by Jon Sharpe
“A wise precaution. But now that we’re here, you can put your guns down and get back to making this valley your new home.” Gore went to slide a boot from the stirrups.
“Not so fast,” Lester said, his hand rising from under his jacket with the revolver pointed at Gore’s chest.
The next instant all the farmers had their weapons trained on their former protectors. Rinson and the rest stared in disbelief, unsure what was going on or how they should react.
“What is this, Lester?” Victor Gore demanded.
“We’d like for you and your friends to shed your hardware. And we’d like for you to do it nice and slow so we don’t have to shoot any more of you.”
“Any more?” Gore said, and recoiled as if the big farmer had struck him. “I ask you again. What is the meaning of this?”
“Come now. Don’t play the innocent. We know, Victor.”
“You know what?” Gore asked. But it was plain from the way he paled that he had divined the truth.
“We know about the gold. We know about your plan to wipe us out and take our wagons. But we can’t allow that.”
Gore shot Fargo a look of pure hate. “You did this!” “No, he didn’t,” Lester Winston said. “It was my Billy. He overheard you and Rinson at Fort Bridger. Boys do that. They like to spy on folks and listen when they shouldn’t.”
“You’ve known all this time?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“This is bad,” Victor Gore said grimly.
“For you, yes,” Lester agreed. “But not for us. Thanks to you, all of us will soon be rich. Thanks to you, we can live out the rest of our days in comfort. I thank you.”
“Do you really think it will be this easy? That we’ll hand the gold over to you just like that?” Gore snapped his fingers.
Lester wagged the revolver. “Look around you. Have your men do as I asked and drop their weapons. If you don’t, I’m afraid we’ll have to blow every last one of you from your saddles.”
“Bastard,” Victor said. “You miserable, thieving bastard.”
“Now, now. You’re a fine one to talk. You planned to murder innocent women and children.” Lester extended the revolver and thumbed back the hammer. “I must insist. Do as I tell you or there will be hell to pay.”
Fargo tensed. Rinson and his men had no doubt killed before, many times, and they probably figured that a bunch of dirt farmers were no match for them. But greed had made the farmers just like them. Greed had turned the farmers into killers. Blood was about to be spilled. An awful lot of blood.
“It need not come to this,” Victor Gore was saying. “I’m willing to share the gold with you and your people. Lower your guns and we will sit down and talk this over.”
“I wouldn’t believe anything you say even if you swore on your mother’s grave.”
“My dear Lester. Haven’t I always treated you and yours with courtesy and respect? Yet now you treat me as if I’m worse than a red savage. You sadden me. You truly do.”
Fargo wondered why none of the farmers had caught on that Gore was stalling. That as Gore talked, Rinson and the other gun sharks were inching their hands toward their pistols and rifles. He went to warn them and once again received a hard jab in the side.
“No talking,” Harvey snapped.
Fargo braced for the explosion. The women on the far side of the circle were also prepared for the worst, many with their arms around their frightened children. But not Martha Winston. She looked mad more than anything, and Fargo didn’t blame her.
Gore spread his hands. “I’ll make one last appeal. Can’t we talk this over, Lester? There’s enough gold for all of us.”
The big farmer took a step nearer. “Enough talk, Victor. Do as I told you.”
“What a shame,” Gore said sadly, even as his right hand streaked to the revolver tucked under his belt—Fargo’s Colt.
“No!” Lester cried, and fired, and bedlam broke out.
The slug caught Gore high in the shoulder. The impact wasn’t enough to knock him from the saddle but he left it anyway, diving for the ground. Rinson and Slag and Perkins and the rest stabbed for their weapons. Only a few farmers had the presence of mind to snap off quick shots. The rest were momentarily rooted in shock at the sudden violence. Then guns were booming all over the place, revolvers and rifles and shotguns spewing lead and smoke amid a chaos of curses and screams and shouts.
So much was taking place, so fast, that Fargo couldn’t take it all in, and didn’t try. He dropped flat as Harvey and the other farmer rushed to the aid of their brethren. Bodies were falling, some motionless, many continuing to squeeze off rounds.
