The Mother Lode

by Gary Franklin

  “Oh, Joe!”

  “Just keep your nerve and hold steady, Ellen,” Joe said in a voice that was amazingly calm and collected.

  Ellen watched as Joe searched the office, pulling out all the desk drawers looking for his big roll of bills. He didn’t find them in the desk, but he did find them cleverly hidden in one of the sheriff’s ammunition boxes. And then Joe went over to Sheriff Olsen, and he dropped down on the man’s back, sending a whoosh of air from the lawman’s lungs.

  “You thievin’, rotten, badge-totin’ sonofabitch,” Joe said, drawing his bowie knife. “All you got now is a nice head of hair, and by gawd I’m gonna take even that!”

  Ellen threw herself at Joe just as he was about to scalp the corrupt lawman and leave him on the floor to die. “No, please, Joe! I’m begging you not to do this.”

  “But he deserves it. Who knows how many other men Olsen has arrested and robbed and then let a mob hang to cover up his own crimes? And they were going to hang me,

  Ellen. It would have happened tomorrow morning . . . tomorrow night at the latest. Olsen would have let ’em hang me so he could keep my money, my horse, and my new hat and boots! He even bragged about it this evening.”

  It was all happening so fast that Ellen felt dizzy. “Please, Joe. I’ve lost most everything by coming here to help you. If you kill Olsen, then I’ll know that I’ve done the wrong thing. But if you let Sheriff Olsen live and just leave with me right now . . . then, then . . . I’ll have no regrets no matter what happens to me.”

  Joe seemed to hang in dubious suspension as he weighed what had been said both by Ellen Johnson and Sheriff Olsen.

  “Please, Joe.”

  “Oh, all right, dammit!” he growled, grabbing Olsen by his right ear and slicing it off close to the head. The unconscious man groaned and slapped at the blood, but he didn’t awaken.

  Ellen gasped and almost fainted at the sight of the ear, which Joe threw into the cell with disgust.

  Joe lifted her up. “Olsen won’t die, but he’ll be marked as a thief for life and remember his wicked ways every time he looks at himself in the mirror.”

  “And he’ll hate you with his dying breath,” Ellen said, knowing it was true.

  “A lot of men have hated me and a lot of men have died,” Joe said, pocketing his roll of money.

  He then dragged Olsen into the cell along with the two unconscious drunks. Joe chuckled to himself as he locked the heavy cell door and shoved the key ring down beside his greenbacks.

  “Let’s get out of this town,” he said to Ellen. “Let’s get out of Carson City and never come back here again.”

  Ellen was so shocked by his casualness and sudden good spirits that it was all she could do to nod her head.

  So they slipped out of the office and ducked down an alley. Staying in the darkest shadows where she could see nothing, but where Joe Moss seemed to have the eyes of a cat, they soon worked their way to behind the livery barn.

  “Where are we going next?” she asked.

  “To find Fiona,” he said, mounting his horse bareback.

  “But, Joe, I don’t want to go up there! It’s said to be a sinful place. As for your Fiona . . . I . . . .”

  Joe dismounted and bent to kiss her on the forehead. “Now will you tell me what happened to your pretty face?” he asked, his good spirits suddenly gone.

  “Eli Purvis backhanded me off his wagon on the way home to Genoa this afternoon,” she said. “But it’s nothing, really.”

  Joe’s face hardened like a tombstone in the graveyard moonlight. “Purvis did that, huh? And I bet he’s planning to drive you from your farm and take it from you for no payment.”

  “Joe, please, it’s all right.”

  “No, it ain’t!” Joe said loud enough to cause a dog to bark from nearby. “Dammit, Ellen, I’m tired of people rob-bin’ people and thinkin’ they can get away with it.”

  “But it’s my place and I’ve taken what’s most important. Joe, we just have to—”

  “We have to pay Eli Purvis a visit and see how much he’s going to pay you for your farm, Mrs. Johnson. That’s what we have to do.”

  For the briefest of moments, Ellen started to argue. But then she thought, Joe Moss is honestly right! It is my farm and I deserve to be paid for it. My late husband and I settled that farm and we gave blood, sweat, and tears to make it a good and profitable farm.

