Page 30 of Working the Lode

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

August 1848

Sonoran Camp, California

Zelnora

“So what did you diagnose for Valenzuela’s…daughter, is it?”

Zelnora, Cormack, and Quartus wended their way down the main street of Sonoran Camp, weaving between the Spanish tents of canvas and upright interwoven pine boughs. The tents were decorated with gaudy pennants of silk flags, multicolored serapes, and expensive shawls, making for a blinding kaleidoscope that pained Zelnora’s eyes in the stifling heat. Yet the town gave a magical appearance: gambling tables ranging the street, cool beverages hawked from wooden boxes, merry noise from guitars, fiddles, and most alarmingly, drums. The camp itself was nestled in a giant crater, embowered with redwood trees, festooned with cascades that fell from masses of black basaltic rocks. The scent of honeysuckle wafted on great waves through the air, choked with tortillas and stewed beef with chile seasonings.

Cormack dodged around a drove of mules staggering under barrels of liquor as big as themselves. “Yep, turns out after all it’s his daughter. Looks like she’s riddled with consumption. She’s about as petrified as a tree. Coughing blood, white as snow. Some other quack’s been bleeding her—that only serves to drain the body of vital essences. Some nurses have abandoned her, since they’re thinking she’s affected by vampirism. Her red eyes and white skin. They think she nightly attends fairy meetings in the guise of a horse, and that’s why she’s so tired.”

Zelnora had seen Cormack’s stethoscope, but she did not want to question him about the doctoring past he seemed to be ticklish about. She estimated him to be the same age as her, thirty and eight or thereabouts, and she knew he’d only been “going over a sight of ground in his peregrinations” about the mountains for ten years. What had he done before that? It evidently had something to do with this Sing Sing place that Valenzuela seemed to know about. It sounded Far Eastern. Maybe soon, one day, if Valenzuela maintained his affable attitude, she could ask him about Sing Sing.

“And what have you proposed to do for her? Is there any hope?”

“I quarantined her, since it’s infectious.”

“Infectious? Then why is it all right for you to tend to her?”

Cormack didn’t answer that. “I’ve given her goldenrod tea, and some fellow is coming from Stockton with oranges.”

“Oranges?” cried Quartus. “We can make juice!” Quartus had taken to swaggering around town wearing Plains Indian style leggings and a scotch bonnet. He claimed it was the new frontier style.

Zelnora soothed him, “Yes, yes, juice. Now Cormack…If Antonia dies, will Valenzuela take back his agreement? He hasn’t even shown us what he believes to be the best claim yet. Maybe he’s waiting to see if you can cure her.”

Cormack frowned. “That wasn’t the agreement. That’s why I say tomorrow, we strike out at once onto the Stanislaus and stake our own damned claim. These bandits, they’re no account anyways you lay your sight.”

“Ooo, ooo!” Quartus warbled. “Can I gamble?”

They had reached an open space where a Spaniard had spread out his serape, put lighted candles at each corner, and poured into the center his stock of gold.

“First you want juice, now you want to gamble,” said Cormack. “These highfalutin duds are going to your head.”

Quartus frowned. “Duds be dogged. I help you mine the gold, I should be allowed to gamble it.”

“That’s true, Cormack,” Zelnora agreed. As Cormack poured some nuggets from a hollow deer horn into Quartus’ palm, she continued, “When we passed by northwest of here, I noticed plenty of slate rock with auriferous quartz veins. It looked exceedingly rich.”

Cormack crinkled his dazzling celestine eyes at her, and she knew everything would be all right. Valenzuela could not stop them from staking their own claim, as long as they didn’t jump one belonging to his men. Or…could he? It was best to remain in his good books for now.

They leaned against a liquor barrel as Quartus gambled away his loot at three-card monte.

“Last night,” Cormack told Zelnora, “a man named Cave bet with this gambler, Mason, that he could con a lounging Digger to attempt to rob Mason.”

Zelnora nodded. “Just to have an excuse to kill the Indian.”

“Right. Cave pulled the native aside, told him Mason had a large sum of money hidden, said where to find it, and if he’d rob Mason he could have half of it. He gave the Indian an unloaded pistol, so the native reluctantly entered Mason’s house, coming out without touching a thing. Mason was watching for him and gut-shot him dead on sight. Crossed the great divide.”

Zelnora grimaced. “There’s talk, too, of taxing ‘foreigners’ such as Spaniards on their gold haul. Seems to me that’ll drive away the only people who aren’t out-and-out lunkheads about mining gold. Oh!”

“You’re right that we aren’t lunkheads.”

An amused voice came directly behind Zelnora’s shoulder, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Twirling about, she faced Valenzuela, or Joaquin as she had caught herself terming him a few times. He smiled in that ingratiating manner where one could never tell if he was in a pleasant or foul mood. Cormack’s smile, however, was sincere when he clasped the brigand’s hand and acknowledged,

“Valenzuela.”

Joaquin nodded back. “Bowmaker.” The monte players on the ground had stilled their motions at the sight of Valenzuela, and were now, slow as mud so as not to be detected, gathering up their winnings or walking away from their losses before Valenzuela could wave a revolver at them. Unlike other towns where he attended functions incognito, coming and going in disguise at will, in Sonoran Camp he was widely known.