Zachary's Gold (27 page)

I considered several events that could have changed everything if I had handled them differently. I thought of how I had once come to the aid of the little fellow I later knew as Squealer, and wished I had given his neck a good twist when I first had the chance. I resolved in future to take ruthlessness as my byword and never again to risk on the side of mercy.

As the long-suffering beasts clambered across the rolling hills of hard-packed clay, always in sight of the road but just out of hailing distance, my mind travelled a repetitive circuit of speculation and regret.

It came as a surprise to me when, at one o'clock, I plodded over the crest of a shoulder of high ground and saw Ashcroft Station below me in the valley centre. In that spacious, barren country there are few places that offer enough water and shelter for a decent camp, and briefly I was tempted to risk a night's respite in the comfort of civilization, but I immediately discarded the idea as a bad risk.

Neither was this the right place to tell someone about Rosh. There would probably be a dozen people around, and I would surely be detained for an explanation—something that I could not, of course, give. At the very least, someone would be delegated to follow and find me later, when the nature of Rosh's injury was ascertained. Once I was held and questioned we were both doomed.

I did decide, though, to cross the compound of the roadhouse and inspect the place, partly in sentimental deference to my partner. Also, it was the most direct route to the lowlands. I wasn't sure, but I thought I might be able to make the Thompson River before dark.

I continued along the top of the ridge for a short distance, then turned the animals down a dry gulch towards the handful of buildings perched on the scratchy lines of the wagon road.

At the foot of the gulch I turned again and cut across to the roadway, past a little square of split rail fencing. On first glance it looked like a small, grassy corral, until I spotted the row of crosses near the back. It was a sad testament to this harsh country that a cemetery should be established before a church, a saloon, or a proper store.

The sensation of walking openly into a populated place unsettled me, but I tried to maintain my composure. The roadhouse itself was a two-storey log structure on the south side of the road—quite large, with smoke rising from two stone chimneys. There were frame outbuildings beside and behind it, as well as a large fenced corral. A stout woman in a grey dress hung clothes on a line in the backyard. She waved as I came to a stop, and I returned the gesture. The main barns were on the other side of the road, along with more corrals and a smith's shop, from which came the sounds of someone hammering iron.

The central well and pump were close to the barn doors. I pumped fresh water into the troughs, let my animals drink at their leisure, and took a lingering look at the country and the settlement. Whatever it was that had made this place memorable to Rosh, I thought, it was neither the scenic beauty nor the excitement of the metropolis.

There was one other house in town, on the same side of the road as the barn. It was a small, white frame building, and as I stood there with the smell of the forge and the stable acrid in my nostrils, the door blew open and one small boy of eight years or so ran out and across the clearing to the main yard with the loud cries of his companion ringing out behind him. I was relieved to find that no one paid me any attention, and I washed my face and hair in cold well-water before I started leading the way south.

Ashcroft was behind me. Ahead lay the barren solitude of the river canyons.

I was just past the way station proper when the big woman at the clothesline shouted towards someone inside the house.

“May Sang!” she called. I heard her clearly enough, but it was only when she shouted the second time that I spun around and stared with wide eyes. “May Sang!”

A tiny Chinese woman in a green dress and a white jacket emerged from a side door and scurried towards the backyard.

As if to let me hear the name once more, the big woman said it loudly again—“May Sang”—and led her out of my sight around the corner.

I didn't need to know any more. Someone was guilty of some poor pronunciation, but I was perfectly confident that “May Sang” was what Rosh had repeated more than once to me from his sickbed beside the creek.

THE COUNTRY AROUND ASHCROFT WAS
so bleak and blank that I was forced to follow the road for quite some distance before I could be sure I was out of sight of the little settlement. Then I cut back into the undulating folds of terrain that led up from the distant, unseen river basin to the sparsely treed hilltops and chose a place to stop.

I was exhausted from leading the animals up the long climb, but when I finally paused to catch my breath I was almost too excited to sit down. I knew I had to wait and think carefully, for any precipitous action could still bring disaster. The last time I had abducted a foreigner, it had been a much simpler proposition, far from the risk of interruption. I would have to think this operation through carefully.

Even if I had had an interpreter, it would have been a chancy situation to explain to Miss May Sang: “Madam, I have just travelled some distance to speak to you on behalf of a sick friend of mine whose full name I do not really know. He is a countryman of yours and seems to know you, so would you please sneak away with me and not mention a thing about anything to anyone.”

If the good woman had her wits about her, she would hold up her sharpest kitchen knife and scream for help.

Still, my optimism and my enthusiasm were back, and I already had the seed of a plan in mind. I knew I would have to act fairly soon, though. The telltale heaviness of my hands and feet reminded me that I had not slept in thirty-six hours, but I could allow myself no rest while my invalid partner lay in the freezing dark. I grimaced to think of the poor beggar's frustration when I kept walking away while he tried to explain himself. I pulled the bundles from the mule's back and stacked them on the ground, then slouched against them and closed my eyes as I considered the situation.

I was awakened by the grind and snort of the horse chewing up a bunch of grassy weeds next to my ear. It was almost dark and I still had much to do, so I was on the run the minute I was up.

After I had disposed of the horses, I set up the markers I would need if I hoped to find my way in the dark once the last threads of light had disappeared. Then I crept up to a woodpile close to the roadhouse and peered through a window at the dinnertime comings and goings. In these minutes I should have had ample time to rehearse my words and actions, but in fact, when I entered the front dining hall, I was still nervous and uncertain.

