by John Benteen
They nooned at the end of Kingfisher, made adjustments to the trim of the boats. When they loaded up again, Cord grinned. “Red Canyon, now, and this is where the fun begins.”
They shot out into the river, between enormous Vermillion cliffs. As the stream narrowed, the boats picked up speed, and now the river’s roar had a different timbre, deeper, more sullen and more threatening. Still, it was easy, exhilarating going until, ahead, the canyon made a sharp bend. As they neared that, Fargo slung his rifle, seized his paddle, and as they swung around the turn, he sucked in his breath as he saw what lay ahead.
With express train speed, the Green foamed through a narrow channel studded with rocks like fangs. White water boiled and surged, lashing itself against the boulders; and sun shot mist filled the air. The boat leaped ahead like a spurred Thoroughbred, and now the lives of all of them were in Cord’s hands. It was up to him to pick their passage through that swirling, rushing hell, and be right the first time: there would be no second chance.
It was a wild, breathtaking, blood-stirring run. Time after time, the boat’s prow seemed hell-bent for destruction, aimed straight for a slab of spray-wet stone. Always, at the last instant, the river’s flow and deft paddle work swept them around the rock. Sometimes the boat’s bow seemed to go clean under, at others it felt as if it leaped into space like a rising trout after a fly. Always it went faster and even faster, fighting free of sucks, side-currents, whirlpools. Cord, Fargo, Birdsong all worked furiously, and there was no time now to worry about ambush. There was only the white, spewing surge of water, the hungry rocks, the blinding spray. It was like riding a wild stallion bareback in a stampede.
Then, from behind, Fargo heard what might have been a shout above the water’s thunder. He twisted, saw Vane’s boat swing sideways, caught by a suck. It hurtled broadside straight for a jagged barrier of rocks; a second more and it would slam, splinter, maybe sink. At the last minute, from amidships, two long oars lifted like a spider’s legs, came down. As their blades bit in, Michaelson leaning hard against the shafts, the boat began to pivot. It swung stern first straight down the current, and Michaelson’s muscles bulged as he pulled in the opposite direction, braking, guiding. With an inch to spare, the craft sped by the rocks, reached a stretch of open water. Michaelson dug in with the right oar; again the boat turned and now it was bow first and running on. It was a fine piece of white water work, and the rowlocks and the oars had proved their worth.
Fargo saw all that in tatters. Their own craft was shooting on; racing arrow-straight between two great gray boulders with barely half a foot on either side, it leaped out into space over a yard-high drop, came chopping nose down into the water. Suddenly it was filling, and Cord yelled: “Bail!” Fargo shipped his paddle, seized the bucket at his feet, chained there for such a purpose, worked furiously as more spray added to the six inches sloshing in the bottom of the boat. For a moment, the craft was sluggish, then it lightened as Fargo threw bucketful after bucketful overboard, and, getting the bit in its teeth once more, raced on.
And still the rapids stretched before them endlessly, every foot of passage with its risk, every rock a threat, the near-misses too numerous to count. Fargo’s shoulders ached, he was drenched, the Rough Rider hat was sodden, shapeless, and he did not care. He was too full of wild exultancy, excitement. In this moment there was nowhere in the world he would rather have been, no saloon nor woman’s bed he would have traded for the thrill of this wild ride.
A full hour passed before it ended. Almost as suddenly as they had taken them, the rapids gave them up. The boats slipped around another bend, and then they were in water comparatively still and slack. Fargo shipped his paddle, unslung the dripping rifle, shook the water from it, checked its action. Cord maneuvered toward a sandbar as the other boats came up. There, briefly, they checked for damage, held a critique of the run. There had been no real trouble, and every man had pulled his weight. “That was a good run, men,” Vane said. His face was almost glowing, most of his bitterness gone, now that he was in his element. “A damned good run. If we can make that, we can make anything.”
Cord snorted. “Hell, that wasn’t nothing. We got water further on makes that look like baby stuff. Wait’ll we get past Brown’s Hole, day after tomorrow. That’s when the real hell starts.”
