Comstock Cross Fire

by Gary Franklin

  “Maybe you’re right at that,” Eli said. “We’ll have to watch out for that one.”

  It was almost dawn when the young half-breed who called himself Johnny Redman crept up on the sleeping camp of whites. He had watched the giant hand over the guard to the one with the Sharps rifle, and then within an hour, they were both sound asleep.

  Johnny needed a horse, and several horses would be even better. And he would like to have the Sharps rifle that was leaning up beside the wagon. For that matter, he’d like to steal the buckboard, mules, and all those supplies. And the barrels of water would take him all the way across the deserts, if he was able to find the Paiute water holes that few people except Indians knew about.

  Now, with the first gray light of a new day creeping up on the eastern horizon, Johnny Redman moved into the camp on moccasins that allowed him to step as silent as a ghost. One of the horses jerked its head around to watch Johnny, but then it lost interest. Fortunately, these people had no dogs.

  Redman slipped into camp and took the Sharps rifle, and then he went to the horses and mules and began to untie them one by one. He was doing just fine when a low voice said, “If you steal our livestock, we’ll have to hunt you down and kill you.”

  Redman whirled and faced the tall man chained to the wagon wheel. “Oh, it’s just you,” he said. “You’re not like the giant and the other one.”

  “No,” Joe Moss said, keeping his voice real quiet. “I’m not.”

  “I could kill you easy,” Johnny declared.

  “Not before I shouted and woke up Ransom Holt and Eli. And they won’t be as easy to kill as those you put down back in Perdition.”

  Redman considered this. “What do you want?”

  Joe didn’t have to think twice before answering. “I want to be free. The key to the locks are in the big man’s pants pocket.”

  “I can’t get those keys without waking him.”

  “Then kill him and take the keys,” Joe said.

  “Uh-uh,” Johnny Redman said. “I don’t kill sleeping people unless they are my enemy. And I don’t know that big man or the other one you call Eli.”

  “They are my enemies,” Joe explained. “And I will pay you well to kill them.”

  “No,” the half-breed decided after a moment of consideration. “But if you yell, then I will kill you quick.”

  Joe knew the half-breed would do exactly as he said and that there sure wasn’t much point in dying for giving Holt and Eli a warning. “All right, I won’t yell. But I saw you take guns from those two dead men. How about giving me one of those guns?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you might decide to shoot me.”

  “Hmmm,” Joe said. “I ain’t seein’ myself gettin’ anything for keepin’ quiet and lettin’ you steal our livestock.”

  “You get to keep your life,” Johnny told him. “And that’s plenty good enough.”

  Joe nodded in silent resignation, then whispered, “They’re takin’ me and my wife, Fiona, to Virginia City for a bounty of at least three thousand dollars.”

  Johnny stopped what he was doing. “Three thousand dollars!”

  “Yep.”>

  Johnny grinned. “You must have done something very bad for them to pay that much for your necks.”

  “I killed some rich mine owners in a place called Gold Hill right next to Virginia City. They were brothers and the last one alive is willin’ to pay most anything to have me hang before a Comstock crowd.”

  “Why are you telling me this now and why should I even care?”

  “Because the big man badly needs help getting us across this desert alive,” Joe whispered. “And I don’t think we have much of a chance without some help.”

  “And?” Johnny asked.

  “Why steal a few guns and horses worth so little when you could get a thousand dollars for helping the big man deliver us and collect a bounty on the Comstock Lode?”

  “Would he pay me well to help?”

  “Sure as hell he would,” Joe told the young half-breed. “But I have to tell you that I mean to get free and kill that pair. Maybe, if you treated my woman kindly, I would let you keep your half-breed Cheyenne scalp.”

  Johnny Redman leaned forward so that his face was only inches from that of Joe Moss. “You are a mountain man and the one that my people call Man Killer.”

  “That’s right. How did you know that?”

  “I know many things, Man Killer. And I know that my people always trusted you to keep your word. So I believe it when you say that there is a big reward for you and your woman.”

