by Sharpe, Jon
Tom hadn’t climbed down.
“What are you still doing up there?” Fargo demanded, and only then did he see the two arrows sticking out of him.
Fargo ran over and grasped a limp arm. “Can you hear me?”
Tom’s eyes were shut, his teeth mashed together. “My ears work fine,” he growled, “but I hurt like hell.”
Fargo didn’t wonder. One of the arrows was in Tom’s left shoulder, the other jutting from between his ribs. Setting the Henry down, he reached up to ease Tom off.
“Forget about me. Go after them.”
Fargo carefully lowered him to the grass and was about to sink to one knee when Tom raised his head, and pointed.
“Look out!”
Fargo whirled.
Three Bannocks were bounding toward them. Two had bows, the last a lance. A bowstring twanged and an arrow zinged but Fargo twisted and it missed.
A flick of his wrist, and the Colt molded to his hand. He fanned a shot, and the second bowman, about to let loose a shaft, buckled as if punched in the gut.
Not missing a heartbeat, Fargo fanned the Colt again. At the blast, the Bannock with the lance smashed to the earth.
That left the last one.
Fargo slapped the hammer twice, his finger curled around the trigger.
He thought that was all of them and went to turn to Bear River Tom. But the first warrior he’d shot had lunged upright and was coming at him wielding a knife. He shot the man again, and the Bannock stumbled but still didn’t go down.
“Kill him,” Tom cried.
Fargo sent a slug ripping through the warrior’s forehead.
“Damn,” Bear River Tom said. “They almost had you.”
Quickly, Fargo reloaded. He was inserting the last cartridge into the cylinder when hooves rumbled lower down the mountain.
“The rest are heading for the hills,” Bear River Tom gloated.
Or for the flatland, Fargo gauged, judging by the sound. “You should lie still.”
“Why do they always say that to people who have been hurt? If a man is about to die, he should make the best of the time he has left.”
Fargo performed some delicate probing. The arrow in Tom’s shoulder wasn’t life-threatening, and the one in his side had skimmed the rib cage. “You’re one lucky buckskin, brother.”
“Two arrows sticking out of me, and I’m lucky? What do you call unlucky? Having my head chopped off?”
“They missed your vitals.”
Bear River Tom shifted and bit his lip against the pain. “It sure doesn’t feel like they did.”
Fargo hiked his pant leg to get at the Arkansas toothpick. “I’ll have them out in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“The hell you will. You’ll take your time and do it right. Sadie and her lover aren’t going anywhere.”
Yes, Fargo reflected, they were, and soon they’d be so far ahead it would take him days to catch up, if he ever did.
Nonetheless, Tom came first.
He gathered firewood and kindled a fire and put water from his canteen on to boil. He also used his whetstone on the toothpick.
Bear River Tom watched, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Do you know what this means?”
“Your premonition was wrong?”
“That my tit days aren’t over.”
“The women of the world are waiting in line.”
“Scoff if you must, pup, but when I’m healed, I’m heading for Denver and Madame Colleen’s House of a Thousand Delights.” Tom chuckled, and grimaced. “I aim to fondle every damn tit in the place.”
With a sigh, Fargo set to work. It took the better part of an hour to extract both shafts and clean and bandage the wounds. He used Tom’s blanket for the bandages, which didn’t sit well with Tom.
“I reckon we should use it since I’m the one who is hurt. But now I have to buy a new one.”
“Poor baby.”
Tom mopped at his pasty brow. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a mean streak?”
“It keeps me alive.”
When it came time to ride on, Fargo hesitated. “Are you sure you can take care of yourself?”
“The hostiles are long gone. The worst I have to worry about are a meat-eaters, and I can handle them.” He patted his rifle and his revolver.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Fargo promised, and stood.
“I’m sorry to have to leave it up to you,” Bear River Tom said.
“Taking care of the hostiles?”
“Taking care of Sadie,” Tom said. “It shouldn’t all be on you but that’s how it’s worked out.”
“I’ll do what I have to.”
Fargo had lost enough time. Another moment, and he was in the saddle and in motion.
Bear River Tom hollered after him to be careful. He didn’t answer. What else would he be?
By his reckoning there were six Bannocks left, including Thunder Hawk. Odds were they would try another ambush.
Would Sadie take part? In all the time he’d been wandering the West, he could count the number of women he’d had to shoot on one hand and have fingers left over. Could he shoot Sadie if she forced him to? She’d been a friend, after all. Hell, she’d been a lover.
Time would soon tell.
26
Fargo expected a single ambush.
The Bannocks had other ideas.
He was half a mile lower, dappled by the shadows of tall pines, a cushion of needles under the Ovaro’s hooves muffling the thuds. His hand was on his Colt, and when a figure whooped and reared and let fly with a feathered shaft, he flashed the six-shooter out even as the shaft left the string. He fired and dived from the saddle and didn’t see if his slug hit.
Landing hard, he heaved up and was ready to shoot but the figure wasn’t there.
The Ovaro had gone a few yards and stopped. It looked back at him, unruffled by the gunfire it had heard so many, many times.
