The Sharpshooters (A Fargo Western Book 9)

by John Benteen

  Which, Fargo thought, halting before the big ranch house, might make it tricky to deal with Steed.

  He swung down, tethered the sorrel, strode up on the big house’s wide veranda, knocked on the door.

  There was a space of time before anyone answered, and during that interval, Fargo’s eyes swept the ranch yard again. The gunmen—he counted them, plus that group up on the hill—stood quietly, ranked in front of a corral fence, watching him impassively. Then he heard booted feet inside. The door opened and, as Fargo turned, Steed himself was there.

  His small blue eyes widened in surprise as he recognized his caller. Then his mouth twisted almost contemptuously. “So you came back,” he said.

  “That’s right,” Fargo said.

  “You got hungry after all.”

  “Let’s just say things have changed. I’m ready to deal with you and Hanna, now. If you still want that job done.”

  “You’re too late,” Steed said. “I decided to do it myself.” His eyes went to the bunch of gunmen over by the corral. “I can use another man, though. I’m payin’ two hundred a month for top guns.”

  Fargo took out cigarettes, thrust one in his mouth. “You’re buyin’ a lot a trouble for yourself tryin’ it this way.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. All the Rangers and the Army’s gone south to play games with Villa. That leaves me a clear field. When I git through with Black Valley, there won’t be a Canfield left alive in there. Once I’m on the ground and holdin’ it, let’s see anybody throw me out. Well? You want a job?”

  “Not that kind,” Fargo said.

  Steed spat past him into the dust. “Then ride on,” he said.

  Fargo did not move. “It’ll take fifty men to do that job.”

  “I’ll have fifty men.”

  “That’s ten thousand a month. Might take you two months. Plus the law you’ll have to deal with later. You’ll be out twenty-five thousand, easy. You and Hanna together, paying me, you’re only on the hook for ten.”

  “Hanna ain’t in this,” Steed said. “It’s been three months since we talked to you. Things have changed. Hanna used to be the big dog up here, but when I get Black Valley, he won’t be no more. And there ain’t going to be no trouble with the law. I got the sheriff in my pocket. He’ll back me up on anything I say. While the Rangers and the Army’s gone, the time’s hot to strike. I’m askin’ you one more time. You want to hire on for wages?”

  “I don’t work for wages,” Fargo said.

  “Then ride on,” Steed said again.

  Fargo looked at him for a moment. “All right,” he said at last, “I reckon I’ll do that.” He turned away, went down the steps.

  Then a voice called his name. “Fargo! Hey, Neal!”

  He whirled. Stared. Slowly his mouth split in its wolf’s grin. “Gordon! Lin Gordon!”

  The man who had come around the ranch house at the head of the group that had been shooting on the hill was tall, gaunt, cadaverous, with sunken cheeks and deepset eyes and a huge blade of a nose. He wore two Colt .45s, their gunbelts crisscrossed over his flat belly. His smile was cool, revealing big yellow teeth. “Hell,” he said, “I ain’t seen you since we worked together up yonder in Oklahoma. What you doin’ down here?”

  Fargo’s mind flashed back to the oil fields where he and Gordon and Gordon’s wild bunch, the gunmen who acknowledged him as leader and fought wherever he hired them out, had helped bring in a vast new oil field. “I might ask you the same question. I thought your cut of those wells up in Golconda would have put you on easy street.”

  “Same goes for you.”

  “I got restless,” Fargo said. “Sold out my share. Managed to spend an awful lot of money awful fast. Had to go back to working for a living.”

  “Same with us. Too much money makes an hombre soft.” Gordon glanced back over his shoulder at the dozen hardcases behind him. “We sold out, too. It don’t take long for it to go, does it?”

  “No,” Fargo said. “So now you and your bunch are workin’ for Steed?”

  “That’s right. Understand we’re to clean out a bunch of hillbillies up yonder in the mountains. You comin’ in with us?”

  “No,” Fargo said.

  Even the cold smile vanished, then. “You’re not gonna be against us, are you?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Fargo said. Gordon stood there a moment, hands dropping loosely to his hips. “Now, Neal, you know better than that. You don’t want to get crosswise of us. I mean, you’re good. Dammed good. But when it comes down right to the bone—”

  “You’re thinking you’re a little better.”

