Black Hills Badman tt-333

by Jon Sharpe

Oh hell, Fargo thought. “You didn’t have to marry him. It was your decision, so live with it.”

  Rebecca straightened and folded her arms. “I would like to go back now, if you don’t mind.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “Alone? In the dark? In these woods? A gentleman like Fulton would never let a lady go by herself.”

  Fargo was tired of her carping. “What gave you the notion I’m a gentleman? I live in these wilds you dislike so much. I have more in common with a mountain lion than I do the man you married.”

  “Fulton has a lot of faults but he’s always treated me with courtesy. He has a few other traits I admire, too. He’s terribly devious, as you’ll find out soon enough, to your sorrow.”

  “There you go again. Dropping hints. If you have something to say, come right out and say it, damn it.”

  “Temper, temper,” Rebecca taunted. “I was thinking about telling you but then you went and insulted me. Now you’ll just have to find out on your own. I only hope I’m there to see your face when you discover how you’ve been tricked.”

  “Suit yourself.” Fargo almost added, “bitch.” He turned and strode off and she quickly fell into step beside him.

  “Don’t walk so fast. I can’t keep up.” Rebecca added an anxious, “Please, Skye.”

  Reluctantly, Fargo slowed.

  “Listen. I’m sorry. You set me off. But I do like you. Honestly and truly. And I would hate to see you hurt.”

  Fargo swore. The woman was as fickle as the weather.

  “I’m serious. Look. Fulton says you can go if you want. Why not take him up on it? I know Lem tried to talk you out of it but don’t listen to him. Your life is more important.”

  Fargo was about to ask exactly what she meant when it hit him—she had called Owen Lem.

  “Better yet, leave and take me with you. Gerty, too. This is no place for a woman and a child.”

  “I tried telling the senator that before we started out, remember?”

  “Yes. I heard you. And for your concern, I’m grateful. So why don’t we sneak off together? We’ll take Gerty. We can do it tomorrow night after everyone is asleep. All you have to do is knock out the men standing watch.” Rebecca clutched his wrist and brought him to a stop. “What do you say? Why should we stay and be killed by the savages?” She smiled and rubbed herself against him. “Besides, think of the good times we can have.”

  Insight smacked Fargo between the eyes. He was being played for a fool. Or, rather, a typical sex-starved male. “So that’s what this was.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That tale you told about not sleeping with the senator for thirteen years. And why you were so eager to lure me out here and let me have my way with you.” Fargo chuckled. “I’ve got to hand it to you. You’re slick.”

  Rebecca drew back. “I’m sure I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about.”

  “You want out of here. You want out of here so bad, you’re willing to do anything. And I do mean anything.”

  In the dark Fargo didn’t see her hand until it was too late. She slapped him on the cheek, wheeled, and stalked toward the camp, her entire body as rigid as a board. He laughed lightly and followed but he made no attempt to catch up to her. Now that he was wise to her ruse, he wondered how much of what she had told him was true and how much she made up.

  He had a bigger question to answer, namely, should he stay or light a shuck? These people meant nothing to him. Not any of them. Not now that he knew Rebecca was using him. No, there was nothing holding him.

  Except one thing.

  Fargo had promised the senator, when Keever hired him, that he would do his best to get them in and out of Sioux country in one piece. To some men that might not mean much. But Fargo never made a promise he couldn’t keep, or wouldn’t die trying to.

  Some folks, Fargo knew, would brand him a sinner. He liked to drink, he liked loose women, he loved to gamble. Flaws of character, they would say. And he would be the first to admit he wasn’t the most straitlaced hombre around. But he did have a few scruples, and not breaking his word was one of them. Silly, maybe, but there it was.

  And now that Fargo thought about it, he had another reason to stay. Rebecca had hinted her husband was up to something. He would like to know what it was. Fargo had a suspicion. For some time now, rumors had floated around that there was gold in the Black Hills. No one could say how the rumors got started. Normally, that was enough to start a gold rush, as it had in California and elsewhere. But the Black Hills had a deterrent California didn’t: the Sioux. A party of whites had snuck in to search for it, and never came out.

