Comstock Cross Fire

by Gary Franklin

  “Fiona!” he bellowed into the moaning wind.

  For all the answer he got, Joe might as well have been standing on the surface of the moon. Still dazed and bleeding from the nasty gash across his cheekbone, Joe had never felt so desperate and helpless. How far had Fiona gotten before the half-breed had overtaken her? A mile? Maybe even two. Probably much less.

  If she had been willing to release their burro, maybe, just maybe, she could have made it on the strawberry to Reno. But Joe knew his wife loved their little burro and she would not let it go until it was too late.

  Joe snatched up Holt’s weapons and emptied the man’s pockets, taking cash without bothering to spend the time counting it. He then allowed himself one final look at the giant bounty hunter who had dogged him and his poor wife for so long. Holt’s one good eye was staring up at the hot sun; the other eye, which Joe had gouged half out with his thumb, protruded ghoulishly like a purple grape that had been stomped in a pool of already congealing blood.

  Joe had to find Fiona.

  Had to save her from the half-breed before it was too late. But they were on horseback and he was on two mending feet, so right now things were not the least bit in his favor.

  25

  JOHNNY REDMAN HAD overtaken Fiona Moss, but it had required almost two hard miles of riding through the sand. Now, with his six-gun in his hand and riding stirrup to stirrup with the woman, Johnny shouted, “Rein up or I’ll shoot the burro first, your horse second, and you last!”

  Fiona glanced sideways at the tall young man through her tears. “No, let us alone!”

  Johnny cocked back the hammer of his gun, aimed it at the baying and struggling little burro, and fired. He intentionally put a round hole through the tip of the burro’s long, droopy ear. The burro bawled in pain; Fiona let out a scream and pulled the strawberry roan to a stop.

  “You killed him! You killed that poor little—”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Johnny said. “If I had wanted to kill him, I could have with both my eyes shut tight. He’s just got a little hole in the tip of his ear, that’s all.”

  Fiona scrubbed the tears from her eyes. “What is wrong with you? Why would you want to see Joe and me hang?”

  “For the bounty,” the half-breed said without anger. “I got to have the money.”

  “Do you need it bad enough to have our souls weighing on your conscience the rest of your life?”

  “I’m afraid that I do.” Redman reached out and took the reins from Fiona’s hand. “We’re going back now. Are you armed?”

  “I have a gun.”

  “Give it to me.”

  Joe had given her the Colt Navy, and the thought passed through Fiona’s mind that she could draw it out of her saddlebag and try to shoot Johnny Redman. But then she looked at the gun in his hand and saw that she wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “All right.”

  “It’s loaded?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why didn’t you try to kill me?” he asked, taking the gun from her hand.

  “I thought about it.”

  “Just thinking never got anything done,” Johnny told her. “I believe that you didn’t try to use it because you can’t kill anyone.”

  Anger flushed her cheeks. “I could kill Ransom Holt! And I could have killed those men at the dugout that did me wrong. I thought every living moment about how good it would feel to kill those three.”

  “Maybe,” Johnny said. “But I doubt it. Don’t matter. Your husband has done enough killing for both your lifetimes.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Fiona told him, “I didn’t kill that rich man in Virginia City.”

  “I doubt that you did,” Johnny answered. “But that doesn’t change the fact that there’s a big bounty on your head for me to collect. Now let’s head on back as fast as we can. By now, Ransom Holt has your man hog-tied and if we don’t come back quick, he just might do something real, real bad to Joe Moss. You see, Ransom is just that kind of a man.”

  “And you’re not?” she challenged.

  “No time for—”

  They both heard the three shots in quick succession.

  “Oh, my God!” Fiona cried. “He did kill my poor husband!”

  “Let’s go!” Johnny ordered. “Leave the burro. We’ll come back for him later!”

  Fiona put her heels to her poor, worn-out strawberry roan. Johnny Redman was riding a fine pinto, and they raced side by side back across the shifting sand dunes.

  “Look!” Fiona cried. “Why, that’s my Joe! He . . . he must have killed Ransom Holt!”

