by Jon Sharpe
“If you’re dumb enough to try,” Fargo said.
“That does it.”
Moose was on Fargo before Fargo could raise his arms to defend himself. A fist with knuckles the size of walnuts would have flattened Fargo’s nose, only Fargo ducked and retaliated with a solid right to Moose’s gut. The punch would have doubled most men over. All Moose did was grunt and wade in with his big fists flying. Fargo backpedaled, blocking and slipping most of the blows. Those that connected jarred him to his marrow. Moose was immensely strong. Fargo countered a left cross, spun away from a jab, and drove a straight-arm into Moose’s jaw. It was like hitting an anvil. Pain shot clear to Fargo’s shoulder. Wincing, he retreated and Moose came after him.
Fargo was vaguely aware they were gathering a crowd. Someone yelled for Moose to beat him to a pulp.
Moose was grinning as if this were great fun. He held his arms in a stance that left his face and neck exposed, and when he moved, he shuffled awkwardly, as if his feet were so far from his brain, there was a delay in the brain telling the feet what to do.
Fargo didn’t think this was fun at all. He was hurting, and he had to end it before Moose connected. He ducked a looping left, didn’t fall for a feint, and slammed Moose a good one on the cheek that rocked Moose on his heels. Moose stopped grinning. He looked angry and baffled. Apparently he was used to beating others easily and couldn’t understand why Fargo wouldn’t go down.
Moose arced a right and then a left. Fargo swiveled and avoided the first but the left smashed his shoulder and sent him tottering a good six feet. It was like being hit by a battering ram. He set himself and Moose started toward him.
Suddenly someone stepped between them, dressed all in yellow with her parasol over her shoulder. “That will be enough, Moose,” Fanny said quietly.
Moose was as astounded as Fargo. He lowered his fists partway and stared dumbly at her. “I know you,” he said.
“That’s enough, I said,” Fanny repeated. “Or I will tell Madame Basque and you won’t get to have a girl for the rest of our stay.”
“Not have a girl?” Moose said, sounding stricken.
“I know how fond you are of Harriet. But if I ask, she’ll close her legs to you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Only if you force me.”
Moose lowered his arms the rest of the way. “Haven’t I always been nice to you gals?”
“You have, and I like you,” Fanny said. “I also like him.” She pointed her parasol at Fargo. “And I don’t want the two of you hurting each other over something as stupid as this.”
“It’s not stupid,” Moose said, and nodded at Rooster. “He teased me. Called me a piss-poor hunter.”
“Well, then it’s only fair that you tease him back. You can tell him you’re bigger than he is.”
“Bigger?” Moose said.
“A lot bigger.” Fanny held her right thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. “He has a tiny little one.”
“He does?” Moose’s face broke into an ear-to-ear grin. “You hear that, Rooster? She says you got a tiny little pecker.”
“You could go around telling everyone he’s a mouse and you’re a bull,” Fanny said.
“Oh, hell,” Rooster said.
Moose threw back his head and great peals of mirth burst from his chest. “That’s a good one, Fanny. Can I say it just like you said it?”
“Yes, you may, with my blessing.” Fanny patted him on the shoulder. “Now why don’t you run along and have a few drinks and I’ll tell Harriet to expect you later?”
“I will. And thanks.” Moose clapped her on the shoulder and nearly knocked her over. Turning to the onlookers, he bellowed, “Rooster is a mouse and I’m a bull!” He strode toward the saloon, still laughing.
“Thanks a lot, Fanny,” Rooster said.
Fargo realized he was still holding his fists up and let his arms relax. His shoulder throbbed. The people around them began to disperse.
Fanny leaned on her parasol and grinned. “I do believe you owe me one.”
“I’m obliged,” Fargo said.
“Moose has a good heart but a bad temper. He’s a ten-year-old who never grew up.”
“He looked pretty grown to me.”
Fanny laughed. “The next time he sees you, he’ll probably have forgotten all about your fight. That’s how he is.”
