by Jon Sharpe
“But these are the bastards who killed my brother last night!” John cried.
Clancy Swill sat his buckskin as calmly as could be, and chuckled. “What kind of lies has this kid been filling your heads with? I’ve never set eyes on him before today.” He gazed at Fargo and his smile widened. “You two didn’t really think you would get away with it, did you, mister?”
Fargo sensed the Swills were up to something. He remembered seeing six riders earlier and wondered where the other two had gotten to. “Get away with what?” he responded. The commotion was drawing emigrants from every which direction, and a crowd was forming.
Clancy faced Horace Wells. “You’re the boss here, I gather?”
“That I am,” Wells confirmed. “And I’ll thank you to explain yourself, sir. Who are you? What is this about?”
“My name is Swill and these are my brothers,” Clancy said. “We hail from up Les Bois way, and we’re heading for Fort Hall. About ten minutes ago, as we were coming down out of those hills yonder, we saw these two strangers and a couple of others take a pretty young filly off into the trees northeast of here. We were too far off to be sure, but it seemed to us like she didn’t want to go. So we came on in to let you know.”
Excited whispering and angry muttering broke out. Horace Wells’s imperious features grew harsher. Gesturing at Simonson, he barked, “Pick ten men and conduct a complete sweep of the train. Find out if any of the women are missing.”
Simonson began calling out names. The men he chose rapidly fanned out, going from wagon to wagon.
“This is ridiculous!” John snapped, his temper getting the better of him. “We’re not the ones abducting women! It’s them, I tell you!”
“If that were true, boy,” Horace Wells said, “they wouldn’t be fool enough to come riding in here like this, now would they?”
“Neither would we,” John protested, but he wasn’t helping matters much. His anger was antagonizing the wagon master and many of the onlookers.
Fargo had to hand it to Clancy. The scheme was damned clever. It would be his and John’s word against that of the four Swills. And while they sat there arguing, the other two riders were whisking a young woman off into the wilds.
Shouts arose on down the wagons. One of the emigrants Simonson had selected was already returning at a run. “Heather Tinsdale is missing!” he roared. “Her pa says she went off to pick some wildflowers and hadn’t come back yet!”
Horace Wells barked orders right and left. Men ran to fetch their weapons and horses, and within sixty seconds over two dozen searchers were assembled. “You!” Wells snapped at Clancy Swill. “Show them where you saw the girl last!” He glanced at the rest of the Swills, then at Fargo and John. “Everyone else will be kept under guard until we can get to the bottom of this madness.”
“I’m more than happy to help you out,” Clancy said, and sneered at Fargo. “Anyone low enough to abduct a woman deserves to have his neck stretched.” He trotted off, Simonson and the search part at his heels.
“You’re a fool, mister!” John growled at Wells. “You’re letting these skunks hoodwink you. That man you just let ride off is a killer!” He raised his reins to go after them.
Wells motioned. Rifles and pistols bristled like the quills on a porcupine, all trained on the young hothead. “No one is going anywhere, young man,” Wells icily informed him.
John had transformed to marble, but his vocal cords still worked just fine. “Damn your stupidity! A woman’s life is at stake. Let my friend and me help, or you’ll never see her again!
“Was that a threat?” Wells grated through clenched teeth.
Fargo tried to calm John down. “Go easy,” he said quietly. “You’re only making things worse.”
“I’ll say what I damn well please!” John fumed. “And I say the Swills are liars!”
Horace Wells slowly nodded. “Someone is lying, that’s for sure. And if Heather Tinsdale really is missing, God help whoever is to blame. Because I swear by the Almighty, the guilty party will be hung from the nearest tree.”
8
Skye Fargo was all too aware of what the newspapers dubbed a “lynch mentality.” When ordinary, decent people became outraged enough, they were capable of deeds as violent and bloody as the crimes that incensed them. Murderers were dragged from jail cells in the middle of the night and hanged. Cattle rustlers were hunted down by regulators and strung up. A sheriff who turned to robbery was hauled kicking and screaming to a pole in the center of a town square and hoisted by the neck to the top.
