Chapter 28: Trouble on the Claim

 

After reading the letter Joel received from Esther, Mac worried about Jenny. He’d left her with plenty of money, then sent more with Nate’s letter of credit. She shouldn’t have to teach. Wasn’t Tanner working the farm for her? Surely the Tullers and the Pershings watched out for her.

As March days in the mountains lengthened, Mac alternated between barking orders at Joel and Huntington and working in morose silence on the far side of the claim away from his partners.

“We need to dig out the gold vein whilst the snow melt’s runnin’,” Huntington told Mac and Joel one morning over breakfast. “Use the water whilst we can. In the summer it’ll drop to a trickle again. Dry diggin’s are twice as hard to work.”

“But we’re still finding flakes and nuggets on the ravine floor,” Joel said. “That’s easier.”

“Sure, it’s easy,” Huntington said, propping his boots up on the table in their shack. “Save the easy work for later. Tomorrow we build another sluice and start on the pump we been talkin’ ’bout.” He described in detail how the water would flow from one sluice to another.

Mac grunted at the older man’s schemes. Huntington could no longer tote or lift much. His cough hadn’t improved with the warming weather. But he was still able to shoot off his mouth, and Mac’s responses were surly.

“You still moonin’ over that gal of yours?” Huntington asked.

Joel glanced at Mac, a lopsided grin on his face.

“I’m not mooning,” Mac said through his teeth. “But I don’t need to be told twenty times how to build a sluice. We’ve been doing this for almost a year now.”

“Sorry to waste my wisdom on your sour mug,” Huntington said. He slammed his feet to the floor and stalked out of the shack.

“Now you done it,” Joel said to Mac. “Huntington’s a pain in the ass, but he knows more’n we do about mining.”

Mac snorted. “I found plenty of gold before he happened along. We have so much now, I don’t know how we’ll ever spend it. Yet he’s dreaming of more. He’d be better off taking care of his health.”

“Speak for yourself, Mac,” Joel said. “You had plenty of wealth before you came to California. And you hardly spend a nickel in town. Why are you still here if you hate it so much?”

“Nothing else to do. At least I’m not wasting my money on whores and gambling. How much have you lost, anyway?”

Joel’s face turned grim.

The men worked all day without talking, hammers pounding. Each stroke took a little of Mac’s anger away, but he still had plenty left when dusk fell.

As they collected their tools at the end of the day, Joel asked Mac, “You thinking of leaving? Going back to Oregon?”

“No.” Mac worried about Jenny, but he had no future with her. He had no future anywhere.

“Well, then, you going to Boston?”

“Don’t know.”

“When you going to make up your mind?” Joel asked, stretching and pushing his hat back on his forehead.

“Maybe when the gold runs out. Maybe never.”

“Sounds like you don’t know what you want.” Joel shook his head and strode off.

Cooped up in the shanty with his partners that evening, Mac wrote:

 

March 14, 1849. I must make plans soon. All the gold in the world won’t help me to decide my future. If not Boston, where?

 

He couldn’t answer his own question and slammed the journal shut in disgust.

The rest of March passed in a blur of activity. Prospectors streamed into the valley where the three men had their claim. Whites. Mexicans. Indians. All apparently intent on finding gold. Mac thought he saw the roughneck Smith riding along the ridge above their claim.

“Gotta watch them Indians,” Huntington said. “They’ll take a man’s scalp for a few flakes of gold.”

“We traveled from Missouri to Oregon in forty-seven without any problems,” Mac said. “And I’ve heard Indians don’t place much value on gold.”

“Californian tribes are meaner. As bad as Pawnee,” Huntington argued.

“The Pawnee didn’t cause us any trouble,” Mac said.

Joel leaned on his shovel. “Could be our company was too big for ’em to fight.”

“Whose side are you on?” Mac wiped the sweat off his brow with his sleeve.

“Didn’t know we was taking sides,” Joel said. “Seems you’re a might tetchy these days.”

