Fargo 18

by John Benteen

  “Not until you tell me if you’re interested.”

  “I’m always interested in money. But you haven’t got any. You told Rose that.”

  “I’ve got some and I can get some more.”

  “Half of which is Rose’s.”

  “All right. I sold off the stock to raise some cash, yeah. But the half of the ranch I’ll deed to Rose will be worth twice what her share of the money I got from that will come to. She won’t lose. Besides, I thought she was long since dead in Mexico and that I had a free hand. I got word that she and her husband both had been killed in an ambush in Chihuahua. So I felt no obligation to her.”

  Fargo nodded. “Okay, I’ll go along with that for now. All the same, I’m fussy about what kind of job I take.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve done some checking on you, and that was one thing nobody mentioned.”

  “I’m clean here in the United States. Not wanted for any crime—so far—and never have been. I won’t do anything that’ll get my name on a post office wall. That’s the main thing.”

  She nodded. “This won’t, if you’re careful. There’s a man who wants to kill me. Never mind why—”

  Fargo grinned coldly. “I could think of a reason or two ...”

  “Be quiet. He wants to kill me, and I’m afraid of him. If he comes, it’ll be within the next thirty days. After that, I no longer have to fear him and your job’s over. You may not have to lift a finger to earn your twenty thousand, but if you do, you’ll be up against a man every bit as big and hard and mean as you. And I have no idea whether he’ll come alone or bring a dozen men just as tough along with him. All I know is that I’ve been living in fear for over a year now. I’ve bled myself white paying for protection. And for him, the next month is now or never. If he doesn’t move by then, he’ll be dead, I’ll be safe. But for me, these next thirty days are when I’m in the most danger.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “Yes, I am,” said Lola. Her voice trembled slightly. “Because right now he’s in state prison in Brownsville. And he’s sentenced to hang thirty days from now. But, Fargo, until they drop him through the gallows door, I can’t draw an easy breath.”

  Fargo stared at her a moment. Then he said, “It still don’t add up. Twenty thousand to save you from a man in prison who can’t even get at you.”

  “It makes sense if you know the man,” said Lola. “Did you ever hear, Fargo, of a man named Rex Harrod?”

  And now, suddenly, Neal Fargo was beginning to understand. “Rex Harrod,” he rasped. “Heard of him, hell! I went fifteen rounds in the ring with him once when I was prizefightin’. I figure he fouled me twice a round, but the referee was bought and paid for. He won the bout and gave me this.” Fargo touched a short, ugly scar above his left eye. “He meant to thumb out that eyeball, but he didn’t quite make it. And I left some scars on him, too.”

  “Then you know that Rex plays rough.”

  “Rough enough so they finally barred him from the ring after he crippled two or three good fighters and killed one. He was a contender for the heavy-weight championship ’til then—but the sonofabitch would do anything to win.”

  “He still will.”

  “How did you get mixed up with Rex Harrod? And why’s he in prison, sentenced to hang?”

  “I ... met him in New Orleans, over a year ago. And he’s sentenced to hang because he killed a Texas Ranger, resisting arrest. But …” Her bravado was gone, now, and naked fear trembled in her voice. “But he won’t hang, he swears he won’t. He swears he’ll break out and come for me and kill me. And ... and I believe him, Fargo! I’m afraid not to! Because anything Rex says he will, he’ll do! And ... I know it, I feel it in my bones! They’ll never put a rope around his neck! Not before he’s ... got back at me, seen me die ... And if he doesn’t come himself, he’ll send somebody. I’m sure of it! And you’ve got to help me! You helped Rose for nothing, that lawyer says. Risked your life to bring her out of Mexico! Well, I’m asking you to help me and risk your life for me, and I can give you anything in bed that she gave you, and I’ll pay you a small fortune besides!”

  Fargo said, “If you’re that scared, why don’t you take the twenty thousand you’d pay me and run? Take off to Australia, Canada, somewhere—”

  “There’s no place I could go he couldn’t find me! The only thing to do is wait for him here. Let him come to me and have enough force on hand to kill him when he does! The world’s not big enough for me to hide from him! All I can do is wait and hope—for another month!”

