Comstock Cross Fire

by Gary Franklin

  “I don’t expect you to like me seein’ as how I shot you. But I didn’t do much harm and you’ll come out of this alive . . . if we do. Now move!”

  The young Paiute warrior raised his chin in defiance. Joe jabbed him again in the ass with the sharp point of his knife. This time the Paiute didn’t yell, and he started forward. They climbed out of the water hole bowl, and Joe glanced back wondering if he was doing the wrong thing by making a run for the Rubys.

  “Fiona, make ’em trot!”

  Fiona kicked the strawberry into a trot, and the poor little burro had to really work to keep up with the horse. Joe jabbed the Paiute into a jog and they hurried westward.

  He just hoped to hell they could reach the Rubys before the Paiutes caught up with them.

  21

  JOE MOSS WAS a powerful man, and one who had learned to endure the kind of intense pain and hardships that would have broken most men. But now, with the Ruby Mountains plainly in sight, he just could not take another faltering step.

  “Hold up,” he called to Fiona on the strawberry roan. “I . . . I can’t walk any farther today.”

  “It’s your feet?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said, “they’re infected and so swollen up I couldn’t get my boots off last night.”

  Fiona jumped down from the strawberry roan and, ignoring their young Paiute captive, she said, “Sit down, Joe. I’m going to take those boots off and then we’ll bathe your feet and doctor them as best we can out here in the desert. After that, you’re going to ride the rest of the way to the Rubys and I’ll lead the burro and our young Indian captive.”

  Joe wanted to protest, but he knew that was stupid. Both of his feet had gone way beyond the point of his painful blisters. They were burning and he was, too, feeling woozy and feverish.

  Joe unholstered his gun and pointed it at their captive. “Just so you don’t think about tryin’ to escape,” he warned.

  “He won’t try,” Fiona told Joe. “His hands are still tied behind his back.”

  “Oh, he’ll run if he gets the chance,” Joe said. “And I’ll bet he’s faster’n I am even with those hands tied.”

  “Let’s get those boots off,” Fiona said, concern written all over her face. “I’m really worried about your feet.”

  “They’ll probably be all right.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Fiona said. “Now lean back and give me your boot and I’ll try to pull it off.”

  Fiona pulled and pulled while Joe tried not to yelp. When Fiona couldn’t pull the damned boot off, she tried the other with the same results. Looking up at Joe, she said, “Your feet are so swollen up that we’ll have to cut the boots off in order to do the doctoring.”

  “Maybe we should just leave them on for now,” Joe suggested. “We’ll be up to the Ruby Mountains and finally outa this desert by midnight. Once we get into the mountains, we can rest up a day or two and I’ll soak my feet in some icy stream.”

  “But if your feet are so infected that they’re starting to poison your blood, we really should tend to them right now.”

  “Help me up on the roan,” Joe said. “And let’s get to the mountains. I got a strong hunch that the Paiutes are closing on our back trail. If we get to the mountains, we can defend ourselves better.”

  Fiona nodded with understanding. “All right, Joe. If that’s what you think is best.”

  “It is,” Joe said. “Now help me get onto that strawberry roan.”

  Once Joe was mounted, he took the rope that was tied around the Paiute’s neck and wrapped the other end around his saddle horn. Then he pointed to the mountains and kicked his horse in the ribs.

  If the young Paiute had any intention of slowing their progress to help his friends, they were instantly dispelled as he was abruptly jerked forward by the roan. With the noose tight around his neck, he had no choice but to follow along at a trot. Fiona picked up the burro’s lead rope and followed as best she could.

  In the late afternoon, less than an hour before sundown, Joe, now feeling dizzy with fever, turned and tried to see if he could spot Paiutes. He was afraid that he would not be able to do much in the way of fighting them if the negotiations he had hoped for failed.

  “Do you see them coming?” Fiona asked.

  Joe closed one eye because he was seeing double. “Yeah,” he said at last. “I think that I do.”

  “Where!”

