I can’t fib. I was scared. Petrified beyond what I’d felt before.

Every movement, every sound…I feared it was someone about to pop out from behind a tree and blow my head off.

At the same time my heart skipped, thinking maybe Breandan had found me.

Seemed likely that Hannigan had been shot. Sounds silly to wonder, but in all that confusion I wasn’t sure. I heard the gun, yes, and I saw Hannigan fall to the ground. But I’d run too fast to figure out the events. Was he dead? Who fired the gun? And who’d told the truth—Breandan or that bastard Hannigan? Last thing I wanted to do was doubt Breandan, but why’d he run off like he did? Did he see the gun before anyone else did? I just didn’t understand why he fled the way he had.

As I sat hunched under my rock ledge, my head pressed against the cold, wet surface, my thoughts turned to my mother. Would I ever see her again? Why’d I ever leave on this foolish venture anyway?

In many ways it was pressure from Uncle Ned. He’d kept chanting about gold, and how if he’d not been made a cripple by the Yankees, he’d be up in the mountains filling burlap sacks with all sizes of nuggets.

Ma said he’d taken leave of his senses. But it seemed every morning over breakfast he’d come across yet another story in the newspaper about someone finding a lode. He’d take pencil to paper and figure out what he thought the total value would be, based on the description of someone’s haul.

“Damn it to hell, Marnie, you realize within a day’s time we’d have enough to build our own house? A house with twenty rooms. Nothing like this shack we’re in.”

“Ned Calvert, do not curse under my roof.”

“You need to think about sending this one out to earn his keep. More than he’s pulling now. No reason he couldn’t—”

“Ned! The boy’s barely turned nineteen.”

“I watched boys—men—younger than him lay their lives down on Confederate soil.”

“I won’t sacrifice my only son for the sake of a pipe dream.”

I would sit there and listen to them bandy back and forth over my fate, biting my tongue so as not to upset Ma, so as not to send Uncle Ned on another of his violent rants. Truth was, the thought of striking out on my own had its appeal. I figured with my keen eye and my strength and resolve, I could change our fortunes within, say, a week.

“How much does it cost to buy a claim?” I asked Uncle Ned.

He smiled. “There, Marnie, you see. I knew this one had some spunk to him.”

“More than five dollars?” I asked.

Ma’s eyes grew wide. “Todd!”

“From what I understand, in the neighborhood of fifteen dollars,” Uncle Ned said. “Five dollars an acre in some places, two and some in others, depending on the territory.”

Ma’s eyes grew wider. “Fifteen dollars?”

“But think what could come from that, Marnie.”

Fifteen dollars was no paltry sum. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about the story Uncle Ned had seen in the paper a few days earlier. Some man originally from out Boston way becoming a thousand dollars richer after he’d found some plunkers not too awful far from a place called Weber’s Creek.

“You stop putting ideas in my son’s head this instant, Ned. I mean it.”

“That boy needs something in that head of his.”

It was moments like that when I clenched my fists under the table, wanting to kick Uncle Ned in his good leg. His meanness always came up like a gust of wind. You never knew when it was going to blow at you.

“My son has a good head on his shoulders.”

“Well, don’t you forget, sister of mine, that half of that son of yours is the sire of Hal Morgan.”

I tensed up. “You’ll not disparage my father, Uncle Ned.”

“No need for me to do it. Most of the town is doing it for me.”

My mother slammed a cupboard door. “I stand with Todd on this. I won’t have you sit there and insult my late husband.”

“You rather I stand?”

“That’s not funny, Ned Calvert.”

“That drunk left you with no money, a boy to raise up, and a house that’s falling in on itself.”

As Ma and Uncle Ned went to shouting at each other again, I couldn’t help but think about that mining claim. It wasn’t true that Pa left us with no money. It wasn’t a lot, but he’d tucked away two hundred and sixty-one dollars that he’d not told us about. Only after he passed on did the bank inform us of the account he’d opened in his name only. By rights some of that was mine, I figured. I couldn’t give any kind of percentage, but I felt fifteen dollars—plus expenses—was at the low end of my due.

I stopped their argument when I stood up and pounded on the table. “I’m going to stake a claim.”

They both stared at me as if I’d just fired off a round.

“You are not doing any such thing, Todd Webster Morgan,” Ma said.

“I’m nineteen now. I’ve a right to act in my own interests.”

“I don’t think I need to list any one reason why that would be one of the most fool notions that I’ve ever heard, but I’ll go ahead and list two. First, there’s the lack of money. And second, there’s the fact that you could get killed on such an adventure.”

