by Jon Sharpe
“Anything?” Jack Carter asked as Fargo crawled back out.
“Too soon to tell.” Fargo would rather not get their hopes up prematurely. Over the course of the next hour, he crisscrossed the area and traveled hundred of yards up and down the river along the shore.
The Carters pitched camp in a clearing regularly used by the prairie schooners on the trail, and sat next to the fire, anxiously awaiting his judgement. When he walked over, they jumped to their feet wearing apprehensive expressions. “Well?” Jack goaded. “Do you have any idea what happened? Do we give up and head for Ohio to break the bad news to our parents?”
“I’m still working on it,” Fargo said. An idea had taken shape but he needed more time to prove it right or wrong. Plenty of daylight was left so, after a hasty cup of Arbuckle’s, he resumed his search. John tagged along, but had the good sense not to pester him with a hundred and one questions.
It all boiled down to one question: What could sneak up on a young woman in broad daylight when she was in the company of fourteen other people and spirit her away without anyone being the wiser? Could a grizzly? No. Could a mountain lion? Possibly, although there should have been a lot of blood and pieces from her dress left as evidence.
“I can tell you’re stumped,” John commented as Fargo returned to the thicket to examine it yet again. “Just like Mr. Tanager and the rest of the people on the wagon train. Just like we were.”
“I want you to do something for me,” Fargo directed.
“Name it,” the young man said.
“Go around to the river and stand exactly where your sister was standing. Pretend you’re washing clothes, like she was doing. Splash the water a little. Let me know if you hear me.”
“If I hear you?” John repeated, then smiled and nodded. “Oh, I get it. Sure thing.”
Fargo dropped onto his stomach and crawled into the low opening. Along much of that stretch, the Snake was hemmed by bluffs or treacherous rocks. It was ironic Suzanne Maxwell had vanished at one of the few spots where it was possible for women to bathe or do their laundry.
A sudden thought struck Fargo and he stopped cold. What if it was more than ironic? What if it were deliberate? He crawled on deeper, and the opening widened considerably. In fact, it was wide enough for two people. He saw one of the strange scrape marks and, on an impulse, deliberately gouged his elbow into the dirt and compared the impressions. His terrible conviction grew.
John had done as instructed. He was on the gravel bar, his back to the thicket, going through the pantomime of washing clothes. He was whistling and otherwise behaving just as Suzanne might have done.
Fargo was almost to the river-end of the thicket when he saw a fist-sized rock lying in deep shadow to his right. Picking it up, he hefted it, and a stray beam of sunlight happened to fall across its pitted surface. A surface stained dark with dried blood. He continued crawling until he was at the edge of the bank. John was only a couple of few feet away, bent over the water, oblivious to his presence. Edging out a little further, he coiled his body, and when John straightened, he clamped his left hand around John’s mouth while simultaneously rapping him lightly with the rock and hauling backward. He struck so swiftly, he had pulled John a third of the way into the thicket before the younger man galvanized to life and began to resist.
“Calm down. I’m done,” Fargo said, and let go. “Crawl back to the gravel bar.” Once they were out and on their feet, he thoughtfully brushed dirt from his buckskins.
John rubbed his head and asked, “Why did you pretend to bean me with that rock?”
“I needed to test an idea,” Fargo said. “Now we know what happened to your sister.”
“We do?” This from Jack, who had witnessed the whole thing from the nearby footpath. He came down onto the gravel bar. “Don’t keep us in suspense. If you truly know, tell us!”
“Yes, tell us!” John echoed.
Fargo gave it to them straight, and tossed the rock to the oldest brother. “Your sister was abducted.”
Jack examined the rock, his face acquiring the hue of a beet. “Is this what I think it is?” He tapped the blood.
Fargo nodded. “Suzanne was knocked out and dragged off through the thicket. It happened so fast she had no time to cry out. Once on the other side, her abductor either carried her off or threw her onto a horse and snuck off before the alarm was given.”
