“But no scalps, Joe,” Fiona reminded him.
“No scalps,” he agreed with a hearty laugh and a new spring to his step.
18
RANSOM HOLT FELT the shackles at his wrists being removed, and he stared up at the clear blue sky, wondering if he should strike out and kill as many of these men of Perdition as possible, or use his wits and survive.
He chose to use his wits.
“There you go,” Ferris said, stepping back quickly with a gun in his fist. “Our womenfolk have tended to and salved your back and buttocks, but I reckon you’ll carry the scars of being a thief forever.”
Ransom barely trusted himself to speak as he came to his feet and swayed unsteadily. “Where is Eli Brown?”
“He’s being dressed and is comin’. Ira Young wants you both out of Perdition before the sun sets.”
“We’ll be gone.”
“Just don’t ever come back,” Ferris warned. “If you do, you’ll be shot on sight.”
Ransom ground his teeth, thinking that returning someday to kill this man would be at the top of his list.
“You hear me, thief?”
“I hear you,” Ransom hissed. “But I want my horses, mules, weapons, and buckboard back. They are mine and gawddammit, I will have them! Or are you people hypocrites as well as being thieves?”
“You can have ’em back,” Ferris said. “You’ll get everything that’s yours. But we took a horse for the supplies you used and the water barrels.”
“You’re the ones that shot holes in them!”
“Yep. But we’re taking them into account,” Ferris said. “Them shot-up water barrels are still in your buckboard, and there’s bound to be some water left in their bottoms that didn’t leak out. But were I you, I wouldn’t be arguin’ so much, but instead gettin’ out of this town.”
“Give me my weapons!” Holt demanded.
Ferris looked over at his friends, who were also armed and prepared to fight. Then he turned back to Holt and said, “We don’t trust puttin’ loaded weapons in your hands, mister. So you and your partner will find ’em along with the rest of your lawful belongings out in the desert about a mile west of Perdition.”
“So we’re supposed to walk out there in our condition?”
“That’s right. Walk or crawl. It don’t matter to us, thief.”
Ransom had to turn away for a moment; otherwise, he would have attacked this self-righteous Jack Mormon bastard. It had been five days since his flesh had been ripped from his backside by a bullwhip, and Ransom had never known so much pain. In all that time, the only thought on his mind was to somehow get revenge against these people who had humiliated him and lashed him bloody. And he would do that, but later, when he was physically able to do so with some good hired gunmen.
“Here,” Ferris said, handing Ransom Holt a can of grease or lard. “My sister said to give it to you and your man. You put it on each other’s backs and buttocks and it’ll help heal the wounds and keep the flies away.”
Holt didn’t bother to say thanks. He moved unsteadily to the door and then wobbled out into the street, looking around at this town that he would one day find a way to destroy.
“Just remember that Ira Young could have had you hanged,” Ferris said from behind him. “He had the right, being as you’re nothin’ but a thief.”
“Fuck you!” Holt hollered. “Fuck you and this whole rotten fucking town!”
The hatred and vehemence in his voice surprised even himself, and the Mormon backed up, raising his gun and pointing it at Holt. “You shouldn’t say those bad and dirty words against us, thief! You got what you deserved. Maybe this taught you a lesson and you won’t steal ever again.”
“Get Eli Brown out here and don’t you dare lecture me!”
Ferris blushed with anger, and then he turned and disappeared while Holt tried to calm down. He was weak and dizzy from both pain and the loss of blood, and he knew that Eli, who had taken just half as many lashes, would be in equally bad shape. Moments later, when Eli did appear, Holt was shocked by the man’s pale and haggard appearance.
“Eli,” Holt said, “are you gonna make it?”
“I . . . I am,” Eli finally whispered. “But let’s shake the dust of this hellhole and get before they do decide to hang us both.”
“They’ve taken our horses and buckboard and everything else we own out into the desert a mile.”
“Oh, shit,” Eli groaned. “Are we supposed to walk that far today?”
“We are,” Holt told the pathetic killer he had hired. “And we will.”
