by John Benteen
Duke added, “Give ’em hell, Fargo.”
“Yeah,” he said. He brought his arm up and forward in a signal to his men. “Move out!” he called and spurred the mule.
The Wolf’s Head Tract was a magnificent piece of country. By the time they had reached its limits, still untouched by logging, virgin forest towered above them, huge Douglas firs hundreds of years in age, their pointed tips seeming to scrape the very sky itself, the solitude beneath their spreading branches total, a perpetual twilight, unbroken by any sound save the whisper of the wind, the occasional chatter of a squirrel. The vast forest climbed the side of mountains, carpeted deep ravines, gave way in places to sunlit high meadows where clean swift-rushing streams foamed and plunged. This was what the Northwest had been before the white man came, and Fargo felt a touch of bitterness that it must be cut and spoiled at all. The damned politicians—if The Colonel could have his way it would remain untouched. But the politicians had taken over and so its violation was inevitable.
Well, at least MacKenzie would leave something of it; Lasher would rape the mountainsides bare, gouge out the valleys, turn this fine country into a desert. Or, Fargo thought with rage and disgust, burn it into wasteland …
It was a damned shame that MacKenzie had to hire men out of his own pocket to keep that from happening. By rights, the whole Tract should constantly be patrolled by Forest Rangers. But the Forest Service was a victim of the politicians, too, starved for the money they spent so freely on the pork-barrel projects that would line their own pockets. It would take more Forest Rangers than there were in the whole Northwest to stand guard against Lasher. And maybe it was just as well the job was up to him, to Fargo. Rangers were good men, but their job was not to fight …
He dropped his men off according to the plan he had worked out from the map before turning in, and after consulting with Duke about the prevailing winds. So far they were shaping up well; he thought he could rely on them.
By morning of the second day he was alone in the wilderness.
After a breakfast of canned salmon and cold brook water, he pushed the mules high up on a mountainside. There he tethered them, and from the pack mule he unlatched a canvas bag. It contained a safety belt, climbing rope and climbing spikes, the same outfit used in topping and rigging a spar. With binoculars slung about his neck, he selected a towering giant of a fir and went up it quickly but carefully. High on its flank, resting on the in-driven irons, he put the binoculars to his eyes and looked off across endless miles of broken country, all thickly furred with spruce. He searched carefully, alert for any thread of smoke, any unusual movement. There was none.
Presently, satisfied, he recased the glasses. A bough scraped against his shoulder; needles fell from it. He put up a hand, touched it appraisingly. It was waxen with stored pitch, and dry and brittle. Rain … Damn it, what was needed was a good, heavy, two-day general rain to wet down all this country; that would pull Lasher’s fuse. But there was not a shred of cloud in the whole stainless blue bowl of sky.
He went down, removed the gear, mounted up and rode on. Four more times during the day he climbed, surveyed, and saw nothing of consequence. Nor did he on the next day or the next, as he made his rounds, checking the patrols. Faithfully and without complaint, they were carrying out their assignments, observing the fire prevention rules he’d laid down. And none had anything alarming to report.
Fargo began to wonder if MacKenzie’s information had been straight. But with every hour, the woods grew drier, more like a tinderbox. It might be that Lasher was waiting, biding time until the exact moment when a single thrown match would be enough to explode the Wolf’s Head into a great convulsion of rolling flame.
Fargo was too old a hand to be lulled into carelessness or slackness. Remorselessly, ceaselessly, he made his rounds. And he himself never smoked, much as he liked tobacco, except beside a stream, where match and cigarette butt alike could be thoroughly doused.
Then, on the morning of the fourth day, leaning out from the climbing rope, pivoted on his spikes, glasses to his eyes, he saw it.
There, miles to the south, ominous against the brightness of the sky—a thread of smoke, long, gray and tenuous, curling up from the furry shag of distant forest! Fargo cursed. At that instant he heard, from very far away, the thunder of three shots, a pause, then the rattle of three more. He cased the binoculars, and then abandoned caution as he came rocketing down the tree.
He landed lightly on his feet, unsnapped one end of the rope and whipped it from around the tree. Instinctively, then, before doing anything else, he turned to reach for the shotgun at the fir’s base where he’d propped it before beginning his ascent. It was an awkward thing to carry on a climb.
“You touch that gun, mister, and you’re dead.”
