by Jon Sharpe
“That’s the one,” Bobbie Joe said with a nod. “Who comes up with stupid words like that? Words nobody can hardly half say or recollect? I bet it’s some Easterner sittin’ in one of those soft easy chairs drinkin’ his brandy, with nothin’ better to do.”
A figure abruptly appeared and Fargo raised his Henry. Enough light was cast by the few flames on his torch that in another step he recognized who it was and what he was doing.
“It must be hard to dig with that broken tree branch,” Bobbie Joe said to Deputy Gavin.
The lawman stopped and mopped at his brow with a sleeve. Near him lay the body, wrapped in a blanket. “We didn’t bring a shovel.”
“No one is helping you?” Fargo asked.
“It is mine to do. I am the leader of the posse.” Gavin grunted as he jabbed the branch into the earth and pried out a clod.
Bobbie Joe remarked, “At that rate it will take you half the night.”
“It serves me right for not posting a sentry,” Deputy Gavin said. “If I had, maybe Kleb would still be alive.”
“The killer was too far off,” Fargo mentioned. “A sentry would not have spotted him.”
“Maybe a sentry would have heard something. A twig snap. A hoofbeat. Anything. Sounds we didn’t hear because we were all talking.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Bobbie Joe advised. “We all make mistakes.”
“Mine cost a man who did not want to be here his life,” the deputy said as he used the branch again. “If I did not feel bad about it, it would make me as cold-hearted as Mad Dog Terrell.”
“Now see,” Bobbie Joe said. “Folks just naturally jump to conclusions about him. He might surprise you.”
Gavin did not respond. He was jabbing with a fury. Fargo nudged Bobbie Joe and they walked on. The torch finally went out but Fargo held on to it, intending to drop the brand in the fire. They had only a short way to go when Bobbie Joe, who had been deep in thought, made a comment that suggested she was thinking aloud.
“Maybe I did wrong comin’ on this hunt.”
“Speaking for myself, I am glad you did,” Fargo said, and grinned. “You are a lot easier on the eyes than the others.”
Bobbie Joe gave a slight start, and smiled. “You can’t help yourself, can you, when it comes to the ladies?”
“No, but I have a good excuse.”
“Besides bein’ male?”
“A curse was placed on me by a gypsy woman when I was sixteen. She said I was doomed to go through life chasing every pretty woman I saw, and it has turned out true,” Fargo embellished.
Bobbie Joe burst out laughing but her mirth died in her throat as they came to the campfire and beheld Old Charley lying in a twisted heap on the ground with blood trickling from a corner of his mouth. Fargo was about to squat and see if the old frontiersman was still alive when Lynch Spicer stepped out of the dark with his Remington revolver leveled.
“What the hell?” Bobbie Joe exclaimed.
“I wish you hadn’t come back,” Lynch said regretfully. Then he cocked the revolver.
9
Bobbie Joe Jentry did not do as many women would. She did not freeze in fear, or shriek, or indulge in emotional hysterics. She calmly stood there and asked the question Fargo was about to ask. “What in God’s name have you done, boy?”
“Don’t call me that,” Lynch Spicer said. He gestured at the prone figure bleeding by the fire. “I told that old coot I was leaving and he tried to stop me. So I gave him a wallop on the noggin with this.” Lynch wagged the Remington.
“You better hope he comes to,” Fargo said.
“He shouldn’t have interfered!” Lynch said shrilly. “All I want is to go home!”
“Back to your important papa and your sweet little lady friends and actin’ as if you are somebody when you are not,” Bobbie Joe said.
Lynch angrily snapped, “What does backwoods trash like you know about anything?”
“I know enough not to go around wallopin’ folks without more cause than you had.”
“Where is Foley?” Fargo asked.
“He went off to collect more firewood,” Lynch answered. “With him and the deputy gone, I saw my chance and I took it.” He stared to back away. “Now I am leaving, and I don’t want either of you to try and stop me. I will shoot if I have to. I swear I will shoot.”
“No more brains than a turnip,” Bobbie Joe said.
Fargo was holding the charred brand next to his leg. It was about two feet long and as thick as his forearm. Suddenly pointing with his other hand into the dark behind Spicer, he exclaimed, “Isn’t that Foley there?”
