The Mother Lode (24 page)

Joe could only imagine what was going on in Gold Hill after what he suspected would be the almost complete destruction of the Shamrock Mine. At this point, he doubted that he would be a suspect in the dynamiting because two months had passed since his fateful visit. But when the Peabody Englishmen learned that their hired gunman had suddenly vanished, or had had a major change of heart in terms of his line of work, they would probably figure it out. However, by then, they would have no proof of Joe's involvement, just like they really had no proof that it had been Fiona who had stabbed their brother to death.

“It's all circumstantial,” Joe muttered, going off to bridle and then saddle his horse. “At least, that's the word I seem to remember Dan DeQuille using when people are sure of a fact without really being able to prove it.”

Joe saddled the horse, mounted, and rode on toward Lake's Crossing, where Ike Grady was said to be living on the north end of town. The man was said to have a little ranch called the Circle G resting on a couple of hundred acres of rock and brush. Joe chewed Beth Hamilton's good sourdough biscuits as he rode along admiring the scenery, and when he came to Lake's Crossing, he made a point to circle around the town and then continued steadily north.

It was well after dark, only twenty-four hours since he'd paid an unexpected call on the Shamrock Mine, when he arrived at a ranch gate that had a circle G brand burned into the wood.

Joe could see the lights of a shack about a quarter mile ahead. He cut Grady's fence with the same wire snips he'd used on the Shamrock Mine's barbed wire, and then remounted and rode up the ruts toward the lonely farmhouse. He had one more stick of dynamite in his saddlebags, but he knew that he couldn't use it for fear that Ike Grady had a woman or kids living in his run-down shack.

Joe checked his rifle and pistol, his bowie knife and tomahawk. A huge dog started barking, and he knew that his arrival would be noticed by Ike.

“Hello the house?” Joe called.

The lights in the windows dimmed low. No one appeared, and the dog was coming toward him. By the size of its silhouette, he could see that it was almost as big as a wolf and it was making one hell of a loud racket. Joe did his best to ignore the beast, hoping it wouldn't try to bite his horse's legs.

“Hello the house! Ike Grady? I got a message from Mr. Peabody!”

Joe saw a dark form appear partially hidden in the doorway. “Who are you and why the hell you comin' around this time of the damned night?”

“It's about that Moss woman!”

There was a long silence, and then Ike took the bait. “What about her?”

“She . . . .” Joe didn't know why he said what he said next, but it just came out, so he let it hang in the air. “She's hiding in Carson City, but she's said to have been shot and might even be dyin'.”

Ike digested this bit of news and swore bitterly. “Dammit,
I'm
the one that's being paid to shoot her! Who did it?”

“Well,” Joe said, slipping his sidearm out of his holster and into his coat pocket, “that's what Mr. Peabody sent me to tell you all about.”

“Shit!” Ike cursed. “Dog, shut up or I'll put a damned bullet in you!”

The dog, hearing the anger in its master's voice, turned and trotted back to the shack. Ike was furious because he probably was thinking about all the money he wasn't going to make by either capturing or killing Fiona. So he kicked at the huge dog, and it jumped back untouched and snarling. Joe liked that because it showed the dog had some sand in his craw and would not be abused without putting up a fight.

“You want to know about that wounded Moss woman or not?” Joe called.

“Come on in, mister, but keep those hands on your saddle horn.”

Joe rode right up to the shack and dismounted without an invitation. Ike was holding a double-barreled shotgun and it was pointed in Joe's direction. And Joe knew that the man would not hesitate to kill him.

“Why you comin' out so late?” Ike asked.

“ ' Cause they sent me over here from the Shamrock first thing this morning and told me to ride hard. Mister, I'm tired, hungry, and most of all thirsty. You got any food or whiskey?”

“I do if you got money,” Ike said, lowering the shotgun.

“I do.”

“Then come inside and sit at the table,” Ike groused, “but damned if I like the news you've brought.”

“I didn't expect you would,” Joe told the man as he entered the cabin, which was filthy and stank so bad it nearly took his breath away. Any thought of being hungry vanished from Joe's head at that moment.

