by Jon Sharpe
Nowhere was there any sign of the Ovaro.
Fargo turned this way and that, searching, hoping against hope. He scoured the base of the cliff, fearful that the Ovaro had plunged over the cliff as he had done, but there was no other disturbance in the snow. Apparently the Ovaro was still up on the mountain.
Fargo craned his neck but couldn’t see above the cliff. He had to get up there. He had to find the stallion and make sure it was all right. He waded forward, the snow as high as his thighs, but he took only a few steps when he received another unwelcome shock.
His Colt was gone.
Fargo turned and cast about where he had landed. He kicked snow aside. He dug with his hands. But if the Colt was there, he wouldn’t find it until the snow melted. Or maybe, Fargo reflected, it was somewhere above the cliff. He slid far before going over the edge. Never once did he think to hold on to it so he wouldn’t lose it.
“Damn me.”
Fargo roved along the base of the cliff. He told himself there must be a way to the top, but if there was, he couldn’t find it. The rock face was sheer, save for a few fissures, and they were too narrow to be climbed.
In a quarter of a mile, Fargo came to where the cliff ended. The slope beyond was deep with snow and so steep that when he started up, he took barely six steps before he slipped and fell and slid back down.
Only then, as Fargo stood and brushed himself off, did the full gravity of his situation hit him. He was stranded in the heart of the Rockies. He had no horse. He had no gun. He had no hat. He had no food or water. All he had were the buckskins on his back, and his Arkansas toothpick.
Or did he? The thought caused Fargo to squat and grope under his boot. He exhaled when he confirmed the knife was still snug in its ankle sheath.
“At least I didn’t lose you.” But now what to do? Fargo asked himself. He wanted to look for the Ovaro but he had to be practical. He needed shelter as well as something to eat. Once he was sure his toes were all right and he was warm and fed, he could strike out after the stallion.
Fargo gazed the length and breadth of the valley. Except for where a few stands of trees had taken root, it was open. The trees, like everything else, were covered with snow, some so heavy with white, they were bent nearly to the ground. He made for the nearest stand. If he could find dry wood, he could get a fire going and warm his feet.
The glare blinded him. The sun was so bright that looking at the snow hurt his eyes. They kept watering. It got so bad, he kept his gaze down and his eyes narrowed to slits to spare them the misery.
His were the only tracks. For as far as he could see, the snow was unbroken. Not a living thing had been abroad since the blizzard ended.
A dry chuckle rattled from Fargo’s throat. The animals had more sense than he did. They were snug in their burrows and dens. He would gladly trade places with any of them.
His boots made little noise. His toes had begun to hurt, and he hoped it wasn’t a sign the frostbite had worsened.
The first stand proved to be mostly cottonwoods, which suggested water, but there was no spring. Fargo moved carefully among the pale trunks. He didn’t find a single downed limb; they were buried under the snow. And since the branches on the bent trees were covered with wet snow, as well, his prospects of starting a fire were slim.
The next stand was almost a hundred yards away. Wishing he had his hat to ward off the sun, Fargo trudged toward it. He was thinking of his hat and not paying any attention to his surroundings, which was why he was all the more surprised when a low growl fell on his ears. He looked up. For a few seconds the glare prevented him from seeing anything.
Fargo blinked a few times. Suddenly everything came into sharp, stark focus. Including the two wolves studying him much as they might a deer or elk they contemplated devouring. He drew up short.
“Oh, hell.”
Normally, wolves left humans alone. But these were lean with hunger, their ribs showing through their fur. Their age might have something to do with it. There was gray in their coats and muzzles.
Sometimes the sound of a human voice scared wild animals off. Fargo tried it now. Waving his arms, he hollered, “Light a shuck, you four-legged idiots.”
Both wolves turned and loped off, snow spraying from under their flying paws.
Fargo smiled. It worked. He started on again, and his smile changed to a frown.
The wolves had stopped. They were looking back at him. One growled. Then both came slinking toward him, their heads low, their teeth bared.
