by Jon Sharpe
“You don’t know?” The man placed the head of his ax on the ground and leaned on the handle. “But why should you, unless you have heard me speak, or seen a likeness in a newspaper?” He gestured at the cabin. “My place is a carefully guarded secret. I like to get away by myself from time to time, to go back to my roots, as it were, to spend my evenings reading Shakespeare or the Bible.” He paused, then bluntly asked, “Who is it wants me dead?”
“They call themselves the Secessionist League—” Fargo began.
The backwoodsman held up a bony hand. “We will finish this discussion inside. I would be remiss as a host if I did not offer you that refreshment.” Without awaiting a reply, he swung the ax to his shoulder and strode toward the cabin.
More perplexed than ever, Fargo twirled his Colt into his holster and followed. There was no hitch rail, but there were several pegs in the front wall for hanging tools and whatnot, and Fargo looped the reins around one of them. The cabin was a single room, sparsely furnished, with the bed over against the rear wall. There was a table with a lantern on it, and a rocking chair. A bookcase was the only other furniture. A black pot hung on a tripod in the fireplace.
“Would you like some of my lemonade? Or I can make coffee or tea.”
“I’m not all that thirsty.” Fargo stayed in the doorway so he could watch the woods, and the trail. “I don’t see a gun anywhere.”
The man was about to place his ax on the table. Patting it, he said, “I’ve carried one of these since I was knee-high to a calf. It is the best tool a man can own.”
“You can’t drop an enemy at a hundred yards with an ax,” Fargo replied.
“I would rather persuade an enemy than slay him. Alive, a man has worth and can contribute to the common good. Dead, he is of no use to anyone.” He set the ax down. “But I am willing to concede there are times when that is impossible. Times when an enemy leaves us no recourse but to resort to violence.” The sadness in his face became more pronounced. “You have slain quite a few, I take it?”
“More than my share,” Fargo confessed. “But I never go hunting trouble. Somehow, it just seems to find me.”
The backwoodsman grinned. “In that we are much alike. But with the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attends us, we can overcome any difficulty.” He moved to the counter, where a half-empty pitcher of lemonade sat beside a bucket of water. “I am being remiss. I will have your water in a jiffy.”
“There’s no hurry. I’m not going anywhere.” Not until Fargo got to the bottom of the mystery. “You still haven’t told me your name.” He gave his own.
“How unusual. I seem to recall it from somewhere. What is it that you do for a living, if I may ask?” The man poured water into a glass.
“I work as a scout,” Fargo disclosed. “I also guide wagon trains now and then. Sometimes I’m hired as a tracker.”
“I see.” The man brought the glass over. “Did the Secessionist League hire you to track me?”
“To track someone,” Fargo said, and briefly related the trail he had followed for the past day and a half.
“Then whoever you tracked is out there right now, spying on us?”
“That would be my guess, yes,” Fargo said. “The League wants you dead. They concocted a story about a killer called the Sangamon River Monster and hired me to find him. But all I really am to them is a scapegoat. They intend to murder you and have me take the blame.”
“Why you?”
“If I knew that, I’d be a happy man,” Fargo said sourly.
“Perhaps I can venture a guess.” The backwoodsman leaned back against the table and folded his arms across his chest. “The nation is on the verge of a conflict that will dwarf all others. We are about to be put to the test of whether right truly makes right. There are those who seek to dissolve the Union. To them, I am their greatest enemy, and they will stop at nothing to destroy me.”
“Who the hell are you?” Fargo snapped. The man smiled, and then it hit Fargo—the obvious answer, the only answer, the answer that explained everything the Secessionist League had done. He should have seen it sooner, but it never would have occurred to him that the person everyone was talking about, the person who had the newspapers in a tizzy, the person who was roundly cursed and despised by those who believed the South should be permitted to do as it pleased without interference from the North, the person who was the talk of the country, had a small cabin way off in the deep woods where he went every now and again to be alone. “Abe Lincoln!” he blurted, and took a step back.