  Fargo was silent, going to the bottle, taking another drink. He thought of Rex Harrod, big, handsome, packing a lethal punch in either fist, catlike and ruthless. Unlike most boxers, Harrod, in the ring, was always out for blood, not only to win but to hurt. Even now, Fargo could remember vividly that nightmare bout with Harrod; himself, fighting as Kid Neal, still young and inexperienced, Harrod like some sort of machine of destruction out to grind him up. Two rounds, and Fargo had realized that Harrod not only meant to win, he meant to do it by crippling Fargo for life, and the rest of that bout had been a battle for survival. Harrod had got a few surprises; Fargo had not been easy prey. And Fargo had survived—with a hatred for Harrod that had never left him. He’d taken great satisfaction later in learning of Harrod’s being barred from the ring and then had lost track of the man, hadn’t thought of him in years. But now he understood why Lola Dane was terrified of a man in prison and sentenced to the gallows. Because she was right: Rex Harrod’s sort was never safely dead until planted six feet under.

  Fargo sipped the whiskey. Harrod: he would like another crack at that bastard. Unconsciously, he fingered the scar above his eye. Then he looked at Lola, who was waiting tensely. Still, there was something about this that did not ring quite true. “Why’s Harrod want you so bad?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “If I hire on, it’s all my business. I don’t bet in the blind.”

  “All right.” Lola looked away. “After my father died and Rose got married and went off, I sold some of the horses and took the money to New Orleans. I wanted some action—the kind you can’t get, stuck off in the sticks on a horse ranch, or in a town where everybody knows you. And I met Rex there ... And we had our fun together, all right. And ... he was mixed up in a lot of things in New Orleans, shady stuff, all kinds of rackets, and I think he knew every killer and thug on the whole Gulf Coast. To me, that didn’t matter. I fell for him—and hard. He claimed to have gone overboard for me, too, and ... We even talked about getting married. Then ...” She hesitated. “I found out he had half a dozen women on the string. I was only one, he’d made a fool of me. And I knew he was wanted in Texas for a crime, and I thought I’d make him pay. I ran out on him, came back here, sent a letter to the Rangers; they had him arrested in Louisiana and sent two men to bring him back. He tried to escape and killed a Ranger doing it, but the other one got the drop on him. They tried him and sentenced him to hang. He guessed I was the one that blew the whistle on him, and he got word to me—somehow he was going to get out and come after me and when he got me ... Well, you know what kind of man he is. He’d kill me, all right. But not right away. I was terrified, I had to have some protection. So I sold off the stock and used the money to hire Luke Shannon and his crowd. But the cure was almost worse than the disease. It didn’t take long to see that they couldn’t stand up against a man like Rex, especially if he brought some men to side him. All they were interested in was the high wages I was paying them. Some of them I tried to run off, but they wouldn’t go. Then you came along, and ... the minute I saw you, I knew you were the answer to the problem. I had to get you on my side. And believe me, Fargo, I didn’t send Luke against you tonight. That was his own idea, to pay you back for the pistol-whipping you gave him.” Then, as if so much talking had exhausted her, she sat down on the bed. “I need you,” she said gustily. “I need you worse than Rose does or ever did ... For God’s sake, do we have a deal?
”

  Fargo was silent for a moment. Then he said: “We have a deal when I see some money.”

  Lola’s mouth twisted. “I thought so. Thank God.” She opened her handbag, took out an envelope. “There’s a check for ten thousand dollars. Cash it at the bank tomorrow, and then we’ll go together out to the ranch. All right?”

  “Okay,” said Fargo. He inspected the check, stashed it in his billfold.

  “Now,” Lola said, trembling with relief. “You work for me. And ... I’ve rented the room next door to yours. I’m afraid to stay alone, too far from help anymore.”

  Fargo said, “All right. You need me, holler. And if this check clears tomorrow, we’re in business.”

  “Yes,” she said. “In business.” She stood there a moment longer, staring at him, eyes meeting his. Her tongue moved wetly across her lips. “Fargo,” she whispered.

  “Go to bed,” he said. “Next door.”

  She looked at him a few seconds longer, her mouth twisted, and then, without a word, she went out.

