by Jon Sharpe
“You killed him, you stinking son of a bitch!” Shem railed. But mad as he was, he wasn’t rash enough to attempt to unlimber his rifle.
Working the Henry’s lever, Fargo fed a new cartridge into the chamber. He had a near-overpowering urge to stroke the trigger again, but instead he marched up to Shem’s dun and without saying a word, slammed the Henry against Shem’s knee.
“Damn you!” Shem howled in torment and bent down to clutch his leg.
Instantly, Fargo smashed the Henry’s stock against the backwoodsman’s jaw. Teeth crunched, blood spurted, and Shem pitched face-first into the dirt.
Fargo grabbed the dun’s reins, turned the animal completely around, and gave it a sharp smack on the rump. It did what most any horse would do; uttering a loud whinny, it bolted for home. Wilt’s sorrel was close behind. Over the hill they raced, their manes and tails flying.
Wheeling, Fargo bent over Shem and relieved him of the Sharps. He flung it far down the wash, then gave Wilt’s big revolver and the bone-handled skinning knife the same treatment. Next he retrieved the Ovaro and sat on a flat rock to wait for the brothers to revive.
Shem came to first. Groaning and spitting blood, he slowly sat up and growled. “If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
“The Swills never learn, do they?” Fargo said. His rifle was propped on the rock beside him. He drew the Colt, instead, and calmly planted a slug in Shem Swill’s left thigh.
For most, that would have been enough to send them into agonized convulsions. But not Shem. From under his vest he flourished a knife of his own, and with a roar of rage he heaved onto one knee and lunged.
4
Skye Fargo wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer. He never killed unless he had to. But some people would say the Swills had given him more than just cause. He had heard them plotting to bushwhack him. But the way Fargo saw it, if he simply gunned them down, he was no different than they were. So he did the next best thing. He shot them, but he didn’t aim to kill, only to wound. He was trying to get it through their thick heads that if they tried to kill him, they would regret it. But some folks just never learned.
Shem Swill’s leg was spurting scarlet, but the enraged hardcase didn’t care. Lips drawn back from his shattered front teeth, he swung his knife in a vicious arc. “Die, you bastard! Die!”
Fargo flung himself backward. The glittering blade missed, but not by much. Gaining his feet, he extended the Colt to fire again. This time, he would put a slug through the center of Shem’s forehead. But the killer swung the knife once more, and accidentally struck the Colt, nearly tearing it from Fargo’s grasp. Before Fargo could firm his hold, Shem was on top of him, thrusting at his throat. Fargo dodged, felt a foot hook his ankle, and the next thing he knew, he was flat on his back.
Shem pounced, slamming his good knee onto Fargo’s chest. His knife rang against the Colt’s revolver a second time.
The revolver was torn from Fargo’s grasp. He twisted as the blade sheared past his jugular, thunking into the earth. Shem immediately hiked his arm to stab again. Balling a fist, Fargo connected with a solid uppercut that rocked Shem but didn’t entirely dislodge him. Before Shem could recover, Fargo bucked upward, throwing his attacker off, and scrambled upright.
Shem snarled like a rabid wolf and closed in once more. He moved swiftly for someone with a bullet in one leg, his knife weaving a potentially lethal tapestry.
Fargo skipped to the right. He skipped to the left. He ducked. He twisted. A dozen times he saved himself by only a fraction.
Then Shem blundered. In his eagerness he lunged too far, overextended himself, and stumbled.
Bending, Fargo speared his right hand into his right boot, to the sheath strapped above his ankle. His palm wrapped around the hilt of his Arkansas toothpick, and as Shem straightened, so did he. Fargo met him blade-to-blade. Steel rang on steel.
Cursing, Shem fought all the harder. His knife was bigger, the blade was longer, but try as he might, he couldn’t penetrate Fargo’s guard. It fueled his fury. Growling like a griz, he feinted low and lanced his knife high.
Fargo barely parried in time. More by accident than design, his blade glanced off Swill’s, and the razor-sharp toothpick sliced into the other man’s knuckles.
