by Jon Sharpe
Fargo’s manhood stirred and hardened. Soon he had a bulge that his buckskin pants could scarcely contain. His breath caught in his throat when Mabel’s right hand cupped him, low down. She knew just what to do in order to incite him to a fevered pitch and she wasn’t shy about doing it. A knot formed in his throat, and his member began to pulse with pent-up need.
“Mmmmmm,” Mabel cooed. “Evidently not all the redwoods are in California.”
Fargo wasn’t idle either. He eased her dress to her waist and covered each of her wonderful breasts with a hungry hand. She squirmed when he tweaked her upright nipples. She gasped when he pinched one, hard, and pulled on it. And she panted in his ear when he abruptly shoved a knee between her thighs and brushed his knee-cap against her nether region.
“You’re getting me hot, lover.”
That was the general idea, Fargo mused, as he nibbled on her lower lip while continuing to massage her twin globes. She scooted her bottom against him and ground her hips in an age-old invitation.
Fargo felt her fingers pry at his pants. Then they were inside and she was holding him, flesh to flesh, skin to skin. She stroked him lightly, her touch as delicate as a flower. The constriction in Fargo’s throat grew and he had to consciously keep himself from prematurely exploding.
“I can’t wait to get your pole inside of me,” Mabel said in a husky voice.
Fargo couldn’t wait, either. He started to peel off her dress. She helped him slide it down over her hips, then wriggled it to her knees and kicked it off with a flip of her right leg. Her undergarments, the few she wore, were shed next, and presently Fargo feasted on the vision of her bare body. Huge breasts arched out over a stomach that was still flat and firm, and her thighs were as smooth as glass. He sculpted her left melon with one hand while his other caressed her nether regions.
Mabel’s fiery breath fanned his ear. “I’m so ready for you,” she whispered.
Fargo ran a hand up one thigh and down another. In reflex, her legs parted and she curled them around his hips. He kissed her cheek, her forehead, then glued his lips to hers. Mabel’s nipples poked like nails against his chest, and when he squeezed her right breast, she arched her spine and nearly lifted him off the bed.
Ever-so-slowly, Fargo rubbed his forefinger across her moist slit. At the contact of his finger with her tiny knob, Mabel cried out softly. Her fingernails raked his shoulders and upper back.
“Do that again, lover!”
Fargo was all too happy to oblige. He flicked his finger back and forth until she was trembling in ecstasy. Suddenly he shoved his finger up into her womanhood, all the way to the knuckle. Mabel went as taut as wire. She clung to him, devouring his mouth with hers while thrusting her backside against his hand again and again and again. Fargo matched her tempo, stroking her with two fingers. Every plunge elicited a low moan. He kept at it, drawing out the pleasure, hers and his.
Without warning, Mabel let go and started to swing her body around. Fargo understood why when her knees nestled his head between them and her hair brushed his thighs. The next moment an exquisite thrill coursed through his body. Her mouth was where her hand had been.
Now it was Fargo who arched his back and gasped. His self-control slipped and he had to gird himself against his body’s natural tendency. Mabel dallied for an eternity, licking him from bottom to top and back again. He was surprised and not a little disappointed when she abruptly stopped and pushed him onto his back. Her motive became clear as she rose up onto her knees, swivelled to face him, and straddled his chest.
A mischievous grin lit Mabel’s face. “I’ve liked to ride since I was sixteen,” she joked, and with a smooth motion, she impaled herself on him as neatly as could be.
They both stiffened. Fargo could feel her wet inner walls contract around his manhood like a velvet glove. He drove upward, ramming himself up into her core, and Mabel vented a long, low groan.
“Ohhhhhhhh. I could do this forever.”
So could Fargo. Pacing himself, he continued driving into her for long minutes on end. She countered every stroke with one of her own. They were fused at the hips, their two bodies one. Together, they rose toward the carnal summit of their mutual cravings.
Fargo might have held out longer if not for a trick Mabel resorted to. She contracted her magnificently soft tunnel even more. He tried not to explode, but his body wouldn’t be denied. He shook from head to toe, and the room blurred into a golden haze. At the same instant, Fargo cried out and gushed.
