Beneath a Dakota Cross (10 page)

“The same reason they didn't corral us,” Brazos replied. “I think there's even a cabin or two.”

“How do we get off this ridge?” Big River Frank queried.

“Not up that way. It drops straight off on the other side of those white rocks. Let's slant down off this razorback to the east, pick up the south creek, and—”

“There's two creeks?” Big River probed.

“They fork down there near where they're working,” Brazos explained.

Yapper Jim spurred his horse to catch up with the others. “If there's two creeks, there's bound to be a claim left.”

“We don't want just any claim.” Quiet Jim's voice was just above a whisper. “We want one with gold on it.”

It was noon the next day before they hacked their way through the brush and rode up to three startled prospectors with gold pans working a placer claim on the south fork of the creek. Within minutes an impromptu meeting was called at a cabin about half the size of Sidwell's. Two dozen men huddled to explain to Brazos and the others the mining laws and point out what claims were still available. They were given five days to prospect any one claim in.

Within two days they paid their two-dollar recording fee for each of five claims. No. 14 Below Discovery and No. 18 and No. 19 Below Discovery on Whitewood Creek showed the most promise of placer gold. No. 20 and 21 Above Discovery on Deadwood Creek showed some possibility at bedrock depth or deeper.

Huddled around the evening campfire, Big River Frank yanked the coffeepot off the hook, then replaced it without pouring any in his cup. “I've drank spring water that's had more taste than this coffee.”

“We can make tea out of the
Ceanothus herbaceus,
” Grass Edwards reported.

“I ain't drinkin' no weed tea,” Yapper Jim protested.

“I reckon if we get desperate enough we'll be steeping pine nuts,” Big River Frank said.

Quiet Jim nodded agreement.

“That ain't the only supplies runnin' low,” Big River added.

Grass Edwards tried to bite off a chunk of jerky, but it was so tough he just shoved the entire wad in his mouth and mumbled, “We can buy a few supplies from Frank Bryant and that gang.”

“Word has it that by November the creeks is froze and all placer work is finished until spring,” Yapper Jim informed.

“The ones that has hit bedrock are plannin' on diggin' underground during the winter,” Big River said.

Brazos poked at the flames with a short stick. “The army could show up any day and move us out of here, too.”

Yapper swizzled his coffee around in his cup and stared at the grounds. “Or the Sioux could just ride up the gulch and scalp us all.”

“I think they're too smart to come to these hills in the winter.” Brazos could feel the flame lap at his face. “The ol' boys on No. 15 Above have a two-man saw in camp and no one who's ever bucked one. They said it's so dull they can't cut kindlin'. They'll trade it to us, if we cut some boards for them. Quiet Jim's a sawyer, and any of us can get down in the pit and buck the other end. You've got a file on ya, don't you, Jim?”

Like a bass note feather in a soft breeze, Quiet Jim's “Yep” floated across the fire.

“You sayin' we should go into the timber business instead of findin' gold?” Yapper Jim protested.

Brazos scooted back on a stump. “I'm sayin' with two of us workin' timber and three in the creek, we can have a little poke of gold and a decent cabin within three weeks. Maybe we can trade wood for supplies.” He tried to rub the stiffness out of his wrists.” We aren't going to buy many supplies with gold. These boys have gold by the sacks. They can't get out to spend it. What they're worried about, right now, is keepin' these claims through the winter.”

Yapper Jim poured the contents of his coffee cup into the dirt next to the fire. “The very first thing we are tradin' for is some coffee.”

The Texas Company cabin was twenty-four feet by twelve, the biggest structure in Whitewood Gulch. It contained two identical rooms, with rock fireplaces at both ends. The fire in the bedroom end barely glowed, but the one in the other end blazed.

Brazos Fortune entered the cabin with a stack of firewood balanced in his left arm, the Sharps carbine in his right. He pulled off his boots inside the door; his denim trousers were water-soaked from the knees down. He could feel the stiff material rub raw on his legs. “Did you boys hear the tally on the vote to name this burg?” he asked.

“If they decide to call it Muckleville, I'm leavin',” Yapper Jim piped up.

“Deadwood City.”

