Dutchman and the Devil : The Lost Story (9781456612887) (7 page)

Returning to the lobby Weiser approached the front desk, where a slovenly clerk with grease spots on his vest was turning the pages of the Police Gazette and leering at photographs of scantily clad strippers. Weiser’s thin lips tightened with distaste as he rang the bell. The clerk looked up from his magazine and mumbled, “Whaddya want?”

“Did my partner leave a message for me?” Weiser asked.

“No,” the clerk replied, and went back to reading his magazine.

Weiser shrugged and went back to their room, content to have the tiny room to himself for a while.

An hour later, Gideon Roberts knocked on the door, looking for Waltz.

“I haven’t seen him,” Weiser replied.

“Do you know where he went?” Roberts asked.

“No,” Weiser said carelessly.

Surprised at Weiser’s lack of concern, Roberts looked at his watch and said, “It’s ten o’clock. That’s pretty late for him to be walking around in a strange city.”

“Waltz is a grown man,” Weiser snapped. “He can take care of himself.”

Not bothering to hide his disapproval, Roberts said sharply, “I’m surprised that a man as smart as you wouldn’t understand that a man like Waltz, whose English is limited, could get lost and not be able to find his way back here. San Francisco is a rough town, especially for an immigrant like Waltz.”

Weiser returned Roberts’s scowl and said, “You’re the leader of our little group. If you’re so concerned about Waltz’s welfare, why ain’t you out looking for him?”

“He’s your partner,” Roberts responded, indignant at Weiser’s indifference. “If Waltz is in trouble, he’s your responsibility.”

Weiser already suspected Roberts needed Waltz’s help as a prospector, and this show of concern confirmed it in Weiser’s mind. But it also reminded Weiser that he needed Waltz to secure his own future. With an outward show of contrition and just a hint of sarcasm, Weiser said, “You’re right, Roberts. I’ll go right now an’ save Waltz from the dangers of the big, bad city.”

Weiser began his search for Waltz at the corner newsstand. “I’m looking for my partner,” he said. “He’s a big man with a German accent. Have you seen him?”

The news vendor had been on duty all day. He was hungry and his feet hurt. “Nah, I ain’t seen him,” was his brusque reply.

Weiser displayed a small piece of gold in his palm briefly, then turned as if to go.

“Wait a minute, mister,” the vendor said quickly. “I might of seen your partner. He was asking about seeing the sights. I told him Telegraph Hill is the place to go an’ he started off in that direction.”

Weiser paid the vendor, who pocketed the nugget and said, as an afterthought, “But it’s pretty late for sightseeing. Your friend is probably having a time for hisself over at Portsmouth Place. That’s where the action is this time of night.”

Meanwhile, back at the city jail, Waltz was growing impatient. From his cell he could see the desk sergeant reading a newspaper and taking occasional sips from a flask he kept in his drawer. A fly buzzed in, circled the cell, found nothing of interest, and departed.

As the hours passed, Waltz realized he still needed Weiser’s English-language skills. He also remembered Weiser’s look of satisfaction as he had stood on the steps of that fancy hotel, and realized he might be looking to desert his partner, take his share of the gold, and live a comfy life in San Francisco. “That ungrateful bastard,” he thought bitterly, his anger rising. “I wouldn’t put it past him to go off an’ leave me.”

Stretched out on the lumpy cot in his cell, Waltz drifted off to sleep. He was awakened by the sound of Weiser talking to the officer on duty. “I’m looking for Jacob Waltz. He’s a member of my prospecting party.”

The policeman’s brow furrowed as he said, “We’re holding a Jacob Waltz. But I don’t think he’s the man you’re looking for, sir. The man we’re holding is a roughneck who don’t speak no English.”

The corners of Weiser’s lips curved up as he said, “On the contrary, Officer, he may well be my man. What are the charges?”

