as David’s ever seen him. He didn’t think it fair that a boy found gold in the very spot he’d worked and found nothing. Didn’t think it was fair that a boy had found gold after they’d all been working for years for broken backs and empty pouches.
He was right. It wasn’t fair for a skinny, soft-handed boy to find gold where others failed. John Thomas was saying just what everyone else was thinking, or at least what David had been thinking. But that’s the reality of the diggings. Stories like this brought David to California in the first place. Gold for the taking. Nuggets plucked from riverbeds and hillsides. Poor man to rich man in a day, if you were willing to work hard, willing to believe sulphur sweat would translate to solid gold. David had worked, suffering through snow-choked winters, mucking through spring mud, frying in summer heat, far away from his home and his family, his mum’s rich clotted cream, her flaking pasties, her thick potato pancakes. Away from the happy chatter of his little sister and his cheeky younger brothers and their impromptu wrestling matches on Sunday afternoons. Away from his father’s low rumbling voice reading the Bible each night by the fire. All of this seems so distant, part of another life that David yearns for, but to which he no longer belongs. He should write to his father, but he’s afraid of the words that might come, afraid that in writing he will confirm his own failure and prove his father right. A metal like any other.
He places his cold hands under the waistband of his trousers, warming skin on skin. The night is still. The cedars make moonlit silhouettes at the tip of the ravine.
This new claim could play out in a few weeks. John Thomas is probably working himself up over a bit of colour, nothing more. Speculation did no good. They wouldn’t know anything definite about the ore content until the digging started. And the boy alone is sure to have slow goings, especially if this lode is as narrow and unpredictable as other California lodes have been and covered with the same thick layer of topsoil. Take him all summer just to dig through to the granite, if he doesn’t bury himself first.
Limpy has forgotten to cut the lamp in the cabin again and the canvas roof glows like a luminary, attracting a colony of moths. Guttural snoring bounces off walls as though four men sleep instead of the one. He’ll never wake Limpy, doesn’t fancy turning him on his side. He puffs out the lamp, closes the door and ventures back into Victor Lane, pulled towards the Victoria like a moth. His thoughts veer stubbornly back to Alex; the boy’s small body slung around his leg, the heat of the boy’s breath on David’s thigh.
All lights are out in the Victoria. The windows, like eyeless sockets, stare blindly into the night. Still David feels exposed in the moonlight, as though the eye of God were viewing his obdurate thoughts, judging his body’s weakness. He steps into the shadows of the cedars just beyond the inn. He leans his head against the sweet-smelling bark, focuses on the sound of fieldmice foraging in the undergrowth, on the owl calling into silence, but cannot will his mind blank. He settles for a lesser evil, takes himself in hand. His breath quickens. His toes curl in his boots. He shudders and his shoulders reach for his ears, then sink. He is wiping his hand on a frosty patch of grass when a shadow slinks towards the Victoria.
David follows, guarding his step against snapping branches. The figure eases the door open, squeezes inside. David counts twenty breaths, and edges in after. He stands in the doorway as his eyes adjust to the darkness. The stools again stand right side up, the broken pieces of a whisky jug have been swept to the corner and the blood has been mopped, leaving only a dark misshapen stain like spilt paint. Queen Victoria is still crooked on the wall, but it’s the kitchen door, swinging softly on its hinges, that steals his attention.
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