Comstock Cross Fire (16 page)

“Do you expect them to do that?”

“I don't,” Joe confessed. “But we can always ask.”

Ira Young cleared his throat and seemed keenly aware that he had the complete attention of everyone in the big schoolroom. “Now then,” he said, gazing at Ransom Holt with something akin to disgust, “what we folks in this town know for sure is that you
stole
three sacks of valuable supplies from our community store.”

“I didn't do that!” Holt shouted. “I paid for those supplies!”

“If that be so, where did your money go?” Smith demanded, his voice causing heads in the room to nod. “Because you see, Grandma Parsons sure hasn't got it, and even if she did, she'd have no place to spend it except in our own general store. So I ask you, Mr. Holt, where is the money you spent for all those valuable supplies?”

“I . . . I don't know.” Holt took a ragged breath. He was in deep trouble and knew it. “Maybe someone else was in the store and took that money.”

Ira Young didn't appreciate that answer even a little bit. “There are no other thieves in Perdition other than yourself.”

“Well . . . well, maybe my man Eli got into the store without my knowing it and took the money.”

“What?” Eli cried in shock and outrage. “Mr. Holt, you know that never happened. You told all of us after we left that you stole those supplies. You even
bragged
about stealing those supplies.”

Holt was tied, but he was far from cowed or being harmless. He swung around, lowered his great bull head, and drove it squarely into Eli's face, breaking his nose and knocking the smaller man into the crowd.

Eli howled in pain. In response to Holt's behavior, the furious Jack Mormons clubbed the giant to his knees, and might have beaten him to death if Ira Young had not ordered them to stand back.

“Mr. Moss!”

Joe was instantly alert to the judge. “Yeah?”

“Did you or your wife overhear Mr. Holt bragging about how he stole those three sacks of valuable supplies from us?”

“I did,” Joe said in complete honesty.

“Did you hear the same, Mrs. Moss?”

“Yes,” Fiona answered, her voice loud enough to be heard by the entire roomful of avid listeners. “It was when we were in the buckboard about two miles out of this town. Ransom bragged, making it clear that he was quite proud of the fact that he'd gotten all the supplies we needed without payment. And that he'd done it while three men were being shot down by the half-breed so that everyone was distracted.”

The audience erupted in anger and some of the men surged at Holt, who was dazed from the beating he'd just suffered.

“Stay back!” Ira Young bellowed, jumping up from his chair with surprising agility. “I say stay back and I will make a pronouncement on the fate of this pair.”

The crowd backed off a little, and Ira Young pushed his spectacles up and said, “You, Mr. Holt, should hang for your thievery, but I will show mercy and you will be given thirty lashes with a bullwhip on your stripped back and buttocks.”

“No!” Holt bellowed, trying to lunge at the old man. “No man will whip me!”

“You will suffer a just punishment for your thievery. Whether you agree with me or not, I have shown you great mercy, Mr. Holt. I could have decreed your death sentence.”

“And what about me!” Eli cried as the blood seeped from his nose.

“Fifteen lashes with the bullwhip!”

“No!' Eli sobbed, almost falling to his knees. “I didn't steal from you. I have done no wrong and deserve no punishment.”

Ira raised a finger and pointed it at the smaller man. “When your camp west of Perdition was overrun at dawn, you fired on Ferris and our men. You shot to kill my brethren and so you shall pay.”

“But that was because they were firing at us!”

Ira Young waved the protest off like he would a pesky fly. “Fifteen whiplashes, Mr. Eli Brown. No more. No less.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus!” Eli whimpered, tears streaming down his face. “Oh, my Lord, I can't bear that!”

“You will live and you will have learned your lesson well when you leave Perdition.”

Joe Moss and Fiona were brought forward. Joe had to admit that his heart was pounding like a Cheyenne warrior's drum when he planted his feet on the schoolhouse floor and took Fiona's hand in his own.

“Now,” Ira Young said, his voice softening. “There is the far more complicated matter of you and Mrs. Moss. What do you have to say for yourselves?”

