by Jon Sharpe
“You have a point,” Fargo conceded. “I used to think we were alike, you and me. We both are fond of a roll in the hay. But I don’t build myself up in their eyes to get up their dress and then tell them lies until I’m tired of poking them and the next pretty filly takes my fancy.”
“That’s harsh. Yes, it could be I’ve trifled with a few. Every man does.”
A thought struck Fargo and it jarred him that he hadn’t seen it sooner. “Hoby’s ma was young when you met her, wasn’t she? About Amanda’s age, I reckon.”
“A little older. She’d already had two kids. So what?”
“So I’m wondering if they’re all young. If the one before Amanda and the one before her were any older.”
“We’re through talkin’ about me.”
That they were. Fargo had learned enough. Plus, the tracks showed that the Cottons had slowed and weren’t that far ahead.
They came on buffalo sign. A lot of it. Fargo figured it was the same herd as before, and it wasn’t until they’d gone a mile or so that it hit him what Hoby was doing. “That boy of yours is damned clever.”
“How so?”
“He’s following this herd,” Fargo said, “so their tracks blend in with those of the buffalo. Right now the tracks are fresh and it’s easy to tell them apart. But anyone coming along in a day or two wouldn’t notice a few shod tracks mixed in with so many others.”
“I never heard of that trick.”
It made Fargo wonder what else the boy might have up his sleeve.
The droppings they came on grew fresher. Fargo estimated they weren’t more than an hour behind the buffs when the sun began to dip below the western horizon, transforming the blue of the sky into bands of red and yellow and orange.
“We’ll make camp for the night and hit them early in the morning,” Fargo announced.
“I’m not tired,” Coltraine said. “The sooner we end it, the better.”
“If you want to try to sneak up on that clever son of yours in the dark, go right ahead,” Fargo said. “I prefer daylight.”
“I see what you’re sayin’,” Coltraine said. “He’s liable to rig their blankets so it seems they’re sleepin’, and when we get close enough, they cut loose.”
“That would be one way.”
“Hell. I want this over with.”
No less than Fargo did. But he stopped in the lee of a hill that would shield them from most of the night wind, and spread out his bedroll. He didn’t bother with a fire. Not this close.
Luther Coltraine was a bulky shadow in the darkness, propped on his saddle. “It’s funny how life works out.”
Fargo grunted.
“Here I am after a son I didn’t know I had until he showed up on my doorstep fifteen years after he was born, and who hates me just the same for not being there when he was growin’ up. A son who’s done his damnedest to make my life a hell.”
“If you’re fishing for pity, you’re in the wrong lake,” Fargo said.
“I’m just sayin’ it’s not fair. I didn’t do anything wrong and I’m bein’ treated like I did.”
“If you start to cry, you can move your blankets somewhere else.”
The dark shape of Coltraine’s head swung toward him. “You’re a hard man, mister. You have no pity in you whatsoever.”
“I pity people burned in fires or massacred by hostiles or who have to watch loved ones die of disease. I don’t pity grown men who poke every young gal they come across and then whine about it when their poking catches up to them.”
“I should have left you behind bars.” Coltraine turned and lay on his side with his back to Fargo. “I’m done tryin’ to talk to you.”
“Good,” Fargo said. He stayed up a while, listening to the sounds of the night: the wind, the coyotes, an owl, and once, the distant howl of a wolf. He searched for the twinkling pinpoint of a fire but the Cottons had likely made a cold camp, too.
He slept with his Colt in his hand. A disturbed sleep, where the slightest of sounds woke him. Toward daybreak it was the screech of a cougar. Since it was only half an hour or so until sunrise, he stayed up.
He had to rouse Coltraine. The lawman slept like a log and woke surly.
They saddled up and resumed their hunt as the blazing arc of the sun lit the eastern horizon. Gradually the stars were eclipsed by the brightening sky and the temperature commenced its inevitable climb.
Along about the middle of the morning they came to an especially flat stretch of prairie, and Fargo drew rein.