Mac, Joel, and Huntington kept their guns nearby while they worked. Every morning they walked the boundaries of their claim, making sure the corner stakes were still there. Despite the code the miners in their valley had adopted, Mac worried about claim-jumpers. They’d already been attacked once—and he still suspected Smith of that attack.

“We shouldn’t leave our land unattended,” he told Joel and Huntington. “Maybe we should bring in more partners.”

“More partners?” Huntington said. “Means less gold for us.”

Joel pointed a finger at Mac. “He don’t want the money. He’s rich already.”

“I’ve worked as hard at prospecting as you have,” Mac said. “But I haven’t frittered my takings away.”

Joel’s eyes narrowed. “My money—I’ll spend it how I please.”

“We’ll all get more gold faster with more hands working,” Mac said, ignoring Joel’s response. “And we’ll have more guns. I’ve seen Smith riding in the hills.”

“Well, we scared him off before, though my druthers are not to meet him again.” Joel stood with his hands on his hips, frowning at Mac. “You said you’d sell out to me when you left. You backing away from that now?”

“No. I’ll sell when I’m ready to go,” Mac said. “I’m not ready yet.”

“Don’t know why you’re stayin’,” Huntington said. “You been itchy since the first warm day. If I was you, I’d go into town, find me a whore for the night.”

“You’re not me, Huntington.”

Joel grinned. “I’ll take the offer. I’ll ride to Sacramento tomorrow. Leave afore sunrise, so’s I won’t be followed.”

“You’re likely to come back diseased,” Mac grumbled.

Huntington chortled. “Y’all is both young fools,” he said.

Mac spent the evening writing letters, then noted in his journal:

 

March 29, 1849. I have written letters to my parents and to Jenny for Joel to mail. I asked Jenny why she’s teaching school. It will be months before I hear back—if she responds at all. If I’m here to receive the letter.

Joel didn’t leave as early as he’d planned. At sunrise the next morning, a band of ten Indians rode into their camp. The natives were scrawny and unkempt, dressed in a mix of leather and cotton clothing, much like the tribes Mac had encountered on the Plains. The leader wore a silver and turquoise necklace.

“Buy tent,” the leader said.

Mac shook his head. “No tent for sale.”

“Trade deerskins for tent,” the Indian insisted. Another Indian shifted his rifle so it pointed toward Mac.

“We don’t need skins.” Mac folded his arms and kept shaking his head.

“Only thing those damn savages understand is buckshot,” Huntington muttered behind Mac.

“Don’t set ’em off,” Joel said. “There’s too many of ’em.” But out of the corner of his eye, Mac saw Joel’s hand move toward his gun belt.

“We need to give them something,” Mac murmured. “What do we have?”

“Got a pickax with a cracked handle,” Huntington said. “Think that’ll do?”

“Go get it,” Mac said to Huntington, though his eyes remained focused on the natives. “Give you ax for deerskins,” he said to the leader. “Two skins.” He held up two fingers.

Huntington returned with the ax, its handle bound with cloth to hold it together. He handed it to the Indian chief.

The man fingered the handle and hefted the ax head. “One skin.”

Mac nodded.

The chief motioned for one of his braves to hand over a deerskin. Joel took it, and the Indians rode off.

“They’ll be back,” Huntington said. “Steal our good tools. Maybe scalp us.”

“That’s why we need more men working with us.” Mac gestured at the mining code, still hanging where he’d tacked it in November. “Despite our rules, our neighbors didn’t show up to defend us today.”

“We managed the Indians fine,” Joel argued. “Only gave ’em a tool we don’t need.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t go to town.” Huntington said. “Wait awhile.”

Joel argued he wanted to go, and Mac wanted his letters mailed. So despite Huntington’s protests, Joel left for Sutter’s Fort in the afternoon, his mule laden with more gold to deposit with Nate.

“If you see anyone you think looks like a good worker,” Mac said when he handed Joel his letters to post, “bring him back with you.”

“We don’t need more partners,” Joel said.

Mac shrugged. “Then we’re likely to see more trouble.”