Zachary's Gold (2 page)

The wagon road from Quesnelle Mouth to Barkerville and Cameronton was barely begun at that time, Mr. Gustavus Blin Wright having lately arrived with his crew of men, and I was working my way through the forest along a path four to six feet in width, which seemed to have been directed either by a madman or a jackrabbit. It wound and twisted through an otherwise trackless region that managed to be both of extremely steep relief and covered by swamp. When the forest allowed any distance of vision, snow could be seen on the heights, and after climbing only a short while, I found snow on each side of the trail.

I camped that night on frozen ground between high, white drifts, wondering as I went to sleep whether I would be frozen and blown over before morning. In the following weeks and months, I was to grow used to that as my retiring thought, for in that land the snow can come in any week of the year, and the nights are never warm.

There was, of course, no question of turning back.

AN OMNIPRESENT COLD PERVADES ALL
recollections of my early days in the Cariboo. Cold crept up into my bones at night from the ground where I slept. Cold fell down silently from the dark sky to surround me in the morning. If I found respite by a fire or in some warm building, the relief was only momentary. The cold was patiently waiting for me when I started on my way again, down the slippery clay streets and the boggy creek banks.

The town of Barkerville did not lend itself to flowery descriptions or fond memories. Situated in the shallow valley of Williams Creek, it more resembled a desolate battleground or the site of some horrific natural disaster than a planned community boasting to be the “largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco.”

The lower slopes of both hillsides had been more or less completely denuded and were simply a vast expanse of mud and slush dotted with mine shafts and shanties—criss-crossed with footpaths and a spiderweb network of troughs and wooden flumes directing the water of the creek to run a myriad of pumps and Cornish wheels. What trees still remained could not hope for a much longer existence. The sound of chopping and sawing as these were transformed into lumber and firewood was incessant during daylight hours, and a white veil of woodsmoke across the valley's roof was the only testimony to the past existence of smaller forms of vegetation. Scattered across this bleak panorama were the places of human habitation, so small and squalid that they could easily be missed at a casual glance.

While little of beauty could be credited to the town, it could certainly boast great energy and constant activity. The noise of logging, digging, building, pumping, pounding, shouting, and cursing lasted all day and well into the night. Indeed, even during the hours of darkness, the valley bottom was covered with spots of light—lanterns glowing over the wet shafts that had to be worked twenty-four hours of each day.

The buildings of Barkerville proper were strung along one long main street and one back street—a few decent structures serving as stores, hotels, and saloons, while the living quarters of most common miners were ramshackle affairs set up with little care and no intention of longevity. Each builder had the same thought—that his cabin needed to last only a few months until he was rich enough to leave. Work time was too precious to squander on personal comfort, and almost none of them had wives or family to consider.

My naivety and lack of foresight were remarkable, in hindsight, and it was to my great discredit that I had thought only as far as making the trek to the land of promise and little of what would be required upon my arrival. I suppose I expected to find some cheap boarding house or bunk-down arrangement, a short season of leisure while I chose the most obvious site to begin my harvest of mineral bounty. Needless to say, no such accommodation existed. The choice was between absolutely exorbitant rates in hotel rooms or a squatter's chances wherever the ground was dry. Luckily, many of the buildings were constructed two or three feet off the ground on wooden pillars, and I spent my first two nights underneath a general store in cold but comparatively dry conditions.

The search for a claim site was more complicated than I had anticipated—the whole of Williams Creek and all the more promising side gulches being completely staked long before my arrival. Newcomers like me hoped that we might get a chance to pick up a lapsed claim in a good location. Each miner was required to live continuously on site to retain title, and speculation was that some claim holders might not return from their legally permitted winter layoff, but they were not required to do so until June first, and talk was that the allowance might even be extended to the first of July.

It was a huge country in which I stood, and a withering prospect to have to choose one particular hundred-foot square where a dream might be nurtured into reality.

As I wrapped myself in my blanket that first night under the general store, my mind was like a cauldron, boiling with sundry unpleasant opinions and emotions. I was physically exhausted after my long journey, however, and I was quickly asleep, in spite of the constant noise of boots booming like a drum along the boardwalk not far from my head.

It was not noise that dragged me up and out of my slumbers in the middle of that night, but a small sharp pain near my belly. When enough of my consciousness returned, I realized that some small animal—a mouse, in fact—had managed to crawl inside my clothing and was currently scurrying along my skin, biting where he deemed necessary. This appreciable discomfort caused me to sit up abruptly in the dark, or rather to attempt to sit up, for my head cracked into the floorboards above me with a sound like someone dropping a watermelon, and I sprawled prostrate once more. On the mouse, who bit me again.

By the time this situation had finally been corrected I was, of course, wide awake. I am no more afraid of rodents than any man, but the sensation of sharing one's undergarments with the lower beasts can be quite disconcerting. I couldn't blame the little fellow much, for like myself he was only searching for the warmest available place to sleep, but I confess that when I extracted him from my shirt I did not set him free to bother me again, but summarily dispatched him to meet his mousey Maker.

I resolved to find better accommodation as quickly as possible.