  “All right, Joe. We’ll go pay Mr. Purvis a visit and see if he wants to buy my farm.”

  “Oh, he’ll buy it all right.” Joe helped her onto her horse.

  “He’ll buy it for a fair price, too, or my name ain’t ‘Man Killer’ Joe Moss.”

  Hearing this, Ellen shivered slightly, although it might have been because of a sudden chill breeze sweeping down from the Sierras. But then she reined her horse around and they rode out of Carson City, heading for something that Ellen knew had been destined to happen since the moment her dear husband had passed.

  15

  ELLEN JOHNSON SHOULD have been exhausted. After all, she’d walked a good ten miles back to her farm after being backhanded off a wagon seat. She was in pain and hadn’t slept a wink the entire night . . . but she had never felt so alive . . . or so sure that she was in the right and about to be set free. Where that freedom would lead her, she had no idea. Joe Moss was in love with a memory that might or might not become a reality. Ellen couldn’t count on Joe, but she knew now that she could always count on herself. She had acted with courage to free Joe and save him from a hangman’s noose that he did not deserve. Now she would forever cut the ties between herself and this Mormon settlement.

  After that, she would just have to pray and hope for the best.

  Joe reined up the Palouse horse when they came to Ellen’s farm. He stood up in his stirrups and stretched his long, lean frame and studied the farm. “You turned loose all your farm animals,” he said more to himself than to her.

  “Yes. I set everything free last night. Including you, Joe. I pray that I did the right thing and that God will judge me favorably.”

  “He will, but Eli Purvis and his bunch won’t.” Joe bent forward in his saddle and studied the Purvis farm intently. “Ellen, I want you to go back to your house and wait for me.”

  But she shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

  “It’d be better for me and for Purvis if you weren’t there.”

  “I have something to say to him, Joe. He struck me down and told me that I was going to lose everything since I refused to marry him. Now . . . now I judge it is my turn to tell Purvis a thing or two.”

  Joe pondered on that for a moment, lightly tapping the horn of his saddle. “All right,” he agreed, “but if Purvis goes for a gun and tries to kill me, I’ll have to defend myself. And when I kill him, you’ll be considered by everyone to be a part of that. Is that okay with you, Ellen? Because if it isn’t, you’d best go home for a while.”

  “I want your word that you will not kill him except in self-defense. Eli has three wives and twelve children. They’re good children. I used to be their teacher so I know the oldest ones very well, and they would suffer terrible grief and hardship if they lost their father.”

  “All right. I won’t kill Purvis unless I have to.”

  “Your word on it?”

  A slow grin crossed his rugged and battered face. “Yeah, Ellen. You got Joe Moss’s word on it. I won’t kill him unless he tries to kill me first.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “Let’s go settle up with the man.”

  As they rode toward the Purvis farmhouse with the first light of day streaking across the eastern sky, they could see a light in the window and smoke curling lazily from the chimney. The three Purvis wives would already be up and preparing breakfast. Purvis himself would probably be out in his big log barn milking or feeding his cows.

  “Ellen, I need to know something right now.”

  “What?”

  “How much is your farm worth?”

  Elle
n’s attention was so focused on the Purvis cabin that she had to ask Joe to repeat his question, which he did “It’s hard to say because no one but Mormons are allowed to own land in this little valley. These people only buy and sell to each other.”

  “You’ve got to give me a fair dollar value,” Joe insisted. “For the house, the land, for all of it.”

  “Two thousand would be fair,” she said after long deliberation. “But that would include my wagons, equipment, and the hay crop coming up in the fields.”

  “Two thousand.” Joe clucked his tongue. “That sounds kinda low to me, but I’ll take your word on it. Will Eli Purvis have that much money?”

  “I don’t know. The Mormons in this settlement don’t trust the Carson City banks. The elders urge everyone to keep their money well hidden. I’m sure that Eli has hidden his cash. My guess would be in his barn.”

  “It’s not going to stay hidden for long,” Joe vowed, reining the Palouse up the two ruts in the road leading to the Purvis farmhouse.

  Ellen didn’t know what to do or think. Before she had made it clear she would never consent to marry Eli, she had been good friends with these people, especially Eli’s wives, who were devoted, extremely hardworking, and always kind.

