“Thorn! Preston!” the man to the north yelled. “That’s enough! Do you hear me?”
The men on the hills obeyed.
The short one was gritting his teeth and quaking in agony, an inky stain spreading across his cowhide vest.
Crawling over, Fargo gouged the Colt against the gunman’s temple and clamped his other hand on the back of the man’s neck. “What’s your name?”
“Everyone calls me Shorty,” the man bleated.
“Do you want to live?”
“Now you ask? After you’ve put lead in me?” Shorty groaned as if to demonstrate how much pain he was in.
“I can always finish the job,” Fargo said. “Or would you rather do as I say and live?” When Shorty didn’t answer, he cocked the Colt.
“All right, all right. Don’t get your dander up. For now you’re holding the high card.”
“Tell your friends to throw down their rifles and step into the light,” Fargo directed.
Shorty sneered through his agony. “Wishful thinking. Dixon is too smart. And Thorn won’t shed his guns for anyone.”
“Let’s find out.” Fargo took Shorty’s revolver and wedged it under his own belt, then rose, hauling Shorty with him, and propelled Shorty to the edge of the firelight. “Have a look!” he shouted. “I’ve got a gun to his head! Step out where I can see you!”
“Not a chance!” hollered the rifleman on the west hill.
“I told you Thorn wouldn’t agree,” Shorty said nervously.
The man to the north was more reasonable. “Don’t do anything drastic. You let him go, and I give you my word we’ll leave you in peace.”
“That’s Dix,” Shorty said. “You can trust him. He never breaks his word once he gives it.”
Fargo wouldn’t trust any of them as far as he could throw the prairie schooner. “The three of you get on your horses and ride. When you’re a ways off, each of you fire a shot into the air, one right after the other. Only then does Shorty go free.”
Thorn swore lustily, then shouted, “I don’t back down for any man! It’s Shorty’s own fault for being stupid enough to be caught!”
“You’ll do as I tell you!” Dixon commanded. “Preston, you and Thorn meet me at the horses. Shorty, don’t worry. I’m not about to let anything happen to you.”
In a few moments boots drummed to the north and east but Thorn lingered, his rifle to his shoulder. Then he made a savage gesture, wheeled, and ran off up over the hill.
“He’s always been the mean one,” Shorty commented.
“You’re not lawmen,” Fargo stated the obvious. “So you must be outlaws out to rob us.”
Shorty started to laugh but grunted and clutched his shoulder. “Shows how much you know, mister. This was a social visit, believe it or not.”
“I don’t,” Fargo said. Four armed men sneaking up on a camp in the dead of night were not up to any good.
“Makes no never mind to me, Flint. We were only doing what we were told. But you putting lead into me changes things. It wasn’t very nice.”
Fargo almost swung Shorty around to look him in the face and see if he was serious. “How is it you know my name?”
“A little bird told me,” Shorty said.
The only ones who knew Fargo was calling himself Flint were Colonel McCormack and a few soldiers, the emigrants with Sloane’s party, and the old woman and her granddaughter at the trading post. Fargo was tempted to ask about the missing wagon trains but if he did Shorty might suspect the real reason he was there.
“There’s a lot more going on here than you reckon,” Shorty bragged. “You’re lucky you didn’t kill me or the rest would track you to the ends of the earth and put windows in your noggin.”
“The rest?” Fargo said, but Shorty didn’t take the bait.
Sarah had slid from under the wagon and was coming toward them. She prudently skirted the fire. “Who are these men? What did they want?”
Shorty’s slit of a mouth curled in a grin. “What do you think we’d want with a gal as pretty as you? I hope I get to go first when we draw straws.”
Fargo gripped Shorty by his wounded shoulder, and squeezed.
Yelping, Shorty nearly folded at the knees. “Damn you! That was uncalled for. What I want to do isn’t any different from what you were doing ten minutes ago.”
“You saw us?” Sarah was aghast.
“I didn’t see enough, I’m sorry to say,” Shorty taunted her. “But I’d love to have those legs of yours wrapped around me.”
