The Dead Spend No Gold Read online

  He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. His brother was on his back, and his chest seemed to be covered with long sticks.

  Arrows, came the dim, surprised thought. Those are arrows.

  He turned and glimpsed Billy’s body at the far end of the ledge, his back covered with arrows.

  He raised his head and saw an Indian standing right in front of him. For a moment, David didn’t recognize him. Then he saw that it was Roman; at least, that’s what they called him, because of his long, chiseled nose. They’d long ago come to an agreement with Roman: he’d take the occasional stray steer, one that had wandered far from their property lines and probably would have been wolf meat anyway, and in return, the Indian would occasionally brought them a deer carcass. It was a fair trade, as far as David was concerned. Venison jerky tasted much better than beef jerky.

  But Roman’s face was so contorted with rage.

  “Roman,” David said. “Whatever happened, let’s talk about it.”

  He felt the edge of a knife pass across his throat and the spray of blood that followed. Only then did he see the blade in Roman’s hands.

  He tried to talk. He tried to reason his way out. Let me explain, he wanted to say.

  But all that emerged from his mouth was a gurgle. Blood flowed out over his collar and down his chest. His legs gave out, and the ground rushed to meet him. A rock gouged into his cheek.

  It was a distant pain, unimportant and far away.

  Why can’t people just talk about things? he wondered.

  * * *

  Roman and the other Miwok braves piled the three white men’s bodies into the cave. They climbed to the top of the cliff and rolled down boulders until one of them triggered an avalanche that covered the cave opening and glittering gold under broken rocks and loose soil.

  If they hurried, there might still be time to catch the invaders who had killed their people.

  If the Ts’emekwes left any of them alive.

  CHAPTER 15

  James’s Journal, Day 4

  Grendel brought me a knapsack containing hardtack and jerky. The canvas pack is covered in dried blood, but I can’t afford to be squeamish.

  It watched me eat, then lumbered away, back into the darkness at the rear of the cavern. It has apparently learned that its captives cannot live on raw meat alone. I have tried to learn from Tucker’s mistakes, and have kept my little corner of the cave clean of the carnage that these creatures create. The insects are unavoidable, but at least they do not scuttle across my face as I sleep.

  I’m not certain that surviving hunger and illness is going to be enough to keep me alive. Hrothgar emerges from the deeper recesses of the cave less and less. I try to engage him, but he has stopped talking to me, as if embarrassed to utter such sounds. He follows Grendel around now, and practically ignores me. Only when Grendel is not there does Hrothgar approach me.

  Each time, it is the same: Grendel will leave the cave and Hrothgar will be underfoot. Grendel will notice at the last moment and howl a reprimand. Hrothgar will back away, sulking. He might kick the bones around for a few moments. Once I saw him scale the walls of the cave in a fit of temper, on hand- and footholds inaccessible to me. Once he turned to me amid one of his outbursts and glared at me as if it were my fault. If Hrothgar continues to ignore me when Grendel is around, I fear that the beast will think I am no longer useful as a companion to the smaller one.

  I must either keep Hrothgar interested in me or plan my escape.

  * * *

  Images of the slaughter filled Frank’s thoughts as he rode in silence: The smile fading from the chief’s face as he realized what was coming. The running women and children, cut down as if they were cattle. One brave, facing them all, killing Samuels and wounding Simmons and Percy.

  The Miwok’s face had been so twisted with rage that Frank almost hadn’t recognized him: Hesutu, a childhood playmate with whom Frank and his brothers had shared many adventures in these very mountains.

  A memory came to Frank’s mind: Hesutu and Patrick swimming in the river, holding each other under water, each trying to be the dominant one in their group of friends. Their dominance was never decided, for after each defeat, the loser would as often as not taste victory in the next battle.

  Along with the horror of the massacre, a sense of shame hung over not just Frank, but most of the ranchers. No one looked the others in the eye. Conversations were low and were chiefly about practical things that needed to be done. There was no chitchat or joshing as there normally would be among the group.

  Dave Martin, George Banks, Bud Carpenter, and a few of the others had been loudly excited at first, sounding triumphant, giddy after the battle. They’d even let out whoops of victory that echoed through the mountain canyons. But when none of the others had responded, they, too, had fallen silent.

  Frank had heard stories of massacres, tales told by wandering cowboys, but he’d never really believed them. He’d reckoned they were just tall tales. He couldn’t imagine his fellow settlers would be so harsh and cruel. The natives had been here long before the white man, and there was plenty of space to go around.

  Oh, he realized that the ranchers, especially the new ones who scrambled for land abandoned by the Californios and other tribes, could be forceful, even brutal, but wholesale massacres? That hadn’t seemed possible. Certainly not in his part of the state, and not involving his neighbors. Especially not involving his own family.

  Still, the rumors of massacres, expulsions, and starvation of the native tribes had become more and more frequent.

  Watching it happen was worse, far worse, than his most dire imaginings.

  Frank counted the straggling line of men as they crisscrossed a steep slope. Out of the original twenty-seven men in the search party, they were missing Hugh, the four Jordan brothers, and of course, poor Samuels, whose body was strapped over the back of his horse. The addition of Virginia Reed and her two companions brought the number back up to twenty-four.

