by Jon Sharpe
Fargo patted the poke under his shirt, now bulging with five hundred dollars. As soon as he was done with this business with the Appaloosas, he aimed to head for Denver and treat himself to a week or two of perfumed ladies and smoke-filled saloons.
In a little while he turned in. He slept fitfully, waking up at the slightest little sound, which wasn’t like him. Toward day-break he decided enough was enough and got up and put the coffeepot on.
Shortly before dawn a speck of orange appeared to the southeast. Whoever it was, they were up early as well.
Two days went by. Two days without incident. Fargo stopped as often as the Ovaro needed rest. At night he listened to the wolves and the coyotes and stared at the spot of orange that always appeared. Whoever was back there wasn’t trying to overtake him, which was encouraging.
By now Fargo was deep in the mountains. So deep, few white men had ever been there. He figured it would be another five days before he was in Nez Perce territory.
Finding one of their villages might take some doing. The tribe moved with the seasons and the food supply, and at that time of the year, could be found along the Clearwater, Salmon and Snake rivers. They fished as much as they hunted and were particularly fond of salmon.
They didn’t call themselves the Nez Perce. The name was bestowed on them by the French. It meant “pierced nose.” Ironically, it was a practice they seldom indulged in. The French had got them confused with another tribe and the name stuck.
That happened a lot. Whites rarely called tribes by their real names.
The Shis-Inday were known as Apaches. The Shoshones were called Snakes. The Lakotas were called Sioux. The Absarokes were known as Crows. The Siksika were commonly called Blackfeet. Tribe after tribe it was always the same.
The Nez Perce called themselves the Nimipuu, their word for “the people.” They were a proud, strong tribe, protective of their territory, fierce to their enemies.
Fargo was fortunate in having befriended them. He was one of the few whites they trusted.
All this was going through his mind as he wound down a switchback. He glanced at the narrow valley below and promptly drew rein. A line of riders was coming down the valley in his direction. He didn’t think they had spotted him. Their lances and shields told him they weren’t white men. But he couldn’t tell if they were friendly or hostile.
Fargo reined into the trees. He had counted nine warriors, more than enough to help themselves to his hair. Dismounting, he moved to the forest’s edge. He was hoping the warriors would ascend the mountain by a different route, but there they were, climbing toward the switchback. They were bound to spot the Ovaro’s tracks.
“Damn.” Fargo ran to the stallion and swung back on. He reined deeper into the woods and after half a mile swung toward the valley floor. He hadn’t gone far when the Ovaro pricked its ears and looked behind them.
Up above, men and horses were winding among the boles.
The warriors were after him.
Fargo still couldn’t see them clearly enough to tell if they were Nez Perce.
To let them get closer invited an arrow in the ribs so he did the only thing he could—he fled.
The woods were thick but there were few downed logs or deadfalls to worry about. Fargo resorted to his spurs but didn’t bring the Ovaro to a gallop until he came to the valley floor.
A war whoop pierced the air. The first of his pursuers had emerged from the trees, a dusky painted warrior who waved a bow overhead and then gave chase.
Others were strung out after him.
At last Fargo could see them clearly. They weren’t Nez Perce. They were Blackfeet. Bitter enemies of the Nez Perce and whites alike, they often raided Nez Perce territory to lift hair and steal Appaloosas. To the Blackfeet, stealing a horse was considered as high a coup as taking an enemy’s life.
This was the last thing Fargo needed. He stuck to the open valley for as long as he could. The Ovaro gained but not enough to be sure of escaping their painted pursuers. Fargo had hard riding ahead.
The valley came to an end at the bottom of a steep slope. Pines and spruce gave way to rows of firs. Fargo glanced back just as a whizzing shaft thudded into a tree. Hunching low, he zigzagged.
Higher up it was open save for scattered boulders and rock formations.
A cluster of slabs gave Fargo inspiration. Reining behind them, he vaulted down and yanked the Henry from the saddle scabbard. Quickly, he ran to the lowest slab and jammed the rifle to his shoulder.
