A Kind Word

Foreword

Long after the gold rushes were over in California, Northern Canada’s Yukon and the USA state of Alaska, the last gold rush being about 1890, hundreds of people continued to search for the yellow metal for the next fifty years and longer, even to the present day.  The magnetism of gold nuggets became an addiction for many.  Individuals risked their livelihoods, health and their very lives, surviving the most miserable of conditions in the quest, and an incalculable number of individuals perished.  In spite of everything, others still heard the rumors, still dreamt of cashing in on inconceivable amounts of treasure.  Like a religion, no matter what the evident actuality was, people wanted to believe in unspeakable wealth, even in the harsh face of reality.  When minds and hearts are young, dreams are much easier to believe in than the stark, sometimes hostile realism that’d been or were their lives up to that time.

A select few went north, not only for the gold but other personal reasons, a deliberate choice possibly to escape an overly structured, unaccommodating society.  For some it was to escape a harsh, sometimes hopeless reality.  For the majority, it was an excuse for adventure, to travel to distant locations; experience the great land that was North America especially the far North and possibly find some gold in the process.  Along the way, many turned back; the life was just too severe.  More realistic individuals settled down along the gold routes heading north, met partners/spouses, settled down and raised families, ending their journey.  A few refused to capitulate to the obvious, pushing on in spite of great hardships with little possibility of a decent life and less likelihood of discovering the bonanza that was gold.

Of the ones that survived the bar fights and the especially difficult winters, which many didn’t, they unknowingly became the survivalists.  Nevertheless, like the proverbial thief in the night, ever so slowly over the years, sometimes not even noticing, they lost their youth, lost their ambition, some even lost their souls.  Alcohol and drugs replaced dreams.  Broken down bar rooms became easier to find than gold nuggets.

Yet a few select individuals survived, discovered new dreams, even flourished, and found vibrant life.  These are some of their stories.

Chapter 1of 22

Characters – George Adams, Charles Hays II & III, Lily

George Adams had spent three years in formal education.  He’d been a good looking lad with a mop of brown hair, 5’ 11" tall with a good muscular build.  As a student, he’d been eager and intelligent enough to do well in school except his father had needed him to help on their poor dirt farm on the open plains of Oklahoma.  Life had been difficult for their family of seven, not unlike others trying to make a living on the prairies.  There were two sisters that were younger than he and one sister, one brother older than he.  His parents had made an error in judgment by sending him to school, in spite of the short time he’d spent in studies.  While there he’d read and heard of faraway places that were, without comparison, more stimulating to him than cleaning barns or working dry fields that most years scarcely yielded enough crops to feed the family.

After reading school books with fascinating illustrations of mountains with green trees all the way to the top, beaches with water lapping at the shores, going back to the dreariness of the homestead had been too depressing to consider as a long term way of life.  On the parched land they called home there hadn’t been any indication of optimism or the prospect of a comfortable life, and without doubt not any possibility of adventure.  It’d been a full time career, for the whole family, continually slaving away on that parched plot of land, just trying to survive.

As he’d looked around that farmstead day after day, the lifelessness of the landscape had overwhelmed him, nearly suffocated him.  He’d scanned the horizon around the horse and cow pasture, everything was brown and lifeless in late July.  The heat waves were seen radiating off the land.  There hadn’t been any noticeable amounts of precipitation for months and there weren’t any green plants in sight.  He’d turned his eyes to the fields where crops had been planted that should have been green at that time of year.  He hadn’t been able to detect any noticeable amount of green foliage there either; the crops had turned yellow weeks ago baking under the hot sun combined with a desperate lack of rainfall.  There weren’t any fruit trees or any other symbols of life either, just sand and tumbleweeds blown around by a hot dry wind.

He’d gone for a stroll one day as he’d often done to get out of the shack they called home, and just continued walking away from that homestead with just the clothes he’d worn that day.  In his mind anywhere had to be an improvement from where he was and what he was looking at.