I stood my ground. “First, we have Pa’s money. Second, I could get killed by a stagecoach running over me right in the center of town.”

Uncle Ned sat up straighter. “What money are you referring to?”

“You never mind that, Ned Calvert,” Ma said.

“Now hold on a minute, Marnie. I think—”

“If you had no respect for my departed husband, I can’t see why you would have respect for his money. Seems they’d both be tainted in your eyes.”

I smiled at Ma’s cleverness. But the smile didn’t last as I turned my attention back to the matter at hand. “I know it’s a gamble, Ma, but people are finding gold out there.”

“And getting rich,” Uncle Ned added. I never did value his opinion much, but in this case it didn’t rile me the way it usually did.

Ma threw her hands into the air. “It’s as if I’m in a house with two children. Two boys who won’t listen to a word of logic.”

“There’s no work for me around here, anyway,” I said to her. “I’d have to travel beyond Sacramento proper, likely into San Francisco, or farther. As it is, I’m not bringing in my share.” I wanted to point out that we now had an extra mouth to feed, since Uncle Ned couldn’t work. But that would be insulting him, and he might fly off the handle at being referred to as an encumbrance, the word Ma had used when we first received the letter from the hospital way out in Richmond telling us that Mr. Edward “Ned” Calvert was war-wounded and needed to be placed in the care of his next of kin.

“What’s the harm of letting him try, Marnie? Now I’ll grant you two men or more might have better odds, what with dividing the work and watching out for each other, but there are scores of men up there making a fortune all on their own. Besides, you can’t keep the boy cooped up here forever. It isn’t right.”

“If you’d given me that same argument before you went off to war, I’d have said you might come back to us with a leg missing.”

“Don’t you go down that road, Marnie.”

“And you gave up your God-given right to walk all because you were fighting for the losing side, Ned Calvert!”

“Damn it to hell, Marnie!”

“And I said I don’t want you cursing under my roof!”

So it was little wonder, then, as days and nights of Ma and Uncle Ned constantly at each other’s throats, and my prospects of a future practically nil were I to stay in my home, and the legacy of my father forever eating away at me, that I felt I had nothing to lose by setting off on my adventure.

I regret now the way I’d done it—writing Ma a letter instead of saying goodbye to her face-to-face before I snuck off into the night, and dipping into Pa’s money the way I did. I felt especially guilty opening Ma’s special box under the floorboard in the pantry, since she’d said she felt safer keeping Pa’s money there than at any bank, and here I was betraying her belief. All that regret might be lessened had I found success. But now that regret seemed five-fold, as I crouched under a rock ledge, afraid I was about to feel a bullet between the eyes.

That possibility took on a new reality when I heard something rustling off to my right. I didn’t merely finger my knife in this circumstance. This time, I took it out of my pocket and gripped the handle tight.

“Todd-ler!”

It was McGrath’s voice. I knew it well enough. I stayed silent and still.

He couldn’t possibly have seen me in this darkness. There was moonlight, but not enough to make me stand out so.

“I got your friend with me, Todd-ler!”

My friend? Could he mean…Breandan? My heart leapt.

The touch of relief I felt that Breandan was safe was short-lived as my good sense kicked in. It was a trick. Had to be. Besides, if it were true, why broadcast it to me? What was the point, except to bring me out in the open? It was just at the point I decided to crouch down lower, to hide myself completely, when I heard Breandan call out.

“Wherever you be, Todd Webster, don’t show your—”

His words turned to muffles.

The awful pinch I was in turned to a hard squeeze. Last thing I wanted was for Breandan to be hurt. To be killed.

But that was the fate I faced if I betrayed my position. Yet when I heard a sudden struggling, and Breandan’s stifled protests, I couldn’t help but act.

“What is it you want?” I called out. Now the bastard had an idea where I was.

“Just want to talk to you is all. Set the facts straight.”

“You can talk to me right from there.”

Twigs broke and leaves rustled. He was moving near my position. I heard Breandan’s feet putting up resistance.

“You let Breandan go!” I hollered out. “He’s no harm to you. We all go our separate ways. No one’s the wiser. No reason to bring the law into any of this. Makes nary a difference to me.”

McGrath snorted. “You’re drunk as Chloe if you think I—”

Then I heard a sudden smack of hand on flesh, and a grunt. Near as I could tell the two of them were rolling on the ground in a struggle. Breandan must have wrestled a hand or an arm free, and taken McGrath by surprise somehow, either tripping him up, poking his eye, jabbing his throat. No way to tell, but he’d done something smart and desperate.

