by John Benteen
He found a canteen they’d missed, took a long drink, and, with it and the shotgun slung, carrying the rifle at the ready in his hand, scouted the valley again as he walked along its floor. Ahead, it turned, and when, cautiously, he rounded the dogleg, he let out a grunt of satisfaction. A horse, saddle daubed with blood, snorted as it caught wind of him, jerked its head to try to free knotted reins tangled in a clump of juniper. Easing up on it, murmuring soothingly, careful to make no sudden moves, he lashed out suddenly with his hands, caught the reins. Untangling them, he pulled the animal around and swung up. Once it had carried a member of the Badlands gang; now it would bear him to Rapid City. He made the horse give every ounce of strength it owned; and by twilight he had reached the town. Horse and rider alike were covered with lather when Fargo swung down before the veranda of Donna Clyman’s house.
Chang, carrying that double-barreled shotgun, confronted him at the steps, barring his way.
“Your Missy home?” Fargo’s voice was a rasp.
Chang nodded. “But you no go in.” He was bringing the shotgun into line. “Somebody else inside.”
Fargo did not even answer. As the weapon swung on him, he pivoted, shifting to his right. His left hand grabbed the barrels and yanked, his right hand moved in a swift, hard chop. It caught Chang across the throat, and his eyes rolled back, his jaw dropped as he gagged and gasped for breath. Fargo jerked the gun from hands gone slack, swung its butt around. Neatly stroked just above the temple, Chang fell on his face, lay motionless.
“Sorry,” Fargo grated, with no regret in his voice. He broke the shotgun, caught the shells it held, threw them in the bushes on one side of the steps, the weapon into those on the other. Striding up to the front door, he tried it, found it unlocked, shoved on through. Voices from the living room drew him to it.
The door was cracked, he jerked it open. Donna Clyman, in green blouse and black skirt, was sitting on the sofa, and she jerked around. So did the big man standing facing her, face twisting in displeasure at the interruption.
Donna’s hand flew to her breast. “Neal! You’re back! Did something happen?”
“Something happened,” Fargo rasped. He swung to face the other man, then stiffened. “Garfield.”
“Fargo,” the man said. He had sleek black hair, well-oiled, a square face, broad shoulders, and a barrel chest. His eyes were small and green, like two chips of glass. He wore a black frock coat, starched shirt, cravat, striped pants—but there was a gunbelt around his waist. “What the hell are you doing here? What do you mean, bargin’ in like this?”
Donna arose. “You two know each other?”
Fargo sucked in breath, nodded. “We know each other,” he said tersely.
“Yeah, that we do.” Garfield’s voice was tinged with anger. “Fargo, Miz Clyman and I were talkin’ business. She left word with her Chinaman we weren’t to be interrupted. You’d best go out, come back later. You understand?”
Fargo ignored him. “That offer you made me,” he said to Donna. “It still stand?”
“Why, you turned me down, and I was just discussing it with Mr. Garfield. He came in yesterday, sought me out—and he only wants fifteen thousand and guarantees results. I didn’t expect to see—”
“Have you made the deal?”
“No, not yet.”
“Then don’t,” Fargo said harshly. “You’re dealin’ with the wrong man. He’ll take your money and run out on you.”
“Damn you!” Garfield snapped, green eyes flickering, big fists clenching. “You’re lyin’ in your teeth—”
“Am I? Maybe you ought to tell Mrs. Clyman why you’re this far north. Maybe you ought to tell her that you don’t dare go near the Mexican border again. Not after takin’ money from Pancho Villa and Obregon both to deliver rifles to ’em—and runnin’ off with it. Or that woman in Arizona who paid you five thousand dollars to run down her husband’s killer—and never saw you again.” His gaze flickered to Donna. “I’m not tryin’ to butt in, only to protect you. Lon Garfield talks a good game as a bounty hunter. His real game is to take all he can get up front and run with it. He—”
“Shut your mouth, Fargo,” Garfield snapped. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”
Fargo stood tautly. “You do that, Garfield. You just reach for that pretty pearl-handled gun of yours.”
