Читать книгу Luck's Wild - G. Russell Peterman - Страница 4

Two men pick rocks in the rain. Any unknowing passerby would think that strange, but no one passed by. When both Dymond men pause without a word to catch a breath they each glance repeatedly toward a fresh muddy mounded grave under a twisted white oak tree. A passing in any family means change.

Dark low clouds dumping a steady rain come rushing out of the east, cross over scrub white oaks and rocks on Pea Ridge, and create a gray and black wet late spring day. Low gray clouds slowly float over leafless trees and unpainted rough sawn oak and log buildings soaked black by rain. Some locals jokingly call this place Flint Ridge for the hardness of its plentiful rocks. Dark clouds pushed by a moderate southeast wind drip down a steady cold rain. It is the second day of a soaker, as people in the Ozarks call any slow steady rain, and they are pleased with the gentleness of this passing gentle rainstorm. Everyone in Wright County, Missouri knows that any east wind means a bad storm or at least unsettled weather. Instead, this gentle eastern storm has proven a blessing—a steady soaker in an unusually warm and dry late spring. A year of drought followed by a winter lacking normal snow cover or rain had been followed by a cold windy dry spring. All winter the rocky clay ground had been so dry that cracks appeared before this soaker. It is almost unheard of to have cracks in the ground in the spring, creeks in pool stage, new grass turning brown on rocky hills, and farmers selling stock as the last hay stacks fed out. This soaker is delivering a blessing. Bowed heads before every meal these last two days gave thanks. Though to tell the truth, a few will admit before the assembled family and friends that this blessing has been a little slow in coming. After every meal, pleased eyes look out at their blessing from dark porches and glass windows and feel hope again.

It is hard to see a blessing or feel hope on the Dymond Farm. Rainwater runs off the soft red rocky clay of a new grave and off red clay from between the plentiful rocks on their farm, sixty hardscrabble acres. Quickly, rainwater turns milky tan and then dark cloudy reddish brown from absorbed red clay.

On this rocky ridge farm south-southwest of Hartville, Hansel Dymond often laughed in good times, "I plow by rolling rocks around, and harvest wheat or corn that sneaks up between the rocks." The gleam in his eye told others of his pride in making a crop on his poor ground. Neighbors with a sense of humor along the Pea Ridge Road laugh about their soil and call it “gritty.” Scrub white oak split into rails and cedar fence posts keep a Jersey milk cow, calf, and two mules from wandering off to hunt better grass. Times had been thin and extra cash-money came from skidding logs out of the woods in winter for farmers, hauling them to sawmill, and sometimes hauling wagonloads of freight from Dennis to Hartville. Whenever Jeb Collet had more than his two wagons could handle, the Dymonds had work. The chance to haul freight, even on a sometimes basis, made a loan to purchase a second mule necessary. Then, with the loan only half paid the illness of his wife Marthie would not let Hansel be away from home. It cost him his freighting job. His debt remained unpaid and the bank had demanded payment by the end of the month.

Beyond the end of the barnyard fence stands the remains of less than half of a small haystack, this winter's last, on north side of the small half log and rough-sawn-oak barn. On the barn’s west side away from a small one-room and loft log cabin is a manure pile. Both unpainted buildings are soaked black from rain under a second day of dull gray overcast skies, racing black clouds, and blowing rain.

Back toward the farmyard’s lone old white oak tree, a tree to twisted and stunted to make good fence posts that Hansel left standing for shade, a pair of mules pull a stone-boat. An A-frame made from two chopped flat on the top and bottom cedar logs with cross-pieces of white oak three-inch thick planking oak pegged, and topped with an inch thick oak bed. Two tall gaunt bearded men cross the yard behind the stone-boat dressed in old homemade knee-length deer-hide coats with large hand-sawn and whittled wooden buttons held on by leather loops. Their blackened by rain coats have a dull shine and both men wear wet floppy-brimmed black hats. Each man walks along side a full load of rocks heaped on their stone-boat not caring about the muddy gouge the dragged A-frame plows across the rocky mud of the yard.

"Whoa!" yells Hansel Dymond, the father. His long white beard with the point cut straight across just above the first large wooden button drips rainwater. Whether Hansel stands or walks it is with a hunch in his shoulders from years of hard work. As he yells, the old man pulls back on the long reins roughly to stop his team of mules. The younger man, Collin Dymond, Hansel’s only living son, is not yet old enough to grow a good thick set of black whiskers. His beard grows mostly along his jawbones and a poor crop under a long pointed nose. Collin bends over and lifts the first rock from the A-frame without being told to do so.

With the team of mules stopped beside the muddy mound of a fresh grave, neither man speaks. Both tall thin men work at the task of placing a layer of rocks over the new grave, empty the stone-boat, return to the hillside to load another heaping load, and return to work at a second layer. Beside the new rock-covered grave stands two small headboards newly replaced last winter for Collin’s younger brother and sister. These mark the sorrowful passing of two other Dymond children, Alex 2 and Lizzie 27 days. Neither was able to reach adulthood. Their short lives brought untold joy, anguish, and grief to the Dymond family. Quietly, rock after rock moves to the muddy grave for both want to be sure no man or beast ever disturbs this grave. From time-to-time, one will rest a moment and look with sad eyes at the new headboard of thirteen-inch wide and two-inch thick rough-sawn oak plank. The words lovingly cut into the new oak with a sharp knife point read:

MARTHIE

DYMOND

1801-57

Finally, the muddy grave’s mound holds a second layer of rocks and the stone-boat is empty. Both men stand looking down at the new grave, pull off their hats, and stand bareheaded in the rain with bowed heads. Black hair on the son's head is soon wet and plastered around his head, and the white bearded father stands with drops of rain splashing on his un-tanned baldhead and wet ring of white hair. After a long moment of private thoughts, the old one speaks.

