The Floor of Heaven (34 page)

The view was glorious. At that instant George was, he’d remember for the rest of his life, “deeply moved.” As far as he could see was a procession of fat hills, one after another, an undulating carpet woven in a pattern of green and brown shades. Instinctively, George turned to see what was behind him. Now he looked out at a solid wall of mountains, their snowcapped peaks reaching up into the blue sky. He turned his head again, looking eastward, and he saw another range of low, dome-shaped hills. As he studied this rolling landscape, each hill nearly identical in height, he noticed a series of long, broad furrows cutting across the length of the entire range. For a moment he was reminded of the red claw marks scarring Jim’s arm. But then he grasped what he was looking at it. The clefts were deep stream beds. Over the course of untold centuries, their fast waters had gouged their way down from the hilltops, carving out steep valleys and breaking off into a lace of twisting creeks as they’d rumbled toward the Klondike River. And at once George knew. These were the streams in his dream. The fish in these waters would have twenty-dollar coins for eyes, and the stream beds would be shining with gold nuggets. It’d be like panning on the floor of heaven. Standing on that high butte and looking east, he had another unshakable premonition: He’d strike gold in those distant streams.

They didn’t get back to camp until late that night. But still George was up with the dawn. Now that his mind was set, there was a great deal to do. If they were going to head up the Klondike, they’d need to build a canoe big enough to hold three men and their supplies.

A day later, as George was hollowing out a long birch log that would become their canoe, he watched as a tall, lean man poled a flat-bottomed boat down the Yukon, toward their camp. It wasn’t until the man was drawing the bow of his boat up onto the beach that George saw the bushy red mustache and recognized him. It was Robert Henderson, a dour Scot who’d been drifting through the Yukon for years in a futile search for gold. George didn’t know Henderson well at all, but he admired any man who had the gumption to be undeterred by years of failure.

“Hello, Bob!” George called as the Scotsman walked slowly toward him. “Where in the world did you drop from?”

“I just came down from Ogilvie. I’m going up the Klondike.”

“What’s the idea, Bob?”

“There’s been a prospect found in a small creek. I think it empties into the Klondike, about fifteen miles up. I’m looking for a better way to get there than going over the mountains from Indian Creek.”

Now George was curious. This was near the country he was setting out to explore. “Got any kind of prospect?” he asked, hoping he didn’t betray too much interest.

“We don’t know yet. We can get a prospect on the surface. When I left, the boys were running up an open cut to get in the bedrock.”

George mulled this news. Since he’d already decided to head that way, it might makes sense to partner up with an outfit that knew the country. “What are the chances to locate up there?” he asked. “Everything staked?”

Henderson glanced at the two Indians who’d been standing nearby and listening to the conversation. “There’s a chance for you, George, but I don’t want any damn Siwashes staking on that creek.”

George’s anger quickly started to rise. The insult had been directed at Jim and Charley, but it affected George as deeply as if he’d been the target, too. He realized that it had been a mistake for him to have considered working with a white man.

But George didn’t relish confrontations. He simply turned his back on Henderson and went to work on his canoe. It wasn’t long before the Scotsman pushed his boat into the water and started up the Klondike.

When Henderson was gone, Jim spoke up. “What’s the matter with that white man?” he asked loudly, speaking Chinook. “Him kill Indian moose, Indian caribou. Look for gold in Indian country. No like Indian stake claim. What for, no good?”

George thought about trying to explain to his friend, but he knew no argument he might use would be sufficient. Some people had a narrow way of looking at the world, and that would always be that. And since you couldn’t change things, it made more sense to George to let some things go. That had always been his way.

“Never mind, Jim,” George said easily. “This is a big country. We’ll go and find a creek of our own.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

he next morning at daylight George and the two Indians loaded the canoe and began poling up the Klondike. A light breeze carried the crisp fragrance of the spruce forests as the boat followed the river toward the glow of the rising sun. After about two miles, George guided them into a backwater and they beached their canoe at a spot where the hard summer rains had flattened the left bank.

