Fargo 13

by John Benteen

  Sara was past fighting as the man jerked her to her feet. He shoved her behind the bar, through a door. He emerged, slid a bar, then went out. Now the barroom was empty, save for Dogan and Neal Fargo.

  Dogan fished a cigar from his pocket, clamped it in his mouth. “You want a drink,” he said pleasantly, “there’s a bottle on the bar.”

  Fargo looked: there was. “Obliged,” he said, went to it, drank, Dogan covering him with the Fox. He smacked his lips and drank again and set down the bottle and leaned against the bar.

  “Neal Fargo,” Dogan said. ‘That’s one thing I’ve hated about pretending to be dead.” He lit the cigar. “You know, there was a time when I was top man with a sawed-off and everybody knew it. But now I’m dead, you see? Officially. Actually, it was that stupid brother of mine. But ... I got no rep left. There ain’t what you would call a shotgun man no more, except maybe you.”

  Not speaking, Fargo helped himself to another drink. He was very tired, and he would need all the lift he could get.

  “It’s a goddam shame,” Dogan went on. “People don’t seem to know it, but it was the shotgun did the business. They gave shotguns to Texas Rangers before they had repeating pistols. No lawman ever kept a town tamed without shotguns. Wyatt Earp used ’em in Wichita and Dodge and Ellsworth and Tombstone. No stage line would ever have made a bullion run without a shotgun guard, and they were standard weapons for express messengers on trains. To hell with your pistoleros! You give me six slugs to throw or eighteen buckshot and I’ll take the buckshot every time.” He looked down at the Fox. “To Fargo from Roosevelt. No wonder this is such a purty gun. You’ve used it on a lot of people, huh?”

  “I have,” said Fargo.

  “How long, originally, the barrels.”

  “Thirty-two inches.”

  “Goose gun,” Dogan said. “Special made. And you cut all that off?”

  “I don’t hunt geese,” Fargo said.

  Dogan laughed throatily. Then he sobered. “No. You were hunting me. Too bad, Fargo. But I’ll enjoy the gun. You know, I don’t allow anybody in my territory to tote a sawed-off except me.” He drank again from the bottle on the table, and his eyes shadowed. “It’s funny. How my whole life has been built around this Greener, here. I was a damned good stagecoach guard once. I risked my life for Wells-Fargo and other lines a lot more’n once, and this company-issue Greener took its toll of bandits. But were they grateful? No, sir! I got sixty a month for ridin’ shotgun! And one day it hit me! I was on the wrong end ...”

  He rubbed his face. “Funny thing was, I’d just asked for a ten-dollar raise. If they’d given it to me, I’da been happy, but they turned me down. And it riled me, you know? And that was when I decided which way my stick would float.” He laughed. “And since then, this Wells-Fargo Greener has taken back that raise from Wells-Fargo many times over. I’ve tried to explain all that to a lot of people, but none of ’em could understand. But you do, don’t you? You know that when you use a sawed-off, you do it close up, and it’s them or you, no other way.”

  “That’s how it is,” Fargo said.

  Dogan rolled the cigar across his mouth. “And Garfield’s dead,” he said. “And I need a man up in Brown’s Hole to run things. A man that won’t get blubber-fat and careless like Garfield. And a man that takes to Sara and that she takes to—I saw the way you looked at her when I laid one on her. Fargo, you work for hire. What kind of hire?”

  “Fifteen, twenty thousand a job,” Fargo said, catching the drift.

  “How many jobs a year?”

  “Two, anyhow.”

  “Good pay. But I could guarantee you fifty a year, not near as much risk, and Sara—after I’ve found me another woman for my own use. How does that sound to you?”

  Fargo fished in his shirt pocket, brought out a tin waterproof box that held his last cigar. He put the cigar between his teeth and lit it. “Do I get my Fox back?”

  “No. I told you, nobody totes a sawed-off but me. You don’t need it anyhow; you’re good enough with that Colt or a knife.” He leaned forward, still keeping the shotgun leveled, thoroughly the professional. “You and me can get along, Fargo. There ain’t that much difference between us. I know your rep; I know everything goes on from Wyoming to Sonora. I know you’re wild, like me, like these men along the river. But you’re getting old, you can’t go on straining forever to earn the hard dollar. And when you get too old, where you gonna go? These Army bastards, scientists, whatever, they’re tryin’ to take it all away from us, men like you and me. They open up the back country, what becomes of us?”

