Читать книгу Raw Gold - James B. Hendryx - Страница 3
ОглавлениеEIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE
Mud, and a gray drizzle. Sodden sand dunes, and bleak hills. Board shanties and tents lining narrow lanes choked with plunging horses and patiently wallowing oxen hitched to huge wagons piled high with merchandise, hub-deep in the mire. Pack mules plodding under towering back loads. Drunken teamsters, mud-caked from boot heels to hats, cursing their animals and one another impartially. Unhoused merchandise, tarpaulin-covered or wholly exposed to the weather, occupying every square foot of space not already tented or shantied. And, dominating all, the electric thrill of gold! San Francisco, in the spring of 1849!
Clutching his green carpetbag, Matthew Blunt drew his companion into one of the narrow footways between the piles of goods, and together the two watched the tense-eyed, rowdy throng crowd pass and lose itself in the misty blur of shanties and tents.
“What’s the use in bein’ first off’n the ship, if we’re goin’ to stand here an’ let all the others pass us?” questioned Jake Valentine, impatiently. “An’ where we goin’ to dig the gold at? By hell, we could of got all the mud we wanted back home in Emmonsville.”
Matthew Blunt grinned as he turned up his coat collar against the chill drizzle. “The talk on the ship was that the gold’s back in the mountains. An’ as for lettin’ the others pass us—they don’t know wher’ they’re goin’ any more’n we do. It pays to look around a little.”
“Look around! What we want’s the tavern where we can get us a dram, an’ a meal of vittles, an’ a bed fer the night.”
“Tavern!” exclaimed Blunt. “We’ll be lucky to get a chance to sleep on a dram-shop floor. The town ain’t big enough for the folks that’s here. Look, there’s a saloon just a little ways down the street. The others all swarmed on past. Maybe we can find out about lodgin’s before they come scatterin’ back. Let’s go.”
Carpetbags in hand, the two made their way over the slippery footboards that paralleled the lane of mud. From the doorway of a shanty a woman in bedraggled finery called to Valentine who was a few steps in advance, “Hello, dearie! What’s your hurry! Come on in for a while.”
Valentine stopped stock-still, blocking the narrow way, as he eyed the woman with a friendly smile. “Guess you’ve made a mistake, ain’t you? I never seen you before. We just come in on the ship.”
A sharp jab in the ribs from Blunt started him on his way, hot blood flushing his face, as the shrill laughter of the drab rang in his ears.
A sodden banner of canvas, stretched above the sidewalk, bore the single word: SALOON. Beneath it the two entered an open door, stepped to the rough pine bar, and rested their carpetbags on the floor at their feet.
“Two drinks of licker,” ordered Jake Valentine, and producing a roll, laid a five-dollar bill on the bar.
Eyeing the roll, the bartender set out bottle and glasses. “Kind of a mean day out,” he opined. “But you’ll get used to it. Come in on the boat?”
“Yes,” answered Blunt. “We’re goin’ to the mines. Do you know where we can find lodgin’s for a few days?”
The man grinned. “There’s restaurants to eat in, but a man sleeps where he can. There ain’t a bed nor a bunk in town that ain’t doin’ its double shift at five dollars a throw. I’m sleepin’ a few of the boys upstairs on the floor at a dollar a head, fer accommodation. You got blankets?”
“No, but we’ll get some. Where’s a store?”
“Some acrost the street, an’ some on this side. Plenty of stores. Plenty of saloons, too. Too damn many of ’em. Drink up an’ have one on the house. Want bitters in it?”
The two drank the whiskey and bitters, and as the bartender served other customers, their eyes took in the details of the saloon. It was different from the quiet taproom of the tavern in the little Ohio town from which they had been lured by the rumors of gold. In the rear of the large room an elegantly dressed and handsomely mustached gentleman lingered near a long table gaudily painted with numerous lines, words, and figures, and containing in its center a revolving disk, or wheel, also numbered. At a round table on the opposite side from the bar, half a dozen men, hatbrims shading their eyes, played poker. Save for an occasional low spoken word and the soft click and rattle of chips, the game proceeded in silence. Mud-spattered men drifted in from the street, drank at the bar, and passed out. A few lingered.
Carrying their luggage, Blunt and Valentine started for the door, to be halted by the bartender. “H’ist yer bags over the bar. I’ll look out fer ’em. You can fetch yer blankets here, too.”
Gladly the two allowed the heavy carpetbags to be deposited in some recess back of the bar and stepped from the room. Almost in front of the door a heavily loaded wagon was mired to the hubs. The two stopped for a moment to watch the teamster who, driven to fury by his inability to move the load, was screaming an unbroken stream of curses as he belabored the four big horses with a heavy blacksnake whip. The animals, driven to frenzy by the cursing and flailing, plunged and jerked against the collars in frantic and ununified effort to avoid the stinging lash, only to stand quivering with heaving flanks as their teammates plunged.
The sight was too much for Jake Valentine. The mild blue eyes that dominated the good-natured face of the Ohio farm boy hardened, and unmindful of his new cowhide boots and homespun pants, he stepped from the footboards and, wallowing to the teamster’s side, laid a heavy and ungentle hand upon the wrist of the arm that wielded the blacksnake. “You damn fool!” he roared. “That ain’t no way to use horse-flesh!”
