Not waiting for Ransom Holt to object, the half-breed kicked dirt into the fire, smothering it into smoke. Suddenly, the night was very dark except for a little moonlight, and there wasn't a sound.
“Are you sure that someone is out there?” Holt whispered after listening for ten minutes while holding a six-gun in each of his big fists.
“Yes,” Johnny Redman said. “But now they know that we know they're here, and they're trying to decide what to do next.”
“Maybe we should go after them.”
“If you go out there in the sagebrush,” the breed said, “you will never come back to this camp alive.”
Holt had taken cover behind the buckboard and Eli had done the same.
“So what the hell do we do now?” Eli asked, his whispered voice high-pitched and strained.
“We just hunker down and wait,” Joe answered. “If someone has to make the first move, let it be them. And I sure could help you right now if you'd take these shackles off and give me a gun.”
“When Hell freezes over!” Holt swore softly. “Now everyone shut up and be ready.”
Joe struggled against his shackles and when he realized it was useless, he tried to move closer to shield Fiona from any incoming bullets.
After that, there was nothing to do but wait and see if they were being surrounded by Indians or Jack Mormons. And then to learn what the odds were of them surviving this fight that was most certain to start shortly after dawn.
14
JUST AFTER DAWN, a rifle's bullet struck one of their water barrels, and then bullets struck another and another.
“Gawddammit!” Holt shouted into the dawn. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“We're from Perdition and we want what you stole as well as that breed for hangin'!”
“I didn't steal anything!” Holt shouted.
“Yeah, you did! You didn't see that old woman rockin' while she knitted in the back of the store, did you, big man? But she saw
you
. And she heard everything and she says you never paid nothin' for them three big sacks of supplies.”
“The old woman is crazy!” Holt bellowed. “I paid for those supplies!”
“Liar! You left our general store while all that commotion was goin' on outside and you stole us blind! That there was a
community
store, big man! That means you stole from each and every one of us in Perdition, and that's a bad, bad offense.”
“You're wrong,” Holt shouted, his voice no longer sounding blustery or confident.
“Suit your damn self, you thief! But we're not leavin' here until we have you locked up in chains and that breed the same. Then we're takin' you all back to Perdition where you'll be judged!”
“No!” Holt bellowed. “I'm not going anyplace with you outlaw Mormon people.”
“Suit yourself, thief!”
Suddenly, it was as if they were caught in the middle of a Civil War battlefield surrounded on all sides by the enemy. Bullets screamed in from every direction so fast that they couldn't even be counted.
“Joe, we're gonna die!” Fiona exclaimed.
Joe Moss swore and surged at his manacles and chains, tearing flesh but otherwise having no effect. “Fiona, scoot behind me as best you can!”
Fiona did that, and Joe had her pretty well covered by his body as the onslaught continued from all around them. He could hear the slugs striking their precious water barrels and water began to run down the bed of the buckboard, spilling on Joe and his wife, then seeping quickly into the bone-dry and dusty earth.
“We can't go far without water!” Joe yelled at Holt, who was hugging the ground near Eli. Both men were trying to spot targets, but failing that, they were shooting blind.
Johnny Redman had scooped out enough dirt so that he was pretty well protected. But the half-breed wasn't firing yet.
“Hold your fire!” Ransom Holt shouted as one of their horses was hit and dropped kicking and squealing in pain. “Gawddammit, stop shooting!”
“Are you gonna surrender yourself and that half-breed?” the same voice as before yelled as the shooting stopped.
Holt sighed deeply, then said, “Yes!”
“You might surrender, but not me!” Johnny Redman hissed, jumping to his feet and diving into the thick brush.
Moments later, Joe heard a startled shout and then a cry of pain. No shots. Just a dull thumping sound and that cry, followed by the sound of a body falling heavily.
“Did the half-breed get away?” Fiona asked.
