Nevada Vipers' Nest

by Jon Sharpe

  “I have,” Romer, the ferret face, put in. “He’s the drifter they call the Trailsman. He’s been writ up big in the crapsheets. They say he’s left a trail of nameless graves from the Rio to the Tetons.”

  “That don’t cut no ice with me,” Scully said. “Them ink slingers are little old ladies of both sexes. These two cockchafers have killed women and kids, and they will dance on air for it.”

  Scully pulled a smoker’s bible from his vest pocket. He crimped a paper and shook some tobacco into it from a little sack, then quirled the ends and licked it. He lit a lucifer match on his tooth and fired up the smoke. When he looked at Fargo, his goading smile failed to include the corners of his mouth.

  “All right, newspaper hero,” he said, his voice caustic as acid, “where’s the woman?”

  Fargo nodded toward the dead woman. “Laying right there ten feet from you.”

  This earned Fargo several hard cuffs. “Bottle it, fucker!” Scully growled. “I’m talking about a younger woman. What did you do with her? You musta at least seen her.”

  “I ain’t got the foggiest notion in hell what you’re talking about,” Fargo lied. “I rode in here only a few minutes before you three did.”

  “Quit taking me for a sleigh ride, Fargo. I asked if you seen a woman anywhere around here.”

  “He’s telling the God’s honest truth.” Sitch spoke up. “I got here about ten minutes before Fargo. I didn’t even know his name before you fellows brought it up.”

  “That’s a lulu,” Scully snapped. “Maybe you two birds will sing a little more when we fit both of you with a California collar.”

  “You’re just gonna string us up?” Sitch protested. “No evidence, no lawyer, no nothing—just your say-so that we did it?”

  “Oh, it’ll be real legal-like,” Leroy said, flashing his green teeth when he smirked. “You boys will get a miners’ trial back at Rough and Ready. And, see, we won’t exactly be stringing you up. ’Steada boosting you branchward, we’ll toss the rope around your neck and then drag-hang you behind your own horses.”

  Fargo knew more than he cared to about the rope justice of territorial vigilantes and miners’ courts. It would just be an occasion to get drunk before he and Sitch were murdered in cold blood in a deliberate travesty of justice. Fargo knew of one occasion where a mule was appointed counsel for the defense. This trail had taken a mighty ominous turn, and unless they could pull a rabbit out of a hat, Fargo could see no way to wangle out of this mess.

  “Speaking of horses,” Romer said, admiring the Ovaro, “that’s one humdinger of a stallion, boys. Us three will have to draw lots for it.”

  “That sorrel ain’t no slouch, neither,” Leroy said.

  “Never mind that shit right now,” Iron Mike snapped. “Get them two horses necked together so these mad-dog killers can’t make a break for it when we take ’em back to camp.”

  “I’m just a mite curious,” Fargo cut in. “You three are claiming to be outraged by this crime, but you aren’t even going to make sure these folks are buried?”

  “Now you’re a Christian, huh?” Scully retorted. “But since you brought it up—you two killed ’em, so you’ll bury ’em right now. But try just one parlor trick, Fargo, and you two will end up as buzzard shit.”

  • • •

  The silver-mining camp called Rough and Ready was a tented berg of the type Fargo had seen dotting the Far West. It sprawled out fanwise from the dilapidated headframe of the mine. These men were not gravel-pan prospectors working independently—silver ore had to be mined from veins in the earth, and this group had formed a profit-sharing cooperative.

  Fargo had heard, however, that so far there was damn little profit to share, and the ragtag appearance of the miners and their camp suggested that their rags-to-riches dream was far more rags than riches.

  And just as Fargo had suspected, the miners’ trial, held that evening when the workday was finished, was just another kangaroo court of the type typifying the western frontier. Iron Mike Scully acted as both prosecutor and judge, and the dozen or so red sashes flanking him put the brakes on any real dissent from the sixty or so assembled miners—especially since the red sashes toted the most formidable weapons in camp.