As Fargo started to rise, the stallion looked past him. He whirled, and damned if a painted warrior with a tomahawk wasn’t stealthily stalking toward him. Their eyes met, and the warrior shrieked a war cry and attacked.
Fargo fired, sidestepped to avoid the other’s rush, fired again.
The warrior splayed his fingers over his middle and slowly crumbled. The hatred in his glare was practically a blow in itself. He glared until his life ebbed, taking his hate with him into the afterlife.
Fargo heard thrashing and saw the vegetation shake where the bowman had been.
His aim had been true.
The Bannock was on his back, a stain spreading across his chest, his bow at his side, forgotten. He hissed through his teeth and spat in poor English, “We kill you yet, white dog.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Fargo said. He was alert for others but it appeared to have been just these two.
“Me Wolf Running,” the warrior hissed.
Fargo recollected the name. It was the warrior who was going to take Sophie Johnson into his lodge. “Soon you’ll be Wolf Dead.”
The warrior’s hate was a mirror of the first man’s. “Me count coup on many whites,” he boasted.
“You can’t take coup with you,” Fargo said, slipping a cartridge from his belt to reload.
“You not live long,” Wolf Running said. “Thunder Hawk kill you.”
“He’ll try.”
“All white-eyes should die,” Wolf Running snarled. Those were his last words. His mouth parted but only a long breath came out, and he was gone.
Fargo left the bodies for the scavengers. He’d be damned if he’d bury anyone who tried to kill him.
Now there were four, plus Sadie. It didn’t help his nerves any to know that the next time they w
ould plan it better.
Half an hour, and he was almost to the flatland. A last acre of slope ended in a low bluff that dropped off precipitously.
The bluff was too steep for the Ovaro. He’d have to go around. He reined wide, and stopped. It hit him that the bluff was perfect for the next ambush. They knew he’d have to go around, too. There was plenty of brush and timber. They could be anywhere.
Fargo looked to the right and caught movement out of the corner of his left eye.
A warrior had risen to his knees and was sighting down an arrow.
Fargo shifted and fired, and the Bannock reacted as if he’d been kicked. Fargo would have fired again but there was a sound above him and he glanced up to see a swarthy form hurtling out of a tree. He tried to bring the Colt up just as a battering ram caught him in the chest and slammed him from the saddle.
Fargo’s vision blurred. For a few seconds he was helpless. The only thing that saved him was his knee; it jammed into the warrior’s gut as they came down, and the warrior, too, was dazed.
The Bannock recovered and whipped his knife on high for a fatal stroke.
Fargo shot him between the eyes. The splatter of blood was nothing. He shoved the body off and sat up. Two more dead and he was still breathing.
Fargo slowly rose. He was hurting where the warrior had slammed into him. He moved to the Ovaro and placed his hand on the saddle horn.
Instinct caused him to spin.
Another warrior was almost on him. This one had an antler-hilted knife with a foot-long blade, and slashed at his throat. He dodged, went to shoot, and the warrior seized his wrist.
Fargo slugged him. Indians seldom used their fists. When they fought it was nearly always with weapons. Some tribes had friendly wrestling matches, but fisticuffs, beating another man to a pulp, was a white invention.
The Bannock was rocked onto his heels.
Fargo punched him again, and yet a third time, and if he didn’t break the warrior’s jaw it wasn’t for a lack of trying. The grip on his wrist slackened. Tearing his arm free, he jammed the Colt’s muzzle into the man’s side and squeezed the trigger.
The young renegade stiffened. Blood burst from his mouth and nose. He said something, a few words that ended in a gasp. There was no hate on his face, only surprise.
Fargo took a deep breath to steady himself. He should be used to this by now, all the times others had sought to snuff his wick.
As he reloaded he gazed out across the flatland. Far in the distance, swirls of dust rose.
“Well, now,” he said.
It made sense to go at a gallop, to catch them quickly and get it over with. He didn’t. He rode at a fast walk.
Part of him wasn’t in a hurry. Part of him wasn’t looking forward to . . . her.
The flatland wasn’t truly flat. Rolling swells of grass were broken here and there by hollows and buffalo wallows and an occasional hill.
Dust no longer rose but in a while something else did: a plume of smoke.
Fargo drew rein. He checked that every cylinder in the Colt held a cartridge. He slid the Henry from the scabbard and jacked the lever to feed a round into the chamber. The rifle in his left hand with the stock on his thigh, and the Colt and the reins in his right, he tapped his spurs.
She was seated in front of the fire, sipping coffee. Behind her was a small pond. Her horse was there, too.
Only her. Only it.
Fargo scowled. A rare sadness washed over him. He would play it out her way but he sincerely wished she hadn’t brought them to this.
A prod of his knees, and Fargo cautiously approached.
He raked the ground around her, studied the pond and the reeds that grew at its edge, and gazed at a stand of trees a hundred yards away.
Sagebrush Sadie went on sipping until he came to a stop. “Hi, handsome.”
“Where is he?” Fargo asked.
“He left me. Can you believe it? After he put me in this fix, he up and rode away.”
“Did he now.”
Sadie nodded. “He said that if you made it this far, he wanted no part of you. I wouldn’t have thought he was yellow, but there it is.”