Lynch Spicer reacted without thinking and turned to see for himself.
Quick as thought, Fargo threw the brand. It caught the younger man on the side of the head, knocking his hat off. Lynch let out a yelp and spun but Fargo was already on him, the Colt out, and gave him a taste of the same treatment he had given Old Charley. With a loud cry the younger man folded at the knees.
“That was mighty slick,” Bobbie Joe complimented him.
Fargo plucked the Remington from Lynch’s limp fingers and wedged it under his own belt.
“He doesn’t know it, but you saved him from bein’ shot,” Bobbie Joe said. “I wasn’t about to let him go ridin’ off.”
“You are as bloodthirsty as Mad Dog Terrell,” Fargo joked as he rolled Lynch onto his back and frisked him for other weapons. There were none.
Boots drummed, and out of the night rushed Deputy Gavin. “What is all the ruckus about?” he asked, and stopped short when he saw the two forms on the ground. “Tell me they are not dead.”
“They’re not,” Bobbie Joe confirmed. “But they will both have god-awful headaches when they come around.”
Fargo explained the situation as he opened his canteen and poured some water into his tin cup. Just enough that when he upended the cup over Old Charley’s face, the frontiersman sputtered and coughed and sat up as riled as an agitated bear.
“Where is he? Where is that no-account sprout? I will learn him to pound on his elders!”
“Simmer down,” Fargo said, and nodded at where Lynch lay. “I did you the favor.”
Deputy Gavin helped Old Charley to stand. “I appreciate you trying to stop him but maybe it would have been better if you let him go.”
“That is a fine note after he damn near split my skull for me doing your job,” Old Charley grumbled. “As a posse we are next to pitiful.”
Gavin’s lips pinched together. “I deserve that. I accept the blame for not keeping an eye on him.”
“Is it me, sonny,” Old Charley said, “or are you fond of toting the world on your shoulders? None of us are perfect. You ought to keep that in mind when you go blaming yourself for everything under the sun.”
Bobbie Joe broke in, asking, “What are we goin’ to do about the judge’s son? I say we string him up by his thumbs and leave him hangin’ until we are done with Mad Dog.”
Deputy Gavin stepped to Lynch and shook him, eliciting a low groan but nothing else.
Fargo refilled his cup with steaming hot coffee and sank down cross-legged with his back to the fire. Old Charley was exactly right. They were doing pitiful, and if things did not change a lot worse was bound to happen.
“I should not have picked Lynch for the posse,” Deputy Gavin remarked as he raised Spicer into a sitting position.
Old Charley spat out the wad of tobacco in his mouth, and swore. “You are a weak sister, law dog. You truly are.”
“I agree,” Bobbie Joe chimed in.
Fargo had listened to enough. “Ease off him,” he said. The last thing they needed was for the deputy to doubt himself even worse than he already did. He turned to Gavin. “You did what you thought best. The thing now is to take charge and not make any mistakes.”
Deputy Gavin nodded. “I will start with Lynch.” From under his vest he produced handcuffs and proceeded to snap them onto Spicer’s wrists.
“Shouldn’t you
save them for Mad Dog and his killers?” Old Charley asked.
“I have another set in my saddlebags if I need them,” Gavin said.
“That is not what I meant.”
The deputy shook Lynch Spicer again, harder than before.
This time Lynch’s eyelids fluttered and he mumbled and then opened his eyes and looked around in confusion. His confusion grew when he moved his arms and discovered the cuffs. “What are these for?”
“I am placing you under arrest for assaulting Old Charley,” Deputy Gavin announced.
“You can’t do this!” Lynch bleated, panic in his tone. “I am helpless with these on.”
“You should have thought of that before you hit him,” Gavin said. “I am afraid I must make an example of you.”
“Arrest me if you have to when we get back to Springfield,” Lynch said. “But not here. Not now.”
“You have brought it on yourself.” Rising, Deputy Gavin slid his hand under Spicer’s arm and hauled him nearer to the fire. “Have a seat. The others will keep an eye on you while I go finish digging Kleb’s grave.”
