by Sharpe, Jon
“Deets done it up good today,” Landry told his companions as he poked at the fire with a stick to stir it up. “Killed some cooper named Mitt and then raped his wife.”
“Now, see, that’s the part I don’t get,” Orrin said. “I seen the woman when she rode in, and she’s some pumpkins. You could hang a shelf on her tits. And here we are, paying Deets for gettin’ under her petticoats.”
Landry snorted. “Orrin, what’s wrong with you and what doctor told you so? The quiff don’t matter—it’s getting the blame put on Fargo. And word’s all over the canyon how Fargo done the dirty deeds. The woman named him.”
Orrin’s fox face looked even sharper in the dancing firelight. His eyes darted everywhere except toward the man he was speaking to. “To chew it fine, Butch, she named him but said she wasn’t sure it was him.”
“Hell, in a place like this that’s good enough evidence. Won’t nobody care about Mormon law—they’ll cut him down the moment he shows up. We can’t have that.”
“Maybe he won’t show up,” suggested the third man, Harlan Perry. “We didn’t find the son of a bitch all that predictable when he corralled us.”
A long silence followed this truism.
“He’ll show,” Butch predicted confidently. “He made a point out of talking to the first woman Deets attacked, that Ginny somebody up at Fort Bridger. He’ll want to palaver with this one, too.”
“I don’t know,” Harlan said, shaking his head. “This plan of yours, Butch—it seems a mite too fancy.”
“You wouldn’t say that if Fargo killed your kid brother.”
“Well, if you wanna see him suffer before he dies, we’ll just strip him of his weapons and I’ll beat the bastard into pudding.”
The others knew this was no hollow boast. The huge Tennessean had once fought bare-fisted for the U.S Navy until he got drunk and beat a sailor to death for snoring. Perry preferred to beat his enemies rather than shoot them—beat them until they were crippled or dead.
“Harlan ain’t no schoolmaster,” Orrin put in, “but I think he’s talking horse sense. Of course we need to plant Fargo and get revenge for Ralston. But this scheme of yours—it’s eating up time we could spend pulling jobs. And I don’t trust Deets—that fucker is tricky as a redheaded woman. Let’s just ambush Fargo and shoot him to rag tatters.”
Butch slowly shook his head. “You two just can’t see it. You got no sense of what they call poetic justice.”
One of the horses snuffled in the dark and Butch glanced that way quickly.
“Poetic justice?” Orrin repeated. “You wanna chew that a little finer?”
“Hearken and heed. Now, Skye Fargo ain’t no scrubbed angel, right? He’s a brawler and a womanizer, and he’s got his name writ on the walls of plenty of frontier jails. But bone deep, he’s a gentleman. One inkslinger called him a knight in buckskins. Serious crime ain’t his gait. He’ll look the other way when it comes to bootlegging or confidence games, but woe betide the murderer or rapist who crosses his path.”
“All right,” Orrin said, “so he’s a crusader. What of it?”
“That’s my point, chucklehead. If we just kill him the way you and Harlan want to, he dies a crusader. And out West legends grow taller than weeds. Doing it my way, we don’t just kill Fargo—we kill the legend. And legends live a lot longer than men.”
A column of sparks rose out of the fire, and all three men watched it.
“All that shines right to me,” Harlan finally said. “Kill the legend with the man.”
“I like it too,” Orrin put in. “But I still don’t trust Deets. That jasper ain’t showing all his cards. You oughter left him back in Placerville.”
“I think he’s a weasel dick,” Harlan agreed. “That son of a bitch would shoot a nun for her gold tooth.”
“Deets is a one-man outfit,” Butch conceded. “He’s in it to win it—for himself. But as long as we keep his pocket full of rocks, he’ll dance to our tune. Later, when Fargo is rotting in a Mormon prison and headed for a hanging, we’ll solve the problem of Deets. We—”
“Shush it!” Orrin cut in. “Listen.”
Above the soughing of wind and the brawling of water, they could hear hoof clops approaching along the solid rock bordering the creek. Riders were entering the canyon.
“Harlan,” Butch said, his tone urgent. “Grab the pail and make like you’re getting water. There’s a full moon tonight; you should get a good look at their faces. But just in case one of them is Fargo, don’t give him a good look at you.”
