Alaska Steel (A Neal Fargo Adventure #3)

by John Benteen

  Issuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!

  Fargo threw back the parka hood, and cold wind lashed his face. He reloaded the shotgun—and then he stood up, exposing himself to fire below. He waved the shotgun high, making a foolish, careless, inspiring, fearless target of himself.

  “Come on!” he bellowed. “Charge!”

  His men responded. They rushed forward.

  Whetstone’s crowd had broken, scattered, run for cover: doorways, house-corners, alleys. A few bullets whined around Fargo. He could not shoot down into the street now for fear of hitting his own men.

  Satisfied, still snarling like a maddened timber wolf, he fell down, slid to the back of the cabin, dropped off into a drift behind the house.

  ALASKA STEEL

  FARGO 3:

  By John Benteen

  First published by Belmont in 1969

  Copyright © 1969, 2014 by Benjamin L. Haas

  Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: February 2014

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader.

  Cover image © 2014 by Edward Martin

  edwrd984.deviantart.com

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.

  Chapter One

  Fargo turned from the bar to stare at the man who had just come through the swinging doors.

  The man was as tall as Fargo, a shade over six feet and, in contrast to Fargo, he was handsome, almost pretty. He wore a tall-crowned Stetson, snow-white in color, a checkered shirt, pony-skin vest, fringed gauntlets, bull hide batwing chaps heavily decorated with conchas, high-heeled boots, and huge Chihuahua spurs. He also wore two pearl-handled Colt .45’s cinched around his waist with big, cartridge-studded belts.

  Just inside the doors, he halted, looking at Fargo. His lips formed a soundless word. His eyes were angry, his chin jutting. With hands swinging near his gun butts, he strode toward Fargo, spurs jingling.

  Fargo came up straight from his leaning position on the bar. He rolled his long, black cigar across his thin-lipped mouth and let his right hand drop down to swing close to the walnut butt of his own holstered .45.

  He himself was wide-shouldered, long-legged. The close-cropped hair under his own black Stetson was prematurely snow-white. So were his shaggy brows. In his late thirties, he was in his prime and, dressed in flannel shirt and shotgun chaps, he moved with a leisurely, catlike grace as he confronted the newcomer, staring back at him almost evilly. With an insolent gesture, he took the cigar from his mouth. Then he spat on the floor and suddenly his right hand moved.

  It was fast, but the hands of the handsome man in the colorful range outfit were faster. They came up holding the pearl-handled Colts. Before Fargo could thumb back the hammer and shoot, the two guns roared, belching white smoke. Fargo went rigid; his own gun fired straight down. Then he sagged back against the bar, hand clutching at his belly. The cigar fell from his fingers and he crumpled to the floor. He hit it hard and lay there until he heard the voice of the director: “Cut! We’ll print it!”

  Fargo got lithely to his feet, brushing sawdust off the costume. He picked up the Colt, holstered it deftly. The man in the dude outfit put away his own guns, and he grinned at Fargo with teeth that were white and even. “That was damned realistic,” he said.

  Fargo shook his head. “No. Two .45 slugs at that range would pick a man up and throw him halfway across the room.”

  The dude cowboy’s eyes widened. “Really? How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen it happen,” said Fargo tersely. He fished in his shirt pocket, got out another cigar and lit it. Then he turned to the director. “I reckon this is all for me?”

  The director’s name was Ince. He shook his head violently. “No, no, Fargo! You did that beautifully. It’s all for this picture, but we start another one next week. That face of yours is just too good to waste. I’ll cast you for the heavy. What about it, Roy?” He turned to the star.

  “Sure,” Roy Hughes said. Until two years ago, he had been a clerk in a Los Angeles bank. Now his name and handsome features brought men, women, and children flocking into movie theaters. “Sure, we’ll make a good team. Besides, I haven’t finished learning how to do that double roll with the pistols, Fargo. I’ll pay you out of my own pocket to stay on and work with me on that. It’ll make a hell of a scene in the next picture.”

