by Jon Sharpe
Fargo grinned. “You want me to ride in blindfolded?”
“Ahh.” Dub flushed. “ ’Course you can look. Pa always told us you can’t hang a man for his thoughts. But you won’t . . . you know, outrage them?”
“If that means ‘rape,’ ” Fargo said, “I ought to slap you sick and silly, you young dolt. If that was my plan, I’d just let you boys ride on and find the place myself. All my gals are willing volunteers.”
“That’s all we need to know.”
With Fargo leading the Ovaro by his bridle, all three men headed on foot toward the river, Fargo carefully scanning the wide-open country around them. The McCallister boys had hobbled their mounts, two huge and gentle dobbins, or farm horses, in a willow copse near the river. Fargo noticed their saddles were just sheepskin pads, the bridles simple rope hackamores.
“Mr. Fargo,” Nate said as the trio started across the nearly dry bed of the Cimarron, “why we going to our place?”
“Because I’m lucky at cards,” Fargo replied cryptically, discreetly refraining from adding: and with women.
Rafe Belloch, whose fancy pebble-stock cards identified him as a “businessman’s agent,” had established his frontier headquarters ten miles east of the busy trading post at Sublette. It was a well-protected dugout in the middle of a thick pine copse, built decades earlier by French fur traders as a winter headquarters.
“I told both of you,” he said in his quiet, menacing tone, “to just watch him for now. The point right now is simply to make sure Fargo doesn’t get near any soldiers. Why, Moss, did you shoot at him?”
Moss Harper and Jake Ketchum stood in sullen silence just inside the dugout. A bottle of fine bourbon and a pony glass sat before Rafe on a crude deal table. Despite the rustic lodging, he wore a new wool suit and glossy ankle boots.
Moss tugged nervously at his eye patch. “I understood your order, Mr. Belloch. But I had a good bead on the son of a bitch, so I figured I’d just plant him in the bone orchard and get him out of your hair.”
“Moss damn near plugged him, too,” Jake added. “Blew his hat right off his head.”
You ignorant chawbacons, Rafe thought. But he himself had recruited these men from the most ruthless of the border ruffians, and he knew they would cut out his heart if he berated them too severely.
“Well, it’s too dead to skin now,” he said dismissively. “Did he get a good look at either of you?”
“No, sir,” Moss said. “He charged us, but we done like you said and skedaddled.”
Rafe nodded. “A wise policy. Be patient with Fargo, gentlemen. When it comes to survival, he’s what they call a huckleberry above a persimmon.”
“Ah, I know his type,” Jake said. “He reads his name in all them crapsheets and overrates himself.” He stroked his cutaway holster. “I’ve sent nine men over the range with Patsy Plumb here, and Fargo will make it ten.”
“Oh, we’ll kill him,” Rafe agreed. “But I suspect Fargo rarely sees a newspaper, so don’t count on the overrating part. Send Shanghai in when you leave.”
While Rafe waited, he stepped outside to glance around. Most of his “crew,” as he called the border ruffians on his payroll, were hanging around the area, gambling and drinking. Many of these men had been recruited back east in the rough Baxter Springs area, a wild and woolly corner of the Kansas Territory, near the Missouri border, that settlers had learned to steer clear of.
Belloch knew this Baxter Springs bunch had no respect for authority, but they did respect whiskey and gold, both of which the railroad barons supplied generously. There were millions to be made by whoever got that transcontinental railroad contract, and the U.S. Congress would be exceedingly generous in granting land for the right-of-way—land the railroad could then sell at top dollar after luring ignorant settlers out west with lying slogans such as, “Rain follows the plow!”
Shanghai Webb’s gravelly voice cut into his thoughts. “You want to see me, boss?”
“Let’s go inside, Shanghai. I take it you’ve heard all about Moss Harper’s botched attempt this morning to kill Fargo?”
Webb followed his employer into the cool dugout. “Yeah. Moss don’t mean to be disrespectful, boss. He thought he had a plumb bead, is all, and he knew you were worried about that pouch.”
Rafe waved a negligent hand. “Actually, I’m glad he took that shot. From what I know of Fargo, it’ll keep him in this area. He’s one for settling accounts. And we want him to stick around.”
Shanghai nodded. “That rings right.”
