Payback at Morning Peak (20 page)

“Surprised, why?”

Jubal didn’t want to tell Bob it was his first beer. “Oh, I don’t know, surprised they would have this good a beer, way back here in the hind end of nowhere.”

Bob looked at Jubal quizzically. “Have you drank before?”

“Oh, sure, lots,” Jubal answered, maybe a little too quickly. The two drifted back toward the wall so they could survey the room. When they decided they’d seen enough, they started toward the door.

“You were rude to me, cowboy,” came the familiar taunting voice from earlier. “My friends made fun of me ‘cause of you.”

“Who’s this,” said Bob, more like a statement than a question.

Jubal pointed at him. “Oh, it’s a lad who seems to be in charge of the mirror.”

“You just aching for it, ain’t you?” said the stranger.

“Aching for it?” Jubal looked at him again. “Let’s go outside.” He put the half-full glass on a table and pushed his way out through the swinging doors.

They walked out to the dirt street, the men from the previous fight long gone. “What I am aching for, sir, is to see the smirk on that rotten-boy face of yours wiped off. I’ve done you no harm, minding my own business. You’re half drunk and wanting to show off for your drunk friends. If I was somehow rude to you, I apologize. So turn your country ass around, and you and your girlfriends call it a night.”

It surprised Jubal how calm he was; he actually felt good. A part of him wanted to lay into the provocative yokel, but he thought the time just wasn’t right. Jubal had nothing against him, he was a young man itching for a fight, trying to prove he was a fully grown man. Jubal stuck out his hand.

“Shake, partner. Let’s call it a misunderstanding, okay?”

“You hear this, guys?” The man glanced back at his friends. “Wants to shake and chicken out.”

Jubal turned and smiled at Bob. “Let’s call it a night.”

It really did take a lot of gumption to walk away from a fight.

The duo hung around the Poverty Gulch campsite for a week without spotting Wetherford or Tauson. It made them restless.

“There’s a bunch of different mining sites around this here gulch,” Bob said after their seventh consecutive fruitless day. “What say we split up and scout the various spots?”

“Sure, but as you said when I first met you, a body doesn’t want to be standing up to the likes of Tauson or Wetherford alone.”

Bob thought about this. “Damn if you aren’t right, son. Let’s get a move on, we’ve done nearly all the scouting we can do here. Let’s stick together.”

Unfortunately, they were running low on money. Jubal had almost none, and Bob had enough to last only three or four days. The animals wouldn’t understand short rations and neither would they, so they had to make a decision.

“You want to try our luck at mining?” Bob asked.

“I don’t look forward to getting down in a deep hole and shoveling rock, if that’s what you’re saying.”

“It would only be for a few days, maybe a week,” answered Bob quickly. “I’ve heard you can make a good number of dollars working the company mines.”

The following day they signed on at the Ajax and, along with nearly fifty other men, descended into the shaft. Dust hung like fireflies, seeping into every pore, even though Jubal wore a neckerchief around his mouth and nose.

After the first week, as they stood outside the mine entrance waiting to be paid, Bob declared, “Life is too short to devote to this sort of slavery. Perhaps we should call it a career.”

Jubal had been thinking the same thing. “Well, Mr. Bob, if you insist. I was just beginning to like it. The sweat, the camaraderie, the grinding dust. But to be serious, I understand that for very little money we could pan for gold along the creek, be outside, work for ourselves—find a spot that wasn’t staked and have at it. What do you say?”

Fresh air sounded great to Bob. They headed up high into the hills to begin their attempt at placer gold mining.

After several hours they ran into a friendly old-timer on his way back down the mountain. He made time to explain the process of panning.

“Find yourself a spot where you’ve come upon some quartz. Something that looks like it fell off a ledge ‘cause of an earthquake or some kinda upheaval years ago. If there’s a crick nearby, all the better. Look for a place
where the stream changes direction or stands still like a backwater—”

“Don’t you just pan in the water?” interrupted Bob.

“No law against it, son, but you’d be best spending your time in a little used-to-be streambed close by. Otherwise you might as well take to being a mucker.”

Jubal and Bob glanced at each other.

“Oh, I see you’ve tried your hand at that,” the old man added. “Anyway, dig to a solid area, then spread that there dirt, about half a shovelful, into your pan.”