“Yes,” Joe said. “My guess is that the half-breed Cheyenne wasn't lying when he said he could use a rock to knock out a man. Unless I'm mistaken, he's already broken out of the ring surrounding us and is running through the brush like a bobcat staying low and moving fast.”
“You better be gettin' to your feet,” the voice from the brush shouted. “You won't go anywhere without water and we shot one of your horses, though it was an accident. But it won't be no accident when we shoot you and that half-breed! I'll give you one more minute to stand up and surrender.”
“The half-breed is gone!” Holt shouted. “He just jumped up and ran off. It's just me and my hired man and our two prisoners that are here now.”
“Stand up and reach for the sky or we'll kill you for certain!”
Holt raged. “Gawddammit!”
“What are we gonna do?” Eli demanded. “We're surrounded.”
“The breed got away,” Holt shot back. “Eli, maybe you should try and do the same.”
“No, sir! I didn't steal from these people and it's not me that they have a bone to pick with. It's
you
, Mr. Holt. And I think you'd best stand up and then see what you can do to make 'em settle down and stop shootin'.”
“Shit!” Holt swore, pounding his big fist over and over against the earth.
“What's it to be, thief? You surrendering? Or do you want to end your life and that of your friends right here and now?”
“Surrender!” Eli pleaded. “Dammit, boss, you can talk your way out of this mess!”
Holt unleashed a string of profanities, but knowing he was beaten, he finally shouted, “All right! I'm going to stand up and I don't want anyone to shoot me down.”
“Stand up, then, with your hands over your head.”
“Get up, Eli!”
“You first, boss.”
“You chickenshit sonofabitch!” Holt swore, kicking Eli in the side as he gained his footing.
Eli grunted in pain, but he stayed tight to the ground.
“Now the other one!” the voice called. “Hands up like the big thief.”
Eli released the Sharps rifle and stood up slowly, hands up over his head. “I ain't got anything to do with what happened back in Perdition,” he screamed into the brush. “So you boys just don't get trigger-happy because I ain't done you no wrong!”
“Joe, what about us?” Fiona asked in a nervous whisper.
“There's nothing we can do,” Joe said, his wrists and ankles wet with fresh blood from his struggling to get free of his manacles and chains. “Our fate is in the hands of these rough Jack Mormons.”
“Will they hurt or hang us?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on
what
, Joe?”
“Depends on what I say and what Holt says and who they finally come to believe.” Joe shifted his weight off his wife and leaned back against the wagon wheel.
The Jack Mormons began to stand up all around the camp. One by one, they appeared, armed with rifles and looking grim and prepared to fight to the death to reclaim what had been stolen from their community general store.
“I count fifteen,” Joe said. “And I'm sure that there are more on the other side of the wagon that we can't even see yet.”
“Holt and Eli wouldn't have stood a chance against so many.”
“No,” Joe agreed. “If there had been an all-out fight, most likely we'd also have been killed.”
The leader of the Jack Mormons was a very tall, very thin man with a long black beard and a blue shirt and a floppy gray hat. He was almost as tall as Ransom Holt, but Joe judged the leader weighed only half as much.
Holt was already talking. “Listen, surely we've got a misunderstanding here, boys. Whatever some old woman said is just plain wrong, or else she's lyin'.”
“She's my
ma
,” the leader said, eyes narrowing as he raised his rifle to point at Ransom Holt's broad chest. “You callin' my ma a
liar
?”
“No!” Holt cried, realizing what might have been his fatal blunder. “Of course not. I'm just saying that she must not have seen me pay the store owner for the supplies.”
“Well, then, she must have stolen the money you paid because it ain't in the cash register or nowhere else in the store.” The tall man and his fellow townsmen pressed in closer. “So are you callin' Ma a
thief
?”
“Of course not!”
“Well, then, if she heard you and saw you and there ain't no money to be found . . . well, how kin you explain it, thief?”
“I . . . I . . .”