“What’s the matter?” Coltraine asked, following suit. “Why did you stop?”
Fargo pointed.
A mile or so off were a pair of stick figures on horseback.
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“It’s them!” the lawman exclaimed. And with hard jabs of his spurs, he flew in pursuit.
“Don’t!” Fargo hollered, but he was wasting his breath. Swearing, he brought the Ovaro to a trot. He would have thought Coltraine had more brains than to pull a stunt like this. The Cottons were bound to hear him and use their own spurs and leave him in the dust.
Coltraine had to know that, which made Fargo wonder if he was doing it deliberately.
The Cottons were oblivious but not for long. One of the stick figures shifted in the saddle and pointed a stick arm. The next moment the pair was off like twin shots.
The chase lasted another mile.
• • •
That was when the heat haze gave the illusion that the brown grass of the prairie had darkened and come alive. The grass seemed to grow and swell and resolved into a moving sea of humped forms.
The buffalo were on the move. Numbering in the thousands, the herd tromped a half-mile swath. It was a great living river of horned and hairy brutes that as yet wasn’t aware that two riders were racing for that river as if their lives depended on it.
Madness, some would call it. To ride into a herd of buffalo was to court death. But there was a purpose to the madness, a purpose that might enable the Cottons to get away.
If Coltraine didn’t see it, Fargo did. He held the Ovaro to a trot, saving the stallion for when he would need its fleetness more. Up ahead, the lawman lashed his reins and slapped his legs, being as foolish as could be. Or was he? Coltraine wasn’t stupid. Maybe, just maybe, Coltraine blundered in going after them too soon in order to give Hoby a chance to escape. Preposterous, yes, but possible.
A few of the herd’s stragglers had stopped and looked back. They’d heard the Cottons but didn’t perceive them as a threat, yet.
Sunlight gleamed on gun barrels. Hoby and Semple had drawn their six-shooters and were waving them over their heads.
Fargo heard whoops and hollers and then the crack of shots, four, five, six.
The buffalo lumbered into motion. Like a gigantic wave driven toward a sandy shore, thousands of dark forms broke into a run almost as one. Thunder rumbled, the pounding of all those hooves driven by tons of muscle into a flowing mass of horn and hair.
And right behind them came the Cottons.
So many buffs, moving so fast, raised a lot of dust. An enormous cloud as wide as the herd and as thick as the thickest fog. A cloud that swallowed Hoby and Semple, as Hoby had planned.
Coltraine still hadn’t slowed. He was lashing his mount to renewed effort but the horse was doing its utmost.
It took some tugging for Fargo to pull the red bandana from around his neck up over his mouth and nose. The bandana wouldn’t keep out all the dust but it would help.
Coltraine was almost to the cloud and hunched over his saddle, as if that would help.
Fargo was a couple of hundred yards back when the lawman plunged into the dust. Unwilling to make the same mistake, Fargo slowed.
Dust didn’t burn the eyes and the throat like smoke but it got into every fold and gap on the human body. Into
the eyes, into the nose, into the mouth, and under one’s clothes. It was just as bad for a horse. He’d have to check the Ovaro’s eyes and nose, after.
One moment Fargo was in bright sunshine, the next he was breathing grit and his eyes felt as if they were being rubbed by sandpaper. He squinted, which made it harder for him to see. He’d lost sight of Coltraine but figured the marshal was still heading south. But was that what the Cottons would do?
Fargo put himself in Hoby’s boots. It would occur to the boy that they could slip to the west or east and get clean away. Continuing after the herd was too dangerous. They never knew but when a buffalo might stop and turn at bay.
To the east was more flat but to the west were hills.
Fargo reined west, the dust so heavy, it made him cough. He jerked his hat brim lower in a vain effort to keep it out of his face.
Suddenly a dark shape. Fargo wrenched on the reins and barely missed colliding with a bull buff standing with its legs spread. As he raced by, the bull bellowed and whirled and came after him.
