The Ballad of Lucy Whipple Page 4

  "He ain't much for other people," Jimmy said. "Doesn't he have any kin?"

  "Well," said Jimmy, scratching his beard with his fork, "there's Hennit, though I don't suppose you'd exactly call him kin. And there was the duck."

  "What duck?"

  "Old Snowshoe used to own a killer duck named Goliath. He would take that duck from mining camp to mining camp to fight with dogs and make a lot of money on. Seems no one would bet on a duck against a dog, but no dog could beat that duck. Except one." Jimmy sighed. "Guess you'd have to say that duck was like Snowshoe's kin."

  Dear Uncle Matt, Aunt Beulah, and Cousin Batty,

  We just received the letter you sent us last summer. It was the first we've gotten here in Lucky Diggins, and what a pleasure to hear from you and know all that little Batty is doing. I am sure she deserved the spelling prize and the art medal, and we are all pulling for her to be Easter Princess, you can just imagine.

  Mama and I keep very busy with the boarding house, washing dirty sheets and skinning rabbits and boiling bear fat and lye for soap. Butte still fetches and carries for miners and rents our mule, Sweetheart, for a dollar a day to newcomers who need help lugging their belongings upriver. Butte also works mornings sweeping out the saloon. The more the miners drink, the more gold dust gets dropped on the floor, so he has taken to sifting the sweepings. He found enough last week to pay for a barrel of salted beef that was only part rotted, and we have enjoyed it for supper ever since.

  Prairie takes care of Sierra and pulls weeds and is right now spreading manure on what will be our vegetable patch next summer. Sierra only toddles and messes in her diapers, but we expect that for she is only two. I think we should just let Sierra sit in the vegetable patch to save labor.

  Mama found this letter before it was mailed, and that was the end of my letter writing for a while. She made me take over Prairie's job of gathering mule manure for the garden. This is how I learned that writing can be dangerous as grizzlies if it falls into the wrong hands.

  Dear Gram and Grampop,

  It is almost Christmas. If you would like to know what presents I would like, well, they are a book and a dress with cabbage roses, although I am not hinting, for I know you will not even get this letter by Christmas.

  As Christmas came closer, the boarding house was filled with whisperings, secrets, and giggles as we made presents for one another: rosehip necklaces, corncob dolls, taffy, and molasses popcorn balls. On Christmas Eve, while darning Snowshoe's stockings as a present for him, I lamented over a Christmas without turkey and mince pies, eggnog and sleigh rides, Gram and Grampop. Then I thought of the man with big feet crossing the pass in the snow with no kin but a dead duck. I went and hugged Mama, Prairie, Sierra, and even Butte, who grumbled but did not shove me away.

  Dear Gram and Grampop,

  Thank you for The Little Christian's Book of Pious Thoughts that you sent me for Christmas. Imagine my surprise when I opened my Christmas package and there it was.

  I hope you will like the pressed-flower picture I sent you. Jimmy Whiskers said the flowers are from the manzanita tree, which does not grow in Massachusetts but thrives in California because it can spread out.

  I know you are right, that Mama needs me here to help, but I am sorry you think me too much trouble to offer a room to. You are not that old.

  Yours very truly,

  Lucy Whipple

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WINTER 1850

  In which I hunt for Rattlesnake Jake

  and have to eat my supper standing up

  That winter was the coldest and wettest anyone could remember. Rain fell day after day on the tents and trees and the blacksmith shop, on the half-built wooden buildings and the piles of garbage in the street, on rabbit burrows and grizzly caves, on Indians and miners and shopkeepers, and on me.

  Creeks flooded, rivers overflowed their banks, sending tents and shacks floating down to the bay and out to sea. No one could work, no one could even walk without losing his boots in the deep, sticky mud. Our tents grew soaked during the day and froze in the cold each night. Pack trains stopped altogether, and we were dependent on what we could catch or find or borrow to eat.

  Sometimes I stood at the tent flap, just watching the downpour, thinking with great longing of the Massachusetts rain, not icy needles like this but big soft drops that made quarter-sized spots on the dry ground, big juicy drops we caught on our tongues and swallowed to relieve our thirst. I'd stand there until my eyelashes grew heavy with frost and one or other of the boarders would grab the tent flap from my hand, shouting, "Dang bab it, little sister, it's so cold in here, my britches is froze to my bum, pardon me altogether."