The bed shook under them. The four hardwood legs slapped the floor in a steady cadence. Fargo didn’t know if the racket could be heard downstairs, and he didn’t much care. The moment was all that counted, the moment, and the profound sense of unbelievable rapture that swept over him.
How long he coasted on the precipice of consciousness, Fargo couldn’t rightly say. He was vaguely aware of Mabel still pumping on top of him, of her heavy breasts on his chest, of tiny breaths fluttering across his neck. He draped an arm across her back and closed his eyes.
“I hope you’re up for a second helping in a spell,” Mabel panted. “I never have been satisfied with a single portion.”
Just then loud shouts broke out below. An argument was taking place in the saloon. Someone swore a mean streak and a revolver boomed, not once but four times. All four slugs punched up through Mabel’s floor, missing her bed by inches, and thudded into her ceiling.
“My God!” Mabel exclaimed. “They’ll hit us if they’re not careful.”
The arguing continued, louder than before, but not quite loud enough for Fargo to make out what was being said. Sitting up, he slid off the bed and hurriedly commenced dressing.
“Where are you off to?”
Without warning a fifth slug ripped through the floor and struck the dresser, digging a furrow across two of the oak drawers. “Need you ask?” Fargo rejoined. Swiftly, he buckled on his Colt and was out the door and down a short flight of stairs in a rush. They opened onto a corner of the saloon. He stopped in the shadows, able to see without being seen, and took stock of the situation.
Lute Denton was at a table playing cards alone, and had stopped to watch the proceedings.
Harry Barnes was behind the counter. He looked as if someone had just kicked him in his oysters.
At the far end of the bar stood the two well-dressed young men. Both were plainly angry, and their hands were poised to dip under their jackets.
Facing them were the four locals who had arrived a while ago. Three had their backs to Fargo. The fourth lounged against the plank while casually reloading a Prescott single-action Navy revolver. Gunsmoke curled in the air above him, only a few inches below the holes he had shot in the ceiling.
“Please, Clancy,” Harry Barnes was saying. “You can’t go shooting up my place. Someone might get hurt.”
The man named Clancy was a lean hardcase with a hooked nose and dark, beady eyes. He wore a brown shirt, clean jeans, and polished boots, and had adorned his hat with a leather band. He obviously thought highly of himself. “I wasn’t aiming to hurt anyone,” he responded, and gave the Prescott a twirl into its holster. “I was just showing these Eastern boys how we kill flies in our neck of the woods.”
Barnes stared upward, and blanched. “You don’t understand. Mabel’s room is right above this one.”
“So?” Clancy responded. “What’s one whore, more or less? It’s not as if she can do anything about it.”
The four locals chuckled.
Fargo picked that moment to make his entrance. “Maybe she can’t do anything, but I sure as hell can.”
Clancy’s three partners whirled. One was a beefy character in an elk-hide vest and raccoon cap. Another was short but as wide as a wagon. The third was a buck-toothed kid not much past sixteen. They were armed with various revolvers, except the short one who had a Sharps rifle slung across his broad back.
Clancy wasn’t the least bit alarmed. Looking up, he said in amusement, “Well, well. What have
we here? What’s your stake in this, busybody?”
Harry Barnes cleared his throat and came along the bar toward Fargo, saying, “I’d like you to meet four more of the Swill boys. Clancy, there, is lightning with a pistol. Shem can hit a plug of tobacco at two hundred yards with that Sharps of his. The guy in the raccoon hat, Wilt, is the best trapper this side of the Mississippi. And Billy is the youngest of the bunch.”
Fargo took another step to the right to have clear shots at all four. “And between them they don’t have the brains of a pile of horseshit.”
Clancy’s eyes narrowed and he slowly unfurled. His brothers moved to either side as he strode past them, his arms loose at his sides. “We don’t take kindly to insults. If you don‘t—” Catching himself, he glanced at Harry Barnes. “What did you mean just now by this jasper meeting ‘more’ of us Swills? Who else has he met?”
“One of your other brothers,” Fargo said when it was apparent Barnes was too scared to answer. “Gus, his name was. He tried to cheat me at cards and I had to pound some sense into him. I’m surprised you didn’t run into him on the way here.”
