Far From Home (24 page)

‘You didn’t try to kill him?’ Kitty asked fearfully.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘We just let each other be.’

‘Hope you don’t regret it,’ Isaac rumbled. ‘Danged critter will probably come back for you!’

‘Guess I’ll be ready for him if he does.’ Pike tucked into his gruel. ‘He’ll know that. I ain’t a woodsman fer nuthin’.’

As the sun began to sink that evening, Isaac woke Pike from his sleep to go back to his shift at the mine. It was his week to do the night shift. Kitty had cooked rice which she had discovered in a sack beneath some boxes when she and Georgiana were sorting out in the longhouse. Isaac had caught another fish, which she’d cooked, flaked and added to the rice.

‘It’s rather plain. It would be good to have vegetables to go with it,’ she said. ‘But the only way we can have them is to grow our own.’ She glanced at Georgiana. ‘And I don’t know if we’re staying that long.’

‘Wish you were, little lady.’ Pike licked his lips. ‘Folks would come flocking here just to sample your cooking.’

Kitty went pink with pleasure at the compliment and Georgiana, who was leaning on the door watching the skies turn red and orange over the mountains, turned and said, ‘Well, we’ll soon know if we’re staying or not. Someone is driving a waggon down the valley, and I think it’s Wilhelm Dreumel.’

Dreumel’s expression was one of astonishment and disbelief on seeing Georgiana and Kitty. He took off his wide-brimmed hat and ran his fingers through his hair. His face was dusty from travelling. ‘But how—? It is impossible. I cannot believe it! Someone brought you? Was it Lake?’

‘Yes.’ Georgiana started to explain as Kitty went off to make a pot of coffee. ‘But we came part of the way alone. Mr Charlesworth gave me a map—’

‘What! Charlesworth suggested that you should come alone?’

Georgiana saw that he was more than a little annoyed by that, so she hastily reassured him that Mr Charlesworth hadn’t had any option. ‘I intended to come anyway,’ she said. ‘I will explain why in a moment.’ They sat on a wooden bench outside the longhouse and she continued. ‘We travelled by canal boat and then by coach to Duquesne, then quite by chance called on a wheelwright to ask if we could hire a horse and trap. Except that he didn’t have a trap, just an old dog cart, and a horse called Henry.’

‘Ah! I see now! So Henry brought you! But not all of the way?’ His pleasant face had a crease of anxiety above his nose.

‘No, we met with some Iroquois Indians, Dekan and Horse, and they took us to No-Name, where we waited for Lake. He brought us on the last part of the journey,’ she said. Then, seeing the look of disquiet on his face, she apologized. ‘I’m so sorry if I have blundered into your private affairs, Mr Dreumel, but I felt at the time that it was very important to speak to you.’

‘No! No.’ He brushed aside her apology. ‘It is not that. I am only thinking how very perilous it was for you and the young lady to travel alone. This can be a very dangerous country.’

‘Perhaps we were fortunate,’ she said. ‘Our only frightening experience was when we had to spend the night in a drivers’ cabin and the next day we thought that the mare had escaped. After that we were in good hands, though we were very tired.’

‘I am surprised that Lake agreed to bring you,’ he murmured.

‘He didn’t make any objections,’ she said, ‘though he wasn’t very happy about my bringing Henry. But may I ask how you came into the valley? Not over the mountains? Ted said that you have been to Philadelphia.’

‘Yes. I have,’ he agreed. He didn’t give her any details and raised his eyebrows in enquiry at her use of Allen’s pseudonym of Ted. She explained. ‘We have spoken at some length. He has told me that he has given you the truth of himself. I came to warn you of him.’ She dropped her voice as Isaac went past with wood for the stove. ‘I thought you were being deceived by an impostor.’

He leaned towards her. ‘Are you telling me that you travelled here because of that? For no other reason?’

‘What other reason would there be?’ She was vexed and spoke rather sharply. ‘I thought he was taking advantage, not only of you, but of my cousin who is married to the real Edward Newmarch. I had to stop him!’

‘Of course. Of course!’ he said hastily. ‘But he has explained the circumstances and I believe him. I want to believe him,’ he added, and she realized that he was a most trusting person and would probably expect everyone to be as honest as he was.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I think that I do too. I suppose taking Edward Newmarch’s identity was the only option open to him, if what he says is true, even though it was wrong.’