  The few miners who stayed over the winter spent their days and nights at the saloon until the whiskey ran out. Then they came back to the boarding house, and we got to know one another very well, for the cold rain kept us all inside a good deal of the time, working, telling stories, arguing, and complaining.

  One afternoon the rain washed in a curly-headed young man from out east who'd gotten lost on his way from Downieville. He wore the miners' boots and flannels with a high black silk hat left over from his days as a dandy. He shaved every week and never spat indoors. We called him the Gent.

  The Gent was tall enough to break icicles off the tent poles to suck on, and he could play "Aura Lee" and "I Gave My Love a Penny" on his fiddle, the first music heard in Lucky Diggins that wasn't provided by mules, jays, and the roaring of the river. Each night we huddled around the cookstove trying to keep warm and listened and sang and tapped our feet in time.

  "You know," Amos said, when the Gent finished a particularly jolly "Sweet Betsy from Pike/' "there ain't nothin' like a ballad on a rainy night."

  "What do you mean, ballad?" I asked.

  "Well, little sister, I'd say a ballad is a poem that tells a story of the extraordinary doin's of ordinary folk. You can say ballads or sing 'em or jist play their tunes for folks who know. I learned me lots of ballads in Texas."

  "Tell us one. Please."

  "You jist sit back and listen, sis, and I'll tell you a good one. Imagine we're outside, settin' round a fire of cow pies and dry grass. But for the fire it's so dark you couldn't find your nose with both hands, and there you sit, lookin' at the moon through the neck of a bottle and listenin' to the coyotes sing when someone starts in tellin':

  "This here's the ballad of Rattlesnake Jake,

  A man as mean as sin.

  He used barbed wire to comb his hair

  And gargled with straight gin.

  "He picked his teeth with a Bowie knife.

  He'd rob, he'd shoot, he'd kill.

  He pushed old ladies off of cliffs

  And babies down the hill."

  "Thunderation! What a villain!" Jimmy Whiskers cried as he threw a piece of pine wood into the stove. "If I ever catch up with him..." The Gent shushed him, and Jimmy sat back down again, scratching his belly as he listened. Amos Frogge continued.

  "Till Sheriff Bueller came to town

  With star of shiny tin.

  Said, 'I swear on my mother's grave,

  I'm bringin' that outlaw in.'

  "So while the townfolk all raised Hell,

  No one went to jail,

  For the sheriff was busy as bees in June

  Following Rattlesnake's trail.

  "He tracked him through the mountain snow,

  And down the river he chased,

  Till in a cabin dark as death

  The two came face to face.

  "The sheriff stood in the cabin door,

  His eyes were mad and hot.

  But Jake was ready, cool as ice,

  And dropped him in one shot."

  Mama had stopped sweeping and was leaning on her broom to listen, while Prairie had crawled onto my lap. I hardly noticed, so caught up was I in the tale of the villainous Rattlesnake Jake. I had assumed this was going to be just a story, but it sounded so real, as if Jake could be down any road or behind a
ny tree.

  "The bullet went plumb through the sheriff

  As only bullets can,

  Bounced off a bedpost made of iron

  And the miner's pick and pan.

  "Clang went a kettle when the bullet struck,

  Bouncing off with such a force

  The chimney shook, a brick fell down

  And squashed the sheriff's horse.

  "The skies grew dark, the wind blew fierce,

  And the bullet, as if beguiled,

  Pierced the heart of a grizzly bear

  About to eat a child.

  "When the posse caught up with Rattlesnake,

  Jake drawled with a sneer,

  'Sorry the sheriff got in the way.

  I was aimin' for that bear.'"

  Jimmy jumped up. "That ain't so! The ding-danged liar. He was gunnin' for the sheriff all the time!" I pulled his shirt and he sat down again.

  "The deputy laughed like he didn't believe—

  Jake was as bad as Nero—

  But the mother cried with tears in her eyes,

  'Oh Jake, you is a hero!'

