“Look there!” Clover exclaimed, pointing.
Fargo had already seen them. Six riders, coming hell-bent for leather. In the lead was a burly slab of muscle with a big brown beard.
“Bramwell will never forgive you for shamin’ his son like that,” Clover said. “He’s right proud of his pups, Sam most of all.”
Wheeling the Ovaro, Fargo descended the hill and traveled half a mile to a wooded rise dotted with dead-fall. A game trail offered a way to the top and he took it, expecting another slope on the far side. Instead, he came to a stop at the edge of a bluff over a hundred feet high. Below were jagged rocks and the bleached skeleton of a buck, stubs of its antlers still attached to the skull.
“Is there a way down?” Clover asked.
Fargo leaned as far out as he dared, clinging to the saddle horn with one hand, his right boot nearly out of the stirrup. “Not that I can see.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Don’t worry,” Fargo assured her. “I’ll turn around and we’ll be long gone before Bramwell gets here.”
Clover put her hands on his shoulders. “No. I meant it’s too bad for you. You deserve better after being so nice and all.”
“I don’t understand,” Fargo said. The next moment he did; she shoved him with all her might while simultaneously kicking his right leg free of the stirrup. Before he could so much as blink, he plummeted over the brink.
2
“No! I—” Clover cried out.
Fargo did not hear the rest. Flinging out his hands, he clutched at a boulder but could not quite catch hold and the next moment he was tumbling down the bluff like an uprooted tumbleweed. Jarring pain speared his left shoulder. A pang shot up his right leg. He glimpsed the lightning-charred stump of a long-dead tree, and twisting, he managed to wrap both arms around it and arrest his descent.
For a full minute Fargo hung there, his heart pounding in his chest. It had been close. Too close. If he had missed—the rest of the bluff was virtually sheer, with no handholds whatsoever—his bleached bones would lie amid the jagged boulders, keeping the buck’s company.
From overhead came the clatter of hooves. Fargo whistled but the Ovaro did not hear him and the sounds faded. Marshaling his strength, he dug the toes of his right boot into a crack and began climbing. The utmost care was called for. One slip, one mistake, and down he would go.
Anger flared, growing with each thrust of his hands and feet. Clover had tried to kill him! Fargo had misjudged her, misjudged her badly, a lapse he would not commit twice. But as mad as it made him, he was even madder that she had stolen the Ovaro. West of the Mississippi it was a hanging offense, and with good reason. A man on foot was easy prey for every savage beast or hostile war party he met.
Fargo reached up, found a pocket from which a stone had been dislodged, and wedged his fingers into it. Using his left boot to lever higher, he was about to extend his right arm and seek another purchase when the pocket of dirt broke apart under the pressure.
For harrowing seconds Fargo teetered, his entire weight on his left foot. A strong gust of wind would send him hurtling to his death. Then his frantic, questing fingers found a rocky knob the size of his fist, and after steadying himself, he climbed with renewed urgency.
At the top he hooked his elbows onto the lip to pull himself high enough to wriggle like a salamander until his knees cleared the edge and he could stand. His sigh of relief was heartfelt.
There was no sign of the Ovaro. Its tracks led into the trees. Fargo bent his steps in the same direction. Since the Henry was still in its saddle scabbard, he was left with the Colt and the Arkansas Toothpick. He wasn’t entirely defenseless, which was just as well, because no sooner had he entered the woods than hooves thundered, and into view rode Bramwell Jackson and the others.
Fargo hunkered, his right hand on the Colt.
The men from Jacksonville milled their mounts about, studying the ground. Then one climbed down and crouched. He was well over six feet tall with stringy brown hair. “They stopped here a bit,” he announced while reading the sign, “then went thataway.” He pointed at the trees in which Fargo was concealed.
“You always were the best tracker in the family, brother Orville,” said young Sam. “I bet there’s none better anywhere.”
Fargo knew over a dozen scouts and frontiersmen who would put Orville to shame. Any one of them would have known at a glance that Clover had ridden off alone and he was now on foot. A second after the thought flicked across his mind, Orville bent to the ground again.