"Marthie, don't you worry none. We'll be all right. That Farmer’s Bank down in Hartville has done got the farm. Marthie . . . you rest easy; Collin and me are heading out for them gold fields. We hope to find a little and come back. We'll buy this'en farm back … if’en we can." His old work roughened hands rub across his eyes, wipe tears and rain away, as his head bends down until his chin rests on his collarbone. After long moment that ends with a sniffle. Hansel starts again, "But, if that's not to be, we'll locate close by. Marthie, you can rest easy now and look after our young’uns. I'll see you in the bye-and-bye. So long Marthie."

"So long Ma," the younger one says softly and pulls his hat back on after his father does. Collin Dymond starts to follow his father toward the house.

His white-bearded father turns, stops him, and gives Collin new orders. "You unhitch Cain and Abel. Leave the harnesses on the stone-boat. Put riding reins on ‘em and bring the pads. I'll get our possibles."

"Yeah Pa," Collin replies and moves to strip both mules of harnesses and collars and dutifully tosses both sets on the empty muddy stone-boat. The son leads the mules to the barn, ties them to a hitching post, and steps inside their small barn. In a minute, the dutiful son returns with shorter riding reins to snap on the metal rings at the end of their straight bits in place of the longer ones. Collin slowly winds-up each of the nine-foot long leather reins into coils, ties the coils with thin leather strings from his pocket, steps back inside for two leather pads, cinches the pads tight around each mule’s bellies, picks-up the four coils, and leads the mules toward the house. On the way to the log cabin, Collin lays the long rein's four coils on top of the harnesses, and stops briefly to pick up two shovels and a pickaxe out of the mud. Collin looks around as if deciding what to do with them and decides to lays all three tools beside the harnesses on the stone-boat. Looking at the mules he wonders about the bank loan unpaid for Abel, wonders if it’s right to ride away on him. He decides the banks getting their farm and that should be enough.

At the cabin, his father steps outside carrying their new load, two leather tote-sacks. Hansel calls each one “a poke” tied together at the tops. When Collin stops the mules at the house, he adjusts the pads over Abel’s withers, front shoulders, and loads his mule. One poke on each side of Collin's mule and the rope between rests on the pad. The pad keeps the rope from cutting into the mule's hide.

Just as Collin finishes his father returns carrying a rifle, a shotgun, two powder horns, and two belts. Each belt has a small leather pouch for carrying an extra tie of powder in a piece of soft leather and lead shot and homemade knives in sheaths. Both firearms have leather wrapping around the flint on the hammers, frizzens, and powder pans to keep their powder dry. In addition, six-inch long leather caps cover the ends of the barrels to keep rain out of the load. Hansel hands his son Collin the rifle, a powder horn, and a belt. His rifle plate stamp reads 1812 with a U and an Eagle, making it an old military weapon. It is an old Springfield .70-caliber rifle with a barrel just short of a full forty-four inches long. The shotgun Hansel keeps, and this butt-plate stamp reads 1807 England. It is a double-barrel ten gauge with two triggers. Both weapons have a frizzen, a piece of steel the flint on the hammer strikes to create a spark, and small powder pan with a touch hole filled with black gunpowder. Both barrels of the shotgun are leather wrapped and wear a single leather rain-cap. Both men are careful to keep the barrels pointing upward as they belt on a pouch of lead balls and powder and a sheath holding an arrow-pointed double-edged knife. Both homemade knives they fired, hammered, sharpened on both sides on the farm's plentiful sandstone supply, and each blade sports homemade five-year-old white oak handles soaked for two months in oil and let dry before sanding. The homemade riveted cowhide sheaths and belts fasten over their leather coats and each one pushes an arm through the sling on a powder horn. Hansel checks the twin pokes and the pad on his son's mule before walking to his own. Collin follows, bends down, and cups his hands to help his father mount Cain's wet back. While his father waits on Cain, Collin leads Abel to a large rock left for this purpose, wipes his wet muddy hands on Abel’s flank, steps up on the rock, and slides a leg over on his mule's wet back. Collin Dymond turns Abel, his mule, to follow his father Hansel Dymond who without looking back kicks Cain in the ribs. At the end of their short farm road Hansel turns east down slope on Pea Ridge Road and at the main road turns south toward Dennis. Down Pea Ridge’s rocky muddy road in a drizzle both mules walk, father leading and son following, on through several showers of cold rain. Through rain and drizzle they keep to this steady pace on toward the upper end of Woods Fork Creek and the Gasconade River. Both would normally be dry, or nearly so, late in most summers, but in a normal spring full and running. Both were at pool stage last week, but now after this long slow rain both are sure to be running.

Neither one looks back as they ride up over hills and down through hollows, raindrops and gusting wind continuously beating against the left side of their faces, and neither one pretends to notice scattered brown winterkilled clumps of Golden Rod that Marthie so admired each fall. Without a word or a look backward both riders move south on the main trail through stands of stunted oak, black walnut, twisted cedar damaged in the last winter’s late ice storm, persimmons, hickory, and hackberry trees of the area they had called home. Two large floppy, completely soaked, hat brims bends down over the left side of each stern emotionless face by an easterly wind and make it difficult to see very much with their left eyes. From time-to-time, they notice a blackberry thicket, stands of black walnut, white limbed cottonwood, red and white oak, maple, or persimmon trees along draws and gullies. Other times swirling gusts blow the brim back and upward wetting their entire faces. Fingers quickly pull the brim back down and hold it there until the gust passes. In the bottoms both mules splash through standing water, ride knee-deep across the headwaters of Wood Fork Creek, and cross over Lost Wagon Ridge. Down again and turning down long winding Oetting Flats splashing through puddles of standing water in last year’s knee-high dead brome grass, and then splashing across the upper end of Gasconade River. In the upper Gasconade, they drag their boots ankle deep through racing water. Out on the other side again they ride along Oetting Flats, a long winding valley bottom. Collin expects his father to take the easier way down the flats, swing left and then right around Stony Ridge following a wide bowl-shaped lowland almost up into Dennis; but his father reins Cain to the right straight-up and over Stony Ridge. Up they ride through scrub oak, stunted cedars, scattered persimmon, and brush thickets dodging around jutting rock ledges and boulders. His father takes the short-cut and Collin follows as a solitary lightning flash streaks downward ahead of them, almost instantly a peal of ear-hurting thunder cracks loudly a hundred yard uphill, a burnt smell and flame and smoke from a split post oak vanish quickly in the wind and rain.

