by Sharpe, Jon
“Land o’Goshen, Frank!” she gasped. “You seem to know what you’re doing! My stars, that feels good—gets me all stirred up and warm down in my valentine.”
She shucked his shirt off and gasped. Not only at the rock-hard pectorals and stomach, but at the startling array of bullet wounds, knife scars, and old burns.
“A hunter! What exactly do you hunt—or should I say who?”
“Honey, this is no time for my memoirs. You’ve got me all het up, and I’m ready to burst a seam here.”
Fargo wasn’t exaggerating. The ridiculously small and tight trousers Old Billy had bought him were especially constricting now that Fargo was fully aroused. While Caroline lay back and hiked her skirt up to her navel, Fargo struggled with the cords. Only with a massive final effort did he work them over his hips enough to free his straining length.
The moon wash was generous, and the slack-jawed woman stared at his raging manhood. “Sakes and saints! That lovely thing needs its own cage!”
“I agree,” Fargo said, rolling on top of her and settling into the saddle. “Let’s put him in one right now.”
Fargo probed the pulsating dome in between the soft petals guarding her portal and shoved half his length into her tight, slick velvet tunnel. She shuddered and raised both legs, locking her ankles behind the small of his back.
“I feel filled up already,” she gasped, “but pour the rest to me!”
Fargo flexed his buttocks and drove in her to the hilt, then began powering in and out like a steam drill, driving her to gasps and incoherent mutterings. It felt like ants biting his back as her fingernails dug into him, and soon the vigor of their coupling was moving both of them through the grass.
“Oh, Lord, Frank!” she cried out, “I’m gonna ex . . . plode!”
This horny lass didn’t just come, she arrived. As she thrashed and groaned beneath him Fargo could hold back the floodgates no longer. In thrust after thrust he spent himself, collapsing on her like a rag doll.
For a full minute their muscles felt like jelly and their breathing was ragged and uneven.
“My stars,” she finally whispered. “A man like you could make a gal an old maid for life.”
“How so?” he replied, grimacing as he tried to get his “Romeo tights” back over his hips.
“Well, a stud as good as you ain’t the marrying kind. But once a woman’s had it with a man like you, she ain’t likely to settle for these sixty-second wonders.”
Fargo was about to reply when he heard a boot scuff somewhere in the darkness beyond the hawthorn bushes.
“Get dressed quick,” he whispered in her ear, “then hie on back to your camp. We might have trouble here.”
“Can I come see you tomorrow night?” she whispered back.
“Sure,” he replied, doubting very much that he’d be here tomorrow night.
Fargo buckled on his gun belt while she fastened her bodice and disappeared along the creek. He crept forward, Colt in hand, stepping carefully. Before long he spotted a shadow dead ahead. The intruder seemed to be intently watching Old Billy as the latter sliced salt pork into a frying pan.
“Seen enough?” Fargo said behind him.
The man whirled with surprising agility, a gun muzzle spitting red orange flame. Fargo snapped off a return shot, and the man went crashing through the brush toward the mouth of Echo Canyon. But Fargo had carelessly forgotten something about Old Billy: The Indian fighter had survived all these decades through lightning-fast reflexes—and after dark he always broke out the heavy artillery.
“Jim!” Fargo shouted. “Don’t—!”
But it was too late. Fargo dropped onto his face as if he’d been pole-axed just as the big Greener roared out, splitting the silence of the canyon.
7
Leaves and small branches were stripped just above Fargo as the load of lethal buckshot blew a tunnel through the foliage.
“Cease fire, you crazy son of a bitch!” Fargo boomed out. “It’s me, Scully. The other shooter hightailed it.”
“Well, God’s blood, Far—Frank. Where you been? Bust your leg in a badger hole? At least pretend you got more brains than a rabbit. You know better than to approach an Indian fighter’s camp at night without giving the hail.”
Fargo broke into the circle of firelight, brushing himself off. “I didn’t have time. Whoever was spying on you opened up on me.”
Old Billy grunted. “Most likely bedroll killers looking to clean us out. This canyon’s crawling with ’em.”
