Jo's Triumph (9 page)

Back and forth the arguments went in my mind. If I didn't shoot him, he'd get away with the money. I would have helped, and for that I could land in jail or maybe even be hanged! If I did try to shoot him, I'd likely wind up dead myself.

The mail came first, that was true, but was I really supposed to get myself shot in order to make the delivery? And how, if I got myself shot, was I supposed to save the mail anyway?

There seemed no answer. “Whoa, Luke,” I said, pulling him back to a trot. No need to hurry.

What if I didn't ride to the station at Sulphur Springs at all? What about turning around and going back to Diamond Springs? I could explain everything to
the stationmaster. But James, with his nasty scowl and skill with a pistol, was somewhere behind me.

I looked back over my shoulder. Every shadow loomed huge and threatening. I shuddered and urged Runaway Luke into a faster trot.

We rode into a valley as the moon was rising, bright enough to throw shadows across the trail. We loped along easily, the footing good and Luke still strong and willing beneath me. I glanced south across the valley and noticed a break in the hills. And that was when the idea came to me. Maybe I could ride around the station at Sulphur Springs, bypass the horse change there, and head straight for the next station. That would be Robert's Creek.

It was the best idea I'd had so far. If nothing else, the extra miles would give me more time to think.

I turned Luke from the trail and headed across the valley toward the small canyon. I'd ridden Luke before. He was a good horse, strong and eager.
If any animal could make the extra distance, it was the big roan. We wound our way back up into the mountains working our way westward in what I hoped was a direction more or less parallel to the main trail.

Hours later, halfway up the side of a deep gully, Luke stumbled. The roan was tired. His head hung low when I hopped off to lead him the rest of the way to the top. Not far from where we crested the ridge, a stream trickled through the rocks. I led him to drink and he followed close behind me like a big dog.

The moon was high and we'd had little trouble picking our way along Indian trails.

“Have a good drink, boy.”

I kneeled to drink from the icy
water but the empty ache in my belly hardly faded. How long had I been in the saddle? We'd climbed in and out of valleys, at first heading southwest and then trying to make our way northwest again so we'd rejoin the trail well past Sulphur Springs. I didn't think it would be long before we were back on the main wagon trail.

Every so often we saw Indian fires flickering high on the sides of the hills. I steered well clear of these, not wanting any more trouble on my hands. Back in the saddle, I rode on and on, across another wide valley and up into the hills beyond. Still there was no sign of the deep wagon ruts.

I didn't think I had crossed the trail by mistake. There had been plenty of traffic over the summer and not that much snow yet, even at the highest points. I pulled Luke up again near another stream and tried to get my bearings in the dark. We should have met the trail again by now, but all I saw around us were endless mountains and valleys. We were well and
truly lost. I swallowed hard.

Luke snatched hungrily at whatever thin blades of grass he could find. The moon tucked in behind a cloud and the darkness deepened. Luke's crunching sounded louder than ever and then, suddenly, it stopped. Luke yanked his head up and pricked his ears forward. I strained to see through the dark and fumbled for my gun as two figures emerged from the darkness. Indians.

“Who's there?” I asked.

A hand reached out and caught Luke's bridle.

“Hey!” The cry strangled in my throat. I raised my hand to shoot but in the moment I hesitated, not knowing which of the two men to shoot first, the second man grabbed my wrist and wrenched my gun away.

The first man turned Luke and began to lead him toward one of the fires I'd seen on the hills.

My mind, exhausted, was blank. I was no match for the two men, especially without my pistol. Even in my
dreadful state, I knew there was a good chance the men were Paiutes.

“Wait! Do you know Sarah Winnemucca?” I asked, desperate to save myself.

The man who was leading Luke nodded brusquely but didn't stop. “What about Chief Winnemucca? Or Natchez? Chief Numaga?” I tried to remember other names Sarah had mentioned.

The two Indians stopped and spoke in their language. Then they turned away from the fire on the hill and headed in the opposite direction.

“Where are you going? I don't mean you any trouble. I've got to take the mail to — ”

It was hopeless. Even if they understood me, why should they believe me? I was nowhere near the trail.

Soon we came to several stick huts shaped like squat beehives.

“Down.”

I slid from Luke's back and stood, shivering. Even though it was the middle of the night, people were moving around, most of them going in and out
of a slightly larger hut a little away from the others. Someone sang and several others chanted.

One of the men who had led me to the camp called out and a young woman emerged from the bigger hut and came toward us.

“Sarah!”

I took a step forward, ready to embrace her, but she stepped back and stared at me, her arms folded over her chest.

“Who are you?”

“It's me! Joselyn!” I pulled off my hat. Sarah stared at me for a moment. Then she chuckled.

“Your hair!” she said and reached over to touch my shorn locks.

The two men spoke and pointed back in the direction we'd come from.

“They thought you were a scout,” Sarah said.

“Why didn't they kill me?”

“You would have more information if you were alive. Why are you here?”

