by Jon Sharpe
Fargo could have hit him. He’d never known the old scout to be so gabby. Especially at times like this, when they risked losing their hides and a whole lot more.
The trail opened into a clearing. Across it stood a squat block that must be a cabin. The moans came from inside, or so Fargo thought as he warily approached. His saddle creaked as he dismounted and then he was at the open door, his back to the wall. The Colt’s hammer made an audible click.
Rooster darted to the other side of the door. He was holding his Sharps. “You or me first?”
“You cover,” Fargo said, and plunged inside. He immediately took two quick steps to the right so he wasn’t silhouetted against the night. He realized it was pointless, as it wouldn’t matter to the grizzly if he was or he wasn’t. Grizzlies relied on their other senses as much as if not more than their eyes, their noses most of all.
The interior was a black well. Fargo had a vague impression of furniture. Crouching, he waited for his eyes to adjust.
More moaning came from somewhere deeper in.
“Who’s there?” Fargo called out.
The moaning stopped.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Fargo said. “We heard someone scream. We’re from Gold Creek.”
For long moments there was no reply. Then Fargo heard a peculiar scuffling, as of shoes being dragged across a floor.
“Who’s there?” he said again, and it hit him that the scuffling wasn’t a shoe; it was a body. Someone was dragging herself toward him.
Fargo heard raspy breathing. “Say something,” he said. “How bad are you hurt?”
The feel of a cold hand on his own made Fargo jump. He nearly squeezed off a shot in reflex.
“Help me.”
It was a woman. Her appeal was made in a whisper fraught with pain.
Fargo reached out and felt cloth and then wet on his fingers. “Is there a lamp?”
“Table,” the voice said.
“Where?” Fargo asked, glancing about.
“To your left. Be careful you don’t step on me.”
Fargo carefully stood and just as carefully inched forward. His toe bumped something. Reaching down, he discovered her arm. He moved around her and groped the empty air. Suddenly his knee banged with pain and he grit his teeth to keep from swearing. He had found the table.
The lamp was in the middle but Fargo had nothing to light it with. He called to Rooster, asking if he did.
“I’ve got some lucifers in my saddlebags. I’ll be right back.”
Fargo located the woman again. “Hang on. We’ll have light in a minute.”
“Did you see them anywhere?” she asked, with a peculiar hiss between each word.
“Who?”
She sucked in a deep breath as if she needed the air to speak. “My husband and my boy. They ran out to help when the bear attacked me.”
“Brain Eater,” Fargo said.
“No.”
“A different bear?”
She sucked in another breath. “Folks say Brain Eater is big. Maybe the biggest bear ever. This one was middling.” Again there was a hiss after each word and sometimes between each syllable.
Fargo’s questing fingers ran along her arm to her hand. She gripped his fingers so hard, her nails dug into his skin.
“We’ll get help,” he promised.
She didn’t respond.
Boots thudded and Rooster returned. He struck a lucifer and held it aloft.
“The lamp is on the table,” Fargo said.
A rosy glow filled the room. Its light bathed the woman, and Fargo’s gorge rose. He tasted bile and swallowed it back down.
“God Almighty,” Rooster breathed.
She had been torn to ribbons. Red furrows ran down her arms, her chest, her legs. In some places she had been clawed to the bone. Her left ear was missing and her left cheek had been shredded, which accounted for the hissing. Her right eye was emerald green. Her left eye wasn’t there.
“Ma’am?” Fargo said, gently squeezing. “It would help to know your name.”
Her right eye remained fixed on the rafters.
“Ma’am?” Fargo touched her good cheek. When she didn’t blink or say anything, he felt for a pulse.
“Is she?” Rooster said.
Fargo nodded. He closed her right eye and stood. “She said it wasn’t Brain Eater.”
“There’s another bear?” Rooster said skeptically. “Do you believe her?”
“I’m inclined to.”
“Why?” Rooster asked.
Fargo pointed at her head. “She still has her brains.”
