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Brokeback Foothill
by John Duncklee
Historians, writers of the West, and Earpophyles are dashing about in various states of quandary,
amazement, and downright denial. It is all about a bundle of love letters found in an old, time-hardened
leather saddle bag, discovered in one of the myriad mine shafts in Tombstone, "The Town Too Tough to Die."
The question now posed is "Was Tombstone really tough?" Another perplexing question that through the years
plagued the minds of Earpophyles is "Why did Wyatt Earp go to San Francisco when he left Tombstone?" The
letters first surfaced in 1981 and have passed through a succession of owners since that time. They may hold answers to these mysteries.
The current owner of the bundle of love letters, Bowick Treyer, refuses to reveal where he keeps them
for fear that local loyal Earpophyles might try to take possession of the letters to destroy the
valid evidence that the famous gunfighters, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were, in fact, lovers when they
both lived in Tombstone. Many would question the social lives of the famous marshal and the gunfighter dentist,
both of whom have soared to hero reputations, in spite of their roles as murderers in the now famous
"Shoot-out at the OK Corral" in Tombstone.
In some of the letters, Earp and Holliday sounded worried that after Ike Clanton found them
in a rather compromising situation in Big Nose Kate's parlor, news of their sexual preferences would get around
town. Wyatt worried that he might lose his job as marshal and Doc didn't want his reputation as a fast-draw
gunfighter diminished in any way. In several letters the two exchanged ideas about a resolution to their
dilemma. They finally concluded that a forced shoot-out would be the safest remedy because Wyatt and Doc
were confident that they were faster with guns than any of the Clantons or McLowrys.
Threats lashed out against Earp from the Clantons and McLowrys who refused to honor the Tombstone law banning firearms
within the town limits. On October 26, 1881, Wyatt summoned his brothers and Doc. They walked four abreast down
Fremont Street toward the OK Corral. John Clum, editor of the Tombstone Epitaph described the gunfight. In essence,
the Earps won . . . the Clantons lost. Wyatt and
Doc must have sighed in relief that their secret would not be revealed to the townsfolk to ruin their reputations
as hard-core gunfighters.
Shortly after the "only noteworthy event that ever happened in Tombstone" Wyatt tired of Doc's tubercular cough and
Doc tired of Tombstone. Wyatt went to California and Doc sought peace in Colorado.
The will of Bowick Treyor made no mention of the location of the love letters between Marshal Wyatt Earp and John Henry "Doc" Holliday.
The End
The Dead-Line
by Dave Hoing
Tom Beecher was just a boy from Tennessee who fought for the Union Army. In August of '64 he decided to go home
to his sweetheart, but soon as he hopped the Dead-Line fence, a Reb sentry put a musket ball in him.
The fence wasn't even waist high, narrow planks nailed end-to-end on posts that circled the camp inside
the stockade wall. Tom staggered, then fell back over it onto the prisoner side.
Our regiment's sergeant had no doctor schooling, but what he did have was a knack for setting bones and
binding up wounds. Me and him rushed to the fence. Tom was breathing in gasps and hiccups. Sarge rolled
him on his stomach to have a look. When he saw that the ball had gone in the ribs and out the spine, he
just shook his head.
Tom had shit himself something awful. Wasn't his fault. "Can't feel nothing down there," he said, his
accent Southern even if his heart wasn't. His nostrils flared. "That me?"
The whole camp smelled like that, so what was one more stink?
"Why'd you do it?" Sarge asked. "You know what happens we cross that line."
"In my pocket," Tom said.
The Rebs stole our money after Chattanooga—Union greenbacks was worth ten times theirs—but they let us keep
most our personal things. Sarge reached under Tom and pulled out a watch with a tintype of his gal inside.
She might've had the blessed soul of an angel, but Lord, that girl was plainer than a wood stump. Tom was
no particular friend of mine, which I figure was why he never showed me her picture before.
"She's pretty," I said. Sarge handed me the watch, then plugged up Tom's wounds with strips he tore off his own shirt.
"No she ain't," Tom said, and his breath bubbled in his chest. "But she's the light of this world."
Then he left this world for the next.
Sarge turned Tom on his back and palmed his eyelids shut. The sun was just rising, but already the Georgia
air was hot and wet as a swamp. Sarge squinted up at the pigeon roost. "Bastard," he yelled, though he'd
been fighting too long for real anger anymore.
"Mind your tongue, sir," the sentry shot back. "Want someone to blame, blame him. Anybody else runs, I'll
give him the same. Now, throw him over. Wagon'll be along directly."
The boy talked tough, but his voice was shaky. Must be new to the war. He stood at his station and lifted
his eyes to the sky.
* * *
Back in January, when we heard we was being transferred from Danville down to Georgia, we was happier than swine
in corn. It was so cold in Virginia that the Jim River had froze solid, and anyway, we was plenty sick of eating
wharf rat soup. Georgia was farther away from our homes, but being deep South, it wasn't so prone to villainous
winters. The camp was big, they told us, with beautiful forest all round, wooden shacks for us to live in, and
three squares a day.
I remember me and Tom riding down in the same car. We sure was pleased to be out of that cramped train and into
the fresh warm air. But one look at the camp and Tom said, "Christ almighty, can this be hell?"
The forest was pretty, all right, but for the rest . . . .
The prisoners was covered head to toe in all manner of filth, more skeleton than flesh. They had scurvy and the
bloody flux and God only knows what other infirmities, forty-five thousand souls stuffed onto twenty-six acres.
