The Trailsman #388

by Jon Sharpe

  Fargo remembered Valdez telling him the old hostler was crooked as cat shit.

  “All right,” Fargo said, “do you sell it?”

  “Nope. Half the hombres who board their horses here got their faces on wanted dodgers. Unless you want to know the difference between a burro and a donkey, I got no information to sell.”

  “What if I leave you out of it?” Fargo persisted. “What if I just walk past the stalls real quick and glance into them?”

  “Way I see it, if I let a man fuck me in the ass, I expect a reach-around.”

  “I’m not looking for anything quite that personal,” Fargo said drily. “I just want a quick look at the horses.”

  “How much is it worth to you?”

  “Two dollars.”

  Gonzalez spat into the dirty straw at his feet. “Ten dollars.”

  “Four.”

  Gonzalez wagged the huge-bore pistol. “How ’bout I just take all your money?”

  “Big mistake,” Fargo said.

  Quicker than eyesight the Colt appeared in his hand. A shot echoed in the huge barn, and a few horses whickered. Sparks flew and the hogleg jumped out of the old man’s hand.

  Fargo’s face hardened as gray-white smoke curled from the Colt’s muzzle. He cocked it again.

  “You’re lucky, pepper gut. I shot so many holes into the last jasper who tried to rob me that the flies got in and buzzed him to death.”

  A grin cracked the Mexican’s face. “I said how ’bout I just take all your money. I didn’t demand it.”

  “I noticed,” Fargo said. “That’s why you’re still alive.”

  “I like your style. That line about the flies—that’s good. All right, two dollars.”

  Fargo dug two Liberty silver dollars out of his dwindling cash reserve and handed them over. Then he quickly walked the length of the barn checking each stall. As he had feared, Winslow’s jobbers had also switched livery stables or acquired new horses.

  Unless, he told himself, they’ve left the region. That meant he’d never settle his personal blood score with them. But that was a welcome tradeoff if it also meant there would be no second blast.

  “Any luck?” Gonzalez called to him as Fargo headed back out of the barn.

  “No soap, viejo.”

  “Somebody’s going to die, uh?”

  “Somebody,” Fargo agreed. “But I’m damned if I can tell you who.”

  • • •

  Fargo felt his stomach pinching with hunger. He had ridden out that morning without eating, and his meals lately had been sparse. He remembered the delicious hot breakfast he’d enjoyed at the Early Bird Café and began to salivate like a starving man at a banquet. He cut over several blocks to Alameda Street.

  Fargo ordered a plate of eggs, spiced chorizo and hot biscuits, paid up at the counter, and turned to find a table. The first person he spotted was Deputy Jim West scowling at him over a mug of coffee. Fargo crossed to his table.

  “Mind if I sit here?”

  “Knock yourself out. I don’t mind associating with known criminals.”

  Fargo maneuvered his long legs under the table and tied into his food.

  “Known criminals?” he repeated around a mouthful of egg. “Bit of a stretch, ain’t it?”

  “Not the way I see it. I could slap the bracelets on you right now, Fargo. That running gun battle you started yesterday within city limits—two witnesses described a tall man in buckskins riding a black-and-white stallion. That’s probable cause, chumley.”

  “You know how unreliable witnesses can be, Deputy. They hear a few gunshots and they get all exfluctuated.”

  West snorted. “Fargo, I’m stupid enough to think that you’re trying to work on the right side of the law, at least as you see it. That’s why I haven’t jugged you . . . yet.”

  Fargo chewed, swallowed, nodded. “ ’Preciate that, Deputy. I truly do.”

  “Damn it, Fargo, wipe that smirk off your dial! This ain’t some wide-open territory where vigilantes can stand in for sworn officers. If you got some knowledge of a crime, report it. Matter fact, vigilantism is a prison offense in Texas.”

  “I know that. But there’s crimes and then there’s crimes. And I also know that a fish rots from the top.”

  Winslowe narrowed his eyes, watching Fargo speculatively. “You’re talking about Winslowe, right?”

