Hard Gold (9 page)

Try counting the wagons here, and you’ll sense just how many there were waiting to cross the river.

Our team chose the middle ferry (because that’s where we hauled up), a steam side-paddle boat called
The Nebraska Number One.
It could (and did!) carry twelve wagons with their teams, making thirty to forty crossings each day!

May 19

Waiting for our turn left plenty of time to do nothing. I decided to look about Council Bluffs, so I asked Mrs. Bunderly for permission to take Lizzy with me.

“Mr. Early,” she returned, “I’m not sure it will be safe. Speak to Mr. Bunderly.”

When I repeated her words to him, Mr. Bunderly said, “Alas, Mr. Early, my good wife does poorly today. When pain obscures her world, melancholy holds her heart. I worry about her much. But,” he added, forcing a smile, “better grin than grimace.

“As for Miss Eliza, by all means, let her accompany you. But be prudent, Mr. Early, prudent! Do not fail me or her unfortunate mother in protecting the girl. She is the jewel in our otherwise lusterless crown.”

Having received permission, I asked Lizzy to come with me, for which I was given a fine look which gratified me. So we set forth, me being mostly quiet, she chattering and commenting on all we saw. I never knew one to so love
seeing.

But then, Council Bluffs was a whirligig of gold fever. Crowds of people tramping about on the dusty, deeprutted main street, a never-ending market of men selling, buying or trading the most amazing things. Lizzy pointed out a man offering a barrowload of ladies’silk shoes in exchange for shovels. Beaver pelts swapped for axes. Five dollars for a wheelbarrow. Four for a hatchet!

It seemed like every commercial establishment we saw bore a name like “Pike’s Peak Hotel,” or “Pike’s Peak Outfits,” or “Pike’s Peak Lunch.” I imagined that if they could have branded water, there would have been “Pike’s Peak Water.” Lizzy even bought some “Pike’s Peak Candy Nuggets” with a three-penny coin she had. They proved sweetly sour.

Voices filled the air, all of them, it seemed, speaking about Pike’s Peak. Pike’s Peak this, Pike’s Peak that. Much of the talk was furious argument about which way to go.
How
to go—by wagon, handcarts, or just plain walking. There were arguments about if to go, as well. Though most wanted to get to Pike’s Peak, some were going to the California diggings. Or to Oregon, which had just become a state. There was even a group of Mormons going to Salt Lake. Someone told us they had come from a country called Denmark. They surely spoke no language I knew.

We paused to observe a man standing on a soapbox, barking at a jeering crowd.

“Friends!” he cried. “There’s no gold to be found at Pike’s Peak!” He kept shouting. “It’s all a fraud! A lie! A humbug! All made up by these river towns, who want to take our money and leave us to rot in the desert! I’ve been there. There is nothing!”

Prospectors often kept their gold dust in hollow feather quills.

A man held up a small cloth bag. “I found some!”

The crowd cheered. Whether the man actually did or did not have gold, we never knew for sure. But how I wished it had been Jesse!

There was a terrible amount of drinking (I had never seen so many saloons), gambling, and profanity right on the streets. Enough to make the devil blush. I was nervous about Lizzy, but she remained calm until she cried, “Look!”

I turned toward where she pointed, and saw two women pass by dressed in rough jackets and what looked to be oversize, almost billowy trousers beneath their skirts.

“Bloomers!” said Lizzy with great admiration.

It was a world such as I had never seen before.

As we continued to wander through the crowds, I chanced to observe Mr. Mawr. Being so big, he was hard to miss, but I was sure he had not seen us. There being something purposeful in his walk, I wanted to follow him.

“Lizzy,” I whispered. “It’s Mr. Mawr. I need to see where he’s going.”

“Why?”

“Just follow!”

Though the crowds were thick, he wasn’t difficult to follow. We watched when he went into a small building that bore the sign:

CHICAGO AND NORTH
WESTERN RAILWAY

Seeing it, I gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Lizzy asked.

“Come with me,” I said, grabbing her hand and leading the way out of town until we sat on one of the bluffs overlooking the river. I was so upset, I put all my caution aside and told Lizzy my story from the beginning: the railroad wanting to buy our farm; our fear of losing the farm to foreclosure; Judge Fuslin accusing Jesse of robbing the bank; Jesse going off to the diggings in search of gold to pay that debt; his message; the judge’s connection to Mr. Mawr; even what the go-backer had said about Jesse having killed someone.

She listened intently.

“Right after we moved to Wiota I heard talk about the bank robbery,” she said.

“What did you hear?”

“That it was somebody named Plockett.”

Feeling wretched, I shook my head.

“Early,” she asked, “is
he …
your uncle?”

Greatly agitated, I could only nod. “I won’t believe it was him.”

We sat silently for a few minutes as I tried to sort my thoughts. “Lizzy,” I said, “I’ll wager that railroad office is where the railroad is meaning to go. But to get there, it’s got to run right through our farm.”

“What’s Mr. Mawr got to do with it?”

“Maybe,” I suggested, “he’s going to keep me from even getting to Cherry Creek.”

“Why would he do that?”

“So he can find Jesse on his own. Then he’d try to get Jesse’s gold for himself. Why? Because if that gold doesn’t get back home, Fuslin—and the railroad—will get our farm.”

“Then we have to make sure Mr. Mawr doesn’t stop you,” she said.

“But Lizzy, if I
do
get through, I might be leading Mawr right to Jesse. Don’t want to do that, either. I just wish I knew what he’s scheming!” I cried out in frustration.

“Early,” she said after a while, “what about… about your Jesse killing someone. You think that’s true?”