  “And you can have some of it if you can figure a way to get us to the Comstock alive,” Joe offered.

  “But would you also kill me to escape?”

  “Yes,” Joe said, knowing that this half-breed would sense a lie.

  Johnny Redman leaned back and frowned with concentration. Finally, he asked, “What do I have to do to get the big man to hire me for this journey?”

  “Well,” Joe said, “if I were you, I’d start by putting the Sharps rifle back where you found it and then the horses and mules. Put everything back and disappear into the brush. Come morning, I’ll tell Ransom Holt that you paid us a little visit just before daylight.”

  “And what would he say to that?”

  “He will be very angry with Eli for falling asleep on guard, but his anger will cool quickly when I tell him that you want to help him get us to Virginia City.”

  “How far away is this place?”

  “Five hundred miles. Maybe a little more.”

  “And if you tell him I want one thousand dollars of bounty money, then what will the big man say?”

  “He will say yes,” Joe replied, “but the other one will get very angry and threaten to fight.”

  “So will they fight?”

  “No,” Joe Moss said. “Eli will back down, but he will wait for a chance to kill the big man and then kill me and my wife for all the bounty.”

  “Man Killer, I could kill him right now and take his place,” Johnny Redman reasoned.

  “We need him,” Joe said. “Eli is a marksman and he will not run if we are jumped by Paiutes. I have no doubt that he is a good and fierce fighter.”

  “Even if he is afraid of the big man?”

  “Even so,” Joe told the half-breed.

  Johnny Redman replaced the big rifle. He returned everything to its place, and then he crept back to Joe Moss just as the sun slipped over the far eastern horizon. “I will be up ahead, Man Killer. You tell the big man that Johnny Redman was here and did not kill him or the rest of you because he wants one thousand dollars of the reward.”

  “I will tell him that,” Joe promised. “And tonight when the sun is low and we make camp, come to join us.”

  “I will be ready to kill them if they try to kill me,” the half-breed warned.

  “I would like that,” Joe said. “If you want to try and kill them both, that would help me and Fiona.”

  “But then I would not get the reward.”

  “No,” Joe said, “you would not.”

  “I will go now and think about these things that we have spoken about,” Johnny Redman said.

  “With a thousand dollars, you could do anything you wanted to do,” Joe told the half-breed as he was leaving.

  “Yes, but you and your woman would hang.”

  “Yes,” Joe admitted, “we would have to hang and I do not mean for that to happen.”

  “I do not want you as my enemy,” Johnny Redman said. “I have always heard my people speak well of you.”

  “Was it your mother . . . or your father that was Cheyenne?”

  “My father. He took my white mother on a raid and she became like a Cheyenne. The soldiers killed them both when I was twelve years old. I was taken in by other families, and then I left my Cheyenne people looking for something I have not yet found.”

  “What would that be?”

 
“Revenge against all the soldiers.”

  “Revenge is good sometimes,” Joe told the half-breed, “but it is like a thirst that can never be satisfied. And one day, it will kill your body and even your soul.”

  “So I have been told by the wisest among my people. Man Killer, I will give these things we have talked about much thought today,” Johnny Redman promised as he vanished like a wraith into the cool desert dawn.

  12

  SOMEHOW, ELI MANAGED to wake up a few minutes before Ransom Holt the next morning, so he avoided catching hell. Just after dawn, Joe and Fiona rode out of the camp shackled on horseback, even though Fiona had pleaded that Joe be allowed to stretch out on blankets in the buckboard.

  “To hell with that,” Holt snapped. “Joe could get loose and then strangle me from behind while I’m driving. I like the way things are now, so we’ll stay this way clear to the Comstock.”

  “If we’re attacked by Paiutes,” Joe warned, “our situation could get ugly real fast. I’d be a lot more useful to you in the buckboard than shackled to this horse.”

  “I’ll take my chances with the Paiutes over you any day of the week,” Holt told him.

