The Sharpshooters (A Fargo Western Book 9)

by John Benteen

  Jess screamed.

  Fargo felt the Bowie slide down his back, having dropped from Jess’s strengthless hand. He turned his own blade, pulled up until bone caught it, then stepped back, feeling only exultance and a wild and dizzy weakness.

  Jess was red all across his front. His hands clasped over the ripped belly, holding his entrails in. He stared down at his own death-wound with terrified, slowly comprehending eyes.

  Then a voice rang out, a great bellow. “For God’s sake, Fargo! Kill him! Kill the boy!”

  It was Roaring Tom. He had stepped from behind a cabin at the edge of the settlement. So, Fargo thought blurrily, he had not been able to resist watching after all. The wound Fargo had dealt his son was one that Roaring Tom knew was agonizing, and that the agony would go on and on for it would take Jess a long time to die.

  And then Fargo moved. It was all he could do for the grief-stricken old man whom he admired. He moved in and his blade went out and Jess saw it come—his eyes widened, and he grunted as the steel pierced his heart; then he dropped, quickly, inertly, dead before he hit the ground.

  A sigh went up from the crowd. Fargo heard somebody crying, sobbing. At first he thought it must be a woman who had dared to join the onlookers. But then, through sweat-burning eyes, he saw the source of the sound. Roaring Tom lurched through the crowd, stood there crying above the body of his dead son. His hand was on his pistol’s butt. He half drew the Navy Colt as he whirled on Fargo, face contorted. Fargo stood there weakly, dizzy from loss of blood. He could not even raise the knife again.

  Then Roaring Tom let the Colt drop back into leather. He took his hand away. His voice was a croak. “All right, Fargo,” he gasped. “Ye won fa’r and squar’. I hope ye’re satisfied. I hope the Rangers are. My youngest son is dead.” He made a strange, sad gesture, tears streaming down the leathery cheeks and soaking his beard. “Someboy patch him up afore he bleeds to death hisself. Where’s Bonnie? She’s good at thet. Git Bonnie.” Then he turned away and stalked through the crowd and walked far out on the basin’s floor, his figure growing smaller and smaller, until it finally disappeared in a swale.

  Mac moved up beside Fargo, took his arm.

  “Come inside,” he said, not unkindly. “Bonnie will patch ye up.” And he stripped off his own shirt and pressed it against Fargo’s bleeding flank.

  ~*~

  He was drunk, roaring drunk.

  It was the only anesthesia the Canfields had—Canfield corn. Bonnie had made him drink half a pint of it, before she began to stitch up the gaping edges of the cleansed wound. Since Canfield liquor was probably well over a hundred proof, and since he had swilled the whole half pint hot, unmixed, and in about ten minutes, Fargo, who could hold a quart of ordinary whiskey without becoming tanglefooted, felt it profoundly. Stretched out on the board table in the big room of the cabin, he was hardly aware of the needle’s prick.

  He felt a curious mixture of sadness and exultance. He was glad that he’d killed Jess, but sorry that Jess was Tom Canfield’s son. Anyhow, he’d done the best he could, finished the boy off quickly. If Jess had gutted him, he would probably have stood over Fargo’s twitching body and laughed and let him take his time dying.

  Then, from far away, he heard Bonnie say, commandingly, “Some of you carry him to the lean-to.”

  Next, he was on the cot in what had been the jail. Vaguely, he was aware that Bonnie was beside him; her voice still seemed distant. “Y’all git out, now. I’ll sit up with him and see to him.” He heard the others leave and was aware that she had closed the door.

  He slept.

  When he awakened, the room was dark. He lay there for a while, the hangover worse than the pain in his side. It took some moments for everything that had happened to come back. Then he tried to sit up.

  A small hand against his muscle-banded chest pushed him back.

  “Lay down. Ye’re hurt.”

  Fargo lay back. “Not bad,” he said. “I been hurt worse than this.”

  “Then ye must be made of arn,” said Bonnie’s voice.

  “I’ve been hurt worse than this and fought on all day in battles,” he said. “I’d like a drink of water.”

  “Here.” He heard the clink of dipper in bucket. Then her hand moved behind his head, propping it. Cool water touched his lips; he drank long and thirstily.

  “That’s better,” he said. “Any whiskey here?”

