Blood at Bear Lake (7 page)

But this time they had acquired guns—bought with the money they took from Sam's still-warm body perhaps— and brought them with the deliberate intent to kill the man they believed could identify them.

Fine. Come closer, boys. Come closer, Joe thought.

The hinges of the stall door creaked, and after a few moments the door swung open.

The murderers came forward, moving on tiptoe just as quietly as they knew how.

Joe was surprised. He'd expected a couple of shabby layabouts. Drifters or grifters or ne'er-do-wells.

These boys were nicely dressed in suits and boiled shirts. They wore derby hats and smelled lightly of bay rum, suggesting it had not been long since they were shaved.

Well dressed or not, they were already murderers, and they intended to murder again.

That was one thing.
But Joe Moss was the man they proposed to murder
.

Joe let out an ear-shattering and, more importantly, unnerving roar as he rose to a sitting position, his right arm already moving and the never-fail tomahawk flashing.

As soon as the tomahawk left his hand, he was reaching for the big bowie at his waist.

The 'hawk had time to make only a half turn before it buried itself in the breastbone of the nearer attacker. It entered his chest just to the left of a black onyx shirt stud, and the white shirt was quickly flooded with scarlet.

Joe leaped to his feet, the bowie flashing in his hand. Chopping once and then slashing.

The second would-be killer screamed. Joe's first chop with the heavy bowie severed his hand at the wrist so that it dangled from the stump by only a thin strip of flesh. Blood pumped out where the hand used to be, and from his belly— opened up by Joe's slash with the razor-sharp knife—coils of gray gut spilled out onto the floor.

The kid shrieked again and collapsed beside his companion, who was already on the floor, either dead or soon would be.

The second one sat on the ground trying to gather his guts and push them back inside his belly, using one hand and the stump where the other had been.

If Joe had been a merciful sort of man, he likely would have done that one the favor of relieving him of his agony by way of a bullet in the back of the brain or a quick swipe of the bowie across his jugular.

But Joe was in no mood for mercy with these two. They'd murdered one man and would cheerfully have stood by while Joe hung for their crime—he remembered seeing them in the crowd that assembled calling for his head—and today they'd wanted to murder him when they thought he was drunk and defenseless.

Mercy? Maybe from God if they asked for it. But not from Joe Moss.

He picked up the fallen pistol from the floor beside the gutted son of a bitch—there was no sense letting him get hold of it so he could put a bullet in his own brain—and tossed it aside.

“Now count to three, you asshole,” he snarled at the boy who now just sat there, cradling a pile of gut in his one good hand.

Then Joe turned and went to find Marshal Wilcox. There likely would be paperwork and such to take care of after a civilized killing. Wilcox would know more about that shit than Joe ever wanted to.

18

“JESUS CHRIST, JOE, you shouldn't ought to have done that.”

“They were coming to kill me, Tolbert. I was just defending myself. A man's got a right t' do that.”

“I don't mean about you killing them, Joe. Everybody knows you had no choice about that. I mean about . . . about you scalping them after. Especially since the murderers were these boys—with such powerful fathers. Merle Esrig is an important man in this town, and the idea of him standing there . . . watching . . . while you lifted his own son's hair . . . Jesus, Joe!”

“I waited till they was dead, Tolbert. I thought that was more'n considerate enough.”

“Well, I can tell you this, Joe. You are not a popular man in this town right now, and the way those boys' fathers feel, I can't be responsible for what they might do.”

“They might hire somebody t' come after me, you mean,” Joe said. It was not really a question.

Wilcox shrugged, but did not directly answer.

“You want me t' get out o' town, is that it?”

“Yes, Joe, I'm afraid so.”

“What happened t' me being your deputy for the next little while?”

“Merle is on the town council. There is no way in this world he would allow you to draw pay from the town. Besides, Sam's murder has been cleared up. You did that. We will . . . I'll pay you something out of my own pocket, Joe. Don't worry about that.”