  "So Jake went free to rob and kill

  With glee and no remorse,

  And he picked his teeth with his Bowie knife

  As he rode out on his horse.

  "So if you see around your camp

  A man with his eye on your stake,

  Lock up your gold, your wife, your dog—

  It might be Rattlesnake Jake."

  "Whoo!" said Jimmy Whiskers, slapping Amos on the back. "That story is taller than it is wide." He laughed and swung Prairie onto his shoulders, and they went to talk Mama into a piece or two of dried corn cake to hold them until breakfast. But I sat still as a stone wall. Dag diggety, what if Rattlesnake Jake was real? What if he was one of our boarders? I started to laugh at the very idea when I thought of Mr. Coogan picking his teeth and scowling at me. What if Rattlesnake Jake was real and he was our boarder Mr. Coogan?

  "Listen," I said later to Butte, "I have long thought there is something curious about Mr. Coogan. He doesn't dig or wash for gold. He has no job, no store, no obvious prospects. He just walks around all day, poking and prying, and at night sits and stares at his paper. I think he's up to no good. I think he could be Rattlesnake Jake."

  Butte was skeptical. Even I wasn't absolutely convinced until I realized that if the story were true and if Rattlesnake Jake were real and if he were an outlaw, then there was likely to be a reward for capturing him. And if Mr. Coogan were Rattlesnake Jake and if I helped capture him, then the reward would be mine! I took to watching Mr. Coogan closely, but he did nothing more evil than eat and sleep and battle his way through the rain to the privy out back.

  When the rain eased a bit, he left the shelter of the boarding house and walked around the town. I followed along whenever I could get free. He carried his mysterious piece of paper folded up inside his hat and took it out now and then to read and chuckle over. Butte reckoned it was a map to a lost gold mine but I was convinced it was a copy of "The Ballad of Rattlesnake Jake."

  "Mama," I said finally, "we've got to send someone to Marysville for the sheriff. I think maybe Mr. Coogan is Rattlesnake Jake."

  "He is Percival Coogan and no outlaw."

  "But Mama, he seems very suspicious. He doesn't dig or hunt or gamble or drink. He walks around in the rain and mumbles to himself and doesn't talk to anybody. What is he doing here?"

  "He pays his eighteen dollars and twenty cents a week, that's what he does. Now don't pester the man."

  "But Mama..."

  "But Mama nothing. Where do you get these notions? Go light a fire in the yard. We got to boil these sheets before it starts to rain again."

  I kept on following Mr. Coogan, real careful and sneaky-like to make sure neither he nor anyone else saw me. With all the rain, the diggings looked as if an army of pigs had rooted through there, and I slipped and squished in the mud. Everything looked so different, and I had to stay so far behind, that several times I got lost and bumped into Mr. Coogan making his way back. I shivered all the way home.

  I followed him down to the river and back again, up onto the bluff and down again, into the woods and out again. Peeking through tent flaps, I saw him eyeing the gold dust in Mr. Scatter's money drawer, watching the card players and their bags of dust, snorting as liquor and money passed by him in the saloon, but gathered no evidence of evil deeds.

  "What's up, little sister?" asked the Gent. "You look as worried as a duck in the desert."

  "It's Mr. Coogan. Don't you think it's suspicious, him being here all this time and doing nothing to make or spend money?"

  "Mighty strange, but no crime."

  "What if he is Rattlesnake Jake and he waylays you on the way back to town and leaves you to die with a bullet in your head and takes off with your gold?"

  "Now, little sister, the man hasn't done anything illegal. But keep watching. You may be a hero yet."

  I didn't want to be a hero—just wanted the reward. I knew I wasn't hero material, but Butte just might be.

  "Butte," I said early one morning, "if Mr. Coogan is indeed Rattlesnake Jake, we are in grave danger—me and Prairie and golden-haired Sierra and your beloved Mama..." I piled it on, and before he knew it, rain or no rain, he and Sweetheart were heading toward Rocky Bar for the deputy.

  Mama asked at supper, "Where's Butte, girl?"

  "Gall me Lucy?"

  Mama frowned and said nothing.

