by Jon Sharpe
“Says the infant,” Fargo said.
“Your goadin’ won’t work anymore,” Kyler said, dipping low to the ground. “I’m serious now, and you’re dead.”
Poised on the balls of his feet, Fargo crouched, ready for anything. Or so he thought. The next moment, Kyler flung a handful of dust at his face. Fargo brought his hand up but some of the dust flew into his eyes.
And suddenly he couldn’t see.
10
The world became a blur.
Fargo backpedaled and swiped at his eyes with a sleeve but Kyler Hollister was a vague shape and nothing more. He heard Hollister laugh and felt a sting in his arm.
Fargo was in trouble. He kept on retreating and blinking. They were in the middle of the street where the light barely reached.
Kyler lanced that long knife at Fargo’s belly, and with a hairsbreadth to spare, Fargo sidestepped and continued to put distance between them.
“You can’t avoid me much longer, mister.”
The hell of it was, the boy was right. Fargo still couldn’t see. He was a blind goat waiting to be slaughtered.
Just then the batwings opened and out of the saloon came four townsmen who drew up short.
“Look there!” one shouted.
“It’s that Hollister kid!” another exclaimed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a third hollered.
Kyler did the last thing Fargo expected. He swore and bolted.
“After him!” one of the townsmen shouted but no one gave chase.
Fargo furiously wiped at his eyes. Another blink, and his sight was back.
Kyler Hollister had disappeared into the night. Chasing him would be pointless.
Sliding the toothpick into its ankle sheath, Fargo unfurled and turned to his saviors. “I’m obliged, gents.”
“What did we do?” the first man asked.
“You saved my hash,” Fargo said. Fishing his poke out, he loosened the drawstring and plucked a coin and tossed it and one of them caught it.
“Why, it’s a ten-dollar gold piece.”
“Treat yourselves.”
They looked at one another and then at the ten-dollar coin.
“We could buy a whole bottle,” one said.
“Hell, we could buy two,” said another.
“I didn’t really want to go home anyhow,” remarked a third.
“A bottle it is, then.”
Laughing and clapping one another on the back, they reentered the saloon. Right before the batwings closed, one of them thought to holler, “Thanks, mister.”
Fargo was the one who should thank them. That dust in the face almost did him in. He reclaimed his Colt.
Climbing on the Ovaro, he reined to an alley and along it until he came to the prairie. He supposed he could go ask if there was a room at the boardinghouse but it was late and he was tired and sore as hell from his fight with Grizz.
And now Fargo had something new he owed the Hollister brothers for.
Dappled by starlight and a sliver of moon, he rode until he came on a dry wash. It would shunt most of the wind and hide him from unfriendly eyes.
Riding down into it, Fargo dismounted. He stripped the Ovaro, spread out his bedroll, and lay on his back with his saddle for a pillow.
Overhead, a myriad of stars speckled the firmament. He never saw this many when he was in a city or town. Only in the wilds, where the skies were clear as crystal and there were no lights to interfere.
Fargo thought about the missing bull. The five thousand was too much to pass up. Maybe he’d find it and maybe he wouldn’t. All it would cost him was a few days. A week at the most, he reckoned.
Where others might rest fitfully after the day he’d had, Fargo slept soundly until the stamp of the Ovaro’s hoof ended his slumber. Feeling sluggish and drowsy, he rose onto his elbows.
Dawn was on the cusp of turning the eastern sky pink, and the stallion was staring intently to the south.
Jamming his hat on, Fargo cast off his blanket and crept to the top of the wash.
A lone rider was making for town along the ribbon of road.
“You’re turning into a worrier,” he said to the stallion, and set about throwing his saddle blanket on and saddling up.
Fargo liked to start his day with coffee and recollected a restaurant that had a sign in the window advertising “the best breakfasts this side of the Divide.” He was skeptical of the claim but he did like the idea of having food served to him rather than making it himself. He was on the go so much, he grew tired of his own cooking.
By the time he got there the sun was up.
Most of the dozen or so customers stopped eating to stare. Evidently words of his clash with the Hollisters had spread.
Fargo paid them no mind. It was a new day and he’d start it right. When a gray-haired woman in an apron came for his order, he asked for six eggs, scrambled, two slices of toast with butter and jam, enough bacon to “gag a horse,” and for her to keep the coffee coming until it poured out his ears.
“A gent who likes to eat,” she said, chuckling. “You’re a customer after my own heart.”
The coffee was delicious. Fargo was on his second cup, and his meal had yet to show, when the door opened and in ambled Rafer Crown and Dirk Peters. Peters spotted him and they came over.
“Mind if we join you?” Crown asked.
“It’s a big table,” Fargo said.
“We’re on our way out to the Tyler spread as soon as we’re finished,” Dirk Peters mentioned. “Care to join us?”
“Might as well.”
Rafer Crown sat so his right hand was close to his Navy.
“There’s a rumor going around that you were in a knife fight after we left you last night.”
“Wasn’t much of a fight,” Fargo said.
“The rumor says it was Kyler Hollister,” Dirk Peters said.
“It was.”