In Dennis, a small community of eleven un-painted soaked black buildings on the wagon road out from Springfield that twists and turns southeastward through the hill country everyone calls “the Ozarks” before turning south into central Arkansas. Through the small village of Dennis the Dymonds walk their mules. Curious eyes from windows, porches, and doorways stare out at them. Minds behind those eyes start to wonder where these two riders are going when both riders ride on past all three business places: Claxton's General Merchandize Store, Blankenship’s Boot and harness shop, and Hensley's Blacksmith and Livery. At the west edge of Dennis, Hansel turns Cain around behind a log church to a small-whitewashed cabin, slides off his mule in front of the small log cabin, and drops the reins on the muddy ground. The people living in Dennis call where the minister and his family live “The Manse”. Hansel’s knuckles knock on the new wood of a homemade door of the Manse and shortly it opens. A tall white-bearded man stepped into the doorway wearing store-bought clothes, a white shirt with a boiled and starched linen collar, and black suspenders holding up black wool trousers.

"Come in out of the rain, Brother Dymond."

"Brother Cravens, we'll just be a minute. I'll not make more work for your Misses by needlessly tracking in mud and water."

The minister in the doorway nods his thanks as Brother Cravens starts again. "How may I help thee?"

"Marthie passed away this morning in the early hours. My boy and I have laid her to rest and said our goodbyes. We would take it kindly. If, the next time you're up that way, you would stop and say the Good Words over her grave."

The minister nods his agreement, "I'll be glad to Hansel."

Hansel hands him a small folded piece of paper before continuing. "My boy and I are going out to them gold fields to try to get a new start. The bank over in Hartville has got the farm. We owe thirteen dollars to Doctor Lawler for visits and medicine. I owe a dollar and eleven cents to Odie Fisher. We could pay them but we need to keep the few coins we have for the trip. I hoped you would pay those two bills in exchange for that there paper."

The minister unfolds the paper and reads:

For one dollar and other considerations I sell to Reverend Elijah Cravens, his wife Ella, kith and kin, all things and critters on my farm other than land, timber, house, barn, and standing fences.

Hansel Dymond

April 10, 1857

When Reverend Cravens looks back up at him Hansel adds, "I've a milk cow, newborn bull calf a week old, a three-year-old boar, four sows due to farrow first half of next month, a rooster, eight laying hens, two setting hens in the barn, a dash of hay, a start on a stack of next winter's wood, a few split rails, a farm wagon, two sets harness, stone-boat, a few tools, and house furnishings and wares. The banker takes over at the end of this month. I thought in return for those things you, or your kith and kin, would pay my bill to Doctor Lawler and Odie Fisher."

The minister looks at the paper again for a long moment, nods, and reaches into his trouser pocket. His fingers lifted a silver dollar from several coins and a two-bladed Barlow knife in his left hand. Reverend Cravens puts the dollar in Hansel's outstretched left hand returning the other coins to his pocket and their right hands shake on the deal.

"Thank you, Brother Cravens," Hansel tells him warmly turning away.

"May, God, bless your journey!"

"Thank you again, Reverend. So long,” Hansel replies, takes four quick steps, leaps belly-first up on Cain's wet back, wiggles, squirms, and manages to sit on his mount. After reaching forward to gather in the reins, his fingertips touch his hat brim as Hansel reins his mule away and back toward the main road. Collin touches his hat brim and turns Able to follow. At the road, Hansel turns west toward Springfield with Collin following and two hours later the wind dies and rain ceases.

Three days later after passing through Springfield both mules plod along northwest toward Lamar in Barton County. The Dymonds stop in Golden City for two large bundles of jerky and a small bag of salt. Outside of town Hansel motions Collin up to ride side-by-side as dusk darkens. A mile further Hansel speaks.

"Son, we'd best be lookin’ for a place to camp for the night. Tomorrow morning we turn north in Lamar toward Westport on the Missouri River."

"Yah Pa," Collin answers as they top a small rise. Collin points down and to the right toward a small grove of maples, ash, elm, and hickory.

"Looks good,” replies Hansel turning Cain toward his son’s pointed at grove of trees.

In the woods, they find a small grassy clearing but no water. They make a dry camp. Collin hobbles the mules so they can graze. Hansel unrolls two string-tied patch-quilts that quickly get slightly damp from the evening dew and recent rains as they sit on them chewing jerky. After a quiet time working on stiff dry jerky, they both wrap up in damp quilts to lie watching the last of a red-streaked sunset.

As dark settles down like a deep passing shadow Hansel whispers to his son, "Since Golden City, I've had a feeling of eyes watching us."

"Those two fellows sitting out on that bench in front of the Rainbow Cafe across the street did seem right interested in our mules," Collin tells his father.

"Mules do fetch a high price," Hansel replies while nodding his agreement to his son’s information. Silence for a minute or two settles around them again. The dark camp is quiet while Hansel thinks about what to do. Finally, Hansel whispers to his boy. "It's better to be safe than sorry. Son, you fetch some branches quiet like."

With only a slight rustling noise Collin moves through the grove on bare feet bent over collecting limbs and branches. When he brings in one armload, his father sends him after another. Hansel arranges the branches to look like it is a sleeping body, spread his patch quilt over it, and put his hat on one end. The second load is quickly arranged under Collin’s quilt with his hat at same end. Hansel moves both pairs of boots to the other end of the quilts. Both men tiptoe soundlessly back behind a stand of Blackberry barbed reeds and brush to wait. The only sound is three hand-muffled clicks of cocked weapons.

