Читать книгу Raw Gold - James B. Hendryx - Страница 6

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Breakfast over, the two drifted back to the saloon where they had passed the night. It was deserted now, save for a few dejected-looking citizens who sourly nursed their hangovers. The bartender engaged them in conversation. A half-hour passed and, one at a time, men began to trickle into the room. Strangers to one another, apparently, they drank alone and loafed about in chairs. The bartender served them perfunctorily and returned to his conversation with the two partners.

Another man entered and, sidling to the bar, ordered liquor. He was a large man, bearded to the eyes, his boots and clothing showing rigorous wear. Downing his liquor, he called for another. The bartender eyed him speculatively.

“Listen, pardner,” he said. “Anyone’s welcome to a drink. Er, if he tells me he’s broke, I’ll make it two. But a man can’t keep on orderin’ drinks without he shows the color of his dust.”

The bearded one grinned. “Fair enough, stranger. Well—take a look at that!” Reaching into his pocket, he produced an irregular, flattish lump of gold that covered half the palm of his hand. “An’ if that don’t hurt yer eyes, you might take a look at this un—an’ this—an’ this!” One by one he produced other lumps which he placed beside the first on the bar. The bartender’s eyes bulged from their sockets. The others swarmed to the bar—the men with the hangovers, and those who had entered later. Matthew Blunt and Jake Valentine had edged close at sight of the first big nugget.

“God A’mighty!” breathed the bartender, staring in fascination at the yellow pile.

“Fill ’em up fer everyone!” roared the newcomer. “The drinks is on me. There’s plenty more wher’ this come from! I kin shovel her out by the bar’l. Fill ’em up—an’ keep on fillin’! I’m in from the mountains—an’ I crave action! I’m the grizzly from the high hills! I’m the catamount that yells in the night! Whoopee!”

The men crowded close, tossing off their liquor and plying the man with questions. “Wher’d it come from?” ... “Wher’s yer diggin’s, pardner?” ... “That ain’t no river gold!”

The stranger concurred. “Yer right it ain’t no river gold! It’s rock gold—that is! A whole ledge of it—an’ I peck it out with a pick!”

“Wher’s the ledge at?”

“Let us in!”

The man laughed loudly. “It’s back in the hills—away back! It’s up gulches an acrost ridges. It’s wher’ no white man’s be’n before. Nor there won’t none go agin, without I show ’em the way! It’s so damn far back a man can’t pack the grub that’ll git him there. Mules—that’s what a man needs—mules an’ powder an’ grub. I’m thinkin’ of formin’ a company. Ten thousan’ dollars—that’ll buy mules an’ powder an’ grub. Ten men at a thousan’ a man! An’ I don’t put up nothin’—I git in free!”

“You say,” asked the bartender, fingering the lumps of gold, “you say that a man can peck this out with a pick?”

“Yes—an’ a plenty!”

“An’ how big’s the ledge?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I’ve prospected a mile of it—an’ she’s all jest alike.”

Swiftly the man reached for his pocket, drew out a wallet, and laid a thick packet of bills on the bar. “Two shares fer me!” he cried, counting out the bills. “Two thousan’ dollars—two shares!”

“I’ll take a share!” cried another.

“And me!”

“And me!”

“I’ll take two shares!”

The bartender leaned across the bar and whispered excitedly to Blunt and Valentine, who were staring at the yellow gold. “Git in on this while you can! If I had the dinero I’d take it all. I’ve seen gold a plenty—but never nothin’ like this!”

“I’ll take a share!” Matthew Blunt heard himself uttering the words in a voice that sounded high-pitched and dry with excitement.

“Let me in—boys—let me in!” pleaded a smallish man with a blazing red nose. He was dressed in loudly checked trousers, a red plush waistcoat under a long black coat, and a plug hat set at an angle. “I only got five hundred—but I’m a lawyer, an’ I’ll draw up the papers, an’ write out the shares fer the rest of it. Come on—let me in—you got to have papers, or it won’t be legal!”

