Auraria: A Novel (9 page)

A sheet of snow began to fall upon Holtzclaw’s new hat, dampening it. He plotted his next move. It would be interesting to see Moss’s change of mind if he were to find a piece of gold on his property. He might redouble his digging efforts, chasing the next nugget because one is never enough, and work himself into a pneumonia from which the property might be wrested. Or Moss might trade the nugget for a bellyful of drink and from that state find himself landless.

These possibilities gummed up in the small moral caramel of Holtzclaw’s brain: the sweet sticky morsel that was to blame for occasional sentimentality in difficult situations.

Still, hiding a piece of gold on a man’s property—giving him a gold nugget! This could not be considered a crime. It would break the impasse. He could not use a gold coin from his collection. A jeweler could melt one into a convincing lump, but Holtzclaw doubted he could find a discreet accomplice on short notice. Holtzclaw could try melting coins in his fireplace. When would Moss be absent from his creek? Could Holtzclaw endure the wintry blast from the springhouse long enough to plant the nugget a few inches deep?

Holtzclaw had traveled a quarter mile along the road and into warmer winds, before he heard frantic calling behind him. “Wait, sir, wait, wait!” He turned around to see a flushed Moss rushing to him. “Is the offer still good? Will you still buy?”

“I suppose that in ten minutes, little could happen to the land that would change the offer.”

“Everything’s changed. I took the luck from it.” Moss thrust a piece of metal toward Holtzclaw. It was gold—a thin, reedy piece. It did not resemble other nuggets that Holtzclaw had seen, which were globular and smooth, like candle wax dripped into a bucket. But however unusual it was, Moss’s nugget was larger than a squirrel turd and would be celebrated in the local taverns.

“You found this in the dirt where you were digging?” Holtzclaw struggled to suppress the excitement in his voice.

“Just about three pans farther down. Hoo boy, it finally happened!”

“And you want to sell now? Your auriferous creek? Your gilded muck and golden sand? Now that you know there’s gold there?”

“There’s no luck in the land now. You can dig and dig there all you want. You could dig until winter, dig until the creek freezes over, dig until the world freezes over. You’re not going to find anything. I knew there was one good strike in that farm, and I struck it, and now I’m going to move on.”

“Well, if that is your decision, sir,” said Holtzclaw. “Would you like the sum remitted in federal notes or gold coin?”

“I got my gold. You can pay me in notes. Better for traveling anyway.”

Both men were filled with glee—Moss at what he’d found; Holtzclaw at what he hoped to find. And the promise of the land was enhanced by the thrill of success. He’d had never bought a lake and a gold-bearing creek in the same day. Even Shadburn would think it remarkable.

#

From Moss’s farm, Holtzclaw bounded along the shore of the Five Forks Creek, which flowed cool and free outside the influence of the peculiar weather around the springhouse. When the air had warmed back up to its usual temperature, Holtzclaw paused to rest on a fallen tree that extended into the creek. His fingers were chapped, but they were flexible again. The bite of frost at the end of his nose was healed. Nothing could be more splendid except for a bit of something to eat and drink.

He had been hurrying the whole morning, and a dull hunger rumbled in his gut. He should have bought something at the confectioner’s shop, but he had been distracted by Abigail, and now he was short on provisions. He would have to stop in town for some sustenance, if he did not want to expire on the road. One of the properties he had to buy was back in town. If he aimed for this one now, he would be able to have a little dinner and not cause too much delay. With everything on schedule, he could afford the slightly circuitous route.

Holtzclaw bent down for a handful of water; when he lifted his head, he saw that he was not alone. Princess Trahlyta sat on the log beside him, dangling her feet into the flowing creek. She had become his special familiar.

“Hello, Princess Trahlyta,” said Holtzclaw. “What a coincidence.”

“How is your ankle, James?”

“Well enough to walk on, thank you. How have you happened to come here?”

“I’m making my rounds,” she said. “A royal tour.”

“Have you been following me all morning?”

“I’ve taken an interest in you, James.”

“An interest? A pestilence, more like. Why are you pushing your nose into my business?”

“I had a gift for Moss. It’s not my custom to give away gold. It does so little good. But this is a special chance.”

“You hid that nugget on his land?”

“Gold is not rare, James. It’s just shy. It is happiest in the darkness, and it’s very angry when it’s pulled into the light.”

Holtzclaw’s spurt of anger turned to pity. Whose money had she given away? Would she be punished?

“Moss is a forgetful man,” said Princess Trahlyta. “He wouldn’t fix his springhouse door. Here, all the mothers say, ‘Young man! Close that springhouse door! You’re letting the cold out! Are you trying to freeze over all of outdoors?’ He couldn’t be trusted to keep watch. He was distracted enough to let his farm freeze over. In time, it would have been the entire valley.”

“So you are proposing that that blizzard is caused by a wondrous springhouse and not by some local phenomenon? The crook of the valley? The shade of the trees? Shortened days or isolated winds? I find these explanations more reasonable.”

“Do you really? James, it’s a lovely day everywhere else, except for Moss’s springhouse. I would think that a better explanation—for haunted pianos and ghost wives and sudden blizzards—is that Auraria has its own particular spirits.”

“The laws of nature are general, not particular.”

“But you’ve got snow on your boots.”

The princess smiled and slid off the fallen tree into the creek. Water rushed past her knees. “Moss would have found that nugget, but not for years. We all would have been so cold.”

She had helped him, thought Holtzclaw. It was a strange way to help—not profitable, certainly. But the money had not been his or Shadburn’s, and so what was it to him? The end result was just what he wanted.

“Well, I suppose I should be grateful to you, Princess,” he said. “You paid off Moss, got him to sell his property, and now my employer can do something useful with that land. We won’t let it go to frozen waste.”

