Lust for Gold

Lust for Gold By Dale Chase Back home in Missouri, rain was welcome because it fed the crops that sustained us. Here in Whiskey Slide, a California gold mining camp, rain is hell on Earth because a man must work six days a week, no matter the weather, if he’s to survive. Somebody said, “We don’t dig for gold, we dig for bread,” and I can’t argue. After three months in the diggings, I’m near starving. You’d think cold and rain would ease the pain of hard labor, but I’m here to say it doesn’t. My back might well be afire, such is the hurt, and shoulders and arms likewise complain. I’d expect at some point my body will toughen up, but so far all I’ve managed is blisters on my hands turning to calluses. The search for those elusive nuggets remains as unforgiving as the rain. There was a time when I longed for a man and some fun. Now, all I crave is food and rest. Has all this labor brought rewards? I’d have to say no for the most part. The gold is hit and miss because the area has been heavily mined, riches mostly gained in 1848. Now, in September 1849, with men numbering in the thousands, a man must fairly scrape out a living. Had I known what lay ahead, I might have stayed home. Whiskey Slide, which is no more than a makeshift settlement, is perched above the diggings on the bank of the Feather River’s south fork. The riverbank is crowded with men digging their claims, some swinging a pick like me, others fairly clawing because their tools broke. Where gold is scarce now is in the water itself. Panning is seldom done anymore. Men have turned to a new method, rocker boxes, which rock and sift dirt fed to them. This is faster than panning, which can drive a man crazy for no more than a pinch of dust. It takes three men to operate a rocker, which is what I’m doing. At present, I’m the fellow swinging the pick to turn fresh earth. My friend Dieter Hartung, a German from Pennsylvania, is feeding dirt and water into the rocker while Chet Sloane, from Illinois, keeps the rocker rocking. All this in pouring rain. I’m digging in mud, of course, wet through and so cold my body, for all its labor, fails to warm me, but I cannot stop. We need to gain some gold today because we’re out of food and will go hungry without at least a few grains of ore. We’ve been working since first light, eight hours now, and I’m powerful hungry, breakfast having consisted of water and the last of the bread, a noon meal beyond our reach. Chet remarked, as we ate our morning fare, that it’s no better than what’s provided convicts. Gold is difficult to find when mud is more plentiful than dirt, but still we keep on. Then Chet gives a shout, saying he’s got something, and I rush over to the rocker where Dieter stands looking over Chet’s shoulder. The rain lets up a tad, as if Ma Nature wishes to also have a look, and I glance skyward, offering thanks. Then I look at what Chet has in hand. It’s not a nugget; it’s a sprinkling of dust, but that’s good enough. “Could be an ounce,” declares Chet. I chime in, “Maybe more.” Chet secures the dust in a once-white kerchief and pockets it. We work a bit more, then decide we’ve got the day’s take. “Let’s head up to the store,” I suggest and the others agree. Dunne’s Store is the finest building in Whiskey Slide, the other being the saloon. They’re far more than the shacks and cabins that house other enterprises, having been reasonably well-constructed. Dunne’s is not large. Shelves run partway down one side, barrels after that, mostly empty. A makeshift counter—long board atop barrels—fronts all this, and soon we stand opposite, eager toward making a purchase. A small scale sits on one end of the counter and Chet opens his kerchief and sprinkles the dust onto it. The amount comes to just under an ounce. “Fifteen dollars,” declares Dunne. This would be good news if prices weren’t so high. While a man can go next door and get a whiskey for twenty-five cents, in here it’s another matter because merchants know their customers are desperate. Potatoes are a dollar each, same for onions. Coffee, flour, sugar, beans, and pork are all a dollar a pound. Butter is a dollar fifty. “Got something special today,” says Dunne, producing a box of small melons. “How much?” asks Chet. “Little are two dollars each, that big one is five.” There are no more than ten melons in the box. “Best make up your mind,” continues Dunne, who is round in the middle, obviously thriving on our hardship. “They’ll