“You gotta come. Quick. Me ’n’ Davy need your help.”
Worry dug its claws into Becky. She looked up at Mutti on the wagon seat above her. “What do you think is wrong?”
Mutti’s gaze was riveted on her son, who was talking with the troubled boy, but she didn’t seem overly concerned. “It might not be too serious. Since Bobby’s father is out of town, the young fellow probably panicked.”
Mr. O’Brien straightened, spun around and marched to the wagon with a frown on his angular face. “There’s a problem at the Strattons’ place. I need to get there right away.”
Becky’s fear intensified. “Is someone hurt?”
“No. Bobby’s younger brother broke the valve I installed up at the ditch, and there’s water gushing everywhere. It’ll cost their father and me a fortune if I don’t stop it. I need to get Mutti home. Can you drive a wagon?”
She couldn’t, but she didn’t dare tell him that. He already doubted her ability to handle the job. “I’ll do whatever you need me to.”
He yanked off his derby, swiped an arm across his brow and jammed the hat back on. “You didn’t answer my question. Can you, or can’t you?”
“I’m sure I can.” She’d seen Dillon and their father do it many times.
“Yes, you can.” Mutti reached down and rested a hand on Becky’s shoulder. “Do not worry, Sohn. I will help her.”
“You haven’t driven in years.”
“That is true, but I have not forgotten how. You can go. We will be fine.”
Mr. O’Brien scraped a hand over his scar. “The road to Diamond Springs is full of twists and turns, but it seems I don’t have any choice.”
Becky drew herself to her full height but only came to his chin. She did her best to sound confident. “You needn’t worry. We’ll take it nice and slow.”
He studied her a moment and shrugged. “I expect the repair to take a while, so don’t wait supper for me.” He strode to where Bobby waited and swung into the saddle on the larger horse in one graceful movement.
She climbed onto the driver’s seat, clutched the reins and watched as Mr. O’Brien and the red-haired boy took off with a flurry of dust. “What was he saying about a ditch?”
“It’s what they call a canal here. It delivers water to the gold mines, but farmers and orchardists use the ditches for irrigation. They pay a daily fee whenever they tap into one. If they use more water than the slow, steady stream they’ve contracted for—what’s known as a miner’s inch—the cost goes up.” She’d switched to German, as she had before when it was just the two of them.
Becky did the same. “No wonder he’s in such a hurry. Shall we head out, then?”
Weariness had bowed Mutti’s shoulders. Becky was eager to get the dear woman home.
“Let me show you how to hold the reins.” Mutti demonstrated. “Now switch them from your right hand to your left, release the brake and reposition them.”
She did, moving slowly so as not to hurt her ribs.
“Next you give the team their command. James uses ‘walk on.’”
As soon as the horses heard the words, they started up. When the wagon reached a road taking off to the south, Mutti placed her hands over Becky’s and showed her how to navigate the turn.
“Well done, my dear. It’s three miles to Diamond Springs. As James said, the road is curvy. We’re in no hurry, so we’ll let the horses walk and give you time to get used to driving.”
Thanks to Mutti’s gentle coaching, it didn’t take Becky long to feel comfortable. She kept a watchful eye on the road ahead.
The California countryside with its abundant trees and wildlife was much different than Chicago. She flinched when a bright blue bird Mutti said was a Steller’s jay let out a scratchy, scolding call and chuckled when a squirrel frolicked in the crowns of nearby oaks.
A flash of something brown caught Becky’s eye. The dog she’d befriended earlier bounded toward the wagon. His gleeful bark startled a flock of wild turkeys. The ungainly birds bolted from the underbrush, zigzagging their way across the clearing and into the road, screeching loudly.
The horses reared and took off running. Becky’s heart galloped along with them. She gripped the reins so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Hold on!”
Mutti clutched the edge of the seat as they went around a hairpin turn and gasped as the wagon rose up on two wheels.
Becky’s mouth went dry. The wagon wheels returned to the earth with a jarring thud. Bracing her boots against the footboard, she held the reins taut and prayed the team would slow before the next turn.
Gradually, the startled animals returned to a walk. Thank you, Lord. She spun to face Mutti. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Just a bit shaken up, but I’ll be fine.”
“Good. For a minute there I wasn’t sure how things were going to turn out. I’d better see to the team.” She pulled to a stop, handed the reins to Mutti and climbed down. Using slow, soothing strokes, she patted the horses’ broad faces.
Once she was convinced they were over the worst of their fright and that there was no apparent damage to the wagon, she looked for the dog, but he was nowhere in sight. She couldn’t fault him for upsetting the horses. From her place on the wagon seat, it had been clear he was chasing after her and not the flighty flock.
She returned to the wagon, and they set out again.
Mutti patted her arm. “You handled that well. I’ll tell James you make a fine driver.”
The rest of the drive to Diamond Springs went smoothly. At Mutti’s request, Becky stopped at the butcher shop. She’d been wedged between Jessie and Callie when they’d passed through the town on their way to Placerville and hadn’t seen much from the stagecoach.
A handful of shops lined both sides of the wide, rutted road. She recognized Harris’s general store, where the coach had stopped to pick up a passenger on their way through town. Tantalizing scents wafted from the restaurant at the Washington House hotel nearby. “So this is Diamond Springs. There’s not much to it, is there?”
“It might be small, but it has the basic necessities. The people are friendly. My William and I liked it here. That’s why we stayed. James liked it, too, but Katharina couldn’t wait to grow up and move to the city. My girl lives in a fancy house in San Francisco with her lawyer husband, Artie, and their five-year-old daughter, Lottie. We don’t see much of them.”
Mutti gazed into the distance with a faraway expression on her face. “James went away, too, but he came back after the terrible accident that nearly took him from us. He was with me when William died two years ago and has been here ever since. I don’t know what I’d have done without him. I couldn’t manage the orchard on my own.”
As much as Becky wanted to ask what kind of accident and if it had caused Mr. O’Brien’s scar, it wasn’t her place to pry. “Was the town always so small?”
“It’s always been pretty much a one-street town, but when we arrived in ’54 it was busier. A lot more mining was going on then. There are only nine hundred or so in Diamond Springs Township now.”
What would it have been like to grow up in a place like this? To look into the distance and see nothing but rolling hills and the distant Sierras beyond instead of buildings? To breathe fresh air instead of inhaling the smoke belching from the ever-increasing number of factories in Chicago, like the small one where she and Dillon had worked?