The Mother Lode (22 page)

At last, they came to a small cavern where the foreman pointed to the wall and told Joe and three of his crew to start busting loose ore. The rest of the crew was led farther down the tunnel to work another face.

“Just be careful not to send that pick through the wall into a pocket of scalding water,” the miner next to Joe warned. “If you do that, we're all gonna get boiled.”

“How do I know if there's water on the other side of this rock wall?” Joe asked, pick raised.

“If you live long enough down here, then you'll learn to tell by the sound of your pick striking the rock. If it sounds hollow or starts to get too soft, back away fast and give a holler to the rest of us. The ore that you bust off this wall gets tossed in that little mine car on the tracks. When they're loaded, we take turns pushing it back to the shaft, where it's sent up in the cage we came down on. Got it?”

Joe nodded and began to work. He was strong and his hands were calloused, yet they were soon stinging with fresh blisters. He started out too fast, and was soon gasping like a beached fish and unable to get his breath in the thin, fetid air whose temperature was about 110 degrees.

“Pace yourself, Moss,” the foreman told him as he came by. “Steady and strong. Twenty blows a minute is a good rate to work up to. Take it easy the first few days. It'll come to you after about a week.”

I won't last a damned week,
Joe thought, sweat burning his eyes and his spine feeling as if it was going to snap like a stick.

At the end of the twelve-hour shift in hell, Joe could hardly straighten his back when they climbed onto the cage for the fast ascent up to the hoisting works. He clung to the cage and left his stomach somewhere deep in the mine. When the cage burst out into the big, tin-roofed building, all the same machinery was clanging and banging. But the air was good again, and he could see patches of dark sky through the tall rusting tin roof.

“You did good, Moss,” his shift boss said, patting Joe on the shoulder. “It'll get easier day by day. See you in twelve hours.”

Joe didn't think he would come back, but he did. He came back for eleven straight days with blistered hands and dread in his heart. Several times while down below, he had heard of other men working on other levels, some as deep as a thousand feet, who had been crushed by cave-ins that even square-set timbering could not completely eliminate.

And then, on the twelfth day, a more seasoned miner on Joe's crew named John Barton from England punched a hole through a crumbly wall. Instantly, a stream of boiling water burst out of an adjoining cavern to scald him right where he stood with his pick stuck tight.

Joe wasn't standing five feet from Barton, and had grown to like the young man and respect his endurance and hard work. But now Barton was screaming and rolling on the ground, and men were grabbing him to run at a crouch down the long tunnel to the main work station. They could hear the roar of the hot water as it shot through and widened the hole, then began to pour down the tunnel.

Joe was right there helping to drag and carry the howling Englishman. “What do we do now!” he yelled when they stood beside the cable that told them the cage was dangling hundreds of feet below.

“We signal for it to take us up and out of here!” the foreman cried. “And we wait to see how much hot water is coming down that tunnel after us. If it's huge, we'll all either boil or be swept down the shaft. If it's a small reservoir, maybe we'll live.”

Joe and the others listened to the hot water come coursing down the tunnel in a wave about three feet high. In the feeble light of their cap-candles they saw that it was black and oily-looking as men tried to jump onto the mine cart so that their feet, ankles, and lower legs would not be burned.

Joe pushed the already scalded Englishman into the cart, and took a running jump, grabbing the thick, twisted mine cable just as the steaming water hit the vertical shaft and showered downward for hundreds of feet. He clung to the cable, lost in a cloud of hissing steam, hearing men screaming far, far down below.

How long Joe clung to the cable before the water receded, he did not know. Maybe it was only for a few minutes. But when it was over, he looked back into the work station and saw the rest of his shift piled into the ore cart like terrified rats clinging to a sinking ship.

“All right,” the mine crew foreman said at last when the water had all but disappeared down the shaft. “Let's see if we can get back to work. It looks like that pocket of water wasn't a big one.”

Joe was still clinging to the cable for his life. He couldn't kick out far enough to get his feet on the cavern floor, but no one seemed to notice until the foreman said something about sending Barton up for emergency medical attention.