  “Yeah. I figured ye’d need it.”

  “Not for the wound,” he said. “That’s nothing. For this damn-blasted hangover.”

  She passed him a fruit jar. He drank, and she gave him the dipper to chase it with. His soul came back into his body and he was all right; he was fine. His heavily bandaged side burned, but he could ignore that. He had trained himself to feel no self-pity when he was hurt, and most of the pain of any wound came from self-pity and fright.

  “I’m okay, now,” he said, sitting up stiffly. “What time is it?” Before she could answer, he thumbed a gold-cased railroad watch, remorselessly accurate, from his pants, struck a match, stared at it. Midnight. “You been here with me all this time?” he asked.

  Bonnie’s face was pale in the match flame; it struck golden glints from her tawny hair. “Yeah,” she said. “I been watchin’ over ye.”

  “Thanks,” Fargo said softly.

  “Except fer the guards up on the rim,” she whispered, “ever’body else’s in bed. Even Pappy.”

  “Tom,” said Fargo. “How’s he taking it?”

  “Not so hard,” she said. “Kind of relieved. If ye hadn’t did hit, he would have had to do hit sooner or later hisself. He said thet tonight at supper. Jess kept buckin’ him, Jess was crazy, he woulda killed Pappy soon as anybody else. Pappy knows thet.”

  Fargo lay back. There was silence for a moment. Then Bonnie said, “Are ye strong enough to talk, now?”

  “Sure,” said Fargo.

  Her hand closed around his. “Fargo, ye got to help me.”

  “Help you, how?”

  “Git outa here.” Her voice shook. “Git away from the Canfields.”

  “Huh?”

  “I got to.” Her tone was vibrant, intense. “Especially afore ye take ’em down to Mexico! When they git down thar, they’re buried, forever. Thet’s whut they want, the rest of ’em! But hit ain’t whut I want! Because, you don’t know whut hit’s like to be a Canfield woman.”

  Fargo said nothing.

  “I got to find some way out. If I don’t, I’ll be forced to marry my first cousin I cain’t stand the sight of, spend the resta my life a slave like all the other women ... spinnin’, weavin’, choppin’ wood, cookin’, haulin’ water, birthin’ a baby ever’ ten months ... I’ll be an ole woman by the time I’m thutty. Ye seen my mama in Fort Davis.”

  “Yes,” Fargo said, remembering the withered crone who had looked to be seventy, maybe older.

  “She died this month. She warn’t but forty, but she was plumb wore out. Ye seen how she looked, birthed Jess at seventeen, me at twenty-two … And all thet hard work ... I won’t end up like thet, I won’t. Fargo, ye got to help me! When she died, I made up my mind. I ain’t gonna go like her. And if ye take ’em all to Mexico, this is my last chance to excape.”

  Then, suddenly, her breasts were pushing against his naked chest, her lips close to his. “I got no money to pay ye with,” she whispered, “but I got myself. Ever’ since I seen ye in Fort Davis, I wanted to ... If ye would help me, I would be good to ye, I would do anything ye wanted to, anything...”

  Her hand roamed over his body. The whiskey burning in him made him even more responsive than he might have been. Incautious, too. “I know yer hurt too bad now,” she whispered.

  “Who says I am?” he heard himself answer.

  “Ye’d open up that wound—”

  “Not if you stitched it tight.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I may not be much, but I’m an expert seamstress.” And he heard the rustle of clothes in darkness
.

  Then her body was on the bed beside him, her hands fumbling with buttons and belt. “Fargo,” she whispered.

  After that, nobody talked for a long time.

  Somewhat later, she said, “Ye will help me?”

  Fargo lay silently, smoking, looking up into darkness. His mind was working swiftly. “Yes,” he said, having figured out a use for her. “Yes, I’ll help you.”

  She let out a gusty breath of gratification. She pressed soft, naked breasts more tightly against him, shivered as his hand caressed the smooth curve of buttock and hip.

  “Get up,” said Fargo. “Get up, get dressed and find my gear. Rafe brought in my gear, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bring me my binoculars case.”

  She vanished. Four, five minutes later, she returned. “Here.”

  He opened the case, took out the glasses. Then his hand unlatched the false bottom. He slipped four bills from the wad of money crammed in there. “Here,” he said, passing them to her. “Four hundred dollars.”