Wasn't no shacks, and not enough tents for a tenth of them. Those fevered boys had dug holes in the ground to
get out of the sun. Nothing they could do 'bout rain but take it as it came. The stream they used for drinking,
bathing, and relieving themselves was a sludgy ribbon of sewage and flies. For food they was given a brick of
johnnycake a day and scraps of salted pork twice a week, only the South was short of salt, so they tried preserving
with ashes, leaving more maggot than meat.
The Rebs took a roll call of us Illinois men, then herded us into the stockade. The commandant, Captain Wirz, was
surely the meanest scoundrel to ever walk the earth. He warned us right off about the Dead-Line. Since then I
personally seen some twenty Yanks shot down making a run for it.
Wirz wouldn't let us bury our dead, or even hold services. Soon as someone passed, we was to push him across the
Dead-Line. A wagon clattered by every morning to collect the bodies. They was then taken to a field and thrown
in a hole like common beasts. There wasn't room for the living, never mind the dead, but goddammit, we wasn't
beasts. People deserve Christian respect without regard to the color of their coats.
Me and Sarge rolled Tom under the fence. Seeing his face in the sun, all handsome and dead, I thought about the
news his sweetheart was gonna get. That poor gal had waited all this time, loving her Tom, hopeful, scared,
heartsick with not knowing. Then one day a letter would come. First she'd think it was from him, and when it
wasn't, I could almost see her sink down onto her Daddy's porch and look out at the hills and the crops and maybe
a little barn, all the things she and Tom might've had themselves, and now wouldn't.
Made me want to jump the fence myself, climb the pigeon roost and teach that sentry what killing meant. But there'd
be no sense in that. Plenty of Reb gals had sat down on their porches, too. Sarge touched my shoulder and said, "Come on."
I hummed a hymn for Tom. A quarter hour later the wagon took him away and dropped him in the hole.
The End
The New Balkan Empire
by Tom Sheehan
The show-down came in the middle of Cross Corners, a small town that no longer exists
in Texas, and a stray bullet from that face-off hit a lamp hanging lit in the livery.
Then wind whipped the resulting fire into a frenzy, coming in the open front door and
out the back door, while the small gathering of townsmen and ranchers were watching
Jerry Zambaza and Gus Luongon staring down each other. Zambaza had been ranching here
for 25 years, from a country in far Europe. Luongon was the shiftless son of a friend.
The fire, with so much wind behind it, had too much headway to be beaten down before it
consumed half a dozen buildings.
And Zambaza's opponent went down in a heap, having no idea the little man could be so
quick pulling his weapon, and never realizing how good a shot he was. Zambaza had said,
just before Luongon drew his weapon, "I told you once, Gus, never to cross me again,
never to bother my family or my cows. You know nobody does my dirty work for me and this
is going to be dirty work."
Later, in the saloon at Corpus, a dozen miles up the edge of the river, Zambaza told his
story again, as if it belonged with any death he celebrated, for he saw to it that Gus
Luongon was properly buried, if only on the side of a hill while part of Cross Corners
still smoldered. It was a continuation of the burial ritual, that talk, somehow connected
with the death of a man, a salute regardless of the dead man's ways in
life. Nothing is quicker, Zambaza believed, and more final, than the journey to the afterworld. One minute
he's on his horse; the next he's in the ground. It is good to carry death past the grave,
for the earth holds without failure someone's son, father, sister, friend or foe.
"He came after me one time too many," Zambaza said. "First it was my daughter he tried
to squeeze some land from, and then he tried to steal more cows. He'd done it before, I am
sure. Tracks never lie to me. He thought I would not miss a few cows, but he was wrong. I
would give them to a hungry Indian rather than let him have them without my say-so. I can
declare with all honesty that he was not a worthy man and brought shame on his whole family.
His father, an honorable man, would have understood what I say."
He tipped his glass, "To my friend, Alfonso Luongon, who deserved a hell of a lot more than he
got from that son of his." He stared into the distance as if he was out on the prairie checking the horizon.
Those around him knew he was thinking about his lost son, now gone for too many years for them to count.
Only the grieving father knew how long it had been since his son had been dragged into the army.
There was silence in the room; folk listened when Zambaza talked, which was never out of
the corner of his mouth, or with twisted lips, or with a tongue that turned two which ways at
once. He had started from scratch and built a new empire. His mark was made, though
he never paused to realize it, or relish what he had done, for there was more to do.
"I came on a boat with 342 poor souls, the dregs of Europe and Asia, clutching their
sweetest dreams. We buried many of them at sea, with those very dreams. "The lost souls of
the deep" I have always called them. 342 got on the boat in Greece, at the port of Corfu, at
midnight, as if we were prisoners setting out on an endless journey. I had come overland from
my old home in a trek that took me five months, down long rivers, over mountains, across crude
straits of the sea sneaking in behind parts of Greece. On the way I fought bandits and robbers
and thieves of every sort. I learned in five months what it takes some men out here in the West
many years to learn, and they lose a lot while they learn."
He paused on that assessment, and then said, "I could not afford to lose anything I carried.