“Thunder Hawk is a lot of things,” Fargo said, “but a coward isn’t one of them.”
“A compliment from you? I reckoned you’d want him dead more than anything.”
“He has much to answer for,” Fargo said, “and so do you.”
Sadie held the cup in both hands in her lap. “About that. Do you want to hear my story or not?”
Fargo wrapped the reins around the saddle horn and slid his boots from the stirrups but stayed in the saddle.
“I might as well.”
“Good,” Sadie said. “First off, we didn’t plan it. It just sort of happened.”
“A rainstorm sort of happens. A buffalo stampede sort of happens. Butchering women and children, no.”
Sadie frowned. “Now see. You’ve already made up your mind. But let me tell you how it really was.” She paused. “I lived with the Bannocks a spell. That’s when him and me met. The moment I looked into his eyes, I know. You know how it goes.”
“I know.”
“He was a hothead. He’d go off and attack whites from time to time. I didn’t like it but I cared for him too much to stop seeing him.”
“True love,” Fargo said.
“Don’t be sarcastic. We both know he’s not the only Indian who resents us whites for taking their land and trying to force them onto reservations.”
“No,” Fargo agreed, “he’s not.”
“So I can’t hardly blame him, can I? Anyway, one night I was drinking and told him how upset it made me that the army favors male scouts over us females.” Sadie uttered an odd little laugh. “He was the one came up with the idea of killing you and the others. I tried to talk him out of it but he said he was doing it for me, to show me how much he cared.”
“There should be violin music,” Fargo said.
“Don’t be mean, damn you.”
Fargo noticed that her horse had stopped grazing and was staring at the pond. “Tell me one thing,” he said. “If you’re so fond of him, why did you make love to me?”
Sadie giggled, of all things. “Curiosity, I suppose. You should hear the tales they tell about you. The great Skye Fargo. The man with the redwood in his pants. I wanted to see it for myself.”
“So much for true love.” Fargo hadn’t taken his eyes off the pond. A lone reed had separated from the rest and was slowly moving closer.
Sadie patted the ground beside her. “Why don’t you climb down and join me? Truth to tell, I wouldn’t mind another poke by that pole of yours.”
“My pole thanks you,” Fargo said drily. “But blaming it all on Thunder Hawk won’t wash.”
“Why not?”
“Thunder Hawk didn’t write the letters.”
“Oh,” Sadie said. “Those.”
“And now you’ve set yourself out as bait,” Fargo said. “He hasn’t gone anywhere. He gave his horse a smack on the rump and sent it off into those trees. Then he cut a reed so he could breathe and he’s in the pond waiting for me to climb down and turn my back so he can finish it.”
Sadie went rigid.
“Him first, then,” Fargo said, and fired the Henry into the water near the reed.
Almost instantly Thunder Hawk exploded out of the water, a knife in his hand. He took two dripping steps and cocked his arm to throw it.
Fargo sent a slug from the Colt into his right knee, and Thunder Hawk staggered. He recovered, raised his arm again, and Fargo shot him in the other knee. Pitching forward, Thunder Hawk glowered and opened his mouth to say something.
Fargo sent the last slug between his teeth.
Sagebrush Sadie hadn’t moved
. She stared at the ruin of her lover and a tear trickled down her cheek. “Well,” she said, and set down the cup.
“It doesn’t have to end like this,” Fargo said. “You can turn yourself in.”
“And be behind bars the rest of my days?” Sadie shook her head. “I like the wide-open spaces too much.” Rising, she lowered her hand to her holster.
“Don’t,” Fargo said.
“Maybe one day you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”
“Damn you.”
Sadie’s hand stabbed for her revolver and Fargo fired his. In the silence that followed, he said quietly, “Rot in hell, bitch.”
Shaking himself, Fargo holstered the Colt. He would take the bodies to Fort Carlson, collect California Jim and Bear River Tom, and spend a week in Denver drinking and womanizing and trying to forget.
Not that he ever would.
LOOKING FORWARD!
The following is the opening
section of the next novel in the exciting
Trailsman series from Signet:
TRAILSMAN #375
TEXAS SWAMP FEVER
1861, the Texas swamp country—where there are a hundred ways to die.
If looks could kill, Skye Fargo would have been dead. He saw distrust and dislike on every face, in every glare.
A big man, wide at the shoulders and slim at the waist, he rode into Suttree’s Landing with his right hand on his hip above his Colt. His lake blue eyes betrayed no more concern than if he was out for a stroll in a St. Louis park, but Suttree’s Landing was a far cry from a civilized city like St. Louis. It was a backwater hamlet at the edge of the Archaletta Swamp, and the people were suspicious of strangers.
Fargo didn’t care. He had a job to do, and any jackass who gave him trouble would find out the hard way he wasn’t a cheek turner.
The Landing wasn’t anything to brag about. Most of the people lived in shabby shacks that wouldn’t have stood up to a strong prairie wind. But there wasn’t much wind in the swamp, except when it stormed.
The general store, the hub of commerce for miles around, alone among all the buildings in the hamlet, had glass in its windows.