“I don’t think I can make it, Mr. Holt.”
Holt turned on Eli. “Oh, you’ll make it even if you have to crawl on your hands and knees!”
Tears flowed down Eli’s sunken cheeks, and Holt wanted to beat the sorry bastard to death with his fists, but he didn’t. “People are watching us, Eli. Let’s lift our heads high and get moving.”
Eli stood swaying, ready to faint. After a moment, Holt grabbed the man by the arm and pulled him forward. “We’re going to make it to my wagon, horses, and mules,” Holt vowed. “And then we’re going to drive the team back into Salt Lake City and see a real doctor, then rest and recover for a week or two.”
“It might take me longer than that, Mr. Holt.”
“We haven’t got any longer, Eli. We’ll rest and recuperate for a week or two, and then we’re going to recapture Joe Moss and Fiona.”
Eli turned to stare at the giant with disbelief. “Mr. Holt, those two are gone just the same as our reward money!”
“Not by a long stretch they’re not.”
Eli looked ready to bawl. “But we don’t have any idea which way they went!”
“I was told they walked to the east and the mountains,” Holt replied. “But that’s only to trick us. They’ll be headed for the Humboldt River and that’s where we’ll meet and capture them.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so because they won’t stop until they get their little girl back from the nuns in Virginia City.” Holt snorted in anger. “Now let’s show some backbone and start walking with our heads held high!”
“I’ll try. How far did you say that they left your buckboard and belongings?”
“They told me one mile.”
“That’s a long, long ways to walk feelin’ the way I do.”
“We can do it, Eli. Now don’t let them know how bad we feel and let’s go!”
“Yes, sir,” Eli said, scrubbing away his tears and putting one foot in front of the other.
The sun was high and hot. They had no water and both were weak from blood loss. But with Holt steadying Eli by holding his arm, the two men slowly walked out of Perdition into the shimmering heat of the desert. Holt knew that, if Ferris had lied, they wouldn’t have the strength to come back to Perdition and they would collapse and die a mile . . . maybe even two into the desert.
It seemed like days, yet was only a tortured hour or so, when Holt lifted his head and squinted into the heat waves. “There,” he croaked. “Eli, do you see the buckboard and the livestock waitin’ for us out there?”
Eli was staggering, semidelirious, and just about out on his feet. He barely had the strength to lift his arm and shield his eyes. “Yeah, I see ’em now. How far away do you say we still have to walk?”
“Only a few hundred yards,” Holt lied. He was sure that the Jack Mormons had left his wagon and team more than a mile from their miserable settlement. But no matter, they were going to make it.
When they finally reached the buckboard, Holt’s good team of Missouri mules was braying fitfully because they were so thirsty. And the extra two horses that the Jack Mormons had left tied to the buckboard were clearly suffering for lack of water.
“Eli, we need to drain what water is left from those shot-up water barrels up in the buckboard, and then we have to water our stock, or they’re going to die on us right where they stand in the next hour or two.”
“Can
we drink our fill first?” Eli managed to ask.
“Sure! But then we have to water the mules and horses before we lose them in this heat and dust. Once they’re watered and grained out of the sacks I’ve got in the buckboard, we’re going to drive this buckboard around this big salt lake and back east.”
“Mr. Holt, do we really have to go back among them hard Mormon people?” Eli whined.
“Yes,” Holt said without hesitation. “We need their help, and I still have some cash that I hid in the buckboard. We’ll do all right, Eli, so buck up and don’t give up. After we’re rested and feeling better, we’ll go catch Joe Moss and his wife and then everything will be fine. In a month, we’ll both be wealthy men. We’ll drink good whiskey and laugh while Joe and Fiona swing from a mining scaffold or a tree.”
“I’d sure like it to work out thataway,” Eli said, dredging up a hopeful smile. “I damn well surely would! After all we’ve gone through lately, we finally deserve some good fortune for a change.”
“That we do,” Holt assured the man he intended to murder just before arriving at the Comstock Lode, “that we do!”
