by John Benteen
And yet ... he grinned. His sixth sense was telling him something else. Morrison had tried to hire him to fight. In every fight, there were two sides. The price Morrison had offered meant he was playing for high stakes; there was action in the wind, big money around. Some might still rub off on him. Once he had his gear, he’d make it his business to find out just what was going on.
Meanwhile, the chestnut, penned up too long, wanted to run. Fargo let it out, giving it its head for three, four miles across the barren land. Even so, he did not fail to watch his back trail. Morrison was not a man who made idle threats. He would know Fargo’s money had come in, but Fargo had not checked out of the hotel. He would know that Fargo had rented this horse, ridden off alone. He might even know that Fargo was armed only with the Colt and the curious sheath knife, easy meat for men with rifles. And Morrison could hire men with rifles. So Fargo took time to watch the skyline, and when there was cover, he used it. In this business, you were not allowed even one mistake; and though he did not put much faith in his chances of living to a ripe old age, he had no intention of making it easy for anyone who had a notion that he should die young.
By twilight, he was off the desert, in timbered, broken country. Halting by a little stream, he made a nearly smokeless fire and ate beans and bacon washed down with hot, strong coffee. As soon as his meal was finished he put out the fire, rode on and made his final camp three miles away in a sheltered draw. Now, with no need to cook, there would be no fire to tip off where he slept. There was good graze for the horses, which he hobbled, and no reason for them to wander. The prevailing wind blew from the direction of his back trail, which meant his animals would scent those of anyone approaching and most likely whinny. Such precautions had become, over the years, instinctive with him; he did not even have to think about them.
Rolling up in the one big Pendleton blanket he’d bought, he settled down, pistol belt draped on the horn of the saddle he used for a pillow. At this altitude, he would sleep a little cold, but that did not matter.
Up long before the sun, fully awake the moment his eyes were open, his first move was to reconnoiter. Seeing nothing to alarm him, he built another smokeless fire of squaw-wood—the dry, dead lower branches of the jackpines around him, which he broke off the trunk—and breakfasted, but not before his mount was saddled, in case he needed it in a hurry.
Keeping to the edge of timber, he rode on, always commanding a clear view of the desert below. He watched the sky, but there were no buzzards. They and coyotes would long since have stripped the horse he’d had to shoot of any flesh. But he was near the place, now, and he turned farther into the woods, watching the deer trails that crisscrossed them. Occasionally, spotting a dead branch lying at a point where two of them met, he nodded. By ten o’clock, he’d reached his destination, guided by those sticks laid on the trails three days before. Like any experienced woodsman, he’d left unobtrusive signs and markers for himself, so he could retrace his steps in strange country, knowing the way natural landmarks looked different from when you were going; and they could not always be trusted.
The rock shelter was a shallow cave formed by a natural outcrop of granite. Fargo was not the first to have used it; there were bones, flint arrowheads, one old brass Sharps cartridge in the litter on its floor. It had, undoubtedly, been known to the Nez Percé Indians for centuries. So he had not left his cache there, but in an unprepossessing slide of shale and boulders farther up the slope. He made another scout and found no sign of anyone’s having been here since himself, but nevertheless, his pulses beat a little faster with eagerness and apprehension as he legged it up the hill through the scanty pines. Then, in the rocks, he sank to his knees and began to throw aside the shale and stone like a marmot digging in.
Then he let out a sigh of relief. There they were, rolled up in the yellow slicker, the things that were as precious to him as life itself, and which, indeed, more than once, had saved his life. He dragged out the tightly wrapped, heavy bundle and carried it back down to the rock shelter. Under the beetling granite roof, he unwrapped the slicker.
~*~
His weapons were intact.
First, the Winchester ’94 saddle carbine, fully loaded. It was a good sturdy gun, but you could always buy a .30-30 Winchester. He satisfied himself that it was in working order, then laid it aside. What he went after next, like a dope fiend after cocaine, was the shotgun.