“That’s right,” agreed the bearded man who had flashed the gold. “We got to have everything legal an’ aboveboard er I won’t have nothin’ to do with it. How many shares is that? Let’s see—that makes nine. One more share—who wants it? How about you?” He turned abruptly upon Jake Valentine. “Want the last share, or do we wait fer the next man that comes in to grab it?”

“Sure thing—I’d like to take one,” cried Jake, choking with eagerness. “But I ain’t got but seven hundred dollars. An’ I ain’t no lawyer,” he added ruefully, eyeing the man in the plug hat with envy.

“Sell him half a share,” suggested one.

“No half-shares!” cried the bearded stranger. “Hell—give him a hull share! I’ll loan him the three hundred myself. Here, pardner,” he cried, with a wave of the hand. “Tell the barkeep to weigh you three hundred out of the pile, an’ wrop yer roll around it! Hell fire! You can dig out enough in half a day to pay me back when we git to the diggin’s!”

“Here’s my money,” said the bartender, shoving a sheaf of bills toward the bearded one.

“Hold on,” the man objected, returning the bills. “This has all got to be reg’lar an’ proper. There ain’t no company yet. Keep yer money till the papers is drawed up proper.” He turned to the lawyer. “You git busy now an’ make up them papers an’ write out the shares. There’s twelve shares in this here company. You-all pays fer yourn, an’ I git my two fer the location. That’s fair an’ reasonable, ain’t it, gents?”

All agreed that it was fair and reasonable, and the lawyer started for the door. The bearded man called after him, “Git them papers out by afternoon. Then we’ll call a meetin’ an’ elect officers. We’ve got to have a pres’dent, an’ secretary, an’ treasurer to handle the money. We’ll meet at three o’clock. An’ jest so they won’t everyone know our business, we’ll hold the meetin’ in my tent which I got her set up out on the edge of town. Everyone be right here at three, an’ we go down to the tent. An’ in the meantime, let’s licker!”

Jake Valentine tendered the man the two nuggets the bartender had weighed out to him. “Here’s your three hundred dollars,” he said. “You can pay it in for me when we hold the meetin’.”

The man waved the gold aside: “Keep it on ye, pardner. Shove her right down in yer jeans along with yer bills. If I couldn’t trust a man with a stinkin’ little three hundred, I wouldn’t be lettin’ him in on a deal like this, would I? Not by a damn sight, I wouldn’t! Not Modoc Billings!”

Not caring to join in the drinking bout, Matthew and Jake sauntered from the saloon. They were joined by one of the investors. “Might’s well kind of look the town over whilst that lawyer’s fixin’ up the papers,” he said pleasantly. “I don’t hold fer much drinkin’, neither. Little’s all right, now an’ then. But too much ain’t no good. I tell you, we’re lucky to git in on a strike like that! An’ with old Modoc Billin’s hisself! Yessir—when I first seen him come in the door, I says to myself, I bet that there ain’t no one but Modoc Billin’s—an’ sure enough that’s who he was! He done told us hisself.”

“Who’s Modoc Billin’s?” asked Jake.

“Modoc Billin’s! Hell, man, don’t tell me you ain’t hearn tell of Modoc Billin’s! Everyone knows Modoc. How long you be’n in the country?”

“We come in yesterday on the boat.”

“Oh—that’s different. Well, Modoc Billin’s has made more big strikes than any man in Californy. He makes a strike, an’ then he forms a company an’ gits it goin’ good, an’ then he sells out to his pardners and goes ’way back in the hills an’ makes him another strike. He can’t abide civil-eye-zation—not even minin’-camp civil-eye-zation. So when the camps creeps in on him, he sells out an’ hunts him up another strike. They say he’s got two, three million, already. An’ he’d give a man the shirt off’n his back. Like he give you them nuggets. Let’s have a look at ’em. A man don’t see gold like that every day.”