  Eli snickered. “Joe, I’ll take my chances with that wife of yours if you get scalped by Paiutes.”

  Joe bristled and bit back a response. Sooner or later he would have Eli’s hair, and then they’d see who had the last laugh.

  “What’s the matter, Joe Moss? Cat got your tongue?” Eli said, trying to goad him into a response.

  “How’d you sleep last night, Eli?” Joe decided to ask.

  “I slept well until three o’clock this morning when I went on guard.”

  “You slept well even after that,” Joe said loud enough for Ransom Holt to overhear. “In fact, Eli, you slept so well that you didn’t even know we had a visitor.”

  “What are you talking about?” Holt demanded.

  “I’m just saying that we were paid a visit last night by that Cheyenne half-breed kid that killed those three men in Perdition.”

  “What!” Holt drew the wagon to a halt. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me,” Joe replied. “The kid’s name is Johnny Redman and he came to steal your mules and horses as well as Eli’s Sharps rifle and maybe both your scalps.”

  Holt’s face turned purple with rage. He glared at Eli, who looked away quickly. “Eli, damn your lazy hide, is Moss telling me the truth?”

  “No, sir! I never closed my eyes even for a minute between the time that you waked me this mornin’ and first light when we all got movin’.”

  “He’s lying to you,” Joe said matter-of-factly. “The half-breed kid sneaked into our camp, and would have killed all of you and stolen everything if I hadn’t convinced him to pay us a visit tonight.”

  “Now why would he do that?” Holt asked.

  “Because,” Joe said, “I told him about the huge bounty that you are planning to get from that Peabody fella.”

  “You told him that?”

  “I did for a fact,” Joe said. “And I told him that he’d make a lot more money by helping get us to the Comstock Lode than he would by killing you two last night in your sleep.”

  Holt and Eli exchanged glances, then Holt said, “Tell me more about this conversation.”

  “All right,” Joe agreed, “I told Johnny Redman that the reward for getting myself and Fiona to the Comstock Lode was going to be at least three thousand dollars.”

  “How the hell would you know what the full reward is?” Holt demanded. “I’ve never told you or anyone else the exact amount.”

  “I don’t for certain,” Joe confessed. “But the way that Peabody has been throwin’ his money at the spies you hired, and the fact that Eli and Dalton were supposed to get a thousand apiece, tells me that the whole pot has to be at least three thousand . . . and maybe a heap more.”

  Holt had to smile. “You’re a hell of a lot brighter than you look, Moss. But I’m not going to pay that half-breed gunslinger any thousand dollars.”

  “Suit yourself,” Joe said, “but that’ll be what he’s expecting.”

  “I’ll kill the half-breed for you!” Eli shouted to Holt. “If he shows up at our camp tonight, then I’ll just shoot him in the guts and we’ll all sit around the campfire and watch him slowly die.”

  “You can try to kill Johnny Redman,” Joe said, “but were I a bettin’ man, I’d sure as hell put my money on the half-breed before I’d put it on you.”

  Eli shook with anger. “Moss,” he grated, “I almost wish that Mr. Holt would just take off those chains so that we could fight it out to the death.”

  “No, you don’t,” Joe told the man. “Because even with a hole in my shoulder not completely healed, I’d still carve you up like a Christmas turkey and then take your scalp. Give us both knives or guns, and you wouldn’t last any longer than a snowball in hell.”

  “Maybe we should find out right now!” Eli yelled, jumping off his horse and acting like he was fixing to fight.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t,” Holt said sternly. “Eli, get back on that horse and quit acting like a damned fool. Can’t you see that Moss is just trying to goad you into a fight?”

  “Well, I’m not backin’ away from one!”

  “You should be,” Holt told his gunman. “Moss would kill you in less than a minute, and then I wouldn’t have anyone to help me deliver him and his wife to Peabody. And that’s exactly what he wants to happen. Now get back on that horse and stop acting like a damn fool!”

  Eli glared at Joe, who simply smiled back at the man. Eli was a fool and sooner or later he would do something rash, and then Joe figured he would have his chance to kill the man.