John brought up the obvious flaw. “But if that were the case, why didn’t Tanager or anyone else from the wagon train find tracks?”
“Because there weren’t any to find. I suspect the kidnapper used an old Indian trick,” Fargo enlightened them. “He bundled his feet in thick hides. The hooves of his horse, too, if he had one with him. All there would have been were a few scuff marks. Marks the searchers wiped out when they tramped all over looking for her.”
“So an Indian did it!” John exclaimed. “One of those Shoshones, I bet! Or a skulking Blackfoot!”
“The Shoshones have never harmed a white man, to my recollection,” Fargo said. “And we’re too far West for the Blackfeet.” He paused. “I didn’t say an Indian was to blame. I said someone used an Indian trick.”
“So you’re claiming the kidnapper was white?” Jack asked in rising horror.
“That would be my guess, yes.” Fargo walked midway out on the gravel bar and surveyed the surrounding countryside for as far as the eye could see. “If this were Apache country, I’d blame them. Apaches are as devious as can be. But the Blackfeet are more interested in stealing horses than women. The Piegans and Bloods think white women are weak and make poor wives. They couldn’t be bothered.” To the north was a ridge that overlooked the river. From up there a man could keep a close watch on any wagon train passing through.
“But white men don’t go around kidnapping women,” John argued.
“Not where you come from, maybe,” Fargo said, “but out here it’s different. These mountains draw outlaws and cutthroats like a dead buffalo draws flies.” He nodded at the thicket. “Whoever did it had the whole thing planned out. They knew wagon trains stop here. They knew women like to wash clothes on the gravel bar.”
“Diabolical!” Jack said.
“That’s not all. That hole in the bottom of the thicket was cut out a long time ago and the limbs carefully removed. A rock was placed in there so the kidnapper would always have one handy to use when he needed it.”
“Do you realize what you’re saying?” Jack asked. “That maybe other women from other trains have been taken?”
Fargo slowly nodded. He remembered talking to a clerk at Fort Bridger six or seven months ago. The man had mentioned the disappearance of a young woman from a wagon train last Fall. She had gone to the river to bathe, and it was assumed she had been swept away by the current and drowned. Such mishaps were all too frequent. But the woman’s body had never been found.
“Other women?” John said, stupefied by the implication. “That reminds me! When Mr. Tanager and I were talking, he mentioned that a year or so ago he had been guiding a different train and two women went off to collect berries and were never seen again.”
“Where did it happen?” Fargo wanted to learn.
“He didn’t say. Just that it was north of here, so he didn’t think they were related in any way.”
That made four women, Fargo mused. Four he knew of. There might be more. Dozens of trains traveled West each year, and had been doing so for over a decade. Depending on how long the kidnappers had been at it, the final tally could be a lot higher.
John was turning from north to south and back again. “If you’re right, where do we start to look? Susie could be anywhere.”
Unbidden, Fargo remembered the card game in Les Bois. How Gus Swill had acted when he joked about the shortage of women in those parts. How Gus had nearly thrown lead at the saloon owner when Barnes made a crack about Gus knowing “all about women.” Was he reading more into it than he should? Or could there be a connection? “The best place to start is t
he nearest settlement.”
“That would be Les Bois,” Jack Carter said. “But the only woman there was Mabel.”
The sun was resting on the lip of the world, giving Fargo an excuse to suggest they cook supper. He led the brothers back to camp and unwrapped the deer meat. While Jack stripped the pack horses and John gathered more firewood, Fargo rigged a spit and impaled chunks of venison on it. He had a lot to ponder. Foremost was whether to ride all the way back to Les Bois on the slim chance his suspicion was valid. There could be any number of reasons why Gus Swill and the others acted so strangely when the subject of women was brought up. To leap to the conclusion they were to blame for the missing women was absurd.
