by Jon Sharpe
PICK YOUR POISON
“Do you have families?”
Clogburn cocked his head. “What if we do?”
“You need to ask yourselves if they can get along without you.”
“You dirty cur,” the third man said. “Trying to scare us into not doing our jobs.”
“You’re not real lawmen,” Fargo said.
“We were deputized,” Clogburn said. “We took an oath and swore to uphold the law.” He held out a hand. “Now let’s have that smoke wagon, or else.”
Fargo knew a lost cause when he heard one. These men weren’t his enemies, but he’d be damned if he’d let them take him in and more damned if he’d turn his hardware over to them. “It will have to be the ‘or else.’”
“You picked it,” Clogburn said. He looked at the other two and nodded.
They drew, or at least they started to.
Not one had cleared his holster when the Colt was in Fargo’s hand. He fanned a shot into Clogburn’s shoulder and another into the deputy on the right and a third into the last.
SIGNET
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The first chapter of this book previously appeared in Hangtown Hellcat, the three hundred seventy-ninth volume in this series.
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REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
ISBN 978-1-101-60590-5
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Excerpt from TRAILSMAN #381
The Trailsman
Beginnings . . . they bend the tree and they mark the man. Skye Fargo was born when he was eighteen. Terror was his midwife, vengeance his first cry. Killing spawned Skye Fargo, ruthless, cold-blooded murder. Out of the acrid smoke of gunpowder still hanging in the air, he rose, cried out a promise never forgotten.
The Trailsman they began to call him all across the West: searcher, scout, hunter, the man who could see where others only looked, his skills for hire but not his soul, the man who lived each day to the fullest, yet trailed each tomorrow. Skye Fargo, the Trailsman, the seeker who could take the wildness of a land and the wanting of a woman and make them his own.
Texas, 1861—a town wants to clap Fargo in leg irons, but they’ll do it over his dead body.
1
The baying of hounds keened in the hot, muggy air of a Texas afternoon.
Skye Fargo drew rein to listen. A big man, broad at the shoulder, slender at the hips, he wore buckskins and a white hat brown with dust. A red bandanna around his neck lent a splash of color. In a holster nestled a Colt that had seen a lot of use, and snug in a boot, hidden from prying eyes, was an Arkansas toothpick. The stock of a Henry rifle jutted from his saddle scabbard.
The baying grew louder.
He figured a hunter was after game. Maybe a deer, maybe an antelope, although dogs had little hope of catching one.
Fargo was in a part of Texas he had never been to before, a sea of grassy plain broken here and there by rolling hills. Comanches roamed there, and killed any whites they came across. That hadn’t stopped the white man, though, from establishing settlements and even a few towns.
Judging by the tracks and wagon ruts Fargo had come across, he knew there was one up ahead. He reckoned to stop and treat himself to a few drinks before pushing on.
From the crest of a low hill, he could see for half a mile or more out across the plain. His lake blue eyes narrowed when he caught sight of a lone figure running in his direction. The animal the hounds were after, he reckoned.
Then he realized the figure was on two legs, not four.
Fargo stayed put. Long ago he’d learned not to stick his nose into affairs that didn’t concern him.
The figure came on fast but not fast enough. The hounds appeared, far back. They were gaining. Now and then they bayed.
“None of my concern,” Fargo said to the Ovaro.
The stallion had its ears pricked and was staring intently at the unfair race.
Then Fargo glimpsed flowing brown hair, and it hit him that the figure was a woman in a shirt and britches. Just like that, everything changed. A tap of his spurs brought the stallion to a trot. He descended the hill and rode to intercept her.
The woman was losing steam. She weaved and staggered and slowed and stopped. That she had run for so long in that awful heat was remarkable. Now it was taking its toll.
Head down, she was breathing in great gasps, a hand pressed to her side. She was unaware of Fargo until he was almost on top of her.
Snapping erect, her hazel eyes filling with fear, she cried out, “No! I won’t let you!”
Fargo liked what he saw. She had an oval face, lovely as could be, and an equally striking figure, which her baggy shirt and loose pants couldn’t conceal. He smiled and said, “I don’t aim to hurt you, ma’am. Are you in some sort of trouble?”
“What?” she said, as if she hadn’t heard right.
“Those dogs,” Fargo said, with a nod at the approaching hounds.
“What?” she said again.
Farther back, Fargo noticed, were several men on horseback.
“Oh God,” she said, and hope replaced her fear. “You’re not from there, are you?”
“From where?”
“Fairplay,” the woman said.
“Never heard of it.”
