A sentiment Fargo shared. He would rather go out in a blaze of gun smoke or be ripped to pieces by a grizzly than spend his waning days in a rocking chair with drool dribbling down his chin. “Now you’re out to make new lives for yourselves?”
“A good guess,” Jared said. “Ohio holds too many painful memories. We want to start over, and we hear California is the place to do it.”
“All we have to do is get there,” Cathy remarked.
“Talk to you later,” Fargo said, and wheeled the Ovaro. The Jurgensens smiled at him and Mrs. Jurgensen said good morning but the rest were clams. He brought the stallion up next to the last wagon and touched his hat brim to Sarah and Mandy Yager. “Ladies.”
“I’m glad you came to see us.” Sarah had her long black hair done up in a bright blue ribbon and wore a much nicer dress than the day before. “I want to thank you again for what you did last night, Mr. Flint. That man made a nuisance of himself from the first night they showed up. I was about at my wit’s end.”
Fargo shrugged. “I only did what needed doing.”
Mandy had a green ribbon in her hair, and a doll in her lap. “Ma says that’s the nicest thing anyone ever did for her, short of Pa.”
“I was wondering,” Sarah said. “If we can find some firewood, I would like to treat you to supper some night soon to show my gratitude. If you wouldn’t mind, that is.”
“I love to eat,” Fargo said, and liked it when a faint pink tinge blossomed in her cheeks. “I was wondering something myself. Why is your wagon always the last in line?”
“It just works out that way, is all,” Sarah said. “It takes me longer than the others to hitch my team so the rest always form up before me.”
A twinge of anger spiked through Fargo. The last wagon was always the most vulnerable to attack. It also had to endure the choking clouds of dust raised by the others. “I have something to do,” he said. A jab of his spurs sent the Ovaro to the lead wagon.
Peter Sloane glanced at him in surprise. “Is something wrong?”
“Starting tomorrow each wagon will take turns at the rear. Draw straws. Flip a coin. I don’t care. But take turns.”
“What brought this on?” Sloane asked.
“Your stupidity,” Fargo said. “Another thing. When we stop at midday, find out who has extra weapons and who doesn’t have any. Those with extra will share with those without.”
“You can’t force someone to share a gun against his will.”
“Watch me.” Fargo rode on ahead fifty yards and stayed there for the rest of the morning. He saw no sign of life, not even a lizard. When the sun was directly overhead he signaled for a halt. The emigrants climbed down to stretch their legs and have three swallows of water. It was all he would allow. Some grumbled but they did as he told them.
Fargo removed his bandanna and was wiping a thick layer of dust from the Ovaro’s nostrils when shoes crunched and Cathy Fox said, “Do you make it a habit to help old ladies across the street too? Or are we special?”
“I’d do the same for any idiots in over their heads.”
“I should be jealous. There’s talk you’re being extra kind to Sarah Yager. Strikes your fancy, does she?”
“She has her good points.” Fargo noticed Sloane and Jared and the other six men huddled in the shade of the third wagon. From the look of things they were arguing about something. Him, probably.
“Such as?” Cathy asked.
“She doesn’t wear a man’s ears out with questions.”
“Well, that certainly put me in my place.” Cathy stepped closer, so close her breasts brushed his arm. “I can’t help it if I’ve taken a shine to you. Women get a little green when that happens.”
“Women get bossy when that happens,” Fargo said. He shook the bandanna a few times and retied it around his neck.
Sloane and the other men had risen and were coming toward him. Each held a rifle. Over half had pistols. When Peter Sloane halted, so did the rest. Jared and Jurgensen hung back, clearly wanting no part of whatever they were up to.
“Want something?” Fargo asked.
“We’ve talked it over and come up with a solution that should please you as much as it pleases us,” Sloane announced.
“A solution to what?” As if Fargo couldn’t guess.
“To you. To your presence among us. To the fact we don’t want you to pilot us.”
“Speak for yourself,” Cathy Fox said. “He’s doing a better job than Swink and Raskum ever did.”
