Comstock Cross Fire (6 page)

Holt took another drink, and it was clear that he wanted to go back in time and to reminisce. “My father was a circus freak,” he admitted. “He was an inch taller than I am now and thicker. He could lift a fully grown horse right off the damned ground, and he did all sorts of lifting feats for suckers who would pay to watch. Sometimes, he'd wrestle three or four men at a time for a purse. He never lost. My father was big, strong, and mean as a snake. He'd whip me just for the hell of it, and he'd whip my mother until she begged him to stop.”

Fiona looked sideways at Holt. “Why didn't your mother take you and run away?”

“Oh,” Ransom Holt said, still gazing deep into the flames. “She tried that once. But only once, because he broke her leg over his knee and then he smashed her kneecap with a hammer, shattering it all to hell so the best that she could do was hobble.”

Holt's voice was taking on rage. “My father broke Mother's leg and kneecap, telling her that he would break her neck and mine the next time she tried to run away with me. And he wasn't bluffing.”

Fiona knew she shouldn't say another word, but something made her blurt, “What eventually happened to your father?”

“Well,” Holt said, suddenly grinning after taking another long pull on his bottle, “came the day I was sixteen and my father got drunk and brought home a young little whore not much bigger than you. He fucked her right in front of my mother, laughing all the time he did it, and then he told my mother to undress.”

Fiona swallowed hard. “Why would he do such a thing?”

“He ordered her to undress because she was old and beat up and not good to look at anymore.” Holt's lips twisted with hate. “My mother protested, and then Father began to beat her in front of the naked whore. When my mother couldn't take any more, she started to remove the only old dress she owned, and that's when something inside me just . . . just snapped. I went crazy.”

Holt threw down his whiskey and his eyes tightened and his lips formed a thin, white slash across his face. “There was a hatchet resting by our fireplace, and I grabbed it up and started slashing at my father. He was strong, but he wasn't made of steel, and when I chopped off his hand, he lost his nerve, and that's when I split his head open from the hairline right down to his filthy mouth.”

“That's what I'd have done, too,” Joe Moss said. “Only, I wouldn't have waited until I was sixteen years old. I'd have killed that old bastard when I was twelve.”

Holt glanced at Joe and actually smiled. “I'm sure you would have tried. But then you got more guts than anyone I ever knew and you're about half crazy when it comes to killing. The truth is that you wouldn't have had a chance against my old man at twelve years old any more than I did. So I waited and got him killed at sixteen.”

“What about the little woman he had that night?” Fiona asked.

“I killed that little whore, too.”

“Why'd you do that?” Joe asked.

“Because when my mother had to take off her dress, the little whore pointed at Mother's fat, sagging body and started to giggle. You see, she was making fun of my mother's body and I just couldn't abide that.”

“Did you also hack her to death?” Fiona asked.

“Naw,” Holt said, taking a drink. “I dragged her out to the barn and fucked her, then I beat her brains out with a singletree.”

Fiona shuddered.

“And then you know what I did?” Holt asked the fire.

“What?” Joe asked.

“I killed my mother because she was so miserable. But I killed her quick and easy and she asked me to do it. I didn't want to at first because I loved her, but she begged me to kill her, so I finally did. I buried Mother, but I lit the barn on fire with my father and the whore inside.”

“And then?” Fiona asked quietly.

“Then I ran away and never looked back. I started bare-knuckle fighting for prize money. I'm so big that there were few foolish enough to get into a ring with me, so I'd take on two or three at a time just like my father had done. And I'd always win. Always.”

Holt took another drink. “I did that until I beat a man to death in the ring in Chicago. They tried to arrest me, and I decided I had better get out of town and keep movin' or I might get hanged. You see, the young fella that I beat to death was well connected to some dangerous people.”

Holt laughed to himself and shook his head. “I didn't even get to collect the purse I'd won that night in Chicago, but it didn't matter. I have always been able to get work killing someone for money, or else protecting some rich sonofabitch from his enemies.”