The woman glanced over her shoulder, and blanched. Suddenly she came to the Ovaro and gripped his leg with surprising strength. “Please,” she said. “Get me out of here.”
“What’s this all about?” Fargo wanted to know. “Why are those men after you?”
“I don’t have time to explain.” She held fast with both hands. “I’m begging you. Help me up and ride like the wind.”
Fargo would ha
ve been the first to admit he had a weakness for a pretty face. He was about to lower his arm and swing her up when his gaze fell on the men on horseback. The gleam of metal on a vest gave him pause. “Are those lawmen?”
“They’re animals,” the woman said. “The whole town.” Tears filled her eyes, and desperation her voice. “For God’s sake, take me out of here before it’s too late.”
It already was.
The four hounds arrived in a flurry of legs and tails. The foremost, a big brute with floppy ears and a mouth brimming with teeth, made straight for the woman. Its intention was clear, and it coiled to spring.
Fargo drew and fanned a shot from the hip. He didn’t shoot the dog, not when the law was involved. He fired into the ground in front of it, and the hound veered and yipped and came to a stop. So did the rest of the pack.
Fargo held the Colt ready to shoot again if the dogs came at her, but they stood there growling and looking from him to her, uncertain what to do.
The three riders were at a gallop.
Turning with her back to the Ovaro, the woman let out a sob and clutched at her throat. “Oh God,” she said. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
Fargo had been right; all three riders wore tin stars.
The man in the lead had a belly that bulged over a wide belt and a moon face that glistened with sweat. A short-brimmed hat looked too small for his big head. His pudgy right hand rested on a hip above one of a matched pair of Starr revolvers. He brought his bay to a stop and scowled. Looking at the hounds, he said, “I thought you shot one, mister.”
Fargo still held his Colt low and level. “All I did was stop them from chewing on the lady.”
The dogs raised their heads to the man with the belly as if awaiting his command to attack.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t hurt them,” the tin star said. “It’d have gone hard for you, interfering with a posse.” His dark eyes fixed on the Colt. They were twin points of flint, those eyes, and didn’t match his pudgy body.
Since none of the three had resorted to a gun, Fargo twirled his into his holster.
“Slick,” the lawman said. He glared at the woman. “I’ll get to you in a minute, Carmody.”
The woman mewled like a frightened kitten.
“Now, then,” the pudgy man with the hard eyes said. “I’m Marshal Luther Mako. These are my deputies, Clyde and Gergan.”
Fargo took an immediately dislike to both. Clyde was a rat in clothes. Gergan was skinny enough to be a rake handle. Both looked as if they wanted to take a bite out of him.
“And you might be?” Marshal Mako asked when Fargo didn’t respond.
Fargo gave them his handle. He half reckoned they might have heard of him, given the times he’d been written up in the newspapers. But they didn’t act is if they had. “I scout for a living,” he mentioned. Mostly.
“Do you know Carmody Wells here?” Marshal Mako asked with a bob of his fleshy chin at the terrified woman.
“I never set eyes on her before today.”
“She’s an escaped prisoner. She broke out of jail and—”
“Not jail!” Carmody cried. She turned to Fargo, her face twisted in appeal. “Don’t listen to him. He lies with every breath. You have to help me or I’m done for.”
Marshal Mako leaned on his saddle horn and sighed. “Broke custody, then. Does that sound better?” He looked at Fargo and sadly shook his head. “She was sentenced to six months at hard labor.”
“A woman?” Fargo said.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Marshal Mako said. “She helps with the cook wagon that goes out and feeds the work crews.”
“Work crews!” Carmody said. “Men in chains is more like it.”
“Lawbreakers,” Mako said. “Duly put on trial and found guilty.” He motioned at the deputies. “Enough of this. Tie her and let’s head back.”
Clyde and Gergan began to climb down.
Carmody Wells reached up and seized Fargo’s hand.
“Please,” she begged. “Don’t let them take me. They’ll whip me for sure.”
Marshal Mako let out another sigh. “I’ve never whipped anybody, lady, and you know it.” To Fargo he said, “She was arrested for stealing and resisting arrest. She tried to stab Gergan there. And there were witnesses.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” Carmody said. “Honest.”
The deputies walked up on either side of her.
“Come along peaceable, ma’am,” Gergan said.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Clyde assured her.
Carmody recoiled like a bobcat at bay. She clawed at Clyde’s face and he ducked. In a bound she was past him, but he flung out a leg and she tripped and fell. Before she could rise, they had her by the arms.
“Gently, boys,” Marshal Mako said. “Don’t hurt her if you can help it.”
