Hard Gold (17 page)
Authors: Avi
After traveling so long upon the flat lands, we couldn’t be but impressed by the view before us. The mountains, mostly red-brown in color, bore swaths of green that I supposed were trees. And the closer we came to the mountains the bigger they seemed to be, ever more fearsome in their loftiness. They looked to have swallowed half the sky itself. I had little doubt they could swallow us, too.
At about midday we paused by a stream, from which we drank. From her sack, Lizzy got some jerked meat, which was our meal. As we sat there, she also drew out her father’s pepperbox pistol from the sack, surprising me the way she often did.
“Why’d you bring that?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Might need it.”
“It doesn’t shoot right.”
“Makes a fearsome noise,” she said with a laugh.
All that day we walked, our eyes always on the massive peaks. Here and there, we spotted grazing antelope and deer. Now and again some buffalo. Once we saw an elk. Fields of prairie dogs in their towns were alert to our presence. In the sky were birds aplenty, including redtailed hawks and magpies. We saw no other people.
We walked until dusk overtook us. By then we’d reached a high point on the plains. Looking east, the land rolled for as far as we could see—to Iowa, I imagined.
Turning west, we looked down into a valley. A few lakes were visible. We also saw the mountains at their fullest, from bottom to lofty tops. They looked to have leaped straight up in one great earth-leaving, colossal jump and were ready to leap higher any moment. It was a vision of strength and might such as I had never beheld before.
Moreover, we could see that beyond these mountains were
more
mountains, and then mountains beyond those, mountains as far as we could see. No end to them!
As night drew down and the dry air chilled, the mountains melted into deep blue shadow. Above, the sky hung full of shifting colors: dark pinks, violet, but mostly reds.
“It’s as if the sky is filling with blood,” Lizzy whispered.
“Let’s hope not,” I said.
Untold numbers of stars emerged, and with them a slim moon. Was it, I wondered, the same moon over Iowa? It seemed bigger there. A coyote yapped and was answered from some distance. It wasn’t long before I heard Lizzy’s steady sleep breathing.
I think it was only then I allowed myself to have this thought:
I hope I don’t find Jesse.
For the truth was, the closer I came to him, the farther away I felt.
July 15
We rose at dawn and continued in the same direction we’d been traveling, down into the valley we’d seen the night before. We observed some places that looked like farms, but no one was working them. Increasingly, the land was wooded with tall pine and spruce. But above the tallest trees, the mountains loomed ever higher.
At some point we must have crossed back into Nebraska Territory. Not that there was any marker. But we continued to follow the trail until we came upon a wide creek of turbulent, white-frothed waters, its clear pools revealing many small fish. Here the air was sweet with the scents of pine and wild rose.
The path we’d been traveling veered about and then went upward, following the bank of the cascading creek. As we went on, we saw more and more tree stumps, suggesting people must have built nearby.
Both creek and path made sharp turns. We followed and came upon a place of quieter waters. More than that: there, at the edge of the water, was a kneeling man.
After two days of seeing no one, it was startling to come upon anyone in such a wilderness. The man’s hair hung down to his waist and was only a little longer than his ragged beard. His wool shirt had lost whatever color it might have had, and was as faded as his frayed trousers. He wore an old slouch hat, tipped back, revealing a sun-dark forehead and crinkled eyes. In his hands was a pan into which he was staring. So intent was he that when we drew close and I hailed him, he was startled enough to drop the pan and had to snatch at it. Only then did he turn to us.
“Who the blazes are you?” he demanded angrily. “Sneaking up that way!”
Panning for gold. The fellow up front has boots. The one behind does not. These folks didn’t waste time putting up log houses but used tents instead.
“We’re heading for Gold Hill, but we’re not sure which way to go.”
He gazed at us. “Gold Hill?” he said with disgust, turning away. “You and everybody else.”
“Have others come this way?”
“Most get there by St. Vrain Creek. Up north. But they’re coming. A whole lot.”
“Then this trail will take us there?”
He glanced at us only to shake his head. “You’ll get lost. Get lost, and you’re gone.” As if to dismiss us, he dipped his pan into the water and then scraped it along the bottom. Next moment he lifted it up and began to swirl the pan while staring into it. Water and sediment trickled out.
Suddenly he leaned forward, peered deeply into the pan, extended a finger, and poked. He then drew up his hand and held up that one finger. “Gold,” he announced without emotion.
“Is it truly?” I cried, quite excited.
“Nothing else.”
“Can we see?” asked Lizzy.
The man held out his hand. We bent over. On the tip of his finger was a glittering speck. I looked at the man in bewilderment.
