The Mother Lode (11 page)

“Is a necktie party a lynching?” Ellen managed to ask, knowing for sure that the tall stranger accused of the murders had to be her dear Joe Moss.

“Yes, ma'am,” the clerk said, eyes dancing. “And if ever there was someone who deserved to dance at the end of a rope, it's this fella. Not only did he stab Charley Packer and Willard James to death, but he also
scalped
them!”

Had Ellen been made of lesser inner stuff, she would have either fainted or gotten sick right then and there. Instead, she turned away to try to hide her face and compose herself. “I . . . I think I'll look at some more yardage,” she said vaguely as she moved back down an aisle.

“That's fine, ma'am. I'll just keep this yardage you picked up here at the counter so it will be ready. It'll cost $2.15 total.”

“Thank you,” Ellen said over her shoulder as she managed to keep her feet moving. She made her way down to the rolls of yardage that she'd already spent time examining, and stood before them for several minutes trying to gather her wits about her.

“That green and blue floral would look real nice on you, Mrs. Johnson,” the clerk said from right behind her, nearly causing her to jump a foot high. “And that beige material is also a favorite. It's on sale, too.”

Ellen swallowed hard and without turning around, she said, “I'm afraid I was a little upset by the talk of those murders and a lynching. Do you know anything about this man that is accused of the crimes?”

“He's more'n accused. They caught him in the act. There is a bunch of witnesses that will swear that poor Willard and Charley were screaming something awful while he was scalping them alive.”

Ellen had to reach out and support herself on a shelf of canned goods.

“Are you all right, ma'am?”

“I'm afraid not,” she admitted. “I need to sit down and if you could get me a glass of water . . . .”

“Yes, ma'am! I shouldn't have said anything. But the whole town is buzzin' about those murders and I just assumed that you'd already heard all about them. Terrible thing. What kind of a man would stab to death and then scalp two men even before they were dead!”

Ellen shook her head, unable to find words and wondering if she could breathe.

“Come right over here to this chair and I'll get you a drink of water,” the clerk said solicitously. “This isn't a subject that a lady ought to even hear being talked about.”

Ellen bent her head and fought back hot tears.
Oh Joe, Joe,
she anguished,
what kind of demons do you have inside? Are you possessed by Satan? What did I do when I saved your life only to have you take the lives of two others so savagely? Dear God, did Satan use me?

“Ma'am!” the clerk said, almost running down the aisle with a glass of water that was spilling on the floor. “You're crying! Oh, dear, I'm so sorry that I've upset you!”

The clerk was a man in his thirties, a good man, one of the Bergman family, and was genuinely sorry that he'd upset her so much. Ellen scrubbed her tears away with a handkerchief and forced a smile. “It's not your fault. Really, it just sounds so shocking and horrible.”

“It
was
horrible. Worst murders this town has ever seen and the people are really upset. All morning I've had friends that I've known for years as being kind and gentle coming in here swearing that this man should receive rope justice. No one is willing to wait for Judge Paxton to come to town and hold a trial. People in Carson City want to deal out swift and righteous justice.”

“What brought about this terrible act?” she managed to ask.

“This tall fella named Joe Moss got roaring drunk in the Lucky Lady Saloon and bought four bottles of whiskey, drinking most of them all by himself.”

“Four bottles of whiskey?”

“Yes, ma'am. Nobody had ever seen drinking like that before. Then, drunker'n a skunk, he went up to his rented room . . . it was Room Fourteen and I hear it looks like a slaughterhouse . . . and invited Charley and Willard up to play poker.”

“Joe Moss doesn't play poker,” she heard herself say. “He only plays three-card monte and faro.”

“What?”

Ellen drank half the glass. “I said Joe Moss believes that he's unlucky at poker, so he just plays three-card monte and faro.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do,” Ellen said, mind racing. “So you say that Moss invited those two men up to his room to play
poker
?”

“That's right. He must have lost because he got crazy mad and stabbed, then scalped them both.”

