Luck's Wild. G. Russell Peterman
one end. Collin wraps the large piece around the stump and puts the end through the iron loop. It leaves about two feet of rope to tie on to.
His father brings up the mules saying, "Wish we had a set of harness." Hansel saddles Cain and his son saddles Able. They tie both saddle horn ropes to the larger rope’s end. Slowly, both men lead their mules forward. The mules slowly lean into their load and stretch both ropes tight. As the ropes stretch the old stump creaks. The mules strain against their loads. Suddenly, the old stump creaks and then cracks. As it cracks the stump almost jumps out of the dry rocky riverbank accompanied by a rattle of rolling stones, and Cain and Able drag the old stump out of the way.
As they untie and coil up saddle-ropes again, Hansel observes, "You'll have to fill in that hole . . . might you could dig a good walkway through it."
"Good idea, Pa," Collin agrees as he strips off the saddles from both mules and his father leads the animals back to graze on a new patch of grass. Collin takes the shovel with the best handle and walks to the hole in the bank the stump left behind. Looking into the hole Collin stops and stands motionless staring.
Collin is still staring into the hole when his father returns. Hansel growls at him, "After all that . . . You just going look?"
"Pa, look!"
His father steps up beside his son and looks into the hole. Hansel stares and blinks several times not believing his eyes. There in the freshly exposed dirt and rocks were hundreds of yellow flakes of gold. Some are as large as hulled peas. When he looks again at his son, Hansel is smiling and soon they are both laughing.
Still laughing both Dymonds drop down on their knees picking up small golden lumps, some shaped like tear drops. Soon, each has half a handful and Hansel orders, "Fetch them saddlebags. Son, we’ve done found us a pocket."
Collin bounds upward and runs back to their campsite for the saddlebags; he comes back the same way. "Here Pa," Collin says as he holds out the saddlebags. Hansel dumps his handful of gold in one pouch and Collin put his in the same one. Again, they are both down on hands and knees scooping dirt by the handful. Anxious eyes search each handful of dirt for golden bits until the light fades. Around that evening’s cold campfire chewing on jerky, they are excited over finding almost a large tin cupful of gold flakes in one afternoon.
"I don't know how much a cup of gold is worth but I'm going to call it more than a hundred dollars. If our pocket holds out all day tomorrow we’ll have a thousand. What'd you think, Son?"
"A thousand's more than I've ever seen before in cash money, Pa."
"Only time, Son, I saw money like that was peaking looks into the bank vault when Morgan Bell the Hartville banker went to get more money for my farm loan."
"Pa, how much gold does it take to buy a farm?"
"Son, you could buy at least two farms like ours—sixty ridge land acres—with what we got now plus what we will take out tomorrow!"
"Wonder how long the gold will last?" Collin asks thoughtfully.
"Not long. We've just found a pocket other folks missed."
The next morning the Dymonds start shoveling dirt into the sluice and washing it away. At first light they scrap all the dirt from the stump and scoop up dirt from along its track. They dragged the cleaned stump away before starting on the pit’s sides and bottom. Three times they clean the riffles before noon and have a heaping cup full of gold flakes and dust. In the afternoon, they collected almost as much gold. Two days later gold was still plentiful—two heaping cups a day. By the middle of the third day gold was hard to find and did not fill a half cup all day. Late in the afternoon, they washed the dirt from the old stump’s rough cleaned roots and dug the gravel under where it had lain finding two teaspoons of gold dust. On the fourth day, they shoveled the same amount of earth around the stump, dug a three-foot deep and five-foot-wide hole under where the old stump sat, enlarged the sides the pit a good foot, and washed the rest of their scrapings. Washed it all down the sluice, but they found less than a teaspoon of gold for a full hard day’s effort.
“The pocket is empty, Pa.”
"Time we be going back home, Son."
"Yeah Pa. When?"
"At first light."
"Pa, if we go back through Downieville, folks will know we found some. Won't the people who claimed this place want all or some of this gold?"
"That's why we just leaving out . . . going back east at first light."
"Good, Pa."
"I’ll take first watch.”
Just as the sky in the east starts to gray over the mountains, Collin is shoveling dirt over their campfire. Hansel lifts a heavy saddlebag with both pouches almost three-quarter full of gold and dust and plans to change it to the other mule at the noon stop. The Dymonds leave behind their shovels, buckets, and pans. They mount and ride a winding way through canyons and over ridges south and east toward the Truckee River. Mid-morning of the second day they cross to the south side of the Truckee and turn east taking the trail home upstream. Both ride happy and pleased over their success, but do not neglect caution. Careful eyes study the trail front and back, hills, and ridges. Four days later, they turn off south toward the Carson River to re-supply at Fort Churchill. Hansel puts a little gold in an empty tobacco sack Collin found at campsite, a generous half sack full, so as not to show too much to strangers.
A day later, beyond Fort Churchill they stop to cook a pot of stew now that they are newly loaded with provisions and let the mules graze. Again, they have a full burlap sack of jerky, divided into two half sacks, and hanging over one saddle horn. Each saddle horn has a water bag hanging from it. During the heat of a late August day, they rest along the Carson River in a stand of Cottonwood trees while the stew cooks. Both of their mules graze, gathering strength for a hard night push across Forty Mile Desert. Late in the afternoon they saddle the mules and ride along the edge of the trees toward the jumping off place. Both Dymonds dread riding across such a terrible forty-mile stretch of desert to the Humbolt River in the daytime. Wisely Collin thinks, Hansel has decided to wait until dark. Collin puts the mules out to graze and Hansel starts a fire.
While finishing the last of the stew, Hansel keeps looking back and at the skyline for something bothers him. Overhead the late afternoon sky is slightly overcast and showing signs of changing for clouds have white tops and gray bottoms, unsettled weather. As afternoon shadows lengthen, they tighten saddles cinches and prepare to mount.
Looking at the cottonwood trees while his father takes a last look at their map Collin speaks aloud his thoughts, "Last trees until Fort Hall." Thought for a moment with a wrinkled forehead before asking, "Pa, how far is that?"
"Fort Hall's 700 hundred miles on the map . . . at least eighteen or twenty days of hard travel," Hansel replies after a long moment’s thought. Then, he looks up from his map frowning like an unpleasant thought came back to him. "Did you see that little runt watching the weighing out of that small poke of gold? Weren't much more than half a tobacco sack full, but he shore did stare hard."
"Yah Pa, I saw him. He seemed right interested in our gold."
"I hope the rain hits soon and wipes out our tracks."
"But Pa don't we have to go by the trail. Forty miles across to the Humbolt River is the only way to water. Any bandit would know where."
"You're right, Son. If that runt was a lookout for a bunch, the only thing we can do is move faster than they think we can." Reacting to his own thoughts his foot lifts to the stirrup, mounts quickly, and his heels kick Cain into a trot. As they move Hansel speaks his fears. “I hope resting the mules for a night crossing wasn’t the wrong thing to do.”
Worrying too Collin on Able follows.
In an hour, the pace is down to walking again. Now that speed is important, they need to cover forty miles before sunrise, and Hansel’s pace is an hour of walking and a half hour of trotting. Supper is two pieces of jerky as the mules walk. After supper, they give the mules a blow and a drink from water poured in their hats. They can make