Blood at Bear Lake Page 8

  Joe smiled to himself as he hunkered beside the coals with a last cup of coffee. This helpfulness was something that was not going to sway him . . . but she was damn sure welcome to keep it up. Just as long and as much as she cared to.

  He could not help thinking just a little wistfully that it was a fearsome shame he could not take her up on her first offer. She was a mighty fine-looking woman.

  He couldn’t help thinking, too, that he really would have liked a chance to try some of that milk that was dripping out of her and wetting the front of her dress this morning. Her teats were full to overflowing now with no one to take the milk from her.

  He wondered if . . . just as a charitable sort of thing . . . He shook his head. No, dammit. Best put that sort of thought well aside.

  “Would you like more coffee, Mr. Moss?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Coyle. This is enough for me.” He glanced toward the east, where a bright red sliver of sun had begun to appear on the horizon. “It’s getting late.”

  He stood, tossed the last of his coffee onto the coals, and handed her the empty cup. “If you will excuse me, ma’am, I’ll get the animals hitched. Are you sure you won’t change your mind about that lead wagon, ma’am? Might be some valuable things in there, things you could sell when you get wherever ’tis you’re going.”

  “No, Mr. Moss. I already told you. I want none of their possessions. They were evil men and they did me wrong, but even so, I won’t profit from their deaths. Thank you, though.”

  “You wouldn’t mind if I paw through there, then?”

  “Do whatever you wish, sir. The wagon is yours. I certainly don’t want it. Besides, you’ve already made it clear you don’t want me, so I got nothing to say about what you do. I got no claim upon you.”

  “Very well. Then if you’ll excuse me . . .” Joe touched the brim of his hat and left the breaking of camp to her.

  He had been waiting for daylight so he could see while he rummaged through the contents of the wagon that had belonged to the Wickershams. Brenda wanted her own things in her own wagon, the one she and her husband had started west with, but nothing that had been property of her captors.

  Joe had already emptied the pockets of the three dead men. He did that when he disposed of their bodies the evening before. He did not consider the act to be any sort of robbery, but a matter of simple practicality. Leaving perfectly good cash money lying there for the vultures and the coyotes to scatter would have been foolish. Not that the Wickershams had had so very much in their pockets when they died. He had taken thirty-some dollars in coin from them and another twenty or thereabouts in currency. All of it rested now in the pouch at Joe’s belt.

  And he had it in mind that those three brothers would not have set out for California with less than a hundred dollars in hand. Somewhere inside that wagon was their stash, and again it would have been sheer foolishness to leave it for some future traveler to find.

  He crawled inside the overloaded wagon and, ignoring the stink of other men’s sweat, began swiftly examining things, and then when he was done with each item, tossing it out over the tailgate.

  “Mr. Moss, what are you doing in there? I thought you wanted to get on the road today. Why, it’ll take me half the morning just to get this all packed back where it belongs.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t want none o’ this crap, Mrs. Coyle.”

  “That’s right, I don’t.”

  “Well, I don’t neither an’ it’s in my way.”

  “Oh, it does seem a shame to let such a nice teapot go to waste. It’s silver, I do believe.”

  “It’s yours, ma’am. Figure it’s a gift from me t’ you.”

  “Why, I . . . thank you, Mr. Moss.”

  “My pleasure, Miz Coyle.” Joe continued with his task, throwing out each piece one by one, clothing, furniture, and all.

  He salvaged all of the coffee and bacon the Wickershams had been carrying, and some of their lard and flour. Mrs. Coyle took the rest of those along with the silver teapot.

  Still, Joe kept looking.

  He finally found what he had been searching for contained in a cloth bag tacked to the back of a drawer in a little chest that held harness-making tools.

  Joe did not take time to count the coins in the bag, but it was satisfyingly heavy and all the coins were gold. He did not see any silver when he looked into the poke. At a guess, there should be more than a thousand dollars in gold there, perhaps considerably more.