“Could be,” Fargo agreed, though a gut-hunch made him wonder.
“’ Pears to me we best go turnabout on guard duty tonight,” Old Billy suggested. “A dog likes to return to its own vomit.”
“I s’pose, but if that yellow cur heard your Greener—and he had to—he won’t likely sniff around here again.”
Old Billy lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “Fargo, when it comes to the mazy waltz, your powder load ain’t what it used to be. Used to was, when you slipped off into the brush with a comely lass, you kept her there awhile. Heaped your plate with seconds and thirds. S’matter, was this one poor fixin’s?”
“Oh, she was a reg’lar banquet,” Fargo said regretfully. “And I enjoyed the first course. But I had one of my God fears gnawing at my belly.”
Old Billy, a great believer in signs, portents, and “tinglings,” leaned forward with sudden interest. “Ahh? What was it, chumley? Goosebumps on your neck?”
“Well, first off, it was the woman Caroline. Now, she was right out of the top drawer. I’ve had pretty women make it easy before, but hell, she served it up on a platter.”
Old Billy mulled that. Like Fargo, he avoided staring into the fire and ruining his night vision.
“You got a pint there. But a hussy is a hussy, and it’s likely true she finds this place mighty boresome of a night. Never mind how you’re dressed like a catamite, women always has been drawn to you.”
Fargo swallowed the flattery without difficulty. “Yeah, she might be just what she seems—a young gal with the tormentin’ itch. But that oaf we saw when we rode in, and then this jackal watching you—I got a hunch there’s somebody in this canyon who’s keeping their eyes peeled just for us.”
“Happens that’s so, then don’t it seem likely they’re in on these attacks that’s being put on you?”
“The hand that whirls the water in the pool,” Fargo replied, “stirs the quicksand.”
“Then consarn it, Fargo, you’re a bigger fool than God made you if you stay here.”
Fargo thumbed a reload into the cylinder of his Colt. “Simmer down, stout lad. Just because they might be watching for us doesn’t mean they know I’m here. Not yet, anyhow. We’ll light a shuck out of here, all right, but I need to try to talk to Louise Tipton first.”
Old Billy shook his head. “Why? She already said it was you what killed her man.”
“Nah, that’s not what Caroline told us. She said the man identified himself as Skye Fargo, but that Mrs. Tipton wasn’t so sure. I need to find out why she wasn’t so sure. That might be the clue I need to put handles on this masquerading bastard.”
Old Billy let out a long, fluming sigh. “Mayhap you’re right. We got damn little to go on—not even a hind tit. But you heard what else the girl said—how there’s this Doc Jacoby hovering over the woman.”
“Yeah,” Fargo said softly, “ain’t that convenient?”
Billy missed his tone. “Hell, you know how doctors is all know-it-alls. Why would he let a drifter dressed like a whorehouse swamper talk to the Tipton woman?”
“That’s one nut I haven’t cracked yet,” Fargo admitted. “It calls for wit and wile.”
“Wit and wile,” Old Billy groused. “This was a simple job when I hired on. Help you fight off the featherheads while you spotted good locations for line stations for the Pony. Russell, Majors and Waddell ain’t patient men, Fargo. They still got to get all these stations built and hire men to run ’em. Happens we come i
n way behind schedule, that throws the whole shootin’ match off.”
“No need to fret,” Fargo replied. “We’re ahead of schedule already, and besides, I told you we’re gonna keep on with the job. We just won’t let on that’s what we’re doing or who we are. If a posse stops us, we’re just hunters riding west to the goldfields.”
Fargo brought the horses in even closer for the night, giving each of them a hatful of crushed barley. He stood first watch as the fire died down to embers and Old Billy snored with a sawmill racket. Fargo kept his Colt to hand and changed locations frequently, listening to the night. All was quiet, however, except for the snuffling of horses and the occasional drunken laugh from a distant campsite. Now and then something slithered in the brush, but Fargo’s frontierhoned hearing could tell a snake or foraging animal from a human footfall.
Fargo was about to kick Old Billy awake when a gunshot erupted from the circle of wagons across the way, seeming especially loud in the late-night stillness.