be gone by day’s end.” “We need some fruit,” offers Dieter. “We’ll get scurvy if we don’t have some soon.” We get a small melon along with three potatoes, an onion, some butter, a piece of pork, and a pound of beans. “Near out of coffee,” says Chet, so we add a pound of that. We leave the store with so little dust it can hardly be seen in the kerchief, but no matter, our step is light because we’ll eat tonight. We occupy a small cabin half a mile from the diggings. A foot path takes us behind the store, where we climb the steep hillside until it finally levels out for a bit. Here we stop to catch our breath and enjoy having no rain falling. It’s near dark now, so we linger just a few minutes before resuming our climb. After a good while, we come to our home, such as it is. Built on a rocky outcropping, it was left to us by Bill Sims, a lawyer in New York before gold fever claimed him. Well-heeled at the time, he left all behind, came west by ship, and made his way to Whiskey Slide, where he enjoyed the ups and down of all miners, telling us that early on he had more of the ups. He took time building his cabin, so it’s sturdy in construction. The one large room has a fireplace for heat and cooking, a table and chairs, and good space for laying out bedding. Being solidly built, it does well against bad weather, and as we now enter, it is a most welcoming place. Bill left us all his possessions as well—cooking implements, mining tools, food. Were it not for him, I doubt we’d have survived. Bill was a sad case, though. When I first reached Whiskey Slide, things were bad all around. Food was in very short supply because the freight wagons that carry supplies in from big towns, where they are brought by ships from San Francisco, were having trouble getting through. Roads are no more than wagon ruts made too deep by bad weather and continuous use, and many a freight full of supplies has tumbled down the mountain or gotten twisted or stuck to where the load had to be left. Sometimes they don’t attempt the journey at all. Anyway, we all had such a rough patch that gold meant little anymore because it could buy us nothing. Bill, being much older, didn’t fare well during this period, weakening, then dying. We tended him at the last, noting a can of gold dust on a shelf, useless to him at the time. We lived on that gold for a good spell, but it finally ran out and we were back to hard times. Food comes in somewhat regular now, though we’re never sure what it will be. Today was a good haul, and soon as we’ve stripped off wet clothes and hung them to dry, Dieter has got up a good fire and is making coffee while Chet, who was a cook on the cattle trail back in Texas and therefore knows how to make a meal out of nothing, starts on supper. Soon, the cabin is filled with the smell of pork, potatoes, and onion cooking in a big iron skillet, the smell of coffee in accompaniment. Though it’s cold, I’m content in just underdrawers, top and bottom. Boots are so wet they never dry out, and we attempt to dry socks while wearing our other pair. Having two pair is a luxury and I worry on how much a pair will cost someday. As it is, our clothes are wearing thin. I’ve patched my pants half a dozen times as mining is hard on clothes. I try not to dwell on this, happy to be inside and warming. Then Chet calls us to supper and all is well. For a time there’s no sound but the chewing and grateful moaning of men filling their bellies. We get to laughing at our moaning, Chet offering a “thank you” as he takes this as a compliment, which I guess it is. Once we’ve polished off all but the melon, which will be breakfast, we sit back to enjoy our coffee. It occurs to me only then to ask Dieter what Germany was like. “I don’t recall much,” he says. I like hearing him speak because of his accent, which I’d never heard before meeting him. “I was six when the family left to come to America.” He turns this around on me. “Are your people of German descent?” “No idea. Why do you ask?” “Your golden hair. There’s lots of that in my country,” he offers, raking a hand through his yellow hair, which is a whitish blond while mine is more wheat-colored. “Where are your people from?” “Missouri. Before that, I don’t know. Nobody ever said.” “Aren’t you curious?” asks Dieter. “Never thought much about it.” “How about you?” he asks Chet. “English, I think. There was talk of an earl in the old country.” “How old are you, Jesse?” asks Dieter. “Twenty,” I