Emily stared out the streetcar window as thick forest gave way to rain drenched fields and thought about Granville. How badly wounded was he? Would he have received the note she’d sent him?
Would it help?
She could only pray it would. All she could do now was keep gathering information, hope it would help him when he returned.
To keep from thinking about him injured, perhaps dying and the helpless feeling it gave her, she focused on the empty fields, dotted here and there with stumps that must have been too big to remove, and busied her mind trying to imagine clearing this land. How had they done it, logged thick forests with no more than axes, saws and horses to pull out the stumps, clearing acre after acre of land, built farms?
Her father said the land here was rich; a former river delta, so things grew easily, but that meant the trees must have grown easily, too, with deep, strong roots. What made someone want to farm such land, to see a dense forest and think of clearing it to grow food to feed the cities?
“What are you looking at, Emily?” Clara asked
“Do you ever wonder where our food comes from, Clara?”
Clara looked at Emily, then out the window. “You think too much, Emily,” she said.
Disembarking in New Westminster some half an hour later, Emily looked around her for a confused moment. Columbia Street was still lined with graceful buildings of wood and brick and stone, but some of them looked temporary, and she didn’t recognize anything.
“Which way are we going?” Clara asked.
“I’m not sure. I was fourteen when I was last here, and the fire two Septembers ago burned down so many of the landmarks. I saw the photos, and they were awful, but after all this time they are still repairing the damage. I had no idea how devastating that fire really was.”
Clara looked at the bustling downtown around her. “I don’t see even any hint of damage.”
“No, because most of these buildings are newly built. If you look, though, some of them are still temporary.” Emily looked towards the end of the street, finally recognizing something. “The train station is original, and I think Queen’s Hotel, but everything else is new.”
“It really is impressive,” Clara said. Then, practical as always, “So how do we know where to go?”
“The streets are the same,” Emily said, recognizing the signs for Columbia and Begbie Streets with a feeling of relief. “So the Columbian building should be to the right and two blocks down.”
“Good,” said Clara. “And if we’re finished in time, we can shop. I’ve seen several intriguing windows.”
Mentally rolling her eyes at Clara’s predictability, Emily nodded, and took her arm. “Then let’s be on our way.”
Once they reached the newspaper building they were quickly directed to the basement, where oversized volumes of the paper, bound in dark blue buckram, were kept in serried ranks.
Mr. O’Hearn had told them Slumach was hanged ten years before, so Emily began with newspapers from 1890. She chose October through December and handed Clara the previous volume.
At any other time, she would have been fascinated by stories on the growth of the city, but her fear for Granville kept her focused. Not so Clara.
“Emily, look at the prices on silks,” her friend said. “They had a sale at Globe House.”
“Clara, please try to focus on finding the article,” Emily said. “Otherwise you might not have time to shop before the last train.”
Clara nodded, but Emily could see her eyes widen as she scanned the pages. If she’d been a man, she’d have laid a wager that Clara was reading every advertisement. She’d have won, too, she thought with a silent sigh as her own eyes scanned each page.
After half an hour of searching, her eyes were blurring and she’d sneezed twice from the dust.
“Emily, look at this.”
The excitement in Clara’s voice raised Emily’s hopes as she turned to see what her friend had found.
“Do you believe these styles?” Clara asked, stabbing at an illustration of an evening dress with a pronounced bustle. “How very dowdy. And so uncomfortable. I am glad fashion has changed, I’d hate to have to appear in something like this.”
“Clara…” Emily began. Then her eye caught a word halfway down the page. Slumach. She leaned over to read the article, peering at the time-blurred type.
“Emily! I’m trying to read this!”
“Clara, this is the story I’ve been searching for. Can you look at another month?”
“You mean I found it? How exciting! What a good thing I came with you.”
Speechless, Emily glanced at Clara. The twinkle in her friend’s eyes reassured her. “Indeed.”
Clara smiled, not the least impressed by Emily’s tone, and passed her the volume. “Now you sound like your fiancé. Here you are.”
