by John Benteen
There was no more danger of fire.
Fargo brought in his men. He and MacKenzie sat over good bourbon in the camp office, savoring an interval of rest, making plans.
“I think Lasher must have shot his bolt,” the Scot said. “He’s finished and he knows it.”
“Maybe.” Fargo appraised the amber glass with an expert’s eye, then sipped. “Maybe not. We’ve still got to make the drive. I know Saul Lasher of old. You can’t count him out until he’s dead.”
“Aye, he’s a tough bastard. All the same, once we’re in the river—”
“We’ll have to be twice as careful,” Fargo drank again. “You know what I’d do if I were Lasher? If I had mill contracts bearing down on me and no timber to fill ’em with?”
“What?”
“Take yours,” said Fargo. “Hijack your drive.”
“Hijack my drive?”
“Right. I’d get me some men, set up an ambush somewhere along the Wolf’s Head before it gets anywhere near civilization, figure out a way to jam the drive, and hit your outfit with everything I could scrape together. Wipe out all your men, take over with my own. Finish the drive down to the Sound, hide the logs in a cover somewhere, cut off your brand on their ends and put my own on, and sell ’em to a mill—there are plenty of pirate mills that don’t ask questions. Take the money and get out of the country, let the other mills go to hell with their legitimate contracts and the banks foreclose.” Fargo finished his drink. “A man like Lasher, with a hundred thousand or so of timber money from your wood, could set himself up real nice in the mahogany monterias down in the Mexican jungle or along the Amazon.”
“That would be an incredibly desperate act.” MacKenzie shook his head.
“Lasher’s a desperate man.”
The Scot considered for a moment. “Then it’ll be up to you again, Fargo. To stick with us, make sure the drive goes through.”
Fargo nodded. Absently, his hand caressed the double-barreled shotgun within close reach on the table. “That,” he said, “is what I hired out for.”
~*~
Three days later, at first light, they blew the Wolf’s Head dam.
Fargo, caulks dug into a massive fir log, poised his peavey. When the dull thunder sounded far ahead the wood beneath his feet trembled like something suddenly come to life. Then, slowly, it floated forward, beginning the long journey down the Wolf’s Head to Puget Sound. Minute by minute it picked up speed, and so did the tons of timber around, behind it. It bobbed, rolled in the freshening current of the rain-swollen stream, and then it rushed forward like a wild thing suddenly uncaged. Grinding and groaning, thousands more like it surged along behind. They shot over the chute of the dam, slammed into the swirling water below, and hurtled down the flooded river to the coast.
As the banks sped by, Fargo, knees bent, caulks dug, feet deftly birling, balancing like a cat, felt a rush of exhilaration. It was good to be on the river again, riding the big wood hell-for-leather in white water; spray drenched him icily, but he hardly felt it. There would not be many more drives like this; he was going to enjoy it while he could.
And he had, he thought, better damned well keep his balance. Loggers’ clothes were heavy enough, if you went in. Laden with bandoliers, with slung shotgun and rifle as he was, he’d sink like a stone if he lost his balance.
If, he thought grimly, those millions of pounds of fir logs rushing along behind him didn’t grind him to a bloody pulp first.
That was part of the game; that was where the fun came in, at least for him. The risk was what he lived for. He turned, looked back at the men behind him, busy with peaveys and cant-hooks. They too were armed; every man had a Winchester slung across his shoulders. If Lasher tried to stop the drive, he’d damn’ well better be prepared for war.
On downriver they surged, the wanigan full of bedrolls and cooking gear behind them. Sometimes they hit whirlpools and savage eddies from the suction of which the fir sticks must be wrenched with brute force, and at incredible danger. Then white water, where hidden rocks like fangs, sought to seize the logs and jam the drive. Once that happened, the great raft of floating fir piled up behind caught timbers in a huge, grinding, dangerous mass. The men worked furiously to free the jam, but, in the end, it took dynamite. Then, released, the logs rushed on; the drive continued.