George first turned his attention west to the California gold fields, though drifting at a leisurely pace as he encountered streams of clear water sustaining abundant life, plants and animals.  He ambled through tall forests where he could feel and taste the air of the forests and the wildlife it contained.  Regardless of the wonderful vistas he came across which he relished, it slowed his journey but he hadn’t allowed anything to stop him.  At the time he’d had poorly defined goals but daydreams of gold nuggets urged him onward.

When he arrived at the first gold mining areas his disappointment was, at minimum, intense.  Instead of witnessing a bustling, wealthy city which he’d envisioned, he found rusted equipment, a few old miners living in shanties, barely surviving.  Most of the dedicated, knowledgeable miners had moved north long ago.  The reality had been a stark contrast to the visions he’d had in his head for years.  The California gold mines had been mostly exhausted of the precious metal years before his arrival.  Everyone had moved on except a few stragglers with broken dreams and equally busted bank accounts.  It reminded George of his father’s farmstead he’d just left, everyone just living a life of existence, no dreams or hopes for a better future, just laboring to survive another day.

Being a young man at the time, with little time for thought or psychology, he’d had a youthful exuberance dictating that his future would never resemble the stark conditions that he’d been confronted with at that place.  He would be wealthy, successful, — maybe soon.  All he had to do was to continue to the next settlement and there he would discover his fortune.  He hadn’t realized how big America was till he’d started travelling.  In the books he’d read, he’d had the impression that the other world he was searching for was just over the next hill — or possibly two.

Still good jobs were difficult to obtain along the gold trails where most enterprises had either relocated their businesses to another area with a better economy or had basically locked the doors on a money losing proposition. Ordinary employment hadn’t appealed to George either when he’d had gold dust in his vision.  Instinctively he’d continued his drifting.

George Adams migrated north through an array of poor towns, drinking establishments and gambling houses.  He should’ve come to the noticeable conclusion that he was about thirty-five years too late for the gold rush years in California.  Still, his journey was interspersed with misfortune and fortune.  For the first couple of years he lived the life of a poor migrant worker, laboring for meals or pennies.  His youth and optimism allowed him to overlook the negative aspects of his existence and concentrate on the adventure he was living, on most occasions.

Unexpectedly he met the son of a wealthy banker.  Charles Hays II came from European origins with mixed ancestry of German, Swiss; with possibly some Jewish heritage in him.  His father, Charles Hays with some partners had taken over a struggling enterprise from his grandfather.  Rising from near poverty to some notable affluence, the senior Charles Hays had started a banking business in Switzerland with his brothers who’d been employed in the banking business.  The families had subsequently branched out into a few other mysterious sideline businesses that had been astonishingly prosperous.  Charles Hays II had been chosen to come to America to expand their enterprises.

Lilly, the then soon to be Mrs. Charles Hays II, came from a questionable background clouded in mystery.  She’d also migrated out of the American Midwest to California, the land of fantasies and fortune.  Prior to meeting her future husband, Lilly had worked the beer joints and taverns crowded with drunken cowboys and miners along her route and in San Francisco, for close to seven years.  She’d become thoroughly dissatisfied with the dead-end life it had presented her and she was actively searching for an escape from her somewhat miserable existence at the time.  She’d had enough foresight to recognize that her young beauty was limited, only a temporary asset in her fleeting career as a lady of the evening.  Everyone ages.

She’d encountered more than a few older ladies along her travels’ where time and the ravages of alcohol, possibly drugs had taken their toll on their once lovely features.  Many of those women hadn’t advanced to positions such as madams of their own establishments or even managers for other businesses.  If younger working girls were available they were thrown aside like so much unwanted trash.  They’d been reduced to begging old destitute vagrants, drunkards and woman beaters for whatever coin was available.  Lily was in her mid-twenties and knew her time for attracting top money from quality customers of some success was fading like that of other shattered ladies she’d encountered.

