Thunderhead Trail

by Jon Sharpe

  “Honest it wasn’t,” Aramone echoed.

  “Put your pistols on the ground,” Fargo said. He looked at Aramone. “Both of you.”

  “Damn you,” Glyn bristled. “How many times must we say it wasn’t us? Someone snuck up and killed Peters when we weren’t looking.”

  “That’s right,” Aramone said, bobbing her chin. “We were getting the horses ready and heard Dirk make funny sounds and turned, and there he was with his throat slit.”

  “I’d like to believe you,” Fargo said. He wagged his Colt. “But drop your guns anyway.”

  “You pigheaded frontiersman,” Glyn said. “Do you think we would lie?”

  “You would,” Fargo said bluntly. “I thought better of your sister.”

  “Oh, Skye,” Aramone said. “It’s not what you think.”

  “For the last time,” Fargo said. “Your guns.”

  They looked at each other and Aramone said, “Let’s do as he wants. Please. For me.”

  “Hell,” Glyn said.

  “We have to make him see the truth.”

  “And what about the killer?” Glyn said. “What about whoever has been stalking us?”

  “No one has been stalking you,” Fargo said. “I’d have seen the sign.”

  “I’m telling you someone is,” Glyn said. “We heard a horse once or twice.”

  “Over that way,” Aramone said, pointing to the north.

  Fargo trained his Colt on Glyn’s face. “I’ll count to three.”

  Aramone opened her riding jacket and set down her pistol. “Please, brother.”

  Glyn’s jaw was twitching and his fists were clenched. “I won’t forget you for this.”

  “You won’t have to if you’re dead.”

  With an angry jerk, Glyn opened his own jacket, gripped his short-barreled Colt with two fingers, yanked it from his shoulder holster, and let it fall. “Happy now, you son of a bitch?”

  “It’s a start,” Fargo said.

  41

  Fargo had Aramone take a rope from their packhorse and bind her brother’s wrists and ankles. Glyn glared at her and as she was tying the last knot he swore and said, “You have just made the worst mistake of our lives.”

  “I can get him to see the truth,” she replied. “Trust me.”

  “You’re forgetting whoever is out there,” Glyn said. “And now I’m helpless.”

  Fargo told Aramone to lie on her belly with her hands behind her back.

  “You’re tying me too?”

  “I am,” Fargo said.

  “After how friendly I’ve been?”

  “Lie down,” Fargo said gruffly.

  Reluctantly, she obeyed.

  Fargo straddled her legs and gripped her left wrist and felt something under her long sleeve. “What’s this?”

  He slid the sleeve up, revealing a wrist sheath with a knife.

  “You told us to drop our guns. You said nothing about dropping our knives.”

  “Dirk had his throat slit.”

  “It wasn’t with mine, I assure you.”

  The blade didn’t have so much as a spot of dried blood but that could be because she’d wiped it clean. Fargo tossed it aside and bound her wrists.

  “My brother’s right, you know. You’re making a terrible mistake.”

  “My mistake,” Fargo said, “was in thinking this bounty would be easy.” He rolled her over, then went to the fire and touched the coffeepot.

  “I just hope whoever has been picking us off decides to kill you next,” Glyn said.

  “Give it a rest.” Fargo was tired of the whole business.

  “I know it looks bad but I’d like you to hear me out,” Aramone said. “We were talking it over and we’ve decided we can’t do this ourselves. You were right all along. We’re out of our element. We don’t mind helping out and sharing the bounty.”

  “Generous of you,” Fargo said, “now that Peters is dead and your share will be bigger.”

  “Is that what you suspect? That we murdered him for the money?”

  “It’s a possibility.” Fargo looked over. “Do yourself a favor. Don’t talk. Don’t say a single word.”

  Aramone went to respond but didn’t and slumped as if in despair.

  “That goes double for you,” Fargo warned when Glyn rose on an elbow.