I explained and Sarah shook her head. “This is a hard path you have chosen to get to California.”

I had to laugh at that.

“I am pleased our men found you. The wagon trail is like this—” She made a slashing motion with her hand side to side through the air. “And you are going like this—” The second line she made was just below and parallel to the first. The way I'd been travelling I might never have crossed the trail.

“He will show you,” she said, nod-ding toward one of the men who had found me. “I cannot come. My grand-father, Truckee, is very sick. We, the old, the women and children, and a few men have been hiding here, away from the fighting at Pyramid Lake. But Grandfather is very ill. We have lit fires in the hills to call our people in so they might—” Her voice cracked. “—so they might say goodbye.”

“Sarah — ”

“Shh. Say nothing. There is nothing to say. But I must stay with him.”

I nodded. How well I understood. Ma, Pa, and even Baby Grace, whom I had known such a short time, had not passed over to God's care alone.

Sarah glanced back over her shoulder at the hut where her grandfather lay dying, her eyes brimming with tears. She turned back to me and took my hands in hers.

“You know what you must say about seeing us here.”

I nodded. “Nothing.”

“And when my people are friends once again with yours, I never met a girl called Joselyn on a Pony Express horse.”

We both smiled. “I'd like to go back to California one day. Maybe I will see you there.”

“I'd like that,” I said and squeezed her hands.

She nodded, then pulled away and returned to her grandfather.

I mounted my horse once again. The man who was to be my guide said nothing but nudged my knee with something solid. My pistol.

“Thank you,” I said as I took it from him.

He indicated I should follow him and then led me some distance before
saying, “Go past there.” He pointed at a single scraggly pine tree in the distance, a black shape against the night sky.

I thanked him again. He patted Luke on the rump and disappeared into the darkness.

Never in my life had I felt so alone.

“Come on, Luke. If he says to go past the tree, we go past the tree. We'll find the trail and the station. What a good feed you'll have … What a bed there will be for me!”

Sounding cheerful was a strain, but I needed to keep my spirits up as we set off, uphill, toward the big tree.

When we finally stood atop the ridge, we were both blowing and panting. I opened my jacket to the chill pre-dawn air. Back toward the east, the under sides of the gray clouds were tinged
with pink and yellow. As I watched, the colors warmed until the clouds were a deep blush of rose.

Turning my back on the rising sun and the scraggly pine, I urged Luke into a plodding trot.

The morning was the strangest I had ever seen. Even as the sun rose higher in the sky, the clouds thickened and built so the day hardly grew brighter. Within an hour a bitter, freezing rain was falling. I pulled my collar up around my neck, my hat down over my ears and hunched into the saddle. Soon the relentless pelt of raindrops had mixed with snow and soaked us both.

Though I wore thick calfskin gloves, my fingers grew numb. I had to tuck first one hand and then the other inside my jacket to keep them from freezing. I imagined James arriving at the stinky ponds and wondered what he'd do when he saw I wasn't there.

The mud froze into treacherous ruts and bumps. These became more and more difficult to see as the snow
thickened and blanketed everything. We pressed on, eyes slits against the driving snow. Once Luke stopped and looked back at me, his long eyelashes white with frost. Every step became a torment as Luke slipped and slid. We had long passed the tree and still there was no sign of the wagon trail. Could the Indian have lied?

I willed Luke to keep going. And he did until, without warning, he stumbled.

“Come on, boy,” I pleaded, putting my heels to the exhausted horse's sides. “Git up!”

But Luke refused to budge. The poor animal turned his tail to the wind and would not take another step.

I climbed out of the saddle and moved to Luke's head. Just as I reached for his bridle I, too, stumbled. The trail! That's why Luke had tripped. We had found the wagon ruts, invisible beneath the freshly fallen snow.

“Hallelujah!” I shouted and slapped the horse on the neck. “Thank you!” I shouted into the swirling snow. It
was agony to haul myself back onto Luke's back.

Buffeted from behind by blasts of wind, I turned Luke westward. Only then did the big horse agree to walk on.

It was impossible to say exactly where we were, but I figured we couldn't be too far from Robert's Creek. For a short while my heart skipped and sang with the joy of knowing we would soon be safe.

Hah! Had I learned nothing? The snow began in earnest. Burning pin-pricks whipped across my cheek, searing my face. Soon I was so cold I could barely stay upright in the saddle. We had to move faster or we would never make it to shelter.

“Come on, Luke my friend, let's git on home.”

Luke dropped his head and reluctantly picked up a jog.

Snow whirled around us as the wind shifted directions — first blasting us from the side, then attacking from the front. My nose, cheeks, hands, legs,
and even my mind were numb. With fingers thickened by cold, I fumbled to tie my kerchief across my face. Before I had it in place, it was soaked through. I tried to wiggle my toes inside my boots but could scarcely feel them at all. How I longed to stomp around in front of a roasting fire, a steaming mug of Arbuckle's cradled in my hands.