They looked once again at each other.

“You didn’t bring a shovel, did ya?” The old man grinned. Without waiting for their answer, he reached over to his pack and tossed a small shovel at their feet. “One dollar, cash money.”

“You got it,” Jubal said.

The prospector continued. “Hunker down next to the streambed and flip half a shovel of dirt into your pan, then dip a corner into the water. About a pint, I reckon. Then make the whole kaboodle kind of like soup—”

“Soup?” asked Bob.

“Yep, then scoop up more water and whirl the whole shebang ‘round and ‘round, then slowly let some of the soup slip out over the edge. Continue ‘til all the regular rock and gravel have been slurped over the edge. Get it so far?”

Jubal felt as if he understood up until then. Bob looked mystified.

“Well, sir, get her down to just a swath of dark red sand—almost black. Then drain the water to get the sand even all over. Gold is heavier than gravel and rock, and will
settle at the bottom. If you got yourself five or six little sparklies, fine. Don’t depend on the sun. Take your pan into the shade—if it still glitters, it’s the genuine article. Make yourself a horsehair brush and sweep it gentle-like over the dried findings, and you can generally pick up your lode. Store it in a leather pouch and you’re off and running. If your spot gets thin and played, move on.” He paused, and said finally, “Don’t forget the dollar. For the shovel.”

The two greenhorns paid the old man his dollar. It worked out to fifty cents for the shovel and the same for the lecture.

The duo unsteadily continued upstream. Jubal hoped all of this would get him closer to Pete Wetherford and William F. Tauson.

They bought enough provisions to last a month with their few dollars and moved their camp high into the hills.

The first week of placer mining proved frustrating, even an outright disappointment. Bob stumbled his way through the day. They finally devised a method where Jubal stayed in the water and did the initial pannings, then Bob would take the red and black leavings and store them in a large bucket for further exploration.

By the end of the tenth day they had accumulated what they thought to be about an ounce and a half of dust.

“My good man, I think it’s time for ole Bob Patterson to have a couple of beers, what do you say?”

Jubal straightened his back. “I suppose we could journey into town for a decent meal and a beer. Let’s go in the morning. I’ll try and pan as much as I’m able the rest of the day to build up our little sack of dough.”

That evening, Jubal didn’t feel much like a king, but there could be no doubt about the heavy little pouch underneath his pillow. It represented a week and a half of work, and it was very real.

Before their journey into town, Jubal and Bob rode high into the mountains for target practice. In a small canyon facing away from the town below, they tied off their horses and walked deep into the crevasse.

Bob had a big old Colt .45. He thumbed back the hammer. “An old-timer once told me that two gunners fixing to shoot it out are usually inside twenty feet.” He fired off a round at a piñon and missed by several feet, pulled back the hammer once again, and in that way fired several more quick shots in a crouched gunfighter position. All the rounds missed high and wide. He was hopeless.

Jubal had Audrey in a battered holster at his right side. He pulled his coat back and laid his thumb lightly on top of the hammer, his fingers not quite touching the burnt handle. Bob yelled, “Draw,” and Jubal’s fingers pulled up on the bottom of the grip as his thumb cocked the weapon. With knees slightly bent, he fired as the piece became level with his waist. The rock split in half. He reached across with his left hand and ripped his palm across the hammer and kept the trigger depressed, firing off all six rounds as he fanned the piece with his left palm. It was fairly fast and, more importantly, accurate.

“Any questions?”

“You’re right handy with that piece. How’s about another knife-throwing session?”

Jubal agreed and they proceeded to throw at a tree that had overgrown its purchase at the side of the canyon. Jubal
was pretty good inside ten feet or so. He could stick the blade eight out of ten times, but it became more difficult when the long-bladed knife had to rotate in the air more than once. Bob could also throw underhanded, so that the sticker didn’t tumble in the air but slid out of his hand quickly with a long stride. This, Bob explained, was the “desperadoes’ death throw.”

“You sling it just like you would a rock. Underhanded.”

Jubal thought maybe it was exactly that, in more ways than one.

Their little sack of dough, as they called it, netted them right at $28 from the local assayer. Bob, pleased with his half of the take, bounced up and down on one leg like a child. “I got to have me a beer, son.”