The big man hurried toward the creek. Along the opposite wall of the canyon perhaps a dozen big fires burned—the camp where the pilgrims had congregated to protect each other until they got out of Echo Canyon.
“Stupid sons of bitches,” Butch said, spitting into the fire. “Thought they had it bad back in the States—rent was too high, jobs scarce, or maybe they got sick of scratching in the dirt for a few potatoes. Nobody told them about red savages, bone-dry deserts, rattlesnakes, or mountain fever.”
“Or hombres like us,” Orrin added.
Both men laughed. They knew that, out West, a man was just a face with a name. Nobody cared about his history—and nobody cared much about his future either. On the frontier few things were cheaper than a man’s life.
“Speaking of pilgrims,” Orrin said, “you heard any more about that Louise Tipton?”
“Nary a word. Yancy Johnson, that big Swede who shoes horses and mends harnesses, says she won’t come out of her wagon. Don’t seem likely Fargo will coax her out, if he’s foolish enough to try.”
“If he shows his face in this canyon by day, Butch,” Orrin pointed out, “we’ll never see him in prison or on a gallows.”
“He knows that. Fargo’s got a mind like a steel trap. Our job is to make sure he doesn’t get killed here or anyplace else. It has to be Mormon soldiers or a Mormon posse that take him.”
A shadow approached and then Harlan Perry’s rawboned features were limned in the firelight.
“Well?” Butch demanded.
“Neither one of them was Fargo,” Perry responded. “One was the stranger who rode in earlier today—about Orrin’s size. He’s riding a black-and-white pinto stallion, all right, but it ain’t Fargo. Neither was the other one. He was shaved smooth with short hair and wearing a shirt that would make a horse blush. He’s riding an Appaloosa.”
Butch pondered all this. “The second man,” he said, “wide shoulders?”
Harlan scratched his chin. “Reckon I didn’t notice.”
“Tall?”
“Now you mention it, he sat pretty high in the saddle.”
Butch brooded over all this for a full minute. “I don’t like it, boys. A pinto, all right. But a stallion? I say we best find out where these two put down for the night.”
6
Both men stripped the horses and rubbed them down with burlap, then led them to the creek and let them tank up.
“Not much graze around here,” Fargo remarked. “We’ll have to grain them again tonight. Best put them on half rations—grain is low and we won’t likely find more until Salt Lake City.”
“What ain’t in low supply is bedroll killers,” Old Billy said. “You see that big oaf with the water pail when we rode in? That bastard glommed us good.”
“I saw him, all right,” Fargo replied. “And that ugly map of his looked familiar. But he turned away too quick.”
Fargo had reluctantly cached his Henry and Arkansas toothpick in a clutch of rocks before riding into the canyon—while not uncommon weapons on the frontier, both were closely associated with him. It was dicey enough that Old Billy was riding the Ovaro.
The two men had picked an isolated spot with no fires burning nearby. The ground was rocky and hard with only a few scrub bushes to break the wind—the last campsite Fargo would pick under better circumstances.
“Them’s the pilgrims over there,” Old Billy said, rolling his head over his right shoulder toward the circl
e of fires. “The gal you need to talk to is in a big prairie schooner at the south end. I say you’re a bigger fool than God made you if you go waltzing up to her and start asking questions. Fargo, this bunch don’t care a jackstraw about Mormon law—the first hint of trouble and they’ll shoot us to sieves.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” Fargo assured him as he did his best to soften up some bed ground with Billy’s war hatchet. “I’d rather go talk to her at night when it’s harder to make out my features. But the woman’s just lost her husband, and the rest will be watching out for her. It’ll have to wait for morning.”
Old Billy snickered. “That’s best anyhow. Your new duds will throw them off the scent. You look like—”
“I know what I look like, you jackass. But I’ll grant you one thing—the last thing I look like is a killer.”
Fargo paused as he unrolled his blanket. “Dammitall, Billy, that jasper with the water pail looked mighty familiar. His nose has been busted at least twice. I’d swear I know him from someplace.”
“Fargo, you’ve tangled with half the hard cases in the West. Ain’t no big shock happens a few of ’em are holed up here. Hell, the whole world knows that Mormons avoid this place—especially after the Mountain Meadows Massacre. So their soldiers hardly never come through here.”