  Johnny did something totally unexpected. He reached out and shoved Fiona from her saddle. Had she landed on hard ground or rocks, she would have been badly injured, but she landed in the deep sand. Johnny grabbed the strawberry’s reins and brought both horses to a stop. Then he turned them around and went back to Fiona, who was dazed and just coming to her feet.

  Dismounting and grabbing Fiona, Johnny said, “Let’s walk back side by side to meet him.”

  “But—”

  “Do as I tell you,” Johnny ordered, leading both horses. “Because if you don’t, I’ll kill Joe and then I’ll kill you.”

  Fiona understood and nodded in agreement.

  When they reached Joe, Johnny said, “You’re armed and I’m armed, but my gun is pointed at your wife.”

  “If you—”

  “Drop your gun, Joe,” the half-breed ordered. “Drop it right now or I’ll kill your wife.”

  “Don’t do it!” Fiona cried. “He’s just going to take us to hang! Shoot him, Joe!”

  Joe had three bullets left in his revolver, but Johnny would have six. Joe was a fair-to-middlin’ shot with a pistol; Johnny was the best and fastest man he had ever seen with a six-gun. And finally, Johnny had Fiona right next to him and he couldn’t miss her even if he tried.

  “All right,” Joe said, the bile rising in his throat so that it nearly choked him.

  “No!” Fiona cried. “Don’t you see, he’ll just take us to Peabody the same as Ransom Holt was going to do?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said bitterly, dropping the gun at his side. “But Ransom is dead and now we only got to do what this one tells us to do.”

  “I don’t want to kill either of you,” Johnny told them. “But I need the bounty money.”

  “For what!” Fiona cried. “To—”

  “My people are up near the Big Horns and last winter twenty-six of them starved to death because the crooked reservation agent pocketed the government money that should have gone for provisions,” Johnny said. “This winter, even more will die unless I can do something to save them.”

  Joe squinted. “Something like kill us for the Virginia City ransom?”

  “Something like,” Johnny admitted. “With a couple of thousand dollars I can buy cattle. Enough cattle and land to start a ranch up there next to our reservation. And my herds will grow and I’ll feed my people every winter until the white agent is either dead or fired. I’ll feed my people until a white man’s justice finally comes to our reservation.”

  “Maybe I could kill that rotten Indian agent for you and that would take care of the problem,” Joe suggested.

  “If you or I did, someone just like him would take his place. Someone just like him always ends up in charge! But if I buy land and cattle, no one can take them away. I will own the land. I will own the cattle. They will be mine to give freely!”

  “Taking us to Virginia City is wrong,” Joe said. “No good comes from bad.”

  “It will this time,” Johnny countered. “It is my only choice. Your lives . . . or the lives of many of my people this winter.”

  Joe looked at Fiona and his shoulders slumped. “I think we’d better do as this breed says for now, darlin’.”

  She scrubbed at her tears. “We were so close, Joe. So close to getting our daughter back and then going—”

  “Shhh,” he told her, not wanting his wife to let this half-breed know where they
had decided to settle in peace for the rest of their days.

  Fiona understood.

  “You got any other guns on you, Joe?”

  “No.”

  “No tomahawk and no knife?”

  Joe threw his knife into the sand. “That’s all.”

  The half-breed picked up the knife. “How did you kill Ransom Holt?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I’d like to know.”

  “I shot him in the face three times with his own pistol. He was stronger, but I was quicker and I know how to Indian wrestle.”

  “Did you scalp him?”

  “No time . . . and besides,” Joe added, “I promised my wife that my scalpin’ days were over.”

  “Man Killer will scalp no more?”

  “That’s right.”

  Johnny Redman picked up Joe’s gun and blew the sand from it before he shoved the revolver behind his cartridge belt. Sounding sad, he pointed his gun at Joe and said, “Let’s turn back west and we’ll pick up that ear-shot burro on our way to Virginia City.”

  “How about you let my wife ride her horse.”

  “Maybe later,” Johnny said. “For now, we’ll all go for a little walk.”