  Fargo shook his head and began to unknot his neckerchief. “No, thanks. I’ll draw my pay and light out. All I needed was a grubstake for a while. Soon as I’m paid off, I’ll be going. I’ll take a half hour, though, and show you that double roll again, Roy. But don’t ever try it with guns loaded with real bullets, you hear?” He leaned forward, took the pearl-handled Colts from their holsters, hefted them, then suddenly began to spin one in each hand. They were blurs of steel, and in the split seconds in which, as they whirled, their barrels were pointed away from Fargo’s body, they fired. Four blanks were left in each, and the eight shots merged together into a continuous roar. Then, with startling swiftness, Fargo reached over and dropped them back into their scabbards. The soundstage smelled of powder smoke, and everybody on it was gawking at Fargo open-mouthed.

  Then Ince came to life. “Look, Fargo. You stay with us through the next movie, I’ll pay you a hundred dollars a week. The one after that, I’ll gamble, give you the lead. Maybe a hero that looks like you will be enough of a novelty to draw a crowd. And if it works, if it goes, you can write your own ticket.”

  Fargo laughed shortly. He’d been a lot of things in his time—soldier, cowboy, gunman, oilfield roughneck, gambler, logger, and even once, when his money ran out, bouncer in a whorehouse. But he’d never acted in moving pictures before. The thought of himself as a movie star amused him. What would Pancho Villa say, seeing the great Fargo cavorting on a screen? Or Teddy Roosevelt, who had led the Rough Riders in which Fargo had served in Cuba? “No, thanks. If the world ever gets to a place where it quiets down and I have to settle for make-believe, maybe I’ll come back. But for right now, Mr. Ince, I’ll take my money and go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Well, I was headed down to Mexico again when I stopped over here. The Revolution’s still going on, and there’s always money to be made in a revolution.” He unbuttoned the flannel shirt and handed it to the pretty wardrobe mistress. He was aware of her admiring eyes ranging over the tanned, muscular torso, scarred by old wounds. Then he slipped on his own neat, white shirt and tied his necktie. He unbuckled the chaps, passed them to her, and handed her the gun belt with the heavy, holstered Colt. Ince was talking to him the whole time.

  “Listen, Fargo! This is a chance that only comes to a man once in a lifetime. I picked you up off the street because that mean face had its impact on me, I wanted to get it on film! And it’ll have its impact on others. That face can be your fortune. If you just—”

  “No,” Fargo said. Then he took from where it hung on the back of a canvas chair a shoulder harness and holster containing a .38 Colt revolver of the sort the Army had issued before adopting the .45 automatic. Fargo strapped on the holster, checked the loads in the gun. It was not loaded with blanks.

  Ince stared at him. “Why do you carry that thing with you all the time? Hell, man, this is Hollywood, California, not the Mexican border.”

  Fargo r
eholstered the gun deftly with his left hand. He was ambidextrous and could use either hand with equal facility. “A man in my business makes enemies. He never knows when or where he’ll bump into ’em.”

  Ince’s lip curled. “I think you’re just trying to impress us. Look Fargo, we’ll talk real turkey. A hundred and fifty a week for the next picture and—”

  Roy Hughes came up then. “Let him alone, Tom.”

  Ince turned, eyes narrowing in his florid face. “But—”

  “Don’t you see?” Hughes tipped back the big sombrero. “He’s not like the rest of us. We’re phonies, and phony things don’t satisfy him.” There was envy in his expressive eyes. “If I was man enough, I’d trade places with him in a minute.”

  Fargo’s thin lips curled. “You’re a good enough man, Roy. You’re really fast with those Colts and you ride all right. No call to low-rate yourself.”

  “All the same, I wish—”

  Fargo took the cigar from his mouth. “Don’t. It ain’t that much fun. It’s more like being a drunkard than anything else. You get to where you can’t live without it—the action all the time. You get to where you got to have it like a rummy needs his liquor. And in the long run, all it buys you is a grave in a dry-wash somewhere or a volley from a firing squad. You’re better off as you are.” He clapped Hughes on the shoulder. “Now, while Mr. Ince is writing my check, you and I’ll practice the double roll. It’s like fanning; nobody in his right mind ought to try it, but it’ll look good on film.”

