Jo's Triumph (10 page)

Some time after we'd joined the trail Luke tripped again, this time over a tree root. He slithered on the icy ground as he struggled to keep his feet under him. It was hard to say how far we'd come. But we had ridden through the night, so old Luke had been working hard for twelve hours straight and I'd been in the saddle for longer than that.

When the horse slipped again in the wet snow, the time had come for me to dismount and travel along on foot.

“Holy crow!” I shouted, hopping from one foot to the other. Sharp pains shot up my legs. My feet felt huge — ten
times their regular size. I had to look down to see that they had not split my boots wide open. I hobbled along, my feet protesting with every step as we slogged through the snow.

“Mail first. Horse second. Me last,” I chanted in time to Luke's muffled hoof beats. Crazy laughter bubbled and churned inside me. I imagined myself warm and cozy as I lay down in the soft snow, drifting off to sleep.

“Mail first … horse second…”

Once I fell and grabbed for Luke's mane. He paid no heed but plugged along, his eyes half-closed against the relentless wind.

More and more often he stumbled and then, at the top of an embankment, he stopped altogether.

“Git on up!” I yelled as fiercely as I could, and smacked him across the haunches.

I cried, then, the first and only time of the whole journey, for it broke my heart to hit an animal who had given his all for me under the most miser able conditions.

But what else could I do? Leave him there to freeze or be devoured by the wolves I'd heard howling not so far away? Wolves aren't so stupid as to take on an armed rider and a healthy horse, but an exhausted animal left to his own devices was another matter.

Weeping, I reached back and gave him another smack with a switch. He skidded down the bank to the creek at the bottom, crashing to his knees.

“Easy, boy. Easy.”

I pressed my cheek against his neck and rubbed him between the ears.

“Come on. You can get up.” I tugged at his bridle and Luke heaved himself to his feet. We splashed through the stream and I cried out as the ice-cold water seared my frozen feet. I staggered away from the creek, sick with the knowledge that neither Luke nor I could travel much farther.

I thought of my beautiful ma and the sister I never knew. I spoke a word to my dead pa and cursed my brothers who had left me in Carson City. I offered up prayers for me, for Sarah
and her grandfather, and for Luke, and then I nearly jumped out of my skin because right behind me Luke let out a loud whinny.

Coming back through the snow was the most welcome sound ever — an answering whinny.

I couldn't have cared less whether the other horse belonged to a crazy gun-toting settler or even to James himself. I shouted as loud as I could and made my way toward the answering calls.

When, a few minutes later, the station- house emerged from the swirling snowstorm, I near enough fainted away with relief.

“Joe? Where in tarnation are you comin' from?” the stationmaster asked, inspecting the time card before signing it and slipping it back into the pouch.
With much rushing around and shouting, two men readied a new horse in record time. A rider I didn't know mounted up to continue the ride west.

“This ain't Robert's Creek,” I finally had a chance to say.

The stationmaster laughed and shook his head.

“Robert's Creek is about thirty miles behind you. This here is Dry Creek.”

I opened my mouth and shut it again. How far had I traveled? Ninety miles? A hundred? More?

Far enough, I'd say.

“Come on in out of the cold and tell me what happened. You can tell Simpson and Wood from the militia, too. They arrived not long ago looking for you when you didn't show up at Sulphur Springs or Robert's Creek. We figured you'd been robbed. Shot dead.”

The four men huddled by the fire in the unfinished stationhouse and looked expectantly at me. As I told them my story, gusts of wind lifted the canvas tarp they had tied over the space where the roof should have been.

“We gotta get ourselves a roof before we get any
bad
weather,” one of the men joked.

I grinned despite the pain in my feet as they started to thaw. They hurt even more than when they were frozen, if such a thing were possible.

I told the men how James had planned to rob the mail. “James said he'd kill me if I got in the way.”

The stationmaster nodded. “You done the right thing, coming here,” he said.

The two men from the army pulled on their coats.

“We'll head back toward Sulphur Springs, see if we can find James.”

“Wait,” I said, reaching for my boots. “I'm coming.”

“You ain't going nowhere,” the stationmaster said.

Part of me wanted to say, “Fine — I'll stay right here by the fire.” But another part of me, an angry part I never knew I had, was itching to see James hauled away to jail. I knew exactly where the drop-off was. I could show the soldiers. Maybe James had
left the second mochila there. Maybe he was still waiting at the sulphur pools.

“Try to stop me,” I said, my hand moving over my pistol.

“Whoa now, boy!”

But we didn't have a chance to finish the argument because, right then we heard scuffling outside and the door burst open sending a cloud of wet snowflakes scurrying across the floor.

A man's bulky frame filled the doorway. Snow clung to his beard and he stamped the snow from his boots. It was James.

“I'm looking for a certain Joe Whyte — a lowdown thief I believe is headed this — ”

Then he saw me.

Without stopping to think I leapt to my feet and pulled out my pistol, aiming it at the point right between his eyes.

“That's him!” I said. “That's James!”