  “I don’t know,” Fargo said.

  “Well, you got until the sun comes up to think about it. Then somebody dies. You or that man called Vane.”

  Fargo stiffened. “What?”

  “You’re either with me or against me. If you’re with me, you run Brown’s Hole, make a big stake, have Sara, and if the heat goes on, we’ll head out for Argentina. If you’re against me, you die; it’s that simple. And the only way I can be sure you’re with me is to make your stakes the same as mine. I kill you ... or you kill Captain Vane.”

  Fargo said, “I don’t—”

  “I thought you were smart. I’d put no man in a place of trust until he’d proved himself. You kill Vane, in cold blood, before Knight and all the rest, and then we’re playing the same game. You can’t afford to be caught either. So you’ve got to be on my side. It’s a simple test, Fargo. Simpler than assaying gold. You kill Vane, you’re on the hook. You refuse, I kill you. Nothing simpler than that. When you get my age, you simplify everything.”

  With a certain admiration, Fargo stared at the man behind the shotguns. Dogan overlooked no bet. But, after all, this was the cold intelligence that had sacrificed his own brother to clear himself. And what he said was true: if Fargo were forced to kill Vane before witnesses, he was bound to Dogan forever. For then it became a matter of his own survival to make sure that neither Knight nor any of the others would ever testify against him. Now he understood how Dogan had established his rule over the Colorado; and once more that sick lust to challenge such a shotgun man stirred in him.

  But there was no challenging Dogan’s dead drop with the Fox.

  “I got to think about it,” he said.

  “Sure. Naturally you got to think about it. But there ain’t but one answer. Either you are alive come dinner time, or you are dead. Me, what I’ve heard about you, I figure you’d rather be alive. After all, you use a shotgun, and a man that does that is smart, smarter than the regular. He’s already thought about the odds.”

  He twitched Fargo’s Fox, just enough to be emphatic. “Now, sit down at yonder table, not too close. Until Vane’s dead, you’re my enemy. After that, you got to be my friend. But I’m shut off here and you’ve been around outside, and there’s a lot I want to know ...”

  ~*~

  For Neal Fargo, the next three hours were a nightmare, and yet they had a fascination. Menaced by the bores of his own weapon, he sat across the room from Dogan and heard reminiscences of days long turned to legend; in return, Dogan picked his brains, demanding information on new weapons and law enforcement procedures on the outside. Every question had its point, and Fargo knew he was in the presence of a towering, ruthless intelligence. Not since the Colonel had he met so forceful, brilliant, and dangerous a man.

  And that, he thought, was what the choice was boiling down to. Serve one master or the other. And the Fox twelve-gauge was somehow the symbol of that choice. Yield it up, kill Vane, and live. Or stay loyal to the man who’d given it to him—and die. No third way.

  “This execution,” he asked finally, as dawn shafted light through dirty windows. “Vane’s. How would it work?”

  “Nothing to it. We march ’em out, all of ’em, so they can see it. Knight and his men, that crew you brought in. And ...” His mouth curled. “Sara. She’s got to see it, too, so she knows where everybody stands. Then, in full view of all, you shoot Vane.”

  Far
go rubbed his eyes with weariness. At last, slowly, he said, “All right. Looks like there’s no way around it. I’ve had worse deals offered. I’ll do it. Give me back my shotgun and one round.”

  “No,” said Dogan. “You think I’m a fool? Let you turn nine buckshot on me and my men? Uh-uh. You get your Colt and one round. You can put it spang against Vane’s head. That hollow-point ought to blow it plumb apart.”

  “And then do I get my shotgun back?”

  “You get all your weapons back except the Fox. My rule holds. Nobody has a shotgun in this outfit but me. It’s my edge, Fargo—and you’re the man to know about that.”

  Fargo looked at him wryly, almost with contempt. “So you’re that scared of me.”

  “I ain’t scared of any man ever drew on a boot.” He took a drink from the bottle near him. “Oh, don’t think I ain’t thought about it. From the days when I first started to hear the stories about Neal Fargo and his sawed-off, I had an itch—you know what I mean?” Before Fargo could answer, he grinned. “You damned well know; I can see it in your eyes. I … wanted a chance to come up against you. But it can’t be that way. No. I keep your shotgun.”

