by Jon Sharpe
Fargo was happy for Jessie and said so.
“Here we are,” Ethel said.
Fargo was surprised a second time; he wasn’t the only one who had been invited.
Colonel Harrington and Captain Griffin were on the settee. Both rose. Harrington pumped his hand, saying, “I believe you two have met.”
“That we have,” Griffin said, smiling. “Mr. Fargo refused medical treatment, amazingly enough. I trust he won’t feel the same about them.”
“Them?” Fargo said.
Harrington quickly said, “We’ll discuss that later. Right now let’s have something to drink to whet our appetite for Ethel’s marvelous food.”
The colonel wasn’t exaggerating.
Fargo was treated to a feast the likes of which he hadn’t enjoyed in months. Elk steak, thick and juicy and smothered in onions with a few mushrooms thrown in; whipped potatoes with delicious gravy; succotash, flavored with butter and lightly salted; hot biscuits so soft, he almost felt guilty biting into them; coffee with cream and sugar. For dessert there was apple pie fresh out of the oven; it melted in his mouth.
Harrington and Ethel bantered about army life and how wasn’t it a shame that the whites and the red men couldn’t get along and the colonel mentioned that he was afraid a lot more blood would be spilled before the West was fully settled.
Fargo didn’t like that last part. The settling. The last thing he wanted, the very last thing, was for the wild places to disappear and be replaced by the plow and towns and cities. He knew it was inevitable. Just as every square foot of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River had been devoured by the locusts of civilization, so, too, would every square foot of land between the Mississippi and the Pacific. He liked to think that day was a long ways off. At least, he hoped it didn’t happen in his lifetime.
They finished the meal and Harrington suggested they repair to the parlor. No sooner did Fargo make himself comfortable than the colonel and the doctor swapped looks and the colonel cleared his throat.
“So tell me, Skye. When do you plan to head out?”
“At first light,” Fargo answered.
“My, that’s early,” Captain Griffin said. “But I can be ready.”
“So that’s what this is,” Fargo said.
“Hear us out,” Colonel Harrington said. “You’re well aware of the condition those poor people must be in. They could be freezing to death. They could be suffering from starvation. They could be sick.”
“Or they might be perfectly fine,” Fargo said. Provided they had plenty of food and could find firewood. He recollected another wagon train that once was stranded for longer than this train had been, and everyone lived through it with nothing worse than a few cases of frostbite.
“They might,” Captain Griffin said, “but it’s unlikely. And in that regard, my services will be sorely needed.”
“I can spare him,” Harrington said. “No one is ill except for a few colds, no babies are due, and no one has been wounded since last August.”
“It’s perfect timing,” Griffin said.
“He can minister to them,” Harrington said. “He’ll take medicines along.”
“He’ll slow me down,” Fargo said.
Griffin’s cheeks pinched. “I might not be the best rider in the world but I’m not the worst. I daresay I’ll be well able to keep up.”
Fargo looked at Harrington. “Have you forgotten about Blackjack Tar?”
Griffin cut in before the colonel could answer. “What does he have to do with it? I’m not offering my medical services to him.”
“He gets his hands on you,” Fargo said, “you’re as good as dead.”
“Why would he kill me for no reason?”
“Because he’s Blackjack Tar.”
“No one is that coldhearted.”
“Hell,” Fargo said.
Harrington had a slightly pained expression. “I’m counting on you to keep him safe.”
“I don’t need protecting,” Captain Griffin said. “I might be a physician but I’m also a soldier and I’ve been trained in the arts of war.”
Fargo reminded himself that the doc meant well. “Those arts of yours won’t count for much in the wilds.”
“Nonsense. I can shoot as well as the next trooper.”
“Ever shot at anyone when they were shooting back?”
“Well, no,” Griffin said. “The truth is, I’ve never been in a skirmish.”
“Hell,” Fargo said.
“You make it sound as if I’d be positively useless, and I resent that.”
Fargo looked at Harrington again. “You should reconsider.”
“It’s my duty,” Harrington said. “I’m responsible for their safety and welfare. I have to do something.”
“You’re sending me.”
“I have to do all I can,” Harrington amended, “and it’s prudent to send the doctor along.”
“Did you have this planned when you sent for me?”
“It’s why I sent for you. Doctors are invaluable on the frontier. I couldn’t trust his life with other than the very best.”
“I’m not an infant,” Captain Griffin said.
“Up in the mountains you will be,” Fargo told him.
“Oh, please. I’m a grown man. It’s not as if I can’t live off the land. I can hunt. I can cut up a deer. I’ll be of great help to you. Wait and see.”
Fargo sighed.
“I’m sorry,” Colonel Harrington said. “It has to be done or I wouldn’t have asked. I have Washington looking over my shoulder, remember?”
Fargo savvied. The loss of so many emigrants wouldn’t sit well with the brass. They might need a scapegoat and the colonel was the likeliest.
“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to take along half a dozen troopers as well?”
