The Gold Seekers (5 page)

Frankie’s body was the nearest. Crocker spread out a blanket, and motioning Roberts to help him, he started to lift the Australian’s still form onto it, only to let it go, an exclamation of shocked horror escaping him.

“God Almighty, John, he’s been shot! Shot in the back,

look for Christ’s sake! It wasn’t no explosion that killed him. He was shot.’”

One of the other men crawled through the narrow opening they had made, and he, too, swore in shocked tones.

“This poor fellow, too, Eph … and in the back just the same.”

“Get the boy out,” Crocker ordered hoarsely.

“Come on, Luke, my son,“John Roberts urged. “Do like Eph says—out with you.”

Luke tried to protest, but Roberts grasped him by the shoulders and propelled him back to the open air. Then, an arm about him, he led him to a pile of the rocks they had shifted and bade him sit down.

“We’ll say a prayer together, boy,” he suggested consolingly. “Don’t try to kneel; the good Lord will understand that you’re weak from shock. Just close your eyes and listen, eh?”

His prayer was delivered with deep sincerity and compassion, but Luke scarcely heard it, although he managed to whisper a dutiful “amen” when the well-meaning preacher paused for breath. And for all he was numb with shock from the scene he had witnessed, his mind was racing, drawing conclusions so appalling that he shrank from putting them into words, even to John Roberts.

For who would believe him, he asked himself bitterly; who would take his word against Jasper Morgan’s—Captain Morgan’s? And yet it had to be Morgan who had perpetrated the horror they had found beneath the ruins of the mine shaft. It had to be Morgan who had shot and killed—who had murdered—Dan and Tom and Frankie, since only he stood to gain by their deaths. Morgan had taken their shares in the strike, as well as his own fifty percent, and gone off to San Francisco with all of it, intending to sell the dust and the nuggets to the Mint at twenty-two dollars an ounce.

True, he had left the diggings the day before the explosion, but— Luke’s hands clenched in futile anger at his sides. Logan, the storekeeper, would bear witness to his departure, but was that not just what the treacherous swine had intended? He could have come back, leaving his wagon well hidden, without a soul’s being any the wiser… . Had he not taken the two extra horses and Tom’s saddle, for which there had been no obvious need?

There was a stir by the entrance to the mine shaft, and hearing Ephraim Crocker’s voice enjoining care, Luke felt wave after wave of nausea sweep over him. Bile rose in his throat, and he gagged.

Preacher Roberts brought his lengthy prayer abruptly to an end and rose from his knees.

“Stay where you are, Luke,” he advised. “Eph’s bringing them up now, I reckon. Best you don’t look till they’re decently covered.”

But he had to look, Luke knew; he had to be sure. He stumbled to his feet, disregarding Roberts’s proffered hand, and holding himself stiffly erect, he walked across the few yards that separated him from the bodies.

In the strong sunlight, the cause of all three deaths was plainly to be seen. Tom and Frankie had been shot from behind, but Dan’s wound was in the chest, as if— Luke shuddered involuntarily. As if his brother had realized suddenly what was being done and, turning to face his killer, had sought vainly to grapple with him. Dan’s mouth was open, frozen in death, and his eyes were wide with—what?

Not fear. Rather accusation, mingled with disbelief, when it must have dawned on him that the murdering devil holding the gun to his chest was the man—the gentleman—he had trusted: Captain Morgan, who had duped them into sinking a mine shaft which he must have known would yield no recoverable gold but which, instead, he had planned to transform into a tomb as soon as it was deep enough for its intended purpose.

Poor Dan would probably have had no time to voice his accusation before the Colt was fired, silencing him forever, and Morgan went squirming out, pausing only to light the fuse he had prepared before galloping to safety in the concealing darkness.

It all fitted, Luke thought dully; it had all gone according to plan—save, perhaps, for his own absence. But Morgan would not have worried unduly on that score. Once he had set off the explosion, the evidence of his evil crime would have been buried. Certainly he would not have imagined

that anybody, least of all Dan Murphy’s despised kid brother, was likely to dig down through tons of earth and rock, in order to bring out the bodies of his victims and, in so doing, reveal the truth.