  “There you got it, boys!” Iron Mike shouted after summing up his version of events. “We caught these two skunk-bit coyotes red-handed robbing the corpses. This bearded buckaroo here actually had the nerve to put his crimes on me, Romer and Leroy. The hog-stupid son of a bitch had no idea that all of us here in camp were the ones who sent for Clement Hightower to give us a hand. Now him and his whole family have gone to glory, thanks to these two murderers!”

  At this intelligence, Fargo and Sitch exchanged a surprised glance. Scully and his two lickspittles had said nothing about this earlier.

  The two prisoners were trussed tightly to adjacent trees, and Scully had deliberately selected a spot pockmarked with ant beds. Unable to slap at the pests, both men were plagued by the fiery bites.

  “Hold on here a minute, Iron Mike,” spoke up a tentative voice from the shadows.

  A bonfire was burning in the middle of camp, casting lurid orange-yellow light on the assembled faces. Fargo watched a miner step forward into the brighter illumination. The Trailsman took in a slump-shouldered man with a strong hawk nose and a face lined deep like cracked leather. He looked vaguely familiar. But when Fargo spotted the nervous tic that kept the man’s left eye winking half shut, he immediately recognized him.

  “I know him,” Fargo muttered to Sitch. “His name’s Duffy Beckman.”

  “Well, you got a chicken bone caught in your throat?” Iron Mike demanded. “You got something to say, spit it out.”

  “It’s just . . . Well, see, I know Skye Fargo, Mike. There ain’t no way in pluperfect hell he coulda done what you’re saying.”

  “You calling me a liar, Beckman?”

  “’Course not,” Duffy hastened to say. “I just think you’re honestly mistaken. See, I was out at the prospecting camp called Buckskin Joe, back in the Rockies, when Fargo led us in a fight against claim jumpers. Sure, he’s a killer when he’s pushed to it and a damn good one. But he ain’t no goldang murderer, most especial of women and kids.”

  “You like him, do you?”

  “Well, I’m just saying he’s a plumb good sort, is all.”

  Iron Mike gave a snort of derision. “Well, now, boys, sounds like the winker here is in love. We best get him to a whore in Carson City quick.”

  Plenty of men laughed at this, but Fargo noticed that others held silent. Now another voice spoke up from the flickering shadows.

  “I ain’t never met Fargo, Iron Mike. But I’ve heard this and that about him. I never heard of no stain on his name. Might be we should slow down here, maybe poke into this thing a little more.”

  “Balls! I’m telling you flat-out we caught the son of a bitch picking over the bodies! Boys, plenty of men got them a newspaper reputation as ‘heroes,’ but them weak sisters in the newspaper trade are turning shit into strawberries on account it sells more papers. Duffy claims Fargo helped put the kibosh on some claim jumpers and maybe he did. But Duffy also admits Fargo’s a killer and a damn good one.”

  Now Romer pitched into the game. “Boys, you didn’t see it like me and Mike and Leroy done. That pretty woman and her innocent little girls, layin’ there in the dirt like so much tossed-out trash! Women and little girls! Christ Almighty! Has it come to this—Western men defending the murderers of women and kids?”

  This stirred the men up, and Iron Mike immediately took advantage of their strong emotions.

  “Let’s put it to the vote right now! All in favor of standing up for women and kids, sound off now!”

  A loud chorus of assenting votes rose from the assembled miners.

  “All who are opposed sound off!”

  Fargo heard a few
halfhearted no votes.

  “That cinches it!” Iron Mike shouted triumphantly. “Tomorrow, just after sunup, we drag-hang these bastards.”

  The meeting broke up and Scully crossed toward Fargo. He brought a hard straight-arm punch into Fargo’s already bruised and swollen lips, slamming his head back into the tree.

  “You heard it, Fargo. You two galoots will see your last sunrise tomorrow. How you like them apples, hero?”

  Fargo tasted salt as the blood pooled in his mouth. “Not too much,” he admitted.

  Iron Mike laughed before strolling away. Fargo had survived every manner of danger during his life on the frontier, including other seemingly hopeless situations where lesser men would have given up. But he didn’t believe in miracles, and no matter how he sliced it, it seemed inevitable that tomorrow would indeed be his last glimpse of the sun.

  3

  “So you’re Skye Fargo?” Sitch McDougall said when the two tightly trussed men were alone. “The hombre the ink slingers call the savage angel?”