Even on the ship heading for promise and freedom, it was every man for himself. Thieves abounded
there too, in the crew and in the passengers. I saw two of them thrown over the side of the ship
in the middle of the ocean by men who believed in each other, who had their own wars. The hungriest
thief was thrown over the side even before we got past the big rock of Gibraltar. He had tried to
steal a family heirloom from the time of Charlemagne. We knew we had to protect each family, and
what each family had; we had nothing else but hope and dreams. There was no sheriff to do justice
for us, so justice we did. 246 of us got off the ship in New York. I heard the captain say he only
had food for half of us, as if he knew so many of us would die on the passage. He counted on
it. I swear I was hungry for more than half the trip."
"From New York it took me two years to get here, where I dug my first post hole. I came alone, all
the way. My people back home waited for me. I got my first cow and my first bull, and added more,
always adding, no matter what it took. It took me ten years to send for my family: my wife, my twins,
a daughter and a son. Three out of five made it here."
He stopped talking, looked distantly out over the sea of grass. "One son is missing. I am still waiting
for him and I am not done digging post holes yet." Jerry Zambaza was about to crack the whip again, on himself.
It was another empire, his Balkans spread, 80,000 acres and growing on top of Mexico like a
malignant mole on the wild perimeter. It began innocently enough in 1856. A newcomer, speaking poor
English and poorer Mexican-Spanish, came into the territory and began to scratch out a living. In 25 years,
his land extended beyond the flat horizon of the plains, and he thought of it as his
empire. Those he traded with, who were aware that something rare ran inside the man like the bloodlines
in a good horse, paid attention to him, yet did not seem aware of his dreams and his intentions. His
eyes were on a larger target; he wanted a new nation unto himself and he would call it The New Balkans.
He had not come this far for nothing.
His name was Jerlid Zambaza and the Indians he traded with early in the game gave him a new name, as
Indians always have a way of short-cutting names on the way to the true name, so Jerlid Zambaza became
Jer-ry. Jerry he was from then on in the New Balkans Empire. The Mexicans, who often came over the river
to trade, also adapted to the name, to the goods he moved to them through his empire, to his stance when
the undersized man stood tallest in any fight with any adversary who questioned his family, his markers,
his land, his dealings. The Comanches, Jumanos, Conchos, Lipan-Apaches, Coahuilticans and other tribes
who passed through west Texas and who saw advantages in good dealings, knew Jer-ry as a totem of fair trade.
Many people realized he brought ingenuity with him, quick response to troubles, keen reading of his opponents, and
belief in a free society, as long as he could move within its promise. And his word was better than a
handshake . . . until he was cut of his gain. He had little room for loss, and they all knew it.
"Listen, sheriff," he said once when some of his cattle were being rustled, "I don't like to hang any man, it
lacks dignity, but if any man takes one of my cows, I will have him hanging from a stout limb for a week before
I see him buried. You tell that to those who practice such deeds, any man who abides within your jail at this time,
any men you manage to place behind bars, that the Balkans is not the place to stake a claim to anything at all. Not
my cows, not my daughter, not my land."
In this latest action with Luongon he had come upon fifty or so of his cattle held in a make-shift corral in a cloistered
canyon. The boy on guard, barely fourteen, felt the round hit between his feet as dirt and rock were thrown
up at him. "Who was the other rider with you?" Zambaza said, as he rode up and aimed the rifle again at the boy's feet.
"The next shot is for you who stands guard on my cattle with my brand. You are small potatoes in this. I want the one
who left here an hour or so ago from what I see of his tracks. Who?"
The rifle was at the boy's midsection. "His name. Last time."
"Gus Luongon. He's gone to Cross Corners to find where the other man's herd is so he can dump them off. He said I get a
month's pay for helping him add them to the other herd."
"He have more of my cows corralled somewhere?"
"Has another hundred or more in a canyon farther up the river. That's what he told me, but I haven't seen any of them."
"What's your name?"
"Luke Hightower, from Pembert."
"Well, you get riding, Luke. I catch you again on my land I'll have you strung up. You tell your daddy what I said.
Your daddy around?"
"Yes sir, but sickly. Fell off his horse. Can't ride no more."
"Gus say who that other man is, running that other herd?"
"No, but says he's his pard."
"Go, Luke, before I change my mind."
Zambaza watched as the boy rode off. He hoped he would never see him again, and thought once more of his lost
son on the other side of the world. It was sad what he faced every day, he realized, but he also had to make
amends for another transgression. If he did not take care of things properly, as he had always done, it all
would be lost; he'd have nothing for his lost son if he ever showed up. It had been that way on the ship so
long ago, and was still that way. A man had to care for what was his and look over it, from a pocket watch
to a whole empire; there was no other way of doing business.
That, in short order, brought him to Cross Corners and the showdown.
From the street he called out, "Come out here, Gus Luongon. I just sent home the boy you left minding the cows you rustled from me."
Luongon stepped out the door of the saloon to see the little Balkans rancher standing in the middle of the road, obviously
a bit slower at everything at half a century of age, twice his own years.
"You're an old man, Zambaza. Don't push nothin' on me that ain't mine. You got no proof of anythin' "
"This much I'll tell you. The Hightower boy is gone. My hands have gone after the cows you have hidden up the river, and then
they'll go after that other herd and your partner. That'll wrap it all up in one saddle bag, and no sheriff and no man will
stand against me. You have that chance right now. Once I threw a thief over the side of a ship in the middle of the ocean.
He was a thief of the worst sort. I'm not afraid of putting you in the same place, down and gone. I won't hesitate
a minute, even if your father was a dear friend of mine, one who died long before his time. He'd be ashamed of you, a common
rustler, plain and simple. I told you once, Gus, never to cross me again, never to bother my family or my cows. You
know nobody does my dirty work for me and this is going to be dirty work."