I shook my head. “If I know anyone, it’s Jesse. He wouldn’t.”

She put her hand on my arm. “Early, I do admire your faith in your kin.”

I looked at her, trying to tell if she believed me or not. But I did not want to ask. Instead I stared out at the river.

May 20

Though waiting for the ferry frustrated me, our wagons stayed in line on the east bank of the Missouri River. It must have discouraged Mr. Wynkoop, too. Or perhaps he took to heart the word “humbug” when applied to the diggings. After the second day of waiting, he abruptly announced he was going to stay in Council Bluffs and set himself up as the carpenter he was. So he and his family left us.

I only wished Mr. Mawr would leave.

We remained by the riverbank. I didn’t want to go back into town. Too crowded, too loud, and too profane. Then there was that railroad office. I kept thinking about what Mr. Bigalow had said when he tried to buy the farm, that the Chicago and North Western Railway might well find a way to
make
us sell our land to them. I had to believe that was Mr. Mawr’s job now—to keep me from helping Jesse, or keep Jesse’s gold from getting home.

Lizzy, being required to stay with her mother, left me alone to sit by the riverbank for hours, gazing out over the Missouri, which was about a mile across and awful muddy. Even the local people called it “The Big Muddy.”

The water was high from upriver spring rains, swirling and snarling with powerful currents and eddies. Amazing to see a river could be so wide or so churning. Truly menacing. All manner of logs, tree branches, lumber, and once a small empty skiff (upside down) flowed with it. I even saw the bloated carcass of a horse float by.

Other times I went to the steamboat jetty, where there were great piles of goods meant to be sold to emigrants going west: bales of dry goods, hundred-pound sacks of sugar and flour, cured meats, coffee, and dried fruits. Cases of lard, molasses, casks of butter, and salted fish. Lumber. Never saw such mounds of stuff. It had been brought on big rear paddle wheelers, mostly from St. Louis city, a city (we were told) much bigger than Council Bluffs, though I could hardly give it credence. I would have liked to see one of the big steam wheelers, but none came while we were there.

That’s a stern paddle wheeler on the Missouri.
Probably just in from St. Louis.

Whenever her mother released Lizzy, we’d wander off and talk—as we did so often—about what we would do once we got to the diggings.

“Jesse and I are going to buy our own farm,” I told her.

“I shall build myself a mansion,” said Lizzy, “with an elegant ballroom. Once a week all the fine ladies and gentlemen shall come and dance.”

“I suspect you’d need to wear something better than calico,” I said.

She closed her eyes. “Velvet,” she whispered. “Green velvet.”

The thought of skinny, big-shoed, freckled-faced Lizzy in velvet made me laugh so, she yanked up a dirt clod and flung it at me.

Mrs. Bunderly was feeling sufficiently better so that she and Lizzy went to the riverside and did some washing. Mr. Bunderly wandered around the waiting wagons offering haircuts and shaves. He found a few paying customers, which cheered him enormously. Upon his return, he proudly held out his palm in which lay two liberty quarter dollars.

“Mr. Early, Miss Eliza,” he said, “it is independent commerce that animates this noble nation. It matters not a whit how great or how small the enterprise. Let it be my scissors or a great New England cloth manufactory, each contributes to the wealth of all.”

Later, Lizzy said to me, “What do you think of my pa?”

“I like the way his words build up high like church steeples,” I said.

“Early,” she sighed, “you are a kind and generous person.”

When Lizzy was allowed, she and I wandered among the waiting wagons. People were rearranging their goods, or trading with each other. Talking. Arguing. Once we came upon some fiddlers as well as boys playing baseball, the lopsided ball made of stitched leather and stuffed with horsehair, the bat a tree branch.

All during this time, I was intent upon avoiding Mr. Mawr. For the most part, he didn’t pay much attention to me. But every now and again, he’d happen to come by. I suppose he was keeping watch on me. Nothing more. Not yet.

May 21

We moved to the head of the line. Our steam-paddle ferry carried twelve wagons each passage and charged
five
dollars for each wagon. If we wished to go on, there was no choice.

We rolled our wagons onto the ferry, set the brakes, and tied the wheels down so they wouldn’t move. Then came the oxen. As they were skittish, it took a fair deal of pushing, shoving, and whipping to get them in place. Then we had to calm them, which was my job. Though her mother objected, Lizzy worked with me.

The river’s wildness made us uneasy, especially Mrs. Bunderly. She determined to stay inside the wagon and not watch. As for Mr. Bunderly, for once he barely said a word, which meant he too was nervous. Now and again the oxen lowed for the unnaturalness of the crossing.

I was more excited than tense, feeling we were crossing a great boundary, the division between past and future. I suspect Lizzy felt the same, for when she looked at me, she offered a gleeful smile.

As our ferry was getting ready to push away, I saw another in front of us. It was a small, raftlike boat, carrying only two wagons, oxen, and a few people being poled slowly across.

As I watched, that other ferry suddenly tilted to one side.

“Lizzy!” I cried. “Look!”

We stared, horrified, as the people on the raft began yelling and screaming, moving to the opposite side of the ferry while the oxen began to bellow, their desperate cries reaching across the river. It was to no avail: the ferry listed so heavily, so quickly, a pair of yoked oxen lost their footing and tumbled into the river. But they must have been tied to a wagon, for one cascaded into the water, too. It sent up a great billowing splash and was swept immediately away, only to sink in the roiling waters. Behind, the ferry raft righted itself, and nothing more was lost.

But from that ferry came the most dreadful cries of lamentation, appalling to hear. I saw a man restrain a woman from leaping into the waters. We would learn later that a one-year-old child had been sleeping within the wagon that was lost—drowned.