All through the night, she kept asking Joe how he was doing and feeling. She wanted to know if his feet were starting to bleed again.
“I got 'em wrapped in soft blanket wool,” he said. “This sand is real soft so I'm doin' fine. Don't worry so much about me. Just keep looking ahead and keep those animals movin'.”
“I will. I will.”
Dawn finally came, and with it the full enormity of the devastation and heartache that surrounded them. Fiona saw miles and miles of bleached bones, grave markers, furniture, wagons, and tools. Some of the abandoned wagons had sunk up to their axles, and showed signs that incredible efforts had been made to free them from the deep, clutching sand . . . all to no avail. There were bone-white sand dunes, some of them already wind-whipped over the wagons to bury them forever, leaving no bad memories in sight.
But now, after a night of desperate slogging through this white hell, Fiona clearly saw the mountainsâthe high, blue green Sierrasâand that gave her a surge of real, heart-thumping hope. Reno was near. The big, swift, and clear Truckee River was just up ahead, and there they could swim and laugh and even rest for a few precious days.
Yes, those mountains were growing bigger and bolder with every struggling hour and they were almost . . . almost there!
Joe was staggering, but his chin was lifted, and being a mountain man, his eyes were fixed on the highest peaks.
“We've made it, darlin'. We've made it!”
“Do we have to come back through this terrible Humboldt Sink?”
He stopped, feet buried a foot deep in sand. “No,” he said as much to himself as to his wife. “We don't. When we leave the Comstock with Jessica, we can go northwest. Up into Oregon and then over and across through the Blackfoot country and into the wild Tetons. Thataway, we'd just miss the deserts altogether, Fiona.”
As he spoke, the excitement grew in his gravelly voice. “If we went to the Tetons or the Big Horns, I got friends among the Indians and maybe some old mountain men still. Good friends that remember me as Man Killer. They'd take us in . . . or give us some land to live on for free.”
“Is it pretty, Joe? Are those mountains where your friends can be found as pretty as the ones I see up ahead?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Joe said with a painful grin. “They are real, real pretty! Not as pretty as you . . . but pretty all the same.”
“Oh, Joe, you are such a sweet-talkin' man!”
He laughed. Laughed for the first time since the night they'd made love in the Ruby Mountains. “I'll sure give you more o' that when we get finished in these parts. I'll sweet-talk you and our little girl till your cheeks shine red as apples.”
Fiona's chin lifted, too. “We'll have a
good
life together at last.”
“We will and so will all our children. I was always happiest in the high mountains, Fiona. Never happy in flat land or in these deserts. So that's what we'll do, by golly! We'll not cross this godforsaken desert again, but instead go north up through California. You ever seen the Pacific Ocean?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe I'll just take you by there for a look-see. You and Jessica. Maybe that's what I should do so's you kin both see it before we head back to the Tetons and the Big Horns. 'Cause once we get to those places, you'll never want to go anywhere ever again, girl o' mine.”
“I can hardly wait!” she cried, almost weeping at the thought of such joyfulness after the long passage through a world of such death and heartache.
“Then, by jiminy, that's exactly what we'll do!” Joe shouted to the mountains as he marched through the last of the deep, clinging sands.
24
JOE MOSS DROPPED as a big-caliber rifle boomed and its bullet punched into sand near his feet. He whirled around to see Ransom Holt and Johnny Redman closing in on them fast. Joe raised his Spencer rifle, and was about to fire when the two onrushing horsemen split apart in order to set up a deadly cross fire.
Joe shot Ransom Holt's flagging horse and the animal cartwheeled, pitching the big man over its head into a sand dune. The half-breed changed directions, taking his horse out of Joe's rifle range. Redman made a flying dismount and with rifle in hand, dove behind a sand dune. Joe sent a shot in Redman's direction, knowing he was wasting a bullet, but wanting the man to understand he was a target.
“Fiona!” Joe shouted. “Get on that strawberry and ride like the wind for Reno! I'll stay here and hold them off!”
“I won't leave you!”