Joe was not a man of many words, so he left out the preliminaries and went right to the heart of the issue. “I killed two brothers named Peabody in Virginia City when they tried to kill me. My wife is accused of killin' another Peabody, but she didn't.”

The elder turned his eyes on Fiona. “What say you, Mrs. Moss? Did you kill a man named Peabody?”

“I definitely did not!” Fiona said, raising her chin. “It is, however, true that Mr. Chester Peabody was found dead in my little shack on the Comstock Lode. But only because I brought him in from outside in the dark of night and tried to save his life.”

“It would seem,” Ira Young said, eyes narrowing with suspicion, “that a Virginia City jury thought otherwise.”

“It was a jury bought and paid for by a vengeance-minded family of rich mine owners. I was poorly counseled and represented in the court, and the sentence I received from a judge secretly paid off by the Peabody family was entirely unfair and unjust.”

“So you say, Mrs. Moss. So you say.”

Ira Young momentarily turned his attention back to Ransom Holt and Eli Brown. In a voice that sounded like doom, he roared, “Take these two out of my presence and administer their just and well-deserved punishments!”

Holt kicked the first Mormon right between the legs, and the man went down howling. Despite having his hands tied behind his back, Ransom Holt tried to charge and kill Ira Young possibly with his teeth. Men piled on Holt's broad back and drove him down to the floor, and then they struck him with their fists until he was unable to move.

Eli stood nearby as white as a bedsheet, and cried until he was shoved out of the schoolhouse. When Ransom Holt was also half carried out to receive his punishment, Ira Young relaxed.

“Now then,” the old man said, drumming his fingers. “As I said earlier, your situation is far more complicated and unclear to me. On the one hand, you were being taken to hang in Virginia City, but on the other hand, you claim that the only blood you shed was in self-defense.”

“I swear that is true,” Fiona said.

“Hmm, perhaps,” Young mused, “you actually did perform an act of mercy that was judged wrongly.”

“That is exactly what happened,” Fiona said, while Joe nodded in agreement.

Ira Young said, “But we have no witnesses and no proof of either your guilt or your innocence. And since neither of you were physically able to steal from us or fire upon my people, as did Mr. Holt and Mr. Brown, I have no choice . . . no choice but to absolve you of any wrongdoing or injury.”

Joe's knees almost buckled with relief. He crushed his wife's hand and said, “Sir, I shore do appreciate your good thinkin' and justice. Now, if I kin say one more thing, when we was taken by Holt and Eli, I had money, weapons, and horses. I'd like them returned to me from what they had when you took 'em prisoner.”

“I have no proof of what you are telling me, Mr. Moss.”

“But . . . but you know that no man is gonna have no guns, nor money, nor horses. So—”

“There are plenty of men and even families who come through Perdition on their way to California or the Comstock Lode and they are penniless and weaponless.”

“But—”

“Mr. Moss, understand something. Since you cannot possibly prove that anything was taken from you either by Mr. Holt or Mr. Brown, then I cannot possibly give anything back to you. Unless—”

“Unless what?” Fiona asked.

“Unless either of those men want to swear to me that they took your weapons, money, and horses.”

“They would rather die first,” Joe said. “They'd never tell you anything that wasn't to their own selfish benefit.”

“Well,” Ira Young said, throwing up his hands in a gesture of indifference, “then all I can give you is what has already been given. Your clothing and the food you have eaten. And unless you wish to remain here and work for your keep, then I order you both banished from Perdition.”

Joe swallowed. “Sir,” he said, “you know that we can't just walk out into that desert without anything but our clothes.”

Ira Young was losing his patience. “Then both of you walk back to wherever you came from and be gone from this place!”

Joe could see that the elder of Perdition was getting upset with him and that things could be far worse, so he managed to nod his head and said, “Can we just go now?”

“You can and never, ever come back.”

“That ain't a bit likely,” Joe told the Mormon leader. “And . . . I'd be obliged if you'd hold those two for a spell after their whiplashings. Thataway, me and the missus would have some time to put some distance between them and us.”