  “Eli is doing chores in his barn just as I figured,” Ellen said, raising a hand and pointing. “See the light coming through the crack of the door?”

  “I see it,” Joe said, altering the direction of his horse with the slightest touch of rein. “You want to say good-bye to the man’s wives and children?”

  “What could I possibly say to them?”

  “Good-bye,” Joe said. “That’s enough, I reckon.”

  “Don’t kill him, Joe.”

  “I won’t,” he said over his shoulder. “If I killed him, he couldn’t tell us where he hid all his money, now could he?”

  If that remark was meant to be a joke, Ellen thought it an awfully poor one as she rode up to the front of the log house and dismounted.

  Joe Moss reined up in front of the barn and tied the Palouse to a broken-down wagon. He now had a gun on his hip along with the tomahawk and bowie knife. For months and months he had been aware of the intense pressure that Eli Purvis had placed upon Ellen. And of the subtle threats he had made and the not-so-subtle references he had offered as to her relationship with the outsider, Joe Moss. And all that time Joe had kept quiet, knowing he would leave this valley and sure that Ellen Johnson would probably stay and wed a better Mormon farmer and maybe even find happiness again as a member of this tightly closed religious and farming community.

  Joe had accepted that outcome. He was going to find and marry Fiona and reclaim the child he had fathered, yet had never seen. Yeah, Joe had bit his tongue and kept silent, even when Eli Purvis made cutting, hurtful remarks in his presence that he knew had deeply wounded Ellen Johnson.

  But now that was all in the past. The man had made his play and he had shown his true colors when he’d slapped Ellen so hard he’d smashed her lips and hurt her in a fall from his wagon. Then, on top of everything, he’d left her to limp home like some stray dog.

  “Well, Mr. Purvis, there always comes a day of reckoning and I reckon this is your day,” Joe said as he pushed open the crack in the barn door and marched inside.

  Eli was astraddle a three-legged stool milking a Jersey cow. His broad shoulders were hunched low under the animal’s soft and ponderous belly, and his strong hands were sending long squirts of warm milk into a pail. Every squirt struck the side of the pail with a sharp, tinny ring that was as steady as the beat of a metronome.

  The cow and a flock of chickens saw Joe first. The cow just stared at him as he approached, its large, vacuous brown eyes steady as it contentedly chewed its cud. A huge red rooster squawked and flew up into the hayloft, deserting his flock of hens. Eli Purvis was the only living thing in that barn unaware of Joe Moss, until his stool was suddenly kicked out from under him.

  Eli tumbled backward, spilling the pail of milk across the dirt and straw. The cow just looked closer at Joe and then continued to chew its cud.

  “What the . . . .”

  Joe smiled, but it wasn’t a smile that warmed the heart. Rather, it was a smile that froze the blood and chilled to the bone. “Eli,” he said, “you struck Mrs. Johnson in the mouth, knocking her clear off your wagon. Then you didn’t even have the decency to apologize and help her back into her seat. For that, I’m going to beat the living shit out of you right now.”

  Eli wasn’t as tall as Joe, but he was the same age and heavier. His hand reached out, and he tried to right the pail and recover some of the milk. Then, without a word, he rolled and swung the pail straight at Joe’s face.

  The throw was hard and it connected. Milk splashed across Joe’s eyes, momentarily blinding him. By the time he managed to scrub some vision back into his watery eyes, Eli Purvis was grabbing a pitchfork and charging Joe like a bull with four sharp and deadly horns. Only, these were steel tines and they hummed with deadly intent.

  Joe was suddenly on the defensive and there wasn’t time to draw one of his weapons, so he retreated until his back slammed up against a big post supporting the loft. He jumped behind the heavy pine post, and the pitchfork’s tines bit into the wood with such force that they stuck.

  Joe came back around the post with Eli swearing and trying to tear the pitchfork free. Joe could have drawn his knife and ripped open the farmer’s belly, but he’d given a promise to Ellen and a promise to a lady had to be kept. So instead of gutting the farmer, Joe hit him in the center of the face with such force that Eli’s head snapped back and his nose gushed like a crimson fountain.

