by Jon Sharpe
“Jehosaphat!” Nate whispered when they removed their blankets. “It’s like dusk instead of dead of night.”
“Make sure to use that advantage,” Fargo admonished, forking leather. “Try not to look into any fires or you’ll lose it.”
“I won’t. Man, Dub, we’re learning some slick tricks from—”
“Stow it,” Fargo snapped. “This is what the army calls movement to contact phase—the most dangerous time. No talk that isn’t necessary. Just look and listen.”
From here the trio held their horses to a walk, Fargo guessing that, on such a dark night, their enemy might be listening. He circled around to the north side this time and reined in a quarter mile from the dark mass of trees.
All three hobbled their mounts. The boys held back while Fargo moved quickly forward in spurts, relying on his mind map to guide him toward the rope corral at the edge of the outer ring of trees.
He had guessed correctly: the jayhawkers, expecting trouble, had built no fires tonight. But Fargo’s enhanced night vision, and their glowing pipes and cigarettes, allowed him to make out small groups of men. He spotted the milling horses and started to duck under one of the ropes.
The metallic click of a gun being cocked, just inches from his head, made Fargo’s bowels go loose and heavy with dread. But he reacted with lightning-fast reflexes, filling his hand and smashing the barrel of his Colt downward hard on the sentry’s temple, knocking him unconscious and unhinging his knees—the same quick “buffalo” blow that had saved Fargo’s life several times before.
Fargo’s blade cut deep and wide into the man’s throat to finish him off. He wiped the blade off on the corpse’s pants and moved into the corral. The horses whiffed the stallion smell on him, and only a few bothered to nicker. Still, it was enough noise to cause notice.
“Jubilee!” an authoritative voice rang out from the camp. “Them horses all right?”
“Rabbit spooked ’em,” Fargo called back.
“Yeah? Well, just keep your eyes peeled. You already let that son of a bitch slip past you once.”
Fargo picked two of the friendliest, best-muscled horses, both geldings, a sorrel and a black with no white markings. The tack was heaped in a corner, so he tossed a saddle and bridle on each mount, then cut the rope on the side of the corral facing the open plains, keeping the cut rope.
“Boys, your new horses,” he greeted the McCallister brothers. “Tie lead lines to your nags, then let’s get this medicine show on the road.”
He cut the rope into two pieces and gave one to each youth.
“Now remember,” he told them, “wait till I shoot. As soon as you’re down to six bullets in reserve, retreat to your horses and head back to camp.”
Soon the three men were sneaking into the outer pines. Relying on his mental map, Fargo posted Nate on his left, Dub on his right, each with a tree to cover him. Fargo took up his own position and aimed at a dark mass of men straight ahead.
His first shot shattered the silence and unleashed a hammering of gunfire from his companions. But this time their enemy was ready, and the return firepower was even more intense. Rifles, handguns, and scatterguns opened up from the inner rings of trees, and because Fargo had fired first, his position drew most of the lead—just as he had planned.
Branches snapped, pine needles rained down, and splinters of wood turned the air dangerous. Fargo levered and fired, moving quickly to a new tree after every pair of shots. Somebody on his team had struck pay dirt—a border ruffian howled in pain.
Fargo felt a flood of relief when he heard the horses scattering. He doubted that this bunch would pursue him and the boys on foot, across open plains, to the horses, nor could they chase them in the saddle. They would spend the rest of the night, and probably much of tomorrow, rounding up their horses.
Bullets whiffed past him so close that he felt the wind-rip on his cheeks. The boys had ceased fire, and Fargo hoped that meant they were retreating. Fortunately, none of the sixteen bullets in his Henry hung fire, and when he heard the hammer fall on an empty chamber, Fargo turned to run.
And that’s when everything went drastically wrong.
“Aye!” a voice shouted behind him. “I hear him! Throw it straight ahead!”
Fargo heard a sickeningly familiar sound: the fizzling and crackling of a fuse. He put on an extra burst of speed, but in midstride a dangerously close explosion lit up the night and slammed into him like a mule kick.
The blast heaved him into the air as Skye Fargo’s world shut down to darkness.
