The bartender already had a shot poured when Fargo got there. He pushed it across the bar and said, “Here you go. Figured you’d be wantin’ it.”
Fargo tossed back the drink and felt the warm glow the whiskey started in his belly.
“You seem to attract trouble, mister,” the bartender went on. “Of course, that ain’t hard to do where ol’ Gyp is concerned. He’d get into a brawl every night if he didn’t have Frank around to look after him.”
“Troublesome, is he?”
“He’s just not quite right upstairs. The way I heard the story, he used to be as smart as anybody else, but then he got caught in a mine cave-in and one of the beams hit him in the head. When they pulled him out, they didn’t even think he’d live. He did, but he was never the same.”
“That’s a shame,” Fargo said. He had heard of other men who had been damaged like that from being hit in the head.
“And that kid,” the bartender went on, “he’s just a little rat, just like he looks. It’s been suspected he’s a thief, but nobody’s caught him with the proof yet. He’ll get strung up sooner or later, though. I’d bet on that.”
“No bet,” Fargo said. He suspected the youngster would come to a bad end, too.
“Sorry I can’t help you with that fella you’re looking for. Slauson, was that the name?”
Fargo nodded.
“Friend of yours?”
“Never met the man before,” Fargo said. “He sent me a letter asking me to meet him here. Said he had a business proposition for me.”
“Well, if I happen to run into him, I’ll let him know you’re around.”
“Much obliged.” Fargo put his hand over his glass as the bartender lifted the bottle, offering him another drink. “I don’t suppose a fella could rent a place to sleep around here?”
“Head on down the street a ways and you’ll come to another big tent. The man who owns it rents out cots. It’s expensive, and it ain’t all that comfortable from what I’ve heard, but it beats sleeping on the ground.”
Fargo wasn’t so sure of that. He had spent plenty of nights with his blankets spread out on the ground with a bed of pine needles under them, and he usually slept well.
But this was arid country where the settlement was located, with only scrub brush around. The pines grew higher on the slopes. He would see about renting one of those cots and give it a try.
He left the saloon tent and walked down the street. His path took him past the corral where he had left the Ovaro. The owner still sat in front of his tent, smoking a pipe now. He gave Fargo a friendly nod.
“I took good care of that stallion of yours,” he said. “Care to have a look at him?”
“I can see him there in the corral,” Fargo replied. There was enough light from the moon and stars for him to pick out the sleek-muscled black-and-white form. Since the corral owner seemed friendly, Fargo asked him, “Do you happen to know a gent named Slauson? J. N. Slauson?”
“Can’t say as I do. Friend of yours?”
Fargo didn’t want to go through the whole thing again, so he said, “Just a man I’m supposed to meet here in this settlement.”
“Good luck.” The man waved his pipe at the crowded street. “As you can see, there are plenty of men here.”
“All after gold and silver.”
“Yep. The lure of precious metals.”
“Have there been any big strikes?” Fargo asked.
The corral owner shook his head. “No, but a few claims have paid off nicely. Well enough to keep the boom going, anyway.”
“You do any prospecting yourself?”
The man laughed. “I came out here to California in forty-nine, me and a few other fellas. You may have heard about it.”
“Seems like I did,” Fargo said dryly.
“I busted my back leaning over a creek panning for gold. Never did find much. But I followed it from strike to strike, boomtown to boomtown, until I didn’t know how to do much of anything else. Finally decided I’d let the other fella bust his back, though, and find some other way of making a living.” He pointed the stem of the pipe at the corral. “This is it.”
“Well, I hope it works out for you.”
“And I hope you find who you’re looking for.”
With a nod, Fargo walked on down the street. He saw a large tent looming up on the right. That had to be the place the bartender had told him about. There wasn’t another tent that size at this end of the settlement.
Before he could get there, a foot scuffed in the dirt behind him. Instantly, Fargo tensed and swung around, his hand going to the butt of his Colt. He saw a figure step toward him, but the move wasn’t threatening.
Something about the shape of the person approaching him kept him from pulling his iron, too. He realized with a little shock that he was looking at feminine curves. So far he hadn’t seen even one woman in Blackwater, not even a soiled dove in the saloon.
“Mr. Fargo?” The voice was low and controlled, just husky enough to give the words a slightly sensual edge.
“That’s right,” Fargo said. He kept his right hand near the butt of the Colt. From time to time in the past, women had tried to kill him. A female finger could pull a trigger just like a man’s could.
“I’m Julia Slauson.”
Fargo took a sharply indrawn breath of surprise. “I’m supposed to meet a man named J. N. Slauson.”
“No, you’re supposed to meet me . . . Julia Nicole Slauson.”
Fargo thought back to the note he had received from the army officer, passing along the message. “Colonel Price didn’t say anything about you being a woman.”
“The colonel and my father served together during the Mexican War,” Julia Nicole Slauson said. “My father saved Colonel Price’s life at Vera Cruz. He was willing to do a favor for me, especially since my father is involved in the trouble I need your help with.”
