Into the face of the devil: A love story from the California gold rush Read online

  Into the face of the devil

  A love story from the California gold rush

  (A Tom Marsh adventure, book 2)

  By John Rose Putnam

  "Courage is resistance to fear,

  mastery of fear,

  not absence of fear."

  Mark Twain

  To Cheryl,

  because you are.

  Into the face of the devil

  Copyright © Statement

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording, photocopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by John Rose Putnam

  Amazon Edition

  ISBN 978-0-9909629-3-9

  1

  I heard a pistol pop and the tinkle of glass shattering. It was hardly noon and the fresh-off-the-boat guys were at it again. While I pulled my freight wagon over at the new hotel down the street more drunks fired off shots. Hot lead splattered across my load of lumber scaring me half out of my boots. I leaped to the ground and ducked behind a stack of planks, shaking like a leaf. Then a fierce clatter of pounding hooves came from up the road and the city boys grabbed their hats and ran for their lives. A buckboard raced toward me like the hounds of hell were after it.

  “Hiyah! Get on now,” my friend Eban hollered, snapping the reins so the horses would run even faster while Woody Dunn, a muleskinner a little older than me, held onto the seat next to him, a frightful look smeared across his mug. I stood up and waved. Woody caught sight of me and jumped to the ground, somehow managing to stay on his feet when he hit.

  “What’s wrong, Woody?” I asked. “Where’s Eban heading in such a rush?”

  Woody sucked up fresh air like he hadn’t had any in a month. “Tom, you got to get to the cafe quick,” he wheezed. “Maggie needs you to look after the place for her. She ain’t doing good and Joshua took her up to the cabin.”

  “Maggie!” I blurted. “Is it time?” I could see the uneasiness deep in his eyes.

  “She’s asking for Mrs. Wimmer and Eban’s heading over to Coloma right now to fetch her,” he said. “But don’t you dare go near the cabin. That’s women’s stuff. Leave it alone. You’d best take care of the cafe like Maggie wants.”

  My feet went cold as a February snow. Even though I’d promised Maggie I’d tend to things for her the whole idea of me cooking for a bunch of cantankerous miners scared me silly. “Woody, most of those men don’t only eat at the cafe for the food, they come to see Maggie. She’s about the only woman around and for sure the best cook. They’ll be ornery as starving wolves if I’m there instead of her.”

  Woody nodded his head and laughed. “Yep, like as not there’ll be some awful sore gold miners, but they’ll get used to it. Besides somebody’s got to do it and you’re the one Maggie wants. I’ll unload your wagon. You head to the cafe.”

  When I stood there like a one legged man at a barn dance Woody gave me a shove on the shoulder. “Go on, Tom,” he said, still grinning at my complete discombobulation.

  I started toward the cafe on foot, but in the short spell while I’d talked to Woody the mob of fresh-off-the-boat guys had filled the street once more. Mostly from New York City or some other place back east, they didn’t know the first thing about mining gold. Folks who’d been in California a while looked down their noses at them, figuring they were nothing but trouble.

  The old timers were right. For the last couple of days they’d caused a heck of a hullabaloo here in the middle of town drinking, yelling and showing off their new colt revolvers. And now I worried they would start shooting again so I glanced back toward the pile of boards where I hid earlier.

  A fellow I couldn’t see yelled out from over by the saloon, “Quiet down and listen up.” Right off the shouting and shoving eased. “That’s better,” he went on.

  That made me feel some safer too. And while I scouted around for an easy way through the crowd, the guy started talking in a high, twangy voice.

  “I know you’re worried about all the robberies and killings happening lately,” he told them. “It’s a bad thing, but I’m here to help. It’s getting harder for a man to find a good paying strike as more men show up in the mines. Folks can get desperate and do some rotten things, but you ain’t got to worry if you’re a part of the California Mining Cooperative. We got solid, gold producing claims, some in the best dry diggings you’ll find anywhere and others right on the creek. You can make money tomorrow, no prospecting place after place looking for color. All you do is sign up. I’ll even buy you a drink. Come on inside. Let’s talk it over. Who’s first?”