“Hush, girl,” Sloane said. “This is man talk. It has nothing to do with you females.”
Cathy bristled and clenched her fists but Jared reached her before she could do anything drastic and pulled her to one side.
“I’m listening,” Fargo said.
Peter Sloane glanced at the others for support and some of them nodded. “The solution is simple. We’re willing to pay you one hundred dollars to leave us in peace.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“It shows how badly we want you gone. Do you agree?”
Fargo looked at them, then at Cathy and Jared, then down the line to where Sarah and Mandy were seated in the shade of their wagon. “Make it two hundred.”
5
“Do you mean that?” Peter Sloane excitedly asked. “For two hundred dollars we’ll have seen the last of you?”
A two-legged rake handle with a toothpick-thin mustache tapped Sloane on the shoulder. “I can’t contribute more than twenty, Pete. You know that’s about all the money we have left.”
“That’s all right, Nickelby,” Sloane said. “I’m willing to make up the difference. Anything to be rid of this man.”
“Show me the money,” Fargo said.
Hands dived into pockets and delved under jackets and bills were thrust at Sloane, who counted them once and then counted them twice and grinned and held them out. “Here you go. Exactly two hundred dollars. We thank you for being so reasonable, and we wish you well.”
Fargo took the money and folded it so it would fit in his pocket. “And I thank you. Now you can climb on your wagons and get ready to head out.”
“But you’re leaving,” Sloane said. “We can head out whenever we want.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The emigrants thought he was joking. They looked at him as if he were joking. They waited for him to say he was joking. When it sank in he wasn’t, they glanced at one another, uncertain what to do until Peter Sloane blurted, “But you agreed!”
“I didn’t agree to anything except you giving me two hundred dollars,” Fargo said. “If I left, you wouldn’t survive a week.”
Sloane sputtered in disbelief, at a loss as to what to say or do.
“You can’t just take our money,” Nickelby said. “It’s the same as stealing.”
Fargo placed his right hand on his Colt. “You’re welcome to take it back if you want.” He looked each of them in the face and not one of them would meet his gaze. “If not today, then tomorrow or the day after. I’ll be with you a good while yet.”
“This can’t be happening,” Brickman said.
“What will our wives say?” Nickelby brought up. “Mine will skin me alive for losing our savings.”
Fargo turned to the Ovaro and mounted. “We’re wasting daylight. I’ll ride on ahead. Stick to the wagon tracks and we’ll meet up at sunset.”
Sloane was furious at being hoodwinked. “I demand you give our money back this instant! We will not be made a laughingstock.”
“You don’t need me to do that,” Fargo said. “You do fine by yourself.” He raised his reins. “Until sunset, gentlemen.” The skin between his shoulder blades prickled as he rode off, and he half expected a slug in the back. But no shots thundered, and soon he was out of range.
The Blood Red Mountains had grown larger. Some of the peaks were eight to nine thousand feet high but that was nothing compared to the Sierra Nevadas where fourteen thousand was not uncommon. In the winter the high slop
es would be covered with snow but now they were stark and bare. Lower down sparse timber grew.
Fargo figured the wagon train wouldn’t reach the range until the next day, midmorning at the earliest. He scoured the ground for tracks. Swink’s still pointed southwest.
An hour later other tracks appeared. Those of several antelope, heading for the mountains. Soon afterward the tracks of two coyotes overlay those of the antelope.
The temperature, Fargo reckoned, had to be in the upper nineties. He longed for a stream or a spring so he could strip and jump in. For another thirty minutes he pushed on. Then, about to rein around and rejoin the emigrants, he drew up.
A rider had materialized out of the heat haze to the west. Was it real or a mirage? Fargo wondered. Blistering heat could play tricks on the mind. Once in Arizona he thought he saw a lake that turned out to be nothing but a sea of sand.
The rider was making for the mountains too. Suddenly he reined up and stared in Fargo’s direction. Man and horse rippled like the pebbles at the bottom of a pool of rushing water. Details were hard to discern. The horse might or might not be a paint. The rider might or might not have dark hair and might or might not be wearing buckskins.
