The Mother Lode Read online

  “Do bears shit in these tall pines?”

  “Yes, they do!” the man cried, hurrying off with both scalps dangling from his dirty hands. “And I’ll feed you beans till you fart like a fat goat!”

  Joe grinned and began to unsaddle the little mule. He noted that it had fresh cinch sores that were bleeding. Blood on scalps, blood on the mule, and blood on his soul.

  It might be better for Fiona if I just went away like the cold north wind, he thought.

  “Joe Moss,” he said with a sad shake of his head, “if you were a good man, you’d put a bullet in your brain this very minute. Be a mercy to mankind . . . and maybe to Fiona and your child should it still be alive.”

  He stood beside his mule with his head down feeling low and ugly and evil because he had hurt most everything he’d ever loved or touched that was good. Was it too late to change and make up for past mistakes and wrongs?

  “Here’s soap and a towel, mister. You okay?”

  Joe snapped out of his dark reverie. “Yep.”

  “Then hurry ’cause it’s getttin’ dark. You can use that old horse watering trough out back so no man or woman will see you.”

  “If they see me, it’s on their eyes and it won’t matter,” Joe said. “But I ain’t any more to look at than this poor mule. And I got a sight more scars.”

  “From Indians?”

  “Some of ’em.”

  The liveryman reached way out to hand Joe the lye soap and two grain sacks that were anything but clean. “Mister, I see hard men comin’ and goin’ every day. Seen ’em all my damned life. But I think you might be the hardest man I ever did lay eyes upon.”

  Joe nodded in complete agreement. “I expect that may be so,” he said. “I should have been killed long ago, but for some reason it’s me that does all the killin’.”

  The liveryman opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind and backed away with respect. “I’ll get you a plate of beans when you’re done with the horse water.”

  “Thank ye.”

  “And I won’t tell anyone who traded me those scalps. I wouldn’t want it to come down against you.”

  “Do as you think best, but it wouldn’t be a trouble.”

  “Meaning that you’d kill anyone who came at you about those scalps? That be your true meaning. Right, mister?”

  Instead of answering, Joe just stared at the liveryman with his piercing blue eyes and greasy long black hair until the liveryman gulped and backed away fast.

  2

  JOE AWOKE BEFORE dawn as was his habit, and because he slept in his buckskins, it didn’t take much time for him to grope his way outside the barn and then find his mule waiting in the corral. “Did that fella grain you well?” he asked, opening a small sack of oats and allowing the mule to have some extra feed to start his day off right.

  The mule inhaled the oats, and then allowed itself to be tied up while Joe refilled the sack so he’d have feed for the animal at the end of another hard day should they be camping out along the Truckee River tonight. After that, Joe crapped in the corral and washed himself in the trough, then saddled and mounted the mule.

  “Time to get along,” he told the animal as he laid his Henry rifle across his saddle. “Donner Pass is still miles away and I don’t much cotton to the idea of spending the night where all those poor unfortunate members of the Donner Party died. I’d like us to get down past Donner Lake on the river.”

  Joe had been over Donner Pass before and the area, while incredibly beautiful, always gave him the spooks. It had only been fifteen years earlier that the ill-fated wagon train bound for California had gotten a late start and ended up being trapped in the high pass. Of the eighty-nine emigrants who had set out from Fort Bridger, only forty-five had survived the ordeal, and it was rumored that some of them had resorted to cannibalism. Joe didn’t know about that, but he had heard that the survivors, who had been thought to have eaten human flesh in a desperate hope to avoid starvation, had been vilified by the Californians. That seemed wrong to Joe Moss, for he knew with certainty that he would eat the flesh of a dead person if that was all that would keep him alive. And he also knew from reading and from the words of Indians that ancient peoples had been sacrificed and eaten as a means of survival.

  “I’d sure rather eat a skinny, worn-out dog or a mule than a fellow human,” Joe told his mount. “But mostly I prefer elk and buffalo meat to all others. Mutton and beef are what I can get most of the time, but wild game is my natural preference.”