Rooster thrust a hand at Fargo. “I owe you, hoss. He’d have beat me without half trying.”
Fargo shook, his hand hurting from the punch to Moose’s jaw. “You should know better than to make a man like him mad.”
Rooster shrugged. “I’d had a little too much to drink and it bothered me, him bragging like he does.”
“Still,” Fargo said.
“I know, I know.” Rooster smiled. “But enough about that big oaf. How about I treat the two of you to drinks?”
“I already have a bottle,” Fargo said, and noticed that Fanny didn’t have it with her.
“I put it on that crate you were sitting on.”
They went over but the whiskey was gone. Fargo swore and looked around but whoever took it had slipped it under a coat or gone into a building. He did more swearing.
“I’m sorry,” Fanny said. “I forget how human nature is.”
“My offer still holds,” Rooster declared, and led them to the next saloon, a place called Spirits. It had a painting of naked ladies on the wall behind the bar and a small chandelier.
Customers were playing cards and drinking but it wasn’t as rowdy as the Sluice.
Fargo chose a corner table. He held a chair for Fanny and Rooster fetched a bottle and three glasses. As soon as his old friend claimed a seat, he leaned back and asked, “What can you tell me about this bear?”
“Brain Eater?” Rooster grew grim. “He’s the worst man-killer I’ve ever come across, and I’ve got pretty near seventy winters under my belt.”
“You’re sure it’s a male?”
“So everyone says.”
“You’ve been out after him?”
“Twice so far,” Rooster said. “Each time I came back empty-handed. He’s like a ghost, Skye. And he’s so smart it’s spooky. To tell you the truth, I was thinking about calling it quits. But if you’re willing to partner up, I’ll stay and we can go after him together.”
“Brain Eater is as good as dead,” Fargo said, and grinned.
“You’re not listening,” Rooster said. “This bear ain’t like any other. We go after him, hoss, there’s a good chance neither of us will come back alive.”
3
Fargo discovered that when Fanny called it a circus, she wasn’t kidding.
Five thousand dollars was a lot of money. To some it was a fortune. So it was no surprise that the bounty had drawn would-be bear hunters from all over. That so many of them had never done any bear hunting didn’t matter. All they cared about was the money.
Rooster took Fargo on a tour of the saloons so Fargo could meet some of them and see for himself.
“It’s quite a collection,” Rooster said dryly.
Fargo agreed.
There were farmers. There were store clerks. There was a bank teller who admitted he’d never hunted so much as a chipmunk but who told Fargo, in all seriousness, “I don’t see where this bear will be a problem. All I have to do is point my gun and shoot.” There were buffalo hunters. There was a rancher who needed the money to keep his ranch afloat. There were mule skinners. There was a boy who couldn’t be more than twelve, who showed up with two cents to his name, toting a slingshot. Fargo was introduced to an Englishman who had brought a special rifle he used to bag elephants in Africa. There were several women, including a mother with three children who had lost her husband in an accident. Out of the hundred or so, only a handful had ever hunted bear.
“What do you think?” Rooster asked when they were at the last saloon.
“I think I need a drink.” Fargo bought another bottle and they planted themselves at the end of the
bar. As he filled their glasses he remarked, “They have no damn notion what they’re up against.”
“It’s plumb ridiculous.”
“If the town council had any sense, they’d send these folks packing.”
“The council is hoping one of the hunters will get lucky and put an end to the killings.”
“That, and it’s good for business,” Fargo guessed. The saloons alone were taking in more money in an hour than they used to make in a week.
“Here’s to greed,” Rooster said, tipping his glass to his lips.
“Here’s to stupid,” Fargo said, and did the same.
“So the way I see it, hoss,” Rooster said, “is that you and me have as good a chance as anyone and a better chance than most of tracking this Brain Eater and splattering his brains.”
Fargo had shot black bears and grizzlies. A few times when he had to in order not to be eaten, a few times when he was halfstarved and a bear made the mistake of wandering into his sights before a deer or a rabbit, and once when he needed a hide to make a robe for a Sioux friend who just happened to be female. “Do you still have your Sharps?”