“Gentlemen, please—” Donna begged.
“Be quiet,” Fargo said. “All right, Garfield—out.”
Garfield’s heavy-featured face was pale beneath its tan. “No,” he said.
“Then I throw you out,” Fargo said. Frustration, reaction to all he’d been through, grief for Billy Kills Twice—these all coalesced into a white-hot flame within him. Full of rage, he had a target for it now, this notorious four-flusher and swindler who was a laughing stock all over the southwest—or an object of hatred.
A second passed while Garfield stood indecisively. He knew Fargo’s reputation as well as Fargo knew his, and there was no chance he’d go for a weapon. But that frock coat hid sloping shoulders of great strength, and Garfield’s clenched fists were big and hard—and even a cornered rat would fight. “Try it,” Garfield said, perhaps hoping that Donna would intervene.
She attempted that, stepping between them. “Neal, please. Mr. Garfield—”
Fargo’s backhand pushed her sprawling on the sofa. “Out of this— Garfield?”
But Garfield was already coming for him, both fists clubbed, savagery and desperation mingled on his face. And, Fargo saw at once, he knew how to fight, had somewhere gained ring experience, too. Despite his size, he was light on his feet, well-guarded. Fargo laughed, and ugly sound, and went to meet him. There in the orderly room with all its lamps and tables and clutter of fragile china, they came together like a pair of angry bulls.
Garfield tried to spar, but Fargo was in no mood for sparring. He wanted to slam and batter, and he caught Garfield’s first jarring blows on arm and shoulder, bored on in. That cost him a sideswipe on the jaw that made his ears ring, but now Garfield’s face was within his reach. A quick left jab, feinting, and then a hard right, and he heard Garfield’s teeth click together and felt pain in his knuckles, impact in his arm and torso. Garfield rocked back, off balance, and Fargo jabbed in with the left and felt Garfield’s nose crunch. Garfield brought up a knee, and Fargo caught it on his thigh. Garfield, eyes watering, nostrils streaming blood, clubbed out blindly. One big fist caught Fargo on the forehead, rocked his head back. Garfield grunted, hit Fargo in the stomach. His hand slid off of Fargo’s arm, rolled into the oak-hard belly. The double impact knocked Fargo backward across a coffee table before the sofa. Donna screamed as china broke, table legs collapsed. Fargo, head ringing, rolled, bounced to his feet, leaned sideways just as Garfield came at him again. Garfield’s right missed, and Fargo had already regained balance. He drove his left into Garfield’s belly, and the man spun sideways, landed half on the sofa. Fargo plunged in to finish him. His timing was off by half a second. Garfield got up a booted foot, kicked him in the belly. The impact sent Fargo reeling against a whatnot in the corner, and there was once more a smash of breaking wood, a rain of fractured china. Fargo gasped for breath, but the force of the shove had knocked the sofa on its back, and as he came off the wall, it was a barrier between him and Garfield.
Garfield came up, shook his head, spraying blood, and, as Fargo came around one end of the overturned davenport, retreated around the other. As Fargo came at him, Garfield backed, collided with the mantel. His big hand groped downward, seized the poker from the fire-set there, raised it high, hook pointed downward, ready to be driven through Fargo’s skull. Fargo didn’t even break his stride. One hand reached out, scooped up a vase filled with flowers and water, from a table still intact—and he threw it with savage force.
As Garfield rushed at him with the poker, the vase slammed into his face with impact enough to shatter. Glass, water, flowers, blood—they all flew. Garfield let out an odd, sighing breath; the hand that held the poker
dropped. Then his knees gave way and he pitched forward into the rubble of the coffee table and lay still. Fargo came around the sofa, bent quickly, seized the poker, drew Garfield’s gun and stuck it in his waistband. At that instant the living room door crashed open.
Fargo whirled, still dazed and breathless, hand groping for his own revolver—but too late. Chang stood there, the retrieved shotgun pointed, his face twisted with fury. “Missy!” he roared. “Stand back!”
“No!” Donna screamed the word, jumped in front of Fargo. “Chang, wait! Put down the gun!”
