Wolf's Head (A Neal Fargo Adventure--Book Seven)

by John Benteen

  Duke’s head rolled in negation. “Go around again? Jest as soon have a redwood drop on me … Christ, man. You’ve whipped me.”

  “Just barely,” Fargo said. Then his legs gave out, and he dropped down to sit beside Duke in the dust. “Do I get the job?”

  With bloody, shaking hands, Duke took out a smashed pack of cigarettes. From it, he extracted two crumpled smokes, passed one to Fargo, who lipped it gratefully. His own hand trembled as he struck a match, held it for Hotchkiss. The Duke inhaled, blew a plume of smoke.

  “Buddy,” he said, “if you kin use a double-bit ax and a crosscut like you can use them fists, you and me together can cut over the Wolf’s Head all by ourselves. Whoever the hell you are, you’re on.”

  “My name is Fargo. Neal Fargo.”

  Hotchkiss stared. “Fargo? That Fargo? The one that broke the jam at the Salmon Rapids back in 1912?”

  “That one.”

  Hotchkiss let out a shuddering breath. “You oughta told me.”

  “Then we’d have missed a good fight.”

  The Duke laughed, a deep, joyful sound. “By God, wouldn’t we?” He and Fargo lurched unsteadily to their feet. Then Hotchkiss’s big hand slammed Fargo between the shoulder blades. “Okay! When somebody whips the Duke, the Duke buys! Let’s go, Fargo! The drinks are on me!”

  ~*~

  In the back room of The Blue Ox, Fargo and Hotchkiss killed a bottle. And Duke drew for him a picture far clearer and more forbidding than either The Colonel or MacKenzie had.

  “There’s lotsa fine timber on the Wolf’s Head, Fargo, you never seen no prettier fir. But damn it, she’s a bitch to log; I never seen no harder chance. All straight up and down, and Judas! You got to fight for ever’ stick of timber you git out.” He sighed. “All the easy loggin’s gone. I can remember when you could cut right on the hills above the Sound, just give the logs a push and they was in the water, boomed, and ready to tow. Now you got to go so far back in the mountains they got to pipe the sunlight in before you can find a tree taller than your armpit.”

  He drank, long and deep. “It wouldn’t be so bad, neither, if we could jest cut where we wanted to when we pleased. But The Old Man’s lease says we cut a certain way and that’s how we cut and no other. And we got a deadline to meet—a time contract with the mills. We got to deliver so many board feet and we got to have the logs there by such and such a time, and if we don’t, that contract goes to Lasher and then The Old Man’ll default on his lease payment and Lasher’ll get the Wolf’s Head, too, and Great Northwestern’s finished. And the hell of it is, it’s a jinxed job.” He shook his head. “Ever’thing that can go wrong has gone wrong. I always figgered I was a pretty good woods boss, but I’ve never tackled a cut like this. I’ve lost more men on this job—killed—than in all the other chances I ever bossed, and got less timber to show for it. It’s jinxed, okay. I guess that’s what comes from havin’ a woman in camp.”

  Fargo sat up straight. “Woman?”

  “Girl. Damn pretty, too—a real doll baby. Only she’s off limits, so don’t git all hot. Name’s Barbara Mannix, her daddy’s the Government timber cruiser on the job, stationed with us permanently to check our cutting, see that we stick to the contract terms. You know and I know, Fargo, a woman’s got no more business in a loggin’ camp than I’d have in a Ladies’ Aid Society. I got to admit, she keeps clear of the timber beasts, don’t cause no trouble, but I still say, a woman in camp’s a Jonah and no two ways about it!”

  Fargo nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds like a mean deal all the way around.”

  “Be even meaner when we finally drive to the mill. That Wolf’s Head River is tough as hell, especially in the fall floods. You know this country, it’s always rainin’, but we really git it come November, two or three months from now. That’s when the Wolf’s Head runs full, and that’s when we take our sticks down to the Sound.”

  “No other way to get the timber out?”

  “None. That country’s so rough you can’t build roads or rail lines through it even if the Government would let you. And it won’t. So we dam the Wolf’s Head, build our booms of logs up there and when the floods come, we blow the dam and down we go. The way the Wolf’s Head falls down those mountains it’s gonna be a real rollercoaster ride. What makes it bad is nobody’s ever driven that river before. But I’ve been down it in a boat and there’s chutes and gorges and whirlpools and falls in there that are like nothin’ you ever imagined.” He drank again. “Anyhow, that’s the layout. Might as well stock up on booze now. None allowed in camp, and it’s gonna be a long, dry summer.”

