Johnny Fey's Nugget Cache

[Tiredman]

From "Treasure State Treasure Tales" by Jean Moore 1950:
JOHNNY FEY’S NUGGET CACHE
He signed his name Jonathan when he first arrived in Last Chance Gulch in 1864 but was soon called “Johnny Fey” by the other miners because of his so-called psychic ability. In fact, it was this ability, according to Johnny, that had caused him to seek his fortune in the rich placer grounds of Montana Territory. “I seen this place plain as day,” he told his friends, “and I seen my fortune in gold dust and pretty yaller nuggets all around me.”
Johnny Fey wasn’t what one might call a typical crystal gazer. He never required any particular setting or even the customary crystal ball on a black velvet cloth. A washbasin of clear water or a small mountain pool served him quite well.
Naturally, the miners who worked with Johnny didn’t take his visions and spiritual contacts seriously, but neither did their prejudices keep them some of them from slipping into his tent shack off and on for private sittings, so to speak, when they thought no one was looking. And if they were sometimes caught, it was always easy to say that they had just dropped in to chew the fat or to borrow some “tobaccy.”
While most of the miners talked about their families and hometowns, Johnny kept his past history to himself, which of course clearly made him more interesting. Once in a while, when faced with a direct question, he would acknowledge some town as his birthplace; but often, at a later date, he would be likely to change his statement. Miners etiquette was always rather liberal and usually allowed that it was a man’s privilege to keep his past to himself if he so desired. And, evidently, Johnny Fey “so desired.”
Not long after Johnny Fey’s arrival at Last Gulch, James W Whitlach, who had mined in Colorado and Nevada,, also joined the ranks of Montana treasure seekers. He did well in Last Chance Gulch but had a yen to find the mother lode that actually supplied the placer gold.
Whitlach consulted Johnny Fey (or so Johnny claimed) and Johnny in turn consulted his washbasin of clear water and told Whitlach that he would find the mother lode he sought in a gulch about 4 miles above Last Chance. The fact that there were many gulches here and there did not tend to simplify directions for Whitlach; but when he finally did find a beautiful piece of gold cluster quartz and then uncovered the gold bearing ledge from which it came, Johnny gave the credit for the discovery to his washbasin of water.

Following this Whitlach discovery, a new mining camp quickly sprang up at the head of Oro Fino Gulch. It was called Roosevelt, complimenting Theodore and James A. Roosevelt, Esq., of New York. But, later, it was renamed “Unionville.”
Sometime after the Whitlach discovery, Johnny peered into his washbasin again and had another vision. This time he saw a huge cache of golden nuggets “resting on the ground.” They are about 80 geeds south and about 90 geeds northwest of the Whitlach Mill,” he informed his neighbors. Just what, exactly, a “geed” was, no one but Johnny seemed to know.
Johnny became a familiar sight as he paced north and south from the Whitlach Mill, muttering to himself, and every now and then getting down on his knees to measure distances. He also acquired a witching stick to assist him in his operations. Seeing him when they came off shift, the miners would shake their head. “Poor Johnny was sure nutty, but harmless,” was the general opinion. Johnny became ragged and thin and his existence depended upon free snacks at the saloon and baskets of food left on his doorstep by sympathetic miners and their wives. There was talk among the Unionville residents of having him “put away” for his own good, but no one seemed to want to be the one to actually do it.

One night, the first snow of the year came, and the next day, Johnny was not seen around camp. When some of the miners went to his cabin to see if he was sick in bed, they saw footprints going out from his cabin, but none going into it. They searched for him for three days and were about to give him up for lost when he suddenly appeared in a local saloon wearing warm, fancy clothes, waterproofed boots, a rabbit skin fur lined cap, and a bright smile.
He ordered drinks for all of his friends and paid for them with a gold nugget shaped like a small fist. The miners gazed at Johnny, but dying of curiosity, they plied him with 1,000 questions about his evident change of luck. But Johnny wasn’t talking….about his luck, that is.
One by one the minors returned Johnny’s drinks; and before long, the whiskey loosened his tongue. Johnny bragged about how he had located his nugget cache where the washbasin had shown it to be. “It was a tall bit o’ figgering” he admitted. Now that he was finally on the subject of his nugget cache, Johnny volunteered further information to the very interested miners.
“I’m agoin’ to jist leave them nuggets right whar I found ‘em ‘cepting a few to tide me over fer a spell. But when I’ll be a needin’ some more, I’ll jist come back and git ‘em. There ain’t nobody that kin ever find them there nuggets but me,” he declared.
Johnny was escorted to his cabin early in the morning by his friends and put to bed. Several of the miners stood guard outside of his cabin so that they could see him leave and track him to his treasure site. For two days and two nights they waited for him to come out of his cabin, but Johnny didn’t show. “Johnny’s been sleeping it off long enough now,” one of his guards decided. “I think we’d better take a look.”
The door was unlocked, the bunk was neatly made, but no Johnny. He had made his exit through a small root cellar in the rear of his cabin. His tracks led to the main road where they intermingled with dozens of other footprints, making it impossible to trace them. But Johnny had not forgotten to leave a farewell note to his friends. Beautifully written and correctly spelled, Johnny’s message was on a piece of cardboard propped up between to full whiskey bottles. It stated….
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN –
THE DRINKS ARE ON ME….IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION FOR YOUR KINDNESS IN ALLOWING ME TO SEARCH UNMO-LESTED FOR MY TREASURE. I HEREBY BEQUEATH TO YOU MY PSYCHIC WASH BASIN AND WITCHING STICK. MAY THEY BENEFIT YOU AS MUCH AS THEY DID ME!
NUTTY JOHNNY FEY

Sheepishly, the miners admitted that they had been outsmarted by Johnny Fey, but they took their defeat good-naturedly with a drink on their recent neighbor and fellow miner. The seemingly illiterate little prospector with his visions and witching stick had played his role well enough to fool them into thinking that he was crazy so that he could hunt his treasure without being followed and perhaps murdered.
They remembered his mumbo-jumbo and measurements near the Whitlach Mill and realized that it was all for their benefit. They were quite sure that his talk about buried nuggets near the mill site was but part of his clever plan to keep their attention centered in that area while he actually hunted his treasure in the surrounding gulches and mountainsides.
They did learn one thing from their experience though, and that was to be careful in the future about who they called “nutty.”
Johnny Fey was never seen again in Last Chance Gulch or Unionville. And, if he ever returned for more of his nuggets, no one was ever aware of it.

 

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