It was sheathed by a soft case of genuine chamois. A ten-gauge Fox Sterlingworth double-gun, breech beautifully engraved, it had once been a fowling piece with thirty-inch barrels made to reach out after ducks and geese. Fargo had sawed off that extra length; what was left was one of the deadliest weapons known to the modern fighting man: two wide-open bores, each of which could spray nine double-zero buckshot in a sprawling, lethal pattern from which, at close range, there was no escape. He caressed it gently, as he might have stroked the body of a woman, and his gray eyes gleamed as one big forefinger traced out the inscription worked into the breech engraving: To Neal Fargo, gratefully. T.R.
Fargo chuckled softly. Only two men in the world knew what he had done to earn this shotgun. One was himself. The other was his old commander in the Rough Riders, who had later been President of the United States. And who was the one man Neal Fargo allowed himself to admire, to acknowledge was tougher and smarter than himself.
He broke the shotgun, withdrew the rounds inside it. He’d fixed a sling on it, a short one, and now he got to his feet, slung the gun behind his right shoulder so that it hung with barrels down. It seemed an awkward way to carry it, but ... Fargo’s thumb hooked beneath the sling. Then twitched. And suddenly the shotgun pivoted, came up beneath his right arm, open bores pointed forward. At the same instant, his left hand shot across his body, tripped both triggers. The gun was, in that position, upside down, but with a sawed-off, that made no difference. Anything or anyone on Fargo’s front within twenty yards was bound to catch, from a double charge, at least one pellet and likely more; and a single buckshot could kill a man. At closer range, the full loads would cut a man in two.
He repeated the maneuver twice more, then transferred the gun to his left shoulder, did it twice that way with hands reversed, calling on his ambidextrous talent. After that, he unslung the gun, reloaded it, draped it again on his right shoulder.
Also rolled up in the slicker were the bandoliers—heavy leather cartridge belts designed to be worn crisscrossed over his torso. One held fifty rounds for the sawed-off Fox, the other cartridges for the Winchester. Fargo donned them, adjusted them. They weighed a lot, but he was used to their weight, felt naked without it.
He took out a cigar and lit it. So now he had his arsenal again in his possession, the tools of his hard trade. Not only the shotgun and the rifle, but the .38 Colt officer’s model and its belt full of hollow-points. Fargo had acquired the gun in the Philippines, where it had been standard issue in the cavalry until the Colt .45 automatic had been officially adopted. The Colt automatic would throw more rounds, and heavier ones, which the Army had deemed necessary to stop the dope and religion-crazed Moros, the fanatic rebels of the Southern Islands, who could absorb six rounds of standard .38 slugs and still come on and kill. Fargo, though, despised automatics: they jammed, and they were less accurate. He had clung to the old .38 revolver, but had beefed up its shocking, stopping power with the hollow-points, which was what the Army should have done in the first place.
And, of course, there was the strange-looking knife.
He pulled it from its special sheath, cradled it in his palm. Called a Batangas knife, it too had come from the Philippines, a product of the incomparable artisans of southern Luzon. It had a ten-inch blade, tempered to such a hardness that it really could, as legend claimed, be driven through a silver dollar at a single blow without breaking or dulling its razor-edged point.
Split, hinged handles of water-buffalo horn folded forward and locked to sheathe all but four inches of that deadly blade. Yet when Fargo flicked his han
d almost imperceptibly, those handles unlocked, flew back into his palm, and the whole length of lethal steel was naked, ready. Instinctively, he made a pass or two, in the knife-fighter’s crouch: chin down, gut in, left hand across to protect the belly, right hand tilted over to protect the arteries in the wrist. Then, as deftly as he’d opened it, he snapped it shut and returned it to its scabbard.
Fully armed now, he relaxed a little, feeling whole and strong once more. He took another look around. Everything was still, his horses grazing normally. He had cached saddle, bridle, and bedroll in another spot further up the slope. He had climbed only a few paces when the chestnut snorted.
Fargo whirled.
The two men seemed to materialize out of the woods like ghosts. One moment there’d been nothing; now they were there, each with a rifle trained on Fargo.