“Sit down! I got some old salt pork and beans. But first, let's see the color of your money.”

Joe laid two dollars on the rough-hewn table and Ike snatched it up saying, “You kin sleep tonight in the shed out back.”

“Whiskey,” Joe said impatiently. “I ain't payin' two whole dollars for just salt pork and beans.”

“What the hell happened to your face, mister?” Ike asked, squinting in the candle light. “You sure did take a beating from someone. They whipped your ass real good, didn't they!”

“Yeah, they did. About ten of 'em,” Joe said as Ike Grady brought out a jug and filled two cracked glasses with home brew. “But I'm mending.”

“You'll bear the scars to your grave,” Ike told him, raising his glass. “I could see that you were limpin' a mite as well. But what I want to know is how that Moss woman got herself shot in Carson City.”

“How much money are you out from the Peabody family if she dies?” Joe asked quietly, raising his own glass, then taking a swallow that tasted like turpentine.

“Three hundred dollars,” Ike said, angry. “And I really need that damned money!”

Joe looked around and thought about how worthless this land up here was for anything useful. “Yeah, Ike,” he said, “I can see that you do. Don't you have anyone else to capture or kill for a bounty?”

“Not at the moment,” Ike Grady admitted. “I put all the time I got to spare tryin' to find that damned Moss woman. Heard a rumor that she went to California. So damned if I didn't go all the way to San Francisco lookin' for her murderin' hide. But she wasn't there. Nope. I asked practically everyone in the city that might know, and then I rode a stagecoach all the way down to Old Monterey 'cause someone told me she'd gone there instead. But she didn't. Didn't go to Sacramento, either.”

Ike was getting angrier and angrier just in telling Joe about the futility of his hunt. “So I came back here, and then got another rumor that Fiona Moss was hidin' out east of town where a bunch of Paiute Indians live. I figured that was a good hiding place, so I went out there and gave the chief blood money. Gave all of 'em some money, but those Paiutes played me like a fish on a line. Took me a week and about fifty dollars before I was sure that them damned bug-eaters didn't know Fiona Moss and had never even heard of her before I came along.”

“Sounds like it ain't been easy,” Joe commiserated. “What about that big dog of yours?”

“What about him?” Ike demanded.

“Do you take him along or does he fend out here in this sagebrush country for himself?”

“I ain't
never
fed a dog. They either make it on their own or they starve. But that dog, he's half wolf and he'll kill other dogs if they growl at him. Kill deer, rabbits, and even antelope, too. Coyotes? Well, he just runs them down and has 'em for dessert.”

“Sounds like quite a dog,” Joe said, genuinely impressed. “I once had a big dog that was kind of like that. He didn't like many people.”

“Well, this dog don't like many people, either.”

“Including you,” Joe said.

Ike managed a sheepish grin. “No, he don't like me, either. There was an old man that used to work for me here and he brought the dog onto this ranch. Then the old man got roaring drunk one night and tried to collect his back pay, so I paid him in lead. Savvy?”

“I savvy.”

“His dog tried to tear out my throat when I hauled the old man's carcass out into the back and buried it in the sand. The dog stayed around to be near that grave and he just never went away.”

“What did the old man call the dog?”

“Rip.” Ike shook his head. “Can you believe a man who would name a dog Rip?”

“Sounds like a good name to me,” Joe said. “RIP. Maybe it stands for Rest In Peace . . . like you've seen on so many gravestones.”

“Huh? Never thought of that. Maybe so. Anyway, that's what the old man is doin' right now out behind my cabin! He's RIP for sure!”

Ike Grady thought that was awfully funny and began to laugh. Joe went cold inside and said, “So Ike, what will you do now that Fiona Moss is shot and laid up in Carson City?”

“Why, I'll hightail it down there and make sure that I can lay claim to finishin' the job.”

Joe took another drink. “So you'll find and kill her?”

“Sure! What difference is it to me if she's already shot and half-dead? As long as I get that three hundred dollars from the Peabody family, then I'm a happy man.”

“That's kind of what I thought you'd say,” Joe said.