‘And what will you do now, Miss Gregory? Now that you have fulfilled your mission and found that the blackguard has not taken advantage of me?’ He smiled as he spoke and she thought he was laughing at her.

She straightened her shoulders and looked directly at him. ‘It was potentially a very serious situation,’ she said coolly. ‘You could have been swindled.’

‘Ah!’ As if realizing his error, he was contrite. ‘I do not doubt it and I am more than grateful for your concern, but apart from giving me a false name and background, he has, I believe, been honest about everything else.’

‘His mining background?’ She was still slightly put out.

‘An exaggeration, I agree. But he has more than made up for it with the hard work he has done on my behalf. Without pay,’ he added. ‘Only his board. I have promised him only a share in the venture if we succeed.’

‘I see,’ she said, prepared to be mollified. ‘He obviously believes in what you are doing.’

‘And he has stayed,’ he said seriously, ‘in spite of the news.’

‘About the mine running out?’ she said. ‘You must be very disappointed.’

‘Not just the mine.’ He gave her a questioning glance. ‘Do you remember that I left you a letter at the Marius telling you that I had heard some disturbing news and must leave New York?’

She said that she did and thought that it was news of the mine.

‘No. Whilst I was staying in New York,’ he went on, ‘Ted had driven to Philadelphia to collect supplies and pieces of machinery that I had ordered. It takes several days from the valley to reach the Philadelphia road. When he arrived in Philadelphia, which is a big city, the whole place was buzzing with the news that the Pennsylvania Rail Road Company is planning to cross the plain linking New York Central with the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, right up to the Erie Canal.’

He ran his hand over his face, then looked up as Kitty came out with a lantern, for it was now getting quite dark. She also brought coffee and a piece of honey cake. ‘Ah,’ he said, taking a bite. ‘This is like my mother used to make.’

He took a sip of coffee. ‘This is good,’ he said appreciatively. ‘Very good. Anyhow. Ted went to enquire at the railroad office and to ask if he could see a map. When he saw it he realized that the railroad would come right alongside the mountains.’ He indicated with his hand over to the eastern end. ‘Perhaps even through the mountains, opening up the whole of the territory.’

‘That would ruin the valley!’ she said.

‘It would; the area would be flooded with railroad workers. I realize that there are plans to cross the whole country by railroad, but I wanted to breed cattle here. I can’t do that with a railroad running through!’

He sighed. ‘It’s another blow. First the mine drying up and now this. I never expected to make a big strike from gold, but I’d hoped that what we got from it would pay for the cattle. Charlesworth, though, has put money into the mine and I’m sure he’ll pull out when he hears this latest news and buy railroad shares.’

‘There must be a way around this,’ Georgiana said. ‘If you own the land, surely the railroad company can’t come onto it?’

‘If it’s in the way, they can. If it’s only a small community, then they’ll ride roughshod over whoever owns it. The only hope I have,’ he said, ‘is that federal law states that a railroad connection must be completed within six years, and eastern railroad builders don’t have much capital and need government subsidy.’

‘Have there been surveys?’ she asked. ‘Does anyone know that you are here?’

‘Someone must have been up here, otherwise there would be no plan of the proposed route, but maybe they didn’t find this valley, only the mountains surrounding it. And the only people who know we are here are the Land Registry officers from when we made our claim and bought the land.’ He laughed. ‘It could be anywhere. I simply stuck a pin into a map and said this is where it is!’

‘Couldn’t you open it up?’ Georgiana said thoughtfully. ‘Open up the road where you came through from the plain and turn this hidden valley into a place where people want to live?’ She saw the doubt on his face and pointed across the creek, which was now just a darkly shimmering streak. ‘Build a bridge across to the other side. You could still have your cattle; there’s plenty of pastureland.’

He looked at her with interest. ‘Sometimes, you know, it is not possible to see what is in front of you. You have vision, Miss Gregory!’

‘I’m simply seeing it from a different point of view.’ She smiled. ‘It’s such a beautiful place it seems a pity not to share it. You could build cabins here.’ Her voice rose in enthusiasm as the idea took hold. ‘Not like you have now, but better ones where families could come to start a new life! There could be shops – stores as you call them – an hotel, a saloon bar. If there was a thriving settled community here, then the railroad company would have to divert their tracks.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I am following you. And if the railroad was nearby, people and freight would travel by rail instead of waggon. But,’ he grew despondent again, ‘I don’t have any spare money to build cabins.’

