Utah Deadly Double (9781101558867)

by Sharpe, Jon

  Butch reached into a possibles bag on his belt and produced a chamois pouch, handing it over. “This oughter balance the ledger.”

  Gramlich opened the pouch and spilled five double-eagle gold pieces into his palm. He loosed an appreciative whistle. “Liberty heads! One hundred dollars worth. It’s true, isn’t it, Butch? Fargo rounded you three up and even killed your brother, but they never got the payroll gold.”

  “You keep your secrets,” Butch said, “and we’ll keep ours. What I—”

  Harlan cut in. “Mr. Gramlich, how do you make that white beard stick to your face?”

  “Spirit gum. For making my hair white I use axle grease and powdered alum. When I’m Fargo I have to dye it. My saddlebags are stuffed full of beards and wigs and such—I can even make myself into a woman.”

  Harlan looked fascinated and opened his mouth to ask more questions. But Butch feared the big, slow-witted man might mention Deets’ past as an actor.

  “Never mind, Harlan,” Butch snapped. “Deets ain’t here to set up school. What I’m wondering is if you noticed them two riders that come in after dark last night. Right off I suspicioned that they was Fargo and that Indian fighter, Old Billy Williams.”

  This announcement made Gramlich start, his face going almost as pale as his beard. “Fargo? In Echo Canyon?”

  “I ain’t certain-sure, mind you. If it’s him, he shaved his beard off.”

  “Christ! If it was Fargo, he must have come to talk with the Tipton woman. That’s what he did up at Fort Bridger with the young girl.”

  “Yeah, but you foxed him this time,” Orrin said. “A man can’t get much information from a corpse.”

  “If I killed her in time,” Gramlich fretted. “Butch, did you see Fargo’s horse?”

  “I think so, but his pard was riding it. Fargo had him a white Appaloosa—”

  “Shit!” Gramlich cut in. “That was Fargo, all right. He switched mounts with Old Billy. But how in Sam Hill did they get past those three regulators this morning?”

  “Fargo could bamboozle the devil in hell. For some reason the regulators made him take a shot at a hawk circling a couple hunnert yards over the canyon. He dropped that son of a bitch plumb using a Spencer carbine.”

  “He didn’t use his Henry?”

  Butch shook his head. “Didn’t have it with him—nor the Arkansas toothpick he carries in his boot.”

  Gramlich tugged at his fake beard. “Must’ve hidden them. Jesus Christ and various saints! I spent the night in the same canyon he did.”

  “Why does that boil your guts?” Orrin asked. “Ain’t it better to know where he is?”

  “If I know where he is, there’s a rotten chance he knows where I am.”

  “Well he don’t,” Butch said, “or you’d a woke up dead this morning.”

  Gramlich stuffed the gold in his pocket. “You three aren’t exactly safe as sassafras, either. Fargo is well informed for a man who inhabits the back forty, and I’d guess he knows by now that you busted out of prison.”

  “That’s one reason for this meeting,” Butch said. “You’ve done slick work, Deets, but trying to catch Fargo is like trying to nail smoke to the wall. Thanks to you every swinging dick in Utah is after him. But the manhunt has to grow wider, and fast, before Fargo notches his sights on us. That means pulling in the Mormon soldiers—every last one of them.”

  “You mean I should attack a Mormon girl, right?”

  Butch nodded. “You do it all disguised as Fargo. So far it’s mostly gentiles that are riled up on account you only killed outsiders. We need to get old Brigham himself so pissed off that he climbs off them nineteen wives of his and puts out the order to arrest the Trailsman.”

  “You favor that plan,” Gramlich countered, “because you’re obsessed with making sure Fargo gets arrested, imprisoned for a couple years, and then hanged. It’s revenge for your brother, and I don’t begrudge you that. But there comes a point where every gambler has to cut his losses—it might be wiser if the four of us teamed up to kill Fargo.”

  Butch stubbornly shook his head. “He’ll be in Salt Lake City inside of two, three days. You can ride faster on account you ain’t plotting out line stations for the Pony. Once you jump that Mormon—a young gal, and rape and slice her—Skye Fargo has reached the end of his trail. And you collect the balance of your gold.”