“We didn’t come by the usual trail,” Clancy said, and smirked. “Mister, you must be loco to come right out and tell us like you did. Or ain’t you heard? Hurt one Swill and you have the rest of us down on your head. We’re not about to let you get away with what you did.”
“It’s not your brother you should be concerned about.”
“How so?” Clancy mocked him.
“The question for you to answer,” Fargo said, with a bob of his chin at the entrance, “is how you’re going to make it out that door in one piece.”
Clancy had it, then. Slowly nodding, he said, “I’ll be damned. The last jackass who prodded me is buried off under the trees in an unmarked grave.” His sallow countenance lit with sadistic delight. “Mind telling me why you have such a powerful hankering to die?”
“Ask the flies,” Fargo said.
Clancy’s gaze drifted to the ceiling. “You were upstairs with the cow? Is that what this is about? Did I intrude on your diddling?”
Billy Swill brayed with mirth. Shem had his big hands on the strap to his Sharps, while Wilt had laid hold of the bone hilt of a long-bladed skinning knife.
“Can’t you count, mister?” Clancy said. “It’s four to one. You can’t hope to drop all of us before we drop you. Be smart. Crawl out of here on your hands and knees and maybe we’ll let you live.”
“You’ve got it backward.”
“Enough of this jackass,” Billy fumed, and lowered his hand toward his Merwin and Hulbert Army revolver. He froze at a stern order from his older brother.
Clancy’s puzzlement was as transparent as glass. “Just you against the four of us?” he stressed. Clancy was no fool. He appeared to be the brains of the Swill clan and wasn’t about to light the fuse until he was sure things would go their way.
“Let’s shoot this yack and be done with him,” Billy urged. “I came here to drink, not listen to this randy spout nonsense.”
The saloon grew quiet. Everyone was waiting for Clancy Swill to make a decision. In the sudden silence, the smack of one of Lute Denton’s cards on the table was unnaturally loud. “Speaking for myself, gentlemen,” he said good-naturedly, “I hope you simpletons do make a play for your hardware. It will give me quite a tale to tell when I get to San Francisco.” He smacked down another card. “Why, the newspapers there might be interested enough to print an account. I can see the headlines now.” He held his hand up and moved it from right to left as if reading the banner. “Trailsman Guns Down Pack Of Idiots.”
“Trailsman?” Clancy Swill said. Uncertainty tinged with disbelief replaced his confusion. “That feller we’ve heard so much about? The one who killed Blue Raven, the renegade? And had that run-in with Dunn, the paid assassin? The same Trailsman who took part in that sharpshooting match down to Springfield, Missouri?”
The gambler nodded. “One and the same, yes. I was in the audience that day. I saw Vin Chadwell, Buck Smith, and Dottie Wheatridge vie with Fargo, there, for the top prize. Four of the best sharpshooters in the whole country.” He whistled softly at the memory. “I never met anyone before or since who can match them. Fargo shot five clothespins off a line at twenty-five yards, and did it so fast, I only missed it because I blinked.”
Billy Swill wasn’t buying the account. “Like hell! You’re trying to spook us. No one is as good as you make this galoot out to be.”
“Try him and find out,” Lute Denton suggested, and grinned.
“Billy!” Clancy cautioned.
The youth bent forward, his right hand hooked near the butt of his Army revolver. “Stay out of this, big brother. I aim to call this Trailsman’s bluff, and there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.”
Fargo’s fight wasn’t with the bucktoothed youngster. Clancy was the one whose carelessness had nearly cost Mabel and him their lives. “Go home to your mother, boy,” he said, and instantly realized it had been the wrong thing to say.
A feral snarl erupted from Billy Swill’s throat and he stabbed for his six-gun. He wasn’t slow, but he wasn’t anywhere near fast enough, either.
Fargo had his Colt out and level almost before Billy Swill’s fingers wrapped around the Merwin and Hulbert revolver. He fired once, from the hip.
The slug bored Billy Swill high in the right shoulder and spun him completely around. The Army revolver went flying.
