Barkerville Gold (15 page)

Daniel glanced up, confused. “Who are you? What are you talking about?”

Phyllis reached out a long, scrawny finger and poked him on the chest. “Amazing! You feel so real. Tell me, Three Finger, do you have the gold?”

His eyes widened. “How do you know about the gold?”

“Because it doesn't belong to you, you know. You stole it and I hope you're planning to give it back.”

“Look, lady, I don't know who…” He glanced around nervously. That's when he spotted the kids. “You!” he bellowed. “I should have taken care of you when I had the chance!”

“Now, Three Finger,” Phyllis said, “let's not have any threats. You know you'll never rest in peace if you can't behave nicely.”

“And just look at you,” Katie said. “You're a mess. You really should think twice about threatening us.”

“Right,” Sheila added, “we're tougher than we look.”

“And besides,” Rusty pointed out, “all these nice folks are watching you.”

Daniel growled under his breath. Then he looked down the road and cursed out loud. Rusty turned in time to see Bill entering the Visitors' Center with Ms. Evans right behind him. “Wait!” Daniel called, but they didn't hear. He limped after them with Phyllis close at his heels.

“You really must watch your language, Three Finger. We don't appreciate swear words in Barkerville.”

Rusty, Sheila and Katie followed at a distance.

They huddled outside the Visitors' Center. “What now?” asked Sheila.

Before anyone could answer they heard GJ call, “Hey, there you are!” He and Gram hurried to join them. “What luck! We just got back and thought we might have trouble finding you.”

“Look at you three!” Gram said. “You're soaking wet! And you must be starved. You know, we've been thinking about lunch at the Lung Duck Tong Restaurant all the way back from Quesnel.”

“So, let's go already!” GJ said and led the way down the street.

When they finally returned to their campsite, they found a note taped on the trailer door. Gram read it aloud:

Dear Friends:

I'm so sorry to miss dinner with you but something came up and I must get home as soon as
possible. So I'm making a start this afternoon. I'll
write my phone number below, please call me a
week from today. I value your friendship and hope
we can meet again.

Thank you all so very much,
Joyce Evans

“That's odd,” Gram said. “What is she thanking us for? We didn't do anything.”

GJ winked. “I expect a morning with these three was enough to make her run for her life. She's probably just grateful to get away and too polite to say so.”

Rusty glanced at the girls. They looked as disappointed as he was to hear Ms. Evans had gone. He wondered if she managed to clear Eng Quan's name. Would her son safely reach the age of forty-two next week? How would they ever find out?

“Come on inside where it's warm and dry,” GJ suggested, unlocking the door.

“Can we go for a bike ride first?” Katie asked.

“In the rain?”

“It has almost stopped,” Katie pointed out, “and we really need some exercise.”

“Or we'll be awake half the night,” Rusty added.

“In that case, go,” GJ laughed, “but come right back if it starts pouring again.”

They followed Katie, who turned left out of the campsite. “Where are we going?” Sheila wanted to know.

“I want to see if Bill and Daniel are still here.”

Ms. Evans' campsite was empty, so they rode in and hopped off their bikes near the picnic table. Through the trees, they could see the white van directly behind, but there was no sign of life around it.

“At least they aren't following her,” Rusty said. “I wonder what happened.”

Just then a small red car pulled into the campsite, the driver's door opened and a man stepped out. “Hi, kids!” he called. “It's good to see you again.”

As the man walked toward them, Rusty recognized him as one of the security guards, the one named David Eng. What was he doing here?

“I had hoped to find Ms. Evans because I want to compare notes.”

The kids stayed by their bikes while David Eng settled on the picnic table, his boots on the bench seat.

“What notes?” Katie asked.

“Notes about our ancestors,” Eng replied. “You see, for all these years my four-times-great-uncle, Eng Quan, has been considered a criminal and his father has been accused of placing a terrible curse on the Evans family. I came to Barkerville hoping to learn the truth.”

“There was a curse,” Rusty said. “Ms. Evans came all this way to break it.”