“You’re pushing,” Fargo said.
“The most experienced men I have,” Harrington assured him. “To look after the captain.”
“I don’t need looking after,” Griffin said. “I’m an officer, for God’s sake.”
Fargo was about to say no. But it hit him that with the boys in blue to see to the sawbones, he’d be free to do as he pleased. “All right.”
“Sergeant Petrie will handle the men,” Harrington said. “You’ve met him. And you must agree that he’s the—” The colonel stopped. “Wait. What did you just say?”
“They can tag along.”
“They can?”
“It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but—” Harrington tilted his head. “I expected you to take longer to convince. You’re giving in too easily.”
“You call that easy?” Captain Griffin said.
“You don’t know this man like I do,” Harrington said. “No one can make him do anything he doesn’t want to.”
“You’re his superior,” Griffin said. “You can order him.”
Harrington chuckled and said to Fargo, “Do you hear him?”
“He has a lot to learn.”
“I’m right here,” Captain Griffin said.
Fargo stood and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. “I reckon it’s settled then. Have the good captain and the rest be at the front gate at sunrise.”
The colonel rose and held out his hand. “I will. And thank you.”
Griffin stood, too. “I might as well take my leave. I have a lot to prepare.”
Fargo took it for granted they would part company at the front door but the physician walked with him toward the stable. “Something on your mind?”
“I’m trying to figure you out.”
“I pull on my pants one leg at a time, the same as you do.”
“I’ve never seen the colonel treat anyone with so much deference. What makes you so special?”
Fargo shru
gged. “I get the job done.”
“So I gather. Before you arrived, the colonel was telling me about the time you and him fought the Apaches. How you saved his patrol.”
“I saved my own hide too.”
“Modesty ill becomes you.”
“Who the hell is being modest?” Fargo retorted. “That’s how it was.”
“You see me as a hindrance on this rescue mission, don’t you?”
“Your words, not mine.”
“I promise you I’ll hold my own. May the Lord strike me dead if I don’t.”
“That’s just it.”
“What is?”
“You ending up dead.”
“You’re doing wonders for my confidence. If I don’t make it back, you have my permission to stomp on my grave and say you told me so.”
“Grave, hell,” Fargo the said. “The ground is too hard for burying. I’ll just piss on you and leave you for the buzzards.”
“Surely you’re joking?”
“Die and find out.”
14
Fargo was up before the crack of dawn. He saddled the Ovaro and brought the stallion out of the stable to a hitch rail. As he was looping the reins a shape detached itself from the darkness. He dropped his hand to his Colt but didn’t draw. “You?” he said when he recognized who it was.
“Me,” Jules Vallee said. He was mounted on a bay that had seen a lot of years and holding a Sharps in the crook of his elbow.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Coming along.”
“I thought you wanted to spend the rest of your days drunk.”
“I thought I did, too,” Jules said. “But the booze isn’t helping me forget like it’s supposed to. I wake up with the sweats, so scared I can’t hardly think straight.”
“After what you went through—” Fargo said, and let it go at that.
“It turned me yellow,” Jules said quietly. “It’s gotten so, I’m afeared of my own shadow.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Fargo said.
“I am, I tell you,” Jules said. “And I’m sick of it. I want to be me again. I want to be able to look at myself and not be sick to my stomach.”
“This won’t be easy. You said so yourself.”
“You reckon I don’t know that?” Jules gazed to the east at the lightening sky. “I have something to prove to myself and this is the only way.” He paused. “Besides, you need me to help you find those pilgrims.”
“Only if you’re sure,” Fargo said.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
In the summer the ride from Fort Laramie to the geyser country was pleasant enough; in the winter it was hell.
The cold seeped into their bones before they had gone a mile from the gates, and stayed there. At night they bundled in blankets but it warmed them only a little and by the middle of the night they sometimes woke up freezing with their jaws chattering.
The soldiers, anyway.
Fargo was used to it.
He led them north along the Platte and then along the Sweetwater River to the Wind River Range. South Pass and the Oregon Trail were to the west.
Fargo continued north into the mountains, and from there on he relied on Jules.
Ordinarily, the ruts left by twenty heavy wagons would be enough of a guide. But those ruts were buried under half a foot of snow.
Captain Griffin kept pretty much to himself. Early on he’d tried to engage Fargo in conversation but when he discovered Fargo wasn’t much of a talker, he gave it up as a lost cause.
Sergeant Petrie was a solid block of muscle, a career soldier who took his soldiering as seriously as a pastor took the Bible. The five troopers under him were older than average, experienced campaigners who had served long spells on the frontier. During the day they rarely spoke unless spoken to and at night they didn’t talk and joke a lot as younger soldiers would.
Now it was a new day and a front was rolling in, the clouds thick and ominous.
Fargo hoped the snow would hold off. He wanted to get up into the high country and get out again as quickly as practical.
