Sure, my uncle stole an awful lot of gold from me before he left Georgia, but I can’t figure how he managed to put together such a fancy place so quickly. Or how he can afford to keep a servant. Or hire men like Frank Dilley.
Something strange is going on, and I aim to find out what.
I grab the towel and wipe down, then I shake out the bundle of clothing. Everything needs to be pressed, but it looks brand-new—a clean corset and drawers, stockings, petticoats, and a dress.
The corset and drawers go on with surprising ease. I don’t cinch the corset tight enough to be fashionable, but I don’t give a fig for fashion right now. I do care about being able to run at a moment’s notice.
The last time I put on petticoats was for Mama and Daddy’s funeral, more than nine months and two thousand miles distant. I force myself not to think about it.
I lay the dress out flat to get a look at it, and my heart nearly tumbles out of my chest.
I’ve seen this dress before. I’m sure of it.
It’s made of midnight-blue calico, with tiny yellow stars that are actually flowers when you peer close enough. The fabric is gathered at the shoulders, forming pleats that sweep down to a tiny, triangular waist. Sleeves billow out from beneath the shoulder gathers in three separate layers, each layer ending with an elaborate trim of white lace.
I plunk down on the bed, suddenly finding it hard to breathe, because it’s Mama’s dress.
Which is impossible. She stopped wearing it when she became heavy with my baby brother. Then he died, and instead of taking out the seams to make room for Mama’s thickened waist, we cut the dress up for scraps. The quilt on my bed back in Georgia contained several patches from that dress.
I pick up a sleeve and rub it between thumb and forefinger. The fabric is crisp and bright in the way of new things that have not yet seen a summer of chores. And the lace is different; the trim is wider, with longer points.
Not the same dress, then, and I’m not sure why I’m so relieved about that, but I am.
As I stand and pull it over my head, letting the skirt settle over the petticoats, a niggling worry remains. Why would Hiram have a dress that looks so much like Mama’s favorite from years ago? It has to be coincidence. It has to be.
The dress is a little large on me, which is a relief because it means I won’t have to cinch this corset any further. The skirt is full enough to require better petticoats, but these will do.
There are no new shoes to go with the new dress, so I poke around the room a bit, looking for my boots. I open the chest at the foot of the bed and gasp. Daddy’s boots are inside, just like I’d hoped, along with my knapsack.
I rummage through it, quick and quiet as a mouse. There’s still some jerky and hardtack, my extra shirt and stockings, but no knife or ammo. What did he do with my guns?
I close the knapsack and stuff it back into the chest. It’ll keep for now.
My old clothing is still piled on the floor beside the washtub. I grab it up, quick as a snake, and reach into the pocket of my trousers. My gold sense tells me my bag full of gold dust and tiny nuggets is still there, but I’m glad to wrap my fingers around it anyway.
Now, to hide it.
There’s no cubbyhole, no loose floorboard. The mattress would be the obvious place. Too obvious?
My gaze alights on Daddy’s boots. They’ve always been too big. I don’t get blisters anymore, but I still stuff the toes with rags, or—like I did a few times on the trip to California—with dry grass.
I reach inside the left boot and grab the wad of dirty rags, yank it out, and replace it with the bag of gold. It’ll be a tighter fit now, but that’s okay.
“You finish?” comes Mary’s voice from behind the door curtain.
I suppose I am, but I need a few more moments of privacy, of planning, before I face my uncle again. “Just a couple more minutes,” I call out.
The single high window shines above the foot of my bed. Still in my stockinged feet, I lift my skirts and climb up onto the chest. I grasp the sill with my fingers, stand on my tiptoes, and peer outside.
It’s a camp, similar to the one Jeff and Tom and I left behind, with tents and lean-tos and even a few shanties. But it’s so much bigger than the camp back in Glory, so much busier. People mill about, guiding mules with carts across the hard-packed ground. A group of men with thick beards crouch around a low table at the entrance to one of the larger tents, playing cards. I recognize them as some of the Missouri men from our wagon train.
But there are also Indians, carrying bags full of ore on their stooped backs, and they’re a lot thinner than the ones who helped us put out the fire in our camp. Their destination is out of the viewing range of my window, but I’ve no doubt they’re heading to a stream to classify the ore, maybe pan it out.
A group of Chinese men are fitting lumber together—making more carts, if I don’t miss my guess. They wear flowing shirts over loose trousers, and hats that look like wide, upside-down bowls. Just like the workers that passed through Glory, each one has a single long black braid swinging nearly to his waist. Maybe their headman has a British accent, too.
They work with incredible efficiency. It’s as easy as flowing water, the way one man holds a plank in place while the other hammers, the gliding way they shift angles to do it again. When one turns for a new supply of nails, it’s in his hand instantly.
My tiny window only shows a wedge view of this place, but I’m confident that aside from Mormon Island, this is the biggest camp I’ve seen yet. If I were a betting kind of girl, and I most certainly am not, I’d lay odds there’s an honest-to-goodness mine here. A deep and prosperous one.
Maybe that’s why my uncle has such a fancy cabin. Maybe he owns this place. Along with everyone in it.
I climb down from the trunk and slip on Daddy’s boots. The gold stashed in the left one forces me to scrunch my toes, but I’m glad to have it buzzing there, close by and familiar and warm.
I’ve no mirror, and no pins or ribbons for my hair, so I part it down the middle and smooth it to either side as best I can. I straighten my skirt, take a deep breath, and push past the curtain into the main room.
My uncle sits in a rocking chair, reading a pamphlet by the light of a large window framed in frothy yellow curtains. His pipe rests on a table beside him, unlit. A dining table takes up the center of the room, with a bench on one side and two rickety stools on the other. Against the opposite wall is a huge woodstove, with pots and pans and cups neatly stacked on a shelf beside it. Mary is busy at the woodstove, stirring something that smells of potatoes and turnips.