They shoved off, made a short and easy run until Fargo judged twilight to be an hour off. Presently he saw the campsite he wanted, and they put in, dragging all three boats into cover at the mouth of another small creek. Fargo scouted thoroughly, found nothing but the tracks of deer. Then he supervised the building of nearly smokeless fires from driftwood and carefully oiled his guns and dried his ammo. When that, a matter of the highest priority, was taken care of, he went to Cord, who was drying moccasins at a fire. “You and me and Captain Vane need to make a little medicine.”
Cord arose, hulking, barefooted, eyes narrowing. “I thought you and me was all straightened out.”
“We are, far as I’m concerned. This is something else.”
Cord looked relieved. “Be right over. By the way, Fargo, you’re a damned good white water man.”
“Thanks. You know your stuff, too.”
Ten minutes later, he, Vane and Cord sat cross-legged on a tarp. Fargo passed around cigars from a waterproof case. When they were lit, he said, “Cord. I want to know about Brown’s Hole and what the river’s like.” He watched the big man’s face, but it remained expressionless as Cord exhaled smoke.
“Why,” Cord said, “it’s where the river opens out for about forty miles. A big valley, about a day’s run downstream—maybe five miles wide and forty long. Current’s slow, fairly deep. There’s a ferry there. It used to be an outlaw hangout, you know, in the old days, but now there’s some ranches in there. They use the ferry to move stock back and forth across the river.”
Fargo rolled his cigar across his mouth. “Used to be. What about now?”
Cord frowned. “Fargo, what you driving at?”
“What I’m driving at,” Fargo said, “is that I aim to pay Brown’s Hole a visit. See if I can pick up any information about Knight and his men. I want to know what I’m walking into when I do.”
Vane shifted on the tarp. “Wait a minute, Fargo. This expedition’s supposed to be secret. You can’t just walk in there and announce our presence.”
“I don’t figure to. Cord, you haven’t answered my question. What kind of people live there now?”
“It’s been a year since I was there. Just ordinary ranchers, near as I can tell. Fargo, I’m with the Captain. I don’t see no use for you to go there, and I don’t see how you can without tippin’ off the fact that we’re on the river.”
Fargo stood up, looking down at the other two. “Listen. I hired on to find out what I can about Knight. I’ll never learn anything just by sticking to the river, looking at all these cliffs. Wherever I find people, I got to talk to them. Now, Knight put in about where we did, as I understand it. He had to pass Brown’s Hole, too, forty miles of open country, you say, and ranchers there. They’re bound to have seen an expedition the size of his, and yet, there’s never been a peep out of that place about ’em, for all the Colonel’s scrabblin’ for information. If it’s full of ordinary, law-abidin’ ranchers, that don’t stack up at all. I’m goin’ to Brown’s Hole and see what I can learn, and the methods I’ll use’ll be my own. What I want to know, Cord, is this—can you slip this outfit by the Hole in darkness, so it won’t be spotted.”
Cord frowned. “Well, that’s a tall order.”
“Is it? You said the water was good. A riverman like you ought to be able to take this outfit past, make forty miles or so in a night, pushing hard, and find a place downstream to hole up until I join you.”
“Well …” Cord rubbed his chin. “I reckon it could be done.”
“It will be done, if that’s what Fargo wants,” Vane said firmly. “Neal, I’ll see to it.”
Fargo grinned. “Thanks, Captain,” he said. “Becau
se that’s what Fargo wants.” Then he sobered, sat down again. “Listen. Here’s what I got in mind.”
~*~
A day later, the sun, at zenith, beat directly down into the canyon, merciless as a sledgehammer. The wet, bedraggled man on the crude raft of cottonwood logs lashed with rope and vines suffered in the heat, as he poled the precarious craft downriver. It was, Fargo thought, a hell of a way to travel, but no worse than riding a drive of logs on the spring freshet on the Columbia. Anyone without that hard experience might have cracked up the raft or gone off it long ago, but Fargo, barefooted, with his boots slung around his neck, rode it as easily as he would ride a horse. Drowning, anyhow, was the least of his worries at the moment, considering the odds he might shortly be facing.
