by Jon Sharpe
“She was as sweet as anything. Could be that’s where I get my disposition from. I am nothin’ if not sweet.”
“You are a puzzlement,” Fargo admitted.
Hoby smiled a genuinely warm smile. “It’s a shame you have to die. How about you give me your word that if I cut you down, you’ll climb on that handsome animal of yours and light a shuck for anywhere but here and never come back again?”
“Can’t,” Fargo said.
“Why not? I call lettin’ you go generous.”
“Timbre Wilson, yonder, has tried to kill me. Twice. Abe Foreman and the late Rufus tried at the soddy.”
“And you take that personal?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose,” Hoby said. “But not so I’d look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Then there’s Marshal Coltraine. He let me out of jail in exchange for my help.”
“Ah,” Hoby said. “Him. Mr. High-and-Mighty tin star. Did you know that down to Texas everyone adored him? And they adore him here, too. All you ever hear is how good a lawman he is. Part of the pleasure of robbin’ that bank was knowin’ it would take him down a peg or ten.”
“Is it you don’t like him or you don’t like lawmen in general?”
“The law,” Hoby scoffed. “It’s just a way to keep folks in line. So we’ll kiss the boots of those who put on airs. As for Coltraine, I like embarrassin’ him. You could say he’s a personal interest of mine.” He straightened and sighed. “Enough jabber. I have to decide what to do with you.”
“Letting me live would be nice.”
Hoby laughed. “It sure would. But since you refuse to fan the breeze, you don’t leave a fella much choice.” He turned and hollered, “Granger. Get over here and bring that knife of yours.”
Granger came at a run.
Fargo tensed. The boy was unpredictable as could be. There was no telling what he’d do. Maybe slit his throat to get it over with.
“Here you go,” Granger said.
Hoby accepted the knife and stepped up to Fargo. “I still think my notion is sound but the honey ain’t enough. There’s somethin’ that meat-eaters like more.” And with that, he thrust the knife at Fargo’s side.
24
Hoby Cotton didn’t so much stab as jab. The tip of the knife penetrated an inch or so, no more, enough that blood welled and began to mix with the honey. “There. That should do it.”
Fargo had winced at the sting but didn’t cry out.
“Blood and honey, both,” Hoby said. “If that doesn’t bring somethin’, nothin’ will.” He wiped the tip on Fargo’s pants and gave the knife back to his brother. “Any last words?”
“Be looking over your shoulder.”
Hoby blinked and laughed and clapped Granger on the arm. “Did you hear him? Why can’t you be as funny as he is?”
“I’m just me,” Granger said.
“See?” Hoby said to Fargo, and laughed harder. With a little wave, he sauntered off.
The outlaws fell into a discussion that ended with the Cottons and Timbre Wilson climbing on their horses. Hoby gave another wave to Fargo, whooped for joy, and rode off with them in his wake.
Fargo was surprised to see that Abe Foreman didn’t go too. Abe watched until they were lost in the heat haze of the prairie, then turned and came over with his hand on his six-gun. “You’re to finish it?”
“I wish,” Abe spat. “I’m not to lay a finger on you. I’m to be your nursemaid, Hoby called it.”
Fargo didn’t understand. “My what?”
“As punishment for failin’ to kill you at the sodbuster’s,” Abe explained. “I’m to go into the woods and wait for somethin’ to come and kill you, then make sure you’re dead before I go join them.”
Fargo bobbed his head in the direction of Rufus’s body. “It could be worse.”
“I’ve had my fill of that boy. Maybe I’ll join them and maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll sneak off to someplace he’ll never find me.”
“No, you won’t,” Fargo said. “You don’t have the backbone.”
Abe glared, then reached up and gripped Fargo by the hair and savagely twisted his head until Fargo thought his neck would snap. “Don’t tempt me, mister, you hear?” He shook Fargo’s head and let go. “And one thing you should know. I asked Hoby how long I had to wait around and he said to give it a day. That if nothin’ shows by this time tomorrow, I can blow your brains out.” He placed his hand on his revolver again. “Could be I won’t wait that long. I could kill you now and he’d never know.”