Holt handled the heavy oaken water barrels because Eli was too weak to do the job. They had a tin bucket, and they used it to water the mules and the horses after drinking their own fill. All the animals were so thirsty they could have drunk a river, and they were hard to control.
“They’re still thirsty, but they’ll get by for a day, so now we give ’em grain,” Holt said, filling buckets of it for his precious livestock.
“Can’t we just make camp here for tonight?” Eli asked. “I’m not sure I can go on.”
“I’d like nothing better than to make camp right here,” Holt replied. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if those men from Perdition were spying on us. I don’t want them to know where we’re heading, so we’ll wait until dark and then get under way. With luck, we should be at the outskirts of Salt Lake City by tomorrow morning at daybreak.”
“What’ll we do then?”
“I don’t know yet,” Holt answered. “We’ll just find a prosperous little Mormon farm on the outskirts of Salt Lake and take it over for a few days.”
Eli frowned, trying to understand what the big man was saying to him. “You mean . . .”
“I mean we’re desperate men and we’ll do what we have to do.”
“Sure,” Eli said, not sounding sure at all. “But we don’t have to hurt Mormon farm people. We’ll just pay ’em to stay at their place and get to feeling better for a spell.”
“That’s the idea, all right.”
“No killin’ ’em, Mr. Holt.”
The big man looked at Eli with cold eyes. “Are you suddenly going soft on me?”
“No, sir! I think we were lucky to get out of Perdition without getting our necks stretched, and I don’t want to get back into that situation again with these Mormons. Not ever again.”
“Relax,” Holt assured the frightened man. “We’ll pay for our board and keep and for that of my animals. No trouble. These farmers are always short of cash, and it’ll be easy to find a place to rest up and get to feeling better. We’ll get some good home cookin’ from a Mormon woman. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds mighty good, Mr. Holt. Mighty good!”
“I think so, too,” Holt said, thinking about whether he was going to pay a Mormon family of hardworking farmers in cash . . . or in bullets.
19
RANSOM HOLT AND Eli Brown did manage to find an isolated Mormon farm, and the young couple who owned it was desperate for cash. For thirty dollars, the Kendricks agreed to keep Holt and Eli until they were strong enough to travel. So they, along with their mules and horses, were put up in a hay barn and all were fed well, until Ransom Holt decided that they had spent enough time recovering.
“We need to leave here tomorrow and head west for the Ruby Mountains,” he told Eli. “The only way to cross the desert is to reach the headwaters of the Humboldt River and follow it west across Nevada.”
“And that’s where you reckon that we’ll find Joe Moss and his wife?” Eli asked, highly skeptical of the plan and really not feeling fit yet for a hard, dangerous desert journey.
“Yes,” Holt said. “I’m going to offer Farmer Kendrick our buckboard in return for fresh food supplies and our keep while we’ve rested here in their hay barn.”
“What about those four good Missouri mules?”
“We’ll trade the mules later for more supplies and ride our two saddle horses.”
“But I thought that Mr. Kendrick and you made a deal for thirty dollars.”
“We did,” Holt admitted, “but I decided I want to keep our cash and get rid of the buckboard, so that’s what I’ll tell him that he’s going to have to accept in payment.”
“What if he doesn’t want to take the buckboard and demands the cash you promised him and his wife?”
Holt folded his massive arms across his chest and said, “Then, unfortunately, I’ll have to deal harshly with Farmer Kendrick.”
Eli shook his head. “Now wait just a minute, Mr. Holt. You promised me that no harm would come to any Mormons hereabouts. We barely got off with our lives in Perdition. We probably wouldn’t be so lucky to do the same here.”
“Eli, you worry way too damned much. This is my business and I’ll handle things my way.”
“But—”
“No more!”
Highly troubled and somewhat confused, Eli walked out of the barn and out into the farmer’s corn and hay fields. This was good farming country, and in the distance he could see an endless sea of green patches where the industrious Mormon families had carved out hundreds of prosperous farms along the western foothills of the Wasatch Range. In just the week that he’d been recovering in the barn and eating good home cooking, Eli had come to see that being a Mormon farmer wasn’t such a bad life as he might have imagined.