“Don’t move!” one of them called, and Fargo froze.
~*~
Ten yards apart, they came up the slope. One was tall and lanky and the other short and squat. Both were dressed in shabby clothes, and raven hair fell in braids from beneath old, greasy hats. Their skin was coppery; and Fargo realized why they had been able to take him cold like this: they were Nez Percé, probably from the Lapwai Reservation. And, good as he was, he could never hope to be as good as a Nez Percé brave on his home grounds when it came to hunting and being hunted.
Fargo raised his hands. “Well,” he said. “Hawk Morrison was smarter than I figured.”
The squat one grinned. That grin was confirmation enough for Fargo. The other, the tall one, on the right, showed no expression. He was the leader of the two, Fargo could sense, and the one he had to watch. He was careful not to move a muscle as they came up the slope. Shabby as they looked, these Indians would be first-class fighting men. Forty years ago their tribe, under Chief Joseph, had confused, outrun and outfought the whole United States for months before surrendering to overwhelming force just before making it across the Canadian line to safety. By and large, they were peaceful now, sticking close to the Reservation, farming and raising Appaloosa horses. But they were poor and hungry, and the money Morrison must have offered these two braves to track and kill him and see that his body was never found must have looked like a fortune to them.
Well, it was too bad for them they’d found him. He did not blame them for taking Morrison’s money, but they were hired gunmen and they would have to take their chances.
They halted, only a few yards away, and the tall one said, “Shuck those guns, Big Ugly.”
“Listen,” Fargo said. “Whatever Morrison paid you, I’ll triple it—”
The tall one grinned. His face was pockmarked, and there was a knife scar on his right cheek. “Yeah, we know you got money. The man said we could keep it, anything we found on you and all your gear. Part of the bargain. Now, unload all that iron, slow and easy.”
“Listen,” Fargo said. “I’ve got more money than I’m carrying. Plenty more, in the bank in Junction Flats. I—”
“Just unload that shotgun,” the tall one said. “It’s a purty piece, and I don’t want it to git banged up when you fall down on all these rocks.”
Fargo sighed, bit his lip. “All right, I’ll unload. But maybe then we can bargain. You’re throwin’ away a fortune if you kill me now. You’re ... ” He was still distracting them as best he could, pleading for his life as he lowered his hands, turning his body slightly as he hooked his right thumb in the shotgun sling, shrugged—and then, as the barrels came up beneath his arm, his left hand whipped across his body and tripped a trigger. The tall one never had time to use the rifle. Nine buckshot at twenty feet slammed into him and threw him down the slope and Fargo was already turning, finger on the second trigger. The short man stared blankly, open-mouthed, then came to life, a shade too late.
His rifle’s crack mingled with the shotgun’s roar as Fargo fired the left barrel. The .30-.30 slug sliced air where Fargo had been a half-second before. Fargo’s own aim was off a little, but with the riot gun, that did not matter. Three slugs of its pattern still chopped into the shorter Indian and he dropped the rifle, seized his belly with both hands, fell to his knees. Fargo did not falter. Letting the smoking sawed-off dangle, his right hand whisked out the Colt, and it roared a single time. Caught in the chest by the hollow point, the Nez Percé sprawled on the rocks.
Then the forest was very still, and the air stank of powder-smoke.
But Fargo was not through yet. Holstering the Colt, he thumbed two shotgun rounds from the bandolier, and quickly reloaded the ten-gauge. Only then, with the weapon unslung and ready, eyes searching the woods in case there was another of them, did he even draw in a long breath. Scuttling to cover, he waited.
He lay behind a boulder for maybe five minutes, letting the reaction work out of him, feeling himself steady down completely. Then something moved in the jackpines, maybe two hundred yards away. Fargo squinted, then relaxed. It was a magpie, fluttering from limb to limb. It would not have been there if there were anyone else around.
He stood up, looked at the sprawled bodies of the two Indians. “You pore goddam sonsabitches,” he said aloud. Then, efficiently, he went about the business of disposing of them.