  “We can hitch up an’ go now,” he said as he climbed back out of the wagon.

  “What about all of . . . this?” She pointed to the jumble of goods he had thrown out of the wagon. “Do you want me to put it back?”

  “Why? I ain’t takin’ it. You said you don’t want it neither.”

  “But . . .”

  “Miz Coyle, the livestock that’s left to you an’ the brothers are in bad shape. If they was healthy, it’d be all they can do t’ pull one wagon, never mind two. So I figure t’ build the strangest damned . . . excuse my language, ma’am . . . strangest dang mixed hitch anybody ever seen. But I’m thinkin’ with all of ’em pulling your one wagon, we can get you back to a little Mormon settlement that I seen the last time I was through here.”

  He grinned. “Didn’t pay much attention to it then, bein’ as how them Mormons don’t much hold with carousing an’ I wasn’t yet a married man at the time. But I figure you can settle there long enough t’ get rested an’ wait for a train t’ pass through so’s you can get on to California.” The grin became wider. “Or get you a husband if you don’t mind becoming a Mormon.”

  “I don’t know what the Mormons hold with, Mr. Moss.”

  “Don’t you worry about that. Fifteen minutes after we get there, you will have been told all about it. An’ fifteen minutes after that, you will’ve been baptized Mormon if you’re willin’. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I reckon that wagon sheet will make a good cover for the packs on my mule an’ I think I’m gonna take it.” Joe turned and began untying the white canvas sheet that covered the bows over the bed of the Wickershams’ wagon.

  27

  THE FARTHER EAST they went, ever closer to the Green River that he remembered so fondly from the fur-trapping days of his youth, the closer they got to Paiute country. In the old days, he and the boys referred to the Paiutes as Digger Indians.

  The Diggers were known as the poorest of all the tribes. Man, woman, or child, they went naked except for the dust and filth that covered them. The problem with the Diggers was that while they were still poor, sometime in the last twenty years or so the bastards had gotten some firearms in hand, most of them stolen from the many wagons that passed through on their way to California.

  It turned out that the Diggers were mean and sneaky sons of bitches once they had better weapons than the sticks they used to hunt with. Nowadays, they thought it grand sport to rob and kill any white men they could lull into inattentiveness with their begging and bowing.

  Joe knew that, knew it good and well, and there was no way he would have let a pack of Diggers close to his odd little caravan of one wagon and a pack mule.

  He was, dammit, lulled into inattentiveness, though. Not by any display of innocence staged by the Diggers. He became complacent because on the eighth day, swinging south of the salt desert and inland salt sea, they finally reached civilization.

  Almost.

  They were within three miles of the Mormon settlement, he judged, Joe riding well out in front of Mrs. Coyle and her plodding oxen, and he could as good as taste the fresh meat and fruit pies he fully intended to indulge in once they got there. One more ridge to cross, maybe two, and they would be there.

  His mouth was watering in anticipation of the fried chicken and oven-baked biscuits he knew would be available in the settlement. It was all he could do to keep from trying to hurry the wagon along. He would have, too, had Mrs. Coyle’s animals been in better shape.

  As it was, they were in bad need of some decent
feed and a long rest. One ox in particular worried him. He suspected the animal might never recover from what it had been through, and probably should be butchered. It would be too tough for steak, but would still be useful for stew meat or for jerky.

  Steaks. Beef sizzling over the fire. Thick and juicy slabs of red meat that . . .

  Joe was shaken out of his reverie by an ear-shattering whoop from his right and another from the far side of Brenda Coyle’s wagon.

  Half a dozen arrows rose out of the scrubby brush that a civilized man would not think thick enough to hide a jackrabbit, much less a fully grown Digger Indian.

  At least one arrow hit one of Mrs. Coyle’s oxen— naturally, the one hit was one of the healthier animals, Joe immediately grumbled to himself—and the beast jerked its head, rolling its eyes and bawling in pain.

