Mojave

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “Four,” she said.

  Four more women. Then hell.

  I was telling her what to do, where to go, warning her not to cross that bridge back into Calico proper until everything was settled. She didn’t say nothing. She hadn’t been crying. No, her face didn’t show no tears, no lines, nothing but rigid determination.

  I opened the door, stepped outside, and felt something slam into my head, crushing the brim of my new black hat.

  Down I went, dropping the Winchester, yelling, rolling over, and hearing some wild cussing. I pulled myself up, holding my aching head, and, shaking off the pain, I reached for the Colt on my hip.

  “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! Nobody betrays—” That was a whine I’d recognize anywhere. Through blurred vision, I saw Candy Crutchfield, her face fried from the sun, gaunt and pathetic and even more hideous, and she was wielding that little knife with the big handle at Jingfei.

  But not for long.

  I ain’t rightly sure if I saw all this or imagined it. I mean, there stood Jingfei, between a trash barrel and the door, in her fine dress, not doing nothing, not moving, just watching Candy Crutchfield come with that sticker.

  Then all I saw was a blur, but it seemed that Jingfei was jumping, and I mean real high, and not from no running start. Spinning like a ballerina or a real rank, unbroken mustang, and her foot caught the side of Candy Crutchfield’s hand, and I heard a bone pop, and seen the knife sail against the wall. But Jingfei wasn’t done. She kept spinning in the air, and her foot caught Candy Crutchfield on the side of her jaw. Bones popped. Teeth and blood flew. The old hag slammed against the wall, and swallowed her plug of tobacco, juice and all.

  Once Jingfei come down, she kicked that woman four or five more times, then slapped her upside the head with about a half-dozen blows, kicked her twice in the belly, then grabbed her frayed, dirty, stinking clothes and pitched her right beside me.

  Hadn’t even worked up a sweat.

  I just sat there, blinking, and then Candy Crutchfield climbed to her knees, shaking her head and sending blood onto my new pink shirt. Just like that, she snatched my Colt, and staggered off, slammed against the fence, and the whole shebang come crashing into the alley.

  That brought me to my senses. I heard a shout, and come to my feet, finding the Winchester. Peered around the corner, and saw Candy Crutchfield hobbling toward the street. The driver of the Columbus carriage had reined to a stop. He was shouting something, and then the guard was leaping out of the buggy, thumbing back the barrels of the Parker twelve-gauge.

  The guard, I noticed, was Juan Pedro.

  That’s when Candy Crutchfield shot him in the belly.

  Damn good shot. I mean, Candy Crutchfield had shot him with her left hand, since Jingfei had just broke her right wrist. She was also bleeding considerable, and was staggering. Juan Pedro groaned, dropped to his knees, and then Candy Crutchfield fired at the driver.

  That shot wasn’t so good. The driver dived out, and the horses took off running, taking the empty buggy behind them.

  “That tears it!” I shouted, and drawed a bead on Candy Crutchfield’s back, but before I could kill her, she’d rounded the corner to the Miller store.

  “Come on!” Jingfei grabbed my shoulder, yanked me around. She was heading right back toward the door, and I was shaking some sense into my head, telling her, “You need to get to Chinatown.”

  Mr. McCoy was escorting the two Lannon twins outside when he stopped.

  “What the hell is going on out here?” he said.

  He got his answer when a cannonade of gunfire rocked the streets of Calico.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  If you’ve happened to have read Massacre in the Mojave; Or, Whip Watson’s Duel With Death, likely you recall that, the way Colonel Wilson J. M. Drury seen things, the battle that commenced went like this:

  Oh, the horror; oh, the eternal shame. Women lay huddled in the streets, leaden bullets tearing through the air.

  “Must we die like this?” one poor girl cried out, clutching the cross that hung over her bosom.

  “Help us!” yelled another young mistress. “Save us. We are defenseless against these ruffians!”

  At that moment, Michael Bishop turned to his faithful comrade, crying out, “What shall we do, Whip Watson? What will become of blessed womanhood if these poor damsels are killed?”

  Captain Whip Watson, however, was already answering that question. There would be none of the fairer sex killed. Not on this day. For Whip Watson charged, leaving his trusty bullwhip behind, and filling his hands with his weapons.