Chang stared, black eyes glowing, baffled. “But, Missy, this man, he—”
“I know,” said Donna thickly. “But it’s all right, he won’t harm me. Put down the gun. Please.”
For a moment it seemed the Chinese would disobey. Then he yielded, lowering the weapon. He looked in disbelief at the rubble in the room, the sprawled body of Lon Garfield.
A kind of nervous giggle escaped from the woman. She pointed at the fallen man. “Now, if you will drag this gentleman out ... And he’s not to be let in again. I’m not to be interrupted. Mr. Fargo and I have business together.”
The sound Chang made in his throat could have been surprise or disgust. Nevertheless, he went to the door, leaned the shotgun in the hall, bent, hoisted Garfield’s big frame to his shoulder almost as if it were weightless, and went out, shutting the door behind him. Donna went to it quickly and locked it. Turning, she surveyed the room and Fargo with a rueful expression, which softened into concern as she went to him. “Are you hurt?”
“Not as bad as him,” said Fargo. “You ... you damned ruffian!”
His grin was crooked. “Call me anything you take a notion. But now let’s talk some business.”
~*~
“So they took your horses,” Donna said. They were in the kitchen, Fargo sitting at the table, as she worked on his accumulated cuts and bruises with arnica.
“Yeah. They paid for it, though. To the tune of about ten men, between me and Billy Kills Twice.”
“But that’s not enough. You’re going after them?”
“You’re damned right I am.” He pushed aside her hand, uncorked the whiskey bottle on the table with his teeth, stood up, took a long swallow, set it down hard. “And if your offer still holds, I’ll represent you, too.”
“Why should I pay you to do what you’re going to do anyhow?”
“Because I’m not necessarily gonna do it anyhow. I’m goin’ in there after fifty cavalry remounts and a man named Schmidt. The money represents extra risk. I don’t take extra risks without getting paid.”
“You still want twenty thousand?” There was an edge in her voice now. “I could have got it for fifteen thousand from Lon Garfield, only you came in and—”
“You’d have got swindled out of whatever front money you put up, and if he’d really tried to earn it, he’d ’a got himself killed. They’d’ve eaten a tinhorn like him alive, and come back for more.”
“You didn’t do so well with them yourself. And what if they’ve split up the money now?”
“I don’t think they have. I think you were right. They’re hungry for weapons, hungry for horses, hungry for money—and they’ll take big risks for all three. I think they’re gonna hold on to the money until they can buy guns and supplies with it, then mount some kind of guerrilla operation, using the Badlands for a base. Maybe slip guns to the Indians, tie down troops, like you said. This fellow Schmidt who seems to be their leader—a big blond guy in a red shirt—he’s got his men under discipline and seems to know what he’s doin’. You ever hear of him?”
She shook her head. “There are a lot of Schmidts, a lot of other German people around here. All the Schmidts I know are just as loyal as you or me.”
“Then, for all I know, the Germans may have sent him in. Anyhow, I’m goin’ after him. You want in or you want out?”
Donna looked at him a long moment. Presently she said: “All right. I want in. There’d just been a couple of big deposits made in the bank when they hit it. They got close to ninety thousand dollars. The bank itself’ll pay you twenty per cent to get it back. I’ll make up the rest out of my own pocket, as a reward for the murders of those people.”
“Then I’ll take ten thousand up front, leave it deposited in the bank in my name. I’ll take the other ten when I get back with the money and the hides of those robbers.”
“If you haven’t already killed them in the horse raid.”
“I doubt they were the same bunch. From what you say, there must be a mess of people in there. Likely they spread the risks around. A good commander would do that, not lay it all on the same people each time.” He fished in his pockets, brought out the papers he had taken off the bodies. “After I leave, you can tell the sheriff about those dead men out yonder. Maybe this will help in identification. There won’t be much left of ’em by the time he gets to ’em.”
“You’re not leaving right away? I can’t have the money until tomorrow.”
“No. First, I’m gonna get some rest.”
“Good,” she said, and something glittered in her eyes.