“That’s the thing with these Hollisters, we hear,” Dirk said. “Rile them, and they keep coming at you until you’re dead.”
“Worth keeping in mind,” Rafer Crown remarked.
“It surely is,” Fargo said.
11
The Tyler ranch was five miles out of town, situated along the foothills that served as stairs to the high country. It consisted of a house, a stable, a bunkhouse and a chicken coop.
The rancher was on his porch with a couple of his cowhands and a woman who must have been his wife.
Fargo was mildly surprised to see that nearly twenty people had gathered to hear what Jim Tyler had to say. And he wasn’t the only one.
“I didn’t expect this many,” Rafer Crown said.
“The five thousand has brought them out of the woodwork,” Dirk Peters said.
“Look at them,” the bounty hunter grumbled. “Most couldn’t find their asses without help.”
Fargo was looking, and he was inclined to agree.
There was an old woman, pushing seventy if she was a day, in a bonnet and dress, armed with a Colt Dragoon, of all things, strapped tight around her waist. The Dragoon was so heavy, her holster sagged halfway to her knees.
There were three kids on their own, the oldest not more than twelve or thirteen, all with freckles and red hair and squirrel rifles.
There was a young man and woman in smart city clothes who looked enough alike to be brother and sister. She was twirling a parasol and he looked bored.
“God in heaven,” Dirk Peters said.
“I need a drink,” Crown muttered.
Fargo was still looking. He guessed that a big man in bib overalls was a farmer and that a pair of men in red caps and checkered shirts were loggers. Fully three-fourths were townsfolk who would be lucky if they could track themselves to the outhouse.
“Nothing to say?” Dirk Pe
ters asked him, grinning.
“It’s plumb ridiculous,” Fargo said.
“Make that two drinks,” Crown said.
Jim Tyler was supposed to kick things off at ten. It wasn’t much past nine but he stepped to the porch rail and surveyed those who had gathered and seemed about as impressed as anyone with common sense would be. Then he set eyes on Fargo, Rafer Crown and Dirk Peters and gave a nod of approval.
“He knows we’re not worthless,” Crown said.
The rancher cleared his throat. “My name is Jim Tyler, as all of you surely know. This ranch you see around you is one of the first in the territory. I have high hopes for it. If I can make a go of raising livestock, others might try the same. Ten years from now, a lot of folks could be making their living off cattle, just like in Texas and Kansas and elsewhere.”
“Bet he’s one of those long-winded cusses,” Dirk Peters said.
Tyler continued. “I brought a herd all the way from Texas. They say I’m one of the first to do that. I also brought my prize bull. I call him Thunderhead because the day we got here, there was a gully-washer, and he was a sight standing there with his big horns and all while the rain poured down and lightning split the sky.”
“Yep,” Dirk said. “Long-winded as hell.”
Tyler had paused and was grinning at a memory. “Getting Thunderhead here wasn’t easy. He didn’t want to come. He especially didn’t like walking so far every day. So we tricked him. He was partial to a heifer my missus took to calling Mabel, and one of the hands led her by a rope and Thunderhead would follow. If not for her, we’d likely still be in Texas.”
There was a smattering of laughter.
“I’ve treated that bull like he was part of the family. Had a special pen made. Gave him plenty of feed and care. Hell, I treat him as good as I treat my wife.”
More polite laughter rippled.
“I can’t tell you how important Thunderhead is to me. My whole future rests on him. He can mean the difference between my ranch succeeding or dying.”
“An iffy proposition,” Rafer Crown commented, “depending on cows for a living.”
“Two months ago, as you’ve undoubtedly heard, Thunderhead disappeared. I came out to his pen one morning and he was gone. The gate got open. How, I don’t know. I always made sure it was shut at night. I feared it might be redskins. Blackfeet have been seen hereabouts a lot lately. But I couldn’t find any sign of them. No moccasin prints, no tracks of unshod ponies, nothing.”
“That’s all we’d need,” Dirk said.
Tyler’s shoulders slumped. “I thought maybe Thunderhead had been rustled, but I couldn’t see someone just leading him off. He’d put up a fuss.”
“Could he have opened the gate his own self?” the man in the bib overalls hollered. “I had a cow that could do that.”
“I suppose,” Tyler said. “If he hooked his horn under the bar and lifted. But he never once tried to get out. He had it easy and I suspect he knew it.”
“Did you try tracking him?” asked the old woman with the Colt Dragoon.
“I did, ma’am,” Tyler answered. “I’m not much shakes at it but I tracked him into the mountains yonder and lost the sign.”
Fargo gazed to the west where a rugged range formed an arc some seventy miles long. Beyond, and higher still, reared the stark backbone of the Rockies.
“I’m desperate,” Tyler was saying. “Which is why I sent out the circulars some of you have seen. And why I’m offering five thousand dollars to have my bull back in his pen where he belongs.” He surveyed those who had come. “If you want to go after him, fine. If you find him, the money is yours. But I should warn you. The mountains are no place for infants. If you’re green to this, you shouldn’t be going.”
“He has that right,” Dirk Peters said.