Shem howled and backed off several steps. Blood gushed from the wounds, threatening to render the knife too slippery to hold. With a deft flip, he shifted the weapon to his other hand.
It was the opening Fargo had waited for. Reversing his grip, he threw the toothpick overhand, a feat he practiced almost daily. Usually, his targets were stumps and trees—and he seldom missed.
Shem Swill gaped in amazement at the hilt of the knife protruding from his chest and took several tottering steps. Without thinking of the consequences, he gripped the toothpick and yanked. The knife came out, but so did a crimson fountain. Within moments the front of his shirt and vest were soaked and he collapsed onto his knees. “This can’t be!” he croaked, weakening rapidly. “Damn you to hell!”
Fargo was careful not to get too close. “You brought it on yourself,” he said, reclaiming the Colt.
Shem tried to lift the toothpick to throw it, but lacked the strength. Blood seeped from both corners of his mouth, and a thin red line trickled from his left nostril. “My kin will finish you,” he boasted. “See if they don’t!” A fit of coughing afflicted him. “I just wish I could be there to see it.”
“You won’t.” Fargo had half a mind to put a slug into Shem’s head, but it would be a waste of lead. The man wouldn’t last much longer.
“The high and mighty Trailsman,” Shem said in blatant disgust, and predicted, “Clancy and the rest will whittle you down to size.” He swayed, his eyelids fluttering, and tried to raise a hand to his chest but couldn’t.
“If they’re smart, this will end it,” Fargo said.
Shem snorted, causing more blood to pour from his nose. “That shows how much you know. The Swills never forget a slight or a hurt. And we never let them go unpaid. You can count the number of days you have left to live on one hand.” Shem attempted to say more, but a violent convulsion seized him and he flopped about on the ground like a fish out of water. Another few seconds and he expired with a loud gasp.
Fargo retrieved the Arkansas toothpick. He wiped the blade clean on Shem’s vest, then replaced it in its ankle sheath. About to rise, he had an urge to go through Shem’s pockets. He didn’t make it a practice to search those he slew, so he couldn’t account for where the urge came from. Shem had fourteen dollars and eighty cents on him, as well as a pair of dice and a small gold watch. Not a pocket watch, like most men carried, but a small, slender watch typical of those worn by women.
Fargo went to examine the watch more closely but a groan interrupted him. Shoving it, and the money, into his pocket, he rose and turned.
Wilt Swill was sitting up, his left hand clasped to his right shoulder. Wincing, he glanced up and spotted his brother. Astonishment registered. “Shem!” he blurted. Sheer and utter hatred etched his features as he glowered at Fargo and snapped, “May you rot in hell!”
“I hope you have more sense than he did,” Fargo made one last attempt to reason with Wilt. “Tell Clancy and the rest of your brothers to let it be.”
“Are you plumb loco?” Wilt half rose but was overcome by torment and sank back down. “There isn’t anywhere you can go where you’ll be safe. From now until the end of your born days, you’ll always be looking over your shoulder, never knowing when one of us will pop out of nowhere and take our revenge.”
“Then I guess there’s only one thing to do,” Fargo said, and pointed the Colt at Wilt’s sternum. But he couldn’t bring himself to squeeze the trigger. He couldn’t bring himself to kill an unarmed man, however much that man deserved it.
Hooves hammered to the south, and into view galloped the Carter boys, their pack animals in tow. They reined to a stop in a cloud of dust, and the youngest, John Carter, declared, “We hear
d shooting and came as fast as we could!”
“I told you to keep on going,” Fargo mentioned.
“Sorry, mister,” Jack Carter said. “We just couldn’t. We need you. Whether you like it or not, we’re sticking by your side until we reach the Snake River. Our sister is more important than hurting your feelings.”
Fargo happened to glance at Wilt Swill as Jack spoke, and he was puzzled to note a sly grin spread across Wilt’s face. Wilt quickly looked away, and when he turned back toward them, the grin was gone.
John gawked at Shem Swill in stupefied fascination. “You killed him! You actually went and killed that man.”
“He was planning to do the same to me,” Fargo justified the deed, and felt slightly foolish for doing so. What he did and why he did it was his own affair. He had no cause to justify himself to anyone.
