by Jon Sharpe
Time dragged. Fargo finished the cup and poured another. By the position of the North Star it was close to midnight. Mabel snored lightly in peaceful repose. He smothered a yawn, set down the cup, and stretched. Some sleep would be nice but he had to stay awake.
Suddenly a twig snapped. Throwing himself to one side, Fargo wedged the Henry to his shoulder.
Binder stood at the clearing’s edge, his arms over his head to show he meant no harm. “It’s just me!”
Wary of a trick, Fargo looked for others but saw none. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“You don’t trust anyone, do you?” Binder came over. The scarred and mottled skin where hair had once been lent him a grisly aspect. “I am in a powerful fix, and that’s no lie.”
“Where have you been all this while?”
“Off in the woods. I was too scared to move for fear the Untillas would spot me.”
“Are they still out there?”
“I only saw the one who put that arrow in Skagg. He ran off, but where there is one there are usually others, and I have no hankering to be skinned alive.”
“They hate whites that much?”
“They hate Skagg,” Binder said, “and anyone who works for him.” He glanced nervously about. “Can I lower my hands now?”
Fargo nodded. “Have a seat.” He kept the Henry trained on him.
“I should never have offered to help you,” Binder said, running a hand across the scarred skin on his head.
A sudden insight prompted Fargo to ask, “Who tried to scalp you?”
“The Untillas. Which is why I want to head for Denver. But no one quits Malachi Skagg unless he lets them and he isn’t about to let me.”
“Why?”
Binder ignored the question. “I can’t head to Denver without money, and I am broke. Which is why I need the hundred dollars. But someone must have seen me slip away from the trading post and told Skagg, and he figured out what I was up to. He will turn me into worm food if he gets his hands on me.”
“Do you have a horse?”
“At the trading post.” Binder spied Mabel’s empty cup and snatched it up. “Do you mind if I help myself?”
“The coffee will have to wait,” Fargo said, coming to a sudden decision. Bending, he shook Mabel’s shoulder until she mumbled and stirred and finally sat up. She blinked in confusion, then saw Binder.
“Where did he come from? What have I missed?”
“We are not waiting for morning,” Fargo revealed. “Gather up your things and saddle your horse. We will leave as soon as Binder and I get back.”
Binder glanced in the direction of the trading post, and paled. “No, no, no. Skagg will have men watching my animal. We will only get ourselves shot.”
“You are not riding double with us,” Fargo said.
“Damn it all,” Binder grumbled. “Why can’t things ever be easy?”
“Mind explaining to me?” Mabel requested.
Fargo did, concluding with, “I don’t like to leave you by yourself. You’re to keep your revolver handy, and if the Untillas show up, scream your lungs out.”
Binder was nervously fidgeting. “Why don’t we wait until daylight? I can’t see in the dark.”
“Neither can your friends. It is better now. Skagg and the others will be asleep.”
“That is what you think. They like to stay up late drinking and having fun with the women.”
Fargo wagged the Henry. “Lead the way.”
“I am sorry I ever made the offer,” Binder bellyached. “Your pigheadedness will get us killed.”
The woods were black as pitch. There was no moon, and what little starlight penetrated to the forest floor did not relieve the gloom. Fargo made no more noise than an Apache but Binder rustled brush and stepped on twigs and once blundered smack into the trunk of a tree.
“You must have eyes like a cat,” he grumbled.
“Take your time. Feel your way with your hands,” Fargo advised.
“What do you think I have been doing?” Binder swore. “I have half a mind to say forget it and take my chances with Skagg. I will tell him I had a change of heart and beg him to let me live.”
“He does not strike me as the forgiving sort,” Fargo observed.
“He sure as hell isn’t,” Binder agreed.
There was no more talk of changing his mind.
The cabins and lean-tos and tents were all dark but light glowed in the trading post window. Through the burlap that covered it came rowdy voices and lusty mirth. Some of the voices were female.
“What did I tell you?” Binder said.
“Where is your horse?”