Shame and anger flooded Luongon as he went for his gun. He envisioned the end of everything just before it came.
And the emperor of the new Balkan Empire saw once more a familiar military-like figure, on a tall horse, galloping up to his front
door, a known waving in his arms, a known look on his face that years upon years could never erase.
He didn't know if it was another one of his dreams or his hopes or his own good wishes, but he knew he could not live without them,
though he had been 25 years living without his son. He remembered he had seen him that other time, on the ship heading away from
Greece, coming at him off the horizon in a small boat, trying to catch up to him, waving at him, smiling his surprise.
The End
Stoddard’s Gold, Part 1 of 3
by John Putnam
An old, all too familiar voice haranguing a small knot of drunken miners outside a riverside grog shop caught my ear as I hurried back to my home. I'd long thought him dead, and he looked near to it, beard wild and gray, eyes sunk deep inside a face with cheeks as bilious as any corpse. Busy men rushed past him without a glance but I stopped, just as I had three years ago. Today, here at the junction of the Yuba and Feather Rivers, Marysville had boomed as a supply center for the gold mines upstream, and I'd become an important part of that growth, all because of Stoddard.
After mining along the American River near Greenwood Creek that first winter, and doing quite well until our claim finally played out, Anderson and I had opted to move north in hopes of finding an even more productive spot. We'd heard rumors of big strikes near the Yuba River; so in late May we'd arrived in Nevada City, just another gold boom mushroom town called Deer Creek Diggings in those days. I'd left Caldwell's Store heading for the Bella Union where a French lady was supposedly dealing twenty-one when I first saw him. He stood out front, a smattering of drunken miners around him much like today, except back then Stoddard had fire in his eyes, grit in his voice, and one of the biggest nuggets I'd ever seen in his hand.
"My name's Stoddard and this is what I found. Look at it," he cried, shaking the gold high overhead. "It's big and coarse, not smooth and small like the gold you mine downstream. Most men think that means it comes from closer to the source, closer to the mother lode. There's a lake full of nuggets just like this one high up in the mountains and who knows what else is there, but I need help to get it out. Injuns jumped us just after we found these nuggets. We were forced to run for our lives and I haven't seen my partner since. I think they might've killed him. I need twenty-five good men who can shoot straight and aren't afraid of a scrap. Who here is ready to go? Step up."
"I'll go." It was Anderson, my close companion for the past year. He took a step forward into the circle of men then noticed me. "Come on Micah," he pled. "This is just what we're looking for, our big chance to make enough to get a good start in life."
"But it sounds so risky," I replied, my mind stuck on Stoddard's dead partner.
"Yeah, but is it any more risky than the dangerous trip we made together last summer, all the way from St. Joseph across plains, mountains and deserts just to get here?" he pointed out with a bit of heat in his normally well tempered voice.
"We didn't have a shooting fight with Indians then," I replied with my own fire.
Stoddard stepped right into our little dust up. "It ain't for sure we'll have a set-to with Injuns. The ones I saw could've been a hunting party. They weren't likely to live near the lake so I reckon they're long gone from there, but it's always best to be safe."
Anderson grinned at me. "See Micah, its not so scary now is it?" he said in that cocky way he had.
I shrugged, knowing Anderson had won me over again, but still unsure of the size of the mess I was about to walk into. "Okay, I'll go, but only because you talked me into it," I countered; remembering the many things Anderson had convinced me to do since we'd been together. He'd been right more often than not.
As the other men moseyed off—either they already had a good paying claim or were far wiser than I—Stoddard stuck his nugget back into a leather bag. "Come inside," he offered. "Let's have a drink and I'll give you the details. We leave in two days."
Inside the saloon I saw her at once, sitting near the back playing cards with eight or nine miners. She was lovely, and the first woman I'd seen in months. I barely listened to Stoddard as he recited chapter and verse the details of our trip. When he was done I found a seat at her table. I lost a hundred dollars that night. Folks might think that a lot but I never minded one bit. Here men often lost ten times that at the turn of a card. And even though she barely spoke to me, just being around a woman was worth every cent.
The next two days were busy. On Saturday Anderson went with me to buy two stout mules with packsaddles from a man on Brushy Creek to add to the two we'd come here with. We spent the rest of the day getting four months worth of food and our mining gear ready to go. Then on Sunday, while Anderson helped Stoddard recruit more men for our daring adventure, I rode to Selby Flat where I'd heard of a man willing to sell a new Colt revolver at a reasonable price. The idea of a fracas with a party of wild Indians still had me inordinately disconcerted and the pistol was a big step up from my one shot rifle.
And in spite of a planned early start in the morning, I couldn't resist the urge to see Madame Reynard one last time before we left for Stoddard's mysterious lake. Like before she looked as winsome as anyone I'd ever seen, her face flush and full with lips red like a ripe cherry, and her hair, soft and buff as a young spring fawn, draped about her slender neck in tight coils. I sat across the table from her and quickly lost fifty dollars while beguiled by the sparkle of the lamplight reflected in her deep blue eyes.
Then she stood and, looking directly at me, said in her thickly accented English, "It is hot here. I need air," and calmly sauntered across the room with every man's gaze following her, leaving me feeling uncomfortable, unsure if there was some special meaning in her look.
