In 1849 the promise of gold brings many a man to California, but most find more hardship than riches.<br><br>Jesse Quinn, a golden-haired twenty-year-old is among them. He settles into the gold camp of Whiskey Slide to work with two other men in an effort that barely yields enough to keep them alive. With merchants charging exorbitant prices for provisions, it’s said men dig for food, not gold.<br><br>After hardship and disappointment, Jesse moves to another camp, Dutch Flat, where he takes up with the stern and silent Abel Munday. As the two work Abel’s claim with success, things take a positive turn for Jesse. Can Jesse bring some light into the darkness that’s plagued Abel much of his life? Together, they just might be able to fine something richer than gold.

Lust for Gold

He gets up, pulls a blanket around him, walks around the room, then takes a chair by the fire while I wait.


“It’s okay if you don’t want to speak on it,” I tell him, “but I think it might help if you do. Bottling things up is bad for the digestion.”


“Well, I’m not just anybody, am I? We’re getting pretty close and whatever gets said in here remains private. I am not one to talk out of turn.”


“I thought prison would be like jail. They put you in a cell, work you some, and you do your time. But it wasn’t that way. They had some fool idea that keeping men in solitary would reform them. I was brought into the prison with a hood over my head so I wouldn’t see other prisoners. I was put into a cell alone and that was it.”


“Did you get out to do some work or take exercise?”


Chapter 17