Valley of Skulls (Fargo Book 6)

by John Benteen

  And yet, Fargo thought, they had beat them all: the bandits, the Indians, and the jungle. They had made it through this far. Tomorrow they would begin construction of rafts on which to float the carts and cannon down to the city of Belize.

  In a sense, it was over. In another sense, Fargo knew, it was just beginning. Darnley. He still had to deal with Darnley. The English soldier of fortune was still determined to have the cannon, hold it for ransom from old Stoneman. Fargo had used him and he had used Fargo, and before they reached Belize there would have to be an accounting.

  Fargo thought about that. Almost, he wished whatever it was within him that balked at going along with Darnley would dissolve and vanish. But he knew it would not; it was too much part of him. He made his living by jobs such as these; and the first time he double-crossed a customer, that was it. When he hired out to do something and named a price, he did it—or was prepared to die in the trying. He had come close to dying this time; when Darnley finally learned that Fargo had used him, had no idea of holding back the Golden Gun from Stoneman, he might come closer.

  But that was a matter for the future; and Fargo lived in the present, for the moment. Darnley’s Raiders had been decimated in the fighting; only a handful were left. Probably he would let Darnley have the gun. Then he would raise more men in Belize and come back and take it from him. And yet, he hated to see the gun go to Stoneman.

  Fargo loved weapons, as only a professional fighting man can. His love for a well-made, honest weapon was as strong as a lecher’s love for women or a drunkard’s lust for the bottle; strong as a cardsharp’s love for the gambling thrill or a Kentuckian’s madness over horses. And he had fallen in love with the Golden Gun. Not for the gold it contained, but because it was a fine weapon and it had served him well.

  Stoneman, he thought bitterly, was not worthy of such a thing. But he was bound to get it for him and turn it over to him and he would.

  Fargo tensed at a sound behind him in the darkness. Instantly, he was up and around, the shotgun leveled. Then he let out a long breath, recognizing the silhouette coming down the river bank. “Nancy,” he said, lowering the Fox.

  “Neal ...” She came to him, moved into his arms. Her mouth found his, open, hungry … He felt the crush of her breasts against his chest.

  The kiss lasted a long time. Two weeks ago, in the darkness, she had come to him the first time while he slept. He had awakened to find her in his bed, naked between his blankets. Always, he slept apart from the rest, and no one could hear them. He had taken what she had offered, needing it. And he had taken it time after time since then. Now he would take it again. It would be better this time because they were, for all practical purposes, out of danger.

  Her hand moved across his back, stroking the hard muscles there, caressed his neck beneath his hairline. Her lower body shoved against him, pushing hard, greedily. Still holding each other, they moved into the brush beside the river. There they sank to the ground on a bed of foliage. They released each other; and then she was wriggling out of shirt and pants and he had unlatched his belt, and they came together once more, and the river’s rush drowned out her panting, the moaning sound she made …

  It was over. They lay together relaxed and motionless for a while; then Fargo lit a cigarette. “Neal,” Nancy whispered. “We’re almost to Belize. What then?”

  He could not tell her about Darnley, the scheming and the fighting that still lay ahead. “I don’t know.”

  “You’ll come to Washington with us?”

  “Maybe. I haven’t been there in a long time.”

  “Oh, Neal, please, you must.” Her nails dug into his shoulder.

  “We’ll see.” He thought of Carla in that hotel room in Texas. They couldn’t understand; none of them could understand. That for him there was always another mistress, another lover: risk, danger.

  “Darling, you have to.”

  He sat up. “No, there’s nothing I have to do. But … We’ll talk about it in Belize. We ...” He tensed. “Somebody’s coming.” Quickly, he passed her clothes. He himself was dressed in an instant, the shotgun in hand. He wriggled to the edge of brush, looked up river. He recognized the silhouette there: Stoneman. The man stood on the river’s edge, looking downstream. He moved restlessly, almost as if he were watching, waiting for someone or something to come up the current. Fargo frowned.