  "He's helping French Pete tote some supplies to Rocky Bar. He'll be back tomorrow," I said, looking down at my lap. I was of the opinion that lying was a bad thing to do and cautioned Prairie and Sierra always to tell the truth. But these were desperate circumstances, and money for Massachusetts was on the line, so I lied but looked at my lap in preference to meeting Mama's eyes.

  The ugly boarder who was probably Rattlesnake Jake gave me his fishy cold stare but said nothing.

  By next morning the rain had become a storm with thunder and lightning and a mighty wind that put me in mind of The Swiss Family Robinson. Mr. Coogan put on his boots and his fur-lined coat with the beaver collar and went out anyway. I stayed behind to wait for the deputy, but neither the boarder nor Butte came back that day.

  The storm passed, and Butte and the deputy rode into town the next morning. Mr. Coogan had not come back. He never did come back. Seemed like he just wandered off into the storm, leaving his gear behind. The deputy, Amos Frogge, Mr. Scatter, and the Gent went out searching for him, but the rain had erased his trail and they never saw hide nor hair of him. They figured he was lost in the storm and drowned or was eaten by a grizzly. I thought he had hightailed it out of town after finding out that Butte had gone for the law.

  Butte got a scolding from Mama, but I got a licking. "Tie down that imagination of yours and quit telling stories before you get someone into real trouble." I figured I had already gotten someone into real trouble. Me. I had to eat supper standing up.

  "Guess his running away proves," I said to the Gent, who had decided to stay and try his luck in Lucky Diggins, "that he really was Rattlesnake Jake."

  "Could be, little sister, could be, but it don't always pay to go by appearances," said the Gent, winking at me as he picked his teeth with his Bowie knife.

  To this day I can't say for sure that Rattlesnake Jake was Mr. Coogan. But he could have been. Or the Gent. Or anybody. Or nobody. And I'll never know. Things like this that aren't true or false, right or wrong, really irritate me.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SPRING 1850

  In which Mama gets into a temper, Sweetheart gets

  lost, and I hear something I wish I hadn't

  With the spring the miners came back more numerous than ever, as if they had obeyed the biblical command to be fruitful and multiply. The tent was exploding with boarders, and that meant plenty of extra work. One Sunday Mama boiled over. She kicked my book out into the mud, slapped Prairie for eating the last flapjack, and bellowed at the Gent,
"Quit mooning at me with those cow eyes of yours and go do something useful!" Finally she took a deep breath and said, "I'm going plumb crazy boiling beans and washing sheets and beating batter for flapjacks. I've got to get out for a while, take a walk, see the mountain oaks putting out their green Prairie can mind Sierra and mend those stockings sitting on my chair. Butte, fetch us some greens from along the river for eating. Miss Lucy California, you give whoever shows up his dinner, fetch us a few loads of kindling, start boiling the potatoes, and I will be home in time to eat supper with you."

  Sunday supper was the one meal when all the boarders and all the family and even miners who spent the week upriver in tents but had dust to spare would gather together, crowding around the rough plank table on benches, boxes, and the barrels that had held the meat and sauerkraut salted down for winter. Mama would set the table with bowls of potatoes, maybe a squirrel or rabbit stew, or beans with salt pork and molasses, some of her hard dry bread, and strong brown butter all the way from Boston. The miners were extra hungry after a whole day spent doing such despised chores as washing shirts, mending holes in their pants, and rubbing bear fat on their boots to keep the water out.

  This Sunday I wrote a letter to Gram and Grampop—We had biscuits and deer fat and boiled turnips for dinner, and I remembered Gram's oyster stew. I thought to write and ask you to mail me some and saw in my imagination Snowshoe Ballou coming up over the pass from French Creek with his letter bag dripping oyster stew and every skunk, badger, and weasel in the Sierra on his trail. Butte took a bath—"What do you mean, dirt? I jist got dark feet." Asa Tooney pulled out an Illustrated Police Gazette he got in Marysville—"Git yer mitts off'n that so's I kin read it. Gol durn it, you wrinkled it, you son of a gun. Watch out, now the cover's torn. Take that, you—" Dag diggety, I needed fresh air, too.