reply. “How about you?” “Twenty six. And you Chet?” “Twenty two.” “So many young men,” notes Dieter. “The diggings aren’t for the old,” returns Chet, and all agree. For a minute, I’ve no doubt we’re all thinking back on Bill Sims. I’m liking Dieter a lot. When we first met not quite a month ago, I found him striking as he’s taller than me, maybe six foot, lean, and somewhat handsome. As I’ve been noticing men since boyhood, I allowed myself to indulge in impure thoughts toward him, though he never caught on. Might be good if he did. I’m not new to indulging with men. as I took that up once I left the farm and worked on a local ranch. There I discovered not only a love of horses, but of men, finding the latter as eager upon me as I was upon them. I’ve not indulged since coming here because I’m too tired most of the time. Survival has a way of shoving aside manly needs, but in quiet moments like now, I sit back and look at Dieter, who catches my eye and smiles. There seems to be promise between us. Chet is unlike Dieter and me. He’s much the cowboy, though now without a horse. Somewhat stocky and shorter than us, he’s strong and tolerates no unwelcome intrusion on our claim or our cabin. I’m told he shot a bear this past summer as it rose to full height, daring him to fire. He’s said to be fearless and I won’t question that. Chet has dark hair that’s got curls a woman would covet. He sports a full mustache that makes his mouth somewhat a surprise below. His laugh is big and draws others to laugh with him. We three make a fine team. A full belly does a tired man in, and once the table is cleared, the washing up done—Dieter insists we not live like pigs—we stretch out on our beds, no more than canvas and blankets laid across the floor. This is no hardship for a miner whose back welcomes laying on something flat and solid. Last thing I hear is Dieter’s soft snore. * * * * Days run into one another in this life. I know sunup and sundown, know the labor in between, but they are so much the same that I count their weight more than days of the week. Until Sunday, that is. The Sabbath can hardly go by that name here in Whiskey Slide because we all stop work on Sunday, not to honor the Lord, but ourselves. We catch up on washing, cutting firewood, repairing implements, rest, and, if the week has been productive, drinking. I’m not much for this, but I do enjoy men’s company, and on this one day of the week, there’s actually laughter. Even those struggling to survive are treated to a drink or two by those doing better so it gets downright jolly in Morgan’s Saloon. Chet enjoys his whiskey and I’ve seen him quite tipsy many a time, while Dieter is a serious drinker who doesn’t seem content until he has the staggers. The meager take from our claim is all that keeps him in check. On a particular Saturday, after a disappointing week, the sun shines down upon us. We work up a good sweat, heated proper, and the digging goes well. We’re in good spirits, looking ahead to our day off. Then suddenly, Chet is shouting. I stop pouring water into the rocker and Dieter, whose turn it is to dig, throws down his pick and joins me to see what Chet has found. There in the box are several pea-sized nuggets shining up at us like the sun itself. Chet lifts them with care and we gather around our treasure. “Could be a hundred dollars,” says Chet, and we don’t argue. I slap Dieter on the back, and he turns and grabs me by the neck to pull me to him. “We’ve done it!” he cries. “We’ll eat tonight,” I return. “And drink tomorrow.” One nugget goes to restoring our dwindling supplies. We stock up on flour, sugar, coffee, beans, you name it. There’s no fresh fruit, so Chet buys dried apples, saying he’ll make a cobbler. “And biscuits,” he declares. A jar of molasses, a pound of butter, and baking powder go onto the pile. I don’t ask how he’ll bake in an open fire because a trail man knows all the tricks. Supper is beef, though I can’t tell from which part of the cow it comes. Potatoes go alongside, done up with onions and greens Chet found. Dessert is apple cobbler, which is every bit as good as my mother’s. It’s as we finish our cobbler, saving some for breakfast, that Dieter says we should divide the nuggets. “Three remain so each man gets one to do with as he pleases.” Until now we’ve kept the take as one pot, but he makes a point and I go for it. “Money in my pocket,” I say. “I’m liking that.” “Agreed?” Dieter asks Chet. “Agreed.”