“Well, that got my vote, but it isn't much of a city,” Big River Frank reported. “Shoot, it don't even have one store. It didn't even have three cabins before Quiet Jim opened the saw pit.”

Quiet Jim waited for a break in the conversation. “Did you see Albien and Verpont about salt?” he asked.

Fortune squatted in front of the fireplace and shoved several sticks into the flames. “I saw 'em. They said they couldn't give us any salt, no matter what the trade.”

“We might could make it to January, but we'll never last to March,” Big River reminded them.

“We keep wadin' in that creek, we'll all die of pneumonia long before January.” Brazos turned his back to the flames, and felt his pant leg beginning to warm. “We're breakin' ice ever' mornin' now. One of these days we'll have to shut it down for the winter.”

Yapper Jim broke off a hunk of stale bread and waved it around as he talked. “How can we quit when we're pannin' a hundred dollars a day out of No. 14 Below Discovery?”

“Not to mention Quiet Jim clearin' twenty dollars a day on sawed boards,” Big River pondered.

Brazos rotated his stream-soaked pants and now faced the fireplace. “What about a couple of us makin' a run for supplies?”

Yapper Jim pushed his long-handled shirtsleeves up to his elbows. “Two can't get through the Sioux.”

“We snuck into these hills following the draws and arroyos. Maybe we can slip out to the north the same way,” Brazos proposed. “We could divide the gold—leave half with those who stay, and half with those who go.”

“That way, when the fools goin' for supplies get themselves scalped,” Yapper blurted out, “the ones back here still have some gold.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Brazos continued. “Those who go for supplies can try to make it back in here before the snow flies. The ones that are left will have fewer mouths to feed. With any wild game at all, they should be able to survive most of the winter, even if the others get bushwhacked.”

“I ain't really interested in survivin'
most
of the winter,” Quiet Jim reflected. “I was countin' on survivin'
all
of the winter.”

Grass Edwards leaned back against the wall as he ran a cleaning stick with a rag tied to it down the barrel of his pistol. “It don't make sense for all of us to sit in here hoardin' gold, then starve to death.”

“I say for them that leave, take all the gold,” Big River Frank suggested. “We don't need any gold here in Deadwood.”

“But what if they get scalped, like Brazos said?” Yapper protested.

“Then we lost a whole lot more than some gold. The more we send out, the more supplies and equipment we can bring in. The more we bring in, the more gold we dig next spring,” Big River Frank proposed.

“Who is it that tries to make it out?” Yapper quizzed, as he continued his stroll across the room.

“Brazos ought to be one,” Big River insisted. “He's the best shot among us. Besides, he's got his boy, Robert, out at Fort Abe Lincoln.”

Quiet Jim rubbed his full beard. “Being the sawyer, I better stay to keep sawin' boards as long we can.”

Brazos could feel his pant legs growing ice cold again. He returned to the fireplace. “Who do you want to stay in the pit with you?”

Yapper Jim waved his arms. “Me, of course. Ain't no one can work that bottom cut like me.”

Quiet Jim concurred. “I do enjoy the silence.”

“What silence?” Yapper Jim demanded.

Quiet Jim didn't crack a smile. “With all that sawdust tumblin' down, Yapper has to keep his mouth closed.”

“Laugh all you want to, but I'd just as soon stay. Don't feel much like gettin' scalped anyways,” Yapper pouted.

“Grass knows more about buyin' minin' equipment than I do,” Big River suggested. “I reckon that means I stay.”

“Do you think we'll have time to go down to Cheyenne?” Grass Edwards asked.

“Nope. We'll make a run straight for Fort Pierre. It's the closest place, providin' we don't get lost,” Brazos said.

“Speakin' of lost,” Yapper Jim tugged his suspenders down over his shoulders and let them hang towards the ground. “Did you see that notice posted on Muckle's cabin? They're searchin' for some man who's lost in the hills.”

“What's his name?” Brazos asked.

“Vince somethin' or other.”

Grass Edwards jumped to his feet. “Vince Milan! That's my sweet Jamie Sue's brother! Is she still in Cheyenne?”

“It said to contact her in Fort Pierre,” Yapper said.