The third morning after they entered the Wind River Range, Fargo brought the Ovaro up alongside the trapper’s plodding bay. “How much farther?”
“Miles or days?”
“Both,” Fargo said.
The old trapper squinted ahead at jagged white peaks that thrust at the clouds. “As the crow flies, I’d guess not more than fifty miles. On horseback, with all this snow, eight to ten days, I reckon.”
“Damn,” Fargo said.
“They’re up a ways. That Jacob Coarse got it into his head there’s a pass over the Tetons.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
Fargo almost drew rein. “You talked to him? When?”
“When I first came on them stranded in that meadow. Didn’t I mention it? They begged me to go for help.”
“Why didn’t they send one of their own down sooner?”
“I asked them that,” Jules said. “Hell, it’s not that hard to find Fort Laramie.”
“And?” Fargo prompted when the old trapper didn’t go on.
“Jacob Coarse wouldn’t let anyone leave. He said they had to stick together no matter what.”
“The damned fool.”
“To tell the truth, they didn’t impress me much. Farmers, mostly, and a few city folk. They were bound to get lost.”
“So they stay stranded when they don’t have to be.”
“Part of it is they refuse to leave their wagons. Everything those people own is on their Conestogas. They’re fearful it will get taken if they leave it untended.”
“What’s more important?” Fargo grumbled. “Their china and grandfather clocks or their lives?”
“You know how some folks are,” Jules said with a sigh. “They’re more attached to things than they are to breathing.”
“So much for talking them into leaving their wagons up there until spring.”
Jules laughed. “Not likely. They’d as soon chop off an arm and a leg.”
Fargo gazed at the swirling clouds. “What we need is a warm spell.”
“What we have is winter.”
As if to bring that point home, large flakes began to fall. Only a few but it portended worse to come.
“Wonderful,” Fargo said.
They hadn’t gone much farther when they came on fresh tracks.
“What do you make of those?” Jules asked.
Fargo drew rein and bent from the saddle. A pair of riders—on shod horses—had come from the southeast and gone off toward the northwest. Judging by the little amount of snow that had filled the tracks, it couldn’t have been more than half an hour ago. He related as much.
“Who in hell would be heading up into the high country in weather like this?”
“In the same direction as the stranded wagon train,” Fargo had noticed.
“Could be a couple of them tried to make it to the fort and turned back.”
“Could be,” Fargo said, although his gut instinct told him that wasn’t the case.
“If they stop we might run into them,” Jules mentioned. “Then we’ll know.”
They climbed, and the snow thickened.
Fargo marveled that the pilgrims had made it so far. Lacking a trail, they’d had to choose the easiest route by sight, avoiding steep grades and the thickest timber and deadfalls. They must have pushed their teams to try to make it over the mountains before the first snow. Little did they know that other than South Pass and another pass nearly a hundred miles to the north, there was no way over the Divide. Not for wagons, anyhow.
The snow had turned the greens and browns to stark white. White peaks, white slopes, white trees, w
hite ground. It was picturesque but treacherous. The snow hid obstacles that would otherwise be avoided. And it made even the slightest of slopes slippery for beast and man.
The normally dry air wasn’t. Thick with moisture, it made breathing at high altitudes harder. They weren’t so high yet that it would pose a problem but it was something to keep in mind.
Fargo didn’t resent the snow. Not like others he knew. Some scouts refused to head out into the wilds in the winter if a lot of snow had fallen. The odds of making it back were slimmer. A man had to know exactly what he was doing and even then there were no guarantees.
“Do you smell that, pard?” Jules asked.
Fargo had been so caught up in thought, he hadn’t. He sniffed and said, “Smoke.”
“That pair must have made camp.”
It was early yet but that meant nothing. Fargo rose in the stirrups but couldn’t spot the telltale tendrils. “They can’t be far ahead.”
They rode on, the clomp of their hooves muffled by the white blanket. Occasionally clumps of snow fell from trees, showering them.
The tracks entered a belt of pines.
Out of habit Fargo rode with his hand on his Colt. “Tell the troopers not to make any noise,” he said quietly over his shoulder, and Jules passed it on to Captain Griffin in a whisper.
The orange flames were easy to spot.
Fargo drew rein and the others followed suit. Dismounting, he handed the reins to Jules and glided forward.
The pair had camped in a small clearing. Their horses were tied and a coffeepot had been put on. But there was no sign of the riders.
Fargo squatted to wait. It could be they were gathering firewood. They wouldn’t have gone far.
When they emerged, their arms laden with broken branches, he gave a start. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised but he was. Drawing the Colt, he cocked it and moved into the open. They were talking and looking at one another and didn’t see him until he said, “Fancy meeting you here.”
Fletcher and Margaret froze.
“You!” she blurted.
“And friends,” Fargo said. He gave a loud whistle.
Fletcher glanced at the stock of a rifle jutting from a scabbard on a sorrel.
“Try for it,” Fargo urged. “Give me an excuse.”