Lester Winston ran up to Gore to finish him off. He never saw Perkins. He probably never heard the shot that blew off the top of his skull in a spectacular shower of gore.
Larson killed one of the women and in turn lost the lower half of his face to a shotgun blast.
Stern raked his spurs and tried to break into the clear, only to be brought crashing down by several farmers who all fired at the same time.
Screeching horribly, yet another farmer oozed to the earth, his hand clasped to the empty socket where one of his eyeballs had been.
Fargo couldn’t just lie there. A stray slug might claim him. Or one of the protectors might spot him and cut loose. He saw Victor Gore scrambling toward the next wagon, and crawled to intercept him. Gore had the Colt in one hand and a spreading stain high on his shirt.
Fargo was almost to him when Gore whipped around and pointed the Colt at his forehead.
“I’ve got you now, you son of a bitch.”
Fargo coiled to spring. He heard the click of the hammer and knew his time had come.
Then suddenly Rachel was there. She jammed the muzzle of her rifle to the back of Gore’s head, and fired. Grinning ear to ear, she yelled, “When this is over, you owe me!”
“Look out!” Fargo shouted.
Rachel didn’t see Perkins rein his mount up close. His first shot slammed into her side and sent her stumbling against the wagon. His second ripped through her bosom as she tried to turn. Her eyes flicked to Fargo’s, mirroring deep sadness, and regret. Then Perkins fired a third time and the heavy lead cored her temple and burst out the other side.
Hot rage exploded in Fargo. He launched himself at her killer. Perkins pointed his revolver but when the hammer fell there was a click. The cylinder was empty.
Perkins lunged for a rifle in his saddle scabbard.
By then Fargo reached him. Grabbing a leg, he sent Perkins toppling. But Perkins was up in a crouch in a twinkling, his knife in hand.
That suited Fargo. Drawing the Arkansas toothpick, he sprang. Steel lanced at his neck but he parried and opened Perkins’ arm from wrist to elbow. Perkins instantly switched the knife to his other hand and stabbed at Fargo’s belly. But Fargo was ready. Shifting, he plunged the toothpick to the hilt in the base of Perkins’ throat, then leaped back.
Blood spurted from the wound and gushed from Perkins’ mouth. He staggered, tripped, and crashed down. A few convulsions and it was all over.
The thunderous discharge of a shotgun reminded Fargo of the battle being waged all around him. Harvey was dead, drilled through the forehead. A woman had been shot through the heart. One of Rinson’s men flopped madly about with part of his face missing.
Fargo scooped up his Colt. As he spun, lead blistered his ear. Rinson was still in the saddle, and took deliberate aim. Fargo was quicker. His hands a blur, he fired from the hip, fanning the hammer. Holes appeared in Rinson’s face, in his neck, in his chest.
A blow to the shoulder jarred Fargo to his marrow. He swiveled to find Slag holding a rifle by the barrel, about to swing again. Fargo brought up the Colt, or tried to. His arm wouldn’t rise as it should. He was much too slow, and about to have his brains bashed out.
It was then that Martha Winston materialized out of the swirl of gun smoke, a double-barreled shotgun in her hands. She let Slag have both barrels full in the face
.
Silence abruptly fell. Fargo’s ears rang as he slowly surveyed the slaughter. There was no other word for it.
Blasted, bleeding bodies were everywhere. Victor Gore was dead. All the killers had fallen; Rinson, Perkins, Slag, Larson, Stern, all dead, dead, dead, dead. There wasn’t a farmer left standing, either. Lester, Harvey, every last one of them, and the women who had helped them, all blown to hell. Only Martha was left, Martha, and the women and children at the other side of the circle.
“I tried to warn you,” Fargo said to the still form of her husband.
A sob escaped Martha. “Dear Lord, no,” she said, and shuffled over to Rachel. “Not her, too.”
“She saved my life,” Fargo said, but he doubted that Martha heard him. Tears trickling down her cheeks, she uttered a loud sob and sank to her knees.
“Not my girl. Please, not my girl.”