  Joe turned and then said back over his shoulder, “We can start out, but we ain’t walking far. Those are Paiutes and they got our pack burro.”

  Johnny Redman glanced over his shoulder, expecting the worst and seeing it. “We’re surrounded by them.”

  Joe turned a full circle. “Must be at least fifty. So, Johnny, you’re the man with the gun in his hand. What are you gonna tell us to do now?”

  For once, the half-breed had no words, no thoughts. He could try to make a run for it alone, but he knew he stood no chance and they would overtake and kill him.

  “I guess we see if we can make a deal,” Johnny finally answered.

  “What kind of a deal?” Joe asked. “Do you think these people are gonna take me and Fiona to the Comstock Lode for that blood bounty?”

  “No,” Johnny said. “I don’t.”

  “And do you think they’ll settle for keepin’ our burro?”

  “I very much doubt it.”

  “Maybe,” Joe said, “you’d better give me back a gun and then at least we can put up some kind of a fight.”

  “I’m considering it,” the half-breed told him. “I’m strongly considering it.”

  “Well, consider fast,” Joe said, “because here they come!”

  26

  “ALL RIGHT,” JOHNNY Redman said, handing Joe a loaded pistol as the Paiutes jumped off their ponies and started forward with guns and rifles. “I guess we might as well go down giving them a good fight.”

  “Fiona needs a gun, too,” Joe said. “After we kill some, they won’t take kindly to a woman captive. They’ll treat her real bad.”

  “Can she shoot straight?” Johnny asked.

  “I can,” Fiona said, watching the Paiutes drop to the sand and start crawling in on them from all sides.

  “Save the last ’un for yourself,” Joe told her. “Or I’ll do it.”

  “I can do it,” Fiona told him. “And remember this one thing, Joe.”

  He looked at his wife. Her face was cut and blistered from sand and sun, but Joe had never thought her more brave nor beautiful. “What?”

  “I love you, Joe. Despite all the terrible things that have happened to us since we met, we created a beautiful daughter, Jessica. And even if we never see her again, a part of us will live on.”

  Joe Moss wasn’t an emotional man, but when he heard those words from Fiona, he nearly cried. Instead, he bit his lip until it bled and cocked back the hammer of his pistol.

  “We wait until they’re real close, and then we stay low in the sand and shoot fast and straight.”

  “Amen to that,” the half-breed whispered, swiveling his body around so that he was facing away from where Joe and Fiona were facing.

  Suddenly, Fiona cried, “Joe! We have that medicine man’s stick! The one painted red with the eagle feather. He said it would give us protection!”

  “Holy hog fat, you’re right!” Joe crowed. “I’d completely forgotten about that powerful medicine stick.”

  “Joe, it’s gotta work!”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but I damn sure mean to find out.”

  “I’m faster than you afoot,” Redman said. “Exactly where is it!”

  “In the saddlebag on the right side of the strawberry roan.”

  “Cover me!” Johnny hissed as he jumped up and ran to the strawberry roan.

  The horse wasn’t more than ten yards away, but when Johnny Redman made his swift move, the Paiutes opened fire. Johnny was creased in the leg and he staggered, but still lunged for the strawberry, which shied away from him.

  “Easy. Easy,” Johnny said as a hailstorm of bullets and arrows whizzed all around. The half-breed thrust his hand into the saddlebags and drew out the carved red medicine man’s stick with its beautiful eagle feather.

  Johnny spun around and another bullet sliced across his ribs. He fell back against the strawberry, which bolted and ran off into the desert. Joe knew that he would never see that good horse again because the Paiutes would capture it as a prize that had once belonged to Man Killer.

  “Hey! Hey-ya! Hey-ya! Hey!” Johnny shouted a Cheyenne chant as he spun a full circle waving the medicine man’s stick.

  The firing died. Johnny, balanced on one good leg and leaking blood from his ribs, kept chanting and waving the red medicine stick.

  “It’s working!” Fiona cried. “Look!”

  “I kin see,” Joe said, watching as the Paiutes all around them suddenly lowered their weapons and stood up watching the half-breed. After a moment, one of them gave a signal and all the Paiutes quietly started toward them as Johnny kept up his dancing and chanting in Cheyenne.