  “Well, that just might be possible. There ain’t many of us left. Not much for a man to sharpen his teeth on any more.”

  “Don’t try to sharpen ’em on me, Lin.”

  “I don’t aim to. Unless you git where we might stumble over you. I’m ramroddin’ this fightin’ operation for Steed. You want to come in as my second in command—”

  “You know me better than that,” said Fargo.

  “Yeah. You don’t like to be second in nothing, do you?”

  “A man that’s satisfied with second don’t live long in this business.”

  Gordon grinned. “Ain’t that the truth?” The grin went away. “Neal, you plannin’ to stay up in this country?”

  “Maybe. For a spell.”

  “Then jest stand clear. Don’t git underfoot.”

  “That’s a warning?”

  “That’s a warning,” Gordon said.

  “We’ll see what happens,” Fargo said. He went to the sorrel, unlatched its reins from the hitchrack. “Steed told me to ride. I reckon I’d better ride. See you around, Lin.”

  “Yeah,” Gordon said.

  Fargo mounted lithely. Gordon watched him as he spurred out of the yard. Fargo kept the horse moving fast down the lane, and from time to time glanced over his shoulder. Gordon was right; there were not many of them left nowadays; not north of the Rio, anyhow. And of those who were, Neal Fargo and Lin Gordon were the cream of the crop. Somehow such men were drawn to one another like magnets. Often they worked together; just as often, they wound up on opposite sides. Either way, it made no difference. The main thing was the fighting; the need to go up against someone worthy of their steel. Gordon was feeling that need, now; the itch to match himself against Neai Fargo, prove that he was better.

  Maybe he was, Fargo thought. There was this hard knowledge in him: that someday he was indeed bound to run up against a better man. Age and old wounds slowed a gunfighter. He could not stay on top forever. Sooner or later he had either to get out of the business or take the inevitable bullet thrown by somebody a little younger, or who had taken less damage in other battles, or who drank a little less and kept his reflexes quicker. Or maybe who, on that particular day, when it came, was just luckier.

  Given a choice, Fargo would take the bullet over retirement. He had no desire to grow old and feeble and feel himself coming apart bit by bit and piece by piece, wind up his days helpless in a rocking chair. Nor did he want to be left behind by time. Someday he would be obsolete in a world where there was no place for men who lived as he did—wild, free, by their wits and skill as fighters. Someday the world would be settled, quiet, overrun with law and civilization; and there would be no more place for him—or for Lin Gordon, either—in such a world than there would be for a timber wolf in farming country. Meanwhile, though, he would live as he always had, pushing every minute to its limit, wholly, totally alive. Somewhere even now the bullet with his name on it might have already been cast, was riding in someone’s cartridge loop—Gordon’s, or a Mexican soldier’s, or a Canfield’s. Until then, he would take his women where he found them, his whiskey when he was thirsty, and his chances as they came.

  He reined in, looked back again. Gordon had challenged him. As sure as chalk was white, sooner or later, somewhere, whether in Texas or South America or some place he had not even been yet or dreamed of, he would have to meet that challenge. He felt
a kind of savage pleasure in that knowledge, the same sort Gordon must have felt. Then he tensed, rose in his stirrups.

  Back there in the yard, Gordon and Steed were standing close together, talking. He could see Steed half-gesture toward himself, Gordon nod. Fargo let his mouth curl in its wolf’s grin again. Then he rode on, fast.

  ~*~

  It was a long way to Hanna’s ranch. He camped that night at Point of Rocks on the old Overland Stage Trail. Here a huge jumble of house-sized boulders towered above the west side of the Fort Davis road. Beyond stretched a range of peaks, juniper-clad and scabbed with raw rock outcroppings.

