by Jon Sharpe
The whiskey burned down Fargo’s throat to his belly and welcome warmth spread all through him. He set the bottle on the bar, smiled and said, “Thanks. Are you sure I can’t pay you?”
“It is on the house,” Ira said from the other side of the counter, and winked. “I would say you earned it, wouldn’t you?”
Fargo chuckled and treated himself to another swallow. They had been back only a few minutes. Deputy Gavin was over at a table with the rest of the posse. Locals were playing cards or nursing drinks.
Night had fallen. A moonless, muggy Missouri night, with crickets chirping and an occasional coyote imitating his prairie brethren.
Fargo was about to take another chug when he realized he had neglected to replace the spent cartridges in his Colt. Annoyed at himself for the lapse, he promptly did so. He was replacing the last one when hooves drummed outside.
Everyone was suddenly interested in the front door. In came a squat man in town clothes thick with dust. He wore a bowler, which he removed and used to swat at his clothes, oblivious to the stares of the patrons.
“Frank!” Deputy Gavin exclaimed, and came out of his chair in a rush to clap the man on the arms. “Why are you alone? Did you find them? Did you relay my message?”
“One at a time,” Frank said, replacing his bowler. “Yes, I found their cabin, but it took a lot of doing. They are so far back in the woods, they might as well be in the next state. If the doc hadn’t given us instructions on how to get there—”
“Yes, yes,” Gavin cut him off. “But why didn’t one of them come back with you?”
“I told them exactly what you told me to say,” Frank reported. “I spoke to the father, to Rufus Jentry himself. I said that you wanted him or one of his sons to serve on your posse.”
“And?”
“He refused,” Frank said. “And before you say anything, yes, I told him it was official, and that you had the legal right to get a posse up, and it was their duty as citizens to lend a hand. All the stuff you told me to say, I said. But it didn’t do any good.”
Deputy Gavin did not hide his disappointment. “What excuse did he give for not helping?”
“Let’s see if I can remember his exact words,” Frank said, and then quoted, “We don’t have no truck with the outside world and the outside world don’t have none with us. There is no law that says a body has to join a posse if they don’t want to. So go back and tell your law dog that the Jentrys do not do dog work.”
“He said that? He called it dog work?”
Frank nodded. “I wasn’t about to argue. There must be twenty of those Jentrys, and they were eyeing me like I was a turkey and they were starved.”
“Thanks for trying,” Deputy Gavin said. “I don’t hold it against you that you failed.”
“I never said that,” Frank responded, and a strange expression came over him. “I did, in fact, bring a Jentry with me.”
“But you just said the father refused to help.”
“The father did, and the sons did, and—” Frank stopped, and rather sheepishly grinned. “Here. See for yourself.” He turned and gave a shout. “You can come in now if you want.”
In the hush that fell when the door opened, Fargo could have heard a feather flutter to the floor.
In came a woman. But what a woman. She had to be in her twenties, with tawny hair and blue eyes and full lips. She had the kind of body that made men drool. In short, she was all female, but there was nothing womanly about the men’s clothes she wore, or her boots, or the pistol and knife at her hip and the rifle cradled in her arm. Tanned from the sun, lithe and graceful when she moved, she resembled nothing so much as a two-legged cougar.
“Deputy Gavin,” Frank said, “I would like you to meet Bobbie Joe Jentry. She is Rufus’s daughter.”
“What is she doing here?” Gavin asked.
“I can answer for myself,” Bobbie Joe Jentry said. “But I should think it would be as plain as the nose on your face. I came to do what my kin will not. I came to join your posse.”
Gavin was speechless. A few of the locals looked at one another and grinned. Foley laughed out loud and declared, “If this don’t beat all.”
Bobbie Joe Jentry walked over, looked the big freighter right in the eyes and said, “Care to explain that?”
“A woman on a posse!” Foley said. “Who ever heard of such a thing? Go back home, girl, and tend to your cooking and knitting.”
Before anyone could so much as blink, the muzzle of Bobbie Joe’s rifle was an inch from Foley’s big nose. “I don’t knit. I don’t cook. I hunt what goes in the pot. I am better in the woods than you any day. And if you take that tone with me again, you bleed.”