“I am he,” Abraham Lincoln said. “Honest Abe, many call me. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. But I am afraid that my presence has placed you in peril. That man hiding out there—”
“Is not the only one we have to worry about.” Fargo cut him off. The others would show up soon, Draypool and Harding and their pack of killers. Their scheme was simple, yet devious. He had been lured like a lamb to the slaughter, to the doorstep of Lincoln’s cabin, and now the League would close in and dispose of the two of them and arrange things so he appeared to be responsible. The League, and the South, would not be blamed. But that still did not explain why they chose him.
“How many are we up against?” Lincoln asked.
“Ten, counting the one outside,” Fargo said.
“Too many. You might be harmed.” Lincoln picked up his ax. “If we can make it across the river, I will summon help. Captain Frank Colter and five soldiers have been assigned to protect me, but I would not let them come to the cabin.”
“Colter, did you say?” So Fargo had been right; Colter and Sloane were government men. “We have to get you out of here. We’ll ride double on my horse.”
“There is only the one trail in and out,” Lincoln said. “We should cut through the woods and avoid them.”
A nicker from the Ovaro and an answering whinny from off in the trees told Fargo it was too late.
The assassins had arrived.
16
Abraham Lincoln started to walk past Fargo to the door. “I will distract them and you can slip into the woods. This isn’t your fight.”
“Like hell it isn’t,” Fargo responded. “They used me. Tried to hoodwink me. One of them even tried to kill me.”
A kindly smile creased Lincoln’s face. “I do not want you to lose your life on my account. As a favor to me, leave now, while you are still able.”
“No can do.” Fargo did not see any of the conspirators. They were close, though. Very close.
Lincoln accepted the inevitable with a nod. “Very well. Since I can’t prevail on you to save your life, we must work together to save both of ours. The question now is whether we make a stand or try to escape.”
The cabin was small, but the walls were thick and would be proof against most pistol and rifle fire. But Fargo did not like being cooped up. The League could burn them out, or sit out there and wait until they ran out of water and food. “Our best chance is in the forest.”
“I agree,” Lincoln said. “I have spent most of my life in the woods, and I am not without some small skill at surviving.”
“Let’s go.” Without further delay, Fargo was out the door and dashed to the Ovaro. He unwound the reins from the peg and hurried around the side. Lincoln was a few steps behind. Both of them had their gaze glued to the trail. No one appeared. No shouts were raised. Fargo figured that the man watching the cabin had been distracted by the arrival of Draypool and the others. Any moment, and that could change. He was glad when they plunged into the vegetation.
“This way,” Lincoln said, striding past on those long legs of his. “There is a trail for a short way.”
That there was, thanks to the presidential candidate’s daily trips to a stream and back. In less than a hundred yards they stood next to the blue ribbon. On the other side lay untamed wilderness.
Fargo crossed and threaded in among the trees. He did not try to erase their tracks. For one thing, the Ovaro’s heavy hooves sank too deep into
the soft soil. For another, no matter how well he concealed them, it would not fool a seasoned tracker like Hiram Trask. He would only waste his time, time the League would use to gain on them.
“The vagaries of life never cease to astonish me, friend,” Abe Lincoln remarked. “Half an hour ago I was chopping wood, at peace with the world and all around me. Now here I am, in peril of my existence.”
“Stick with me. I’ll get you out.”
“Like glue to paper,” Lincoln said. “It has long been my practice to stand by those who are in the right and oppose those who are in the wrong. Much as I do on the issue of secession.”
Fargo hoped he would not launch into a speech. “There is bound to be killing,” he mentioned.
“I know,” Lincoln said.
“Have you ever killed anyone before?” Normally that was the kind of question one man never asked another, but Fargo had to know the extent to which he could count on his companion.
“I am proud to say I have not,” Lincoln declared. “Bears and deer and other game, yes, but never a human being. Based on your previous comment, I take it that you are not averse to the task.”
“Only when I have to,” Fargo clarified. He did not add that he had to do it a lot. “When they catch up to us—and they will—I’ll hold them off while you get away.”
