“Evenin’, mister. Somethin’ I can do for you?”
Fargo patted the Ovaro’s shoulder. “I’d like to put my horse up for the night.”
The man looked at the stallion and let out a low whistle of admiration. “That’s one fine piece of horse-flesh, mister,” he said. “It’d be an honor to have him in my corral. Cost you four bits, though, honor or not.”
“That include a rub-down and some grain and water?”
“Sure.” The man stood up and moved closer.
“Careful,” Fargo advised. “Let him get used to you while I’m still here. Otherwise he’s a mite touchy.”
“One-man horse, eh?” The corral owner reached out, let the Ovaro smell his hand, and then rubbed the horse’s nose. “Seems to take to me all right.”
“He can usually tell when somebody’s friendly.” Fargo handed over the reins. “I reckon you stay close by all night?”
“Right there in that tent. If you’re worried about horse thieves, mister, there ain’t no need. Most of the men around here are a lot more interested in gold and silver than they are in horses. This is probably the finest animal I’ve ever seen in Blackwater, but I’ll bet not half a dozen fellas even noticed that when you rode into town.”
Fargo nodded. “That’s all right with me.” He wasn’t looking to attract any attention.
He had come to Blackwater on business, though, and now he was ready to get on with it. He gave the corral man a couple of coins, then walked back down the street to the saloon.
The only sign in front of the place consisted of a couple of boards nailed together in the shape of a cross and hammered into the ground. The word WHISKEY was hand-lettered on the crosspiece. Paint had run down from the letters and dried.
Fargo pushed back the canvas flap over the entrance and stepped inside. The saloon was crowded and noisy, the air blue-hazed with smoke. Rough planks laid across barrels formed the bar. Men lined up in front of it for drinks. Poker games went on at a few crudely made tables.
Fargo had seen similar places dozens of times in his travels across the West. In the little more than ten years since the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, mining camps had sprung up all over California and in other states and territories, too. Fargo had visited many of them.
Not because he was a prospector, however. He had done some mining in his time, but that wasn’t what drove him. He was more of a drifter, a man who had a talent for finding and following trails that was unsurpassed on the frontier. He had scouted for the army, guided wagon trains, and taken other jobs that involved following or blazing trails.
Now he had come to Blackwater because someone had gotten word to him through an army colonel he knew, asking Fargo to meet him here and promising a payment of three hundred dollars just to listen to a proposition. Fargo was willing to invest the time it had taken to get here. He hadn’t had anything better to do at the moment.
Even though he enjoyed a good game of poker, he wasn’t interested in cards right now. Whiskey was a different story. He could use something to cut the dust after the long, dry ride. He headed toward the bar, threading his way through the crowd.
It was late spring, and already the temperatures on the broad salt flat east of the Panamints known as Death Valley were approaching one hundred degrees during the days. At night, though, the air cooled off rapidly and could be downright cold. At the moment it wasn’t too bad, dry but not unpleasant. The wind was from the west, carrying the stink of the salt flats away from the settlement.
When Fargo finally edged up to the bar, he found himself facing a burly, red-faced bartender with sweeping mustaches. “What can I do you for, friend?” the man wanted to know.
“Whiskey,” Fargo said, and remembering that bar-tenders were usually the best source of information in a town, he added, “I’m looking for a gent named Slauson. Know him?”
“Can’t say as I do,” the bartender replied as he splashed liquor from a bottle into a smudged glass. He shoved the glass across the plank bar. “That’ll be a dollar.”
Fargo thought the price was a mite high but didn’t complain. Prices were always high in mining camps. That was just part of the boom. He handed over a coin and tossed back the drink. The whiskey was rot-gut, but it cut the dust.
“No idea where I can find the man I’m looking for?”
The bartender shook his head. “Another?”
“No, thanks.” The letter Fargo had gotten had specified a meeting here, but that didn’t mean the mysterious J. N. Slauson had informed any of the locals about it. Slauson might have Fargo’s description, planning on approaching him, given time. The letter had said to be here if possible sometime during the last two weeks of May, and today’s date was May 20.
Fargo turned away from the bar, intending to drift around the room and let himself be seen if anybody was looking for him. It occurred to him that the whole thing might be a trap—there were people who would like nothing better than to see him dead—but he was willing to risk it.
He had taken only a few steps when someone ran into him heavily from the side. “Hey!” a rough voice exclaimed. “Watch where you’re goin’, damn it!”
“You ran into me,” Fargo pointed out as he faced a tall, brawny man in a battered old hat. The man’s dark beard was liberally laced with gray.
“The hell I did!” the man said angrily. He lifted knobby-knuckled fists.
Trap, a small voice said again in the back of Fargo’s head. And he had walked right into it.
Mountain Manhunt Page 15