The Blackfeet were climbing swiftly. Three warriors were out ahead of the others, two armed with bows and the third with a lance. Fargo banged off a shot. He deliberately fired over their heads as a warning. Kill one, and it would only make the rest more determined.
The three looked up but didn’t slow or stop. One of the warriors drew a bowstring to his cheek and let fly. The arrow fell short but not by much.
Fargo fixed a bead, held his breath to steady his aim, and smoothly stroked the trigger. The Henry boomed and bucked and down the slope the bowman clutched at his chest and pitched from his mount. The other two drew rein.
Counting on that to delay them, Fargo ran to the Ovaro, shoved the Henry into the scabbard, and forked leather. He continued up the mountain until he came to a gap that would take him into the next valley. Stopping, he patted the Ovaro’s sweaty neck and glanced down.
The war party was still after him.
“Damn it.” Fargo went through the gap and descended into heavy timber. He was in for a long chase unless he could think of a way to throw them off. After a quarter of a mile he reined parallel to the valley floor and stayed in the trees where he would be harder to spot. He had gone a short way when he came to where part of a slope had given way, possibly from heavy rain, and scores of trees had fallen. The jumble of logs gave him an idea.
The deadfall covered about five acres. Fargo rode to the far end and then up and around to where it began. Dismounting, he moved out onto the logs. They were of all sizes. He had to be careful. One slip and he would fall in among them. Leaping from log to log he came to one that suited his purpose. It was precariously balanced on top of the others. Could he budge it? Lying flat on a different log, he placed his boots flat against it and pushed with all his might. The log moved but only an inch or so. Gritting his teeth Fargo tried again. For long seconds nothing happened. His sinews weren’t equal to his need. Then the log started to roll. Instantly, he stopped and sat up. He was ready.
Presently the Blackfeet appeared. They were following his tracks and when they came to the deadfall they rode along the bottom as he had done. It never occurred to them that he might be up on the logs; no one in their right mind climbed onto deadfalls.
Fargo marked the distance. Lying on his back again, he put his boots to the log and strained with all his might. The log refused to move. He tried again, every muscle corded tight. The log began to roll. Another moment, and gravity took over. The log he had pushed rolled onto the next log and dislodged it and both rolled against others and dislodged some of them. Like snow gathering size and speed in an avalanche, the tumbling logs multiplied.
Down below, the Blackfeet had drawn rein in startled amazement. Realizing their peril, they reined around and flew for their lives. Only some made it. Others were engulfed in a crashing whirl of rolling timber. Their cries and the whinnies of their mounts betokened their fate.
Fargo hurried to the Ovaro and resumed his flight. When he had gone over a mile he stopped so the stallion could rest. For half an hour he watched his back trail. No one showed. The Blackfeet had apparently decided he wasn’t worth the effort. Chuckling at how clever he had been, he rode on.
Fargo opened his saddlebags, took out a piece of pemmican, and nibbled. He had been lucky. One day his luck would play out and his bleached bones would be added to the legion the wild had already claimed. Until then, he would live as he pleased and do as he pleased, and when his time came, he would leave the world with no regrets.
That
evening he camped on a sparsely treed slope. He made a small fire and used the last of the water in his canteen to make coffee. Tomorrow he would refill it. There were plenty of streams thereabouts. Plenty of game, too.
He filled his battered tin cup with the piping-hot brew and held it in his palms, and sipped. Stars had blossomed, sparkling like so many gems in a sea of ink. Wolves and coyotes began their nighttime chorus punctuated by the cries and roars of other creatures.
Fargo smiled. This was the life. The life he could no more do without than he could do without his heart or his lungs. He finished the cup and poured another. Two was his limit. Any more and he might have trouble sleeping.
A meteor blazed the heavens.
Down below, the panicked cry of a rabbit was silenced by the snarl of a bobcat.
