Like a River Glorious Page 15

  “Uncle Hiram,” I begin. “You must treat my friends better.”

  “I don’t know what they did to deserve this, but I’m certain—”

  “I’ve said I’ll cooperate with you, and I will. I’ll make you the richest man in California. But only if you give them regular water and victuals and a place to lay their heads.”

  “Don’t, Lee!” Jefferson pleads at my back. “Not worth it. I’ll be fine. I’ve taken worse.”

  It hurts my heart that Jeff would flee his mean, drunken da only to fall into the hands of another good-for-nothing intent on using him as a punching toy. I will either get him out of here or die trying.

  “And another thing,” I say to my uncle. “I want them untied. They shouldn’t be kept here like cattle. A true gentleman would treat them with respect.”

  My uncle arches a brow. “What’s to keep them from running off?”

  “Me,” I say. “They would never leave without me.”

  Hiram gives me a dubious look.

  “You’d be amazed,” I say, “how friendship and loyalty will make a body act. Maybe you should give it a try. Maybe if anyone cared about you at all, you wouldn’t have to kidnap people or knock them around to get what you want.”

  I instantly regret the words, because his eyes flash with more rage than I’ve ever seen in a man, and he steps forward, raising the back of his hand.

  At the last second, just as I’m flinching away, he changes his mind and lowers his arm. “You’ve a saucy mouth on you, girl. Reuben’s doing, no doubt.”

  I’ve a mind to tell him to shut his trap and never speak of my daddy again. Instead, I clench my teeth together.

  “Very well,” Hiram says in response to my silence. “I’ll give orders to have these boys freed, fed, and housed. We’ll make space for them in the barracks. I’ll insist, though, on tying them up at night when they’re not working.”

  Bloody pulp. Black eyes. No more teeth. “Thank you,” I say aloud. “Does Hiram’s Gulch have a doctor?”

  “Not yet. The Chinese headman knows a little healing, more healing than English. I don’t know that I’d trust him.” As if knowing English is the thing that makes someone trustworthy.

  Hiram leads me back to our cabin. As we walk, my mind is as busy as bees in a hive. I scan our surroundings, every shanty, tent, and lean-to, looking for cover. Places to hide. A way to escape. Unlike the area around our beautiful beaver pond, these hills are dry and mostly bare, but the north side of the cabin backs up against a thicket of cottonwood. It’s wispy now, the leaves dried and fallen to the ground, but darkness might hide us if we escaped through it. The trees are too tall for me to see for sure where it leads. We could push through the cottonwoods only to find ourselves trapped against the cliff face. Sometimes, though, cottonwoods lead to a stream. And following streams or dry washes downhill would eventually point us in the direction of Sacramento and freedom.

  I also keep an eye out for Abel Topper or Peony. Not many here can afford their own horses, but there are pack mules aplenty pulling carts into and out of the mine, and even a few donkeys. There’s no sign of Peony, though, and when the cabin door closes behind us, leaving me in the turnip-scented gloom, I can’t help the stab of despair that hits right behind my eyes.

  “You have a day to rest and get your strength back,” Hiram says. “Then you go to work.”

  Maybe he means for me to cook and clean instead of Mary, who is nowhere evident. Maybe he means for me to scour these hills looking for gold. I don’t know and I don’t care. But I do need to rest and get my strength back, just not for the reasons he thinks.

  As politely as I can, I ask, “May I have some of that stew?”

  The next morning, I take breakfast with Hiram at the dining table. I sit on the bench while he faces me on one of the stools. Mary has cooked us up a meal of soaked oats with butter and molasses, to be sopped up with biscuits, but she has since left, disappeared to wherever it is she goes. I wish she would stay. I haven’t had a female friend my own age since Therese died.

  “Your hair grew out a little since I last saw you,” Hiram observes.

  “Mm-hmm,” I say around a mouthful of biscuit.

  “You’ll be able to put it up in a month or so,” he says.

  I’m not sure why it’s so important to him, but I nod. Even though I don’t plan on being here a month.

  Becky and the Major and everyone back home expect us to be gone awhile. Past Becky’s thanksgiving celebration. I either have to escape soon, or survive until they come. It’s better that I escape, Jefferson and Tom in tow. Otherwise things could get deadly.