  Joe pointed. “Look out into the desert and just to the east of that little rocky knoll and that’s where you’ll see something moving. I think that’s our Paiutes.”

  Fiona shaded her eyes for a moment and then gasped. “Oh, Joe, they are on ponies and closing fast on us!”

  “We can make the mountains and find a good place to hole up and fight if we have to. My eyes are givin’ me a bit of trouble, Fiona. How many can you count?”

  “About ten,” she said after a moment.

  “Ten,” Joe said to himself. “That’s more’n I was hopin’ would follow, but we can still handle ’em.”

  “Can we?”

  “We don’t have any choice. Ain’t no cavalry out here and no whites that would care to help us if they heard rifle shots.”

  “Let’s go!” Fiona urged.

  Their captive looked back and smiled. Then, before Joe or Fiona could stop him, he let out a high-pitched scream that probably carried for miles in the clear, hot air.

  “Shut up!” Joe yelled, yanking out his pistol and trying to focus on the Paiute. “You yell again and I’ll kill ya!”

  The young Paiute didn’t yell, but he didn’t stop smiling either.

  “Let’s push it,” Fiona pleaded. “Those mountains up ahead are probably farther away than they look.”

  “They always are,” Joe agreed.

  For the next five hours and well into the night, they pushed themselves to their physical limits. They were low on water and food, so they were weak. Fiona was staggering when they finally got up into the tall pine trees and then continued along a game trail until they reached a little stream and meadow.

  “Can’t we stop right here, Joe?”

  Joe was slipping in and out of consciousness and his fever was raging.

  “Joe! Joe, can we stop here?”

  He roused himself with all his willpower and looked around at the moonlit meadow, and then he saw the rushing stream. “Let’s follow it a little higher, Fiona. We got to find a spot where it goes through a narrow place with rocks. That’s where we can hole up and make our best stand.”

  Fiona nodded and led the way forward. Joe gripped his saddle horn with both fists and tried to keep his eye on their Paiute captive. Soon, they did pass through the moonlit meadow and into rocks. The sound of the water was loud and Joe knew that, unlike the hidden mustang water hole from which they’d last drunk their fill, this water would be clear and sweet.

  “This is a good enough place for us to fight!” Joe called, swaying precariously in his saddle. “Let’s all drink and then hole up in those big rocks.”

  “Will the Paiutes attack us in the night?”

  “I don’t think so,” Joe said, tumbling out of the saddle and crawling to the stream to drink. “I . . . I don’t think so.”

  Joe drank deeply, and then he swiveled around and shoved his booted feet into the stream and pulled up his pants so that the water poured into his boot tops and filled them. Moments later, his feet didn’t burn so bad, and he looked up at the stars, thinking maybe he’d live through this night.

  “Fiona!”

  She was at his side, and when she touched his brow she softly began to cry. “Joe, you’re on fire.”

  “Help me get all the way into that stream.”

  “But the water is so cold and the night air up here is chilly.”

  “That’s right,” he moaned. “That’s what I need right now.”

  Fiona dragged Joe into the rushing stream, and the feeling of the icy mountain water pouring over his body was pure pleasure.

  “Get our Indian ti
ed hand and foot and back under the rocks along with our horse and burro,” Joe ordered. “Unload our packs and get everything back in and under those big rocks and make sure that all the weapons are loaded. But don’t unsaddle the strawberry roan in case everything goes to hell and you need to get on that horse and make a run for the Humboldt River.”

  “I won’t leave you here!”

  “Ain’t no use in both of us dyin’ if you can live, Fiona. Now just let me lie here a little longer and I’ll be feelin’ a mite better.”

  Fiona didn’t look like she believed Joe, but she knew that the Paiutes were very close now, so she did as he instructed. It took her less than twenty minutes to take care of the animals and tie the Paiute securely. He tried to kick and knock her down, then get away, but she hit him with the barrel of the pistol just hard enough to get him to behave.

  “All right, Joe,” she said, returning to the stream. “Everything is taken care of like you wanted.”