Prey and predator, the unending cycle. To Fargo, it was as ordinary as air. He had gotten so used to it that when a grizzly roared he paid it no mind. The bear wasn’t near enough to pose a threat.
Fargo finished the cup and set it down. He leaned back on his saddle and laced his fingers behind his head. From the fire came the loud pop of a glazing red limb. It almost drowned out the stealthy pad of a footstep.
Fargo spun.
Stalking toward him was a Blackfoot warrior with a knife and a war club.
4
The instant their eyes met, the Blackfoot shrieked and launched himself over the flames.
It was rare for Fargo to be taken by surprise, rarer still that anyone could sneak up on him without him being aware. For a fraction of a second he was rooted in disbelief, and the warrior was on him. He grabbed the warrior’s wrists but the tip of the knife sliced into his shoulder. Not deep, but it drew blood and his shoulder spiked with pain. They struggled, the warrior hissing through clenched teeth, Fargo striving his utmost to keep the knife from sinking into him and to keep the war club from slamming against his head.
The Blackfoot was immensely strong. He was in his middle years, a seasoned warrior. He wore his hair in braids and had on a buckskin shirt and leggings. His dark eyes glittered with grim intent as he put all his weight on his knife arm.
The razor edge dipped lower.
Driving his knee up, Fargo was rewarded with a wince and a guttural grunt. He drove his knee up again but the warrior shifted. The knife was a whisker’s width from burying itself.
In desperation Fargo rammed his forehead against the Blackfoot’s face. The warrior jerked back, blood streaming. Fargo kicked with both boots and the warrior was sent staggering into the fire.
A bound carried the Blackfoot clear. Shaking his head to clear it, he growled like an enraged beast, and leaped to the attack.
This time Fargo was ready. Like a bolt of lightning, out flashed his Colt.
He fired and the warrior was jolted but kept coming and he fired again and a third time when the Blackfoot was almost on top of him. The war club swept on high to smash his skull. Fargo rolled. He made it clear just as the body of the warrior crashed to the ground.
Fargo turned, expecting to sell his life dearly. Where there was one warrior, there must be more. But no others came at him from out of the darkness. No war cries split the night.
It was several minutes before Fargo accepted that the dead warrior was the only one. He speculated that maybe the man had been sent on ahead to track him down. Or maybe the warrior had another reason.
Debating whether to stay where he was or move on, Fargo reloaded. The sound of a shot could carry a long way, especially when the wind was right. If the other warriors heard, they would come on hard and fast. He decided to find another spot to camp.
By three in the morning he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open but he had put more miles between him and the Blackfeet. He was inclined to push on all night but the Ovaro needed to rest. This time he made a cold camp.
No sooner was he bundled in his blankets than he was out to the world. He slept until the shriek of a jay woke him shortly before dawn. Saddling the stallion, he pushed on. Two ridges and three valleys later he was fairly convinced he had outdistanced the war party and was safe.
The next several days were uneventful.
Then came the afternoon Fargo shot a grouse. He plucked it and rigged a spit over the fire and was sitting down to wait for it to roast when the Ovaro nickered.
Half a dozen warriors had materialized out of the greenery.
Fargo swooped his hand to his Colt but he didn’t draw. Four of the six were riding Appaloosas. He smiled and raised his right hand to his neck, palm out. Extending his first two fingers, he raised his hand until his fingers were in front of his nose. It was sign language for “friend.”
The Nez Perce approached. The youngest beamed broadly and when he drew rein he said in passable English, “My heart happy at see you again.”
“Small Badger,” Fargo said warmly. “Just the gent I’ve been hoping to run into.”
“You want to run me?”
Fargo grinned. He knew that his young friend had learned English from a missionary and tried his best to speak it well. “I figured your band is usually hereabouts at this time of year.” He motioned. “You and your friends are welcome to join me.”