They would continue on foot, so they shouldered their packs and grabbed their pans and shovels from the stern. Stretching in front of them was a dense underbrush of sharp-edged ferns and tangles of wet moss. “Where you go now?” Jim asked.

In the past when there had been no apparent trail, George had let the Indians take the lead. He felt they’d be better able to find the way through rough country. Today, however, George understood that he needed to set the course. He alone could lead the way to the waters where the golden salmon of his dream ran. “You come, I go first,” George said emphatically.

Instinct told him to head to the right, and he set off. For more than a mile they trudged through soft black river mud, their moccasins sinking deep into the muck with each new step. Then the ground became firmer, and George guided them through some thick timber until they came out at the mouth of a creek.

The water was clear and glistening, the sunlight beaming on a stream bed speckled with tiny bright-white pebbles. That was a promising sign; George had never seen such a clear indication of quartz in any of his previous expeditions into the Yukon Valley. And where there was quartz, he knew, there often was gold. He threw down his pack and grabbed his pan and shovel.

The creek bent left, and he followed it to a small sandbar. Deciding that this was as good a spot as any, George filled his pan with gravel. Then he got down on his haunches and began tilting and twirling the pan in the sunlit water. From time to time, he used his hand to softly stir the mix of dirt. When there was not more than a handful of dark silt remaining in the pan, George paused.

How many times in his lifetime had he lived this moment? How many times had he waited to learn if a prospect would show in his pan? Yet George couldn’t help feeling that this occasion was different. The intensity of his expectations was unique. “To be or not to be,” he found himself saying out loud, as if Hamlet’s soliloquy were an incantation. “That is the question.”

Why you talking in that strange way? Charley demanded. The Indians were looking over George’s shoulder, an audience caught up in his every word and gesture. “I no see um gold,” Charley observed with disappointment.

“That’s all right, Charley,” George told him. “I makum Boston man’s medicine.”

He lifted the pan with its small residue of black sand toward the Indians. “Spit in it, boys, for good luck.”

They did, and George put the pan in the water. Gently, he twirled it; and tilted it; and a streak of bright yellow gold appeared. It was very fine, like soft golden sand, but it lay heavy in the pan. This flour gold had weight.

George’s hopes leaped. If there were colors in this low creek, he could only imagine what he’d find when he panned the distant higher waters he’d seen from the summit.

He gave the order to shoulder their packs. They were moving on.

THEY HIKED up a mossy incline, still following the path of the frothing creek. The sun was warm and bright. The chirping lilt of birdsong filled the air. George felt, he would recall years later, as if the guiding spirits were welcoming him into “a valley of golden dreams.”

After walking on for about an hour, George stopped at a rocky crest abutting the creek’s left bank. A rock formation had attracted him, and he decided to dig. With only a little effort, he broke through the rain-soaked bedrock, dug up a shoveful of dirt, and emptied it into his pan. This time he found not only fine gold but also two coarse pieces, each about the size of a BB shot.

George had washed only a single small pan of dirt, but it had revealed a fine prospect. Jim thought they should locate here, and George weighed the idea.

Hunting for gold was a gamble, an occupation where ultimately luck played a greater role than either skill or hard work. Nevertheless, a canny prospector, George had learned, can help shift the odds a bit in his favor by paying close attention to the signs in his pan. And two coarse yellow pieces, however tiny, held out a persuasive promise. It was entirely feasible that if they dug deep, they’d find long veins of gold running beneath the rocky banks fronting this stretch of the creek. Yet from the start this expedition had been driven by George’s strong premonitions, and now his instincts told him to continue on. To appease Jim, he agreed that if they found no better site they would return here. But even as he offered the compromise, George was certain he’d never be staking this run of the creek. He knew there were richer prospects ahead.

Once again the trio shouldered their packs. “Mush on!” George said, enjoying a small joke. He led the way about a mile farther up the creek, and they came to a flat grassy plain. It’d been a long day, and he gave the order to make camp.