Fargo felt sorry for her, but he wasn’t about to buck a tin star without good cause, and from the sound of things, the marshal was only doing his job.
“Come along quietly, Carmody,” Mako said. “It’ll be easier on you.”
Carmody did no such thing. She tugged and pulled and kicked. It was all Gergan and Clyde could do to hold on to her. She landed on Clyde’s shin a good kick, which made him yelp, and tried to plant her other foot between Gergan’s legs.
“Calm down!” Marshal Mako commanded.
Carmody fought harder. She drove a knee into Gergan’s gut, doubling him over, and was on the verge of wrenching loose from Clyde when Marshal Mako gigged his mount and with a flick of his arm rapped her over the crown of her head with a pistol barrel.
Fargo was impressed. He’d barely seen the lawman’s hand move. “Slick,” he said.
Mako stared at the unconscious form on the ground. “I hated to do that. I truly did.” He hefted his revolver, then shoved it into its holster. “I don’t like hitting women, but she brought it on herself.”
“A man does what he has to,” Fargo said.
“I’m glad you see it that way.” Mako ordered his deputies to bind her, then had them place her belly down over Gergan’s saddle. Gergan was told to ride double with Clyde back to town.
“How about you, mister?” the lawman asked Fargo. “Care to pay Fairplay a visit?”
“Is it a dry town?”
Mako chuckled. “We have two saloons with all the liquor you could want.”
“That’s a lot,” Fargo said.
“Then come ahead,” Marshal Mako said cheerfully. “You’ll find we’re about the friendliest town this side of anywhere.”
The woman called Carmody Wells groaned.
2
The plain ahead became lush with grass and cattle. Hundreds of head, grazing, or resting and chewing their cuds. Dozens of calves frolicked, unaware their nimble agility would soon give way to the ponderous bulk of age.
Marshal Mako brought them to a winding track of a road that cut through the high grass toward buildings silhouetted against the blue sky.
“Fairplay,” the lawman said. He gazed out over the peaceful scene and said as if it were his, “A slice of paradise on earth.”
To Fargo it was obvious. “You like it here.”
“I’ve never liked anywhere more,” Mako admitted. “It fits me like a glove.”
Presently they came on a wagon parked at the side of the road. A burly man with a shotgun across his lap sat on the seat, his cheek bulging with a thick wad of tobacco. He spat over the side, wiped his mouth with a sleeve, and said, “Howdy, Marshal.”
“Howdy yourself, Travers,” Mako said. “Are they behaving today?”
“They’d better.”
The “they” referred to were seven men in striped outfits, who were engaged in digging a ditch. With every movement, chains clamped to their ankles clattered.
Two other men stood guard
, watching with the restless eyes of a pair of cats overseeing mice.
“So Carmody Wells was right,” Fargo remarked.
“Never said she wasn’t,” Marshal Mako said, and nodded at the prisoners. “All duly tried and convicted and serving their time.”
“Fairplay is a prison town?” Fargo knew that work gangs like this were a common practice at prisons.
“What makes you say that?” Mako said, then shook his head. “Oh no. They’re housed at the barracks at the jail.”
Fargo had never heard of a jail with a barracks before. He brought that up.
Marshal Mako shrugged. “It’s just what we call it. We don’t have a prison of our own, and the closest is hundreds of miles away and it wouldn’t do to send them there.”
The men in chains, Fargo noticed, cast hate-filled glances at the lawman and the deputies—but were careful to do so when none of the tin stars or the guards was looking.
“We might need our own prison soon, though,” Deputy Clyde said with a chuckle, “the way things are going.”
“How do you mean?” Fargo asked.
Luther Mako answered before the deputy could. “We’ve had a spate of crime lately.”
Fargo rose in the stirrups and studied the silhouettes. He guessed there were at least thirty buildings that he could see with more beyond. “How big is this town of yours?”
Marshal Mako shrugged again. “Don’t know as anyone has bothered to count in a while. Last I heard, about one hundred souls, more or less.”
Fargo did the arithmetic in his head. Seven men in chains plus Carmondy made for eight. It seemed a high number for a town that size.
They rode on. Soon a large ranch house reared on the right. Set a hundred yards or so back from the road, it was shaded by tall trees and flanked by a stable and outhouses with recent coats of paint. In a field to one side, five men in striped clothes were using hoes to dig holes and plant seeds.
“More prisoners?” Fargo said.
“We’ve got about twenty, altogether,” Marshal Mako said matter-of-factly. “The rest are working on municipal projects.”
