by John Benteen
“We wouldn’t be dealing if I was fool enough to do that.” Fargo’s voice was almost angry. “One more man, what do you think that means to me? What counts for me is staying alive.” Then he heard the shuffling of many feet. Careful to keep the Fox down pointed, he turned.
They came, sixteen of them, armed, Dogan’s men. And between their twin ranks marched another eleven. Six of those were the crew Fargo had run the Colorado with, Vane in the lead, shoulders squared, eyes forward. Behind him shambled five human wrecks, clad in rags, covered with sores. Fargo had to look a long time before he recognized the gangling skeleton leading that last contingent as the brawny Lieutenant Knight of the old Rough Riders.
But Knight recognized him at once. “Sergeant Fargo!”
“Shut up!” Jonas said and slapped Knight across the face. Knight slumped, subsided.
“Put that Vane feller up against the wall,” Dogan ordered.
“Right.” Two men hustled Captain Vane against the side of the saloon. Vane pressed his back against the logs with ramrod straightness and stared at Fargo. “What’s happening? What’s this all about?”
“I got to kill you,” Fargo said. “It’s the only way I can stay alive. I’m throwing in with Dogan.”
“I see.” Vane’s voice was contemptuous. “Well, my first appraisal was correct, eh? Water seeks its own level, and so do gunmen ...”
“Knock it off,” Fargo said and hit him. Sara screamed.
“Fargo, you can’t—!”
“Somebody shut her up,” Fargo rasped. He backed a pace. Everything was very still as he raised the Fox. Pressed it against Vane’s chest.
“All right,” Vane said harshly. “I’ve never been under fire, but I suppose this is the ultimate test. You might get word to my family somehow that I met it.”
“I’ve got bigger things to worry about,” Fargo said. He turned to Dogan, saw the barrels of the Greener lined on him. “Now?”
“Now,” Dogan said.
“Okay,” Fargo said, pressed the muzzles into Vane’s chest, then whirled, gun pointing at Dogan. “Okay. The game’s over.”
Dogan’s eyes widened. “What?”
Fargo said, “You’re covered, Dogan, and if you pull those triggers, you’re dead.”
Dogan roared, “You bastard! You think you can—?” He closed his fingers on both triggers.
The explosion was tremendous. Fargo was already turning, threatening Jonas and the men behind him with the Fox. But, from the corner of his eye he saw it. The shotgun in Dogan’s hands blew up, like a bomb. Its eighteen buckshot blew back, mingled with fragments of the barrels. Dogan’s head and upper shoulders dissolved in a red spray. He did not even have time to scream. What was left of him fell limply.
“Vane!” Fargo yelled. “Get my gun and knife out of his belt!” He whirled, menacing paralyzed men with his Fox. They knew he had one round, didn’t know there wasn’t a second one in the left barrel. Gunhands swooping downward after a frightened second froze. Then Vane came up with a Colt in hand.
“My God,” Jonas whispered. “Don’t shoot. What happened?” He stared at the bloody thing that once had been Double-Barrel Dogan. It lay on its back, clasping the stock of the double-barreled ten-gauge Greener, the barrels of which had curled back like flowers of steel around his almost severed wrists. Three men, hit by flying buckshot, lay moaning on the ground behind.
Fargo swung the Fox, Vane menaced them with the Colt, and Knight suddenly snatched a rifle from Jonas’ paralyzed hands. As if that were a signal, the others moved. Michaelson’s big hand chopped a man down, picked up his Marlin. And suddenly it was all over; in shock and confusion, Dogan’s men were easy pickings. It had been so long since they’d had a real challenge ...
Yadkin, coming up with rifle in one hand and pistol in another, snarled, “I’ll kill the first bastard moves!”
One man went for his gun. He was in the back ranks, and Fargo didn’t see it until his own Colt roared in Vane’s hand. A man screamed, collapsed, Colt spilling from his grasp. That stopped them for another moment, and more guns were plucked from holsters, and now Knight strode forward, a gaunt, shambling figure with a rifle in his hand and he said, “All guns. All. Will be thrown out into the center. The first gun, the first ...” It was as if he were unused to speaking after having been shut up for so long. “The first gun fired and we will kill you all.”
Fargo said, “Vane.”
“Yes.”
“Go inside. Find my bandolier.”
Hands were raised as Vane ran into the barroom, came back with Fargo’s shell belt. “Now,” Fargo said. “Knight, you and the rest of your crew are the weakest, so you get the head start. Down the slot through the side canyon to the boats. Sara will go with you, show you. Sara, move out.”
“Yes, oh, yes,” Sara said, voice trembling, and she seized a gun. “Come on, Colonel Knight ...”
“Fargo,” Knight said.
“Go with her. We’ll be along.”
“Yes,” Knight answered. “Come on, men.” He shambled off behind the girl.
Fargo, facing the cowed men of Dogan’s crew said, “All right. You’ve seen it. You’re disarmed, and we’ve got the whip hand. The first man that follows us is dead.”
“Jesus,” one man said. “You think we’d try to—”
“Just don’t,” Fargo said and broke the shotgun and thumbed in another round and closed it and had two more in his hands. “This thing will spray eighteen double-zero and kill a lot of you. I’m a shotgun man and I know what I tell you.”
“It ain’t worth it,” someone said.
“No, it ain’t,” said Fargo. “But I’ll tell you this. The time to clear out of this region is now. Before they box you in. Try Mexico or South America. Don’t stay here. There’s lots of room yet for people don’t want their feet nailed to the floor. All of you,” he added. “All of you move out.”
They did. He was the rear-guard, with the Fox. Alone.