“Thank you,” said Emily, already scanning the article titled Shot Dead. “Listen to this, Clara. Apparently this Slumach was accused of shooting another Indian named Louis Bee. And the shooting took place near the Pitt River. That’s where Granville has gone.”
“When was this?”
“September 9th, 1890. Ten years ago.”
“Did they arrest him?”
“No, he escaped before the law arrived. When this was written, they hadn’t found him.” Emily flipped pages until she found another article. “There was a coroner’s inquest two days later that returned a verdict of willful murder against Slumach, but they still hadn’t found him.”
“What about the gold mine?”
“No mention of it,” Emily said as she flipped more pages. “They still haven’t found him—and he’s an old man. Sixty!”
By the time she found the article where Slumach, starving and ill, had surrendered himself to his nephew, Peter Pierre, Clara had lost interest and was back to looking at ads. Emily read on. “I don’t believe it!”
“What?”
“They nursed the man back to health, then took him for trial, found him guilty of murder and hanged him. And the hanging is described as “very ably managed.” Can you imagine?”
Clara shuddered. “I’d rather not. I don’t see why you have to read those awful details,” she complained.
“I find it most unfair that from the first article, the reporter clearly judged Slumach guilty of murdering Bee. And how could they save someone’s life in order to hang him?”
“But if he killed a man?”
“I just wonder how fair his trial was.” Emily did note that for the last week of Slumach’s life, he’d shared his cell with a medicine man named Pierre, presumably the nephew they’d mentioned earlier, so at least he’d had family with him. That thought led to another.
If there were a gold mine, perhaps Slumach would have told his nephew about it. And if Peter Pierre was still alive, he might be willing to talk about Slumach’s gold mine, which was surely the mine Granville was seeking? The mine that could cost him his life. She shivered.
Closing her notebook, Emily returned the volume to the shelf. “We can go, Clara,” she said.
“I’ll just finish this article.”
Emily checked the pendant watch she wore. “We still have an hour to shop if we leave now.”
Clara closed the book with a bang. “I’m finished.”
As they ascended the staircase from the basement, the helpful young man they had first spoken to came over with a smile. “Did you ladies find what you were searching for?”
“Yes, thank you,” Emily said.
“And what were you looking for, if I might be so bold?”
“We were looking for stories on Slumach’s gold mine,” Clara said.
Emily shot her a look. She hadn’t intended to tell anyone, even thought she’d found no mention of the mine.
The young man was nodding. He had a nice face, and he seemed to genuinely want to help them.
“I’ve looked up those stories myself,” he was saying with a grin. “The good stuff never made it into the paper, though.”
“The good stuff?” Emily asked.
“Yes indeed. In the years before the murder, Slumach often showed up in town with a sack full of gold nuggets. Used those nuggets to pay for his whiskey, and he did like his whiskey. Liked women too, begging your pardon, ma’am, but it’s said that each year a young woman went back into the bush with him and was never seen again.”
“Do you know anyone yourself who knew any of the young women?” Emily asked.
“Well no, not personally, but everyone knows it.”
“What about the gold? Do you know anyone who actually saw it?”
“Well sure. My uncle Red was the bartender at the Royal Saloon where old Slumach used to drink. He handled those nuggets himself. The gold is there, alright.”
“And did anyone you know ever see a map?” Clara asked.
“No, but he had to have a way to get back to his gold, didn’t he? Stands to reason.”
Emily gave him her best smile. “It does indeed. Thank you so much for your help. Come along, Clara.”
Standing on the wide plank sidewalk, Clara turned to Emily, her face bright with excitement. “I can certainly see why Mr. Gipson is interested in Slumach’s map.”
Emily nodded, and taking Clara’s elbow, drew them both back to escape a spray of water as a carriage passed by too quickly. The sun had vanished again, and it was growing chilly. Getting wet as well could mean a winter cold. “Yes, but it is still just gossip. Nothing in the newspaper reports suggests there was any gold at all.”
“Perhaps they didn’t want to start a panic.”
“Perhaps.” And if Gipson thought Granville had the map to Slumach’s gold, he would probably stop at nothing to lay his hands on it, Emily thought, her throat tightening.
“Where are you, Granville?” she said under her breath. “Please be safe.”