  Stoneman had been quiet, very quiet, ever since the ambush four days out of the Valley of Skulls. He had avoided Fargo and Nancy both, and made a fair gun in their fights, had otherwise behaved himself, kept to himself. Now that they had reached the river, he was suddenly restless.

  “You go on back to camp the other way,” Fargo whispered. “I’ll be along directly.”

  “Yes.” Nancy, fully dressed now, vanished into the brush. Fargo cautiously emerged into the open.

  “Stoneman,” he said.

  Stoneman raised his head. “Fargo?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.” Fargo walked up to him. “What are you looking for? Expecting somebody?”

  Stoneman laughed shortly, contemptuously. “Yeah, Santa Claus.”

  Fargo stared at him a moment. “It’s a long time ’til Christmas,” he said finally.

  “Maybe not as long as you think.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing. Only. We’re almost there, aren’t we?”

  “We’re a long way from there yet. Keep your eyes open. There are Indians and jaguars in British Honduras, too.” Thoughtfully, Fargo moved away, watching Stoneman over his shoulder. Stoneman did not move; he only stood there, staring down the river.

  Camp was in a clearing, where a huge fire blazed. What was left of Darnley’s men, a pathetic remnant, sat around it—all except those posted on guard. In the flickering light, the Golden Gun gleamed dully, smeared with mud and travel-dirt. The single can of blasting powder and the last charge of rocks—there were none in this jungle—sat beneath its muzzle.

  As Fargo entered the circle of firelight, Darnley got to his feet. The ordeal in the jungle had burnt off every ounce of surplus flesh; his clothes—what was left of them—hung like bags on his big frame. But the Colts in his holsters were spotless and well-oiled. “Everything quiet?” he asked.

  “So far.” Fargo was relieved to see that Nancy had made it back to camp safely; she stood by her father near the carts of stelae. Around the clearing, the macheteros and arrieros were already asleep in their hammocks. There were not many left of them, either. Some had been killed in the fighting. Two weeks before, three of them had deserted. Still, there were enough men left in camp to build the necessary rafts.

  Fargo went to the Golden Gun; like a magnet, it seemed to draw him; it was hard for him to keep his hands off of it. He stroked the tube, tremendously heavy, satin soft. It had served him well, and he had served it well in turn. He had made it speak again after centuries of silence, and yet he had not destroyed it. It could have been destroyed, easily: gold was soft, even in as thick a mass as this tube. And the powerful modern giant powder he had been using as propellant for the charges of rocks was something it had never been designed to take. But he and the gun seemed part of one another; he knew what it could give and what it could take and he had never overcharged it nor fired it often enough to heat it and melt and flow it.

  Darnley came to stand beside him, feeling something of the same emotion. “Sweet piece, isn’t it?” He patted the gun. “A real love.”

  “Yes,” said Fargo.

  “Stoneman will pay high for it,” Darnley whispered. “We might go to a million and a quarter.”

  “Maybe.” Fargo lit a cigarette. “It’s not charged. I didn’t charge it tonight.”

  “I know. Funny, it makes you feel almost naked, not having it loaded. Still, no reason for it, really. We’ll have no trouble here we can’t handle with small arms. And she’s already taken a lot of stress; why push our luck?”

  “That’s the way I feel,” Fargo said. “She’s fired a lot of roun
ds she wasn’t designed for.” He turned away. “Guard detail set?”

  “What there is of it. We’re damned short of men. This sweet old girl has cost a lot of lives.”

  “I’ll check them at midnight,” Fargo said. “Now I’m going to get some sleep.” He glanced at Nancy; their eyes met. Then he went to his hammock, well out of the circle of firelight. He unslung the shotgun, piled in, fully clad, drew blankets over his head to keep off mosquitoes. In two minutes, he was sound asleep, with the Colt by his side, his hand clasped around its grip.

  When they took him, he never got a chance to use it.

  He came out of sleep groggily, with something cold pressed against his forehead. Even before he opened his eyes, he knew it was a gun muzzle. His right hand came up instinctively, but it was pinned, another hand, just as strong as his, ripped the Colt from it. Then a cold voice said, “Don’t move. You understand? Don’t move.”

