Chapter 15
Sacramento, California
The sun beat down relentlessly as our pack mules picked their way over the dusty ground from Sacramento City to the Yuba River.
We’d left San Francisco five days ago and taken the steamboat Pioneer, a seventy-foot-long side-wheeler, up the Sacramento River to Sacramento City.
It had been cramped, expensive, and uncomfortable.
I was the only female on the boat, so I stayed close to Sam, and he kept me under his watchful eye.
Any time a man started to approach, Sam made it known I was not to be bothered, leading them to believe we were married—an assumption I did not correct.
We had not given our real names to anyone, and thankfully, no one seemed to recognize us.
At night, we retired on our bedrolls on the top deck under the stars.
Though our bodies didn’t touch, we lay close to each other, me against the sidewall with Sam protecting me from the other men.
I had lain there for hours with the swaying of the boat, watching his back as I thought about where we were going and what we were attempting to do.
It also gave me time to think about Mr. Mayer’s exorbitant offer and what it would mean for Bennett Studios.
I’d realized there were two reasons I needed to contemplate the offer before talking to my parents.
The first was that they might try to talk me out of it, but the second, that they might try to talk me into it, seemed even more troubling.
It was so much money. I was afraid Papa would give up his dreams for Bennett Studios to let me pursue a career with MGM—and that thought frightened me most of all.
Could I be the person who finally closed Bennett Studios?
Sam pulled the reins of his pack mule and paused, waiting for me to catch up.
We were in the Sacramento Valley, a flat, never-ending piece of earth.
Somewhere to our right, the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains beckoned with gold, and somewhere to our left, the Feather River flowed toward the Sacramento River.
I stopped beside Sam, eager for a chance to get off my uncomfortable mule and rest my backside.
My head pounded from the heat and the uneven gait of the animal, though I hadn’t complained all day.
Sam had paid for our trip thus far and had sacrificed weeks of work at Bess’s Place, not to mention his new San Francisco Hotel.
Paddy and a few men would continue working on the building while we were away as Father kept an eye on the children.
Though I hadn’t voiced my discomfort since leaving Sacramento City, I wanted to. We’d been traveling for hours in the dust and heat. I was hungry, grumpy, and sore.
“I think we’re lost.” Sam got off his mule and pulled a map out of his saddle pack.
“Lost?” My heart sank as I looked behind us at the ground we had just covered.
“We should have rejoined the Feather River by now.” He opened the hand-drawn map we’d purchased in Sacramento City.
It showed where the Sacramento and Feather Rivers converged about twenty miles northwest of the city.
The map laid out a trail from there to a point on the Feather River that was straighter and faster, overland.
“How could we get lost?” I slid off the mule, my legs weak and shaking. I shook out my skirt, which had been bunched around my legs as we traveled. “There’s nothing out here but dry, open land.” I motioned to the endless, haze-covered valley.
“I don’t know. But we’ve gone more than ten miles, and that’s how far we were told it would be from the confluence to Nicolaus’s ferry.”
We wouldn’t take the ferry, but the small settlement was a landmark we were supposed to find on our way, letting us know we were heading in the right direction. We were also told it would be a safe place to camp.
He looked at the map again and squinted west, where the river should have been visible.
“We can’t be too far off. There isn’t much between Sacramento and Marysville.
” He began to remove the pack from the saddle.
“We’ve pushed these beasts farther than we should for one day.
It’s best that we make camp for the night and look for the ferry crossing tomorrow. ”
“Camp?” I knew this moment was coming—had been thinking about it all day—but it still took me by surprise.
It was one thing to sleep on a crowded deck with Sam and fifty other men.
An entirely different thing to be alone with him.
I had assumed we’d be camping near Nicolaus’s settlement, around other people.
One more night before we were completely alone on the Yuba River. Yet here we were. Alone.
I wasn’t scared, at least not of Sam. Even though he was a convicted murderer, I knew deep in my heart that there had to be an explanation. He wasn’t a killer. Sam was good and kind and sacrificial.
I was more afraid of myself and the knowledge I had gained from The Annals of San Francisco.
