The Mother Lode (9 page)

“Dear Mrs. Johnson,” he said, sensing a moment of vulnerability, “why are you making things so hard for yourself? If we were wed . . . and our farms combined . . . we would become the biggest and most successful farm in Genoa. And our houses . . . .”

“
My
house!” she cried.

“Yes, your house,” he said soothingly, “would remain your house. Perhaps you would enjoy the company of my Rebecca and her two daughters and . . .”

“No,” she blurted out. “And I do like and respect all of your wives, Mr. Purvis, but I will not live with them.”

“That would be perfectly acceptable, I think. However, your property and my property would be joined. And there is one more very important consideration.”

“And that is?”

“Children,” he said flatly. “Your late husband was no doubt a fine man, but sadly infertile. I, as is obvious, am not.”

Ellen turned on him with her cheeks turning red. “Mr. Purvis, could we please not talk about this now? I am tired and I need to think about what I should buy in town.”

He wasn't pleased, but he was smart enough to sense that he had pressed the issue as far as she would allow. “Of course. Let's just have a pleasant outing and not speak of serious things on such a fine day.”

Or any day,
she thought, wondering for the thousandth time if her late husband had been infertile . . . or if the curse was hers alone.

Carson City had enjoyed tremendous growth just since Ellen had been there last. Now she saw the new United States Mint was under construction and that many new homes and businesses were springing up like flowers after a good rain. The street was filled with wagons and the sidewalks crowded with pedestrians. Ellen gazed at all the activity with real interest, and noted a new millinery store as well as a butcher shop and dry goods store. The women on the street were dressed with color and wearing lovely hats and bonnets. The men all seemed quite dapper as well compared to Eli Purvis and the churchmen of Genoa.

“Where do you want to shop?” he asked. “I need to go to see the blacksmith.”

“Anywhere is fine,” she said, not wanting him to be able to find and accompany her before she had completed her shopping and was fully ready to leave.

Purvis drew up his team and then consulted his pocket watch. “I will help you load your purchases,” he told her. “Will an hour be enough time before we meet at the Ormsby House for lunch?”

“Make it two hours, Mr. Purvis. I do have a considerable amount of shopping to do and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Besides, we've come too far to rush ourselves, don't you agree?”

He did not agree, but she was climbing down from the wagon and already waving good-bye over her shoulder before he could protest.

I wonder if by some faint chance Joe Moss is here
, she asked herself.
I would recognize the wagon I sold him to haul his lumber, but I doubt that he still owns it. And why would he still be here? He's up in Virginia City with his beloved and their child. Oh, well, smile and enjoy this visit because it could be your last in quite a while.

J
OE MOSS WAS feeling real good. He wouldn't need to drive Mrs. Johnson's buckboard all the way up to Virginia City because he'd sold that old wagon, all his livestock except the Palouse, and every last stick of the recovered lumber in Carson City for a hefty amount of money. He'd been a little sad to let his good Mexican mule go, but he'd gotten a fair price and the liveryman in Carson City had warned him about the high cost of boarding animals on the Comstock Lode.

“Hay up there is higher'n hell,” the man said. “You'd be better off selling me your Appaloosa gelding and taking a stagecoach up to Virginia City.”

“Well, that's probably right,” Joe told the man, “but I just wouldn't feel right without a horse to ride. And while we're on the subject, I'll be needing a new saddle, horse blanket, bridle, and lead rope. Oh, a pair of good saddlebags.”

“You could buy 'em new at the saddle shop,” the man told him, “but I'll sell you everything you need at half the price.”

So Joe bought himself a new outfit, and then while he was in the spending mood, he went and got a hot bath, shave, haircut, and some new clothes and boots. “Sure you haven't got any buckskins around that'd fit me?” he asked the handsome young tailor.

“No buckskins,” the man said with an easy smile. “Nobody wears them anymore except a few old mountain men and Indians.”