  Fargo lay rigidly. All he could see was the blackness of two figures in darkness. One held a pistol against his head, between the eyes. “Who’re you?” he managed.

  “No bloody business of yours.” The gun barrel came away. “Up and out, damned easy. Otherwise, you’re dead.”

  He was not fool enough to buck that kind of drop. He lifted himself out of the hammock, stood up. Usually, he slept like an animal, ready to go into action at the faintest sound, but the ordeal of the jungle trip had exhausted him. And so they—whoever they were—had taken him as if he were a child. He cursed silently as strong hands frisked him, whisked away the Batangas knife. Then he was roughly turned around. “March!” a voice said. “Over to the fire!”

  In the center of the clearing, it blazed high. Men were grouped around it, and they held guns. They were not Darnley’s men. Fargo strode into the opening with a pistol probing at his spine. Then he halted.

  He had expected anything: but he had not expected this.

  Ned Stoneman sat beside the fire in a camp chair. Not young Ned Stoneman, but the old one, the withered man who was his father. He sat there with a pistol in his lap, and the light glinted on the cold blue eyes in the drawn face. His puckered mouth twisted in what might have been a smile as Fargo was pushed up to stand beside a disarmed Darnley, Telford, and Nancy.

  And young Ned Stoneman stood behind the chair, Fargo’s own shotgun trained on the group.

  “Hello, Fargo,” old Stoneman said, his voice still like the crackling of dry leaves. “Surprised to see me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I still had one last journey left in me.” The old man got to his feet unsteadily. He moved to the Golden Gun, leaned against it for support. “Ned sent word to Belize by three Indians he bribed to desert you. That you had got the Golden Gun and were on your way. I was on my yacht there; it had come and picked me up.” The claw like hand stroked the golden tube as if it were woman flesh. “I couldn’t rest, you see. I was afraid. Afraid that something would happen. That I would never touch this Golden Gun, never own it, never possess it. So when the Indians came with Ned’s message, I got some men together. We came up the river in canoes. A hard journey for a man my age, but—” still stroking the cannon of pure gold “—well worth it.”

  He laughed, a croaking sound. “We took out what few, tired guards you had posted without making any noise. Now we’ve got you. And the cannon. You and Darnley, of course—I know his reputation. When I heard he was with you, I understood everything—the two of you had planned to double-cross me.”

  “No,” Fargo said. “No, I was going to bring the gun to you.”

  Darnley whirled, looked at him. “You’d have had to kill me first!”

  “I was prepared for that, too,” Fargo said quickly. “I was going to keep my bargain, Stoneman.”

  “Then you’re a fool,” Stoneman said. “Enough gold to make you rich for the rest of your life, and you were going to deliver it for a lousy forty thousand? You expect me to believe that?”

  Fargo was silent.

  “That’s right,” said Stoneman. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. Since you’ll all be dead in a few minutes anyhow.”

  “All?” Fargo rasped. He looked at Telford, Nancy.

  Stoneman’s mouth warped in his ghastly smile. In the firelight he was like a mummy leaning on the cannon, his son behind him with leveled sawed-off. “All,” he said. “I hate to deprive the world of a scientist like Dr. Telford, but I have no choice. I led him to believe the Golden Gun and his stelae would go to the Smithsonian. Actually, all—all, do you understand?—go to my collection. The stelae will complete it, and this … this is the realization of my youthful dream ...” He stroked the barrel again. “Besides, Ned has a score to settle with Nancy, poor girl. And you can’t expect Dr. Telford to keep silent about the murder of his daughter.”

  He paused, as if so much talking had exhausted his strength. “Anyhow, you’re alone now, all of you. Darnley’s Raiders are finished. We’ve cut a lot of throats tonight...”

  Darnley tensed. “You’ve—?”

  “We killed them quietly,” Stoneman said. “All of them.”

  Darnley made a sound in his throat. Then, quite without warning he threw himself at Stoneman. “You bastard!” he howled.

  Stoneman raised the pistol in his hand and pulled the trigger. The bullet caught Darnley between the eyes, and the big Englishman fell forward into the coals at the edge of the fire.