“And it’s the same with the others too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, James. You are not as persuasive as you suppose. Strickland needed no convincing; he’s been wanting to leave for years. But when the widow Smith Patterson stretched her bones, and they groaned and shuddered, and she felt that weariness of the world inside her and thought, perhaps, she’d like to put up her feet—well, who whispered to the wind to gnaw at her? And when the water dribbled on Bogan’s head and put out his lamp, the last in a long line of struggles and vanities that made him consider that, perhaps, he’d do well to sell his land? They are the smallest little streams, Holtzclaw, and yet they did the work that you could not.”

Holtzclaw stuck his walking stick deeper into the mud. “You should give me some more faith than that, Princess. I’ve been apprentice to the greatest negotiator since Demosthenes for more years than I care to recount. I know all the tricks. The Asheville Attitude. The Fitzgerald Flip. And I have gold—local gold. Do these count for nothing?”

“Less than you’d suppose, James.”

Holtzclaw hurriedly turned away to go—there was no point in debating over such absurdities. But he’d only gone three steps before he spun again and marched back to the princess. He was taller than she was, but he didn’t feel it. He couldn’t lord himself over her, and thus his question came out with less vitriol and more pleading than he’d wanted.

“If you could do these things—why would you?”

“For the same reasons that you have, James! We want to please our employers.”

“Aha!” But what company would employ such a strange girl as its emissary? “Who are you working for? Is it those men from the Old Rock Falls?”

“Just the opposite,” said the princess.

“My employers have no love for gold. They want to be rid of it.”

“Then they must be even stranger than you, Princess. What do they want instead?”

“They want to leave this valley with less than they came with. They want a healthful holiday.”

“Tourists?”

The princess nodded. “We have good water here.”

“Where do they stay? At the Old Rock Falls? It has at least one peculiar inhabitant already. That trick piano.”

“Oh, James. It will take you much longer to adjust if you keep fighting with Mr. Bad Thing. You’ll never settle in to the valley if you insist on doubting what you see here.”

“I don’t mean to settle in. I want to finish my tasks and then depart.”

“You’ve already started to settle. You’ve drunk our water. You saw a boy catch a wild wonder fish from the mist. You’ve met several ghosts, even tipped your hat to them. You’ve seen my employers—their bathing habits, their old passages. You shielded your ears from a wind blowing out of a springhouse, a wind like you’ve never felt before. You’ve seen the laws of nature made particular, not general. And here we are, having a nice chat. You haven’t gone raving mad.”

Holtzclaw leaned toward the creek and brought up another handful of water. He examined it in his cupped palms. It looked like ordinary water, clear and fresh. He sniffed it and detected a slight metallic odor. But many springs and resorts praise their water’s mineral content. He tasted it, musing over the flavors as he would a fine claret. There was nothing to surprise him here.

If these things that she’d mentioned are spirits, and not just fantastic tricks, and if they do have some peculiar nature here in Auraria—well, it doesn’t matter much, does it? Money still spends the same in Auraria as it does anywhere. Whether a bit of land is covered in sweet potatoes or in supernatural frost did not change Holtzclaw’s purpose. He saw no profit in being perplexed.

“That’s a start, James.” The princess left him with a curtsey at the edge of the Five Forks Creek. She sauntered across the flowing face of the water as though it were a paved pathway. It was a curiosity, to be sure, but Holtzclaw repressed any astonishment. Local spirits are bound by land deeds, just like any other soul.

Chapter Five

Holtzclaw arrived in town ravenous and went straight into the Old Rock Falls in search of dinner. Abigail looked up from her work.

“Well, you are a sight!” she said. “What sort of trouble did you find in your scrap metal dealings?”

Holtzclaw looked down at himself. His boots were caked in mud, his traveling clothes damp and wrinkled. There was a green vegetative stain across the seat of his trousers, left by moss or slime.

“It must have happened when I sat down on a log to talk to someone,” he said.

“Who?”

“Oh, no one. A strange girl. I’ve met her several times along the road.”

“Do you mean Princess Trahlyta?” said Abigail.

“You know her?” said Holtzclaw. “She isn’t an actual princess, is she? Maybe she’s the daughter of a rich man and thus feels entitled to wander wherever she likes.”

“I don’t think she’s anyone’s daughter. I’ve never met her parents, even when we played together when I was small.”

“How could that be? You look at least ten years older than she is.”

Abigail scowled at him, and Holtzclaw was abashed.

“I apologize. My new surroundings are overwhelming my better instincts.”

“Things around here take a little getting used to, or so they say. I was born here, so I haven’t had to acclimate. Where did you see the princess?”

“She and her strange habits have followed me all over the valley. I saw her up near the Cobalt Springs Lake and then again at the frozen tundra on Moss’s property.”

“What were you doing on Moss’s farm? No scrap metal there,” said Abigail.

“It’s part of a right-of-way,” said Holtzclaw quickly. He was embarrassed at the lie, and he hoped that Abigail didn’t catch the reddening of his ears—although he was already flushed from his previous lapse in decorum and decency.

“To where?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have the whole map in my head. I’m just an agent, and I can’t think clearly if I haven’t had anything to eat.” Holtzclaw cleared his throat. “Did you have some hot food on special today?”

“No specials, only ordinaries.” Abigail crossed her arms, tapping her left elbow with her cupped right hand, eliciting a puff of flour. Had she held a rolling pin, she could not have been more intimidating.

“I would be very content with ordinary.”

Abigail left him in his flustered state and returned with a bowl. “It’s a sort of stew,” she said. “Sweet potatoes, pickled cabbage, turnips, beef fat. We call it a miner’s dinner. Nobody wanted to play the cook or gardener while everyone else was working the creeks. So nobody did, and when mealtime came around, they made do. Folks around here got used to it.”