Auraria: A Novel (4 page)

These thoughts of a peach empire were not the first that Holtzclaw had entertained about putting his own name to a business. When he was not much more than a boy, Holtzclaw had become enamored of a new industry that was booming in Georgia: silkworms. The foothills of the Appalachians bore an uncanny resemblance to the silkworm’s native Chinese provinces. The weekly magazines were crammed with inspirational stories, and even the academic journals and agricultural reports that Holtzclaw perused were bullish. He would have been a fool not to join in, especially since he could bring precision and discipline to the practice. From his research, he prepared a list of necessary items, and with his small inheritance, he bought the following:

              10 acres, southern exposure sloped land in region of mild climate, hot summers, little frost, and low-moderate precipitation

              15 mulberry shrubs

              125 silkworm cocoons

              Qty. wood, glass, nails, etc., necessary for construction of hothouse, dimensions 30’ by 20’ by 8’

              1 dwelling for self

              Qty. articles of necessity and comfort for the furnishing of dwelling

As his fragile charges gained strength in their strange home, he would replace the meager comforts of this budget with the riches of fine native Georgia silk. Holtzclaw and a hundred others purchased property near each other, and the earliest arrivals named the fledgling town Canton, after its Oriental model. The town was a vile smear on a hill overlooking the Coosa River, overstuffed with a young, rough people and the sorts of businesses that they frequent: taverns and boardinghouses, a barber’s shop, and other places of ill repute.

Holtzclaw had been settled six months in Canton, long enough to see his finances shrink more quickly than his silkworms were maturing—owing to three months in which precipitation, as he measured, was between one-quarter and one-half inch below the expected. A revised plan showed that he could anticipate a gap of four months between the end of his capital and the beginning of his profits. The weather forecasts heralded no improvement; thus, he supposed the gap would widen over the months, rather than narrow. These circumstances were untenable, and he faced the unpalatable prospect of failure.

Holtzclaw carried out these calculations on a dozen papers spread out on a table at the Eagle Tavern. He often repaired there for supper, because it was the only place in town that stocked a decent claret. He was attempting to solve a tangled and discouraging equation when he was interrupted by a targeted clearing of the throat. Holtzclaw looked up to find a tall man with a hard cleft chin. He wore his hat indoors, a white bowler with a black band and narrow brim, but this breach of etiquette was excused by excellent monogrammed cufflinks.

“My name is Shadburn, of Milledgeville. May I offer you a claret, Mr. Holtzclaw?”

Holtzclaw nodded. Shadburn did not arise to inquire at the bar but pulled a bottle from a traveling case, uncorked it, and pushed the vessel toward Holtzclaw. Drinking straight from the bottle would not have been out of character for any other denizen of the Eagle, but Holtzclaw motioned to a circulating servant to bring an appropriate glass, reprimanded him for bringing a champagne flute, and resigned himself to a port snifter. During all of this, Shadburn was silent. When Holtzclaw’s nose was inside his glass of claret, Shadburn spoke.

“I don’t wish to waste time, yours or mine. I buy land for development and resale. Your land is of interest to me, and I want to buy it, this evening, for cash.”

The lack of preamble or pretense was a little shocking but not altogether displeasing. “I have improvements and possessions on the land,” said Holtzclaw. “Investments. Expectations.”

“Do you mean, the silkworms? They are dying, the poor creatures. They don’t belong here. I cannot put the value of your expectations into my offer.” Shadburn passed him a folded piece of paper. The written sum, while less than Holtzclaw’s initial investment in land and capital, was not inconsiderable. To make his decision, Holtzclaw had to do the math. He pushed aside his other documents and worked out his calculations in front of Shadburn.

The complexities of his equations related to change. A man who no longer wants to be a shepherd will take a lower price for his flock of sheep. Shadburn’s offer had caught Holtzclaw at the very moment when his own wish to change was at its peak. This value, input into his equations, solved them in favor of selling. Holtzclaw signed the short document that Shadburn presented.

