The Treasure OfThe Sierra Madre (12 page)

Curtin tried to quiet Dobbs. “Leave the old man alone. Can’t you see he’s nuts?”

“Nuts, hey? Is that what you mean?” Howard, instead of being angry, just laughed in a satanical way. “Nuts? Now, I’ll tell you somethin’, you puppies. What did I say? Yes, two fine lodgers I’ve burdened myself with. You two are so dumb, so immensely stupid and dumb, that even a secret-service flat would stand amazed at such dumbness. And that’s something.”

Dobbs and Curtin began to listen to the old man. They looked at each other and they looked again at Howard. They seemed to become convinced that the old man had really gone mad, perhaps from the hardships or from senility.

“And what I was saying,” Howard went on, “you two are so dumb that you don’t even see the millions when treading upon them with your own feet.”

The two boys opened their mouths wide. It was clear they had not understood the full sense of what Howard had said. Not yet. But after a minute they came to. Seeing Howard still grinning at them while he held, in both his hands, sand picked up from the ground, letting it run through his fingers, it dawned upon them that the old man was as sane as ever and that what he said was true.

They did not start a dance out of this joyful relief nor did they holler to clear their breasts of the anguish that had filled them during these last few days. A long breath they took and then sat down and fingered the soil, looking at it carefully.

“Don’t you expect to find nuggets of molten gold.” Howard was still standing upright. “It’s not that rich. It’s only heavy dirt. And it’s not here either. Here are only traces of the stuff. It comes from somewhere farther up there.” Howard pointed up to certain rocks which they had been about to cross. “There is where we have to go. And if I am not mistaken, it will be there that we will settle for a few months. Let’s go.”

While this stretch which they had now to cover was short, it meant harder work than any other trail they had encountered so far on the expedition. The distance was less than two miles, but it took them a whole day to reach the site indicated by Howard.

When the outfit arrived at the spot, Howard said: “We’d better not pitch camp right here where the works are. We should build the camp a mile or even a mile and a half away. Some day you may learn why this is for the best.”

It had got dark, and so for this night they camped right there. Next morning, however, Howard and Curtin went exploring for a good camp-site while Dobbs remained with the animals.

Having found a suitable place sufficiently far off the field, camp was built at the spot where it was to stay.

“Suppose somebody should accidentally come upon this camp, you two fellers understand we are just hunters, professional gamehunters for hides of commercial value. And don’t you make any mistake. It may cost you dearly.” Howard surely knew what he was talking about.

If Dobbs and Curtin had ever worked hard in their lives, they would have thought that what they were doing now was the hardest work anywhere in the world. For no employer would they have labored so grindingly as they did now for themselves. Each working-day was as long as daylight would make it. Convicts in a chain-gang in Florida or Georgia would have gone on hunger-strike, and not have minded the whippings either, had they had to work as these three men were doing to fill their own pockets.

The field which they were exploring was embedded in a craterlike little valley on the top of high rocks. The altitude of the mountains and the low pressure of the atmosphere made work still harder than it would have been under better conditions.

In daytime the heat was scorching, and the nights were bitterly cold. There were none of the conveniences which even a working-man in a civilized country—yes, even a soldier in the trenches—is used to and thinks he cannot live without.

One should not forget that though the Sierra Madre is in fact a sister to the Rocky Mountains, it is in the tropics. There is no winter, no snow and ice, and consequently all plants, shrubs, insects, and animals keep alive all the time, and very much alive at that.

There were mosquitoes biting day and night. The more you sweat, the more they like sucking your blood. There were tarantulas the size of a man’s hand, and spiders the same size, not very pleasant to have for permanent neighbors. And then there was the real genuine pest, a little yellowish-reddish scorpion the sting of which kills you within fifteen hours.

Gold has its price. Make no mistake as to that, and forget the Stories and the blah of promoters who want to sell worthless ground at the price of cultivated orange-groves in the Royal Valley.

