Like a River Glorious
Page 67

I go inside, just long enough to grab my rabbit pelt and screw up my courage. I’ve successfully negotiated for laudanum. I can do this next thing, too.
But as I offer my fur-wrapped arm to Wilhelm, I’m plagued with doubt. What if he tells my uncle? He’s never shown the smallest inclination for talking, but I suppose he can write. He has to report to my uncle somehow.
If Hiram asks about it, I’ll give him the same lie I gave Wilhelm. I’m tired. I need to sleep to do my job. Maybe I’ll even embellish a little. My gold sense goes weak on me when I’m tired, is what I’ll say.
I’m not sure how the gunpowder is going to be smuggled to me, so I try to be ready for anything. Fortunately I don’t worry about it long. I’m halfway down the Joyner tunnel when I feel something round and cool pressed against my elbow. Quickly I grab it and hide it under my rabbit fur. A moment later, when I casually turn to see who it was, no one remains. They have slipped away as silently as falling snow.
Just like with Mary and the biscuits. I don’t know what the plan is yet, but I can feel the pieces in motion. Other people are doing their part. I must do mine.
I go through my daily motions of assuring Dilley he’s mining in the right direction and pay quick visits to the Drink and to the foreman break area. I take a sip of sugar water, just to make the men happy, and then finally Wilhelm and I leave the mine and return to the cabin.
My uncle is still gone, to my great relief.
Only when I’m in the relative privacy of my bedroom, with the quilt blocking the doorway, do I pull out the object I’m holding.
It’s an inkwell. Not as nice as my uncle’s. Filled to the rim with gunpowder.
As planned, I set it inside the slop bucket. When I wake in the morning, it is gone.
As I hoped he would, Hiram approves of the way I’ve used the rabbit fur. He even brings me an awl and thread so I can fashion it into a proper muff. I spend the entire evening working on the muff by candlelight while he manages correspondence. I’ve never been a dab at sewing, but it’s a nice change from pretending to practice my penmanship. After I’m finished, he declares my muff to be the height of fashion, and immediately confiscates my awl.
Somehow, Muskrat has arranged for a bit of gunpowder to come my way every single day. Each time, I receive it in a different container, from a different pair of hands. Once, it’s no more than a double layer of worn calico, like a quilt square, tied with twine. Another day, I get a small but bulging leather bag. Each morning, the gunpowder is gone from the bucket when I wake.
A few days after speaking to Wilhelm about the laudanum, he greets me at the doorway with two bottles. I glance around to make sure no one is looking, then I grab the bottles, in exchange for several biscuits.
That night, I put both gunpowder and laudanum in the slop bucket. I lie awake a long time, wondering if I’ll know when Mary—or whoever—sneaks into my bedroom to retrieve it. Truth be told, I hate all this sneaking around, and I especially hate that I can’t feel alone and safe even in my own bedroom. How often do people come in here when I’m not aware?
Naturally my thoughts move to the gold stashed in my mattress. I’m like the princess and the pea—no matter how many layers between it and me, I’ll always be able to sense whether or not it’s there. It hasn’t been discovered yet, and I wrap my mind around it, enjoying the buzz in my throat.
My mattress jerks beneath me, and I sit up straight in bed.
Once I assure myself that I’m truly alone, and that no rats or mice or stray cats or people have invaded my bedroom, I reach out with my gold sense again, gently this time.
Gradually a pressure makes itself known against the back of my leg. It’s the bag of gold, poking up through the mattress, trying to come as I call.
Is such a thing possible? Can I call the gold to myself? It seems outrageous, but so does the idea of a witchy girl who can divine the stuff in the first place. Why did I never discover this trick back in Georgia? Maybe it’s the sheer amount of gold here in California. I’ve suspected for a while that my sense was growing, changing.
I practice for hours. Calling the gold, releasing it. Calling it again. Gradually I drift off to sleep, a hard, uncomfortable but not unwelcome lump pressing into my spine.
Hiram and I are taking breakfast and Mary is cleaning up when someone pounds on the door.
I glance at my uncle, alarmed, and he gives me a quick shrug before rising to open it.
Cold air rushes in as a shadow fills the doorway. It’s Frank Dilley. “There’s been an incident,” he says.
“Oh?” my uncle says, reaching for his hat.
“Jonas Waters is dead,” Dilley says.
I gasp.
“What happened?” Hiram asks.
“He was killed in the stockade.”
“The Indians?”
“Maybe. He fell off the guard tower and broke his neck. My men are grumbling about foul play, and I admit it’s awfully suspicious.”
“It’s not suspicious at all,” I say, skidding my chair back and gaining my feet.
“Leah,” Hiram warns, but I pay him no mind.
“Jonas loved his moonshine,” I insist, “and he never saw a watch shift that couldn’t be improved by the liberal application of rotgut.”
“That’s enough, Leah.”
“You know it’s true, Dilley. Tell him.”
Dilley’s hat is in his hand, and his eyes are stricken. I suppose even a man like Dilley has friends, people he cares about, and Jonas’s death is hard for him to take. He considers my words a few moments, but I see the exact moment his grief hardens into something else.
“Indians did this,” Dilley spits out. “Mark my words.”
Hiram dons his hat. “We must deal with this at once,” he says, and he steps toward the door.
I grab the fabric at his elbow. “Wait. What are you going to do?”
He yanks his arm away. “Practice your penmanship while I’m gone,” he says, and he shuts the door in my face.
“It wasn’t the Indians,” Mary whispers, her voice tremulous. A dishrag dangles uselessly from her hands.
“I know.”
“They all know Muskrat’s plan. They wouldn’t risk it. Not now.”
“I know.”
“What will your uncle do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Leah,” she says to the wall. “I’m worried.”