  ~*~

  It was well after midnight when Fargo left The Blue Ox, head buzzing with whiskey and the fight’s after-effects, his body aching in every joint and muscle. Seattle’s nightlife, however, was still going strong; drunken men and raucous women prowled the streets; hard-eyed girls stood in doorways, beckoning; bums snored in alleys or hung around street corners, panhandling the free-spending loggers.

  Two blocks toward the hotel from The Blue Ox, one of these bums blocked Fargo’s way—a bent, shuffling figure in heavy, tattered overcoat, toboggan cap pulled down almost over his face, although the night was not nearly that chilly. Fargo tried to dodge him, but the man stepped sideways, would not let him by. His left hand was held out, big and grimy; his right thrust deep in the pocket of the overcoat. “Feller, I ain’t et in two days—”

  “All right,” said Fargo with resignation. He dug in his pants for change. In that instant, the panhandler moved closer.

  “Don’t twitch, don’t yell,” his voice rasped. “I got a Banker’s Special in my pocket, and she’s pointed right at your gut.”

  Fargo froze, cursing himself for being off-guard. Too much booze, and the battering Duke had dealt him. “You’ll never get away with a stick-up here.”

  “Don’t let it bother you,” the man said sardonically. He backed away, and Fargo saw the muzzle of the gun against the cloth, knew he had told the truth. Knew, too, from the way that he slipped out of reach of any sudden play that he was no amateur; he was a professional. Then the fellow said, “You keep your hands out and clear. One funny move and you’re gone.” He jerked his head toward an alley a few feet away. “In there, nice and quiet and easy.”

  There was nothing for it but to obey. Normally, perhaps, Fargo could have overcome even such a dead drop, but he was heavy with fatigue, his reflexes slow, his hands swollen and stiff from the fight with Hotchkiss. No chance, yet. Still, in that clock-tick, he became totally sober, totally alert.

  He turned, entered the alley. The man came behind him. “Now, elevate those hands all the way and keep moving.”

  Fargo obeyed. They traveled the length of the alley which was lit just faintly enough from second-story windows overhead to eliminate any chance that Fargo might make a break in darkness. As he walked, hands lifted obediently, he asked, “Who sent you—Lasher?”

  “Shut up.”

  But, he thought, it had to be. Saul Lasher was a bastard, but a smart one. He must have been keeping MacKenzie’s office under surveillance, maybe even had a spy planted there. Fargo’s conference with MacKenzie had not gone unnoticed. And somebody had recognized Fargo, knew his trade now—troubleshooter for hire. Somebody who didn’t want him to make it to the camp at the Wolf’s Head Tract. Lasher was the only one.

  They reached the alley’s end. It gave on to a narrow, darkened street. Now the waterfront was not far; its pungent brackish smell freighted the wind. “Turn left,” said the gunman from behind Fargo. He obeyed. They moved toward the docks. Now he could see lights across the harbor shimmering on the water, the log booms floating outside the mills, the dark shapes of tugs and towboats. They reached an old, splintered wharf, totally deserted. A rotten scow, abandoned, floated at anchor below its pilings. “Right up to the edge,” the gunman said.

  Fargo bit his lip. When he reached the edge, a single shot and down he’d go into the water. Neatly disposed of. But he kept moving, acute
ly aware of the gun trained on his back. Foot by foot, step by step, he approached the wharf’s end. Another two strides, three, and then it would come. He had to do something and do it fast. But the minute his upraised hand moved, his captor would pull the trigger. And not even he was fast enough to dodge a bullet at point-blank range.

  Now he reached the water’s edge. “All right,” the man said and, in that instant, Fargo fell forward. The gun roared; he heard the whine of lead over his head as he toppled off the dock’s end. He hit the water headfirst, went under, clawing at the shoulder-holstered .38 even as it closed over his head.

  He went down, kicked backwards, came up beneath the wharf. The water was foul, icy; he was racked with shudders. He shook his head, clearing eyes and nose, sucked up a gulp of air, seized a rotten cross brace, sank low, sheltered by the wharf, his nearly submerged head a tiny target.