“Oh, hell, Tolbert, it ain't money that I'm thinking of. I got enough money. Reckon I can earn me some more comes the time I need it. It's just that I got a reason why I want to hang around here a spell longer.”

Fiona. She might yet be headed here, expecting to hide out with the photographer Faxon Roderus and his wife. She had hidden there before Joe found and married her. If she returned now, Joe wanted to be here to meet her.

On the other hand, it was equally true that she could be going almost anywhere so long as it was not Virginia City, where Peabody had placed a price on her lovely head.

Joe simply did not know where she was or what she intended. They had not had time, nor had they foreseen the need, to discuss alternate plans before they were attacked by Peabody's armed thugs back at St. Mary of the Mountain, and once the bullets started flying, there was no choice but for Fiona to make her escape while Joe held off the attackers.

Now he could only pray that, wherever she was, she was safe from harm.

“I'm sorry, Joe. I really am,” Wilcox said, bringing Joe back to the here and now.

“Oh, I ain't blaming you, Tolbert.”

“You just can't . . . This is a civilized town, Joe, filled with folks most of whom have never seen anything more violent than two schoolkids fighting at recess. And for you to take the scalps off two upstanding young men of the community . . .”

“Upstanding?”

“Their fathers are anyway.”

“Don't let it slip your mind that those ‘upstanding' young fellas murdered another upstanding member o' the community, Tolbert.”

“Believe me, I do remember that. It is the reason you are not in jail right now for killing them. But the fact remains, you will have to leave town. You simply must.”

“All right, dammit, but can I at least have time t' go over to the general store an' resupply? There's some other shit I want t' get, too.”

“Do it in a hurry, Joe. I want you away from here before the sun sets behind that mountain yonder.”

“An' if I'm not?”

“There might well be bloodshed, Joe.”

“You know as well as I do, Tolbert, that if there's more blood spilled over this matter, I'll do my level best t' see that it ain't mine. An' if I do say so, I'm pretty good at killing.”

“And raising hair afterward. Yes, I know that.”

“I'll leave quick as I'm done making my purchases, Tolbert. You have my word on it.”

“All right, I . . . I'm sorry, Joe. Real sorry.”

Joe offered his hand, and Marshal Tolbert Wilcox accepted it. “Good-bye, Joe. Good luck.”

19

JOE TOOK A step backward and grunted as he surveyed the pile of goods on the store counter. “Add a quarter pound o' horseshoe nails and that should do me when it comes to supplies, but there's some more items I'll be wanting, too. Is that a Hudson's Bay blanket I see up there?”

“Y-yes, sir.” The clerk kept looking at Joe as if he expected the former mountain man to scalp him like he had those young men.

“I'll have the blanket, then. And a Henry rifle. I lost the one I used to have and I favor them. Reckon I'd like another.”

“A Henry? Oh, my. That is one of those newfangled repeaters, isn't it? I've heard about those but never saw one. Sorry, but I don't have a Henry to sell you. I do have a pair of Spencer carbines you could choose from.” The man shrugged. “Ever since the war back East . . . The army issues a good many of these Spencers, and after a battle people come along and scavenge up all the lost and fallen weapons. The muskets are popular because they hit so hard. On the other hand, there's lots of them available. You can buy a decent musket for half a dollar. A Spencer in good shape is ten dollars. Lord knows what one of those Henrys would cost.”

“You got ammunition for the Spencer?”

“Yes, sir. It's fairly common.”

“Let me see what you have.”

The clerk laid two of the stubby little carbines on the counter, then picked up one of them and held it muzzle-downward. “You see this thing in the butt plate? Well, you turn it . . . like so . . . and pull it out . . . like this. This tube has a spring in it. You just drop the cartridges, up to seven at a time, into here, then push the tube in behind.” He closed the loading gate and upended the Spencer.

“The cartridges feed from underneath. You work the trigger guard like you would use the lever on a Henry. Down, then up again. And your cartridge is loaded.”

