by Jon Sharpe
Fargo flattened behind a log and replaced the spent cartridges. The undergrowth was ominously still.
Namo whispered his name to get his attention. “One of us must stay here to keep the madman from getting away while the other two go in after him.”
“I’m not staying,” Remy said, and before they could think to stop him, he rose and plunged into the vegetation.
“What is the matter with him today?” Namo asked. Without waiting for an answer, he went in after him.
Fargo swore. He was the one who should go; he was the better tracker. Shoving the Colt into his holster, he rested the Sharps’s barrel on the log and scoured the greenery.
A troubling thought struck him. What if the Mad Indian picked that island for a reason? In the dense tangle the madman could easily pick them off.
A fly buzzed his ear.
A centipede crawled along the log.
The quiet was unnerving.
Fargo kept expecting to hear a shout or a shot. He did hear a slight sound behind him in the water, and twisted. The barest of ripples disturbed the surface. A fish or a snake, he reckoned, and faced the vegetation.
A bird screeched.
A cricket chirped.
Another sound behind him made Fargo turn his head a second time. There were more ripples. Small ones. The same fish or snake or maybe a frog or turtle, he figured.
The minutes crawled.
Fargo thought he heard voices. Then, from far off, Remy yelled his name. Quickly rising, Fargo ran a dozen yards in. “Where are you?”
Remy yelled again but it was impossible to tell what he was saying.
“I can’t hear you! What’s wrong?”
Again Remy shouted but only one word was clear. “Slipped.”
“I still didn’t hear you!”
“Watch out! We think he slipped past us into the swamp!”
“The swamp?” Fargo repeated. Why would the Mad Indian go into the swamp on foot? The answer hit him like a five-ton boulder. Whirling, he flew back to the pirogue and the canoe—only they weren’t there.
Forty feet out the Mad Indian, only his head and arms showing, was paddling the canoe as fast as he could paddle. Not quite that far, the pirogue was drifting.
Fargo had a choice to make. The Mad Indian or the pirogue. It was really no choice at all. Without the pirogue they were stranded. He set down the Henry, shucked the Colt and placed it next to the rifle, sat and tugged off his boots. By then the Mad Indian had vanished, but not the pirogue.
Trying not to think of gators and cottonmouths, Fargo waded in. It didn’t help that he couldn’t see under the surface. Anything could be down there.
The water rose to his knees. It rose to his waist. Kicking off, he swam after the pirogue. It was moving faster. A current had caught it.
Fargo pumped his arms and legs. He was a fair swimmer, but only fair. His skin never crawled as it was crawling now. He hated this, hated it with all he was.
To his left were floating plants he didn’t know the name of. As he came up to them, they bulged upward. Something was underneath, and moving toward him.
Fargo wished he had the Colt. He wished it even more when an alligator’s snout appeared. Then the eyes and the rest of the head. It was staring at him. He swam faster.
The short distance to the pirogue seemed like a mile.
Fargo glanced back just as the alligator sank under the water. Relief coursed through Fargo. He thought the gator had gone back under the plants. But no, a second later it reappeared, all of it this time, its tail flicking as it gave chase in an almost leisurely fashion.
It didn’t matter that the gator wasn’t much over five feet long. Its mouth was rimmed with the same sharp teeth as all other gators.
It could rip him open and take him under just as a bigger one would.
Fargo swam harder. Twenty feet to the pirogue, and the gator was more than halfway to him. He realized he wouldn’t reach it in time. Stopping, he dog-paddled and brought his legs up to his chest. He had to pry at his pant leg to get hold of the Arkansas toothpick.
The alligator slowed and circled. Evidently it was unsure if he was suitable prey.
Fargo held the knife under the water and turned to keep the gator in front of him. He knew how fast they could strike. He also watched its tail. A blow from that could stun him and make him an easy meal.
The gator swam slowly.
Maybe it was only curious but Fargo couldn’t count on that. From the island came yells. Remy and Namo were coming but they were a ways off yet.
