Gold (19 page)

“
Damn greasers. Stealing our gold.”

“
Them and their knives. Guns ain’t good
enough for them.”

“
A rope’s good enough. As long as they’re dangling at the end of it.”

“
Don’t be hasty,” Braithewaite said. “You don’t
rightly know what happened.”

“
He’s right,” Selena said. “It could have been
his fault.”

“
She knifed him. English Bob said so.”

“
She must have had a reason,” Braithewaite
said. “Bob might have tried to force her.”

“
English Bob’s not that kind. A regular gent
he is.”

“
She’s a Mexican. You know what they’re like,
doc, enticing men into their tents to rob them.”

“
Then knifing them.”

“
No!” Selena cried out. “She wouldn’t. I know
her. She wouldn’t. Not without a reason.”

“
She robbed him and killed him.”

“
Why are we standing here talking?” Pike
asked.

“
Let’s go!”

The men, shouting and cursing, surged up the
street. Selena ran behind them, clutching at their
sleeves, pleading with them.

They shook her off,
refusing to look at her. They cheered and pointed
upward as they passed under the oak that had
given the town its name, the oak where three men were hanged for robbing a storekeeper.

The mob bore right at the fork, silent now, in
tent, grim, determined. More men joined them,
the mob growing. Selena gasped for breath as she
tried to keep up. They halted at the foot of the
hill, looking up the steep slope dotted with stumps
and slashed by gullies left by the winter’s rains.

At the top of the hill Selena saw two tents in
front of a stand of pines. When she saw that the
tents seemed deserted, she sighed with relief. They
had fled, she told herself. Esperanza was safe.

The men, thirty or more by now, began climb
ing the hill. Selena followed. When they neared the top, three men appeared at the crest—Sutton
flanked by his two blacks, Joshua and Jed. The
men lower on the hill hesitated, then came on,
scrabbling upward. Sutton watched until they
were no more than twenty feet from him, then
raised his hand.

“
No farther,” he shouted.

“
We don’t want you,” Pike called to him. “We
want the girl. The Mex girl.”

“
You shan’t have her.”

Pike turned to the mob.
“Are we gonna let
him and his two niggers stop us?” he asked.

“
No!” they shouted.

“
Then let’s go get ‘em!”

“
Listen to me,” Sutton called. “Let me tell you
what happened.” His voice was drowned out as
the men surged up the hill.

The young black, the
one called Jed, seized the first man to reach the top, raised him over his head, holding him there
for a moment, then hurled him at the others.
Three men went down but the others scrambled
past, sweeping Sutton and the older slave before
them. They surrounded the young black, ten or
more circling him warily. Jed waited, ready, the men still circling, afraid to close on him.

As Sutton lay struggling on the ground, Selena
tried to force her way to him. An arm seized her
from behind, thrusting her away, and she fell. She
pushed herself up and ran forward, screaming at them to stop. Men swarmed into the first tent, smashing the canvas to the ground and scattering Sutton’s provisions. Selena didn’t see Esperanza. Had she escaped after all?

With Pike in the lead, the men ran to the sec
ond tent. Pike threw aside the flap and suddenly stopped. After a moment, he turned away. The
others crowded past him, looked into the tent and
then they, too, turned away. Selena pushed by
them and drew back the flap.

Esperanza lay on her side on the ground inside the tent. At first Selena thought she was asleep,
hoped she was asleep, but knew she wasn’t. Esper
anza’s hands were still on the knife and Selena saw
blood pooling on the ground from the wound in
her stomach. Crying out wordlessly, Selena knelt
beside her, cradling Esperanza’s head in her
arms. The girl’s lifeless eyes stared past her.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

“Is she dead?” Sutton asked. He knelt beside
Selena who still held Esperanza in her arms.

“
Yes.” Selena felt numb. Stunned.

“
I’ll have Jed and Joshua dig a grave.”

“
Is there a priest? A Catholic priest?”

“
I’m sure there isn’t.” King Sutton put his hand
on Selena’s shoulder, then got up and went out of
the tent.

Selena laid Esperanza on the ground and made
the sign of the cross over her before covering her
with the black shawl. When she left the tent she
saw Sutton some distance away leading the two
blacks, both with shovels on their shoulders, toward a knoll. The other tent was a shambles and the
men from town were nowhere to be seen.

Selena turned away and walked into the pines.
Without purpose, without direction, she stumbled
ahead beneath the giant trees, the pine needles
slick under her feet, the forest around her dim in
the hush of late afternoon. She heard the faint
gurgle of water, made her way toward the sound
and after a short time came to the top of a steep
bank. Looking down, she saw a glen through the
trees where water spilled over a series of falls to
form a pool directly below her. Beside the pool
dirt and sand had been piled, the tailings where
miners had once panned for gold.