Fargo saw it, grinned sourly. “Listen, I’ve been goin’ non-stop for forty-eight hours and I’ve done a lot of fightin’. When I say rest, I mean sleep.”
Donna smiled. “That’s all right. Sooner or later you’ve got to wake up. I can wait.”
“You’ll have to.”
“Only—” She touched his arm. “Don’t sleep too long.”
Five
The Agency of the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation was a bleak, sun-bitten scatter of frame, log and occasional brick buildings on the banks of White Clay Creek. Clustered around it were a few small, ramshackle log cabins, some teepees made of wagon-canvas now; and not far away was a two-story house originally built for the great Oglala chief Red Cloud, to keep him peaceable. Farther away, in rolling hills, was the Mission School. The whole place seemed to Fargo to reek of poverty and despair as he swung down off his horse before the trading post, around which lounged a few Indians clad in a mixture of traditional garb and white man’s cast-off clothing. A couple of blue-uniformed Indian police eyed suspiciously the big man in khakis who entered the store, with his battered cavalry hat tipped jauntily on the close-cropped silver hair.
“Clyde Kills Twice?” The trader’s leathery face showed disgust. “Well, I can tell you where to find him, but it’s a long ride. His allotments are over near Wounded Knee. But hell, he probably won’t even talk to you—unless you speak Lakota. He’s a damned tough nut, and he won’t give a white man the time of day. What do you want with him?”
“Private business,” Fargo said.
The trader stared at him, rubbed his jaw, something strange in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” Fargo asked.
“Kills Twice is gittin’ a lot of white visitors lately. You’re the second one to ask for him this past couple of weeks.”
“Am I now?” Fargo rolled his cigar across his mouth. “Who was the last one?”
“Dunno. Said he was a cattle buyer. Kills Twice runs a lot of white-faces. If you’re buyin’ cattle, he might have beat you to it.”
“Maybe,” Fargo said. “There’s one buyer I always seem to lock horns with. What’d this one look like?”
The trader shrugged. “Big feller. Near your size. Yaller hair. That’s all I remember. He the one?”
“He’s the one,” Fargo said, simulating disgust. “Say what his name was?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I know. I hope Kills Twice hasn’t made a deal with him. I’m payin’ top price.”
“Everybody is, what with this war. Damn if that Injun won’t be rich as any white man if beef stays as high as it is now. Anyhow, here’s how you find him—” And the trader sketched a map on the back of an unused envelope.
Fargo studied it a moment. “Much obliged,” he said, went out, and mounted.
It was a long, hot ride from the Agency to Wounded Knee Creek. F
argo made it with his rifle across his saddle pommel, eyes missing no detail of the terrain around him. A white man, a big blond white man visiting Kills Twice, who, everybody said, had no truck with white men ...
That to consider. And Garfield, too. He was not shut of Garfield yet. The man was still somewhere in this territory, and he’d have a white-hot grudge to settle ...
The morning after his fight with Garfield, Neal Fargo had awakened to find Donna, naked, huddled close against him, one soft thigh thrown over his loins, the cushiony warmth of her breasts pushed hard against him. Fully rested, he’d slipped an arm beneath her body and they had made love vigorously. After which, dressing as she lay sprawled in a dreamlike daze, he said bluntly: “Now, about that ten thousand dollars—”
“Oh, damn you,” she sighed, but she arose. After breakfast, they drove downtown to the bank, which had reopened—mostly, Donna said, on her capital. Fargo began to understand just how much money this woman had; without hesitation she withdrew ten thousand and turned it over to him. He counted and redeposited it. Then he’d had her make inquiries. Garfield had been treated by a doctor and had ridden off southeast—roughly in the direction of the Pine Ridge Agency ... and the Badlands. Fargo had a nagging feeling there was more than coincidence in that. And, Fargo knew, though Garfield lacked the guts to face him straight up, gun against gun, he was bound to make a play for revenge sooner or later. So he’d been alert ever since leaving Rapid City; now, after hearing about the visit of another white man to Clyde Kills Twice, he was doubly so.