  “Fear not, ladies,” he cried, and the guns boomed in each hand. “I shall save the day.”

  Didn’t happen that way at all. It went like this:

  I was yelling at Jingfei, who wasn’t listening. Mr. Slater had thrown open the front door and knelt on the floor, levering round after round into that Winchester, which barked and sent thick white smoke all around his head.

  Mr. Clark hurried upstairs, taking three steps at a bound.

  Jingfei had fetched Mr. Clark’s rifle, smashed out the glass and the pretty stenciling job on one of the front windows. She cocked the rifle, aimed, pulled the trigger.

  The Lannon girls raced by me, one of them carrying Mr. McCoy’s long gun, the other grabbing a Colt from one of the guards we’d captured who was lying on a poker table.

  Bullets blasted through the glass that hadn’t already been shattered, then Mr. Slater slid out of the smoke, fishing cartridges from his coat pocket. I swear, the merchant grinned. He spied me and Mr. McCoy, just standing like knots on a log, and he waved over his pard.

  “Come on, Jeddah!” he yelled. “This is not only exhilarating, it’s damned fun!”

  A moment later, the whole world shook.

  If you believe the Calico Print, and it’s probably as accurate an account as we’ll ever know, this is what transpired: After mortally wounding one of Whip Watson’s gunmen (Juan Pedro) and scaring the driver across the street, the wild woman rounded the corner and snapped a shot at Whip Watson, who, of course, stood well out of pistol range.

  Whip’s gunmen, many of whom had been posted along both sides of Main Street, opened up at Crutchfield, who fired a couple more shots, then darted into the only open door she saw. Which happened to be the powder house. What happened inside won’t be known. A stray shot? Did Crutchfield strike a match to see as she reloaded her revolver? Did she just decide to end it all right there?

  Well, she did. Even if it wasn’t her intention.

  The powder depot blowed up, taking Candy Crutchfield with it, and sending flaming wood and cinders and stone and rocks and dirt and wood and parts of Candy Crutchfield all across Calico. The concussion alone blowed out every window that wasn’t already shot out in The Palace of Calico, and flames erupted on the near wall.

  Smoke billowed. Men skedaddled. Calico, California, become a forest fire in a dry year, the flames jumping from building to building. The two carriages bringing the last two girls overturned, and some brave souls darted into the street, rescued one of the women (Donna Shaw) in her fine moiré, and taken her out of the path of bullets and flaming bits of wood and cloth.

  The other gal (Betsan Priddy) lay unmoving, but a fellow charged out from Whip Watson’s gunmen, run right to her. That fellow turned out to be Dr. Franklin Kent, and I got to give Mad Dog John Milton credit. He taken care of that girl, who’d gotten a nasty bump on her head, and after he let some two boys carry her across the street, Doc Milton went from body to body, wounded to dead, treating those he could. It was a brave thing to witness.

  Of course, our concern focused on Whip Watson and his boys, marching right down the street, right toward the already burning brothel he owned.

  My ears was ringing. I knowed I was lying on the floor, but I also knowed I wasn’t dead. I sat up, already spotting flames lapping through the wood on the wall next to what just moments ago had been Miller’s store. I coughed, picked up my Winches
ter, and headed toward Jingfei.

  Upstairs come a familiar sound, and I knowed what had sent Mr. Clark to one of them bedrooms.

  “Hooray!” Mr. McCoy shouted. “That’s a Gatling gun!”

  Bullets dug up all around the marching gunmen in the street, and they scattered, started firing up at Mr. Clark and his Gatling.

  There was another noise that penetrated my ears as I slid next to Jingfei, who was reloading her Winchester.

  “Damen! Angriff! Damen! Angriff!”

  I looked through the busted glass, and saw women—women in all colors of moiré, calico and silk—pouring out that alley, around the inferno that was Miller’s store and Giant Powder Depot. Leading the way was the big Hun, and it was her doing most of that shouting. I don’t know what those words meant, but she was acting like a sergeant, and a bunch of girls was following her orders.