Foley had more bluster than sense. “Are you threatening me, girl? I ought to take you over my knee and tar the living daylights out of you.”
Everyone heard the hammer click. “Why don’t you try?” Bobbie Joe said sweetly. “I haven’t shot any idiots in a while and I can use the practice.”
Deputy Gavin found his voice. “Here now,” he said, hurrying over. “We will have none of that, young lady. You can’t go around shooting people. It is against the law.”
“I am my own law,” Bobbie Joe said. But she let down the hammer and lowered her rifle. “Are you as pigheaded as he is? Or do you still want help?”
“I didn’t expect a woman to come,” Gavin said.
“I am the equal of any man. I have lived in the woods all my life, and I am the best hunter in my family. Frank, there, said you need someone who knows the mountains south of here and I know that country like I know the back of my hand.”
“But it doesn’t seem right,” Deputy Gavin said uncertainly.
Fargo had his back to the bar and was indulging in more red-eye. He could not help but notice the twin peaks that thrust against her shirt, or the contours of her hips and legs. “Let her come,” he said. “She can be of help.”
Gavin and Bobbie Joe both looked at him, and the deputy said, “But what if she comes to harm? I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“It could happen to any of us,” Fargo said. “We know what we are in for. So does she, I reckon.”
“Thanks, stranger,” Bobbie Joe said. “Who might you be?”
Fargo told her.
“I thought so,” Bobbie Joe said. “I saw you once, over to Springfield, when they held that shootin’ contest. My whole family came. My pa wanted to see Buck Smith, the buffalo hunter, and I had heard Dottie Wheatridge was takin’ part. There was Vin Chadwell, too, as I recollect. And you.” She smiled at the memory. “Lord almighty, there was some glorious shootin’ that day! I hate to admit it, but they could shoot better than me, and that takes some doin’.”
“Maybe so,” Fargo said, “but Buck Smith wasn’t half as pretty.”
Bobbie Joe Jentry had nice teeth. “I asked around about you, and folks say that as good as you are at shootin’, you are even better at trackin’, and as good as you are at trackin’, you are even better at beddin’ women. Is that true?”
Her bluntness caught Fargo off guard. He felt his ears grow warm at the laughter that broke out, and caught Ira staring hard at him. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, girl.”
“I am a woman, thank you very much,” Bobbie Joe corrected him.
That she was, Fargo had to admit, all woman from head to toe. “I will drink to that,” he said, and did so.
Bobbie Joe turned back to Gavin. “Well, mister law, what do you say? Can you use my help or not?”
“I can, yes, but—”
Holding up a hand, Bobbie Joe said, “Stop right there. You strike me as decent enough, and your worry is genuine, but I am full grown, and I can do as I please. It pleases me to help you hunt down Mad Dog Terrell and his pack of wolves. If you have any brains between those ears, you will accept my offer.”
“I like her,” Old Charley said.
“I don’t,” Foley threw out.
Lynch Spicer was looking at her as if
she were a ripe peach he wanted to take a bite out of, while Kleb appeared bored.
Deputy Gavin drew himself up to his full height. “Very well. I accept. But there are rules you must follow.”
“What kind of rules?”
“I am in charge. You are to do as I say. We want to catch Terrell and his men, yes, but not at the cost of our lives. Above all, we want to rescue the hostage they hold, a Miss Lucille Sparks.”
“They took a woman?” Bobbie Joe said. “Your man didn’t mention that.”
Frank had been listening to the whole exchange, and now he stepped forward. “If it is all the same to you, Tom, I will head back to Springfield. I have done as you wanted, and I have a wife and supper waiting.”
“Off you go then. I will walk you out.”
Fargo turned to the bar and smiled at Ira but she did not return it. He chuckled and was raising the bottle when an arm brushed his.
“I want to thank you again for stickin’ up for me.”
“I just hope my doing so doesn’t get you killed,” Fargo said, and took another swallow.
Bobbie Joe Jentry held out a hand. “May I?”