And yet, Fargo couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that it deserved to be looked into. He didn’t know the Swills all that well, but he had met a lot of other men just like them. Men who thought they had the God-given right to ride roughshod over anyone and everyone. Men who lived by their wits and their guns and weren’t too choosy about how they earned their upkeep. Men who, in short, were capable of anything. Including abducting women, if they were so inclined.
It would delay his arrival in Oregon, Fargo reflected. But what were four or five days compared to the lives of the four missing women? Or more? He had enough money to tide him over, thanks to the Carters. Why not see it through?
By the time the meat was cooked, Fargo had made up his mind. But now he had another problem. He would rather travel to Les Bois alone. The Carters would be more of a hindrance than a help. If they suspected he blamed the Swills, there was no telling what kind of trouble they would get themselves into.
“You’ve been awful quiet,” Jack commented as Fargo handed out sizzling steaks on plates from their pack.
“I’d like for the two of you to ride to Fort Hall tomorrow,” Fargo informed them. A former military post, and before that a Hudson’s Bay outpost, Fort Hall was approximately two hundred miles to the east.
“What on earth for?” Jack responded. “We stayed the night there once. All we saw were a few old trappers and mountain men.”
“The wagon trains stop there often,” Fargo said. “Find out if anyone has heard anything about missing women.” Word spread fast on the frontier. The latest news and gossip were as sought after as gold and silver.
John went to bite into his meat, and glanced up. “What about you? What will you be doing while we’re gone?”
Jack dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “Mr. Fargo’s obligation to us is ended, little brother. He did what we wanted. We’ve learned what we need to know. Now he’s free to go his own way.”
“But how can he ride off and leave us?” John rebutted. “We need his help now more than ever. Our sister’s life is at stake.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Jack said testily. “But you hit the nail on the head. She’s our sister, not his. Finding her is our responsibility.”
John angrily bit into the venison, then bitterly asked with his mouth crammed with meat, “What kind of man abandons a lady in need?”
Fargo grinned at how they were talking about him as if he weren’t even there. “Who says I am?” he challenged. For their own benefit he didn’t go into detail. “We’ll meet here in a couple of weeks to—” Fargo stopped. He had heard a faint sound. So had the Ovaro. Its ears were pricked and it was staring off into the darkness. Something was out there. Or, rather, someone. For the next instant Fargo heard the sound repeated, and this time he identified it for what it was; the rasp of a cartridge being levered into a chamber. Without a moment’s delay he hurled himself across the fire at the two brothers, shouting, “Get down!”
Out of the night poured a ragged volley of rifle fire.
6
Skye Fargo wasn’t expecting an ambush. There had been no sign of hostiles in the area, and it would be days before the Swill clan could show up. Or so he believed. But as he crashed into the Carter brothers and bore them to the ground, a fierce whoop pealed above the booming gunfire.
“That’s it, boys!” Gus Swill bawled. “Keep pouring lead into ’em! We want all three pushing up grass.”
Fargo rolled clear of the Carters and whipped out his Colt. Dirt geysers were erupting on all sides and the air sizzled to the buzz of leaden hornets. “Stay low and follow me!” Fargo shouted. A rifle boomed to the left and he fired at the muzzle flash. Another cracked to the right and he fanned the Colt’s hammer twice in answer.
“Gib is down!” someone hollered.
“Take cover, you jackasses!” Clancy Swill yelled.
“And take time to aim! Make every shot count! These coyotes have to pay for Shem!”
Fargo heaved up into a crouch and darted toward the vegetation. They had to get out of the firelight. The only thing that had saved them so far was the fact the Swills and their friends were rushing their shots. By his reckoning, seven or eight men were out there, ranged in a semicircle north of the camp.
Jack and John had drawn their revolvers and were banging away. They started after Fargo but they had only gone a couple of steps when Jack clutched at his side and staggered. “I’m hit!” he cried.
Stopping in midstride, Fargo whirled and snatched Jack’s nickel-plated pistol from Jack’s hand. “Get him out of here!” he bellowed at John. “I’ll cover you!”