Rafe pushed the bottle of bourbon toward Shanghai, who took a long belt, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Say, that ain’t wagon-yard whiskey, is it? Anyhow, yesterday you started frettin’ about how Fargo might take that pouch to a fort or outpost. Now you really think he’ll stick around these parts? ’Pears to me he’s a drifter, and he ain’t got much stake in the game.”
“You’re spot on when you say he’s a drifter. But after what he saw yesterday, I’m again of the opinion that he’ll stick.”
Shanghai said, “It’s his funeral. So you mean he’s a crusader?”
“Hardly, from what I hear and read. He’ll ignore a certain amount of lawbreaking. Hell, he’ll run afoul of the law himself. But the murder of unarmed Quakers . . . Like I said yesterday, he won’t let it stand. Which means, of course, that he’ll show up in Sublette.”
“If he does, we’ll powder-burn him. Our men control that place.”
Belloch stroked his spade beard. “It might come to that. But openly killing Skye Fargo would quickly get noised about the entire West, and my employers wouldn’t appreciate the notoriety. If we can lay hands on that pouch, Fargo has nothing on us.”
“What about that little barn dance yesterday?”
“Oh, it’s true he saw the massacre, but he didn’t see either of us. Besides, I’m writing up a report right now for our dispatch rider. It will implicate Fargo in the massacre.”
“I take your drift,” Shanghai said. “But we don’t even know what’s in that pouch he’s got.”
Rafe paced the length of the dugout, hands clasped behind his back. “True enough. But think back to the . . . incident with Senator Drummond and General Hoffman on their congressional fact-finding mission.”
“Think back? Hell, that’s all you hear about in Sublette—how both of them have disappeared. A search party has gone out from the outpost at Two Buttes.”
Belloch nodded. “That’s part of the plan—the news has to get out about the supposed Indian threat this far south on the plains. But what I mean is, do you recall how many soldiers, besides the general, were guarding Senator Drummond?”
“Uh-huh, I counted ’em. Twelve.”
“And after . . . the incident, how many bodies did we count?”
Shanghai hesitated, seeing the point. “Only thirteen total. So you’re thinking that means . . . ?”
“Exactly. One may have slipped away. Now do you see why I’m ‘fretting’ about that pouch?”
Shanghai swallowed another jolt of bourbon. “Christ yes! If it’s what you’re thinking, we could be boosted branchward.”
“Colorfully put. So we have to get that pouch. I want you to pick your best sneak thief and send him to see me. And one more thing—about Moss. You heard him ask me, yesterday, about working for the Kansas Pacific?”
“I wouldn’t sweat that, boss. Moss is a deadly bastard when he’s on the scrap, but he ain’t got the brains God gave a pissant.”
“Maybe not, but he’s cunning in his way. If he ever figures out that you and I are actually helping the Rock Island Line win its northern route, and he tells the Kansas Pacific leadership, we’ll never make it to trial.”
Shanghai was about to reply when two border ruffians, dragging a young woman between them, appeared outside the dugout.
“Mr. Belloch?” said a man with a red beard stained by tobacco spit. “Got a reg’lar peach for you here. Feisty little bitch. Snatched her from—”
“N
ever mind where you got her,” Belloch said, appreciatively eyeing the slender young blonde whose pretty face was a frozen mask of fear. “Nobody saw you?”
“Nary a soul.”
Belloch took a chamois purse from his coat pocket and counted out five silver dollars for each man.
“You know where to put her,” he said. “Who gave her that shiner?”
“I done it,” redbeard said. “Couldn’t be helped. After I done for her husband, she fought like a wildcat.”
“I told you I don’t like bruised fruit. Next time you grab one for me, punch her in the stomach. That takes the fight out of them.”
“Yessir. Didn’t think of that.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Belloch said, his mild sarcasm wasted on the thug.
After the two men dragged her away, Shanghai cleared his throat.
“There’s whores in Sublette,” Rafe said, knowing where this was headed. “That’s where the crew goes.”
“I know, boss, but them bitches ain’t even got any teeth left. This here gal is exter pretty.”
“Rank has its privileges.”