Lynch was staring at the handcuffs in mixed outrage and horror. “Wait until my father hears of this! Wait until I tell him how I have been treated! You won’t be wearing that badge much longer, I promise you!”
Ignoring him, Gavin walked off.
“I mean it!” Lynch screeched after him. “My father will see to it that you are stripped of that tin star and run out of Springfield! No one does this to me! No one!”
Old Charley sighed. “Give your tonsils a rest, boy. He is not listening and you are making the headache you gave me worse.”
“To hell with you, too!” Lynch snarled. “You wretched old buzzard, getting me into this fix.”
“Me?” Old Charley responded. “Who hit who?”
Lynch was not given the chance to answer. Bobbie Joe Jentry’s left hand moved and her knife glinted in the firelight. Before anyone could stop her, she pressed the tip to his throat.
“I have had my fill of you, boy, of your whinin’ and bellyachin’. Not another peep, you hear, or I will cut you.”
“Bitch,” Lynch said, but he subsided and glumly placed his elbows on his legs and his chin in his hands.
“That’s better,” Bobbie Joe said, replacing her knife in its sheath.
“I hate you. I hate all of you.”
About then Foley came out of the woods, his big arms burdened with enough firewood to last a week. He set the wood down, scanned their faces, and asked, “What have I missed?”
By midnight the only one awake was Fargo. He had agreed to take the first watch. Except for the snoring of Foley and Old Charley, the night was quiet. The horses were dozing. The fire had dwindled to a few tiny flames. In the inky canopy above sparkled a multitude of stars. Fargo noted the position of the Big Dipper. He was supposed to wake Bobbie Joe soon so she could take over.
His pinto chose that moment to raise its head and prick its ears to the southwest.
Instantly alert, Fargo rose into a crouch. He was about five yards from the others, where he was less apt to be spotted by nocturnal prowlers. Wedging the Henry’s stock to his shoulder, he watched the Ovaro. When it nickered and stamped a front hoof, he peered in the same direction the horse was staring, peered until his eyes were fit to burst from their sockets, but he saw nothing to account for the Ovaro’s behavior.
Then something moved off in the murk, something low to the ground, flowing swiftly toward the sleepers.
Fargo’s first thought was that the rifleman had returned, but as the shape came closer he saw that it was an animal, a predator, he suspected, drawn by their scent or the scent of their horses. The thing stopped, and he could not quite make out what it was. If he fired, he might just wound it, and wounded meat eaters were known to go berserk with fury.
A cramp in his leg caused Fargo to shift ever so slightly, yet that was enough. Instantly, the creature swung toward him. Reflected in the faint glow of the fire were a pair of slanted eyes. Blazing yellow, they told Fargo what he was up against: a cougar.
Normally the big cats left humans alone. Normally, but not always. A Crow warrior Fargo knew had been scarred for life when a mountain lion jumped him. The Crow had been eight years old at the time, picking berries with his mother and sisters, and the cougar leaped on his back and bore him down. His mother’s scream saved him. It brought the father on the run, and he happened to have his bow with him. The father loosed a barbed shaft that pierced the cat’s heart but not before the cougar had raked the right side of the boy’s face with its razor claws, missing the boy’s eye but ripping so deep that ever after the Crow bore the marks.
A growl ended Fargo’s reverie. The cougar was slinking toward him, its long tail twitching, about to attack. He sighted between its eyes, thankful for the firelight that enabled him to align the sights.
The cougar stopped. Its tail went rigid.
Fargo braced himself.
At that moment Bobbie Joe Jentry sat up, yawned, gazed sleepily about her and asked, “Fargo? Isn’t it time for me to spell you?”
Fargo shot to his feet. He expected the cougar to charge her. But it did no such thing; instead, it hissed, whirled, and raced off into the forest. He grinned grimly. Cougars, like bears and wolves, shared a trait in common. They were unpredictable.
Bobbie Joe said his name again. Fargo went over, the Henry in the crook of his elbow. “Do you scare off grizzlies, too?”
“How is that?”
Fargo told her about the cat. “Keep an eye out in case it comes back. We can’t afford to lose any of the horses.”
“We can afford to lose one,” Bobbie Joe said with a grin. “Kleb won’t be needin’ his.”