“Hell.”
Fargo still had about fifty yards to go to reach the next stand. On flat, dry ground he might have stood a chance of reaching it before they got him. In the deep snow he stood no chance at all. Bending, he slid his fingers into his boot and palmed the Arkansas toothpick. Ordinarily it had a comforting feel. But a knife against two wolves? He was in trouble.
Fargo kept walking. He must get to that stand no matter what. In there he stood a prayer. He could put his back to a tree so only one wolf could get at him at a time. Out here they could attack from two directions at once. It would be easy for them to hamstring him and bring him down.
God, Fargo wished he had the Colt or the Henry.
The wolves had separated. They were coming at him from two sides, exactly as he predicted. They held their bodies low to the snow, their fur bristling. Both snarled and showed their teeth. Their eyes were fixed on him with the fierce intensity of starving animals.
Forty yards to go to the stand . . .
Fargo yelled at the wolves but all they did was take a few steps back and then resume stalking him. He resisted an impulse to run. All it would do was tire him out and make it easier for them.
Thirty yards to go, and now a wolf was a dozen feet out on either side of him. This close, their age was even more obvious. These two were at the point in their lupine lives when they would eat anything they could catch and bring down. And they were about to bring him down.
Raising both arms to make himself appear bigger, Fargo bellowed at one and then the other. Both crouched and growled but neither backed off. They weren’t scared of him at all. They didn’t care that he was human. To them, he was meat, nothing more.
Fargo hefted the toothpick. The doubled-edged blade was razor sharp. He could cut them, cut them deep. He would go for their eyes or their throats. Or their legs. They couldn’t get at him if he crippled them.
Twenty yards to go and the wolves continued to pace him.
Fargo was beginning to think they wouldn’t attack before he reached the trees. Suddenly the wolf on the right came at him in a rush, spraying snow. He spun toward it and the wolf on the left did the same. Neither came within reach. Both loped away but not as far back as before.
Fargo kept walking. They were testing him, taking his measure as they would a buck or a bull elk. He glanced from one to the other and back again, alert for sign of another rush.
Ten yards now, and Fargo would be in among the snow-laden trees.
The wolf on the right snarled and the wolf on the left answered, and in they came, as fast as they could, which wasn’t as fast as they normally moved, but it was fast enough that they were both on him before he could break into a run to try to reach the stand.
Fargo slashed at the wolf on the right and it pranced out of reach. The wolf on the left nipped at his leg but he jerked aside. Its flashing fangs missed. He stabbed at its neck but he missed, too.
Both were growling. Hackles raised, they circled him.
Fargo twisted, trying to keep both in constant sight. His mind filled with images of them ripping into him and bringing him down, and he shook his head to dispel them.
The next moment the pair pounced, both at once, each going for a different leg. Fargo cut at one and then at the other. He barely drove them off in time. When they resumed circling they were closer.
Their next rush, they would have him.
Fargo knew it and they knew it. His mouth went dry. He broke out in a cold sweat.
He must try something, but what? In anger he kicked snow at the wolf on the left and it skipped back a few feet. He kicked snow at the other one, and it did the same.
Instantly, Fargo hurtled toward the stand. The snow hampered him, clinging to his legs. He only managed a couple of steps when the wolves closed in again.
They weren’t stupid, these wolves.
Fargo stopped and crouched. He held the toothpick out in front of him, pointing it at first one and then the other.
“Come and get me, you hairy sons of bitches.”
The wolves growled and bared their fangs, their eyes glittering. And then they came at him again, and this time it was in earnest. They had gauged his reactions and his reflexes and they were ready to bring him down.
Fargo arced the gleaming blade at one and then the other. They ducked and dodged and snapped at his legs. He felt teeth rip his buckskins but his leg was spared. The one on the other side darted in. He cut at it to keep it at bay and the moment he turned away, the wolf that had ripped his buckskins was on him again. And this time its teeth found flesh.