“Fargo? Have you seen the Indian?”
“Why don’t you answer?”
Fargo wanted to but it might provoke the alligator into attacking. The thing was beginning another circle. He continued to turn but his legs were growing tired. He couldn’t tread water forever.
“Fargo? Where are you?”
Fargo took a gamble. They had rifles. They could scare the alligator off or send it to the bottom. “Here!” he hollered. “Come quick!”
The gator exploded into motion, coming at him with its mouth agape. Fargo kicked to one side and the jaws snapped shut inches from his chest. In an effort to keep them closed he grabbed at the snout and nearly lost his fingers. Swimming backward to put distance between them, he felt something bump his right leg. Something alive. Something that coiled around his leg as a snake would do. He glanced down but couldn’t see what it was.
“Hell!”
A gator near him and a snake under him.
Fargo kicked but the snake—if it was one—clung on. And just then the alligator came at him, going for his neck and face. Which was exactly what Fargo wanted it to do. Twisting, he thrust up and in, sinking the toothpick to the hilt in the gator’s throat.
In a twinkling the gator turned and swam for its plant sanctuary, the water growing bright with blood.
Fargo kicked at whatever was wrapped around his one leg and whatever it was slid off. He looked for the snake to rise up and bite him but nothing appeared. Not wasting another moment, he swam for the pirogue, which had lodged against a moss-encrusted cypress. He pulled himself up and over and lay on the bottom, grateful to be alive. A shaft of sunlight warmed his face but the rest of him was soaked. He slowly sat up and got hold of one of the paddles.
“Fargo? What on earth are you doing out there?”
“And where’s the canoe?”
Remy and Namo were at the swamp’s edge.
“Hold on,” Fargo replied. He pushed free of the tree and made for the island. There was no sign of the alligator. Or of the Mad Indian, for that matter.
“You let him get away?” Namo said in reproach after Fargo had explained. “All we have done and we have nothing to show for it.”
“He did what he could,” Remy defended him. “Or did you miss the part about the alligator?”
Fargo was wiping the toothpick dry on grass. “I don’t know about you two, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life searching this godforsaken swamp. There’s only one thing left for us to do.”
Remy nodded. “We lure the razorback to us. Just as I have been saying we should do.”
“We’re not even sure it will work,” Namo objected.
“There’s plenty of wood on this island,” Fargo noted. “We’ll make a big fire, one that can be seen from a long ways off. The Mad Indian is bound to spot it. And with any luck, he’ll set the boar on us.”
“How do we kill it when it comes?” Namo asked.
“I have a plan,” Skye Fargo said.
17
The sun had set an hour ago.
With the fading of the light and the advent of night, the creatures that liked the dark emerged and filled the air with their cries. Alligators bellowed. Frogs croaked. An occasional roar or shriek added to the din. The bleats and screams of prey told of predators hungry to fill their bellies.
On an island in the middle of that vast maze of water and violent life, Skye Fargo listened to the bedlam and was reminde
d of the Rockies. In the mountains, too, nighttime was when most of the meat-eaters were abroad. The yips of coyotes, the howls of wolves, the roars of bears and the screech of mountain lions—he looked forward to hearing them again, to being back in his element.
Here the bedlam was louder, and practically constant. Rare were the moments when the swamp fell still.
It was during one of those rare moments that Fargo heard a far-off squeal, and smiled. His shoulders were sore from all the digging they had done, but the work might prove worth it. From his hiding place in a thicket, he gazed out at the noisily crackling fire, and near it what appeared to be freshly overturned dirt.
“Pay us a visit, you bastard.”
They were ready for the razorback, or as ready as they could hope to be. If it came, they stood a chance of ending the slaughter.
From where Fargo hunkered he couldn’t see the others. Remy was under a tree. Namo was in one.
Fargo fingered the Sharps and shifted to relieve a cramp. It would be a long night if the razorback didn’t show. He was glad his buckskins had finally dried. He’d had to sit uncomfortably close to the fire for half an hour.
