The Wrong Side of Ugly

By C. A. Mariotti

A plantation blacksmith, Eli Fury, escapes to the California Gold Rush only to find himself enslaved by murderous gold mining outlaws and his quest for freedom and riches turns deadly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781624889936

Book preview

ACT

Chapter 1

RUSH TO FREEDOM

Louisiana 1849: Forty-year-old escaped plantation slave, Eli Fury, tears through the brush running for his life. He is big, tall, muscle-bound, his shaven-head is strapped with a leather and iron gag, his head bleeding profusely. His hands are stained with blood, and it is not his. He has fresh bloody stripes on his bare back revealing he’s been recently peeled back as he dashes by hoping to make it to the woods. Jericho Smite is his audacious overseer, who is about 30-years-old, ruggedly handsome, and is in hot-pursuit on his black stallion, his eyes hell-bent on vengeance. Not far behind are drooling hounds dragging their handlers through the brush, barking fiercely. The smell of Eli’s blood has them lusting for his flesh.

Eli’s makes it to the deep woods and slows down. Panting furiously he unbuckles the gag and throws it aside. He hears fast paced hoofbeats. It’s Jericho on his black stallion. Eli dives behind a tree, sits up, his heart beating so hard and fast you can hear it from a distance. He gasps for air, eyes flared with fear. Eli slowly wiggles tight to the base of the tree. Jericho sees the gag, halts, and scans the area near Eli. He’s not 20-feet away, but he can’t see his runaway slave. Or should I say, next victim? Eli closes his eyes and tears of fear and pain roll down his face. Panting dangerously loud, Eli holds his breath.

Jericho draws a whip, is mad as hell, and yells, I’m gonna whip you within an inch of your life, and set your ankles asunder! Come willin’ and I’ll spare you the latter and hang you straightaway, Eli Fury! Jericho, slowly, methodically, checks his surroundings. He is a skilled hunter-tracker and knows his prey is not far away; it’s as if he can smell his blood, too.

Eli has seen what Jericho does to runaways, and it’s not pretty, which is cause for his extreme angst. He’s scared near death, nevertheless has to breath, exhales slowly, and takes in a deep breath as Jericho passes on his horse in Eli’s line of sight only feet away. If he stays here is doomed, and he knows it. In a desperate move, Eli bolts towards Jericho. He collides into the stallion with a meaty thud. The stallion topples. Jericho falls off and crashes headlong to the ground. Eli pounces and pins Jericho’s shoulders to the moist soil. Jericho looks deep into Eli’s eyes, causing Eli to freeze with fear. He’s seen that look before, and it has always been at that moment when he was about to take a severe beating, but this time he knows it’s death looking straight into his eyes.

Jericho shouts, You’ll never be free, you murderous bast—

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK as Eli smashes Jericho’s dashing face with his massive fist.

Eli hears the barking hounds getting close. He looks and sees the charging hounds not fifty yards away. Eli strips Jericho of his flannel shirt. Just before the handlers spot Eli, he jumps up, leaps on Jericho’s stallion and takes off. Then a California Gold Rush Flyer, with a map on the back, falls out of Eli’s back pocket. It blows toward Jericho as he regains consciousness. As the map is about to pass, Jericho’s hand reaches out and stops it. His index finger points northeast of San Francisco as if the devil is sending him the message where to look. The handlers reach Jericho and yank their barking beasts to a halt. But Eli is gone.

Chapter 2

EL DORADO GOLD REGION

NINE MONTHS LATER

That white-washed shack with a rickity steeple and bell is an attempt at a church. When you understand that most who have ventured west in search of gold have never been away from the influence of their families, their wives and children, townsfolk, church and their religious influences, you understand living away from that stability tends to lead to debauchery, drunkenness, and despair. Now the reason is simple. Most of these fools who come to strike it rich had no idea what was required to find gold. All the easy pickings ware gone by the time most make it out west. Now don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of gold to be had, but it ain’t lying around on the surface anymore like they supposed. You have to break your back and move a mountain of earth to find even an ounce, which is only worth $16 at the moment. And most of these poor souls spent everything they had just to get out here, and five percent of them, by land or sea, died along the way by injury, the elements, starvation, or disease.