  As morning light appeared and the sun lifted slowly in the eastern sky, Joe began to meet mule skinners and other travelers coming down from the pass on their way to California.

  “Mornin’,” he would call to each passing party. “How’s the weather in Nevada these days?”

  “Fine and dandy!” most would yell back without stopping. “But there’s a storm brewin’ and it could bring some rain and maybe even snow if we don’t get down to the Sacramento Valley soon.”

  Joe knew that everyone who crossed over through Donner Pass was keenly aware of the terrible fate of the Donner Party and so they were especially nervous about getting trapped by a late snow. Hell, at this altitude, it could snow as late as June, and when that happened, the big freight wagons would mire down in the red mud so deep they would have to be unloaded before being pulled free.

  At noon and less than a thousand feet from the summit, Joe saw a strange-looking freight wagon being pulled by a collection of oxen, mules, and horses, all of which were in terrible shape. There were ten animals and not a one of them looked as if it would last another day. Even worse, the two freighters were cracking their whips and cussing like sailors. As Joe drew nearer, he saw that one of the animals was none other than his old Palouse, the horse that he had nearly killed making a run for California.

  “Hold up there!” Joe called, raising his hand as he approached the wagon, which showed no sign that it was going to do anything but run him over if he did not yield and leave the road. “I said hold up!”

  The man holding the lines was huge and bearded, thicker than Joe, but probably not any taller. It was the other man that was doing the mean bullwhip work and had the backs of the struggling team bloody, causing Joe to grit his teeth in anger.

  “Hold up, damn you!” Joe snapped, not reining off the road, but instead raising his Henry rifle and pointing it directly at the driver.

  “Get out of the way, you sonofabitch!” the man with the lines bellowed. “We got heavy lumber on this wagon and we ain’t stoppin’ for nobody!”

  Joe quickly reined up the little mule, now growing very nervous about the onrushing team and wagon. He put the stock of his big rifle to his shoulder and in one smooth motion took aim and fired. The heavy boom of the weapon filled the high corridor of pines along the road, and the driver’s hat went flying from his head to reveal that he was completely bald.

  “Sonofabitch!” the one with the bloody bullwhip screamed, dropping his whip and reaching for the pistol strapped to his side.

  Joe levered in another shell and took aim on the smaller man while shouting, “If you draw iron, mister, then you’re as good as dead right now!”

  The driver hauled up on his reins and applied the wagon’s brake. It screeched in protest and smoked, but the wagon came to a stop just a few feet from Joe Moss and his now nervously dancing Mexican mule.

  “Are you crazy!” the driver screamed, fumbling around with big fingers atop his head where his hat was supposed to ride. “Are you plumb loco!”

  “Nope,” Joe said, watching the bullwhip man. “And I mean what I said about either of you drawing iron against me. I hit what I shoot at pretty near every time and my next two bullets are gonna splatter your brains.”

  “What the hell do you want? Is this a damned holdup?” the smaller man demanded. “ ’Cause if it is, you’re shit out of luck, mister. We ain’t carryin’ no cash. Just a load of lumber from Truckee bound for a settlement down on the American River.”

/>   Joe lowered the barrel of his rifle. “I got no room to brag on being kind to animals, but you men are the worst sonofabitches on stock that I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a lot. What the hell are you skinnin’ their backs for with that whip and why haven’t you fed that team right?”

  “Who are you?” the driver snarled. “A damned crazy animal lover? No, you can’t be because that sorry mule you’re riding looks like it ain’t been treated all that well, either.”

  “More to my shame,” Joe admitted. “But you don’t see me whipping him bloody.”

  “What do you want?” the smaller of the pair challenged, picking up his bullwhip and coiling it in his strong hands. “Or did you just damn near shoot Edgar’s head off for the fun of it?”

  Joe lowered his rifle a trifle and replied, “It’s about that Palouse horse you’re killin’.”

  “You mean the spotted Appaloosa?”

  “That’s the one,” Joe said. “He’s mine.”

  “The hell you say!” the driver shouted. “We bought him from a miner! Paid him five dollars and that was too damn much. He’s weak and is about to die.”