Fargo conceded the point in silence. He removed a handful of crumbled bark from a saddle pocket and set it ablaze with a phosphor, then piled on some sticks Old Billy had scrounged up. He poured water into a can, tossed in a handful of coffee beans, and set it in the fire to boil.
“Fargo,” Old Billy said, “one thing’s prickin’ at me. This jackal who’s raping and killing in your name—where is he holing up?”
“That’s a stumper,” Fargo admitted. “I been pondering it myself. If he actually does bear a strong resemblance to me, then he’s as much a fugitive as I am.”
“More,” Old Billy pointed out. “He can’t skin his beard off like you can or else he won’t look like Fargo. Same with the buckskins and the black-and-white pinto.”
“The way you say,” Fargo agreed. “He needs all that to frame me. But what if, say, he’s an actor? They’re experts with disguises—so are confidence men. A beard can be glued in place with spirit gum, hair can be dyed in a hurry—you take my meaning.”
“And if that’s the gait,” Old Billy said, “it’s a real pisser. That means the son of a bitch could be in this canyon right now or any other high-old place he pleases. Hell, he could stand us to a drink and we wouldn’t even know him.”
“Hell, don’t sugarcoat it,” Fargo said sarcastically.
Old Billy cursed. “Fargo, you’re nothing but trouble. Every time I start on a job with you for honest wages, it turns into shooting scrapes with sneaky, conniving sons of bitches who shoot from behind. At least an Indian warrior likes to count coup and look a man in the eye when he kills him.”
“I didn’t start all this, you lummox.”
“I never said you did. But we got a job to finish, and how we s’posed to do it while we’re huggin’ with this killer?”
“Simmer down,” Fargo told him. “On the way to the canyon I spotted our next line station—I just need to jot down the coordinates. Remember, this killer knows I’m following the Pony Express route, which makes his job easier. He’s not going anywhere and neither are we.”
Billy made a sputtering noise with his lips. “Well, as long as we make his goddamn job easier. Fargo, the Western sun has turned your brain soft. ‘He’s not going anywhere and neither are we.’ You need to see a bumpologist, get your skull read.”
A stick snapped, somewhere in the shadows on Fargo’s left, and both men filled their hands, rolling to new positions.
“Please don’t shoot me,” called out a musical feminine voice. “Your coffee smells so good I just came over to beg a cup.”
Fargo watched a pretty face, framed by blond coronet braids, materialize out of the darkness. Her body in no way lagged behind the face: A shimmering, emerald-green dress showed a well-filled bodice and an hourglass figure.
He rose up from the ground and slid his saddle in her direction. “It’s not exactly a velvet wing chair, miss, but it’s the best we can offer.”
She hiked up her dress and plopped gracefully into the saddle, revealing two well-turned ankles. Billy used his hat as a potholder and poured her a cup of the steaming coffee. “Care for sugar, Miss . . .?”
“Reed. Caroline Reed. No, thank you, sir. I like my coffee bold.”
Like my men, her tone seemed to add as she studied Fargo’s ruggedly handsome face in the flickering flames.
“My name is Frank Scully,” Fargo told her. “That’s my partner, Jim Lawson.”
“Pleased.” She pursed her lips, blew on the hot coffee, and took a sip. “Oh, my, that is strong and good. We been out of coffee since west Texas.”
“We?” Fargo said.
“Me, Uncle Ralph, and Aunt Esther. They’ve raised me since my folks was took by the cholera in ’forty-eight.”
“And done a damn fine job of it,” Billy opined, openly ogling the young woman.
“Thank you,” she replied, completely unabashed.
“We’re happy to have you,” Fargo said, “but this isn’t the safest place for a gal to go wandering around in at night.”
She seemed transfixed by Fargo’s face. “That’s what Uncle Ralph says, too. But now and then I just get an itch to go . . . wandering. Our wagon has a busted axle and it’s taking just forever to repair it. It gets so boresome of a night, and me not having a husband nor nothing.”
Old Billy almost choked on his coffee.
“So, Frank,” she said, “what do you and your partner do?”
“We’re hunters.”
She giggled. “In that shirt? It looks like the flag for some tiny nation in South America.”
