Jess Clay -- Chapter 7
by Timothy Fogg

I knew that I would miss her nearly constant presence and told her so. I felt that there was nothing I could not tell her, and I could sense that she felt the same way towards me. We had a wonderful week, and if we shared a kiss or three, who's business was it but our own? Without putting it into words we both knew that our future loomed large and good.

Finally I could put off my departure no longer. If any claim jumpers had gone to my claim I would have my work cut out for me. Anne and I had already said our goodbyes and I was mounting up when she hollered at me to wait and ran up to give me a long lingering kiss in front of the whole main street. A lot of people were watching, and they cheered our warm farewell. I rode down the street to cries of "Hurry back, Jess," and "Don't be a stranger." It made me feel like I belonged, let me tell you.

When I approached my claim I came out on the hill overlooking it. I wanted to give it a once over before I went barging in. It was a good thing that I did. Two men lounged around a raging fire, a bottle of whiskey between them. My actual diggings had been disturbed some, but it didn't look like anybody had been seriously working them. A large sign was erected in place of my claim stake. I inched down through the trees to get close enough to read it.

SWEETWATER MINING AND TRADING COMPANY, it read. I wondered who had dreamed up this grandiose title for such a puny operation. Instead of riding right in I decided to hang around in the hills until I got the drift of what these people were up to.

I took Big Horse over into the next valley and turned him loose, knowing he would stay in the area until I returned. Then I donned my moccasins (Anne had called them slippers, and insisted that she buy me a pair) and crept back to my claim to try to overhear the conversation.

"I tell you I don't know who he was," the darkly bearded man was saying. "All I know is that he promised us the booze and he delivered it, so it stands to reason he will come through with the money he promised, as well. And don't forget about the extra hundred dollars apiece if we kill this Clay fellow." Well, now, that didn't sound very friendly.

The other fellow was a pasty faced whiner. "But Dick, I don't trust that fellow. I tell you I have seen him someplace before, and he was big trouble for anybody he hired. I know! He was one of them Jayhawkers back in the '70"s. Folks say he killed more of his own crew than he did Texans."

"Folks say. It's always folks say. When you can write down the dates, times and places then maybe I'll believe you. But since you can't read of write, that may be quite a while. Am I right?"

"Damn you Dick. Someday you're going to go too far," said Pasty Face in a voice that tried to be menacing. It was a quality that he would never achieve. He struck me as the picture of a poisoner; one who would do his dirty work from as far a distance as possible.

Who could this man be that they talked of? And why should there be such an interest in my little claim? True, I had taken out some good color, but not that much of it. I was in hopes of eventually mining enough to buy a little land, but who could say for sure?

I listened a while longer and some of questions were answered. "He's pretty sure that this placer mine is a front," the one called Dick was explaining. "Somewhere, probably within a mile of here Clay must have a mine in the rocks. The gold looked too fresh to have lain in the stream for years."

Now that I heard this man speak the words, I realized that this man might be right. That gold did look like it had the fresh sharp edges that told of being newly wrested from its parent rock. Perhaps my claim was richer that what I had hoped for. I hoped that my claim lines covered the source of the ore, for if not I could easily be beaten to the punch. For all I knew these men could have filed already on the ground uphill from my own claim.

I decided I had better check on that factor before ousting the two thugs that were squatting on my claim. I had just chanced upon this spot and had not studied the upstream water well at all. The top of my claim was a line between two huge boulders that were easy to see from a distance. A ways this side of that line the stream made a loop through a brush and rock choked ravine that I had previously bypassed because of its roughness. Now I painstakingly entered the area and checked the high water marks along the sides. Bingo!

There was a hole eaten into the quartz rock a good two feet above the present stream level, and there I found what I was looking for. It wasn't jewelry rock, but anytime you have ore containing gold that is visible to the naked eye you have a good find.

The best part about it was that the rock was within the limits of my claim. Now all I had to do was run the two intruders off, find out who had hired them, then go back to Salt Lake and make sure my claim papers were in order. Whew! A few months ago my plans consisted of shooting some deer and elk for the mining camps and putting in a quiet year. Finding gold can sure change your schedule in a hurry. Of course, finding love in the form of a red haired girl puts you through quite a few changes as well.

I decided to get a good night's sleep and figure out what to do about my problems in the morning. I hiked back over to the valley where I had left Big Horse and rolled out my bedroll. You might think I would not be able to sleep what with the worries of the claim. That was not the case, for these were matters that could be settled with fists and legal papers and guns if necessary. No, these things did not hamper my sleep. What came to my mind was a pretty face framed with red hair, and when I slept dreams of Anne came to me in the night.

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