“I do hope, Mr. Holtzclaw, that you’ll be discreet concerning our transaction. I have a few more lots to purchase. If their owners know that someone wants them, they will inflate their prices. I do not want to pay them more than I paid you. You should have the best of it; you saw reason first.”

“What you pay other people doesn’t matter to me. I’ve agreed to a fair price.”

“That’s sensible, Holtzclaw.” Shadburn folded the document and put it into his pocket.

Holtzclaw was upset to see his land treated so casually. “If you’ll pardon my frankness, Mr. Shadburn, you must guard that deed more carefully. You should treat it like gold. Do you have a portfolio or a satchel of some kind?”

“I do not,” said Shadburn. “I’ve never cared for such things.”

“I could manage them for you,” said Holtzclaw.

“Could you now?”

“You see that I’m a man of order.”

“And would you like such employment better than raising silkworms?”

“I have very little affection for the silkworms themselves.”

Thus, without ceremony, Holtzclaw joined the Standard Company. Neither party negotiated for salary or contract. For such a temporary employment as Holtzclaw envisioned, there was no need. It was merely a way to round up his closing days in Canton and put a bit of capital back in his pocket—and to glimpse how a better man did business.

Shadburn approached many other property holders in the following days; Holtzclaw followed along to sort the deeds and organize the paperwork. Most of Holtzclaw’s generation held out. But a sudden cold snap caught Georgia’s Canton unaware. Silkworms died by the thousands, their entire civilization extinguished. Men who had turned up their noses at five hundred dollars before the cold spell were glad to take fifty and a train ticket to somewhere far away from their failure. Before the end of six weeks, Shadburn owned forty percent of the Canton region, all on the high ground above the Coosa River. He never made overtures toward the land along the riverbed, even though it was better for farming. Something was afoot; Shadburn was too purposeful to make such mistakes.

Holtzclaw followed Shadburn back to Milledgeville, where he kept his offices. Holtzclaw only meant to stay a few weeks, tidy the books from the Canton project, and then strike out on his own. But in Milledgeville, Holtzclaw found a great many books that needed tidying. It took three months to put all the paperwork in order. As he was nearing the end, he read a remarkable headline in the business papers. The Coosa River Company had just been organized to build a flood-control dam. When they closed the gates, the impounded river would form a lake that would trace the borders of the land Shadburn purchased in Canton.

Now, instead of owning forty percent of a failed experiment in American silkworm farming, Shadburn owned the entire shores of a beautiful shimmering lake: thousands of acres of newborn farmland, kissed by water and served by the railroad spur that the Coosa River Company had built to move supplies to their dam site. The cheap high ground was made valuable in an instant by the touch of water, and Shadburn pocketed a fortune. Holtzclaw, too, found that his salary was rather handsome, though nothing like the wonder Shadburn had made.

Holtzclaw felt a touch of bitterness than he had not held out to see the profit for himself. How had Shadburn done it? Was it backroom deals, prior knowledge? He didn’t think so; Shadburn did not seem subtle enough. A lucky stroke? Not this either. The next six projects all turned out just as well. Every deal was profitable. Shadburn had perfected the alchemy of creating gold from paper.

And as, in Shadburn’s employ, Holtzclaw’s fragile capital reserves and business sense gained strength, he knew that he would soon strike out on his own again. At first, he worked the calculations continually. How much would be needed to go chase the silkworms again? Or go in to arms manufacturing? Stamping buckles and brass plates? Coffin manufacturing? He saw too late that that would have been an excellent business, had he been prepared for it, but he missed his opportunity. And the calculations never came out favorably—nothing that Holtzclaw figured was as profitable as Shadburn’s alchemy. He did not yet want a change; there was too much to be learned. As months stretched to years, Holtzclaw worked his calculations only sporadically, after glum days of traveling in the mud, or when one of Shadburn’s maneuvers seemed especially peculiar. Rarer and rarer, until the future was almost mist.