“Never have I dreamed that I would have to work like this,” Curtin growled one morning when Howard was shaking him by the collar to get him up from his cot.

“Never mind,” the old man calmed him, “I’ve worked this way more than once in my life and often for years. I’m still alive, and, what is more, still without a bank account to help me along for the rest of my life. Well, get up and make the burros carry the water up.”

As the working-field had no water, it had to be carried on burros’ backs from a brook about three hundred and fifty feet lower than the field. When, in the beginning, they had found that there was no water for washing the dirt, and that the water was so far down, it was proposed that the diggings should be carried by the burros down to the brook to be washed there. After long deliberation it was decided that it would be better to carry the water up to the field than to carry the dirt down. By digging out tanks and by using channels easily built from wood, the water once carried up to the field could be used over and over again before it evaporated. A wheel was constructed with empty tin cans and small wooden cases, and with the help of a burro this could be made to draw the water from the tank, lift it with those cans and cases up to the upper tank, from where, on opening the shutter, it would run down the channels to wash the sand.

Howard was an all-around expert. Whenever he came out with a useful idea, Dobbs and Curtin would ask themselves earnestly what they would have done in this wilderness without him. They could have met with a field rich with fifty ounces to the ton of raw dirt and not have known what to do with it, how to get it out, or how to keep alive until time to carry it home.

Howard even burned lime out of the rocks, mixed it with sand and clay, and built a tank that would lose not a drop of water except what evaporated. With the same stuff in other combinations he tightened the wooden channels and the basins so that here, too, no water was wasted.

The men had breakfast long before sunrise to start work as early as possible. Often they could not work during the noon hours, as the terrific heat made their heads hum and their limbs ache.

“Another reason why I preferred carrying the water up to carrying the dirt down is this,” Howard explained; “we can hide the whole field so well that it is almost impossible for any sniper to find us. If we washed the dirt down at the brook, a native hunter might see us and get suspicious. On the other hand, if he meets one of us with the burros carrying the water up, it will be clear that the water is meant for the camp, for cooking, washing, and cleaning the hides. We’ll start tomorrow to fence in the field and make it invisible. What you say, kiddies?”

“Right, daddy,” Curtin answered.

Dobbs growled: “Okay by me, you know best, old rooster.”

2

One day during the hot noon hours, when Dobbs and Curtin were resting on their cots and complaining of the heat and of the work, Howard, sitting on a box cutting spikes for some new invention of his, watched his two partners rolling about on their cots. “Hell and devil!” he said. “I often ask myself what you two thought it means—digging for the metal. You must have figured you just walk along and if you come near those old hills yonder, you just pick up the gold that lies around like lost grain on a wheat-field after the harvest. You put it into sacks taken along for that purpose, carry it to town, sell it, and there is another millionaire ready for the movies. You ought to know that if you could find the stuff so easily and get it home like a truckload of timber on a paved highway, it wouldn’t be worth any more than plain sand.”

Dobbs was turning on his cot. “All right, all right, you win. It’s hard, very hard. But what I mean to say is, I think there must be spots in the world where it is found richer and still richer, where it would not be necessary to slave like the devil to get it.”

“Such spots do exist,” the old man affirmed. “I’ve seen places where you could cut it out from the veins with your pocketknife. And I’ve seen places, too, where you could pick up the nuggets like nuts under a walnut-tree in the fall. I’ve seen fellows making thirty, forty, sixty ounces a day; and I’ve seen, at exactly the same place and only a week afterwards, fellows getting mad over not finding even a grain. There is something strange about the metal. The surest way to make a good day’s pay is what we do here; that is, wash dirt which carries a certain percentage of the real stuff. That usually lasts for quite some time. I mean it won’t give out so soon and leaves you at the end a fairly good earning. On the other hand, take these rich veins with nuggets lying about. They sure make the first guy that steps upon it rich, and in a short time, but even that is very rare. All those who come later are losers. And what I tell you is based on more than forty years of experience.”