Grass Edwards began to prowl the room. “My Jamie Sue's in Fort Pierre? Why, in a week or so, she could be in my arms.”

“I would surmise that Jamie Sue has a little somethin' to say about it,” Brazos teased.

“She won't be able to resist me, boys. You ain't never seen me when I turn on my charm.” Grass Edwards's smile seemed wider than his ears.

By 10:00 the next morning, Brazos and Grass Edwards had ridden past the lowest claim in the district. They tried to follow Whitewood Creek out of the mountains, but found its steep gulches so checkered with dead trees and abandoned beaver dams that they slowly climbed the pine-sloped hill on the north, and picked their way through the tree line for two more days.

On the third day out, they broke through the pines into the great plains of Dakota Territory.

Grass Edwards waited as Brazos rode up alongside him. “Look at that . . . prairie as far as the eye can see. I've been in them gulches so long I forgot what it was like to look out over a quarter mile at a time. It's goin' to be mighty tough takin' freight back in this way.”

“Quiet Jim said if the ground froze up, they'd try to log off some trees along the trail. Maybe it will be a little easier on the return.”

“You plannin' on droppin' down there and followin' the north fork of the Cheyenne River?” Grass quizzed.

“Nope.”

“But it looks like it's the easiest grade, now that we've gotten out of the hills.”

“Too easy. It will be the trail everyone takes.”

“But there ain't no one around. What ‘ever'one' you talkin' about?”

“Cheyenne and Sioux,” Brazos said.

“Where?”

“If we could see them, it would be too late. Let's head northeast through that white, crusty-looking land.”

Grass Edwards cupped his hands and blew warm breath into them. “Fortune, you're just gettin' senile in your old age. There ain't nothin' out there! I'll bet there ain't a stalk of
Elymus canadensis
for twenty miles. There won't be any water in there, no feed, not a scrap of firewood, and no trees to hide behind. No one in his right mind would ride through that.”

“Good.” Brazos retied his black bandanna around his neck, then glanced at Grass. “That way no one will bother us.”

By nightfall they had crossed the north fork of the Cheyenne River and made a cold camp at the base of a small gorge that led down to a dry creekbed. For the last two hours of the day they had seen nothing but the crusted rolling prairie of baked-hard, white alkaline dirt. As the clouds piled up above them, the north wind increased, swirling with it the flour-fine white dust.

Hats pulled low, bandannas over their noses, covered in white dust, they crowded near the base of the small cliff, trying to block the wind. They picketed one horse on each side of them, facing south. Sitting beside each other, their backs against the dirt, they pulled Brazos's canvas bedroll tarp partially over their heads. Carbines tucked in their laps, huddling close, they tried to drink a little water from their canteens.

“This surely is a lovely camp, Fortune.”

“Thank you,” Brazos said.

“Ah, but you was right. Not one Sioux followed us in here. Boy, we sure are smart. The wind blows away our tracks and no one on the face of the earth knows we're here. Wherever we are.”

“It could be worse,” Brazos added.

“Worse? How can it be worse?”

Brazos pointed to the evening sky. “It could rain.”

“What's wrong with rain? That would clear the air of this dust.”

“This alkali turns to a gumbo in a heavy rain. It would be so slick and sticky, we couldn't ride ten feet without boggin' down.”

“You figure we ought to keep ridin' tonight?”

“Nope. We'd probably just circle around with all these clouds above.”

“You plan on sleepin' sittin' just like this?”

“Nope. I don't plan on sleepin'. Me and sleep don't do too good.”

About midnight it began to snow.

Tiny flakes dropped like crumbs off a boardinghouse table for about fifteen minutes, then a blast of frigid wind followed. Finally, the clouds disappeared, and a blanket of Dakota stars covered the coal-black night sky.

“Brazos, are you awake?”

“Yep.”

“Ain't that something the way them stars light up the snow? It's almost like daylight. Not that the color of the badlands is any different. They was white with alkali. But at least now the air is clean.”

“When the snows melts it's going to get real gummy,” Brazos reported. “And if we wait for the gumbo to dry, it will be another dust storm and we still won't have water or wood.”