It seemed impossible that a woman so pleasing could have any particular regard for me, but without her here I also had no interest in gambling and, with a long, hard day likely in store for me tomorrow, I knew it was best to return to camp. I gathered the remnants of my funds and walked outside into the night. Once there I looked around for the Madame but since I didn't see her anywhere I went on to my horse.
"You are going with Monsieur Stoddard tomorrow, oui?"
It was her. I spun to the sound of the voice just as she stepped from the shadows, a look on her face that I could interpret in no other way than concern, but concern for what, for who? "Yes, how did you know?" I replied, honestly at a loss.
"One hears things in the Bella Union, mon ami. But you must be careful. There is a man, Monsieur Raush, who has pledged to follow you and take your gold for himself."
"Raush," I exclaimed. "I've never heard of him."
She stepped closer and I felt her hand on my arm. "He is a very big man and a very bad man, très mal. He has many others with him. He will kill you all if he must," she whispered, her mouth close to my face.
Once again my poor mind couldn't grasp the right words, but without a warning she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me quickly full on the mouth. "Be careful, Micah Poole," she breathed as she pulled away. "Find your gold then look for me when you return, s'il vous plaît." With that she disappeared into the darkness, leaving me still bewildered and unable to believe what had just happened.
Riding back to our camp along Deer Creek on that warm, moonlit night, my blood turned chill more than once at an unexplained sound from the woods, or a shadow that loomed threateningly over the trail. Madame Reynard had left me perplexed and ill at ease in no small way with her tale of Raush and his threats to kill us all for the gold that Stoddard would lead us to. But even more unsettling was why she'd done it, and the taste of her lips that lingered still on mine.
Her soft voice flowed again through my clouded mind. "Be careful, Micah Poole," she'd said, but I'd hardly spoken twenty words to her. How did she know my name? Few people here did. And then I'd let her run away without even asking her full name in return. Whatever caused such a lapse in my well-learned manners was beyond my reasoning at the moment.
"Look for me when you return," she'd said next. No matter which way I turned the words over in my head it all came out the same. She cared about me somehow. Why I couldn't fathom but the kiss seemed the proof of the pudding. Women don't do things like that for no reason, or are such things different in France? I had no idea. The only girl I'd ever kissed was Betsy Pike and that only one short buss before I left for California.
Then there were the Indians who'd probably killed Stoddard's partner. Maybe it was a hunting party that they'd happened to stumble across, but that was no guarantee that we wouldn't run afoul of another group along our way. Nearly every week on the trail to California there came a rumor of Indians killing white men, but I had personally seen no sign of any serious trouble. Still, deadly incidents happened, and all too often.
I knew little of Indians, and that mostly from the wild tales told on the trip west. We'd seen Pawnee riding in the distance as we crossed the prairie to Fort Kearny. Soon after fording the South Platte a whole party of Sioux, men, women and children, passed right in front of us. And near Fort Bridger Shoshone came into our camp wanting to trade. They were a pathetic, lice infested lot but seemed harmless enough.
I tied Buddy, my young chestnut, to a long tether in the grassy meadow behind our camp, then pulled out the new Colt revolver from my saddlebags and stuck it into my waistband. I was a fair shot with a rifle, but had had little use for a handgun on my family's farm in Kentucky. Yet knowing I had a new repeating pistol so close at hand gave me some small comfort against the host of demons so recently rising around me.
The fire burned low in our camp and I was disappointed to find Anderson tucked into his bedroll. I'd thought of nothing better than to talk with him about the events of tonight. Ten years my senior and married to a woman in Pennsylvania that he adored and spoke of constantly, I hoped he would have some soothing words for my troubled spirit. But not wishing to disturb my only true friend in California, I pulled off my boots, and crawled under my blanket as quietly as I could, making sure the Colt would be easy for me to get to, just in case.
Then Anderson rose on his elbow. "You've been at the Bella Union with Michelle Reynard again, haven't you?" he asked with a chuckle to his voice.
"Yes, I—"
"How much did you lose this time?" he demanded, still with a smile to his tone.
"Not so much," I mumbled, "but how do you know her first name?" I inquired with a lot more mettle, knowing Anderson to be dead set against gambling. He hoarded every ounce of gold he found and sent most of his money home to his wife.
"She asked about you today, while you were at Selby Flat. I think she's sweet on you, Micah."
I could tell from his manner he was teasing me about her now, and enjoying himself a great deal at my expense, but I needed some answers. "She warned me about a man named Raush who plans to follow us and take the gold we find at Stoddard's lake. Out of the blue she kissed me and afterwards told me to look for her when I get back. Then she ran off into the shadows." I said, all the while wondering if I would ever make it back here from wherever it was we were going.
"She kissed you, did she? I was right. She has set her cap for you, you Romeo," he laughed openly, enjoying his joke.
"I'm no Romeo!" I retorted, only knowing the meaning of the word because he'd used it to tease me about Betsy Pike when I'd told him about her one night along the trail. "But what about Raush," I asked. "He could be more dangerous than the Indians."
Anderson turned serious. "He could be. I saw him today too. He made quite a rhubarb when Stoddard told him we had as many men as we needed, threatened to follow us, and, yeah, even kill us if he didn't get his way. But he was drinking heavy. The truth is we'll likely slip out tomorrow before he sobers up. I'd worry more about the Indians than Raush."
"Well, if you say so," I muttered, unconvinced.