  Don’t ask me where they got the guns. The Calico Print said they picked up rifles that had been blown out of the store when the powder house was destroyed, but even in Calico, merchants don’t keep loaded weapons in their stores for sale. It ain’t safe. I heard one story that said the women begun hauling out boxes of weapons from the back of Miller’s store at the very beginning, because they always planned on a good fight. But make no mistake, those women had rifles, Marlins and Winchesters, and they had revolvers, two fowling pieces, a shotgun, and one Sharps .50-caliber buffalo rifle with a fancy brass telescope sight.

  Here’s something I learned that day. Mail-order brides ain’t damsels. They sure as hell ain’t defenseless. Think about it. Them women had left their lives and all the comforts they had knowed behind, they had traveled maybe a thousand miles, maybe even two thousand, one of them all the way from New York City, across country they didn’t know to a town they’d never seen, to meet a fellow they’d never met except through an exchange of posts.

  That don’t take guts?

  They had endured Whip Watson and Candy Crutchfield and the vermin they hired. Had made it through the scalding Mojave, through dust storms, thunderstorms. They had seen ten girls, just like them, die. Die for nothing. Die because of scum like Whip Watson.

  No, women like that, they ain’t defenseless. Colonel Drury ain’t only a liar, he’s a damned idiot.

  “Küss mein Arsch!” the big woman yelled, and she shot a rider out of the saddle. “Hure Nie!”

  Which become the battle cry for all the brides. Even those who didn’t speak German, they was shouting, “Küss mein Arsch! Hure Nie! Küss mein Arsch! Hure Nie!” Shooting down Whip Watson’s boys.

  Even when something inside the orange-and-black ball that had been the Miller store popped or boomed, those women didn’t flinch and sure didn’t retreat.

  Let’s see if I can’t paint you a picture. The women, those mail-order brides, lined the street behind one overturned wagon, two wrecked Columbus carriages. They pressed against buildings that weren’t totally engulfed by flames. They knelt in the streets, behind water troughs or water wagons, or lay on their bellies. They waved their fists. They shot their weapons. The girl who’d been rescued by two men after the buggy wreck even come charging out of the smoke on the other side of the street, taking guns off dead or wounded gunmen, joining the other brides. The two Lannon sisters jumped through the busted out window, and begun shouting, “Küss mein Arsch! Hure Nie!” I swear, that intriguing mix of Georgia, Ireland, and German, that was something sweet to hear. Even if my ears was ringing, something was exploding next door, and bullets was peppering the brothel.

  Even Doc Milton put away his scalpel and flask, and picked up the now dead Juan Pedro’s shotgun, and started blasting.

  I brought the Winchester up, saw one of Whip Watson’s boys up on the rooftop of the bank, and was about to shoot him dead with that façade got chewed up by bullets from the Gatling gun upstairs, and that fellow was falling over the splinters, and crashing down right near the water trough where I’d sent some bad guy just weeks before.

  Then I couldn’t see on account of smoke. Mr. Slater run outside, and took a knee behind the screaming Hun, and Mr. McCoy went right after him. I don’t know where the two boys we had acting like guards got off to. Maybe they run away. Maybe that got blowed apart along with Candy Crutchfield.

  Then the noise of the Gatling stopped, and a few minutes later, I saw Mr. Clark coming down those stairs. “We got to get out of here!” he said. “Or get roasted alive.”

  That’s when I noticed all the firestorms on both sides of the building. Flames danced out of three of the upstairs bedrooms. No wonder them two merchants had run into the street.

  “I’ll get Bug Beard!” Mr. Clark yelled, then coughed and, lowering his head, run into the storeroom.

  Jingfei’s rifle jammed, and she threw it onto the floor, leaped through the busted glass, and I started right after her. “Hey!” She turned, and I pitched her my Winchester. She caught it, grinned, and found a spot beside one of the Lannon twins.

  I pulled out my “Swamp Angel.” Which would do absolutely no good from where I was. Then I saw him. Whip Watson. Running across the street, into the smoke. I knowed where he was going, and I, like a damned hero in one of Colonel Wilson J. M. Drury five-penny dreadfuls, went after him.

  On that east edge of town, there wasn’t no place for Whip to go. The canyon dropped straight down, and although I reckon he could have fled down to the Hyena House or Applewhite’s livery, got hisself a fast horse, and flown the coop, I knew he would run back our way. He wasn’t no quitter. He’d come to kill whoever had taken over The Palace of Calico and robbed him of his brides and his profit.