  “Good Lord!” Her gasp was full of awe. Probably she had never held above a dollar in her hand in her whole life.

  “That will keep you for six months in El Paso, if you’re careful,” Fargo said. “Go to the Regal Hotel, down on The Alameda. If things break right and you care to wait, I’ll be there in about three months. Don’t gamble and don’t get mixed up with other men and don’t give anybody a dime unless you get value received and don’t go hog wild on fancy clothes. When I git there, I’ll see you get all the fancy clothes you need. You understand?”

  “I understand,” she whispered.

  “Don’t let anybody con you into a whorehouse. There are a lot of people in El Paso who make their living as crimps. They make white slaves out of girls. Don’t talk to strange men.” He grinned in the darkness; it sounded as if he were giving a Sunday school lecture. But she was damned naive.

  “I understand all thet,” she whispered. “I’ll do whut ye say. But—”

  “But you’ve got to earn that money. Do you know where Jim Hanna’s Oxbow headquarters are?”

  “Hanna? Yes, I know thet place.”

  “All right. When the time comes, and it ain’t now, I’ll mount you on my sorrel. When I give you the word, you ride hell for leather for Hanna’s Oxbow. Tell him to move his cattle. You understand? That’s all you got to tell him—that Fargo said to move his cattle. Then you go on to El Paso.”

  “I understand,” she whispered.

  “All right. Hide the money, get your traps ready to leave at any time, and wait. I’ll let you know when. Likely it will be right after we fight Steed.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “Go on, now. I’m all right. You go on and let me sleep. I’ll meet you in El Paso later on.”

  “All right,” she whispered. Her lips pressed against his. He heard the rustle as, in darkness, she dressed. Then she went out and closed the door. Fargo grinned at nothing and lay back, drunk and drained; and then he slept.

  Chapter Eight

  Now that he had his guns back, he felt whole and complete again. The Fox sawed-off muzzles hung down behind his shoulder, his Colt and knife were in their sheaths, the Winchester in its boot, and his bandoliers crisscrossed over his torso, as he and Roaring Tom together rode the high rimrock on big Canfield mules.

  The morning after his fight with Jess—two days ago—he had stiffly entered the front room of the big cabin. Roaring Tom, haggard and pouch-eyed, had sat at the table, loading shotgun shells. He looked up at the man who had killed his son.

  Fargo stood tensely as their eyes met. He was unarmed, but the old man had his Navy Colt and squirrel gun on the bench beside him.

  Then Roaring Tom said, heavily, “All right, Fargo. Come in, set. Bonnie will bring ye breakfast.”

  Fargo cautiously sat down opposite the old man. Spread before Tom were nine buckshot, lined up like beads. Each had been split open with a sharp knife. Now Canfield picked up a coil of thin, bronze piano wire, snipped off nearly a yard. “We buried Jess late last night,” he said.

  Fargo did not answer.

  “Better ye killed him than I had to,” Roaring Tom went on. “And I woulda, sooner or later. He was like a dawg gone mad, ready to bite even his own kin.” He lined up the split shot, pressed the length of wire into them, linking them together like a necklace.

  “I have seen my pappy, my brothers, others of my sons killed in the feud back home,” Tom said. “I thought I had burnt out all the grievin’ in me. But thar was some left. Last night, hit burnt out, too.” With the butt of the Bowie, he hammered the split shot closed, clamping them on the wire. He picked up the whole assembly, coiled it down into a shotgun shell, carefully. “Now, I’m ready to go to Mexico. And fight, if thet’s whut hit takes to git thar.” He looked at Fargo. “Ever seed a man hit with a rig like this?”

  “No,” said Fargo.

  “We load shells like thet back whar I come from. If jest one shot hits a man, they all whup around and git him. And the wire itself—hit cuts like a knife. Hit a man squar’ with this, he’ll look like he walked into a sawmill blade.” He crimped the shell, set it aside. “Thet’s fifty of ’em I made this mornin’, waitin’ fer Steed’s men to come.”

  “They’ll come,” Fargo said.