Fargo looked on in wonder as her throat bobbed several times. She neither coughed nor blinked. “Damn. Where did you learn to drink like that?”
“From my pa. He makes his own. This stuff is water compared to his.” Grinning, Bobbie Joe gave the bottle back.
“You hunt and you drink. Now tell me you do the other and I will say I am in love,” Fargo teased her.
“If by ‘other’ you mean what I think you do,” Bobbie Joe responded, “I would say all that talk about your petticoat chasin’ is true.”
“You aren’t wearing a skirt,” Fargo noted.
“I am glad I am not. If I were, your hand would probably be halfway up it and I would have to cut your hand off.” Bobbie Joe patted her knife.
Fargo laughed heartily. She was a woman after his own heart. “To the day you wear one,” he said, and tipped the bottle.
“To the day I cut off that hand,” Bobbie Joe retorted, and took the whiskey from him.
Deep inside of Fargo, something stirred. An emotion he had not felt in so long, he had almost forgotten what it felt like. “Do you have yourself a man, Bobbie Joe Jentry?”
She glanced at him sharply, then tempered the glance with a smile. “I do declare. I believe you are interested.”
“I was curious, is all,” Fargo said.
“That’s funny. You don’t look like a cat.”
Her laugh was low and deep but not mocking, and Fargo hid his reaction by chugging more whiskey. She was studying him; he refused to look at her. When Ira came sidling along the bar, he was almost grateful.
“It is nice to see you two getting along so well. How are you, Bobbie Joe? The last time I saw you was, what, six months ago when you stopped by with your father and mother?”
“How do you do, Ira,” Bobbie Joe said, holding out her hand to shake as a man would. “Five months, more like. You were awful nice to us, putting us up for the night and all.”
“It was my pleasure, my dear,” Ira assured her. “If there is anything I can get you, just give a holler.” She went off to serve another customer.
Bobbie Joe’s brow furrowed and she looked from Fargo to Ira and back again. “You are a wonderment.”
“Drinking red-eye is no great feat,” Fargo said.
“I am talkin’ about her.” Bobbie Joe nodded toward Ira’s back. “How did you get her to make love to you?”
Fargo nearly choked on the whiskey he was downing. Coughing, he wiped his mouth and regarded her with some astonishment. “What makes you think she did?”
“I could see it in her eyes, in how she looked at you,” Bobbie Joe said. “How long have you known her?”
“Since earlier today.” Fargo continued to be impressed. “Tell me. Do you read sign as well as you read people?”
“Better.”
“Good. Having two trackers on this posse increases the odds of us making it in and out alive.”
“I intend to live,” Bobbie Joe said. “And it won’t bother me a lick if I have to kill some of those outlaws, neither.”
Deputy Gavin joined them. Stifling a yawn, he announced, “We leave at first light. Feel free to do whatever you like until then, although I advise you to turn in early. You will need your rest.”
Out of the blue, Bobbie Joe Jentry remarked, “I have met Terrell, you know.”
“No, I did not,” Deputy Gavin said. “When?”
“A few months ago. My whole family went to a lake to fish and frolic, and him and his men happened by. They didn’t try to harm us. Too many of us, I reckon, with too many rifles.”
“What can you tell me about him that I don’t already know? Something that might help us bring him to bay?”
“The only thing you need to know about Mad Dog Terrell,” Bobbie Jo Jentry said, “is that they don’t call him Mad Dog for nothin’.”
“That is not much help,” Deputy Gavin said.
“Then how about this. The men he rides with, Yoas and DePue and Mattox? They all have cold eyes, the coldest I ever saw. I don’t scare easy but bein’ around them made me nervous.”
Fargo thought of poor Lucy Sparks.
As if she were privy to his thoughts, Bobbie Joe said, “Whoever that gal is they took, she would be better off dead.”
7
Before the sun was up they were saddling their mounts. Kleb asked Deputy Gavin if they were bringing a packhorse and Gavin replied that they would travel fast and light and live off the land as they went. Kleb did not seem all that pleased by the news.