I began the next day with a breakfast of dried beef strips warmed over a fire some fellows had set up behind a corral on Back Street. Conversing with this small group for a short time, I quickly became aware of the protocol that governs talk among prospectors and miners. The first rule on this line is that one may hold forth about great fortune or complain bitterly about the fickleness of life with impunity, and with little risk, in either case, that anyone will believe a single word. Where questions to another person are concerned, however, great care must be exercised. Facetious or jesting enquiries are perfectly fine, as are opinions about technique, background facts, or the superstitions that help to make many decisions. It is forbidden, however, to ask anyone how much gold they have, where they found it, or any variation on those two questions.

I escaped that breakfast time with no new friendships made, but no blows exchanged, and straightaway walked the three miles to the gold commissioner's office in Richfield, where maps of Barkerville, Cameronton, Antler Creek, Stout's Gulch, and all other sections of the region lined the walls.

I considered myself to be rather knowledgeable about maps by this time, but after studying these for an hour, I was none the wiser. I walked and pondered, then returned to examine them further, but with no better luck. Other men came and went continually, many checking the same diagrams I found so incomprehensible, then nodding sagely and departing while I tried in vain to decipher the codes of four-figure numbers, pencil scratches over curving lines, and curious abbreviations.

After most of another hour, I departed the offices again and had just paused on the boardwalk outside the main doors when a small man with an enormous red beard accosted me.

“All right then. I'll take pity on you, lad,” he said in an accent that I couldn't place.

“What's that?” said I.

“Come. Over there,” he grunted, and I dutifully followed him across the road, where he dropped his huge pack (even bigger than my own) onto a wooden box beside a shed.

“I seen you in there, lad. Half the morning and you comes out all starry-eyed like the minin' maps was writ in Chinese.” As he spoke, he rummaged deep into his kit, piling shirts and stale bread on the box beside him. At last he withdrew a wrinkled and worn piece of paper, which he clenched in his fist while he repacked his bag and continued. “Yessir, I seen the story enough to know it good, and it's a sad one for sure. You're young and anxious and now you're way out here, and you're lost, and you don't have a clue where to start. Am I right?”

While he addressed me, he wiggled his fingers continually through his great beard, as if he were searching for something lost therein. I bridled at both the man and his approach. The fellow had several times referred to my youth, and twice called me “lad,” and although I could see that he was many years my senior, I resented the implication of his constant reminders. His remarks thus far were likewise quite true, but I was not about to admit as much.

“I know my way around quite nicely thank you, and—”

“No you don't!” He spat the words out without waiting for me to finish what I meant to say.

“What?”

“You need my map.”

“What? No! I don't need any maps, old man!”

“Where's Pinnacle Creek?”

“What?”

“Where's the Welshmen got the new diggins? Is the ground good on the south o' Cow Mountain?”

He could show that he knew the area better than I, quite certainly, but that was a small trick.

“You need my map!” he repeated.

The affair did not end well. Rather than restraining myself (and to be fair, Barkerville was not a place where men often restrained themselves), I shoved him to the ground as I snatched away his map and tossed it into the trickle of water that perennially flows down Front Street. To the sound of Weskit's angry squeals, I stalked off in one direction while the map floated away in the other.

As is usual when a person vents his frustration at the expense of someone else, my feeling of satisfaction was short-lived. Within a minute or two I was once again aware that I had no idea of what to do next. The confrontation with Weskit left me irritated and so self-conscious that when I sat down on the boardwalk to think, I felt everyone's eyes on me and resumed my aimless promenade, trying to look purposeful and confident. I turned a corner and went all the way down Back Street to Cameronton like this. By this time I was not only angry at Weskit for insulting my intelligence, but angry at myself for half-heartedly wondering if that map just might have been useful.

The life of a gold seeker was turning out to be more complicated than I had thought. Once more I strolled the length of Barkerville, looking for inspiration. Striking up conversations with strangers in saloons was always a possibility, but it seemed a rather unpromising one. Walking blindly into the hills and starting to dig at some random gully deep in the barrens was equally unpalatable to me, but after a while I began to think it might be unavoidable.

At that point, I spotted a sign next to a doorway in an alley that could, I thought, hold some promise. It was a painted wood sandwich board sign announcing
Taylor Cunningham – Barber
. Below this title were advertised
Expert Haircuts, shaves, and proper gentleman's grooming. Tonics and poultices available.
At the bottom, evidently added as an afterthought, the sign read
Polite conversation and advice.
I didn't know exactly what was meant by this, but it did not seem too unlikely that someone might see a way to make an honest profit from the obvious need of newcomers such as myself. In spite of my vaunted scepticism of strangers, I had little to lose by asking. My only other option was to go back to the creek and see if Miller Weskit's map had washed up somewhere on the bank.

The man was alone when I entered, a tall, slim Negro with white hair and full sideburns. He had been sharpening his razors and looked up expectantly when the door opened.

“Haircut, sir?”

I was uncertain where to begin, or how to phrase my question.

“I understand you might be able to advise me regarding possible prospecting areas. I'm new to the area, you see.”

He nodded his head gravely and with great dignity replied, “To my customers, I am most happy to supply what information I have at my disposal.”

As I have said, I was feeling a trifle sceptical after my experience with Miller Weskit and felt entitled to ask, “What exactly makes you an authority on such matters, Mr. Cunningham?”

His air became one not so much offended as disdainful, and his simple reply carried a tone of the most patrician self-respect I have ever heard.