The policeman picked up the top sheet on his stack of papers and read, “Jacob Waltz viciously attacked Timothy O’Leary, twisted his arm behind his back, threw him to the sidewalk, and sat on his back. When Officer O’Shaughnessy arrived on the scene, Waltz waved his arms like a mad man and shouted gibberish. Timothy’s brother Sean O’Leary helped subdue Waltz and bring him in.” When Weiser, didn’t comment, the policeman added, “I wasn’t on duty when they brought Waltz in, an’ all I know is what’s on this report. But he ain’t given me any trouble so far.”

“Thank you, Officer,” Weiser said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a small gold nugget that he set on the desk. “Is it possible for me to see Mr. Waltz? I’d like to hear his side of the story.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Weiser,” the policeman said, picking up the nugget and taking a ring of keys from his desk drawer.

Weiser followed the policeman to Waltz’s cell, but instead of the grateful reception Weiser expected, Waltz scowled and snapped, “It’s about time you showed up.”

Shocked by the sharpness in Waltz’s tone and unaware of the messenger he’d sent, Weiser stared at him and said, “Look here, Waltz, I’ve been scouring the city for you all evening. If this is all the thanks I get, maybe I should leave. ”

Unaware the freckle-faced messenger had failed to deliver his message, Waltz glared at Weiser and in a low tone more menacing than a shout said, “Hold it right there, you lazy good-for-nothing excuse for a partner. I been sitting in this cell for hours waiting for you to show up. If you think you can walk away, you better think again. You ain’t pulled your weight since we left St. Louis, an’ you damn well better start now!”

Weiser looked at Waltz behind bars and realized this was a golden opportunity to even the score for Waltz’s socking him in Los Angeles. And to replenish his own supply of gold while he was at it. “Wait a minute, Waltz. Right now you need me a hell of a lot more than I need you,” Weiser said. “You better watch your step or I’ll leave you here to rot.”

Waltz jumped to his feet, shook the bars of his cell violently, and shouted, “If you go out that door, you’re a dead man! I’ll tear this place down brick by brick an’ come after you. An’ you can’t run fast enough or far enough to get away from me!”

Weiser’s eyes widened. And the wheels began to turn in his head. His protesting partner had not outlived his usefulness just yet, not until Weiser had his fifty thousand. And he knew he was going to have to play it cool until he did, like it or not.

Backtracking with a nervous laugh, he said, “Take it easy, Waltz. I was only fooling. Can’t you take a joke? You must know by now I wouldn’t go off an’ leave you, not for a million bucks! I’m your partner, ain’t I?”

Waltz let go of the bars and roared, “Well, what’re you waiting for? Get going before I lose my temper!”

Weiser met Waltz’s eyes and said, “I’m waiting because I gave my last nugget to that policeman out there. You’re gonna have to tell me where you’re hiding your gold.”

Waltz’s black eyes narrowed and his bushy black brows moved toward each other as he stared at Weiser and thought, “That bastard is using this situation to justify getting my gold. But he’s got me by the short hairs, all right, an’ we both know it.” Resigned to the situation, he simply said, “It’s at the bottom of my saddlebags.”

Weiser went out front and said, “I’m going back to our hotel to get bail for my partner. How much is it going to cost me?”

“That little nugget you gave me earlier is worth about twenty bucks,” the policeman said. “Two more’ll get him out.”

“That’s a lot,” Weiser said, “an’ I’m not rich yet. How about settling for one nugget?”

The policeman grinned and replied, “I ain’t rich, either. Sixty bucks is the going rate. Take it or leave it. And you better get moving — the night duty officer won’t let you off so easy.”

An hour later, a little to Waltz’ surprise, Weiser showed up with the gold, and Waltz was a free man. In an attempt to salvage what was left of the evening, Weiser suggested they go to a restaurant and have an expensive meal on Waltz’s money.

Without answering, Waltz strode swiftly down the stairs. Weiser hurried after him. “What about supper?” he repeated. Waltz kept walking as if Weiser hadn’t spoken.

“What’s the matter, Waltz?” Weiser said, raising his voice. “I thought you’d be grateful I got you out of jail. You’re acting like you don’t even want me around.”