Fargo froze. Then they were there, drifting out of the darkness beneath the spruce like a pair of shadows. Big men, tough men, in the clothes of loggers. And both of them held Colt automatics trained squarely on him.
Chapter Eight
Fargo cursed soundlessly, but he did not move. They had him cold. Hampered by the climbing irons he wore, the safety belt and rope, there was not a chance of fighting back under a dead drop of the kind they had. Slowly, raising his hands, he straightened up.
The man on the left wore a red shirt and had a beard to match. He laughed. “We coulda shot you down outa there like a squirrel, but Lasher said no. He said if we caught the feller in the Army hat, to make him talk. He wants to know what happened to his people in MacKenzie’s camp. He wants to know what’s goin’ on there and exactly how many men you got out here and where.” Then he said, “Watch him close, Jake, while I shake him down.”
“Right,” Jake wore a blue shirt and was clean-shaven except for a blond mustache. Red Shirt came up to Fargo carefully, whisked the Colt from its holster. Fargo was helpless as the man patted him down, frisked him, took out the Batangas knife. “That seems to clean you up pretty good. We already got the rifle off your saddle.” He bent and picked up the shotgun. “Damn one-man army, ain’t you?” Then he jerked the muzzle of the Colt. “Back up against the tree.” With the shotgun butt he pushed Fargo against the trunk. Then he seized the loose end of the climbing rope, coiled it in his hand, unsnapped it. “This’ll do to tie those mitts of yours.”
He tossed the shotgun aside and did it deftly, holstering his pistol and forcing Fargo to hold out his hands, wrists together while Jake kept an unblinking watch at point blank range. While he worked, he went on talking. “I reckon you seen that smoke. First fire; come a little while from now, there’ll be more. Includin’ one right here. Which, I reckon you know, you’re gonna be right in the middle of. But if you’re a good boy and tell us what we want to know, we’ll put a bullet in your head and you’ll die easy. If you don’t talk, we’ll let you burn.” He took out Fargo’s Batangas knife, fiddled with it, worked it open. “A man that’s been hamstrung, he can’t get away from fire so easy, you know, and once we put out a little coal oil and toss a match, you’ll be like an ant in a furnace—” He laughed thinly, obscenely. “Crawlin’ with your tendons cut, tryin’ to out-crawl the flames. Have plenty of time to feel it good, then ...” Suddenly his grin vanished. “All right, Fargo, or whatever your name is. Lemme have the information Lasher wants. Give it to me quick and save us both a lot of trouble.”
Fargo sucked in a long breath. He had been half-listening, with the rest of him appraising the situation for a chance, any chance. A half-second’s distraction, that would be enough. But these gunmen knew their business; they concentrated on what they were doing, their alertness as wolf-like as his own. He had to play for time. He formulated words; opened his mouth to speak.
Then the gunfire came.
It was far away, in the direction of the blaze, but it came in the long crackling roll of many weapons firing all at once, a full-scale battle. Red Shirt’s eyes widened and for the blink of an eye Jake’s head turned and Fargo, already knowing what to do when he had his chan
ce, brought up one long, lean leg, its boot still shod with climbing irons, and kicked sideways. Eight inches of razor-sharp steel slid between Red Shirt’s ribs. Red Shirt screamed as the climbing irons slashed his vitals and Fargo hooked his leg desperately, bringing the impaled, sagging body around and to him, as in that instant Jake fired, the bullet chunked into Red Shirt’s body, which Fargo had pulled between them.
Fargo made a grab for Red Shirt’s gun simultaneously, but now the corpse was sagging and, with his bound hands, he missed. He kicked the iron free and dived, as Jake, firing again, sent a bullet whining past his head.
He landed hard, bound hands clamping the shotgun stock just behind the breech, rolled, and another bullet struck the woods just where his body had been. Then, slipping the safety of the fully loaded weapon, he came up as yet another .45 slug burned a rip across his upper arm. His fingers found the double-triggers; he pointed the gun in the general direction of Jake and fired both barrels.
That was the beauty of the weapon; eighteen buckshot spraying from those open bores made a pattern nothing could escape, even if there was no time to aim. Jake was squeezing off another shot when the barrage caught him full on, picked him up and flung him backward. The bullet whined into the air. The bloody thing that had been Jake lay motionless and Fargo wasted not an instant on it, knowing in advance what that charge could do. He gained his feet, lurched in the bloody spikes to Red Shirt’s sprawled carcass, found his Batangas knife. He thrust its sharp point into the fir trunk and with it fixed firmly there sawed the climbing rope off around his wrists.