This was not the welcome James had expected. His wild blue eyes widened as he stared at me and my gun. Then he turned tail and ran out into
the snow, the two militiamen and the stationmaster hot on his heels.

He didn't get but three feet before they brought him to the ground, dragged him back inside and arrested him.

The men tied James hand and foot to a bunk. We took turns watching over him. When it was my turn, I kept my pistol close at hand. Every so often James scowled at me and spat on the floor.

He looked awful scrawny all tied up like that and I wasn't afraid of him no more.

“So how come you were reporting your own robbery?” I asked when the others were outside tending the stock and splitting more firewood.

He glowered at me, but after a time he answered. “Figgered you tried to take my money. If I weren't going to get it back, at least I could get a reward,” he said.

Reward? I hadn't thought of a reward.

I don't know what got into me then. I suppose I felt brave seeing as how I had my pistol and James was trussed
up like a Christmas goose. But I asked him right out, “So, you gonna tell?”

He sneered at me and laughed a short, nasty bark of a laugh.

“What? And tell them a
girl
stopped me from getting what I wanted?” He shook his head. “I been in jail before and I've got out before. I'll git out again. And when I do,
Miss
Joe, don't you think I won't be coming to find you.”

I swallowed hard but kept my chin up and met his gaze with my own. “You can look,” I said. “But you ain't going to find me. And if you do, don't think I wouldn't use this.” I raised my pistol and he shifted uneasily.

I could have put a bullet between that snake's eyes right then and there. But I didn't. It wouldn't have been right.

When the snow stopped, the militiamen rode up to Sulphur Springs where they found the mochila stuffed with paper. That, and my statement, was all the evidence they needed to take James to the jailhouse in Carson City. The next day I headed back up to Ruby Valley.

All the regulars were there but so was Bolivar Roberts. He slapped me on the back and said, “You're one of the best, Joe. And, the Company looks after its best.”

“Thank you, sir. Mail first. Pony second. Rider last.”

He winked and said, “That may be so. But a pony can't use a reward. I suspect you can.” I sure didn't know what to say when Mr. Roberts gave me a cash reward for saving the mail. I don't suppose it was even close to whatever was in the mailbags, but when I added the money to what I'd saved of my wages I had more than enough for my coach ticket to California. Not only that, I had enough to keep myself through the winter and buy a mule and enough equipment so I'd be able to head to the gold fields just as soon as the weather was warm enough in the spring.

I'd miss running the mail. But near as anybody could tell, they wouldn't need riders much longer. The telegraph was coming along fast as anything. As
soon as the lines from east and west joined up, there wouldn't be any more call for a mail service like the Pony Express.

I didn't know whether I was going to find my brothers, but as each day went by I cared a little less whether I ever saw them again. If we ever did meet up, my, wouldn't I just give those boys a piece of my mind! And if not, well, it seemed to me there was enough gold out that way for anyone who dared to look and who wasn't afraid of a little hard work. Maybe Sarah would make another trip to California and we could be friends again.

I ran my fingers along the outside of my leather holster. Panning for gold couldn't be more dangerous than riding back and forth through Utah Ter ritory, could it?

I, for one, couldn't wait to find out.

Jo's Triumph
was inspired by the stories of several remarkable women of the west: Charlotte Parkhurst, who cut off her hair, dressed as a boy, and became known as one of the finest stagecoach drivers of the 1850's and 60's; Sarah Winnemucca, an advocate and spokeswoman for the Paiute Indians who lived for a time at Ormsby House and witnessed the incident with the Washo Indians; and Sarah Emma Edmonds, who disguised herself as a man and joined the Union Army as Franklin Thompson.

The Pony Express operated between April, 1860, and November, 1861. A section of the trail not far from Carson City was closed temporarily when hostilities between the Paiutes and the settlers were at their worst. Though the general context of
Jo's Triumph
is rooted in fact, I have taken liberties with specific dates and locations, invented a couple of Pony Express stations, and pressed others into service slightly ahead of time in order to accommodate Jo's fictional adventure. Where historical sources differed, I chose to use those accounts which best suited the requirements of this novel.

Though numerous orphanages were in existence at the time, the Carson City Home
for Unfortunate Girls and all its inhabitants are figments of my imagination.

Major Ormsby, the Williams brothers, Chief Numaga, Uncle Billy, Bolivar Roberts, and several others mentioned in the text are all historical figures who might well have met Joselyn Whyte had she been alive at the time this story takes place.

If you are interested in reading more about this time in history, the following titles provide information about the Pony Express, the Pyramid Lake War, and the life of Sarah Winnemucca:

Life Among the Piutes (sic): Their Wrongs and Claims

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins

Chalfont Press, 1969

The Pony Express

Peter Anderson

The Children's Press (Grolier), 1996

The Pony Express in Nevada

Dorothy Mason for the Nevada Bureau of Land Management

Nevada State Museum, 1996

Sand in A Whirlwind: The Paiute Indian War of 1860

Ferol Egan

Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1972