Down near the docks they paused while Jake unwrapped the bills from about the two irregular lumps of gold while three pairs of eyes feasted gloatingly on their dull yellow richness. One by one they were passed about and hefted by eager hands. “God, it’s heavy! Heavier’n lead. An’ jest think of packin’ it out of the rocks by the bar’l! Boys—we’re rich!” The man’s eyes fairly radiated opulence as he watched Jake wrap the bills about the nuggets and return them to his pocket.

“You bet!” agreed Jake. “Jest think of peckin’ three hundred dollars’ worth of gold out of the rocks in a half a day—that’s what Modoc Billin’s said—a half a day! That’s more’n Pa clears on his farm in a year—some years. Folks is fools that don’t come to Californy. You bet when Matt showed me that piece in the public print about Californy, an’ told me he was goin’ out there, I borryed a thousan’ dollars off’n Pa, an’ come along! I’m a-goin’ back to Emmonsville in a year er so, fer a visit—jest to show ’em. I’ll pay Pa back in nuggets like these here—an’ I’ll be dressed up like that feller that runs that gamblin’ wheel, with a big diamon’ ring like his’n—only I’ll have me two big gold watch chains runnin’ acrost the front of my wes’cot. He’s only got one.”

“Sure,” agreed the affable stranger. “That’s Doc Mellie. We’ll make him look like a straggler, the way we’ll be dressin’ around here six months from now.”

“Jest think,” said Matthew as the three turned away from the waterfront, “I’ve be’n wastin’ my life workin’ in my father’s lumber yard fer sixty a month!”

The three sauntered about the town until noon, when the stranger paused before the door of a restaurant. “Let’s eat,” he suggested, addressing Matthew. “Tell you what we’ll do—Jake here ain’t got no more money than what he needs to buy his share, so we’ll let him toss up a dollar, an’ if heads comes up, I’ll buy the dinner for the three of us—tails you buy.”

Matthew readily agreed, and stepping into the room, the stranger slipped a silver dollar into Jake’s hand. “Toss her up, Jake! Tails you lose, Matt!”

Jake flipped the coin into the air. It rang on the floor, spun for a moment, and settled to rest. “Tails it is!” exclaimed the man, pocketing the coin. “I tell you this is my lucky day! It’s a lucky day for all of us—to git in with Modoc Billin’s. Here’s a table, over here.”

Had Matthew Blunt examined the stranger’s dollar, he would have discovered a surprising fact—both faces of the coin showed tails—its mate, showing heads on both faces, reposed beside it in the stranger’s pocket. But neither he nor Jake had noticed.

The two hours between dinner and three o’clock dragged interminably. At two-thirty they returned to the saloon, where Modoc Billings was still engaged in the pastime of lickerin’ up. Both Jake and Matthew commented on the man’s apparent capacity. He was joyously hilarious, but none the worse for his liquor.

“Yeah,” agreed their companion, “Modoc, he don’t hit the camps very often, an’ when he does he likes to celebrate. He kin outdrink any man he ever run up against. He never gets drunk—jest feelin’ good like he is now. An’ he’s religious, too. He kin say the Lord’s Prayer back’ards faster’n any preacher kin say it frontwards. I hearn how he beat a preacher at it fer the drinks fer the house in Marysville last fall. He’ll bet any money he kin do it every time. You kin tell Modoc’s be’n raised right—most folks can’t say it frontwards!”

At a few minutes before three the lawyer appeared, some neatly rolled sheets of foolscap in his hand. Evidently he had consulted John Barleycorn quite as often as he had Blackstone in the drawing up of the document. His face showed owlishly solemn beneath the rim of the plug hat that sat on his head at even a more rakish angle than before, and he made his way to the bar in a series of sedate reverse curves.

Modoc Billings placed a guiding hand under the smaller man’s arm. “Come on along. We’re all here, an’ we’ll go to my tent an’ hold our election.” Followed by the other seven incorporators, he led the way, deftly guiding the solemnly tipsy lawyer over the slippery footboards. Beyond the last board shanty the man raised the flap of a small wall tent. “Go on in,” he invited. “We kin set on the blankets whilst our pardner here reads us what he’s got wrote down.”