  Fargo was eager for some coffee. He needed to drink and think. He rose to get his tin cup and saw that the Ovaro had its head up and ears pricked and was staring into the woods to the north.

  Fargo did the same. He saw nothing to account for it but a sensation came over him, one he’d experienced before, always when unseen eyes were on him. His hand drifted to his Colt.

  “What?” Aramone said.

  Fargo shook his head. He tried to tell himself it was nerves but he was hardly the skittish sort. And the Ovaro was still staring. Something, or someone, was out there.

  “Untie us,” Glyn whispered.

  “No.”

  “If we’re killed it will be on your shoulders.”

  “I told you to shut up.”

  Fargo moved to the trees. He crouched and let time go by but the forest stayed still. Too still. He didn’t hear any birds or squirrels.

  He glanced at the Richmonds. They were staring into the woods, too, their worry obvious. Could it be he had jumped to the wrong conclusion?

  Off in the trees a twig snapped and he caught a fleeting glimpse of something.

  Fargo flattened. It could be an animal but every instinct he had said different.

  Twisting, he crawled to where the dagger and the six-shooters lay.

  A few slashes and Aramone was free. “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’ve finally come to your senses,” Glyn spat.

  Fargo shoved the dagger at Aramone. “Stay down until I get back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “We’ll go with you.”

  “Like hell we will,” Glyn said.

  Fargo had no more time to waste. He crawled to the trees and slipped in among them and prayed he wouldn’t regret what he’d just done.

  42

  Fargo snaked toward where he had glimpsed movement. His Colt was out and cocked. He avoided a boulder, slipped up and over a log. Pausing to listen, he heard the faintest of metallic clicks.

  Fargo rolled just as a rifle cracked. The slug missed his ear by a whisker’s-width. Rising on his elbows, he banged off a shot.

  Other rifles blasted but not at him and were answered by Glyn’s short-barreled Colt.

  Aramone Richmond cried out.

  Fargo fired at a muzzle flash and had to hunt cover as two rifles were turned on him. Lead clipped a pine above him and needles rained.

  Glyn Richmond’s short-barreled Colt boomed twice.

  Fargo waited for the rifles to fire again but they didn’t. He rose partway, seeking a target. There was none. The woods had gone unnaturally quiet again.

  Then a horse nickered and hooves drummed.

  Bursting into motion, Fargo raced after it. He might not get a shot but maybe he could see who it was.

  Other hooves pounded, off to his right.

  The thick timber forced Fargo to weave and dodge. It slowed him, and although he ran until his lungs ached, the hoofbeats faded.

  The shooters had escaped.

  Fargo swore lustily. Once again he’d been thwarted through no fault of his own. He stood listening for a while, until he was satisfied they were gone.

  Reloading as he went, Fargo returned to the Richmonds.

  Aramone was on her knees, cradling her brother’s bloody head in her lap. She was quietly weeping, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Fargo didn’t need to ask what had happened. A hole in Glyn Richmond
’s temple sufficed. He put his hand on Aramone’s shoulder and gently squeezed.

  She didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge him at all. She went on crying, her sorrow was so overwhelming.

  Fargo went to the Ovaro and shucked the Henry from the scabbard on the off chance the would-be assassins tried again.

  The sun dipped low over the stark peaks to the west, and Aramone finally wept herself dry. She sniffled and wiped at her nose with a sleeve and said forlornly, “They killed him.”

  “Did you see who it was?” Fargo was anxious to learn.

  Aramone shook her head. “There were three, I think. That’s all I could tell.” She did more sniffling. “We’d heard shots and he jumped at me and made me lie flat and drew his Colt, and the next one hit him in the head.”

  “That was you firing back?”

  Aramone nodded. “I grabbed Glyn’s pistol. I doubt I hit anyone. I never saw them. It was like they were ghosts.”

  “Ghosts don’t blow holes in people,” Fargo declared, and was sorry he’d said it when she clutched her brother’s shirt and broke into fresh tears.

