Greed

‘Greed’

By

William Forde

Illustration by Dave Bradbury

Copyright August, 2016 by William Forde

Smashwords Edition

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‘Greed’

by

William Forde

Contents

‘Four Crude Dudes and the Land of Hope’

Author’s Foreword

Chapter One – ‘The California Gold Rush’

Chapter Two – ‘The Land of Hope’

Chapter Three – ‘The Cheat’

Chapter Four – ‘The Thief’

Chapter Five – ‘The Liar’

Chapter Six – ‘The Bully’

Chapter Seven – ‘Friday the 13th October, 1848’

Chapter Eight – ‘The Land of Hope – The Land of Gold’

‘Two Crude Dames and Horace Catchpole’

Author’s Foreword

Chapter One – ‘Melissa and Horace: Mother and Son’

Chapter Two – ‘Mildred and Horace: Wife and Husband’

Chapter Three – The Honeymoon Period’

Chapter Four – ‘Setting a Trap’

Chapter Five – ‘Melissa, Horace and Mildred’

Chapter Six – ‘The Worm Turns’

Chapter Seven – ‘Melissa and Mildred’

Author’s Background

Other Books by this Author

For the General Audience

Romantic Drama Strictly for Adults

Connect with William Forde

‘Four Crude Dudes and The Land of Hope’

by

William Forde

In a world where materialism is king, greed becomes good and gold becomes God.

Author’s foreword

As we enter the Third Millennium, the world faces challenges, which no civilised country can ignore. The greed and material consumption by people living in the most prosperous parts of our world become more conspicuous and effectively impoverishes further, those poorer, third-world nations in want of basic necessities in order to survive.

As long as richer nations are prepared to continue building and increasing their wealth upon the debts of poorer nations, the advancement of the rich will be made at expense of the poor. So long as profit matters more than people, there can be no such thing as ‘fair trade’, ‘equality of opportunity’ and ‘freedom from basic want.’

To look beyond the immediate desires of oneself towards the needs of another person in less favourable circumstances is the most spiritually uplifting experience one can ever have. Such action forms the basis for lasting friendship and helps to establish a climate of true understanding and mutual respect.

Humanity and greed are incompatible. In the final analysis, a person can only serve one God.

‘Four Crude Dudes and the Land of Hope’ tells the story of how the lives of a thief, a bully, a cheat and a liar negatively impact upon each other during the days of the ‘Californian Gold Rush’; leaving the hero of the story, Farmer Hope, with all the wealth which he never sought, from their ill-gotten gains.

As well as providing an accurate historical background setting to ‘The Californian Gold Rush’, which turned the heads of many a foolish man away from safety of God to face uncertain prosperity in the fields of gold; ‘Four Crude Dudes and the Land of Hope’ espouses the firm belief that in the final analysis, what is right will prevail and that which is wrong shall perish.

These stories were first published in the year 2000. The cover illustration was provided by Huddersfield artist Dave Bradbury of West Yorkshire.

William Forde, August, 2016.

Chapter One - ‘The Californian Gold Rush’

In the spring of 1842, a Mexican called Francisco Lopez made the first discovery of gold in Southern California. On 24 January, 1848, James Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill, California. Although his gold find didn’t bring James Marshall the wealth he dreamt of, by 1849, California had become known as ‘the land of gold’.

News of the gold find spread like wildfire across America. Stories reached the four corners of the land about the huge fortunes, which were being made overnight by miners in the land of gold.

Before long, most Americans were gripped in the vice of greed and gold fever took root in the minds of the poor, the needy, the speculators and the dreamers. It was like a National Lottery, which seemed to promise every man the prospect of becoming a millionaire, simply for the price of a sifting pan and a pick and shovel.

Before the year was out, most of America was on the move as swarms of new settlers and gold prospectors made their way to California. All of them were eager to stake their claim and strike it rich in the land of gold.

Shopkeepers closed their premises, families sold their homes, and thousands of people gave up their jobs to travel west. They used what money they possessed to buy mining tools, tents, travelling provisions and covered wagons to carry them and their belongings out to California. They swapped the certain comfort of their homes and the established security of their communities for the speculative chance of striking it rich in the land of California.

Their trek west to California involved travelling a thousand miles of wild prairie and crossing rugged mountains in the most savage of conditions. For the most part, they travelled in covered wagons, forming a long train of travellers across the uncertainty of this unknown and unmapped route.

Many a wagon train never reached its destination, and those that did, often paid a heavy price for their journey. The busiest and most dangerous route travelled by the wagon trains was ‘The Oregon Trail’.