  Above, he heard the scuffle of footsteps on the dock. “Goddamn,” the gunman rasped. Fargo grinned; then, the Colt in hand, he ducked, dropped beneath the surface. His heavy boots and jacket weighed him down but he didn’t have far to swim. He kicked under the hulk of the scow alongside the dock. It was an abandoned wanigan, maybe ten feet wide, twenty long, the boat in which the bedrolls and supplies for a river drive were carried. He pushed beneath its keelless hull, broke water in the shelter of its gunwale on the side away from the wharf. He hoisted up, caught the gunwale with his left hand, pulled his body half out of the water. Now he could see the dock. Snub-nosed gun out and raised, the man in the overcoat was a dark blot, bent over the end, staring at the place where Fargo had vanished.

  Fargo’s lips twisted in a smile like a wolf’s snarl. He wanted a full, front-on shot. He spat foul water. Then he yelled, “Over here!”

  Instinctively, the man jumped up, whirled. He threw the gun down into line; he must have had cat’s eyes to spot Fargo’s head so quickly. But Fargo had already aimed. Now he pulled the trigger.

  The hollow-point smashed the gunman right beneath the breastbone. Its explosive impact sent tatters of overcoat flying, as its impetus picked up the man and threw him over the wharf’s side. Fargo heard the splash when he hit. There had been no outcry, and only the single shot.

  Fargo laughed soundlessly. Then he allowed his teeth to chatter as he pulled himself up aboard the old wanigan, from thence to the wharf by rusted ladder spikes set into a piling. Cautiously he made the wharf’s deck, head swiveling, eyes straining to pierce the darkness. This area of warehouses and deserted buildings was empty of all life; the assassin had picked a good, safe spot for a killing.

  He went to the edge, looked over. There was no sign of the body. That overcoat would drag it down. Much later, when it had swollen with the gases of death, it would, perhaps surface. By then, he’d be bound for the Wolf’s Head. Meanwhile, he thought, grinning, Lasher could wonder what had become of his hired hand.

  He turned away. When he did, his foot kicked something that skittered across the wharf. He traced it down, picked it up—the gunman’s snub-nosed pistol. He checked it, made sure it was fully loaded. Holstering his own Colt beneath his jacket, he slipped the short gun into his jacket pocket. All the way back to the hotel—to all appearances a drunk who’d fallen into the Sound and managed to get out—he kept his hand on it, ready in case there was another attempt. Next time, he’d not be caught napping.

  But there was no next time. He made the hotel safely, ignoring the pimply-faced kid who served as night clerk and who stared at him as he dripped through the tiny lobby. In his room he locked the door. Switching on the light, he peeled off his sodden clothes, rubbed himself down with a towel from the wash stand. Teeth still chattering, he went to a bottle on the battered dresser, pulled the cork with strong, white teeth, and drank long and deeply. That stopped the shivering.

  He pulled clean longjohns over the hard, muscular torso scarred with ancient wounds, the long lean legs that also bore their share of souvenirs of a rough and dangerous life. He double-checked the door lock and the window.

  Then he went to bed. But not before he laid the double-barreled sawed-off Fox beside him like a mistress, where he could snatch it up in case Lasher tried again.

  Chapter Three

  He had one more day in Seattle before Duke Hotchkiss and the crew pulled out for the Wolf’s Head. When he awakened the next morning, most of the effects of the night before were gone; his finely tuned body had absorbed them while he slept. He dressed in fresh clothes, not logger’s gear, but shirt, tie, corduroy jacket, whipcord pants and his cavalry boots. As always, he clamped the cavalry hat, retrieved from the wharf where it had fallen, on his head at a jaunty angle. With the shoulder-holstered Colt in place and his hand on the snub-nosed pistol taken from the gunman in his pocket, he went out, found a restaurant that looked decent, engulfed a huge breakfast of steak, eggs, flapjacks.

  That hunger satisfied, he began to feel another. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman. Once he pulled out for the woods, it would be a longer one. Of course, he hadn’t been in Seattle for a couple of years, but he imagined she was still around. There was a telephone in the restaurant; he used it to call a number etched in his memory; he never forgot anything.

  A maid’s voice answered, “Miz Houghton’s residence.”

  Fargo said, “Let me speak to Mrs. Houghton.”

  “She still asleep.”

  “Wake her up. Tell her it’s Neal Fargo.”

  “She be mad, do I do that.”

  “She’ll be a hell of a lot madder if you don’t. Now, do what I say.”