  He picketed the sorrel on the east side of the road where the grass was lush. On the west, just below the huge rock face, he put down his saddle beneath big oaks, spread his blankets and built a fire. He ate slab bacon and a can of beans, washed it down with water and a few jolts of tequila from a bottle in his saddle bags. He leaned his shotgun against the saddle and then gathered some rocks. He laid these on his blanket and put another blanket over them, then backed off and surveyed the effect in the flickering firelight. He would have liked to take the shotgun up the hillside with him, but he knew that Gordon would have warned his men about it and they would be reassured by the sight of it near his bed. Because it was cold in these mountains at night, he donned a sheepskin jacket. Then he climbed up among the boulders that towered for a hundred feet over his bed, found a niche halfway up in which he could be comfortable, and sank down to rest and wait. While he did so, he checked the cartridges in the Winchester and spun the cylinder of the .38, making sure it was in order and fully loaded.

  He thought he had it figured out now. If he were wrong, the most he could lose was a night’s comfortable sleep. If he were right, he was saving his life.

  Darkness deepened. He had made a big fire and it burned for a long time. By ten o’clock it still flickered, reduced to a bed of coals with occasional bursts of flame. Coyotes were yapping now, and occasionally a cow bawled. Fargo had taken the tequila up into his rock stronghold with him, and he nipped from the bottle from time to time as he waited. He wondered if Gordon would come himself or only send a detail. He rather thought the latter. There were subtle reasons for thinking so, not the least of which was Gordon’s hope that he might escape, survive, to give Gordon the pleasure of meeting him face to face.

  Fargo waited. He thought about the Mexicans, Chico Cana’s men. Maybe he was pushing his luck, using essentially the same trap twice in ten days. Maybe Gordon’s wild bunch was smarter than the Mexicans. Maybe—

  Then he came alert. Sound traveled a long way in this air on such a night. They should have reined in, dismounted, a long way back. But they had not; and that meant that Gordon was not with them. And because they would rather ride than walk, were too lazy to take the necessary pains to make sure of their prey. He grinned, and his hand closed around the Colt’s grip. Gordon must be testing some of the hired gunmen who were not part of his own bunch.

  Then they did dismount; he no longer caught the thud of hoofbeats. Minutes passed with molasses slowness, stringing out in a way that would have been intolerable to an untrained fighting man. But patience was as much Fargo’s stock in trade as the specially loaded cartridges in the revolver. He did not move a muscle.

  Presently he saw them: four of them. They had spotted the fire and were advancing on foot in a kind of skirmish line. The moon was up just enough to silhouette their figures, glint a little on the barrels of the rifles they carried. He supposed there was one more somewhere further back; a horseholder.

  They came forward up the road, spread out ten feet apart, crouched, slinking toward the fire. Say this for them, he thought: They made no sound. At least they’d had sense enough to take off their spurs and lever rounds in their rifles before they approached, so no telltale snick of loading would give them away.

  Behind the fire, the humped bedroll full of rocks made an easy target. They came on, sure that they were approaching a man sleeping after a hard day’s travel. When they were close enough to see the shotgun leaning against the saddle, two of them fell back, and two moved forward, bent low, Indian style.

  Now they were very near the fire; they wanted to be absolutely certain. Ten yards away from the heap of glowing coals, the pair halted. Fargo changed weapons from necessity, laid aside the Colt, putting it on a rock within easy reach, picked up the already loaded Winchester.

  The two closest to the fire lined their rifles, prepared to saturate the bedroll with lead. Fargo grinned and pointed his own Winchester at the other two farther off. He pulled the trigger. The wham of the gun was startlingly loud in the tense silence. A man screamed, fell kicking. Fargo jerked in another round, shot again, and the second man went down before he even had time to yell in surprise. Then Fargo seized the Colt.

  The men near the fire were in easy range and excellent targets as they stood frozen in surprise. Fargo fired the revolver once and the gunman on the right, hit by the hollow-point, was jerked off his feet, sent spinning backwards. The fragmenting bullet inside his chest cut off his life before he could cry out. The other, catching the gun flash, raised his Winchester with a single surprised oath. Fargo had intended to hit him in the torso, but the man got off a round and lead whined against the rock behind which Fargo was sheltered; and that threw off his aim a bit. The .38 slug caught the gunman in the head. His skull exploded, and his body fell forward across the fire, shirt bursting into flames.

  Fargo picked up the Winchester, moved soundlessly down the rock face. He began to run. He ran silently and fast, in the direction from which the quartet had come, staying well away from the edge of the winding road. Then he heard a horse’s snort, slowed. A man called out: “Bruce. Hey, Bruce—”

  Fargo saw the crown of a hat silhouetted against the moonlit sky; five horses skittering nervously as its wearer held their reins with one hand, dragging his sixgun with the other, Fargo lined the Winchester, fired. The horses, free, whirled and went galloping off into darkness.