Controlling himself took an effort of will, but Luke made it. He drew the edge of the blanket over Dan’s dead face and rose, looking at Ephraim Crocker in mute question. He had not expected the old miner to reach the same conclusion as he had, or even to reason along similar lines, yet evidently Crocker had done just that, for lowering his voice, he said, “We’ll bring the man that did this to justice, son, never fear. An’ there’s only one man that could’ve done it, only one that stood to gain, ain’t there? But it’ll have to be brought up before the committee and the evidence stated clearly, so that it’s legal, understand?”

He motioned the two miners who had come out of the shaft with him to stand aside, and the storekeeper, Logan, drove his wagon carefully over the littered ground and drew up within a few yards of the blanket-covered bodies. The others held a brief, low-voiced conversation, and then Crocker took Luke’s arm and led him out of earshot.

“We’ll give them a Christian burial tomorrow mornin’, Luke boy,” he promised. “An’ when that’s done, I’ll convene a meetin’ o’ the full committee. You’ll likely be called on to tell the meetin’ everything you can about the partnership terms you agreed to an’ about Captain Morgan—and, o’ course, the strike you made, so best git your gear together an’ come in with us for the night. We must act fast, son, if we’re to see justice done.”

Luke nodded his understanding.

The funeral service, conducted by John Roberts, was attended by virtually every man in the Thayer’s Bend camp. For Luke it was an ordeal, but he met it with frozen calm and was heartened by the expressions of sympathy he received and by the men’s spontaneous kindness. Many had taken the trouble to don their best suits, with ties or cravats and high-crowned derbies, and all had sacrificed a considerable portion of their day’s work in order, as one old-timer put it, “To show our respects to them poor young fellers, cut off in the prime of life.”

The meeting of the camp committee took place immediately after Luke’s partners had been laid to rest. Under Ephraim Crocker’s chairmanship it was brisk and businesslike, but in spite of this, it proved a greater ordeal than the funeral had been, for Luke found himself cast in the role of principal witness.

After Crocker and Roberts had given evidence concerning the finding of the bodies and the fact that all three men had died from gunshot wounds, he was called to take the stand, addressed formally as Mr. Murphy. The formality added to Luke’s uneasiness, but he answered the questions as truthfully and clearly as he could, describing the partnership agreement with Jasper Morgan in detail and then, prompted by Crocker, giving a minute description of his strike.

Asked to estimate its value, he could only answer lamely that he did not know. “Dan—my brother Dan told me that he guessed it would fetch around ten thousand dollars from the Mint in “Frisco.”

“And this was why Captain Morgan had the gold in his possession? He was to take it to ‘Frisco with your consent— yours and your partners’?”

“The others must’ve consented,” Luke answered, frowning as he tried to remember what Dan had told him. “I wasn’t asked, but—well, Dan said we had to trust Captain Morgan, and that was good enough for me. He had scales and was going to weigh the gold and give us a signed paper stating how much there was.”

“Did you receive such a paper, Mr. Murphy?” John Roberts asked.

“No, sir. I’d left for home before it was ready.”

“Did you trust Captain Morgan?” one of the other committeemen demanded unexpectedly. When Luke hesitated, not certain how to reply, he added, “What I’m getting at is this: When you set out to visit your folks, you knew Morgan intended to take the gold to San Francisco, didn’t you?”

“Yes. From what Dan said, I knew he was preparing to

go.” “What made you think he would come back with your and

your partners’ share of the price he got for the gold? Had you any guarantee, or did your brother ask for one?”

Luke shuffled his feet uneasily. He had never trusted Jasper Morgan, he thought with bitterness, although he had certainly never supposed him to be capable of murder.

“There’s the girl, sir,” he said lamely. “Morgan’s daughter. He wasn’t taking her to ‘Frisco with him, and Dan said he would come back on her account. So I figured—”

Ephraim Crocker cut him short. “I’ve sent for the girl, son. We’ll hear what she has to say as soon as she gits here.” He took out his pocket watch and looked inquiringly at the faces of the members of his committee. “That’s liable to be awhile yet. So if there’s no more questions you want to ask young Luke here, we can adjourn for half an hour. Talkin’s thirsty work.”

“I do have a question, Eph,” one of the younger men said. “It won’t take above a minute.” He turned to face Luke and said crisply, “We’ve been told that the wounds the murdered men suffered were most likely caused by shots fired at close range from a Colt forty-four. Did Captain Morgan carry a Coif forty-four, d’you know?”

Luke met his gaze and nodded. “Yes, sir, he did.”