I moved close the edge of my rock cave, trying to see out, figuring if I could make them out clear enough, I could rush in and help Breandan with the struggle.

A gunshot ended that thought. Someone howled in pain. There was a second shot.

“Breandan!” I shouted.

“Oh, come quick, Todd Webster! I’m shot in the leg, I am! Shot in the leg!”

I scrambled out.

“But I got the git in the chest! He’s no threat now, the scum!”

“Keep talking so I can find you!”

As I navigated the terrain I listened to Breandan’s voice become ever clearer.

“Todd Webster, I’m bleeding bad.”

I spotted him. I knelt down. I glanced over to where McGrath lay in a heap, his left arm bent back.

“Quick, wrap something around me ol’ leg. Quick now. Hurry!”

I started to take off my coat. But it didn’t make sense to ruin either of our garments; we’d need all the warmth we could get. Seemed more logical to snatch something from McGrath. “Are you sure he’s…dead?” I felt queasy. I’d never seen a man dead outside a funeral. Never seen a man crumpled over from a bullet. And here I’d seen two in one day, Hannigan and McGrath. I felt I’d entered some sort of hell.

“Not sure,” Breandan answered back in a weak voice. “Not entirely sure.”

I crawled over to McGrath. I poked him. Again and again. There was no reaction. I set about taking off his coat. I fought back what was coming up from my stomach, into my throat. Last thing I wanted to do was undress a corpse, but if I didn’t help Breandan, he might well end up as one, too. That was the worst thought of all.

“What’re you up to?” Breandan said.

I slid McGrath’s arms out of the sleeves. “Keep quiet. Preserve your strength. We’ll use this rattlesnake’s shirt to tie up your wound.”

As I pulled McGrath’s shirt up over his head, Breandan mumbled and moaned. “Never meant for any of this, Todd Webster. If only I’d not seen them. If I’d just minded my business.”

“Quiet now,” I said as I cut one of the jacket sleeves off with my knife. I wrapped the cloth around Breandan’s leg twice and tied a firm knot.

“There’s more to the story, Todd Webster. More than I told you. Ya see now, I caught Hannigan and McGrath rifling around in old Pete Griffin’s tent. They told me I’d better keep quiet or—”

“I’m telling you to keep quiet now, Breandan! We need to leave here. I don’t know who it was shot Hannigan, but he’s still out there somewhere. If he sees us, then we’ll be dead too, more than likely.”

“Unless it was McGrath who—”

“No time to play detective. You think you can walk?”

“If you tied this cloth tight enough, I’m willing to give it a try.”

I looked behind me, up at the darkened hillside. “I have half a mind to go back and see about Paul Revere, but I don’t know how risky it is. Then again it doesn’t make sense to try and get away from here on foot.”

Breandan propped himself up on his elbows. “I think I can make up the hill. If your horse is still there, best we ride him to safety.”

“Wherever that is,” I said. I stood, and put out a hand for Breandan. He took hold and struggled to his feet.

“I’ll try not to bleed all over me good shoe.”

At least he felt well enough to make jokes. That was a promising sign.

Breandan took hold of my shoulder. I put my arm around him, and we started up the hill, him hobbling as best he could, me using all my muscle to keep him steady.

“I’d try to bring Paul Revere down here to meet you, but I’m sure he couldn’t steer down this rocky steep.”

“It’s all right then,” Breandan said through clenched teeth. “I can make it.”

We’d gone up less than half the length of the hill before Breandan took a tumble. He cried out in pain.

I knelt beside him, holding him from behind as he tried to right himself on his good knee.

“It’s no use, Todd Webster. I’m not an ounce of good to ya like this. You’ll get killed with me limping behind.”

“Come on. It’s not that much farther up.”

It was just then I saw a branch move off to my right. I tensed. I could make out a silhouette crouching behind a tree about fifty feet from us.

“Don’t move,” I whispered to Breandan.

The stranger was perfectly still, like a statue. My mind played tricks, making me think I was just staring at a jagged tree trunk or oddly shaped rock. Then the branch moved again, the stranger unable to hold his position.

“What is it?” Breandan whispered.

Again I found myself trapped between Scylla and Charybdis, an expression my ma used to say. If we moved, we were targets. If we stayed put, we were targets. “Who’s there?”

Breandan clutched my arm. “Who? What are ya calling out for?”

The figure didn’t flinch.

“I said who’s there?”