Three, four days of never-ending spray, of sleeping in wet blankets, of fighting water, rocks, and jamming logs. Then, ahead, the forest-clad hills gave way to cliffs, the river narrowed, foaming through a gorge. The logs rushed on at breakneck speed and Fargo braced himself. This was called the chute. There would be one hell of a wild ride through here where the river dropped swiftly between those sheer, towering cliffs. But it was not the way the logs picked up speed as they rushed into the narrow, rain-swollen channel like stampeding horses that made his heart beat faster. It was the realization that if Lasher were going to ambush the drive, this was the place.
Now cliffs towered over them, blocking out daylight; rain mixed with spray drenched them; the great drive pounded along at almost express-train speed. Fargo balanced like a cat, riding his rolling, bobbing, bucking stick of timber instinctively. Then he tensed. Up ahead, a quarter of a mile away, the chute turned sharply. What lay beyond the turn could not be guessed, but he managed to unsling the shotgun, even as the drive raced toward it.
Then, with Fargo at the front, MacKenzie nearby, the logs rushed around the turn. For a moment, the full force of rain and spray filled Fargo’s eyes, blinding him. He shook his head, blinked, and then he saw it and he cursed, knowing his instinct had served him well. Up ahead the chute narrowed even more—and there great charges of dynamite had spilled tons of rock and earth into the river to block it.
MacKenzie let out a yell that the wind whipped away. Fargo motioned wildly, and he and MacKenzie ran back along the drive toward the rear, leaping nimbly from log to log. When the timber hit that barrier with the force at which it traveled, the front of the drive was no place to be. “Back!” Fargo screamed at his men. “Back! We’re gonna jam!”
They barely made it. Up ahead there was a sound like a hundred train wrecks as enormous logs slammed full-tilt into the massive barrier. They reared and seemed to paw the air, then hung, jammed; and, rushing along behind them, the rest of the drive slammed into them and piled up, logs grinding, climbing, bucking, rolling, smashing together, tilting, or being shoved beneath the surface.
Beneath Fargo the whole world seemed to shudder, buck, and quake. Fighting to keep his balance as one end of the stick on which he stood was rammed deep under, he looked up just in time to see another log, five feet through the butt, override it, tower high above him, come crashing down. Fargo jumped sideways, his caulks caught in the wood of a stick of timber four, five feet away, and then he jumped again, and the rearing log crashed down exactly where he’d been seconds before. Then it drove forward like a battering ram, grating against the one beneath it.
And still it was a nightmare of thrusting, rearing, grinding wood. Fargo saw one of the river-hogs, a man named Curtis, fighting to keep his balance on a tilting log. Then, behind him, another stick came sliding forward, pushed by all those behind it. Fargo yelled, but his voice was lost in the sound of grinding, crashing wood, the swirl of rushing water, the wind and rain. The oncoming log hit Curtis like a mighty fist, knocked him forward. He fell into the water in a gap of three, four feet between two huge timbers. Fargo caught a glimpse of a white face, an up-thrust hand. Slowly, brutally, like millstones, the jam’s force ground the great logs together. The man’s scream was high, thin, and pinched off quickly.
Then the logs shuddered to a final halt beneath the feet of the rivermen as the jam stabilized. The whole channel of the river was a solid floor of logs from wall to wall, blocked by the barrier, extending nearly a mile upstream.
And then, as MacKenzie’s loggers steadied themselves, got their footing once again, they came—Lasher’s men.
There was a cleft in the gorge wal
l up by the barrier. Out of that they poured, three dozen of them, and they came shooting. Like ants they swarmed out on the vast jam and Fargo, taking cover behind a tilted log, grinned coldly as he recognized the big man in the lead, dressed in logger’s clothes and with a Colt Peacemaker in each hand.
So this was it, the final fight. Fargo yelled, “Here they come! Give ’em hell!” His own men fanned out, sheltering. Lasher’s men spread across the jam, took shelter, too. Fargo saw Lasher fall behind a log, snap a shot around its end. He lined his Winchester, took aim, but Lasher drew back just as Fargo’s bullet plowed splinters.
Now the canyon was thunderous with echoing gunfire, as MacKenzie’s men returned Lasher’s fire. Lead whipped like sleet across the jam, whined and ricocheted off the canyon walls. Then there was more firing from above. Lasher had men on the gorge rims, too, and they could shoot down on the jam, pick off the loggers like fish in a barrel!