  “So,” Holt said as he got the buckboard moving again. “This half-breed is going to show up at our camp tonight and demand a thousand dollars?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Maybe I should agree to that,” Holt mused aloud.

  “What?” Eli cried. “I lost my brother and I’m gettin’ Dalton’s full share. Me! Not some half-breed who just showed up yesterday.”

  “Listen,” Holt said, “what I pay is my business. You’ll get your two thousand dollars. I’ve already agreed to that, and so will Peabody when I tell him how you stuck with me right from the start and how it cost you your only brother. Mr. Peabody recently lost two of his brothers . . . thanks to Joe Moss and his wife. So there’s no doubt that he will be willing to pay you what I’ve promised.”

  The anger seeped out of Eli’s face. “It’s only right that I get paid both my share as well as Dalton’s. I’d rather have my brother back than the money, you know.”

  “Is that a fact?” Joe questioned. “I sure don’t believe it.”

  “Gawddamn you!” Eli screamed at Joe. “You keep pushin’ me and I’m going to kill you!”

  “You do that,” Holt said, his voice cold as ice, “and I’ll kill you.”

  Eli bit back his anger and spurred his horse on ahead. Holt looked at Joe Moss and said, “You know, Eli is pretty hot-tempered and after losing his brother, he might just go crazy and kill you.”

  “Yeah, he might,” Joe told the big man, “but then again, he might just get himself killed in the process.”

  “So then you and Eli would both be dead and I’d only have your wife to take on to the Comstock Lode for a hanging. Is that how you want this game to play out, Moss?”

  Joe had to finally shake his head. “No,” he admitted. “That’s not what I want.”

  “Then you had better stop needling Eli,” Holt warned. “For your own good as well as mine.”

  “He’s not going to make it all the way to the Comstock Lode,” Joe said. “We both know you’ll kill him before you have to pay him.”

  “You don’t know a gawddamn thing! Now shut your mouth or I won’t give your wife any water when we stop to rest at noon.”

  “You’re a hard, hard man,” Joe said between clenched teeth.

  “So are you,” Holt told
him as they drove on. “And I’ll tell you one other thing as long as we’re on the subject.”

  “What is that?”

  “I don’t think it’s going to work out with the half-breed hiring on to help me get you to Virginia City.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s too damn fast with a gun or a knife,” Holt reasoned. “Faster than you and faster than me.”

  “That’s true enough,” Joe said. “But this country is full of Paiutes. They’ve been at war with the whites since the first wagon trains started coming through cutting down all the trees along the Humboldt River. Just as bad, the emigrants have been cutting down for firewood the piñon pines, which give those Indians piñon nuts, their main source of food. The whites have shot out whatever deer that used to run wild in this desert, they’ve polluted the springs and water holes, and they’ve hunted the wild mustangs just for sport.”

  “So,” Holt said with amusement. “The emigrants have basically screwed up everything for the Paiutes. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “I’m not trying to tell you anything,” Joe said. “I’ve just explained why the Paiutes hate all the whites. And when they see that we’re all by ourselves with just one wagon and two men able to fight, you can be sure that they’ll come against us.”

  “How?”

  “You’re asking me how to guard against the Paiutes?” Joe asked.

  “That’s right,” Holt replied. “I’m asking you how we can best protect ourselves. And you’re telling me, unless you want your wife to not only go without water but without food today.”

  “You ornery sonofabitch!” Joe whispered. “You’re gonna use Fiona against me every step of the way, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right,” Holt said pleasantly. “So you might just as well cooperate and help me all that you can.”

  Joe scowled. “All right,” he conceded. “The Paiute are a desert people and they’re as good at tracking and stalking in this rough desert country as the Apache. And like the Apache, they won’t attack us on horseback. No, sir. They’ll sneak up in this sagebrush and they’ll try to ambush both you and Eli.”

  “So how do we stop them from doing that?” Holt asked with real concern in his voice.