Ransom Holt didn't have the chance to try to create some explanation for the missing money because the leader slammed upward with the butt of his rifle and it caught Holt on the jaw. The blow was so hard that it knocked Holt a step back into the side of the buckboard.
“Now wait aâ”
The man stepped forward fast and struck Holt a second time, and he collapsed in a heap, wet and muddy from the runoff of the riddled water barrels.
“You might have killed him, Ferris.”
“I didn't,” Ferris said, looking down at Holt. “But him sayin' my ma is a thief and a liar just angered me so bad I had to break his lyin' face.”
“He's knocked out cold.”
“Tie him up hand and foot, then throw him in the wagon, boys.”
“Hey!” a voice called. “Come help us! Caleb is hurt!”
“Go help 'em,” the leader ordered three of his men. “And start trackin' that half-breed. When you spot him, shoot him down like you would a rabid dog.”
“Don't you want the town to see him hanged for killin' three of our people?”
Ferris considered the question and then shook his head. “The half-breed is gonna be hard to track and harder to kill. So if you get a shot, put him down like a dog, then drag his carcass into Perdition. We'll string up whatever is left of him and that'll satisfy the town.”
The three men nodded in agreement, and prepared to get their gear and horses to ride after Johnny Redman. To Joe Moss's way of thinking, if they somehow did track and corner the fleeing half-breed, those three were as good as dead men although they didn't yet realize the fact.
“What about me!” Eli cried, bringing everyone's attention back to himself. “Mister, I didn't steal anything or call your sweet old ma a liar or a thief.”
“You climb up into that buckboard and keep your yap shut. When we get back to Perdition, we'll decide what punishment you should suffer.”
“But I didn't . . .” Eli closed his mouth as the leader raised his rifle to bash him in the head. “I'll get in the wagon! Don't have to use that on me, mister. I didn't do any of you Mormons wrong.”
It took four men to tie the massive Ransom Holt up and lift him into the buckboard. One of the Jack Mormons put the wounded horse out of its misery, and then they all turned to look down at Joe Moss and Fiona.
“What did you two do to deserve this treatment?” Ferris demanded.
“We didn't do
anything
to deserve it,” Joe said through his clenched teeth.
“Don't lie to me, mister!” Ferris hissed, backhanding Joe hard enough to rock his head back on his shoulders. “I already heard all the damned lies I can stand for this month.”
“Don't hit him!” Fiona cried, pushing between them. “He's my husband and he hasn't done anything except to try to save my life and get our daughter back from some Catholic nuns in Virginia City.”
“You a Catholic?” Ferris asked, his eyes narrowing as he turned them away from Joe to Fiona. “We don't have much likin' for Pope lovers.”
“No!” Fiona insisted. “But when I was wrongly accused of murdering a man in Virginia City, I had no choice but to give our little girl to the nuns for safekeeping.”
“Of your own free will you gave your little girl over to the damned mackerel eaters?”
“Only for a while. We were trying to get her back when that big man and his friend caught us and put us in chains and manacles.”
“What did you do to him and the other one to deserve such ill treatment?”
“Nothing!” Fiona exclaimed. “They're bounty hunters. They were paid to hunt us down and bring us back to Virginia City for hanging.”
Ferris leaned close. “You ain't makin' this all up, are you, woman? 'Cause if you are, I'll give you and your husband the same punishments as I'll give the big man who stole from us.”
“I swear to you that I'm not making anything up.”
Ferris studied Fiona, and then he studied Joe and said, “Boys, get those chains off these two and put 'em in the wagon so all four of 'em are together and easy for us to watch over on the road back to Perdition.”
“The keys to our manacles are in the big man's pockets,” Joe told the thin and unforgiving Mormon men. “And I thank you for your kindness to me and my wife.”
“You'd better hold your thanks, mister. Because we ain't even begun to decide your fates.”
“We are innocent,” Joe declared, looking at all their faces. “And we have been unfairly chained and mistreated.”