Like a River Glorious (30 page)

At one point, he looks up from digging a post hole, his face full of mischief. He says, “You know, Lee, this shanty will be big enough for two.”

My heart is suddenly racing. “Only if they don't mind getting cozy,” I manage.

“Oh, trust me. I don't mind.”

“In that case,” I say, and it's my turn to tease, “I bet Wilhelm would join you if you asked.”

Speak of the devil and you summon him, because movement catches my eye and I turn to find Wilhelm trudging up the rise, carrying something. It's a slate, and he clutches it tight with both huge hands.

“Hello, Wilhelm,” I say. “Did you and the blacksmith come to an arrangement?”

He nods, but he won't meet my gaze.

“I'm glad,” I say, only to fill the silence.

Wilhelm stares at the slate. Then his feet. His scarred lips press together firmly.
Clank, clank, clank
goes Jefferson's hammer.

Finally Wilhelm raises the slate toward me, indicating with his chin that I ought to take it, along with a bit of chalk.

I do, and I turn the slate over to discover that he has written something.

I am not a bad man.

I stare at the words a long moment. I can talk just fine, thank you very much, but it seems right not to. So beneath
his words, I write,
Then you've come to the right place
.

I hand it back, and he offers me a hesitant grin. Then he turns away and heads back down the hill toward the blacksmith's stall.

Only two days after our return, a courier rides into camp, his saddlebags bursting with letters. Everyone gathers around, hoping for a bit of correspondence or even just news. He calls out a few names I don't recognize, and various miners step forward to claim their letters. Then he hollers, “Leah Westfall!”

I'm so taken aback that I freeze. After a heart-pounding silence, I step forward on wary feet. I've no family back home. The only people who know me, know where I am, are my uncle and his men.

The courier hands me the letter and moves on to the next bit of correspondence as I step away. Suddenly my friends are surrounding me—Jefferson, Becky, Jasper, Hampton, Mary.

“Who's it from?” Hampton asks.

“Aren't you going to open it?” Mary says.

It's addressed to me in flowing, beautiful script. Not my uncle's handwriting, I note with relief. I turn it over, and I nearly drop it when I see the wax seal. It says
OFFICE OF THE TERRITORIAL CIVILIAN GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA
.

“Well, aren't you fancy!” Jasper says, delighted.

I use my thumb to break the seal and unfold the letter. I read quickly. “It's an invitation,” I say. “A formal invitation to the Christmas ball in Sacramento, on behalf of the new governor, Burnett himself.”

“Oh, my,” Becky breathes.

“It says I'm to select a contingent from the thriving American settlement of Glory, California, to accompany me.”

We all stare at the invitation in wonder.

“You'll have to leave in the next few days if you're to make it on time,” Jasper says.

Jefferson is the first person to ask, “But why?”

And with that single question, my brief pleasure at feeling flattered evaporates.

“People have been talking about Miss Leah,” Old Tug says.

I blink. “Really?”

“Folks say you destroyed Hiram's Gulch with nothing but gunpowder and grit.”

“Gossip spreads awful fast for an unsettled territory,” Jefferson grumbles, but I can't help feeling gratified. It's a whole heap better than everyone knowing the truth, that I crushed the mine to smithereens using my witchy powers.

“That's what we get for going around Sacramento,” Mary says. “News traveled ahead of us. Now people want to meet you, Lee. Take your measure.”

Tug says, “The peddler who stopped by two days back said the mine exploded in a cloud of gold dust. He called you the Golden Goddess.”

I groan, but Tom laughs. “That's ridiculous.”

“Course it ain't nothing but tall tales,” Tug says.

“Course,” I agree quickly.

“But it's enough to make a bunch of rich, uppity men curious, don't you think?”

“It's probably a legal matter,” Tom says. “Hiram Westfall
owed these men a lot of money. He also had a lot of property in his name. You're his only relative. If something happened to him, they might need your signature on some papers.”

“What if I ignore it?” I ask. “Just because they send me an invitation doesn't mean I have to attend.”

“I like that plan,” Jefferson says.