  The ox stumbled and went to its knees, nailing the wagon in place, with no possibility that Mrs. Coyle might be able to run away from the ambush.

  Joe was not so encumbered. He was riding his horse, the mule being tethered to the tailgate of the wagon.

  He was free to run, which under normal circumstances would have been the sensible thing to do.

  But, dammit, he could not throw the spurs to the Palouse and leave a defenseless woman behind for the Diggers to rape and murder, sensible or not.

  He snatched the head of the Palouse around and raced back to the wagon, pulling the Spencer carbine from its saddle boot as he did so.

  28

  JOE HEARD THE Palouse grunt. A moment later, it went to its knees from a full run, spilling him over its head. He hit the ground rolling and came up onto hands and knees, somehow still clinging to the Spencer that was locked in his grip.

  Scuttling like a crab—like one damned quick-moving crab—he scrambled the remaining distance to the heavy wagon.

  “Fall back, Brenda. Throw yourself over the seat into the wagon bed and hunker down out of the way of them arrows,” he shouted, rising into a crouch beneath the wagon box.

  Another flight of arrows fluttered toward the halted wagon, half of them burying themselves in the flesh of the terrified oxen, which were bawling and kicking and trying to escape the madness and the copper stink of fresh blood.

  Joe had no target to aim at, but he was no tenderfoot. He had fought Indians more than a few times in the past, and he was not about to waste his ammunition cutting brush or raising dust.

  A high-arcing arrow hit the iron rim of the wheel Joe knelt beside and skittered off it. It wound up standing upright in the ground by his right foot.

  “You sons o’ bitches are gonna piss me off if you keep this up,” he snarled aloud to no one in particular.

  “Did you say something, Mr. Moss?”

  He looked up to see Brenda Coyle leaning over the side of the wagon. “Not to you, I didn’t. Now get back inside there outa the way,” he snapped, motioning her down.

  She withdrew, and Joe returned his attention to the Diggers.

  He saw a flicker of movement, and the Spencer carbine came swiftly to his shoulder. He took aim and pressed the trigger and . . . and nothing happened. He had forgotten that unlike his Henry, the Spencer had to be cocked in a separate motion after the cartridge was fed into place by the lever.

  “Dammit!”

  He thumbed the heavy hammer back, but by then he was much too late to try a shot at the spot where he had seen the movement.

  More arrows rose lazily upward, rising slowly, then taking a downward turn and falling with increasing velocity until they landed like huge raindrops onto the wagon and the dying, screaming oxen.

  The wagon jerked forward, rocked back, jerked again as the oxen struggled to tear themselves free from their torment.

  Joe pitied the big, stolid brutes, but there was nothing he could do to help or to protect them. They already looked like pincushions, with arrow shafts protruding at crazy angles from the doomed beasts’ backs and hips and sides.

  They slung their heads from side to side, sending ropes of bloody foam and snot through the air.

  And one by one they went to their knees, rolled onto their sides, and were gone.

  The Diggers whooped and danced. Victorious and jubilant now.

  Now Joe could see the Indians clearly. They were scrawny, wizened little sons of bitches who probably never had their bellies full in their entire lives, and now they could see several tons of fresh meat lying there in front of them, ready to carve and to cook.

  Joe smiled grimly and held his fire.

  He had seven cartridges in the Spencer and six balls in his Colt revolving pistol.

  And when those were gone, he would still have his bowie knife and his faithful tomahawk.

  There were—he tried to count—something like seven Diggers dancing around out there.

  In a few minutes, they would grow bold and swarm in to claim their booty and to turn the oxen into meat. After all, the last they had seen of him was when the Palouse went down and he was thrown over its head.

  Joe remained hunkered down beside the wagon wheel. Waiting patiently.

  When all of the Diggers were in plain sight—three of them coming toward the wagon while four others stayed back covering them with their bows—when Joe was fairly sure he had them exactly where he wanted them, he stood up and carefully, methodically, one target at a time, began slaughtering them.