Fargo’s Henry lay partially under Stern, the brass receiver spattered with red drops. Fargo tugged it loose.
Martha stared at him, her eyes pits of horror. “It’s not as I thought, is it? All my life, and it’s not as I thought.”
“It never is,” Fargo said.
There wasn’t much more.
Fargo offered to take the survivors to Fort Bridger. Martha wanted to bury the dead, but Fargo was anxious to get everyone out of there before the Nez Perce found them. He looked back only once—the sky was thick with buzzards.
Fargo told himself he wasn’t going to, but he did. From Fort Bridger he headed straight back to the canyon. He intended to help himself to some of the gold and then treat himself to wild nights of whiskey, women and cards. But the sacks were gone. Every last one. Either the Nez Perce had found them, or Gore and Rinson hid them before heading for the valley and their date with death.
As for the O’Flynns, the family Fargo was searching for when the whole ordeal started, it turned out they had made it to Oregon, after all. The father paid Fargo for finding them, and Fargo promptly sought out the nearest watering hole.
He had a lot of forgetting to do.
LOOKING FORWARD!
The following is the opening
section from the next novel in the exciting
Trailsman series from Signet:
THE TRAILSMAN #328 TEXAS TRIGGERS
The hard land of the Pecos, 1861—where the Apache reigned, and the unwary paid for their follies in pain and blood.
The sun was killing him.
It hung at its zenith, a blazing yellow furnace. For weeks now, west Texas had been scorched by relentless heat. The land baked, the vegetation withered, the wild-life suffered. It was the worst summer anyone could remember in the desert country west of the Pecos River.
That included Skye Fargo. He had been through Texas before, plenty of times, and he had never experienced heat like this. Heat so hot, his skin felt as if it were on fire. With each breath, he inhaled flame into his lungs. Squinting up at the cause, Fargo summed up his sentiments with a single, bitter “Damn.”
His horse was suffering, too. The Ovaro was as good a mount as a man could ask for. It had stamina to spare, but the merciless heat had boiled its strength away to where the stallion plodded along with its head hung low, so weary and worn that Fargo had commenced to worry. Which was why he was walking and leading the stallion by the reins.
Any man stranded afoot in that country had one foot in the grave. Any man except an Apache.
The Mescaleros had roamed that region since anyone could remember. Tempered by the forge of adversity, they prowled in search of prey. The heat didn’t affect their iron constitutions. And, too, they knew all the secret water holes and tanks. They thrived where most whites would perish.
Most, but not all. The harsh land of cactus, mesquite and limestone rock was home to scattered settlers. Isolated valleys amid the maze of canyons and plateaus where pockets of green against the backdrop of brown. But not this summer. Now most of those green valleys were as brown as everything else.
It was just Fargo’s luck to be passing through after delivering a dispatch to Fort Davis. He was on his own, and headed for cooler climes. The sun, though, was doing its best to roast him and the Ovaro alive, and it was close to succeeding.
Fargo stopped and gazed out over the bleak, blistered landscape. He licked his cracked lips. Or tried to. His mouth was as dry as the rest of him, and he had no spit to spare. He glanced back at the Ovaro. “Hold on, boy. I’ll find us water if it’s the last thing I do.”
It might well be.
Broad of shoulder and narrow of waist, Skye Fargo was all muscle and whipcord. He wore buckskins and boots and a white hat made brown by dust. Around his neck was a splash of color: a red bandanna. At his hip hung a Colt. In an ankle sheath inside his boot was an Arkansas toothpick. From the saddle jutted the stock of a Henry rifle.
At first glance, Fargo looked no different from most frontiersmen. But he had more experience in the wild than any ten of them put together. In his travels he had been most everywhere, seen most everything. He’d lived with Indians and knew their ways. In short, if any white could make it through that country, Fargo could.
Or so he thought when he started out. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Fargo tried to swallow, and couldn’t. He ran a hand across his hot brow and was surprised at how little sweat there was. He had little moisture left in him. His body was a cloth wrung dry, and unless he found water, and found it soon, his bleached bones would join the many skeletons that already littered the desert.