The night rumbled to the drum of hooves. Fargo established they were heading west, and poked Shorty with his Colt. “Where did the four of you come from? What’s out here that would interest men like you?”
“You’re a regular bundle of questions,” Shorty replied. “But I’m not the one to answer them. I follow orders like all the rest.”
“Whose orders?”
Shorty shook his head. “Gouge out my eyes and I won’t say. You’re big and tough as sin, but I know someone a lot meaner. Someone who thinks nothing of doing things to people that would curdle your blood. Someone who once gutted a baby for the fun of it.”
“No!” Sarah exclaimed.
“I’ve seen women skinned alive,” Shorty crowed. “Seen men tied upside down to trees and fires started under them so their brains bake. Seen an old woman made to swallow broken glass.” Shorty locked eyes with Fargo. “So do your worst, Flint. It can’t be half as bad as what they would do.”
“Who did all those things?” Fargo asked. “You and your friends?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Shorty was growing smug. “Let’s just say we’re the curliest wolves you’re ever likely to meet.”
“Then how is it the old woman at the trading post is still alive?”
Shorty snickered. “Are you kidding? She’s meaner than all of us combined, her with that old Walker Colt.” He laughed, then said, “Why would we kill Granny? Where’s the sense in riding all the way to Fort Bridger or Fort Hall for supplies when we can get all we need from her?”
As Fargo recollected, that was the same reason Granny Barnes gave for the Paiutes leaving her alone. But she was living on a razor’s edge. Outlaws and renegades were notoriously unreliable, and notoriously vicious.
Shorty touched his wound, and grimaced. “It’s not hurting nearly as much. The bullet went clean through or I’d be bleeding a lot more.”
“You’re taking it awful calmly,” Sarah said.
“Hell, it’s not as if I haven’t been shot before. This makes the fourth, no, the fifth time. Once in each leg and once in my arm and another time in my backside. I’m unlucky that way. The others always tease me about it.”
Fargo was listening for hooves or footfalls; he wouldn’t put it past the outlaws to circle back. “What are your plans for the wagon train?”
“What makes you think we have any? The four of us aren’t hankering to be shot to pieces.”
“Which one of you runs things?” Fargo probed, but before Shorty could answer, gunfire crackled a quarter of a mile away.
“They’ve held up their end,” Shorty said. “Now I expect you to hold up yours.” He took a step westward, then stopped and held out his left hand. “My pistol, if you please?”
Fargo emptied the cylinder, then tossed it to him. “We’ll meet again.”
“You can count on it, mister.”
They watched until Shorty was lost to view, and Sarah remarked, “I wonder what that was all about?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” was Fargo’s hunch.
12
The emigrants had found paradise. Their prairie schooners were parked in a long row in the shade of trees near the trading post. Their horses had been let loose to graze. The children played tag or hide and seek. Many of the men were at ease on the porch, many of the women were inside admiring the trade goods.
Mandy came bounding like a young rabbit. Sarah was off the wagon before Fargo brought it to a complete stop, and mother
and daughter embraced and clung to one another, weeping.
As Fargo climbed down, Sarah glanced at him and mouthed the words, “Thank you.” He touched his hat brim, then untied the Ovaro from the back of the prairie schooner and brought it to the hitch rail.
“The two of you made it,” Peter Sloane said, not sounding particularly pleased. He was leaning against a porch post and puffing on a cigar. “All your worry was for nothing, eh?”
“For nothing,” Fargo said. Stepping onto the porch, he gripped Sloane by the shirt, spun him completely around, and punched him on the jaw. Sloane teetered on the edge of the porch a moment, then down he went, dazed but not severely hurt.
Everyone else froze.
Fargo stepped off the porch and reached Sloane just as Sloane rose onto his hands and knees. “That was for deserting Mrs. Yager.” Snapping Sloane erect, he delivered a blow to the gut. “That was for making them ride last all the time.” Fargo leaned down, slapped Sloane’s hands away, and hauled Sloane to his feet a second time. “And this is for all the trouble you’ve given me.”
