Chapter 8
Jim pulled the Appaloosa to a stop on a long ridge and surveyed the country ahead. He’d never ridden this way. But he’d heard talk in town from the locals, and a few discreet questions to former mountain men gained him the landmarks along with a good idea of where he was heading.
He’d already crossed the Yuba River, then swung west around Oregon Peak. Over the next set of mountains, he should hit the South Fork of the Feather River, and from there, he could follow the river down until he came to Bidwell’s Bar.
Ellen and her parents, along with himself, had come up with a way to sell their gold and keep the valley’s secret. The plan they’d come up with was a good one. Instead of selling the gold in Onionville—where it would surely cause trouble—they would ride to Bidwell’s Bar and exchange it there. In the camp, he would just be one more seller among hundreds, with none the wiser on the gold’s true source. They wouldn’t sell the gold all at once, but in smaller parcels, the first of which rested in his saddlebags.
Jim didn’t think it would be that easy. Nothing ever was. But he figured it would hold Donovan’s Valley’s secret longer than any idea he’d devised.
Ellen and David had both wanted to come along. Jim had forbidden it. David needed to keep working the pans, and a woman like Ellen in a gold camp would surely draw attention.
The main trail between Onionville and Bidwell’s was off to the west, crowded with hordes of gold seekers and other camp followers.
Jim kept well clear of all of them.
The Appaloosa had been eager to take a long ride and, despite the lack of a trail, he’d made good time. Twice Jim had been forced to backtrack, the first time out of a blind canyon, the second after following a game trail to a drop-off too steep for anything but a mountain goat to descend.
By nightfall, they’d found the Feather River. Jim guessed the camp might be another ten to twelve miles downstream and stopped for the evening. There wouldn’t be anyone to buy his gold at night.
And many people who might try to steal it.
He made a small fire beside an overhang and cooked himself a bit of fatback and a chunk of elk he’d killed two days ago. He leaned back to rest against a fallen log and listened to the oncoming night. The fire cracked and popped beneath the sound of the fatback sizzling. The nearby river churned white and frothy over half-submerged boulders and rocks. Crickets strummed their lonesome love songs.
The meat smelled wonderful and beneath it came the cooling scent of water and pine needles. The first stars peeked down through the treetops.
Jim carved off a slice of elk with his knife.
This was the life he loved. He loved the night and the near silence. He loved the smell and just being outside and free. To be sure, he’d rather be home with Ellen, but there was something about this. Something wild. It called to him.
The Appaloosa shifted nearer the fire, seeming to enjoy it as well.
“Those old mountain men, Donovan and even Captain Neill, most of them didn’t come out here to get rich. They came for nights like this,” Jim told the horse. “And who could blame them? This is worth more than any beaver pelt.”
Jim truly believed that. Much as he loved Ellen and their children, he wished he could have seen it all like Donovan had. Idly, he wondered where Captain Neill was right now. After seeing them to the valley, he’d gone back east by way of ship, sailing around Cape Horn to visit his southern home. He’d hoped to reconcile with his father and mother. Shame of losing the war had driven him to the bottle and kept him from them. Had he found his way? Had he made a life for himself back in those settled lands?
Jim considered his old friends in Texas. What would they have thought of all this?
I’ll never go back. This is where I belong.
He ran his fingers over the bag he’d tucked beneath his saddle. With what lay inside, he could buy himself a place on the edge of wild country. Somewhere he and Ellen wouldn’t be bothered. A place with a proper home to be sure, but one where he could ride out in the evenings now and then and just lay beneath a canopy of white stars.
In the morning, Jim and the Appaloosa set out beneath a gray and yellow sky. He aimed, more than anything, to keep this trip simple. Get to town, sell the gold, get out before anyone was the wiser.
They wove their way along the river, passing through the trees and venturing onto shallow bars of sand or gravel to cut around obstacles. The elevation was dropping quickly now, the western foothills of the mighty Sierras just ahead.
At midmorning they passed the first claim. A pair of men were working pans in a long wooden box, while a third shoveled gravel in at a higher section. Muddy water poured from the lower end into the river, and water fed in at the higher end from a pair of boards nailed into a V shape. The boards ran up into the trees, where they must have tapped into a spring or small stream.
The men all looked up at him as he rode by. A fourth man, this one holding a rifle, stepped out into the open.
“You have business here, mister?”
“No. Passing through is all,” Jim said. “Looking for Bidwell’s Bar.”
“Bar’s a couple miles farther west; just keep following the river,” the rifleman said. He had a hard, gruff voice, and he held the rifle tight.
“Expecting trouble?” Jim asked.
“Just ready for it,” he said.
One of the other men, an older one, spoke up then. “Where’d you come from, mister? We thought we had the highest claim.”
“Texas,” Jim said and smiled. “I heard about all the gold in California, so me and my horse decided to ride up and see it.”
Two of the men grinned at the response, but neither the rifleman nor the older man seemed amused.
“Seems like a long way to ride with just a horse and saddlebags,” the rifleman said.
The older fellow was studying Jim close, and Jim wondered if he’d seen him before somewhere. It wouldn’t do to ride all this way only to be recognized.
“Couple miles farther down,” Jim said. “Much obliged.”
Then he started the Appaloosa on down. The river was nearly straight here, and he fought the urge to glance back toward the camp. He didn’t like riding away from them like that. He didn’t like the thought of that rifle pointing at his back.
When he cleared the bend and put them behind him, he let out a long breath. Then he wheeled the Appaloosa left to skirt up the hillside away from the river and into the deeper forest. Travel would be slower here, but safer. Traipsing through someone’s claim, even unawares, could get a man shot.
His mind went back to that older fellow as he rode. After the long winter, Jim had spent a good deal of time in Onionville. He’d helped with odd jobs and ridden in each week to escort Ellen to and from their valley. Was it possible the man had seen him there?
It was possible.