  “Last week I left him on this trail not five miles from where we are right now,” Joe explained. “I thought he was dead because I’d run him too far and too hard. But now it fills my heart with some gladness to see that he lived. And I want to buy him from you today.”

  The two freighters exchanged glances reflecting amazement. Then, the driver turned to Joe and said, “You are bat-tier than a bedbug, mister. And if you hadn’t gotten the drop on us, we’d have run you down and it would have been good riddance to the world.”

  “That’s probably the first true thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth,” Joe agreed. “But it don’t change the fact that I feel that I owe that Palouse horse a second chance and I had grown to admire the animal when it was fit and strong. That’s why I need to buy him back.”

  “Well, I’m tellin’ you that he ain’t for damned sale!” the man with the bullwhip screamed. “And you’re wastin’ our time!”

  “How much?” Joe said, deciding to ignore the outburst. “State your price.”

  “Only a hundred dollars,” the driver said, the corner of his mouth turning into a grin of contempt. “You want him, then that’s what it’ll cost you.”

  “You’re getting’ five,” Joe said. “You told me that’s what you paid for him and it was too much.”

  “Go to hell! It ain’t worth our time to unhitch him for that little amount of money, and besides that, we need him in the team.”

  “It’s all downhill for you boys from here on to Sacramento,” Joe reminded them. “But just to show that my heart is in the right place, I’m going to give you ten dollars. That way you double your money and have got hard use out of the Palouse in the bargain.”

  The driver’s smile died. “You got ten dollars in gold coin?”

  “I do.”

  “You probably got more than that, I’d guess.”

  Joe pulled out his bag of gold coins and currency and selected a gold eagle. “Don’t suppose you’d rather have a fine scalp to show off to your friends?” he asked hopefully.

  The two men, looking down from the advantage of their high wagon perch, saw that Joe’s sack was heavy with coins and cash, and something very deadly passed between them.

  The man with the bullwhip shot his arm forward and the long, wicked whip sailed expertly over the beaten team and struck Joe’s little mule between the eyes. The mule bolted in pain and fear, sending Joe and his wealth spilling to the ground. Then the driver made a grab for a shotgun placed between his feet. Joe saw the shotgun come up even as he rolled off the mule, came to his feet, and grabbed the tomahawk at his belt.

  The driver would have killed him for certain, but the shotgun got tangled in the ends of his heavy reins and he couldn’t get it quickly free and clear. Joe had no such of a problem, and he threw the tomahawk so that it sailed end over end in a silver blur until its sharp blade buried deep in the driver’s chest.

  Fortunately, the bullwhip man wasn’t a quick thinker, or he might have either surrendered or used the gun on his hip. Instead, the fool tried to use his bullwhip a second time against Joe. But the whip was only leather, while Joe’s bowie knife was made of the finest steel. He slashed at the bullwhip and cut it off short, then threw the knife aiming for the heart, but missing a little and hitting the throat.

  “Eeegghhh!” the smaller man gagged, blood gushing like a fountain from his severed carotid artery.

  “Easy, mule.” Joe calmed his little mule and dismounted while the frightened team struggled to drag the freight wagon against the force of its set brake. The mule had a deep nick in its forehead and was bleeding, but at least it had not lost an eye to the bullwhip.

  “Whoa up there,” he said. The freight wagon skidded a foot or two, and then Joe was reaching for the Palouse, calming it down and rubbing its cheek like he had done in the past.

  The freighters were both dead, and Joe pulled them off their perches and then dragged them deep into the forest. They were carrying about fifty dollars between them, and that was a nice bonus. Joe pocketed their money and collected their weapons, which he could resell on the Comstock.

  “Ain’t got time to properly bury you fools,” Joe explained. “But I want you to know that I’ve enjoyed doin’ business with the both of you. Sorry it ended up so bad, but it was your fault, not mine.”