Binder peered at the hitch rail, and swore some more. “Someone has taken it. Skagg, most likely.” He scanned the Landing from end to end. “I bet he has it hid.”
There was no stable or barn. The only place to hide a horse was behind one of the buildings, or off in the trees.
“Stick with me,” Fargo said, and circled until he had a clear view of the rear of the trading post. A horse was picketed close to the back door. “Would that be yours?”
“It would,” Binder said, brightening. “But there has to be a lookout.”
The very next moment, two men stepped from the shadows near the horse and looked about them. One was puffing on a pipe. Both bristled with rifles and revolvers and knives.
“What did I tell you, mister?” Binder whispered. “Now we can forget your loco notion, right?”
“Wrong. There are only two of them.”
“It only takes one bullet,” Binder said. “I am not taking another step and that is final.”
“No horse, no hundred dollars, no Denver,” Fargo told him.
“Just so you know, I hate you.”
8
Fargo tucked at the knees. “Stay put. I will deal with them.” He did not wait for a reply but silently stalked forward. The two lookouts were staring toward the Untilla River, the man with the pipe blowing smoke rings into the air. Fargo moved as quickly as he dared, freezing whenever one or the other so much as moved an arm or leg. To his left was a lean-to plunged in darkness. To his right, farther off, a cabin.
“—waste of our damn time,” the man without the pipe was saying. “Binder isn’t about to come back here with Skagg out to nail his hide to the wall.”
“We don’t have any proof he was conniving to get hold of the reward money,” said the pipe-smoker.
“Skagg thinks he was and that is all that counts.” The other man’s teeth flashed. “If you don’t think it is right, you can always take it up with him.”
“And have Skagg gut me or bust my skull?” The smoker blew another smoke ring. “I am fond of breathing.”
“Right or wrong, I won’t shed any tears over Binder,” the other said. “He is about as likeable as poison oak.”
Firming his hold on the Henry, Fargo carefully placed his right foot in front of him, then his left. The slightest sound would give him away, but fortune favored him. Another step, and he was close enough. The horse, a sorrel, paid him no mind.
“What do you say to keeping watch while I get some sleep?” the man without the pipe asked.
“That is fine,” the smoker said. “But don’t blame me if Skagg comes out to check on us and catches you.”
“On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t.”
Fargo sprang. He smashed the stock against the man’s head, spun, and tried to do the same to the smoker. But the one with the pipe leaped back, the pipe wedged between his teeth. Which was just as well. He could not yell with the pipe in his mouth. But he could level his rifle.
Swatting the barrel aside, Fargo slammed the Henry against the man’s cheek. Flesh split and blood spurted, but he did not go down; he was tough, this one. Quick-witted, too. Dropping his rifle, he clawed at his six-shooter. But Fargo was faster. His next blow caught the man on the chin and rocked him on his heels.
It was still not enough.
The man’s revolver cleare
d leather.
Fargo slammed the hardwood stock against his head. Once, twice, a third time in the mouth. The pipe broke and teeth shattered and the man swayed, blood and bits of broken teeth dribbling over his lower lip. He tried to cry out but all he uttered was a strangled gasp. Then he collapsed.
Fargo turned toward the horse, thinking that was the end of it. But fingers clutched at his leg. The first man was still conscious and attempting to get to his feet. Fargo swept the Henry down. The thud of wood on bone was loud. Knocked flat, the man lay twitching and mewing. Fargo silenced him with a last blow to the back of the head.
Grabbing the sorrel’s reins, Fargo turned toward the timber. He had only taken a step when the rear door to the trading post opened and out spilled a rectangle of light, impaling him in its glare.
“What the hell?”
Fargo whirled. It was yet another of Skagg’s wild bunch, rooted in astonishment. But he did not stay rooted long.
“Skagg!” the man bawled, and clawed at the six-gun at his waist.
