by John Benteen
“They won’t mend right if you don’t lay down.”
“I ain’t got the time to lay down; Wrap me up.”
“You goddamn cowboys,” the doctor said. “Horse walks all over you and you won’t take care of yourself. Won’t your outfit pay your tab if you stay in the hospital for a week?”
“No,” Fargo said.
“You work for a hell of an outfit, then.”
“I sure do,” Fargo said and raised his arms as the doctor circled him with the bandages.
He bought clean clothes. He thought about buying a Winchester and a shotgun, too. Then he decided against it. He already had a Winchester and a shotgun. The thing was to get them back from the people who had taken them.
He knew that was a decision not made in sanity, but he was still not quite sane. He was on a spree, drunk on hatred and desire for revenge. But nobody was going to do to him what the Frosts had, take a girl he liked, kill his partner, and steal the shotgun Teddy Roosevelt had given him without suffering long and hard for that: Dorsey had paid; now it was Chad’s turn.
Fargo mounted up, rode out of Las Vegas, still headed south. This time, he rode at full gallop, and the tape around his chest made that bearable.
~*~
The road-ranch had been built in a grove of cottonwoods. It was a sprawling, unpainted frame building with a long hitch rack outside, a corral behind. Fargo did not ride up to the front, but circled the corral, reining in and grinning as he recognized his own dun in the pen.
So he was still here, Chad was.
Fargo swung the roan around the front, hitched it, tied the mule, loosened Dorsey’s Colt in the holster again, shoved through the door of the place.
It was afternoon now. A drunken cowboy sat at one table in the main room, head cradled on his arms. Two girls in short skirts drank beer at the end of the bar. When they saw Fargo enter, both sat up straight. They whispered together, a blond and a redhead. Then the redhead slipped off her chair, came toward him, swaying her hips.
“Hello, big man,” she said.
Fargo looked at her. In the valley of her. breasts, revealed by the low-cut dress, he saw a red, ugly pucker. “Hi.”
“Buy me a drink?” Brazenly her hand went out, stroked his thigh.
“Why not?” Fargo went to the bar, ordered two whiskeys. His was genuine, but bad; the girl’s was cold tea. “What’s your name?” Fargo asked. “Bessie.”
“Mine’s Neal.” He reached into his pocket, brought out a double eagle, laid it on the bar. “You see that, Bessie?”
“Hell, yes, I see it.”
Fargo picked it up, dropped it in the cleft between her breasts. Then he touched the burn there. “Who did that to you?”
She looked at him with baffled, suspicious eyes. “What difference does it make to you?”
“Twenty’s worth. You want me to fish that double eagle out?” He reached for her breasts.
She drew back, shielding them with a hand. Her eyes met his. “You’re looking for him, aren’t you?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” Fargo said. “Where is he?”
She shot a look at the bartender, reading a newspaper at the end of the bar. Her voice lowered. “Upstairs still. He’s been here about two days now, had every girl in the joint. The louse. I hope you kill him slow.”
“Where is he now?”
“Upstairs, with Susie, God help her. She don’t get much play. She’s got to let people do anything to her to stay alive.”
“All right,” Fargo said. “Go upstairs. Tell him there’s a man down here wants to see him. Tell him the man’s named Neal Fargo and that Fargo aims to kill him. And that if he don’t come down, I’ll come up after him.”
Her eyes widened as she stared at him. “In here?”
“In here,” Fargo said.
The bartender caught that. He straightened up from his newspaper, eyes narrowing. Big, potbellied, and with the cool toughness that came from dealing every day with drunken cowboys and miners, he edged toward Fargo. Fargo saw his hand about to slip under the bar.
The Colt Fargo wore came out so fast the girl gasped. Fargo said, “Mister, you touch that weapon you got under there, you’ll be as dead as he’ll be.”
The bartender stared at him, at the gun muzzle, and both hands came up on the mahogany. “Look,” he said, “you start shootin’ in here, innocent people gonna get hurt. I got four girls—”
“Then you get ’em all upstairs and out of the way,” Fargo said, “and you stay with ’em.” He threw two more double-eagles on the bar. “I don’t generally shoot wild, and I don’t aim to break anything that belongs to you. But if I do, that ought to pay for it. Ought to buy me the use of this front room for a while, too.”