  “Good woman,” he said, rousing himself. “Now help me back under the rocks and we just wait and see what them Indians want to do . . . fight or do tradin’ talk. ”

  Joe awoke with light peeking through the cracks of the big rocks and Fiona shaking his shoulder. “Joe, they’re standing out there across from the stream and it looks like they want to talk.”

  Joe felt like he was climbing out of a tunnel. “Talk? Who?”

  “The Paiutes that have been chasing us!”

  “My fever is high,” Joe confessed. “You might have to do the palaverin’ yourself.”

  “But . . . but I can’t do that! I don’t speak Paiute!”

  “Make sign,” Joe told her. “Tell ’em we’ll trade their young warrior for safe passage to the Humboldt River. Tell ’em we need to stay here a week or so until I get strong enough to travel. And ask ’em if they have any medicine for my feet. And Fiona?”

  “Yes?”

  “Be sure to tell them that my Indian name is Man Killer.”

  “I’ll do that. Should I have a gun in my hand when I go out there to talk?”

  “Do the Paiutes have their guns in their hands?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you take my pistols . . . both of ’em, and make sure they are loaded and ready to fire. And you go out and make us a deal. Tell them that Man Killer is waiting to hear what they say. But we’ll take any deal so long as we can keep our weapons, the horse, and the burro, and they get their friend.”

  Joe wanted to say more, but his world started spinning and he closed his eyes. Darkness came swiftly.

  Fiona had spent all morning trying to make her demands known to the Indians who stood on the other side of the Ruby Mountains stream. When the Paiutes learned that Man Killer was guarding their warrior, they grew very serious and started to talk to Fiona much more respectfully. Over and over and over, she had used crude sign language and words to convey her wishes. Fortunately, two of the older Paiutes knew some English, but unfortunately, they obviously liked to dicker and deal.

  At noon, when Fiona was nearly wild with worry about Joe’s infected feet and what was going to happen to them, it seemed like she had a breakthrough in the discussion. Even better, it turned out that one of the two older Indians who spoke broken English was a Paiute medicine man.

  “Come over here,” Fiona said, pointing to the medicine man and urging him to wade across the cold stream. “Husband very sick. Man Killer very sick with bad feet!”

  Fiona pointed to her feet, and then she rolled her eyes up in her head and acted woozy. The Paiute understood and nodded with concern. At that point, Fiona knew that once these people understood that Man Killer could not fight, she was very vulnerable to being killed. But the old medicine man came across the stream by himself, and soon they were cutting off Joe’s boots and staring at Joe’s badly infected feet.

  Fiona was not a nurse nor had she done a lot of doctoring, but she had seen wounds become infected with gangrene and she knew what that smelled and looked like. Joe’s feet were almost, but not quite, gangrenous.

  “My husband needs strong Paiute medicine,” she said repeatedly.

  The medicine man went over to the captive and inspected the young man’s arm. He frowned, and then he whirled and marched back across the stream to get his medicines. At that point, Fiona thought the old Paiute might tell his companions to attack and kill the helpless white man with bad feet and enslave his woman. Fiona gripped her pistols tightly and vowed to fight to the death, if necessary. She would never again allow herself to be taken captive by red man or white.

  But the medicine man returned with his herbs, and soon he had a little fire going and was boiling all his medicines and stream water in a pottery jug. Then he made poultices out of plant leaves and moss from the streambed and wrapped Joe’s badly infected feet.

  “Make good medicine,” the old Paiute proclaimed, thumping his bony chest. “Me good medicine man!”

  Fiona bowed her head with respect, pistols still in her hands. “Yes, you are a good medicine man . . . I hope.”

  The Paiutes camped for two days on the other side of the beautiful mountain stream. They seemed to be in no particular hurry to leave or go about any other business. Fiona had made it very clear that only the medicine man was to cross to her side of the stream and join her under the big rocks to make his medicine.