“I’ve never seen a dead man before,” John said.
Fargo had to remember he was dealing with pampered Easterners who had lived sheltered lives in the lap of luxury.
“In fact, I had never seen anyone shot until yesterday at Les Bois when that boy drew on you and you winged him without half trying. You were incredible!”
It amused Fargo to hear someone who wasn’t much over twenty refer to a sixteen-year-old as a “boy.” But he wasn’t amused by the awestruck gaze of adulation John fixed on him. “Don’t make me out to be more than I am.”
Wilt Swill struggled to his feet. “Some hero you’ve got there, brat. He was about to blow out my wick. And me with a clipped wing—and unarmed, to boot.”
John Carter look at Fargo. “You wouldn’t do that, would you? Shoot an unarmed man?”
“No, I reckon I wouldn’t,” Fargo said. Shoving the Colt into his holster, he stepped to the pinto and forked its hurricane deck. “Let’s light a shuck.”
“Hold on, there!” Wilt Swill called out. He was pivoting to the right and the left. “Where in hell is my horse?”
“Halfway to the Canadian border by now, would be my guess,” Fargo exaggerated, and reined to the south.
“You can’t ride off and leave me afoot! Not without a gun! Not without a canteen or a water skin! It would be the same as shooting me!”
Fargo was conscious of Joe Carter’s intense scrutiny. “You can make it if you don’t run into a grizzly or any hostiles.”
“But you shot me!” Wilt practically screamed. “I could bleed to death! Or die of infection!”
“The bleeding has already stopped,” Fargo responded, “and infection won’t have time to set in if you walk fast and have the wound treated in Les Bois.” He clucked to the Ovaro and moved off at a brisk walk.
Wilt Swill shook his good arm in undiluted fury. “I’m coming after you, mister! As soon as I’m tended to, I’m getting me a horse and a rifle and coming after you! Do you hear me?”
They could hear him in Denver, Fargo thought, and for the time being banished the Swills from his mind. It would take Wilt the better part of a day to walk back. Another day would be spent resting up. It wouldn’t be until the third or fourth day that the clan would come after him, and by then he would be well on his way to Oregon.
John Carter cantered up beside the pinto. “Mind if we talk a while?”
“About what?”
“That dead man back there, for starters. You killed him, so shouldn’t you have seen to his burial?”
“And deprive the buzzards of a meal?” Fargo wagged a hand at a trio of vultures already circling a couple of hundred feet above them. The winged carrion eaters had an uncanny knack for arriving soon after anyone died. “They have to eat just like we do. The same with coyotes and other scavengers.”
“I never thought of it that way,” John said. “I suppose when a man has lived out here as long as you have, you see things differently than the rest of us.”
“No different than men like Dan Tanager,” Fargo said off-handedly. “Or the Sioux or the Blackfeet.”
“That’s exactly my point. You’re accustomed to life out here. To living like the Indians. But my brother and I aren’t. We couldn’t think like you do if we tried.”
“Why would you want to?” Fargo asked. “When this is over, you’ll go home to Ohio, and live out the rest of your days in peace and comfort.”
“Maybe,” John said. “And then again, maybe not. I sort of like this wild country. I’d like to see more of it before we’re done. I can always take up practicing law again later.”
Fargo couldn’t fault him there. When it came to wanderlust, he had a monopoly. His own urge to see more of the world had taken him from the Everglades of Florida to the Pacific Ocean, from sunny Mexico to the frigid Canadian northland. And after all his travels, he still wasn’t content to sit still for more than a week or two. He had no hankering to set down roots.
“I wanted to go to Europe last year, but my father wouldn’t hear of it,” John mentioned. “He said it could wait until I have a wife and a family. Like he did with us.”
“Aren’t you a little old to let your father boss you around?”
John grinned self-consciously. “You haven’t met my father. It’s not easy to say no to him.” He sighed. “And I guess it won’t hurt me to wait. I’ve been to Europe once, when I was five. I barely remember it. Jack, he was luckier. He was ten, so he has a lot of wonderful memories.” The pack horse he was leading slowed and he jerked on the rope. “I envy you to no end, Mr. Fargo. To be footloose and carefree. To be able to go wherever the wind blows you. That’s the life for me.”