Just what Fargo needed. He was glad he’d conserved the Ovaro because they needed the extra burst of going from a trot to a gallop. Grunting and snorting, the bull sought to overtake them.
One look back was enough. The flaring nostrils and rage-filled eyes left no doubt as to the bull’s intentions. A single sweep of those curved horns and the Ovaro would be disemboweled, as many a warrior had found out to their dismay.
Fargo whipped his reins, but sparingly. The stallion knew what to do. They’d been in tights like this before. Too many of them. So what if life on the frontier was by its nature fraught with perils? There came a time when anyone with common sense would say “Enough is enough.”
The bull was gaining. Twice it swiped at the Ovaro’s hind legs and each time missed by a whisker.
Fargo reined sharply to the right and the bull veered after them. He reined to the left and the bull never missed a stride. The buff was glued to the Ovaro like death itself. All it would take was for the stallion to stumble.
Fargo couldn’t take that chance. Drawing his Colt, he pointed it at the bull. It would take a lucky shot to bring the animal down and he wasn’t going to try. He needed only to slow it enough that the Ovaro could escape.
A buffalo’s skull was inches high. A heavy caliber rifle like a Sharps could penetrate to the brain but Fargo had given up using a Sharps in favor of the Henry and, at moments like this, regretted it.
He aimed at the horns where they grew out of the bull’s wide brow. Holding the Colt steady was next to impossible. He did the best he could, and fired.
The bull staggered and slowed but only for an instant. Then it was after them again, vengeance incarnate.
Fargo kept hoping the dust would thin. He was coughing nonstop and his eyes were watering.
The bull bellowed. It had regained half the ground it lost and was rapidly bearing down.
Fargo snapped another shot, then concentrated on riding and on looking for a glimpse of the terrain ahead. The hills might prove a haven if he could reach them.
Suddenly the bull found a reserve of speed. It came alongside the Ovaro and hooked a horn to rip.
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Fargo hauled on the reins and swerved away and the bull swerved with them. He reined sharply right and then left and the buff stayed by the Ovaro’s side. The tip of a horn almost nicked the stallion’s belly.
The bull drew back its head to swing again.
Forever after, Fargo wasn’t entirely sure what happened next. He suspected that the bull stepped into a prairie dog hole or a cleft. For suddenly it pitched nose-first to the earth and went into a tumble of legs and tail.
Fargo glanced back and saw it on its side, thrashing. Then the dust closed over it. He rode until the choking cloud gave way to clear air and a blue vault overhead.
Still coughing, Fargo came to a stop. The Ovaro was wheezing as if it had run fifty miles and was lathered with dust-colored sweat.
“We did it, big fella,” Fargo said, and patted the stallion’s neck.
From out of the cloud came another bellow.
Deeming it prudent not to stick around, Fargo turned to the south. He hadn’t gone far when he struck the trail of two shod horses. The Cottons. His hunch had paid off.
Fargo rose in the stirrups but didn’t spot them. If he was Hoby, he’d have gone into the hills. It could be they were looking for Coltraine.
As for the herd, it was miles away by now. The buffalo would run until exhaustion put an end to their flight. They’d spend the rest of the day grazing and recovering and move on when they felt like it.
Fargo wasn’t in any hurry. He aimed to let the Cottons get farther ahead and when dark fell, move in. For once he would spring a surprise and not the other way around.
Twice, Fargo stopped for short spells. The first time was to let the Ovaro rest. The second was so he didn’t overtake the Cottons, who weren’t that far ahead.
With the thinning of the dust, he spotted buffalo now and then. Old bulls or cows that couldn’t keep up with the herd. Once it was a calf, separated from its mother, bawling and bawling.
The afternoon was an oven. His buckskins clung to him, soaked with his sweat.
It was an hour or more until sunset when he came abreast of a dry wash, and out of it came a horse and rider. His hand was on his Colt before he realized who it was.