7
They buried her at first light. They buried the remains of her husband and son, as well. The husband’s throat had been torn open but otherwise he didn’t have a mark on him. The boy had been mauled.
“They’ve both got their brains, too,” Rooster observed as he and Fargo were filling in the shallow graves.
Fargo searched for sign and found tracks in the dirt near a rickety chicken coop. The bear had left the chickens alone. It hadn’t touched a milk cow in a plank shed, either. Only the people.
Kneeling, Fargo studied the print of a forepaw. It was considerably smaller than the tracks of Brain Eater.
“I’ll be damned,” Rooster said, looking over his shoulder. “So there are two. What the hell is going on here?”
Fargo was as perplexed as his friend. It was rare but not unusual for a grizzly to turn into a people-killer. But for two grizzlies to do so at the same time in the same area was unheard of.
“Do we go after it?”
“We sure as hell do.”
For the first mile it was easy enough. The bear had made a beeline for the high country. It plowed through thickets rather than go around them and once it stopped to claw at a tree. But then they came to a rocky slope and the tracks disappeared.
Fargo and Rooster roved back and forth for more than an hour and couldn’t find so much as a partial print. Several times Fargo climbed down to examine patches of bare earth but it was always the same; nothing. They met at the top, and Rooster swore.
“It’s as if the damned critter vanished off the face of the earth.”
Fargo continued searching but in another half an hour he admitted defeat and they turned their horses toward town.
“The folks in Gold Creek ain’t going to like that they have two bears to deal with,” Rooster said. He blinked, and grinned. “Say. I wonder if they’ll post a bounty on this one, too.”
“I’m not so interested in the money anymore,” Fargo said.
“Are you loco? What other reason would there be to hunt them?”
“To stop the killings.”
“You’re not letting it get to you, are you? We’ve seen worse. Remember that time the Bloods caught those trappers?”
“I remember,” Fargo said, wishing he didn’t.
“A hunter’s got to keep a clear head,” Rooster said. “Feelings only cloud the thinking.”
Gold Creek lay peaceful under the morning sun. As luck would have it, Rooster spotted Theodore Petty entering a barbershop. They drew rein at the hitch rail and went in.
The mayor was in the chair and the barber was placing an apron over him.
“Mr. Strimm,” Petty said. “And Mr. Fargo, isn’t it? Come for a cut and a shave?”
“No,” Rooster said. “We’re here to tell you that you’ve got a bigger problem than you thought you had. Or more of one, you might say.”
“What are you talking about?”
Rooster motioned at Fargo. “Why don’t you tell him, hoss? I’m tuckered out after being up all night.” He sank into a chair along the wall and wearily leaned his head back.
Petty listened without once interrupting until Fargo was done. “That had to be the Nesmith family. Nice people, but stubborn. They were warned to come into town until the bear was disposed of but they wouldn’t listen. They thought the bear wouldn’t bother them, as close to town as they were.” Petty rubbed his jaw. �
�Are you sure it’s not the same bear? It’s not Brain Eater?”
“The tracks aren’t the same.”
“How can this be, two bears at once? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Rooster sat up. “You better post a bounty on this one, too.”
Petty’s head snapped around as if he were a turkey gobbler that had heard the call of a rival. “So that’s what this is, is it?”
“Mayor?” Rooster said.
“I only have your word for it that there’s another bear,” Petty said. “Maybe there isn’t. Maybe you concocted this tale to try and get more money.”
“We didn’t concoct the dead family,” Rooster said.
“No, I doubt you’d lie about something like that.”
Rooster pushed out of his chair and stabbed a finger at the mayor. “But we’d lie about a second bear? Is that it? Why, you miserable son of a bitch.”
“Here now,” Petty said. “I won’t be talked to like that.”
“You just called us liars, damn you. If I was twenty years younger I’d bust you one. I still might, if you call me a liar again.” Rooster marched to the door and swept it open. “Coming, pard?”
Fargo went out and closed the door and stared at Rooster, who was muttering to himself.
“What?” the old scout demanded.
“You’re a silver-tongued devil,” Fargo said.