For a moment shock riveted the rest of the Swills in place. Then Billy took a faltering step toward Clancy, and pitched toward the floor. Clancy and Shem caught him, but Clancy promptly let go and spun toward Fargo, fury turning him reckless. “You shot my brother, you son of a bitch!”
“I can do the same for the rest of you,” Fargo said, and slid his Colt back into his holster, implicitly inviting them to try him.
Clancy’s right arm twitched, and for a few tense moments it seemed he would go for his own hogleg. Then, with an obvious effort, he unwound and barked, “Shem! Wilt! Bring Billy. He’ll need doctoring.”
“But—” Shem began.
“Just do it!” Clancy stormed toward the door and held it open for his brothers. As they sullenly filed past, he gave Fargo a look that would wither a cactus. “I don’t care how famous you are. You just made the biggest mistake of your life. No one puts lead into a Swill and lives to brag about it.” He slowly backed out. “The newspapers will have a story to print, sure enough. But the headline will read, ‘Trailsman Dies In Seven Devils Country.’ ”
3
Skye Fargo almost always woke up at first light. It was a habit formed as the result of years spent on the trail, where it was important that he be in the saddle by sunup in order to cover more distance before night. So it was, that as a pale tinge faintly lit Mabel’s curtains, Fargo quietly rolled out of bed, dressed, and gathered up his belongings. His saddlebags over his left shoulder, his Henry rifle in his right hand, he glanced one last time at Mabel, who slumbered peacefully on. She had been right. It had been a night he would long remember. The man she eventually snared would have no need to complain.
Easing the door open, Fargo slipped out and closed it behind him. The stairs creaked, but that couldn’t be helped. The saloon was empty, and chill. Harry Barnes had a small room off behind the bar, and from it came thunderous snoring.
Grinning, Fargo walked around the counter, opened a bottle of whiskey, and took a long, healthy drink. It would suffice in lieu of coffee. He replaced the bottle and crossed to the door, his spurs jingling softly. Opening it, he took a step—and stopped dead.
The two young men who had arrived the previous evening were leaning against the hitch rail. They were dressed in the same fancy suits. One had his arms folded, his right hand under his jacket, while the other, who was slightly younger, was gazing off toward the mountains. Both straightened and turned.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Fargo,” the older one said.
“Mr. Barnes told us y
ou planned on leaving early this morning,” the younger one revealed.
Fargo shut the door. “What’s so important that you got up before sunrise to talk to me?”
“I’m Jack Carter,” the older one said. He was about twenty-five and had frank brown eyes and neatly trimmed brown hair. “This is my brother, John. We’re from Ohio.”
“You’re a long way from home,” Fargo commented.
“Don’t we know it.” Like his younger sibling, Jack Carter appeared tired and trail-worn. They had the look of men who had been on the go for a very long time and it was catching up to them. “But not by choice. You see, we’re searching for our sister, Suzanne. She was with a wagon train bound for Oregon. Her, and her new husband.”
John took up the account when Jack paused. “Suzanne disappeared from the train three months ago, southwest of here along the Snake River.”
“Disappeared?” Fargo asked quizzically. Women on wagon trains were usually well-guarded and knew better than to stray too far afield.
“Sis had gone with some other ladies to wash clothes in the river,” Jack related. “A man went with them to keep watch. But somehow Susie up and vanished right out from under their noses.”
“Strange,” Fargo said. The earth doesn’t just open up and swallow people.
“It’s more than that,” John said. “It had to be deliberate on someone’s part. Susie would never go off by herself. We’ve talked to some of the women who were there, and they say that one minute she was by the bank, washing her husband’s shirts. The next she was gone.”
“The women called her name over and over,” Jack said, “and when she didn’t answer, a general cry was raised. Nearly everyone on the wagon train helped search the area. The wagon boss even held the train over an extra day. But they never found any trace of her.”
“No one found tracks?” Fargo’s first thought was that a grizzly or mountain lion had jumped her and dragged the body off. A single blow from a bear’s paw or one bite from a cougar’s powerful jaws were enough to kill. Often, they struck so quickly that the victim had no time to cry out.