“Where have you been?” Luther Coltraine asked. “I’ve been waitin’ forever.”
He was caked with dust from hat to boots and his black horse was practically gray.
“Were you hiding from the buffalo?” Fargo said with a bob of his head at the wash.
“I’ve been followin’ the Cottons. I caught sight of them up yonder and hid so they wouldn’t spot me.”
That made sense, except for one thing. “I thought you were hell-bent for leather to catch them.”
“I am,” Coltraine said. “But I’m not goin’ to ride into their gun sights.”
That made sense too, but Fargo couldn’t help saying, “You gave us away when you shouldn’t have. If you ask me, you’re half hoping Hoby won’t be caught.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a lawbreaker. And whatever else folks might say about me, I uphold the law the best I can.”
Fargo granted him that, and dropped the subject. But as they rode he pondered, and made a decision that from then on out, he wouldn’t turn his back on Coltraine if he could help it.
Presently evening fell and twilight spread and a canopy of stars appeared.
Fargo reckoned that the Cottons would make another cold camp but he reckoned wrong.
“A fire,” the marshal declared, pointing. “We’ve got them now, by God.”
It was half a mile off, a lone beacon of flame in the vast ocean of black night.
“Mighty careless of them,” Coltraine commented.
“Too careless,” Fargo said.
“You reckon it’s another of the boy’s tricks?”
“What else?” Fargo said. Hoby wouldn’t kindle a fire unless he knew he was safe, which he knew he wasn’t. Therefore, the fire served another purpose: to lure them in so Hoby could drop them dead with lead.
“I hope it is a trick,” Coltraine said. “We can turn the tables and put that boy down like we would a rabid wolf.”
“You’ve changed your mind about shooting your own son?”
“I’d shoot my own ma if she did the things he’s done. The killin’ and the robbin’ has to end. Too many folks have suffered on account of him. Son or not, Hoby Cotton must die.”
“And then what?” Fargo asked. “Back to Horse Creek and Amanda Brenner?”
“She doesn’t want me anymore. She’s made that plain enough.” Coltraine sighed. “I reckon I’ll head to Texas and take up where I left off when the boy came along to spoil things
.”
“And no one will ever know he was your son, or any of the rest of it.”
“What business is it of anyone but me and his ma? And she’s passed on, God rest her soul.”
“Convenient,” Fargo said.
Coltraine looked at him, his face a dark shadow. “Who are you to judge?”
“I have no call to at all,” Fargo agreed.
“I just want to live like I used to,” Coltraine said. “I left Texas so I wouldn’t have to go up against him. But he came after me. I’ll never know peace so long as he’s alive.”
“I thought you left so he wouldn’t ruin your reputation.”
“Could be that was part of it. Mostly I was in shock. I’d found out I had a son who was as vicious as can be, and he turned that viciousness on me and those around me so I got out of there. I figured he’d never find me. I was wrong.”
Fargo didn’t say anything.
“My life has become a mess, and all because I couldn’t bring myself to shoot a boy I didn’t know I had. I was weak when I shouldn’t have been.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a weakness,” Fargo said.
“Whatever it was, I’m done holdin’ back. From here on out it’s do or die.”
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A stand of trees accounted for the wood for the fire. But the fire wasn’t in the trees where it should be, concealed from unfriendly eyes. It was out in the open, a flame to lure in moths.
The Cottons had stripped their mounts and set their saddles near the fire and unwrapped their bedrolls, and from a distance it looked as if the pair was under their blankets and bedded down for the night.
“I expected better of the boy,” Luther Coltraine said. “He’s graspin’ at straws if he reckons this will work.”
“He figures you’ll take the bait, anyway.”
They climbed down and let their reins dangle and advanced on foot, unlimbering their six-shooters as they went.
“Hoby is mine,” Coltraine whispered. “You take Semple.”
“No promises,” Fargo said.
“If you can, do it for me.”
The night was still save for a breeze that rustled the leaves on the trees, and the dancing flames.