A Paiute, Fargo suspected. Either a lone hunter or one of the young warriors who tangled with an army patrol a month ago. Fargo raised his hand in greeting but the gesture was not acknowledged. After a while the warrior reined to the southwest at the same steady pace.
Fargo turned the Ovaro back the way he had come. The sun had set and twilight was fading to night when he spied the wagons already drawn up in a circle and the teams already picketed. He didn’t see Cathy or Sarah. In fact, when he drew rein and swung down, he realized all the women and children must be in the prairie schooners.
Peter Sloane and four men were by Sloane’s wagon, talking. Jared and Jurgensen were not among them.
“Where is everyone?” Fargo asked as he cautiously approached.
“The women are getting supper ready,” Sloane said, his back to him. “The children went with them to get out of the sun.”
Strange, Fargo thought, that he didn’t hear a sound from any of the wagons. Even stranger, he didn’t hear voices. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“Through with what?” Sloane rejoined, and put the lie to his innocent act by turning and leveling a revolver. He and the others advanced.
“Is that for bluff or ballast?” Fargo asked.
“Neither.” The men nearest Sloane moved to either side. “We’ve come to a decision, Mr. Flint. One you will not like but one which you will honor nonetheless.”
Fargo could draw and fire before the farmer squeezed the trigger. Instead, he said, “Let me hear it.”
“You will return our money. You will ride off and never return. Should you be foolhardy enough to come back, we will shoot you on sight.” Sloane puffed out his chest, pleased with himself. “What do you have to say to that?”
“It’s not what I say, it’s what the Paiutes will do that counts.”
“No, no, no,” Sloane said, shaking a finger. “I seriously doubt there’s a Paiute within a hundred miles.”
“As near as three miles, as far as ten, depending on how far the warrior I saw earlier has gone,” Fargo said.
Nickelby went as pale as paper. “You saw one? Actually and truly saw one? What was he doing?”
“Heading for the Blood Red Mountains. The same range you’re heading for. But don’t let that worry you. You’re not in any danger from one warrior so long as you keep your guns handy and guards posted. If he shows up with friends, well—,” Fargo shrugged.
“You’re lying,” Peter Sloane said.
A single long step, and Fargo seized him by the wrist and wrenched, causing Sloane to cry out and drop the revolver. “I have half a mind to do what you want and leave,” he said, kicking it out of their reach. “It would serve you right. But not the women and children. So you’re stuck with me.” He gave Sloane a hard push.
“I don’t need a gun to make you leave,” the big farmer growled. Balling his fists, he swung a looping right.
Fargo easily avoided the blow and brought his arms up as Sloane waded into him. The farmer was strong but Fargo had fought men far stronger, and Sloane was no fighter. His swings were wide and wild, thrown in desperation. Fargo blocked punch after punch but did not unleash one of his own until Sloane paused, winded from the flurry. Then he flicked a right, and when Sloane raised his arm to ward it off, he drove his left fist into Sloane’s unprotected gut.
Peter Sloane doubled over, his face a beet, his veins bulging. Gagging, he took a couple of stumbling steps.
No one interfered. No one attacked Fargo. The others seemed surprised their leader had finally done more than flap his gums.
Fargo took Sloane by the shoulders. “Sit down. Bend over and take deep breaths and in a while the pain will go away.”
Sloane angrily shrugged loose but did as he had been told. While he sat there wheezing and gasping, Jared and Jurgensen hopped down from their wagons.
“We didn’t want any part of it,” Jared said.
The women and children were climbing down, too. Cathy Fox ran over and looked down at Sloane with her eyes blazing. “You wouldn’t listen to me, would you? I’m just a woman and I don’t know a thing, do I?”
Sloane opened his mouth to reply but all that came out was spittle, which dribbled over his chin.
Sarah was there, Mandy’s hand in hers. “I agree with Cathy. I feel safe with Mr. Flint. Why can’t you stop trying to get rid of him? Be reasonsable.”
“Reasonable?” Sloane practically exploded. “The man forced himself among us, shot one of our pilots dead, took two hundred dollars of our money, and you want me to be reasonable?”
