The Dead Spend No Gold Read online

  “Creature?” Henry Newton said. “You mean the Indians, don’t you?”

  Hugh shook his head again, but didn’t answer. He looked frightened.

  “But where are the boys?” Newton asked impatiently. “Did they backtrack?”

  “They kept going upward,” Hugh said, waving his hand further up the mountain. “Toward the tree line.”

  Everyone in the party looked toward the summit. There, the ground was gray and bare but for scattered boulders and a few scraggly trees that had managed to find footholds in the nooks and crannies of granite. The summit was wreathed in storm clouds. It was early in the fall, but a sudden snowfall was possible.

  “I bet they went up the North Fork,” Newton spoke up. “Oliver was just itching to pan for gold.”

  Thomas Whitford turned a level stare on Newton. “I promised Chief Honon,” he said. “That creek is out of bounds.”

  “So’s rustling cattle,” Newton answered. “But that didn’t stop them from doing it.”

  “We don’t know that,” Frank objected. “Besides, if I know Oliver, he was bored the minute he squatted to do his first panning. He and James are probably headed home by now.”

  Newton turned in his saddle. He had a way of turning his whole rotund body, his long hair and beard along with it, as if he couldn’t turn his neck. He examined Frank coldly. “Maybe you don’t know my son as well as you think you do.”

  “Frank’s right,” Gerald Persimmons said. It was clear that the burly old ranch hand was unhappy about having to come along and wanted to get back to the ranch. “The boys are probably already home, wondering where we all went.”

  “Unless they ran into the rustlers,” Frank said, and instantly regretted it. He’d meant to take the suspicion off the Indians, but his words seemed to galvanize the search party.

  “If the Indians can’t survive without stealing, they should just leave,” Johnny Hawkins said as they set off again.

  Behind him, Preacher MacLeod snorted. “And go where, young man? We’ve already taken the fertile valleys, driven them away from the rivers with their bounty. We’ve killed their deer and elk. Just where on God’s green Earth are they supposed to go?”

  “They aren’t God’s creatures,” Bud Carpenter said.

  MacLeod turned in his saddle and stared back at the man. “Are you so sure?”

  Carpenter scowled and looked away.

  “Well, we can’t both live off the same land,” Hawkins said stubbornly.

  “And who’d you think was here first?” MacLeod demanded.

  Carpenter’s friend, George Banks, wasn’t so easily intimidated. “I hear they are taking care of the problem up north,” he said. “Permanently.”

  Old Persimmons nudged his horse up beside them. “And how are they doing that?” There was a dark look on his face, but Banks didn’t see it.

  “If they get in the way, they are hunted down.”

  “So we murder them?” Persimmons asked, his voice rising. “Men, women, and children?”

  Banks looked surprised at the anger in Persimmon’s voice and didn’t say anything.

  They rode in silence for a time.

  Newton cleared his throat. Frank realized that everyone had been waiting for him to say something. “The Indians have to go,” he stated. “Either voluntarily or by force.”

  “I refuse to go along with that,” Frank said. He looked to his father to back him up, but Thomas Whitford was riding ahead of them, as if avoiding the conversation.

  “Oh, come now, Frank,” Newton said. Frank was surprised to hear a tone of pleading in the rancher’s voice, as if he was trying to win Frank over. “We are only the first settlers. Others will follow, in their multitudes. The savages will simply have to get out of the way.”

  Frank wanted to argue that the Indians and the white men could live together. But to his shame, he stayed quiet.

  Gold had changed everything. No longer were words and treaties being used to move the Indians away from their ancestral lands. Now, more often than not, it was by the long, cold steel of a rifle barrel. Already weakened by the white man’s diseases, the Indians became easy prey.

  Frank felt the premonition of disaster stronger than ever. They’d set out to find two missing boys, but it was becoming clearer with every mile that something else was going on. Men like Henry Newton not only wanted a share of the gold, they also saw the gold rush as an opportunity to be rid of the Indians once and for all.

