Zachary's Gold (17 page)

The wild and unusual thing that struck me about my circumstances was the realization that I was about to take this man as my partner in the most important venture of my life. I had no idea how I was going to manage it, and I fully recognized that it might prove disastrous, but logically or not, I felt I had no other choice. This would be my partner.

I was exhausted, really—emotionally, physically, and mentally. The coherent part of me knew that I was playing the fool, but I also knew that the decision had been made as completely as if I had written it down and registered it with a justice of the peace. A gambler would recognize the feeling. After being at the table too long and calculating probabilities too many times, in the small hours of the morning, knowing full well that the odds are against him, he bets everything he owns on a pair of sevens.

Against all better judgment, I would find a way to make this Oriental wretch understand me, and I would pay him a king's ransom to help me carry my fortune to safety.

Somehow or other, I would do this.

My first task was to get him to accompany me to Ned's cabin. There were maps there, as well as the mule and other objects and tools I could use to get the meaning of my proposition across.

He had finished the last of the rice and looked just about as tired as I was. No doubt he had been working his claim since daybreak and was hoping I would leave him to his evening's rest.

“How would you like to come with me and see my place?” I asked. “I've enjoyed your hospitality and I think it's your turn now. We'll let my throat heal up on the way, and fry up some spuds when we get there—how's that?”

He smiled and nodded, but I knew he was totally ignorant of my meaning. I tried repeating myself, this time standing and gesturing—with sweeping arm movements—pointing down the creek and miming a walking motion.

“Come on then, my diminutive friend. We can be there well before dark, but we have to ship out pretty quick.”

I hoped he was picking up the amiable tone in my voice and grinned at him like a patent medicine salesman. He looked in the direction I was pointing and shook his head.

At least I knew that he was taking my basic meaning correctly, and I couldn't blame him for not jumping at this seemingly pointless opportunity, but I refused to give up gracefully. Still talking in my most cheerfully persuasive tone, I strolled over to his makeshift living quarters, lifted the moosehide door, and peered inside.

“You'll like it down my way—quieter, farther away from the hustle and bustle, nice scenery. No gold up this neck of the woods anyway, you realize. Total waste of your time. A short break and a walk in the fresh air will do you a world of good.”

I stooped and, reaching into his lean-to, pulled out a kind of straw mat that he had lain across a carpet of spruce boughs, and a pair of green blankets. These I quickly rolled into a rough bundle. He jumped to his feet and took them from me with a most discordant-sounding set of objections, which I gave no sign of understanding. I allowed him to scold me in his own tongue, or explain to me the error of my ways, or whatever combination of the two, while I quite deliberately poured his wash-bucket over his campfire.

At this stage, his remonstrations took on a new tone and volume that I could appreciate but gratefully not specifically translate. He evidently judged me to be a lower form of life and was considering dire and immediate action against my well-being, but first he intended to put his bedding back in its proper place.

As he turned to do this, he heard me cock the big Colt revolver and lapsed into immediate silence.

Still holding his mat and blankets, he turned back to face me and gave me a long and eloquent speech—his personal analysis of our situation. The gist of this was that I was most unfair, and he was most unwilling. As his future partner, I thought it fitting to forgive him for his whining tone of voice and his short-sighted outlook on life.

“Come along,” I said. “Not much more than an hour of daylight left.”

I pointed the way with my gun muzzle, shouldered my own bedroll, and listened to the musical timbre of his disgusted commentary as we headed down the gulch towards Antler Creek. He talked almost non-stop for the first half mile or so, sometimes sounding angry, sometimes tired and frustrated, and sometimes fearful. I cannot blame him for any of those emotions. I was confident, though, that given the proper time and place, I could make myself understood sufficiently to change his attitude.

Once we were on our way, I tried to keep the gun out of sight and walked level with him rather than behind his back, but if this disposed him in any way to feel more friendly and forgiving to me, he did not show it on his face. Still, with little to carry and level ground, we covered the distance in an hour. He was a good walker, in spite of his bad humour, and after a while his grumbling faded to an occasional grunt.