“Was there a large amount of money found on anyone?”

“No, ma'am. I know that because the undertaker told us that there wasn't more than ten dollars between the three of them.”

Ellen stood up, spilling more water. “Here,” she said, shoving the glass at the confused clerk. “I have to go visit Mr. Moss. Where is he being held?”

“At the jail.”

“And where is that?”

“Two blocks up the street on the right. You can't miss it, but . . . but Mrs. Johnson, you can't go see a crazed animal like Moss!”

“I'm afraid you're wrong,” she said, pushing past him and nearly racing for the door.

“But what about your yardage!”

Ellen couldn't begin to think about yardage. If Joe Moss was a double murderer, she would have to hear it from his own lips and she knew that he wouldn't lie to her. She was probably the only person in the world other than his Fiona that he wouldn't lie to.

All she knew was that Joe wouldn't play poker. He'd told her that at the farm and he'd been quite sincere about it. And being a private man, he would not have invited two strangers up to his hotel room. No, if Joe was going to get drunk and gamble, then he'd have done it all down in a saloon among men.

“Mrs. Johnson! Ellen, wait!”

She turned and saw Eli Purvis hurrying after her. He was a half block behind and because he was a big man and too heavy, Ellen knew that he wasn't about to overtake her on foot.

So she started running up the street with tears on her cheeks and a desperate need to see and hear the truth from Joe Moss before he was torn from jail by an enraged mob and hustled off to a “necktie party.”

E
LLEN RAN TO where a crowd of angry men and women were standing in front of the jail. Heedless of their protests, she pushed her way through the mob until she was standing in the jail's doorway and staring at the town's sheriff and several other men. In the back, behind the bars, she could barely make out Joe's battered face turned downward toward the floor.

“Hold up there!” the sheriff yelled, jumping forward to block Ellen's forward progress. “I'm Sheriff Olsen. Who are you and what do you think you're doing in here?”

Ellen wasn't badly winded, but she took a moment to say, “There's been a mistake. Joe Moss doesn't play poker and he wouldn't have invited those men up to his room. They must have gone up there to rob and kill him.”

The sheriff scowled, aware that he was being closely watched by half the town wanting Joe Moss's head on a platter. The sheriff cleared his throat officiously. “Ma'am, you're one of those Mormon women that live out in Genoa. Is that right?”

“Yes, but ....”

“Well, ma'am, I can see you are upset and it sounds like maybe you know that murderer in my jail. That said, however, I'd appreciate it if you'd just turn around and go back to Genoa. What happened last night is
my
business and the business of this town. So please turn around and leave. This is no place for a lady.”

Ellen desperately wanted to go speak to Joe. His head was hanging low and he was covered with blood. He looked even worse now than when she'd found him unconscious and all smashed up on the steep mountainside.

“Sheriff Olsen. This man is my very good friend. I was able to help him recover from a terrible wagon wreck near our little farming town, and I know that he would not do the things that he is being accused of.”

“You're wrong about that,” a smaller man interjected. “I'm B.J. Anderson and I'm the mayor of Carson City. Joe Moss was caught in the act of murdering two men last night and then scalping them alive. So, if he is your friend, you made a bad, bad choice. This man is going to be tried for two murders and he is sure to be hanged.”

“Can I please talk to him?”

“No,” the sheriff snapped.

“Just for a few moments.
Please.
He's behind your bars and appears to be hurt.”

“Oh, he's hurt all right. But he's damned lucky he isn't dead. He will be before long.”

“Sheriff, I have to talk to that man!”

“Why?”

Ellen swallowed hard. She was willing to say anything to get to the truth and hear what Joe Moss had to say. “Because . . . because I love him.”

Olsen's mouth sagged and the mayor's eyes dilated before he stammered, “You
love
that murderer?”

She hadn't meant to blurt that out, but now that it was said, Ellen knew there was no retracting her shocking words.

“Yes, I love him. And I want to talk to him in private. If Joe did what you say, then he'll tell me so. But if not . . . .”