Had the exodus of new settlers realised the hardship and dangers before them, they would have never left home. Those wagon trains, many of which were invariably dependent upon and guided by inexperienced scouts, frequently got lost on the vast prairie and became meat for the buzzards.

Other wagon trains were unable to find fresh water holes or became marooned in sandstorms. Those wagon trains, which started the long trek too late in the year, became trapped in savage, winter weather before they had got half way there. These unfortunate travellers were never seen again with flesh upon their bones; the vultures having been amply rewarded for following the canvassed trail of wagons in hungry anticipation.

Other dangers the wagon train pioneers encountered included poisoned water holes and diseases such as cholera and water fever. And even when the man-eating wolves didn’t kill them, the native Indians who lived on the plains did!

However, despite the dangers faced by the travellers to California, the gold seekers kept on coming across the prairie in their tens of thousands. Like a swarm of bees in search of the golden honey pot, they pressed ahead regardless once they’d caught the smell!

They were driven by a dream that wouldn’t be dampened whatever the dangers they faced; to reach the land of gold in time to stake their claim and strike it rich! In their stampede to be among the first to get there, they became part of the ‘Californian Gold Rush’.

When they arrived in California, many were shocked by what they found. The West wasn’t at all like the eastern towns and cities, which they had left behind. It was still very wild in every sense. It was largely undeveloped in its systems of roads, transport, and methods of communications. It appeared uncivilised to most of the new settlers and, more often than not, lawlessness was too commonplace a practice.

The roles of Sheriffs, Marshals and other law enforcement officers were just too dangerous, and often these posts remained vacant for long periods of time. Even when a Marshall was appointed, the territory he was supposed to cover extended from one state to the next and might cover such a large geographical land mass, that it was impossible to be policed by one Sheriff and a few Deputies.

The towns were overcrowded and filled with saloons and gambling houses. There were few schools and often no church. To walk down the muddy Main Street often meant taking your life in your hands. If you escaped being knocked down and trampled to death by a galloping horse, you would most definitely run the risk of being shot down by the stray bullet of a drunken gun-toting cowboy!

It was even worse nearer to the mining camps. The new settlers quickly discovered that in a land where gold is plentiful, a higher price is demanded for the more common materials. Very soon, all commodities became more expensive to purchase. The rapid influx of new settlers into California made many everyday provisions scarcer. Businessmen and other providers therefore took the opportunity to maximise their profits, by upping their prices at every available opportunity.

Having established a virtual monopoly over most provisions and services, the business sharks were able to hold the new settlers to ransom. The cost of provisions doubled with the passing of every week and enormous prices were demanded for food, salt, meat and clothes. Even water was sold!

The new settlers with children and large families found it almost impossible to survive and their savings were quickly used up. Even those who managed to survive the hazardous journey getting there and to have enough left for a mining grub-stake, experienced mixed fortunes.

Most would work for 16 hours a day without mining enough gold to pay their way or feed their families. Many had to work for the best part of a year, simply to earn enough for a return ticket back home to the East.

But every now and then, some lucky prospector would hit the jackpot and strike it rich; giving renewed heart and revived hope to neighbouring prospectors who might have been on the verge of packing it in.

Even those who struck gold didn’t always get the opportunity to enjoy their new-found wealth. Some lost their fortunes in the gambling houses and saloons, whilst others were cheated out of their wealth by crooked bankers, card sharks and confidence tricksters. Many fell foul to the grasping hands of thieves and robbers, and sometimes, successful mines would be claim-jumped and their owners killed for their precious plots of land.

The land of gold came to represent different things to many men, women, and children. For all, it had started as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity to strike it rich. For a few it brought fortune, but for the many, it brought bitter disappointment, abject misery and financial ruin.

The lucky ones managed to fill their pockets of hope with gold, while the less fortunate miner found his bucket riddled with holes and filled to its brim with empty dreams.

The man who struck it rich found himself weighed down in wealth and responsibility as he hired bodyguards to protect his person, while the struggle and hardships experienced by many others broke their backs, depressed their spirits and ended their marriages.

The dream had brought a few lucky prospectors to a land of honey. For most however, it was to materialise into a graveyard of greedy corpses. Like so many dreams that fill the hearts of fools, a rude awakening usually follows!

Chapter Two - ‘The Land of Hope’

Not all Americans however, were struck with gold fever. The native American Indians, who had lived upon the plains long before the white man had settled in their country, had never been preoccupied with the yellow gold that could be found in their mountains and river beds.

