Six-Gun Gallows

by Jon Sharpe

  Two more men, Moss Harper and Jake Ketchum, had just joined Rafe and Shanghai in the gully. Both wore the cutaway holsters of professional gun-throwers.

  “Hell, why wait at all?” demanded Moss. “Best way to cure a boil is to lance it. Me, Jake, and Shanghai can pop the bastard over right now.”

  Rafe’s thin lips twitched into a smile. “All three of you boys have a set on you, all right. That’s why I chose you over the rest as my field lieutenants. But even three good men won’t take down Skye Fargo—not on the open plains.”

  Moss grunted. He had thinning red hair, a crooked nose broken in two places, and a patch over his left eye, which had been shot out in the Mexican War. “Happens he’s so rough, how’s come he didn’t try to help them mealymouthed psalm singers when it would’ve mattered?”

  “Men like him, who live their entire lives on the frontier, don’t stay alive by tilting at windmills. But you can take this to the bank: He won’t ride away like it’s none of his business. It’s an account he means to settle.”

  “All right,” Shanghai said. “You want I should catch up with the rest of our men? He can’t whip thirty at once.”

  “No, it’s too risky.”

  “Boss, has your brain gone soft? We can catch him in fifteen minutes and shoot him to rag tatters.”

  Belloch lowered the glasses and looked at him. His hard, dark eyes pierced like a pair of bullets. “Evidently you lads don’t recognize the name Fargo. You might know him better as the Trailsman—that’s what some call him.”

  “The Trailsman,” repeated Jake Ketchum, a wiry and small man with a mean little face like a terrier. A string of leathery human ears dangled from his rattlesnake-skin belt. “Yeah, I’ve heard some saloon gossip.”

  “In his case it’s not gossip. He’s got more guts than a smoke-house, and he rides the fastest, strongest horse in the West. Our men’s horses are stale by now, they’d never catch him at a dead run. Even if they could get close, Fargo’s a dead shot with that Henry rifle of his. That’s—what?—sixteen accurate shots from a repeater. And they say he can knock the eyes out of a buzzard at two hundred yards.”

  Shanghai snorted. “Yeah, and oysters can walk upstairs, too. No offense, boss, but since when did you turn into a nervous Nellie who believes in Robin Hood? Sounds like this lanky bastard puts ice in your boots.”

  “No man does that, Shanghai. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about killing a man like Skye Fargo. We’re going to do it the right way—and before he turns that mystery pouch over to the U.S. Army.”

  “Pouch?” Shanghai repeated. “What’s in it?”

  “That’s why I employed the adjective ‘mystery.’ Some old Quaker crone gave it to him. They’re all headed east now, probably to Sublette.”

  “Might be it’s nothing to do with us,” Moss suggested, adjusting his eye patch.

  Rafe shrugged. “Yes, maybe it’s just her family recipes, eh? But she gave it to Skye Fargo. And that tells me it’s likely to be trouble—the worst kind in the world. The kind that leaves men dancing on air.”

  Shanghai paled under the dust coating his face. “You don’t mean . . . the senator?”

  Rafe nodded. “I have no idea, mind you, but that’s what I suspect.”

  “Mr. Belloch,” Jake put in, “speaking of that deal with the senator, there’s something I don’t quite savvy. You work for the Kansas Pacific, ain’t that right?”

  Belloch kept a poker face. “I draw pay from them, Jake, yes.”

  “Then how’s come we’re raising hell in these parts? Ain’t this close to the route they favor?”

  “Jake, you flap your gums too much,” Shanghai cut in. “You got some problem with your pay?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Good. Just shut your gob and carry out orders.”

  “Sorry for nosing in, Mr. Belloch,” Jake said in a contrite voice. “You’re the rainmaker in these parts.”

  Belloch flashed his thin-lipped smile. “Rain, sleet, snow, and sunshine. But, boys, never mind me,” he said. “Don’t you realize there’s been a horrifying massacre here today?”

  Shanghai’s eyes narrowed. “You been grazing locoweed? We done the massacre.”

  “Shush.” Belloch touched a finger to his lips. “Boys, it was shocking and we all saw it. Skye Fargo, dressed like a border ruffian, led a band of desperadoes against those poor defenseless Quakers and killed their menfolk. Even violated their girls. Then he had the brazen effrontery to slip off, change back into buckskins, and pretend to help them.”