Well, he thought, lighting a cigar, he had done everything he could to put them on his side. The boats were well-hidden upstream; tonight, they would make their long, hard run, and with luck be well past Brown’s Hole by daybreak and once more in concealment. If he was lucky, he would join them within twenty-four hours. They had orders to wait for three days, though, if necessary, and to stay under cover the whole time. “Because,” as he had told Vane, “if I’m not back in three days, I won’t be back at all.”
Now, the canyon walls were dropping, the current slowing. According to the guide and to the maps, he should soon be able to make a landing. He sat down cross-legged on the raft, adjusted the shotgun that rode muzzles down on his right shoulder under the boots. He had left his rifle with the boats, and maybe that was a wrong move, but given a choice of weapons, he had to have the Fox. That, his Colt, and the Batangas knife, should be enough. Much more and his story would not stand up.
And maybe, he told himself, this was a wild goose chase. Maybe Brown’s Hole was clean, now, inhabited only by honest ranchers, as Tom Cord had claimed. On the other hand ... He thought about the four men he’d overheard at the waterhole. If, say, they had made their score at the Shoshone Reservation, they’d need some place to stop over, rest the rustled horses. What better place than the Hole? If rustling was still going on, Brown’s Hole had to play a part in it. And Dogan … Double-Barrel Dogan was dead, of course. But there was another Dogan and ...
Fargo never jumped at conclusions. He would see what he would see, play it by ear. He finished his cigar and threw it in the river. As he carefully regained his feet, the raft rocking under him, and picked up his pole, the last height of canyon on the east bank dwindled. The river turned, and all at once he was in open country, where he could see for miles.
Brown’s Hole. It stretched away on his left, lush meadows behind the cottonwoods at the water’s edge, and, in the distance, rolling, rocky hills clad with juniper and bunch grass. On the horizon at the valley’s farther side, rugged mountains seemed pasted against the summer sky’s almost painful blue. Those mountains hemmed in the Hole, cut it off from the outside world, made it a fine, lost, remote hiding place. The question was, who was hiding there and what did they know about Colonel Knight?
Fargo checked the shotgun, then poled the raft closer to shore. He worked down a margin of willows and other brush that edged a bottomland of cottonwoods. Presently, ahead, he saw the cable of a ferry, running from bank to bank, and the big, flat, wooden craft anchored there, where a road ran up from the river into the Hole. Fargo sank the pole into the water and made for the ferry landing.
Long before he reached it, he saw the men with rifles.
Two of them, in range clothes, carrying Winchesters, they stood on the anchored ferry, one watching up the stream, the other facing down. And Fargo’s pulse quickened. He had the same sensation a miner would have felt, finding the first trace of pay-dirt in a place where he had guessed it must exist. As the upstream watcher caught sight of him and raised his gun, Fargo took off the cavalry hat and waved it frantically. Then, working hard, he poled the raft inshore.
By the time it bumped against the ferry, both of them had him covered. One was tall and very thin, with a fringe of coppery beard and eyes like freshly molded rifle balls. The other was short and blocky, with a drooping black mustache, a knife-scar twisting down his face from eye to chin. Neither, Fargo thought, looked like the kind you’d turn your back on in an alley. He raised his hands as the raft grounded on the mud beside the ferry. “Hey, don’t shoot. I’m half dead already. Boy, am I glad to see you hombres.”
The man with bullet eyes said, “Keep those hands up, friend, and come up here.” They looked him over, taking in ugly face, cauliflower ear, powerful body, and gear that looked as if it had been through a lot, for his clothes were torn, crusted with sand, shapeless from soaking. And they followed him with the guns as he climbed up on the ferry. “Now,” Bullet eyes said. “Who the hell are you and what are you doin’ here?”
“Who I am is my own business,” Fargo said.
“And ...” He decided to take the long chance. “I’m looking for Dogan.”
Both men stiffened. Then the man with bullet eyes said, “Billy. Take that shotgun and anything else he’s got can hurt a man. Big Ugly, stand loose.”
“All right,” Fargo said. “But this is Brown’s Hole, ain’t it?”
Neither answered. The man with the scar, Billy, pulled the shotgun off his shoulder, whisked the Colt from holster and thrust it in his waistband. He frisked Fargo, found the Batangas knife. “Hey, Lew. Look at this.”
