Devil's Canyon

“Money can’t buy you everything, Mister,” said TJ Mackie, the square-faced owner and sometimes clerk at Mackie’s General Store. Jacob Hawley was eying the young girl in the scant dress stocking shelves on the far end of the store. “I know,” Jacob said, nodding, “How far d’you reckon to Devil’s Canyon from here?”

TJ Mackie’s face twitched slightly, “By horse?” Jacob nodded.

“I’d reckon a day or so, unless you’ve got a wagon then I’d give it two. What business have you got in Devil’s Canyon?” Mackie said in a squeaky voice.

Jacob Hawley leaned across the counter and whispered into Mackie’s ear, “There’s gold in that canyon. A whole party of Chinese diggers went in ‘bout four months ago. Last anyone heard from ‘em was a letter. The words were in Chinese, which is how the letter ended up in my possession three weeks ago.”

Mackie cocked his head sideways, “You speak Chinese mister?”

“’Course not, but I got a friend who spent five years in Shanghai. He can read and write mandarin pretty well, but his English is awful so he gives me the translations to polish up before he returns them to his clients. As soon as he gave me this letter boom I was gone.” Jacob Hawley grabbed his bag of food and headed toward the door of the general store. Just as he was leaving TJ Mackie asked, “What did the letter say?” Jacob leaned back against the door and glanced around; the girl in the short dress was staring at him. “How much did she hear?” Jacob asked himself. Then, shaking his head and smiling, he pushed back through the door and walked over to the covered wagon on the road where Chris and Paco were waiting for him.

That night they built a fire under some Arizona Ash trees and tied up the horses by a small creek. Paco cooked the steak in some Mexican spices and Jacob poured whiskey for everyone and when the food was ready they all sat by the fire eating with their hunting knives and drinking their whiskey in silence.

After dinner Paco and Chris went to lie in their blankets by the fire while Jacob sat up smoking a cigar and thinking about the letter.

“Tony T. to Mr. Hughes,

Found gold. Will return in three days.

Need more wagons, perhaps more men.

Yours,

Tony T.”

There were all kinds of questions Jacob had for Tony T. What happened to the party four months ago? How could there still be gold left in Devil’s Canyon, months after the gold rush when every state in the Western frontier had been swept clean? The more Jacob tossed these questions around in his mind, the harder it got for him to figure them and eventually he gave up and stared at the moon until he finished his cigar and went and lay in his blanket and waited for sleep to come and take him.

In two days’ time, just as TJ Mackie had said, the group reached Tapatchee Mountain at the edge of Devil’s Canyon. The journey had been quiet and Jacob had become nervous and decided that they would travel around the perimeter of Devil’s Canyon first and have a look around. Paco and Chris objected but Jacob was paying them, Jacob was the boss, so all afternoon they rode around Tapatchee mountain and when the sun started falling they rode straight down into the valley and by the time it was dark they had already had dinner and discussed the plan for the next day.

Riding along the mountain they hadn’t seen any signs of a wagon or a prospecting party and they decided that the best plan would be to search the area in the morning, methodically, starting at the base of Tapatchee mountain and riding along to the stream. When they reached the stream they would rendezvous for lunch and then in the afternoon they would continue along the other side. If there was a digging party in this canyon, they would find it, and if there wasn’t they would pail the stream themselves and see if they might be able to find some gold anyhow.

Jacob felt good about the plan, and from the moment they had descended into the canyon he had been filled with optimism and hope. That night he went straight to sleep after dinner, along with Paco and Chris, without smoking his usual cigar. During the night Jacob dreamt that he was a bird dropping through the sky towards the fire and, landing on the wagon, he watched the flames crackle and Paco and Chris sleeping in their blankets. Then he flew straight up and made a diving turn to fly through the canyon, along the mountains, and down the stream searching for gold. Somewhere in the stream he spotted a stone shining gold and white in the moonlight. He dove to the water and in a moment he had the stone in his beak and he was soaring again, straight up into the air. He could taste gold and it tasted real. But as he flew higher and higher the gold crumbled into dust in his throat and he began coughing and choking. Just then he woke up, his mouth full of dust.

It was late morning and Chris and Paco were already awake. Jacob washed his mouth out with coffee and, shoving a few slices of bread and some cold sausage in his mouth, untied his horse and rode off to the far side of the canyon. Jacob had remained hopeful through the night, despite his unsettling dream, and he trotted some 200 or 300 meters away from Paco, feeling like the luckiest man alive.

