The Mother Lode (14 page)

Joe was suddenly on the defensive and there wasn't time to draw one of his weapons, so he retreated until his back slammed up against a big post supporting the loft. He jumped behind the heavy pine post, and the pitchfork's tines bit into the wood with such force that they stuck.

Joe came back around the post with Eli swearing and trying to tear the pitchfork free. Joe could have drawn his knife and ripped open the farmer's belly, but he'd given a promise to Ellen and a promise to a lady had to be kept. So instead of gutting the farmer, Joe hit him in the center of the face with such force that Eli's head snapped back and his nose gushed like a crimson fountain.

But Eli Purvis wasn't ready to quit. Wiping blood from his face, he charged Joe again and this time, despite taking a hard left hand to the jaw, the farmer plowed in and grabbed Joe around the chest and began to crush him with a hold that forced all the breath out of Joe's lungs. And then Eli tossed Joe into another post, cracking the back of his skull hard.

For a moment, Joe felt all the strength go out of him. He was on his back now and Eli was on top hammering him with powerful blows. Joe kicked up with his long legs and locked his ankles across Eli's face. It was a move he'd done before when wrestling hard with mountain men and Indians. With a tremendous bellow of effort, Joe jerked Purvis over backward and shifted his hold so that it was under the farmer's chin. Ankles locked, legs straining with great power, Joe lay on his own back while he began to increase the pressure in what could have been a deadly strangle-hold. In fact, he had seen one fighter choke his opponent to death with just such a hold.

But Joe had no intention of killing Eli Purvis; he just wanted to take the fight out of the farmer. So he held the ankle choke until Purvis turned purple in the face and stopped struggling. At the very last minute, before the man would have been asphyxiated, Joe released his ankle lock.

He crawled over to Purvis, watching the man struggle for air. Joe drew his bowie knife and grabbed Purvis by his beard saying, “Think I'm gonna shave it off, Eli. All you Genoa Mormons have long beards and I'm gonna make you stand out among the rest.”

Terror filled the farmer's eyes as Joe dragged the sharp blade of his bowie knife down the man's cheek, cutting flesh along with whiskers. Purvis tried to shout and fight Joe off, but Joe kept at the man's face with his blade until it was hairless and badly lacerated.

“Now,” Joe said, “I'm sure you heard about how much I like scalps. Well, Eli, I'm going to lift a patch of
your
scalp. I'll admit that there isn't much to lift, since you're pretty damned bald, but I'll take a patch off the back. That'll do me just fine 'cause I never been finicky.”

“No, please, no!”

Joe sat astraddle the big farmer, keeping the man's hands and arms pinned under his legs. “I'm gonna scalp you, Eli, unless you give Mrs. Johnson two thousand dollars, which is fair pay for her good farm and everything on it.”

“What?”

Eli didn't like to repeat himself, but he did because Purvis probably wasn't of a clear mind. “I said that I'm gonna scalp you and then kill you if you don't buy her farm, which is worth at least two thousand dollars.”

“I don't have two thousand dollars and I'm not . . . .”

Just for show, Joe dragged the big tomahawk from his belt and shoved one side of Eli's face into the dirt and spilled milk. “Now here's a decent patch of scalp. Take a deep breath, Eli, and try not to scare your kids by screamin' too loud.”

“Okay!” he sobbed. “I'll buy her farm!”

“Cash,” Joe said. “Right now.”

“I don't have it here!”

Joe placed the sharp blade of his tomahawk against Eli's skull. “That's fine because I sure am sure going to enjoy taking your scalp.”

“No! I'll pay!”

“Good. My guess is that you've hidden all your money right here in this barn.”

It
was
a guess, but it turned out to be a good one. “Yes!” Purvis cried. “It's here.”

Joe stood and allowed the farmer to crawl to his feet. Eli's crudely shaved face was awash in blood. He was trembling like an aspen leaf and unsteady. The cow was now starting to moan nervously, not sure why its udder wasn't being completely emptied.

Joe raised his tomahawk threateningly. “Dig up your damned money, farmer!”