The half-breed fired and Joe could almost feel the .50-caliber slug whipcrack across the hot desert air and miss him by inches. “Fiona, do it before he shoots the horse and we're both afoot and helpless out here! I can hold them off until you bring me help!”
Joe knew that there wasn't going to be any help this far from Reno. But he wanted his wife out of rifle range and on her way to safety. “Go!”
Fiona jumped back into the saddle and with their little pack burro still tethered to her saddle horn, she sent the horse and burro into a run through the last few miles of sand dunes.
Ransom Holt had picked himself up from his bad fall and quickly taken cover behind a low sand dune. “Moss,” the giant shouted, “if you want your wife to live, you'd better surrender now!”
Joe considered the angry demand. He was trapped. If he tried to get up and run away, the half-breed with his big rifle would shoot to wound, probably in the legs, because Joe was worth more to Peabody alive than dead. And if Joe tried to hunker down and fight, he would soon be delirious from lack of water. And his Spencer was no match for the much more powerful buffalo rifle.
“Moss, you hear me?” Holt shouted again. “Give up or we'll kill you right here and now!”
“What about the bounty money?” Joe yelled. “Peabody wants me alive!”
“We don't always get what we want, and he'll pay us handsomely for your head! You're pinned down and you're finished. The best you can do is to try and stay alive long enough to see your woman once more before you hang.”
Joe considered his almost nonexistent options carefully. He had no canteen. He was outgunned and outnumbered. Even worse, he was trapped in a low, sandy place and there was nowhere to hide. And if all that wasn't desperate enough, the half-breed was finishing reloading the buffalo rifle and was about to kill him or perhaps even Fiona, who was still within his shooting range because of the slow-moving burro.
Maybe, Joe reasoned, after he surrendered and before they could get him tied hand and foot, he could somehow figure a way to kill both men. That wasn't likely, but it was his best and only choice of action.
“All right!” Joe finally shouted. “Just let my wife go free!”
Ransom Holt's laugh was cracked and cruel. “You're in no position to bargain, Moss. Throw that rifle out along with your pistol and that tomahawk you're so famous for using to scalp men.”
“I gave my 'hawk to Paiutes clear back by the Ruby Mountains!”
“Then throw away your weapons and stand up with your hands in the air!”
When Joe did as he was told, the half-breed lowered his rifle a hair, and Joe looked at Fiona, trying to make her horse and the poor burro lunge through the deep, clinging sand.
“I'll take care of Moss,” Ransom said. “Breed, you catch the Moss woman and bring her back here alive.”
Johnny Redman nodded. “She'll be easy enough to overtake and the bounty on her head is as big as the one on Man Killer's head.”
“Bigger. She's the one that murdered Chester Peabody. Now quit jawin' and run her down!”
The half-breed jumped on his horse, which Joe could see still had some run left in its legs. There wasn't any doubt that Johnny Redman would quickly overtake Fiona.
Holt cocked back the hammer of his Colt and aimed it at Joe's chest. “All right, Moss. Keep your hands up in the air and walk straight toward me.”
Joe knew that the man would not hesitate to kill him if he made the slightest wrong move. “You got me cold,” he said. “Just go easy on that trigger.”
“That's close enough,” Holt said when Joe was less than ten feet from him. “Did you really think that we'd give up the chase?”
“Nope,” Joe said. “I always knew that sooner or later it would come down to this. To just you and me.”
Holt's face was red, wet with perspiration, and plastered with sand where it had struck the dunes when his horse was shot. “If you weren't worth so much more to Peabody alive than dead, I'd blow a hole in you right now. I'd gut-shoot you so you'd flop down in this sand and die screaming. And maybe I would even scalp you before your last breath so you could taste a little of your own Injun medicine.”
Joe said nothing, but his mind was exploring every possible way he could kill this man before being tied hand and foot and taken to be hanged on the Comstock Lode.
“I never thought it would take so long to earn the bounty put on your head, Joe. I have to hand it to you . . . you're tougher than a boot and a hell of a lot smarter than you look.”
“Johnny Redman better not hurt my wife,” Joe said, turning to look to the west, where his wife and the half-breed had vanished.