“What about the hammer? When you moved that lever, nothing happened to cock the hammer.”

“You have to cock the hammer yourself.”

“My Henry carried more cartridges.”

“True.” The man smiled. “But I don't have a Henry to sell you. I do have these Spencers. And the Spencer cartridge is fifty-six caliber. Your Henry was, what, forty-something?”

Joe nodded. “Forty-four.”

“Do you want the Spencer?”

“Yeah, I'll take one of 'em.” Joe picked up the one nearer him—the little gun was surprisingly heavy—and examined it closely, then did the same with the other. He weighed them for a moment, one in each hand, as if considering buying them by the pound, then firmly said, “This one.” He laid the other back on the counter.

“You will want ammunition, of course.”

“Yeah. Couple hundred rounds should do.”

“Two hundred rounds? Gracious.” The clerk chuckled. “Are you going to war that you need all that?”

“Could damn well be that I will, not that it's anything to you,” Joe snapped.

“Oh, I . . . I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by that.”

“Just give me the ammunition an' figure out what I owe you for all this. I got a horse and a mule tied outside to pack it on.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

The clerk helped him carry his purchases out onto the sidewalk, then left Joe to the task of building a balanced load out of it all.

The mule was one he had taken from the corral behind Sam Farnsworth's livery barn. Joe figured there was no one alive to dispute his right to take the animal. And, dammit, the town owed him something for his deputy work, whether they liked it or not.

If someone wanted to object, let them. In the meantime, he needed a pack animal. Besides, he had a fondness for mules anyway. They were ugly sons of bitches but tough. Joe liked that about them.

By the time he got everything sorted out and loaded onto the pack frame—which he'd also appropriated from the livery barn—it was nearing sundown. Not the best time of day to start a journey, but Joe did not want to cause any more problems for Tolbert Wilcox than he already had.

He snapped a long lead to the mule's bit ring and climbed onto the Palouse.

“Boys, I got no damned idea where we're going next. But we need to find Fiona, so let's get on with it.”

He touched his heels to the sides of the Palouse and started riding.

20

IF IT HAD been up to him, Joe would have liked to stay in Lake's Crossing a few more days. There was still a chance Fiona would head there hoping to stay with the friends she was living with when Joe finally found her after their years of forced separation. But the Fates decreed otherwise when Joe was “invited” to leave town. Well, maybe those Fates had some reason to move him along against his will.

Sometimes, he thought his whole damned life was taking place beyond his will.

Then he grinned. Some of it, of course. But not all.

If there was one thing he could say about himself, it was that he was a free man and had lived a mighty good life. He had traveled far and seen some wonderful things. Drunk some fine whiskey . . . and plenty of bad. Bedded some splendid women . . . and plenty of bad. Had some good fights . . . and some not so good. And managed to keep on wearing his own hair through it all.

Now he had a beautiful wife and a sweet daughter. Oh, he looked forward to the time when he could get properly acquainted with Jessica, to the time when the three of them would be a family together.

That would happen just as soon as he could find Fiona again and the two of them could reclaim Jessica from the nuns back in Carson City.

But . . . where to look? How to find her?

Joe rode a few miles outside Tolbert Wilcox's jurisdiction and made camp, making no effort to hide his presence there. If any of those hidebound sons of bitches who threw him out of town wanted to come after him—let them. He wouldn't mind adding a few scalps to the collection already in his war bag.

He made some dough and rolled it between his palms to form long strips, then wound them around dingle sticks and baked them over the flames of a small fire, not waiting for the fire to burn down to coals.

Joe slept with his tomahawk held loose in one hand and the Colt revolver in his belt. Breakfast the next morning was creek water and leftover stick bread. Then he used the tomahawk to make a blaze on the trunk of a large cottonwood.

He pulled the Spencer carbine out of its scabbard and counted off a hundred paces from the cottonwood tree.