Eli staggered over to a place on the floor and collapsed to his knees with a frustrated sob. He dug like a badger and out came a big metal canister. As he fumbled to open it, Joe tore it from Eli's grasp and pried off the lid with a fingernail. He reached in and found a sizable wad of money.

“It's all the savings I have in this world!” Eli cried. “Think of my wife and family!”

“I am thinking of them, which is why I'm not going to kill you,” Joe told the man. Then he carefully counted out two thousand dollars. Every last cent. “Looks like you got another hundred or so left,” Joe announced.

“That's nothing if my crops fail or I lose livestock to sickness or—”

Joe silenced the man's whining. “Look at the bright side of this situation, farmer. I gave you a free shave. On top of that, you've got a couple hundred dollars in cash, three slaves that you call your wives, and all those fine, healthy children who will work for you when you grow old. On top of that, now you have
two
farms! Why, you're a very wealthy and fortunate man!”

“Goddamn you!” Eli cried, lunging for the last of his money.

As he did so, Joe kicked him square in the balls. It was a vicious, hold-back-nothing kick that would guarantee that Eli did not father any more children for a long, long time. Maybe never.

Purvis went down howling. And he kept on howling until Ellen burst into the barn followed by the Purvis wives and some of the older children. One of the wives fainted and two of the children burst into tears.

“Did you kill him!” Ellen yelled accusingly at Joe.

“Nope, just made him a true believer.”

“In
what
?”

Joe handed the two thousand dollars to Ellen. “In honest business dealings with his neighbors, of course. Ellen, Mr. Purvis just bought your farm for two thousand dollars. Didn't you, Eli?”

When Eli didn't answer, Joe stepped up to kick him again and make the farmer a true gelding. But then Eli cried out that, yes, he had bought the Johnson farm for two thousand dollars.

“Ellen,” Joe said, “do you need a bill of sale?”

“No,” she said in a tight voice, “these women are honest. They're all witnesses.”

Joe sheathed his bowie knife and belted his tomahawk. “Then I do believe that our business is finished here.”

“Not quite,” Ellen said, her face grim as she approached the writhing man on the ground. Through her swollen and blood-crusted lips, she hissed, “Eli, you slandered my name, you turned all the people against me when I did a Christian act for Joe, and . . . finally . . . you struck me hard in the face without feeling, remorse, or just cause.”

And then . . . to Joe's complete amazement . . . Ellen Johnson reared back and kicked Eli in the crotch so hard, her body came off the ground and the farmer roared in agony.

Ellen turned and faced the two standing Purvis wives. “I'm pretty sure you women won't have to service your husband for a long, long time. And for that, I'm sure you'll secretly thank me.”

The women clutched each other tightly, and then pulled their children outside so that they could not see their terrified and mutilated father weeping and moaning in the dirt.

Up in the loft, the red rooster crowed and some of his hens flew up to keep him company. Joe almost laughed because it struck him that Eli Purvis wouldn't be mounting any of his hefty and obedient wives soon, but the big red rooster sure as hell would be.

J
OE MOSS AND Ellen Johnson skirted Carson City on their journey up to the Comstock Lode. They followed the meandering Carson River eastward, then turned slightly north and picked up the well-traveled road that ran up Gold Canyon into the barren hills toward Mount Davidson. Even down low on the hills, Joe and Ellen saw hundreds of small mines where rough-looking men dug furiously into the side of the barren hills hoping to strike it rich. You could easily tell how far they'd progressed by the size of their mine tailings. And along the road, heavily traveled by ore and timber freighters, were signs posted every few hundred feet reminding travelers that they would be “shot on sight” if they so much as set foot on one of the claims.

Joe was amazed at all the miners, most of them living in little caves or even holes in the ground covered with brush and canvas. As a mountain man he'd lived in some primitive conditions, but this beat anything for hard times that he'd seen yet. “Ellen, I wonder how well all these fellas are doin' working dry claims this far down from the Comstock Lode.”