  “Looks like I’m soon to be the late Skye Fargo. I wouldn’t mind it so much if I’d had me a woman recently. I hate like hell to die horny.”

  “Damn these ants!” Sitch complained. “Say, speaking of women—why did that greasy-haired bastard Scully ask you about one earlier?”

  “That’s got me treed,” Fargo said. “But he wasn’t just shooting at rovers—I did see a woman, a real looker, too, though I only caught a glance of her. Spotted her just about a couple hundred yards from the massacre site, hiding in the boulders. Her dress was covered with blood, so I’m figuring she must have escaped in the dark.”

  “Hunh. Didja talk to her?”

  “You might say that. But the conversation was cut short when she took a shot at me.”

  “I thought I heard a shot, but I was still numb from what I was seeing.”

  “She took off running, and I’m hoping she followed my advice and went to Carson City. Otherwise, she won’t have a snowball’s chance of surviving.”

  Sitch cursed the ants again. “Fargo, I’ve come across my share of cutthroat bastards since I joined Dr. Geary’s medicine show in Saint Louis and headed west. But this bunch under Scully could scare the devil out of hell.”

  “Yeah, they’re a sweet outfit, all right. Did you notice that ferret face wears a human ear as a watch charm?”

  “I wondered what that wrinkled piece of leather was.”

  It was autumn and a sudden moaning gust of cold wind added to Fargo’s misery. A raft of clouds sent dark moon shadows sliding across Carson Valley. For several minutes both men were alone with their gloomy thoughts. Then:

  “Fargo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “With our final reckoning coming in the morning, you think we should . . . you know, pray or something? I got plenty of sins on my head.”

  “If you were Bible-raised, go right ahead. I’m just a heathen.”

  “Think they’ll at least bury us?”

  Fargo grunted. “Sure, when the world grows honest. Face it, Sitch—unless we somehow escape, Scully is right. We’ll end up as buzzard shit.”

  “Thanks for gilding the lily,” Sitch replied sarcastically.

  “Don’t ask the question if you can’t stomach the answer. I’m no sunshine peddler.”

  “It’s prob’ly for the best anyhow. Burying me would likely just put me six feet closer to hell.”

  A few more minutes passed in gloomy silence. Fargo’s ropes were so tight that he could barely even flex his muscles, and the ants were playing hell with him, their bites like fiery pinpoints. At least the late-night chill dulled the painful bites somewhat.

  “Can we somehow escape?” Sitch asked in a tone laced with desperation.

  “I’m cogitating on that, old son. So far I’ve come up with nothing but the sniffles.”

  “I read a nickel novel once called Skye Fargo, Indian Slayer. In that one, you escaped the jaws of death over and over. You even escaped from a tipi surrounded by dozens of armed Apaches—you tunneled out with your bare hands. Did that really happen?”

  Fargo shook his head in disgust. “Hell, Sitch, you won’t find Apaches living in a tipi—they sleep in wickiups or jacals or mostly in caves or behind stone windbreaks because they’re usually on the run. That oughta tell you how much these word merchants know.”

  Fargo fell silent, noticing a shadow moving slowly toward the two prisoners. Perhaps Scully was returning to play a little more thump-thump while he still had the chance.

  The shadow took on human form as the clouds blew away from the full moon, and Fargo recognized Duffy Beckman with Fargo’s Arkansas toothpick in his left hand. His right hand held the Henry, and Fargo’s gun belt was draped over his shoulder. McDougall’s harmonica pistol was tucked into his belt.

  Maybe there are miracles, Fargo thought, hope surging within him.

  Without saying a word, Duffy grounded all the weapons except the razor-honed toothpick. He made short work of cutting both men free. They briskly rubbed their arms and legs to restore normal circulation. Then Fargo buckled on his gun belt, tucked the Arkansas toothpick into its boot sheath and picked up the Henry—he welcomed its reassuring weight in his hand.

  “Your horses are over in the rope corral,” Duffy whispered. “I’ve already tacked them.”

  “Duffy,” Fargo whispered back as all three men headed toward the corral on cat feet, “I ain’t got the words. But you can’t hang around here after this. You spoke up for me, and they’ll put the crusher on you.”

