspect the claim, explain our financial position, and if we can’t get together, there’s no harm done whatever.”

He wasn’t anxious to, it was easy to see that, but my father put so much pressure on that he hadn’t much choice. I was embarrassed to watch them. So in the morning after breakfast, the men of our party and this Morris—last named Simpkins—all struck out upcountry, with Todd and me trailing right behind.

It was a comfortable day for a hike, warm but not hot. The country was a series of small hills and dales, same as we’d been digging in, sparsely wooded with scrub pine and such, and we ran across quail, rabbits, and one deer, along with a pair of Digger Indians which jumped up and ran lickety-split. Uncle Ned said he
could have shot them easy, but they made a very tough stew. I judged he was joking.

It was nearly three hours—a tolerable long pull, with Mr. Simpkins nearly dead of exhaustion—when we finally got there. A handsome ravine with a scaly creek bed in the bottom, and a long, windy rill leading upwards for a distance of two or three hundred yards into some rocky ledges.

At the edge, before going down, we saw claim signs, a picket fence of them, almost—“Morris Simpkins Claim,” and the date staked out.

We stopped on the knoll above, and Mr. Simpkins said, “I think it only upright and honest to tell you gentlemen that I and Bauxie taken out a group of nuggets—maybe a thousand dollars in all—for expenses. I wouldn’t care to represent the claim as being wholly unworked.”

“Never you mind about that,” said my father. “We quite understand. Draining off the visible gold is the most natural thing in the world, once a claim is staked. We’ve done it ourselves.”

“We only creviced it for an hour or so,” said Mr. Simpkins. “We stumbled over the claim on root to Sacramento, after Bauxie fell prey to the bloody flux and I’d produced the double hernier.”

“You mean you took a thousand dollars in nuggets in an hour’s time?” cried my father.

Mr. Simpkins nodded dumbly and then said, “As I cautioned before, I think it’s a case for a Sacramento syndicate. There ain’t a particle of doubt in my mind it’s the biggest strike yet, hereabouts, but if it
was
a dry hole, then we’d be mortally grieved to have mulcted a group of Samaritan friends.”

He was an honest man, and my father and the others thanked him for coming out so open and forthright about the nuggets. Then they all except Mr. Simpkins, who was having trouble with his hernier, scrambled down the slope, and Todd and I clipped along after.

Well, within seconds, Uncle Ned Reeves had plucked a gold hunk the size of a marble out of a ledge, and the rest of us began picking up particles nearly every place we looked.

My father was as pale as a ghost. He stuffed about three hundred dollars’ worth in his pockets, and got the others to knock off searching.

“Hold it!” he said. “Let’s pull up. The more we take, the more this claim’s apt to cost us. Now we certainly don’t want to cheat our friend up there, laid low as he is, but it’s only good business to buy as cheap as we can.”

“If
we can buy her at all,” said Uncle Ned. “This looks pretty rich for my blood. Let’s pool up—how much do you figure we’ve picked up here in ten minutes?”

We lumped it together, and made a calculation of five or six hundred dollars.

“We’ve got a fortune, and we might as well have it as a bunch of sharks from Sacramento,” said my father. Going on, to make himself feel better, he added, “Moreover, they’ll skin him out of every cent, one way or another, as soon as they’ve paid over the money. Let’s go up and negotiate.”

Mr. Simpkins was laid out over a log, looking poorly. I felt sorry for him. If he’d had the good health to work this claim, he might have wound up a very wealthy man; everybody was sure of it. There was something familiar about him, too; just as I said, I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t to save me spot him exactly. I puzzled over it while they talked.

“Mr. Simpkins, we’ll come right down to brass tacks,” said my father. “Your claim looks good; there’s gold in it. How much, we’re not prepared to guess. We’d like to buy you out, if we can afford it.”

“I and Bauxie hadn’t gone that far in our estimations, doctor. I thought we’d heave down to Sacramento and get her appraised.”

“No, no, I wouldn’t do that,” said my father hastily. “That is, you run the risk of not only claim-jumpers here, but of unscrupulous rascals in Sacramento. Our point is, do you feel like unloading now and getting the matter settled once and for all?”

Mr. Simpkins lay back on the log and shaded his eyes—he
was
sick, and looked so—then he raised up and said, in a sort of quiet,
resigned and tired voice, “Let’s traipse back and talk it over with Bauxie.”

So they left it. But you can bet we hurried him right along. I figured he didn’t only have a double hernier when we got there, he probably had a triple at the least, and maybe more. To tell the truth, when we arrived, and they set him in a chair, I slouched over to see if he was breathing. You might have settled it with a mirror in front of his mouth, but I didn’t know of any other positive way, not in his case.

By and by, though, when his wife and the other women came up, he roused himself, and Bauxie spoke her piece.

“I say let’s sell, and go into a boardinghouse for a rest. I’m tuckered out, and don’t mind admitting it freely. Another few days of the flux and I won’t know whether to puke or go blind.”

Something stirred down deep in my mind, but I couldn’t dredge it up to the surface.

Looking nervous, my father asked, “What figure did you good people have in mind?”

“I don’t think we’d ever hit on a calculation,” replied Mr. Simpkins in his faint voice. “Did we mention a figure, Bauxie?”

“Morris, don’t lay it in my lap. You throwed too many things in my lap already. Sell and be done, I say.”