“Well, I should say it’s a rather slow way of getting rich.”

“Right you are, Curty, it’s a slow way. If you can stick it for five years, you may get in the neighborhood of a hundred grand. But I haven’t yet seen a guy who could hold on for five years. Main trouble is the field runs out sooner than one usually expects. So there’s nothing left but to go out again and try to find a virgin field. This way it goes. You may have made ten thousand in one spot. You can’t be satisfied with it, you believe in your good luck, and you go out again and again until the last nickel of the ten thousand is spent just trying to find another lode somewhere in the world.”

3

The outlook was anything but rosy. Dobbs and Curtin could see that. Suppose that after half a year they should have made a pile, it would have been harder earned than money made in a contract With Pat.

Blisters on their hands came and went, came again and dried up again. Washing and rinsing, catching the sand up, and washing it over and over again, this alone would have been work enough. But before it could he washed, it had to be dug out. This could not be done as in a sand mine. The ground was rocky. Shrubs held on in the soil so that the rock had to be broken to lay open the earth. Rocks had to be crushed into washable sand. Water had to be hauled and still more water, especially on very hot days, when it evaporated rapidly.

There was no Sunday—no day for rest. Their backs ached so much that after a day’s work they could not stand, nor sit, nor lie down comfortably. They could hardly straighten their fingers, they had become so stiff and knotty. Neither did they shave nor take time to cut their hair. They were too tired for such doings, and, still worse, they had become utterly indifferent to their appearance. If their shirts or pants were torn or ripped, they never mended them more than was absolutely necessary to hold them together.

If for some reason one or the other had a few hours to spare, he could not make use of them for his own personal good. He had to go hunting to get a wild turkey or an antelope; or explore the surroundings to find better pastures for the burros; or go to the nearest Indian village down in the valley to buy eggs, lard, salt, corn, coffee, tobacco, brown sugar. Flour, bacon, baking powder, white sugar, good soap, canned milk, tea, and such luxuries could be had only if one made a whole day’s trip to a little town far down the western slope of the Sierra. Even there these things were seldom to be had. There were no buyers for such rarities, so the grocers only occasionally carried them. If the fellow that went to get provisions brought back with him a bottle of tequila or habanero, this meant a banquet in the camp and a great day in their dreary life.

Occasionally the question was brought up as to legalizing their claim and obtaining the license necessary to mine here. It did not cost a fortune, but the government was very particular about this permit and stood ready to collect its legal share of the profits.

It was not because the fellows wanted to cheat the government of its taxes that they were reluctant to have the claim registered. Many other considerations caused them to avoid letting the government know what was going on.

The government as such was honest and trustworthy in every respect. But who could guarantee the honesty of the petty officials, of the chief of police in the nearest town, of the little mayor of the nearest village, of the general of the nearest military post? Who was to vouch for the character of the clerk in the government’s office?

On filing the claim with the authorities the exact location of the field had to be given. The three men were of little consequence; even the American ambassador could give little protection should it happen that they got into trouble. It happened in this country that chiefs of police, mayors of towns, congressmen, and even generals were implicated in cases of kidnapping for ransom and in open banditry. The government, both state and federal, could at any time confiscate not only the whole field but every ounce of gold the men had mined with so much labor and pain. While the three miners were at work they would be well guarded. Only when on their way back with their hard-earned loads would they be waylaid or highjacked by a party of fake bandits acting under orders from someone who was paid by the people to protect the country from bandits. Things like that have happened even in the country to the north; why not here? It is the influence of the atmosphere of the continent.

The three partners knew both sides, and knew them well. Now their battle was only with nature. Once they had their claim registered, there was every possibility of facing a long fight with more dangerous foes. Apart from the taxes paid to the government, they might have to pay all sorts of racketeers, or, as they called them here, coyotes, and so reach port again with but a small percentage of their profit left in their pockets.