  “That ends Darnley and his Raiders,” Stoneman said. “Now, Fargo, you see how I operate? In my younger days down here, I made you look like a Sunday School superintendent. That’s how a man gets rich, Fargo—rich and powerful. You have to be prepared to stop at nothing, break any bargain, violate any deal ...” He coughed dryly. “I’ve talked too much.” He hawked, spat phlegm. “This gun. Since I first heard of it, decades ago, I’ve dreamed of it, dreamed of hearing it speak. You’ve used it, Fargo, used it to kill men after hundreds of years.”

  Fargo stood tensely.

  “Before it goes silent once again—perhaps forever—I want to hear it talk,” Stoneman said.

  “Mr. Stoneman—!” Telford burst out furiously. But ten men were ranged behind the old man and five more held guns on Telford, his daughter, and on Fargo.

  “I was an artilleryman once,” said Stoneman. “Years ago, in the Union army. I know such guns. And Ned has described to me how you’ve used it. And so, now … stand close together, all of you. Don’t move, or, I assure you, you’ll be shot. Not fatally, but enough to disable you. Even the girl. Then you’ll die slowly instead of swiftly. Ned. If you will ...”

  “You’re damned right,” said his son. He laid the shotgun across the camp chair, went to the cannon. He opened the can of blasting powder, poured some down the tube of the Golden Gun.

  His father watched him closely. “Not too much. Gold doesn’t have the tensile strength of steel. That’s enough.”

  “All right,” young Ned said. “Sure.” But he gave the canister another shake before he lowered it. His face was savage as he crammed in wadding. Fargo watched closely, standing rigidly, as Ned pounded the cloth home fiercely. Then he poured in sharp, jagged rocks, a whole load.

  “Be careful,” Stoneman said. “Don’t give it more than it can handle.”

  “I told you, I’ve seen Fargo do it a dozen times.”

  “Yes, but—”

  Ned rammed home more wadding. He went behind the gun, leveled it and turned its trail. Now the dark Cyclopean eye of its bore was centered on Fargo, who stood between Nancy and her father.

  Ned squinted along the barrel as he’d seen Fargo do, then straightened up. He sliced a piece of fuse, rammed it down the touch hole. “It’s ready,” he said. He took a match from his pocket and handed it to his father.

  “Thank you,” the old man said. He moved with shambling steps to the gun’s breech. Ned stepped aside.

  “Just one more time. To hear this weapon speak, to let it drink blood. In my presence.” The old man’s eyes glittered in the firelight. He struck the match,
touched it to the fuse. Fargo saw the tiny stars of sparks as the fuse caught and burned. Then he struck out on either side with terrific blows that knocked Nancy and her father sprawling, and in the same moment he fell forward on his face and began to roll.

  Suddenly it was if all the world had blown sky-high. A sheet of flame filled the clearing, the sound of the cannon skull-crushing in its intensity, its thundering roar. The very earth vibrated and men screamed, and Fargo heard the fluttering whoosh of rocks above his head and leaped to his feet and ran to the camp chair and seized his loaded shotgun. Three men charged at him in a group and he loosed the right barrel, pointed high, and he shot all three in their faces. The clearing was rank with the smell of powder, blood and torn flesh, the old familiar smells of combat, and even with his ears ringing and brain shaking from the massive explosion, Fargo was in his element, armed, fighting, doing what he, like the bronze cock in San Antonio, had been bred and born to do. He threw himself forward across the three men he had killed and scooped up a pistol as he did so. Then he came up with the shotgun in one hand and a Colt in the other and for the first time he saw what had happened.

  There was nothing left of the Golden Gun but a riven chunk of smoking gold on a destroyed, sagging carriage. Blood dripped from its golden tube, and except for that, nothing remained of old Ned Stoneman, caught in the explosion of the breech. That extra shake of powder, that hard tamping of wadding, that savage overload of rocks—it was more than the old, soft, precious gun could take. It had blown up like a bomb, and it had taken old Stoneman and half his men with it.