His arms pinwheeling, Peter Sloane landed hard on his back. Like an upended turtle he lay glaring, and spitting blood. “I didn’t deserve that!”
“Yes, you did,” Fargo said. “That and a lot worse. We were almost killed, thanks to you.”
“Me?” Sloane spit more blood and pushed to his feet. “Whatever befell you out there, you brought it on yourselves.”
“Always making excuses,” Fargo said. “Have you ever owned up to your mistakes once your whole life?”
“If you didn’t have that pistol,” Sloane snarled, “I would thrash you within an inch of your miserable life.”
“Oh?” Unbuckling his gun belt, Fargo gave it to Jurgensen. Sloane instantly waded into him while his back was turned. They weren’t the precise blows of a professional boxer but they were backed by sinew and muscle that had pushed plows for years. Whatever else he might be, Sloane was no weakling. His punches hurt.
Circling, Fargo blocked and slipped swing after swing. He landed a few solid hits whenever an opening presented itself.
“Stop them!” someone cried.
“Not on your life!” Nickelby said. “They’ve been leading up to this since they met. It’s high time they settled it.”
Sloane was determined to, that was for sure. Adopting a stance like Fargo’s, he began throwing his fists where they would do the most damage: at Fargo’s cheeks, at Fargo’s mouth and jaw, at Fargo’s ribs. Once he tried to knee Fargo in the groin but Fargo sprang back and countered with a right cross that rocked Sloane onto his boot heels.
Mrs. Sloane tried to intervene by stepping between them. “Peter, you cease this nonsense this instant!”
“Out of my way, woman!” Sloane roared, and shoved her so that she stumbled and nearly fell. “This is between the two of us!”
Fargo feinted, and when Sloane raised an arm to block, he slipped in a left jab that bent Sloane in half. “That one was for your wife.”
The farmer was livid. “I’m going to kill you with my bare hands! Do you hear me? My bare hands!”
“Not today. Not ever.”
“We’ll see about that.” Sloane came in fast and furious, rage and frustration making him reckless. He didn’t bother with body blows. He went for the face and the throat.
Fargo blocked, spun, blocked again. A fist scraped his cheek. He flicked one past Sloane’s guard to crash against Sloane’s jaw but the farmer stayed on his feet and kept coming. A woman yelled something, Mrs. Sloane maybe, but whatever she yelled was lost in the whirl of combat.
Sloane’s cheek was split and his lips were bloody and puffy and he had a nasty welt over one eye. Huffing and husking, he stormed at Fargo yet again, his thick arms cracking like whips.
A left hook glanced off Fargo’s jaw and for a few seconds the world spun. Then Peter Sloane’s head filled his vision and he delivered an uppercut that started at his knees and ended a foot in the air above Sloane’s head. He heard a thud and looked down and the farmer was sprawled at his feet, unconscious to the world.
Breathing deeply, Fargo slowly lowered his arms and stepped back. Sloane had put up more of a fight than he thought. He moved toward the porch, his ribs aching with every step. The emigrants moved out of his way. Jurgensen gave him the gun belt and he strapped it on and went inside and over to the liquor shelf. He had finished the first bottle before he lit out after the wagon train. Another was in order. Opening it, he upended it and chugged.
“Yes, sir. You’ll drink yourself into an early grave just like my George.” Granny Barnes was in the doorway, her smile warm and friendly. She wore a yellow bonnet and a wide leather belt decorated with blue and red flowers. Tucked under it was the big Walker Colt. “That will be four dollars.”
“I thought mine only cost two?” Fargo said, reaching into his pocket.
“I should charge you double for the ruckus you just caused,” Granny said sternly. “What got into you, tearing into him like that?”
“Jackasses always rub me the wrong way.” Fargo flipped the money to her and she deftly caught it. “It’s a failing of mine.”
Granny chuckled. “I have a few failings myself but you couldn’t pry them out of me with a metal bar.” Walking behind the counter, she rummaged on a low shelf and produced a large tin box. From under the top of her dress she drew a necklace. A key hung from the end of it. She inserted the key into the lock on the box and opened the lid. Inside were stacks of bills and a collection of coins to which she added the ones he just gave her.