Not bad at all. Mr. and Mrs. Kendrick had a fine cabin, a good, weather-tight hay barn, and about two hundred acres of crops ripening in the field. They owned two plow horses, three milk cows, five hogs, and one stupid sheep. Their green hay fields were ready to be cut and stacked in the barn’s loft, and Mr. Kendrick was splitting cords of wood for the coming winter weather.
As far as Eli could tell, the small Kendrick family was all about work and prayer. They were young and expecting their first child in only a few months. They were also good, decent, God-fearing folks who earned their daily bread by the sweat of their brows. And more important, Mrs. Kendrick had gone out of her way to help him and Mr. Holt recover from their terrible whippings. Not once had either of the Kendricks asked what he and Holt had done to deserve such severe punishment. Eli was more than a little grateful for their respect and courtesy.
Yes, sir, Eli thought, if he had been fortunate enough to be born into a family like the Kendricks, life might have been a little dull and monotonous, but it would have been safe and satisfying. And that was why Eli didn’t want any harm to come to this good family over the promises that had been made between Mr. Kendrick and Mr. Holt.
No, sir! Eli had seen the two big men shake hands on the terms of their stay and recovery, and a deal was a deal.
“Eli?”
He turned. “Huh?”
Holt said, “Pack our saddlebags because we’re leaving real soon.”
Holt left then and went to the farmer’s log cabin. He wasn’t there very long and when he returned, Eli asked, “Did you and Mr. Kendrick come to a fair arrangement?”
“We sure did.”
Eli knew he should let this go, but he just could not. “So Mr. Kendrick accepted your buckboard instead of the money you promised?”
“Uh . . . he didn’t want the buckboard so I made other arrangements.”
“What kind of ‘arrangements’ are you talking about?”
“Eli, just do as I say and get our horses saddled and the mules hitched to my buckboard. We’re leaving right away.”
“But . . . what did you do?
Pay him the money?”
Ransom Holt’s cheeks flushed with anger and he grew impatient. “I don’t owe you any explanations, dammit! I told you that Mr. Kendrick and I worked out a deal,” Holt snapped. “Now, dammit, do as I say! Oh, and toss some hay and about ten sacks of grain into the buckboard. I’ll saddle our horses and get our bedrolls together.”
Eli stared at the silent Kendrick house, and then he went to hitch their four good Missouri mules to the buckboard.
About fifteen minutes later he had the mules hitched, and all that time he’d been glancing at the cabin, expecting the Kendrick couple to at least see him and Holt off with a good-bye. But there wasn’t a sound from the cabin, and Eli began to get a real bad feeling inside.
Finished with the harnessing, he headed to the cabin, for he especially wanted to thank Mrs. Kendrick for her kindness during his recovery and her delicious cooking.
“Hello the cabin? Mr. Kendrick? Mrs. Kendrick?”
“Hey!”
Eli pivoted to see Holt hurrying out of the barn toward him. “What are you doing?”
“I just wanted to say good-bye to those good folks.”
“To hell with those farmers!” Holt ordered. “Climb up on that buckboard and let’s go!”
Eli Brown was suddenly wishing for his Sharps rifle, which the Perdition Mormons had kept for themselves. Failing that, he was wishing for a loaded pistol on his hip.
“Mr. Holt, what happened in that cabin when you went in to offer the buckboard instead of cash?”
“Nothing you need to know about.”
Eli suddenly understood that Mr. Kendrick had been hurt and maybe killed in that cabin by Holt. And then he realized that Mrs. Kendrick, big with child, might just have suffered the same cruel fate.
Ransom Holt was wearing a Colt on his hip. Eli went to the buckboard and saw a rifle that hadn’t belonged to either one of them.
It’s Mr. Kendrick’s rifle, I’ll bet!
With a pain akin to the lash of a bullwhip, Eli knew with dead certainty that Holt had done the Kendrick husband and wife a terrible, perhaps even deadly, wrong when he’d gone to their cabin.
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