“He hasn’t hurt any of us,” Cathy said. “And two hundred dollars is about what you would pay an experienced pilot.”
Sloane was about to burst a blood vessel. “Quit making excuses for him! He’s a scoundrel of the first order and you’re too blind to see it! He nearly killed me!”
Fargo hunkered so they were eye to eye. “If I had tried to kill you, you would be dead. We’ll get along so long as you remember that you raise crops for a living, and I shoot people.”
“How much more of you must we endure?” Sloane demanded. “How soon before we wake up with our valuables missing or have our throats slit.”
Sarah came closer. “Now you’re just being silly, Mr. Sloane. Would someone who saved me from a lecher like Raskum stoop to theft?”
Sloane jabbed a finger at Fargo. “None of us truly know what this man is capable of! One minute he’s gunning a man down, the next he’s giving us advice on how to stay alive!”
“That should show you something right there,” Cathy said.
“All it shows me is that he’s trying to lull us off our guard. To lie his way into our good graces so he can turn on us when we least expect.” Sloane growled like a mad dog. “You’re entirely too trusting. You, and all the rest who think this ruffian is a godsend.”
Fargo rose. “I’m not asking that you accept me. Or even that you like me. Just don’t get in my way until I’ve done what I came here to do.”
“And what would that be, Mr. Flint?” Mrs. Jurgensen inquired.
“I can’t say,” Fargo said, and let it go at that. He could not risk his secret getting out. To take their minds off him and what he was up to, he asked, “Do any of you have boxes you don’t need?”
“Boxes?” Jared said.
“Anything made of wood you can part with. We need to get a fire going.”
“In this heat?” Peter Sloane sarcastically commented.
“When was the last time you ate a hot meal? Any of you?”
“A hot meal!” one of the women said, clasping her hands to her chest. “It would be heavenly.”
“And do wonders for our spirits,” Cathy Fox said, giving Fargo one of her puzzled looks.
“Eggs will do since they cook
up fast,” Fargo said, “and any bacon that hasn’t gone rancid.” He went into his gruff act. “Don’t just stand there, damn it. I’m hungry.” Everyone scurried off except Peter Sloane, who stiffly stood and slowly shuffled to his wagon.
Fargo stripped the stallion and spread out his bedroll. By the time he was done the emigrants had a fire going. The women were cheerfully frying eggs and bacon while the men sat around staring at their sizzling suppers like so many half-starved wolves. He figured on helping himself after the rest had eaten but as he was leaning the Henry against his saddle, Sarah and Mandy came over, Sarah with a plate heaped with food, Mandy with a couple of slices of bread and a fork.
“I’ll bring a cup of coffee as soon as it’s ready,” Sarah offered.
“Thank you.” Fargo placed the warm plate in his lap and accepted the bread. “But you should eat before I do.”
“You were out scouting most of the day. You need a good meal.” Sarah gestured at the others. “Look at them. I haven’t seen them this happy in weeks, and we owe it all to you.”
Mandy placed her hand on Fargo’s. “Mr. Sloane says you’re a bad man but my ma says you’re a good man and I believe her.”
“Sometimes people aren’t what they seem,” was all Fargo would own up to.
Sarah smiled shyly and ushered her daughter back to the fire. Several times she gazed over at him, and if the meaning of those looks wasn’t obvious to her fellow travelers, it was obvious to Fargo. He also noticed Cathy glance at him every now and again but her looks didn’t hold quite the same promise.
Some of the emigrants inhaled their food. Others savored every morsel. Afterward, the men broke out their pipes and cigars while the women and children sat to one side, merrily chatting. Not Peter Sloane, though, who sulked through supper and then went straight to his wagon and was not seen again for the rest of the night. Mrs. Sloane did not go with him. She stayed up late with everyone else, talking and laughing.
It was pushing ten o’clock when they began drifting off to bed. By then the fire had died and the pans had been scraped clean and the children, Mandy among them, could barely keep their eyes open.
Nevada Nemesis Page 4
