Zachary's Gold (14 page)

I wasn't sure just what he meant by that, but things were getting worse by the minute, so I stood up, pronouncing angrily that I certainly deserved better than to be harassed by a bunch of drunken strangers, and stomped out.

Carl followed me. He called from the doorway, but I wouldn't stop, so he walked alongside, apologizing and trying to explain the obvious.

“You have to forgive them, old man. You really did sound a bit suspicious, and everybody likes to hear good news, now and then. But it's really as you said in there? Nothing turning out for you at all?”

“Isn't my word good enough for you, Carl? I'm on my way south and out of this useless country, but I thought I could at least remember you as one good friend.”

More than anything, I was angry with myself for being so stupid in public, but I allowed my ill humour to be interpreted as annoyance at his mistrust.

Carl continued to exhibit his long-suffering pose.

“Look me straight in the eye then, Zach, and tell me plainly that you're out of luck and broke, and I'll buy a jar of whisky, and we'll drink a last goodbye down at my place,” he said.

Without thinking, I replied, “No need for that. I've got a room at the hotel.”

I knew I had blundered as soon as I said it, but it was too late. The twinkle returned to Carl's eye and he smiled.

“The American? The Colonial? Kind of expensive, aren't those rooms?”

I turned on my heels, and answered over my shoulder as I walked into the darkness.

“It's a sad thing,” I said, “when a man can't trust the word of a friend.”

“Trust?” Carl called after me. “You don't know the meaning of the word, Zachary.”

I had spent the whole day in anticipation of a soft, sound sleep in a hotel bed, with a feather pillow and a wasteful number of blankets, but the joy of that night of comfort was stolen from me by the implications of my argument with Carl. I was annoyed with both my friend and myself, and worried about the slim but serious chance that someone overhearing our confrontation would have his curiosity tweaked enough to investigate a bit. Needless to say, I could afford no investigation.

I resolved to be up early and on my way, before I had a chance to make things worse. I would have saved myself a great deal of trouble if I had held to that decision.

IT WAS LATE WHEN I
awakened. I could tell by the sounds in the hall and outside in the street. Both mentally and physically I felt muddy and blunt. My first thoughts were of my indiscretion the previous evening, and I muttered self-deprecations all the time I was dressing. I held the irrational but irresistible suspicion, as I carried my belongings downstairs, that someone might try to follow me when I left Barkerville. I tried to shake off the feeling, but I could not.

I had become a noticeably more cautious, more suspicious man since my encounter with Ned. Monumental events in the life of a man can change him dramatically and instantaneously, and my experience of homicide and great wealth had certainly produced a change in me. I was not a better man, but neither was I much worse, I suppose. As I looked over Barkerville that day, I was probably braver, stronger, and shrewder, but I was also more selfish, and there was a callous aspect to my personality that no one would be likely to consider a positive characteristic.

The street outside the hotel was already busy—workers working and travellers travelling—but no one gave me a glance or lurked in the shadows. No stranger followed at a discreet distance when I started down Main Street. I was still suspicious and nervous, but gradually the mood subsided, and I walked along, considering my plans for transporting the gold.

I was disturbed by the recollection that Ned himself had once used two mules. The journey that he undertook was much shorter than mine, his burden lighter, and his knowledge of the animals greater, but even so, his expedition ran into calamity, and he was forced to shoot one animal. The independent spirit of mules is well documented, and the dreadful vision came to me of one gold-laden beast headed off one way, while the other chose an opposite direction, leaving me alone in between. I then considered the idea of hitching the pair to a wagon—a prospect that was appealing for the main part—but one great drawback prevailed. As the murderous trapper had demonstrated, a wagon invites investigation from all sorts of fellow travellers, and since it must remain on the main road, it is difficult to avoid those investigations. A person could try to disguise the cargo as something cheap and innocent, but what would that be? All goods travel from south to north in that land. The only thing worth bringing back to civilization is gold.

I toiled at the proposition for some time, but by the time I was back at the hotel, I had been forced to give the idea up and return to my plan of leading two mules. I retrieved my belongings and walked down the street to pick up Lord Nelson.

I had not brought a great deal with me on this trip—change of clothing, a bit of food, a blanket, and a package of the papers and personal effects from Ned's treasure stash. (Originally, I thought I might try to do a bit of detective work—visit the
Cariboo Sentinel
and figure out who some of his victims had been—but the idea now made me too nervous.) In total, I guessed I was asking the mule to carry about five pounds—not much for a creature commonly referred to as a beast of burden. He was reluctant to cooperate with me, however. In fact, I believe he sneered at me.

“Listen careful, you miserable emasculated ass. I'm the one responsible for seeing that you're dry and well fed, and I don't ask for thanks, but let it be known that I'm also the one that chooses when we walk and when we stop. If you cross me one more time, I'll show you that I can wield a bigger stick than that drunken Englishman ever owned.”

I doubt that the animal even knew that I was addressing him, but it made me feel better, and the creature did indeed clatter along behind me without complaint.

It was nearly noon already, and I was a bit hungry. Rather than reach into my baggage, I stopped at a butcher's (his name, incidentally, was Baker) and purchased a two-pound slab of moose sausage—rather dry, but very good, with a spicy bite to it. I tethered the mule to a post and carried the sausage into a saloon to eat with a tankard of beer. I brought my little hand pack, but left the rest of my things with Lord Nelson.