“Yeah, but . . . any idea when you’ll be finished with her? I wouldn’t mind—”
“I dally with them only one time, then wait for the next one,” Rafe said impatiently. “And when I’m finished, I always make sure they will never be able to report it—what the Indians call ‘stoning them into silence.’ You take my meaning?”
“Sure. Leave her for me, and soon’s I’m done I’ll put the quietus on her.”
“Fine, but it will be a couple of days. I don’t touch any woman who sports a bruise or cut.”
“That one’s worth waiting for,” Shanghai said. “I’ll keep the rest away from her.”
“Business before pleasure. Right now put her out of your thoughts and concentrate on Fargo. I’m about to put the report out on the massacre he led yesterday, a report you, Moss, and Jake will sign with me. But that report won’t be worth a rat’s ass if that pouch he’s carrying contains what I fear it does and we fail to seize it.”
Rafe slid a watch from his fob pocket and thumbed back the cover. “Time’s pressing. Go find your best sneak thief and send him to me.”
4
The trio of riders topped a long, low rise, and Dub McCallister pointed straight ahead.
“That’s our place, Mr. Fargo. Ain’t much to brag about. You can see we didn’t bother to harvest the fields.”
“Drought stunted the crops,” Nate put in, “and then grasshoppers done for us.”
“Jesus, boys,” Fargo said, gigging the Ovaro forward. “How can you live in that soddy? The roof’s caved in.”
“We don’t,” Dub said. “Ma hated it from the get-go. One day she was boiling up some cabbage and a rattlesnake dropped off the roof right into the pot.”
“Moses on the mountain, she had a conniption fit,” Nate recalled, laughing at the memory. “Krissy hated the soddy, too. Well, the first good harvest we had, Pa sold off the wheat to the army and had some planks shipped out. Built that barn you see,” he added proudly. “The only by-God wooden barn in the west Kansas Territory, I’ll bet. When Pa died, Ma said the barn was our new house.”
“Just one end of it,” Dub added. “The rest is still a barn.”
As they drew closer, Fargo saw a woman in a blue broad-cloth skirt and white shirtwaist—clean but faded to gray—step out of the barn holding a long Jennings rifle. However, when she took her eyes off Fargo and recognized her sons, she propped the weapon against the barn.
“Hey, Ma!” Dub called as they rode into the hard dirt yard. “We brought company. This here’s Mr. Skye Fargo. Mr. Fargo, this is our ma, Mrs. Lorena McCallister.”
“Skye Fargo,” she repeated. “Skye is a nice front name. Matches those blue eyes of yours.”
Fargo tipped his hat. “Thank you, Mrs. McCallister. Lorena is a mighty nice name, too.”
As Fargo swung down, landing light as a cat, he got a better look at this farm widow. She put him in mind of many women he had seen on the plains. Still pretty, still shapely, but with weather-creased eyes that had seen too much. She was just starting to wilt, like a beautiful bouquet one day after the ball.
“Well, you two,” she said, looking at her sons, “I thought you were going out to conquer the world? I figured maybe you were in China by now.”
They slid off their tall horses, too embarrassed to meet her eyes. “Ahh, we . . . met up with Mr. Fargo,” Dub explained, too ashamed to mention the botched robbery. “He wanted to see our place.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she glanced at Fargo. “See our place—or see Krissy?”
“Anything that’s here,” Fargo said honestly. “Including the handsome woman I’m speaking with right now.”
Lorena smiled. “I like men who’re frank—they don’t harbor secret motives. Well, if it’s the place you wanted to see, you must be disappointed, Mr. Fargo. Wilfred, my late husband, used to say there’s room to swing a cat in out here. I like the open spaces, but with their pa dead and buried, the children miss Ohio.”
Something at one corner of the barn caught Fargo’s attention. He walked closer to examine it. A Southern Cheyenne red-streamered lance had been stuck deep into the dirt. Its shaft was wrapped in a strip of vermilion-dyed rawhide.
“Who put that peace pole on your property?” Fargo asked.
“Chief Gray Thunder’s band from south of the Republican River. My husband saved his son’s life when he almost drowned in the Cimarron.”
“Ever since, we ain’t never been attacked by Cheyenne or Sioux,” Dub put in proudly.
Fargo nodded. “That pole was a stroke of good fortune. But there’s free-ranging Osage and Pawnee out here, too, and a bunch of tribes in the Indian Territory south of here that like to jump the rez.”