“So you learned to shoot and use a knife?” Joe asked, knowing this information would be very important to him in the future.

“Oh, yeah,” Holt said, looking at Joe. “I learned how to use a gun, a rifle, a knife, and everything else that kills. However, I never learned how to use a tomahawk to kill and scalp men like you do, Joe.”

“I could teach you,” Joe offered. “Take off these shackles and we'll give it a few practice throws right now.”

Holt laughed without mirth. “Yeah, I'll just bet you'd like to do that. Yeah, you sure as hell would! And I'd wind up with your tomahawk stuck in my forehead.”

Holt stopped laughing and took another pull on the bottle. He glanced over at Joe and Fiona and said, “I'll tell you both a little secret.”

“Maybe we don't want to hear it,” Joe told the big man.

“Sure you do,” Holt assured them. “Because the secret is that I admire you, Joe. I admire how tough you are and how many of the informants I've paid to keep looking for you are dead by your hand.”

“How much did you pay 'em for watchin' out for me all these months?”

“Not much. Ten dollars, but they stood to make a hundred if they saw you and got word to me fast enough to find you.”

“Ten dollars, huh,” Joe mused. “Not much to die for.”

“Men have died for a lot less,” Holt said. “So how many of 'em did you kill, Joe?”

Joe thought about that. “Four or five.”

“And you took their scalps?”

“I did,” Joe said with honest pride. “But Fiona don't like the look or smell of them, so I gave 'em up.”

“You should have kept them,” Holt told him. “I'd have liked to have them myself.”

“Why'd you want to have scalps that you didn't even take?” Joe asked with genuine curiosity.

“Well,” Holt mused, his eyelids getting heavy. “Maybe I wouldn't have. I don't know. The scalp taking is new to me. I'll have to give that one some thought.”

“Do that,” Joe told the man. “And maybe you ought to give some thought about what you plan to do to us.”

“There isn't any thinking required,” Holt replied with a yawn. “I promised Peabody that I'd bring you both in dead or alive. Preferably alive. And that's exactly what I intend to do.”

“Long ways to Nevada,” Joe commented.

“Yep, sure is. But in one month we'll be there and this business will all be over with. That'll be quite a necktie party on the Comstock, Joe. Most have seen men swing, but not many have seen a woman dance in the air.”

“Fiona isn't going to hang,” Joe vowed, his voice sharp and cold. “If I get hanged, well, I sorta deserve it. But she don't.”

“Deserving or not, she'll hang right with you, Joe. You better wrap your mind around that here and now.”

“I don't I think I will,” Joe told him. “And like I said, it's a long way to Virginia City. You speak any Paiute?”

“Hell, no.”

“I do . . . a little,” Joe told him. “I speak most all the Indian languages, or enough of each to get my meaning across. Sign language if everything else fails and their blood is up.”

“I'm not afraid of the Paiutes,” Holt told him. “They're a filthy rabble that eats lizards, grubs, and whatever else they can manage to get down their gullets. It's not like I've got to get you through Cheyenne or Blackfoot land.”

“Maybe not,” Joe agreed. “But the Paiute will fight. And we're a small party . . . given that I'll be shackled. You think that Dalton and Eli are going to stand up to being attacked by Indians?”

“They'll stand and fight. Those boys are killers.”

“Yeah, I suppose they are,” Joe said, “but I also 'spect they're back-shooters and drunk-robbers. Men used to having the advantage all the time. But out there in the desert against the Paiutes, they might just lose their nerve.”

“If they do, then we'll all probably die,” Holt said. “Either way, there's no sense in worrying about it until it happens. But I'm confident we can get to the Comstock Lode. After that, my life is going to be way different.”

“How's that?” Joe asked.

Holt was almost through with his bottle. “After I am paid off by Garrison Peabody, I'm going to go to San Francisco and live like a king for a month or two. When I start to get tired of that, I'm going to buy passage to the Sandwich Islands and live by the sea with a couple of native girls. Just swim, fuck, eat fish and coconuts, and sleep in a nice grass hut. You ever even hear of those islands, Joe?”

