by Jon Sharpe
Arkansas Assault
( The Trailsman - 263 )
Jon Sharpe
Skye Fargo, a.k.a. the Trailsman, discovers that Noah Tillman, a vicious land baron, has a deadly Fourth of July ritual that involves kidnapping several townspeople, transporting them to a private island, and hunting them down like dogs, and decides to beat Tillman at his own deadly game.
Teaser chapter
Fargo woke up and grabbed his gun
A silhouette of a man in the tallest western hat he’d ever seen. Too bad the man wasn’t as slick as his hat. He came creaking in on cowboy boots with all the grace of an elephant turned ballerina. Always in sight thanks to the flickering sconce in the hall.
The intruder’s eyes obviously hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet. Fargo stepped out of the gloom and slapped the barrel of his Colt across the face of the startled, blinking man. Fargo swatted the man around for a time, hitting him on the jaw, knocking the wind out of him with a punch delivered straight to his sternum. He finished by taking the man’s fancy new six-shooter from him.
He was just busy enough that his mind didn’t register the other sound in the room. By the time he started to turn, it was too late. . . .
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.
Tillman, Arkansas, 1858—
A madman’s lust for sex and murder
of the most twisted kind.
1
Fargo eased his big Ovaro stallion behind a copse of pine trees and started watching the stage road with the lake-blue eyes that had seen so much in his lifetime.
He was used to bounty hunters trailing him. Fargo had helped out enough people in his days to amass a fair share of enemies. And these enemies included several crooked lawmen. Because they were afraid to face him down themselves, they put out WANTED posters and slapped some mighty big rewards on them.
So every once in a while a bounty hunter keen on earning a rep for being the one who killed the Trailsman showed up out of nowhere. Sure, the money was a factor but so was the prestige of bringing down Skye Fargo.
Such an opportunist—a gunny and sometimes bounty hunter named Jeb Adams—had been following him for three days and nights now. Fargo hadn’t paid him much attention at first. Every time he hit a town, Fargo managed to find a place to sleep where Adams couldn’t get him. Not that Fargo took stupid chances. He slept on his back, his Colt and his Henry right beside him in case Adams got lucky and came crawling into the room in the middle of the night.
But last night Adams had done something that turned Skye Fargo into a mortal enemy. He’d tried to poison Fargo’s stallion.
Only the quick thinking of the old black man who slept in the livery at night saved Fargo’s horse. The old man had awakened to the sounds of Adams—not exactly a graceful man—sneaking into the livery, then watched from the shadows as Adams mixed a powdery substance into the animal’s feed bag that was brimming with oats.
The old man knew not to take Adams on. Adams would kill him in a flash. No, the old man wisely waited until Adams left, grabbed the feed bag, then waited until Skye Fargo showed up the next morning. He told Fargo what had happened and what the late-night visitor had looked like. Anybody who knew Fargo knew what his stallion meant to him. A wandering and solitary man like Fargo had few friends. It was only natural for his horse to become the best among them.
Fargo’s first impulse was to find the sonofabitch and shoot him on the spot. The problem was, Fargo didn’t know any of the local lawmen. Even if it was a fair fight, the sheriff here might decide that Fargo should be charged anyway. For a man whose only guiding light was the sun and the stars—he could go anywhere, anytime he wanted—the thought of prison, even for a few days, was the ugliest thought of all.
So Fargo decided to meet Adams outside the jurisdiction of the small Arkansas town he found himself in.
He made himself as obvious as he could this morning, taking an early breakfast at the local café, and loudly greeting the day crew at the livery as they arrived for work.
Two or three times, he spotted Adams glowering at him from various positions. He could imagine Adams’s surprise and fury when he realized that the stallion was still alive.
Adams was doing everything Skye Fargo wanted him to.
It didn’t take Adams long to show up either.
About ten minutes after Fargo had taken up his hiding place behind the pines, here came his good friend Adams.
The fierce Old Testament beard, the stained buckskins, the ancient and once-white hat, the blue glass eye glaring from the right socket, Adams was a hard man to mistake for any other. And that went not just for his physical appearance but for the way he did his business, too. He was well-known for not giving his bounty any chance to go peacefully. Many times, he broke in on them during the night and shot them in cold blood. Sometimes the wife and children of the wanted man had to watch the man die right in front of them. He’d even been accused, though not convicted, of raping some of the wives after killing off their menfolk.
One hell of a nice fella was Jeb Adams.
Fargo waited in the steamy midday heat wave—the temperature was on its way to one hundred degrees—swatting away mosquitoes, flies, bees, and other flying things he wasn’t sure he’d ever laid eyes on before. Arkansas was one of the muggiest, hottest places he’d ever been.
Fargo waited until Adams passed him on the road. Then he quickly swung down from the stallion, grabbing his Sharps and stepping out onto the road so Adams could see him.
“That’s far enough, Adams. Stop right there or I’ll put three bullets in your back. The way you do with the men you hunt.”