"You bet I say so. And when we get back here this fall, pack mules loaded with nuggets like the ones Stoddard has in his poke, you find that French gal and marry her. She's a catch. Her husband got killed a while back by a road agent who stole his gold. It left that lady in a whale of a pickle but she's done right well for herself it seems."
In spite of his teasing, Anderson's reaction to Madame Reynard and his suggestion that I marry her after we return from out trip did ease my mind a good deal, although the idea of wedding a woman I'd just met seemed too far fetched for my taste. Yet I knew that if I lived long enough I had to see her again, no matter what I had to do to find her. But it was the living long enough part that sat hard in my gut, twisting my insides into tight knots. The dual threat of unknown Indians and the all too real Raush wore deep across the grain of my better judgment.
"I still think this trip is risky, Anderson. First it was just Indians. Now there's Raush. Maybe we'd be best to stay here. Men are finding gold everywhere. Just tonight I heard more than a little talk about big finds on Rock Creek. Let Stoddard have his lake full of nuggets. Let Raush go with him," I implored.
"Micah, if you want to stay here and woo the French lady then you go right ahead. Lord knows you're at that age when a woman tends to settle heavy on a man's mind, and I'll grant there's a wagon load of danger in Stoddard's plan, but a man has to take some risks in life if he's going to make something special for himself. This is one of those things that could pay off beyond anything we've ever imagined. Now, you're as level headed as any young man I've ever met, and you've grown as close to me as a brother, but you need to make your own decision about going."
As was his habit, Anderson had hit the core of my dilemma dead on, and moreover he'd trusted me to decide for myself, like he usually did. He was more a brother to me than my own flesh and blood who had never treated me with the respect Anderson does. I'm the youngest and Jacob is about Anderson's age. After our Pa died he'd run the farm with an iron fist, never once leaving me any say in what happened there, and because of his bullheadedness I'd left for California without his blessing. But I couldn't imagine parting with Anderson just yet, not after all we'd been through together.
"I feel the same about you, Anderson, and I can think of nothing I'd like less than our splitting up." I said without reservation. "But this venture with Stoddard has me as skittish as a raccoon that my old blue tick hound, Babe, ran up the elm tree beside our house, and it isn't just the Indians and Raush, it's Stoddard. I mean, what do we really know about him? Is he telling the truth? He could have gotten those nuggets anywhere."
"It's a good point, Micah. I believe his story about finding that gold in the lake," he said. "But in all truth, Raush has been rattling at my predilections more than I wanted to let on to you. I got a sense Stoddard knew him somehow, that there was bad blood between them. But when I asked Stoddard about it he denied knowing the guy. How about we meet up in the morning like we planned. If Raush is there causing trouble we'll back out of this trip. But if everything looks good, then we go. Sound fair to you?"
"Well, I guess I'm willing to go that far anyhow," I agreed, mostly because the idea of saying a final farewell to Anderson right now seemed a whole passel less appealing than the more distant and uncertain danger from Indians or Raush.
"Fine," Anderson declared. "Now let's get some rest. Lord knows we'll need it. Good night." And with that he rolled over and pulled his blanket tight.
"Good night," I echoed and curled up under my own bedroll, but sleep came slow. Yet when it did, in colors more vivid than any provided by nature, I watched an unfolding tableau as my mind dove deep into the many and various plots and ploys a band of angry Indians would use to protect their land. Then the brightness paled, just as colors do after sundown, and I probed the dark shadows of subterfuge and skullduggery that Raush might ply to wrest our hard earned gold from us after we'd beaten back the savage attack of the red men.
All too soon I woke to the sounds of Anderson working over an early morning campfire, coffee brewing over the flame with leftover beans and bacon warming nearby.
"Morning," I said, then flipped back my blanket and sat up.
"Breakfast will be ready in few minutes," he said in the down to earth manner he started each day with.
I picked up my bedroll, and walked to the meadow where I saddled Buddy and loaded the mules. By the time I returned Anderson had a plate of food and a cup of coffee waiting for me. I ate quickly and soon we were riding up to Caldwell's Store. There I counted ten men waiting, none seemed like they might be Raush. But I looked over to Anderson and, understanding my trepidation well, he shook his head no. It was a good sign. Maybe all my fretting had been for nothing.
Stoddard arrived before we'd had a chance to greet the others in the party and with a hard look around he asked, "Any more men coming?" When no one spoke up he added, "Let's go then," and without further ado struck out toward the Yuba River.
Anderson and I waited for everyone else to leave town just in case Raush would show up late, but when he didn't Anderson turned to me. "Do we go?" he asked.
I shrugged, still ill at ease about it all. "I guess so," I said. We had made our deal last night, if Raush wasn't around causing trouble we would go, and I wasn't about to break my word to a friend. "I thought there would be more men here though," I went on.
"It just means more gold for us," Anderson asserted and then led our four mules northward. I followed, head swiveling constantly to the rear, right hand on the handle of my new Colt revolver, nerves ragged. Raush could show up at any time.
Just north of Selby Flat we came to Rock Creek, and though no one was mining where we crossed men were hard at work both upstream and down and the place had all the signs of productive gold country. Again I had to wonder why we were chasing Stoddard's dream of a golden lake when we could find all a man would ever need right here. And yet I'd worked in the gold fields long enough to know how fickle a miners fate can be. One claim along a stream like this can hold pockets worth thousands of dollars while just a few feet away another plot can be close to worthless. Still, the men who worked hard and kept at it almost always made money while those who lazed the day away then gambled late into the night most often didn't.