“Hold on! This is mighty strange.”
“What is?” Bramwell Jackson asked.
“That stranger is on foot. Beats me why, but he’s off his horse and not more than two minutes ahead of us, if that.”
“Then what are you waitin’ for?” Bramwell angrily gestured. “Track him down so we can see justice is done.”
Fargo didn’t like the sound of that. Backing into the undergrowth, he turned and ran. His spurs jangled but it couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t spare the time to take them off. Ducking under a low limb, he sprinted flat out for fifty yards and stopped beside a tree. Vague shapes were smack on his trail. Putting the tree between him and them, he jogged south for several minutes, then turned east. He had lost the Ovaro’s tracks but he could easily pick them up again by backtracking once he shook his pursuers. If he shook them. They were still there, still doggedly following. “Damn,” he said, and ran faster.
Fargo had to lose them, and quickly, before they caught sight of him. To that end, he stopped, sat, and hastily tugged off his boots. When he rose, he headed west, choosing the rockiest, hardest ground. In his stocking feet he left little evidence of his passing beyond a few random scuff marks.
The next time Fargo looked back the riders were no longer there. He went another quarter of a mile to be certain he had eluded them, then slipped his boots back on and made for the bluff. No matter how long it took, no matter how far he had to go, he would not rest until he recovered the Ovaro.
It was half an hour before the bluff finally hove out of the greenery. Fargo circled to where he expected to find the pinto’s tracks but none were there. Puzzled, he roved in a wide loop and discovered Clover had reined sharply west right after she rode off. She was in a hurry to get somewhere.
Fargo settled into a distance-eating dogtrot an Apache would envy. Unlike many frontiersmen, who shunned walking and running in favor of saddle leather, if he had to, he could go for hours without tiring.
Images of Clover filled his mind. Of her lovely eyes and ripe lips. Of her shapely body and the alluring contours of her long legs and thighs. Several times Fargo shook his head to dispel the tantalizing visions, but each time his thoughts returned to her more than abundant charms.
Fargo chuckled to himself. Some people had a weakness for whiskey. Some had a sweet tooth they couldn’t deny. His special fondness had to do with velvet skin and heaving mounds and soft, low cries spawned in the throes of passion.
Concentrating on the tracks, Fargo wondered where Clover was heading. Home, maybe, to her parents and siblings if she had any. He hoped they wouldn’t refuse to hand the Ovaro over. He had no interest in spilling blood if it could be avoided.
Presently the tracks bore to the northwest, and a hundred yards more brought Fargo to a frequently used trail marked by scores of hoof tracks and footprints. He had taken nine or ten steps when something about the footprints struck him as peculiar. He stopped and stared, trying to figure out what it was, and when it hit him, he sank onto his knee to examine them more closely. His brow knit as he traced the outline of one and then another.
As a general rule, footprints of men and women differed. Women had smaller, more slender feet, and left smaller, more slender tracks. There were exceptions, of course, but Fargo was willing to stake his reputation as one of the army’s best scouts that almost all the recent footprints before him had been made by the fairer gender. Only one set of tracks belonged to a man. That was d
amned strange.
Another strange fact was that the majority of the tracks pointed northwest. Only half as many came the other way.
Fargo rose and resumed jogging. His left leg was a little stiff and he was caked with sweat. A bend appeared and he started around it, mopping his forehead with his sleeve. For a few seconds his eyes were not on the trail. Lowering his arm, he instantly froze. Those seconds had proven costly.
“Sister Clover was right,” said a buxom beauty with a cold face who had just stepped from the undergrowth with a leveled rifle in her hands. “She said a handsome hombre would show up, and here he is.” Her thumb moved and there was a click. “Pretend you’re a tree if you know what’s good for you, stranger.”
“Cover him, Sister Prudence.” A brunette had emerged from the vegetation on the other side of the trail. Holding a cocked Remington revolver, she sidled warily around to relieve him of his Colt.