She climbed down the bank along a zig-zagging
track to the stream. She knelt on a flat boulder to splash water onto her face, the chill shocking her
back to awareness. Still kneeling, she scooped
water into her palms. As she drank, she became
aware of the reflection in the pool of the boulders
on the opposite bank, the spires of the pines, and
the white clouds drifting serenely across the azure
sky.

Esperanza was dead. A sob wrenched Selena
and she cried, the reality of the young girl’s death
overwhelming her. Never again would Esperanza
gaze into still waters, never again walk beneath
the vault of the sky. Selena lowered her head into
her hands.

When at last she quieted and looked up, she shivered. The sun was now behind the hills; the
glen lay in deepening shadows. A movement in
the water caught her eye. Glancing down, she saw
the reflection of her own face and, next to hers, a
second face. She gasped and spun around. King
Sutton stood behind her.

“
I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, taking
a step back.

She stood up and flew at him, pounding his
chest with her fists. He raised his hands to defend himself, finally grasping her by the wrists to hold
her away.

“
Damn you,” she cried. “Why didn’t you help her? Why didn’t you take her away?”

He released one of her hands and she swung,
striking his shoulder. Reaching out, he slapped
her face hard, sending her head jerking to one
side. For a moment she stared at him, her eyes
wide, and then she covered her face with her
hands.

“
We’d just returned from scouting the dig
gings,” he said. “The three of us, Jed and Joshua and myself. I heard the girl moaning so I looked
into her tent to see what was wrong. She said a man she didn’t know had attacked her and she
fought him, hurt him with a knife, and she was
afraid. It was the first time the poor child ever spoke to me. By that time I could hear the mob
coming up the hill.

“
I told her to run and hide in the woods, we’d delay them, and I left her there and we made our
stand at the top of the hill. You saw what hap
pened.”

“
Why didn’t you shoot them? You have guns. I
saw them when you rode into town.”

“
Because there were thirty of them and only
three of us. I don’t mind long odds but I’m no fool.
They had guns too. If I started shooting there’d be
four dead now, maybe more, instead of only one.”

Selena rubbed her stinging cheek.
“It’s not your
fault,” she said. She was terribly tired. “I know
you did what you could.”

“I tried.”

“
It’s not your fault,” she said again. “It’s mine.
I killed Esperanza.”

“
You? You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“
I thought I was in love with Diego. Diego’s
her brother. I was going to marry him. He might
have kept the ranch. Esperanza might still be
there living with us. She’d be married by now with
a baby on the way. I killed her.”

“
Selena, you’re talking nonsense. I don’t know
what happened between you and this Diego or be
tween you and Esperanza, but I know you didn’t
kill.” He spoke slowly, as to a child. “You are not
responsible for her death. They killed her, those
madmen. They didn’t listen to me, didn’t want to
listen.”

“
If I hadn’t. . .” Selena began.

King took her by the shoulders and shook her.
“Stop it. With that reasoning we could blame our
selves for all the troubles of the world. Listen to
me. Last year I was deer hunting. I stopped to
talk to Tuttle, a friend of mine, and five minutes
later he was dead, struck down by a stray bullet. If
I hadn’t talked to him, would he be alive today?
Did I kill him? Answer me, did I?”

Selena shook her head.

“Of course I didn’t. We have to do the best we
can. What happens, happens.”

She sighed, shivering.

“You’re cold,” he said, putting his arms around
her, holding her to him.

Selena pushed him away and walked to the
water’s edge, where she looked down into the
pool. When she heard King Sutton behind her,
sensed him inches away, she looked for his reflec
tion in the water. Not seeing it, she turned. He
seemed to loom over her. Backing away, she al
most fell into the water. He reached down and lifted her into his arms.

She felt the beating of her heart, the quicken
ing of her breath. “What are you doing?” she
whispered.

He didn
’t answer. He carried up the long zee
of the path, holding her close against his body, his
warmth strangely comforting to her. When they
came to the top of the hill he carried her through the pines, the sun slanting between the trees. He
laid her on the sunlit grass in a glade and knelt
alongside her.

“
Esperanza is dead,” she said softly.

“
Esperanza’s dead, yet we’re alive.” He brushed
a lock of golden hair from her forehead. “We’re alive. Say it, Selena.”

“
We’re alive.”

“
Again. Louder. Say it again.”

“
We’re alive.”

“
Again. Louder.”

“
We’re alive,” she screamed.

“
Yes, yes.” He pulled her to him, kissing her.
Selena raked his face with her nails.

“
I’ve hurt you,” she said. Blood-red slashes
streaked his cheek.

He shook his head.