This peach pit was a break in the clouds, a bit of light in a sky too long turned slate gray. The man who had won the widow Smith Patterson’s lands could make a fortune from such a seed. The man who panicked over a snake and a twisted ankle could not.

#

As Holtzclaw reminisced, the sun dropped below the mountains, which rose up to meet it. The Post Trace—if it was the Post Trace, and not some nameless path—doubled and redoubled on itself as it descended. Holtzclaw didn’t know if he was any closer to Auraria, where he would find his bed, supper, and, most importantly, his luggage, with a change of shirt and shoe polish. A hateful thought occurred to him: in his musing about an empire of peaches and silkworms, he’d missed a turn. Another error, hours slipping away. He should have been in town by now; he should have been winning the affections of the local government or making quiet deals with the key shop owners. Instead, he was lost in the woods.

He considered turning around; if he made no more mistakes, he could return to the widow Smith Patterson’s house. The laws of country hospitality would oblige her to put him up for the night and provide supper as well. But then he would have no evening coat, smoking jacket, or gentleman’s robe. Nowhere to wash his face but some crockery bowl or, worse, an old bedpan. He would have to forgo his evening claret, without which Holtzclaw could not aspire to a restful sleep. And these discomforts would be compounded by the knowledge that his schedule would be slipping even further behind. He pressed on.

Only a narrow strip of purple sky was visible above. Pale emanations rose from mossy rocks and branches. A bright green glow, like a signal lantern, flashed twice from a rocky monadnock across the valley. Fireflies telegraphed their messages from ridge to ridge.

The road ended at a creek; Holtzclaw heard the water but could not tell where it flowed until he had stumbled into it. He picked his way through underbrush, following the current downstream. The creek joined with several others into a larger flow, and as it did, a cold wind struck him. The flow of the water pulled the heat from the air. The mountain waters radiated their chill vapors. The green glows of the flora and fauna faded away. Even the light of the moon above was occluded—whether by the tall tops of chestnuts or by the cold mist, Holtzclaw couldn’t say.

His ears caught an indistinct sound that was not quite singing, yet not quite speech. It was too faint for him to understand. Holtzclaw peered through the foliage, toward the noise, which came from a wide place in the river ahead. Shimmers of water rushed over large flat rocks, catching the little bit of light that penetrated the valley and throwing it back with a strange metallic sheen.

In the water, there were six human forms. They were bathing in the stream. It made Holtzclaw shiver just to watch them; the cold slapped at his cheeks, and he could not fathom how they could endure. Yet the figures seemed undisturbed. They dashed over the rocks, pursuing one other, splashing, cavorting. Their limbs were too long and lean. The shapes that stood for their heads were distorted. But it was too dark to understand anything for sure; at this distance, in this light, he could not trust his eyes.

At last, Holtzclaw risked calling out to them. He did not want them to think he was leering.

“Hello there!” he said, hoping that he would not startle them. “I am so sorry for intruding; I assure you, I am so bold only because I need your help. I’m a visitor. I’ve lost my way, and if you could …”

The air snapped, as though a photographer’s flashbulb had burst. Where there had been six people bathing, there were now ripples across the water. How fast they fled! It seemed too quick for nature, but perhaps it was only that Holtzclaw’s own perceptions were sluggish, worn out from a day of hard travel. A warmer breeze coming from the forest pushed away the cold air. In an instant, the scene had vanished from his senses.

Holtzclaw emerged from the underbrush and walked to the edge of the stream, perplexed and alone. It was his fault, of course. He had been too forward, spoken out of turn and without introduction, and the gentle figures had fled—rightly!—before he could exchange a word with them. What evil is done when decorum is not upheld!

“Hello, James.”

He whirled toward the voice. Just at the edge of the creek was the little girl from the spring, who’d called herself Princess Trahlyta. He’d overlooked her; she had looked like part of the landscape.

“Don’t leap out like that! You’ll give me an apoplexy!” cried Holtzclaw. His surprise turned to irritation. “Have you followed me, Princess? All this way?”