by Jon Sharpe
He listened, his head inclined to one side, and his eyes scanning the forest from beneath the frown that had again come to his forehead. He sat very still, his wild-creature hearing picking up the sounds. They had intruded on him since he’d entered the virgin forest. This time it was the whir of wings taking flight, an entire charm of goldfinches with their black foreheads and black wings filling the sky. Before that it had been a herd of black-tailed deer, all fleeing through the forest at once, startled and fearful of an alien presence. Before that there had been the tremendous racket of a murder of crows, the kind only set off when they were unexpectedly disturbed. Crows, being what they are, didn’t just fly away as most birds would. They stayed, swooped in huge groups, and angrily cawed and protested, aggressively showing their displeasure. Finally they had calmed down. But before that there had been the unmistakable rustling sound of grouse taking wing almost straight up.
It had all been a good distance behind him yet it had persisted, one sound after the other, each a message to those who could understand. He had ridden casually and made no effort to cover his tracks, but he was becoming convinced that either someone was following and searching out trail-marks, or happened to be riding along the same paths. Fargo grunted at the last thought. He never dismissed coincidence. He just didn’t put much store in them. As night supplanted dusk, he swung from the Ovaro and led the horse into a dense thicket of hackberry with plenty of wild geranium to soften the land and welcome a bedroll. He ate cold beef jerky, certain that darkness had put a stop to anyone tracking him. Then he lay down and listened to the night sounds, the clatter of scarab beetles, the buzz of insects, the soft swoosh of bats, and the chatter of kit foxes, until finally he slept.
When morning came he found a stream, washed, and rode on until the trees thinned out enough to leave patches of open land. He stopped, dismounted, and used his boots to scrape marks on the ground, then pressed a circle in the grass. He used his canteen to damp down the grass inside the circle he’d scraped. He finished, added a few more meaningless marks, and smiled. Even he wouldn’t know what to make of them. Taking the Ovaro behind a cluster of cottonwoods, he sat down against the furrowed, pale bark and waited. The sun had reached the noon sky when he heard the horse approaching in clustered, hesitant steps, the rider pausing often to search the ground.
Fargo was on his feet behind the tree trunk when the horse pushed into sight, a dark brown gelding, the rider on it no more than eighteen years old, he guessed, as he took in the young man’s smooth cheeks and full, unruly black hair. The youth halted, dismounted, and knelt down beside the markings on the ground. Fargo watched the frown of consternation gather on his forehead as he studied the markings. “Real confusing, isn’t it, junior?” Fargo said as he stepped from behind the tree. “What do you make of it?” Startled, the young man straightened up and spun, one hand moving toward the gun at his hip. “I wouldn’t do that, junior,” Fargo said quietly. The youth’s hand dropped to his side and his eyes went to the marks on the ground.
“You make these?” he asked.
Fargo smiled as he nodded. “Figured they’d give you something to wonder about,” he said.
“They did. I’d have spent hours trying to figure them out. Why didn’t you go on?” the youth asked.
“Curiosity,” Fargo said. “You’ve been following me.”
“Been following tracks, hoping,” the young man said.
“Hoping what?” Fargo queried.
“That you’d be Skye Fargo,” the youth said.
“What made you figure I might be?” Fargo asked.
“Heard you were staying at Abbey Carson’s. I stopped there. She told me you’d gone on due south. I followed. Yours were the only single rider tracks I came onto.”
“If I was Skye Fargo, what then?”
“There’s somebody wants to see you. I was sent to find you,” the young man said.
“Who, why, and what for?” Fargo asked.
The youth started to answer but he had only opened his lips when the shot rang out, the heavy crack of a rifle. Fargo saw the young man’s unruly black hair bounce in all directions as the bullet smashed into him. Clutching his side with a groan, he fell as another shot rang out, followed by more. Fargo dived and hit the ground as he saw the riders racing into sight. Six, he counted automatically. They were still concentrating their fire on the young man stretched out on the ground but Fargo rolled and flung himself into the trees as bullets began to kick up dirt inches from him. The brush closing over him, he yanked the Colt from its holster as he saw the attackers start to come after him. Two led the charge and Fargo aimed and fired, and the two men dropped from their horses as if they’d both been pulled off by one invisible rope. The other four immediately swerved into tree cover and Fargo took the moment to retreat behind the trunk of a big cottonwood.