Waltz wheeled abruptly and snapped, “You got that right, Weiser. I don’t want you around, but obviously we’re stuck with each other. If we want to get our share of the gold that’s out there, we’re going to have to put up with each other. Just keep your distance an’ don’t double cross me.”

Stunned
at such audacity from Waltz and realizing he needed to pacify his partner, Weiser
backpedaled
. “Listen here, Waltz. While you was relaxing in that jail cell, I spent my entire evening looking for you. I was worried sick. And then, when I finally found you, you got mad. I’m just looking for a little appreciation from my partner, that’s all.”

Weiser’s absurd claim was enough to make Waltz want to belt him again. But he knew that wouldn’t help him in the long run. Waltz held his tongue and resumed walking.

Weiser watched him go, shrugged, and headed for Portsmouth Plaza. As he walked, his spirits rose at the prospect of a convivial evening away from his tiresome, albeit temporary, partner.

As the sun rose the next morning, the small but optimistic group of Jacob Waltz, Jake Weiser, Oscar Hutton, Gideon Roberts, Abraham and Adam Peeples, Matt Webber, Joe Green, and Coho Young rode east out of San Francisco headed for Sutter’s Mill. They were a motley crew from their headgear to their boots. Most of the men adopted the broad-brimmed straw sombreros worn by Mexicans, but Joe Green wore a brown derby with a dome-shaped crown; Weiser sported a low, soft felt hat with a curled brim; and Oscar Hutton had the fanciest hat of all — a black military hat trimmed with a black ostrich feather and a gold cord terminating in two tassels, a brim looped on the left side, and a feather on the side opposite the loop. Their jackets were various shades of dark wool, worn with or without vests, depending on the weather; their slim-legged trousers were black or navy or tan; and their calf-covering boots laced with stout leather thongs.

It was a mild spring morning, and the road was a sea of men, each one expecting to fill his carpetbag with gold. Horses and mules and wagons were packed so tight men on horseback could go no faster than those on foot. Any man who fainted was swept along until he either revived or dropped and was trampled.

The group expected to reach Sutter’s Mill in six days, but the going was so slow it took them three days just to reach the old settlement of Vallejo at the northeast end of San Francisco Bay. That night, Waltz went to Roberts and said, “We’re going too slow. At this rate it’ll take at least two weeks to get to Sutter’s Mill!”

“What do you want to do?” Roberts asked. “Change our plan?”

“Maybe we should consider it,” Waltz replied. “I keep thinking about a couple of men I overheard talking in a San Francisco saloon. They’d quit their jobs because they’re going up to Marysville to prospect.”

“Sounds like a reckless thing to do,” Roberts responded.

“That’s what I thought,” Waltz said. “But their job was selling mining supplies, an’ they’d sold their entire stock to the little mercantile store up there.”

“So you think we should change our plan?” Roberts repeated.

“I do,” Waltz replied firmly. “There’s already so many men going to Sutter’s Mill, all that’ll be left is tailings by the time we get there.”

Unlike Waltz, Weiser was not the least bit concerned about the crowded roads and the throngs of prospectors. They only confirmed his opinion Sutter’s Mill was the place to get rich. He’d done the math the night before and knew the life he lusted after didn’t come cheap. His $50,000 ante for Wells and Fargo had to be accompanied by $50,000 for clothes and a posh apartment, plus another $50,000 to cover social events. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself strolling into the private offices of Misters Henry Wells and William G. Fargo. “I’ll be wearing a hand-tailored suit an’ carrying a suitcase filled with gold, an’ they’ll stand up to welcome me,” he said softly to himself. “It won’t be long until the name on their door will be ‘Wells, Fargo & Weiser.’ ”

Ten tedious days later, they reached the outskirts of Sacramento and the much smaller road toward Marysville. Without a word, Gideon Roberts turned onto it and stopped at the edge of a meadow fragrant with newly planted alfalfa. A swift-flowing stream rushed by, swollen with spring runoff from the snow-covered mountains in the distance.