Small Badger slid down. He was dressed in a fringed buckskin shirt trimmed with red cloth. His hair hung in thick braids past each ear. In front, he had cropped his bangs above his eyebrows. On his back hung a quiver filled with arrows and a bow made from the horn of a mountain sheep. He offered his hand, white fashion. “You looking for me?”
Over the meal Fargo explained why he was there. His young friend listened with interest.
“Five thousand much money, yes?”
“A small fortune to whites,” Fargo remarked, especially as most were lucky to earn four hundred a year.
“You must ask father,” Small Badger said. “Him decide.”
Fargo had reckoned as much. The Nez Perce were choosy about who they sold their horses to. They didn’t want Appaloosas to fall into the hands of enemies like the Blackfeet.
“It good you come.” Small Badger clapped him on the shoulder. “Gray Bear be happy see you.”
Fargo hoped so, or he had ridden all that way for nothing. In his mind’s eye he flashed back to the day he saved Small Badger from whites out to hang him for something he didn’t do. To the Nez Perce way of thinking, that put them in his debt.
“Father not same man,” Small Badger said.
“How do you mean?”
“One day Bloods come, try steal horses. My father and others fight them. Father shot with arrow here.” Small Badger touched his leg. “Him pull out but now father like this.” Small Badger got up and limped in a circle.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Father not smile much. Make Mother sad. Make me sad.”
Fargo remembered Gray Bear as being outgoing and friendly. “Some men get that way when they’re scarred for life. I almost took an arrow myself on my way here.”
“Who try shoot you?”
Fargo related his run-in with the war party. Small Badger became excited and was all for mounting up and going at them.
“There are more of them than there are of you,” Fargo admonished. “Your best bet is to let them be. Sooner or later they’ll drift back to where they came from.”
“How many Nimipuu they kill before they go?” Small Badger shook his head. “Blackfeet our enemy. They too close our land. We must find. We must drive off or kill.”
The other warriors listened to the chief’s son translate and all were in agreement.
Fargo tried to talk them out of it. He would have to go with them and that would delay him. “I just want to buy a couple of horses and be on my way.”
“I take you my father when Blackfeet dead or gone.”
“I tangled with them days ago. They’re probably halfway home by now.”
“We not know that,” Small Badger stubbornly insisted. “They be danger to my people. I warrior now. I must protect them. Must drive
enemy off.”
Fargo was sorry he had brought it up. Later, after the Nez Perce turned in, he lay racking his brain for a way to change Small Badger’s mind. The chief wouldn’t take it kindly if his son was killed, and would likely as not blame him.
The next morning Fargo tried again but he wasted his breath. The six Nez Perce checked their bowstrings and sharpened their knives and tomahawks, and were ready.
Reluctantly, Fargo retraced his back trail. He seldom rode faster than a walk as much to spare their animals as in the hope that if he took long enough, the Blackfeet would be long gone and he could get on about the business that brought him there.
Small Badger stayed at his side. He had grown a couple of inches since Fargo saw him last but in one respect the young warrior hadn’t changed a lick; he loved to gab. “I glad you come. We blood brothers for life.”
“I’m fond of you, too,” Fargo allowed, and meant it. The young warrior was so earnest and sincere it was hard not to like him.
“You remember name I give you?”
“How could I forget?” Fargo joked. “I still say it doesn’t fit.”
“I call you Iron Will because what you want, you get. When you make up mind, you do. You have strongest will I meet.”
“If it was half as strong as you claimed, we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing,” Fargo said. “It’s a mistake to court trouble when there’s no need.”
“I told you. Must make sure my people safe. You do same were you Nimipuu.”
“I suppose.”
“You find woman yet?”
Fargo looked at him. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m not looking to get hitched in this life or any other. What made you ask such a thing?”
Small Badger grinned. “I remember how you like females. You like them more than eat. You like them more than sleep.”
“Hell.”
“Last time you come village you stay seven sleeps and lay with two women. My t’ot—sorry, my father—him say you have qoq’a lx in pants.”