“We can lose them if we leave your horse behind,” Lincoln said. “Is there any chance you would consider abandoning him?”
“Not a chance in hell,” Fargo said. The Ovaro had saved his skin too many times. He owed it that much, and more.
“I admire you, sir,” Abe Lincoln commented. “You are a man of principle. I wish there were more like you in the political realm.” He paused. “Perhaps that is part of the reason the League chose you to take the blame.”
“My reputation isn’t anything like yours,” Fargo said in disagreement. “It’s no secret that I’m fond of wild females and wild living.”
“And you regard that as a blight on your character?” Lincoln deftly slung his ax across his shoulder. “I read voraciously, Mr. Fargo. I am partial to history, but I will read anything I get my hands on when a history is not available. I have read an account or two about you, sir. Yes, you have a reputation for bawdiness. Yes, the stories are quite lurid. But anyone who reads them perceives that you also have positive traits.”
“If you say so.” Fargo was listening for sounds of pursuit.
“You have a certain notoriety,” Lincoln continued. “Imagine the sensation it will cause if I am found dead, presumably murdered at the hands of the famous Trailsman. The public will wonder why, and many will speculate that I must have done something to deserve it. After all, in those stories, you wipe out evildoers in droves.”
In a flash of insight Fargo could see the headlines and newspaper accounts by editors friendly to the Secessionist cause, who would paint him as a valiant frontiersman and Lincoln as a menace that had to be destroyed.
“When you think about it, the League is being quite clever,” Lincoln said. “They bury me with dishonor and enhance the South’s prestige.”
Fargo stopped and held up a hand for silence. Distant voices suggested the League had reached the cabin and found them gone. “Mount up.” They might as well ride and conserve their strength.
“I still can’t convince you to save yourself?” Lincoln asked. “Very well. But I do this against my better judgment.”
Fargo rode as fast as he dared. Low limbs threatened to spill them from the saddle. Brush plucked at their legs. Thickets and logs had to be skirted.
Abe Lincoln cleared his throat. “Might I suggest we circle around to the Sangamon River?”
Fargo saw his point. Once south of the river, they were back in civilization. Lincoln was well known and could marshal help, as well as send for the army. Fargo reined to the east.
“This is a fine state of affairs,” Lincoln said with transparent sarcasm. “Here I am, running for the highest office in the land, and I am forced to run for my life from those too blind to see that slaying me only delays the South’s day of reckoning. Eventually the slavery issue will destroy them.”
“You know what they say. Some folks can’t see the forest for the trees.”
“An astute observation, given our surroundings. The South has yet to realize that the dogmas of the past no longer pertain. The tides of social progress wait for no man.”
“Is that from one of your speeches?”
Lincoln laughed. “No, but I may well include it in my next one. I owe it to the nation to persuade both sides to see the light of reason or we will plunge into chaos. The cost in suffering will be incalculable.”
“I wouldn’t want to be in your boots,” Fargo admitted. It was his experience that, human nature being what it was, most people were too stubborn to admit when they were wrong even when they knew they were.
“To be honest, Mr. Fargo, I would rather the burden did not exist. But wishful fancies do not make difficulties go away. Wisdom is called for, and I can only pray I am equal to the occasion.”
At that moment Fargo had never respected anyone more. He was about to say it would be a shame if Lincoln were not elected when new sounds pierced the woodlands—the rapid thud of hooves and the crackle of underbrush. The assassins were much nearer than he had figured!
A tap of Fargo’s spurs galvanized the Ovaro into a trot. Like those who were after them, Fargo plowed through the growth, heedless of the peril. But the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The Ovaro was as fine a horse as ever lived, with superb stamina, but they were riding double, in dense timber, and had no hope whatsoever of outdistancing their pursuers.
Suddenly drawing rein, Fargo vaulted from the saddle and handed the reins to Abraham Lincoln. “Keep going. I’ll hold them as long as I can.”
“I refuse,” Lincoln said.