“Well,
I
was a mountain man,” Joe told the man. “And I trapped beaver in the days when a beaver pelt was worth plenty.”

“Mister, you don't look old enough to have done that.”

“I started at a young age,” Joe replied. “Those were good days when the streams were full and there was an annual rendezvous up along the Green River. Back then you could buy a pretty Indian girl for less'n what it'd take trappin' in a month. And I bought more'n a few.”

The tailor blushed with embarrassment. He was a tall, gangly fellow with straight red hair. Joe figured that he would one day fill out to be an impressive man, and wondered why he'd chosen to be a tailor. “What's it like up on the Comstock Lode?” Joe asked.

“It's crazy is what it is,” the tailor answered, taking a few quick measurements. “Everyone has money in their pockets, but they spend it like there's no tomorrow. The town is wild and dangerous. I'd like to go up there and open a business.”

“Then why don't you go?”

The young man shrugged. “I'm trying to save up some money. I don't really enjoy this work. What I'd really like to do is gunsmith. I've a talent for it and I've won a few shooting contests here in Carson City. I work on people's weapons whenever I get a little free time.”

“Is that a fact?” Joe said, more impressed with the young man than he'd been before.

“It is.” He stuck out his hand. “My name is Redford Wallace. But everyone just calls me Red.”

“Red, do they have any law up there in Virginia City?”

“Nope. The only law on the Comstock Lode is the law of the jungle. The strongest, quickest, and smartest are the rulers.”

“Well,” Joe said, liking what he heard, “I'm still plenty strong and quick. As for being the smartest, I'll have to pass on that one. But I can read and write a little.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes, sir,” Joe said proudly. “It
is
a fact. Always could do the numbers. A man who can't add and subtract is going to get cheated every time.”

Red finished his measurements and stood up. Their eyes met on the same plane, telling Joe that the young man was about six-foot-two.

“How long is it gonna take before you can stitch up my new pants legs and sleeves on this coat?”

“I can have them ready for you in about an hour,” the young man replied.

“Fair enough,” Joe said, peeling bills off a thick roll. “I'll be back for 'em shortly. There's a few dollars extra for you, Red, for puttin' on the speed.”

The tailor was probably only about twenty and when Red saw Joe's roll of greenbacks, he couldn't help but stare. “You've got quite a bankroll there, Mr. Moss.”

“Yes, I do. I'm going to buy me a new rifle and scabbard soon as I find what I like. But first, I'm dyin' for a few shots of good rye whiskey.”

“I'd recommend the Lucky Lady Saloon just up the street. They'll serve real good liquor, if you tell them that is what you want instead of their usual cheap rotgut.”

Just then Joe spotted a new Stetson up on a high shelf. “If you got any of those that fit me, I'll take one.”

“They're twelve dollars and fifty cents,” Red told him. “Let's see if we can find one your size.”

Minutes later, Joe left the tailor's shop and stopped in the window of a store to admire his new boots and hat. He also had a haircut and a shave, and barely recognized himself.

“Fiona is gonna think you've gotten a lot younger and handsomer,” he said with a chuckle as he made his way along the boardwalk whistling an old and familiar tune.

The Lucky Lady Saloon was much to Joe's liking, and when he asked for the “good stuff,” he was given a full bottle of John Bull.

“Be four dollars,” the bartender said.

“That's kinda steep, mister.” Joe leaned on the bar. “And what if I don't drink the whole bottle?”

“Then you put the cork in it and take it with you,” the bartender replied. “You buy a bottle here, then it's all yours.”

“Fair enough.”

Joe again produced his huge roll of greenbacks and counted off the money. The bartender was suddenly a lot more impressed with Joe. “You passin' through or stayin' for a few days?”

“Passin' through on my way up to Virginia City,” Joe told him. “Reckon I can make it if I leave in an hour on a real good horse?”

“Even on a good horse you won't get that far before dark.”

“I ain't afraid of the dark,” Joe said.