  Fargo was silent for a moment. Then he had a drink from his own bottle. “Dogan, it wouldn’t work.”

  “What?” Dogan’s gas-jet eyes seemed to intensify their blueness.

  “It don’t matter what kind of deal we make—I’d have to have my shotgun before we could work together.”

  “Looks to me like you ought to be satisfied with your life.” But Fargo saw at once that the quick intelligence followed his drift immediately.

  He stood up, began to pace. He’d been sitting too long, needed to be limber, tuned. He had one last card to play; its only chance of taking the pot hinged on Dogan’s mind, the way it worked, the slant of it. They were weapons men, both of them: a breed, for better or worse, to whom guns, fine guns, were more important than women or money. A cheap gun, like a sluttish woman or a counterfeit dollar, was an abomination, to be despised. But a fine one was worth killing for, or even dying for. It was a kind of madness, Fargo knew: the madness of the gunman. But he and Dogan were both caught up in it.

  “It wouldn’t work,” he said, “because you know that I’d never rest or settle into harness without my shotgun. I’ve carried it too long, it’s pulled me out of too many spots, I’ve killed too many men with it before they could kill me. It’s part of me, Dogan, and I’ll have to have it back.”

  “You won’t get it,” Dogan said. “I’ll just kill you and be done with it.”

  “Do that,” Fargo said. “And that shotgun will cost you more than you ever paid for any weapon in your life.”

  Dogan sat up straight. “You lost me there.”

  Fargo halted, leaned against the bar, toyed with half a dozen bottle corks left over from the opening of whiskey. He picked up several, tossed them idly in his hands. Then he turned, biting his lower lip thoughtfully, releasing it. “All right,” he said. “I’ll put it this way. You need me. You need me bad enough to give me back my Fox.” His voice roughened. “You been shut up here for a long time, Dogan. You got no idea what’s going on outside, how it’s changed. Why do you think they sent two expeditions down the Colorado? They’re moving in on you, harder and faster than you ever dreamed. And when both expeditions disappear, they’ll really be riled up and come in even harder. You can’t last here. The time will come, a year, two or four from now when you’ll have to fight a rearguard action and move out below the border. Without me, you’ll never make it.”

  “I’ve made it this far.”

  “You’ve been lucky. But when they come the next time, they’ll come in force. It’ll be the Army or the State Militias. And you won’t stand them off with rifles and shotguns. Because they’ll have machine guns and pack howitzers, and they’ll move in and blast you out of these breaks from miles away, and you’ll never get a chance to use that Greener of yours—”

  He strode toward Dogan. Dogan tilted up the Fox. “Hold it, Fargo.”

  “That famous Greener,” Fargo said. “I want to see it.”

  Dogan said, “You keep your hands off of it.”

  “All I want’s a look. But let that ride. My point is this. Dogan, you’re obsolete. Except for close-in fighting, so are our shotguns. This is the machine gun and cannon age, and you don’t know a damned thing about either one.”

  “And you do...”

  “All there is to know. I know where to get machine guns and pack howitzers and Hotchkiss repeating two-pounders and how to set ’em up and operate ’em. I know how to fortify this place you got so nobody can ever come past Brown’s Hole with a full-scale Army. And I know how to fight the rear-guard action that’ll have to be fought and where we go when we pull out.”

  “And where’s that?” Dogan’s eyes were keen.

  “Mexico. I’ve been running guns to Villa, I know all those people down there. I can get guns for us, and I can set up a hideout when we need it. Garfield was a slob, a nothing. Whatever I am, I ain’t that. Anyhow, write it on your slate: without me, your days are numbered. You can’t stand off an army with a Greener and a Fox. If I throw in with you, I’ll show you the new way of fighting. But I won’t do it unless I get my shotgun.”

  “Then, like I said, I guess I got to kill you.”

  “You do that, you shorten your own life. I’ll take your proposition just like you laid it down. My only term is that I get my shotgun back.”

  Dogan frowned. “I don’t know. I—” He broke off. Suddenly Sara’s screams rose from inside the room; she began to hammer at the door. “Dogan! Fargo! Take this swine out of here!”