“From the looks of them,” she said, “I'd say they weren't doing very well. They're all thin and down at the heels. They're poorer-looking than the Paiute Indians.”

“That's why I think that they oughta dig up closer to Virginia City,” Joe said with a sad shake of his head.

But a little later that day, when Joe asked a miner who was dressed in rags why he didn't go up to the Comstock Lode, where there was a greater chance to strike it rich, the man explained the way of things in short order.

“A common workingman like me can't begin to buy a claim up on the Comstock Lode. Why, the prices of claims up there go for hundreds of dollars a running foot!”

“Are you serious?” Joe asked with astonishment.

“Of course I am!” the ragged miner snapped. “Why else would all of us be diggin' in these dry hills so far from the lode? And besides that, all the real gold and silver is too deep to reach by tunneling. You see, it's buried far underground in big pockets.”

“Then how do they reach it?” Ellen asked.

The miner spat a chew of tobacco and shook his head. “Shoot, you two don't know nothin', do you?”

“No,” Joe admitted. “I was a trapper, then a wagon train master, and finally a freighter. I've never been a miner and don't intend to become one.”

“You're smart,” the prospector said with a look of dejection. “You got any tobacco I can smoke or chew?”

Joe gave the man his pouch and papers. The miner nodded his appreciation and rolled a cigarette. He lit it and inhaled deeply. “Damn, that tastes good,” he sighed as the smoke curled out of his nostrils. He gazed eastward toward barren hills that stretched on forever. “Gawd, but I hate this country.”

“Then why don't you leave it?”

The man inhaled deeply again and shook his head. “Because this Comstock Lode is the richest and biggest strike I'll ever see in my lifetime.”

“Even bigger than the one in California?” Joe asked.

“It's too early to say, but I think it will be. The difference is that in California the little man could get lucky and strike it rich if he found a few big nuggets. Not here, though. People like me are just scratchin' the belly of this mountain and barely makin' bean and flour money.”

“Maybe you should take up another line of work,” Joe said.

“I can't. All I know is how to dig for gold and silver.”

Joe frowned. “Mister, it sounds to me like you're playin' a losin' game down here in this gulch.”

“I am,” the prospector admitted. “But I've got gold fever just as bad as I did ten years ago on the other side of the Sierras. Trouble is, us Forty-Niners who panned out the cold rivers runnin' off the western slopes of the Sierras came here and were told that we had to go deep down in cages and learn all about hard-rock mining.”

“What do you mean
cages
?” Ellen asked.

“It's like this, ma'am. All the mining up on the Comstock Lode is done with hydraulics and it's the big companies that are hirin' miners. No one mines for themselves up there because they ain't got the money to buy all the heavy machinery it takes to go underground hundreds of feet. But the big mine companies have done it and they run twenty-four-hour shifts. They drop their miners down in cages lowered on twisted wire cables. Drop 'em hundreds of feet into the belly of the mountain, and bring 'em up the same way after twelve-hour shifts in hell.”

Joe shook his head. “I don't think I'd ever go down on a cage that deep. Do the cables ever break?”

“All the damned time,” said the miner bitterly. “And when those wire cables snap, the miners can kiss their . . . well, ma'am, I guess you can imagine what it would be like droppin' a couple of hundred or even a thousand feet down a dark hole. They say there isn't much left you can recognize of a man who falls that far to the bottom.”

Ellen Johnson looked a little pale. “I'd imagine not.”

“What happened to your faces?” the prospector said, eyes shifting from Joe to Ellen and back again. “No offense, but did you two whip up on each other?”

“No,” Ellen said, smiling a little even though it hurt her lips. “We're the very best of friends.”

“Well,” the prospector said, drawing hard on his cigarette so that it burned down to his fingers, “you need to stick together up there in Virginia City. There are more thieves and murderers up there than you can imagine, and all they live for is to skin you alive after takin' every last cent of your money.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Joe said. “Have you found any gold yet?”

“Barely enough to keep me in bread and beans.”

“Have you thought about going to work for the big Comstock Lode mines?” Ellen asked him.