“Our situation is this,” said my father, sitting down next to Mr. Simpkins, his forehead shining with sweat in his anxiety to get things wound up. “We’ve got nearly eight thousand dollars altogether, amongst us, every dime we have in the world. Now wouldn’t you say seven thousand dollars would be a fair sum, chancy as it is?”

Mr. Simpkins looked a little paler. “It’s kinder taken me unawares. We’d reckoned on a tolerable sale.”

“Say seventy-five hundred and meet halfway, no harm done to either side.”

“Morris, they befriended us.”

“Let it go, then,” and he sank back down as if it was time to fetch the hearse.

Everybody clasped hands, to seal it, and congratulated each
other, and acted well pleased, all except the Simpkinses. The transaction had kind of drawn their last strength, so to speak, and I reckoned that the money would be used to provide them with a decent burial. But the next day, after the papers were signed, we helped them on their ailing way to Marysville. Saying goodbye, I stood watching them go on down toward Vernon as passengers on a Sante Fe wagon, and tried hard to think where I’d seen them. I was getting close—it was right there on the tip of my tongue—but I couldn’t pin it down. That’s the way of those things. It’s like a watched kettle. It might come to me when I wasn’t pressing so hard.

In the morning we were filled with bustle and stir. We had a rich claim bought, and couldn’t wait to get it delivering up gold. I wished my mother could have seen my father then. There wasn’t anything slothful about him, or irresponsible. He was the main leading spirit in getting things organized. When he and Uncle Ned Reeves and Mr. Kissel finally shouldered the tools—we planned to crevice and pan-wash for a starter—Jennie and Mrs. Kissel called good luck, then the Biblical group put in their licks, and we trooped off into the hills. Todd and I ran ahead. The way was easy to find; in fact, they had blazed it coming down. In a few days, we planned to move camp up nearer, but for now we would sleep at the diggings overnight and come back for supper tomorrow.

Todd and I waited on the bank overlooking the site. Everything looked the same; the claim signs were in place; all was ready. My father had written a long letter home last night, and read it through out loud, mentioning things like “Golconda is within our grasp,” “a living credit to the glory of Louisville,” and “proceed as directed with the McPheeters-California Public Clinic.” I’d never been prouder of him. He was right and they were wrong, and that included my mother.

We gave a ringing shout for good luck, then descended into the ravine. Todd and I had spoons, which are very good tools for simple crevicing, and started worrying that creek bed in a hurry.

We didn’t turn up anything for five or six minutes, so we shifted places and dug in harder. Then I heard Uncle Ned call out,
“Doctor, can you come over here a minute?” It was exactly at the same instant that I remembered where I’d seen those Simpkins. Their name wasn’t Simpkins at all—they were the ornery man and wife that had tried to apprentice me, way back on the riverbank in Missouri. They were changed, and they
did
look sick; older, too, but I couldn’t to save me think why I hadn’t known them at once.

My heart skipped a beat; I felt sick myself. Then I dropped my spoon and ran over to where my father and the others were standing, their faces very grave and concerned.

“Those people,” I cried, “that Mr. and Mrs. Simpkins. I know them—they’re frauds and cheats!”

“You’re a little late, my boy,” said my father, sitting down weakly. “We’ve been robbed of everything. This ‘mine’ has been salted.”

There wasn’t an ounce of gold anyplace around, no matter how hard you might search. None of the nuggets so carelessly displayed on our last trip were anywhere to be seen now. They had been deliberately planted there, and those that we had left had been picked up by what my father said was a “confederate.”

Well, we
were
crushed. We were so low nobody could think of anything cheerful to say. There just
wasn’t
any silver lining.

“It’s useless to pursue them,” said my father. “They’ve made their getaway, and been swallowed up long before this.”

“Still and all,” observed Uncle Ned, “I’d admire to hold a business discussion with them. I’d hope to branch out and conduct a negotiation in hides.”

We were several hours getting up the nerve to start back. But the women had to be told, so we did it. Taken all around, this was the mournfulest evening we’d put in yet. After supper, nobody could find a thing to stay up for, so we went to bed early. I could see my father lying across the tent on his back, his eyes open and staring, his hands behind his head, and wished I could think of some way to help. But I couldn’t; the words failed to come. After a while, we both went to sleep. Sometimes it’s all a person can fall back on in a pinch.

We were in the summer now, a hot one, steamy and close in this valley of the Sacramento, and our luck had run out. There was grub money left for a while, but no matter how we traipsed these gullies, we took no more than particles the size of a gnat.

It was discouraging to watch our pile dwindle. In July we moved our traps to other diggings, journeying down past the Yuba, beyond the Hock Ranch and some other ranches, past the joining of the Feather and the Sacramento, and dug for a while below the miners’ settlement of Vernon.

For two days we stopped at Johnson’s Ranch, a mile or two up a tributary of the Feather, called Bear River. This man gave us good greeting, as Mrs. Kissel said. He was a New England sailor who cared nothing for gold and spurned every chance to find it, even when strikes were made almost under his nose. He had left the sea to farm, and his broad fields of wheat, barley and corn, which grew green and high in these Bear River bottoms, extended as far as you could see. I felt sorry for the Kissels, surveying them, their eyes soft with longing.

Johnson lived with Indian servants and workers, in a two-room house of log and adobe, with a doorway of stretched rawhide. Roaming his hills were hundreds of head of cattle, within view of the Sierras, fifty miles away, and the Sacramento off in the other direction. It was a main choice spot, lush and rolling, watered and wooded, and finally I heard Mr. Kissel say, “Here it is, then. When the time’s come, we’ll stake down in this valley.”