“Unless he comes back for some reason,” Fargo said.
Abe grew thoughtful. “He just might, at that. He’s always doin’ what I don’t expect.” He swore and made a fist. “I’ll have to give it more thought.” Wheeling, he strode to his mount and the Ovaro and led them into the trees.
Fargo had gained some time, but how long? He tried to twist his wrists back and forth to loosen the rope but all it did was spike new pain up his arms. Tilting his head, he stared at his right boot. If only he could reach his Arkansas toothpick. But it might as well be on the moon.
A dull ache formed in his side. Blood had spread and was dripping to the ground. Not a lot but it wouldn’t take much for the wind to carry the scent a considerable distance. As luck would have it, the breeze picked that moment to grow stronger, bending some of the tops of the trees.
Fargo had been in some tights in his life and always gotten out of them. Sometimes through his own efforts and sometimes the hand of Providence played a part.
He was stumped how he could get out of this one. Unless Providence stepped in again, he faced a bullet to the brain.
The time crawled on feet of pain. He kept trying to move his wrists but the rope was too tight. All his twisting did was dig them deeper into his wrists and add to the drops of blood.
It must have been an hour or more after the Cottons and Wilson left that a short bark of a laugh rose from the trees that Abe Foreman had gone into.
Fargo looked over, wondering what the outlaw found so funny.
Then he heard a grunt.
Across the clearing, on the other side of the creek, stood a massive monster with a head as huge as a buffalo’s and a razor-rimmed maw that was open as it panted in the heat. The hump on its enormous shoulders, its silver-tipped hair—this was no black bear.
Hoby’s ploy had worked. The blood had drawn in not just any meat-eater, but the lord of the prairies and the mountains, the most formidable shredder of flesh and bone on the continent.
A grizzly had come calling.
An icy chill rippled down Fargo’s spine as the griz raised its head and loudly sniffed. Turning its head from side to side, it sought the source of the tantalizing smell that brought it.
Fargo held himself perfectly still. Meat-eaters reacted to movement. A fleeing fawn, a bolting buck, would trigger an attack even if a grizzly wasn’t on the hunt.
This one padded into the creek. It stopped to dip its muzzle and drank noisily until its thirst was slaked. Water dripping from its nose and jaw, it came to the near side and up over the bank with an agility that belied its bulk.
A fly chose that moment to alight close to Fargo’s eye. Instinctively, he blinked and jerked his head. The fly took wing again, and when he looked over at the bear, it was staring fixedly at him.
Fargo had never felt so helpless. All he could do was hang there as the grizzly came closer, ever closer, one ponderous step after another. It breathed in great wheezes that made him think of a blacksmith’s bellows.
It stopped not six feet away and sniffed some more, and then came right up to him, to his side where the knife had gone in, and opened its mouth.
Fargo grit his teeth and braced for the bite. He imagined acute pain and his flesh being sheared and his ribs cracked like sticks. Instead, he felt something long and
wet slide across his skin.
The grizzly was licking him. It was licking the honey as a dog might lick gravy off a supper bone its owner gave it.
Fargo almost laughed in relief.
It licked and licked, his side, his gut, his chest.
Fargo couldn’t look away if he wanted. The bear’s musky odor, the puffs of its heavy breaths, the feel of its tongue . . . he should be terrified but he wasn’t. It seemed unreal.
At any moment the griz might take it into its head to stop licking and take a bite. Its tongue moved to his shoulder and his neck and then they were nose to nostrils and the bear stopped licking and stared him in the eyes.
Fargo thought his time had come. The bear would get down to business now, to ripping his throat open and satiating its craving for more than honey.
Over the years he had reflected on how he might meet his end. A slug to the head, maybe, or an arrow to the heart, or any one of fifty ways. But he’d never imagined anything like this.
The grizzly sniffed his face and his hair and licked his cheek.
Fargo considered shouting to try to drive it off. The sound of a human voice sometimes did that. But it might also provoke the bear into attacking, and that was the last thing he wanted.