  “I am—him and his well-paid bootlicks. The very same man you and your fellow deputies are protecting night and day. Sure, I can go to the sheriff. And he’ll slam my ass right into the pokey. You’re only taking honest wages from Wins-lowe, but I’ll guarandamntee you there’s others above you who’ve been bought off with dirty money.”

  “You’re saying Sheriff Harney is crooked?”

  “Nope. I don’t even know the man. But whether he’s straight goods or not, are you willing to vouch for the mayor and the councilmen? Is the governor of Texas a scrubbed angel? How ’bout your senators? It’s business as usual and you know it. Men like Winslowe don’t need to corrupt the underlings—they go right to the big nabobs.”

  “I won’t even vouch for the sheriff,” West admitted. “He collects a ‘private tax’ on every cathouse in town. But look here, Fargo . . . Harney is middling honest in most matters. You’re on to some big deal. I can see that. I know that at least three men are trying to kill you, and I know you think Wins-lowe is behind—”

  “You can shit-can the think part,” Fargo cut him off. “He’s the rainmaker, all right.”

  “All right, so maybe he is—whatever the hell you’re talking about. Just because I took good wages from the rich son of a bitch doesn’t mean I stand in thick with him. But what’s this ‘wandering river’ malarkey you gave me at the Del Norte? The minute I relayed your message he turned white as plaster.”

  Fargo kept chewing and said nothing. West slammed his mug down.

  “Fargo, I asked you a question. The hell is this big crime and why are you mixed in it up to your eyeballs? And why won’t you report it?”

  Fargo sopped up egg yolk with a biscuit. “West, I did report it, and to a higher authority.”

  “You telling me this deal is federal?”

  Fargo nodded. “As federal as it gets. And I’ve already explained why I can’t risk telling you. It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that you’ll have to take it up the chain to the same nabobs who dance on Winslowe’s strings.”

  A word that West had used a few moments ago sank through to Fargo. “What did you mean when you said you took wages from Winslowe? Did you quit guarding his room, or did he cashier you?”

  West scowled again. “You like to receive but you never give. With me you play button-button-who’s-got-the-button. But I’m just s’pose to spill my guts for the vigilante hero who takes over my job. Stick your dick in your ear, Fargo, and make a jug handle out of it.”

  “I’ve told you more than I should. And like you said, Deputy, I’m mainly working the right side of the law. My ass is on the line, and to give you the straight, there’s a good chance I’ll soon end up cold as a basement floor. I ain’t exactly playing at larks here.”

  West mulled this for at least ten seconds, his face relenting. “Fargo, it looks like Winslowe has pulled up stakes. He checked out of the hotel early this morning. I checked at the Overland depot, and he hired a special coach this morning to take him to Santa Fe. That’s where he lives.”

  Fargo felt a glimmer of hope. The two thugs had deserted their room and livery, Winslowe had left town . . . was it possible he was abandoning his land grab mining scheme, or at least the Tierra Seca part of it?

  But if so what about those tracks he found early this morning in the desert, ending only feet from where he’d slept? And Fargo wasn’t so full of himself to believe that his brief visit to Winslowe’s suite could put ice in the boots of a greedy, graspi
ng, ruthless mining baron.

  After all, Winslowe obviously had a capable lackey in whoever the man was that Santiago Valdez was hunting with a desire like hell thirst. Perhaps Winslowe had felt enough heat to remove himself from the area, but Fargo doubted that this fandango was over.

  “Well,” Fargo said, scraping his chair back, “thanks for the information.”

  “Hang on a minute,” West said. “There’s something else.”

  He studied Fargo for a few moments, seeming to debate something in his mind.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” he finally said. “You’ll prob’ly end up turning another part of town into a war zone. But . . . I noticed that Winslowe had himself a private messenger system. He didn’t use the regular runners, and I figure that was on account of the red caps they wear.”

  “Too easy to spot and follow, you mean?”

  West nodded. “There was this fellow, s’pose to be a drummer selling ladies notions, staying on the fourth floor. But I checked with the desk clerk, and Winslowe was paying for his room—five dollars a night, mind you. Almost every day he came to Winslowe’s suite, and left a minute later.”