  Frank’s father had always done his best to keep the miners from crossing his land into Chief Honon’s land, but lately, it seemed as if he had quit trying. And whether he knew it or not, by coming along, Whitford lent his prestige to the endeavor.

  Now, as the party left the foothills behind and climbed higher into the mountains, they were approaching the sacred creek, which the ranchers in the area traditionally avoided. The Indians reacted violently to trespassing on this land, and even the miners avoided the area. As long as there was any part of the lower stretch of the river and its tributaries still available to the ranchers and miners, the mountain elevations were left alone. But everyone knew it was only a matter of time.

  Frank spurred his horse to his father’s side. “We shouldn’t go higher, Father. We promised.”

  Thomas shook his head tiredly. “We won’t go into the sacred valley. We’ll turn away before that.”

  Frank started to relax, but then his father added, “Unless the tracks lead there.”

  The men grew more and more tense as they wound their way into the open space above the tree line, as if they thought being out in the open on the side of the mountain made them more vulnerable.

  “I don’t like it,” Johnny Hawkins said. “We’re too exposed.”

  Patrick spoke up. “We are better off out of the forest. From here, we’ll see them coming from a long way off.”

  Some of the other men started to relax. They’d been just as concerned as Hawkins, but unwilling to admit it.

  They are ranchers, not Indian fighters, Frank reminded himself.

  In his eagerness, Patrick took the lead, with Hugh right behind him. As they reached the last of the scraggly trees, Frank saw the Indian look to the north, toward the valley held sacred by the Miwok. Patrick turned south, and Hugh’s relief was evident in every line of his body, as was Frank’s.

  They reached a small, steep creek with a narrow path winding beside it.

  “This is the North Fork. This steep little stream runs into the Plumas River,” Patrick announced.

  He turned down the path and the others followed in single file, all twenty-seven of them. Once again, it seemed to Frank that Hugh hesitated, his brow furrowed. But again, the Indian stayed quiet.

  The creek broadened, and by the time they rounded the bend near the mining camp, they were riding three abreast. The men in the lead stopped abruptly, none of them moving. Then the wind changed direction, and even those in the back smelled the death before them.

  Frank dismounted and tied his horse’s reins to a nearby juniper tree limb. He grabbed his rifle from its saddle holster and hurried forward, reaching the carnage of the mining camp before most of the others.

  His eyes couldn’t make sense of the bloated flesh strewn about the demolished camp until he saw something resembling fingers on one of the lumps of meat. Gradually, he made out shapes, until he realized that they had once been people. He turned away, not wanting to admit to himself what had happened here. Massive boulders had left trails of smashed tents and equipment. Blood and entrails gave silent witness to where the men had lain. Other rocks, impossibly huge, seemed to have fallen into the middle of the camp from directly above, as if tossed by giants.

  Several men bent over, throwing up. Others, white faced and with clenched jaws, walked to the edge of the camp, pretending to examine the cliffs above.

  “I don’t understand how the Indians did this,” said Bud Carpenter. “I don’t care how much leverage you have, these boulders are too big.”

&n
bsp; “All you need is to get one started rolling,” said Sam Partridge, who owned the struggling property just east of the Newton ranch. He was a crusty old geezer, and Frank had heard that he was fighting hard to hold onto it, despite Newton’s generous offer to buy it. His only ranch hand, Carl Dutton, was a little simpleminded and of little help. “Probably smashed some of the others. Must have hit rocks lower down and flown into the air.”

  Frank wanted to agree. It was the only possible answer. But in his heart, he knew that no man could have budged these boulders, not all of them.

  “The savages set a trap,” Henry Newton proclaimed loudly. “Lured them here and wiped them out.”

  “Lured them here?” Frank echoed. “Do you even hear what you’re saying? The Miwok don’t want these miners here, dead or alive. They certainly wouldn’t have lured them.”

  “Well, they’re dead now,” Newton retorted, his face reddening. “And it weren’t no accident.”