  “I hope we’ll be gone afore they do. I got men dismantlin’ the still, loadin’ the wagons, roundin’ up the livestock now. But ye don’t move a clan this size overnight. Hit’ll take three days, four, anyhow, to git ready to go. Meanwhile, if Steed’s gunmen come, ye reckon they’ll be satisfied to know we’re leavin’? Let us out without a fight?”

  “No,” said Fargo. “That’s not Steed’s way—nor Lin Gordon’s, who’s leading ’em.”

  “Nor ours, either, fer thet matter,” Tom said. “Personal, I’d like to git out of hyar without no more bloodshed. But the boys are tetchy. We Canfields are tired o’ bein’ persecuted and run from pillar to post. Likely thar would be fightin’ anyway. Somebody would tetch hit off. Ye—” He picked up another shell. “Ye’re honor bound to be on our side.”

  “I am,” Fargo said. “I want to see Steed whipped and I want to see him whipped good. His gunmen wiped out so he can’t raise another batch. Not just chased away, but—eliminated.”

  “If they come atter us, we aim to do thet. Our patience is plumb wore out. The question is, how?” He dropped nine loose buckshot in the shell. Then picked up a canister, poured a stream of smaller shot, birdshot, in after them. The tiny pellets filled every crevice between the larger slugs, packed the shell solid with extra lead, extra killing power. Fargo’s mouth quirked in admiration. These Canfields knew every trick in the book.

  “Hit’s gonna be rough,” Tom went on. “Ye said there’d likely be fifty of them. There ain’t but thirty, twenty-nine, now of us. We’re gonna ... miss Jess. In a dust-up like thet, he was good as any other five men I got.”

  “I’ll try to take his place,” Fargo said. “Can I have my guns back?”

  “In the corner; help ye’self.” Tom went on filling shells. Fargo got his weapons, came back to the bench. There were empty loops in the shotgun-ammo bandolier. He looked at Tom and the old man nodded. Fargo selected enough of the piano-wire chain shot and the other to fill them.

  “There’s one thing, though, Tom,” he said. “This fight, if there is one, has to take place inside the valley.”

  Roaring Tom stared. “Whut? Thet’s throwin’ away the only advantage we got. The high rimrock up thar, whar we kin shoot down. Thirty men, mostly armed with singleshot guns, cain’t stand against fifty professionals with repeatin’ rifles if we give up thet advantage.”

  “You’ll have to, though. Steed draws a lot of water in this country. This fight is going to have to be clearcut self-defense. Lin Gordon and his men are gonna have to attack and shoot first and the battle is gonna have to take place in here, on land that you claim. If you snipe ’em while they’re outside the valley, Steed will
holler murder and have you so tied up in courts and law and jails that you’ll never get to Mexico. If the fight’s in here, where those men had no business being, I can round up enough force”—he was thinking of Tom Hanna—“to offset Steed, keep you clear of the law.” Bonnie appeared then, looked at him and smiled. He did not smile back as she went to the fireplace, began to cook his breakfast.

  “Keepin’ cl’ar of the law’s one thing,” Tom said, “But hit don’t help dead men. I let Steed’s gunnies in this valley, we’ll lose half our clan. Thet ain’t my aim. I want to take this whole fambly to Mexico.”

  Fargo grinned, coldly and with a certain happiness at the prospect of what lay ahead. “You’ll get ’em all there, if you’ll listen to me. I know Lin Gordon of old and what he’ll do—the same thing I would if I was in his shoes and didn’t know you were expecting me. And don’t worry about being outnumbered. You’ve got reinforcements right here in the valley you haven’t even used yet. Good fighters, and they’ll make the difference.”

  Canfield stared, blinked. “Thet knife wound must have got to you. I know how many fightin’ men I got.”

  “I didn’t say anything about fighting men,” Fargo said, still grinning. “Let me have some breakfast, and then I’ll tell you what we’ll do.”

  ~*~

  Now, on the high rim, Fargo reined in his mule, lifted his field glasses. He surveyed the valley outside the wall of the rock, across which Gordon must approach. Nothing showed, nothing moved. Fargo had not expected anything to. Gordon would come at night.

  He turned in the saddle; through the glasses, the settlement below, loaded wagons parked within it, loomed large. He grinned faintly; his sorrel was saddled, tethered outside the big cabin. When the time came, Bonnie could get to it without trouble.