“I'm sure you're not. But why don't you stick around until morning and then go?”

Joe waved aside the glass that the bartender pulled up from under the bar top. “If it's all mine, I can drink 'er from the bottle without a glass.”

“I expect you can,” the bartender said. “Say, why do you wear a tomahawk at your belt along with that big bowie knife?”

Joe squinted and put on his most serious face. “'Cause you never know when you might have to split a man's skull open who insults or tries to cheat you. And then, just for good measure, I'll take his scalp.”

The bartender was shocked and threw up his hands. “This is a
friendly
place.”

“That's good because I prefer to be a friendly man,” Joe answered. “But should someone cross me, I'll kill 'em without thinkin' about it even the once.”

“I'm sure you would,” the bartender said, wiping a sudden sheen of sweat from his brow.

Joe grinned and uncorked the whiskey. Closing his eyes, he sighed with anticipation and then he raised it to his lips and drank swallow after wonderful swallow. His eyes filled with happy tears and his throat and belly warmed up like hot coals in a campfire. When he set the bottle on the bar, it was down by a third.

“Holy cow, mister! You sure kicked the hell outa John Bull! I haven't seen many men that could put down that much whiskey without taking a breath.”

“I could pour the whole damn bottle down my gullet, if I had a mind to. And I might just have a mind to,” Joe said, feeling the heat spreading down until his toes tingled and tapped on the sawdust floor.

“Well, I know you have the money and I've got as much whiskey as you want to drink,” the bartender said. “So . . . if you're of a mind to get drunk . . . don't hold back.”

“I am of a mind,” Joe decided. “I haven't had a good drunk in the longest time, and I believe a man needs to go on a toot once in a while in order to keep his innards clean and workin' right.”

“I couldn't agree more,” the bartender said with a wide grin. “Drink up!”

Joe did drink up. He drank that entire bottle, and then he paid another four dollars and bought a second. By then, his head was spinning lazy circles like the flies around the tin ceiling and his world had a rosy hue. Joe and the bartender were laughing, and so were the fellas all around him that he was buying drinks for. It was a hell of a good time and before Joe knew it, the daylight was gone and he was having a little difficulty standing at the bar.

“You need a room?” the bartender, whose name turned out to be Willard, asked. “We rent upstairs rooms.”

“I probably could use a little food,” Joe said.

“I'll send a boy for a plate. Beef stew and corn bread all right?”

“Sounds top-notch,” Joe said, burping and taking another drink.

The beef stew didn't arrive until Joe and his new friends were finished with the second bottle and working hard on a third. But what the hell, it was only twelve dollars, and it had been the longest time since he'd been on a drunk and having so much fun.

Joe told his new friends all about his mountain man days, and then about leading that ill-fated wagon train west, and when he came to Fiona, he found that there were tears in his eyes and leaking down his cheeks into his beard. So he corked the bottle and squared his shoulders like a man. No blubbering woman was he, by damned!

“But I'm going to find her tomorrow,” he announced to his drinking friends. “I got a fine set of new . . . hiccup . . . clothes paid for and . . . hiccup . . . waitin' so I'll look good when I find her. I want Fiona to remember me as the man she was meant to marry.”

“Let's drink to Joe and his future bride!” the bartender shouted to the room as more men came to crowd around him. “Mr. Moss, how about one more round for the boys!”

They were all looking so eager and happy that Joe didn't have the heart to refuse them, so he bought a fourth bottle and it was gone quicker than he could count off another four dollars.

“I guess I'd better take that . . . hiccup . . . room,” he said, gripping the edge of the bar. “You got any jerky or tobacco?”

“I sell good cigars and bad cigars. The good ones are from Cuba and the bad ones smell and look like burnt dog shit.”

“I'll take a Cuban,” Joe said, trying to remember to remember to buy a corncob pipe, which he preferred to smoke.

“Wise choice.”

“And that room and some help gettin' up those stairs to it.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Moss. Room is ten dollars.”