We came to the South Yuba a little after midday and nooned across the river from a large group mining along Illinois Bar. The break gave me a chance to get acquainted with the men that would be my companions for the near future. There were three eager, friendly brothers fresh down the Siskiyou Trail from Oregon named Carl, Thomas, and the youngest, Zeke, who was about my age. And so too was Lem, who'd mined Deer Creek last winter with his father, Jedidiah, and done pretty well, according to Lem.
Four southerners, Ike, Jake, Luke and Harry, were all business. They called themselves the Natchez Mining Company, and had traveled by steamship to Panama then crossed the jungle before taking another steamer to San Francisco. They'd gotten to the mines early last summer and then worked the rich placers around Hangtown for almost a year. None of these men had gotten wind of Raush's threats and I wondered if there were a dozen more miners somewhere who had heard them and then decided not to show up.
But the most peculiar guy in this whole impromptu expedition looked more like the mountain men around Fort Bridger than any miner in California. He gave his name simply as Bird and carried a rifle with a bore as big any I'd ever seen. He called it a bear gun and that's about all the tight lipped Bird bothered to disclose before he walked off to the riverbank alone.
Stoddard rousted us from our rest much sooner and with a sense of urgency far more pressing than I thought necessary. His face taut, eyes darting repeatedly to our back trail, he badgered men to mount up and cross the river with wild waves of his arms and language strong enough to bring a blush to the cheeks of a lumberjack. But if others in the group felt as I did they hid it well. The Oregon brothers and Lem splashed into the water laughing and joking as if this was a simple summer outing. Bird had already crossed and I caught sight of him through the trees as he climbed the ridge.
I took the mules from Anderson. He'd put up with them all morning and deserved a break. We crossed the South Yuba together then Anderson dropped back behind our mule string much like I had this morning. Wary that Raush would soon show up, I'd kept a close eye to our rear all along the way, and now I noticed Anderson spent as much time looking over his shoulder as I did. He worried about Raush too.
Soon we were enveloped in a deep forest of sugar pine with trunks as a large as twenty-five feet around. I thought of the sawmill not many miles from my home in Kentucky and how just a few of these monstrous trees could keep it in timber for a year. In this one stand of pines alone there must be enough wood to build a thousand towns each a thousand times as big as Nevada City. The wealth of California lay not only in it's gold, it seemed.
One of the new mules we'd picked up Saturday caused me no end of bother and I'd fallen behind the rest of the group. But I had no trouble following their track; eleven horses and twenty-one mules leave a clear trail along the forest floor. Near sundown I came to a small creek running southwest down from the ridge, I stopped to let the animals drink their fill of the cool, clean water. Anderson rode up from behind me.
"Any sign of Raush," I asked as he jumped to the ground and led his pinto to the creek.
"I saw no indication of Raush or anybody else following us," he said and then pointed upstream. "But he sure looks interested in something down our back trail."
I turned to look and there, atop a large rocky prominence above us, sat Bird on his mustang, peering into the valley we'd left just hours earlier.
"Yeah, he seems real engrossed in something," I agreed. "He's a strange one. He's the only man here who only brought one mule, and I'd bet everything we found last winter that he's never washed out a single pan of gold in his whole life."
"If you'd been more interested in what Stoddard said and less in what Madame Reynard looked like that night in the Bella Union you might remember how we were told that Bird was a trapper who worked around here for years and he's supposed to help Stoddard find this lake we're going to," Anderson said in the condescending tone he always used when I'd not been paying attention to business like he thought I should. And he was right.
"Do you think he's looking back at Raush?" I wondered.
"Why don't you ride up and ask him. I'll take care of the mules. They don't seem to cause me as much trouble as they do you anyhow," he said.
"But you had them all morning," I protested, always one to pull my fair share.
"Go on now. We'll both rest easier if you know what's happening down in the valley."
I grinned. "Thanks Anderson," I said sincerely, then hopped on Buddy and sped up the hill. Near the top of the outcrop Bird's mule stood at the forest's edge contentedly chomping at the lush saw grass that grew there. I saw no sign of a pick or shovel handle sticking out anywhere from the pack, it seemed like Bird didn't have any plans to mine.
He sat there on top of his horse as still as the statue in front of our county court house back home. He didn't move a muscle, not even a twitch, as Buddy's iron shoes clattered across the rock to his rear. And when I stopped beside him he didn't turn to me, but instead calmly raised his big bore bear gun to point down the hill to where a thin blue ribbon of the South Yuba slashed across the dark green tops of sugar pine. "That what you come up here to see?" he asked.
Far below, in the middle of the stream, I saw a man on horseback, looking no bigger than an ant, headed this way. And as he passed from view behind the treetops another man, this one leading a mule, rode into the river, and then another, and after him still more until I had counted fifteen men and maybe twice as many mules, and I knew others had crossed before I got here. If it was a mining party it was awfully big and very well supplied. "Is it Raush?" I asked.
"Like as not," Bird said with a voice as smooth as a traveling tent preacher, and completely lacking the faintest tinge of fear.
"How many did you see," I asked as my hand instinctively caressed my Colt.
"Four dozen, maybe more," he said then turned to me. "You scared, boy?"
I looked deep into his cold gray eyes and knew he could read me like a book. "I guess I'm a little on edge," I muttered. It was all I could force myself to admit to.
