Blood Gold Read Free

before we left many weeks before. He had reported that the isthmus was only three days’ travel across, and much of it by river, but the land route that completed the journey west was “through a territory marked by the jaguar, a flesh-eating cat, and the anaconda, one of nature’s largest and most powerful serpents.”
    Now Colonel Legrand came back down the line, giving out plugs of chewing tobacco to the men who wanted it. He tugged a leather strap now and then to keep luggage secure on the backs of the mules.
    Legrand was our trail guide, his services provided as a part of the price of our ticket with the steamship company, and he was the only man among us with any fighting experience, having been a part of Zachary Taylor’s army invading Mexico in 1846. It was said that he had killed an officer of the Mexican army with a bayonet thrust, and he looked like a man who could have done it—sweating, sunburned, his cheek fat with a plug of molasses-cured tobacco.
    â€œAre you men all right?” asked the colonel, looking me in the eye.
    I nodded, my hat heavy with water. The rain had slowed down. I took a cut of the black, sweet-flavored leaf the colonel offered me with thanks, and when I had it tucked securely in my cheek, I asked, “We’re going to bed down here?”
    I tried to sound manly and indifferent to where I spread my blanket, but in my eighteen years on earth I had not imagined such a hot, wet, inhuman place.
    â€œI don’t think anyone mentioned beds,” said Colonel Legrand, with a laugh. He wasn’t a real colonel, I suspect—people just called him that out of respect. “Neither one of you,” he added, “would be reckless enough to wander off into the underbrush, would you?”
    â€œNo, sir,” answered Ben. He favored his right leg—the one that had been trapped—keeping his weight off it.
    The trail guide called out hey-up , and the mules stirred, plodding forward. Their hooves were unshod for service on this jungle track; they could pick their way through roots and mud much better than humans.
    And for an instant the romance of all this swept me, and I was happy. Ben was of the opinion that I am too changeable, but surely there are worse traits. With the remnants of rain echoing like applause off the broad leaves, and the smell of spice in the air, I spat tobacco juice and was about to feel pretty sure of myself again. I wondered if maybe Ben and I could get accustomed to exploring unknown regions of the earth, and other such adventures, after we had found the scoundrel we were hunting in California.
    We passed a snake hanging from the crook of a tree, headless but still writhing.
    When we got to the wide place in the trail, night had nearly fallen. The jungle heat teased us with hungry mosquitoes and a ceaseless chirping Ben had said were tree frogs.
    â€œWe need volunteers for first watch,” said Colonel Legrand. He held up a musket with a bayonet attached to it to indicate the responsibilities involved.
    I wasn’t feeling particularly brave, but buoyed by my cheerful mood. Besides, I just didn’t want to lie down on the ground right then, not where spiders and serpents made their homes.
    â€œI don’t mind if I stand the first watch,” I volunteered.
    I knew I might as well get accustomed to putting up with hardship. After all, I was not going to California to seek pay dirt, like all the rest of these hopeful, ambitious travelers. Ben and I had a special purpose for wandering so far from home.
    We were looking for a particular individual in the gold country, and we fully intended to find him.

CHAPTER 3
    Colonel Legrand sized me up with a smile, perhaps thinking I was too young and green to be trusted with a musket.
    I am tall and broad-shouldered, and unafraid of any kind of hard work. Mr. Donald Ansted, my employer back home, and author of the pamphlet Some Remarks on the Prospects of Repeating Firearms ,