  Dogan jumped up, face contorting, raised Fargo’s Fox. He cast a quick glance at Fargo, grinned. “Sounds like Jonas has got carried away. Musta crawled in through the window. He oughta know better than that. I’m gonna see to him. All right—” Sara was still screaming. Fargo heard her snarl, “Turn loose of me, you bastard!”

  “All right,” Dogan said. “Look at the Greener. It’s empty and you got no ten-gauge shells. And try no tricks, because there’s guards front and back.” He strode around the bar, Fox tilted up, found a key, unlocked the door, went in.

  Fargo moved swiftly, smoothly to the table where the Greener lay, the use-slickened old hammer gun that had taken so many lives. His eyes ranged over its barrels as his hands moved deftly, and his mouth twisted. Damascus Twist. Of course. All the real old guns were. There were two ways of making a shotgun barrel. The modern way was to ream one out of a solid piece of steel. Years before, though, they had laminated curling pieces of hot iron around a core and forged those pieces together so smoothly that they appeared to be a single piece of metal. But, fine as the workmanship in any gun made of Damascus Twist was, there was a weakness—a good eye could always see the laminations.

  Then he heard Dogan snarl something, Sara scream, and man and woman alike were back in the bar room, Dogan holding Sara by a hand knotted in her hair, his shotgun poked into her ribs. “You slut! I oughta kill you!”

  He threw her across the room, and she landed in a corner not far from Birdsong’s body. Fargo laid down the Greener, and it was broken open, still empty, and Dogan’s eyes took that in quickly, then went back to Sara. “You know what she did?” he rasped. “Kicked up all that fuss to give you some kind of chance. Thought maybe it would distract me and let you jump me. And Jonas was still outside!” He whirled toward Sara. “Girl!” he rasped. “You been nothing but a problem to me ever since I come here. Well, you ain’t my flesh and blood. No reason why I can’t tame you like I tamed your mama and all the rest. You’ll stay with me a while, and then if you behave, Fargo can have you. But if you ever try another trick like that, I’ll cut you up so you won’t recognize yourself!” He turned to Fargo, still caught up in rage.

  “All right,” he snapped. “My mind’s made up. You get your shotgun back. One round in it, to kill Vane with. And don’t try to trick me, because—” He broke Fargo’s shotgun, drew
out the left shell. Laid it on the table, picked up his own Greener, dug in his pockets, rammed in two fat rounds, snapped it shut. “Once Vane is dead, I’ll give you the rest of your ammunition. I’ll know you’re bound to me then.”

  “Fair enough,” Fargo said. “I never asked no more. I’ll kill Vane for you. And let’s get it over with. I want my shotgun back.”

  “We’ll get it over with!” Dogan snapped. “Jonas!”

  Almost immediately, the squat man appeared.

  Dogan gestured toward Sara. “Pick this slut up and watch her. She tried to make your name mud, so don’t let her get away. And tell Forester to have the men bring out Knight and all the rest. Line ’em up alongside the store.”

  “Sure, Mr. Dogan,” Jonas said. He went to Sara, seized her hand, jerked her up and hammer locked her again. “You come with me.”

  She screamed curses at him, but he forced her out the door. Dogan went to the table, picked up the Greener, leveled it on Fargo. Then tossed him the Fox. “There it is,” he rasped. “One round, nine buckshot. Use it on Vane. If you try to use it on me, you’ll never leave this park, because twenty men will blow you down, if I don’t do it first with the Greener.”

  “You think I’m a complete idiot?” Fargo asked.

  “We’ll see,” Dogan said. “I almost wish you were. Then I’d have an excuse … No. No, I need you, I got to use you. But move out. I want to see you kill Vane.”

  They went outside, into the green, sunlit bowl hemmed in by mountains. Dogan kept the Greener trained on Fargo, who carried very delicately the Fox with its one round in the chamber. He sucked in clean draughts of morning air, cleared his lungs and head. In that moment, looking around, he felt kinship with Dogan. This was a clean, wild place; it could stay like this, or people like Vane could bring in their dams and bankers and sewing circles ...

  “Just rest easy,” Dogan said, keeping the Greener trained, Fargo’s Colt and knife in his waistband. “They’ll be along directly. Minute you raise that shotgun off the ground, where you got it pointed, I’ll be tempted to shoot.”