by Jon Sharpe
Fargo slid the Henry into its sheath and took hold of the Ovaro’s reins. As he led the horse down the hill, he called, “Hey! You in the rocks! Those gunmen are gone!”
The percussion pistol boomed, and Fargo came to a sudden stop as a heavy slug kicked up dirt in the road about twenty feet ahead of him. “Don’t you come no closer, dadgum it!” an elderly man’s voice shouted from the rocks on the creek bank. “How do I know you ain’t one o’ the varmints your ownself?”
Fargo stayed where he was, not wanting to tempt a trigger-happy old-timer into shooting at him again. He kept his hands in plain sight and said, “I’m the one who ran them off. Didn’t you hear me shooting at them?”
“I heard a bunch o’ shootin’, but you can’t tell which side a gun’s on by listenin’ to it.”
He had a point there, Fargo admitted to himself. “All right, I can’t prove it. But if I was one of the men who were trying to kill you, would I be standing out here in the open like this?”
“Maybe, if you was a tricky enough bastard.”
“All right,” Fargo called. “Reckon I can just mount up and ride away and leave you here. But you’ll have a hell of a time getting that buggy back on its wheels by yourself.” He turned away from the creek, gathered up the Ovaro’s reins, and put a foot in the stirrup, ready to swing up into the saddle.
“Wait just a dadblasted minute!” the old-timer shouted from the rocks. “There ain’t no need to be so damned touchy!”
Fargo took his foot out of the stirrup and waited. A moment later, a man in a dusty black suit and hat emerged from the rocks on the creek bank. Long white hair fell almost to his shoulders, and a bristly white beard covered his jutting chin. He held an old Dragoon Colt in his right hand and used the weapon to wave Fargo closer.
Leading the Ovaro, Fargo walked on down to the ruined bridge. The old man made his way along the creek bank and met Fargo there. Rheumy eyes studied Fargo’s muscular six-foot frame and ruggedly handsome features. The old-timer said, “You don’t look like no bushwhacker I ever seen.”
“That’s because I’m not. Name’s Skye Fargo.”
The old man grunted in surprise. “The Trailsman?”
“That’s right.”
“I heard of you. You’re supposed to be able to track a grain o’ sand through a duststorm.”
Fargo laughed. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.”
“Never heard anything about Skye Fargo bein’ a dirty damned back-shootin’ killer, though, so I reckon I can trust you.” The old-timer stuck out his hand. “I’m Judge Jameson Boothe, ridin’ the circuit from Sacramento.”
Fargo had decided already that the old man was either a judge or a preacher. That explained the sober black suit, the white shirt, and the black string tie. Boothe didn’t talk much like a judge, but Fargo knew that out here on the frontier, jurists weren’t exactly like their counterparts back east. It was a rugged land, and rugged men were needed to settle it. Even a smattering of legal knowledge often qualified a man to be a judge west of the Mississippi.
Fargo shook hands with Boothe, then said, “Looks to me like somebody was trying to stop you from getting to where you’re going.”
“That’s the double-damned truth of it, son. I started ol’ Damon and Pythias down the hill, and them hydrophobia skunks opened up on me from the brush. I lit out and never noticed until I was nearly at the bottom that they’d chopped holes in the bridge. That buggy o’ mine was gonna wreck one way or the other.” Boothe looked at the dead mule and sighed. “Almost wish they’d ventilated me instead o’ poor ol’ Pythias. He was a damned fine mule.”
Fargo commiserated in silence for a moment over Boothe’s loss, then said, “Where are you bound, Judge?”
“Headed for a settlement called Ophir. Ever heard of it?”
Fargo frowned in thought. “The name sounds familiar. Wasn’t it a boomtown back during the Gold Rush?”
“Sure was. Some o’ those Forty-Niners took a heap o’ gold dust and nuggets out of there. Then the color sort of played out for a long time. Now there’s rumors floatin’ around that a big strike’s been made up there, and folks are flockin’ in again. You know what that means?”
Fargo nodded. He knew, all right. All it took was a hint that gold had been found, or was about to be found, and men hungry for wealth would descend on a place from all over. And not only prospectors and miners, but also all the hangers-on who came with them: gamblers, saloon owners, soiled doves, bullies, gunmen, killers who would murder a man in the blink of an eye. The dregs of civilization. Most of the miners were honest, upstanding men, even though temporarily blinded by their lust for gold. But those who followed them from camp to camp, boomtown to boomtown, were anything but honest and upstanding.
“The decent citizens of Ophir sent word of their troubles to Sacramento,” Judge Boothe went on. “They asked the state for help, and I reckon I’m the answer.”
“You’ll have a big job on your hands,” Fargo said. “There’ll be a certain element in the settlement that won’t want any sort of law and order established.”
“You ain’t tellin’ me nothin’ I don’t already know, son. I reckon that’s why them scurvy bastards’ve tried to kill me more’n once since I left Sacramento.”
Fargo frowned. “This ambush today wasn’t the first time someone’s tried to kill you?”
“Nope. I managed to outrun ‘em twice before.” Boothe gave a regretful laugh. “Them mules o’ mine can run faster than anybody would think they could, just by lookin’ at ’em. I reckon that’s why the skunks decided to get in front of me and set up an ambush this time.”
Fargo nodded in agreement. “Makes sense, all right. What are you going to do now, Judge?”
“Why, go on to Ophir, of course! I ain’t never shirked my judicial responsibilities before, and I’ll be damned for a lowdown polecat if I start now!”
Fargo gestured toward the bridge. “We can get your buggy upright, but it won’t make it across there. And the creek’s too deep and fast for you to ford it.”
Boothe tugged at his beard and frowned in thought. After a moment, he said, “I reckon you’re right. I’ll have to unhitch Damon and ride to town on him.”
“How much father is it to Ophir?”
“I figured to get there ’round noon tomorrow.”
Fargo glanced up at the sky. There wasn’t more than an hour or two of daylight left. Riding the mule might turn out to be slower than using it to pull the buggy. Mules were balky creatures, and most of them didn’t like to be ridden. Still, in all likelihood Boothe could reach Ophir before dark the next day, even riding the mule.
“Someone can come out from the settlement and repair the bridge, then bring the buggy on into town,” Fargo said. “Why don’t you get anything you need out of it while I unhitch the mule?”
Boothe squinted at Fargo and asked, “Are you plannin’ on ridin’ with me to Ophir, son?”
Fargo grinned. “I was heading in that general direction anyway, and I don’t have any place else I have to be. That’s one of the advantages of drifting.”
“Hmmph. That ain’t much of a life for a grown man to be leadin’. I ain’t complainin’, mind you. I’ll be glad for the company, especially if them bushwhackers show up again.”
Fargo didn’t say anything, but the same possibility had crossed his mind. If someone had tried three times to stop Judge Boothe from reaching Ophir, a fourth attempt wasn’t out of the question. And he knew that was why he had come to the decision he had. He felt an instinctive liking for the feisty little jurist, and he didn’t want to see any harm come to him.
Less than half an hour later, Fargo led the Ovaro across the bridge, the horse placing its hooves so as to avoid the holes. Boothe followed, tugging on the reins he had fashioned out of the mule’s halter. “Come on, you jughead,” Boothe urged the mule. “I don’t like leavin’ Phythias here, neither, but we ain’t got no choice.”
When they had crossed the bridge, F
argo gave Boothe a boost onto the mule’s back, then swung up into his saddle. Leaving the site of the ambush behind, they rode on through the waning afternoon toward Ophir.