Comstock Cross Fire (7 page)

“Let's hear it.”

“We don't have to go all the way to Placerville and buy supplies from Ransom Holt's friend who owns a general store.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because there's bound to be a Mormon settlement around here with a general store. I'm thinking we ought to find it and then rob it.”

“What about the buckboard and team of horses?” Eli asked. “Be kinda tough to steal them right out of the middle of some Mormon town.”

“It can be done,” Dalton insisted. “We just have to find us a little town and sneak into it late at night. First we steal the wagon and horses, and then we drive 'em up to the back of the Mormon general store and bust in the back door. We load up and get everything Holt put on his list and drive off! Holt will never know where we got the supplies, wagon, and horses and we can pocket his two hundred dollars.”

“Hmmm,” Eli said, “that ain't such a bad idea.”

“It's a great idea!”

“So we just have to find a settlement with a livery and general store.”

“That's right,” Dalton said, excitement growing in his voice. “From what I've seen, Mormons ain't nothin' but a bunch of farmers that couldn't put up much of a fight even if we robbed 'em in broad daylight. They'd probably just fall on their Bibles or whatever they read and pray for old Brigham Young himself to come and save 'em!”

“All right,” Eli said, “so let's see if we can find us a little Mormon town before we get to Placerville.”

“If we don't,” Dalton told him, “we'll just rob Holt's friend in Placerville and steal a local wagon and horses.”

“Sounds good to me,” Eli said, jamming a boot into his stirrup. “Let's do it.”

Late that afternoon, they came upon a small farming community called Moroni. Eli and Dalton drew their horses up about a mile south of the town and studied it for a while.

“Well,” Dalton finally said, “what do you think?”

“There looks to be maybe five hundred farmers and their families living there,” Eli said. “And from the appearance of the town, I'd say they'll most likely have a general store and livery that we can rob.”

Dalton slapped his hand down on his saddle horn. “Then this is good enough. How should we play this out?”

“We ride into those pines yonder,” Eli said, “and take a nap until it gets late. Then we wait until midnight, go into Moroni, and steal a wagon and team of horses. After we got the buckboard hitched, we back it up to their general store, bust in, and take what Holt's list says we need in the way of supplies. Dalton, I don't think it could get much simpler.”

“I could use a long nap,” Dalton said. “But I could use a pretty Mormon girl even more.”

“Forget that!” Eli snapped. “They may be just a bunch of cow-shit farmers, but they still might have a few old rifles loaded and ready to use and we don't need that kind of trouble.”

“All right,” Dalton said, reining his horse toward the trees. “But how are we goin' to get a mattress if we don't see a woman?”

“Hmmm,” Eli said, “I'd forgotten all about the damned mattress Holt wanted us to buy. To hell with it! We can fill the buckboard with some straw. That ought to be good enough for the likes of Joe Moss. Now let's get some shut-eye and then rob the farmers so's we can keep Holt's money without him bein' none the wiser.”

Dalton chuckled. “Be good to put one over on Holt. That man is just way too high-and-mighty.”

“Amen,” Eli said in ready agreement.

 

They waited until almost midnight before they quietly rode into Moroni and found both the town's livery and general store. It was a pitch-dark, nearly moonless night, and everything was going in their favor. Dalton and Eli tied their horses up to a corral full of farm and riding horses, lit a match, and found halters, ropes, and harness neatly hanging on pegs just inside the barn door.

“There ain't nobody sleepin' in this barn,” Eli said, locating a lantern and turning the wick down low. “Easy, easy pickin's.”

“The owner probably lives in that house just across the yard. He's sleepin' away with his wife, and won't he be surprised come morning when he counts his horses and finds four missin' along with his best buckboard.”

The brothers giggled like a couple of schoolboys playing a trick on their unsuspecting teacher.

“Let's harness four of the biggest horses and get that buckboard hitched up,” Dalton said.