  Fargo locked the door behind her. He heard her enter the next room, move around. Dead tired, he had another drink, a slow one, slumped in a chair and frowning. There were still things that didn’t add up, but his mind was too fatigued now to worry over them. Absently, he rubbed the scar above his eye. He didn’t know how Rex Harrod could break out of state prison, and probably it was impossible. But he found himself almost hoping that he would have to earn that twenty thousand the hard way.

  Six

  The check cleared. Fargo added it to his poker winnings, depositing it all in the bank, thinking sardonically that he had made more in the past six weeks than many men saw in a lifetime of hard labor. A smart man would take that stake, buy himself a nice ranch or business somewhere, and be fixed for life—if the price of beef didn’t drop through the floor or another depression, manipulated by the financial barons in New York for their own gain, hit and wipe him out. No, thanks, he told himself.

  With Lola in riding clothes astride a big gray gelding alongside him, they reached the Dane Ranch by three o’clock that afternoon. There were still a lot of questions in Fargo’s mind, but for the time being they could wait. She had given him a specific task, it met his requirements, and the price was right. Beyond that, it was not his business to inquire into her private life. Not unless she tried to double-cross him, and he would be constantly alert for that. He had met her kind before: if she’d been a man, as a gambler she would have cheated; as a gunman, she would have been a back-shooter. He meant to keep an eye on her, but one thing at a time.

  The whole crew that he had seen on his first visit—minus Shannon, of course—was lolling around the place, a quartet of them holding a shooting contest behind the stables, more shooting craps on a blanket in the yard, the rest mostly drinking and telling tall tales while they roosted in the shade. Fargo’s lip curled as he and Lola rode into the yard. A man like Harrod could go through this gang like a hot knife through butter. Tinhorns, all of them, by their looks. “They’ve got to go,” he muttered to Lola as they swung down.

  “You’ll need some of them, won’t you?” she asked apprehensively.

  “No,” Fargo said. “I work better alone.” He looped reins around the hitch-rack, adjusted the sawed-off shotgun, which rode on its sling, muzzles down behind his left shoulder. It seemed an awkward way to carry the gun, as he walked across the yard, left thumb hooked beneath the sling.

  His arrival seemed to charge the air with electricity. The men in the shade set aside their bottles, stood up. The others, around the blanket, let the dice fall. Then they got slowly to their feet. The quartet that had been shooting behind the barns came forward, one of them tucking his Colt into his waistband, the others with theirs holstered.

  “All right,” Fargo called softly, but in a voice that carried. “My name’s Neal Fargo. You’ve seen me before. I want you all over here—now.”

  They looked at one another, that hard-bitten, frowsy crew. Then one of them, mescal bottle in one hand, spat out a match he’d been chewing. “Where’s Luke Shannon?”

  Fargo said, tonelessly, “He drew on me last night and I shot the hell out of him.”

  Another one, with long black mustaches, stepped forward. His hand rested on the butt of the Colt in his waistband. “Luke’s dead?”

  “Deader’n George Washington,” Fargo said easily. His eyes raked over them, cold and gray. No, he thought. Not a one worth keeping. “Now, I’ve got some news for you men. You’re fired. Pack your gear and ride.”

  For a moment, there was silence, dead, profound, in the ranch yard. Then the man with the black mustaches growled: “Who says so?”

  “Miss Dane says so. The gravy train’s off the track, boys. Head out.”

  “We got money comin’,” the one with the mescal bottle said.

  “That’s not so!” Lola Dane flared. “Fargo, they insisted on being paid every week. I paid them all yesterday. Up to date.”

  “You heard the lady,” Fargo said. “Anybody want to argue with her?”

  “Not with her,” black mustache said. “With you, big man. Sure, you’re Neal Fargo, I’ve heard about you. Tough, yeah. But you ain’t tough enough to take us all. You—” He broke off.

  Fargo’s left thumb had twitched, only slightly. That practiced motion beneath the Fox’s sling, however, was enough to make the shotgun’s barrels suddenly swing up and forward beneath his left arm. At the same instant, his right hand moved across his chest, fingers sliding through the trigger guard. Black mustache found himself staring into the enormous open ten-gauge bores of the short, ugly weapon head-on.