“I’m no enemy to you,” the voice called back. “I don’t—I’m not any threat to—”

“We have guns and I’m not afraid to…” I stopped. I realized at that moment that we’d been stupid not to take McGrath’s gun. “I’m not afraid to…I know full well how to shoot in the darkest of—”

“I am harmless,” the voice repeated.

Were we being followed? Watched? Who was this? His accent wasn’t Irish, but wasn’t quite American.

“Show yourself,” I said.

The figure stood. He put up his hands as he approached us. When he got near enough I could make out more of him. He wore clothes like us, but…

“He’s a Celestial,” Breandan said. He turned to get a better look. “I…I didn’t hurt that man by the river,” he sputtered. “It was me who tried to—”

I squeezed Breandan’s arm to shut him up. “I’m Todd Webster Morgan,” I said. I figured if I introduced myself proper, he’d be less suspicious of us causing him harm.

He didn’t answer.

“You have a name?” I said. “I gave you mine, after all.”

He stayed silent. I was about to repeat my demand for him to put us on equal footing, but he suddenly cleared his throat.

“I…I am Lao Jian.” He looked briefly down to the ground. He lifted his head. He stared at me a minute. He looked to Breandan, maybe trying to figure out how exactly Breandan was hurt. He looked back at me. “White men call me John-John. I’ll answer to that, if you find it easier.”

I had memories of Uncle Ned calling some vegetable peddlers “China John,” and not in an endearing way. I was sure by these men calling him “John-John” it was for the same effect.

Breandan stirred. “I’m Breandan Donnelly.” He sounded irksome. Like I’d been rude not to introduce him, I reckon. “And I been shot in the leg and it hurts like it’s pressed to a hob and—”

“We’re trying to get to my horse,” I explained, not sure if I should be telling this stranger all about our circumstance. But he looked just as cautious and unsure as we were. And just as beaten as us, like he, too, had seen his share of troubles.

“I’ll help you carry him,” he offered.

Breandan started to stand. “I’m hurt, that’s true. But it’s not as though I’m nigh so lame I can’t manage without being carted like a sack.”

“I will help,” Lao Jian insisted.

I couldn’t figure why he was so eager to help two strangers. I got a sense somehow that he was lost, out of place, wandering under some kind of duress, not unlike Breandan and me.

“He’s bleeding badly,” Lao Jian said.

The sleeve I tied around Breandan’s leg was soaked red. Breandan looked down and studied it. As if some knob turned in his head, he started then and there to panic. “I’m bleeding out, Todd Webster! Look at me! Look at me! I can’t live long enough to make it to Truckee. Not even on your horse!”

I motioned to Lao Jian. He hurried over and took hold of Breandan’s ankles. I reached under Breandan’s arms. Together we lifted him. We maneuvered around so we’d be climbing up the hill sideways. Instinct seemed to communicate to us that this was the most stable way to climb.

“You quiet down, Breandan. You’ll make it, you’ll see. And I don’t fancy telling you to close that mouth of yours more than one hundred times today. Are we clear?”

Breandan didn’t answer. Lao Jian and I moved steadily up the hill. Breandan’s shirt was soaked with sweat. His breathing was rapid and unsteady. I tried not to look at his leg.

“I just wanted to get my hand on a few growlers, that’s all. What a funny word that is, isn’t they? But they’d a’ made me something in this life.”

“Sh, Breandan,” I said, my breathing as labored as his. The good news was we could now see the top of the hill.

“Growlers,” Lao Jian said. “That’s what we had found when our trouble started.” He said it as if he were saying it to himself, like we weren’t there. “That’s what the other men had called them. ‘Growlers.’”

“That’s what I’d heard McGrath and Hannigan talking about before they…” Breandan’s voice trailed off.

“Before they killed my uncle,” Lao Jian said.

I looked up.

“I’m helping to carry someone who tried to save my uncle’s life,” Lao Jian said, as if he’d suddenly sensed my curiosity and confusion as to why he was bothering to lend a hand to two strangers. “This is why I am helping.”

“You mean you saw the attack?” I asked. “You’re a witness?” I then realized how cold I’d just sounded. “I’m…I’m sorry your uncle was hurt.”

“Killed,” Lao Jian said. “And, yes, many in my group—including me—saw the attack.”