Alone, and nobody came against him. When Fargo was sure everyone else was in the clear, he backed off. He was very careful as he ran down through the side-canyon’s slot to cover his retreat. But no one followed him. He made the sandbar at the mouth of the entrance to Cord’s Park. The boats were waiting there, overloaded with men.
“Neal!” Sara’s voice was a whisper from the darkness.
Fargo jumped into the lead boat. “Sara, guide us to Lee’s Ferry. We’re going out there!” Then he picked up a paddle. “Shove off!” he cried, and the boats moved out into the Colorado.
Chapter Nine
The Colonel’s study in Oyster Bay, Long Island, was decorated with the heads of exotic game: kudu and Cape buffalo from Africa, Kodiak grizzly from the Alaskan coast, jaguar from South America. In a suit, the Colonel looked somehow different as he leaned across his desk.
“Damascus Twist, eh?”
“Yeah,” Fargo said.
“Any fool would know it wasn’t made for high-powered ammo. Damascus Twist was suitable for the old black powder, muzzle loading or primitive shell guns, but a Damascus Twist barrel will blow sky-high under unusual pressure.”
“That’s what I figured when I put the corks in,” Fargo said.
“The corks?” The Colonel’s eyes gleamed.
“Well, he had me. My shotgun and his. And then Sara—Miss Raven here—” Fargo indicated her with a nod of his head, “—thought maybe if she created an upset I had a chance. Guts, pure guts, all the way through. And she did give me a chance. The corks were already there from the whiskey bottles. While Dogan was looking at her, I tamped ’em down both barrels. Clogged up his Greener and hoped it would blow apart. Talked him into giving me back the Fox and ... It was a long chance, a damned long one, but it all worked out.”
The Colonel stared from Fargo to Sara Raven, who now, thanks to Fargo, was dressed in the most fashionable clothes of the time and looked absolutely stunning. “Miss Raven,” he said, “I hardly know how to express my thanks.” He smiled. “You h
ave helped salvage the scientific results of two expeditions, clear the Colorado for future expeditions and—”
“Try ten thousand dollars,” Fargo said.
“What?” The Colonel looked at him, startled.
“I’m pretty well fixed,” Fargo said. “But I’ve got ten thousand coming from you. I want her to have it. What’s more, I want her, when I’ve gone back West, to be welcome here and introduced around. She may not be up on ballroom manners, Colonel, but you can teach her those. And all the rest.”
“Yes, of course. We’ll welcome her to the bosom of our family ...”
“Fair enough. Pay her,” Fargo said.
The Colonel looked at Fargo, and suddenly he laughed. “Yes. Yes, I understand, now. Of course.” He opened the drawer of his desk. Took out a big packet of bills and shoved it toward Sara. “Miss Raven, you’ll be a member of our family now.”
She stared at the money, stunned. “I never dreamed—”
Fargo said quietly: “There are a lot of things you never dreamed of that you’ll see now. Take the money.”
“Yes.” She put it in her handbag. “Only ...”
“That’s all,” Fargo said, touching her shoulder. “You’ve earned it. Colonel—”
“Yes, Sergeant Fargo?”
“There’s a few more things. Vane. Just because he’s never been in combat … Colonel, that man has guts.”
The buckteeth showed in a smile under the wiry mustache. “I’ve pulled certain strings, Sergeant. Captain Vane has been jumped a rank. He’s now Lieutenant-Colonel, and I think his future is assured.”
“I should have known you’d be ahead of me. But there’s something else.”
“What?”
“Give ’em a year or two,” Fargo said. “Most aren’t real badmen, just cowboys gone wrong. In a couple of years, they’ll clear the Colorado and head on to Mexico or South America or Australia … Don’t send in any more expeditions and push ’em against the wall until then.”
The Colonel arose. “They’ll have several years. The war in Europe’s heating up and the Government’s attention is wholly there now. Sooner or later we’re bound to be in it ...”
“Then you’ll need ’em,” Fargo said. “They’ll come down out of the brakes and join under assumed names and … God help the Germans then. Just like in the old days.”
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “The Rough Riders weren’t petunia blossoms!” He laughed, a little wetly. “You’re right, Sergeant. If they buy in, God help the Germans. Now ... my car is waiting outside. It’ll take you wherever you want to go. Miss Raven, we’ll stay in close touch with you ...”
“Thank you,” she said.
The car was a big Packard limousine. Sara and Fargo got in the tonneau together. “The Waldorf, Manhattan, driver,” Fargo said, and the car moved smoothly off.
“Ten thousand dollars,” Sara whispered. “Neal, what can I say? I … the money is one thing. But you talked as if ... you’re going away again.”
“After a while,” Fargo said. “In a few weeks. But, don’t worry. The Colonel will see to you when I’m gone and make a lady out of you ...”
“I don’t care about being a lady. What I care about is you. Where will you go?”
Fargo stared out the window. “Some place,” he said. He felt a certain melancholy. The corks down the shotgun barrel, the Damascus Twist exploding—and now, he would never know. There was no other Double-Barrel Dogan, no other shotgun man of equal rank to pit himself against. It was a shame …
Sara’s voice brought him back to the present.
“But you will come back?” she asked.
Fargo took out a long, slim, black cigar, bit off its end, clamped it between his teeth. When it was lit, he said:
“I always come back.”
FARGO 11: SHOTGUN MAN
By John Benteen
First published by Belmont Tower in 1973
Copyright © 1973, 2015 by Benjamin L. Haas
First Kindle Edition: June 2016
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. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Cover image © 2016 by Edward Martin
Check out Ed’s work here
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.
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