  He hoped they would have enough firepower to fight off any war party the Indians might send at them.

  Patrick rode with his head down somewhere in the middle of the group. Frank wondered if he also remembered Hesutu, who had once been his closest friend, closer to Patrick than any of his own brothers. He wondered how Patrick would rationalize the slaughter. Patrick thought he hated Indians, but Frank remembered a time when, of all the brothers, Patrick had spent the most time in the Miwok village.

  Their father had once again taken the leadership position, riding at the head of the line. His head was up and his posture ramrod straight, as usual, but there was a subtle deflation in his demeanor.

  He is going to have to find a way to justify this to himself, Frank thought. Father thought himself a moral man, and what moral man could live with what they’d done?

  Henry Newton rode beside Thomas, unwilling to relinquish his hard-won leadership. Thomas Whitford ignored his presence, and the portly man grew redder and redder in the face as the day rode on.

  Virginia Reed and her two friends trailed the group. Frank tried to join them, but their cold, grim silence made it clear that he was unwelcome. They’d been offered one of the packhorses, but insisted on traveling on foot, and they were slowly but steadily falling behind. Clearly, the trio wanted nothing to do with the ranchers. Frank couldn’t blame them. He didn’t want to be part of the party either, but there it was.

  Was he any better than the rest of them? After all, he hadn’t stopped the massacre.

  No, he decided. I’m as guilty as any of them.

  Lost in thought, Frank drifted back in the group until he found himself the last rider in line. He nodded to the man leading the extra horses. An overwhelming odor of horse, sweat, and leather hung in the air. The horses were nervous, some straining against the reins. Frank spoke to them in soothing tones, but still they stamped their hooves and nickered to their companions. Sighing, he took the reins of one of them and dismounted. He held on firmly until th
e horse settled down.

  Frank breathed deeply of the fresh air, relieved to let the rest of the searchers go on ahead.

  What am I doing? he wondered as he waited for the three laggards to catch up.

  Virginia Reed was certainly comely, with her bright blue eyes, blonde hair, and even features, but there was a strange seriousness to her that made her beauty secondary. It was the spirit inside her that mattered, and only a coincidence that her outer features were so pleasing. She looked tired, and yet alert to everything around her. She was curious about him, and not shy about meeting his gaze. He flinched at the contempt he saw there.

  The Indian girl was more guarded in her glances, and Jean Baptiste seemed to be paying attention only to her. They seem like a couple, Frank thought.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to ride?” he asked as the trio drew near. “No one is using the extra horses.”

  “No, thank you,” Virginia answered curtly. Those three words seemed to contain a whole mountain of recrimination. He felt his cheeks grow hot. He wanted to defend himself and his companions, but he could think of nothing to say that didn’t sound self-serving, as if he was trying to escape blame.

  “Why did you do it?” she asked in a low, angry voice. “Why would you kill unarmed women and children?”

  For a moment, Frank didn’t know what to say. He sifted through all the images of the last several days; so much death. Finally, he understood her contempt. She wouldn’t know about the carnage at the mining camp. She wouldn’t understand why the ranchers had attacked defenseless men, women and children, why madness and the lust for revenge had overcome them.

  So he explained what they’d found, the brutality they’d seen on the banks of the North Fork, and how they’d concluded that it must have been Indians who killed the miners, despite the lack of proof.

  “I tried to stop them,” he said quietly. “But they were enraged. They started shooting before I could do anything.”

  Just then, Jean Baptiste stumbled, and Frank noticed his wound. He wore a moccasin instead of a boot on the injured foot, and fresh blood seeped through the bandages even as Frank watched.

  “Let your friend ride, at least,” Frank said, nodding to the young man.

  Virginia looked back at Jean, who was sitting beside the trail with Feather standing next to him. She nodded and went back to speak to the two of them.

  “Ride my horse,” Frank urged Feather once Jean was astride the spare horse. “Please.”

  “No, thank you,” she said, echoing Virginia.

  Frank hesitated, then set off on foot beside them, leading his horse. They continued on, falling farther behind the others. His thoughts again turned to Virginia. This was a girl with strength and integrity. She would die before harming anyone, no matter how long she’d been in the mountains, no matter that she’d been starving. She was also too proud to defend herself from the suspicions about her.

  She was quite unlike any other girl he’d met, on either side of the continent. The girls back East were sometimes shockingly bold, though he’d still rarely found himself alone with one of them. And beneath their façade of daring, most of them were conventional in their desires and ambitions.

  Strangely, the girls back home in the West were even more straight-laced, with chaperones around every moment. It seemed to Frank that he’d never had a normal conversation with a girl, at least not since he was a boy. He’d gotten along just fine with the tomboys before the girls had transformed into a different species. He didn’t know how to behave around girls who played coy, and he had no sisters to give him pointers.

  But with Virginia Reed, he didn’t have to pretend, for she wouldn’t ridicule him for speaking bluntly; in fact, she plainly preferred it. At the same time, her strangeness, her hidden depths, only made her more alluring, though her feelings for him were clearly the opposite of respect. How could he explain the massacre at the Indian village without damning his own brother and father? How could he show her that he was as horrified as she without betraying his own family?