“He looks like he’s well-trained, Sister Evangeline,” said the other, her mouth upturned in a smirk. But there was nothing playful about the cold glint in her hazel eyes, or how her finger was curled around the rifle’s trigger.
Fargo made no sudden moves. “All I want is my horse,” he told them.
Past them the trail turned again. They had picked the perfect spot to waylay anyone coming along. “Clover stole him.”
“Borrowed is more like it,” Prudence said.
“Horses are scarce in this neck of the woods,” Evangeline added. “Especially for those of the female persuasion.”
“How’s that again?” Fargo asked, but instead of receiving an answer, Evangeline prodded him with her revolver. “Start walkin’, outsider. And don’t think I won’t put a hole in you if you act up.”
Their clothes, Fargo noticed, were shabby homespun, the same as Clover’s. And like her, they wore shirts and pants instead of dresses. “Would either of you like to tell me what this is all about?”
“No,” Evangeline said, and prodded him harder.
Containing his annoyance, Fargo continued along the trail. Part of him was galled by their treatment but he was also plenty curious. “Have I stumbled on a feud?” he fished for information. “Your family against the Jacksons?”
“Oh, there’s a feud, all right,” Evangeline said, “but not the kind you think. This one has been brewin’ since the Garden of Eden.”
Fargo had no idea what to make of that comment. He tried again. “Why did Clover turn on me when I was only trying to help her?”
“You’ll have to ask her,” Evangeline said. “Now quit flappin’ your gums. We never know when one of them might pop out at us and I don’t have a hankerin’ to spend a month or more in the pit.”
“The pit?” Fargo quizzed her, and received a rap on the back of his head that nearly knocked his hat off.
“Hush up, dang you. You’re worse than my grandma. She can gab your head off without takin’ a breath.”
Beyond the next bend the trail angled down a grassy slope into a long, lush valley bisected by a meandering blue ribbon. Some forty head of cattle grazed contentedly. Midway across a cluster of buildings had sprouted.
Over a dozen children were playing amid a stand of trees. All girls, Fargo noticed. Near a corral flanking a barn were several adults. In front of the barn, and over by the house, were more women. Forgetting himself he asked, “Aren’t there any men here?”
“Not if they want to go on breathing,” was Evangeline’s enigmatic reply.
“Us Amazons don’t take kindly to your kind.”
“Amazons?”
“There you go again, leaky mouth. I swear, if I had a needle and thread, I’d sew your lips shut.” Evangeline jabbed him between the shoulder blades.
Fargo resigned himself to waiting for the answers he needed. He grinned when he beheld the Ovaro tied to a hitch rail. The pinto pricked its ears and stamped the ground.
“Looks like your critter is right pleased to see you,” Evangeline commented. “If it only knew.”
The women by the corral and the barn were coming over. More were filing from the house. Among them was Clover, her features downcast. But it was the woman in the lead who piqued Fargo’s interest the most. She was a walking wall, barely five feet tall and almost as wide, with arms and legs as stout as logs and a face that would scare a grizzly. She, too, wore a shirt and pants, but hers were store-bought. So was the broad leather belt she wore. From it hung a Smith and Wesson.
“So this is the buckskin Lothario?” Her voice reminded Fargo of the bellow of a moose. She had small, piggish eyes, and more hair on her upper lip than most women were comfortable with. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t kill him, Sister Clover?” She asked with barely concealed contempt.
“Yes, Sister Argent,” Clover answered, her gaze fixed on the ground and not on Fargo.
“You shouldn’t be,” Argent said. “He’s one of them, isn’t he? One of our mortal enemies?”
Fargo cleared his throat. “Lady, I’ve never set eyes on you before. I’m not your enemy unless you want me to be.” He smiled to show his friendly intentions and was completely unprepared for the powerful backhand Argent delivered. She slapped him so hard it rocked him on his heels. Momentarily riveted in surprise, he balled his fists but froze when rifles and revolvers were brandished by nearly every woman present.