“Then I’d say that wraps it up, Eph,” the questioner suggested. “Whatever Morgan’s daughter has to tell us. I move that we bring in a verdict on the evidence we’ve heard.”

“What verdict have you in mind, Sam?” Crocker asked, his gavel poised.

“Well, I don’t know just how it’d have to be worded to make it legal,” the man addressed as Sam conceded. “But what I have in mind is that this feller Jasper Morgan’s guilty of murder and—what’s it called?—larceny, and we ought to find accordingly. Then, when he comes back for his daughter, we’ll hang him.”

There was a stunned silence; then several voices were raised in assent. Ephraim Crocker rapped with his gavel. “He’d have to be charged an’ put on trial, Sam,” he demurred. “We got no right to condemn him without lettin’ him plead. We ain’t no lynch mob.” He shrugged his bowed shoulders. “Let me think about it, eh? An’ I guess we ought to hear from the girl before we bring in a verdict. All right? Then the meetin’s adjourned till she gits here.”

The girl was brought in an hour later, and although Tom had said that she was pretty, Luke was taken aback by the sight of her. She was more than pretty, he thought. She was beautiful—a slim, delicate-featured young woman, with fair hair, neatly braided about a shapely head, and skin that had tanned to an exquisite golden brown.

She was very frightened, and her blue eyes were red-rimmed, the lids swollen, as if she had been weeping ceaselessly all the way to the camp. But she had courage. Faced by the circle of inquisitors, she squared her thin shoulders and held her head high, replying to Ephraim Crocker’s request that she submit to his committee’s questions in a spirit of cooperation.

“I will tell you what I can, sir. It may not be much.”

She bore little resemblance to her father, Luke thought, and she was younger than he had supposed—his own age or even less. Old Ephraim Crocker, clearly moved by her appearance and bearing, offered a guarded warning. “This meetin’ has been convened to inquire into the deaths of the three poor young fellers we found yesterday in a mine shaft in Windy Gully.”

He started to go into details, but the girl said, “There was an explosion, wasn’t there? I heard that there had been an accident and men killed.”

She seemed to be unaware of the fact that the three men had been her father’s partners, Luke realized, and as her innocent blue gaze stared intently at Ephraim Crocker, it was plain that she could have no notion of the suspicion with which her father was now regarded. And there was no way to break it to her gently, although, to his credit, the old man tried. He explained about the gunshot wounds, and the girl continued to regard him gravely. Only when he named the dead men and, pointing to Luke, told her that his brother was one of the victims, did her expression change.

She said softly but with genuine feeling, “Oh, I am sorry, indeed I am, Mr. Murphy.”

“Come to the point, Eph,” the man who had advocated a

hanging put in impatiently, “or we’ll be here all day. Tell her that her pa is the prime suspect.”

“Well, now, I guess that’s the truth, little missy,” Ephraim Crocker said awkwardly. “All the evidence we’ve heard points to it, you see. Your father—Captain Jasper Morgan, that is—why, he’s gone off to ‘Frisco, an’ we reckon he’s taken—”

“Please!” The girl’s interruption was shrill, the color draining from her cheeks as understanding dawned. But she controlled herself and added, with the same dignity that she had displayed during Crocker’s attempted explanation, “You are mistaken. Captain Morgan is not my father. I bear no relation to him, sir—none at all.”

There was another prolonged silence as the members of the committee slowly took in the implications of her denial. Luke was the first to find his tongue.

Crossing to her side, he asked quietly, “What is your name? Tom—Tom Gardener told us it was Mercy, and we thought you were Morgan’s daughter. We took it for granted, I guess, because—well, Morgan’s old enough to be your father, and Tom said … You remember Tom, don’t you?”

“Yes, I remember him,” the girl responded. She faced him unflinchingly, although Luke, feeling acutely sorry for her, saw tears in her eyes, and her hands, clasped tightly in front of her, were visibly trembling. “My name is Mercedes Louisa Bancroft, but I’m called Mercy. My—my father was Henry Bancroft, but he—he is dead. My mother also. They both died of the cholera a year ago, when our wagon train reached Fort Kearny on the way to the diggings. I—I came on with the train to Sacramento. I was alone, I—some of the Folk on the train were good to me, those who had started with us from Illinois and knew my parents. But I—I did not want to be a burden to them. So I …” She choked on a sob. “I wanted to fend for myself, but—”