“Hang on to it,” Lew said. “All right, stranger. Move out, slow and easy. Up the road.”
“You taking me to Dogan?”
“I’m taking you to Garfield. You can explain yourself to him. What he does with you after that is your own affair. Put on your boots and hit the dirt.”
~*~
Fargo was cool as he drew on his boots, despite the pair of Winchesters trained on him. Indeed, he even felt a certain satisfaction. Depending on what he’d found in Brown’s Hole—honest ranchers or men like this—he’d had two different approaches laid out. Well, he was pretty sure these two had never struck an honest lick since they’d reached manhood, and they had taken the name Dogan in their stride. So, by putting his head in the lion’s mouth, he’d learned something, and he intended to learn more. And then, if he were smart and tough enough, he’d find some way to jerk his head out again before the lion’s jaws snapped shut. That, after all, was his business.
With his boots on, he marched up the road ahead of his captors. Above the ferry, two horses were tethered. Keeping him covered, they mounted, rode at a walk behind him as he climbed a rise that led from the river. His docility was complete, but every sense was alert. And he heard Lew, who had the shotgun, tell Billy, “This is one hell of a fine weapon. I might just keep it for myself.”
Billy snorted. “You’ll play hell. You know damn well who’ll wind up with that.”
“Maybe,” Lew said.
“No maybe about it when Garfield sees it. And you’d better not hold out on him, neither. Especially now, when he’s just took the Old Man’s daughter—”
“Just shut up and watch that ugly cuss,” Lew snapped. After that, they quit talking.
As Fargo climbed the rise, the cottonwoods fell away below. Now there were lush lowland meadows, dotted with grazing stock, cattle and horses both. As they passed three fine geldings, bred, he guessed, by remount stallions, grazing near the road, he saw that each of the three bore a different brand. That told him something else. After that, he watched only the terrain, committing it to memory: meadows, bunchgrass hills, mountains in the distance, a few scattered cabins badly needing repairs … Then the land was level, and where a cottonwood grove cast its shade, there were five or six shacks clustered around a bigger building like chicks around a hen. Although the larger structure bore no signs, it had been built, Fargo guessed, as saloon and general store; and a few horses were tethered at the rack outside.
His captors marched him up the porch, after they had swung down and tied their own mounts. He entered a big room, comparatively cool, with a bar well stocked and shelves of staple g
oods: beans, flour, coffee, and other simple groceries. There were three or four tables, too, and a quartet of dusty men sat at one, drinking whiskey. They stared at Fargo and the men behind him, and one who had been speaking let his words trail off. Fargo caught only a tatter of a sentence: “Damn Shoshones could trail a fly across a window …” But he was pretty sure he knew who those four men were.
There was no one behind the counter. Lew turned to the men at the table. “Where’s Garfield?”
One gave a high-pitched laugh. “Where you think, now he’s a married man? This is his ... siesta.” The others laughed too.
“Shut up,” Lew said. “Billy, watch this hairpin.” He went behind the bar, hammered on a door there with the butt of Fargo’s shotgun. Fargo heard a sound like the growling of a bear from within. “It’s Lew,” the man with bullet-eyes called out. “We caught a stranger. You better come and see him.”
Again that growl. Lew turned away, a strange look on his face. “He ain’t happy, but he’ll be out in a minute. Meantime, Big Ugly, you stand fast.”
Fargo said, “I’ll stand fast, but I could sure use a drink. Why don’t I buy one of those bottles and let’s have a round?”
Lew and Billy looked at one another. Then Billy said, “You got twenty dollars?”
Fargo said, “Don’t shoot me, I’m just fishing.” He reached in his pocket, dropped a double eagle on the bar. Billy licked his lips, went behind the counter, picked a bottle, pulled its cork, set out three glasses. He poured them, shoved one to Fargo.
Fargo drank, poured another shot and drank again. The trip downriver on the raft had been strenuous, and he needed that much whiskey, knowing it would not hurt his reflexes. Then he thought of something. “Don’t I git some change from the twenty?”
“Not in Brown’s Hole,” Lew said with a touch of bitterness. “That’s what a jug costs here.” He poured himself another drink.