As soon as he had freed his hands he crammed two more rounds into the shotgun—the first law of survival. Then he worked off the spikes, unfastened the safety belt. He found his hat—knocked free in the dive—clamped it on his head, thrust his Colt back into the holster. Fully armed again, he ran for the tethered mules. Down there to the south, all hell was breaking loose. His men must have clustered to put out the fire, and Lasher’s men were trying to keep them from it.
He was on the mule’s back in a flying leap, seizing the pack animal’s rope. He drove in spurs, sent both mules rocketing through the woods, headed down the slope and south, and he rode with the shotgun at the ready. Lasher had made his play. There’d be more of his men scattered through the woods.
~*~
This time he saw them before they saw him. He’d gone five miles when he caught the pungent smell of smoke close by. His head swiveled like that of a beast of prey seeking the scent of quarry as he tested the wind. Then he saw its source, a small clearing just ahead, not much bigger than a room, saw a bright tongue of orange and the colors of men’s clothes moving among the trees. There was no time for stealth; he slammed the mule with spurs again.
They heard him coming, turned as he broke out of the fir into the clearing. Lasher’s men were also traveling in pairs; the two of them whirled, stood frozen in surprise, one with lighted match still in hand, the other about to begin the pouring of kerosene. Their eyes widened at the sight of Fargo; he was the last thing they ever saw.
He fired the shotgun on the run, right barrel, shift aim, left. One of them, caught low, had time to scream and kick; the other died outright, the kerosene can dropping from his hand. Behind the bodies, a small flame, campfire size, was growing rapidly. Fargo jerked the mules to a skidding halt. He was off his mount in a long leap, clinging to its reins as it snorted at the smell of smoke. With his other hand he fought loose one of the backpack spray canisters from the mule. He worked the plunger three, four times, frantically; then it had regained what pressure had leaked out during the morning. He locked the plunger, pointed the hose, pulled the trigger on the nozzle. Water arced, sprayed, caught the flames beginning to lick at a dry trunk, trying to climb it at the clearing’s edge. Like a frightened animal trying to escape, the fire crawled back down the trunk, flowed off in two directions through the duff. Fargo pulled the mules closer, hugging the spray with one hand, and fired water again; flame hissed, smoke and steam roiled up together. The bright arteries of orange winked out, leaving only glowing sparks.
Only then did Fargo tie the mules. In the distance he could still hear the popping of guns; it had increased rather than diminished. But he could not go on until this fire was out. He doused all sparks, stirred the duff, with a shovel, worked five, ten precious minutes to make sure he had caught every glowing coal. Then he reloaded spray and shovel, mounted up, rode on toward the sound of the guns, not giving the bodies in the clearing a second glance, two more rounds in the loaded sawed-off.
It was a breakneck ride, one of the roughest he’d ever taken over treacherous country. On a horse, he’d never have made it but the mules were surefooted and nimble. They skittered with agility down slopes, leaped obstructions, struggled up hillsides slippery with dry needles, never slowed for ledges that a horse would have had to walk along. But as the sound of shooting grew louder they began to shy and balk. It was not the gunfire as it was the smell that clogged their nostrils—and those of Fargo. For now the air was thick and rank with wood smoke, and he could see it drifting grayly through the trees.
Then, from behind a log, a man reared up, directly in his path. Fargo almost fired before he recognized the char-smudged face of one of his own crew. “Davis!” he snapped. “What the hell?”
Davis dropped back behind the log. “Git down, Fargo! These damn woods are full of snipers!”
Fargo wasted no time with questions. He left the saddle in a flying leap. At that instant, his riding mule brayed, dropped, caught by a bullet behind the foreleg. Fargo snatched the Winchester free just before the creature’s body smashed it. The pack mule, its lead rope tied to the dead mule’s saddle horn, reared back, pawed and fought, but could not free itself. Fargo heard a bullet chunk into wood, felt splinters from the log’s top in his face as he dived behind it and landed flat there next to Davis.
He levered a round into the rifle’s chamber. “What’s goin’ on?”