“You sure are a stubborn cuss,” Fargo said, and yanking his Henry from the saddle scabbard, he smacked the Ovaro. The stallion hurtled forward. It was all Abe Lincoln could do to stay on.
Whirling, Fargo sought cover. A whoop fell on his ears as he crouched beside a maple. Riders materialized, four of them, spaced twenty to thirty feet apart. They had caught sight of Lincoln.
“There he is, boys! After him!”
Fargo snapped the Henry’s stock to his shoulder. He recognized the four—Hiram Trask and Trask’s three friends. The tracker and his companions had pushed on ahead. Fargo tried to fix a bead on Trask, but the foliage prevented a clear shot. He shifted his sights to the rider on Trask’s right.
A semblance of thunder rose to the sky. The rider shrieked and pitched to the earth.
Fargo shifted toward another rider, but more brush was in the way.
“Take cover!” Hiram Trask bellowed.
Trask and the other two melted into the vegetation. The riderless horse galloped on east. Silence claimed the forest, an ominous quiet pregnant with the promise of more violence.
Fargo’s main worry now was that Trask and company would slip past him to go after Lincoln. Removing his hat, he placed an ear to the ground but did not detect telltale vibrations. Staying low, he dashed to another tree, shoving his hat back on as he ran.
Another factor Fargo had to keep in mind was that Draypool and Harding and the rest were bound to show up before long. He must deal with Trask and push on quickly.
The next instant, to Fargo’s surprise, the tracker shouted his name.
“Can you hear me? You won’t stop us! We’ve taken vows not to rest until Mr. High and Mighty is maggot bait!”
Fargo had Trask’s position pegged. Seventy feet away, to the northwest. He swiveled, yearning for a clear shot.
“We’ll make it look like you were to blame,” Trask hollered. “But you’ve figured that out, haven’t you? It’s why you killed Layton.”
Let the man talk, Fargo thought. It was a lapse in judgment that Trask would regret, a mistake worthy of a greenhorn.
“What’s the matter? Catamount got your tong
ue? Answer me if you’re not yellow.”
Fargo almost chuckled at the Southerner’s childish antics. Did Trask really believe he could be goaded into revealing where he was?
“No-good Yankee scum! You and that bastard you’re protecting! He thinks he has the right to tell us how to live! But we’ll show him! We’ll show everyone north of the Mason-Dixon!”
A tiny claw of doubt pricked at Fargo’s awareness. Maybe he was the idiot. Hiram Trask was no greenhorn. Trask would not shout without good reason, and the only reason Fargo could think of was to keep him distracted while Trask’s two friends converged for the kill.
A hint of movement demonstrated Fargo was right. Every nerve tingling, he ducked down. He had nearly fallen for one of the oldest ruses in the hills.
The movement resolved itself into the silhouette of one of Trask’s companions. The man was staring toward the maple, not the tree Fargo was behind. Careful not to give himself away, Fargo elevated the Henry’s barrel. He was lining up the sights when more movement, at a different spot, gave him cause for consternation.
The last member of the quartet was dangerously close. When Fargo fired, the man would have a clear shot. Fargo had to switch targets. But any movement on his part was bound to be noticed.
Hiram Trask had not shut up. “It doesn’t have to be like this! You should be on our side! Or have you worked for the army for so long, you’re a blue belly at heart? Work with us! Help us deal with so-called Honest Abe and we’ll let you ride off in peace. You have my word!”
Fargo would believe him the day it rained gold nuggets. As slow as molasses, he started to turn toward the nearest assassin, and as he expected, the man spotted him. They both took lightning aim, and it was the Henry that thundered first. The man dropped to one knee.
A leaden wasp nearly stung Fargo’s ear as he fed another round into the chamber. He fired as the man took aim, fired as the man keeled to one side, fired at the twitching body.
Two more shots banged. Two slugs cored the trunk next to Fargo with loud thwacks. He returned fire. The other backwoodsman stiffened, grabbed at his chest, and toppled onto his belly.