Slaughter of Eagles. William W. Johnstone
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best way to mail my letter?”
“Why, I can take the letter for you, miss,” the conductor said. “We have a mail car attached to this very train. I shall just take it to the clerks there.”
“But we are going west, and this letter is for New York.”
The conductor smiled. “Not to worry, miss. They will simply set it off with the mail at the next stop, and an east bound train will pick it up.”
“Oh, yes, I suppose that is how it would be done. Thank you,” Janelle said, handing him the letter. “Thank you very much.”
“You are quite welcome, miss. I notice that some of the other passengers have had their beds made. Shall I send the porter to turn down your bed?”
“Yes, thank you. I would appreciate that.”
Half an hour later, Janelle was in the lower bunk, which she preferred over the upper because she could look through the window. A full and very bright moon painted the barren landscape in stark shades of black and silver. Seen at night, the landscape seemed softer, and less harsh than it did by day, under the blows of a midday sun.
At such quiet, introspective moments, Janelle wondered if she had made a huge mistake in leaving New York to come to a land that she had never seen before. She thought of her baby. She missed him terribly, and wished he had been old enough to understand why she felt it was necessary that she leave.
She wept for a while. Then, listening to the clack of the wheels on the track joints, and gently rocked by the sway of the car in motion, she drifted off to sleep.
Superstition Mountain
At dawn the notches of the Mazatzal Mountains, which lay to Ben Hanlon’s east, were touched with the dove-gray of early morning. Shortly thereafter, a golden fire pushed over the mountain tops, filling the sky with light and color, waking all the creatures below.
Hanlon woke up, checked his mule, then walked away to make water. He craved some coffee, but in truth he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a cup. He had some sassafras root, so he could make sassafras tea, though it was a poor substitute. He was able to have a morning smoke, but even with his strict conservation of tobacco, he was quickly running out. Soon he would have to cut down to only one smoke per day, and the time would come when he couldn’t smoke at all.
He would have enjoyed a biscuit with his tea, but he had no flour. He wished he had preserved a little of his supper so he could have some breakfast, but he didn’t, so he started work without eating. He could always eat later.
Thinking he saw some “color” in the dirt under a small, spiny tree, Ben reached for his short handled pickax, then moved over to the mesquite bush. On his knees he worked the ground beneath it until he heard a scurrying noise. He jumped back, afraid he might have stirred up a rattlesnake. Seeing that it was only a kangaroo rat, he chuckled.
“Damn, you little critter!” he said aloud. “You ought to know better’n to scare a feller like that. What are doin’, lookin’ for your brother? Well, I got news for you. He’s gone. I had him for supper last night. And if I could sneak up on you, I’d have you for breakfast.”
The rat scurried away and Ben went back to striking the hard packed dirt around the mesquite bush, pulling up clods and breaking them into smaller pieces, looking for ore bearing rock, working with the patience and skill developed by more than twenty years of desert prospecting.
Born in South Carolina, Hanlon was twenty-five years old when he boarded a ship in Charleston Harbor to be a part of the California gold rush. That was in 1849, and for several years he panned enough gold from the rivers and creeks to keep himself going, though he never made the big strike. Finally, hearing rumors of a gold mine discovered and lost on Superstition Mountain of Arizona—“It’s got a vein of pure gold, ten feet high, fifteen feet deep, and near ’bout one mile long,”—he left California.
Since coming to Arizona Ben had very little interaction with people, though from time to time he ventured in from the wilderness to take some sort of job, staying just long enough to earn sufficient money to allow him to go back out to continue his quest. He didn’t need much money to survive.
Not too long after arriving in Arizona, he married an Apache woman. She taught him a lot about desert survival. As a result he was adept at trapping animals for his food, he knew enough edible plants to consider the desert his own private garden, he knew the location of every source of water for miles, and he knew where to find salt. After a few years of isolation she had had enough and returned to her people.
As Hanlon knelt under the mesquite tree, working the hot, rocky dirt with his pickax, he heard his mule moving around behind him. “Now, Rhoda, you just stay put,” he said. “If you wander off you’re on your own, ’cause I don’t plan to be a’ comin’ after you. And remember, I’m the one knows where to find water.”
Rhoda whickered, and scratched at the ground with her hoof.
“What ’n tarnation do you want? Can’t you see I’m a’ workin’ over here?”
Rhoda whickered again and, with a sigh, Hanlon put his pickax down and got up.
“All right, all right,” he said as he walked over to his mule. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Again, the mule raked her hoof along the ground.
“What? You got a thorn in your foot? All right, I know how them things can hurt. Lift up your foot and let me—”
He stopped in midsentence, then dropped to his knees to look where Rhoda had been scratching. There, on the ground at Rhoda’s front two hooves, was a small pile of color bearing rocks.
“What in the world?” Hanlon asked. Dropping on his knees, he began moving the rocks around. “Rhoda, is this real?” he asked in excitement.
Pulling his knife from its leather scabbard, he scraped away the dirt, then poked the knife into the color. The knife punched easily into the color. “Gold!” he shouted. “Rhoda, these here rocks is all gold nuggets. Ever’ damn one of ’em and lookie here! They got more gold than rock!”
How did they get there? Why were they just lying here? Where did they come from?
“Rhoda, ol’ girl! You know what you’ve just done? You’ve found what we been lookin’ for all these years! The next time we go into town I’m a’ goin’ to buy you the biggest sack of oats you’ve ever seen!”
Rhoda whickered and nodded her head as Ben began gathering up the nuggets.
Denver
Janelle found a seat in the middle of the car. It was the fourth time she had changed trains since leaving New York, and the first train that had only day cars. Fortunately, she had only one more night to spend on the train. Though it was bound to be uncomfortable for her she was certain she would be able to handle it.
She was told they would be going through the Rocky Mountains, and the flyer she had picked up in the Denver depot, promised wonderful vistas of canyons, lakes, crags, and streams in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. You never saw, nor have you ever dreamed such wondrous sights as will greet you along every mile of track.
She thought about writing another letter to her sister, describing some of the scenery to her, but the very act of writing would take her eyes away, so she simply stared through the window, soaking up memories she could access later.
She still felt some remorse over having left her baby behind, as well as sadness for isolating herself from the rest of her family. But, given the grandeur of the marvelous country she was passing through, that sadness was temporarily set aside and she found herself looking forward to the excitement before her.
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