  It would be a while before she stopped.

  Fargo climbed on the Ovaro and rode in a wide half circle. There had to be footprints. Scuff marks. Some sign of their attackers. But half an hour of searching proved fruitless.

  His frustration knew no bounds.

  Returning, he saw that the fire had burned out. He rekindled the embers.

  Aramone was hunched over with her cheek on her brother’s chest and her eyes closed. Fargo figured she had drifted off but then he saw she was staring at him.

  “Why?” she asked in sheer misery.

  “It has to be the bounty,” Fargo said.

  Slowly sitting up, she absently ran a hand over her hair. “It wasn’t the Blackfeet?”

  “That’s the one thing I’m sure of.”

  Aramone traced Glyn’s jaw with a fingertip. “You might not have liked him but he was a good brother.”

  “If you say so.”

  “He looked after me after our parents died. It was my idea to go into the bounty business. Escaped slaves, mostly, to start. There’s good money in that.”

  Fargo was aware that plantation owners often placed high bounties. But he never had liked the notion of one man being another’s property.

  “They rarely raise a fuss when you catch them. They’re too afraid of being hung.”

  “Who wouldn’t be?” Fargo said, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

  “We went after escaped convicts now and then but the bounties were never very much. Outlaws. What have you.” Aramone sucked in a deep breath and more tears trickled. “All the dangerous people my brother and I caught over the past few years, and he meets his end hunting a goddamned cow.”

  “Thunderhead is a bull.”

  “Same thing.”

  No, it wasn’t, but Fargo let it drop. “You can have your brother’s share once we get the money.”

  Aramone brightened slightly. “That’s awful nice of you. But your bounty hunter friend might not go for the idea.”

  “It won’t hurt to ask him.”

  “God,” she said sorrowfully. “It just hit me. I have to start a whole new life. What will do I? I’m not much of a cook and I can’t sew worth a lick. All I know how to do is hunt bounties.”

  Fargo was worried about something else. “Do you want your brother buried?”

  “What kind of question is that? Do you think I want the coyotes and buzzards tearing at him? Why would you even ask?”

  “Because whoever took those shots at us and killed your brother might be going after Crown and Thunderhead.”

  Aramone considered that. “I need my share of the bounty now more than ever. Let’s bury Glyn, but it needn’t be deep.”

  So much for sisterly love, Fargo thought.

  “Do you think we’ll have a chance to get even with the killers?” she asked.

  “As sure as the sun rises and sets,” Fargo said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “They have to kill us to get their hands on the bull.”

  “Oh,” Aramone said.

  43

  They set the extra horses free in the meadow. After Thunderhead was delivered, Fargo would have Jim Tyler send a cowhand for them.

  They rode as if Rafer Crown’s life depended on it.

  Fargo was loath to push the Ovaro after having ridden so hard the past couple of days. Thank God for the stallion’s exceptional stamina.

  Aramone grimly rode in his wake, her hair flying in the wind.

  Presently the sun was almost gone, and they’d only descended a third of the way. Once it set, Fargo would have no choice but to go slower. He wouldn’t risk losing the stallion to a misstep in the dark.

  As it turned out, he had to slow sooner when Aramone shouted, “Hold up! Please!”

  “What is it?” Fargo impatiently asked once they had drawn rein.

  “I can’t keep up with you. I’m sorry. I’m not as good a rider. I’ve almost ridden into trees twice now. Go on without me if you have to.”

  Fargo wasn’t about to leave her at the mercy of the mystery killers and whatever wild beasts happened along.

  “We go together.”

  “I can’t keep up, I tell you.”

  “Then we go slower.”

  Fargo constantly sought the glow of a campfire. Either Crown hadn’t kindled a fire, which was unlikely, or the bounty hunter wisely kindled his fire where it couldn’t be seen.

  When the terrain permitted, Aramone rode at his side.