They watered their horses at the stream’s edge, but instead of climbing back into the saddle, Roberts said, “I’m changing our plan. There’s too many men goin’ to Sutter’s Mill. There’s placer gold in the rivers around Marysville, an’ that’s where we’re going.”

Weiser turned to Coho Young and whispered, “That’s ridiculous! Marysville’s nothing but three houses an’ a general store. We don’t want to waste our time piddling around there when we know Sutter’s Mill has the biggest strike in the world.”

“Why don’t you speak up an’ say so?” Young whispered back.

“Because Marysville is Waltz’s idea, an’ I don’t want to cross him,” Weiser replied. “He has a terrible temper an’there’s no telling what he might do to me. But if you speak up, he won’t dare come after you.”

Roberts saw this exchange and asked, “Do you have something to say, Mr. Weiser?”

Weiser nudged Young and whispered, “Go on, tell him you don’t want to change our plans. Say you want to go to Sutter’s Mill, an’the rest of the men will agree. They just don’t have enough nerve to speak up.”

With that encouragement, Young said, “Some of us don’t want to waste our time going to Marysville.”

“Is that right?” Roberts replied, raising his left eyebrow and looking intently at Young and Weiser. “Well then, I’m going to Marysville with Waltz, an’ the rest of you can come along if you want.”

“Wait a minute,” Weiser said. “You can’t just go off an’ leave us.”

Roberts leaned forward and replied, “I’m the leader of this group, Mr. Weiser. We’re going to Marysville an’ we’re leaving in five minutes. If you choose not to come along, that’s your decision.” Roberts looked around at the other men and said, “Does anyone else want to get back in that crowd going to Sutter’s Mill?”

“Not when you put it that way,” Young said. Green and Webber nodded in agreement.

Inwardly fuming at being marginalized, Weiser let out a long, deep, audible breath and said, “All right Roberts, I know when I’m licked.”

As Roberts and Waltz started toward Marysville, Roberts said softly, “Why do you put up with that bastard?”

Waltz sighed heavily and replied, “I owe him a lot. If it wasn’t for Weiser, I’d still be in Germany making barrels. He got me started in my boxing career, an’ it was his idea to come to America. So even if Weiser is selfish sometimes, he’s still my partner.”

The road they followed north was scarcely more than a trail, but there was so little traffic they covered the forty miles to Marysville before dark.

The next morning, they bought picks, shovels, pans, and a donkey to carry them. On a tip from the store’s owner, they followed the South Fork of the Yuba River east toward the Sierra Nevada.

After twenty miles, their primitive road left the river and took them over a rise to a lush, green, river valley that was a mile wide and seven miles long. A handful of prospectors were up to their knees in icy water scooping gravel into buckets. Others were at the water’s edge, sloshing the gravel in pans until gold settled and they could pick it out. Frequent shouts of “Eureka!” meant another man had a sizable gold nugget in his gravel.

Waltz tethered his horse, grabbed a bucket and shovel from their mule’s packsaddle, and strode confidently into the water. Weiser chose the lesser discomfort of squatting at the river’s edge and panning. By late afternoon, even Weiser had put over a pound of gold in his bucket.

A few miles upriver, a small settlement hunkered on higher ground. Known as Caldwell’s Upper Store and Deer Creek Dry Diggings, this community of a hundred men lived in a mixture of small cabins, canvas tents, and shacks nailed together from scraps. A large log building and a hotel were under construction. Roberts and his group pitched their tents, content to stay at Caldwell’s and placer mine as long as their daily take of gold was as good as the first.

Word of Green Valley’s gold spread fast, and by July Caldwell’s Upper Store was a booming community of six thousand people, with a sawmill, four churches, and twenty saloons. In August, they celebrated their community’s coming-of-age by changing its name to the more dignified title of Nevada City.

Jacob Waltz had never been happier. Each day, he awoke with the dawn, pulled his pants on over wool flannel drawers, tossed his bedroll into the corner of a tent he kept his things in, and greeted the nippy morning air. Waltz reveled in his work, hauling cumbersome buckets of sodden gravel from the icy river as if they were filled with feathers. Each load of ore brought him closer to his own little farm.