  Fargo wondered if that was what Keever was after. Presumably, Keever was well-to-do, what with being a senator. But for some folks, there was no such thing as enough money. They always craved more. It was possible the senator had come down with gold fever, and the hunt was a cover so he could scout around for it.

  He came to the clearing.

  Rebecca was just slipping into the tent. She looked back at him in anger, and jerked the flap shut.

  Fargo made sure the night watch had their backs to him, then moved to his blankets. Weariness nipped at him and he closed his eyes.

  “It took you long enough.”

  Fargo looked up. Standing over him was one of the sentries, heavyset, with a bushy mustache and stubble on his chin. Clymer, he thought the man’s name was. “What did?”

  “Heeding nature’s call. I came over here five minutes ago to wake you but you weren’t here.”

  Fargo sat up. “Wake me why?”

  “Harris and me keep hearing and seeing something off in the trees. It comes and goes. We don’t know what to make of it but we thought you might.”

  Fargo rose. “I haven’t heard anything.”

  “It’s over yonder.” Clymer pointed at the far side of the camp, past the horse string. “Come look and give a listen and tell me if you think I’m loco.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  Clymer hesitated. “I’d rather not say. It’s best you hear and see for yourself.”

  “Tell me, damn it.”

  “Just don’t laugh.” Clymer took a breath. “I think it’s a ghost.”

  11

  It was a good thing Skye Fargo played a lot of poker. A man had to be good at keeping a stone face when he was dealt good cards. It helped in real life when life dealt an idiot or two. Fargo adopted his poker face now as he stared at Clymer. “Did you just say a ghost?”

  “I sure did. And before you poke fun, no, I haven’t been drinking and neither has Harris. The senator wouldn’t let anyone bring liquor, remember?”

  That was Fargo’s idea. Whiskey and Indian country didn’t mix.

  “Come see this thing. Maybe you can tell us what it is. Because I’ve got to admit it has us spooked.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Harris was a grubby man who apparently never heard baths were invented. He was pacing beyond the horse string and nervously fingering his rifle. “I saw it again,” he said as they came up. “Spookiest thing I ever did see. I’d think I was addlepated if Clymer hadn’t seen it too.”

  “Where is it?” Fargo asked.

  Both Harris and Clymer pointed into the forest to the south, and Clymer said, “Just wait. It comes and goes.”

  “Right now it goes,” Harris said.

  Fargo cocked his head. The wind stirred the trees, and in the distance a lonesome wolf gave voice to the wavering lament of its breed. He heard nothing else. A minute went by, then a couple. He looked at the two men, and Clymer noticed.

  “It’s out there, I tell you. Sometimes it takes a bit before it shows up again. Give it a little more time.”

  “Me, I’d be happy to never see it again,” Harris said. “It’s not natural, a ghost gallivanting around as real as you please. Ghosts should stay in the ghost world and leave us breathing folks alone.”

  “The ghost world?”

  “People must have s
ome kind of place to go to when they die. I know all about heaven and hell but it seems to me ghosts wouldn’t come from there on account of heaven has a gate and hell has that dog.”

  Fargo was finding it harder to keep his poker face. “Who told you heaven has a gate?”

  “Some parson. He said that when we die, we go up in the clouds and there’s this gent called Peter who stands at a gate and lets us in if we’ve been good or else sends us down to the dog if we’ve been bad.”

  “I think you got it mixed up,” Clymer said. “I don’t think that dog is in the Bible. It’s from one of those nursery poems mothers are always saying to their sprouts.”

  “I do not have it mixed up. And they’re not nursery poems. They’re called nursery rhymes.”

  “Don’t get all prickly.”

  “Then don’t call me dumb. Besides, what do you know about rhymes. You told me your ma walked out on your pa when you were two.”

  “My aunt raised me, after. She read to me some when I was little.”

  Harris glanced at Fargo. “What do you say? You ever read the Bible? Is there a dog in there or not?”