The native Americans had a much different lifestyle. They had their own culture, their own tradition, beliefs and their own God. To them, the land was sacred. It provided them with shelter, warmth and food. The buffaloes of the plains grazed upon the land and were only killed as a means of survival. They lived upon buffalo meat and wasted no part of the beast. They used every other part of its body for food, clothes, footwear, and tepees.

There were also some white Americans who refused to be caught up in the crazy rush for gold. These were farmers who, like the native Indians, were content with what they had and valued the land in a much different way to that of the gold digger.

One hundred miles away from the place where James Marshall first found gold, lived Farmer Hope, his wife and their seven children. Many would have considered them poor, but they rarely dwelt upon such consideration. Their homestead was small and comprised of four fields, two horses and a few chickens. Yet their needs were modest and they lived happily.

Farmer Hope was a man whose attitude towards life and whose approach to misfortune embodied the very name he bore. Whatever circumstances befell him, whatever trial and tribulation raised its ugly head, the gentle farmer held out hope that all would work out and never despaired.

Farmer Hope believed that there was nothing to benefit a man by apologising for life’s circumstances. He knew that there was nothing to be profited by supping at the well of self-pity.

Farmer Hope had seen too many people become sick with unnecessary worry. He had observed them worrying about things they couldn’t have, or the places they’d never see and the things that they’d never do.

Farmer Hope believed such worry to be a useless occupation and a waste of time. Often, he would tell his wife and children, Stop worrying about meaningless things. If you must worry, then worry about the things we can do and achieve instead of those we can’t! Worry about the things we need instead of those we merely want!

Farmer Hope’s philosophy was simple. He placed his full trust in the Lord. He believed that if he worked hard, tried his best, kept his word, respected the land along with all creatures and humans that occupied it, and followed his religion, then, one way or another, things would work out for the best and the Lord would provide.

He was an honest, hard-working, God-fearing man of gentle nature and friendly persuasion. As he owned virtually no livestock, he earned his livelihood by growing crops in his four fields. His day was long and hard, but he worked it without complaint.

For three generations, life on the Hope homestead had carried on without little change to the daily routine. Always up before dawn, Farmer Hope would work the fields for five hours before breakfast. Another five hours would then be worked before lunch and a further six hours before dusk. His day would be spent ploughing, sowing seed, mending broken fences, and harvesting the crop.

The nearest town to the Hope homestead was 60 miles away and his next-door neighbour lived 30 miles away. The Hope family would travel to town once every three months to stock up with essential provisions. They would visit their neighbour twice yearly; once at harvest thanksgiving and the second time, around Christmas.

For most of the year though, they lived in isolation on their homestead. Occasionally a traveller might pass by, and when this happened, the stranger would always be warmly welcomed and receive whatever hospitality the Hope household had to share.

Visits to town or to their nearest farming neighbour were always events that the family looked forward to. At harvest thanksgiving, both families would give thanks together for a bountiful crop.

During those years when Farmer Hope’s crop or that of his neighbours had failed, the other would share their harvest and seed. This act of mutual generosity ensured that neither family ever starved or found themselves without the means of surviving from one year to the next without a seed crop.

As there was no school for 60 miles, the children of the Hope household were taught to read and add up by their mother. The rest of their education mostly centred upon learning how to perform various tasks around the homestead.

Farmer Hope was very fortunate in the two horses he owned. The largest horse was a Quarter Horse. This creature was a fine sturdy horse, which was valued for its strength and stamina. This horse was used to plough the fields and to undertake any other heavy work like pulling tree trunks, which would be chopped up into logs for fuel.

The second horse that Farmer Hope owned was a golden mare. This was a thoroughbred racing horse, which was used for its speed. Farmer Hope used the golden mare to ride out to his boundary fences whenever they required mending. The golden mare would also be used to pull the wagon to town and to ride out to his neighbour’s farm in the event of an emergency or social visit.

Farmer Hope realised the value of his two horses and he knew that without the services of either one, he would have been unable to carry on from one day to the next. Consequently, he always placed the welfare and well-being of both horses before that of his. At the end of each day’s work, he would feed, rub down, groom, and bed both horses before he washed himself in preparation for the evening meal.

As he took up his position at the head of the family table, the family would bow their heads and he would lead them in a prayer of thanksgiving. Not one morsel of food would ever be eaten at the family table without first giving thanks to the Lord for having provided it.

The words of Farmer Hope’s prayer never varied. They were precisely the same words of prayer which he had heard his father speak when he was a child, and which he now recited to his wife and family: