GOLD FEVER Part Three. Ken Salter

      California Gold Rush Journal

      

PART 3

      CHAPTER SIX

       Marysville & Nevada City — 1853

      Ricard invited us to dine with him in the hotel restaurant. A pair of trappers who hunted for the mining camps came back to town to spend their earnings on liquor and whores. They’d bagged a brace of partridges on the way in and sold them to Ricard. Manon sweet-talked him into to letting her prepare the sauce and direct the cook. The result was a lovely dinner accompanied by wine from Ricard’s cellar.

      We booked the Wells Fargo stage going to Nevada City for the next morning. Seated beside the driver, was a tall, swarthy man with mutton chop sideburns, a scar on his face, one-third of his right ear missing and a square jaw set in a scowl. He was dressed in buckskin and wore his slouch hat tightly secured under his chin. From his belt hung a huge Bowie knife, holster with a six-shooter and a hard leather case for extra bullets and shotgun shells. His huge hands griped a sawed-off shotgun called a scattergun — a telltale sign we were carrying a cargo of gold. The scattergun’s function is to spray a wide pattern of number 1 or 2 shot behind or in front of the coach to wound attacking highwaymen and their horses severely enough to make them desist. The stage driver also has a shotgun in a hard leather case at his feet, but can rarely use it unless stopped as he needs to handle the reins with both hands if chased.

      Most male passengers carried pistols and Bowie knives as well. While the local Indians would not attack a moving stagecoach, they were still hostile as I’d found out on my first visit to the area. Miners fouled their rivers and reduced the supply of trout and steelhead salmon. They also ravished their traditional hunting grounds for the deer, elk and antelope the Indians fed their families, and deprived them of the skins they needed for winter clothing and shelter. A hunting party of Indians wouldn’t think twice before attacking a coach with a broken axle or other problem if the driver and passengers weren’t armed. I’d brought my pistol and given Manon a two-shot pocket pistol to keep in her reticule. We’d both done target shooting off the stern of our ship.

      All six passenger seats on our stagecoach were booked for the trip. Four men were already seated when we arrived with our luggage. They’d left us the two middle seats facing each other. I asked one of the gentlemen if he didn’t mind to move from a window seat to a middle seat so I could sit with my wife. He grunted an inaudible reply but didn’t move. I asked the same of the other gentlemen with window seats across. “No thank yer. I’m fine where I be,” was his reply and the second one shook his head “no.”

      I thought about appealing to the stage agent, but the driver announced our departure. We had to take our seats; the coach lurched forward. Manon was squeezed between a middle-aged, portly gentleman in a suit with frayed cuffs and a stained dusty bowler atop his head and the man who’d shaken his head “no.” He wore a pinstripe suit with a waistcoat sporting a gold watch fob, a row of cheroots in a breast pocket and shiny black patent leather boots: he was hatless and he’d oiled his hair with a smelly pomade. He lacked only the gold-handled walking stick to complete his outfit as a young dandy on the make. He was openly leering at Manon and assessing her many charms from the side.

      Manon had wanted to dress as a man for this trip but had changed her mind when we discussed the pros and cons, especially for selling work pants. For traveling, she’d opted for very high-necked, conservative attire with a minimum of petticoats and her luscious curls stuffed under a hat. Nothing, however, could hide her hourglass figure and the beauty of her face and hands. As with our coach ride from Sacramento, our coach jerked and jolted along a rutty track and sent its passengers swaying into one another at times. The dandy used these occasions to brush against Manon’s bosom with an errant hand, palm or the side of his head.

      There was no room for us to trade places while the stage was moving. I was growing irate at the fellow’s audacity to try to feel up my wife in front of me. I was tempted to call him on it or slap his face but knew it would end badly for us all. In the virtually lawless mining towns and camps, the slightest insult or provocation often led to a duel or shooting. Dueling over tarnished honor was a favorite sport leading to a sizable number of deaths each year. In a state where everyone was armed, affairs of honor and perceived slight were also settled by the first to draw his weapon. San Francisco newspapers duly reported that killings by gunshot or knifing averaged one to two a day in the city alone. The Ladies Temperance League kept count and asserted in their annual reports and publicity that demon alcohol was the root of the problem.

      Manon started to anticipate the dandy’s forays by using her reticule to fend off attempts to grope her. She was getting hot under her collar too. After a blocked attempt, she locked fiery black eyes on him and announced, “Sir, you will keep your hands to yourself and stop pawing me. You have a side strap to hold on to that I don’t have. You will use it to keep your hands and body from touching me. If you don’t, you will pay the consequences.”

      The dandy shrugged off the warning nonchalantly and the next time the carriage lurched and swayed, instead of using the strap, he allowed his hands to plow into Manon’s chest. She was able to block only one hand with her reticule and he copped a feel with the other. He shrugged and said, “Oops, sorry,” with a silly-assed grin on his face.

      Manon calmly opened her reticule, took out her two-shot pocket pistol, cocked it and pointed it at his stomach without saying a word. The dandy blanched at her audacity and held on to the side strap with both hands until we made our first stop. I was worried the whole time she had her pistol on him as it was cocked and could go off accidently if the coach bounced suddenly.

      While the four passengers repaired to the bar to wet their whistles during our ten-minute stop to deliver and pick up packages and mail at an inn, we stayed in the coach and changed places so Manon had a window seat with me beside her. I asked Manon about keeping her pistol cocked. She laughed, “Was not a problem Chéri, it wasn’t loaded.” I heaved a sigh of relief at my clever cookie’s antics. The dandy was careful to seat himself as far away from Manon as possible and avoid looking at her the rest of the trip.

      We stopped for lunch and a change of horses at another inn. After a truly forgettable lunch of overcooked venison, potatoes and a starchy brown gravy, we resumed our voyage. There was no need for us to rush to take our seats or for Manon to draw her pistol. She’d established herself as a woman of the Far West not to mess with. We both enjoyed the dandy’s discomfort the rest of the voyage. The stage arrived early evening and at Ricard’s suggestion, we took a room at Hôtel de l’Enterprise. The hotel was run by M. & Mme. Duchene, originally from Nantes, France. As it was late, we dined in the hotel restaurant where the food was passable but lacking in flair and the wine acceptable for non-vintage Bordeaux. We were both weary from the hours spent in the uncomfortable coach. We were sawing logs the moment our heads hit the bed’s bolster.

      We were cheered after a lovely breakfast of strong black coffee, fresh croissants and hot-cross buns from the local French and English bakeries. Nevada City featured a long Main Street that bustled with commerce from one end to the other. As in Marysville, we walked the town to apprise its suitability as a site for my express agency and to visit all the emporiums selling mining equipment and supplies. Manon had no trouble convincing store owners and managers that the “Levis” we brought as samples were superior to the work pants on their shelves. One owner insisted as a condition for a large order that we leave two pairs from our samples so he could feature them in his show window. He wanted to get a foot up on his competitors by advertising the new product and soliciting advance orders. Fortunately, we’d anticipated such requests and brought enough pairs of pants to meet the demand.