Eng shook his head. “Coincidence perhaps, or an initial fear that caused the curse to come true for Three Finger and his son. I expect Three Finger fell into a gulch somewhere, or was tossed in by those angry miners. Many men met a similar fate in those days.”

“What about Eng Chung? What happened to him?”

“My family has a letter to my great-great-grandfather from his brother Eng Chung. It states Eng Chung's belief that Three Finger Evans purposely left that gold pouch under his stairs to cast suspicion on Eng Quan. The young man was not liked by the white miners because he complained about the poor treatment Chinese miners received in Barkerville. When the pouch was found, Eng Chung advised his son to run away before he could be arrested. After Eng Chung heard news of Eng Quan's death, he did not live much longer himself.”

“What about the curse on Three Finger and all his first-born sons?”

“Although it is possible, and some say that an apothecary such as Eng Chung would know how to concoct such a curse, as I say, I personally don't believe in such things and there is no mention of it in his letter.”

“But, just in case, did Ms. Evans manage to clear Eng Quan's name?”

Eng smiled and got to his feet. “That she did.” He shook hands with each of them. “I want to thank you,” he said. “Ms. Evans didn't say so, but I suspect you were a big help in all of this.” Before getting into his car, Eng called, “Be sure to listen to the six o'clock news!”

When his watch finally said 6:00, Rusty asked, “Can we listen to the news?”

Gram and GJ exchanged surprised glances. GJ got up and switched on the radio to CBC.

There was a lot of news before they heard it: “A fortune in gold has been discovered in an abandoned mine shaft near British Columbia's historic gold-rush town of Barkerville. After 136 years, a mystery has been solved and an ancient wrong put right. Ms. Joyce Evans, relative of the original Three Finger Evans who stole the gold from several mines, says she is happy it has been returned at last. She wants the world to know that Eng Quan, the young Chinese man originally suspected of the thefts, was completely innocent. The gold will be used to restore and maintain the historic site for years to come.

“Meanwhile, two Ontario men have been taken in for questioning on suspicion of the kidnapping of Ms. Evans and attempted theft.”

GJ switched off the radio. “That's incredible!” he said. “All this happened right under our noses and we knew nothing about it.”

Gram glanced suspiciously from Katie to Rusty to Sheila.

“Amazing.” Rusty grinned.

“Hard to believe,” Katie agreed.

Sheila nodded. “Maybe that's why she left early.”

One week later they stopped at Mount Robson Provincial Park. With the huge snow-covered peak towering above them, they clustered around a pay phone. Gram made the call. Rusty fidgeted, the girls looked worried.

“Joyce! Yes, it's Lynne Sampson calling. How are you?”

Rusty watched Gram's face and was relieved when it broke into a smile.

“Oh, that's wonderful! Certainly. Well, we do have until September, but Ontario is so far away. Yes, he is.” Gram passed the phone to Rusty. “She wants to talk to you.”

“Hello?” He heard laughter in the background.

“Rusty! Wonderful news! We're having a party at my new townhouse. It's my son's forty-second birthday today!”

“That's good.” Rusty was relieved and happy for her and wished he could think of something more exciting to say.

“And Rusty? My grandson Brandon is here. I told him about you—not everything, you understand, and don't worry, I don't intend to tell anyone the whole truth. You, Katie, Sheila and I are the only ones who know what really happened.”

“Thank you.”

“No, Rusty, it's you and the girls who have my eternal gratitude. You're true heroes in my book.”

Rusty couldn't think of an answer, so he was relieved when Ms. Evans continued. “Anyway, Brandon wants to meet you. If you get anywhere near Cornwall this summer, come and visit us.”

“That would be fun,” Rusty said.

While Ms. Evans talked to Sheila and Katie in turn, Rusty gazed up at the massive, snowy mountain peak that dwarfed everything for miles around. Tomorrow they would drive through Yellowhead Pass and into Alberta. He wondered if the rest of their trip would be anywhere near as exciting as their visit to Barkerville.