As we crossed the creek and the clearing beside Ned's cabin, it was becoming dark enough to make the irregularities of the ground indistinct, and I'm sure my fellow traveller was as happy as I was to be finished the day's journey. Although his frown did not disappear, there was a certain curiosity visible in his eyes as he entered the deep gloom of the cabin. I lit the lantern on the table and gestured invitingly to the chair, but he chose to exhibit his disdain and injured dignity by standing on the threshold with his bedroll still in his arms. I did not press the issue but eased myself past him, collected kindling, birchbark, and a few blocks of wood, then started the fire in the stove. I hoped the warmth would help to thaw the man's emotions a bit, as well as his body. I wanted him to acclimatize himself—to feel a bit more at home in his new surroundings—before I began explanations and negotiations, and to that end I left him by himself within the house while I went back to the creek for a fresh pail of water, then lingered outside chopping up a few more rounds of birch and inspecting the mule, who seemed happy enough to see me but none the worse for my absence.

I re-entered the building carefully, for I realized that I had forgotten to inspect the place for potential weapons before I left my captive unguarded, but there was no need for caution. He was seated in the chair now, with his blankets in his lap and the same dismal scowl on his face, watching a plume of acrid brown smoke rise from a cooking pot full of dried-out beans that I had inadvertently left on the heater. He was evidently not prone to violence, but neither was he about to be involved in anything against his will.

I took the smoking pot onto the porch and threw it as far as I could into the bush, then returned as if nothing untoward had happened.

“You'll like it here,” I chimed cheerfully. “At least I strongly suggest to you, my black-eyed friend, that you make the best of things and enjoy it, because the alternative is pretty bleak, I'm afraid.”

I was down now to a frying pan and one pot, which I filled with water and started heating. My speaking tone was, as I say, as cheerful and light as I could make it, but the meaning of my words was far from pleasant.

On the last leg of the road home I had reached the regrettable conclusion that if the Chinaman absolutely refused to consent to my working arrangement or showed himself under close scrutiny to be unusable to me, I had no other option than to do away with him.

That I was capable of such a cold-blooded murder, I had some doubts, but logically I could not expect to kidnap the fellow, then set him free and hope that he would not bring some sort of attention and retribution my way.

Would it be easier to kill him because he was not a white man? I was unsure. I had killed Ned in self-defence, but even at that I had suffered a certain emotional turmoil. Would I be able to live with myself if I shot this Oriental in cold premeditation? I sincerely hoped that I would not need to find out.

Of the minimal number of things that I knew about the Chinese, only one fact seemed usable in the present situation, and that was that they were great tea lovers, and since Ned was well supplied in that commodity, I was able to brew a potful in short order. Whether the resultant potation was comparable to any Oriental drink, I couldn't say, but the man was evidently thirsty, and he polished off two cupfuls quite eagerly.

He had relaxed enough, I thought, for me to make another attempt at communication, and the most obvious starting place was an exchange of names.

“Zach,” I said, pointing at myself. “Call me Zach.”

He smiled. I pointed at him and gave a questioning look. He shook his head negatively and covered his cup with his hand. A person in a foreign country without any knowledge of the language should, I thought, be better at miming games. I wasted quite some time in repetition and gesticulation, trying to convey the idea that I wanted him to tell me his name, not drink more tea or go outside. Finally, I was reduced to drawing little pictures of two men, giving one the name “Zach,” and gazing at the other in bewilderment. He finally caught on, although I don't think he was much impressed by my artistry. I learned that his name was Rosh, as closely as I could imitate his pronunciation.

We both felt rather pleased, I think, at this successful exchange of information, and I was doubly happy that Rosh was forgetting his animosity and paying me polite attention.

“Rosh,” I said.

“Rosh,” he replied.