Tom shakes his head. “Lee, you must take this seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if your uncle's patron, the one to whom he owed thousands of dollars, will insist you make good on your uncle's debt. If you don't go to him, he could come to us. The law regarding property is still unsettled here, and he could find a way to take everything we've built.
Everything.
”

I look around at their anxious faces. “I won't let that happen.”

Becky Joyner reaches over and squeezes my hand gratefully.

James Henry Hardwick,
I say to myself. I frown at the invitation. It's not from Hardwick officially, but it might as well be.

“It feels like a trap,” Jefferson says, echoing my thoughts.

“Whatever you decide, be wary,” Jasper says, and there's a murmured chorus of agreement.

And that gets me thinking.

Maybe I'm the one they should be wary of. Maybe I'm the one who will spring a trap. And maybe being surrounded by friends is making me brash, but an idea has come knocking, and I know I have to try. All I need is money. Lots of money. Money is no trouble for a witchy girl, right? But even a witchy girl needs time, and I have none.

I lift my head from the letter and look at everyone in the group, meeting them eye to eye, and I make up my mind.

I say, “I'm going to need your help.”

We spend all of the next day feverishly preparing. Everyone wants to come with me, except Becky, who doesn't want to leave her children or her thriving business, and Hampton, who has no time for “dancing and frippery.” It turns out, he's going to go broke buying his wife's freedom and paying for her passage on a steamship. Her name is Adelaide, and Tom thinks he can arrange to get her here by next year. Hampton wants to have his stake built back up by then.

Becky gives me a gown she brought west for a special occasion. “I'm glad I saved it from the fire, but it's no good to me now,” she says, holding it up against me to eyeball the fit. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, made of sheened yellow silk, with a tiny pointed waist and a full swishing skirt. It will practically shimmer by lantern light, almost golden.

“You might need it someday,” I insist. “We still have to make that trip to San Francisco, remember? To get your home out of impound.”

She smiles. “I
am
home.”

The way she looks at me, her eyes shining but a little bit shy, her smile questioning, it's like she
needs
me to take this dress from her. I wonder if it's a bit of an apology, for everything that happened along the trail. “In that case, I thank you, Becky.”

“Maybe I'll go to the ball next year, when Olive and Andy
are a bit older and I don't have a baby who wants to nurse every waking moment.”

“I'd love that,” I say, giving her arm a squeeze.

Her face grows serious. “Let's just hope this gown helps you do your business.”

Together we take in the dress a smidge at the waist, and take up the hem an inch. We work in silence, each of us too aware of all that is at stake.

Jefferson, Jasper, and the Major are in charge of taking up a collection. They visit every single person with a nearby claim to tell them the plan and ask for a donation. The town seems to have acquired a few folks not interested in gold at all, like a dentist and the new blacksmith. Almost everyone cheerfully donates, but I can't imagine it will be nearly enough.

But we don't have any other choice. It will have to do.

I will have to do.

I
n the afternoon, as the sun is arching down toward the big valley, Jefferson and I steal away to our claims. We make sure no one is around to see, then we sit down together beside the creek.

“You don't need to do this, Lee,” Jefferson says, and he has a smile on his face, like he knows something I don't.

“I do,” I insist. “I need the money. Badly. And I have to know whether or not I can control it. I can't let anyone else get hurt.”

“If you say so.”

I close my eyes and call to the gold. I'm careful this time, selective. I don't rumble the gold in the ground under my legs or in the cliffs to our left. Instead, I reach for surface gold—powder and specks and a few tiny nuggets.

“It's working,” Jefferson says, his voice full of wonder. “You're covered in gold again.”

I open my eyes. Gold coats my arms, my skirt, everything. “I didn't hurt you, did I?” I ask, peering into his face. Last
time, I'm sure I injured people as the gold flew through the air, impacting or maybe even piercing skin.

“Not even a little. But look.” He points to the grassy creek bank. It's no longer a smooth, round hill, but rather a series of smaller hillocks, as though the mud tried to ripple toward me. “You'll get better with practice,” he says.