  “And I’d wager he checked out this morning just like Winslowe?”

  “Yeah. Anyhow, one time the door was partway open and I heard Winslowe mention Mesa Street. That’s all I heard. That’s the street at the foot of the Franklin Mountains.”

  Finally, Fargo thought. Just maybe this card would close a straight. But had Valdez already found this out? He hadn’t popped up lately as he usually did.

  “I ’preciate that information, Deputy.”

  “Damn it, Fargo, you listen to me. Mesa Street is a nice part of town, one of the few. There’s families living there. You start chucking lead around there, and women and kids could get hurt. If that happens, I will make sure the law comes down on you like all wrath. You got that?”

  “I got it,” Fargo said, pushing to his feet. “I’m not planning to start any trouble.”

  “Jesus! Start trouble? Fargo, you are trouble. It arrives with you.”

  Fargo shrugged one shoulder and mustered a grin. “The whole damn world is going insane, Deputy West. I’m just proud to be part of it.”

  17

  West hadn’t lied about Mesa Street, Fargo realized.

  Fargo had been to El Paso many times, but he hadn’t realized such a street as this peaceful, pleasant one existed. Creosote had been spread along the street to hold down the dust, and it had been neatly ditched to catch floodwater during the city’s rare but near-torrential downpours.

  The street was a six-block stretch lined on both sides with neat cottages and bungalows. A small canyon behind it was lush with blue columbine and white Queen Anne’s lace, and beyond it to the northeast pine-forested mountains thrust into a China blue sky. These inhabitants were not wealthy, Fargo figured, just hardworking savers.

  He spotted children playing and parcel-laden women return-ing from their shopping. The residents eyed him with wary curiosity, unused to seeing a buckskin-clad frontiersman in their tame and respectable neighborhood.

  Fargo felt like an intruder. No gunplay, he resolved, no matter what. This was no place for stray bullets. But he already had his doubts about what Jim West had overheard. And even if the man Valdez sought had been staying here someplace, was he still here? Valdez had complained about how often he shifted his location. It was also possible that the entire pack of vermin, from bottom to top, had departed El Paso.

  Fargo trotted the Ovaro slowly along the street, studying each dwelling. He had already ridden around back of each row of houses to look for horses. He had spotted two, both swayback and neither one young or strong enough to serve as a good mount for outlaws.

  Again Fargo felt the familiar frustration that had plagued him since witnessing that blast eight days ago. These men were as elusive as a forgotten dream. Almost every “lead” he followed ended up as a blind alley; every stone he turned over was blank on both sides. He could hardly go knocking on every door, and if he knocked on the wrong one a hail of unfriendly lead might answer.

  “Down to bedrock,” he muttered, “and showing damn little color.”

  The Ovaro tossed his head and whinnied as if mocking him.

  “If I want your opinion, you spavined nag,” Fargo retorted, “I’ll beat it out of you.”

  And where, he wondered yet again, was Valdez? If the Apache had not already sent him across the River Jordan, he was likely following, trying to follow, or searching for the two dirt-workers. Fargo had to decide whether or not he was going to tell him about Mesa Street.

  If Valdez managed to kill Winslowe’s top man, that might put the kibosh on the entire operation. Or it might not, in which case a potentially valuable witness against Winslowe would be dead. Not that Fargo had any real hope the mining kingpin would ever stand before the bar of justice.

  He reached the end of the street, which simply stopped at a sand hill, and reversed his dust. His only chance, he realized, was to find a good hiding place and stake out Mesa Street in hopes he’d spot one of the thugs coming or going. If—

  A rifle shot suddenly cracked the stillness and Fargo felt the wind-rip from the slug as it streaked by his right temple. A couple inches to the left and it would have been a perfect head shot.

  A woman screamed and Fargo’s first priority was to clear out before an innocent got hurt. He thumped the Ovaro with his heels and the stallion bolted forward as if spring-launched. Fargo borrowed a defensive-riding trick from the Cheyenne and slumped down the Ovaro’s left side, clinging to the stallion’s neck and leaving only his right leg thrown over the saddle to stay on horseback.