Fargo had to force his legs to move. A bad sign, that. His body was giving out. The steely sinews that had served him in such good stead had turned traitor and would not do as he wanted unless he lashed them with the whip of his will.
The Ovaro went a short way and abruptly stopped.
Fargo tugged on the reins to keep the pinto moving but it didn’t respond. He turned, and saw that it had its head up and its ears pricked, and it was staring fixedly to one side. He looked and saw nothing but boulders and dirt and a few brown bushes and tufts of brown grass.
“There’s nothing there. Come on.” Fargo gave another tug and the Ovaro plodded after him, but it kept staring and its nostrils flared.
Belatedly, Fargo’s heat-dulled mind realized that something was out there. Or, more likely, someone. No animal would be abroad in that heat. And since there wasn’t another white within miles, so far as Fargo knew, that left the last ones Fargo wanted to meet up with.
That left the Mescalero Apaches.
Fargo was in no shape for a fight. Alert now, he watched from under his hat brim but saw nothing to account for the Ovaro’s interest. He was about convinced the stallion was mistaken when a hint of movement sent a tingle of alarm down his spine.
He was being stalked.
Outwardly, Fargo stayed calm. He mustn’t let on that he knew. He kept on walking, his right arm at his side, his hand brushing his Colt. It would help if he had some idea how many were shadowing him but that was like counting ghosts. Fargo wondered why they hadn’t attacked yet. It could be they were waiting for the heat to weaken him even more. Or maybe there was a spot up ahead better fitted for an ambush.
Ordinarily, Fargo would have swung onto the Ovaro and used his spurs. But the stallion was in no shape for a hard ride. He doubted it would last half a mile without collapsing. And then the Apaches would have him.
Fargo racked his brain. His best bet was to lure them in close where he could drop them with his Colt. But Apaches weren’t stupid. They wouldn’t fall for whatever trick he tried unless it was convincing.
Then it hit him. The answer was in the sky above. He squinted up at the sun again, and made a show of running his sleeve across his face. He wanted the Apaches to think he was about done in. True, he was, but he still had a spark of vitality left, and that spark might save his hide.
Before him the country flattened. In the distance were some hills.
Fargo stopped and gazed idly about, then moved toward a large cactus. It off
ered hardly any shade but he plopped down in what shade there was and sat with his head hung and his shoulders slumped to the give the impression he just couldn’t go on.
Other than cactus, the spot Fargo had chosen was open. No one, not even a wily Apache, could get at him without him seeing. They might come in a rush but only after he collapsed. And that’s exactly what he did. He put his left hand under him as if he were so weak he could barely sit up. He stayed like that a while, then let his elbow bend and slowly sank onto his side. From where he lay he could see his back trail but not much to either side. He could see the Ovaro, though, and that was what counted.
For the longest while nothing happened.
The heat seeped into Fargo’s bones, into his very marrow. He began to feel sleepy and almost gave a toss of his head to shake the lethargy off. But that would give him away. Struggling to keep his senses sharp, he saw the Ovaro lift its head and stare to the north. Fargo shifted his gaze in that direction but his hat brim hid whatever was out there.
Fargo seldom felt so vulnerable, so exposed. He slowly shifted his cheek so he could see past the brim. All he saw were cactus. Yet the Ovaro was still staring.
Where were they? Fargo wondered. Apaches were masters at blending in. They could literally hide in plain sight. Once, years ago, he met an Apache scout who showed him how. They had been standing in open country, and the Apache had him turn his back and count to ten. When he turned around, the man was gone. Fargo had been stumped and called out to him, and the Apache, grinning, rose from behind a bush no bigger than a breadbasket where he had dug a shallow hole and covered himself, all in the blink of an eye.
Damned impressive, that little demonstration.
Fargo searched the vicinity but saw nothing. He looked so long and so hard that his eyes started to smart. He decided to watch the Ovaro instead, thinking the stallion would react once the warriors were close enough. It wasn’t staring to the north anymore. It was staring at something behind him.