If I had never seen the book, I wasn’t even sure I would have contemplated developing feelings for Sam, but now that I knew we were supposed to be married, I couldn’t stop thinking about it and pondering whether I’d have had these feelings if I hadn’t known.
“I’ll get the fire started,” he said, “if you want to get out our supplies.”
I was thankful for something to do to take my mind off my thoughts.
If it were only that easy.
He glanced at me as he gathered kindling from a nearby thicket. I tried not to look uneasy, but I couldn’t help it.
“You knew we’d need to camp alone together, didn’t you?” he finally asked as he cleared a spot of ground to lay the fire.
“Yes.”
We worked in silence for another moment before he asked quietly, “Then why do you look so scared, Ally?”
How could I explain that my fear had nothing to do with him? All the excuses I thought to give Sam only reminded me of things Spencer would say. Evasive, misleading, half truths. I hated when Spencer didn’t tell me what I wanted to know.
What would Sam think if I told him the truth?
“I’m not afraid of you,” I finally said as I brought the kettle and can of beans over. “I guess I’m afraid of history.”
Crouched near the ground, he laid the kindling on the patch of dirt he’d created, a frown on his handsome face. “What does that mean?”
I hesitated, remembering Father’s warning about Sam’s feelings toward me. I didn’t want to give him false hope or tell him that history said we would be married.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, Sam.” I sighed. “Things are really complicated.”
“Between you and me?” He continued building the fire, not looking at me.
“Between my two paths.” Perhaps I couldn’t tell him about The Annals of San Francisco, but there was something I could ask him. “What do you know about the night Bess died?”
He frowned. “As much as you know, I suppose.” He stopped working and finally looked up. “Why? What do you know?”
There was no harm in telling him the truth. I had to remember that. “Bess told you that if someone knowingly changed history, they would forfeit the life they changed, right?”
Understanding washed over his face like a tidal wave, and he stood straight. “She changed something, didn’t she? Why hadn’t I even considered such a thing?” He shook his head and walked away. “Why would she choose to leave Johnnie? She loved him more than anything on this earth.”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she change?” He turned back.
Taking a deep breath, I set the kettle and beans on a nearby rock. I didn’t want to keep anything from him. “In 1928, there was a movie made called Gold Rush!—”
“A movie?” He shook his head, frowning. “What is that?”
I paused. How did I describe a movie to a man who would only be familiar with daguerreotypes, which were an early photograph, just gaining popularity in 1849?
“By 1929, there is an invention, like the daguerreotype, that captures moving images and allows you to watch the action on a screen. It tells a story, sort of like a play on a stage, but it’s imprinted on film and can be watched over and over again.
That’s what my father does, and I am an actress in his movies. ”
His frown did not disappear as he continued to watch me.
“There was a book written called Gold Rush!, and someone turned it into a very popular movie. The book was written by a man named—” I paused, wondering what emotions my statement would elicit from Sam—“Cole Goodman.”
Sam’s lips parted in surprise, and the scar in his eyebrow, which I hardly noticed anymore, suddenly grew tense as anger filled his face. “Goodman wrote a book?”
“He did, but the book disappeared after the night Bess died, and the movie wasn’t made. History changed, because Cole never wrote it, at least at first.”
Confusion warred with the anger on Sam’s face. “What does that mean?”
I let out a breath and realized I needed to tell him everything. “The day I arrived at your place, I immediately knew who you were because of the movie.”
“I was in this movie?”
“A character based off of you was in the movie.”
“And it was taken from Goodman’s book?”
“Yes.”
He scoffed. “I can only imagine what he would have written about me.”
“It wasn’t good,” I acknowledged as I clasped my hands. “It tells the story of Cole, who came to San Francisco as a na?ve and gullible young man who was quickly enticed by the love of gold and gave in to the corruption of the city.”
“That part is true.”
“The movie portrayed Bess as your wife—I thought she was your wife when I arrived at your place that day—and that you had mistreated her to the point that Cole came in to try to rescue her from her life with you.”
Sam’s face grew angrier as I spoke.