He turned back to the second page again to see his nearly illegible scrawl from the first time he cracked open the journal. It was titled, “The road paved with gold,” followed by the carefully written block letters, “GSV EVRM LU TLOW SRWWVM FMWVI Z XLOOVXGRLM LU KROVW ILXPH, DSRXS SZW ML VZIGSOB KOZXV YVRMT GSVIV, RM GSV HGIVZN YVW, 143 KZXVH WFV HLFGS LU GSV YRT OLZM KRMV LM GLK LU GSV SROO ZH HVVM UILN GSV XSVIIB XIVVP XZNK”. Below this, he had written in the same careful block letters, “USE ATBASH.”
He didn’t need to study the letters using the Atbash cipher he had used to write those words from the tip. The words were already committed to his permanent memory, “The vein of gold hidden under a collection of piled rocks, which had no earthly place being there, in the stream bed, 143 paces due south of the big lone pine on top of the hill as seen from the Cherry Creek Camp.”
It was a reminder of his unfinished purpose. He turned the page, past the drawing, this time forcefully and with his good right hand started to write:
5 July, 1860
I can no more explain how I am alive, than I can of waking up in this Denver City sanatorium bed, the very same bed of a dying man who gave me my very reason for coming to Colorado, seemingly a lifetime ago. I should be dead. This I know for certain. There is no logical reason for my survival. Yet here am I, convalescing from burns, which I fear will forever remind me of that event, barely ten months previous. I remember feeling the heat and the pain and then blackness. After waking up a fortnight later, my attendants told me what had transpired. I was one of a multitude who were injured that morning. Many perished, perhaps even my friend Pete who accompanied me on this trip. I am certain he was more than a vision from that faithful day. I had thought destiny had turned against me as some sort of punishment.
He paused, looking up to his left leg, which was the part of his body, in addition to his left arm, which were totally burned and broken, but now mostly healed. Both arm and leg tingled together, an endless chorus of painful noise sung loudly from each. More painful was the knowledge that his father was the one paying for his treatments. The physical and emotional pain was until today, held back by the Laudanum. He no longer wanted to cloud his thinking with Laudanum, so ignoring their clarion call of pain, he turned his back to them and continued his thoughts:
Destiny has a funny way changing one’s course. Only yesterday, I learned I was in the same bed as the lunger who told me his story in my hometown of Lawrence and the tip that would lead me to gold. Because of his TB, he sought medical aid from this sanatorium, one that received worldly acclaim.
Betty, a beautiful angel, working as an attendant, nursed me back to health over these many months on a daily course of the sundry tales and life stories of the sanatoriums’ patients. Her stories and the unspoken love which has welled up in me, suppressed until yesterday, by the fear I would never possess the will to express my feelings for her. Then I learned the truth about my painful calling.
After returning from my regular walk, exorcising the demons of agony possessing my leg, Betty told me of one patient in particular. He was in the later stages of TB, she said tearfully. In one of his bouts of delirium, he said that he had struck it rich, uncovering the gold find of the century. All he had to do was get back to Kansas City to get help and lay claim to his find. She feared that he never made it back. I don’t know why, but I never let on that I was bound to this same man and my yet unfilled posthumous promise to him that I would make sure he was buried at his home and that I alone possessed his most cherished secret.
One cannot claim this as luck, any more than one can claim a new sunrise or sunset as accident. After all, what are the chances of one randomly finding a stranger with a secret that will change his life, then surviving the oddest of events I dare say witnessed by man, and then falling in love with your attendant, and waking up in the same bed as that stranger? Pondering such wonders makes my head hurt. The how, perhaps I will never be known, but the why is certain. It is still my destiny and purpose to find this gold and then propose to the woman I love. I will not be dissuaded from both my missions.”
He closed the book, and then secured it in a leather hide, folding each corner carefully, finally securing the hide to the book with a long leather strip, which was tied around its width and length.
Betty was looking forward to seeing Russell. He was nothing to look at, and was a little bit of a dreamer, but something had changed since yesterday. It was as if he had awoken from a dream and he was alive again. She was excited to see what he was like today. All night, until she arrived for her shift, she was filled with happiness. She could not wait to see him, and she hoped he felt the same.
She spent extra time getting her makeup just right, adding an extra measure of red to her lips, and color to her checks. She brushed her thick black hair more often than normal. She pressed her uniform, making it look crisp and nearly new. She wanted to look perfect for Russell, and hoped and prayed he would notice.
After visiting Mr. Jenkins, she entered Russell’s room. He wasn’t there. His bed, the second of eight, separated by curtains, was turned down and his belongings looked gone as well. She walked up and saw there was a letter on his pillow. It had her first name on it. She opened it up and read:
Dearest Betty,
You have saved me not only from my physical ailments but also from those much more disabling in my mind. I have a new sense of purpose that I have never felt. I have also fallen in love with you. I know that I will not be able to ask you for your hand until I have made something of myself. So, I will take leave for a short while. Know this, my love, although I am leaving you now, I promise to return for you. I can only hope that you feel for me the same love I feel for you. If, however, you do not, I am still joyous that you have given me so much to hope for. I pray that that day when I am able return to you will come swiftly.
43.
Revelation
Gord had tried to walk only during the night, something they were all taught, avoiding the daylight and its ruinous light. However, the journey was so long and he feared he would never reach his destination. He kept his walking during daylight to a minimum, knowing the risks, and really only started in the last lunar cycle. He made up much more territory when he found the ancient trails made by previous masses of people. Some of these trails were huge, at least thirty arm lengths, and it appeared that many of the trees were removed to make traveling easier. Oddly, a small channel separated some of the widest spans, as if a mighty river, which had since dried up, once parted the middle of these clearings. He would have enjoyed seeing what these trails looked like when they were built and maybe even their builders.
Every so often, one of these spans would be blocked by an odd arrangement of large grey boulders, some standing tall like monumental trees of gray smooth rock. Often, these rocky arrangements were impassible and required that he find a path around them. When he came upon them, he couldn’t help but see some design to them as if the loose arrangement of gray boulders were actually used for something he would never come to know. Occasionally, Gord would run across some sort of warning, obviously posted by a tribe many moons ago, as there sometimes appeared to be writing on a flat surface that had long since been removed by the harsh elements.