  Gramlich mulled all this for a full minute. “It just might be the best plan, at that. Mormons have a persecution mindset, and a crime like that by an outlander would rile the hive. Fargo can dupe ragtag vigilantes, but Mormon soldiers are no boys to mess with. All right, one more attack and this time it’ll be a sockdolager.”

  9

  The day was hot, the air so funereally still that it seemed to ring. Overhead, vultures wheeled like merchants of death, ever vigilant. Following the predetermined route of the soonto-be-launched Pony Express, Skye Fargo and Old Billy bore southwest toward Salt Lake City.

  Old Billy slewed around in the saddle so often to check their back trail that it finally got on Fargo’s nerves.

  “Damn it, old son, will you quit craning your neck like a nervous bird? A veteran Indian fighter like you needn’t be so skittish.”

  “It ain’t Indians what got me nerve-frazzled,” Billy shot back. “It’s hemp committees. Crissakes, you was in Echo Canyon when that Tipton woman done herself in. You heard that rabble talking up what they got planned for you. And since me and you is joined at the hip these days, ain’t too likely they mean to feed me and send me on my way.”

  “Oh, sure as cats fighting they plan to kill you too,” Fargo said cheerfully. “You’re riding my horse, ain’t you? And you gave me yours. That’s what the Philadelphia lawyers call complicity. Yessir, William, you’ll swing in the breeze right alongside me.”

  Old Billy scowled and made a fist. “I’ll sink you, son. Sink you six feet closer to hell.” He spat, just missing the Ovaro’s ear.

  Fargo grinned. “You best adjust that aim, Billy. If that nasty shit hits him, you’ll be breathing cloud.”

  “He’s better-natured than you, Trailsman. Least he don’t make no jokes about his friends swinging in the breeze.”

  “You need to go to school, Old Billy. First of all, like I told you last night, Louise Tipton didn’t kill herself. That graveyard rat Dr. Jacoby—who ain’t no damn doctor—killed her. He’s the same son of a bitch who killed her husband. She was s’posed to ride in hollering how Skye Fargo done for her man. But she upset the applecart when she started saying how she wasn’t sure it was me.”

  “Fargo, when it comes to evidence to prove all that, you ain’t got spider leavings. But all right, you got a good think-piece on you, you’ve gone wide upon the world like me, and just mebbe you’re right. Could be that Jacoby is who you say he is. But so damn what? Them ignunt pilgrims don’t give a frog’s fat ass what the facts is—they been reading penny dreadfuls and they’re all het up to throw a necktie party.”

  Fargo pulled down his hat against the swirling grit and glaring sun, then shrugged one shoulder. “Like you just said, so damn what? Do you really believe that a bunch of clabber-lipped greenhorns who don’t know gee from haw are going to run us to ground? The Trailsman and the best damn Indian fighter since Dan’l Boone?”

  Old Billy huffed out his chest. “Well, when you put ’er that way, not by a jugful. Say, them white-livered sons of bitches couldn’t locate their own asses at high noon in a hall of mirrors.”

  Fargo laughed. “That’s the gait. This is the third day now since Ginny Kreeger was attacked at Fort Bridger, and for all their bluster in camp, where’s the regulators?”

  He indicated the vast, sprawling land around them with an extended arm. The harshest terrain of all, the formidable Salt Desert, would not begin until west of Salt Lake City. But the land around them was sere and rugged: sterile mountains on the horizons and, closer at hand, a few gullies washed red with eroded soil, low, windswept mesas, and tall red-granite spires. The only growth in si
ght was scraggly saltbush and the ubiquitous sagebrush, which looked purple or gray depending on the light.

  “This is damn close to being on the Great Plains,” Fargo said, “when it comes to thwarting ambushes. Hell, a sparrow couldn’t sneak up on us. So a lynch mob is shit out of luck. But let’s not bamboozle ourselves, Old Billy. We still got two dangers.”

  “And one of ’em,” his companion replied, “is Injuns. That’s where you hired me to help.”

  Fargo nodded. “These animals we’re riding can outrun any gaggle of pilgrims. And my Ovaro, depending on his condition, can outrun Indian mustangs. But the tribes out here slit their horses’ nostrils for more wind, and they ride light compared to a white man’s rigged mount. Your Appaloosa is a fine horse and I admire to be riding him. But he’ll founder, won’t he, in a rundown with Indians?”

