Longarm and the Helldorado Kid by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans [Evans, Tabor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Westerns, Fiction
ISBN: 9780515115918
Google: uV1VAAAACAAJ
Publisher: Jove Books
Published: 1995-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The Pyramid Lake Indians had always been a peaceful tribe, except for one notable occasion more than twenty years earlier, during the Pyramid Lake War of 1860. Longarm had actually talked to a few of the survivors of this war, and of course he was well acquainted with the Paiute version of it as told by men like George Two Ponies. The battle had started when a few disreputable whites kidnapped two young Indian girls and held them hostage at the William’s Trading Station, about twenty-five miles west of the Comstock Lode on the Carson River.

The girls belonged to the Pyramid Indian tribe, and the Indians came to rescue them from the white men. In the process of freeing the girls, the Indians killed the three guilty whites and burned the station. Word of this slaughter quickly caused the whites to seek retaliation, especially in light of the rumor that a dozen white men had been killed and scalped and that five hundred Paiutes had gone on the warpath.

A force of young, untrained, and overzealous men marched north to seek revenge. They numbered just over a hundred, and because of their haste, ill-preparedness, and inexperience, were trapped by the waiting Indians and seventy-six men were killed. Only twenty-nine escaped the trap and lived to tell their story.

Panic ensued among the whites, and Longarm had heard that thousands of Comstock Lode miners fled over the Sierras to the safety of California, with entire mining settlements evacuated. A few months later, a huge battalion of trained soldiers along with five hundred volunteers returned to Pyramid Lake, where they soundly defeated the Indians, killing 160 of them. George Two Ponies himself was badly wounded in this terrible defeat and lost many of his family. After that, Fort Churchill was established to defend the territory against future Indian attacks. But the Paiutes, who had never sought trouble, buried their dead and remained in their sanctuary at Pyramid Lake, where they continued to raise corn as well as to fish and hunt in the marshes around the dead lake.

Whenever Longarm first saw Pyramid Lake, his mind was pulled back to a prehistoric time. The lake was huge, somewhat alkaline, and very still, except when the winds could whip the surface up to a froth. There were tall, majestic, and alkaline-crusted spires jutting out of the lake, and marshes where heron and migrating birds of all descriptions nested and fished.

Longarm was greeted warmly when he appeared at George’s village, a small collection of huts on the southern end of the dead lake. George was short, like most Paiutes, and it was impossible to guess his true age. Longarm thought that the rotund and genial Indian was probably in his mid-forties, but George was extremely active and reputed to be one of the finest mustangers in the state of Nevada.

“Good to see you, old friend,” Longarm said, dismounting from his rented horse to greet the Indian and his large family.

“Longarm,” George said, his round face breaking into a wide, toothless smile.

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