  Joe’s fever broke and his vision became clear again. When he understood what was going on, he sat up and thanked the medicine man with extravagant praise. Then he stated that he wanted to trade safe passage for them to the Humboldt River and in return he would let their captive young Paiute go free.

  And so began the bargaining all over again. It lasted another two days, and ended only when Joe pulled his tomahawk from his pack and two scalps that he had secretly kept hidden from Fiona.

  “Man Killer scalp Sitting Bull!” he roared, half laughing because this was totally untrue. He waved the scalps in a circle overhead and howled and chanted a few Cheyenne songs just to make it all seem true. “This other belonged to Crazy Horse!”

  But the Paiutes believed him, and went wild over the tomahawk and the two scalps belonging to famous Plains Indian war chiefs. And when Joe promised to throw in a pistol along with their hostage, the deal was finally agreed on. After that, the Paiutes were grinning from ear to ear and there was no doubt that they thought Man Killer and his woman were now their good and true friends.

  That night, Joe and Fiona dared to sleep for a few hours as they huddled close under the rocks. Their captive was snoring, and his elbow had been doctored by the Paiute medicine man, who pronounced that the young man’s arm would fully mend.

  “Do you think they’ll betray and kill us after we leave these mountains and go down with them back into the desert?”

  “No,” Joe said. “I don’t. They want my ’hawk and those two scalps real bad. I also promised to give ’em five dollars, which they can use to buy plenty of whiskey at some trading post way the hell out on the Humboldt.”

  “When you were unconscious with fever, they could easily have killed me, Joe.”

  But Joe shook his head. “They could have done those things, but from your hard looks they decided you would not only fight, but you know how to use those two pistols, and that some of them would die. When you made it clear you wanted to swap their young man for safe passage, they felt that was a good and fair trade. And when they learned I was Man Killer, with the scalps of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, they would have given us all their Indian ponies in trade, but I only asked for one.”

  “If you hadn’t missed at the mustangs’ water hole and you’d actually killed one or even both Indians, would we have been able to make a deal?”

  “No,” Joe told her. “If I’d shot quicker and straighter and killed one or both at the water hole, we’d be dead by now.”

  Fiona shook her head in wonder. “Sometimes, Joe, the Lord really does work in strange ways.”

  “I don’t know if he was workin’ or not when I missed ki
lling that pair, but I’ll give ya the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Your poor feet are looking a lot better.”

  “I should never have put on a dead man’s boots,” Joe told her. “I should have made myself a pair of moccasins like I usually wear.”

  Fiona leaned her head back against Joe’s shoulder and looked up at the night. The stream was a constant, comforting sound.

  “I like it here in the Ruby Mountains where it’s cool and green and where there’s sweet, cold water. I wish we could stay here, Joe.”

  “If you want, after we go to Virginia City and get our girl, we can come back here to live. These mountains aren’t big like the Rockies or the Wasatch, but they’re big enough for us to live in for the rest of our days without ever being crowded by white people.”

  “Maybe that would be nice,” Fiona mused as she looked upward. “Maybe we should think seriously about that, Joe.”

  “Fine by me,” he said. “But we got a lot of hard travelin’ to do before we can get to Virginia City and back. And there’s going to be some killin’ along the way, Fiona.”

  “Must there be?”

  “I’m afraid so. I won’t leave the Comstock Lode until the last Peabody man either shakes my hand and swears to me the blood feud is over between us . . . or I kill him and it’s over. Either way, I won’t have people comin’ after me and you anymore for a Peabody bounty.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m glad that you do,” Joe said, holding his wife close. “And if this Paiute wasn’t here under the rock with us . . . well, I was thinkin’ that maybe you and me could cozy up a little closer and . . .”

  “Oh, Joe! You really are starting to feel better.”

  “I am,” Joe admitted. “And I’m a-thinkin’ that I’d like to have a taste of you before we go back out in the damned hot desert.”

  “While we’re cool and clean?”

  “Yep. And before the salt and alkali gets into our creases again.”