  He gave up on that and tuned to more practical concerns. “It’s going to get dark soon,” he said.

  Virginia looked up at the horizon and nodded. “Best start looking for a place to stop, someplace defensible.” She said it in the most commonsense tone possible.

  Frank almost laughed. Any other girl of his acquaintance would have made a flirting joke about the coming darkness. “You think they will attack so quickly?” he asked. I’m asking a young girl her opinion on the tactics of warfare, he marveled.

  Virginia looked surprised, as if the answer was obvious. “The Indians? I don’t think so. But then, they weren’t what caused the carnage in the mining camp.”

  Frank almost stopped walking, he was so surprised. How could she have known what he was thinking? It had been clear from the moment he’d seen Chief’s Honon’s face. There had been no guilt there, no fear. The old chief had had no idea what was coming.

  “You think it was other miners?” he asked. “Claim-jumpers?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But if so, where are they? Where did they go?”

  “But there is no other explanation…” Frank trailed off. He was mystified, and he sensed that this girl somehow knew the answer.

  “Do you know of the Ts’emekwes?” she asked.

  Frank drew a blank for a moment, then remembered Chief Honon saying something similar. He’d dismissed it as superstition. He tried to remember where he had heard the term before. Sometime in his childhood, he had heard that name, and he recalled that it was part of the Indian myths. But he couldn’t remember much beyond that.

  “It is also called the Skoocoom,” Virginia continued.

  Then it came back to him. The Indian children they’d played with had often talked about the Skoocoom, some kind of forest creature who watched over them, playing tricks on them. He was impossible to catch, and almost as impossible to ever see. Frank had never thought of the creature as a danger.

  “You don’t believe that, do you?” he exclaimed. “Why, that’s…” Crazy, he thought.

  The look Virginia gave him made him falter. She believes what she’s saying! She believes in these monsters.

  “I don’t ask that you believe me,” she said, seeing his expression. There was no hint of defensiveness in her tone. “I have seen things that most people would dismiss as creatures of fairytales. But I know they exist. I know all too well they are real.”

  Frank shook his head without speaking. Apparently, the girl had not escaped her ordeal in the mountains without having suffered some damage. Perhaps it was inevitable that she would look for some other explanation for the deaths of her friends, something other than hunger and desperation, something bigger and unexplainable that would give the sacrifice meaning. He turned away.

  It would explain why everyone avoided her. Such a shame. And yet…the enchantment he had been feeling about her didn’t go away, though he wondered if it would be more sensible, for once, to let his mind overrule his heart.

  They walked in silence for a time while Frank wondered if he should rejoin the others. There was something about Virginia’s certainty that made him hesitate. He was so deep in thought that he didn’t notice at first when she stopped, then suddenly realized he was walking alone.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, turning to find Virginia, Feather, and Jean conferring on the path behind him.

  “You must know the truth, all of it,” Virginia said. “We’re going to need your help before this journey is done. We will need someone to talk to the other men, to make them believe us.”

  “What do you mean?” The tone in her voice sent a chill down his spine.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” she asked, walking toward him.

  He didn’t speak, just turned his head away, wondering why he felt abashed and she didn’t.

  “Jean, are you well enough to Turn?” Jean scowled and Virginia quickly added, “Only if you want to, Jean.”

  The youn
g man stood thinking for a moment, his eyes going from Frank to Virginia and back again. “Very well,” he said, finally. “If you think he can help us.”

  She nodded. “I don’t believe we have a choice. We have to convince these men of the danger.”

  And how can you possibly do that? Frank wondered, shifting uneasily.

  “There is more to this world than you can see. Are you willing for us to try to show you?” Virginia said.

  He was silent for a moment. What harm could there be? She cannot prove to me that mythical creatures exist…can she? “Go ahead,” he said. “But I warn you, I’ve had two years of higher education in one of the most prestigious schools in the world.”

  Virginia stared at him for a moment, then chuckled. Feather and Jean Baptiste smiled, but didn’t seem to find the situation quite so funny.

  “Well, I suppose, then, that you’ve read of such beasts, even if you were taught they were legends,” Virginia said.

  This girl might really be crazy, Frank thought.

  Still smiling, Virginia said the last thing he thought she’d say, given the circumstances: “Give me your gun.”

  Much to his own surprise, Frank pulled the pistol from his belt and handed it to her. What the hell am I doing? Moments before, she had seemed touched in the head, but something about her no-nonsense expression made him trust her.

  Virginia looked past Frank’s shoulder intently, and he couldn’t help but cast a glance down the trail to see the last of his party disappear into the woods. She seemed to have been waiting for that moment. “Jean?” she said, turning to her friend. “Shall we show him?”

  Feather came forward and gestured for Frank to hand her the reins to his horse and the packhorse. She led the animals around a bend in the trail, where trees and rocks blocked their view. She tied them there and came back. Then she nodded to Virginia. “The riders are far enough ahead of us.”

  Jean started to undress.