UPON ENTERING THEIR CABIN, they stopped in stunned silence. Their belongings were scattered and shredded. The beds were turned over; the stove was moved; and part of the floor was ripped up.
Samuel ran to the bag of cornmeal. From the bits of meal, he knew without looking what he would find. Their gold pouch they kept stored in the bottom was missing. He was wracked with disbelief. Gone! Their gold was gone.
Samuel sat down hard, unable to breathe, feeling the world spinning about him.
Charles slammed his fist onto the table. He threw the bag and raked the dishes aside, sending them clattering across the floor. He sat, hands clenched into fists.
Samuel caught sight of the anger on his father’s face and quieted. It was a look Samuel had never seen. His own distress became fear.
“How could I have been so damn stupid?” Charles snapped. “That’s what they wanted. They weren’t interested in getting away to Florence. They wanted us away from the cabin.” He buried his head in his hands.
Samuel sat stone silent. He guessed it was more likely blind luck. They took advantage when they found both his father and him gone. Luck or not, it didn’t matter—their gold was gone. Their dreams were gone. Thoughts of Bonnie, of the O’Riley, and of Chen flashed through his mind. He thought of his mother and sister. Well, going home was settled. What remained for them here?
His father sprang up, grabbed up the meal sack, and began stuffing in food items. “I’m going after them. If I have to, I’ll follow them to Hades.”
Samuel said nothing but quietly began packing. He knew he was going as well. It didn’t matter what his father might say anymore.
In a moment, they were on the trail, heading downstream.
His father didn’t speak. Jaw set, eyes flashing, he pushed Buster at a trot. He pulled his rifle and laid it across the pommel. In the growing light, the fresh hoofprints were easy to see.
“Keep your eyes peeled, son. They won’t give us a second chance.” Charles’s tone was ice. It was the first acknowledgment that he knew Samuel had come along.
Samuel forced himself to pay attention, to observe their surroundings, although he doubted the men would try to dry-gulch them. They were running. Samuel wished he had tried for a horse instead of the men. They could have tracked a bleeding horse. But it wasn’t worth it. The men probably would have killed him—maybe not if his father had been coming hard on their trail, but he hadn’t been. And now they were following the men, presumably to try to get their gold back, but Samuel believed his father had other intentions.
They pushed hard until their horses began to flag. At a small tributary, his father paused long enough to water them.
“I’m afraid we aren’t closing the gap, son. They might already be up a side canyon, camped.”
Samuel patted Spooky, concerned. His father and he would have to conserve some energy if they intended to pursue for much longer.
“You know, son, it’s possible it’s two of the men that jumped the pack string last fall.”
“Why would they be so stupid? People are still looking for them.”
“Might not be looking all that hard. It was the Chinese pack string, remember?”
Samuel understood.
“Like Mr. Hunt told us, the pickings around here are pretty easy. If it’s true what you said and they know us, they knew we were alone. They might’ve been watching me while you were away. When they saw we hit it big, they let us run the sluice a few days, knowing we were stashing the fines and filling up our pouch. Maybe they even saw Stephens and Boston and figured they’d take the blame.”
“I can’t believe it,” Samuel breathed. He felt his anger growing again. He scanned the countryside, now bathed in early sunlight, searching the side canyons, looking for a place the men could be holed up and waiting to dry-gulch them. “It ain’t right, what they did, Pa.” He choked on his words. Samuel felt empty. He kept trying to reason why anyone would take their gold. How could anyone decide it was okay to bust up someone’s property and take what they had worked an entire winter for?
“No, son,” his father answered. “It ain’t right.” He urged Buster back onto the trail.
“But why? We never hurt anyone.”
His father was silent a moment. “There’s evil in this world, Samuel. Plenty of it. That’s all the reason there is.”
When they reached Groff’s ferry, Jesse explained he had ferried across a couple of men first thing that morning. His description of the men matched what they could see in the moonlight, and they had paid in dust.
“Probably them. That dust was ours.”
“Sorry. What happened?”
Charles explained and then requested, “If you don’t mind, please pass the word along to others to be on the lookout. Send word to Slate Creek and to Jon Stromback if you can.”
“I will.” Jesse shook his head. “I respect you for going after them. Least I can do is offer a ride across.”
The water had risen considerably. Samuel felt uneasy at the bucking and creaking ferry as they moved across.
“We better not stay on this side too long, Pa. Might end up too high pretty soon.”
“I’ve thought of that. I’m just hoping I can catch sight of them.”
They turned up the trail following the Little Salmon and rode a short distance to a side draw. Charles rode over the ground, eyes searching.
Samuel peered up the draw, wondering if the men were up above, watching. He shivered.
“Can’t tell if they came this direction. Can’t afford to push them if they did. For sure, they’d dry-gulch us now. No one around to be witness.”
Samuel quickly scanned the canyon walls again.
“They can turn up any of these canyons and cross over to the Snake River. No one would ever catch them. There’s gotta be a hundred ravines they can follow down the other side.”
In silence, they turned their horses and headed back toward the ferry.
Near evening, they reached the cabin and fixed some venison and corn mush. Samuel decided he would never look at a meal sack in the same manner as before.
“What we gonna do now, Pa?”
“Not much I reckon we can do. Just go back to work. Hope there’s some gold left.” His father held his plate; his eyes were far away.
