Bendigo Shafter (1979) (34 page)

I'm going east, Ethan.

The decision was suddenly made, right then. I suppose it had been in my mind for a while, but now it was out in the open where I could rope and tie the idea and inspect the brand. He chuckled. I figured you'd be doing that. You comin' back?

Of course.

Drake's been hoping you would go. He's worried about Ninon, and he figures you're the man for her. She'll be sixteen or so now, and girls are gettin' married at that age all over the country.

I do want to see her, but I've got nothing, Ethan. Her folks have money.

I ain't worried about you. Neither is Henry Stratton.

Stratton?

He told Drake Morrell he thought you were a coming man. He thinks you should go into politics.

It was a flattering thought, but I was not so sure. Who knew of me outside our little area? And what did I know of politics? Only enough to know there was an art to it for beyond what most men realized. Getting elected was one thing, but putting over a program after you were elected was another ... much more difficult.

Once I'd put my decision into words I knew it was what I must do. Colly Benson was handling the town as well as I could, and it would give me a chance to see Ninon as well as to visit the publishers in the east. The more I thought of it, the more I knew it was what I must do.

When I go, I decided suddenly, I'll take Lorna with me.

Chapter
33

It was a week after the lion jumped me before I was up to riding again, and I saddled up and headed out for the hills, leaving Colly Benson in charge at our town. Ethan was off somewhere, hunting.

The air was crisp and clear. I could hear the ringing of axes where several of the townsmen were cutting firewood. It was cold, but I was dressed for it.

Another Christmas was right close and the folks were decorating trees, rehearsing for the school play, and straightening up for the holidays. Looking back I could see much activity along the streets. Several little settlements had grown up nearby, and there were stories of men washing out twenty-five to thirty dollars a day; nuggets had been found worth over a hundred dollars each.

Spring Gulch, Meadow Gulch, and Yankee Gulch were all being worked. There must have been several hundred people in the area now, but they were scattered, and our town was several miles from the nearest group.

The slope along which I turned was covered with timber, many small trees and a few scattered big ones. Here and there I could see the bare places where porcupines had climbed the trees to eat away the bark. Enough of that would kill the tree.

There was a wariness in me as I rode, for I well remembered Ethan's warning about the Sioux. They were a warrior people, and anyone not of their tribe would be considered a potential enemy. Yet the forest and the mountains were always exciting to me, and I wove a precarious trail through the timber and the great boulders, passing a deserted beaver pond, noting a lion track. I walked my horse across a scarred flank of the mountain where a recent avalanche had torn a gash, fifty yards across.

What trail there may have been was gone, but my horse walked out, choosing his way with care, and we went on across and into the trees once more. Here there was an area of more rain or snow ... all through the mountains there are scattered islands of climate where due to some formation of mountains or canyon, the rainfall is heavier, the growth thicker.

Soon I would reach the area of my gold discovery, so I pulled up under some trees to watch the trail behind. I did not believe I was followed, but it was good to be sure.

It was slow going, for there were many deadfalls from an old blow-down. The tree trunks lay gray and bare; most of them had tost their bark, and they lay about like the scattered bones of some gigantic monster. There was a place among the deadfalls where a small stream trickled down, fell over the end of a log, and into a small basin.

My horse drank, while I let my eyes drift across the steep slopes ... no movement, nothing but a lone eagle, far above. Yet I had learned caution. Nearby I could see where a white-tailed deer had been nibbling pine needles and browsing on some of the brush that appeared above the snow. After a few minutes I let my mustang pick its way down the steep game trail toward the bottom of the canyon.

Deliberately I had taken a wandering route as if merely hunting for game. I did not wish to ride right to the creek where I had found gold. I dismounted among some pines and boulders well up the slope, picketing my horse on a small patch of snow-covered bush.

Rifle in hand I went down the slope, following a route where the wind had blown away the snow. My boots slid in the loose rock, but at the bottom I went into the cedars growing from a red rock cliff. Crouching among them, I waited and watched both up and downstream.

Right below me was the crumbling ledge through which the stream had cut its way and where I believed the gold originated. After a few minutes I went down through the trees to the top of the ledge. Below me the stream was rimmed with ice, and there was a steep slide from the top of the ledge to the stream, some fifteen feet below. Carefully, I descended, using my hands on the rocks, as though going down to the stream for a drink. On the way down I gave all my attention to the rocks, but saw no gold, nor sign of it. At the stream, to complete the illusion for any who might follow my tracks, I crawled out on a rock and drank from the stream.

At the bottom were some fragments that might be gold. Reaching in, I managed to get two of the larger pieces. One, only slightly larger than a pinhead, was undoubtedly gold. The other was larger ... perhaps twice as large.

I was close. I drank again, then turned slowly around and looked carefully along the slope of the mountain. Without a doubt I was on some small stream that flowed into the Popo Agie, an Indian name meaning beginning of the waters.

I was alone.

I went along the ice at the stream's edge until I stood in the gateway of stone through which the stream passed. I crouched to study the rocks; it was ancient quartz, decomposing. I picked up a chunk in my fingers and could rub grains from it. I struck the chunk against the rock wall, and it fell apart.

No gold ... at least none that I could see.

Where I now stood I could be seen only from upstream or down, and due to the twisting canyon the stream had cut, I was visible for no great distance from either direction. I studied the wall with care. Low, down right where the ice formed, was another streamer of quartz that disappeared under the ice.

Not wanting to leave any knife marks, I picked up a large chunk of rock and slammed it on the ice. In a few minutes I had broken down to the water. Running my hand into the water and through the gravel, I scooped it up.