It didn’t take much to incite a crowd to act. So as Clancy Swill led the searchers off toward the trees and the emigrants spread out in a circle to keep anyone from leaving, Fargo sat quietly and debated how best to persuade Horace Wells that Clancy and his brothers were lying.
John, however, couldn’t keep quiet even when his life depended on it. With complete disregard for the guns trained on him, he pointed at Gus Swill and declared, “You won’t get away with this! Once these people realize they’re being played for fools, I’m going to see you pay for murdering my brother.”
Gus’s dark eyes twinkled with sadistic glee. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sonny. My brothers and me haven’t ever killed anybody.”
The Ovaro was next to the bay. So when John suddenly grabbed at the stock of the rifle in his saddle scabbard, Fargo bent and gripped the young man’s wrist to prevent him from getting them both killed. “Control yourself,” he cautioned. “Can’t you see he’s goading you on purpose?”
“They killed Jack!” John practically wailed, and tried to pull loose.
“And they’ll pay, I promise you,” Fargo said, holding tight. “But right now it’s our own hides we need to worry about.”
John scanned the emigrants, and blinked. “Why are they looking at us like that? Are they all idiots, like the pilot?”
Resentful murmurs spread, sparking Fargo to say, “Do us both a favor and keep your mouth shut.” John went to speak, but Fargo cut him off and said, “Not a peep!”
Horace Wells turned toward the Ovaro. “I’m glad to see one of you has some sense in his head. Who are you, anyway? You never introduced yourselves.”
Fargo told him.
The wagon master’s surprise was self-evident. “I’ve heard about you. Why, the last time I was at Fort Leavenworth, an army major sang your praises to high heaven.” Wells’s forehead knit and he stared at the Swills with newfound distrust. “This puts things in a whole new light.”
Gus had overheard. “Hold on there, mister. Anyone can claim to be someone they’re not. How do you know this jasper is the real Fargo?”
“A valid point,” Wells conceded. “I don’t know any of you personally.” To Fargo he said, “Do you have proof of who you are?”
Fargo had to think a moment. There was the letter from the man in the Willamette Valley who had written requesting his help, sent care of a hotel in Denver. But what had he done with it? “I might,” he said. Twisting, he opened one of his saddlebags and rifled through its contents.
Gus bent toward his brothers and whispered. Wilt nodded, and Billy eased his left hand to within a couple of inches of his six-shooter. Since being shot, he had adjusted his gunbelt and holster so he could unlimber his revolver in a cross-draw.
Fargo found his other pair of buckskin pants balled up at the bottom of the saddlebag. He had been wearing them the day the desk clerk had given him the letter, and he was sure he had stuck the letter into his pocket. But it wasn’t there.
“Well?” Horace Wells impatiently asked.
“I’m still looking.” Fargo figured the letter had slipped out and had to be in the saddlebag somewhere.
An emigrant with the body of a bull and a beard down to his stout waist cleared his throat. “He’s stalling, Mr. Wells. I don’t trust him, or that loud-mouthed boy. Say the word and we’ll drag them off their horses and hold them until Simonson and the others get back.” Several others voiced their a
greement.
John bristled and shook a fist. “I’d like to see you try, you lunkheads!”
Five or six burly emigrants moved toward him, but stopped at a command from the wagon boss. “Enough! I’ll decide what is to be done, and I alone. Anyone who disagrees will find himself and his wagon banished from the train.”
Just then Fargo located the letter wedged under his boxes of spare ammunition. “Here’s the proof you need,” he said, pulling it out.
The emigrants were all watching John and him. No one was paying much attention to the Swills, so no one was able to give warning when Gus Swill’s Smith and Wesson flashed out and the end of the barrel was pressed against Horace Wells’s head.
“If anyone so much as twitches, I’ll decorate your wagon boss’s clothes with his brains!”
To a man, the pilgrims became as still as statues. They looked expectantly at Wells, waiting for him to tell them what to do. As for the pilot, he was sculpted from granite, his arm lifted toward Fargo and the letter.