  Frank didn’t have a response to that. Again, what other explanation could there be? His heart sank, for the men around him were getting angrier by the second. None of them were going to listen to reason. They were heavily armed and out for blood, and the Miwok camp was only hours away.

  “Where’s the evidence?” Frank asked. “I don’t see any footprints, or any arrows, or sign of scalping. Nothing that says Indians were here…”

  “Scalping?” Martin sputtered. “There are no heads to take the scalps from!”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” said Newton. “If the savages are responsible for this, we’ll make them pay.”

  Thomas Whitford stayed silent. Frank moved to his father’s side and said in an urgent whisper, “Father, you can’t lead these men to the Miwok camp. They won’t just punish the guilty.”

  Thomas shook him off. “This must be answered for.” He crouched down and lifted a blanket off the ground, wincing as he saw a torso. But after looking away for a moment, the old rancher focused his eyes on the body, and Frank realized that he was looking for any sign of James. Frank joined in the search, until all were satisfied that neither Oliver nor James had died there.

  Hugh was standing alone at the edge of the camp. The other men were avoiding him, but Frank walked over to him. Hugh turned to him with despairing eyes.

  “It was not my people who did this,” he said. “It was the Ts’emekwes.”

  “The…Ts’em…” Frank couldn’t finish the name.

  “It is a powerful creature who has lived above my village for generations. We keep away from him, and give him sacrifice. He leaves us alone…most of the time. But these white men invaded his territory. They disturbed him. He won’t stop until he’s killed them all.”

  Frank shook his head. The Indians’ superstitions keep them primitive, he thought. “You had best worry about your own people,” he said. “And yourself.”

  Hugh eyes widened, as if he hadn’t thought of the danger he might be in.

  “Leave now,” Frank urged him. “Warn your village.”

  Hugh stood stock still for a moment. Then he gave a short nod and walked away. He slipped onto his horse and rode off without any of the other men noticing.

  The ranchers were slowly getting over the shock and examining the few possessions left intact, trying to determine the identities of the miners. It was nearly impossible. They couldn’t even tell how many of them there had been. Someone finally had the idea of counting only right hands, and they came up with a dozen dead men.

  Henry Newton took charge, directing men where to move the bodies for burial. The next several hours were grim work, and there was nothing for it but to put all the body parts together in a mass grave.

  Off his horse, Newton was surprising short, but his bulk commanded respect. His energy was almost palpable, his angry gestures and deep frown intimidating. His men, especially Dave Martin and his two flunkies, Bud Carpenter and George Banks, reflected their boss’s belligerent demeanor, carrying their rifles everywhere, even in camp.

  “They’ll pay for this,” Martin raged. “I’ll kill every one of those savages.”

  Finally, Thomas spoke up. “We’ll have justice,” he said. “But we will only punish the guilty, you understand?”

  Martin glared at him, but Thomas did not look away. Finally, Martin gave him a curt nod. Moments later, Newton and Martin had drawn away from the others and were conferring in quiet voices Frank could not hear. Martin kept nodding.

  It was getting dark, but no one wanted to stay at the miners’ camp. As they readied their horses, Carpenter noticed that Hugh was gone. “Half-breed ran off,” he said. “I thought you said he was one of the good ones, Patrick!”

  Patrick just scowled. Frank kept quiet, thankful that Hugh had had sense enough to leave so quietly.

  The searchers left the way they had come. They couldn’t follow the creek downward, for it was bordered by cliffs until it joined the main river, by which time they would have traveled far out of their way.

  They were determined to find the Miwok camp, which lay in the opposite direction. The Indians moved around some, but they usually established themselves in locations higher in the mountains, thereby avoiding too many incidents with settlers. Many of the ranchers knew where the camps were most likely to be, for they had spent much of their childhood in them, when the Miwok still welcomed white men into their territory.