“There may be a couple ounces in the fines that they didn’t steal. At least they didn’t steal the quicksilver, and there was a little amalgam worth a few dollars.” Samuel had earlier found the canister of mercury where he had left it outside the cabin. “Maybe we can clear off some more bedrock.”
His father put down his plate, pushed his fingers through his hair, and stared at Samuel.
“You got to understand, son. I spent the entire time you were at Slate Creek clearing off that last spot we been mining. Before we got robbed, we had near fifteen ounces of gold. How much does that come to?”
“Well over two hundred dollars,” Samuel replied. “Probably near three hundred with what fines they stole.”
“That’s about right,” Charles said. “You and I spent over half a year working ourselves to near death for three hundred dollars, and for what? Now we got to mend the sluice, and start over. Maybe we’ll get another couple ounces. To blazes, Samuel, we’d of both been better off ranching and making a decent wage.”
“I’m sorry, Pa. It was my fault.” Samuel found himself shaking. “If I’d’ve stayed at the cabin, they wouldn’t have got our gold.”
“I’m not blaming you.”
Samuel’s eyes misted. “But it is my fault.”
“Look, I’ve told you before you have to make the best decisions you can, faced with what you know. I considered it before I let you come with me and before we split up. It was the right decision. We can’t be second-guessing ourselves. It won’t bring the gold back.”
Samuel was silent. Despite his father’s words, he could sense something different in his voice. The dream was gone.
“Pa, you always been telling me things will work out.” He searched desperately for something good he could say. He began thinking about the quartz ledge east of the South Fork, where the grave was—the place where he had met the Sheepeater Indians. Maybe it was time to tell his father. Instead, he continued. “Maybe the Sweet Mary will have a lot of gold, and the O’Riley will prove up good. Then we can go home.”
“Got to try.” Charles sat and pulled off his boots. “Not much choice is there, son? Not much choice.” He stretched out on his bed and closed his eyes. The cabin had grown dark except for the flicker from the fire.
Samuel felt devastated. Last night and this day had been horrible. Not only had they lost their gold, either of them could have been killed. Even now the thieves could return intent on killing them. Maybe not here. Maybe at Warren’s. Maybe other thieves.
“Pa, I got something I need to tell you,” Samuel managed. “I found another ledge.”
Charles opened his eyes.
“Remember when I went east of the South Fork?”
“Yes. When you saw the Indians and I gave you what for, for going so far alone?”
“I told you I found a grave and a place where someone had been prospecting.” Samuel paused, wondering if he should go on. “Well, I didn’t tell you the whole of it.”
His father studied him.
“The quartz the man was working was rich.”
“How rich?”
“I had it assayed. I asked Mr. Hinley not to say anything. It came back over six ounces to the ton.”
His father sat up. “To blazes, son, why didn’t—”
“I didn’t say because I knew we didn’t have any time to do anything with it, Pa, and it would be dang near impossible to get the gold out of that country.”
“Tarnation! We could have sold it and let someone else worry about bringing it out.”
“I know, Pa,” Samuel admitted. “But I also wanted to finish the O’Riley because of the work I put in.”
“To blazes with the O’Riley, Samuel. It’s half as valuable.”
His father’s troubled eyes made Samuel uncomfortable. “Mostly I didn’t say anything because of the Indians. I-I didn’t feel right about it.”
Having finally spoken of it, Samuel rushed on, not daring to stop. “I had this feeling that the Sheepeaters didn’t want me there. I know we could have gone there with a bunch of men and run them off, but that wasn’t it. Somehow, I knew that where the man was pointing—where he wanted me to go—was their home. There’s nothing there, Pa. For a hundred miles or more, there’s nothing there but mountains and canyons—land that no whites would ever set foot in—unless we did. I began thinking maybe we shouldn’t. It just seemed … it belonged to the Sheepeaters.”
Samuel was not sure he made sense, even to himself. If there was gold there, why not go and get it? That’s why they came here.
“They weren’t like the Nez Perce, Pa,” Samuel continued. “If they were, they’d have horses and could just up and go to a new place. They didn’t own much. Only when they got up close, I could see they had good clothes. They had horn bows, so I knew they were good hunters. They were part of the land like the deer and the mountain sheep. It just didn’t seem right. There would be no place for them to go.” He looked up, struggling, trying to put into words what he had felt.
“And you think if we leave them alone, no one will ever know about them?”
“That’s it, Pa.” Samuel nodded. “No one. They’ll be left alone.”
“That’s just not so, son.” Charles sighed and gazed out across the river and then back at Samuel. “Whites will go into that country. It’s our nature to explore, to always want to go over the next mountain. To blazes, you went there. Maybe they’ll find something, maybe not. Maybe they’ll just homestead and raise a family. Maybe there won’t ever be much gold, but they’ll go there all right. And those Indians, whoever they are, will get pushed out.”
His father was correct. It was like what Stromback had said about the Nez Perce. At some point they would get pushed out. And Samuel knew if he and his father never went after the gold, someone else would.
Charles continued, “What if we go there when we get back to Warren’s, son? Let’s decide together on this thing.”
Samuel clenched his fists. His father would see it was a good ledge and want to work it.
His father lay back and closed his eyes again. Samuel could not. He rose and wandered out toward the sluice box and gazed northeast in the direction of the Sheepeaters and the ledge.