The man took the money. “You break more than this, I’ll expect to collect.”
“Come out from behind the bar,” Fargo said. “Get rid of that drunk over yonder. Then clear this room.”
The man edged out from around the counter. He kept his eyes on Fargo as he went to the drunken cowboy, snoring now. He jerked the man up by the collar. Before the puncher knew what was happening to him, the barkeep hustled him to the door, pushed him through it. The cowhand mumbled something incoherently, staggered across the yard, sat down under a cottonwood, put his head in his hands. Seconds later, he was asleep again.
“Bessie,” the barkeep said, “you and Nola git upstairs. Lie down on the bed; that’ll protect you from any lead that comes up through the floor. Tell Winnie to do the same. I’ll git Susie loose from that Frost hombre and deliver the message myself.”
“Thanks, Chelsea,” Fargo said.
“I can’t afford to lose a girl to a stray bullet. And I don’t want my place tore up. You do this clean, you hear?”
“Clean as he’ll let me,” Fargo said. “Put that bottle over here.”
Chelsea did so. The girls, frightened, hastened up the short flight of stairs at the rear of the place. Fargo said, “Chelsea, is there a back way he can get out from up there?”
“No. Not ’less he can go through a window and take a two-story drop. I don’t make it easy for customers that owe me money to sneak out.”
Fargo poured himself a drink. “Then on your way. Tell Chad Frost I’ll be waiting down here.” He went to the front door, pulled it shut and barred it from inside, then took a table in the corner, as far from the stairs as possible, in a position where he could watch them and still have his back to the wall. He holstered his Colt and sipped his drink.
Chelsea went up the stairs. Fargo sat motionless. In a minute or two, he would kill a man or be killed himself. He felt nothing except a cold, savage joy, an impatience for the appearance of Chad Frost. The room was a long one, and he had stationed himself far enough from the upper landing of the stairs to make a shot at that distance chancy for any marksman less than expert. He hoped Chad would realize that. He wanted Chad to come close to him, wanted time to savor the killing, to see Chad’s face in detail.
He emptied the glass. Chelsea had disappeared beyond the landing. No one was in sight anywhere in the road-ranch. Minutes passed. Fargo waited for the sound of an opening, then closing door, footsteps. But nothing happened.
So Chad lacked the nerve to face him, or, more probably, waited for Fargo to come after him, lurking in ambush.
I’ll give him exactly five minutes longer, Fargo thought. Then I go after the sonofabitch.
There was a clock behind the bar and it ticked loudly. Its hand swept away a minute, a second one. Flies buzzed loudly on the panes of the only window in the room, on the other side of the front door. Fargo watched the stairs.
Three minutes, now. So Chad lacked the guts—
Glass smashed. From the window a gun roared. Bullet fragments, parts of hollow-pointed slugs, sprayed Fargo’s shoulder as lead chunked into the wall of the corner. Fargo went sideways out of the chair, the Colt leaping into his hand, rolled, even as the familiar bark of his own .38 came. The slug missed him by a wide margin, and even as he
came to his feet, he was pumping rounds at the fleeting silhouette in the window.
At that instant, from behind him at the top of the stairs, another gun thundered—a rifle this time. It missed Fargo because he had just turned, but its slug came close, close enough for him to feel the breath of its passage. Caught in a cross fire, he reacted instantly, dived for the bar; Lead from the rifle chopped by him again as, in a great flying leap, he went over the counter, landed hard on the duckboards behind it. Here he was out of range of the window, but a rifle bullet slashed through the bar, spraying splinters.
Fargo threw himself along the duckboards toward the bar’s end. He whipped off the cavalry hat, raised its peak a fraction above the mahogany rim. The rifle snapped again, jerking the hat from his hand. Then he came up, lined his Colt on the bulky figure of Chelsea at the top of the stairs and fired a single round.