  A loud cheer went up and the men pushed past me toward the flap of the big tent everybody called the Round Tent Saloon. In no time I had the street to myself. I hustled toward the cafe and reflected on how fast things had changed here in Hangtown. This time last year, when Maggie, Joshua and Eban first came, there were no buildings at all. Now the freight line hauled in lumber from the saw mill at Coloma for each new store built. Plus we made regular trips to Sacramento City for food, supplies and all the other stuff folks needed to live.

  Maggie’s Cafe did a booming business, too. What with all these men here digging gold and almost no women at all, it was the one place a man could go to get anything like a home cooked meal. And it didn’t much matter if a fellow had been in Hangtown for a while or if he just got off the boat, they all needed to eat and most of them could barely make coffee. Maggie was the most popular person in town and I was as proud to be her friend as I could be.

  Right before I got to the cafe I looked past the log bridge that crossed Hangtown Creek and up to the cabin perched on the hill. Maggie was there now, in the bedroom she shared with Joshua behind the dormer window on the left side of the attic. Eban had the bedroom on the right and I slept in a little room downstairs behind the kitchen. She took me in last fall after Pa and my two brothers died. Alone and near starved to death in Coloma, I’d loaded wagons at the saw mill for whatever I could get. I owed her an awful lot. She’d become a second mother and a big sister all rolled into one. I would run the cafe if she wanted. I’d do anything for Maggie.

  The little bell that hung on the front door jingled when I walked inside. I crossed the empty dining room and closed the shutters on a four-foot opening over a counter in the center of the south wall where Maggie passed out plates of food when she worked by herself. I didn’t want anybody gawking at me while I cooked. Then I went through the door to the kitchen.

  In the middle of the east wall a venison stew warmed on the stove. Bowls of cut up potatoes, carrots and onions and a black iron pot that held a big hunk of beef sat on the table in front. It looked like Maggie had been fixing a pot roast right before she’d gone. I rolled up my sleeves, tossed the blue army cap Joshua had given me on a chair and started in where she left off. It had to be done—even though I dreaded what the miner’s would say when they discovered Maggie wasn’t here.

  ##

  Even with both windows open wide no hint of a mid-afternoon breeze blew into the café’s kitchen. Standing over a tin tub of hot wash water my own sweat soaked through my gray wool shirt and seeped under the blue bandana wrapped around my head. I’d been miserable enough when I first got here but I felt even worse now.

  Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if the miners didn’t act so downright disagreeable when they found Maggie laid up and that I’d fixed everything they ate today. One dandy in a flashy silk vest, fresh off the boat
from back east somewhere, had stormed out yelling that unrendered hog fat tasted better than my buttermilk biscuits. Another guy from New Orleans cussed me out in French for what seemed like forever. At least I think he was cussing, I didn’t understand a word he said. And after that a red-haired sailor from some place called Australia told me that the stuff his dog threw up when he was sick looked more appealing than my pot roast.

  I sure didn’t feel up for this, but I knew I had to do it. Maggie depended on me. Back on our farm I’d done most of the cooking and my Pa and brothers liked it fine. But Maggie’s scrumptious food had folks who ate here spoiled rotten. I supposed they’d get over it and I tried not to worry about it much. Still, I’d be awful grateful when I could get back to driving a team of slow, stubborn mules again. But with Maggie’s condition nobody could say when that would be.

  The bell on the door rang out and I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling, dropped the plate I’d washed back into the water and dried my hands on my pants. Likely more miners had come for an early supper, and they would probably yell at me about the food too. I ripped off the bandana, mopped my hair with a towel and strode to the door, my head high, my jaw forward. If anybody didn’t like my cooking they could go back to their shanty and have the same salt pork and beans miners usually eat.

