Page 19 of Working the Lode

CHAPTER TWELVE

July 4, 1848

Sutter’s Fort

Bowmaker

Sutter threw a huge feast, inviting everyone in the Fort’s vicinity. In the old armory building, he set a long table loaded with beef, game, fowl, and all the luxuries which a frontier life could offer. The table was laden with bottles of sauterne and Madeira, and enough fiery aguardiente brandy to satisfy all who wished to “splice the main brace.” There was also a fandango that Bowmaker itched to get on over to, as he was clad in his best dress, his shirt with long quill-wrapped fringes and red wool cuffs. Feeling the dandy, he’d slapped on a broad-brimmed Spanish hat with a new crimson scarf around the crown.

Aaron Erskine had taken a bookkeeping position with Sutter in order to be closer to Mercy, leaving their gold mining operations sadly bereft of one-third of their labor force, Bigler having also forged off on his own. So Bowmaker, Zelnora, and Quartus visited Erskine in his office adjacent to Sutter’s dining room. Erskine was occupied weighing gold and changing money, serving a line of men that went out the door and into the courtyard, so the trio took seats alongside the wall.

“The irony must not escape you that they are allowing me to handle money again,” Erskine grinned as he handed a nearly-naked Indian a couple of reales for his gold. The exchange rate for Indians differed from the rate given whites. This Indian had made a prior deal with a white man, one could tell from his state of nature, aside from a frock coat and socks.

Bowmaker laughed. “I caught that sign. Sutter must be desperate for employees that haven’t caught the gold fever and gone running off. But a lot of these claims are already getting worked out.”

Erskine wriggled an eyebrow. “I talk to a lot of folks, as you can imagine. Folks are washing an average of five hundred dollars dust a day. But as you said, a lot of the claims are worked out already.” Glancing surreptitiously from side to side and seeing only carefree Diggers and one chap with a bottle of bug juice, Erskine imparted, “I just heard tell yesterday of a big new strike on the Stanislaus, between Wood’s Crossing and Sonoran Camp. That’s the place to be, from all accounts.”

“Sonoran Camp?” Bowmaker pondered. “I heard that’s a lawless frontier chockfull of Spaniards playing monte and horse racing—damnit Quartus, will you cheese that drum, please?”

Quartus gave Bowmaker sad eyes brimming with tears. “I’m warming up for the fandango!” he protested.

“You’ve been warming up for weeks,” Zelnora pointed out calmly. “I’ve heard of those dry diggings. Men from Sonora in Mexico, expert miners, created that town. On account of its situation on slate rock with auriferous quartz veins just below a limestone belt, it seems to be exceedingly rich. Do you have any samples I could look at?”

“Certainly,” Erskine said promptly, rising and going to a table at the back of the room.

“You know,” Bowmaker told the Indian next in line. The fellow waited patiently wearing only a sombrero and a crimson sash that looked suspiciously like the one Bowmaker had traded for that enormous lump of gold. “You could get double the value in reales if you just had a white man trade in your gold for you.” The Indian stared blankly at him.

“What is ‘bull baiting’?” Quartus asked Bowmaker.

Bowmaker frowned. “Why do you ask that?”

“I heard in Sonoran Camp they have bull baiting. Do you tease a bull into charging, then jump aside at the last minute?”

“Maybe it’s something akin to a bull and bear fighting,” Bowmaker mused. “The most cruel and senseless thing ever. Those Spaniards have gone beaver to be amused by such as that. Poor doings when a ‘bear hunter’ puts old Ephraim into a cage, then lets him out into a pen to be gored by the bull. They’re both tied together,” he told an awestruck Quartus.

“Neither one has fair play!” Erskine pointed at him indignantly, handing Zelnora the gold samples. He attempted to soothe Quartus by telling him, “The fight almost always ends without many coups on either side. Neither of the combatants really means to raise much hair, they just want peace.”

Bowmaker said, “Aaron. Let me put this in your safe till you can credit it to my account.” He would place most of their gold into the safe, keeping on him only what he needed for today’s festivities and to purchase supplies for Lion Island. Bowmaker aimed to buy a lot in San Francisco where he’d heard an auction would soon be held—a few hundred dollars for beach and water lots. Brannagh always attended those auctions, flaunting his brethren’s money, and hurrah for vengeful doings if Bowmaker could purchase a lot away from him. It was the settlements for him, once he earned his fortune! He’d not squander his gold earnings away on liquor and women like so many had already done.

While Aaron put their dust away, Zelnora told Bowmaker in a low voice, “This Sonoran Camp ore is of the highest quality, twenty-four carats even, almost ready to go to the mint. We should find some of these Sonoran Spaniards and find out more about it.”

“Sounds like a pretty smart spree,” Bowmaker agreed. Louder, he told Erskine, “Sounds like our compañero Brannagh is speechifying out there; we should pay our respects.”

Bowmaker slapped his hat onto his head, and Zelnora took Quartus by the hand as they left the assaying office. Bowmaker was proud of Zelnora for raising Brannagh’s hair that time in Lion Island, and she had seemed more confident as of late, walking more erect, smiling freely. Blooming, really, with the freedom of not being under any man’s thumb.

“Cormack, why would Aaron not be allowed to handle money?” Zelnora enquired as they threaded their way through the fort’s inner courtyard, past beef on smoldering charcoal fires, ragged men done up in brass buttoned waistcoats toasting “here’s all the hair off your head,” and Californio women with braids woven in intricate architectural heaps. Plaintive airs on guitar and fiddle were sung with much pathos as they walked through clouds of cigarito smoke, the little cigarita also puffed freely by señoritas. “Wasn’t he a broker on Wall Street?”

Bowmaker had feared that question. He had been surprised Erskine had mentioned it in front of Zelnora. So now he had a handy reply. “Yes, he was a trader, a speculator on Wall Street,” he said, picking up two cups of aguardiente from a long table and handing one to Zelnora. To distract Quartus, he handed him one as well. “A very good money man, from all accounts. I fear Sutter won’t have much money to manage, though, if men keep deserting him as they’ve been doing, or plundering his land and cattle. Already Marshall is a ruined man, all the squatters overrunning his mill.”

Zelnora would not be distracted, however, as they approached the clearing where Brannagh held forth. “Is that how you met him then, on Wall Street? Were you an investor?”

“Yes, we met nearby Wall Street. Erskine needed protection from some ruffians.”

“Oh; someone was trying to stick him up? Extort money from him? Blackmail?”

Bowmaker grinned. “Something like that. More like they were trying to raise his topknot.”

Clutching his arm, Zelnora leaned her bosom against him. “And you went and raised their hair to protect him?”