As a quarter-moon crawls up halfway over the tallest treetops two dark bent over shapes ease slowly and quietly on tiptoes from shadow to shadow through the trees. Twice the dark shapes stop to stare in the dim light toward their quilts. At about thirty feet in a long shadow both shadows raised up into the moonlight to stand straight and tall, walk forward quickly on the balls of their feet, and at less than ten steps each points a pistol at a different quilt. One hat nods and each fire two quick shots. The dark pair moves carefully closer to make sure both travelers are dead. Just before the pair touches the quilts Marthie had works so long and hard on a rifle cracks from the brush and is instantly followed by a shotgun’s double boom of two triggers pulled at once. The one hit with the shotgun’s number nine buckshot double-load flies backward, and the one shot with the muzzle-loaded long-rifle staggers two steps forward before pitching down on his face beside what was suppose to be Collin’s quilt-covered body. For a long quiet minute or more nothing moves, no sound echoes around the clearing, and no racing away horses or moving shadows of companions. In deep silence, time drags on and a full minute seems endless.

"Reload," his father whispers. Quickly, from the dark shadows tapping noises of pouring powder, grabbing shot, and pushing greased patched-shot down barrels followed by ramrods damping down a new load.

"Check em!" whispers Hansel.

"Yah Pa."

"Careful."

"Yah Pa," answers Collin as he eases slowly forward bent over with his rifle pointed at the shadows on the ground. His rifle barrel pokes the first body. When no reaction followed, Collin kneels to cup his hand over the nose of the shape on the ground and feels no air moving. He shakes his head no and moves slowly to the next shape to poke and kneel to cup that one's nose too.

"Both dead, Pa," whispers Collin.

“Good,” Hansel whispers. "Son, we'll need some light. I'll start a small fire. You sneak around quiet like and find their horses. Make sure this trash came alone."

"Yah Pa," Collin answers softly. His dark bent over shape slips noisily on bare feet through dark shadows to disappear like a ghost. Years of hunting in the woods to supplement the family larder allows Collin to take a twisting and turning course through trees without making a sound to warn of his coming.

A few minutes of snapping branches from the woodpile under their quilts and a sharp knife’s dull flash in Hansel’s hand shaving wood slivers into a small pile prepares for a fire. After the knife returns to its sheath, sparks from a flint and small piece of steel fly into a little pinch of gunpowder, and suddenly a small blaze flares. As Hansel feeds larger twigs into his small fire, the sound of walking horses made him turn and look.

"Only two horses, no other tracks. They came alone."

"Good! Folks remember horses. Strip all the gear off them. Turn them loose and get our mules."

By the time the fire is a small blaze pushing a small ring of yellow light outward into the darkness a rig made a thump sound on the ground and the first horse walks away to graze. In moments another set of gear is on the ground in the clearing’s light ring and the second horse walks away. Collin walks out into the small clearing, takes off hobbles, and leads their mules up to the campfire. Hansel kneels to go through the pockets of the both dead men and collect their last possessions in his red handkerchief. He finds three silver dollars and sixty-three cents, two partial twists of tobacco, and two old rusty Barlow knives. Each man had a Stoddard-Darling 6-shot, .30-caliber, pepperbox pistol. Hansel places the pistols back on the ground near the hands of the dead to let anyone that finds the bodies know that both men had been armed, and that each had fired twice before dying.

"Put the saddle blankets and saddles on the mules," Hansel orders as he picks out the best bridle for Cain. He hands the other to Collin who nods his head and tosses down his old one. It takes a minute or two to adjust bridle straps, and then Collin swings the saddle blanket and saddle over Cain’s back. Collin pulls Cain’s cinch tight, and Hansel holds Cain and Abel while Collin does the same thing again to Able. Carefully, they each adjusted stirrups to fit their longer legs. When they are ready, twin poke sacks hang from Collin’s saddle horn and the pads rest inside new saddlebag pouches. Hansel kicks dirt over the fire, rolls up the damp quilts with two new holes in them, and ties them behind saddles. Hansel mounts and rides carefully through the trees to the road and turns west with Collin following. A mile down the road Hansel tosses the extra old bridles in a small washout and two miles further Cain and Able splashes across a small shallow creek. Collin turns Abel along the bank, spots a deeper hole, and tosses in both pads.

Three miles further on, they pull off the road behind a brush thicket, tie their mules to hackberry saplings, wrap up in damp blankets, and try to sleep. When the sun slips over the eastern tree line they are moving again chewing on jerky. This time the damp quilts are inside a canvas roll behind each saddle and several times that morning both comment that riding today is much easier with saddles. A little after ten by the sun on their necks and shadows reaching out in front of them they let their mules walk through the five un-painted buildings of Lamar and on to the crossroads. A half mile outside of town both riders turn north.

A week and three days later, the Dymonds ride through the wide muddy main street of Westport, Missouri, filled with rider and wagon confusion in a late spring rush. Not even mud from a slight day-long drizzle after two day of scattered showers slows Westport, the jumping off place for wagons going west. Five wagon trains are in different stages of preparing to leave at first light tomorrow. Hansel stops at two stores, their signs call themselves “Outfitters”, comparing prices and all are high, more than three times the Dennis price. The only thing that seemed less so, only double, is signs on the many saloon fronts advertising beer for a dime. In Dennis the price of beer is a nickel. At the third Outfitter-store sitting out front on a boardwalk bench Hansel spots an old timer with a long flowing white beard smoking a black crusty nearly burnt-out pipe.

Hansel dismounts and sits down beside the old timer. "Friend, tell me about this place, this business. My boy and me are going west."

"Howdy! Ross Weyer here."

"Mister Weyer, our names are Hansel and Collin Dymond from Wright County."

"Folks call me Ross, Hansel."

"Ross, you know about how this here all works. Is it best for the boy and me to go with a wagon train or go it alone?"