“Zach,” I said, and again he covered his cup with his hand and signed that he had enough to drink. I considered the project to be successful enough, since at least I knew what to call him, and gave up trying to correct him. I didn't want to destroy the mood of the moment with pedantry.

After stoking the fire and waiting a few minutes for effect, I coaxed him over to the window and pointed out into the field.

“Mule,” I said gravely.

He nodded his head with a questioning look and followed me back to the table. There I spread out a map of the territory from the Great Mountains to the Pacific, British Columbia, and south to California. He nodded his head and mumbled something affirmative when I pointed to our present location, signifying that he understood that position on the chart. Next, I leaned forward with a conspiratorial smile on my lips, pointed at the mule, myself and himself, and traced a line slowly down the Fraser River from Barkerville to the sea.

His response was delayed for a second as he assured himself that he understood my meaning, then he spat out one loud negative exclamation. Pulling himself away from the map as if it were the Devil's own contract, he ranted angrily at me in his native gibberish for a good five minutes.

I waited with a condescending patience until he was finished, then repeated my explanatory gestures and quietly spoke my case.

“You certainly will do it, old fellow—for me, or for yourself, or whomever—but resolve this quickly: you will do it! I give you the chance to choose for yourself, but I'm afraid I can be patient for only so long.”

He was not about to be persuaded or indeed to listen to any more of my discussions. He turned his chair to the wall, returned his bedroll to his lap, and muttered to himself.

My next step was to introduce the idea of reward, and here I thought I might again be able to use pen and ink, since I was of the impression that Orientals used the same notation for numbers as Westerners. I wrote the figure “$4,000” in large characters on a sheet of paper and tried to call him over. He ignored me and stayed in his chair, so I took the paper to him and held it up for his perusal.

He closed his eyes. I attempted in my most imploring tones to get him to try to understand just a little more, but he refused. He could not have resisted me more if he had been Ulysses tied to the mast.

Perhaps I should have accepted his reluctance with grace and understanding. He was tired and confused, and no doubt still fearful for his personal safety, even though he now knew enough about me to allay his immediate fears. The problem was that I too was tired and confused. I had run pell-mell through a gauntlet of misadventures that lasted three days, with irregular food and sleep, and a constant mental tension that sooner or later had to show its effects.

The Chinaman stared at the wall, grumbling and thinking to himself, no doubt, that as soon as daylight arrived he must find a way to rid himself of my company.

Somehow, I was determined to bring this matter to a climax before I succumbed to the lure of sleep. I stood up, drew my gun out of my pocket, and took a step towards the door.

“Come on,” I uttered gruffly, and drew back the hammer with my right thumb. The sound it made was as loud as a whip crack in the small room. The Chinaman flinched but didn't turn or stand up. He probably reasoned that I was either bluffing with the pistol, and always had been, or had decided to shoot him. Either way, there was no sense cooperating with me.

I hadn't wanted to shoot, but there was no choice, it seemed. I aimed carefully, even though the range was only two feet, and fired.

Rosh let out a single shriek and crashed to the floor sideways, with his chair on top of him. I had shot a sizable chunk out of one of its legs, but it was mostly its occupant's momentum that sent it flying.

He was more angry than afraid, I think, but he followed me outside immediately, voicing easily recognized objections at great volume. I carried the lantern at first, but after we were on the trail I gave it to him and sent him ahead, and thus we walked into the darkness.

Even on a night well lit by a half moon, walking along a forest pathway, navigating by the bouncing glow of a kerosene light, is a tedious task. It was a long trip. The trail was obvious enough, but at each branch in the route I had to direct Rosh with a tap from my gun barrel, and he issued a fresh expletive each time I touched him. He must have thought we would be walking forever, and I can't guess what he speculated our destination might be. I knew the route fairly well, yet I myself felt misgivings from time to time, thinking that we must have lost our way or had gone too far already. Then I would spot a familiar rock formation or obstruction in a gully and recognize our position.