Fargo had forgotten about the clerk. The man meant nothing to him personally, but the cold manner in which she joked about his death was a trifle surprising. “No, I reckon he won’t.”
Sleep came easily. Fargo was bone tired. He slept with the Henry at his side and his Colt in his hand on his chest under his blanket. His dreams were fitful, images of phantom assassins who walked on two legs but had the heads of mountain lions. He would have sworn he had barely been asleep an hour when a hand on his shoulder roughly shaking him brought him back to the world of the living.
Dawn would soon break. Foley was kindling the fire. It had been Old Charley’s turn to keep watch, and it was his hand on Fargo’s shoulder. “Come with me, hoss. There is something you might want to see.”
Sluggish as molasses, Fargo rose, holstered the Colt, and followed the seasoned frontiersman to a spot twenty yards from their camp. A gray tinge marked the eastern horizon but other than that the sky was ink black. “What is so important?” Fargo asked.
Old Charley extended an arm to the southwest. “I didn’t notice it until a short while ago. If you don’t see it right away, wait a bit.”
Fargo looked and saw only the mantle of night. He did as Charley suggested, and when all he continued to see was an unbroken vista of pitch, he started to turn to ask exactly what Charley expected him to see. Then he saw it. Fleeting, lasting no more than two or three heartbeats, but there was no mistaking the pinpoint of light for anything other than what it was. “You have good eyes, old-timer.”
“Mad Dog’s campfire, you reckon?”
“Who else would it be?” Fargo rejoined. At that time of year few hunters penetrated this far into the wilds.
“How far do you make it?”
Fargo was attempting to gauge that very thing. Distances were deceiving at night. A campfire might seem to be close when actually it was miles away. This one, though, was miles away.
As it turned out, two miles, or thereabouts. The embers were still giving off wisps of smoke when they reined up in the hollow where the outlaws had camped. Fargo swung down and sought tracks. He was the first to notice a stick embedded in the ground next to a log that had been dragged close to the fire for the outlaws to sit on. The end of the stick had been split and a folded
piece of paper wedged fast.
Deputy Gavin had noticed it, too. “What is that there?”
Fargo removed the paper from the slit and unfolded it. In a barely legible scrawl was a message, short and to the point.
“What does it say?” Deputy Gavin prompted.
Fargo raised his voice so they all could hear. “Turn around and go back or the woman dies.”
10
If Mad Dog Terrell’s plan was to delay them, it worked.
Deputy Gavin took the paper from Fargo and read the note for himself. “Lucille Sparks is as good as dead no matter what we do. Mad Dog can’t leave her alive, not when she can testify in court against him. Her only hope is for us to rescue her. We are pushing on.”
“Not so fast, law dog,” Foley said. “We should talk this over. It might be best for the Sparks girl if we do as they want.”
“I agree,” Lynch Spicer quickly said. “If our pushing on gets her killed, then what good have we done? We came all this way for nothing. Kleb lost his life for nothing. I say we do as they want and turn around and go back.”
“What you want,” Deputy Gavin informed him, “is of no consequence. You have no say in this. You gave it up when you attacked another posse member.”
“You are dragging me along against my will, aren’t you?” Lynch argued. “That gives me a say whether you like it or not.”
Old Charley spat tobacco juice. “No one has asked my opinion but if they did I would tell them that Mad Dog has us over a barrel, and he knows it. He is out there somewhere laughing himself silly at our expense.”
“Talk, talk, talk,” Bobbie Joe Jentry criticized. “That is all this posse is good for. While we sit here jawin’, that girl you all claim to be so concerned about might be bein’ abused.”
No one asked what she meant by abused. They did not have to.
Deputy Gavin looked at Fargo. “We have not heard from our scout yet. What is your considered opinion?”
Fargo chose his words carefully. “I agree with you that Mad Dog won’t let her live. If we go back, she dies anyway. But if we push on, she might die that much sooner. He is bound to be watching us from a distance, him or one of his men, while the rest went on with Lucy.” At that some of them began glancing all around and nervously fingering their weapons. “Stop that!” Fargo warned. “Let them think we don’t suspect. We can use it against them.”