Part 11: That Golden Rush

What I like about owning a business is that any day I feel like not being there, I hang up the “Closed” sign and do what I want: Carole Chukar is set free! On this particular day, I had decided to visit Betty Norbert, still homebound after she fell while looking for gold in a storm. Sitting in her living room, she revealed how she came to be possessed by gold fever.

“Do you know that first day I went panning, I found three nuggets the size of kidney beans! It was easy. I dipped the pan into black sand, swooshed it around and voila—gold! I got hooked immediately! I couldn’t stop. I had to find more. On weekends, I made excuses to be away and found more places to pan—some were in the backwoods. Then I started going on weekdays! I left early for work, panned at places hidden along the highway and then did so again on my way home. I kept finding gold.”

“People always saw your car parked along the road,” I said, and asked, “Weren’t you worried about getting poison oak?”

“I didn’t care! If I didn’t pan every day, I’d be depressed. When all the storms came, I figured there’d even be more exposed with the streams running so high, churning up gravel. The day I hit my head, I saw a lot of gold in that little stream.”

“You know you were claim-jumping,” I said, and told her about Deputy Jack chasing off prospectors, including the three computer boys who had rescued her. “The hardware store is going gangbusters outfitting folks rushing up here since the rains stopped,” I added. “Those claim-jumpers are finding a lot of gold!”

Betty nodded her head. “I did that a lot—working claims where I never saw anyone. I couldn’t help myself.” She trailed off, picked at a thread on the quilt covering her legs. “I’m not sure when it became an obsession. Maybe if I’d hadn’t found as much, I’d have quit, but like magic my pan kept filling up with gold. That’s such a satisfying sight!” She stopped and whispered, “I know it’s not proper for a lady to talk about this, but the second I see glitter, well, it’s like injecting a drug. What a rush!” Her face reddened. Her eyes were wide.

Well! Such are the admissions when women get together for a tet-a-tet. I’ve heard things more scurrilous, but a gold-obsessed housewife was a stunner! If she had been talking about an affair with a pool boy, it wouldn’t have shocked me.

Changing the subject, I asked, “How much did you find? Did you sell any?”

Betty shook her head no. “The stash is in the pantry. Come see.”

We headed into a vestibule that served as her larder. On the floor were several large crocks like the kind used for pickling. They were labeled, one with “turnips.” She dragged that out into the light. “Nick hates turnips, so I figured he’d never look in here.” She took off the lid and removed a paper bag of turnips. Underneath, the vessel was half full of nuggets!

“I suppose I should sell it,” Betty said, peering into the golden crock. “But I can’t bring myself to. I like looking at it.

Feeling it.” She paused. “Run your hands through and see for yourself.”

That’s a weird thing to do, I thought, but to humor my friend I did. I stuck both hands deep into the glittering mass and wiggled my fingers around. I felt a shock then—like a charge of electricity. It coursed through my hands and up into my arms. Powerful it was. A veil, as it were, dropped from inside my mind. “Gold!” I exclaimed. I couldn’t help myself. I blurted again, “Gold!”

Looking up at Betty, I saw her shaking her head in agreement. “You see! You feel it!” She let out a sigh. “It’s oh so lovely!”

Yes, I felt it too! The awful power of gold. Later, I tried to figure out the allure. I have a degree in biology from U.C. Davis. I’m a scientist essentially, putting my education to work by raising plants and running a nursery. I know that gold is an extremely efficient conductor of electricity. It’s used in modern electronics like smart phones. Perhaps touching the metal triggers a bodily interaction. Our atoms are attracted to the atoms in gold and an actual current is established between gold and our bodies. Whatever force it might be, something irresistibly physical or metaphysical, occurs. When my hands were deep in that crock pot, I wanted to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze all those nuggets, hang onto them tight. Never let them go!

Getting up from the floor, I gulped a few times and had to remind myself to breathe—I was that rattled by the experience. Betty went over to a cupboard and took out a gold pan. “Here, take this. I can’t have it anymore.”

Reluctantly, I agreed, holding the pan gingerly between two fingers, as if it were radioactive. I left and went for a drive to think about all of what Betty told me. Somehow, I found myself on Highway 49 and came to the spot where she’d gotten injured at the Woods claim. With the pan, I got out of my jeep and hopped the fence. I wanted to see if prospecting was really as simple as Betty said. I dipped the pan into the creek’s black sand and made a few swirls. The water went around and around and around and suddenly there on the bottom, my eyes beheld an iridescent glittering—a powerful glow. I gasped, “Gold!” and I knew I was hooked.

Book nine coming this fall...

A native Californian, H.A. Silliman grew up in the Gold County and currently lives in the northern outback. Past stories from the Two Rivers Anthology can be found at hasilliman.weebly.com. All characters are fictitious or fictionally portrayed. ©2023 H.A. Silliman.