  A moment’s hesitation; then she yielded. There was silence; then a woman’s voice, drowsy, silken with sleep, yet excited, too. “Neal! Is that really you?”

  “Hello, Lynne. How you doing?”

  “Ahhh—” He could imagine her stretching luxuriously beneath the satin sheets. “Much better, thank you, now that I hear your voice again. What a delightful surprise to wake up to. Will you join me for breakfast?”

  Fargo’s wolf’s smile twisted his ugly features. “Why not? Three-quarters of an hour?”

  “That’ll be just about right.”

  “I’ll see you, then.”

  “Be on time, darling.” She chuckled softly. “And everything will be hot for you.”

  “I’ll be there,” Fargo said. “Goodbye.” He hung up.

  A trolley took him up hills to a fashionable section of town. The apartment house was large, expensive, and, on its top floor, Lynne Houghton’s flat was a reflection of herself. The living room into which he was admitted was furnished in gilt and white, utterly luxurious, the carpet deep and soft under Fargo’s boots, the crimson draperies shutting out the sunlight.

  The maid ran approving eyes over Fargo’s tall frame, his hard face.

  “Miz Houghton in the bedroom,” she murmured. “This way, if you please.”

  “I know where it is,” Fargo said, grinning, and went to it. He knocked once, sharply.

  That silken voice said, “Come in.”

  The bed was enormous. The girl who lay in it was lovely. Her hair, let down, spilled over her shoulders in a golden stream, framing a face ivory white, its features cleanly chiseled and patrician, eyes huge and blue, lips full and red. She wore a nightgown and peignoir of nearly transparent apricot, frothy with lace. The room smelled excitingly of perfume. There was a table by the bed on which were covered dishes, a pot of coffee and a teapot. At the sight of Fargo, Lynne Houghton’s eyes flared smokily, the red lips curved. “Hello, Neal,” she said huskily.

  He went to her, bent, kissed her, and her mouth opened beneath his hungrily. Her hand came up to caress the back of his neck. The kiss lasted a long time. When it was over she sank back against heaped pillows the color of her nightdress and gave a shuddering sigh, large, rounded breasts rising and falling beneath the clinging silk, her nipples making little tents in the fabric. “Mmm,” she murmured. “You’ve improved with age.”

  “So have you,” Fargo sat down beside her on the bed. S
he took his hand, pressed it against the soft flesh of her bosom.

  “It’s been ages since I’ve heard from you,” she said accusingly in that husky voice. “Why didn’t you write?”

  “I don’t write many letters. Besides, where I’ve been, they’re hard to mail.”

  Her brows went up. “Not in prison?”

  He laughed. “Nope. That’s the one place I’ve missed. But … Mexico, Panama, the Philippines, Alaska ...”

  “Umm? Business must have been good.”

  “Fine. How about you?”

  She laughed. “You and I—we’re like undertakers. What we sell never goes out of style.”

  He backed off a little, looked at her. She would be twenty-seven, maybe a little more, now. He had first known her in Rhyolite, a hell-roaring Nevada mining town, eight or nine years ago when she had lived in poverty, daughter of a broken-down prospector. Death Valley had got him; it had been a full year after he’d vanished before his skeleton was found, its leg bone broken, an empty canteen beside it. Meanwhile, she’d been left stranded. Fargo, dealing faro, had taken her in; she had, for a while, been his mistress. But the time had come when he had to move on—and he always traveled light, never liking to be hampered by a woman. As it turned out he had not needed to worry about her; she could take care of herself. Just before he pulled out, Cal Houghton hit town, a grizzled prospector who had just made a fantastic silver strike. He spotted the young girl, wanted her, got her—marriage license and all. He’d sold out his claim for a fortune; they’d moved to Seattle, a good place to maintain contact with a venture or two in Alaska that he’d put money in. A year later he was dead, his old heart unable to take the strain of the high life of a rich man with a young and lusty wife—and Lynne Houghton was heiress to a fortune.

  She had spent hardly any of it. There were plenty of men in Seattle with money—and she liked men and money. She could juggle two or three rich lovers at once, with each thinking he was paying the tab exclusively for the life of luxury she liked. But when Fargo hit town all bets were off for as long as he was around; there was something in her that still responded to the hard-bitten fighting man—a streak of wildness, of outlawry—that made it amusing to her to hoard her own money and take what she needed off of others.