“Wouldn’t hunt with any other gun,” Rooster said. “Last year I brought down a buff at five hundred yards.”
“That’s some shooting.”
“You’ve still got yours, I take it?”
“I took to using a Henry,” Fargo revealed.
Rooster was about to take another drink but stopped. “Why in Sam Hill would you part with your Sharps? You could outshoot me with that beauty you had.”
“A Henry holds more rounds.”
Rooster slapped down his glass, spilling some of the whiskey. “Rounds my ass. Why, those things are only fit for chickens and chipmunks.”
“I’ve dropped a few buffalo with it.”
“Hell,” Rooster said in disgust. “Bet you had to shoot the poor buff eight or ten times. You know and I know that when it comes to stopping a critter in its tracks, there’s nothing like a Sharps.”
“Sharps do come in larger calibers . . .” Fargo began.
“Damn right they do. Mine is a .52. It’s a regular cannon. What caliber is your chipmunk killer?”
“You know damn well the Henry is a .44.”
Rooster snorted. “When we find Brain Eater, what do you intend to do? Club him to death? A bee would sting him worse than your girlie gun.”
“Did you just say girlie gun?”
“You’d be better off using that kid’s slingshot.”
“You’re full of it,” Fargo said. But his friend had a valid point. A Henry could bring a grizzly down, provided its vitals were hit, but he wouldn’t care to stake his life on it.
“The hell I am. Look me in the face and tell me you’re going to go after a griz as big as a Conestoga with your pitiful .44.”
Fargo frowned.
“I didn’t think so.”
More than a little annoyed, Fargo said testily, “I never said I gave up the Sharps entirely. A friend keeps it for me. I use it now and then. And before you ask, yes, I left the Henry and brought the Sharps.”
“What’s her name?”
“Who?”
“Your friend.”
“Go to hell.”
Rooster cackled and smacked the bar. “That’s the spirit. Between your Sharps and mine, Brain Eater is fit to be skinned.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No,” Rooster said. “I don’t.”
An hour later Fargo and Rooster had finished the bottle and Fargo was set to order another when a commotion broke out in the street. Shouts flew from one end to the other.
“I wonder what that’s about,” Rooster said.
The next moment the batwings parted and a townsman thrust his head in. “There’s been another one! They have him in a wagon down to the undertaker’s.”
An exodus ensued, with a lot of pushing and shoving before everyone made it out. Fargo held back and waited for the press to thin, then joined the scores converging on a building with a sign that read simply, MORTICIAN. He had to shoulder through the crowd to a buckboard. A man in the bed had pulled back a canvas and onlookers were craning their necks to see the remains. One glimpse was enough for most; it was all they could stomach, and they had to turn away before they got sick.
Fargo wasn’t as squeamish. He’d seen freighters after the Apaches got done with them, and settlers after they had been paid a visit by the Sioux. He’d seen a man who had been clawed to ribbons by a mountain lion, and another who had blundered onto a she-bear and her cubs. But he’d never seen anything like this.
The arms and legs were lined up in a row, the hands and feet at one end, the stumps at the other. One of the hands was missing several fingers. The abdominal cavity had been ripped open and torn intestines lay in grisly coils. The neck had been bitten nearly in half. The face was intact but the crown of the head was attached by slivers of flesh and where the brains should be was a cavity.
“Merciful heavens,” a woman blurted, and vomited.
“Who was it?” someone asked the man holding the canvas.
“Ira Stoddard,” the man said. “He had a claim about two miles out. They found him near the creek. Or this that was left of him, anyhow.”
Rooster nudged Fargo. “Maybe we should go have a look-see before the horde shows up.”
“The horde?” Fargo said, and laughed. He didn’t find it so funny when they were barely out of town and found dozens of others ahead of them.
“I told you,” Rooster said. “Each time there’s a killing all of these so-called hunters want to be the first there in the hope they’ll spot the bear.”