"Depends, Hansel, on how long you want to take getting out there. It is getting late in the season already and some of these folks will have to rush to beat the snow in the mountains. Your mules look strong. They can make two or three times the distance these wagons will in a day. A wagon train will be lucky to make fifteen miles on a good long day. They will have days that they don’t make ten. Your mules can travel twenty or thirty miles in a day if you push right along and on some full moon nights ten or twenty more. Five trains leaving at dawn, seven left yesterday, and more every day before that for a good six weeks. All headed west. My advice to you, Hansel, would be buy you a map of the California trail, buy that new book everyone’s talking about The Prairie Traveler by Captain Marcy telling all about going west, buy a full tote sack of jerky, a handful of rivets, six extra mule shoes, rasp, nails, and hammer, and start riding."

"Thanks friend Ross," Hansel tells the old timer as he stands to shake his hand. "We're going to buy that map, book, things, and a sack of jerky and head out. Sorry we can't stay and have a beer with you, Ross. So drink a couple on Hansel and Collin Dymond will you," Hansel tells the old man as he places a quarter in the old bony brown-age-spotted hand.

The old man smiles his toothless smile at him, nods his thanks, and slips the coin into his old faded blue shirt pocket.

In the fourth Outfitter-store, after checking for the cheapest price, Hansel bought a full burlap sack of jerky, an empty burlap sack, The Prairie Traveler, an empty burlap sack, a box of rivets, six number four mule shoes, a box of horseshoe nails, a rasp, hammer, and a map of the California Trail. As Hansel pays over his thirteen dollars and eighty-one cents for less than four dollars of goods in Dennis, the clerk has the gall to smile and tells him, “We’re the cheapest place in town.”

Outside of town, they adjust their jerky into twin half-burlap sack loads. Anything extra in their poke they toss away beside the trail, fill saddlebag pouches, and start out for the gold country following the Missouri River northward. At first the pace is Hansel’s git thar quick pace of a walk and then trot, walk, trot, walk, and trot again. At that quick pace, the Dymonds ride through the last of the first day. Hansel had double half-sacks of jerky tied to his saddle horn and Collin had both leather poke-sacks of their possibles tied to his. Throughout the rest of the first day neither speak, but stare at a large collections of wagons and herds of horses, mules, and cattle out grazing. Five wagon trains getting ready for tomorrow’s jumping off.

At their first noon, a brief break, they water Cain and Able and let them graze for what Hansel gauges to be an hour while they chew on jerky. Hansel finally speaks repeating what the old man had said, and Collin who hears it knows his father says it for reassurance. "We can move so much faster and farther in a day than those wagons."

On Hansel’s walk and trot pace all afternoon miles slip behind them. Late in the afternoon they start to see and then catch up and pass a wagon train that left Westport yesterday. That night they camped south a mile off the trail between to wagon trains. During Collin’s watch after midnight a cloud sails in front of the moon and in the darkness a rustling noise in the grass in front and to his left. Collin eased back behind a three-foot high boulder. Next, the noise moves further left to circle him and Collin had enough of this. Slowly, his finger eases back one hammer on the shotgun, waits, aims at the spot grass rustles again, and pulls the trigger. A boom, a yell, and three dark figures bolt upward running desperately toward the northern most wagon train’s fires.

In the morning Hansel studied the boot tracks a ways toward the far train. Collin found a dropped knife with a six-inch blade and store bought buckhorn handle which he slipped into Hansel’s saddlebag pouch. The Dymonds rode a wide space around that train.

Through the following summer days the Dymonds made twenty or thirty and a few times forty miles a day along the Missouri, North Platte, Sweetwater, Humbolt, Carson, and Truckee Rivers. While mules walk west and then south they both take turns reading out loud chapters of The Prairie Traveler and then talking about it before both read the next chapter. On full moon nights they ride another ten or twenty miles. Almost every day they overcome and pass several wagon trains though the long grass, and then short grass, and then sagebrush. Every night they take turns on watch. At each hour and a half noon stop a different one dozes. When they have luck hunting, the best cut they take and the rest they give to a passing wagon. In the best going wagons only made ten to fifteen miles a day and some days they passed three or four trains. One day they rode past lines of wagon trains all day. That day lines of wagon trains three and four abreast no more than a quarter mile apart, and others ahead of them just as thick. No more than a mile-separated any group of four to six wagon trains. The trail to the California gold fields sure was a busy one and about twice a month they scared off night-raiders. Robbers sneaking around after their mules changed their mind after a shotgun blast into sagebrush that moved. It did the trick for the rest of the night was quiet. Once, some unlucky thief yelled after being hit or frightened, and limped away. Several mornings, they did see drops of blood beside strange boot tracks.

“Look, Pa,” Collin almost shouted and pointed at a group strange looking riders off on the horizon to the north. “I see ‘em,” Hansel replied. After a long moment he added, “Indians.”

“Should we fort-up?”

“Too many for us,” and Hansel kicked Cain in the ribs. Cain trotted forward toward a wagon train two miles ahead and Collin on Able followed. “Get in close behind those wagons. If attacked we can help them and they us.”

“Good Pa.”

In an hour of walking Cain and Able a hundred yard behind the last wagon the group of Indians disappeared off the skyline. With a wave of his hat Hansel kicked Cain in the ribs to begin trotting past. Three more times the Dymonds spotted groups of Indians riding off at a distance and moved in closer to the next or last passed wagon train for protection, but no attacks came.

In addition to scaring off thieves, the shotgun was handy for adding a Jackrabbit or Sage Hen to their jerky diet, especially on those days the mules rested. These long quiet days Collin liked best, hunting along the Platte and Sweetwater while Hansel rested the mules for two full days of grazing and checking mule shoes. On these days Hansel and Collin did not touch a piece of jerky. Collin slept late, napped after a big noon meal, hunted sage hens and jackrabbits, or tried his hand at spearing fish.

Three months and six days after Marthie’s death, Thursday July 16^th, the Dymonds walk Cain and Able into Downieville, California, on the Yuba River. Each mule carries only one limp poke sack hanging from a saddle horn and no burlap sacks. Yesterday, all of their remaining jerky squeezed into both of Hansel’s saddlebag pouches. Unimpressed with the town both Dymonds look right and left at a wide dry and dusty street. Downieville was a collect of only nine ramshackle buildings, two dozen patched tents, and just north out of town a rickety-looking bridge over the shallow Yuba River.