She’d read an article in the local newspaper earlier that week giving the details of a banking convention to take place at a certain hotel that weekend in her city.  Wearing her best clothes she’d just bought with the bulk of her meager savings, she wandered into the hotel ballroom where Charles Hays II was staying.  Of the patrons there, Charles hadn’t been the most handsome fellow there; actually he’d been outstanding by his evident unattractiveness.  Lily had needed a stiff drink before she’d approached him; he was rather ordinary, smallish, bordering on disagreeable, — well actually ugly.

In his favor he’d been younger than all the others and showed much more promise for a future life than the drunken saloon patrons she’d known until then.  His most outstanding attribute, she soon discovered, was he had wealth and secondly he was single, unmarried at the time unlike most of the other attendees at the convention.  She could’ve made some excellent money that weekend.  She’d had more than a few interesting propositions within an hour of arriving and very briefly had even considered them.  But then, unlike many ordinary women involved in the trade, Lily aspired to a much higher plateau than reckless earnings that usually evaporated just as quickly as the memory of who’d paid her.  She had ambitions of a long term position in life, a life of affluence and culture.  Short term risky propositions weren’t her life’s ambition.

During the bankers convention in San Francisco that weekend George Hays II met Lily.  He’d been a nerdy type all his life never having been seen with a lady by anyone that had known him.  It might be assumed that at close to forty years old, he possibly was still a virgin.  Once having met Lily, he fell madly in love with her beauty and her exotic ways, — well instantly.  He’d never been with a woman, and such a beautiful exotic lady mesmerized him.  She stayed with him all weekend even mentioning offhand that she was highly fertile at that moment, but only after George had released his passion in her.

For the entire weekend bankers’ symposium George and Lily had been inseparable.  In spite of George being by her side constantly, the way Lily walked with her beauty and an air of confidence caused various men with raging hormones, single and married, to intervene, asking her for a fling.  Instead she devoted all her attention on her prospect for a future husband, to George’s delight and her long term gain.

He told his brothers very little about the young lady he was courting.  Shortly after that momentous weekend George was informed that Lily was expecting his child.  Not knowing the most elementary fundamentals of a woman’s childbearing details and not having anyone to confide in, within days Lily became the new Mrs. George Hays II.  They were married without his parent’s or family’s knowledge, undoubtedly also minus their approval.

Lily was a rarity amongst the young ladies that plied the world’s oldest trade, actually managing to capture a husband with status and stable long term wealth, escaping their dubious profession in harsh conditions.  Thousands of other ladies never were and never would be as fortunate.  When their son was born, there were compelling circumstances surrounding the birth that might’ve caused ordinary husbands to question the validity of the child’s heritage.  The child was born a full month premature, having native / possibly oriental dark-skinned features while both Charlie and Lily were fair skinned with blonde hair.  Nevertheless DNA hadn’t been perfected yet nor had it been widely used to determine paternity at the time.  Charles Hays II’s forte was banking, not genetics.  It had been reported he’d been extremely proud of his son and family.

Mrs. Charles Hays II had visions of their only child, a son, Charlie Hays III, bringing home an upper class wife, unlike herself, that would produce a male heir who’d bring their family name to new lofty social standings.  Most ordinary people would have noticed from an early age that the young Charlie Hays III had noticeable mental and character flaws that should’ve been addressed at a preschool age.  He certainly should’ve had treatment and or counseling during his school years.  His mother refused any and all arguments to that effect, her boy was going to be an outstanding success and noticeably increase her family’s prestige and wealth, possibly even become world renowned in business.  She refused to listen to any arguments to the contrary, in spite of how obvious the boy’s deficiencies were.

Through Charlie’s school years, he was constantly in trouble, forcing himself on girls, at times openly sadistic with girls and younger boys.  He’d been a social misfit bordering on criminal.  His parents paid heavily for teachers and colleges to overlook his lackluster academic performance combined with his debauchery and pass him into the next grade with honors.  If one school refused to do so, there were many other schools that willingly obliged the overbearing Mrs. Charles Hays II.  The couple also had to donate money to individual police officers and the precinct in their area to overlook young George’s obvious character flaws and criminal leanings.  All it took was a little more graft currency, a small sacrifice for her brilliant child.