“Bob, it’s ten in the morning.” Jubal laughed at his antics. “Let’s meet back here at the assayer’s office at noon, then decide about eats. What do you say?”

They agreed. Bob hightailed it over to the Good Chance. Acting drunk, he waved to Jubal and zigzagged his way up the saloon steps.

Jubal unhitched Frisk from the rail outside the as-sayer’s office. He rode Frisk the length of Bennett Street and stopped at the general store to inquire if anyone knew about sluice boxes and how to build them. He had been told by a mine worker that a sluice was a better way of getting to the gold.

He killed time admiring various weaponry under a glass display case. As he bent over to get a closer look, someone jostled him from behind. He turned without rising up, astounded at the rudeness of people. Jubal saw
only the man’s back as he continued chatting with another fellow on their way out of the store. Just another hurried soul in a town full of unfamiliar people.

The clerk at the counter directed Jubal to Faulkner’s Livery, where a man named Lou could help him with instructions about a sluice.

Jubal led Frisk to the blacksmith to adjust a shoe, then stood in the open barn door watching the heavy rain that had begun to fall. To pass the time, he sharpened his long-bladed knife with the smith’s stone, then, with the man’s permission, tossed the bone-handled piece accurately into a heavy hitching post.

Lou turned out to be a nice fellow who dutifully sketched a picture of a sluice with all the dimensions. Jubal rode Frisk back down the street toward the general store for supplies.

Outside the store, he glanced at a large clock on a pole outside the bank. Eleven-thirty. If Bob was still in the tavern, he was well on his way to being stiff with drink. Jubal strapped his purchases behind the saddle and took his time walking Frisk back toward the saloon. Maybe he would simply wait outside the drinking establishment and give the bearlike man his time to imbibe. He stayed on the steps a few minutes but then decided to see if Bob was, indeed, in the tavern.

As he started to enter the Good Chance, he took a quick peek over the swinging doors and spied Bob at a far table, his sweaty bald head shining like a beacon. Jubal pushed the doors open, started in, then stopped. Bob sat with two men. One of them, his back to Jubal, was the rude man from the store.

Jubal now recognized him. The gray-haired Billy Tauson.

Jubal eased back out onto the sidewalk. He stumbled on the rotting planks, finding himself seated in the dirt street. Several passersby probably thought him to be drunk. He shot to his feet, running down the street to Frisk and the saddlebag with his pa’s pistol. As he neared the horse, he slowed himself. He knew Tauson’s location; no need to panic. He retrieved the .44-caliber and tucked it firmly in his belt, hidden beneath his coat. Mounting Frisk, he rode slowly back.

He steadied himself by carefully going over the things he knew. Tauson was previously acquainted with Bob Patterson, and there was bad blood flowing between the two. That would explain the tension at the table.

Tauson had also never seen Jubal up close. The fleeting image of a young man darting about the farm, taking potshots at him, hadn’t registered in any meaningful way, Jubal hoped. Plus, he was now adorned with his fresh new mustache and goatee.

But most importantly, Billy Tauson wouldn’t be expecting company.

Jubal moved Frisk to a hitching post in front of a dry goods store. Slipping between two buildings, he made his way to the alley behind the tavern. He climbed the outside stairway to the second floor and let himself in the door. A short hall opened onto the mezzanine looking down to the floor of the tavern. The balcony swept around three sides of the tavern, with a half dozen rooms opening onto the banistered walkway.

He positioned himself from above so he could see the table with Bob and Tauson. A Mexican also sat with them; the man rose and made his way to the bar to reorder.

Staying close to the inner wall, Jubal made his way toward the steps leading to the tavern floor. Mountain Bob’s nerves were showing. He sat hunched forward as if listening to each word Tauson said to him. Jubal was certain Bob was unarmed, but from all that he had seen and heard about Billy Tauson, that probably wouldn’t matter.

For a moment Jubal considered whether he should get a lawman to intercede, in order to reduce the chance of gunplay. He had made certain promises to Judge Wickham. Or maybe this was the correct way to subdue this bastard. Come at him head-on, not try to finesse the thing. Perhaps attack in a way that the notorious Billy Tauson would understand. Let the devil get his due.