The brothers were good with horses, and they had no trouble getting them collected and then harnessed and hitched. They tied their own saddled mounts to the back of the buckboard, and led the team around to the rear of the general store. As they went about their thievery, there was not a sound in the village and not a light in any cabin window.

“It's all goin' good,” Dalton said.

“Better'n good,” Eli said, taking a little hammer and chisel that he'd found in the livery and going to work on the flimsy hasp and lock that secured the back door of the general store.

But when the hammer struck and the chisel pried the hasp partway out of the wooden doorjamb, there was a loud shriek of protest. Somewhere not far away, a couple of town dogs began to bark.

Dalton and Eli froze and listened for voices. Both had their knives in their hands, and they were ready to silence anyone who came to investigate.

The dogs stopped barking and the town of Moroni slept blissfully and totally unaware.

“It's all right,” Eli assured his brother. “Let's get that door open and get the wagon loaded. I'm gonna steal a lot more than six bottles of whiskey.”

“Shit!” Dalton swore. “There ain't gonna be no whiskey here! This is a
Mormon
town and those dumb bastards don't drink liquor.”

“Shit! You're right,” Eli said.

“How are we gonna explain no whiskey to Holt? And these sonsabitches won't have any tobacco neither!” Dalton's voice was filled with disappointment.

“Damned if I know what we'll tell Holt. We'll worry about that when the time comes. Let's get this business finished and leave this farmin' town. I'm startin' to get jumpy.”

“Me, too,” Dalton admitted.

The brothers finally broke in through the back door, and after stumbling around in the dark, lit matches and found feed sacks to stuff provisions into. They didn't take the time nor go to the bother of consulting Holt's carefully written shopping list. They'd read the list over a number of times and pretty much knew it by heart. Now they began to load the wagon, and when that was done, they searched high and low for some extra ammunition and weapons, but didn't find any.

“These farmers must not abide weapons any more than they do liquor or tobacco,” Dalton observed.

“It would seem that way,” his brother replied. “Are we all loaded up and ready to go?”

“Yep.”>

“Then let's get out of here,” Eli ordered. “A general store without rotgut or tobacco is a sorry place, and I sure wish we could have found some more guns, rifles, and ammunition just in case we are jumped by the Paiutes.”

“Me, too,” Dalton said. “And I couldn't even find no damned coffee. Don't they like coffee either?”

“Maybe not,” Eli said. “These are strange people.”

“Amen.”

The brothers hastily piled into the loaded buckboard and started out of town. But one of the horses, a big gray gelding, apparently had never been in harness and was strictly a riding animal. Right away, it began to fight and buck. It raised so much of a fuss that two of the boxes of provisions spilled out of the back of the buckboard and crashed in the back alley.

Then the dogs of Moroni started barking again, and one actually came running out from under a porch. It wasn't very big, just a runty little thing, but it was angry and it flew at the team of horses, biting one on the fetlock.

Suddenly, two horses were bucking and rearing, and then Dalton swore and drew his gun and was ready to shoot the little dog.

“No, gawddammit! You'll wake up the whole damn town!”

“Looks like it's already startin' to come awake,” Dalton said, holstering his six-gun. “Lights comin' on in windows all over the place.”

Eli felt a deep sense of dread, and he slapped the lines down hard on the back of the four-horse team. “Ya!” he hissed.

The team lunged forward into a crazy run. Boxes of provisions bounced off the wagon and broke open in their wake, and over the pounding of hoofbeats both Dalton and Eli heard angry shouts.

“You think they're comin' after us?” Dalton called, clutching the shotgun and looking nervously back over his shoulder at boxes smashing on the road just behind, causing their two saddle horses to break loose and gallop off into the dark night.

“Naw!” Eli called back. “They're just a bunch of chickenshit Mormon farmers without guns, whiskey, or tobacco. They won't do jack shit!”

“I sure hope you're right. Our saddle horses just broke loose and run off, so we're kinda in a fix if we have to get away fast.”