“Hell, no.”

“I didn't think so,” Holt told him. “I've read about them in magazines and even seen a few pictures. Ain't nothin' prettier in this world. I'll be putting all my past behind me and I'll keep enough money to live with those natives like I was their big king.”

“You don't seem like the type to be happy eatin' nuts and sleepin' under tree limbs and branches,” Joe said. “But it don't matter because you'll never live to find out.”

Holt drained his bottle and turned his burning red eyes on Joe Moss. “It's true that you're both worth more to me alive than dead. But here's something that's also true and that you'd best remember. Just don't you get too mouthy with me, or I'll start fucking your wife right in front of your face.”

Joe's face went bone white, and he had to bite his tongue until it bled in order not to say something that could get him killed by a man who was more than half drunk. Finally, he was able to speak and said, “To do that you'd have to unshackle me from her. And, Holt, when you did that, I'd find a way to kill you.”

“No, you wouldn't. Because I'd cut off your balls and you'd be so busy trying to hang on to your crotch that you wouldn't care what I did to your skinny little wife.”

Joe's eyes blazed and he didn't dare say another word. But he would keep this conversation and these crude insults to his Fiona well in mind for a future time when he had the advantage over this man. Yes, he'd remember Ransom Holt's every dirty word when he scalped and then skinned him alive.

6

“ARE WE REALLY goin' all the way to Placerville to get supplies?” Dalton asked his older brother as they topped a steep, rocky ridge and dismounted to stretch their legs and let their horses blow.

“I don't see that we got much choice,” Eli replied.

“We could just keep going with Holt's two hundred dollars.”

“Yeah,” Eli said, checking his cinch, “we could do that. Of course, Ransom Holt would pay someone to find and ambush us . . . if he didn't track us down and then kill us slow all by himself.”

“I'm not afraid of Ransom Holt,” Dalton declared, patting the big double-barreled shotgun on his saddle. “Sure he's big and hard, but there ain't no man can stand up against this shotgun. No man alive.”

Eli nodded. “I know that, but Ransom Holt has this all figured out. If we deliver Joe Moss and his little whore to Peabody, you and I have been promised a thousand dollars.”

“A thousand dollars is a heap of gold, but we both know that Holt will get a lot more for his share,” Dalton said hotly.

“That's true, but he's the boss.” Eli smiled. “And we've already decided to kill Holt just before we get to Virginia City and have all the bounty money. But to just run off with Holt's supply money right now, well, that seems sorta dumb to me.”

“Yeah,” Dalton said, “I guess it is at that. But Holt is really gettin' on my nerves. He thinks he walks on water and is smarter than all the rest of us put together.”

“I know,” Eli said, trying to appease his hotheaded younger brother, “but we can't forget that the big man is damned dangerous. We're gonna have to play along with his game until we get near the Comstock Lode, and then we'll have to be real careful about making our move and killing him . . . because I suspect he's gonna figure our game out long before we get across those deserts.”

Dalton's brow furrowed. “Do you think so, brother?”

“I'm sure of it,” Eli replied. “And I wouldn't doubt that he's plannin' to do the same to us as we're plannin' to do to him.”

Dalton nodded grimly. “So that's the game we're caught up in right now?”

“I believe it is,” Eli said to his kid brother. “Kill or be killed, providin' we survive the desert and the Paiutes.”

Dalton sighed. “We just have to keep reminding ourselves about that thousand dollars for each of us, and a lot more if we kill Holt and take Moss and his woman into Virginia City shackled.”

“We can do this,” Eli said with confidence. “Do you remember when Holt told us that he wanted to go to the Sandwich Islands and screw native girls and sleep on the beach once he gets his money from Peabody?”

“Sure do,” Dalton said with derision. “That big man is gonna sleep all right, but it'll be six feet deep under Nevada sagebrush.” Dalton chuckled. “I just got me an idea.”