Adams was smart enough to stop his horse but not smart enough to keep his mouth shut. “Well, well, Skye Fargo. We finally meet up.”
“You tried to poison my horse.”
Adams, a huge man, had a huge and raspy laugh. “I believe I did, now that I think about it.”
“I’m taking you in and having the sheriff arrest you.”
This time, the laugh was even fuller, deeper. “I guess you haven’t figured that town out yet, have you?”
“Turn toward me nice and slow with your hands up.”
Adams did what Fargo demanded. When Fargo finally saw his face, he realized that the man was sneering at him.
“I said to put your hands up.”
“I don’t think you’d want to shoot me, Fargo.”
“Yeah? Why not?”
The sneer widened. “Like I said, I don’t think you figured out that town yet.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that the sheriff there is my cousin. Meaning that if anything happens to me, he’s gonna come right after you. I told him who I was chasing. He said he’d help me get you if I’d split the reward money.” The laugh again. And the almost luminous, somehow crazed, dark eyes staring at Fargo in the shadows cast by the brim of the hat. “But my cousin Bobby Wayne? He’s just as mercenary as I am, Fargo. He’d help me get you all right—then he’d come up with some reason for killin’ me. All nice and legal, you understand. And then he’d keep all that reward money for himself.” He
shook his head in mock grief. “Terrible thing when a man can’t even trust his own cousin.”
“Get down off your horse.”
“Guess you didn’t hear me about my cousin Bobby Wayne.”
“I’m not worried about Bobby Wayne. I’m taking you to the next town on.”
“That’d be Tillman, I think. They’ve got quite a Fourth of July celebration there, I’m told. In fact, that’s where I’m headed now. Old friend of mine—did a lot of work for him in my time—he offered me a job. I’m thinkin’ about takin’ it. Thought I’d get some cash pulled together before I got there. That’s where you came in, Fargo. You’ve got a nice price on your head.”
“Down off the horse—after you pitch that six-gun and that rifle down here first.”
Adams shook his head in mock grief again. “Awful thing that you don’t trust me, Fargo.”
Fargo used his Colt to put a bullet right through the highest point of Adams’s battered, greasy old hat. The hat didn’t sail off, just slanted to the right on Adams’s large head.
“Nice shootin’, Fargo.”
“The Colt first. Then the Henry.”
When Adams moved his right hand too quickly toward his holster, Fargo put another bullet close to him, about half an inch from Adams’s gun hand. “Slow and easy, Adams. Don’t give me any excuse to kill you. Because I’ll take it.”
“I was just doin’ what you told me, Fargo.” You couldn’t see his sneer now but you could certainly hear it in his voice.
Fargo watched him carefully.
Adams slid the Colt from the holster, dangled it daintily by its handle, and then dropped it into the sun-baked dust of the road. He looked as if he’d been handling a piece of feces. Giving in to the Trailsman was obviously not good for the bounty hunter’s pride.
“Now the rifle.”
“You’re a hard man, Fargo.” Mocking him, of course.
“Just throw it down, Adams.”
And then it happened.
Fargo had to give the man credit. He was able to drop the rifle to the dusty road with one hand while at the same time, with the other hand, draw a small revolver from the folds of his buckskin.
Adams got the first shot off, dropping from his horse an instant later.
Fargo threw himself to the ground. There wasn’t time to get back behind the pines. He rolled away from Adams’s horse just as Adams started firing at him. Adams was down on one knee, getting his shots away from under the belly of his animal.
“Looks like I’m givin’ the orders now, Fargo.”
He clipped off two more shots, making Fargo roll behind some brush on the roadside. The tangled growth gave Fargo the only cover he could find. “Give up now, Adams. Go in peaceful.”
“Hell, man, you’re gonna be dead in a couple minutes. I’ll be taking you in. To an undertaker.”
Adams must have believed his own bragging because he now stepped out in front of his horse and aimed his six-shooter right at the brush where Fargo was hiding. He squeezed off his shot.
To a bystander, this moment would have looked awfully damned odd. Here it was Adams who’d done the shooting. But it was also Adams who, an instant later, clutched his chest as a flower-shaped redness appeared on the front of his buckskin shirt. And then he struck a pose like a bad dancer, his limbs all seeming to point in different directions. His small revolver tumbled from his hand, which, like the rest of his body, remained in this awkward position for another long moment. And then the huge man collapsed, the ground trembling as his body met it with real force and speed.
Not much doubt that Jeb Adams was dead.
Fargo had fired at the exact instant Adams had. Adams’s gun made more noise than Fargo’s, so an observer would have heard only Adams’s shot. The difference between the two shots was that Fargo’s had hit home, right in the heart. Adams’s had gone wild.
Fargo picked himself up, dusted himself off, went over and hunched down next to the corpse. He checked wrist and neck pulse points to be sure the man was really dead.
Getting him up on his horse’s back wasn’t easy. It wasn’t just the considerable weight. It was the form death had twisted Adams into. He was hard to get a hold of. But finally the Trailsman was able to carry him to the horse and throw him across the saddle. Fargo took a couple of deep breaths, and flicked away some gnats who’d been dining on his sweat.