Fargo and Bobbie Joe Jentry were ready to go before the others. As they sat their horses, waiting, she shifted in the saddle and smiled.
“This should be fun.”
“As bad as you make Terrell and his men out to be, there is a good chance some of us won’t make it back alive. You call that fun?”
“The hunt will be,” Bobbie Joe said, a fierce gleam in her lovely eyes. “I love to hunt. It gives me a thrill like nothin’ else.”
“Nothing?” Fargo said with a grin.
“Well, almost nothin’,” Bobbie Joe allowed, and laughed. “But huntin’ is in my blood. I started goin’ after game as soon as I was big enough to hold a rifle, and I have been doin’ it ever since.”
“Squirrels and deer and bears don’t shoot back.”
Again she laughed. “True enough. But there is little challenge in goin’ after them. Men on the run, on the other hand, use all sorts of tricks. Outsmartin’ them is a thrill.” She paused. “I seem to recollect that folks say you have hunted a few men in your time.”
“When I had to,” Fargo confirmed. “It can be a challenge, but I would never call it fun.”
“What would you call fun, then?” Bobbie Joe asked, and when he roved his eyes from her hair to her toes, and grinned, she broke into the loudest laugh yet. “I should have known. That is all some men think about.”
“Imagine that,” Fargo said.
Old Charley kneed his mount over, spat a wad of tobacco juice, and showed his yellow teeth. “Morning, folks. I had me a nip of bug juice to get my blood flowing and am raring to go.”
“You drink this early in the day?” Bobbie Joe asked.
“Hell, dearie, early or late it is all the same,” Old Charley said. “And don’t make me out to be booze blind. All I take is a nip from my flask now and again.”
“What if we are gone so long, you run out?”
“I will shoot myself.”
Deputy Gavin assumed the lead, saying over his shoulder to Fargo, “I will show you where the stage was struck. You pick up the trail and we will follow you.”
It was not far. The tree the outlaws had felled across the road had since been rolled to one side. Fargo climbed down to scour the ground. So did Bobbie Joe and Old Charley.
There had not been any rain in a week and the ground was hard, but not so hard that an anima
l as heavy as a horse could avoid leaving tracks. And when there were four horses, and one was bearing double, the churned ground was as easy to read as the letters in a book.
Fargo swung onto his pinto and headed out. He had not covered twenty yards when Bobbie Joe caught up.
“Mind if I ride with you?”
“As easy as you are on the eyes, I would have to be loco to say no,” Fargo replied.
“Am I going to have to beat you off with a club at night?” Bobbie Joe teasingly asked.
“I will wait until you are asleep before I crawl into your blankets,” Fargo shot back. He found himself admiring how the breeze stirred her hair, and had to force himself to concentrate on the tracks and only the tracks.
Bobbie Joe had sharp eyes. “Is somethin’ wrong?”
“You are a powerful distraction.”
“That’s not my fault,” she returned. “I can’t help it if I was born with a body men would give anything to touch.”
“Humble, too,” Fargo said.
“I am only sayin’ how things are. If I am wrong, correct me.”
“You are not wrong,” Fargo confessed. “As for your body, so long as you keep your clothes on, I should be able to keep my mind on what I am supposed to be doing.”
“Then you are safe. I generally only ride around naked on Sundays and today isn’t Sunday.”
After that, hardly anyone spoke. The tracks pointed south toward forested hills and distant mountains. The entire southwest corner of Missouri was the least inhabited region in the state. There were few homesteads and those few they soon passed. Ahead lay mile after mile of rugged wilderness, a natural haven for lawbreakers.
Noon came, and they were miles into the hills. Deputy Gavin hollered for Fargo to halt so they could rest the horses.
Kleb arched his back and complained that he hurt all over from so much riding. “I am not used to this. I am not used to this at all.”
“Wait until tomorrow,” Foley said. “You will feel worse.”
“That wasn’t a nice thing to say,” Kleb told the big freighter. “Why can’t you ever say anything nice? You are not the only one who has ever lost a loved one, you know.”
Foley’s jaw muscles twitched. “Mention my family again and I will snap your scrawny neck.”