Long Hunt (9781101559208) (34 page)

“It does seem you have planned well, Ottwell. What would be your role as we travel?”

“My role? Oh, I will not make the journey myself, Jedd. I am a dreamer, a planner, a visionary . . . not an adventurer. And it is my belief that as many or more will profit indirectly from the rush for gold as those who profit directly. If one is not inclined to spend one's days dipping a battered pan in a stream, one might still pan out one's own share of gold by catering to those who do work the diggings.

“Travel, shelter, food, medical, legal and spiritual services—all these things will be in demand by those who reach the far coast. Those who provide them will stand to benefit wonderfully.”

“I'm prone to agree with you, sir,” Colter said. “I myself find gold as exciting a prospect as any sensible man, yet I possess no inclination to search the earth for it. I'm glad to guide those who are so inclined, and to help them reach their destination, but I have no plans to either build or buy a pan and rocker for myself.”

“Are you agreeing to my proposal, then?”

Colter sighed and paused a few moments. “I admit to some hesitation borne of the fact you yourself are not making the journey. It causes me to question your faith in the venture.”

Plumb performed the strange screwing up of his face again, his eyes slitting and his eyelids puffing above and below his very black lashes. “I believe deeply in the venture. I intend for there to be many journeys of this sort across this growing land we have been given to live upon. But I know my limits and my place, Jedd. You are a man of trail and mountain and plains. I am a man of the city. The forest and range in which I hunt are that of business and commerce. I shall travel with you in spirit and thought and even prayer . . . but I would be nothing but a burden should I try to make the journey myself.”

Jedd nodded.

“Will you accept my offer, then? Shake my hand in seal of the bargain?”

Jedd thought a few moments more, thrust out his hand, and said, “Looks like I'm going to California again.”

Plumb's face beamed so brightly, Jedd thought the man might cry.

 

That evening, as Ottwell Plumb made his way back to his hotel in the heart of St. Louis, he was pulled into an alleyway by parties unknown, beaten unconscious, and robbed of his pistol and his golden teeth.

Most of the teeth were false and so were simply yanked out of his mouth by hand, but a few were his real teeth, gold-coated, and were removed forcibly by some sort of large pincers or pliers. One, it appeared, was knocked loose with a hammer and a chisel.

Bleeding and pale, he came to and found his feet after several efforts, then staggered on until he collapsed on a curb a quarter mile away and was carried by helpful strangers to a hospital.