  “Today, you will tour the mine,” he informs me. He wipes his mouth with a napkin, folds it neatly, and sets it on the table beside his empty plate. “Our empire begins here, Leah. The mine isn’t very deep yet, but it’s been profitable so far. I want you to familiarize yourself with its workings and . . . well, feel it out, so to speak.”

  “You want me to tell you where to dig next.”

  “Yes.”

  I promised I’d help him in order to keep Tom and Jeff safe, but dear Lord in heaven, I surely don’t want to.

  “All right,” I tell him. “Is that where you plan to set Tom and Jefferson to work?”

  “Of course. They’ll have to earn their keep around here, just like everyone else.”

  I smear oats around my plate with a biscuit, finding it hard to eat. “You could just let them go.” It wouldn’t be easy to convince them to leave me behind, but I’d give it a fair try.

  My uncle smiles. “I think not. I have some things to attend to, so Frank Dilley will be your guide.”

  I spit out my biscuit. “No! Dilley is a no-good, weaselly—”

  Hiram’s hand darts out, snags my wrist, and gives it a shake. My skin still smarts from the rope burns. “He knows to behave.” His look turns dark. “And so do you.”

  I say nothing, but after a moment, I’m able to snatch my wrist back. I pick up my fork and attack my breakfast with renewed vigor. I’m getting my strength back, by God.

  My uncle escorts me through the camp, past the arrastra and its damp manure scent, to the mine entrance. He hands me over to Frank Dilley, who offers me his elbow like an actual gentleman instead of the filthy cur he is.

  “You will treat her like a lady,” my uncle warns as I take Dilley’s proffered elbow.

  “Of course, sir,” Dilley says, with a grin and a tip of his hat. “This way, my lady.” He pulls me toward the entrance, and several of his men—along with the tall, ghostly man—fall in line behind us. My neck prickles to know they’re there, where my eyes can’t mark them.

  We pass into shadow, and the air instantly becomes cooler and moist. The tunnel is about three paces from wall to wall, barely wide enough for a burro and a small cart to pass. Wooden beams bolster the walls and ceiling at irregular intervals, lanterns swinging from them to light the way. The walls are rough and irregular. At one point, the tunnel widens inexplicably, revealing a table off to the side, along with a few chairs and a couple of barrels. Several of the Missouri men lounge here by lantern light, sipping from tin cups. When they see me, they all stand straight and whip off their hats.

  I scowl at them. Never once on the wagon train did they show this kind of respect. Either my uncle gave them a dressing-down, or they’re out of their heads because of my dressing up.

  “It’s break time for the foremen,” Dilley explains.

  Never have I seen a mine with so many foremen. “I thought Abel Topper was foreman,” I say.

  “Oh, he’s the foremost foreman,” Dilley says. “Probably down in the Drink with the Induns.”

  “The Drink?” Voices sound strange here, fuller and louder.

  “One of the tunnels leads to a wet spot. Lots of gold there, but the Induns are up to their knees in it. Speaking of drink, show the boss’s niece some hospitality, lads. A cup of sugar water for her, now.”

  The Missouri men fall all over themselves to compl
y, thrusting their own cups into the barrel and pulling them out dripping. Three are handed to me at once.

  I pick the one in the middle, mumbling my thanks. They all stare at me until I take a sip. It’s clear, clean water mixed with a little sugar, is all. Back home, it’s what people drank when they couldn’t afford decent tea, but here in California, it’s as luxurious as an orange.

  “This way,” Dilley says. “You can take that with you.” He indicates the cup I’m holding by pointing with his chin.

  Some of the others fall in behind us, including the ghostly man, and again my neck prickles that he’s watching me. I remember the way he manhandled me, forced laudanum into my gullet, tossed me up on Peony and tied me down. The prickle on my neck becomes a full-blown shiver.

  Enough is enough. I plant my feet and turn on him.

  He’s more than a head taller than I am. Taller than Jefferson, taller even than Mr. Hoffman was, and that scar on his pretty lips looks wicked and mean.

  “What’s your name?” I demand.

  The other men with us exchanged startled glances.