“Aren’t you worried someone will steal that?” Fargo idly asked.
“Over my dead body.” Granny closed the box and locked it and placed it under the counter again.
Fargo’s lower lip was stinging from where Sloane had split it. He winced as he swallowed, then asked, “Where did Jared Fox get to?”
“Off with my granddaughter, I suppose,” Granny said. “The two of them hit it off. But then, she hits it off with just about any male who happens by.”
“Oh?” Fargo said, feigning innocence.
“That’s right. You haven’t met her yet, have you? Mr. Fox is fortunate she met him first or she wouldn’t give him the time of day. She’s partial to big, handsome scoundrels like you.”
Fargo walked to the door. Sloane was still on the ground being tended by his wife and two other women. The men had moved off the porch and were over by the wagons, talking.
“Some of those pilgrims sure don’t like you much, judging by the looks they’re giving you,” Granny said at his elbow.
Fargo downed more whiskey.
“I’ve overheard a few of them say they can’t figure you out,” Granny mentioned. “A walking contradiction, one called you.”
“I care what they think,” Fargo said sarcastically.
“I’m a mite puzzled myself, Mr. Flint. You forced yourself on them. You shot Raskum. You went after the girl. You helped the mother. Now you beat the stuffing out of their leader.” Granny paused. “Are you for them or against them?”
“I’m for me.” Fargo strode out into the sunlight and over to the hitch rail. Leading the pinto by the reins, he took it around the building to the spring. The gate hung open. He thought he was shed of Granny Barnes but she had followed him.
“Mr. Sloane paid fifty dollars to have the run of the spring for his whole party as long as they’re here.” Granny smirked. “He specifically said that does not include you.”
Fargo paid her. While the Ovaro drank, he plopped down in the grass, his hands behind his head. “Are you still here?”
“Just tell me if I’m annoying you,” Granny said.
“You’re annoying me.” Fargo had to keep up his act for as long as it took, no matter who it hurt.
“Forthright as can be.” Granny winked. “I like that in a man. I wish my George had your gumption.”
“I thought we were a lot alike.”
“Only when it comes to bug juice,” Gran
ny said. “He had no more backbone than a bowl of soup. He could never make up his mind, for one thing. For another, he was too soft. He’d let people drink our water for free if it were up to him. Or charge half what I do for our goods.” She fingered her bonnet. “He’d let people walk right over him, the simpleton.”
“I’ve known men like that,” Fargo said, but Granny did not appear to be listening.
“For the life of me, I can’t remember why I married him. No woman wants a husband weaker than she is. No woman wants a man who won’t stand up for himself. I wore the pants in our family. I was the one who did what had to be done.”
Fargo motioned at the trading post. “You’ve done fine.”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Granny said. “But I can’t help wanting more. I’ve always been that way. I’m never satisfied. I suspect when I die, they’ll carve that on my headstone.”
A couple came strolling out of the trees hand in hand. Fargo had to smile when he saw it was Jared and Melissa. Jared was wearing his best Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, Melissa a fetching dress.
Granny followed his gaze. “She’s doing it again. Throwing herself at him. The boy is smitten but to her it’s just another dalliance. She’ll drop him like a hot ember if someone else takes her interest.” Granny waggled a finger at him. “It could be you, Mr. Flint.”
“I’m not interested.”
“Don’t let her boyish looks fool you. I hate to say this about my own kin, but from what others say, she’s a regular wildcat under the sheets.”
Jared and Melissa stopped and kissed.
“Look at that!” Granny rasped. “Always flaunting herself when she shouldn’t. Kindly excuse me, Mr. Flint.” She bustled out of the gate and bore down on the pair like an irate she-bear.
Fargo gazed at the pond and saw the reflection of someone coming up behind him. “I hear your brother is in love.”
Cathy Fox had on a clean sky-blue dress and had tied her blond hair back with a bright blue ribbon. Sashaying around in front of him, she frowned at her sibling. “Is that what they call it these days?”
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