Fargo rolled, found better shelter as a bullet chopped wood by his face. That meant they were outnumbered and under attack from three sides, and Lasher had them unless somebody did something quick—and he would have to be the one. He twisted, looked over his shoulder to the rear of the drive. It was a long way back to the wanigan, the big scow that held the bedrolls and supplies and followed the drive down river. Right now it was piled up at the rear of the jam a mile away.
That was, Fargo thought, a long way to have to go for dynamite.
But he had to have it; there was no other way.
He turned, began to work his way toward the rear. He slithered in and out between the piled, awry logs like a snake. Bullets plunked around him but his use of cover was adept; no one up on the rim or out on the jam had a fair shot at him.
He found MacKenzie crouched behind a timber levering shot after shot from a Winchester. The Scot looked startled as Fargo crawled up alongside. Fargo tapped him on the arm. “Keep me covered, I’m going after dynamite!”
“Dynamite? Man, ye’ll never make it through all this with dynamite!”
“I’ll make it! Tell the men to rake those rims, make those birds up there keep their heads down. They do that, I’ve got a chance!” Then he crawled on.
Behind him he heard Lasher’s voice ring out. “MacKenzie! You’ll save a lot of lives if you surrender! I’ve got you whipsawed! You haven’t got a chance!”
“Go to hell!” the Scot shouted back. “Ye wouldn’t leave a man alive to tell the tale of this, ye bastard!” And the Scot’s rifle roared.
Grinning tightly, Fargo scuttled along the jam. All around him huge logs were heaped like giant matchsticks tossed together. Even so, lead bit dangerously close, and now he was reaching the worst part. Back here at the drive’s rear the jam was not so bad—which meant that the cover thinned. Hunkering behind a log Fargo could see the wanigan forced against the jam by the current a hundred yards away. A hundred yards of open space he’d have to cross, leaping from log to log, under fire. And then cross once more, the other way—carrying dynamite.
All right. That was what MacKenzie paid him for. He slung the shotgun, unlimbered the Winchester. His eyes raked the gorge rims right and left. He caught a flicker of movement. He aimed carefully, fired.
Up there a man screamed, rose to full height, came toppling down the canyon wall, landed on the jam, sprawled like a rag doll. Fargo’s eye went quickly to the other rim. A head appeared, trying to see what had happened. Fargo snapped another shot; it vanished. Then, giving the gunmen on the wall that to think about, he leaped to his feet and ran across the open space, spiked boots driving. As he ran he levered the Winchester mechanically, snapping shot after shot at the rims above. Lead whipped about him, chunked into the logs. He had almost made the wanigan when he was knocked sideways by a terrific impact.
He lay there, stunned for a second. Then, feeling no pain or shock at all, he realized what had happened. A slug had plowed into the rifle stock, slammed it against his belly. The gun was ruined, but now he was only feet from the big scow.
The cook and bull-cook who poled it had taken cover on the jam. Fargo rolled into the boat, scrambled toward its center where, carefully stowed among the bedrolls were boxes of dynamite, caps, and fuses, covered with tarpaulins to keep them dry. They were for blowing jams like this one.
Sprawled behind the shelter of the gunwales, he got a box open, raked out sticks of dynamite already clipped together in bundles of three and four and five. He found a bedroll, slit its lashings with the Batangas knife, crammed in a half dozen bombs of dynamite, lashed it shut. Then he opened another one, loaded it with caps and fuse, rolled it tight, rolled yet another bedroll around it. The dynamite was fresh; if hit by a bullet it probably wouldn’t go. But if the caps took a hit they packed enough power to blow him to kingdom come all by themselves.
Fargo took a long breath, braced himself. Then, with a bundle of blanket-wrapped explosive under either arm, he came out of the wanigan in a great bound and lit running, darting across the open like a frightened rabbit.
From up on the rims bullets chopped around him. Then his heart seemed to stop as something slammed into the bundle of dynamite, nearly tearing it from his hand. A rifle slug! But it had missed the powder, only chipping the blankets. Ahead, he saw an up-thrust log—cover, shelter. He dived awkwardly, trying to protect dynamite and caps alike from impact.