Hansel pulls to a stop and Collin slides down to hold Cain and Abel's reins. Satisfied his father slid to the ground and walks over to talk to a dusty ragged miner sitting on a bench drinking whiskey.

The husky bearded miner set his bottle on the bench beside him, stares at their mules, looks Hansel and Collin over, and smiles a missing front tooth smile. "Newcomers?" the miner asks between sips even though he already knows that from looking.

"Dymond's from Missouri," Hansel replies.

"Digger Saylor,” he replies and takes a sip before adding, “formerly of Zealand Notch, New Hamphsire.”

"We need information, Mister Saylor," Hansel politely asks.

"Mister Saylor was my father. I'm just Digger."

"Digger I'm Hansel."

"Hansel, this place is called The Bar or Downieville, take your pick. The river over yonder is the Yuba. Most gold-seekers have moved on to the Feather River and beyond. Mostly this river has old abandoned claims and two or three big serious mining companies. Pay dirt is down in the cracks in the riverbed rocks mostly. Big companies divert the river with dams, teams pulling scoops drag away most of the top dirt and rocks, pay day wages to miners like me to dig down to bedrock, scrap the cracks, and haul the scrapings up to a Trommel. That’s a big wheel-shaped wire cage. Water wheel power turns the cage and the fine stuff falls into the flume, a wooden plank trough with water in it. Flowing water carries away the soil and leaves behind the gold in the riffles."

"Is there any gold still around? Surely they did not get it all, and we did not come all this way to work for wages."

"You two might make eating money, if you dig out rock cracks up the Yuba in old abandoned claims. You might get lucky and find a pocket."

"What's a riffle?"

"A sluice or flume has a series of little boards across it called a riffle. The gold is heavy, falls to the bottom, and lies behind the riffles."

"What are the prices around here, Digger?"

"You’ll need to make at least sixteen to twenty dollars a day—each. Prices are high. A full pinch of dust is a dollar, a teaspoon is sixteen dollars, and a wine glass is a hundred dollars. A morning and evening bowl of stew costs a teaspoon full. This bottle of Tarantula juice cost a teaspoon full. A bottle of Forty Rod would be a half a pinch cheaper if you can stand the smell?"

"Thanks Digger," Hansel replies and puts out his hand to shake.

Digger shakes the offered hand saying, "Luck."

Hansel mounts Cain, touches his hat brim, and kicks his mule's ribs. Digger watches the Dymonds ride down the street toward the bridge. Outside of town just before crossing the bridge, a worried Collin pulls up along side his father. "We wouldn't last the rest of the day in town at those prices, sixteen dollars for a morning and evening bowl of stew.”

“What little we got will have to stretch." Hansel tells his son and Collin nods his understanding.

Across the Yuba Bridge Hansel reins east, upstream along the bank and takes the North Fork of the Yuba, guides Cain along the twisting and turning riverbank, and Downieville is soon out-of-sight. As the Dymonds ride along the Yuba, they see old diggings, abandoned broken tools, broken equipment, cradles, and sluices. They stop and collect two bent pans for panning, two shovels with broken handles, and an old small black pot for cooking jerky stew with the handle-hook broken off one side. A sharp blow with a rock breaks the other side and Collin carries it as he rides. They ride through old sites of settlements, camps as the signs call them. Each one is named strangely: Poverty Bar, Peasoup Bar, and Browns Camp to name a few. Most are empty now, but one or two has a few miners still trying to strike it rich or scraping by freighting supplies up the trails to other mining camps. Hansel and Collin stop in more than a dozen places each day, try panning, and find little. In likely looking places they try their hands at digging down in dry places to bedrock, scraping out the cracks, and putting the scrapings in pans or abandoned cradles or sluices. Along riffles they find a little color, but after a week the total is not more than three-quarters of a teaspoonful. Generously Hansel guesses it at ten dollars. After a second week of trying a dozen more places they have collected almost a second teaspoon full. In two weeks with both Dymonds working without a day off they have a decent single miner’s daily amount. After another two weeks, now a month of trying, they still have only found less than two days worth of gold for a single miner. With a cache of barely four teaspoons full of dust, August heat hits.

Passed Little Rich Bar no more than an hour's ride, the thirty-first day fills with a dozen unsuccessful stops and they start on the next to last bundle of jerky. At a small abandon claim at the end of a small northwest loop in the Yuba, both shovel down once again to the riverbed to scrap bedrock cracks. After dumping scrapping in a pile, they decide to work on each side of a long three-piece sluice up on the riverbank. Hansel carries two wooden buckets of scrapping up one side and Collin carries water from a three-foot deep pool up the other. Hansel works with a shoulder yoke he finds and Collin finds two wooden buckets to balance him. It goes faster after Collin hooks his two buckets to a yoke he makes. Each trip Collin walks up and around an old half rotten stump before dumping his buckets of water into the sluice. They have better luck here. In only three hot tiring days working from can-see to can’t-see they find almost another teaspoon full of gold flakes.

On the fourth day they rest. The Dymonds have been working for more than a month straight without a break. Hansel orders, “Today we wash clothes and toss them over bushes to dry.” After all their extra clothing is draped over bushes they rest late in the afternoon wearing wet faded red long johns.

Collin sits on a rock drying in the sun and staring at the old stump that he has walked around-and-around carrying water for three days. "If we pulled out that stump it would only be about half the distance to carry water."

Hansel walks over and studied the stump for a while. Finally, he nods his agreement. "It’s rotten. Can’t be many roots still holding it. Wasn’t there old pieces of rope somewhere around here?"

"I know where," Collin replies with excitement in his voice. He rises to walk uphill into a nest of boulders and comes back carrying two small coils, a seven-foot length of rope, and dragging a braided iron-ring in one end. Collin wraps the large piece around the stump and puts the end through the iron loop. It leaves about two feet of rope to tie on to.