  “Uh, that there is Wilhelm,” Frank Dilley says. “He don’t say much. Actually, he don’t say anything. He’s a bit touched, if you ask me, but he’s strong as an ox, loyal as a dog, and mean as a snake.”

  Wilhelm. My uncle mentioned a Wilhelm when he said I must be accompanied every time I left the cabin.

  “I’d say it was nice to meet you, Wilhelm, but we’ve already met, and it wasn’t nice at all. I don’t appreciate the way you treated me and my friends, and I surely won’t forget it.”

  I detect the faintest twitch of his lips before I turn my back on him and address Dilley. “Let’s continue.”

  Dilley shrugs, offering his arm again. I take another sip of my sugar water, mostly to keep it from spilling as we walk, and let him lead me down the tunnel slope. My neck doesn’t prickle so much now, but everything else in me starts to vibrate something fierce. It’s just like when a thunderstorm is about to hit, and the air is like a buzzing blanket on your skin. Except this buzzing blanket is buzzing all the way into my insides, and I wonder if it was a disservice to my belly to accept the sugar water.

  There’s gold here. So much gold. A mountain of it. My vision starts to blur.

  “Lee? You okay?”

  It’s Frank’s voice, and it shakes me awake. I stopped cold in the middle of the passageway and didn’t even realize it. This has happened before; gold can make me near senseless, when there’s so much of it. I’ll have to be more careful.

  “Fine. Just . . . not used to enclosed spaces.”

  “Well, you better get used to it fast. Your uncle wants you paying a visit every day, though I can’t imagine why he thinks it’s a good idea to bring a slip of a girl to a place like this.”

  He never said things like that when he thought I was a boy. “This slip of girl can outride and outshoot you any day, Frank Dilley, and you know it.”

  “I went easy on you, thinking you just a small slip of a lad who talked funny. Coulda outshot you anytime.”

  Frank Dilley is first on the list of faces I’m going to bust before I escape this place.

  We’ve reached a fork in the tunnel. One slopes steeper than the other.

  “Which do you want to see first?” Dilley asks. “The Drink, or the Joyner?”

  “The Joyner? Why’d you name it that?”

  “Because it’s rich and stubborn and dry as a—” Someone smacks him on the back. “Uh, it reminded us of that persnickety widow friend of yours.”

  “I see.” Even though I don’t. “The Drink first.”

  “Down this way.” He gestures toward the steeper tunnel. “Watch your step. It gets slippery.”

  He’s right. Water starts leaching up out of the earth, creating a thin layer of gritty mud over slick rock that shimmers in the lantern light. Small strips of lumber have been nailed into the ground, like the ties of a train track. At first I think it’s to keep the miners safe by preventing falls. But when a burro heads our way, pulling a heavy cart, I realize it’s to protect the ore. The wood ties make it less likely for the carts to roll back when the poor animals become exhausted.

  We all press against the cold, rocky wall to let the cart by. It’s led by a skinny Indian man who’s as naked as the day he was born. Another pushes the cart from behind, adding his strength to the burro’s. It puts me in mind of the Joyner wagon, on a slope as steep as this one. I think of the way its rope snapped, sending the wagon tumbling, crushing everything in its path, including Becky’s husband. I have to avert my eyes.

  In the distance is the unmistakable echo of pickaxes battling hard rock. It’s a mild plink-plink now, but I know from experience the sound will get louder as we get nearer. Back home in Georgia, most of the miners went home at the end of the day with splitting headaches. It’s no wonder so many turned to moonshine.

  “We’ll be laying track and getting proper mine carts soon,” Dilley explains. “That’ll take some of the burden off these poor donkeys.”

  “These poor Indians, you mean,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Same work. To be honest, I prefer the donkeys—they’re less trouble. But Induns are cheaper to come by. All you have to do is grab your guns and head out into the wilderness and round yourself up a big group.”

  My jaw drops open. I can’t believe what he just said. But I guess all slavery starts that way, at the wrong end of a gun.

  Dilley ignores me. The cart passes, and we continue our descent. The air is stuffy now, thick with dirt and moisture, making breathing difficult. Or maybe it’s Frank Dilley himself who makes it hard. I take a deep breath, just to assure myself that I can.