Fargo shot him. He already had a round in the Henry’s chamber so all he had to do was thumb back the hammer and squeeze the trigger. At the blast, the man in the doorway was punched backward as if by an invisible fist. Fargo did not linger to see the result. Swinging onto the sorrel, he jabbed his spurs.
Fargo was halfway to the woods when he realized Binder had disappeared. He straightened, scouring the dark wall of vegetation, and nearly paid for his mistake with his life. Behind him a revolver cracked and a leaden bee buzzed within inches of his head. He hugged the saddle as more bees sought to sting him and gained cover without being hit. A glance revealed men spilling from the trading post, Skagg prominent by his size.
Fargo rode at a reckless pace. He reckoned it would only be minutes before the gang was after him, barely enough time to reach the clearing, switch to the Ovaro, and spirit Mabel Landry away.
Suddenly a two-legged shape was in front of him, frantically waving its arms. “It is me!” Binder squealed. “Hold up!”
The man would never know how close he came to being ridden down. Fargo hauled on the reins and brought the sorrel to a halt with half a foot to spare. “You ran off.”
“I took you for a goner, and I didn’t care to be a goner, too.” Binder snatched at the bridle. “Get off. It is my horse. I will ride it the rest of the way.”
“Like hell you will. You ran this far. I will see you in the clearing.” And with that, Fargo spurred the sorrel on.
Binder leaped aside, bawling, “Hold on! You can’t take my animal!”
Soon Fargo came to the clearing. He was out of the saddle before the sorrel came to a stop.
Mabel’s mare was ready to go, and Mabel was rolling up her bedroll. “Why so frantic? And where did Mr. Binder get to?”
“He should be here in a bit,” Fargo said. He threw his saddle blanket on the Ovaro, then the saddle. After tightening the cinch, he shoved the Henry into the saddle scabbard, rolled up his own bedroll, and tied it on. He was about done when the undergrowth crackled and into the clearing huffed and puffed Binder.
“Damn you! You had no call to leave me like that!”
Fargo stepped to the mare. “Here,” he said, cupping his hands to give Mabel a boost. She placed her foot into his interlaced palms and swung lithely up. He followed suit, then lifted the Ovaro’s reins. “We will ride in single file. Stay close. Binder, you come last.”
“So I am the first one Skagg shoots? I can ride as good as any man. I should go first.”
“Says the idiot who walked into a tree.” Fargo gigged the Ovaro to the north. Distant sounds told him Skagg was on his way. As the foliage closed about him, he looked back. Mabel smiled encouragement. Binder was swearing up a storm.
The heavy timber was a challenge in broad daylight. At night it was doubly so. A blunder by a rider, a misstep by a horse, and the animal could end up with a broken leg. Although Fargo’s every instinct was to ride like hell, he went at a trot for a hundred yards, then slowed to a walk. When he was sure they had gone far enough to swing wide of Skagg’s Landing, he reined to the west.
The woodland was an endless maze of shadow, leaves, and needles. Fargo stayed close to the river. Every now and again he heard the gurgle of the swiftly flowing water.
The floor at this end of the valley was a series of rolling troughs, and whenever Fargo came to high ground he twisted in the saddle and sought some sign of their pursuers. There was none, which mystified him, and caused him more than a little unease.
Along about four in the morning Mabel broke her long silence. “I am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“We must push on for as long as we are able,” Fargo said.
“I understand. Don’t worry. I will hold up. I am eager to learn my brother’s fate.”
“He is lucky to have a sister who cares as much as you do.”
“What a nice thing to say,” Mabel replied.
Fargo thought of the lush body under her riding outfit, and said nothing.
Dawn found them well up into the Sawatch Mountains. The imposing peaks seemed to brush the clouds. Virgin woodland, untouched by the hand of man, covered the slopes. Untamed, largely unexplored, it was the kind of country Fargo loved best. He could take civilization for only so long before he felt the impulse to seek out the haunts where man hardly ever set foot.