  But Eli Purvis wasn’t ready to quit. Wiping blood from his face, he charged Joe again and this time, despite taking a hard left hand to the jaw, the farmer plowed in and grabbed Joe around the chest and began to crush him with a hold that forced all the breath out of Joe’s lungs. And then Eli tossed Joe into another post, cracking the back of his skull hard.

  For a moment, Joe felt all the strength go out of him. He was on his back now and Eli was on top hammering him with powerful blows. Joe kicked up with his long legs and locked his ankles across Eli’s face. It was a move he’d done before when wrestling hard with mountain men and Indians. With a tremendous bellow of effort, Joe jerked Purvis over backward and shifted his hold so that it was under the farmer’s chin. Ankles locked, legs straining with great power, Joe lay on his own back while he began to increase the pressure in what could have been a deadly strangle-hold. In fact, he had seen one fighter choke his opponent to death with just such a hold.

  But Joe had no intention of killing Eli Purvis; he just wanted to take the fight out of the farmer. So he held the ankle choke until Purvis turned purple in the face and stopped struggling. At the very last minute, before the man would have been asphyxiated, Joe released his ankle lock.

  He crawled over to Purvis, watching the man struggle for air. Joe drew his bowie knife and grabbed Purvis by his beard saying, “Think I’m gonna shave it off, Eli. All you Genoa Mormons have long beards and I’m gonna make you stand out among the rest.”

  Terror filled the farmer’s eyes as Joe dragged the sharp blade of his bowie knife down the man’s cheek, cutting flesh along with whiskers. Purvis tried to shout and fight Joe off, but Joe kept at the man’s face with his blade until it was hairless and badly lacerated.

  “Now,” Joe said, “I’m sure you heard about how much I like scalps. Well, Eli, I’m going to lift a patch of your scalp. I’ll admit that there isn’t much to lift, since you’re pretty damned bald, but I’ll take a patch off the back. That’ll do me just fine ’cause I never been finicky.”

  “No, please, no!”

  Joe sat astraddle the big farmer, keeping the man’s hands and arms pinned under his legs. “I’m gonna scalp you, Eli, unless you give Mrs. Johnson two thousand dollars, which is fair pay for her good farm and everything on it.”

  “What?”

  Eli didn’t like to re
peat himself, but he did because Purvis probably wasn’t of a clear mind. “I said that I’m gonna scalp you and then kill you if you don’t buy her farm, which is worth at least two thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t have two thousand dollars and I’m not . . . .”

  Just for show, Joe dragged the big tomahawk from his belt and shoved one side of Eli’s face into the dirt and spilled milk. “Now here’s a decent patch of scalp. Take a deep breath, Eli, and try not to scare your kids by screamin’ too loud.”

  “Okay!” he sobbed. “I’ll buy her farm!”

  “Cash,” Joe said. “Right now.”

  “I don’t have it here!”

  Joe placed the sharp blade of his tomahawk against Eli’s skull. “That’s fine because I sure am sure going to enjoy taking your scalp.”

  “No! I’ll pay!”

  “Good. My guess is that you’ve hidden all your money right here in this barn.”

  It was a guess, but it turned out to be a good one. “Yes!” Purvis cried. “It’s here.”

  Joe stood and allowed the farmer to crawl to his feet. Eli’s crudely shaved face was awash in blood. He was trembling like an aspen leaf and unsteady. The cow was now starting to moan nervously, not sure why its udder wasn’t being completely emptied.

  Joe raised his tomahawk threateningly. “Dig up your damned money, farmer!”

  Eli staggered over to a place on the floor and collapsed to his knees with a frustrated sob. He dug like a badger and out came a big metal canister. As he fumbled to open it, Joe tore it from Eli’s grasp and pried off the lid with a fingernail. He reached in and found a sizable wad of money.

  “It’s all the savings I have in this world!” Eli cried. “Think of my wife and family!”

  “I am thinking of them, which is why I’m not going to kill you,” Joe told the man. Then he carefully counted out two thousand dollars. Every last cent. “Looks like you got another hundred or so left,” Joe announced.

  “That’s nothing if my crops fail or I lose livestock to sickness or—”