The Nesmith family was well liked, and the news of their deaths spread like a prairie fire. So did news of a second bear. By the middle of the morning another exodus of bear hunters had taken place.
Fargo and Rooster weren’t among them. They drank and played cards at the Three Deuces and discussed how they were to find their elusive quarry.
“If all we do is go look for tracks every time somebody is killed, it could be months before Brain Eater is careless enough that we get a shot at him,” Rooster summed up their situation.
Fargo would rather not spend that long at it, and said so.
“As for this new bear, it may never kill again. People, I mean. Bears don’t usually make a habit of it, thank God.”
“Man-killers are rare,” Fargo agreed, and was refilling his glass when the batwings parted and in strode Moose. Behind him filed Cecelia Mathers and her three children.
The bartender was wiping the bar and hollered, “Hey, lady. What did I tell you about bringing those kids in here?”
“They’re mine and they go where I go,” Cecelia said.
“I could get in trouble.”
“Anyone says anythin’, you send them to me and I’ll box their ears,” Cecelia returned. “Now shush or I’ll box yours.”
The bartender opened his mouth to respond but closed it again and shook his head.
“Morning, fellers,” Moose said. He was grinning and looked fit to bust with the news he wanted to share. “You’ll never guess what I did.”
“You partnered up with Cecelia,” Fargo said.
Moose’s jaw fell. “How did you guess?”
Rooster snorted. “It was easy, you lunkhead.”
“Don’t insult my man,” Cecelia said, “or you’ll answer to me.”
“Your man?” Rooster repeated. He looked from Moose to her and back again, and laughed. “Damn, Moose. When you partner up, you really partner up.”
Fargo almost laughed, too, when Moose blushed.
“Enough about us,” Cecelia said. “We came here to talk.”
She turned to her offspring. “Abner, Thomas, Beth, I want the three of you to go sit by that wall there and don’t let out a peep until I call you.”
“Yes, Ma,” the oldest boy said, and he and his siblings dutifully obeyed.
“Now then,” Cecelia said, pulling out a chair. “Moose, you sit here.”
The big bear hunter sank down as meekly as a kitten and placed his rifle on the table.
“Ain’t life grand?” Rooster said.
Cecelia claimed the last chair and speared a finger at Rooster. “I ain’t dumb and I won’t be teased.”
“He’s teasing you?” Moose said.
“He’s teasin’ us,” Cecelia said. “But never you mind. He’s your friend so we’ll let it pass.” She sat back. “Now then. I don’t believe in beatin’ around the bush so let’s get right to it. Moose and me did a lot of talkin’ last night—”
“Is that all?” Rooster interrupted her, and winked at Moose.
Moose did more blushing.
“Consarn you.” Cecelia’s hand came from under the table. She had produced a derringer from the folds in her dress, and thunked it down, saying, “Mr. Strimm, I am tryin’ to be polite. You’re an ornery cuss so you can’t help bein’ contrary but there is only so much I’ll take.” Rooster went to say something but she held up her hand. “I ain’t done. You poke fun at us but you have no idea what it’s like to be a widow alone with three small children, and how hard it is to find a good man willin’ to accept you and them. And I do mean good. Not someone like you who’d poke a gal and go his merry way but a man who’d stick. So I’m tellin’ you. Make fun of my Moose again and I’ll shoot you.”
“I’m your Moose?” Moose said.
“You are after last night.”
“Oh.”
“Well now,” Rooster said.
Cecelia looked at Fargo. “How about you, mister? You don’t say much, do you?”
Fargo raised his glass. “Here’s to the happy couple,” he said.
“Now that’s better.” Cecelia smiled. “And we thank you. But Moose and me didn’t come here to talk about us. We’ve got a plan to collect the bounty but we can’t do it alone and Moose said we should ask you two first because he likes you.”
“Ask us what?” Rooster said.
“If you’re willin’ to settle for a thousand dollars as your share. We figure that you two and us two and maybe one more ought to be enough, and that comes to a thousand each.”