‘You’ve got the timber,’ she said, looking up the hillside at the dark tree line. ‘You just need the men to build them. Advertise,’ she said eagerly. ‘You’ve got a newspaper! Sell parcels of land and the timber and let people build their own homesteads.’

‘We will talk again tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Come. You must be getting chilled, and,’ he sniffed, his head in the air, ‘I can smell food cooking. The cook must have returned!’

‘No, he hasn’t,’ she replied. ‘That’s Kitty’s cooking that you can smell. It will be something simple as there are hardly any provisions.’

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, banging his forehead with his hand. ‘I am a
dunderhead
. I’ve brought supplies! Meat, flour, tea, sugar, corn oil, cookies. Isaac,’ he shouted. ‘Unload the waggon. We’ll have a foodfest!’

When Ted Newmarch, as Allen called himself, came down from the mine, he told Dreumel that there had been no more than five dollars’ worth of gold that day. ‘We need to sink another shaft,’ he said. ‘This present one is useless. If you’d blast open the little canyon further up, I’m sure we’d get a strike.’

‘Charlesworth will be here soon,’ Dreumel said. ‘When he arives, we’ll talk about that, but we’ll need more men and more money. If Charlesworth doesn’t want to go ahead, then we’ll have to wind up.’

Kitty had made more barley and onion soup for supper, and had sliced up some of the salt beef that Dreumel had brought and cooked sweet potatoes and beans.

‘You’re a good cook, Kitty,’ Ted remarked. ‘You must have been watching Cook in the kitchen.’ He stopped in confusion as he remembered who he was supposed to be. He had almost let slip that he already knew Kitty and Miss Gregory. Jason, Ellis and Isaac were seated at the table and none knew his real background.

Kitty smiled and blushed. ‘My ma used to make a meal out of practically nothing,’ she said. ‘There was never much money coming in. I used to send my wages home once I’d gone into service.’

‘I heer’d times is bad in England.’ Isaac gulped on a tankard of beer. Dreumel had brought a cask and also a bottle of Dutch gin. ‘I heer’d as poor folks is starving and beggin’ in the streets.’

‘It’s true that there are many poor people in England,’ Georgiana interspersed quickly; she’d seen Ted open his mouth to speak and wanted to get in her views first, not to contradict but to compare. ‘But we saw people begging in the streets of New York when we arrived. It seems that there is no answer to the problem of poverty.’

‘And no-one understands the poor unless they’ve been poor themselves,’ Ted chipped in, glancing at her. ‘No amount of reading on the subject could prepare anybody for experiencing it. There was a British poet – a woman, Letitia Landon – who said, ‘‘Few, save the poor, feel for the poor,’’ and she was right.’

What misconceptions we have of people, Georgiana thought as she returned his gaze. I would not have considered him a thinking man. How wrong I was.

‘Larnin’, that’s the answer.’ Isaac nodded his head knowledgeably. ‘If you have edication, you can do anythin’ at all. Why, if I’d had it, by now I’d have had my own little cabin with a rockin’ chair on the porch, ’stead of being here scratching out a livin’ in the middle of the wilderness.’

‘Why did you come, Isaac?’ Kitty asked. ‘Did you come for gold?’

‘Sure I did. Bin all over lookin’ fer it. Trekked over mountains and through river beds. Took a waggon one time, stocked it with tools, biscuits and meat, then one of my horses died on the trail. Fair wore out she was. I joined a pack train. Took up claims, pitched my tent, dug and panned, lived on bread ’n’ beans, but never earned more ’n a hundred dollars.’ He coughed and cleared his throat as if to spit, but then thought better of it. ‘Went to Californy in ’49, but every strike I got to had just run out. Thousands of men, there were, all lookin’ fer the yeller stuff.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘I’m gittin’ too old fer diggin’ anyway. Then I met young Ted here on the trail and he said they wanted somebody smart to keep guard on a camp. I reckoned I could do that well enough.’ He gave a yellow-toothed grin at Dreumel. ‘And Bill here says I’ll git a percent’ of whatever they bring out.’

‘Might not be much, Isaac,’ Dreumel warned. ‘We told you that there’s been nothing much for weeks. Now with the news of the railroad—’

‘Better git blastin’, then,’ the old man said. ‘Afore them railroad folk come and do it for you.’

The next day Wilhelm Dreumel asked Georgiana if she’d like to go with him up to the mine. The other men had already gone ahead. They started at dawn and didn’t finish until dusk. ‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘I would like to see it.’