When he arrived at the stream he found Chris and Paco beside their horses, shaking their heads and repeating, “Nothin’ doing, nothin’ doing,” and all of Jacob’s optimism and joy that he had felt since entering the canyon disappeared into the air. But he had made a plan, and a promise, and he decided to carry on with the best attitude he could muster. It is what they came here for, he figured.

But Jacob’s mood didn’t improve and all through lunch and during the afternoon’s search he wore a frown and hung his eyes low until, just as he was ready to go back on his promise and give up, his horse practically stumbled over a fallen wagon. It was several minutes before he could calm the horse down enough to dismount and search the wagon, but when he did he found exactly what he had come to Devil’s Canyon for. There was at least 200 bars’ worth of unpolished gold in the trunk of the wagon, enough to make Jacob the richest man in America. He grabbed 5 bars’ worth and packed them in a sack that he hung off his saddle. Then he grabbed 5 more bars’ worth and packed them in a sack that hung off the opposite side of the saddle. He closed off the sacks and hid them carefully beneath a serape before calling Chris and Paco over.

The three men stared at the gold while Jacob explained how they would split it.

“Right now it’s nobody’s gold, and it’s gonna stay that way until we reach California,” he said. “Then we’ll split it three ways. Chris, you and Paco will take 3/10ths of what’s there, and I’ll take 4/10ths—the extra 1/10^th is for my finding out about this gold and calling you guys to come along.” Jacob packed the gold while Chris explained how they would divide it to Paco and by nightfall the three were back at their camp, staring at the fire. Nobody mentioned food because nobody was hungry; the sight of the gold had touched them all the same way, leaving a warm feeling in their stomachs that they didn’t want to ruin with a dinner of any kind.

So they sat and stared at the fire until Jacob got up and grabbed a long branch from a birch tree nearby and stuck it into the fire. A moment later Jacob pulled some small stones out of the fire and cooled them off on the grass. There was something shining on the stones and when they cooled off Jacob rubbed them with his fingers and held them up for Chris and Paco to see: more gold. Jacob bit into the small piece of gold he held in his hand and said, “It’s not fool’s gold.” Then Chris and Paco grabbed birch branches themselves and for an hour they all pulled small stones of gold out of the fire. But the gold kept coming and the branches were getting burnt and worn and they weren’t fast enough to get the gold out of the fire so Jacob stuck his hands into the flames. Chris and Paco watched as Jacob pulled solid gold out of the fire, still smoking and burning. And so Chris and Paco stuck their hands into the fire, too, as though they hadn’t seen Jacob’s charred and blistering hands holding the solid gold. But nobody felt any pain and nobody screamed and they carried on like this, pulling gold out of their fire, late into the night.

One afternoon a few months later Sarah Mackie was stocking tomato cans in her father’s general store when she mentioned a story she had heard about some prospectors whose wagon was found in Devil’s Canyon. “Could’ve been that gentleman came in here around then, don’t you think?” she asked.

“Sure, sure, could’ve been—mind the tomato cans, Sarah,” Mackie replied. “Well, what happened to them?” Mackie asked finally, after a long silence.

“The prospectors?” Sarah replied.

“The ones in Devil’s Canyon, yes.”

“Oh, nobody knows,” Sarah said. “There was a wagon found full of Chinese prospectors by the stream and the sheriff reckons they might’ve died of starvation.”

“Awful,” TJ Mackie said, shaking his head.

“Yes, awful,” Sarah said, “But wait’ll you hear what happened to the other group.” Mackie raised his eyebrows and watched as his daughter went on stacking tomato cans.

“Well?” Mackie asked after some time.

“Well what?” Sarah replied, placing the last tomato can from the box onto the shelf.

“The prospectors—what happened to the other group?” Mackie said in a loud voice.

“Oh, well, they don’t know. But sheriff thinks they might have gone crazy. When he found them their hands were all charred and burnt up like bread loaves that were left in the oven too long,” Sarah said, finally.

Mackie shook his head and counted the money in the till, “That’s just tales, you know. Folks tell all kinds of tales about Devil’s Canyon on account of the name, Devil’s Canyon.”

“Maybe,” Sarah said, “But maybe it’s true.”

Mackie shook his head and looked up from the money in his hands, “Maybe so, but we’ll be closing soon now and I need you to go to the cellar and fetch a stick of butter—Ma asked me to pick one up before I come home tonight and you know how she’ll get if—well.”

Sarah nodded to her father and went out the back door to the cellar in the yard. Just as she opened the door she thought she could hear her father’s voice say, “Those prospectors are crazy folks.” But he was in the kitchen, and too far away to be heard. “Probably just my mind playing tricks on me,” Sarah thought to herself and, shaking her head, descended into the silent, damp darkness below.