“Gold,” he repeated, answering my look. He reached behind and picked up a large feather which lay behind him on the creek bank. One end of the feather had been cut off, creating a hollow tube. He tapped his finger over this open end, and then checked to make sure the glittering bit of dust had fallen in. That accomplished, he put the feather aside and resumed his monotonous panning.
“Is
that
the gold that’s here?” I asked.
“You saw it, didn’t you?”
Lizzy gave me a nudge.
“We really need to get to Gold Hill,” I said.
“Find someone to take you,” said the man, never ceasing the circular movement of his pan.
“Did a man come by here—going to Gold Hill—yesterday?” I described Mr. Mawr.
“I suppose someone like that came by. Then again, most people look the same to me.”
We stood back. “Good luck,” Lizzy said as we went around the prospector, careful to avoid his gold-filled feather. It didn’t seem to matter that we were going. He continued to rotate his pan.
Continuing along the well-beaten path, we entered a canyon whose rocky walls rose high to either side. The massive stone, dull red in color, was irregular and jagged, impossible to climb. Here and there—as if to defy all sense of nature—we spied patches of growing green, and even a few twisted trees growing out the rock crevasses. Farther up, where there was soil, many more trees grew.
Between the canyon walls was a rough but open space of some quarter-mile wide, through which the creek tumbled. That’s where we came upon a cluster of crudely built log cabins, not more than twenty and in great disrepair. Uninhabited, most had no windows. Many doors were just holes. A few of these doors were covered with deer skins.
This is Gregory’s Gulch, where they really struck it rich in 1859.
We looked about in search of someone to speak to and spied a woman by the creek’s edge. Near her lay a great pile of dirty clothing, which she was washing.
She was a middle-aged woman, gray hair unkempt, her billowy dress wet. She wore no shoes.
She must have heard us coming, for she leaned back on her heels, hand to her back as if to ease some pain, turned her head, and nodded as much to us as the pile of laundry.
“Miners,” she pronounced, “are the filthiest people in the whole world. Don’t wash but once a month, and only if in a hurry.” Then she said, “You new here?”
“We’re going to Gold Hill,” said Lizzy
“Lots are,” the woman said. “Good diggings. They’re finding gold in Left Hand Creek and Gold Run Creek. Where do you come from?”
“Iowa.”
“Vermont, myself. Didn’t come alone did you?”
“With family,” said Lizzy.
I asked, “Is there a trail from here to Gold Hill?”
“Oh, sure. Not that I’ve been there. The men come here. They don’t want me messing with their streams. Not with this,” she said, gesturing to her pile.
“We need to get there,” I said.
“Hurry on up a bit farther. I thought I saw Dunsha McFadden getting ready to take a supply train up. If you catch him he’ll lead you right there.”
In haste we left the woman and passed through the small settlement. It was poor, simple, and in ill repair. A stopping, not a staying, place. But beyond the cabins was a line of five mules. A man was with them—dressed like a miner—fixing packs to the beasts’backs.
“Mr. McFadden!” I called.
He looked around.
“Are you going to Gold Hill?”
“Who you be?”
“My name is Early. This is Lizzy. Can we follow along?”
“Suit yourself. Just stay back of the mules. They kick.”
Lizzy and I sat on some stones and watched him get the mules in order. “What are you carrying?” I asked.
“Flour. Boots. Picks and shovels. Coffee. Letters.”
After about an hour of packing and repacking, Mr. McFadden turned and said, “Let’s go.”
He went to the head of his line, gave a tug to the head mule’s ear, and started on, the mules in step.
We followed.
W
ELL TRODDEN, the trail inclined steeply through an ever-narrowing rocky canyon high above the creek water. In some places you had to lean back to see the sky. Though the water below roared with power and froth, the rocks, trees, and now and again some flowers were in perfect tranquility.
The trail continued upward for some miles, following the twisting creek. Then Mr. McFadden guided his mules across a crest that led us to another creek.
“Sunshine Creek!” he announced.
From there, we followed a high ridge—mostly flat—that brought us into what felt like the very heart of the mountains. We walked on for about five hours, moving up and down, surrounded by endless mountains and steep cliffs. We saw no other people. But flowers—blue, yellow, white, and red—grew in great abundance, sometimes in unexpected places such as high rock crevices. Occasionally the land opened out, revealing fields of flowers as free and fanciful as any crazy quilt. Elsewhere, dark corners were brightened by golden mushrooms, which had poked up on pine-needle beds. Sometimes we came upon patches of white snow in dark dells. Splashing creeks appeared, only to disappear. A great horned mountain sheep looked down at us from a precipice. As we passed, a small groundhog-like creature called a marmot whistled rudely. We startled a doe and her two fawns. Once I thought I saw a great elk, its antlers as tangled as branches, who gazed at us with nothing less than disdain.