Ira Young actually smiled for the first time. “I can assure you both that, after my sentence, neither of those men will be in any condition to chase after you for a good many days.”

Joe tried one more time. “Judge, I sure would like just one gun, and there's a 'hawk that they took from me, and—”

“A tomahawk?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It was shown to me, Mr. Moss. And that is
your
weapon?”

Joe nodded vigorously. “It sure is! I've had it for some time and I've taken many a scalp with—”

Fiona banged her husband hard in the ribs. “Shhh!”

Ira Young's mouth was hanging open in disbelief.

“Never mind what my husband said. It is his tomahawk and he does prize it, but he'd never use it to take a scalp or a life.”

“I see,” Young said, clearly not seeing what was true or untrue. “Well, then, you shall have your tomahawk returned as well as one pistol with six rounds in the chamber.”

“A good pistol?”

“A loaded pistol,” Smith said. “And used but good shoes for walking as far and as fast as you can from this place.”

Joe folded his arms across his broad chest. “And a couple of canteens of water would sure be helpful, Judge.”

“You're pushing me too hard, Mr. Moss. But I will grant your request and you shall ask for no more than to be gone from Perdition within the fifteen minutes . . . or even less.”

“We'll do 'er,” Joe promised with a wide grin. “Although I'd sorta have liked to see them two get the bullwhip put to their murderin' hides.”

“Be gone!” Ira Young exclaimed.

Fiona nearly yanked Joe off his feet and dragged him outside the schoolhouse. A few minutes later, they were given a loaded gun, two pair of hard-used shoes that didn't fit well, and two large canteens filled with good water. Lastly, someone handed Joe his treasured tomahawk, asking, “Can you throw that thing with any accuracy?”

“I wish I could throw it at Holt,” Joe said, watching as the giant was being tied to a tree and stripped of his shirt, then having his breeches dropped to his knees in preparation for his brutal whipping. “I could split his big skull like a melon and then I'd scalp the bastard.”

Joe's voice was so angry that the Jack Mormon backed away and said, “Just leave this place while you are allowed.”

“We'll do 'er,” Joe said, stuffing the tomahawk behind his belt and beside an old but serviceable cap-and-ball pistol that had been used hard and often.

Suddenly, the punishments for Ransom Holt and Eli Brown began with the sharp whistle of a bullwhip. The pair were tied to a post and with each lash of the bullwhip, Eli screamed to the mountaintops while Holt simply cursed.

Joe Moss paused for a minute to watch the whippings, and there was already blood all over the stripped backs and buttocks of both men.

“Oh, God,” Fiona said with a trembling voice. “I can't bear to watch.”

“If I could, I would take the whip and use it on them until they were nothing but red meat and bone,” Joe declared. “And then I'd scalp 'em both while they was just barely alive.”

“Joe, let's go now!” Fiona pleaded as Eli screamed again when the lash bit deeply into his flesh. “Please!”

Joe nodded and had his last, satisfying look at what he considered to be justice fairly served. He knew that this pair would survive the lashings, although Eli could not have taken Holt's thirty and be left with a sane mind.

As Joe and Fiona passed by the whipping post and the two men, Holt's head whipped around and through bloody teeth he screamed, “I'll find you, Joe Moss! And I'll find your woman! I found you both once and I won't ever stop until I find you again and see you—”

Whatever else Ransom Holt had to say died in a moan as the lash ripped flesh from his exposed buttocks. The huge man bent like a branch in the wind, and then he straightened up, threw back his shaggy head, and cursed the sun and the sky until the next lash struck his massive, trembling body.

17

JOE AND FIONA left Perdition even before the brutal lashings of Ransom Holt and Eli Brown were finished.

They could hear Eli scream every time the bullwhip struck his back or buttocks, and the awful sound didn't stop until they were both well out of Perdition.

“Where are we going, Joe?” Fiona asked. “Nevada is to the west, but you're leading us east.”