“It’s not as glorious as you make it sound,” Fargo sought to disillusion him. “In the summer you roast, in the winter you freeze. There are days at a stretch when you go without food and water. Every minute of the day you must keep your eyes skinned for hostiles. Grizzlies and other meat-eaters are everywhere.” He skirted a boulder. “There’s a lot to be said for a nice home and a loving family.”
John wasn’t persuaded. “But you do without. So why can’t I? I’m not saying I’d roam forever. Just until I no longer felt the need.”
In Fargo’s more private moments, he sometimes wondered if he would ever settle down. Odds were he would go on enjoying his life of whiskey, women, and wander-lust until the day he went up against someone a shade faster on the draw, or blundered onto a grizzly that refused to die. He wouldn’t be the first. Frontiersmen were notoriously short-lived. Just as the fur trappers had been before them. Someone once estimated that for every one hundred men brave enough to venture into the Rockies after beaver, three made it back out alive.
Fargo had been among the first of a new breed. Not that he had planned it that way. It was simply how his life worked out. The Eastern press dubbed men like him “plainsmen,” “scouts,” and “frontiersmen,” and wrote exaggerated tales of their escapades that the reading public couldn’t get enough of. A few had even been written about him.
Those who didn’t know any better, like John Carter, might think a frontiersman’s life was glamorous, but they were sadly mistaken. More than anything else, it was dangerous. Fargo knew of scores of men just like himself who were no longer around. Their scalps adorned lodges in villages far and wide. Or their bleached bones lay decomposing under the merciless sun.
Despite the daily perils, though, Fargo refused to give up the life he loved. He would rather lose a limb than the freedom to go where he pleased—when he pleased—without being hindered by anyone. The freedom he loved so much.
Suddenly Fargo realized John was saying his name. “What is it?” he demanded more gruffly than he intended.
“I was asking what you would do if you were in my shoes. Would you go to work for your father, or would you be true to your heart and let your craving for adventure guide your steps?”
“Do you know what the difference is between a man and a boy?” Fargo rejoined.
“What does that have to do with anything?” John asked. “Are you saying I’m too young to know what’s best for my own good? My father says that a lot, but it’s not true.”
“I’m saying a man makes his own decisions,” Fargo clarified. “A boy asks advice on how to make them.”
“Oh. I understand. I need to decide for myself. I shouldn’t let my father dictate how I live my life.” John frowned. “But it’s a lot easier said than done. My father likes to do things his way.”
The young man launched into a family history. Fargo listened to how their father had taken a rundown business and turned it into an empire. He learned that although they were always given the best of everything, they rarely got to see their father or spend time together as a family. The senior Carter was always too busy with work, always too engrossed in making the next hundred thousand.
“Our mother wasn’t much for togetherness, either,” John said. “She’d rather spend her time at her socials and club functions than spend it with us. Yet another reason Jack, Suzanne and I became as close as we are.”
Fargo pulled his hat brim lower to shield his eyes from the sun, which was well on its Western descent.
“Frankly, I never did understand why my sister married Tom Maxwell,” John rambled on. “They had known each other since they were knee-high to your horse, but she never showed much interest in him until, one day, out of the blue she announced he had proposed and she had accepted.” John shook his head. “If I live to be a hundred, I will never understand how women think.”
“You, and every other man alive,” Fargo said.
John chortled, then sobered and remarked, “I think she did it more to get away from our parents than out of love. They were always a lot stricter on her than they were on Jack and I. She was their little princess and they treated her special.”
Spoiled rotten was more like it, Fargo mused, but he kept it to himself.
“If she knew what Maxwell has been up to in Oregon, she would scratch his eyes out,” John stated. “You should have seen his face when we walked into the general store he’s got going. He was upset we had come. He said Susie is gone and we should learn to accept it, as he has.” The younger man’s face clouded. “And all the while, he kept looking over at a blonde woman in dry goods, and they’d smile at one another, like lovers do. I wanted to punch him but Jack wouldn’t let me.”