Argent grinned in sadistic delight. “Oh, look, sisters! We have a he-bear on our hands! A man with grit!”
“You had no cause to do that,” Fargo said between clenched teeth.
“You’re male,” Argent responded. “That’s all the excuse any of us need.” Laughing, she drew the Smith and Wesson and pointed it at his face. “Maybe you would like to take a swing at me?”
Clover placed her slim hand on the heavier woman’s thick wrist. “He’s not from around here. We shouldn’t involve him. Please.”
Fargo was at a loss. First the blonde tried to kill him, now she was pleading for his life. He didn’t know what to make of her.
“Where he’s from has no bearing,” Argent said testily. “It’s what he is that counts. And it’s Sister Argent, if you don’t mind.”
Realizing he would get nowhere with her, Fargo looked at Clover. “You owe me. The least you can do is explain what this is all about.”
Argent raised her hand as if to strike him again. “She doesn’t owe you a damn thing, mister. Count your blessings you’re still alive. Because you might not be for long, not if your trial ends as I expect.”
“Trial?” Fargo was making a habit of repeating what they said. “I haven’t broken any laws.” He had an urge to break through them to the Ovaro, yank the Henry from the saddle scabbard, and teach them a thing or three. But the conviction he would be riddled before he got off a shot dissuaded him.
“That’s where you’re wrong, stranger,” Argent was saying. “You have done something wrong. You were born.”
“You’re making no damn sense at all,” Fargo muttered. He would dearly love to wipe the sneer off her face but he deemed it best to play along until a chance to escape arose.
“Do you hear him, sisters?” Argent asked her companions. “Typical male arrogance. How about if we teach him some humility? How about if we put him on trial, and afterward we can hang him from the old oak out back of the barn?”
Many of the women laughed and nodded.
The world had gone stark loco, Fargo reflected, and he was caught up in the madness.
3
A sparkling shaft of sunlight pierced a gap between two warped boards and fell across Fargo’s face. The sun was setting. In another hour darkness would descend, and he couldn’t wait.
Scowling, Fargo sourly regarded his surroundings. The reek was terrible. The women had stuck him in a chicken coop, of all things, and left him under guard while the rest went to debate his fate. Their voices drifted from an open window in the farmhouse. From the sound of things, Argent and Clover were arguing heatedly over whether or not he should be set free. Well, he had a say in that, an
d just as soon as the sun went down, he was getting the hell out of there.
A nervous cluck-cluck-cluck from across the coop reminded Fargo of the seven roosting hens. They weren’t any happier than he was about him being there, and kept turning their heads and eyeing him as if he were a fox about to pounce. Their constant clucking was grating on his nerves. He looked down at the floor for something to throw but it was covered with straw and droppings. “You’re lucky I don’t pluck one of you and eat you raw,” he growled, and one of the hens squawked.
Fargo was in a foul mood. He had put up with all the stupidity he could abide. Women or no, they had no right to hold him like this. Argent’s repeated threats to hang him had only fueled his resentment.
Outside, the woman standing guard leaned against the door and yawned. Fargo still had no idea why they were holding him and he didn’t much care. But since he had nothing better to do, he moved closer and asked, “What’s your name?”
The young woman stiffened and sprang back as if he had poked her with his knife. “I’m not supposed to talk to you, mister.” She wasn’t much over twenty, with long black hair and high cheekbones.
“What can it hurt?” Fargo asked, keeping his voice low so no one in the house would hear.
“Argent wouldn’t like it.”
“And you always do what she tells you, is that how it goes? She bosses the rest of you around as she sees fit?”
“No one bosses me,” the woman declared, then cast an anxious look at the farmhouse and whispered, “My name is Lavina.”
“Mind telling me what this is all about?” Fargo coaxed. “A condemned man has the right to know why he’s been condemned.”
“If I do, Argent is liable to be upset with me.”
“There you go again,” Fargo said, and smiled when she glanced at the gap through which he was talking. She had eyes almost as blue as his, and her shirt and pants clung to her like sculpted wax.
Ozarks Onslaught Page 2