  “What’s brazen frunnery?” Jake asked.

  “Gall, Jake, gall. The murdering bastard is widely known as a railroad hater. That must be why he did it. And we, being only four in number, were helpless to prevent it.”

  Shanghai grinned, revealing a few stumps of tobacco-stained teeth. “Boss, you are some pumpkins. That’s pure genius.”

  “I’ll write up a report for the dispatch rider, and we’ll all sign it,” Belloch added. “Under territorial law, and with my credentials, that’ll be excuse enough to shoot him down like a rabid wolf.”

  “There’s still that pouch,” Moss pointed out.

  Belloch nodded. “From now until we kill him, Skye Fargo is the man of the hour. Since he’s known to work for the U.S. Army, I suspect he intends to deliver that pouch to a military man. Come hell or high water, we’re going to prevent him.”

  Fargo knew he was being watched, but out on the Great Plains that never worried him much.

  He never felt as relaxed, anywhere in the West, as he did on the open plains—still foolishly known as Zebulon Pike’s Great American Desert in geography books back east. There were dangers, to be sure. In some places rattlesnakes bred unchecked, and he had seen horse and rider suddenly consumed by them as if in flames, a writhing mass that brought death in seconds.

  And up from deep Texas there were wild herds of man-killing longhorns and equally lethal mustangs. The mustangs “liberated” saddle horses, stranding men to die in the vast lonesome. Fargo had encountered prairie-dog towns that stretched for miles, where grass knee-high to a tall man hid the holes so well a rider could lame his horse without warning.

  But human enemies were at a serious disadvantage out here. Ambush was nearly impossible, except in the growth near water, and the only real danger was large groups of attackers—and with a good Henry rifle like his, even they could be discouraged.

  Still, especially after the brutal massacre he’d witnessed yesterday, Fargo kept his sun-crimped eyes in constant motion while he formed balls of cornmeal and water and tossed them into the hot ashes of his campfire to bake. Several hours after sunset yesterday he had ridden into Sublette with the survivors of the massacre. After resting and graining the Ovaro, he had headed west twenty miles or so to the Cimarron River and made camp.

  He had been followed all the way by several men who kept their distance but made no effort to hide. Exactly why, Fargo wasn’t sure. Maybe it had something to do with that mysterious pouch, although he wasn’t sure how anyone could know he had it. At any rate, Fargo’s ride north to the Nebraska Panhandle would have to wait—after what he witnessed yesterday, there was a blood reckoning coming.

  At the moment, however, he had “visitors” closer to hand. Clumsy ones, at that. Once again he heard rustling noises from wild plum bushes near the river.

  “Tell me, boys,” Fargo called out. “You gonna hide in them bushes all day, or do you plan to shoot me? The suspense is killing me.”

  “Mister, we got you covered!” shouted the voice of an obviously young man. “We’re coming out! If you go for that pistol, we’ll make a sieve outta you!”

  Fargo, chewing a hot corn dodger, fought back a grin. “That’s mighty gaudy patter. By the way, this Colt is a revolver, not a pistol. Are’n’cha s’posed to shout out, ‘Toss down your gun!’?”

  After an awkward pause: “Toss down your gun!”

  “Atta boy. But if you don’t mind, I’ll lay it down g
ently. These walnut grips damage easy.”

  Fargo lay his Colt in the grass and continued eating. The bushes rustled some more as two boys, barely on the cusp of manhood, emerged and moved cautiously toward him. Both lads were tall, gangly towheads with fair skin burned raw by the late summer sun. Clearly they were brothers, the eldest stronger in the chest and sporting some blond fuzz on his cheeks and upper lip.

  The oldest one wagged a big Smith & Wesson Volcanic pistol at Fargo. “This here is a holdup, mister. Hand over your money.”

  Fargo fished a horseshoe nail from his shirt pocket and used it as a toothpick, still watching the boys. Both were severely underfed and wore flour-sack clothing, their floppy hats stained and burned from doubling as pot holders.

  “You deef, mister?” the young man demanded. “Break out your money or it’s curtains!”

  “Curtains?” Fargo laughed. “So you two owlhoots are about half rough, is that it?”

  He snatched his Colt out of the grass and blew the Volcanic out of the older brother’s hand. Before it could hit the ground, Fargo shot it again, sending it off in another arc.