“Not one twitch!” Gus emphasized, and nodded at his brothers. Wilt and Billy drew their six-guns and swivelled in different directions. Between the three of them, they had the emigrants covered.
“So the truth comes out,” Wells said contemptuously. “Fargo and his young friend were right about you.”
“I told Clancy his dumb idea wouldn’t work,” Gus spat. Gripping the wagon master by the back of his coat, Gus jerked Wells closer to his horse. “Order your people to drop their hardware or I’ll make buzzard bait of you.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” Horace Wells responded, and glanced at the man who had wanted to drag Fargo and John from their mounts. “Lafferty, I want you and the other men to shoot these coyotes down.”
Lafferty looked as if he had swallowed an apple, whole. “But if we do that, Mr. Wells, he’ll kill you.”
“Death comes to each of us in our time. If my time is now, so be it. I made my peace with our Maker long ago.” Wells squared his shoulders. “At the count of three.” He began the count. “One!”
Lafferty and the other men looked at one another. Only a few started to raise their rifles and pistols.
“Two!”
Gus snarled like a beast at bay. “Go ahead and shoot if you want! But know this! My brothers and me won’t die easy. We’ll take as many of you with us as we can, including women and children!”
The threat gave the emigrants pause. It was no idle bluff. If the Swills went down shooting, plenty of onlookers would die.
“Three!” Horace Wells shouted.
No one fired. One-by-one the emigrants lowered their weapons.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Lafferty said contritely. “If you had a wife and children, you would do the same. Please don’t hold it against us.”
Gus chuckled, his confidence restored. “That’s using your noggin, mister. Now have everyone get rid of their artillery, like I told you.”
“Mr. Wells?” Lafferty asked.
Horace Wells scowled, but nodded. “Do as they say. You’re right, of course. We can’t endanger the women and children on my account.”
Billy Swill cackled as rifle after rifle, and pistol after pistol thumped to the ground. “Look at this! These greenhorns will kiss our boots if’n we tell them to.”
“Don’t push your luck,” Horace Wells said.
Gus was savvy enough to know good advice when he heard it. “My sentiments exactly, friend. My brothers and me are riding off, and you’re tagging along as our hostage. If any of these farmers and store clerks get any fool ideas, your life won’t be worth a pair of crooked dice.” Sliding back on his saddle, he said, “Climb up in front of me. No tricks, hear? Or my little brother will gun that lady there with the baby in her arms.”
“I surely will!” Billy whooped, and cackled some more.
Fargo was amazed the Swills hadn’t ordered him to throw his Colt down. But then, they weren’t the brightest candles in the wax factory. He wasn’t about to try anything, though, not when Gus’s revolver was gouged against the wagon boss’s spine and Billy was just itching to fling lead at the emigrants.
Billy and Wilt moved their mounts in on either side of Gus. Together, alert for backshooters, they rode northward at a walk, Billy wearing that wicked smirk of his.
“We can’t let them just ride off like that,” an emigrant whispered in protest.
“They won’t get far,” Lafferty predicted. “As soon as they let Mr. Wells go, we’ll mount up and chase them down.”
But the Swills didn’t release Wells. They broke into a gallop, heading in the same direction Clancy had taken the search party, and soon were out of sight over a rise.
“To your horses, men!” Laffery bellowed, and the earlier scene was repeated. Emigrants rushed to their mounts. Saddle blankets and saddles were thrown on as fast as could be managed. And in no time, seventeen more riders were set to depart.
“Mr. Wells said you’re a scout, correct?” Lafferty addressed Fargo while keeping a tight rein on his skittish mare. When Fargo nodded, he said, “Then maybe you should lead us. Just don’t do anything that will get Mr. Wells killed.”
Without another word Fargo took up the chase. From the top of the rise he spotted the Swills going over a hill half a mile away. They were riding like bats out of Hades and raising a dust cloud as thick as fog. He spurred the stallion to a gallop and shot across the intervening low-land. Midway across, in a patch of mesquite and stunted shrubs, he glimpsed a crumpled form and hauled stiffly on the reins. The pinto slid to a stop on its hindquarters, and several of the riders behind him came perilously close to colliding with him.
