Fools' Gold Read Free Page B

She slowed a little, tired. She came back along the rim of the horizon, pointing at each dim star, looking, trying to find a familiar constellation.
    Inside the Gold Belt Finn drained his pint and took another from the owner, a man who was praising the beauty of his own bar.
    â€œâ€¦and with so little good hardwood around,” he said. “It comes from the Philippines and there’s not a scratch on it. It’s used to the dainty drinking habits of the Spanish, I suppose.”
    The owner pushed a large cloth about as he spoke, polishing one place or another, not getting far from his conversation with Finn. The bar too had come on the Portland , a few voyages ago, but though the tent was large, the bar, with its dark red grains, would not quite fit. It pushed against the end of the tent and against the flaps. Before winter there would be a building big enough to make the bar look small, but now it was grotesque.
    Finn looked at his long reflection in the warped mirror behind the bar. It made him look thinner than he was, made him think less of himself. The mirror was attached to the canvas wall and was never still, so that in its reflection a calm man looked nervous.
    â€œI’m heavier than I appear to be,” Finn told the owner. “I’ll not be fooled into thinking I’m not.”
    â€œOnly another half hour until midnight, then we’ll see.”
    The owner was referring to his contest. “Worth your weight in gold,” he called it, a game he’d invented and one that had filled his saloon with hopefuls each night of its running.
    Finn looked from the mirror to his body. He checked his pockets for extra weight and then slipped his boots from around his thick feet.
    At exactly midnight four women dressed in the costumes of ballerinas walked to the front of the tent and began unlacing the canvas, untying it from the wooden pegs in the corners. They rolled the tent sides up, exposing the twilight. A breeze lifted papers off the tables and moved the dust around the floor.
    One of the girls came close to Finn. “The trick is in the sacks,” she said. “Only the ones near the bottom are correctly marked.”
    The customers moved their chairs around so that they were facing a small platform. Several more of the bar women came forward carrying chains and lengths of hollow pipe and began assembling a huge balance scale on the platform, one which in every detail except size matched the scale in the assayer’s office. When the scale was complete, the plates on either side of it sat firmly upon the wooden stage; one was empty and on the other was a straight-backed chair. The scale had a crank in the back of it, and at its side someone had placed a wheelbarrow full of sacks, sand representing different amounts of gold dust, the weights clearly marked on the outside.
    â€œI’m on then,” said Finn, walking around the beer stains in the earth to the place where the scale was constructed. The owner was there waiting for him.
    â€œHere’s our candidate,” he told the calming crowd. “Finn Wallace from Ireland, who should have it down for he saw it done here last week and then the week before. But for those of you who have come by ships still weighed in the harbor I’ll explain that all the man needs to do is place these sacks on the scale to the one side, and then place himself upon the chair over here. After he is ready I’ll crank him, and the sacks too, high up off the ground, and we’ll all watch the central needle just as we do when we are weighing our own week’s work. If he is within a pound, or within two, he’ll receive a pack mule and sundry equipment and goods, enough to allow him to strike out on his own. Also, and perhaps he’ll feel it’s more important, he’ll win an entire night’s drinking, compliments of the house.”
    The owner stood down and looked toward a girl, who brought Finn forward. From