  As they climbed out of the little valley near the ridge, Frank looked back, and he noticed a tree on the edge of the cliff catching the last rays of the setting sun. He frowned. There’d been no tree there when they rode in. Then he shrugged. He must’ve misremembered; after all, he hadn’t been looking upward at the time. He was about to turn around when the tree seemed to move.

  He looked back.

  The tree was gone.

  * * *

  Henry Newton had no doubt about who had precipitated the brutal massacre, for who else would be so savage but Indians? He’d been trying to whip up anger against the useless Miwok for months, years even, but he hadn’t really believed them to be a danger, not like this. No matter. They seemed half-defeated already, retreating before the white man’s advances, dying from the white man’s diseases.

  They were in his way. Only two obstacles stood in the path of Newton’s ambitions for his family: Indians and the Whitfords. With the foothills cleared of Indians, the Newton ranch would have all the grazing territory it needed, not to mention access to the rich gold fields the Indians were trying to keep to themselves.

  He wasn’t really concerned about Oliver. His son had mentioned that he might make a detour to check out the hidden valley. “They’re hiding something,” Oliver had said. “I’ll bet you anything that place is full of gold.”

  “Take your time, son,” Newton had replied, a plan starting to form in his mind. “And keep James with you, if you can.”

  “He’ll do what I say,” Oliver had said. “Don’t you worry about that.”

  Newton had to admit he was a little surprised the Indians had actually stolen three head of cattle, for he knew that the slow drain of cattle that he complained about from his own ranch was a lie. The rustling of cattle from the Whitford ranch was real enough. Martin and his team, Carpenter and Banks, were proficient rustlers who’d learned their craft in the Midwest before coming under Newton’s employ.

  He’d been quick to grasp their potential.

  He’d set out to weaken the Whitfords little by little, thereby combining two goals: weakening his main rival for land in the valley and turning the other ranchers against the Indians. He’d been more successful than he’d expected. Old man Whitford had come to him, offering him some of his less productive acres, but Newton had held out for the Bottoms, knowing it would diminish the Whitford ranch still further.

  Then he’d set out to influence Patrick, whose youthful rebellion against his father could be twisted into hate against the Indians. He’d almost succeeded in completely winning over the young man when the other brother, Frank, had come home. S
omething about Frank’s presence had stopped Patrick from changing sides completely, though Newton was stumped as to why. Patrick resented his stepbrother and thought him soft. But…there seemed to be more respect there than Patrick would show.

  So when Oliver kept James from returning on time, Newton saw his chance to whip up some hysteria against the Indians. He didn’t even have to arrange the attack on the miners! Providence had smiled upon him.

  Newton almost chuckled to himself. By this time tomorrow, one of his obstacles would be removed completely. He pulled his mount aside to let most of the party get ahead of him, motioning Martin and his men to his side.

  “We can use this,” he whispered to Martin. “We want to get these men so riled up at the Miwok that they’ll do anything.”

  “Won’t take much, boss,” Carpenter broke in. “They’re already scared.”

  Newton dug into his saddlebags. He’d given Oliver a pair of pistols for his birthday, and before leaving the ranch, he’d realized that his son had left one of them behind. Now he pulled it out, turning his body so that only his three men could see what he had in his hands. He pulled out his knife, nicked the end of his thumb, and spread the droplets of blood on the handle of the gun.

  “See if you can’t slip ahead of the rest of the group a ways,” Newton said to Banks. “Leave this by the trail where it can be found.”

  Banks nodded, took the gun, and slipped it under his coat.

  “Hey, boss,” Carpenter said, sounding excited. “I got another idea.” He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a worn Indian blanket. “I found this last week. We can leave it beside the pistol.”

  Newton nodded his approval. “When they’re found, try to get the men worked up about what it means. If we’re lucky, we can take care of the Indian problem once and for all.”

  They rode on, and Newton felt the righteousness of his plan. The Indians didn’t belong here. It was the destiny of Americans to own this land, from sea to sea. He was but an agent of God’s will.