  A short time later, those Paiutes were riding away. Their medicine man, a deep walnut-colored little fellow, had given Johnny Redman some salve for his wounds. In return, Johnny had offered the old medicine man his handsome pinto, which was received with great formality and happiness.

  “How badly are you wounded?” Fiona asked, coming to Johnny’s side.

  “If I can lean on your shoulder, I think I can make it out of this desert to Reno. It’ll be slow, but I can do ’er.”

  “I’ll be slow, too, with these sorry damned feet o’ mine,” Joe said. “We’re gonna be a damned sorry sight when we limp into Reno.”

  “Just as long as we make it,” Johnny said.

  Joe looked at the half-breed closely. “What about that bounty on our heads?”

  “You and Fiona saved my life with that red Paiute medicine stick and eagle feather. My people believe that when someone saves your life, you can never take their life.”

  “That a fact?” Joe asked, making sure.

  “It is,” Johnny assured them.

  “Hmmm,” Joe mused. “Seems like the Blackfoot have that same rule . . . or maybe it’s the Crow. I forget.”

  “Well, I’m Cheyenne,” Johnny told them, “and that’s the way that we believe.”

  “Then I guess I won’t have to kill you either, Johnny Redman. What’s your Cheyenne Indian name?”

  “Stalking Wolf.”

  “I’m gonna call you Wolf from now until we part,” Joe told the young half-breed. “You can call me either Joe or Man Killer.”

  Wolf nodded. “And what do I call your woman?”

  “Call her brave,” Joe said. “Now let’s git outa this damned desert and settle the score in Virginia City.”

  Wolf said, “I might still collect the bounty.”

  “Oh?” Joe asked.

  “But I will never do you or Fiona harm and I will never let you be harmed.”

  “In that case,” Joe said, “you’re a good wolf and we are friends.”

  The Paiutes had taken the strawberry roan, but they’d left the burro alone. When Joe, Fiona, and Wolf finally limped into Reno, they traded the
faithful little burro for ammunition and a few meager supplies.

  “Joe,” Wolf asked, “tell me what you know about the Comstock Lode. Is it a bad place?”

  “It’s about as sinful as they get,” Joe told the half-breed as they rode in a stagecoach up the winding and desolate mountain road leading to Virginia City.

  “What is your plan?”

  “Don’t have one actually,” Joe admitted.

  “I should have guessed that much,” Wolf said with a grin. “Maybe we should think of a plan before we get there.”

  “Yes, Joe. Wolf is right,” Fiona said. “We ought to think of something.”

  “All right,” Joe cheerfully agreed. “How about you two get Jessica and I go down to Peabody’s Shamrock Mine and I kill him? After that, I’ll join up with you two right here on the road back down to Reno.”

  “No!” Fiona argued. “You can’t go face Peabody all alone!”

  “Sure I can,” Joe told them. “I can . . . and I will. This blood feud is between me and the last Peabody standing. We’ll either make peace . . . or I’ll suddenlike kill the rich sonofabitch.”

  “That’s a very good plan,” Wolf said as their stagecoach climbed the steep grade. “But I want the bounty and I’m going with you.”

  “It could get unhealthful.”

  “It could,” Wolf agreed as he patted the six-gun on his lean hip, “but I’ll take my chances with you.”

  “Fair enough,” Joe told the half-breed.

  “Joe,” Fiona said. “Don’t you think we ought to go to St. Mary’s and see Jessica before . . . well, before you and Wolf go down to have it out with Peabody?”

  “I would like to see that girl one last time . . . just in case things don’t go well down at the Shamrock Mine. But it’d be easier on my mind to first have that showdown. That way, I’ll only be thinkin’ about killin’ the man that sent bounty hunters off to get us hung.”

  “I’ll get a room at the Gold Strike Hotel at this end of C Street. I won’t leave my room until you come back for me and Jessica.”

  “See that you don’t,” Joe warned her. “There are people here on the Comstock Lode who will remember you and make a try for that bounty money that’s on your head.”