He heard the young man on the ground moan and heard the four riders dismount and start to come after him on foot, staying in the trees. They were overeager hired guns, he saw, and they stayed too close together as they moved toward him. He raised the Colt, steadied the gun against the tree trunk, and let one of the figures move into sight, another at his heels. Both were in a half crouch but moving too quickly, again their overeager amateurism obvious. The Colt barked twice, the second shot only a half-inch away from the first, and both figures went down at once. Fargo waited and heard the other two halt and crouch. They were suddenly uncertain, fear gripping them in its paralyzing hold. His ears picked up the sound of their feet sliding backward, and then suddenly turning to run. He shifted position to the other side of the tree trunk, his gaze fixed on the spot where they had ridden into the trees.
He had only seconds to wait when the two horses burst from the trees, racing over the open ground to reach the thick tree cover from which they’d appeared. Fargo had time for only one shot, chose the rider at the right, and fired. The man fell forward, hit the saddle horn, and the motion of the galloping horse did the rest, tossing him into the air to hit the ground with a resounding thud and lie still. The last rider raced on, vanishing into the trees. Fargo listened to the sound of his horse as it fled. Holstering the Colt, Fargo ran forward to the young man and knelt down beside the red-stained figure. He was still breathing. Grimacing, Fargo took in the extent of the wounds that soaked the youth’s clothes, at least four bullets, he saw. The youth managed to lift his head a few inches from the ground. “Easy, take it easy,” Fargo murmured.
“Tillman ... Darlene Tillman ... waiting for you,” the young man managed to gasp. “Important . . . go see her.” The effort took the last of his strength, words ending with a final gasp and Fargo leaned back as he softly cursed. He rose after a moment and walked to where the other figures littered the ground. He examined each one and found nothing to help him. But someone had sent them to find the young man and stop him before he could deliver his message. They had almost succeeded, Fargo grunted angrily. Almost. His eyes went to the young, slender figure. The youth had given his life in his assignment. Somebody better have a good explanation, Fargo thought as he went to the youth’s horse, drew a blanket from the saddlebag, and wrapped it around the silent, stained figure.
He lifted the youth, laid him across his saddle, and walked to the Ovaro. Holding the reins of the brown gelding in one hand, Fargo slowly started to ride on south. He’d no way of knowing if south was the way to go and hoped he’d find somebody who might help. As he rode, he tried to piece together the few bits and pieces of information he had. The young man had visited Abbey looking for him. That meant he had to have first visited Ed Stanford up near Ninepipe. Ed was the only one who knew he was going to visit Abbey, Fargo recalled. They’d spent a few days talking after he’d broken the trail from Idaho Territory for Ed. But Ed wasn’t the only one who knew about his coming to Montana. Ed had told enough others that he’d hired Skye Fargo to break a trail for him.
So finding he had visited Abbey was explainable. Then the youth had followed south, picked up the trail, and
met his death because of it. A Darlene Tillman had hired him, he’d muttered with his last breath. Not much to go on but it would be enough. Fargo had found trails with slimmer leads. He felt a bitterness inside him, first at what he’d witnessed, and then at being plunged into something he knew absolutely nothing about. The young man had been a total stranger and yet now he was suddenly no stranger at all. He was suddenly someone with whom Fargo had become involved. That imposition angered him, Fargo realized. He certainly had no responsibility for the youth’s death, yet a kind of oblique responsibility had been thrust upon him.
Damn, Fargo swore as he found himself thinking about coming events that cast their shadows before them. If he had not stayed the glorious week with Abbey, he would have been long gone from this north Montana country. If he hadn’t told Ed Stanford he was going to visit Abbey, the man wouldn’t have been able to tell the youth. There’d have been no one to trail him, to pursue him with still undelivered messages. Coming events did cast their shadows, but you could only understand them after they’d been cast.
What shadows was he riding into now, Fargo wondered as he moved past a lake half filled with logs, a big splash dam holding back hundreds of other logs. Perhaps he’d be wise to let the brown gelding behind him find its own way, he pondered. But he wouldn‘t, he knew. The young man wrapped in the blanket behind him deserved to have his message delivered. Everybody deserved some kind of obituary.