“I don’t know,” Rooster said. “I had my heart set on twentyfive hundred.”
“A thousand is still a lot. And we’re bein’ generous, seein’ as how it’s our plan.”
“What is this plan of yours?” Fargo asked.
“It’s a good one,” Cecelia said. “This Brain Eater ain’t like most bears. He’s tricky and smart and no one can find him. So we don’t bother tryin’. Instead, we make him come to us.”
“How?”
“Simple. We do what hunters do all the time. They set out bait. So we set out bait of our own. Bait Brain Eater can’t resist.”
“You’re talking nonsense, lady,” Rooster said. “What would you use? A cow? Some sheep? It won’t work. Brain Eater likes to kill people.”
“So we give him some.”
“Eh?”
“The bait,” Cecelia said, “is me and my kids.”
8
Rooster took the words right out of Fargo’s head by saying, “Lady, I’ve heard some dumb notions in my day but that takes the cake.”
“Don’t talk mean to her,” Moose said.
“Was this harebrained idea yours?” Rooster rejoined. “If it was you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Both Moose and Cecelia said at the same time, “Why?”
Rooster turned to Fargo. “Do you want to spell it out for them or should I?”
“Brain Eater kills people,” Fargo said, thinking that would be enough.
“So?” Moose said.
“He wouldn’t have a high bounty on his head if he didn’t,” Cecelia said.
“He’s killed kids as well as adults,” Fargo reminded them.
“What’s your point?”
Fargo stared at her. “Don’t tell me you don’t savvy. The point is that you want to use yours as bait.”
“They’re my kids,” Cecelia said. “I’ve already talked it over with them and they don’t mind.”
“They’re too young to know better,” Fargo said.
“We need them,” Cecelia insisted. “Me alone wouldn’t be enough. We need the kids runnin’ a
round and playin’ and makin’ a lot of noise. The griz is bound to notice.”
“What kind of mother are you, lady?” Rooster said. “You’d put their hides in danger for money?”
Cecelia came out of her chair as if fired from a cannon. She was around the table in long strides and slapped Rooster across the cheek.
Rooster’s head rocked but he was more surprised than hurt. “What the hell was that for?”
“Insultin’ me,” Cecelia declared. “By suggestin’ I don’t care about my young’uns.”
“You’re the one who wants to treat them like worms,” Rooster said.
“You listen here,” Cecelia said, jabbing him with a finger. “This is my one and maybe only chance to get ahead in this life. You have no idea how hard it is for a woman alone.”
“Maybe so,” Rooster said. “But it’s no excuse for draggin’ your young’uns up into the mountains to be ate.”
“You call love an excuse?” Cecelia shot back. “Because that’s why I’m doin’ it.” She gazed at her children and said tenderly, “They mean everythin’ to me. It tears my insides up that I can’t provide for them as I’d like to. Good clothes and schoolin’ takes money and we’re dirt poor. And it’s not for lack of tryin’. I’ve worked all sorts of jobs. I’ve scrubbed pots and pans, I was a cook, I’ve sewn and stitched, and do you know what?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Not any of them paid enough for us to make ends meet. We’re always scrapin’ to get by. Some days I can’t hardly afford food.” Tears filled her eyes, and she stopped.
“It’s all right, Ma,” little Bethany said.
“No, girl, it ain’t,” Cecelia said. “I’m sick of it. Sick of workin’ myself to a frazzle and gettin’ nowhere.” She swiped a sleeve at her eyes and cleared her throat. “Well, no more. The bounty is a godsend. I’d like the whole five thousand, sure, but I’m smart enough to know that on my own I’ll never earn it.” She looked at Moose and then at Rooster and finally at Fargo. “But with your help I can lay claim to part of it. Enough that me and mine won’t ever again have empty bellies. Enough that my kids can get some learnin’ and make somethin’ of themselves.” She wheeled on Rooster. “So don’t you sit there and accuse me of not bein’ a good ma, you old goat. I’m the best mother I can be, gettin’ by the best I know how.”