Chelsea screamed. The Winchester dropped from his hands and his great body pitched forward, slid crazily down the stairs. Fargo came around the bar’s end, exposing himself to bullets through the window, but he came shooting, shot the two bullets left in the .45. He saw the outline of a man’s form behind the shattering opening, drove both slugs for it. Someone cried out. Fargo’s gun was empty. He took cover again behind the bar, jammed in fresh cartridges, snapped shut the loading gate.
He edged from around the counter, gun muzzle lined on the window. Nothing happened, no one appeared there. He fired through it twice anyhow, for effect, as he ran to the door, pulled the latch. He flung open the door just in time to see Chad, left arm dangling uselessly, reining Fargo’s horse around.
Chad saw him at that instant, too, and let go the reins. His lean face was pale, his eyes wide as he raised Fargo’s .38. Fargo aimed and fired in a motion cream-smooth and remorselessly accurate, and the heavy slug slammed into Chad’s right shoulder and pitched him backward off the horse. He dropped the gun. His booted, spurred foot caught in the stirrup. The terrified animal, reins flying, broke into a gallop. Blood sprayed as Chad’s dragging body bounced behind.
The drunken cowhand’s horse was pulling at its reins at the hitch rack. Fargo scooped up the .38, ran to the horse, jerked loose the knot, and hit the saddle without touching stirrup. He yanked the horse around, rammed home Dorsey’s spurs, and sent it after his own fleeing mount.
His roan was faster than the drunk’s. It ran for a long way, kicking up wildly with hind feet at the strange thing trailing it. Chad’s body bounced like a rag doll as iron shod hooves struck it. Fargo, at a dead run, followed the animal for a good half mile before he could gallop up alongside, grab its bridle’s cheek strap, and pull its head around and halt it.
He seized its reins, dismounted, and ducked under its head, letting the cowpoke’s horse go. What was left of Chad was still alive, but would not be for long. Fargo’s first volley had chopped his left arm, that final shot had smashed the right shoulder, and the horse had kicked his torso into something almost formless. Rocks had nearly scalped his head as the animal had dragged him over them, and his face was a mask of dust and blood, through which stunned eyes looked up at Fargo dully.
Then Chad’s lips moved. “You. A goddamned ghost.”
Fargo said, “You’re finished. Where are the other two?”
“You go to hell,” Chad whispered.
“You’ll get there before me.” Fargo grinned. “Especially when I turn this horse loose and give it a good lashin’.”
“You wouldn’t,” Chad whispered slowly, “let a man die like that.”
“You’d be surprised what I’ll do. I’m worse than the Frosts when somebody crosses me. You ought to have allowed for that a spell back. And”—his eyes went to Chad’s trapped foot—“you ought not to of stole my boots. They’re too small for you. If you’d worn your own, maybe your foot woulda slipped out of it.” Suddenly his voice crackled. “Where are they, Chad? Where’re they bound for?”
“Fargo, for God’s sake—”
“I’m gonna mount him, Chad. Mount him and ride him hard. Over the roughest ground I can find.”
“No … no … ” Then he gasped, “They turned west.”
“Headed for where?”
“California. Roy’s got a gal of his own in San Berdoo.”
“How’re they traveling?”
“They’ll make it on horses. Roy knows the Mojave.”
“And the Steele woman? Is she all right?”
Chad fought for breath. “Yeah ... Clint’s took her over. He … likes her. He won’t turn loose of her. Not for a while. Not … unless they go to Mexico.” He groaned. “If they hide out there, they’ll … trade her off to some Spic general for protection... Fargo, I’m in awful shape. I hurt...”
“Not much longer,” Fargo said. “Where’s the gold?”
“Road-ranch … My room. I … paid Chelsea five hundred to let me out the back, come at you himself from behind when I opened up. Fargo, I’ll give you the rest if—”
“You’ll give me nothing,” Fargo said.
“But I need a doctor—”
Fargo lined the .38 Colt and shot him through the heart.
“Not anymore,” he said. Then he disengaged Chad’s boot from the stirrup—his own boot, really. He pulled the pair of them off Chad’s feet, shucked Dorsey’s boots, and donned his own, removed Chad’s gunbelt—his—and strapped it on.
Then he mounted the roan and turned it toward the road-ranch, leaving Chad’s body sprawled in the desert.