Now, let me tell you, it cost $400, sometimes more, to take a clipper around the horn, which takes about 90 to 100 days verses six to nine months by land, and that is a fortune in today’s money. Yep, that is a chunk of change. So when they get out west, that is to San Francisco, they’s broke as an Indian without a teepee. And when they find out there is no gold in Frisco, and they have to purchase mining equipment, and so on, reality begins to set in, with a dash of denial of course. Imagine their countenance falling when they find out the gold fields are one hundred miles east and northeast as the crow flies, and even further. If they are fortunate, and I don’t say that lightly, they might catch a break and get a job with a mining company when they are in town and hitch a ride. But they don’t pay much for wages, and everything costs a fortune. An egg is $2, a shovel $20, and the women are mostly ugly whores, and there ain’t many to choose from. Supply and demand at it’s worst. You can forget about buying a horse and sluice box for washing gold, or serious mining gear, even jerked meat and hardtack so as you don’t starve, unless you’re rich. Oh, and a gun is a more necessary tool than a pick and shovel, ‘cause the laws are ambiguous, not quite established, seeing this territory is just recently taken from Mexico. So the law is left to individual interpretation, or the lawmen are often corrupt. A good Colt that cost $20 back East will run ya $200 out West. Then you have to buy a beast and a buckboard to haul the whole caboodle.

Well, let’s take a gander at the goings on inside the Church. We call them Doxology Works. Now that there preacher is pert near fifty, and that black and white clergy suit with the string tie is drenched with his sweat, but some of it’s tears from where he was fervently prayin’ on his knees ‘fore service started. His job is the hardest out here, ‘cause when these men come out West the driving force is greed and lust for riches. That makes quite the carnal recipe. He don’t got no pulpit, but plenty of sand and good old pipes to preach the good news of the gospel. Today looks like a good day. Yep, he has rounded up three lost souls. That one there with the disapproving glare and handlebar mustache is Doc Carson. He’s in his forties, and science is his religion. Well let’s listen in to what message God has sent down to his preacher today:

Preacher bellows, Here we are... in the heart of California with a chance at a new beginning. Our Manifest Destiny is not… not to dominate one another or enslave for gain. NO, it is to love one another unconditionally.

That’s a whole lot easier said than done, because in contrast to the preacher’s message, not far away on a barren plain, Eli, now scruffy and whiskered, pushes the Jericho’s black stallion to its limit running for his life yet again. He looks over his shoulder and in the distance he sees dust rising from a posse. It’s Jericho and two bounty hunters charging on horses, kerchiefs covering their faces, eyes ablaze. Eli’s eyes and soul are filled with fright as the stollen black stallion thunders forward. Wind and dust swirl around the posse to rhythmic hoofbeats as Jericho and the bounty hunters disappear into the dusty haze while Eli blazes a trail down into a gully.

As darkness sets in, the hoofbeats gave way to the drumbeats of a ceremonial Indian chant of an old medicine man in the light of a campfire. Now I’m not so sure if he’s a medicine man or the chief, if he’s Maidu or Mewok, ‘cause around here, these folks, or Injuns, keep to themselves. They’s just simple hunter-gatherers and don’t give a rip about gold. They’s happy with a basket full of acorns and the occasional critter or fish far as food goes. They’s peaceful too. Don’t bother nobody, other than a scrape here and there with another tribe over territory. Oh, and they do take the scalps of their enemies, thinking it will trap their souls. But that’s not what this medicine man is ranting about. No sir, he’s pleading to the spirits to rid their land of the white man. Unfortunately, what we see is a ruminant of