There were three good-sized flakes in my hand along with some fragments of quartz and some sand.

I broke off several fragments from the quartz-vein where it lay under the water and examined them. They were seamed with gold.

I straightened up and dried my freezing hands on my shirt front, then held them under my coat and in my armpits to warm my gold ... possibly just an outcropping, possibly much more.

It was winter, and there was no possibility of working a mine in such a place, nor of watching over it if it became known; yet I wanted the gold, or some of it. Worst of all, I should be returning soon if I intended to, and I had said nothing of the possibility of staying out. Nor had I any kind of tool beyond the hunting knife I habitually carried and the hatchet or tomahawk on my saddle.

A hunting knife was the most useful of articles, and I went nowhere without one, but the hatchet was useful also. As boys we had learned to throw them with the same skill with which some men throw knives. Often, when not wishing to use a gun, I had killed small game with a thrown tomahawk.

Returning to my horse I got my hatchet and went back to the stream. I enlarged the hole in the ice and began breaking off chunks of the quartz at the edge and beneath the water.

It was there, all right.

I'd heard much talk of gold mining, prospecting, and the like. From time to time I had tried my hand, with little to show for it. There was a prevailing notion that the deeper one followed a vein the richer it got, but I well remembered one old timer who claimed that a vein tended to peter out as it went deeper, that the richest ore was apt to be nearer the surface.

I had no idea which was true, but I guessed that if I'd found even these few colors downstream of this area, the deeper sands downstream must be loaded. When spring came I'd go down to bedrock on the nearest sandbar.

For more than an hour I worked steadily, trying to make no more noise than essential, prying away at cracks to break off chunks, and getting out the best stuff-jewelry rock, as the miners called it. Finally, when the shadows started to lengthen I carefully swept all the dust and debris into the hole in the ice and pushed a nearby chunk of driftwood over the hole. By morning it would be frozen solid once again.

My horse was more than willing to leave, so sacking up my stuff in an old blanket, I started back along the mountain. Several times I turned to look back. It was beginning to snow. With luck even my tracks would be covered before daylight.

It was a long, cold ride back, and midnight was near before I rode up to the blacksmith shop. I carried my sack inside, then went to put up my horse.

Cain came from the house. Ruth is over, he said. We were getting worried.

Don't go in yet, Cain. We've some talking to do.

When the mustang was rubbed down and fed, I went back to the blacksmith shop. Reaching into the sack I took out a chunk of the ore. It was seamed with gold. I'd knocked away as much excess as I could, and the stuff looked great

Is there much of it?

I shrugged. Cain, I don't know. My guess would be that there is, but it might peter out in just a few feet. The gold that's been broken off over the years and washed downstream should be something, though, and there's probably several good bars right below. I'm no judge but my guess is that I've nearly a hundred dollars right here.

Well bust it up and melt it down, Cain said. You've a good day's work, I'll say that.

We put the stuff in an old canvas sack where Cain usually carried odd bits of iron, and we hid it under some bits of planking, old rope, and odds and ends of harness.

Ruth and Bud were still up when we came back in. Drake was also there, and we sat down to an excellent meal. I was hungry and tired yet excited about my discovery. I'd never been one to place much emphasis on wealth. I wanted the respect of my fellow man and a chance to live my life, to think, to ride the high country. Are you going east, Bendigo? Ruth asked.

I am. I shall ride east and take the steam cars to Omaha, then to Chicago and New York.

Not to New Orleans?

I got a little red around the ears. Maybe. But she's forgotten all about me. Besides, what use would she have for a wild country man like me?

Ruth smiled. You haven't looked into a mirror lately, Bendigo. You're a handsome man.

Well, I felt red and uncomfortable. I wasn't used to compliments and never knew what to say or how to react.

By the way, Ben, Drake said, there's a new magazine starting out on the coast. The Overland Monthly. A man named Bret Harte is editing it. Why don't you send him something? From what I've heard he is interested in everything western, and he might use something of yours.

Thanks, I'll try him.

We were just talking, Ben, Helen said. Ruth thinks this will be the last year for wagon trains.

There was a man stopped in at the post who had been working on the railroad, the Central Pacific. He says they are building east even faster than the Union Pacific is going west.

They talked quietly over their coffee and I sat with them, thinking over the past time and all that had transpired. We had come here to a small, bare valley, and we had built our homes, and now for a time we had lived within them. We had raised our small crops, hunted and gathered in the forest and along the streams, and we had faced our trails.

What did it mean? What did we mean? Were we more than the beaver who builds for a while, harvests the country, and then retreats to easier, better places? Had we given anything to the land? To our country?

Listening to their voices I thought of them, of Cain, Helen, Ruth, of Webb and John Sampson and Drake Morrell ... we all were passersby, in the last analysis, yet during this time we had lived our lives with courage, and each of us, I think, had grown.

We were a part of this now, a part of this land, of this forest, of these green hills now covered with snow. We had watered from its streams, reaped crops from its soil, and I, perhaps, had learned more than all of them, for I had the most to learn.

Here in this house, built of logs cut and trimmed by our own hands, I had talked to Plutarch, to Locke, to, Hume and Blackstone; yet now I knew I must go on, and I did not know where.

Was it only Ninon that drew me to the east? Or was she the facade of something else ... some vast yearning to be a part of that larger world as I was a small part of this?

Ben? Drake Morrell was speaking. You are going east?

Yes. After Christmas I shall go. To New York first, I think.