The next afternoon, along about three o’clock, he rode down the Main Street of Junction Flats, leading the packhorse, which carried the extra saddle and equipment. He kept the chestnut reined in, traveling slowly, straight up in the saddle, all his weapons on him, head swiveling from side to side. He wanted everyone to see him coming in. He wanted the word to get to Hawk Morrison as soon as possible. His face was hard and bleak, but inwardly he was grinning, imagining Morrison’s reaction. When two men detached themselves from the crowd of loafers on the porch of The End of Track and headed toward the railroad yards, Fargo nodded slightly with satisfaction.
The liveryman stared at him when he returned the packhorse and stabled the chestnut, but said nothing. Still festooned with fighting hardware, Fargo sauntered toward the hotel. The desk clerk stared, too, when he asked for his key. He seemed about to speak, then closed his moth. Fargo said, “Let me have a box of those Panatelas. And put them on my bill.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said shakily. He passed over the cigars. His Adam’s-apple bobbed convulsively. Fargo looked at him narrowly. “Something in your craw?” he asked.
“N-no, sir.”
“Well, then, you better get some rest. You don’t look so good.” Fargo grinned wolfishly and then went up the stairs. But he’d not gained the landing before something clicked in his head. Again, the old wolf smelled the buried trap-iron. The tip-off this time was the desk clerk’s manner. Fargo paused on the stairs, thinking. Then he unslung the shotgun. Maybe he had overplayed his hand. Morrison would have had time to put men in his room. Somebody was there, for sure, somebody who did not belong there; and the desk clerk was scared to death.
Lightly, noiselessly, he went up the stairs. Still without a sound, after making sure the corridor was clear, he went to his room’s door. Instead of standing before it, he stood well to one side, unlocked the door with his left hand, shotgun in his right. He waited a moment after the turning of the key; when no one shot through the door, he turned the knob and swung the door open and then, like a panther, was in the room with the shotgun ready. The door slammed hard back against the wall, so there was no one behind it. If there had been, it would have smashed him.
But there was someone in the room, all right, a figure coming up off the bed. “Wait!” it cried. “Don’t shoot!”
Fargo froze, staring. Then, carefully, he lowered the shotgun and closed and locked the door. “All right,” he said harshly. “Explain yourself. Did Morrison send you, too?”
“No,” the girl said, standing there hands up, face pale. “No, I came on my own and bribed the desk clerk to let me in. I had to see you, Mr. Fargo.” She paused. “I’m Ellen Whitmore, vice-president of the Cayuse Mountain Railroad.”
Of all the things Fargo had expected, this was the last. Still, his f
ace betrayed no flicker of surprise as his eyes raked over Ellen Whitmore, who slowly put down her hands. She was, he thought, something to look at.
In the first place, she stood five feet ten, at least, and high heels and coppery hair piled on her head made her look even taller. That in itself would have been arresting enough, but her face, with sea-green eyes, cleanly chiseled features, full, red mouth, was lovely. She had taken off her suit jacket; large breasts, high and round, bulged a white ruffled blouse. Her waist was slender, hips curved; and though the skirt almost swept the floor, Fargo could imagine the incredible length of leg it concealed. He judged she was in her middle twenties, and, now recovering from surprise, she was giving him a once-over almost as cool.
“The Cayuse Mountain Railroad,” Fargo said. “I never heard of it. But it’s got some vice-president.” His guard did not relax; Morrison was smart; there was such a thing as the badger game, and he had known plenty of women in his time as ruthless as any man.
Ellen Whitmore smiled faintly. “You wouldn’t have heard of it. It’s only thirty miles long, and it’s ’way back up in the Coeur d’Alenes. But that thirty miles of track, Mr. Fargo, is the richest thirty miles in Idaho.”
Fargo said, “Do tell.”
Ellen Whitmore said, “I know you don’t trust me. But it’s awful hard to talk while you’re holding that shotgun. Do you really think I’m all that dangerous?”