Pain exploded like a keg of black powder. Fargo slashed, and his blade sliced deep. The wolf yipped and sprang back. He whirled toward the other one just as it leaped. Its heavy body slammed into his chest, nearly knocking him down. He got hold of its throat and held it from him, the wolf snapping and clawing in a frenzy of starving need. He buried the toothpick once, twice, three times.
More pain, this time in his lower back. The other wolf had buried its fangs and was trying to brace its legs to wrench and tear him open. Fargo cut at its face and slit an eye. Howling, the wolf dashed out of reach.
The wolf he was holding bit at his arm and drew blood. Fargo had no choice but to shove it from him, and let go. It scrambled up and backed off, blood oozing from the stab wounds.
Both wolves resumed their slow circling. Bodies hunched, slavering and snarling, they were ferocity incarnate. The wolf with the cut eye dripped blood. The other wolf limped slightly.
Fargo was torn and bleeding and bitterly cold. The stand was so near—and yet so far. He must reach it or he would die. It was that simple. And he must do it before the blood he lost weakened him.
He must do it before he was helpless.
Firming his grip on the toothpick, Fargo risked all in a sudden spurt of speed.
The wolves rushed him.
3
Fargo sidestepped a vicious snap by the wolf on the left, and the wolf on the right immediately veered at his leg. Fargo slashed down, going for the eyes. The wolf jerked back and the blade sliced into the top of its head, eliciting a yelp.
Less than five yards to go.
Fargo pumped his legs, his breath coming in gasps as much from the cold as from the exertion. He was so close he could see a few leaves poking through the snow on the trees. Then a wolf slammed into his back, driving him to his knees. He twisted, and they were on him. Teeth found his wrist. His toothpick found a throat. A maw yawned at his neck and he sank the toothpick up under a furry jaw. His shoulder flared with torment, and he whirled. He stabbed, he cut, he thrust, he rent.
And then Fargo was down, on his belly in the snow, so spent he couldn’t move, his body a welter of pain, his buckskins more red than brown. He waited for the bite that would end his life. But nothing happened. With a supreme effort he rolled onto his side and looked for the wolves and couldn’t believe what he saw.
They were dead, the snow around them bright red, their necks and bodies punctured and cut, their fur a matted mix of gray and scarlet.
Fargo felt no elation. He felt weak and slightly dizzy and the cold was worse. Sluggishly, he got to his hands and knees. His leg was torn open. His wrist was bleeding. He lurched to his feet and staggered into the stand. He couldn’t seem to walk right. He collided with a cottonwood and clumps of snow rained down, battering his head and shoulders. Exhausted, he slumped against the trunk.
This stand was the same as the first. No dry wood anywhere.
Fargo willed himself to stand and his legs to move. He needed a fire, needed a fire desperately. It would warm him, revive him, lend him the strength to patch himself together. He lurched through the stand to the far side.
In the distance was yet another stand. Or was it a strip of woodland that had crawled across the valley floor from an adjacent slope? He couldn’t really tell for the glare.
Time was wasting. Whatever it was, Fargo trudged toward it. There had to be dry wood. There had to be. He realized he was still holding the toothpick, and that it was caked with blood and gore and bits of hair. He didn’t care. He would clean it later. Right now the important thing—the only thing—was a fire.
“I need a fire.”
His voice sounded strange. It was strained and raspy, as if someone else spoke. He swallowed and licked his lips.
“I need a fire.”
That sounded better. Fargo lurched on. He snickered at how silly he was being. It wasn’t like him. The thought stopped him in his tracks. His brow puckered. No, it wasn’t like him. Something was wrong. The wounds and the loss of blood and the cold were affecting his mind. He plodded on, his teeth set, his shoulders hunched. He would make it there if it killed him.
The snow was terribly bright. Fargo worried about going snow-blind. Since there was nothing in front of him but snow, he closed his eyes and felt instant relief. He tried to think of something to take his mind off his plight. He thought of women he had known, and he had known a lot. Many he liked. Many more were willing partners in passion, and that was all. He tried to think of the one he liked the most, but in his dazed state all their faces blended into a confused jumble of warm smiles and hot lips.
