Comstock Cross Fire (20 page)

“What do we have to trade that Paiutes would value?”

“I been thinkin' on that,” Joe told her. “And I can't think of a thing that they'd want from us save our weapons and that horse you're ridin'.”

“Oh, no! Please not this horse. And not our sweet little pack burro either. I could walk. I'm getting a lot stronger, Joe.”

“I know that,” he said, “but I don't want you to walk.”

“Then what?”

Joe patted the wooden handle of his tomahawk. “Could be those Paiutes might like my 'hawk. It's a prize, ya know.”

“But it's very special to you.”

“Sure it is, but I can barter for another when we return with Jessica and go back into the high mountains. The main thing is just survivin' this desert and its unfriendly Injuns.”

Fiona nodded in agreement. “I'm very glad that you won't trade this roan horse or our little burro away, Joe. Not because I couldn't walk all the way to Virginia City, but because I've heard that the Paiutes are very hard on their horses and burros and eventually eat them.”

“That is true. They treat 'em like the Apache and other desert Indians and that ain't kindly.”

“Both of our animals are far too nice and deserving to ever be roasted over a fire.”

“I reckon.”

“We'll make it, Joe. We've come so far and it's been so hard that I just know that we'll somehow get Jessica and then get through all this ugliness and killing.”

“I reckon we will, Fiona.”

“I love you, Joe.”

“I . . . I love ya, too, Fiona, darlin of mine.”

 

Joe had once before gone to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but then he'd traveled with other mountain men and they'd circled to the north of the Great Salt Lake and then crossed these vast salt and alkali flats. That was said to be the preferred way for a man to cross this desert hell. But now they were striking out on a little-used dirt track southwest of the Great Salt Lake, and Joe figured that they would meet very few travelers and hopefully even fewer Paiutes. This was a time of the full moon, and normally a fella might have slept in the daytime and traveled in the night when it was cooler. But sleeping by day was impossible out here on the flats where even the hardy sagebrush was sparse and runty. There were almost no rocks or arroyos to hide in or find shade or shelter in.

The most compelling issue was the availability of water. A man or a horse might go three days and nights without water in the heat of a desert, but then he was cooked. That told Joe that they had to find at least one spring or source of drinking water on the way to the Ruby Mountains. And if they didn't . . . well, he had been told that dying of thirst was a real hard and ugly way to go, and he sure didn't want that to happen to Fiona.

For the next few days, they made better-than-expected time. The wind didn't blow and there were still faint wagon tracks to follow westward. They continued across a dead lake floor, and each footstep crushed an inch or two of powdery salt and alkali, which didn't make walking any easier. But for a mile or two at a stretch, the ground was firm and easier to tread. Fiona was a trouper, and she never complained as they kept moving from dawn to dusk with only a few short rest stops.

“I reckon we're halfway to the Rubys,” Joe said as they made another cold, fireless camp.

“Joe, your feet are bleeding from blisters!”

“It's the salt that gets into these boots,” Joe told her. “Your feet sweat and the salt mixes with it and rubs the flesh raw.”

“And look at your poor ankles!” Fiona said, pulling up his pants a little and staring at the inflamed skin. “You must be in terrible pain!”

“I'll live through it,” he told her. “The shackles we wore opened up the flesh, and the salt gets into it and makes it burn and fester.”

Fiona spoke in a way that brooked no argument. “Tomorrow you are riding the strawberry and I'm walking.”

“Fiona, I can't—”

“They'll be no more talk about it,” she said. “Tomorrow you ride and I walk. How is our water holding out?”

“Almost gone. I gave the horse and burro half of one canteen tonight, and they're both still suffering. We got half of the other canteen left for ourselves.”

Fiona understood their predicament and said, “Then we
have
to find water tomorrow.”

Joe looked toward the setting sun. “We do,” he admitted. “We surely do. Fiona, I think we ought to rest a few hours and then strike out and travel through the night. I've been studyin' the lay of this hard land and what we're doin' right now is crossing an old dry lake bed. But just up ahead maybe five or six miles is the shoreline of the lake bed and then we're into the sagebrush flats. And I see some low hills off to the north a little ways. To me, they look as if they hold the promise of water.”

“Do we dare go out of our way even a mile to look?”

“I don't think we have any choice,” Joe said. “We just got to get some water by this time tomorrow.”

“I know,” she said. “My throat is so dry that I couldn't spit if my life depended upon it.”

“We'll head for those foothills. If I see the tracks of wild mustangs or deer, then I'll know that there has to be a spring up in there and we'll damn sure find good water.”

Fiona took Joe's hand. “Tomorrow is pretty much going to decide if we make it across here alive, isn't that true?”

“It is,” Joe confessed. “And if we don't . . . well, I'm gonna feel real bad about this because we've come too far to turn back.”

“I believe in you, Joe. I believe you will find us water tomorrow, but I'll also be praying to God that he guides us out of this hell and leads us to the Humboldt River.”

“You go ahead and do that,” Joe told her. “Might not help, but it sure can't hurt.”

“That's the way I see it, too,” Fiona said.

Joe dozed off, and Fiona awakened him when the stars were all shining and the Big Dipper showed them where north was so they could adjust and keep going straight west.

The strawberry roan's eyes had sunk deep into its sockets, and the horse had lost a hundred pounds or more since they'd found him. The burro was handling the lack of water a little better, and Joe had lightened its pack down to less than fifty pounds. The tough little animal wasn't a complainer; it just kept its big head down low and kept plodding forward.

 

“Horse shit!” Joe exclaimed about three o'clock in the morning in the light of the moon. “These are wild mustang droppings and tracks leading into those northern foothills.”