"If that's Raush you'd damn well better be more than a little on edge. The man's more dangerous than a mad dog," he asserted, still without a hint of fear about him. Then, as he calmly turned and rode away, I broke out in an icy, bone shivering sweat.
End of Part 1
Triangle of Desire
by Connie Vigil Platt
It was time to get ready for her performance. Bianca tied a flame-red scarf around her neck and
arranged her long ebony hair so the bruises wouldn't show. She knew the bright color would distract
from the discoloration on her neck and cheek where Carlos had slapped her for not getting him a
drink fast enough. Never a day passed that Carlos didn't find some reason to strike her. There were
times when he hit her with a closed fist and blacked her eye. This would be the last time that pig
Carlos would mistreat her that way. Today was the day. Today she would ask for more than money to
be thrown in her tambourine. Today she would ask for blood.
She was sure that one of the cowboys drinking in the bar would be happy to defend her if she ever
got up the nerve to ask him. Carlos was fast and deadly with a gun but there were others
just as fast; he could be beaten. There was always someone who would be willing to go up against a
fast gun to build up a reputation. She saw how the men looked at her, with passion, when she
flashed her smile; with pity after they saw the bruises. Someone would be
willing to dance with her as she went through her routine. That was the one she would choose
to defend her. After tonight, Carlos would never abuse another woman.
She could hear a guitar tuning up in the next room; it was time for her to dance. She took a deep
breath; began tapping her feet to the beat of the music, trying to overcome her anger and get
in the mood for the dance she must perform. She picked up the tambourine, her body pulsating with
the rhythm as she moved into the room. She could feel all eyes on her as she dipped and swayed,
her skirts twirling around her shapely legs, light dancing on her earrings, her hair rippling
in ebony waves.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a stranger sitting with his hat tipped back from his wheat-
colored hair, a plate with leftover beans and tortillas pushed aside. A half-full whiskey bottle
sat in front of him, and an empty shot glass. A big six-gun in his holster — it looked as if there were
notches in the butt — and here in dusty jeans was everything she needed. A yellow cur dog sat at
his side, pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, waiting for any scraps that might fall
from the table.
As she made her way across the room she could feel eyes following her movements.
She took all this in as she continued her memorized actions. She motioned for the stranger to get
up and dance with her.
He wobbled slightly when he stood up and she realized he was not only a big man but very drunk. He
towered over her, long legs, broad shoulders and a little clumsy. His tied-down holster rode easy
on his hip in the manner of a gunfighter.
"I am Bianca; will you perform the dance with me?" she asked as she unwrapped the red scarf.
"Sure I will, little lady, but who did that to you?" he asked, tenderly touching the bruises. The
dog stood near his leg.
"Carlos, the one with the mustache that is frowning at you. He doesn't like me to dance with
anyone."
"Are you married to him? Are you his woman?"
"No, I am not his anything. He enjoys abusing anyone that won't stand up to him."
"Why don't you—." At that moment Carlos stood up and in two strides he was next to the
couple, grabbed the cowboy's shoulder, spinning him around.
"Get your hands off my woman!" Carlos said.
"She said she wasn't your woman," the cowboy answered, his hand reaching for his six-shooter.
At the sound of angry voices the dog started to growl.
"Get that mangy mutt away from me!" Carlos shouted.
The drinkers and watchers, including the bartender, moved out of the way of what might become
flying bullets, ducking down behind tables, chairs and the bar.
A gun went off — the sound shattered the quiet of the room. Another gun was fired, the shots
ricocheting off spittoons, mirrors, upright posts and the wall. Afterward no one was sure how
many shots were fired or who had fired the first shot, they only knew that the dog lay still on the
floor with red seeping onto the floorboards.
At the sound of gunfire, the sheriff came hurrying into the room filled with the smell of gunpowder
and the haze of smoke. Looking around he saw Bianca sitting on the floor leaning against an
overturned table, her mouth open in a perfect "O," her white blouse stained with a bubbling pink
flower, crimson dripping down to her skirt. The light glittered on her earrings. The cowboy lay nearby,
face up, with a hole in the middle of his forehead, dark blood spreading and matting the back of his
head. Carlos was the only one still standing.
"What happened here? Anyone know who this is?" the sheriff asked, pointing to the stranger.
Everyone started talking at once. They all had different stories but they all agreed
that Carlos had started the fight.
"Carlos got mad because the stranger was going to dance with Bianca. I don't know why he would
do that. She always gets somebody from the audience up on the floor," the bartender said.
The sheriff escorted Carlos to jail to be locked in a small dank barred room until the
circuit judge arrived to pronounce sentence. There would be plenty of time for Carlos to reflect on
his shameful actions.
No one knew the stranger's name or where he came from. He would have to be buried in an unmarked
grave without his relatives ever knowing what had happened to him.
Carlos stayed in the jail cell for two weeks until the circuit judge made his rounds. The judge
pronounced him guilty of killing the stranger and Bianca, and he was to be hanged by
the neck until dead.
The town folk believed he should be punished for the mutt also but there was no law about killing
a dog.
Feeling no remorse for the evil he had done, Carlos stood at the barred window watching as the
townsmen built the gallows where he would meet his maker. He knew that with each nail pounded, he was one step
closer to hell.
The key made a rasping sound as the sheriff opened the cell door.
"Come on," he said, "it's time."
Carlos paled under his swarthy skin.
His eyes began to water as he walked to the scaffold.
The End
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