Old Billy, who always slept on his weapons, sat up instantly. “Up and on the line, Fargo!” he called out, kneecaps popping as he came to his feet, Greener cradled in the crook of his left arm.
“Nix on that Fargo business,” Fargo whispered. “The name is Frank Scully.”
“Unh. The hell’s going on?”
Normally Fargo would not worry overly much about a single gunshot in a place like Echo Canyon. With all the cheap 40-rod and Indian burner flowing in these places, one or two shots often signaled celebration and went ignored. But this one was already more ominous—a hubbub of voices boiled up from the direction of the pilgrim camp, and figures carrying lanterns were all congregating on one prairie schooner.
“C’mon,” he told Billy. “There’s a game afoot, but stay back in the shadows. I got a hunch it’s more bad news for Skye Fargo.”
“And the stupid son of a bitch siding him,” Old Billy muttered, falling in behind Fargo.
They joined the stream of curiosity seekers headed across the narrow canyon. A few persons carried lanterns or torches, and Fargo edged away from the wavering penumbra of light.
“Hell,” Old Billy rasped in his ear, “they won’t recognize you in this light—your hat throws your face in shadow anyhow.”
“It’s not my face I’m worried about—it’s this damn shirt you bought. It’s finally dawned on me that, seeing as how you bought it here, somebody else has seen it at the mercantile. And they might start wondering why the new stranger had to buy a shirt. Especially a puke rag like this.”
“Anything I can do to get you killed,” Billy shot back, grinning wickedly.
The two men pressed close to the knot of people outside the wagon. Fargo watched a tall, elderly man with a full white beard and a monocle step out onto the box holding a lantern.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced in a voice surprisingly strong and clear for his apparent age, “I have sad tidings to impart. Mrs. Louise Tipton has taken her own life by means of a pistol shot.”
Outraged and shocked voices erupted. The man Fargo assumed was Dr. Jacoby raised his free hand to silence the crowd.
“In some measure,” he continued with the crisp enunciation and voice projection that Fargo associated with stage actors, “I feel I am partly responsible for this tragedy. As many of you know, the late Louise Tipton was my patient. I was standing careful vigil over her, fearing just this contingency.”
“The hell’s a contingency?” Old Billy whispered. Fargo elbowed him silent.
“I searched the wagon for weapons,” Jacoby continued, “and kept this poor, suffering creature in my constant view. But of course nature calls all of us, and as she appeared to be sound asleep after I gave her laudanum, I stepped off into the bushes for only a moment. She must have been feigning sleep, for it was then that she took the weapon from her skirts and ended her own life.”
“Hell, it ain’t your fault, Doc!” a voice rang out. “It was Skye Fargo done this! How do we even know it was suicide? They say Fargo can sneak up on a sleeping Indian and steal his medicine bag without waking him. Could be he killed her to shut her up!”
Another explosion of voices. Then a musical female voice Fargo recognized as Caroline Reed rang out.
“That’s tarnal foolish! If Skye Fargo didn’t want Mrs. Tipton to tell on him, he woulda killed her earlier when he killed her man. That would be a lot easier than doing it now.”
Some in the crowd agreed with this. The hotheads, however, hissed and made catcalls.
“Besides,” said a man close to Fargo, “I heard Louise Tipton when she first got to Echo Canyon. She said she wasn’t sure it was Skye Fargo that done for her husband.”
“I am no lawyer,” Jacoby said. “The wound is consistent with suicide in that there are severe powder burns around her temple, proof the muzzle was close. And the gun is still clutched in her hand.”
“That’s just the same,” a man chimed in, “as if she was killed at close range, ain’t it? Hell, wouldn’t take but a few seconds to plant the gun in her hand.”
“All true,” Jacoby conceded. “And the young lady was correct when she pointed out Fargo could have killed Mrs. Tipton earlier when he killed her husband. But as to the point about Mrs. Tipton saying she wasn’t sure it was Fargo—that was mere shock and nervous agitation confusing her. I spoke to her at great length once she calmed down, and what she meant to say was wholly different. She meant that she couldn’t believe a man of Fargo’s reputation could do such a heinous thing. She never doubted who her attacker was.”