Man’s world and the wild world. Fargo was at home in both. But where he liked man’s world for its entertainments, for whiskey, women, and cards, the wild world was in his blood. It was part of him. It was why he worked mostly as a scout, why he ventured where others feared to tread, why in some quarters he was known as the Trailsman.
For the first hour after sunrise Fargo constantly checked their back trail. The result was always the same: nothing. As strange as it seemed, Malachi Skagg was not after them.
That was good, but it was troubling. Good, in that their lives were not in immediate danger. Troubling, in that by rights Skaggs should want them dead. If he was not after them, then he was up to something else. But what?
Fargo’s suspicions centered on Binder. The man claimed he wanted to be shed of Skagg. He claimed to need the one hundred dollars to tide him over in Denver. But it could be a trick. It could be Skagg had put him up to it. If so, their lives were in immediate danger from the very man who was supposedly helping them by guiding them to Chester Landry’s cabin.
Fargo’s suspicion was why, shortly after sunrise, he switched places with Binder and had Binder take the lead while he brought up the rear. He did not care to be shot in the back.
It was Fargo’s intention to push on all day. But by noon it was apparent Mabel could not hold out much longer. She kept falling asleep in the saddle, and would snap awake with a jerk of her head. Twice she almost fell off.
Fargo hollered for Binder to make for a bend in the river visible through the trees. On a wide grassy bank speckled with wildflowers, they at last drew rein. Fargo offered to strip Mabel’s mare for her. She thanked him, spread out her blankets, and was asleep within seconds.
“I am about to do the same,” Binder said. “My eyelids feel like they weigh more than my horse.”
“Get some shut-eye, then,” Fargo said. He would not go to sleep until the other did.
“Shouldn’t one of us have a look around? The Untillas are as thick as fleas on an old coon dog in these parts.”
Fargo had not seen sign of the Indians all morning, but that did not mean much. When Indians did not want their sign found, they were masters at erasing it. “We will leave them be if they leave us be.”
“If I see one, I am shooting him on sight.”
“Go right ahead,” Fargo said, “and I will shoot you.”
Binder glanced up from unfolding his bedroll. “What are you? An Injun lover?”
“What are you?” Fargo retorted. “Stupid?”
“It is not stupid to kill those who are out to kill you.”
“It is if you have no proof
they are out for your blood, and so far as I know, the Untillas are only mad at Skagg and anyone who rides with him.”
“I would not count on that were I you. They are red and we are white and that is all the excuse most Injuns need.”
“No shooting at them unless I say so,” Fargo said.
“It would serve you right if you got an arrow in the back,” Binder said.
Fargo did not bother with a fire. They would not need one until later, and he would rather not advertise their presence. He sat and watched the water flow by, with one eye always on Binder. The man took forever turning in, but eventually he laid on his back with an arm over his eyes,
Fargo’s own eyelids were wooden but he fought the urge to sleep for as long as he could. He did not succumb until Binder began to snore. Then he dipped his chin to his chest and closed his eyes. He slept fitfully, waking at the caw of a raven and a splash in the river. Once it was the chattering of a squirrel. Sounds that ordinarily would not disturb him. Nerves, he scolded himself. It would help if he spread out his bedroll and crawled under his blankets, but then he might sleep too soundly and awaken to find Skagg standing over him.
It was pushing four o’clock when Fargo stirred and sluggishly stood. He had not had nearly enough rest but it would have to do. He shuffled down the bank, dropped to his knees, removed his hat, and dipped his whole head in the river. The water was ice-cold. He broke out in gooseflesh and a grin as he shook his head and drops flew every which way. Then he lowered back down and thirstily drank, the water a balm to his dry throat.
Fargo roused Mabel, then Binder. Both wanted to go on sleeping but he pointed out they had several hours of daylight left and could cover a lot more ground before night fell. “Or don’t you want to reach your brother’s cabin as soon as we can?” he asked Mabel.
That got her up. “There is nothing I want more.”
Binder had to be poked a few times before he rose, with great reluctance, complaining about aches in his joints and an empty belly and how they better stop early for the night.