It was a cold camp, and they ate some of the dried salmon they had carried in their packs. Later that night George lay underneath his blanket, too excited to sleep. But his sleeplessness gave him no concerns. He knew he’d be prepared for tomorrow. He’d already experienced his guiding dream.

WITH THE new morning, George was, as he’d anticipated, refreshed. He led the way once again, sticking close to the creek bed. They continued upstream until they arrived at a fork. A small creek twisted off to the south; a longer and wider branch rose straight on up, hugging the rising contours of the valley.

George hesitated. For the first time on this trip he was uncertain about which way to proceed. A prospector’s logic advised that he hold to the broader, faster-running branch; the bedrock along its banks should be similar in composition to the gravel that yesterday had yielded flour gold as well as two coarse pieces. But something about the tributary tugged at all his instincts. He walked along it for just a yard or so, and his heart raced. A peculiar sensation coursed through him.

Which way, George? Jim asked impatiently.

George thought about it further, then chose to respect the mineralogical wisdom he’d accumulated during his time panning in the Yukon. He said they’d follow the broad, wide fork.

It was a reasonable choice, but it was the wrong one. For once George had ignored his intuition, and as a result he lost the opportunity to make a startling discovery. When he’d started up the bank of the south fork he’d been walking on the richest ground in the world. There was gold scattered along the creek bed, in the bedrock beneath the sloping banks, and buried like an abandoned treasure deep in the surrounding hills. Millions and millions of dollars’ worth of gold were waiting to be claimed along the creek that would soon become aptly known as Eldorado. But that morning George turned away, and trudged on up through the narrow valley.

He continued past the head of the creek and came to the top of a grassy ridge. George decided that they’d turn east; his new plan was to circle back to the headwaters of the main creek and prospect all the way down.

They had gone only a short distance along the ridge when a black bear emerged from a thicket of blueberry bushes. George stood as if paralyzed. His secret fear had suddenly become real. All he could do was stare at the bear. The big animal stared back. George was certain that in the next instant the bear would charge. But even as he had that thought, he could feel the presence of Jim standing behind him and leveling the long barrel of a Winchester on his shoulder. Then Jim fired, the rifle bouncing on George’s shoulder. Jim fired again. And again. And the bear fell down dead.

The Indians skinned the bear. The fur would be used for a sleeping robe, and Jim kept the claws for a necklace he’d make for his wife. The meat was divided among the three men. They’d roast it that night over a campfire. The Indians felt the spirits had blessed them by giving them the bear; it was a sign that their luck was changing. But the encounter had left George unnerved. He saw it as a warning. In the wilderness, anything might happen. He needed to fulfill his destiny while he was still able. The next bear might not be so docile. George insisted that they continue on.

At the head of a series of small creeks that ran toward the mightier Klondike and Indian rivers, George spotted a high, dome-shaped hill. Let’s climb to the top, he suggested. We’ll be able to see the whole country.

The view reached to the horizon. The early frosts had tinted the foothills into a weave of fiery crimsons, emerald greens, and golden yellows, and the ripe colors glowed in the high afternoon sun. This same sharp light also caught the many streams rushing in a shiny crystal tumble down the flanks of the distant hills and mountains. Looking at this panorama, George was affected not just by its beauty but also by its energy. The Great Spirit who had created this wondrous valley had led him here for a reason.

As he continued to peer out into the distance, he noticed a wisp of pale smoke. It was rising up from a small canyon. They were not alone! He was startled for a moment, and then he realized it must be Henderson’s campfire.

“Well, boys,” George told the Indians, “we’ve got this far. Let’s go down and see what they got.”

Jim refused. He had not forgotten Henderson’s insult, and he was too proud to forgive. “No liket go,” he said flatly.

“Oh come on, Jim,” George tried. “We’ve found more good country than we want. Have a good tum-tum, Jim, and come along.”

It irritated Jim that George was willing to pretend that nothing had happened. Jim decided that although George believed he’d become a Tagish, the reality was that he would never be an Indian. A Tagish brave would never surrender his honor so easily. No, Jim repeated. He wouldn’t go to the camp of the man who’d scorned him.