“What in the world?” Lafferty blurted. “What did you do that for?”
Fargo was out of the saddle and over to the body before most of the emigrants realized it was there. Horace Wells lay on his stomach, one arm flung out, the other under his head as if cushioning it. A red puddle was spreading outward from his neck.
“Dear Lord, no!” Lafferty breathed.
“They didn’t!” someone else cried.
But they had. Fargo rolled Wells over. The wagon boss’ throat had been slit from ear to ear, the cut deep and clean, his jugular completely severed. His eyes were wide open, and Fargo put a finger to each eyelid and closed them. “Have two men take the body back,” he directed.
The emigrants had been shocked into momentary silence. Now their fury surfaced, and they all began talking at once. Some heaped curses on the Swills. Others vented oaths of revenge.
Lafferty picked two to do Fargo’s bidding, and off they sped. The rest were a study in steely eyed determination. They were now fully conscious of the type of men they were dealing with, and they were out for blood.
Fargo led them up the hill. On reaching the crest, he was perplexed to see Simonson and the other members of the search party charging toward them like calvary troops charging into battle. Raising an arm, he called out for those with him to halt.
Apparently their arrival was as much of a surprise to Simonson and his bunch. Simonson brought them to a stop and demanded, “What’s going on here, Lafferty?” He speared a thick thumb at Fargo and Carter. “We were just told they killed Mr. Wells.”
“Who told you a lie like—?” Lafferty started to ask, and swore mightily. “The Swills! They murdered Mr. Wells, not these two.” He rose in his stirrups and scanned the other group. “Where are they, Abe? Those Snakes must be held to account for their sins.”
Simonson twisted in his saddle. “They were right behind us, I thought.”
Fargo sighed. The Swills, naturally, were gone, but they couldn’t be far ahead. “Send half the men back to the wagon train,” he ordered. “The rest of us will push on.”
“Hold on, there, mister. Who put you in charge?” Simonson asked. “And why send so many? The more guns, the better. We’ve got two-thirds of the men from our wagon train along.”
“Leaving that many less to protect your families,” Fargo said, and trotted on. He imagin
ed the Swills would make a beeline for Les Bois and it was his intention to overtake them well before they got there. Clods of earth that had been churned by Simonson’s men guided him to woods to the northeast. It was there that Gus, Billy, and Wilt had caught up to the searchers, and once the emigrants had been duped into racing back, the four Swills had galloped off to the northwest.
Fargo glanced over his shoulder. Simonson had done as he’d suggested and sent half of the men back to the train. Hiking an arm, Fargo led them in pursuit. For over an hour they traversed rugged country that taxed their horses, and their horsemanship. The trail was easy to follow. The Swills were in such a hurry, they left sign a ten-year-old could find.
In time, Fargo came to a clearing. Tracks showed where the four Swills had met up with the other two members of their party. Other tracks confirmed they had the pack horses. But the prints that interested everyone the most were those of a woman. Fargo pointed them out to the emigrants.
“It must be Heddy Tinsdale,” Lafferty said. “They’ve abducted her, just like you tried to warn us they would.”
“That poor, sweet girl,” Simonson said. “She must be terrified out of her wits. She’s only eighteen.”
“Nineteen,” corrected a middle-aged man who was nosing his mount up from the rear of the group. He wore sadness like a shroud.
“Mr. Tinsdale!” Lafferty blurted.
“We didn’t notice you were along, George,” Simonson said. “We’re sorry about your daughter. Rest assured we’ll do whatever it takes to return her to you and your wife, safe and sound.”
Tinsdale faced Fargo. “Be honest with me, sir. Do you think these outlaws will murder her like they did Mr. Wells?”
“I don’t know what they do with the women they steal,” Fargo admitted, “but I can’t see them going to all this trouble if all they aimed to do was kill her.”
On into the wilds they pushed, Fargo setting the pace. John Carter and George Tinsdale were silent specters on either side. Hour after tiring hour passed. It was close to three, and they were crossing a grassy valley when a small white object ahead caught Fargo’s attention. He reined toward it.