12
Grab him under his armpit, Nate! Space your shots out!
Fargo felt himself bumping roughly along the ground as he fought to swim up from the murky depths of unconsciousness. Guns were barking close to his ears, and shots filled the air.
Christ, here they come! Make every bullet score, Nate!
Fargo’s eyes snapped open, and he smelled singed hair. Somebody was dragging him across the grassy plain.
“Shit-oh-dear!” he heard Dub shout. “They’re rushing us, brother. I’m down to two shots!”
“I’m out!”
Fargo, still too weak to fight loose, slapped leather and fired at the shadows chasing them—six accurately placed shots that broke the jayhawkers’ bravado and sent them back into the tree cover.
“Way to hold and squeeze, Mr. Fargo!” Dub exclaimed. “We thought you was dead.”
Even as he was dragged along, Fargo, battle-hardened by experience, began thumbing reloads into the wheel of his Colt in case of another charge.
“I think I can stand up now, fellows. Reload your short guns.”
They pulled Fargo, still woozy and disoriented, to his feet. Each youth reloaded, then took an arm and helped Fargo back to the horses.
“You hurt bad?” Dub asked.
Fargo carefully checked every body part. “The bastards singed my beard, is all. Eyebrows are gone, too, but I held on to my rifle.”
“Criminy, they got dynamite,” Nate said.
“Yeah, but we poured it to ’em good, buddy,” Dub boasted.
“Caulk up, both of you,” Fargo snapped. “This is no time to recite our coups. The enemy could still attack while we’re retreating. Watch our backtrail close.”
Fargo’s warning rang true when, a heartbeat later, a shower of orange sparks came arcing toward them. Fargo put a bear hug round both boys and drove them to the left as an earsplitting explosion showered them with dirt and grass.
“Open fire dead ahead!” Fargo ordered, Colt jumping in his fist.
A group of jayhawkers had rushed forward under cover of the explosion, but three six-guns spitting lead persuaded them to retreat.
“This is the last time we try this play,” Fargo said as the trio mounted, Dub and Nate holding lead lines. “These sons of trouble are getting desperate.”
They spotted a few of the liberated horses, contentedly grazing, as they rode west to their camp.
“How’s them new mounts?” Fargo asked.
“This sorrel’s fine,” Dub said. “Real comfortable gait. I’m not used to a real saddle, though.”
“That saddle will have to shape to your horse’s back,” Fargo said. “I just grabbed two off the pile.”
“This black’s all right, too,” Nate said. “Seems a mite skittish, is all.”
“Most outlaws’ horses are,” Fargo said. “He’s expecting the spurs.”
They reached camp safely and stripped the leather from their mounts after watering them and placing them on long tethers. Fargo gave each of the brothers a horseshoe nail.
“These will work as hoof picks. Once a day,” he told them, “check a horse’s hooves for stones. Once a stone crack works its way up the fetlock, a horse is ruined.”
“Damnation, Mr. Fargo,” Nate exalted. “We done pretty good tonight, huh? Got two horses, set the rest free, and shot the hell outta their camp.”
“You boys will do to take along,” Fargo agreed. “You proved me wrong. Y
ou do have the caliber for this job.”
The brothers looked at each other, and even in the dim light Fargo could see their ear-to-ear smiles.
“There’s one problem,” Fargo added, making his voice solemn.
“What?” they both demanded.
“You made a promise to me to retreat no matter what happened to me. You gave your word, and you broke it. A man’s word is his bond.”
“Yessir,” Dub muttered.
“Well, that’s grave, lads. And . . .” Fargo paused dramatically. “I’m mighty glad you broke your word. Hell, I owe my life to you gutsy sons of bucks.”
The McCallister boys, not expecting this, stared at Fargo.
“Boys, when that dynamite blew me into the air, I thought I’d bought the farm, bull and all.”
“But what do we do next?” Dub asked. “You said we can’t attack their camp no more.”
Fargo spread his groundsheet, then his blanket. “I’ll have to study on that. I know this much: Belloch wants that pouch bad, and if we don’t come up with a plan, our enemy will.”