  “Katy Christ!” the kid exclaimed. “That’s fancy shootin’, mister! Are you a gunfighter?”

  “No, I generally earn my wages the honest way.” Fargo twirled the Colt back into its holster. “Name’s Skye Fargo. Who are you boys?”

  “I’m Dub McCallister,” the oldest said. “This here’s my brother Nate.”

  “Both of you look like you just crawled out of three-cornered britches. Does your mother know you’re out?”

  Dub scowled. “I’m nineteen and Nate’s seventeen. We’re old enough to fend for ourselves.”

  “Yeah, I see that,” Fargo said sarcastically. “Let me give you two ‘road agents’ a tip. Even with the hammer back, a pistol that’s loaded should look dark as the inside of a boot when you look down the barrel. Yours has light streaming through it. You two best find another line of work—you’re poor shakes as holdup men.”

  “Dub, you shitheel!” Nate lashed out. “I told you to cram some grass down the barrel!”

  “Shut your piehole, clodpole, before I—”

  “Both of you knock it off,” Fargo snapped. “By right of territorial law, I can shoot the pair of you for cause.”

  Both towheads stood there looking miserable and ashamed. Fargo saw beggar lice leaping from their clothing. In spite of their poorly attempted crime against him, Fargo felt pity stir within him. He remembered his own shaky start when he was thrust wide upon the world at eighteen. These weren’t cold-blooded criminals—they were failed sodbusters on the brink of starvation.

  “Sit down, boys, and get outside of some grub. You’re no desperadoes; you’re just hungry.”

  “Mr. Fargo!” they said in unison, hurrying to the fire and helping themselves. Fargo had intended to eat some of those corn dodgers cold in the saddle, but they were disappearing fast and he reminded himself he had plenty of jerked buffalo.

  “Even if I had a bullet,” Dub told him with a full mouth, “I wouldn’ta shot you, Mr. Fargo.”

  Fargo picked up the Volcanic and its broken cylinder promptly fell out.

  “Yeah, I see what you mean,” he scoffed. “This weapon ain’t worth an old underwear button. What you’ve got here is a fistful of nothing. Do either of you know beans from buckshot?”

  “Both of us can shoot,” Nate said. “Our pa taught us ’fore he died. He fought Miami and Huron Indians back in Ohio.”

  “You got horses?”

  “Yessir. Hid down by the river.”

  It was movement, not shape, that caught a man’s attention in the open spaces. Fargo detected motion about a mile south, moving up the bank of the river. They weren’t likely dry-gulchers—not on the open plains. He glanced at the saddle pocket where he’d stuffed that doeskin pouch. His suspicion was only a glimmer . . .

  “Ohio?” he repeated. “Is that where you’re from?”

  “Yessir,” Dub replied. “Hamilton County. Us, Pa, Ma, and our sister Krissy. Had us a farm there.”

  “I just can’t put handles on this,” Fargo said. “I’ve been to Ohio. It’s good farmland. Rich soil and plenty of water. Why are farmers leaving it to come out here? It’s not safe enough yet for families to roost here, and the rain is fickle.”

  “Pa could explain it to you if he was still alive,” Dub replied. “Ma says he just had jackrabbits in his socks. Soon as you could see the nearest neighbor’s light at night, Pa felt hemmed in and ready to push on.”

  Fargo grinned. “Now I can understand. But the Indian Territory is just south of us, and this area is crawling with white owlhoots on the dodge. It’s no place for tenderfoots who don’t know sic ’em about the frontier.”

  Almost as if timed to prove Fargo’s point, his hat suddenly spun off as a bullet whiffed in. A fractional section later, the solid crack of a big-bore rifle reached them.

  Both boys leaped like butt-shot dogs, then pressed flat into the deep grass.

  “Sharps rifle—known as the Big Fifty,” Fargo said calmly, his face rueful as he studied this latest bullet hole in his hat. “The widow-maker, most dangerous gun on the Plains. And, right now, a damn good shooter using it.”

  “Ain’t you gonna take cover?” Nate demanded, his voice tight with anxiety.

  “Nah. It’s a single-shot and he’s reloading,” Fargo said, ignoring his tack and leaping onto the Ovaro bareback. “They sent in their card, now it’s time to send in mine.”

