Free Hard Gold by Avi Page A

those going on still insisted on calling the returnees “go-backers” or “stampeders,” as if they were frightened buffalo.
    I stood with Mr. Bunderly as we watched them go.
    With a sigh, he said, “Mr. Early, as the poet wrote, ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'” Which he thought we were, fools or angels, he, for once, did not say.
    Another reason emigrant trains liked to pause at Fort Kearny was that people were able to purchase some goods from its storehouse. Being the last mail post before Cherry Creek, it was the place where Jesse had sent out one of his letters.
    Remembering that, and watching the go-backers, made me think about my family—how far away they were, how much I missed them, even Adam. So I set myself down and wrote a letter:
    T O M A , P A , B ROTHER A DAM :
    I AM AT F ORT K EARNY IN THE N EBRASKA T ERRITORY ON MY WAY TO THE C HERRY C REEK DIGGINGS . F OR SURE I SHALL BRING J ESSE AND HIS GOLD HOME . D O NOT FRET .
                                                                              Y OUR LOVING SON ,
                                                                              E ARLY
    Letter in hand, I wandered around the fort trying to find a place where I could post it. Unfortunately, I met Mr. Mawr. Perhaps he had been watching for me.
    “A letter, Early,” he said. “Who are you writing to?” he demanded.
    “A kindly neighbor, back home.”
    “Not to your uncle Jesse?” he asked.
    “He doesn’t know I’m coming,” I said before I thought what I was revealing. When he made no response other than to look hard at me, I went on to post the letter. As I was to learn, my words to Mr. Mawr were a blunder.
    That afternoon, Lizzy appeared with her father’s pepperbox pistol.
    “Why’d you bring that?”
    “Do you know how to use one?”
    I shook my head. “I told you, just a rifle.”
    “What if we find a lot of gold and someone tries to take it from us?” I supposed she was thinking about what I’d told her about Jesse.
    I grinned. “Think that might happen?”
    “Mr. Early, I intend to find pounds of gold,” she said and insisted upon my firing the pistol a few times.
    We went out on the prairie, and after choosing a target—the stump of a tree—we commenced, each shooting six times. In the silence of the plains, the noise was thunderous. But in all that banging, I think we managed to hit the tree but once. “Hard to hit anything with a pepperbox,” Lizzy said.
    “Then what good is it?”
    “You can scare people off.”
    “You don’t need that gun to do that.”
    “Mr. Early,” she shouted, “I think I hate you.” But she was laughing as she chased me all the way back to the wagons.
    June 14
    On the second day of our stay at Fort Kearny, Mr. Mawr approached me. “Early!” he barked, for that was his way, reminding me of Adam. “We’re in need of buffalo chips. Come with me!”
    I was reluctant to do as he ordered. But Mrs. Bunderly, who was reclining in the shade cast by our wagon, called out, “Mr. Early, you must do the bidding of your elders.”
    I looked about for Lizzy but did not see her.
    Mr. Mawr must have guessed my thought, for Lizzy and I were always together.
    “I suppose a boy can go without a girl,” he said.
    Feeling taunted, I pulled myself up, grabbed an old flour sack for the chips, and began to follow, noticing as I did that Mr. Mawr had his pistol on his hip.
    We walked along the wagons that made up our train until, to my surprise, Mr. Mawr, who had not spoken to me since we had left Mrs. Bunderly, mounted a horse and headed on to the prairie. I hesitated, but he turned in his saddle.
    “Let’s go, boy!” he shouted and moved along at a pace which I could follow, his saddle creaking, his Spanish spurs sounding a harsh jangle.
    Once, twice, I looked back at the fort, wishing Lizzy