  29

  JOE DECIDED HE must be getting old. Well, maybe starting to get old. He had a slight twinge low in his back after bending down and taking the scalps from the first five of his seven victims.

  He tucked away this last hank of black, greasy hair with the bit of bloody skin attached and stood, bending backward just a little to help ease the muscles in his back.

  Joe did not need the scalps of his vanquished foes as trophies, but he continued the practice he had followed for years after first learning it from Indians. According to their belief, at least the way he was given to understand it, a spirit could not join his dead tribesmen in the afterworld if his scalp was taken in this world. A man became truly dead if he gave up his scalp to an enemy. Joe did not know how true any of that was, but he did not intend to take any chances.

  He took a moment to rest his back, then stepped over the body of the scalpless Digger Indian and walked over to the next. This one, an emaciated youngster who could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen, was still breathing.

  The boy had a hole high in the chest. Bloody froth bubbled on the surface, suggesting he was shot through the lung. It was possible, just barely possible, that someone could recover from a wound like that. Joe had seen it happen.

  But not this time.

  Joe leaned down and took a grip on the kid’s hair to lift his upper body off the ground, then made two quick swipes with the bowie. The first slashed the boy’s throat completely through to the bone. The second added another scalp to Joe’s collection.

  Bastards thought they were going to kill him, did they? Well, he had another thought for them.

  Joe finished collecting the last scalp and walked back to the wagon to retrieve his Spencer carbine. He pulled the magazine tube out and dropped in seven fresh cartridges, then set the Spencer aside, reminding himself to get more from his pack. The pack and mule seemed to have survived the attack without harm at the back of the wagon. All the arrows had been directed forward, where the people and oxen were.

  “Miz Coyle. You can come out now. It’s safe. All the Injuns is accounted for.”

  Sighing, he walked over to the fallen Palouse horse. That animal had been the best horse he ever owned. Oh, he tended to think that about any good horse that he got hold of, but this time he really meant it. The Palouse had been getting a little long in the tooth, but—dammit—he liked that horse. And it had been his. He could feel the bile rising in the back of his throat as anger overtook him at the sight of the dead horse.

  If there had been any of those Diggers still alive, he would have killed them all over again. Bastards!

  There
was nothing he could do to change it, though. He could only accept what was and forget about what might have been.

  Joe bent down again and unfastened his cinches, then struggled to pull his saddle free of the carcass.

  The Diggers’ arrows had killed all the livestock, but he was close enough to the little Mormon settlement that Joe figured he could walk over there to buy a horse and haze some oxen or mules back to drag the wagon the rest of the way in. He had to get the saddle off now, though, before the dead horse began to bloat and it became impossible to remove it without cutting the cinches.

  “Mrs. Coyle,” he called again. “Everything is all right. You can climb down here, Miz Coyle. Be a good idea for you t’ do that. I have t’ walk over to that town to get fresh animals, and I wouldn’t want t’ leave you alone out here. There might be some more Injuns nearby. I wouldn’t want t’ leave you undefended while I go for the animals.”

  He waited a moment, but heard nothing from inside the wagon.

  Joe set the saddle down and quickly stripped the bridle from the horse. Damn shame, though. That had been a mighty fine animal.

  “Miz Coyle. Are you all right, ma’am?”

  Joe stepped onto a wheel spoke and from that into the driving box. As he did so, he was thinking what a hell of a time he would have trying to wrestle the yokes and riggings from those dead oxen. Possibly, he should bring someone from town to help him with that.

  Mrs. Coyle was crouched on the floor of her wagon, wedged in between some crates and boxes.

  “Mrs. Coyle? Ma’am?”

  Joe crawled over the back of the seat and slipped beneath the canvas wagon sheet. It took a moment for his vision to adjust to the dim light beneath the canvas.

  “Aw . . . shit!”

  An arrow, one of the many fired high in the air, had plunged downward, piercing the flimsy wagon cover and by horrible chance striking Mrs. Coyle in the back of the neck.