  Standing in the bright, hot sunlight of Southern California, Fargo watched the actor practice the double roll over and over and wondered, with wry amusement, why he had turned down Ince’s offer. There was big money to be made here, if you hit as an actor; and the women—God knows, the women! They were everywhere; the ones Fargo had met so far, the actresses, made the tarts in a Mexican border town look like Sunday School teachers. Just thinking about them weakened his resolve.

  But, no, he thought, watching Roy Hughes fumble the guns, I’ve had enough. I’m already getting jumpy, edgy. Next thing you know, I’ll be like old Tom Mix. He used to be a pretty good fighting man, too, but look at him now—struttin’ around here in those fancy clothes a real cowboy wouldn’t be caught dead in and wondering how he got himself into this mess. I could see it in his eyes when we got drunk together the other night and started talking about Cuba. No. No, I don’t want to end up like that. Like a sheep in a pen.

  He had, he supposed, been a fighting man too long to change. The Rough Riders; half a dozen revolutions in Mexico and Central America ... fighting was his trade and he was too old to give it up now. He tilted back his old Army campaign hat, broad brimmed, that had seen a lot of hard service. Then he brought his attention back to Hughes. “Look, Roy, let me show you one more time.” He was reaching for the actor’s Colts when he heard the drum of hoof beats on the dusty street behind him. Then he turned and saw the woman.

  On a pinto pony, she galloped toward them down what could have been the main street of a frontier town but was really only a movie set. She rode well, sitting straight in the saddle, long chestnut hair bound in a club behind her head, the wind plastering her silk blouse against full, round breasts that bounced with the rhythm of the pony’s gait. As she drew closer, Fargo could see her face, and he sucked in a quick breath. He’d been around Los Angeles and the movies long enough to know that face—probably everybody in America knew it. “We got company,” he said to Hughes. “Jane Deering.”

  Hughes turned; a shadow of displeasure crossed his face. “That bitch,” he grunted. “She’s working on the next set. I’d hoped she’d stay there. Wonder what she wants? Look out for her, Fargo—she’s a real man-eater.”

  Fargo’s lips pulled away from his teeth in a grin like a wolf’s. “Thanks for the warning,” he said with irony and watched as the girl reined in a few feet away.

  She swung down, startlingly beautiful, with strange large amber eyes, a classic nose, full sensual lips. The blouse was cut tightly about her breasts, its buttons open halfway down, and Fargo saw the beginning of a shadowy cleft. Her divided leather skirt clung to rounded hips that swayed almost insolently as she ground-reined the horse and walked toward them. “Hello, Roy.”

  “Jane ...” Hughes’ greeting was more a surly grunt than a word.

  Amusement flickered in her magnificent eyes. “All right, Roy. I stole a scene or two from you in our last epic. Can’t we let bygones be bygones? Anyhow, it’s not you I came to see.” Her gaze flickered to Fargo, and the amusement went out of it and something else shone in it, as she looked him up and down, from the battered Army hat to the booted feet. “I think this is the gentleman I want. Is your name Fargo?”

  Fargo nodded. “That’s me.”

  She stared at him for a moment more, as if appraising a horse she intended to buy. Then she said, as if to herself, “Yes. He was right. You’re the one.”

  Fargo took his cigar out of his mouth. “Who was right?”

  The girl smiled. “The man who recommended you. I think you know him. His name’s Wyatt Earp.”

  Fargo tilted back his hat. He knew that Wyatt was living here in Los Angeles, retired now except for refereeing an occasional prize fight, but Fargo hadn’t seen him this trip. All the same, trust Wyatt to keep his ear to the ground, know who was in town and who wasn’t. Habit, after all those years of running the law in frontier towns. He looked at the girl with a different kind of interest. Quietly, he said: “And just what did Wyatt recommend me for, Miss Deering?”