The bearded teamster, already goaded to insane rage, stared in open-mouthed astonishment for a moment into the blue eyes of this stranger who had presumed to interfere in the matter of his teaming. But only for a moment. With a bellowed curse he lashed out with a fist, and very suddenly Jake Valentine, blood gushing from his nose, landed in the soft mud squarely upon the seat of his homespun pants. For a brief instant he sat there blinking foolishly, while onlookers on the footboards laughed uproariously. Then, blowing the blood from his lips in a red spray, he rose to his feet just as the teamster drew back his arm to finish his work with the blacksnake. The next thing the teamster knew, he was flat on his back, with two hundred pounds of young muscle on top of him, crowding him deeper and deeper into the mud that, gripping him hip and thigh, rendered his frantic struggles futile. But the younger man was not striking blows. A huge hand sticky with blood and mud was laid against the teamster’s face, and his head was shoved out of sight in the miry ooze. On the footboards the growing crowd whooped in delight as the face reappeared, drawn from the mud by the whiskers. Again the crowd whooped, as the youth, still spouting a bloody spray, reached for a handful of soft mud and rubbed it well into the black beard and cursing mouth. The cursing thickened and became inarticulate. The frantic struggling ceased.
“You got enough? Hey—you got enough?”
The reply, inaudible to the crowd, was evidently satisfactory, for the younger man removed his knees from the other’s midriff, and with difficulty hoisted him by the shoulders from his temporary grave. Then, as the teamster stood clawing the mud from his whiskers and spitting it from his mouth, the stranger favored him with a bloody-lipped grin.
“You wipe them lines off, an’ I’ll move yer load,” he said. And turning his back, he walked to the head of the off wheeler, where, gently rubbing the huge animal’s neck and nose, he talked softly into the pricked ears. The off leader came next, then the near leader and wheeler in turn. Crossing back on the doubletree, between horses and wagon, he rejoined the teamster who, staring in wonder, meekly handed over the reins, from which the mud had been carefully wiped. Stooping, he picked up the blacksnake, wiped the mud from the handle, and handed it to the other. Jake Valentine took the whip and with a sweep of his arm hurled it far down the street. Gently he tightened on the four reins.
“Steady now, boys. Steady she goes. Whoa, now. Take it easy. Altogether now, boys—altogether—heave on her—boys—pull her along. Whoa, there—steady.” The four big horses leaned easily and steadily against the collars, the mighty muscles ridging along their hips as they strained to move the load. But the wagon remained fixed—gripped fast in the mud. “Whoa, boys—take it easy.”
The tugs slackened, and the horses stood quietly, as Jake Valentine studied the load. “You got on too much fer the road you’ve got,” he said, addressing the teamster. “But get a couple of planks to slip under the wheels an’ we’ll move her.”
“Planks! Planks! Sufferin’ Mike! What with buildin’ goin’ on like it is, they’d hang a man fer usin’ a lath—let alone a plank. Hold on, I’ll give you some footin’!” Clambering onto the load, the man pried the cover from a huge box of merchandise and began throwing out bolts of cloth. “Chuck them under the wheels an’ roll her if you kin. There’s too damn much cloth in camp anyhow—they’ll never sell the half of it!”
Aghast at the vandalism, Jake rammed the flat slabs of bolt goods under the wheels, and once more he picked up the reins. “Come on, boys.” Gently, soothingly his words fell on the ears of the four big horses, as the reins firmly tightened on their bits. “Take her out, boys. All to once, now. Gid-ap, boys. Snatch her along!” Carefully he swung to the left, then to the right as the wheels began slowly to revolve, grinding bolt goods deep into the mire. Feeling the load move, the huge beasts dug in, every strap tight, every muscle bulging to the pull. Gradually, the load gained momentum, the felloes dropping great chunks of mud as they lifted from the mire. On the footwalk the crowd cheered as the heavy load moved forward to the plop and suck of heavy hoofs, and the steady voice of the driver, louder, now, in shouts of encouragement. “Take her along, boys! Walk her out of here!” And the wagon rolled steadily forward until halted on drier ground a hundred yards from the scene of its bogging.
The mud-plastered teamster came up to where Jake Valentine was stroking and talking to the panting horses. He thrust out a grimy hand.
“Put ’er thar, stranger! An’ by God! Do you want a job? Stidy work freightin’ to Marysville—five dollars a day an’ found.”
The younger man shook his head. “I’m goin’ to the mines,” he said. “Me an’ my pardner’s goin’ to dig gold.”
“To hell with the gold! Freightin’s the game in this country. Hell—they won’t one in a hundred git gold. Freightin’s sure—they all got to eat, an’ they got to have clothes, an’ lumber, an’ hardware! I got ten outfits on the road now. Tell you what I’ll do—ten dollars a day an’ found! I’ll make you head teamster—wagon boss of the hull works—an’ you won’t have to lay hand to a harness. By God, you savvy horses! Make all the damn teamsters throw away their whips—er lay ’em on their back an’ rub mud in their whiskers!”
Valentine shook his head. “No—I’m goin’ to hunt gold.”
“All right, have it yer own way. But when you git tired of it, you hunt up Brock Throgmorton, an’ I’ll give ye a job. Come on in yere now, an’ I’ll buy ye a new suit of clothes. Them’s ruined—an’ ye look like a damn emmygrant with ’em on, anyhow.”