He went through the dead man’s saddlebags.
Adams had a couple of dozen WANTED posters. If the reward had been increased on a particular man, he’d noted that in pencil at the bottom of the poster. There was a notarized letter informing Adams that his divorce had gone through. According to a second letter in the same envelope—a bitter letter from Adams’s ex-wife—Adams had been a terrible husband, a worse father, and a man who had embarrassed and humiliated her in every way possible, including a “tryst” with a woman down the street. The letter was from St. Louis and was two years old.
There was another letter from a man named Noah Tillman. It read:
I hope this finds you well, Jeb. Though I’m troubled by a damned skin rash from time to time, I’m doing pretty well. My empire is making more money than ever. I say this knowing that it sounds as if I’m bragging. But hell, it’s the truth. And you helped make it that way. Those two “eliminations” you did for me were important.
You were also helpful in setting up my little project on Skeleton Key. That’s why I’m sending you this letter. I hope you’ll be able to join me this July 4th. I’ll take you to the Key and show you how to have some real fun.
I don’t think there’s anything like it in these United States, In fact, I’m sure there isn’t.
I hope to see you then.
The brief letter told Fargo that Adams had been doing two jobs at once—tracking Fargo and traveling to his rich friend’s place. The word “eliminations” clued Fargo in that Jeb Adams had probably been a hired killer as well as a bounty hunter. This Noah Tillman had apparently been a customer. Rich men frequently needed to have business rivals killed. Hired killing was a lucrative business if you were good at it. And Fargo didn’t doubt that Adams had been damned good at it.
Fargo jammed the letter from Noah Tillman in his pocket. He’d have a surprise for this Noah Tillman. Jeb Adams was going to show up, all right.
Dead.
2
Tillman, Arkansas was bigger than Fargo had expected. Thirty-five hundred souls resided here according to the WELCOME sign on the north edge of town. A clean blue river, new, if modest, homes, two full blocks of merchant buildings, two churches, a schoolhouse, and a courthouse lent the town an air of prosperity and friendliness.
The folks here knew how to celebrate the Fourth of July, too. Everywhere he looked, Fargo saw bunting and signs that proclaimed the special day. And the red, white, and blue colors weren’t limited to storefronts and posters, either. Lots of folks wore red, white, and blue ribbons pinned to their shirt pockets. There was even an old swayback with a red, white, and blue blanket thrown over it.
Fargo naturally drew attention. A dead man is bound to attract almost as much attention as a naked lady. Kids, codgers, businessmen, farmers all paused in their activities to watch the rough-hewn man on the big stallion trail in another horse with a corpse slung across it. Even the short trip in the scorching sun had made Jeb Adams’s body a mite smelly. Flies loved him. A couple of old people waved at him. He wasn’t sure why. They probably weren’t, either. They were just so used to waving—the custom of this friendly part of the country—that they did it out of habit.
Fargo didn’t need to ask where the sheriff’s office was. A wide, one-storied, whitewashed building had signs saying SHERIFF on both the side and the front. He lashed the reins of his stallion to a hitching post and walked inside.
He didn’t have to do much explaining of the basic problem. A portly man wearing a leather vest that bore a deputy’s badge was standing at a front window. He had quick, friendly brown eyes. “Looks like you’ve attracted j
ust about as many people as our parade will.”
He put forth his hand and said, “Queeg is my name. Mike Queeg. I can take down all the information and offload your friend out there. But the sheriff’s in court right now, testifying in a case.”
“His name is what?”
“Tillman. Same as the town.”
“Let me guess. His father owns the town.”
Queeg grinned. “You’re half right. Noah owns the town all right. And that’s only right. Whether you like him or not, he built this damned place. He cleared some of the land himself, that’s how far back he goes. In fact, there’s a painting of Noah in the courthouse. Shows him chopping down trees when he was in his early twenties.”
“You said I was half right.”
“Tom—he’s the sheriff—he’s the stepson. He was adopted after the fact.”
“People like having the town boss’s stepson as sheriff?”
“I know what you’re saying, mister. But that isn’t the way it works here. Tom ran for office fair and square. The first time, he lost, as a matter of fact. And Noah and Tom don’t get along all that well. Noah expected Tom to do his bidding. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Tom’s a straight shooter with a real sense of right and wrong. He’s even thrown some of Noah’s hired hands in jail from time to time. They get out of hand, Tom doesn’t treat them any different from anybody else. He may have Noah’s name, but he makes it pretty obvious that there’s no Tillman blood flowing through his veins.” Then, “Say, you didn’t tell me your name.”
“Fargo.”
“Fargo? Are you foolin’ me? Skye Fargo? The Trailsman?”
“You going to arrest me? That’s what the guy slung across his horse was trying to do. Somebody trumped up a murder charge against me in Wyoming. He was trying to collect on it. He was doing double duty, hoping to finish me off before he got to your town. Noah Tillman had sent him a letter inviting him.”