  Old Billy nodded. “I’ve rid to safety over short hauls. But in the Utah Territory it’s stand pat or lose your dander. Still, I got me a few tricks when Red John is after my topknot. But what’s that second danger you just mentioned?”

  “Mormon soldiers,” Fargo said bluntly. “They cap the climax. They’re the best cavalry troops in the country. All their set-tos with Indians have made them masters of the long chase. They work in relays so even the Ovaro can’t outrun them. Just like the Texas Rangers, they always get their man.”

  Old Billy nodded. “That’s why I never run afoul of ’em. You really b’lieve they’d start a manhunt for a gentile attacking other gentiles? Most especial, when they’re fighting mountain Utes in the Wasatch?”

  Fargo shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But I’ll bet you a plugged peso they’d form up to catch a gentile raping and killing a Mormon girl.”

  Billy started visibly. “A Mor—but that ain’t happened.”

  “Yet, you mean. But look where we’re headed—the capital of Deseret, Salt Lake City. This Fargo look-alike hasn’t managed to get me hanged from a branch yet. Once we pass Salt Lake and hit the desert, he won’t have much chance to frame me again. This could be his last shot, and he might decide to make it a good one.”

  Old Billy rubbed his chin, pondering it. “Damn you, Fargo, you always was good at thinking like a criminal. I fear you’re right.”

  “So I’m gonna say it again—this might be a good time for you to cut and run. If we get Mormon soldiers salting our tails, it’ll be curtains for both of us.”

  “That’s just tough titty. I don’t care a hoot in hell what happens to your lanky ass. But I don’t draw most of my pay until we pick that last line station near Sacramento.”

  Fargo glanced across at the stubborn old frontiersman. “You value the pay over your life?”

  “Why, hell yes. I don’t give a hang about one damn thing but money. I’d steal the coppers from a dead man’s eyes. If they passed a law saying it costs every man one dollar to keep his pizzle, I’d learn how to squat to piss.”

  Fargo’s smooth-shaven face became a mask of amazement. “Old son, you make King Midas look like a spendthrift. Either you’ve got thousands stashed away by now or somebody is blackmailing you. What’s all this mystery about you and money?”

  Old Billy waved him off without comment.

  Fargo gave up and stretched across to his own saddle, pulling out his U.S. Army field glasses. Slowly, methodically, he made a minute search in all four directions, looking for movement, not shapes. Then he reined in.

  “Trouble?” Billy demanded.

  “I can’t say yet. There’s dust puffs way to the north, but it could just be wind picking up.”

  Fargo lowered the glasses and watched the sweep of dark clouds way to the north. “Storm making up in that direction,” he remarked.

  However, Fargo hadn’t survived on the frontier for so many years by assuming the best. He swung down and squatted on his heels, placing three fingertips lightly on the ground. He kept them there for a full two minutes.

  “Feel anything?” Billy asked.

  “The vibration is faint. It feels like a large group of riders, but I can’t be sure they’re headed in our direction.”

  Old Billy went a shade paler. “Out here, a big bunch of riders can only mean soldiers or Injuns. And since Injuns don’t ride shod horses, the vibrations is always weaker.”

  “The way you say,” Fargo agreed as he stepped up into leather and flicked the reins. “Keep a weather eye out.”

  The two men rode in silence for a spell, each alive with his own thoughts. The only sounds were the clinking of bit rings and the sleepy rhythm of hoof-clops.

  “Fargo,” Old Billy finally spoke up, “there’s something cankering at me.”

  “You got a bone caught in your throat? Speak up.”

  “It’s just—all these years I’ve knowed you and sided you in scrapes. You always been a man who believes in taking the bull by the horns.”

  Fargo nodded. “That’s my credo.”

  “Sure, but look how it is now. Hell, I know that finding one man in this country is like trying to find a sliver in an elephant’s ass. But you ain’t said hardly nothin’ about catching this woman-killin’ bastard. Last night you swore up and down how that Doc Jacoby is the killer. Well, there we all was in the same canyon. Why in hell didn’t you kill the scum-sucker—or at least find him and hog-tie him?”