  “Ain’t I?” Fargo said. His voice had the clang of steel on steel. “Gentlemen, this gun is loaded with nine double-ought buckshot to the barrel, and don’t let the fact that it’s turned over fool you. That’s the beauty of a riot gun. You don’t hafta aim it. It’ll spray just as good with the trigger side up as the other way around. And at this range and the way you’re bunched, there won’t be many of you left standin’ if I push these triggers. Now: you still think I can’t take you all?”

  No one spoke. They knew the answer to that, knew that a single buckshot at this range could kill and that there was no escaping the spread of lead the Fox would throw.

  “Lola,” Fargo said, “you go on in the house.”

  She quickly backed away toward the veranda.

  “Now, gentlemen,” Fargo said, “bet or fold.”

  The silence held, almost tangible, vibrant, in the afternoon heat. Then Black Mustache’s hand slid away from his gun. He spat an obscenity. “Hell,” he said. “I got better things to do than stand here and argue. I ain’t been to town in damn near a month. Me, I’m glad to get shed of this stinkin’ place.”

  “Me, too,” the man with the bottle said. “Come on, Jud.” He nudged a companion. They turned away.

  Fargo stood there tensely, body rotating slightly from the waist, following them with the shotgun muzzles as they gradually swung around. When he had the opportunity, he deftly, in a maneuver that took barely a second, rolled the sling off his shoulder, and now he held the Fox in his left hand. The right rested on the butt of the .38, which rode in a hip-holster now. If they had the guts, shotgun or no, they could take him; he knew it and they knew it. But he also knew they had no reason to take the risk, knowing that many of them would be killed or maimed. The stakes were not worth it to them. He felt the tension dissolve, knew it would be all right now. Years of handling men, regular and irregular troops of all sorts, told him that he had dominated, enforced his will. Still, it was a long half hour before they had their gear packed, horses caught up, and were mounted. And during that time, he was everywhere, the shotgun always ready, menacing, reminding them of what a fight would cost them.

  Presently, though, the last one had pounded out of the yard. Fargo watched the roil of dust settle, diminish, and was grateful that they had not been drunker. Just one loaded with Dutch courage could have triggered off a massacre
.

  When they were gone, he went into the house. Lola stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. “You did it,” she whispered. “One man alone, and you did it! Faced down that whole crew and sent ’em packing!”

  “Yeah. But if somebody’d so much as cracked his knuckles, there’d have been hell to pay. I could use a drink.”

  “So could I!” Her hand shook as she poured two. “Neal, I never saw anything like that. Now, for the first time, I feel safe!”

  “Don’t count your chickens,” Fargo said. “They were coyotes. Harrod’s a lobo wolf.” He drank his bourbon. “Now, I want you to tell me everything about him that you know. What he’s been doing since the last time I heard about him, how he operates, who his friends are—everything.”

  Lola’s hand froze, glass halfway to her lips. “I’ll tell you what I can. But I can’t tell you everything. There are some things you don’t need to know. None of your business.”

  “Everything’s my business if I’m to keep you safe if he comes at you. But—” He read and understood the reluctance on her face. “All right. You were mixed up in something shady with him and you don’t want to spill anything to anybody that might incriminate you. But remember, part of my job’s to keep my mouth shut. Anyhow, go ahead and tell me what you can ...”

  ~*~

  In the distance, coyotes howled. From the cottonwoods by the creek behind the ranch house, an owl hooted. The big man with the shotgun froze, concealed in shadows, cocked his head and listened.

  The owl called again. Fargo relaxed, convinced now that it was genuine. His circuit of the area completed, he moved soundlessly toward the darkened ranch house. Ten yards from its back door, he halted, groped carefully, then stepped high over the line of wire strung there just at knee level. On stakes driven into the ground, it surrounded the entire house, and from it at intervals of about five feet dangled tin cans with a few rocks in each. A warning system, not foolproof, but symptomatic of the thoroughness with which he did whatever he undertook. Anyone stalking the house in darkness, blundering into that tripwire, would cause a lot of rattling. What Lola really needed, he thought, was a few fierce dogs; she’d had one, she said, but it had bitten Luke Shannon and he’d shot it.