Despite a touch of irritation at being lied to, at least by omission, Fargo felt a quickening of interest at the mention of trouble. He enjoyed listening to Julia talk, too. He found the slightly husky sound of her voice very appealing.
And from what he could see in the shadows, the curves of her body were a mite interesting, too. Fargo had a great appreciation for a handsome woman.
“I reckon we can discuss the situation,” he said.
“I was hoping you’d feel that way.”
“We can go back down to the saloon—”
“I’d rather not,” Julia said. “The men in there, well, most of them haven’t seen a woman in quite a while. I know they mean no harm, but the attention makes me feel a little uncomfortable.”
“All right. Where do you suggest we talk?”
“I have a wagon . . .”
She didn’t want to go into the saloon, Fargo thought, but she didn’t mind the idea of being alone in a wagon with a strange man. Well, if she didn’t mind the impropriety, he sure didn’t either.
“Let’s go.”
She led the way along the street to a good-sized wagon. The bed had an arching canvas cover on it. She didn’t ask him to come inside but rather she sat on the lowered tailgate. Fargo stood in front of her.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any coffee or anything like that to offer you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”
“You’ll want your money, I suppose. What I promised you for meeting me here, I mean.”
“That can wait,” Fargo told her, sensing that she was stalling a little now that the time had come to explain. Right now he was more interested in her story than in the promised payoff.
“All right.” Julia took a deep breath. “Colonel Price told me that you’re the best man he’s ever seen at finding someone.”
“I’ve tracked down a few folks,” Fargo admitted.
“I want you to look for my father.”
“He’s disappeared?”
Julia waved her hand to the east, the gesture taking in the vast sw
eep of salt flats known as Death Valley, as well as the stark, stony mountain ranges that bordered it.
“He’s out there somewhere,” she said, her voice a little hollow with strain. “He came to find his fortune, but I’m afraid he hasn’t found anything but trouble.”
“Doing some prospecting, is he?”
“That’s right. After he left the army, he tried to start a freighting business, but it failed. A few more ventures were equally unsuccessful. As long as my mother was alive, she . . . she kept his spirits up. But after she passed away last year, he became . . . obsessed, I guess you would say, with getting rich.”
“Prospecting is one way of doing that . . . for a very lucky few,” Fargo said.
Julia nodded. “I realize that. I knew the odds were against him. But it seemed to be so important to him that I urged him to go ahead. Now I wish I hadn’t.”
“How long has it been since you heard from him?”
“Six months.”
Fargo frowned. “That’s really not that long, considering where he went. It’s not like you can send a letter just anywhere in Death Valley. In fact, the nearest post office is probably more than a hundred miles from here.”
“I know that. And normally, while I’d be worried about him, I wouldn’t have come out here myself and asked you to meet me here.”
“So what happened to change that?” Fargo asked.
“A man came to see me in Los Angeles—that’s where I was staying while my father was on this prospecting trip—and said he was my father’s partner. He asked me for money so they could buy more supplies. I . . . I thought there was something odd about it.”
“You were wise to think that,” Fargo told her. “He was probably just trying to chisel some money out of you. He might have met your father, but I’d bet they weren’t partners.”
“That’s what I thought. I put the man off. He came to see me at the dress shop where I’d been working, and I told him to come to my room that night.”
“I’m not sure that was a good idea,” Fargo said.
“I know it wasn’t. That night I hid in the alley and watched the boardinghouse where I lived. Several men snuck around to the back. One of them was the man who had come to see me. They had their guns drawn. They went in, and then a moment later I saw the glow of a match through the window of my room. They were looking for me, Mr. Fargo. I’m sure of it.”
Fargo nodded, his face grim. “I expect you’re right. And it sounds like they didn’t mean you any good, either.”
“I think they came there to kidnap me,” Julia Slauson said calmly.
“Why would they do that?”
“To use me as a weapon against my father. You see, Mr. Fargo, I believe my father must have found a very valuable mine, and these men will stop at nothing to get their hands on it.”
That sounded plausible enough, but Fargo pointed out, “You don’t have any proof of that.”
Julia shook her head. “No, I don’t. But I believe it, and I want to get to my father so I can help him.”
“You want me to find him and take you to him?”
“That’s exactly what I want, Mr. Fargo.” She stood up from the tailgate and moved closer to him. Her voice grew more throaty as she went on. “I . . . I have some money and if you help me, I’ll do anything you want, Mr. Fargo. Anything at all.”
2
Fargo frowned again. “You don’t believe in being coy, do you, Miss Slauson?”
She tossed her head, making her thick dark hair swirl around her shoulders. “I was raised to speak my mind,” she said with a defiant edge in her voice. “I realize that makes me different from many women, but I can’t help it. If my plainspoken ways offend you—”
“I didn’t say that,” Fargo broke in. “I like it when folks put their cards on the table, male or female.”
“Then we should get along just fine. Now, as to my offer—”
Fargo held up a hand to stop her. “We don’t have to talk about that now. You’ve got enough money for supplies?”