  I started for the back door, but all I could see was smoke and feel heat. My boots crunched the glass along the boardwalk. Eyes burning, I run around the other side, shielding my face and neck from the flames consuming one of the privies. Sprinting across the back, coughing from the smoke, I stepped over debris and one flaming piece of wood, and seen him, Whip Watson.

  He slid to a stop when he spotted me, and I stopped, too.

  We stood in the smoke and heat, the bridge between us, staring at each other.

  I said, “I owe you one.” It was a damned good line, something worthy of even Colonel Drury to write, only if he’d put it in his stories, when his hero pulled the trigger, he wouldn’t have heard just a heartbreaking metallic click.

  Whip laughed, and pulled one of his Colts. His gun went click, too.

  Both of us now cussing, we hurled our guns at the other, missing, and then we charged, and met in a numbing collision. I bounced off to my right, landed on the bridge. Rolled to the edge, missing one of Whip Watson’s spurs. Tried to get to my feet, but Whip kicked, caught me in my really hurting ribs, and I landed on the bridge’s rope edge. Almost flipped over.

  Tried to straighten, but Whip had me, fingers clawing at my eyes, his thumb splitting the corner of my lips. I gagged. Tried to bite him. Felt myself almost slide over. We grunted. We pushed. We done our best to kill one another. The rope burned my back, and then I slid down onto the flimsy planks. I come up, and that’s when I felt Whip Watson’s blacksnake whip slash across my shoulder.

  Down I dropped again, trying to shield my face, watching Whip Watson come at me, his whip barking, him seething, eyes burning from smoke and hate. And then something drove him past me, and he dropped his whip, and spun around.

  Jingfei walked right down the bridge, working the lever on the Winchester rifle, aiming from her hip, firing. Whip staggered back. Now I couldn’t see him, could only see Jingfei, and smoke from the Winchester.

  Being a card player, I counted. A Winchester rifle, fully loaded, will hold fifteen .44 rounds. Jingfei was at ten when she stepped over me. I rolled over.

  “Eleven,” I said.

  “Twelve.”

  The last three she was placing the barrel on the back of Whip Watson’s head and simply pulling the trigger. She was still pulling the trigger, still jacking the lever, when I got to my feet and walked to her. I took the empty rifle from her
, turned around, didn’t even look at what was left of Whip Watson, and led her the few rods down the bridge.

  We hit solid ground. The Palace of Calico was nothing but furious flames. Something again popped inside the ruins of the Miller store. I looked through the alley Main Street, but didn’t see nothing but smoke. However, I didn’t hear no more shooting, no more Hun cussing. What rose above the roaring flames and the squawking fowls and barking dogs over in East Calico was women . . . singing. The Lannon girls was leading this one, not the Hun. It was an Irish war song, or love song, or drinking song. But . . . hell . . . ain’t they all?

  So I put my arm around Jingfei. Figured we could join the celebration a several doors down, where it wasn’t yet burning too hard. Then we’d march out of Calico before we all burned to death.

  Her body trembled a bit, but then she leaned against my shoulder, and, for once, didn’t boss me or nothing. She just let me guide her to safety.

  She stopped once, whirled abruptly, and looked back toward the bridge, but the wind had changed direction, and she couldn’t see Whip Watson because of the smoke.

  “Is he dead?” she asked.

  Didn’t answer her. Just leaned over and kissed her softly on the forehead, then I escorted her through the heat and smoke to the part of Calico that wasn’t yet burned to the ground, but soon would be.

  EPILOGUE

  Well, that’s pretty much all there is to my story, which is much truer, for the most part, than that pack of lies Colonel Drury proclaimed was his wildest but most truthful story ever penned.

  After Calico got wiped out again—even them rammed-earth adobe buildings didn’t stand up too good to that fire—the citizens got busy rebuilding. They do that in silver towns, especially when silver’s selling for 96.59 cents per ounce fine.

  Seems that Lucky Ben Wong’s contracts with brides and grooms had likely been destroyed in the strange fire that consumed his home and his life, but most of the girls wound up wedding the men who’d they corresponded with. None of them become prostitutes, which must have made Betty, if not Calico’s miners, thankful.