The bushwackers’ rifles thundered nonstop. Fargo felt a slug nip at the whangs on his buckskin shirt. Another creased his hat. He cut loose with ambidextrous skill, firing at gun flashes as fast as they appeared, all the while backpedaling after the brothers. A few more yards and darkness swallowed them. Several last shots were thrown their way, and then the din ceased.
An unnatural stillness prevailed.
John stopped and cradled his older brother close to his chest. “Jack’s hurt bad! He has blood all over him.”
“Keep quiet and stay still,” Fargo directed. They couldn’t tend to Jack just yet. Placing Jack’s Remington on the ground, he rapidly reloaded his Colt. Furtive movement and whispers wafted from across the way. He spied a shadowy form moving to the northwest, a black blotch against the canopy of sky and stars, and he stroked the trigger. Whoever it was dropped flat with a loud yelp.
“Please,” John whispered. “We have to do something! I think my brother is dying!”
Fargo sympathized, but if they moved or made too much nosie, another deadly hailstorm would be unleashed in their direction. And that wasn’t Fargo’s only worry. The Ovaro and the rest of the horses were picketed twenty feet from the fire. It might occur to the Swills to kill the animals and leave him and the Carters stranded. “Stay with your brother,” Fargo directed. He had something to do.
Sidling to the right, Fargo intended to circle around and whisk the horses out of there. But he had only gone a few feet when hooves drummed to the northwest. It sounded like the Swills were leaving, but Fargo refused to believe it. It could be a trick, a ruse to lure him into the open and gun him down. He kept circling until he was north of the fire. No new sounds reached his ears. Nor did he detect movement. It certainly seemed as if the killers were gone. But he wasn’t taking anything for granted.
Minutes dragged by. Fargo crept farther from the fire, his finger curled around the trigger. He was staring off into the dark and didn’t see a figure sprawled in the grass until he was almost on top of it. In pure reflex he sprang to one side and leveled the Colt, but the figure didn’t move or fire. It didn’t do anything but lie there.
Warily, Fargo edged closer, hooked the toe of his right boot under the prone shape, and flipped it over. It was the man called Gib, one of Gus Swill’s pards. Two shots had cored him above his heart. He was quite dead.
Suddenly a sound brought Fargo around in a blur. John Carter was carrying his brother toward the fire, oblivious to the risk. Tears streaked his cheeks and his lower lip was quivering. Jack lay as limp as an empty sack, arms and legs dangling.
Fargo braced for the blast of rifles, but none came. The younger brother reached the campfi
re and gently lowered the older to the ground. Jack’s eyes were closed and his face was ungodly pale. His shirt was soaked red.
“Mr. Fargo?” John called out. “I think they’re gone! What do we do about my brother? Help me, please.”
The short hairs at the nape of his neck prickling, Fargo moved into the firelight. He went straight to his saddle, yanked the Henry from its scabbard, and tossed it at John. “Stand guard over by the horses while I examine him.”
“Why can’t I—?” John began, but stopped at a sharp look. “All right. But we need to do something, and we need to do it right away.”
One peek under Jack Carter’s shirt and Fargo knew he was beyond help. A heavy-caliber slug had penetrated low on Jack’s back, to the left of the spine, and burst out through his abdomen an inch to the right of his navel, leaving a horrible exit wound. A major artery or vein had been severed. So much blood had already been spilled, Jack was lucky if he had a pint left in his body.
“Well?” John hollered from near the string. “How serious is it?”
Fargo sadly shook his head.
The younger man forgot about watching over the horses and dashed back to his brother’s side. “There has to be something we can do! We have a medical kit in our supplies. You can stitch him up and we’ll nurse him until he mends.”
“Sewing him up won’t do any good,” Fargo said softly.
“You can’t say that for sure!” John snapped, and frantically darted to the packs. He tore at one like a madman, undoing the leather straps. Flinging it open, he shoved an arm inside, clear to his elbow. “I know it’s here somewhere!”