Fargo was content to take his time. The grizzly would be long gone, anyway. They followed a rutted track pockmarked with hoofprints and had gone about half a mile when a black horse came up alongside the Ovaro and a shadow fell across him. “What the hell do you want?”
“Prickly, ain’t you?” Moose said. “I wanted to tell Rooster and you there ain’t no hard feelings about earlier.”
“That’s generous of you,” Rooster said, “seeing as how you were the one chucked me through the window.”
“You’re alive,” Moose said. “Or are you one of those sour folks who bellyaches over little stuff?”
“Little? By God, I have half a mind to—” Rooster stopped and shook his head. “No. You’re right. I shouldn’t have said what I did. You’re not entirely worthless as a bear hunter.”
“I’ve killed twenty-seven at one time or another,” Moose boasted, “and two of them were silvertips.”
“This one won’t be as easy as they were.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” Moose thrust his big hand at Fargo. “How about you, mister? Forgive and forget, as my ma used to say?”
“I never forget,” Fargo said, but he shook.
“Why, that’s what that British gent said about those ele-things he likes to hunt,” Moose said. “He claims they have two teeth as long as my arm and they wear a trunk on their face. But what would they need with a trunk when they don’t even wear clothes?” Moose guffawed as if he had told a joke.
Fargo decided to take advantage of the bear hunter’s friendliness. “You’ve been out after this griz before, I take it?”
“That I have,” Moose said somberly. “And he got the better of me every time.”
“Better how?”
“Brain Eater ain’t a normal bear. He’s got the painter gift of throwing a hunter off his scent. Hell, even hounds can’t bring him to bay.”
“How does Brain Eater throw you off?” Fargo keenly desired to know.
“He’s smart. He doubles back on himself. He sticks to rocky ground when he can. He goes up slopes too steep for a horse, knowing we have to go around. He sticks to water, too, and will stay in a stream for miles.”
“I’ve never heard of a bear doing all that,” Fargo admitted.
“Now you know why no one has caught him yet,” Moose said. “And why that bount
y is as good as mine.”
“Putting the cart before the horse, ain’t you?” Rooster said.
“Listen. No one has been out after Brain Eater as often as me. And the more I do it, the more I learn of his ways and the more I get the feel of him. Won’t be long, I’ll know what he’s going to do before he does it. That’s the day I bring his hide into Gold Creek and collect the bounty.”
“If he doesn’t eat your brain first,” Rooster said.
They reached the site.
“Look at them all,” Moose said, and rode into the thick of them.
“It’d be funny if it wasn’t so damn pathetic,” Rooster remarked.
Fargo grunted in assent.
The small cabin and the ground around it literally crawled with bear hunters. Some were on their hands and knees looking for tracks. One man had climbed onto the roof and was looking for sign from up there. The woman with her three children had them poking around in some bushes that weren’t big enough to hide a turkey.
Moose dismounted and walked about bragging how Brain Eater’s days were numbered.
Fargo sat the saddle of the Ovaro and shook his head in mild disgust. Any tracks the bear had left would have been obliterated. He noticed that a finger of pines came close to the rear of the cabin, perfect cover for a stalking bear, and he was about to ride around and confirm his hunch when the Englishman with the fancy rifle that brought down elephants rode over.
“I say, Fargo, wasn’t it? Wendolyn Channing Mayal, remember? Although most people call me Wendy for short. What do you make of all these blighters?”
“They’re a herd of jackasses,” Rooster said.
“I quite agree, Mr. Strimm,” Wendy said. “They’ll bloody well spoil it for those of us who have a legitimate chance at this beast.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Rooster said. “That gun of yours, and your fine clothes and all. You don’t strike me as somebody who is in this for the money.”
“Most astute, Mr. Strimm.”
“Most what?”
“You are exactly right,” Wendy said. “I hunt for the thrill. For the sport of it. Elephants and water buffalo in Africa, tigers in India, jaguars in South America, I’ve hunted them all. I came to your marvelous country to add a grizzly to my tally, and as luck would have it, read in a newspaper about the bounty and this bear.”