  Fargo’s face suddenly looked tired. “I thought about it. But that would’ve meant barging in on camp after camp, calling attention to myself. Just shaving off my beard hardly makes me a new man. My map has been in newspapers all over the damn country thanks to these lying, nancy-boy inkslingers. There’s a good chance I could’ve been gut-shot without ever finding this filthy hyena.”

  Old Billy considered that and nodded. “Yeah, a place with that many people around ain’t right for turning over rocks. But don’t he have to be following us?”

  “We plowed this ground before, chucklehead. Every swinging dick from London to New Orleans knows we’re following the route of the Pony—and that route’s been scattered, broadcast in newspapers, too.”

  “Hell, that’s God’s truth, ain’t it? We’re riding mostly at a trot and stopping now and again to study locations. That way he stays ahead of us and the trouble is waiting when we catch up to it.”

  “Trouble worse than a peeled rattler,” Fargo agreed. Even as he said it, he glanced north again. The dust boiling on the horizon seemed darker and closer.

  “I see it,” Old Billy said without turning his head. “The trouble that don’t wait for us is kind enough to ride and meet us. Best get your war face on, Fargo. I’d bet my bunions them’s Utes coming to kill us.”

  The two men rated their horses at a good, hard gallop, searching for anyplace that might provide a natural bulwark. With the attacking Utes bearing down on them, they had to settle for scant cover—a small sand bench formed by the scouring wind.

  Fargo swung down and broke out his glasses again. Now he could make out individual riders, their faces painted red and black. The large, heavily muscled brave out in front, wearing buffalo horns, was the battle chief.

  “It’s a raiding party,” he reported. “I see plenty of trade rifles. They’re not painted with war colors and they’ve got packhorses for booty. But the Utes know about white man’s money, and they’re dead set on getting ours.”

  Old Billy took the spyglasses from Fargo and took a look. He whistled sharply.

  “Fargo, me and you is up against it bad! That’s Spotted Pony and his bunch. I locked horns with them red sons once out near Robert’s Creek. I was scouting for a freight caravan headed to Sacramento. They pinned us down for two days and killed four men. Lucky for us they run out of ammo and left.”

  “How many, you think?”

  “Way the hell more than your reg’lar raiding party. Mebbe forty.”

  Fargo nodded. “That’s my count, too. Thank God most tribes can’t aim rifles like they can bows and arrows. Our only chance is to thin their ranks enough before they get close.”

  Old Billy nodded, taking
Fargo’s point. Most greenhorns back in the States believed that Indians commonly fought to the last man. But in truth they were highly spiritual and placed a great value on the lives of their own people. A battle leader who allowed too many braves to be killed faced grave censure in council.

  While they spoke, the two experienced frontiersmen had pulled their saddles and laid out their weapons in the sand. Knowing their mounts would be early targets, they each threw an arm around their horse’s neck and pulled them down to the ground. Both horses were trained to lie flat until pulled up again.

  “Let’s tote it up,” Old Billy said. “Sixteen loads in your Henry, seven in my Spencer, six in your Colt plus that extra cylinder you got. I got six in my revolver and two in my Greener happens they get in close. That’s . . . uh, that’s . . . hell’s bells, I never could cipher worth a damn.”

  “Forty-three shots before we have to reload,” Fargo finished for him as the Utes pounded closer across the rugged Utah landscape. “But if we hold and squeeze, we should be able to turn them before we need reloads.”

  The bench offered scant protection, so both men began digging sand wallows with their hands. Spotted Pony, the battle chief, raised his rifle high and loosed a shrill, yipping war cry.

  “I’d like to send that featherhead to the Land Beyond the Sun,” Old Billy remarked. “Last time I waltzed with him he blew the tip of my left ear off. But we best leave him be—you know how the red Arabs get when you pop their leaders over.”

  “We got a little problem here, Billy,” Fargo said. “It just occurred to me.”

  Old Billy jacked a round into the Spencer, then looked at Fargo. “What, you mean besides that whorehouse curtain you’re wearing as a shirt?”

  “That’s one topic I’d avoid, I was you. No, I mean with our plan. I know how much you hanker to kill Indians, but in this case I think it just might cause us more trouble later. This bunch will wheel, all right, if we kill a few. But they’ll keep coming back on a red vendetta. And we’ve got a long ride through empty spaces. They know they can eventually force us to use up our ammo—and then we’re left like a bird’s nest on the ground.”