“They set a big one here! It’s still burnin’. We all gathered, tried to put it out. They was waitin’ for us, opened up on us. We been fightin’ for the whole mornin’. We used the smoke for cover, managed to control the blaze for a spell, but they brought in more men. We had to give up, it’s caught good now, burnin’ like hell down the valley. And we’re gonna have to clean out Lasher’s men before we can do anything about it!”
“All right,” said Fargo grimly. “Then we’ll clean ’em out.”
Cautiously, he swiveled his head, trying to appraise the situation. They were in a wide ravine, thickly clad with fir on either side. “Our men are all up and down this slope, Lasher’s on yonder one,” Davis told him. “The fire’s burnin’ down the floor of the ravine, away from us, thank God. It’s still on the ground. If we can clear out those birds over yonder, we might still stop it if it don’t crown. But it’s gittin’ bigger all the time and if the wind rises, it’ll crown out sure, and once it’s in the treetops there’ll be hell to pay!”
Suddenly he raised his Springfield, fired, then dropped back. “Missed!” he growled. “Can’t see a damned thing in this smoke! We sent a man into camp. One hope is that a crew’ll git here from there to help us, but even so it’ll be damned near night before they can—” Suddenly he fired again. “Aha, you son’bitch!” he chortled as a man screamed on the other slope. “Before they git here,” he finished. “And if those bastards keep us pinned down ’til then ...”
“They won’t.” Fargo had the layout locked firmly in his mind now. “Listen,” he said. “You got a match with you?”
“Plenty. What—?”
“I’m goin’ down the line,” said Fargo. “Pass the word to the others. When you hear this shotgun go off twice, that’s the signal. You throw a match out down there in the ravine, get a fire goin’.”
“Another fire?” Davis blinked, then ducked as a bullet whined overhead.
“We’re gonna do that all along here.” His hand gestured, to take in the length of the ravine. “Th
e wind’ll blow it right on down behind the first fire, and it’ll go out when it hits where that’s already burned. Meanwhile, we’ll need a smoke screen. As soon as this ravine is plumb full of smoke, I’ll blast the shotgun two more times. Then we charge. We’ll go up that slope across there behind the smoke and come out like The Rough Riders at San Juan Hill!” He grinned his wolf’s grin. “Dig those birds over yonder out like ticks!”
Comprehension dawned on Davis. “Sure, hell, yes! It’ll work if the wind don’t change.”
“That’s a chance we have to take.” He did not add what both knew—that if it did, they’d fry. There was no time for wasted words. With the shotgun slung, the rifle at the ready, he came up from behind the log, ran slipping and dodging through the trees.
Bullets whined around him; taking cover behind a spruce, he fired back at a wink of gun-flame on the far bank, visible in the deep woods gloom. He thought he heard a man cry out; then he ran on.
His own men, more than a dozen, were behind logs or tree trunks. Twice they nearly shot him by mistake before he identified himself. They listened keenly, intently, as he explained his plan, then nodded, grinning. They’d had enough of being pinned down. Besides, if the wind changed, the fire circled them; the flames would do what Lasher’s men so far had not been able to. It was time to move, time for action.
Fargo fired the shotgun. Burning fir boughs and thrown matches sailed out and down the slope of the ravine. A dozen little fires started, instantly boiling up plumes of smoke. The wind, not strong, gently merged them. The trick, Fargo thought, was to wait until the smoke was thick enough but not to wait until the fires had grown into a barrier that would bar their way. That would take nice judgment …
Meanwhile, each side went on shooting.
As lead whined back and forth from slope to slope, the bright flames glittered in the dry fir needles on the floor of the ravine. Like water filling a well, the gray-white smoke began to fill the hollow; it rose up each bank, wafted through the trees, acrid in the nostrils, searing in the lungs, painful in the eyes. Now the hollow was full of smoke and it made a rising, drifting wall that veiled Fargo and his men from the other side. So it was time to go … He looked up and down his line but his men had become invisible in the white blanket; he could hear them coughing and gagging. His lips peeled back from his teeth in his wolf’s snarl, and then he thumbed two more shotgun shells from his bandolier. With these cradled in his palm, he triggered off the rounds in the Fox’s chambers toward the far slope, and the double roar was the signal for the charge. Fargo crammed in the fresh rounds, closed the gun, and sprang to his feet. “Let ’em have it!” he bellowed and charged into the ravine.