Jake Weiser, on the other hand, delayed the start of his day by snuggling down in his cozy bedroll and imagining ways to spend his anticipated wealth. Champagne, fresh oysters, and Cuban cigars were high on his list of priorities. Making no secret of his discomfort, Weiser filled his workday with a few hours of halfheartedly hunkering on the riverbank sifting piles of Waltz’s gravel and, when no one was looking, stuffing an occasional nugget into his pocket. In Weiser’s mind, he deserved it — he had, after all, saved Waltz from a miserable life with a nagging wife and a hovel full of snot-nosed children. Weiser stayed at the river until the pseudo-pain of his old ankle injury gave him an excuse to hobble up to Caldwell’s Store and play a little poker.

For his part, Waltz rarely went to Caldwell’s. He had other business to tend to, as he searched for the mother lode that fed their river its gold-laden placer. Success depended on finding gold and mining it before another prospector beat him to it. And he was more content than he’d ever been, surrounded by towering ponderosa pines and tiny wildflowers in the forest’s glades. He came across small meadows, where deer looked up briefly from their evening graze as he passed, undisturbed by his presence. A tawny cougar followed Waltz as well, blending in with the foliage and stepping so softly he was unnoticed by Waltz. But Waltz posed no threat and so was allowed safe passage.

Weiser knew that Waltz was after a mother lode and would probably find one. He tried to revive his pretense of partnership, but Waltz wanted none of it. For Waltz, Weiser at Caldwell’s was preferable to Weiser at his side.

One August evening, a barn owl’s screeeeeeeech broke the forest’s silence, startling Waltz and causing him to stumble. Steadying himself, he took a closer look at the rock that had tripped him. It was an outcropping of quartz, so heavily veined with gold that it glowed softly in the twilight.

Carefully marking his trail, Waltz returned to camp and did his best to behave as if nothing unusual had happened. If word of his discovery got out, strangers would swarm to it like bees to clover and steal it from him.

Waltz was known as an early-to-bed man, and no one was surprised when he left the campfire after just one cup of coffee, flung his pants on the ground next to his sleeping bag, and slid in. But despite his outward calm, Waltz was too excited to sleep. His mind raced between believing his gold-streaked quartz was genuine and fear that its glow was a cruel trick of the fading light. His feet itched to run back to his rock and his arms ached to crack it open and see how much gold really ran through it.

As soon as morning’s first light crept over the mountains, Waltz dressed and hurried into the forest. Following the path he had marked the night before, he reached his precious rock, only to see nothing special in its appearance. His heart sank at the ordinariness of it.

He turned away in disappointment, but couldn’t resist a parting glance back. And as he gazed sadly at the cruel rock that had robbed him of a night’s sleep, the rising sun’s rays caught the unmistakable glow of genuine gold. Was there any depth to it? Attacking his rock with the unleashed fury of a man so long denied his dream, Waltz hacked and chiseled and broke chunks from it, prying his way toward its heart.

When he was finally satisfied this vein ran deeply into the hillside, Waltz carefully placed a finger-size piece of it in the deepest pocket of his inner shirt. Then he painstakingly restored the surrounding area to conceal all signs of his activity, and made his way back to camp.

Gideon Roberts was standing by the campfire, drinking coffee. Without asking, he poured a second cup for Waltz and sat down on a log. Waltz spooned sugar into his coffee, sat down beside Roberts, and looked around. Satisfied they were alone, Waltz took the new nugget from his inner pocket and handed it to Roberts.

Roberts’s eyes widened as he examined the nugget.

Waltz held a forefinger to his lips and said, “Let’s go for a walk. There’s something I want to show you.”

“Can it wait?” Roberts asked, surprised at Waltz’s secretive manner.

“No,” Waltz insisted, “you must come right away.”

Intrigued, Roberts followed Waltz to his quartz rock and helped push aside the fallen fir limb Waltz had used to conceal his digging. It looked like a mother load, all right. “You’re going to be a hero!” Roberts said, slapping Waltz on the back.