On the saloon wall was a poster advertising an evening performance of a musical extravaganza titled
Goldfield Romance – A Miner's Story.
The advertisement promised that it would be a stimulating entertainment that would please one and all.

I was sure that it would. The amazing thing is that a crowd of gold miners and prospectors find it vastly enjoyable and enlightening to hear in prose, poetry, and music that their life is full of excitement and romance. From hard experience they know this to be totally fallacious—ridiculous, in fact—but they listen to it with rapt attention and hoot and stamp their approval when the spectacle is over.

The truth is, I thought, that for every gold seeker who goes home rich and satisfied, there are two who leave in coffins, if they leave at all.

With that, the great plan hit me: coffins!

I wasn't immediately certain whether it would be necessary to carry a body or bodies, or whether empty coffins would suffice. The gold might be hidden in the coffins, or in concealed compartments within the wagon, with a casket or two on top. With a suitably plausible but gruesome story prepared, I was sure I could deflate the inclination that anyone, inside or outside of the law, might have to search my cargo.

My good humour returned. The odds for success seemed to have increased dramatically.

I checked my watch to see if there was still time to talk to a carpenter about building coffins and found that it was just after twelve. From my recollection, they took a break at that time to eat. I thought it would be polite to wait for a bit before I approached them. There was plenty of time.

I left the watch, with its cover open, on the table in front of me, cut myself another slice of sausage, and took a long drink of beer. It was a most pleasing pastime to try to visualize every possible problem with my plans, to work out the details of execution, rough out a timetable, and so on. I was enjoying myself and at first paid little attention to the fact that the man at the next table was staring at me.

He was a man of my own age, clean-shaven, dark and tall, and from the way he kept glancing at my table, I assumed he was interested in my food. I thought perhaps he was a proud unfortunate who hadn't eaten in some time, although there was a drink before him. With my hunting knife I chopped off a sizeable chunk of the sausage and offered it to him in a friendly manner.

He pulled himself upright and shook his head in refusal. His eyes opened even wider than they were before, and for the first time I began to feel uneasy. I decided to leave as soon as I finished my drink.

“That's a nice watch,” the stranger said, in a tone that was not perfectly conversational.

I nodded agreement. I had thought, myself, that it was the best of Ned's selection—gold-plated, ornate, and heavy.

“Might I ask where you got that watch?” the tall man continued.

I affected an impatient attitude as I rolled the heel of meat into a scrap of newspaper, and replied that my father had given me the watch for my twenty-first birthday. Before I could stand up, he spoke again.

“No,” he said firmly. “No. That watch belonged to my brother. He got it in the navy. You see the coat of arms . . .”

My own eyes were probably a little wide when I looked again at him. To my horror, he was holding a pistol—an ugly beast with a homemade wooden grip—in his hand. It wasn't yet pointed at me, but it was resting on his table.

“My brother. Timothy. He got himself murdered a year or so back, right on his own claim.”

I was momentarily unable to speak. The half-dozen other patrons and the bartender were also watching and listening to the man in grim silence.

Things looked pretty bad. My thoughts about getting a coffin made were assuming a nasty, ironic aspect. The stranger was not likely willing to appreciate the humour in it all.

“You got his watch. You got the nerve to flash it around like you're proud of it. My God! You don't deserve to breathe the same air as he did.” The man's voice was becoming high and light, and he had given me a good view of the end of his gun barrel.

My chances of talking my way out of the situation were becoming too slim to consider; my own handgun rested deep in my coat pocket, and there wasn't a friend in the world to stand beside me.

Ned, I thought. You've ruined us both, you detestable dog. Even if I managed to tell the whole truth to the law right now, they'd probably hang me as your double-crossing accomplice, rather than treat me as any friend of justice.

There wasn't much point in worrying about how my explanation might be received, because the man at the next table was obviously within two or three minutes at most of blasting me into the hereafter.

I smiled broadly and, I hoped, confidently.

“Just calm down there a minute, friend.” I deliberately picked up the pocket watch and snapped the cover closed. “This watch is not your brother's. It was given to me by my father when I myself entered the navy. It has my name and birthdate engraved on the inside.”

A hint of uncertainty appeared on his face like a crack of light entering a dark room.

“Here. Take a look.”

Again, very slowly, I flipped the timepiece in his direction, on his gun hand side.

It skidded across the corner of his table and began to fall to the floor. Like any civilized man, this fellow reflexively followed his impulse to stop a watch from being dropped, and when he grabbed for it, I kicked a chair against his arm.

A half second later, I had overturned both tables on him, knocking him flat on his back on the floor. His gun discharged into the ceiling, spreading gunpowder smoke and sawdust over the patrons, most of whom were howling and diving for cover. My adversary was between me and the front door, trying to regain his feet, so my only path of escape was past the bar and down the hallway, where I expected to find the rear exit. I had no such luck. The perverse designer of that building had ignored the necessity for a back door. There was only the base of a stairway at the end of the hall.

I had no choice nor any time to choose, so I ran up the stairs three at a time, leaving the shouts and commotion below me, and found myself in another corridor, with doors down each side. The two I tried were locked.

I was running like a rat from a cat, heedless of direction as long as I could keep running. There was a window slightly ajar at the back end of the building and I raced for this, even as I heard the sound of boots pounding up the stairs behind me.

Outside the window was a three-foot-square wooden landing that I had thought would be a fire escape, but instead of a ladder leading down, the demented Barkerville architect had installed three steps leading upwards, onto the roof. Again, I simply followed my own momentum and climbed up.