The griz licked him one last time. It grunted, and opened its mouth wide, about to sink its fangs into his head.
This was it.
25
Skye Fargo had been close to death so many times, he’d lost count. He stared into the grizzly’s gaping maw as his face was about to be devoured and figured he might as well shout now that he had nothing to lose.
Off in the trees, Abe Foreman laughed.
Almost instantly, the grizzly huffed and pulled back and swung toward the oaks and cottonwoods. It commenced to sniff and turn its head from side to side.
Fargo realized the bear had caught the outlaw’s scent. The smell of the horses, probably, too. For the moment he was forgotten as the bear took a few steps toward the vegetation.
Abe Foreman wasn’t laughing now.
The grizzly slowly advanced, growling. It was suspicious, and not pleased that its meal had been interrupted.
Fargo wondered what Foreman would do. If he stayed put, the bear was bound to find him. If he fled, the griz might give chase.
Abe Foreman chose the latter. He burst from cover on his sorrel, lashing the reins in a panic, making for the prairie.
For a few heartbeats the grizzly just stood there. Then, with a rapidity that was startling, it erupted into motion and was off after the sorrel in an incredible burst of speed. Over short distances grizzlies were as fast as any horse alive, even faster on occasion, and this was one of them.
Abe Foreman was almost to the prairie when the grizzly overhauled him. He screamed as a forepaw swiped at his mount’s flank. The sorrel screamed, too, a shrill whinny and then another as its rear leg was splintered by a powerful blow.
Abe dived clear as the sorrel pitched forward. His foot became entangled and for an instant it appeared he would go down with his horse but he kicked clear and landed on his shoulder and rolled.
The griz was more interested in the sorrel. It lunged, clamping those iron jaws on its quarry’s neck below the ears. The horse kicked and neighed, attempting to rise. Claws raked its side, its throat. Scarlet sprayed in a mist, until, with a wrench of its gargantuan frame, the grizzly bit down and simultaneously broke the sorrel’s neck.
Abe Foreman was scrambling on his hands and knees toward the trees. His face was pasty with fear. When he gained the first tree he slid behind it and sat with his back to the bole, quaking from head to toe.
The bear began to eat the sorrel.
Fargo had a reprieve but for how long? Heedless of the torment, he resumed twisting his wrists and pulling against the ropes but all he succeeded in doing was making his wrists bleed worse. He tugged and tugged, his senses swimming from the agony, and wasn’t aware he was no longer alone until he heard an oath and was struck a jarring blow to the jaw.
“You son of a bitch. This is all your fault.”
His ears ringing from the punch, Fargo shook his head to clear it.
Abe Foreman was red with wrath. Beyond, the sorrel lay with its head attached by a shred to its neck. The grizzly was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did the bear go?” Fargo asked.
“I’m about to splatter your brains,” Abe informed him. “That griz is the least of your worries.” He gestured. “It wandered off and I am going to get this over with.”
Fargo was nearly exhausted from his struggles. He didn’t pull away when Abe gripped his chin.
“Rufus is dead because of you. Now my horse is, too. I’m not waitin’ any longer. I’m doin’ you in here and now.”
“Hoby wanted a bear to kill me,” was all the protest Fargo could muster.
“The boy ain’t here,” Abe declared. “It’s just you and me and pretty soon it will be just me. I’ll take that Ovaro of yours and head for Texas and Hoby Cotton and his brothers can go to hell.”
A drop of blood fell onto Foreman’s boot and he looked down and grinned. “There’s about to be a lot more of that in a bit.”
“If my hands were free . . .” Fargo said, but didn’t finish the useless threat.
Abe slowly drew his revolver and slowly cocked it and slowly pressed the muzzle to Fargo’s temple. “Beg me not to.”
“That will be the day.”
“Tough hombre,” Abe scoffed.
Fargo waited for the inevitable.
“You know,” Abe said, and lowered his six-shooter. “On second thought I shouldn’t do this quick. I should shoot you to pieces.” He aimed at Fargo’s leg, then laughed and aimed at Fargo’s arm. “Which should it be? Your knee or your elbow?”