Another squeal, closer than before.
Fargo munched on a piece of bread and imagined he was eating one of Liana’s delicious meals. His stomach growled.
So did something else, from off in the brush.
Fargo tensed, then relaxed. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the razorback. A cat of some kind, most likely a bobcat, and bobcats hardly ever attacked people. When they did, it was usually children. Fargo thought of Halette and Clovis, motherless. He thought of Pensee and Hetsutu.
“God, I hope you come.”
Something rustled. A snake or some other small animal. Whatever it was moved away from him.
The wait wore on Fargo’s nerves. The shadows seemed imbued with life. Leaves and branches moved but it was only the wind.
He heard no more squeals.
It was pushing midnight when a certain cry pricked Fargo’s ears. He raised his head to hear better. It was repeated, not once but many times. The cry of a rabbit in distress.
The Mad Indian was luring the boar.
Fargo wondered if Remy and Namo had heard, and if they realized what the cries meant. He had half a mind to go warn them but they had agreed to stay where they were except for the few times Remy, who was nearest the fire, crept from concealment to add wood.
Remy would have to do so again soon. The flames were half as high as they had been.
A high-pitched screech pierced the gloom.
Fargo suspected that the rabbit had become food for the beast they were out to kill. He barely breathed and stayed perfectly still.
Then came another of those rare moments in which the great swamp fell quiet.
A log popped in the fire and smoke rose.
Fargo saw Remy come out from under the tree and move toward the fire. Not now! he wanted to shout. Hadn’t Remy heard the rabbit?
Remy yawned and stepped to the pile of firewood they had gathered before the sun went down, enough to last the entire night. He added logs and stepped back as the flames brightened and flared.
Fargo moved toward the edge of the thicket. He must warn him to get back under cover.
That was when a huge shape materialized across the clearing. Two eyes gleamed balefully.
Remy didn’t see it. He had his back to the shadow, which crept toward him on ghostly hooves.
Fargo jerked the Sharps up but didn’t shoot. They needed the razorback to step on the circle of dirt.
Namo had seen the boar, too. And now he did what they had agreed not to do. “Remy! Behind you! Le sanglier!”
Remy whirled and brought up his rifle just as the razorback let out with a rumbling squeal and charged. Thinking fast, he sidestepped toward the dirt. The razorback was almost on top of him when he threw himself out of the way.
But he misjudged how ungodly quick the razorback could be.
The razorback and Remy seemed to merge. Remy went one way and the razorback went another. Remy to fly through the air and crash down on the upturned earth, the razorback to plow into the undergrowth.
“No!” Fargo hurtled from the thicket, firing as he unfurled a hasty shot that had no effect.
Namo banged off shots from up in the tree.
Fargo ran to the circle, and would never forget what awaited him.
They had done the best they could using branches and flat rocks to dig and scrape. The hole wasn’t deep, only about four feet. A dozen sharp stakes were imbedded in the bottom. They had covered the pit with thin branches and grass and then spread dirt over the top.
“Dear God,” Namo said at Fargo’s side. “Is there no end to the horror?”
Remy had landed on his back. Two of the stakes had gone through his body, another through a leg, a third through an arm. He was still alive. He shook, and coughed, and spat up blood. And then he blinked up at them and said through his pain, “Tell me it is dead.”
Fargo could hear splashing.
“It got away,” Namo said.
“Damn. Then I die for nothing.”
Namo dropped to a knee and reached down to touch Remy’s shoulder. “We will get you out. It will take some doing but—”
“No.”
“Non?”
Remy coughed and more blood oozed from the corners of his mouth. “I am done for, Namo. I know it and you know it.” He sucked in a breath, and groaned. “Lord, the pain.”
Namo appealed to Fargo. “We can’t just let him die. We must do something. Help me.”
“If we pull him off those stakes he won’t live two minutes,” Fargo predicted. Left down there, Remy might last five.