  Inside the dining room I saw the front door open wide. Two men who’d been sitting at a table close by the window waited outside on Morton, a crotchety old cuss who still had on the same filthy wool shirt and pants he did a month ago. He hadn’t finished his meal yet but when he saw me coming he pushed his plate back and stood. “It ain’t right you charge the same when Maggie ain’t working.” he grumbled. “You ain’t near the cook she is.”

  Who cares, I thought. I wanted to yell at him but instead took a deep breath and remembered my manners. “She’ll be back soon, Mr. Morton. She’d love to see you then,” I said as nice as I could.

  Morton wagged a grubby finger in my face. “Ain’t eating here again ‘less she’s cooking. You hear me?” he groused.

  I had a sudden notion to throw a plate at his head, but somehow muzzled the urge. “Suit yourself, sir,” I said with a snap to my words.

  Morton muttered something under his breath, turned and walked outside to join his partners, leaving the door open. When I bent over the table to scrape and stack the plates the last two customers got up to leave. I didn’t know either of them off hand, but they had on clothes way too fancy for miners. Maybe they were new in town, so many men were, but they didn’t look like any of the fresh-off-the-boat guys that had flooded into the gold country lately either.

  The skinnier one glanced over to me. “Are you running this place by yourself, son?” he asked in a thin, twangy voice that sounded like the guy at the Round Tent earlier. He had on a well-made black suit and fancy handmade Mexican riding boots. But his big ears and long, clean-shaved jaw reminded me of the triangle I’d learned about in my arithmetic primer. The other guy, beefier with a bushy moustache under a wide, fat nose way too big for his pudgy face, wore a plain blue work shirt and black wool pants but had on a pair of fancy Mexican boots too.

  I squeezed up my best smile. It couldn’t hurt. “Only for a few days, sir. I hope.”

  The man threw some coins on the table and followed his companion toward the door. I grabbed my stack of dishes and turned to the kitchen when he stopped in front of me, blocking my way. I gulped. Here it comes, I thought.

  “Son, the fellow you just talked with complained the whole time about the food. Well, you might want to know that my friend and I enjoyed our meal quite a bit,” he said with a touch of a smile tarnished by a missing front tooth.

  “Thank you, sir,” I replied, all at once feeling a whole lot better. “I’m glad somebody liked my cooking. Folks been giving me the dickens about it since Maggie left, but she’ll be back soon.” It was the first nice thing anybody said to me all day. It did me a world of good.

  After a quick peek toward his friend, the man added, “Well, I wish her the best. I’ll make it a point to eat here again when she’s back. Good day to you.”

  “She’ll be glad to see you, sir.” I said.

  He tossed on a flat-topped hat and strode to the open door, but right when he did somebody else showed up, somebody in a dress. He quickly stopped and doffed his black hat. “Good afternoon, miss. I must say you look lovely today,” he crooned. His voice sounded sweet and slick all of a sudden, like a quart of molasses got dumped into it.

  “Lovely! Bah!” the girl moaned. “I’m tired, hot and hungry. And you, sir, are in my way.” The man eased to his left but just as she marched by him she stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh! You lecher!” she shrieked and swung a blue-checked gingham handbag right at his head. He ducked it easy and slipped off, chuckling to himself.

  The bell clanged loud when she slammed the door. Holy Moses, I thought, she’s as mad as all get out and she’s in here. I dropped the dishes back on the table.

  She’d stopped just inside the room, and as I looked up at her my eyes near popped from my face. A field of blue flowers on a yellow calico dress shrank to a pencil-thin waist only to billow out wide again before it stopped at a slender, lace-edged collar. A pretty turned-up nose over pouting red lips separated her fiery blue eyes, while a lock of yellow hair dangled temptingly below each ear and left me longing to see what else she had tucked away underneath her blue and white bonnet. And with the sweet, flowery scent that came in when she did tossed on top of how she looked I couldn’t drag my eyes away from her.

  I hadn’t known many girls my age. There were two buck toothed tomboys on a farm three miles from where I grew up and I did meet a few who were with the wagon trains that stopped at Diamond Springs last fall, but none of them struck me as anywhere near as fetching as this one. Women in the gold country were as rare as hen’s teeth but girls—there just weren’t any.