“There are grizzlies up there, and wolves, and more besides,” the rancher said. “There are those Blackfeet I told you about, who will lift your hair as quick as look at you.”
“Right about that, too,” Dirk said.
“I don’t want any of your lives on my conscience. If you’ve never hunted or tracked before, go home. The bounty isn’t worth your life.”
“It is to me,” Rafer Crown said.
None of the listeners made a move for their mounts.
“Very well, then,” Jim Tyler said. “It’s on your heads. But I warn you one last time. A lot of you could well die.”
12
After the rancher was done, Fargo went up and offered his hand.
Tyler looked at him and at Crown and Peters. “You three strike me as the best of the bunch.”
“We should,” Dirk Peters said.
“If your bull is still breathing,” Rafer Crown said, “I’ll find him.”
“If I don’t find him first,” Dirk Peters said.
“I like gents with confidence,” Tyler said. “You’ll need it up there.”
Just then the old woman wearing the Colt Dragoon came over. “Good to see you again, Jim.”
“Esther,” Tyler said. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”
“My Charlie was a damn fine tracker and he taught me his tricks,” Esther said. “I have as good a chance as any of these other idiots.”
“Why are you looking at me, lady?” Dirk Peters asked.
“You have idiot written all over you.”
“Here now,” Dirk said.
“You’re too old,” Tyler bluntly told her.
“Old, hell,” Esther retorted. “I’ve got more vinegar in me than you four peckerwoods put together.”
“Lady, I don’t like being insulted,” Rafer Crown warned.
“What are you going to do? Shoot an old woman for speaking her mind?”
“Is it the money?” Tyler asked her.
“What else?”
“I liked your husband, Esther. He was a good man,” Tyler said. “It’s a shame the Lord took him to his reward and left you alone. You should go back east. Don’t you have a daughter who lives in Missouri?”
“Hell, living with her would bore me to tears. I’m going after your bull and that’s final.” Esther smiled sweetly and walked off.
“Damn,” Dirk Peters said. “That is one feisty gal.”
“Feisty won’t help her much with the Blackfeet,” Rafer Crown said.
Now it was the farmer who approached, his thumbs hooked in his suspenders. “Mr. Tyler,” he said with a nod of greeting.
“Humphries,” Tyler said. “Shouldn’t you be tending to your fields?”
“For five thousand dollars they can wait.”
“You’re worse than Esther,” Tyler said.
“Worse how? Your bounty is more than I’d earn in ten years. I could have a bigger farmhouse built, treat my family to things.”
“You can’t if you’re dead,” Tyler said.
“I’ve hunted. I’m not helpless.”
“I hope not, for your family’s sake.”
Humphries smiled at them and strolled away.
“What have I done?” Tyler said to himself. “These people are going to get themselves killed.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Dirk Peters said, gesturing.
The young couple in the smart city clothes approached, looking for all the world as if they were out for a Sunday stroll. The woman twirled her parasol, the young man ran a finger over his neatly trimmed mustache.
“Mr. Tyler,” the young man said. “We wanted to make your acquaintance, my sister and I.”
“Good God,” Tyler said.
“Now, now,” the young man said. “I’m Glyn Richmond and this is my sister, Aramone. Don’t let our attire deceive you. My sister and I are more competent than you appear to think. She’s a fine shot. She once bagged a squirrel at two hundred yards.”
“A squirrel?” Dirk Peters said, and snorted.
“Squirrels don’t claw you to pieces,” Rafer Crown said. “Grizzlies do.”
“I assure you, good sir,” Glyn Richmond said, “we’re prepared for anything.”
“Does that include the Blackfeet?” Dirk Peters asked.
Aramone was eyeing Fargo. She ran her gaze from his hat to his boots and up again. “And who might you be, tall and silent?”
Fargo told her.
“You won’t be disappointed, will you, handsome, if we beat you to the bull?” she teased.
“Sis,” Glyn said.
“I’m only being friendly.” Aramone twirled her parasol and winked at Fargo and they ambled off.
“The females fall right over you, don’t they?” Dirk Peters said, and laughed.
“Must be nice,” Rafer Crown said.
Jim Tyler wasn’t the least bit amused. “They shouldn’t be here. Nor most of the rest.”
“They’re grown-ups,” Dirk said. “They can do as they please no matter how dumb it is.”
“Not all of them are grown,” Crown said. He was staring at the three redheaded boys.
“These Blackfeet,” Fargo thought to bring up. “Is it a war party? And how many?”
“The word I got is that there’s seven or eight,” Tyler answered. “The hunter who saw them didn’t say if they wore war paint or not.”
“Doesn’t matter if they do,” Dirk Peters said. “They’d likely as not scalp any white they caught anyway.”
“There’s something else,” Jim Tyler said, and lowered his voice. “Something I should have told everyone else, I reckon. It’s about Thunderhead.”
“Let me guess,” Dirk Peters said. “He’ll balk at being brought back.”
“I figured as much but that won’t stop me,” Rafer Crown said.
“He’ll do more than balk,” Tyler informed them.
“What else can he do?” Dirk asked.
“Kill you.”
“How’s that again?”
“Thunderhead has gored three men to death.”