  “A job,” she said. “I need a job done—and it’s a hard job, a tough one, a long way from here. And when I wondered who, of all people, would know the man for a job like that, I thought: why, Wyatt Earp, of course. So I went to see him. He told me about you, that he’d known you ever since you were prize-fighting years ago, and that the two of you had kept in touch ... but now ... you haven’t become an actor, have you? You haven’t turned phony on me just when I need the real thing, have you?”

  “Depends on what you need the real thing for.” There was an arrogance about Jane Deering that scraped Fargo the wrong way. But there was no denying that she was a hell of a lot of woman. In her pictures, she was always sweet, virginal, innocent—and usually fighting hard to keep from being raped by the villain. In person, she radiated sex the way a stove gives off heat; and Fargo found intriguing the challenge in those amber eyes. “As a matter of fact, my acting days just ended.”

  “Good. Then you’re for hire.”

  “No,” Fargo said.

  “Mr. Earp misinformed me?” Her brows went up.

  “I don’t hire out. I don’t work for wages. I don’t go into anything unless there’s a lot of money involved. And then I’m a partner—with a percentage. Generally a big one.”

  “I see.” She bit her lower lip; her teeth were white and sharp-looking. When she released it, the lip was red, moist. Her eyes were sultry as she looked at Fargo. “Well, there’s money in this. Maybe more than you can imagine. In fact...” Her voice became a murmur “...in fact, there might be all sorts of considerations involved.” Then, her gaze flicking to Roy Hughes, she said more briskly: “But this isn’t the place to talk about it. Later, when there’s more privacy—if you’re interested.”

  “I’m interested,” Fargo said. “But I was planning to leave for Mexico tomorrow.”

  “Then we’ll talk tonight. Where’re you staying?”

  Fargo gave her the name of the cheap boarding house in downtown Los Angeles. “I’ll send a car by,” she said, “to bring you to my place. Seven o’clock all right?”

  “Seven o’clock will be just fine.”

  “Good.” Jane Deering gathered up the reins of the pinto, and before Fargo could give her a hand, swung aboard nimbly. “I’ve got to get back to the set, now; I’ve got one more scene before quitting time.” Her voice went syrupy. “Be careful with those guns, Roy. You might hurt yourself. Don’t forget, you’re only an imitation cowboy.” Then sh
e yanked the horse around, spurred it, and was gone, riding like a centaur.

  Roy Hughes used the word that he had used before. Then he said, “Don’t get mixed up with her, Fargo. She’s bad news.”

  Fargo said, “I don’t care how bad the news is if the money’s good.” He spat out his cigar and stepped on it. “You want to try the double roll again ?”

  “No, let it go. I’ll never make a gunman. Come on; Ince ought to have your check ready now. If you’d like, I’ll give you a ride to town.”

  It was hot upstairs under the eaves in the boarding house. When he got to his room, Fargo threw the hat onto a chair and opened his shirt. Then he got the trunk out from under the bed and, with a heave of strong arms, put it on the bed. He fished in his pants, brought out the keys that would loosen the special padlocks. When they had clicked open, he began to unpack the trunk, inspecting its contents. It was not only that they had not been used for some time; it was that he drew a certain strength from handling them.

  First, there was the .30-30 Winchester carbine in its ornately carved saddle scabbard from Chihuahua. Fargo drew it, worked its cocking lever a time or two, dry-firing, and reassured himself that it was all right. Then he stuffed it down in the saddle holster again and laid it aside. After that, he took out the Batangas knife.

  That had come from southern Luzon, in the Philippines. It was a curious and lethal-looking weapon, its hardened steel blade ten inches long, razor sharp on the cutting edge. With no conventional grip, its handle was, instead, made of two separate hinged pieces of carabao horn, folding down over five inches of the blade. Fargo hefted the knife in his hand, slipped the latch, and flipped his wrist. Both hinged sections of handle snapped back into his hand, making a solid grip, exposing the whole length of deadly steel. He cut a pass or two through thin air with it, his motions those of the experienced knife-fighter. Then he closed the hinged water-buffalo horn handles down over the blade again and returned it to the special, molded buffalo-hide sheath designed to receive it. After that, he laid the weapon aside with the carbine.