“We must try,” Namo insisted. “You take his arms and I’ll take his legs and we will slowly lift him out.”
“He’s in too much pain.”
“I refuse to let him die this way. Do you hear me?”
Remy ended their argument by saying, “Shoot me.”
Fargo and Namo looked at him and Namo said, “What?”
“You heard me. Shoot me. Put me out of misery. I am not long for this world anyway.”
Now it was Namo who said, “No.”
Remy tried to speak but what came out was more blood. His limbs convulsed, and he gasped out, “Don’t let me suffer like this. I beg you.”
Namo, averting his gaze, shook his head. “I can’t. I just can’t. I’m sorry. But I don’t have it in me.”
“I would do it for you.”
“Don’t say that.” Namo wheeled and walked toward the fire, his chin on his chest.
Fargo knew what was coming.
“And you, monsieur? What about you? I have not known you long so it should be easier for you.”
Fargo stared at the blood-wet stakes that stuck up out of Remy’s body. More tremors wracked the Cajun, and he grit his teeth. “If I never see another swamp for as long as I live, it’ll be too soon.”
“Sorry?” Remy said, coughing. “What was that?”
“No one deserves to die like this.”
Remy mustered a grin. “That is life, eh? None of us deserve the pain we bear but life doesn’t care. It inflicts the pain anyway.” He shook, then steadied, and wheezed, “Whenever you are ready.”
Fargo placed his hand on his Colt.
“No!” Namo ran up and grabbed Fargo’s wrist. “Don’t do this! Life is too precious. Give him what few moments he has left.”
Remy said, “Damn you, Namo. Leave the man alone.” Then he did a strange thing—he laughed.
“Is your mind going?” Namo asked.
“It is the irony. I’ve never liked outsiders. Yet this man is an outsider and I like him. And now he is about to treat me with the mercy I have never shown others. Is that not ironic?”
“It is wrong.”
“Let go of him, Namo.”
“I refuse.”
“In memory of Emmeline.”
“Damn you, Remy. And damn the beast th
at did this to you.” Namo forlornly stepped to one side.
“Such is life. We spend it holding the sadness at bay until the day when the final sadness comes over us.” Remy had the worst coughing fit yet. “Just as it has come over me.” He stared at Fargo. “Enough talk. Do it. Get it over with. I don’t know how much longer I can keep from screaming.”
Fargo drew the Colt.
“Please,” Namo said.
“Please,” Remy echoed.
Fargo shot him square between the eyes. Hair, bone and brains rained on the bottom of the pit. Remy Cuvier went rigid, then limp. His eyes, locked open, were fixed on the stars.
“God in heaven,” Namo said softly. “Is there no end?”
“Not until we’re like him.” Fargo nodded at the body.
“How can you be so callous? How can you be so cold? I thought you liked him.”
“I did.” Fargo replaced the spent cartridge, slid the Colt into his holster, and went over to the fire. He was suddenly bone tired. “I’ll fix us some coffee.”
“Now?” Namo said in amazement.
“We have to take turns keeping watch. I don’t know about you but I can use some help staying awake.”
“But after—” Namo said, and glanced at the pit. “It’s just that my wife liked Remy. Of all her cousins, he was Emmeline’s favorite. I could no more kill him than I could have killed her.”
“There’s no need to explain.”
“Thank you. But what now? The boar escaped. Our trap failed, and cost us our friend. Do we go after it by ourselves or do we rethink how we should go about this?”
Fargo was opening a pack to get at the coffeepot. “I’m not giving up.” Not this side of the grave he wasn’t.
“And I am not suggesting we should,” Namo set him straight. “But we have nothing to show for all our effort and sweat. The razorback is still out there. The Mad Indian, too.”
“Those other men from Gros Ville are hunting them too, remember?” Fargo reminded him. “Maybe they’ll have better luck than we have.”
“It is strange we haven’t seen any sign of them.”
“It’s a big swamp.”
“A huge swamp. But still, we should have run into them. Or seen their fires.”