“Ah, he won't. The breed is smart and he's desperate for his share of the bounty. He'll do what I ordered and he'll capture Fiona, but he won't hurt her unless he has to. He knows that Peabody wants your wife alive and healthy.”
Joe almost smiled when he heard that the half-breed wasn't really the cold-blooded killer he made himself out to be. “So, Ransom, what do we do now?”
Holt glanced sideways at his dead horse. “You shot my horse through the heart on the run. Damn good shooting, Moss. I might as well cut the reins from his bit and use them to tie your wrists and ankles.”
“Yeah, I guess you just might as well. Oh, I was aiming at you, Holt, not the horse.”
The giant laughed, and it had a mean, nasty sound. “Maybe you're not the crack shot I thought you were.”
“We all make mistakes,” Joe said with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
Holt extracted a pocketknife from his pants, and he shifted the Colt revolver into his left hand while he used his right to slice the reins away from the bit rings. Everything seemed to stand still except the wind, which was moaning across the lonely sand dunes. Joe watched and waited for just the right instant to attack. He knew that Holt was right-handed, but now the pistol was in the giant's left hand while he folded the pocketknife against his pants and started to return it to his pocket.
“There,” Holt said, the blade clicking shut. “These are good rawhide braided reins. You won't break them. Turn around and put your hands behind your back. No foolishness or I'll shoot you in the spine. It might be more interesting to see a half-paralyzed man swing from the gallows. Bring a tear to the lady's eyes, I'll bet, while all the time I'd be laughing and counting my bounty money.”
Joe moved toward the big man and started to lower his hands so that they could be tied. He understood that, once bound, he was helpless, so he'd made the decision to attack.
For a moment the two tall men stood face-to-face, and then Holt unexpectedly backhanded Joe with his Colt Army. The front sight on the barrel ripped through flesh all the way down to Joe's cheekbone and opened a wide and bloody gash.
Joe staggered and took a deep breath to instantly clear his mind again.
“Turn around, Moss, or I'llâ”
Joe slashed downward with his right fist and knocked the Colt Army aside even as a bullet exploded into the sand. Then Joe threw his shoulder into Holt's broad chest with all the power he had left in his weary legs. They both crashed into the sand, rolling and fighting.
Holt was bigger and stronger, but Joe was the more experienced Indian wrestler and he knew that, no matter what, he could not allow the giant to get on top of him. When that seemed likely, Joe jammed a thumb deep into Holt's eyeball and twisted it sideways. The giant screamed and punched Joe so hard in the side of the head that he nearly blacked out.
Holt dove at Joe with bended knees to crush him, but Joe grabbed a handful of sand and threw it into the giant's one remaining good eye, blinding him.
Joe bit hard into Holt's left thumb. The Colt fell to the sand, and Joe scooped it up and sent three shots into Holt's wide-open mouth, blowing brains and blood out of his skull. Ransom Holt was finally dead.
Joe lay beside the giant, gasping for air and staring up at the merciless sun while catching his breath and waiting for his poor head to stop spinning.
Fiona!
Joe pushed himself to his feet and stared toward Reno and the direction his wife had gone with the half-breed closing on her back trail.
“Fiona!” he bellowed into the moaning wind.
For all the answer he got, Joe might as well have been standing on the surface of the moon. Still dazed and bleeding from the nasty gash across his cheekbone, Joe had never felt so desperate and helpless. How far had Fiona gotten before the half-breed had overtaken her? A mile? Maybe even two. Probably much less.
If she had been willing to release their burro, maybe, just maybe, she could have made it on the strawberry to Reno. But Joe knew his wife loved their little burro and she would not let it go until it was too late.
Joe snatched up Holt's weapons and emptied the man's pockets, taking cash without bothering to spend the time counting it. He then allowed himself one final look at the giant bounty hunter who had dogged him and his poor wife for so long. Holt's one good eye was staring up at the hot sun; the other eye, which Joe had gouged half out with his thumb, protruded ghoulishly like a purple grape that had been stomped in a pool of already congealing blood.