Out of the corner of an eye Fargo caught movement in the brush. That something so immense could move so silently never failed to amaze him. “Which would you like to lose?”
“I’m not the one trussed up like a lamb for the slaughter,” Abe said.
“You’re the one who made the mistake, though.”
“And what mistake would that be?” Abe scornfully asked.
“You haven’t done much hunting, have you?”
“Some when I was a boy. Get to the damn point.”
“My point,” Fargo said, “is that if you were a hunter, you’d know that some meat-eaters like to circle their prey and come on it from behind. Wolves will. Coyotes sometimes.” He paused. “Bears like that trick a lot. Grizzlies more than blacks.”
“That griz is gone and good riddance.”
“It probably smelled you,” Fargo guessed, “and stopped eating the horse to stalk you. To a griz, one kind of meat is as good as another.”
“You think you can think like a bear? You’re even more loco than Hoby.”
Fargo stared past him. “See for yourself.”
Smirking, Abe Foreman turned. The smirk died and terror bloomed and he let out with a, “No! Not me! Go away!”
The grizzly had stalked in the open and was moving toward them with its head lowered and its ears flattened, a sure sign it was about to attack.
“Do you hear me?” Abe cried, and snapped a shot that kicked up dirt in the grizzly’s face. “Go away!”
With a tremendous roar, the bear charged.
Abe screamed and spun and ran. He had no chance, none at all. The bear was on him before he took ten steps. Whirling, he fired wildly. Even when the bear bit down on his wrist and he was being hauled to earth, he squeezed off shots.
The rope around Fargo’s right wrist suddenly jerked, and the next thing he knew, he was hanging by his legs and his left arm. One of the wild shots had severed the other rope.
Fargo’s back was to the bear and the outlaw. A screech raised the short hairs at the nape of his neck. The crunch that f
ollowed, and the blubbering, balled his gut into a knot. Girding himself, he looked over his shoulder.
Abe Foreman was on his back, his arms and legs weakly pumping. The griz had a paw on his chest, pinning him, and was almost casually ripping and tearing at his belly.
Abe looked at Fargo and opened his mouth to scream, and died.
Fargo turned away. The horrendous meal seemed to take forever. At last the crunching and chewing stopped and he swore the bear belched. He was hoping it would leave or go to the horse. Instead, he heard it come up behind him. Something wet touched the small of his back and it was all he could do not to recoil from the contact. Warm breath prickled his skin and he felt its tongue.
Not that again, Fargo thought. But the griz licked him only once and walked off. Its breathing and its footfalls faded and there was the splash of water. He looked, and said under his breath, “Thank God.”
The brute was leaving. It had crossed the creek and was leisurely melting into the trees.
Fargo let a couple of minutes go by to be sure. Twisting, he bent nearly in half and reached for his boot, and the toothpick. Try as he might, he couldn’t quite do it. He settled for prying at the knots on his left wrist with his fingernails. He was at it for so long that he began to think they would never come undone but they did.
Once both arms were free, he clutched at his leg and pulled himself high enough to slid his hand into his boot. The rope around his legs hindered him and he had to jiggle his boot and push but he succeeded in sliding the toothpick out. The rest was easy.
He tried to let himself down slowly but his grip on the rope slipped and he thumped onto his shoulders and collapsed, weary to his marrow. He closed his eyes, tempted to rest. Heavy footfalls changed his mind. He snapped alert and sat up, prepared to battle the griz with nothing but the toothpick if he had to. Only it wasn’t the grizzly.
“Hey, big fella,” Fargo said happily as the Ovaro nuzzled him.
Using the stallion for support, he got to his feet. The outlaws had shoved the Henry in the saddle scabbard. On a hunch he moved to his saddlebags. In the second was his Colt.
Providence or luck, Fargo didn’t care. He was alive. He pictured Hoby Cotton’s smiling face and said through clenched teeth, “I’m coming for you, boy.”