  “Can’t say as I’ve heard there is, no.”

  “Well, if the dog ain’t in there, it’s somewhere, and if there is a dog, then it won’t let ghosts come floating up here to spook us.”

  “You have it all figured out.”

  Harris nodded. “I’ve thought about where we go after we die, sure. Who doesn’t? I think on it most when I’m drunk because when I’m not drunk I don’t have a lot of thoughts in my head.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being drunk right now,” Fargo said.

  Clymer responded with, “Me either. It’s hard not being allowed to take a nip now and then. I hate milk. And beer just doesn’t taste the same. What else is there?”

  “I get by with water when I have to.”

  “I wonder if ghosts drink,” Harris said.

  “Use your head,” Clymer told him. “Ghosts walk through walls and such. They couldn’t drink no more than they could eat.”

  Fargo had an inspiration. “Has this ghost walked through any trees?”

  “How’s that?”

  “This ghost of yours. Does it walk through the trees or around them?”

  Clymer scratched his stubble. “You know, I don’t rightly know.”

  “It just sort of glides around all spooky-looking,” Harris said. “Sort of like a butterfly only without the wings.”

  Fargo scanned the woods but there was nothing. “Maybe it’s gone back to the ghost world.”

  “Could be,” Harris agreed. “Ghosts don’t stick around very long. I heard of a haunted house once where the ghost only acted up for a few minutes each night but that was enough to scare the people who live there half out of their hides.”

  “I just thought of something,” Clymer said. “If ghosts are real, does this mean those other things are, too? Fairies and whatnot?”

  Harris snorted. “You mean those little people with wings that flit about like hummingbirds? They ain’t real. Leprechauns, neither. Although I met an Irishman once who swore he’d seen one.”

  Just when Fargo thought their talk couldn’t get any more ridiculous, it did.

  “What about those ladies with fish tails that live in the sea? And those hairy critters some Injuns says live deep in the mountains?”

  “I ain’t never been to the ocean so I can’t say about those fish women. Although I met me a river rat once who had been on a ship and he told me those fish gals are as real as you and me. They sit on rocks and wriggle their tails to lure sailors into the sea so they can drown them.”

  “It sure is a strange world,” Clymer said.

  For Fargo it got a lot stranger as just then a pale—something—seemed to float into view off in the woods. He blinked but it was still there. “What the hell?”

  “I told you!” Clymer exclaimed. “And you were thinking we were simpletons, I bet.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Harris cautioned. “Ghosts don’t like loud noises.”

  “Says who?” Clymer demanded.

  “Why, just about everybody. Yell at a ghost and it ske daddles. The same as if you throw water that those Catholics wash their feet in.”

  “Hush,” Fargo said. He heard an odd lilting cry.

  “The ghost keeps doing that,” Harris whispered. “If it was closer I’d chuck a rock at it.”

  “Let’s go see what it is,” Fargo said, and started into the trees. He had gone half a dozen steps when he realized neither man was following him. “What are you waiting for?”

  “I ain’t hankering to talk to no ghost,” Harris said. “It might get in my head and make me growl like a dog and spit on people.”

  “You’re thinking of demons,” Clymer said.

  “Oh. That’s right. I get them confused. I never did believe in demons much but now that ghosts are real, demons must be, too.”

  “I’d sure like to meet one of those fish gals. I wonder if she’d be good to eat? I’m powerful fond of cooked fish.”

  Fargo made a mental note to look these two up the next time he was sitting around camp bored. Drawing his Colt, he moved deeper into the trees. The pale figure was still moving about. It was definitely on two legs, not four. It was weaving among the trees at a peculiar shuffling gait. He slowed and crept quietly forward. Suddenly a twig crunched under his boot.

  The thing turned in his direction.

  Fargo’s skin crawled. It was coming toward him. He raised the Colt but he didn’t shoot. Not yet. Not until he knew what it was and if it was a threat. The lilting cry began again, only it wasn’t a cry at all.

  The thing was singing.