  “I ain’t hanging around,” he replied. “My horse is tacked, too.”

  The Ovaro whiffled softly, greeting Fargo by pushing his nose into his chest. Fargo booted his long gun and stuck his foot into the stirrup. He was about to step up and over when disaster struck: one of the other horses, spooked by the sudden proximity of men whose smell it didn’t recognize, rose up on its hind legs, neighing loudly.

  This set the rest of the horses off, and within seconds the unholy racket had raised a shout of alarm in the camp.

  Fargo cursed but reacted swiftly. He snatched his knife back out and slashed through the rope holding the horses in.

  “Hi-ya!” he shouted, unlimbering his Colt and firing several shots into the air. “Hi-ya, hii-ya!”

  The rataplan of hooves reverberated through the night as the mounts scattered in every direction. But by the time the men had mounted and calmed their own nervous horses, a withering fusillade of gunfire erupted from the camp as the miners hurried toward the corral.

  “Make it hot for ’em!” Fargo shouted as bullets snapped past his ears with a blowfly drone.

  He tugged his Henry from its saddle scabbard, tossed the butt plate into his shoulder socket, and started working the lever rapidly, aiming toward the approaching muzzle flashes. Sitch fired his cumbersome harmonica pistol as rapidly as he could, and Duffy made his long Jennings rifle sing. First one, then a second miner cried out in anguish as they were struck, and the advance halted as the miners sought cover.

  Fargo led the desperate escape, heading west toward the forested foothills of the Sierra Nevada. A chance bullet caught his hat and spun it off his head, but Fargo caught it in midair. The three riders disappeared into the moonlit night, and despite being a heathen, Fargo felt the indescribable relief of a damned soul escaping from hell.

  • • •

  Fargo always tried to avoid riding after dark, especially at a good clip. Horses were most vulnerable in their long, slender legs, and rocks that were easily avoided in daylight could permanently cripple a horse at night. Knowing the red sashes wouldn’t likely retrieve their mounts until well after daylight, he reined in at a tree-sheltered hollow only about four miles west of Rough and Ready.

  “Hell,” Sitch McDougall protested, “we just made a hot bustout with the odds against us a million to one. W
hy’n’t we just keep on going while our horses are fresh? If we stay in these parts, we’ll just be sticking our heads in a noose.”

  “Who died and made you boss?” Fargo retorted as he dismounted and began to pull his saddle.

  “But—”

  “But me no buts, card cheat. Do as you please. We ain’t joined at the hip. I’m aiming to settle some scores and get some questions answered. You think I’m gonna let some blowhard son of a bitch beat the dog shit out of me, railroad me to a hanging and then just walk away from it?”

  “Seems to me a sane man would be grateful just to be alive.”

  “Or a coward,” Fargo said in a pointed tone. He turned to Duffy, faintly visible in the silver-white moonlight.

  “Duffy, you saved our bacon, and I for one am beholden. I won’t forget this.”

  “Skye, you saved plenty of us back at Buckskin Joe when that scum bucket Ike Perry turned his rented thugs on us. ’Sides, you two actually done me a favor by prodding me into action. For months now I been meaning to light a shuck for the gold camps still showing color up in the Sierra.”

  “Slim pickings at Rough and Ready?”

  Duffy was busy ground-tethering his coyote dun gelding. “Well, there’s that. All of us are just barely making enough to keep the wolf from the door—not that we got a door.”

  “It’s not usual,” Fargo said, “for miners to stick so long where there’s no profits.”

  “Well, see, we had what you might call an enticement. There’s been this rumor, for a long time now, that there’s a rich vein of silver somewheres around Rough and Ready.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that, too. Hell, Duffy, you know you can’t set stock in mining-camp rumors,” Fargo said as he began rubbing the Ovaro down with an old feed sack. “Look how Coronado and the rest of those dons listened to some scuttlebutt from Indians and wasted their lives searching for El Dorado.”

  “This ain’t just the usual bubbling hearsay, Skye. That fellow you and McDougall found slaughtered—Clement Hightower. He’s a college-trained mining engineer. He swears there’s a fortune in that vein.”