Then he saw Joe. “Moss, you're hanging on that cable. Don't you know that it might start up at any minute and drag you into a hoisting wheel? It would slice off your hands clean as a lump of lard, it would.”

“Dammit, help me get my feet back onto the ground!” Joe bellowed, fearing the dark, seemingly bottomless hole below.

The foreman and another brave miner learned far out over the shaft, and managed to grab and haul Joe back to solid footing.

“You should have jumped on the ore cart like the rest of us,” the foreman said.

“I would have, but it looked sort of crowded,” Joe answered. “And I wasn't sure how much of that scalding water was going to come rushing into this work station.”

“So,” the man said, with a wry half smile. “Were you gonna start shimmying eight hundred feet up that cable like a damned monkey?”

“I would have if that was my only choice.”

The foreman laughed until he happened to turn and put his candle light on Barton, whose face and chest were blood-red. He knelt beside the suffering Englishman and said, “You got burned real bad. I'm afraid that your skin is going to slough off and you'll carry the scars of this day for the rest of your life.”

“But will I live?” Barton sobbed, obviously in severe pain.

“I don't know,” the foreman said honestly. “But we'll get you up on top and see what can be done. Good luck.”

The cage was finally raised to their eight-hundred-foot level. Several other miners from deeper levels who were already scalded by the cascade of boiling water managed to get Barton squeezed in among them.

“Will he make it?” Joe asked, wanting the truth.

The foreman shook his head. “Usually, when they are burned this bad, their skin sloughs off and they get terrible infections and soon die. And my guess is that the first time that Barton looks in the mirror, he'll pray to die.”

Joe understood. And he also understood that he wasn't coming back down into this mine or any other Comstock mine. He'd gotten a taste of it, and it was every bit as hot and hellish as he'd expected.

It was time to go back to the sky and the clean air. And once on top again, that was where he would remain until the day of his death.

O
N A CLOUDLESS and bright Sunday morning, Joe rested in the rocking chair and vividly recounted to Beth, Dan DeQuille, Dr. Taylor, and Ellen his harrowing experiences and the hardships of working on the eight-hundred-foot level of the Belcher Mine. A short while later, Dr. Taylor surprised Joe by taking Ellen Johnson on a carriage ride down to Lake's Crossing for shopping. There was room enough for all of them in the doctor's two-horse carriage, but the newspaperman and Beth said they'd rather stay and relax on the veranda.

“I'm going to saddle up Jasper and take him for a ride,” Joe announced mainly to Beth. “All of our horses are needing some exercise, but your Jasper seems the most rambunctious.”

“He hasn't been ridden for nearly two years,” Beth said, looking a little worried. “I'm sure he'd love to get out and gallop.”

Joe doubted that, but he was curious about the big bay gelding, and so he headed off to get the animal saddled and bridled. DeQuille and Beth, meanwhile, had remained talking on the porch, and Joe wondered if they were going to become a pair. They were well matched in interests, education, and intellect and could chatter for hours about books and poets. Dan DeQuille was a handsome and articulate man, but Joe guessed they didn't pay much money at the newspapers because, although DeQuille tried to keep up appearances, his clothes were shiny with wear and his heels were worn down to nothing. He also was in real need of a barbershop shave and haircut.

And what about Dr. Taylor and Ellen? Joe couldn't help but feel a little jealous about how they were getting on so well. This told him that he was emotionally attached to the ex-Mormon farm woman more than he'd realized. But he also was happy for Ellen because she deserved an educated and professional man, not some rough-and-ready fella like Joe Moss who barely had enough manners to sit at the table in good company. Besides, the doctor was a fine man who had never married, yet seemed interested in trying to become a good husband and father.

So that Sunday morning as the two pairs enjoyed each other's company, Joe thought he might saddle up that jug-headed Jasper and ride the big old horse down to St. Mary of the Mountain Church and perhaps be rewarded by the sight of Jessica. He hungered just for a quick look at his beautiful daughter.