“Yes, I do. I brought all of my savings with me.”
“I wouldn’t go around talking about that if I was you,” Fargo advised her.
“I don’t intend to, but I assume I can trust you.”
“You never met me before tonight.”
“No, but . . .” And now her voice broke a little. Fargo recognized it as a sign of the strain she was under. “I have to trust somebody, don’t I? If I’m going to help my father, I mean.”
“All right,” Fargo said. “I’ll try to find your father. You’ve got my word on that.”
“Colonel Price told me from the beginning that Skye Fargo is a man of his word.”
“I try. You can pay for the supplies, and we’ll talk about everything else later on, after I’ve located your father and found out what all this is about.”
“You’ll take me with you, of course.”
Fargo wasn’t so sure about that, and he said as much. “Death Valley is a dangerous place,” he told Julia. “Folks have gone in there and never come back out.”
“Do you honestly think I’d be safer here in Blackwater?” she asked.
Fargo thought about that for a moment. Most of the time, no matter how rough the surroundings, a decent woman was indeed safe on the frontier. Any man who bothered her would find himself tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail, if he was lucky. If he wasn’t lucky, he might be strung up from the nearest tree.
But as Julia herself had pointed out, most of these prospectors hadn’t seen a woman for a long time. The temptation might be too much for them, even knowing what fate could be in store for them. She was right—it would be dangerous for her to remain in Blackwater while Fargo searched for her father.
But would it be even more dangerous for her to venture into Death Valley with him? Fargo didn’t know the answer to that.
“We’ll hash it out in the morning,” he said. “That’s when we’ll round up the supplies, too.”
“All right. But I am going.”
Fargo didn’t waste his breath arguing with her. Let her be stubborn tonight, he thought. Tomorrow might be different.
“I’ll be staying here in my wagon,” Julia went on. “I’ve been here for several nights, and no one has bothered me . . . yet. I keep a loaded pistol close at all times, though.”
“You know how to use it?”
“My father was an army officer, remember? He made sure I could handle a gun, even though my mother thought it was scandalous and very unladylike.”
Fargo couldn’t help but grin. “Sounds like your pa was trying to raise a boy and a girl at the same time.”
“Wait until you see me ride.”
Fargo didn’t rise to that bait. He just nodded and said, “I’ll get my bedroll and pitch it under the wagon. I was going to rent a cot for the night, but I think this’ll be better.”
“I can take care of myself—” she began.
“Have you seen any more of the man who visited you in Los Angeles?”
She shook her head. “No. I left town that very night, and I think I gave him and his companions the slip. I haven’t seen them since.”
Fargo raked a thumbnail along his jawline with its closely cropped black beard. “If they want to get their hands on you,” he mused, “they’re liable to follow you here and try again. I’ll feel better if I stick close to you.”
“All the more reason to take me with you when you start searching for my father.”
Fargo grinned. That was a point in favor of her argument, all right.
“Go on and get inside the wagon,” he told her. “If anybody tries to climb in, use your gun and ventilate him.”
“What if it’s you?”
“I won’t be climbing in there,” Fargo said.
“Not ever?”
“Not tonight,” Fargo said. Let her make of that what she would.
There were a couple of cafés in Blackwater, neither of them too clean or appetizing, but Farg
o and Julia picked the better of the two for breakfast the next morning. While they sipped coffee and waited for their food, Fargo asked, “Is the team that pulls your wagon horses or mules?”
“Mules,” Julia replied. “I bought them along with the wagon in Los Angeles.”
“And drove up here all by yourself?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t have any trouble. But if I had, there was a shotgun in the wagon, as well as my pistol.”
Fargo grinned over his coffee cup. “You pack a lot of iron for a woman.”
“I won’t be taken advantage of simply because of my sex,” she said with a frown.
“No reason to be,” Fargo returned easily. He steered the conversation back where it had been headed by saying, “It’s a good thing you’ve got mules. They’re better for traveling in rugged country. And you won’t find country much more rugged than this around here.”
“No, you won’t,” she agreed. “It has a certain stark beauty, though, don’t you think?”
Fargo grunted. “For about ten minutes. Then it’s just flat and dry and hot and desolate.”
“Yes, I suppose so. What supplies do we need?”
For a few minutes they talked about provisions, and then their plates of flapjacks and bacon arrived at the table, carried by a waiter in a dirty apron. They dug in, and despite the surroundings, the food wasn’t too bad. It was almost good, in fact.
“I saw an emporium back up the street,” Fargo said as they were eating. “We’ll stock up there and then get started.”
“You mean for us to leave today?”
“No reason to wait, is there?”
Julia shook her head. “None at all. I’d rather get started. The longer it is before we find my father, the greater the chance that something might happen to him.” She paused, then added, “I’m glad you’re being reasonable about taking me along.”
“I’m still not sure it’s the right thing to do. But I figure I’d rather have you where I can keep an eye on you than have to be worrying about you all the time.”
“We still haven’t discussed your payment—”
Death Valley Vengeance Page 2