Page 2 of Sure as Shooting

Huntley frowned. “Part Cherokee? You don’t look it. You could pass for white.” Not with those achingly high cheekbones and rich chestnut skin, Huntley thought.

“Is that a compliment or an insult?” There was an undertone of teasing.

“Why, how’d you—”

“Get a medical degree? I had to go to the University of Glasgow. They were the only school that would let me in.”

“Glasgow…” Huntley had a vague idea where that was, but he was obviously not as learned as Dr. Whitney.

The physician smiled, displaying even white teeth. “Scotland. So tell me…Where do you hail from? What brings you to standing inside the Plaza Hotel rolling a barrel full of gold dust around?”

Huntley hitched his chin in the direction of the street. “I was trying to impress upon my friend there, José Juarez, that the whites are unbeatable. Lately there’s been some trouble in the area of my estate in the foothills, and promises of more trouble to come. I brought him here to show him the whites are more numerous than wasps and ants, and if they’re aroused to anger, every Indian engaged in the war will be killed before the whites are satisfied.”

Dr. Whitney frowned. “War? What war?”

“I’ve received hints that the tribes are no longer content to trade the gold they find for clothing and cooking utensils—that it’s much easier for them to just steal what they want instead of laboring for it. All very true—it is easier to plunder, in a way—but a few of my friends have been killed lately by Diggers, good men who just happened to be in the way of free plunder. There’s a war coming, Doc.” Huntley felt free to call him by such an intimate name although they’d just met. “You mark my words. And I don’t think I’ve impressed any such thing on the brain of Chief Juarez, so I’ll be leaving in the morning to make sure my empire hasn’t crashed down around my ears.”

Dr. Whitney pointed at Huntley with his whiskey cup. “What is this empire? You’re a trader, right?”

Huntley smacked his lips with satisfaction. He enjoyed bragging. “Yes, the first trader in the Mariposa foothills! I’ve a monopoly over pretty much everything there, and five hundred Indians work my placer claims on the Tuolumne and Merced Rivers. I speak the dialect of pretty much every tribe and have many eager squaws.” But something is missing, Huntley thought rather sadly. “The company of a well-spoken physician would be very much appreciated. What’s your next move? Doctoring all these newly rich miners, no doubt.” He’d known for a long time that a white man could live in the wilds, but only if such solitude was leavened with a good dose of civilization, which this alluring doctor could definitely bring. He’d had quite enough of smelly and grizzled yokels spitting their stream of tobacco juice on his floors.

The doctor seemed to be considering such an invitation. “I have a great interest in anthropology, and for obvious reasons am interested in tribes. I could learn quite a bit by taking a journey up to your land.”

“Then it’s decided!” Huntley said happily. “Plenty of my neighbors need doctoring, and I’m sure there will be much you can learn from the tribes.”

“And from you.” The doctor’s look was decidedly sultry, but Huntley had no idea why he’d be looking at him like that. His prick swelled again against his thigh with the joy of discovering something unknown. The doctor would lend a level of excitement unknown in the foothills, and it was definitely a pleasure just gazing at his exotic face. “Tell me. I’ve heard about this grand, immense valley, a secret valley, if you will, that’s been hidden from whites. An acquaintance was just telling me about it—it’s some stronghold of an Indian tribe.”

Huntley nodded. “The Ahwahnee Valley, the ‘Deep Grassy Valley.’ I’ve come close to it once while chasing some Indians who murdered a friend. There are supposed to be enormous waterfalls maybe five hundred feet tall and giant granite domes that have been worn smooth with time.”

“But you never saw it?”

“Nope. I came up to a high pass and was accosted by an old Indian compañero, Chief Tenaya. He warned me against going into the valley, that it was full of devils and evil beings, perfectly suited for an ambush. A terrible abyss guarded by a Rock chief who hurls boulders at white men.” Huntley chuckled. “I don’t hold stock in stories like that, of course—I was just running short on supplies, barefoot with poor animals, so I headed back.”

“This valley intrigues me,” said Doc. “If the waterfalls truly are hundreds of feet tall—”

“You damned Digger!”

The bellowing was so piercing that even the knot of men crowded around the gold barrel shut their traps and pricked up their ears. Huntley and the doctor swiveled their torsos to see what the uproar was, Huntley irritated that his conversation was interrupted.

A short, combustible fellow with black hair that stuck out every which way like an oily haystack stood in the grog shop doorway. He was so enraged that he seemed wider than he was tall, with angry hands held out from his sides as though he gripped bombs. His jaw worked furiously as he gnashed his teeth. “Let me get hold of your beggarly carcass and I’ll use you up so small that God Almighty himself can’t see your ghost!”

Huntley half rose from his chair. “What in the name of…”

When the short, smoking fellow raised his talons and made a rush for a pile of bottles and casks where the Diggers cowered, Huntley darted directly into the fray, maybe a ruse to distract everyone’s attention away from the gold barrel. He grabbed the man by the back collar of his woven Spanish waistcoat and held him in the air, his legs furiously wheeling as though he were snowshoeing on a frozen lake.

“Hold it right here, you shrimp!” Huntley hollered. “What’s all this business about whaling on one of my Indians?”

The shrimp sputtered and pointed. “He stole—he stole—”

To Huntley’s surprise, it was Dr. Whitney who stepped in then, his elegant hands gently extricating the waistcoat collar from Huntley’s grip. “I can handle this,” he told Huntley calmly. Once the shrimp’s feet were safely on the ground, the doctor turned him by the shoulders and bent down to look him in the eye. “Now, Bud. You know those Indians didn’t steal anything from you. We haven’t been anywhere near them since we’ve been in San Francisco.”

Bud’s eyes darted from side to side, and he seethed through gnashed teeth. “I want a whiskey.”

Whitman closed his eyes patiently. “All right, then.” Whitman handed Bud an eagle’s quill, presumably full of gold dust, and the shrimp sped off to the bar. Huntley looked on in astonishment at the calming effect the doctor had on the maniac, and Whitman steered him once again to a quieter spot. He leaned his tall, spare body into Huntley, practically pressing him to the wall. “That’s the fellow I was just telling you about—the one who told me about the deep secret valley. He’s all right. He just has a screw loose when it comes to Indians. Locked horns with some of them when crossing the plains to get here.”

“If you say so,” Huntley said mildly, again falling under the spell of the exotic physician. Even in the sweaty atmosphere of the grog shop, a tantalizing aroma of spice—cinnamon?—wafted from the doctor’s shirtfront. “Does that doughhead intend on coming to Agua Fria with us?”

Dr. Whitney smiled with casual confidence. “Oh, I think Bud would go anywhere I told him to.”

Huntley found himself grinning stupidly, too. “I can see why.”

He later looked back upon this odd meeting with a sense of anger at himself. What a fool, to fall so easily under Dr. Whitney’s spell! Huntley Ashbury was the biggest trader in the Sierra foothills, and nobody’s fool. He dictated arrangements, he set terms, and he instructed others what to do, not the other way around. But meeting the unusual doctor seemed to have sent all the blood in his head flowing in strange directions, to places it wasn’t normally meant to flow.