  “Well, are you going to show me to a seat or not?” she demanded.

  That snapped me back from my woolgathering. Her voice had changed. The anger stayed but a whiney, pouting tone fluttered on top. Maybe something was wrong with her? There were ten tables, each with four chairs, so why should I have to show her a place to sit? Then I remembered a story I’d read in McGuffey’s Reader. It happened back east somewhere and the men always helped women into chairs and stuff. She must be an eastern girl and didn’t know how we did things here in the gold mines.

  Still, I didn’t have to squeeze up a smile now. I beamed. “Would you like a place by the window?” I asked. She nodded and broke into a bright grin. A thrill rushed right through my gut. My knees got wobbly and my heart thumped like a runaway stallion, but somehow I managed to get her settled into the chair.

  She batted her lashes again and the stallion raced even faster. “The old man who drove the wagon said I should come in here and somebody named Tom would see I got something to eat. Do you know where I can find Tom?” she asked real sweet.

  “The old man?” My heart reined back to a walk. “Do you mean Eban?” The thrill in my gut twisted into a knot. This girl wasn’t from back east, at least not lately. She’d come from Coloma with Eban. She was in trouble, just like I’d been when Eban found me there, loading wagons at the saw mill and slowly starving. Eban wouldn’t have brought her here otherwise.

  She flashed her pearly white teeth at me again. “Yes, that’s his name, Eban,” she cooed.

  “Well, I’m Tom, Tom Marsh. I’ll get you some pot roast and a glass of well water. Would that be okay?”

  “Oh yes! I’m so hungry.” For the first time I noticed the fear that lurked in the corners of her eyes. I knew that fear all too well, and the hunger that went with it. I would feed her. We could talk later.

  “Don’t worry. You’re safe here.” I promised.

  Tears misted over the fear, but somehow she kept her smile. “Eban said I would like you. I think I do. I’m Lacey, Lacey Lawson.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Lacey. You wait here. I won’t be long.” I
couldn’t help but grin at her. I grabbed the stack of plates, ducked into the kitchen and quickly hustled back with another dish brimming with pot roast, biscuits, and potatoes and carrots on the side, plus a pitcher of cool well water and a hot cup of coffee. Lacey’s eyes bulged wide as her gaze followed me across the room. When I put the plate down in front of her she dived into the food like a hawk onto a ground squirrel, mumbling something that sounded like a thank you.

  “I’ll be in the back. If you need something, anything at all, just holler,” I said and she glanced up, chewing wildly, and nodded. Lacey Lawson was a real pretty girl who happened to be awful hungry right now.

  I went back to the kitchen and started in on the pile of dirty dishes that waited, but my mind stuck on Lacey. Almost every day I drove a wagon over the hill to Coloma and there weren’t many women there either. Coloma had grown like mushrooms do after a spring rain, but it had stayed a rough and tumble gold town. A girl like Lacey didn’t belong there anymore than she belonged here.

  I’ll never forget how I got to Coloma about this time last summer with Pa and my brothers. Right off two vicious desperados murdered Hank and Jess. After that Pa gave up. He didn’t last much longer. My whole life fell apart. I had to struggle hard just to scrape enough food together to stay alive. The memory of the empty, gnawing hunger that ate at my gut from sunup till dark, day in and day out, will always be with me.

  Then Eban showed up and gave me a job with the freight company. My world changed overnight. He brought me here and introduced me to Maggie and Joshua. It was a second chance in life. In no time they were like my brand new family. And I sure am grateful for all they’ve done for me.

  Today Maggie had pains and everybody said that meant her baby was coming so Eban rushed off to Coloma to get Mrs. Wimmer. She probably knew more about birthing babies than anyone else here in the foothills, with most of that learning real personal. She had a huge family, totally out of place in a town full of almost nobody but miners. But she had a right. Her husband ran the saw mill where they first found gold. She was there before any of the prospectors.