  Fargo lowered the Colt as the figure shuffled to within a dozen steps. That close, he could see it was a woman. An old woman with a wild mane of hair as gray as smoke, wearing a doeskin dress so worn and faded it was ready to fall apart.

  She was singing in Lakota in a voice that cracked and rasped as if there was something wrong with her throat.

  “I will not harm you,” Fargo said in her tongue.

  The woman came closer, moving with that odd shuffling way she had.

  It wasn’t until he could practically reach out and touch her that Fargo realized why. Her left foot, and probably her whole left leg judging by how her dress clung to it, was withered and deformed. So was her left arm and hand. She stopped and he saw her face clearly, and understood.

  Someone, somewhere, had struck the woman a brutal blow. The left half of her forehead had caved in, and the left half of her face resembled a withered fig. Her left eye was white and sightless.

  Fargo suspected a tomahawk or war club was to blame, that perhaps the woman’s village had been raided and she had done as any Lakota woman would do and defended her loved ones and her band, and been struck.

  The woman stopped singing and crooked a gnarled finger at him. “Have you seen her, white-eye?”

  “Seen who?”

  “My girl. I cannot find her. She was with me when they attacked but now she is gone.”

  “How are you known?”

  The woman tilted her head. “I am half a woman. Once I was a whole woman but those days are gone.”

  Fargo looked into her good eye. It held a gleam that wasn’t normal, a bright, sparkling glint that hinted at madness, or a mental state close to it.

  “I gave up my name when I lost my daughter. What good was it? A name is a flower that does not last the winter. A name dies when we die.” She tittered in that raspy voice of hers. “I have no need of a name now. I am not here and will not be here until I find her.”

  “Where is your man?”

  The right half of her face became etched in sorrow. “I lost him when I lost my little girl. They killed him. A lance through the chest. I tried to pull it out but I was not strong enough.” She pressed her good hand to her withered hand and rubbed them. “So much blood. Blood on my hands, blood on my arms, blood on my face, blood on my dress.”

&
nbsp; “Try not to think of it,” Fargo said softly.

  She tittered, then touched the withered side of her face. “That is when I got this. I took my husband’s knife and tried to stab one of them and he hit me. They thought I was dead but I came back to life, and now I look for my girl. My sweet, precious girl.”

  Fargo had been right. Her village had been raided, her husband slain, her child taken or killed, and she had her skull bashed in. “Where are your people?” He worried that her village was near. Someone might come looking for her and spot the senator’s camp.

  “They are where they are. I am where I am. I do not care about them.”

  “Why not?”

  “They say my head is in a whirl. They say my baby is dead when I know my baby is alive. I look for her everywhere.”

  “How long ago was your village attacked?”

  “How long?” The woman scrunched up the good half of her face. “Was it yesterday? Or twenty sleeps ago?” She tittered some more. “I would count them on my fingers but only half my fingers work.”

  Fargo had a thought. “How many winters have you lived?”

  “Twenty-seven. Or maybe it is twenty-six. I forget things like that. I forget many things but I never forget my baby.” She turned to the right and the left. “Where can she be? I miss her so much. My heart is heavy.”

  Fargo couldn’t get over how old the woman looked. He’d taken her to be sixty or more. “You should not wander around at night. There are bears and mountain lions.”

  “Her name is Morning Dew. Do you like her name? I think it is the prettiest name there ever could be.”

  “It is a fine name.” Fargo motioned toward camp. “Why not come and sit by our fire? We have food and water.”

  “I do not want to eat. I do not want to drink. I only want my girl.” The woman started to walk away.

  Boots thudded, and Harris and Clymer came up on either side of Fargo. Their rifles were leveled but they merely gaped.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Harris declared. “She ain’t no ghost. I figured she couldn’t be when we saw you talking to her because ghosts don’t talk much unless they’re making spooky sounds.”

  “It’s an old Sioux,” Clymer said. “Where’s she going? What’s she doing out here, anyhow? Doesn’t she know better than to walk around in the wild at night? That’s what the day is for.”