  Joe kicked pine needles over their bodies until they were well covered. He started to leave, and then said, “Oh, boys. I want you to know that I’ll take a lot better care of your poor team than you did. But I think I’ll turn ’em around and over another pass and down into the Carson Valley. I don’t want to run into any of your friends and have to kill ’em too.”

  Joe didn’t look back at the two piles of pine needles. He regretted having to skewer that pair, but they’d needed killing and it was brought on by their own foolishness, not his. And after all, he had offered them a five-dollar profit in good faith.

  After that, what else could a fighting man be expected to do?

  3

  WHEN JOE REACHED Donner Pass, he expertly turned the freight wagon loaded with prime lumber down a little-used southern road that eventually brought him to the western shore of Lake Tahoe. There was considerable traffic along the lakeshore, but he was certain that the wagon and its mixed team had not traveled this road before and would not be recognized.

  He rested the team that night beside the lake where there was a lush meadow, and he cut ropes to make them all hobbles so that they could graze to their heart’s delight.

  Joe shot two squirrels and skinned, gutted, then roasted them over a little campfire. The stars were so bright overhead, you felt as if you could reach out and tickle their bellies. Up this high, the night sky was amazingly bright, and there were boats out on the lake dragging logs along the moonlit lake’s vast surface to sawmills.

  Joe wandered over to the Palouse horse and spent a half hour just rubbing its head, neck, and shoulders. “You know,” he told the half-starved and badly abused animal, “I have done many things that I’ve been ashamed of and most I could not take back. But finding and marrying Fiona and giving our child my name is something I can do right. And helping you get back to your old powerful self is another that I aim to do as a way of righting a wrong. I’ll sell the mule and the others in the team when we get down into the Carson Valley. I won’t get much for ’em, but they cost me nothing so that is okay. But you, spotted horse, I’m going to hang onto and you’ll carry me up to the Comstock Lode. Once there, I’ll find and marry Fiona and I’ll make sure you never again suffer abuse. How is that for fair and square?”

  As if the big gelding understood, it nodded its head and then went back to devouring the sweet alpine meadow grass. Joe returned to his campfire and finished off the squirrel meat, then picked his teeth with the bowie that had killed a man earlier that day.

  He’d carried about seven hundred dol
lars before he’d met the freight wagon that had instantly made him a relatively prosperous man. Because with the wagon filled with sawn pine boards fit for immediate use in building, Joe figured he was now worth a thousand dollars . . . easy. Maybe twelve hundred if he got much of anything at all for his mule and the team.

  Twelve hundred dollars was more money than he’d ever had in his lifetime. Why, the most he’d made trappin’ beaver in a season was only about six hundred. Still, he reckoned that prices would be expensive on the Comstock Lode. They always were in the roaring gold camps.

  Joe wondered if Fiona would want to stay up in Virginia City after they were married. She might, but he hoped not. Joe had never been up on barren Sun Mountain where the mines were all deep and hard rock and there was little wood or water. And he wasn’t exactly excited about going there now, much less remaining if that should be Fiona’s wish. But by gawd, this mountain man would become a miner or whatever else that woman wanted him to be.

  “I’m no spring chicken anymore,” he said to the fire. “But I’m still more man than most and I can outwork, out-fight, and outdrink most any fella.”

  Joe ran his fingers through his long, tangled hair and then his full, bushy beard, which was greasy and unkempt. In the firelight, he studied his soiled and worn-out buckskins and knew that he was a wild and undesirable-looking specimen of manhood.

  “I will get a haircut and shave before I call upon Fiona,” he vowed to the flames. “And I’ll buy myself a whole set of new clothes . . . a fine hat and a new pair of boots . . . if I can stand to wear ’em instead of these comfortable old moccasins. That way, when Fiona sees me after so many years apart, she will not think me unclean and unfit for marriage.”

  Joe lit his pipe with a twig from the fire and inhaled the raw tobacco he’d bought in California. He’d smoked better, and he wished he had some whiskey to drink as he lay under these beautiful stars. But he didn’t feel for a serious lack of anything, really. He was close to Fiona and his child now . . . he could almost feel their presence less than a hundred miles to the east.