  The tunnel levels and widens onto a muddy underground pond. Lantern light gleams off the surface of the thick brown water, which is choppy and fierce with all the splashing and digging going on.

  The cavern is filled with Indians hefting pickaxes. Two carts stand wheel deep in water, half filled with ore so wet it looks like cow slop. Two Indians heft a giant log into a recently dug cleft to bolster it. They push the log into place, leveraging it between muddy floor and choppy ceiling, as if a single log can hold back the earth.

  “Best to stop right here, Lee,” Frank says. “Any farther and you’ll soil those pretty skirts.”

  At his voice, the Indian closest to us looks up at me, but his gaze darts back down just as fast. He’s digging into the wall near the entrance, but his swings are feeble. His limbs are skinny as a colt’s, his cheeks sunken, his skin covered with mud.

  “Why aren’t any of them wearing clothes?” I ask.

  “Can’t trust ’em with clothes,” he says. “They’d steal the gold sooner than mine it out.”

  “But they’re people, not—”

  A whip cracks. Everyone freezes. An Indian near the far wall collapses backward into the water, which sloshes up to his armpits. A line of blood wells up on his shoulder. He ignores the wound, fishing around in the murk until he comes up with his pickax, then he gets back to work.

  Nausea threatens to overwhelm me. I’ve never seen a man whipped before. I’ve heard tales, though. Some of the mine foremen back home used to whip the Negros, when the plantation owners rented them to the mines during the cold season. It’s a rare Negro who hasn’t felt a whip’s bite at some point; Hampton has some nasty scars on his back and shoulders.

  I peer into the gloom of the cavern, looking for the man doing the whipping. Lantern light doesn’t penetrate the back very well, and it’s hard to see how deep it goes. I’m about to ask Dilley to tell me who’s responsible when a figure appears out of the shadows and wades toward us.

  It’s Abel Topper, the foremost foreman, the one who took Peony. A whip curls in his hand like a long, thin snake. My already low opinion of the man drops down a shaft without a bottom.

  “Hello, Miss Westfall,” he says, cheery as a summer’s day.

  “That’s no way to treat people,” I say.

  “I ain’t aski
ng your opinion.”

  “How’s my horse?” I ask, because I know it will needle him.

  “My horse is doing fine. Found her a nice patch of clover, so she ain’t missing you at all. Hoping she’ll foal come spring.”

  “Peony’s not a foaling horse!” I practically shout. “She’s too valuable as a ride-and-train. Daddy broke two cantankerous colts to the harness with her on lead!”

  Abel’s grin widens. “All mares are foaling horses. If she drops a pretty palomino like herself, it’ll be just like striking gold.”

  I couldn’t stand it if something happened to Peony. I could have bred her lots of times, but never wanted to risk her. I add Abel to the list of faces to bust.

  “Does my uncle know you’re whipping these poor souls?” I ask.

  Frank Dilley jumps in. “He knows, and he approves.”

  I open my mouth to protest, but something catches my eye. It’s the Indian nearest the entrance, stealing glances at me. No, it’s not me he’s looking at. It’s my tin cup. Maybe he’s thirsty. There’s water all around us, but it’s hardly fit to drink. Or maybe it’s the sugar he’s desperate for.

  “Lee!” calls a familiar voice. Two more figures appear in the gloom.

  It’s Jefferson and Tom, wearing nothing but soaked trousers. Jefferson holds a pickax, Tom a shovel. They are too pale, and bruises mark Jefferson’s chest and right shoulder, but I’m so glad to see them awake and alert that tears prick at my eyes.

  “Get back to work,” Abel growls.

  “It’s all right!” I say quickly. “My uncle agreed that I could check on my friends and . . .” I enunciate my next words clearly: “And make sure they are fit and unharmed.” My gaze roves Jefferson’s bruised chest. He’s got the muscle for mining, that’s for sure. I wish I could grab a shirt and cover him up. It must be killing him to have the marks of his beating exposed for the whole world to see. “Abel, my friend Jefferson does not appear unharmed. I’ll have to tell my uncle so.”

  Abel’s eyes narrow. In the lantern gloom, they look like devil eyes. “You’ve gotten mighty uppity all of a sudden,” he says.