“For three hundred dollars I'd kill the President of the United States!”

Joe scratched at a scab on his hand. “I expect you would . . . if you could.”

“Oh, I could all right!” Ike Grady bragged as he poured them both another glass. “I can shoot the head off a sparrow on the wing. Never miss.”

“Killed a lot of men, have you, Ike?”

“More'n I remember,” Grady bragged. “And by the way, why do you carry a damned tomahawk in your belt? You ain't no stinkin' Injun.”

Joe drained his glass, feeling the liquid fire spread. He pulled the tomahawk out of his belt and gently laid it on the table so that Ike Grady could see the weapon. “Oh, I'm Injun all right,” Joe told the bounty hunter. “But not a Paiute. I'm more like a Blackfoot or a Sioux.”

“I never killed one of them,” Grady said, fingering the heavy and very sharp blade of the tomahawk. “I never even took a scalp.”

“And you never will,” Joe said softly.

“Huh?”

In a smooth, sweeping motion Joe grabbed the tomahawk and struck Ike Grady just below his jaw, nearly beheading the bounty hunter. Grady's blood spewed across the table and the man's eyes bulged. He was still shaking and choking when Joe calmly went around the table and then scalped him with practiced precision.

“I guess I'll drink the rest of that jug out in your shed. Don't much like the smell of things in here,” Joe told the still-quivering corpse.

Outside, Rip was waiting with his ruff standing on end and his fangs white in the moonlight. Joe listened to the rumbling in the huge beast's throat, and he turned around and went back into the cabin. Moments later, he returned to the door with a hunk of salt pork and tossed it to the beast.

“I'd feed you sometimes if you wanted to come along with me,” he told Rip. “Think about it for a day or two and then decide if you want to leave this land with me or not.”

Joe sidestepped the dog, which was devouring the pork.

He went and unsaddled his horse, and found some grain in the shed and some half-moldy hay along with a small burro. There was a pack for the burro and some gold-panning equipment tossed in a heap.

“I guess Ike was a prospector as well as a hired killer,” Joe said to himself as he unrolled his blankets and spread them out on the straw.

“You can come back to us now, Fiona,” Joe said with a yawn as he stretched out on his blankets. “I took care of everything that was going to hurt you and now it's all safe and fine. Me and little Jessica are going to be waiting for you in Virginia City.”

And then Joe drifted off into the best sleep he'd had since almost being beaten to death at the former Shamrock Mine.

J
OE CAMPED AT Ike Grady's little homestead ranch a few days just to observe the big wolf-dog named Rip. It was clear that the animal had been neglected all its life, but Joe admired his spirit, size, and independence. Mostly, he wanted to know if Rip could be ever trusted and be a good dog for him.

The day after the killing, Joe buried Ike Grady out near another burial mound that he guessed was that of the old man that had once owned and perhaps even loved Rip. The big dog watched Joe carefully as he buried Ike, and then the animal sat beside the grave of his former owner and howled mournfully all day.

“You loved the old man, didn't you,” Joe said that evening when he went out to feed Rip some salt pork. “I admire your independence and I admire your loyalty. Maybe you'd like to be friends. I'd treat you well; feed you when you weren't able to hunt. In return, you'd be my watchdog and sidekick.”

Rip cocked his massive head sideways, listening intently as Joe continued. “'Cause you see, what might happen is that this bunch called the Peabody family is probably gonna figure out that I'm the one that not only blew up their mine and equipment, but also shot their hired killer. And when they come to that conclusion, they're gonna want me dead real bad. Maybe they'd even want to skin me alive and make me suffer for a while, for I did a powerful amount of damage to them with those sticks of dynamite.”

Joe used his bowie to cut off a chunk of salt pork, which he tossed to the ravenous dog. “Understand my problem?”

Rip devoured the meat, then listened, licking his chops.

“Good,” Joe said. “I had a hunch you were smart. And with a dog like you, I would have a far better chance of being warned when those Peabody fellas or someone they hired come to kill me. So what I'm sayin', Big Dog, is that we could be real useful to each other.”