The brothers exchanged glances, and it was probably a good thing it was so dark and neither one could see the other's fear.

“Where the hell did the road go!” Dalton shouted as the wagon began to jump and buck wildly across a freshly plowed field. “All the gawddamn supplies are bouncin' out the back of this buckboard! We're gonna end up with nothin'!”

Eli knew that was the truth, so he finally got the team down to a walk. He set the brake on the wagon and jumped down to calm the sweating team of horses. “Dalton, push everything left up to the front of the wagon.”

“All right.”

“How much of that stuff from the general store did we lose?”

“As near as I can tell, we lost about half of it,” Dalton answered. “Damn it to hell! We'd have been better off just to mosey out of Moroni and if those Mormons came after us wantin' a fight, we could have killed 'em and taken their horses and guns.”

“There might have been more than even we could handle,” Eli told him.

“Where in the hell are we?”

“Some farmer's cornfield, I reckon.”

“Shit! Now what are we gonna do?”

“Quiet,” Eli said. “I need to think this out.”

After a few minutes, Dalton hissed, “Eli, do you hear the sound of hoofbeats comin'? Sounds like the whole damned cavalry!”

“Uh-oh,” Eli said. “See them lanterns way back there toward town? Them stupid Mormon bastards are following us.”

“What are we gonna do!”

“I reckon we'll move on and see if we can find a place to make a stand come daylight,” Eli decided after a long pause. “But maybe they'll get smart and go back to town.”

“I don't know,” Dalton fretted. “I think they're really after us.”

“Well,” Eli told his younger brother, “if they want to get their tickets to Hell punched come morning, I'm sure we can oblige them.”

“Yeah, we can do that. But I'm a little low on shotgun shells.”

“How about your pistol?”

“I'm in pretty good shape for ammunition.”

“Me, too. And I've got the Sharps.” Eli groped his way back into the seat of the buckboard and felt his brother do the same. Squinting into the night, he said, “I think there's a barn and house up ahead. Maybe we ought to pull up behind the barn and use it for cover to hide.”

“I dunno. I'm thinking we should just keep moving as fast as this damn wagon can travel,” Dalton said. “I sure wish we hadn't lost our horses and saddles.”

“Yeah, and with this buckboard bouncin' across these cornfields, we damned sure ain't gonna get us anyplace quick. Dalton, I still think that we ought to hide behind that hay barn.”

“Whatever you think, big brother. I sure wish we had our saddle horses, though.”

“Me, too, but let's just deal with the cards we're holdin' and I reckon everything will turn out just fine.”

“I hope so,” Dalton said, trying to hide his worry. “I really ain't got anything against those stupid Mormon farmers. Don't even want to kill 'em especially.”

“Want may have nothing to do with it,” Eli said. “If they come for us, we'll kill 'em to the last farmer.”

“That we will,” Dalton agreed as his brother slowly drove the buckboard toward the dim outline of a big wooden hay barn.

7

“THOSE LIGHTS ARE gettin' closer!” Dalton said as he jumped down from the buckboard and peered around the barn. “Can't be more than a mile off now. Eli, maybe we should keep movin'.”

“I'm not sure what we should do,” Eli confessed. “Last damn thing in the world I expected was a bunch of Mormon farmers comin' after us.”

“There's a
lot
of lights! Must be thirty or forty just bobbin' along in the dark like a swarm of fireflies! But they're gettin' closer and closer. You think they got guns, Eli?”

“I expect that's possible.”

“But they're just
farmers
! They probably can't hit this barn with those guns or rifles.”

“That's right,” Eli agreed. “They're just farmers who can't shoot straight and have lost their senses coming after two like us.”

“They're dumb farmers that are gonna get themselves killed!”

“Yeah,” Eli agreed. “But maybe we ought to unhitch those horses from the buckboard and see if we can find any saddles or bridles in this barn.”

Dalton was astonished by the suggestion. “You mean just leave the buckboard and what provisions that didn't spill out the back of it?”