~*~
When he reached the place, the girls were standing, awed, around the body of the man named Chelsea. The one named Bessie raised her head, stared at him as if she had never seen him before. “He’s dead?” she whispered. “Frost?”
Fargo nodded. He bent and searched Chelsea’s body. In one pocket was a clot of double-eagles, twenty-five. Fargo scattered them across a table. “These were mine. Frost robbed me of ’em, gave ’em to Chelsea. Now they’re yours. Maybe they’ll tide you over until you get another place to work in. That is, if you forget my name.”
The girls dived at the money like wolves at a lamb. “Mister,” Bessie husked, “we never saw you. Frost and Chelsea killed each other in an argument.”
“Fine,” Fargo said. He went upstairs. Searched the room Chad had occupied, found three bags of dust, one with a few double-eagles left in it. Chad had indeed spent money like water.
Fargo slipped the gold inside his shirt, came back downstairs.
The girls were chattering over the coins like squirrels over nuts. They did not even look at him as he went out. He got his own dun from the corral, mounted it, took the mule’s lead rope, and galloped west.
Chapter Seven
A railroad ran in a long loop from Las Vegas to San Bernardino in California, and Fargo could have taken the train, maybe got there before the Frosts. But with two dead men behind him at the road-ranch, he dared not wait, risk entanglement with the law, and maybe wind up in jail. He wanted to get across the California line, and fast. Obviously, the Frosts felt the same necessity; and with a kidnapped girl to handle, they would not be riding any train, either. They would not stay very close to the railroad; that was too long a route, nor would they follow the little-used track that passed for a road across the desert. They would stick to back country.
That suited Fargo fine. He would make a zigzag pattern himself, cut their trail sooner or later, and once he had it, stay on it. That was better, anyhow, than getting to San Berdoo ahead of them, then have them change their minds, head somewhere else while he waited for them like a fool.
On the way across the mountains, he refilled the water bag at a sheep ranch. By nightfall, he was in California. Remorselessly he kept on riding, pushing his dun and the mule through rough country. They had a long start on him, but they must have come this way; they had to use the same network of passes through the mountains.
Near dawn, he finally made camp, letting the tired animals graze on the sparse bunch grass. He slept for two hours; then, as sunrise stre
aked the horizon with flaming colors, he wolfed cold beans, saddled and rode.
He was coming down out of the hills, now, into more open country. Carefully he zigzagged back and forth, watching the ground for their tracks, not failing to scan the terrain ahead—a hell of rocky ridges, drifted sand, and cactus—in case they’d turned or halted to check their back-trail for pursuit. He found no trace of their passing; if they had come this way, they’d covered their sign well. By mid-morning, he was beginning to be worried. Maybe he’d better swing farther south, head for San Berdoo that way. Then, if they’d changed destinations and were bound for Mexico, he’d cross their track.
As it turned out, that wasn’t necessary. Just at high noon, Fargo pulled the dun up hard, stood up in his stirrups, pushed back his hat, cocked his head.
The sound came again, from the north, whipped by the furnace wind that blew across the jumbled badlands. Fargo frowned. That was no wolf, nor any coyote—not in broad daylight. Besides, it lacked the proper timbre. What he was hearing was the howling of a dog.
He turned north. It came more clearly as the wind freshened, and now he caught another sound in the background, the frightened blatting of sheep. For some reason the short hair on the back of his neck lifted, and he drew his gun, held it ready as he worked between boulder-strewn ridges, threading a devil’s network of draws and dry-washes, always holding to cover, careful never to let himself be skylined.
The dog kept on howling. Cautiously, Fargo put the dun through a notch between two ridges, the pack mule following. Then he reined in, looked down at the narrow valley below.
It was not large, a mile long, half that wide. Its floor was, for this part of the country, grassy. In its center was a shapeless dirty-white blotch, a flock of huddled sheep. Near them, the canvas of the herder’s wagon was like a soiled snowflake. The dog’s constant, mournful howling came from behind the wagon.
Fargo scanned the valley carefully. Save for the sheep, nothing moved there. Gun up, he spurred the dun and rode in hard and fast. Galloping, he made a more difficult target in case anybody lay in ambush.