His father brings up the mules saying, "Wish we had a set of harness." Hansel saddles Cain and his son saddles Able. They tie both saddle horn ropes to the larger rope’s end. Slowly, both men lead their mules forward. The mules slowly lean into their load and stretch both ropes tight. As the ropes stretch the old stump creaks. The mules strain against their loads. Suddenly, the old stump creaks and then cracks. As it cracks the stump almost jumps out of the dry rocky riverbank accompanied by a rattle of rolling stones, and Cain and Able drag the old stump out of the way.

As they untie and coil up saddle-ropes again, Hansel observes, "You'll have to fill in that hole . . . might you could dig a good walkway through it."

"Good idea, Pa," Collin agrees as he strips off the saddles from both mules and his father leads the animals back to graze on a new patch of grass. Collin takes the shovel with the best handle and walks to the hole in the bank the stump left behind. Looking into the hole Collin stops and stands motionless staring.

Collin is still staring into the hole when his father returns. Hansel growls at him, "After all that . . . You just going look?"

"Pa, look!"

His father steps up beside his son and looks into the hole. Hansel stares and blinks several times not believing his eyes. There in the freshly exposed dirt and rocks were hundreds of yellow flakes of gold. Some are as large as hulled peas. When he looks again at his son, Hansel is smiling and soon they are both laughing.

Still laughing both Dymonds drop down on their knees picking up small golden lumps, some shaped like tear drops. Soon, each has half a handful and Hansel orders, "Fetch them saddlebags. Son, we’ve done found us a pocket."

Collin bounds upward and runs back to their campsite for the saddlebags; he comes back the same way. "Here Pa," Collin says as he holds out the saddlebags. Hansel dumps his handful of gold in one pouch and Collin put his in the same one. Again, they are both down on hands and knees scooping dirt by the handful. Anxious eyes search each handful of dirt for golden bits until the light fades. Around that evening’s cold campfire chewing on jerky, they are excited over finding almost a large tin cupful of gold flakes in one afternoon.

"I don't know how much a cup of gold is worth but I'm going to call it more than a hundred dollars. If our pocket holds out all day tomorrow we’ll have a thousand. What'd you think, Son?"

"A thousand's more than I've ever seen before in cash money, Pa."

"Only time, Son, I saw money like that was peaking looks into the bank vault when Morgan Bell the Hartville banker went to get more money for my farm loan."

"Pa, how much gold does it take to buy a farm?"

"Son, you could buy at least two farms like ours—sixty ridge land acres—with what we got now plus what we will take out tomorrow!"

"Wonder how long the gold will last?" Collin asks thoughtfully.

"Not long. We've just found a pocket other folks missed."

The next morning the Dymonds start shoveling dirt into the sluice and washing it away. At first light they scrap all the dirt from the stump and scoop up dirt from along its track. They dragged the cleaned stump away before starting on the pit’s sides and bottom. Three times they clean the riffles before noon and have a heaping cup full of gold flakes and dust. In the afternoon, they collected almost as much gold. Two days later gold was still plentiful—two heaping cups a day. By the middle of the third day gold was hard to find and did not fill a half cup all day. Late in the afternoon, they washed the dirt from the old stump’s rough cleaned roots and dug the gravel under where it had lain finding two teaspoons of gold dust. On the fourth day, they shoveled the same amount of earth around the stump, dug a three-foot deep and five-foot-wide hole under where the old stump sat, enlarged the sides the pit a good foot, and washed the rest of their scrapings. Washed it all down the sluice, but they found less than a teaspoon of gold for a full hard day’s effort.

“The pocket is empty, Pa.”

"Time we be going back home, Son."

"Yeah Pa. When?"

"At first light."

"Pa, if we go back through Downieville, folks will know we found some. Won't the people who claimed this place want all or some of this gold?"

"That's why we just leaving out . . . going back east at first light."

"Good, Pa."

"I’ll take first watch.”

Just as the sky in the east starts to gray over the mountains, Collin is shoveling dirt over their campfire. Hansel lifts a heavy saddlebag with both pouches almost three-quarter full of gold and dust and plans to change it to the other mule at the noon stop. The Dymonds leave behind their shovels, buckets, and pans. They mount and ride a winding way through canyons and over ridges south and east toward the Truckee River. Mid-morning of the second day they cross to the south side of the Truckee and turn east taking the trail home upstream. Both ride happy and pleased over their success, but do not neglect caution. Careful eyes study the trail front and back, hills, and ridges. Four days later, they turn off south toward the Carson River to re-supply at Fort Churchill. Hansel puts a little gold in an empty tobacco sack Collin found at campsite, a generous half sack full, so as not to show too much to strangers.

A day later, beyond Fort Churchill they stop to cook a pot of stew now that they are newly loaded with provisions and let the mules graze. Again, they have a full burlap sack of jerky, divided into two half sacks, and hanging over one saddle horn. Each saddle horn has a water bag hanging from it. During the heat of a late August day, they rest along the Carson River in a stand of Cottonwood trees while the stew cooks. Both of their mules graze, gathering strength for a hard night push across Forty Mile Desert. Late in the afternoon they saddle the mules and ride along the edge of the trees toward the jumping off place. Both Dymonds dread riding across such a terrible forty-mile stretch of desert to the Humbolt River in the daytime. Wisely Collin thinks, Hansel has decided to wait until dark. Collin puts the mules out to graze and Hansel starts a fire.

While finishing the last of the stew, Hansel keeps looking back and at the skyline for something bothers him. Overhead the late afternoon sky is slightly overcast and showing signs of changing for clouds have white tops and gray bottoms, unsettled weather. As afternoon shadows lengthen, they tighten saddles cinches and prepare to mount.

Looking at the cottonwood trees while his father takes a last look at their map Collin speaks aloud his thoughts, "Last trees until Fort Hall." Thought for a moment with a wrinkled forehead before asking, "Pa, how far is that?"