“Whoa, Jasper!” Joe yelled, trying to force the bit between the animal's long yellow teeth. “Cooperate, you ugly beast!”

In response, Jasper tossed his muzzle high into the air, so high that even Joe couldn't stand on his toes and get the bit set. Angry now, Joe reared back and kicked Jasper hard in his bulging hay belly. Now that got the animal's full attention! In fact, Jasper tried to bite Joe on the arm, and instead ripped the sleeve off one of his new shirts. They went around and around fighting each other's will until Joe finally eared the brute and bitted it fair. Then he cinched down his saddle and swung on board.

Jasper charged out of the little corral, splintering two rails and a cedar post. He shot around the mansion and went flying down the hill into town with Joe holding onto the saddle horn for dear life. He heard the doctor and Beth shouting at him, but Joe was moving so fast that he couldn't hear their words. Down the mountainside they barreled straight through an intersection past C Street and on down the hill at full bore.

Several people were almost trampled, and Joe was hauling back on the reins for all he was worth, yet Jasper had the bit firmly between his teeth and his great thick neck defied all of Joe's considerable strength.

They sailed past the Catholic church, and Joe caught a momentary glimpse of little Jessica playing, yet hardly had time to wave. Jasper hit the bottom of a rocky ravine, lost his footing, and tumbled, throwing Joe hard into the brush. Momentarily stunned, Joe staggered erect to see that Jasper was tangled in the brush and his reins.

“You miserable jug-head!” Joe shouted, kicking the animal in the rump and then hopping back into the saddle as the priest and nuns watched in shock and amazement.

Jasper was breathing hard, yet still game to run. After all, he had been penned for two years and sensed sweet freedom at last. The slope was still steeply tilted downward when they skidded into the poor people's cemetery, where there were no monuments or even headstones. Jasper trampled over a dozen or more graves and knocked wooden crosses flying, then flattened a rickety wooden fence and kept on running.

“Whoo-ha!” Joe hollered, yanking off his Stetson and batting the old bay across the butt again and again. “Whoo-ha!”

Jasper finally ran out of steam about four miles out into the barren hills. He staggered to a halt and stood with his head held low to the sage and his nostrils distended as he tried to find his wind. But Joe didn't let him rest more than a minute, and then he forced the old fella back into a disjointed gallop. They circled the town, and when they came trotting down from the high side of Mount Davidson, Jasper was moving as smooth and easy as a sore-footed milking cow.

“Joe!” Beth cried from the veranda. “What on earth happened to you and my Jasper!”

Joe Moss tossed his Stetson right up on the porch, and it landed in his favorite rocking chair. “Why, Miss Beth, we're just enjoyin' a nice Sunday morning horseback ride. And I even got to briefly pay my respects to the Catholics and little Jessica! I had a
fine
time. Most fun I've had in a long while.”

“But look at poor Jasper!” she cried, hands flying to her mouth.

“Why, what's wrong with him?” Joe asked, trying to look innocent.

“He's all covered with white foam and stickers and dirt. Did he fall, Joe?”

“He just got tired for a minute and laid down kinda sudden to rest,” Joe explained. “Nothing to worry about, Beth. Nothing at all!”

Joe started riding Jasper every other day and their other horses in between. He rode everywhere hard and for long hours. He rode back down to Devil's Gate just hoping that fella that had forced him and everyone else to pay a steep toll was alone without his rifleman to back up his play, but he was disappointed to see nothing had changed. No matter, the time would come for a reckoning.

Joe also rode his Palouse down Geiger Grade toward Lake's Crossing and then all the way back. It was a long, steep ride, but he talked to a lot of freighters and had a pretty good time. What he needed and wanted was his Fiona and his daughter, but at least he was out again in the fresh air under the bright, blue Nevada sky, and just doing that made him think that somehow everything was going to work out for the best.

“Joe,” Ellen said late one afternoon, “Dr. Taylor has asked me to go work in his office. He needs help and as you know, I am good nursing the sick and injured. I think that I'll take him up on his offer.”