There was one, once, though, a long time ago. She was special. He could remember her face but he couldn’t recollect her name. That bothered him, and he couldn’t say why.
Fargo opened his eyes. The woods appeared no closer than they had when he closed his eyes, so he closed them again and continued plodding. He had lost all feeling in his feet. His hands were numb. To warm his fingers he stuck them under his arms.
Fargo tried to whistle but his mouth was too dry. He decided to sing but couldn’t remember the words to any of the saloon songs he must have heard a thousand times.
“What’s the matter with me?”
A ridiculous question, Fargo told himself, since he already knew. It didn’t stop him from plodding on. It didn’t crush the flicker of hope. All he had to do was reach those trees and get a fire going.
“Is that all?” Fargo chuckled at his little jest. He was tired, so very tired. He wanted to lie down right there in the snow and fall asleep. But as weak and confused as he was, he knew that spelled certain death.
Fargo wondered why it was he couldn’t think of that woman he had cared for more than all the others. Was that all females were to him? A tumble under the quilt? Granted, he had no interest in anything lasting. He wasn’t out to get married. He had no hankering for a hearth and home. But still.
He opened his eyes. The woods were still far off. Too far, maybe. Could he reach them before he collapsed?
A shriek brought Fargo out of himself. It came from overhead. He blinked up into the glare and spied a hawk soaring on outstretched wings. A red-tailed hawk, over two feet from beak to tail. It shrieked again, as if frustrated that the snow prevented it from finding the mice and rabbits on which it loved to feast.
“I know how you feel.”
The hawk banked and glided toward the mountains, rising until it was a mere speck.
“If I had wings I wouldn’t be in this fix.”
Fargo stopped and snorted.
“That was a downright stupid thing to say.”
He took three more steps and his legs had enough. He fell to his knees, grinned at the distant woodland, and sank onto his side. The snow was warmer than it had been. It was as warm as a blanket. He closed his eyes and sank into it and drifted on tides of inner darkness.
It was buzzing that brought Fargo
around. At first he thought it must be bugs. Flies, probably. Come to crawl on him now that he was too weak to stop them. He swatted at them and one of the flies grabbed his wrist. Another fly alighted on his cheek. He tried to brush it away and it buzzed at him. “I don’t talk fly.”
“What was that, mister?” a voice asked.
“He doesn’t know what he’s saying, Jayce,” another voice said. “Look at him. He’s half out of his wits.”
Fargo opened his eyes. He had been out a good long while. The sun was low in the western sky. But it wasn’t the sun that interested him. It was the boy and the girl hunkered at his side. The boy looked to be ten or thereabouts, the girl maybe twelve. They were bundled in clothes that had seen better days. Their gloves had holes in them. The boy wore a torn hat and the girl had an old scarf wrapped around her head and ears. Both had thin, oval faces, green eyes, and sandy hair.
“I take it I’m not dead,” he croaked.
“Not yet, but you ought to be,” the boy said. “I never saw so much blood. What on earth happened to you?”
“Wolves.”
The boy stiffened and looked all around. “What wolves? There’s two that’s been trying to get at our chickens and sometime at us, and making our ma plumb mad.”
“They’re dead. Back a ways. Your ma can rest easy.”
The girl put a hand to his brow. “I think you have a fever. And you’re awful pale.”
“How far to your ranch? If it’s not far I can make it.” Fargo tried to rise on an elbow but couldn’t.
“We don’t have a ranch, mister,” the boy said.
“Your farm, then?”
The girl shook her head. “We don’t have a farm, neither. I’m Nelly, by the way. Nelly Harper. This here is my brother, Jayce. Ma said we could go play in the snow and we saw you lying way out here. We thought you were a dead deer, and we could surely use the meat.”
“We can’t eat you, though,” Jayce said, sounding vastly disappointed.
“You’re welcome to come to our cabin if you want,” Nelly offered. “It’s warm there, and there’s some soup left over.”