  And that was all of them. Fargo ran back up the road. His own sorrel was snorting at the end of its picket rope. He uncuffed its hobbles, pulled its picket pin. In moments, he had it saddled, all his gear loaded. He swung up, lashed it with the reins. It pounded off along the Fort Davis road through the darkness. Presently, he swung it to the right, threaded between the dark bulks of sleeping peaks until he found the shadow-blackness of a small canyon. There he took cover, slept for two hours to refresh himself. Then he arose again and was at Hanna’s ranch by dawn.

  Chapter Five

  Although Jim Hanna owned more land and ran more cattle than Walt Steed, his headquarters ranch was smaller. Its main house of cottonwood and adobe was built years ago. Inside, it was comfortable, but there was nothing fancy about it.

  Hanna in his time had fought rustlers, Indians, and the big die-up of thirty years before, when the roughest Western winter in history had wiped out most of the cattle on the range. In their first conversation, Fargo had caught the difference between him and Steed. Hanna was hard, hard as flint, but he could be trusted; Steed was a different case entirely.

  Now, as Fargo ate hungrily of bacon and eggs and drank hot black coffee, Hanna paced the house’s dining room. “It started right after you turned us down that day. Until then, Steed and I always ran beeves on that Black Valley range together. Since we were the two biggest cowmen in the district, we tried—I tried, anyhow—to cooperate. No sense in cuttin’ each other’s throat.

  “But then Steed decided to go off on his own. When you said no thanks, he went to hirin’ gunmen. Behind my back, not tellin’ me that he was doin’ it, and when I finally found out, I knew right away what he was up to. Oh, he figgers on runnin’ the Canfields outa Black Valley all right. And then he aims to take it all for himself and not give me a sniff of it.”

  “And what did you decide to do about that?” Fargo swallowed and raised his head.

  “What the hell can I do?” Hanna’s voice rose; his mustache bri
stled angrily. “I thought we had given each other our word to let the matter drop, especially after the Canfields killed that Ranger. We agreed that it would be only a matter of time before the Rangers came in and cleaned ’em out, and we could leave it up to them. I was waiting for that, but Walt didn’t wait. He went to hiring fighting men and when I asked him what he was up to, he told me it was none of my business.”

  Hanna stopped pacing, sat down, drank a long jolt of strong coffee. “All the makin’s of a first class, oldtime range war, Fargo. The Canfields hold Black Valley, I want it, Steed wants it. If he gets it first, he’ll freeze me out. If I could get it first, I’d freeze him out—now. But I ain’t got a chance of gettin’ it first.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s only so many hired gunmen left; we talked about that before. Fighting men are scarce, and what’s available, Steed’s already got. So he’ll go in there and take the Valley and I’m out in the cold, and there’s not a thing I can do about it. My riders are good cowpunchers, but they ain’t the kind of men it would take to smoke the Canfields out—and maybe go up against Steed’s gunnies too.”

  Taking another swig of coffee, Fargo leaned back and lit a cigarette.

  “How much would it be worth to you to have the Canfields cleared out of Black Valley completely and entirely—and for you to get to it first and take it over before Steed does?”

  Hanna stared at him. Then his eyes glittered. “A hell of a lot. I’ve got claims filed on that land, and so has Steed. Possession’s nine-tenths of the law. When the title’s finally cleared, the man who already holds it is the one with the best chance of winnin’.” He leaned forward across the table. “You know where you could find an army to match Steed’s?”

  “No,” Fargo said.

  Hanna let out a long breath. “Then what’s the use in askin’ such a damn fool question?”

  Fargo plumed smoke through his nostrils. “Last night, Steed sent men to kill me. The reason he did that was to keep me from comin’ to you and makin’ any sort of deal with you. Well, I’m ready to make a deal, our original deal. You wanted me to go into Black Valley and clear it out, alone. That’s what I’m proposing to do. The trick is, you’ll have to bear the whole freight instead of splittin’ it with Steed.”