The situation at the border ruffians’ camp was critical, and Rafe Belloch knew it. Twice now Fargo and his young sidekicks had repelled attacks along the creek, with bloody results for the jayhawkers. And twice Fargo had slipped, seemingly at will, into their camp. Add to that the two killings in the cottonwood grove, of Les and Harney, and the men were on the verge of total desertion—assuming they all found their horses.
Last night’s attack, Belloch told himself, was more noisy than it was deadly. With the grisly exception of Jubilee Lofley, whose head was half severed from his neck, only two men had been wounded. But these men were badly spooked now, and only a drastic change in tactics might hold them together.
“Gents,” he addressed his three lieutenants, “you may think our tits are caught in a wringer, but I assure you—Fargo needn’t be tacking up bunting just yet. Not by a jugful.”
Shanghai, Moss, and Jake sat at the deal table, watching their employer pace.
“The hell you jabbering about, Mr. Belloch?” Jake demanded. “What’s bunting?”
Belloch stared at the sullen, terrier-faced lackey until he glanced away. This was a new tone from Jake, and Belloch warned himself that he could lose all control over these piggish killers if he tolerated rebellion.
“I don’t know, boss,” Shanghai said. “Him and them tads with him has put damn near ten of our men out of the fight, counting the wounded we’ve had to kill. It sure seems like our tits are caught in a wringer.”
Rafe waved a negligent hand. “Never mind those ten—their bones will raise our throne higher. I’ll divide their pay among the rest. I tell you, we will live to piss on Fargo’s grave.”
“Yeah, but you know these men,” Moss said. “They been pushed to their limit. Right now it’s two hours past sunup, and half of them are still trying to catch their horses. If we’re lucky they’ll just light a shuck back to the eastern territory. If we’re unlucky, they’ll kill us all for our money.”
“It won’t come to that,” Rafe insisted. “By now our report, framing Fargo for that attack on the Quakers, has reached the military.”
“No offense, boss,” Shanghai said. “But you add that report to a nail, and you’ll have a nail. Who knows how long before they look into it. There’s rumors of war brewing back east, and the frontier forts are down to just enough soldiers for force protection. But Fargo works fast. It ain’t even been a week since we locked horns with him, yet the cockchafer has done the hurt dance on us.”
“You’re right, Shanghai, the man has an endless supply of fox plays. But our mistake has been in trying to beat him at field tactics. We should have been using wit and wile.”
“How so?”
Rafe gazed out the open front of the dugout, hands clasped behind him. “We’ve been looking for a chink in Fargo’s armor, right? Well, I think I know of one.”
He turned around. “Moss, the other night you said that if Rosario had set you up to be killed, as she did with Fargo, you’d have gutted her.”
The one-eyed redhead nodded. “Yeah, after I bulled her a couple times.”
“Me, too,” Jake cut in. “She’s got tits. I’d like to—”
“Jake,” Shanghai cut him off, “your mouth runs like a whip-poor-will’s ass. Shut the hell up.”
“Killing her is how any of us would have handled it,” Rafe continued. “After pondering it, I’m not sure Fargo really beat her as Shanghai reported. That damage could have been artfully contrived. But let’s assume Fargo did beat her—why didn’t he kill her?”
“Because he wanted to poke her again?” Jake guessed.
Sudden anger and annoyance darkened Belloch’s gaze. “Jake, you have a remarkable knack for grasping the obvious and missing the essence. He didn’t kill her, you ignorant chawbacon, because he lives by a code of honor. And it’s that code we’ll use to bring him down.”
“I’m sick and tired of all your damn insults,” Jake complained.
“Do tell?”
Jake’s words fairly tumbled over each other in his pent-up need to make his case. “Yessir, I will tell. Our hash is cooked, Mr. Belloch, and it’s all your fault. Jubilee makes it nine that has died now, and number ten is dyin’ as we speak. We didn’t lose this many in the Lawrence raid. We need to pull up stakes before Fargo kills the rest of us. You act like king coyote, but all your fancy plans ain’t worth a shit.”
A lethal sense of purpose concentrated Belloch’s features. “That’s mighty tall talk, Ketchum.”