Fargo felt heat flood his face while Billy guffawed.
“It’s like this, darlin’,” Billy explained. “Far—I mean, Frank here runs off into the woods. When the game sees that shirt of his, they turn tail and run in my direction and I shoot’em. ’Cept for them as tries to mate with him.”
She giggled again. “I never did see such a handsome man wearing such foolish clothing. ’Course, it don’t hide your wide shoulders none. Say . . . have you fellows heard what happened to Mrs. Tipton?”
“Who’s Mrs. Tipton?” Fargo asked.
“Louise Tipton. Why, the poor thing! Pretty as four aces and left a widow this very day. Her husband, Mitt, was murdered out on the freight road. She’s taking it mighty hard. She ain’t said nothing, but some of the women say she was . . . outraged, if you take my meaning. Gal that fetching musta been.”
“Damn shame,” Fargo said. “They catch whoever did it?”
“Nuh-uh. But everybody’s saying it was Skye Fargo.”
“I can’t place the name,” Fargo said.
“Well, he’s sort of famous. The Trailsman, they call him. Uncle Ralph says he’s the best scout, tracker, and Indian fighter in the West.”
“Best Indian fighter?” Old Billy cut in. “That don’t cut no ice with me. Why—”
“Jim,” Fargo cut in with a warning tone, “never interrupt a lady.”
“Best Indian fighter my sweet aunt,” Old Billy muttered, miffed.
“Did Mrs. Tipton name him?” Fargo asked the girl casually.
“Well, she did and she didn’t. The man said he was Skye Fargo, and looked a lot like him. But she didn’t seem so sure it was. Aunt Esther says she’s still nerve-frazzled. Maybe by tomorrow she’ll be able to make sense of it.”
“Sounds to me,” Old Billy remarked, sticking the knife into Fargo and giving it the “Spanish twist,” “like this Skye Fargo is a mad dog off his leash.”
“Uh-huh, and it surprises folks that know of him. This today wasn’t the first attack. A rider come in from Fort Bridger and said Fargo attacked a young gal up there. Outraged her and cut her up real bad. Some of the men are whippe
d up into a frenzy—say they don’t give a hang about Mormon law, they’re gonna break every bone in his body and then drag-hang him slow.”
“Even that’s too good for the son of a bitch, you ask me,” Old Billy said, watching Fargo with a sly grin on his face.
“Nobody did ask you,” Fargo said in the same warning tone. “Sounds to me like folks need to wait and hear what Mrs. Tipton has to say. Mistaken identity is common out West.”
“Uncle Ralph says the same thing,” Caroline chirped. “Anyhow, it’s lucky for her there’s a real doctor in camp. He just rode in, and he’s taking good care of her.”
“A doctor?” Fargo repeated.
“Uh-huh. Dr. Jacoby. An elderly gent from Baltimore.”
Obviously tired of all this gossip, she set her cup down and reached over to take Fargo’s hand. “Would you like to take a walk, Frank? There’s a real nice spot down the creek a ways. Nice soft grass—and real private. The stars are pretty tonight.”
“I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs,” Fargo agreed, pushing to his feet with difficulty in the tight corduroys.
“You two take a care out there,” Old Billy called out behind them. “This Fargo sounds like one dangerous son of a bitch.”
Caroline tugged Fargo eagerly along in the direction of the fast-moving creek. They emerged from a clump of hawthorn bushes and spotted the water, gleaming silver in the moonlight.
“See?” she told him, indicating the ankle-deep grass all around them. “Makes for a soft carpet.”
Fargo suspected that the ardent young woman had been here plenty already, but what did he care—right now it was his turn, and he hadn’t topped a woman in more weeks than he cared to remember. He pulled her down beside him in the cool grass.
“Let me get this foolish shirt off,” she murmured, starting to undo the button loops. “A man with a chest like yours—why, it’s like covering a mahogany table with an oilcloth.”
While she unfastened his clown shirt, Fargo reached behind her and undid the stays of her bodice, tugging it down. A pair of hefty, strawberry-tipped breasts gleamed like polished ivory in the moonlight. While he unbuckled his gun belt and set it aside, he moved back and forth between spearmint-tasting nipples, licking and nibbling them stiff.