Spirits of the Cariboo

Barker, William.
Billy Barker arrived at Williams Creek in August 1862. He is thought to have been a sailor who jumped ship in Victoria after being lured by tales of gold. Short, bowlegged and with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard, Billy Barker always wore his sailor's belt, and for good reason. The punishment for deserting ship was death. However, if a man kept just one article of his sailor gear with him, he was not considered a deserter but merely AWOL. Inspired by Ned Stout, Billy Barker dug below the canyon near a rock outcrop where he estimated the creek had once run. Other miners joked and laughed as Barker dug deeper and deeper without finding a trace of gold. They stopped laughing when he hit paydirt. A one-square-foot shovel load yielded $1,000 in gold. Although Barker became a very rich man, he lost every penny and died in poverty.

Barkerville
. Shops, saloons and houses quickly rose up around Billy Barker's claim to create the town of Barkerville. But every spring, when the mountain snows melted, Williams Creek overflowed into the streets. The problem was made even worse by miners who diverted the creek in their constant search for gold.

The people of Barkerville were resourceful, though. They built every house and shop on stilts to let the spring floods flow below their floorboards. A little advance planning might have been in order, however, because every building was at a different height and so was the boardwalk in front of it, which made walking somewhat hazardous. Stairs from the boardwalk descended to a muddy road where cattle, pigs and horses added their contributions to the mucky mess.

Most of the miners lived outside of town in tents, dugouts or lean-tos. Some built tiny, one-room log cabins. Fireplaces were made from rocks cemented together with clay. Thousands of trees were chopped down, leaving only stumps behind, and the barren hills were soon covered with tents and shanties.

Barnard, Francis Jones.
On April 14, 1861, Barnard was a purser on the
Fort Yale
, comfortably seated in the steamboat's dining room. Suddenly he was blown straight up into the air and landed outside on the railing of a sinking ship. The
Fort Yale's
overheated boiler had exploded, and many on board were killed. Luckily for Barnard, he was soon plucked out of the water by local Natives. It might be while he was flying through the air, or perhaps as he was dragged helplessly downstream, that Barnard came up with the idea of starting an express business on dry land.

Barnard began by delivering letters and newspapers between Victoria and Barkerville and later ran a successful wagon service on the Cariboo Wagon Road. Ten years after his amazing flight, Barnard had another run-in with a boiler. This time he purchased two “Patent India Rubber-tired Road Steamers” to carry freight between Yale and Barkerville. Stacks of wood were left along the roadside to fuel the first of these cumbersome machines, but the steep mountain roads altered the boiler's water level so drastically that the boiler became dangerously overheated. After three days, Barnard's road steamer gave up the struggle at Jackass Mountain.

Begbie, Matthew Baillie.
The British government selected Begbie, a lawyer, to be the judge responsible for bringing law and order to its brand-new colony of British Columbia. Sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, Begbie traveled his circuit from one community to another to hold trials wherever a crime occurred. Along the way, he often caught his own food by fishing and hunting. During his travels, Begbie made excellent maps of the trails for others to follow.

From the start, Begbie had a reputation for treating all suspects fairly. His firm justice kept the Cariboo gold rush much safer than the lawless California gold rush had been. Even so, to be on the safe side, Begbie acquired the habit of traveling with a bodyguard, a huge and fierce Native man who wielded a hunting knife and a bow and arrow.

Although he became known as “The Hanging Judge,” Begbie only gave the death penalty when he felt it was necessary.

Cameron, John
. Cameron, his wife, Sophia, and their infant daughter set out from Cornwall, Ontario, by ship in 1862. They arrived in Victoria penniless and with a very sick child. The little girl died, but Cameron and a grieving Sophia continued on to the Cariboo. They arrived a few days after Billy Barker.

Cameron and his partners staked ground downstream from Barker and started digging. In October, shortly before Sophia, who hated the Cariboo, died of typhoid, she extracted a promise from her husband. Two months later, Cariboo Cameron struck it rich.

Early the following spring he loaded his wife's coffin on a sled and, with a few helpers, dragged it all the way to Victoria. Often they lost control in ice and snow, and the heavy coffin went shooting down slopes, only to be dragged laboriously up again. Cameron later accompanied the coffin, filled with whiskey to preserve the body, back to Cornwall. His promise to Sophia had been kept.