  But the Trailsman had forgotten an important detail. Because of the extreme desert heat he had been cinching the girth a bit looser to avoid chafing his horse. The sudden shifting of his weight jerked the saddle around to the left like a loose cigar band, throwing his right leg free even as the shifting motion and his awkward angle popped his left foot out of the stirrup.

  Suddenly Fargo found himself with both feet bouncing and dragging on the ground as he desperately tried to retain his precarious grip on the stallion’s neck. Another shot rang out, a third, both slugs kicking up plumes of dirt only inches from his crow-hopping body. A desperate Fargo realized that if he lost his tentative grip, he would be exposed in the middle of the street—an easy mark for the shooter.

  The Ovaro hadn’t slowed, nor did Fargo want him to. Getting out of range was his only salvation, and even as he desperately clung to handfuls of mane he ki-yied the Ovaro to even greater speed.

  A fourth shot, a fifth, this one penetrating his saddle fender. Pain hammered Fargo’s legs as they dragged and bounced, and the straining muscles in his arms and shoulders felt as if they were being stretched on tenterhooks. But somehow he held on as the Ovaro streaked through an oak grove where Mesa Street terminated, suddenly providing Fargo with good cover.

  He let go, bouncing and rolling with dizzying speed through lush grass until he finally came to a stop. He sat up slowly, making sure his bones were still intact. His thick buckskins had protected him from abrasions and friction burns. The Ovaro had stopped out ahead and Fargo whistled him back.

  Again he had cheated death almost literally by a hair, but this time it was worth it. Now he not only knew that Wins-lowe’s team was still in the borderland, but that Winslowe’s point man was indeed somewhere on Mesa Street. Those shots, however, did not come from any of the houses—the trajectory of the bullets put the shooter directly behind him, most likely in the sand hills beyond the opposite end of Mesa Street.

  He could hear alarmed neighbors calling to one another, and Fargo recalled Jim West’s stern warning: You start chucking lead around there and women and kids could get hurt. If that happens I will make sure the law comes down on you like all wrath.

  Fargo was sure no one had
been hurt, but the law would certainly be summoned. He hadn’t chucked any lead, either, but residents would report his presence as the firing broke out, and that was all the law dogs would need to slap him in irons. Fargo centered his saddle, tightened and cinched the girth and hopped his horse, beating a hasty retreat from El Paso.

  • • •

  For more than an hour Ripley Parker paced impatiently in front of the abandoned mine near Zaragoza, Mexico. Occasionally he stopped to stare anxiously toward the north, muttering a string of curses.

  Finally, when the broiling sun was straight overhead, he spotted the coal black stallion loping in.

  “Where the hell you been?” Parker demanded when Mankiller reined in.

  Mankiller swung down and began stripping the saddle from his mount. “Across border,” he replied cryptically.

  “Didn’t I tell you to wait right here until we were ready for you?”

  Mankiller said nothing to this, tossing his saddle into the sand and starting to remove the hair bridle.

  “What were you doing north of the border? Did you kill anyone?”

  Mankiller shook his head. “Watch blue-eyed one sleep.”

  Parker started. “You mean you found him?”

  Mankiller nodded. He moved into the shadows in front of the mine and began methodically squeezing the India rubber balls. He kept his eyes averted from the cloth-covered kachina in Parker’s hand. Parker noticed this.

  “Didn’t I tell you Blood Clot Man wants Valdez killed first?” Parker demanded.

  “No kill. Just look.”

  “Well, since you had already violated orders and got close enough to watch him sleeping, why didn’t you go ahead and kill him?”

  “Coyote no howl.”

  Parker’s forehead runneled in confusion. “Coyote no—? What coyote?”

  Mankiller sat down with his broad back to one of the wooden supports of the headframe. He continued to squeeze the balls, saying nothing.

  Parker swore in frustration. He unwrapped the kachina. “Look,” he commanded. “Blood Clot Man orders that you look.”