"Fort Hall's 700 hundred miles on the map . . . at least eighteen or twenty days of hard travel," Hansel replies after a long moment’s thought. Then, he looks up from his map frowning like an unpleasant thought came back to him. "Did you see that little runt watching the weighing out of that small poke of gold? Weren't much more than half a tobacco sack full, but he shore did stare hard."

"Yah Pa, I saw him. He seemed right interested in our gold."

"I hope the rain hits soon and wipes out our tracks."

"But Pa don't we have to go by the trail. Forty miles across to the Humbolt River is the only way to water. Any bandit would know where."

"You're right, Son. If that runt was a lookout for a bunch, the only thing we can do is move faster than they think we can." Reacting to his own thoughts his foot lifts to the stirrup, mounts quickly, and his heels kick Cain into a trot. As they move Hansel speaks his fears. “I hope resting the mules for a night crossing wasn’t the wrong thing to do.”

Worrying too Collin on Able follows.

In an hour, the pace is down to walking again. Now that speed is important, they need to cover forty miles before sunrise, and Hansel’s pace is an hour of walking and a half hour of trotting. Supper is two pieces of jerky as the mules walk. After supper, they give the mules a blow and a drink from water poured in their hats. They can make it through the night without water but the mules cannot. In the dusk, they start to see debris discarded in the desert from earlier travelers needing to lighten their load. They ride a twisting and turning course, dodging debris, in the darkening dusk. Then, when full darkness forms around them it is dangerous to travel for more and more debris litters the trail. Finally, forced to wait for moonlight, they stop in the littered trail beside a discarded fancy old four-drawer dresser with a big brass bed frame leaning against it.

“Some family's heirlooms,” Collin thinks aloud.

Hansel whispers for sound travels easily in the dark. "Quiet. We’ll wait here for the moon." His hand pulls back on the reins, Cain stands still while Hansel dismounts. Collin joins his father. Waiting quietly they squat holding their mule's reins and Hansel trades his heavy shotgun for the lighter rifle.

About an hour later the overcast sky brightens just enough so that they can see to twist and turn avoiding scattered debris. Through the dim night they hurry in that same trot and walk pace. When they have too, they stop to rest briefly and water the mules. Both are uneasy about carrying gold. The strain of trying to listen and trying to watch every direction at the same time grows heavier by the hour. About two in the morning, a light mist starts and slowly in an hour changes into a drizzle. A few minutes after three it changes to rain, gradually increases into a brief desert downpour, and distant lightning flashes. With the first sign of mist Gun barrels are capped and frizzens and pans leather-wrapped and checked. Then, the Dymonds ride northeast again hoping to keep their powder dry.

Just before the hour of darkness before dawn, while the dim eastern sky slowly darkens, Hansel whispers. "There son!" and he points at a dark shadowy snake-like line in the sand ahead that has to be the Humbolt River.

As his son's head turns so his eyes can follow his father’s point, a sudden downpour starts. It is falls like dumping water out of a boot. The dark line that is the Humbolt disappears. Collin starts to smile that they have made it across Forty Mile Desert as drumming hooves rush quickly at them out of the driving rain. "Pa," he shouts aloud but his father is already lifting his rifle high near his right cheek un-wrapping the hammer, frizzen, and pan and trying to keep that part of the weapon dry under his hat brim. Hansel’s rifle barrel points downward. Collin does that on the shotgun too as they both turn their mules a quarter turn left toward the rapidly growing sound. Rain beats against their faces. When his father lifts the rifle upward, yanks off the barrel-cap keeping the firing mechanism dry up under the brim of his hat, and waits barrel slightly down. Collin does too. From the front drumming sounds of hooves increases, suddenly yelling raiders, and both sounds pound against their ears. Two sets of eyes searched for shapes. For a long moment there is nothing. Suddenly in a blink of an eye, a new drumming of hooves to their left, four different closer rider-shapes burst up and out of the downpour in a line on their left side. Both men turn to point weapons and aim at this new loud pounding noise and four shadowy shapes. Suddenly, three dark closer riders on horses charge out of a fold in the ground on their right. Now, all three groups of riders pound leather straight at them. In the dark and rain the closes group appears to be the one to the right. Attackers on three sides gallop at them shouting. A loud first shot whines off a rock to Collin’s left, and it is quickly followed by a volley of a dozen shots from three directions.

Hansel shouts, “Wait.”

Suddenly, Able goes down and Collin kicks free, rolling, and hears his father’s rifle crack. A raider slide off his horse and standing Collin points the double barrels at the left closing group and touches off the left barrel with a boom. His eyes sees another dark shadow fly backward off a horse on the left, the horse turns away, and bumps into two other horses and riders. A tangle of riders and horses stops the left threat and Collin turns toward the front. In the middle of the noise he hears attackers curse. Collin hears his father reloading, pouring, ramrod tamping, and sees the barrel lifting.

A voice in the tangle of attackers yells, "Get him Garwood."

Quickly following the shout, a second shot flames and cracks from his father’s rifle and another dark shape on the right slides backward off his horse. Behind that shot, a second ragged volley of shots pound and buzz at them.

As Collin lifts his shotgun to his shoulder to fire off the other barrel at the front group while his father reloads. The hammer clicks against the frizzen but nothing happens. It is a misfire from wet powder, he instantly knows. Even as Collin lowers the barrel to sweep the wet powder away and reload the frizzen pan with dry powder, his ears hears a loud grunt from his father. Collin knows his father has been hit; his finger points the barrel at the rider in the center of the line again wondering how badly his father’s hit. Collin’s finger pulls the trigger a second time and hears another click. Quickly, his lips blow the water away from the flint and frizzen as his fingers sweep soggy powder from the pan. The sodden mess is removed and dry powder dashed in the pan from a shake of his powder horn. His arms start to lift the shotgun to aim. Something slams into his body. Even as he hears his own grunt, his arms tries to lift the shotgun barrel, fails, and a streak of bright light flashes behind his eyes. Everything suddenly goes black.