It was as if Jacoby had lobbed a bomb. The crowd exploded with rage. The excited talk lasted for minutes.
Old Billy leaned close to Fargo again. “Contingency . . . heinous. Is that son of a bitch palavering in American or French?”
“Whatever the lingo,” Fargo muttered back, “he’s burying Skye Fargo with it.”
A middle-aged matron stood on Fargo’s right.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said politely. “That Dr. Jacoby looks like a gent I once met in the Nebraska Territory. Is he a family man, do you know?”
“Confirmed bachelor,” she replied, regret coloring her tone. “Several of the ladies have paid calls, but although he’s gallant, he’s apparently married to his calling.”
“This gent I’m thinking of rode a big roan gelding. Is that still his horse?”
The woman gave Fargo a startled glance in the flickering light, especially his ridiculous shirt. In 1850s America genteel women did not discuss livestock, or mention words like “bull” or “gelding.” Fargo realized his mistake too late.
“I beg your pardon, madam,” he hastily added. “I’ve been back of beyond so long that my parlor manners have rusted.”
This made Old Billy snort. The matron, however, found Fargo’s apology acceptable. “Now that you mention it, young man,” she replied, “I’ve never seen Dr. Jacoby mounted—always on foot. Of course, the canyon is small.”
“It is,” Fargo agreed, grabbing Old Billy by one elbow and guiding him back toward their camp.
“At first light,” Fargo told him, “we’re putting this place behind us.”
“Well, strike a light! I never wanted to come in the first place.”
“Oh, it was worth it,” Fargo assured him. “I’d say that Dr. Jacoby, whoever the hell he really is, is our killer.”
Old Billy stopped in his tracks, watching Fargo in the moonlight as if he had just announced he was the Queen of England. “Fargo, are you touched? That old man, raping and killing? Hell, his fires are banked by now. And outside of being tall, he don’t look one thing like you.”
“Does your mother know you’re out? He’s younger than you. The man’s an expert at disguises—maybe a stage actor judging from the way he worked that crowd with his voice—a young, strong voice.”
Old Billy mulled this. “He did seem awful spry when he hopped up on that box. Yeah . . . and his voice—say! And the doctor business—”
“Was a ruse to get
him close to Louise Tipton. See, even more than Ginny Kreeger up at Fort Bridger, Louise didn’t buy the whole bill of goods. When he realized that, he had to kill her—stone her into silence, as the Comanches put it.”
“Well, it all fits,” Old Billy said, “but it’s a passel of conclusions to make without more evidence.”
Fargo nodded. “There’s also his horse. That woman just now told me she’s never seen him on it. Could be because it’s a pinto stallion and hidden somewhere.”
“But why’s he doing all this? Sure, he’s put the no-good label on you, but he’s running a helluva risk, too.”
“My guess is he’s just a paid jobber. Someone else has put him up to it. He’s got to have support.”
“I take your drift,” Old Billy said. “Mayhap that was no bedroll killer we fired at tonight.”
“Yeah, and there was that galoot watching us when we rode in.”
“But it just don’t cipher,” Old Billy complained as they reached their camp. “It’s easier to blow up a mountain than to tunnel through it. Why not just kill you and get it over with?”
“I’ve been over this trail already. Whoever this is doesn’t want to just kill me—he wants to kill my reputation first. That’s my best guess anyhow.”
Fargo shucked out his Colt and walked a quick circle around the camp. Leaving his boots and gun belt on, he crawled into his blankets. “It’s your watch, old son. Remember—these heel flies might decide to change their plan and just kill me outright. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“If it’s only you they mean to kill,” Old Billy replied, “it’s no skin off my ass.”
Butch Landry, Harlan Perry, and Orrin Trapp had been among the crowd when Dr. Jacoby spoke. They returned to their camp before they discussed the matter.
“You boys think the Tipton woman really done herself in?” Perry asked.
Butch and Orrin exchanged an incredulous look.
“Harlan, have you been grazing locoweed?” Butch replied.