“Then?”

“Then I expect they have a secret water hole,” Joe said, feeling hope flood through his weary and pain-racked body. “The water hole won't be clean, Fiona. Far, far from it. It'll have horse shit and bird shit and all kinds of dead insects, lizards, and crap floatin' in that water. It'll be muddy and probably taste awful . . . but it'll be safe to drink or the wild horses wouldn't touch it.”

“I don't care what it tastes like,” she told him. “If we find water, then we'll be saved.”

“For a few days at least.”

Joe glanced up at the moon and stars, and then he jumped off the roan and hoisted Fiona into the saddle. “I'll need to be on foot to follow the mustang tracks,” he said, although he could have easily followed them from horseback. “You ride now.”

“But your feet are in terrible shape, Joe. And you've only ridden a few hours!”

“It was long enough and my feet feel a whole lot better.”

Joe collected the Spencer rifle and made sure that it was ready to fire. He had two six-shot pistols in his waistband and he was thinking that, if the mustangs knew of this water hole, so would the Paiutes, who had survived in this land for centuries.

“Keep up with me,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at his wife on the strawberry. “And keep the burro tethered to that saddle horn. He might try to stampede ahead when he gets his first whiff of water.”

“I will.”

Joe followed the mustang tracks with hope growing in his chest. After less than a mile of hiking into the foothills, the strawberry roan and the burro both caught the scent of water, and they nearly knocked him over as they hurried forward.

“Stay back of me!” Joe called. “There could be Indians up ahead!”

But Fiona was in too weakened a state to be able to control either animal as the pair charged over a low hill and down toward a large desert watering hole.

Two Paiutes were camping at the water hole, and they'd heard the onrushing Joe, Fiona, and their animals. The had their weapons ready to fire, but they shot too quickly, missing Fiona just as Joe topped the hill and charged down toward the Indians, whooping and hollering like the Man Killer of his storied youth.

The Indians panicked. Joe threw the Spencer to his shoulder. When he fired, the first Paiute was knocked spinning into the shallow and muddy water hole. The remaining Paiute threw down his empty rifle and vanished into the night.

“Damn!” Joe cried.

“What do we do now?” Fiona called, her strawberry roan already standing in the water hole along with the burro while both animals drank the muddy water.

“Let the beasts drink a minute or two longer and then get 'em out of there or they'll bust their bellies.”

Joe thought about racing after the Paiute that had escaped, but he knew he'd never catch the Indian. He was too weak and his feet were in too bad a shape to run.

And besides that, the Paiute he'd shot wasn't dead yet. Joe saw the man struggle to crawl out of the water hole and one of his arms was dangling.

I missed his body and hit him in the arm
.

Joe skidded to the edge of the water and pointed his pistol down at the Indian struggling to climb out of the slippery water hole. For a moment their dark eyes, each burnished by moonlight, locked.

Then Joe kicked the Indian in the head and knocked him out cold. Before the Paiute could drown, Joe dragged him up to the muddy bank and tied him hand and foot.

“What are you doing!” Fiona cried.

“I'm buyin' us a little edge in this game,” Joe gritted. “Now we got something even better'n my 'hawk to trade the Paiutes for safe passage across the rest of this hell.”

But Fiona wasn't really listening. She was throwing herself off the strawberry roan into the muddy water hole and gulping down mouthfuls of the foul-tasting but life-giving water.

 

At daybreak, the Paiute awoke, and immediately tried to get up and run away. When he discovered that he was tied hand and foot and trapped, he threw back his head and began to howl.

“Is he going to bring others down on us?” Fiona asked anxiously.

“He might,” Joe said, “but it's more likely that his friend that got away last night will find the rest and they'll come.”

Fiona shook her head. “So we're going to be surrounded by Indians and they'll be looking for revenge.”

“I expect that is true,” Joe agreed.

“What do we do now?”

Joe had been soaking his poor blistered feet in the mud, and now he washed them off and pulled on his boots. “Fiona,” he said, “we can either make a stand here where we got water, or we can make a run for the Rubys hopin' that the one that got away has a long distance to go to get to his friends.”

Fiona thought about that for a moment while she looked all around at the water hole. It was down in a shallow bowl, and even she knew that it would be impossible to defend against more than half a dozen Paiutes. “I want to make a run for it, Joe.”

“So do I,” he said. “So now that we've all drunk every bit of water our bellies can hold, let's move out.”

“What about the Paiute? I tried to mend his arm and he tried to bite me.”

“He's young and he's scared,” Joe told her. “And besides that, his wound ain't nothin' but a scratch. We'll take him along and hope for the best.”

“You said he could be our ticket out of this hell,” Fiona said. “That we could trade him for safe passage.”

“That's right. Let's just hope he's important to his tribe and they think he's worth tradin' for.”

“Yes, let's.”

Joe tightened the cinch on the strawberry roan and helped Fiona back into the saddle. They'd all drunk as much of the water as they could hold, and immediately gotten the shits for their trouble. But that would pass. The canteens were full and it was time to leave.

Joe cut the Paiute's ankle bonds with his hunting knife, and then put a noose around the young warrior's neck. He used the knife blade to point to the west where they would go.

The Paiute understood, but he spat at Joe and then cursed him. Joe jabbed the Paiute in his bare ass with the point of the hunting knife, and the young warrior yelped and howled in pain.

“Move!” Joe ordered, holding the knife up and making it clear that he would keep sticking the Indian until he did as ordered.

The Paiute cussed him out again. He was a thin, dirty fellow and not much taller than Fiona. His long, black hair was tied back in a braid and his black eyes blazed with hatred.

“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.