When the little assembly was seated, the lawyer unrolled his foolscap, with some difficulty adjusted a pair of spectacles, and proceeded to read with the utmost gravity, swaying slightly as the words rolled pompously, if thickly, from his lips:

“Know all men by zheese preshents zhat the shubscribed gen’lemen have agreed, each and sheveral, to form a company for the mining of gold.

“Whereash, zhish company shall be knows ash the Gold Ledge Mining Company.

“Whereash, there shall be twelve shares of the value of one shousan’ dollers each.

“Whereash, all shaid shares mush be paid up, and the shaid money ushed for the purshase of mulesh and shupplish for ush in transportation and mining.

“Whereash, it shall be the duty of shaid members to elect the following officers, to wit, a preshident, a shecretary, and a treasurer.

“And, whereash, zhis company, to wit, the Gold Ledge Mining Company, ashumes no obligations to anyone, for anything, at any time.

“Shined and shealed before me zhis shirteenth—I mean, shirteenth——damn it! I’ll make it the twelfth—day of March, eighteen hundred an’ forty-nine.

“Considine Montgomery Potts,

“Attorney at Law.”

Modoc Billings arose and addressed the assembly. “Well, gents, you’ve heard the paper all draw’d up fair an’ reg’lar. If there ain’t no objections we’ll call it a job, an’ go ahead an’ elect our officers.” He paused abruptly and pointed to the bartender. “What’s your name?”

“Sam Sprowl.”

“All right, all in favor of Sam Sprowl fer president of this here Gold Ledge Minin’ Company, holler ‘Aye.’ ”

The vote was unanimous for Mr. Sprowl, and he took the floor as Modoc Billings sat down. “Thank you, gents. We’ll now elect a secretary, which his duty will be to—to—to—well, to kind of carry around that paper our lawyer wrote out, an’ answer all letters wrote to the company, or any one of ’em—an’ such other matters as comes up. I nominate Mr.——” He paused and glanced toward the lawyer who had slumped down beside Modoc. “What’s that long name of yourn, agin?”

“Considine Montgomery Potts—two t’s,” answered the man, gravely.

“Well, how’s Pottsy, fer short? We don’t want to have to knock off an hour early any time anyone’d want to holler fer you. Gents, I nominate Pottsy fer secretary. He’s educated—an’ kin prob’ly read his own writin’, to boot. All them in favor, say ‘aye.’ ”

The election of Mr. Potts was likewise unanimous, and the president orated further. “Now, gents, comes the treasurer. We’d ort to have a man fer treasurer which he’s honest enough not to skip out with the money, an’ likewise which he knows what we need to spend that money fer. I nominate Mr. Modoc Billin’s fer treasurer. It was him that found the ledge, an’ him that let us in on the proposition, an’ it’s him that knows jest what’s needed to be boughten fer to carry on the business of minin’ this here gold. Personal, I’m fer Modoc all the time. How about the rest of you?”

Mr. Billings was unanimously elected, and Mr. Sprowl continued: “All right, gents—the next thing is to pay in our money to the treasurer, an’ sign up the paper. I’ll lead off, payin’ two thousan’ dollars fer the two shares I agreed to take.” Producing his wallet, the man counted out two thousand dollars in bills, which he handed to the treasurer, who handed him in return two slips of paper upon which had been written by Mr. Potts:

GOLD LEDGE MINING COMPANY

ONE SHARE

PAR VALUE $1000

The others paid in turn, each receiving a slip representing their holdings in the company, and each in turn affixing his signature to the document drawn up by the lawyer.

Modoc Billings arose, placed the money in his pocket with a flourish, and addressed the assembly. “All set, gents. We’ll be pullin’ out fer the hills tomorrow er the day after. I’ll hit out to a ranch I know, an’ buy us up four er five mules fer pack hosses. When I git back in the mornin’ we’ll buy our stuff an’ pack up an’ hit the trail. That’s all. I guess the meetin’s adjourned.”