  Jacking a round into the Henry’s chamber and grabbing a handful of mane, Fargo thumped the pinto with his heels and they shot off toward the Cimarron. The Trailsman held on with his muscular legs and aimed toward the spot where he’d last seen motion, peppering it with rounds. He expected return fire. Instead, two riders suddenly pulled foot from the trees before he even got close. Western rivers dried to trickle streams by September, and they easily forded the Cimarron, bearing west.

  Fargo wasn’t fool enough to close in too much on a Big Fifty in open country. He tugged on the Ovaro’s mane and returned to camp.

  “They ran like scared rabbits,” Dub greeted him, flashing his gap-toothed grin. “How’s come you run ’em ’steada hunkering down?”

  “They expected me to cover down. Always try to surprise, mystify, and confuse your enemies.”

  “Yeah,” Nate chimed in, “but they was shooting at you, and you headed right toward the gun.”

  “If you think about it,” Fargo pointed out, “there’s no sense in running a gun. You ever met a man who can run faster than a bullet? So come right out of the chute bucking—they don’t expect it, and it rattles ’em. That’s why they ran.”

  “Are you wanted by the law?” Nate added, sounding almost hopeful.

  “Evidently I’m wanted, all right, but not by the law.”

  “Do you know who that was, Mr. Fargo?” Dub asked.

  “Don’t think so,” Fargo replied as he swung down. “But lately this area is lousy with egg-sucking varmints. All I know is they’ve been watching me.”

  “I wonder how’s come,” Nate said.

  “That’s got me treed, son.” Again Fargo glanced toward his saddle. “But it’s possible they want something I have.”

  3

  Fargo quickly ran a wiping patch down the Henry’s bore, reloaded the tube magazine, then tacked the Ovaro for the trail.

  “Where you boys headed?” he asked as he checked his cinches and latigos.

  “Well, the thing of it is,” Dub replied, “our farm is just ten miles west of here. But we can’t go back.”

  “Why not?”

  “On account it ain’t a farm no more,” Nate said, his voice bitter. “The wheat headed up real good, and the corn got its tassels. Then the goddamn grasshoppers ate us out.”

  “If we stay on,” Dub explained, “won’t be enough food for Ma and Krissy. So me and Nate are headed east to see can we maybe join the border gangs. Ain’t much else we can do.”

  Fargo s
hook his head in disgust. “If youth but knew and age could do.”

  “What’s that mean?” Nate demanded.

  “Are you boys murderers? Are you the kind to rape innocent girls? Are you prepared to burn women and children and old men out of their homes in the middle of the night?”

  “ ’Course not,” Dub said, his tone resentful. “We cuss a mite, and chew, but we was Bible-raised.”

  Fargo described, in vivid detail, the raid yesterday by border ruffians on unarmed Quakers. He included the man he was forced to mercy kill. Both boys paled noticeably.

  “Jumpin’ Jupiter!” Nate said. “We heard they just robbed federal paymasters and such.”

  “Well, junior, you heard wrong. The border ruffians are the same trash that persecuted the Mormons and drove them out to Salt Lake. And what about your ma and sister? You two bravos just plan to leave two defenseless women out here alone among Indians and hard cases on the prod?”

  “We was aiming to go back home,” Dub said, “soon’s we earned some money with the gangs.”

  “Besides,” Nate chimed in, “they aren’t defenseless. We left Ma the gun that works, and thanks to a favor Pa done for the Indians before he died, they leave our place alone.”

  After what he’d witnessed yesterday, Fargo doubted that anybody was safe out here—least of all the dying man he was forced to shoot. He looked at both of these boys—their ragged clothing, their emaciated frames, their desperate eyes—and realized what he had to do.

  Fargo was flush with big winnings from an all-night poker game with officers at Fort Leavenworth, where he had just finished a stint as chief of scouts. It was far more than he required for his meager needs.

  “So your place is pretty safe, huh?” he said. “Let’s ride out and have a look at it.”

  Dub and Nate exchanged a wary glance. “You trying to trick us into going back, Mr. Fargo?” Dub asked.

  “Look, boys, haven’t I been a square dealer with you? You tried to rob me, and I gave you breakfast instead of lead in your sitters. Don’t worry—even if I tricked you into going back, how could I make you stay?”

  Dub slowly nodded. “All that’s true. But—don’t take offense, Mr. Fargo, but are you a gentleman? You see, our sister, Krissy, well, she’s mighty easy on the eyes. And our ma still turns heads, too.”