He made it. Now at least he had a chance. He lay there panting, then scrambled to his feet. Dodging, weaving, crawling, he ran forward across the jam, taking advantage of every bit of cover. Rifle fire had swelled to a crescendo now.
Nearly a half mile, over a devil’s tangle of jammed fir, under and around big logs, with lead ripping all about him and enough explosives in his arms to make him vanish without trace if someone scored a lucky hit. It was the longest, most endless distance he had ever covered. Then, ahead, he saw MacKenzie, still behind his log, still shooting with machine-like regularity. Fargo leaped, landed behind him.
The Scot whirled; then his eyes widened as he recognized Fargo and saw the bundles. “Ye got it?”
“I got it,” Fargo said. He grinned. Well-sheltered now, he slit the lashings with the Filipino knife.
MacKenzie laughed happily. “Here, lemme help.” He seized dynamite, caps, fuses. He and Fargo crimped in the caps, inserted fuses. Within two minutes their bombs were armed. MacKenzie took out a waterproof match case.
He handed Fargo half the matches. Then, grinning, he said harshly, “Let’s git ’em, Fargo!”
“Right!” Fargo said.
He and MacKenzie leaped up, ran forward. Lasher and his men saw them coming, concentrated a hail of fire upon them. But they had cover; most of the bullets plowed into the logs. Then MacKenzie stumbled. “Fargo,” he yelled and fell, pitching the two dynamite bombs he carried as he went down with a bullet in his thigh.
Fargo scooped them out of mid-air with a desperate lurch, hugged them to his chest.
“Go on!” MacKenzie shouted.
Fargo ducked beneath a log, rolled across the jam holding the dynamite clear, came up behind another huge stick of fir that was like the parapet of a trench with the excellent shelter it provided. He crouched low, struck a match, held it to the fuse. Then he heard what he was listening for—a hiss. Fargo threw the dynamite, lobbing it toward the head of the jam without rising above his cover.
He could see the bomb sailing lazily through the air, trailing a fine thread of smoke. He watched it drop out of sight somewhere up near the barrier, and lit another one.
Suddenly the whole gorge seemed to convulse with the confined thunder of the explosion. Men screamed. Fargo threw another bomb, and another.
They went off up there, and all sorts of things flew into the air—wood and bits of metal that had once been guns, and other things, ragged, bloody. Fargo swarmed up from behind his log and ran forward into swirling smoke that reeked of powder and of death. He had two more bombs left, and he lit one as he went, then hurled it straight for the barrier.
He dropped, and wh
en the five sticks went off, threw the other one. He was about to jump up again, charge on into smoke with his shotgun, when a strange thing happened.
Beneath him, the jam gave a mighty shudder and groaned like a giant in agony. Logs began to move, slightly but definitely. There was a grinding sound. Fargo swore, half in amazement, half in delight.
It was as close to a miracle as he could ask for. Normally such a jam could be broken only by charges carefully placed beneath key logs by experts. But behind the jam the rushing river had been rising, piling up. Beneath the jam it must have been eating at, undercutting, the barrier. And the force of those explosions had breached the dam, let that rushing torrent through and shaken loose the logs up there, and now as the torrent rolled boulders aside as if they were pebbles, swept the rubble down the stream, the drive was free and moving.
After that it was a nightmare, and there was no time for the survivors either side to shoot. The breaking of the jam was as convulsive and as deadly as its forming had been. Huge logs rolled and tossed and splashed and ground, some went under, some bobbed up. Men screamed, especially Lasher’s men, up there at the head, caught by surprise in the vast upheaval, the breaking free. Fargo dodged hurtling sticks of timber, fought to keep his balance, leaped from log to log as the jam broke and then went roaring down the river. He caught a glimpse of MacKenzie lying flat, clinging to a huge fir for dear life.
Then the log drive was a living, stampeding, rampaging thing again, rushing along. It spread out, rushed down the river. Fargo rode a giant stick of timber like a cat, shotgun unslung. His eyes searched the huge mass of rocketing fir.
Some of Lasher’s men were left. They clung to the logs or rode them like true river-hogs, but they were in no mood for fighting; they were dazed, in shock. Fargo knew, though, that they’d recover. He aimed the shotgun. It roared once, twice, and three of Lasher’s men went down. He broke the weapon, crammed in new rounds.