“Like hell it is. You talk like a book, all right, but you been wrong all along about Fargo. He hangs on like a tick, and if we stay here we’re in for six sorts of hell. You’ll catch a weasel asleep before you kill him. Truth be told, you’re just a damn little barber’s clerk. Ain’t never killed a man in your life, not with your own hands.”
“You mean . . . like this?”
Not one of the three men had seen Belloch tug the Spanish dagger out of his boot. In one fast, hard snap it flew across the dugout and straight into Jake’s throat, burying itself deep. He managed to lurch to his feet, making a ghastly choking noise, then hit the dirt floor with a sound like a sack of salt landing on hardpan. His heels scratched several times before he died.
“He was a bird-brained idiot,” Belloch announced calmly. “Not worth a fart in a whirlwind. I’ll keep him on the payroll and split his share between you two.”
“Damn, boss, you’re some pumpkins with that dagger,” Shanghai said. “Savage as a meat ax! Hope you ain’t plannin’ the same for us.”
“Rest easy, gents. You’ve both been a strong right arm to me, and I’m glad you nailed your colors to my mast. Jake, however, got on my nerves, the ignorant mudsill. He was even stupider than God made him.”
Now Rafe played his ace. He pulled out his money purse and gave each man eighty dollars in gold.
“Hell,” Moss said, “it’s no say-so of Jake’s what you do. You done the hiring.”
“And now I’ve done the firing.”
“So what do you have in mind for Rosario?” Shanghai asked.
“Ahh,” Belloch replied. “As to that . . .”
Throughout the morning and afternoon following the strike on the jayhawker camp, Fargo and the McCallister boys maintained tight vigilance. One of them stayed up in the tree at all times, and Fargo frequently felt the ground with three fingertips to detect large groups of riders.
“This is boring,” Nate said toward the middle of the afternoon. “That set-to last night got my blood to singing.”
Fargo, busy oiling the Henry’s lever mechanism, gave that remark a sardonic grin. “When you’re a little older, you’ll appreciate being bored.”
“They could still attack,” Dub called down from the tree. “Plenty of daylight left.”
“They could, but I can’t see it,” Fargo gainsaid. “They haven’t fared too well in these last two scrapes along the creek. And along about now, if I know the
se border thugs, they’re starting to sull on their leaders. This Belloch is likely having some trouble putting down a mutiny.”
“You got a plan yet?” Nate asked.
“I’m hanged if I do. It’s been six days now since these sage rats attacked the Quakers, and now we’re boxed in here. It’s dragging out too long, and time usually favors the larger force.”
“ ’Cept if they mutiny, right?”
“That would change things,” Fargo conceded. “But exactly how is anybody’s guess. They might kill Belloch. But the railroad didn’t hire him because he’s stupid. We already know he’s got lickfingers higher up the payroll like Shanghai Webb and this fellow Moss—the one with the Big Fifty. I’d guess the main gather will soon be paid off and ride back east, and Belloch and his ramrods will just hire new men from Sublette. That, or they’ll clear out.”
“But first he has to get that pouch, right?” Dub asked. “I mean, before he leaves these parts?”
“As sure as sun in the morning,” Fargo said. “And I’d wager he’s working on that plan right now.”
Fargo took the next stint up in the tree. About thirty minutes into his watch, he lifted the field glasses to his eyes and saw a line of riders heading south from the trading post.
Below him, the McCallister boys were in a heated dispute over a poker game.
“Damn your hide, Nate!” Dub snapped. “Mr. Fargo said you can’t peek at the deadwood.”
“Like hell he did! He said you’re not supposed to look at the discard pile, but it wasn’t considered cheating.”
“Stow the chin-wag, boys,” Fargo cut in. “We’ve got riders, and I don’t believe what I’m seeing.”
“What?” they chimed in unison, throwing down their cards.
But Fargo was speechless with growing rage and didn’t bother to answer them. The riders had turned west, paralleling the creek but staying out of easy rifle range. He saw Shanghai Webb leading the pack—and holding a pistol to the head of the lead rider, whose hands were bound behind her.
Fargo recognized the woman as Rosario—and the jayhawkers had stripped her buck.