“Ma'am,” the sheriff said, his voice angry and full of impatience, “it don't matter what he says or doesn't say. I'm tellin' you that there were a bunch of witnesses standing in the door of Room Fourteen when Moss finished stabbing and scalping Willard and Charley!”

“Please,” Ellen whispered. “Just let me speak to him in private for a few minutes. It's very, very personal and important to me.”

“Ellen! Ellen, for heaven sakes, have you lost your mind!”

She heard and recognized Eli Purvis, but ignored his angry yelling.

“
Please
, Sheriff.”

“Oh, hell, all right. But you've only got a few minutes and I'm going to stay inside and watch you both like a hawk. And there's
nothing
that your friend Joe Moss can say that will change anything. He's bound to be hanged just as certain as death and taxes.”

“Thank you.”

Olsen wasn't a bit happy as he pushed and shoved everyone including the mayor out of his office and locked his front door. Then he marched over to his office chair and threw his feet up on his desk, glaring at Joe and Ellen. He took out his pocket watch and laid it on his desk saying, “Five minutes. That's all the time you can have and I'm gonna catch hell for even giving you that long.”

Ellen rushed over to the bars. “Sheriff, can't I go inside and . . . .”

“Dammit, no!” Olsen thundered. “Talk to that animal through the bars.”

Ellen leaned close. “Joe,” she whispered, “you've got to tell me what happened last night. They say that you got drunk and invited those two men up to play poker. But I remember you telling me that you hated poker. Didn't trust the game and only played three-card monte or faro. So I know you didn't invite those two men up to your room and then hurt them without a very good reason.”

Joe raised his head, and she gasped when she saw the full extent of his facial injuries. “Ellen,” he said quietly. “I don't know why you're here. You need to go back to your farm. I'm no good and I'm gonna hang. I
did
kill and scalp them two bastards.”

“But why, Joe?”

He was silent for so long that Ellen thought Joe Moss wasn't going to say anything more, but then he opened up a little. “It's true I was roaring drunk and I went upstairs to my room to sleep it off. But those two men attacked me when I was about passed out. They had seen my roll of money and they were trying to take it away. I fought back and it got real nasty. I ended up killing them both in self-defense.”

“But Joe, why did you scalp them?” she asked, starting to cry again. “I'm sure that's what has gotten everyone so upset.”

Joe shook his head. “I got my blood up and I was still pretty drunk. I'd shared my liquor with them and they turned on me like yellow dogs. So I scalped them. I've done it before, but that was a long time ago and I didn't think I'd do it again . . . but I just did.”

“Oh, Joe,” she whispered. “If you'd have just fought back and even killed them, then I think you'd have a chance with a judge and jury. But the scalping . . . dammit anyway, Joe!”

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Johnson. After all you did for me and now you have to see and hear about this bloody mess I'm in. I shouldn't have gotten drunk, and then I just went crazy when they snuck up to my room and tried to take my money.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“Nothin'I can do,” Joe said quietly. “I'm already a dead man.”

“Joe, there's a woman that swears she heard you invite those two men upstairs to your room.”

“She's lyin'.” Joe's eyes hardened. “I'm nobody to her and Charley was her man. Why would she say he got what he had comin' just to save a stranger?”

“I'm going to talk to her. Make her tell the truth,” Ellen blurted. “There isn't any reason for you to die for defending yourself.”

“Don't do it, Mrs. Johnson.”

But she shook her head with determination. “I spent a lot of time and I've suffered a lot of ridicule and grief because I did the Christian thing and helped you, Joe Moss. I'm not going to let all of that go to waste . . . so long as you're telling me the God's honest truth.”

“I swear I am,” he replied. “Ellen, lean a little closer to these bars.”

She did it without question, and that's when he told her that he'd stashed half of his money in the stall where his Palouse horse was boarded. “I want you to have that money, Ellen. Take it and leave town. If those folks in Genoa try to force you to marry Purvis, then it'll be your grubstake. Give you a fresh start somewhere new.”