In contrast to his mother young Charlie had different ideas and aspirations.  With a noticeable mental deficit, he aspired to a playboy lifestyle, continuously and wholly financially supported by his mother.  Young Charlie Hays’s fancy lent itself more to young boys and a, party till you drop, lifestyle than any consideration of a future profession or family.  He hired George, at first to be his stable boy; George had a natural talent, years of experience with horses and their care.  George soon became Charlie’s personal aid as they went to horse races, on extravagant hunting trips, and golfing.  At times George was treated more as a companion than an employee.  There’d been a few whispers that alluded to a relationship between the two but nothing was ever confirmed.

For nearly two years, George lived the high life, extravagant dining in the poshest hotels.  Charlie bought him expensive clothes so he could interact with California’s ‘royalty’ without feeling ashamed, expensive hunting gear, golf clothes, before and after dinner attire, etc.  George, with his Oklahoma farm upbringing, didn’t pay enough attention to the mind-set of the exaggerated egos within the society in which he mingled, especially his employer’s.  Neither did he endeavor to ingratiate himself into that culture to take advantage of possible financial opportunities as they presented themselves.  He’d never educated himself in the game of internal politics to concentrate on advancing his own interests in a particular group.  Regardless of his appearance in public, he was still a servant, not an equal and never would be unless he adapted, played the games of the wealthy narcissistic in-crowd of the time.

George played golf against Mr. Hays during a hot afternoon after Charlie’s intended golfing partner failed to materialize.  George, without any lessons, only a few tips from the caddy accompanying them, outperformed his supposedly professional drunken golfing boss by ten points.  There was an unwritten law that servants do not upstage their masters in such a haughty society.  Sadly George had never paid attention to nor learned the fine points of integrating into such a pretentious group either.  In Charlie Hays’ mind it was an insult to his character to have a servant beat him in a public golf game.  George was publicly cursed, humiliated, and chastised in front of Charlie’s friends and golf club staff.  George Adams wasn’t impressed.

He liked the life style, so instead of allowing the altercation to escalate, he tolerated the verbal bashing, that time, and continued spending his time in luxury.  Two months later on a hunting trip to the Sierra Nevada’s George bagged the prized Elk with a nondescript gun, without a scope.  Before the inebriated Charles Hays III could even get sight of the animal in his fancy expensive scope that rested on his far more costly imported sharpshooter rifle, it was George’s trophy, not Charlie’s.  George was summarily fired on the spot without his final pay.

In retaliation to an apparent humiliation, having keys to all of Charlie Hays’s property, George entered Charlie Hays’ estate at night.  While Charlie was passed out, George stole at least ten to one hundred times more in monetary value than he was owed.  His haul included things Charlie had used in hunting, in the stables, cash and some gold, etc. without having a rudimentary knowledge of the value of the articles he’d pilfered.

A year after that night, he found there was a warrant out for his arrest for the theft of private property, alleging George had stolen cash and merchandise worth in excess of fifty-four thousand dollars.  George had estimated his haul at somewhere around one thousand dollars.  He’d sold most of the items at a huge discount in saloons and taverns without having any significant notion of the substantial wealth that he possessed and was unwittingly letting it slip through his fingers.  In his ignorance he’d had the illusion he was excelling while trading much of his ill-gotten gains for liquor, cheap hotel rooms and a few low-cost prostitutes.  In fact, with a little foresight, he could’ve perhaps purchased a small ranch, or a producing gold mining claim, or an entire hotel had he converted the merchandise into something close to its true value.  But his opportunity, like many other breaks he’d passed by, evaporated and was wasted.  Whatever the actual value of his haul was, it didn’t last.

He migrated north to Canada where he was arrested and fined for stabbing a man in a drunken bar room brawl.  There wasn’t any mention made of the American theft charges by Canadian police or the courts.  He spent two years in jail; then continued his journey north.  The years passed quickly for George, working in Western Canadian coal mines, the Caribou, Yukon and Alaska gold mines, sawing timber, anything.  He always seemed to need another paycheck for another week so he could continue his drinking and gambling, —— then he would strike it