No one seemed particularly surprised at my late and unannounced arrival, and I was greeted most politely as I leaned my rifle in the corner of the room next to the door and hung my coat on one of the wooden pegs.

The fellow who stood up and shook my hand was tall, broad, and robust in appearance, although he was nearly bald and squinted even in the well-lit front room.

“Cox,” he said. “James Andrew Cox.”

“Jack Baxter,” I replied. “I'm camped just down the way and I wondered if I was too late to purchase a hot meal.”

“Not at all. Not at all.” He looked around as he directed me to the big plank table that dominated the room, and called out in the clear firm voice of someone accustomed to giving orders. “Mavis!”

The big woman appeared in a doorway across from us and smiled broadly.

“Mavis, have May Sang prepare a plate of victuals for Mr. Baxter, would you please,” said Cox, and she disappeared without a word.

I was alone at the big dining table, except for the master of the house, who sat quietly at one end seat while I devoured a huge platter of beef, bread, potatoes, gravy, onions, and carrots. I immediately liked this man. I liked the way he maintained authority in his establishment, while at the same time making me feel very much his honoured guest. I liked his inn, as well—spacious and clean, with papered walls and bearskins on the floor. Six lanterns lit the room and rows of fancy china plates sat along a rail at eye level. Two men played cards on the hearth of a great stone fireplace at one end of the hall, and two others spoke in low voices at a sofa in the opposite corner. Some of the roadhouses along the Cariboo trail were nothing more than barns for human livestock, but the station at Ashcroft displayed a civilized warmth.

Mr. Cox waited graciously until I was working on a great slab of pie with a mug of coffee at hand before he spoke again.

“You're camped nearby, you say, Mr. Baxter. I should mention that we have plenty of room if you wish to spend the night. If this were April or May, we would have men sleeping on both sofas, under the table—even out in the barns—but right now we could give you a room of your own upstairs.”

“Thank you, but I've already set up my camp and I enjoy sleeping in the fresh air when the weather is good. It'll be fine tonight. Mind you, after a wonderful meal like this I could probably sleep peacefully through a hailstorm and wake with a smile. Your wife does the cooking?”

“No, no. Mavis does the baking. That's her pie, of course, but we have a cook.” Cox's smile was one of relaxed pride. “Chinese girl. You'd scarcely believe it, but when she came to us a year ago she wanted to chop everything into little pieces and fry it. Now—well, you've tasted the result . . .”

“Chinese? I don't believe I've ever seen a Chinese female this far north,” I said. It was quite true. All of the numerous Orientals I had seen in Barkerville had been men.

“There's not many,” Cox agreed, “but May Sang can look after herself, and she'll learn anything you show her better than any white gal I've had work for me. Your dinner was satisfactory?”

“Maybe the best roast beef I've ever eaten,” I replied with all sincerity; “You're lucky to have such a talented employee this far from any centre of civilization. She lives in the house just across the road there?”

I managed to slip the question into conversation casually enough to avoid suspicion in my host.

“No. My wife and I live there with our boys . . .” His voice trailed away as he squinted towards the front window.

From the doorway behind me and to my right came the Chinese servant, gathering up empty plates and silently filling our coffee cups. She appeared so small and fragile and moved so quickly that I felt as if I should stand well aside. As she disappeared into the kitchen, Cox finally offered me the information I needed.

“No, I've always felt it best to have a home for my family separate from the guest house, even if we spend most of our time here anyway,” he laughed. “May Sang has a room just off the kitchen.”

Now that I knew where to target my attention, I began to look for an opportune moment to withdraw. Although I enjoyed the warmth, the pleasant torpor of overeating, and the company of the good James Andrew Cox, I wanted to leave before the conversation could turn to such matters of current interest as the search for Zachary Beddoes, suspected murderer, or the strange disappearance of Bill's friends, Percy and Squealer. We chatted for a while about insubstantials—the weather and the condition of the road through the canyon—before I stood and stretched.

“No problem, I hope, about paying for my meal in gold dust?” I asked.

He assured me that it would be fine and sent his wife to the office to bring a set of scales. I dropped a small cloth gold poke on the table, then fetched my rifle from the corner. Cox's squinting eyes brightened suddenly.

“Now that's a gun!” he stated admiringly. “Sharp's. That's the gun a man wants to have in this kind of country. You shoot your deer when you see it—a mile away. Or wolves—one bullet a wolf, and no trouble trying to chase them.”

I agreed that it was a fine weapon. “It's a bit big and clumsy for my purpose right now, though. I had a handgun, which was good for the trail, and a .30-.30, but I lost them. Crossing a river, you understand. I lost quite a bit of stuff. Both guns.”

The man's wife faithfully brought his gold scales and set them on the table, but we never got around to using them. Instead, I gave Cox the Sharp's buffalo rifle and in return got the meal and a matched pair of .44 calibre revolvers—Union Army issue—and a leather holster. They had been accepted in trade for supplies from a deserter on his way north, but I was quite obviously not much worried about the previous owners of my firearms.

Cox and I seemed equally pleased with the fruits of our bartering, and we shook hands goodnight like old friends. As I walked away into the darkness, I realized that my new freedom of movement might prove invaluable in successfully enacting my plan that evening. The holsters flopped about when I walked, the guns fit into them very loosely, and the box of bullets in my pocket pulled my coat awkwardly to one side, but at least I had both hands and arms free, and that was important.