  It was just Fargo’s luck that her loss had made her gabby.

  “It hasn’t been a couple of hours and I miss my brother terribly. Whoever shot him has to pay.”

  “Goes without saying,” Fargo said.

  “I’ve never been out for revenge before. It’s not in my nature to kill.”

  “All those bounties you collected, you took them alive?”

  “We always tried to. Glyn would have shot a few more than he actually did but I usually talked him out of it.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I’ve had time to think as we rode,” Aramone said, “and I don’t know if I can kill them without cause.”

  “What the hell do you call shooting your brother?”

  “I know, I know. I only meant I might not have it in me to walk up to someone and pull a gun and shoot them dead.”

  “They’d do it to you.”

  “Maybe so. But I’m the one who has to live with my conscience, afterward.” Aramone peered at him in the dark. “Doesn’t it ever bother you?”

  “Now and then.”

  “But you do it anyway?”

  “When I have to.”

  “I wish I had your courage.”

  “All you need,” Fargo said, “is the will.” He might have gone on but just then she pointed.

  “Look there!”

  A dancing finger of orange wasn’t more than half a mile off, Fargo reckoned.

  “Is it Crown, do you think?”

  “We’ll soon find out.”

  “If we can see his fire,” Aramone mentioned, “so can anyone.”

  Fargo rode faster.

  He was startled to find that the fire was right out in the open, on a broad grassy bench with a lone tree in the middle. Mabel was tied to it. She was resting, the calf next to her. A few yards away lay Thunderhead, peacefully chewing.

  “Where’s the bounty hunter?” Aramone asked.

  Fargo had no idea. Neither Rafer Crown nor Crown’s horse were anywhere to be seen. He threw caution aside and rode toward the fire.

  Thunderhead showed no alarm whatsoever. Mabel raised her droopy eyelids and went back to dozing. The calf was asleep.

>   Drawing rein, Fargo looked around. “What the hell?”

  “Where can he have got to?” Aramone said.

  From out of the tall pine drifted a voice. “Look up and I’ll spit in your face. That should give you a clue.”

  Craning his neck, Fargo curled his lips in a smile. “You clever son of a bitch.”

  “I have my moments,” Crown said.

  Limbs moved and rustled and a dark silhouette clambered down. Crouching on a bottom limb, Rafer Crown grinned. He had a Spencer rifle in his left hand.

  Fargo remembered seeing the stock jutting from Crown’s saddle scabbard but the bounty hunter hadn’t relied on it until now.

  “Anyone wants the bull, they could come and get him,” Crown said with a grin.

  “And you’d pick them off as easy as you please,” Aramone said. “You up that tree, and they have all this open ground to cover.”

  “You learn quick, gal,” Crown complimented her.

  “I’m a full-grown woman,” Aramone replied, “or haven’t you noticed?”

  “A man would have to be half dead not to.”

  “If you two are done,” Fargo interrupted, “where’s your horse?”

  “Hid over in the woods,” Crown said.

  “What if someone finds him,” Fargo said. “The Blackfeet, for instance.”

  “He’ll raise a hell of a fuss,” Crown said, his grin widening. “He’s a devil with anyone but me.” Gripping the limb, he nimbly swung down and landed lightly on the balls of his boots.

  “What made you think of this?” Aramone asked with a nod at the fire and the tree.

  “I hunt men for a living,” Crown said. “Men who would as soon see me dead. Staying one step ahead of them is how I stay alive.” His eyes narrowed. “Where’s your brother and that chatterbox Peters?”

  “Gone,” Fargo said.

  “Both?”

  “Both,” Aramone confirmed sadly.

  “Damn. I liked Dirk. He was growing on me. And I’m right sorry about your brother.”

  Aramone coughed.

  “Who’s to blame?” Crown asked.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Fargo admitted. “I couldn’t find any tracks.”

  “How are they outsmarting us?” Crown asked.