He was so matter-of-fact, not nearly a crack in his voice. If he was shedding tears, they were hidden by the darknes. My mind wanted to sort everything out, to figure why exactly Hannigan and McGrath were so desperate they had to kill a Chinese man. I admired Breandan’s bravery trying to stop them. I wondered if…could it have been one of the Chinese men from this group that Lao Jian had mentioned who’d fired at Hannigan? I tried to picture all this, but I had all that I could handle trying to get up the rest of the hill without losing my balance.

“Set me where I can see the stars,” Breandan whispered. He must have known we’d just reached the top of the hill.

I nodded to Lao Jian as I slowed my pace. He stopped walking. I bent down, and he followed my lead. Together we set Breandan down on the damp ground. I looked around, at what was once my camp, petrified I might see the corpse of Hannigan crumpled over in the spot where he’d been shot. I saw nothing but my ripped-up tent. I turned my attention back to Breandan, and caught a glimpse of his leg.

“We need to tie this cloth tighter,” I said, but wasn’t sure if I was saying it to Breandan, Lao Jian, myself—or God, in some desperate plea to help rescue us from this mess.

Breandan started to convulse. I put my hands on his shoulders to hold him steady. Lao Jian pressed on his legs.

“Sh…sh…easy, Breandan, we’re at the top of the hill now. Just rest here a spell, while I search for Paul Revere.”

Lao Jian looked up at me. At first I thought he was confused by the name I’d just uttered, but soon enough I realized his look was of panic, of the thought of me leaving him with Breandan in this state, none of us knowing what to do.

“Stay here with him while I run up there to see if by some miracle my horse is still around.”

“I will try to calm him, but I am no doctor.”

I stood up and raced up to where my destroyed tent lay. I glanced to my left, at the tree where Paul Revere had been tied. There was nothing there but half the length of rope. I clenched my fists, and held back the yell that wanted to ring out of my lungs and into the night air. Though I had a strong feeling this would be the situation I would encounter, it did nothing to suppress my fear, anger, and frustration.

I turned and headed back to Breandan and Lao Jian. I had to prepare myself for a cold hard fact; there was no way to get to anywhere except by foot, and Breandan was bleeding out. I had but one other option.

“Lao Jian, do you have horses? Is your camp…is anyone still—”

“They had guns. They had knives and ropes. They threw rocks. They pushed us and punched us. I didn’t look back to see how many had escaped with my uncle and me. And then when we thought we were far away from them, and too scared to move any farther, two of the white men came from the other direction, and—”

For the first time I saw emotion in Lao Jian. His lips quivered. He stopped talking. He stood up, pressing his arms against himself.

I didn’t know what I could say to make the situation any better. In fact I knew there was nothing I could say. I had to think first and foremost of Breandan. He was mumbling, his head turning from side to side. I put my hand on his forehead. He was burning with fever.

I looked up at Lao Jian. “I don’t know what to do! What do we do?”

His expression changed from anger and hurt to the same level of panic I felt. I could see he wanted desperately to help Breandan, too, despite all that he had just been through himself. And like me, he hadn’t any idea what were supposed to do.

Breandan reached up and took hold of my shirt. He pulled me close to him. I could feel his warmth with each of his labored breaths.

“Todd Webster,” he whispered, “ya think of me whenever ya see that up there, the Little Dipper. That’s what me Gran used to call me. She did, ya know. She used to—” He stopped speaking as Lao Jian kneeled next to him. “Are ya the angel come to take me?”

His body convulsed again. He breathed in deep, then lifted his right hand, as if he were reaching out to something hovering just above him. “Todd Webster, I’m cold. Keep me warm. You keep me warm. I…I knew first time I saw ya that you was someone that I could—”

His voice grew silent. Breandan was still. His eyes were open, but all glassed over.

“Breandan,” I said, again and again, as I shook him. Tears welled up and my voice caught.

Lao Jian stepped over and put a hand on my shoulder. I turned away. Away from him. Away from Breandan. I dropped my chin down to my chest and closed my eyes. “This isn’t possible,” I whispered. “This wasn’t supposed to be.”

I choked as I thought of Ma all alone with Uncle Ned. Of Paul Revere, who’d I raised up from the time he was a pony, off with strangers or wandering the mountainsides, or dead. And of Breandan, just as young as me, dying right before my eyes, blood streaming all down his leg. I choked and I heaved. I doubled over, falling to my side, wailing, not caring where I was or who heard and saw me.

Lao Jian knelt down and did something strange, something unexpected. He cradled me, and I didn’t flinch or try to pull away. I closed my eyes. I lost myself in the unsettling combination of grief and kindness, colliding in a manner I’d never experienced before.

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Next Chapter: Four-in-Hand