Nightshades

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Barney Rivera said cheerfully, “The name of the place is Ragged-Ass Gulch.”

I just looked at him.

“Well, that was the name it was born with, anyhow,” he said. “Back in the days of the Gold Rush. Nowadays it’s called Musket Creek.”

“Uh-huh. And nowadays it’s a ghost town?”

“Sort of. Sixteen people live there.”

“Uh-huh,” I said again. “Where did you say it was?”

“Trinity County, north of Weaverville.”

“That’s not Mother Lode country.”

“Not exactly, no. Everybody thinks the Gold Rush was limited to the Mother Lode, but in the early eighteen-fifties it raged up around Mount Shasta too. Ragged-Ass Gulch was a real boom town in those days.”

“Why Ragged-Ass Gulch?” I asked him. “The name, I mean.”

He shrugged. “Who knows? Miners used to give towns names like that back then. You know, colorful. Whiskeytown, Lousy Ravine, Bogus Thunder, Git-Up-And-Git-names like that.”

“You been doing some homework, huh, Barney?”

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