Together we scrape the gold from my skin and shake it from my hair. We lose a bit in the process, but it's no matter. We'll just mark the spot and pan it out later. I suppose we could retrieve it with mercury, but truth be told, after what happened to the Indians, I may never use mercury again.

“How much do you think we got?” Jefferson asks.

I heft the bag of gold dust in my hand, reaching with my witchy sense to get a feel for its purity and weight. “About three hundred dollars' worth,” I guess.

Jefferson whistles. “In just one day!”

“I might have to witch up some more along the way,” I say glumly.

He laughs.

“What?” I say, frowning.

“You don't need it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Our collection. The good people of Glory donated everything you need. And more.”

I gape at him.

“Becky herself gave five hundred dollars. Said she'll earn it back in a week. Turns out, people are coming from far and wide to visit the Worst Tavern.”

I can hardly breathe. “That's so much money,” I choke out.

“Old Tug and the Buckeyes put together about six hundred between them. The college men each gave a hundred. The Major gave a bunch, even Hampton. And then all these strangers, people who wandered into town after we left, well, they gave us a heap of money and gold, too. Lee, we raised more than four thousand dollars. At least I think so. I'm not as good at estimating gold value as you are.”

My legs don't seem to work right, and I'm forced to plop back down onto the ground. I let my face fall into my hands, and I just concentrate on trying to breathe. Four thousand dollars. And people just
gave
to us.

“Lee, what's wrong? I thought you'd be happy!”

“I'm fine! It's just . . .” Another deep breath. “I've spent my whole life witching up gold. It's how I fed my family. It's how I was supposed to become rich. I thought . . .” My voice turns sheepish as I admit this. “I thought my magic would save us all. But it turns out, all the magic in the world is rubbish compared to good people who take care of their own.”

Jefferson has this maddening grin that make my toes feel funny. “Well, that sounds like wisdom to me.” He reaches a hand for me. “Come on. Let's head over to the Worst Tavern for supper.”

I allow him to drag me to my feet and lead me back toward town. We're almost there when Jefferson grabs my arm. “Wait. Lee, there's something I've got to say.”

My eyes are level with his shirt. He's finally patched up that bullet hole, with clumsy black stitches. And he desperately
needs a new pair of suspenders. He deserves a nice, new set of boughten clothes. Maybe he'll let me buy it for him.

“Lee?”

I look up. He's gazing down at me with such pleading, such yearning, and it feels like I'm not getting enough air, because if he asks me to marry him again, I'm not sure what I ought to say.

“I know I've asked you to marry me a few times,” he begins.

“Just a few.”

“And that offer is still on the table; don't think it's not.”

“All right.”

“It's just . . . you should know . . . all this talk about California becoming a state soon and us getting a proper town charter and all . . .”

I reach for his hand and squeeze it tight. “Go on.”

“I'm not sure I want anything to do with it.”

“What?” Is he saying he'll leave me? How could he not want to be part of our town?

As if reading my mind, he says, “I mean, I'm not going anywhere. But . . . My mother's people were forced to leave Georgia so white men could get rich. And when we left to head west, I thought it would finally be my turn.
I
would be the one getting rich for a change. I deserved it, right?”

“You do deserve it, Jeff.”

“I don't. No one does. Not that way. And now, after what I saw at Hiram's Gulch, I'm not sure what to do.”

“So what are you saying? You won't mine? You won't be part of the town?”

He frowns. “I don't know what I'm saying exactly. I'm still figuring it. I'll probably do some mining, I'll hunt, a lot of the things I did back home. But I don't think I'll ever own property. It's not my land, Lee. And it wouldn't be right to just . . . take it. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe I can't own land free and legal, anyway, being half-Cherokee. But I thought you should know, on the off chance that you're considering becoming my wife. I mean, maybe you're not. But if you are . . . I may never own land. I'll probably never be rich.”

I'm not sure how to respond, or if I should. It's too much to think on to let any old thing come out of my mouth. I settle for squeezing his hand again and saying, “Thank you for telling me.”