“We see them sometimes,” Lorena said. “But, so far, when they see that spear, they’ve left us alone. It’s these white marauders I fear—gangs moving in from the Missouri border region.”
“Speaking of white marauders, Ma,” Nate said, “we had us a set-to with some earlier today. Mr. Fargo here run ’em off like scairt rabbits. You oughter see him shoot—he’s a dead aim.”
Lorena’s eyes took Fargo’s full measure. “I’m not surprised to hear that. He looks fit for duty, all right.”
“It wasn’t much of a scrape,” Fargo gainsaid. For Lorena’s sake he didn’t add: but I expect it will get worse for all of us.
A musically feminine voice interrupted them. “Ma, you didn’t tell me we had company.”
Fargo watched a young woman around twenty years old come around the corner of the barn, a reed basket of wildflowers depending from one arm. She was one of the comeliest farmer’s daughters Fargo had ever seen: tiny-waisted and ample-breasted, with pale skin like flawless lotion, big sea green eyes and a profusion of hair black and shiny as a crow’s wing.
“Krissy,” Lorena teased, “you started brushing your hair the moment you spotted Mr. Fargo. And I don’t blame you. He’s what they call a well-knit man.”
And you two, Fargo thought, glancing back and forth between both attractive women, are what they call an embarrassment of riches.
“Ma!” Krissy protested, fluttering her lashes at Fargo. “Such talk is shameless!”
An old hound dog had followed Krissy around the corner.
“That’s Dan’l Boone,” Nate told Fargo. “He’s old and lazy, but nobody sneaks up on us. He didn’t bark at you because me and Dub was with you.”
“I’m glad you have a good watchdog,” Fargo said. “And I’m glad you two ladies have a peace pole in plain sight. But those white marauders you just mentioned, Mrs. McCallister—you’re wise to fear them. I recommend you consider going back to Ohio, or at least east of the Mississippi River.”
“I already know it was a mistake to try and farm here, Mr. Fargo. Drought and grasshoppers have taught me that.”
Krissy waited until her mother wasn’t looking, then gave
Fargo a come-hither smile he could feel in his hip pocket. It took him a moment to regain his train of thought.
“No, all due respect—your mistake, Mrs. McCallister, was in leaving the Land of Steady Habits. You’re just too far west, or too soon, anyhow. There’s no dependable law out here in the Territories. Soldiers are scarce as hen’s teeth—scattered so thin they can barely protect themselves, and these stupid three-month enlistments mean they never learn how to soldier.”
“Yes, I told my husband it was lawless out here, but he said there was law back east. So much that we were headed to the county poorhouse. They brought in tax assessors and started taxing us on horses, mules, cattle, even how many bushels of corn we harvested. Wilfred said the sun travels west and so would we.”
Fargo grinned. “My stick floats the same way his did. And nobody has the right to order you around. But it’s becoming a tinderbox out here, and it’s best to either stay east of the Mississippi or go all the way to Oregon where there’s safety in numbers.”
Lorena shook her head stubbornly. “You mean well, Mr. Fargo, and you’re probably right. But my man killed himself to scratch out this farm—worked so hard he died from a double hernia that putrefied his insides. My kids are big enough to do as they please, but I just ain’t leaving.”
“And I won’t leave Ma,” Krissy said, hungry eyes raking over Fargo. “Like the boys done.”
“We didn’t leave her, you dang liar,” Dub snapped at his sister. “We set out to, well, earn some money for the family.”
“Shush it, both of you,” Lorena said, looking at Fargo again. “They’re fine boys, Mr. Fargo. A bit thickheaded, but brave, honest, and faithful. Fine marksmen, too, thanks to my husband. Trouble is, Wilfred passed away before he really had a chance to finish turning them into frontiersmen. Come inside the barn a moment, there’s something else I’d like to show you.”
Fargo followed her inside, the light dim after the glaring afternoon sunshine outside. The far end of the barn was obviously living quarters, complete with an iron cook stove, several chairs and a table, and beds. Halfway inside, Lorena knelt and dug her hands into the straw. She raised a trapdoor. Fargo noticed that pitch had been applied to it to keep the straw permanently in place.