by Jon Sharpe
“What turnip wagon did you just fall off?” Fargo demanded. “You know where those ink scribblers get their so-called ‘Wild West’ stories? They hang around saloons and then print the most exciting bullshit that catches their fancy. It ain’t but a couple hours ride between here and Virginia City. A piece of shit from that red-sash trash was sent up there, and likely all it took was a few drinks and a twenty-dollar gold piece to get some sweet-lavender pussy to concoct that story about me.”
“Those sashes are trash, all right,” a third man chimed in. “But all we got is your say-so it’s a lie.”
“And all your talk about rope justice is based on the say-so of a liar who didn’t print one damn fact to back his claims. Let’s just cut down to the bone, boys—you’re all bored. Ain’t nothing too exciting going on, and a lynching is just the ticket. Just answer me this: If any of you were lowdown enough to slaughter an innocent family a few miles from here, would you ride into Carson City? Or would you hightail it to a safer place?”
A long silence ensued. But straw hair clearly did not like to lose a pissing contest.
“Let’s turn that around, Fargo. If a man did murder all those folks, what better way to throw the crime on somebody else than to come into town and pin on a star? You wouldn’t be the first murdering son of a bitch to hide behind a badge.”
Fargo nodded. “I can’t gainsay that. But I’m going to give you about ten seconds to rethink that ‘murdering son of a bitch’ crack before I turn this into a call-down.”
The loud mouth frowned. “It was just a way of speaking. I didn’t mean you in especial.”
Fargo nodded. “We’re square on that point. But I’ll say it again: there ain’t one soft-handed peckerwood among you who really believes I wiped out that family. You’re just looking to create a little excitement. But far better men than you have tried to douse my wick, and I’ve sent every damn one of them over the range. So before you brave bastards get up your mob . . .”
Fargo pulled the spare cylinder for his Colt from his possibles bag. “I got twelve Kentucky pills for this short iron.” He hoisted his Henry higher. “And sixteen more in this fire stick. You can do the arithmetic—that’s twenty-eight men who are gonna die screaming with gutshots. So you best ask yourselves—am I willing to bet that I’ll be man number twenty-nine?”
Fargo spun on his heel and walked away. Sitch had emerged from a barbershop and listened to the end of this confrontation. He fell into step beside Fargo.
“What’s the scam, Fargo? Think that’ll keep the war kettle from boiling over?” he asked.
“Nope. Might bring it to a slower boil, though. It’s too easy for hotheads like straw hair to stir up these town folk. But even if they decide not to jerk me and you to Jesus, this story about us being women and child killers will dog us like an afternoon shadow. We got no choice but to prove who really pulled that massacre.”
Fargo fell silent, his eyes carefully scanning for trouble while his mind conned this mess over, separating the known from the speculative. At least he was now certain that Belle Star was the elusive woman he was seeking. And almost certainly it was Scully and his red sashes who were “haunting” Carson Valley to scare off more and more miners although Fargo wasn’t certain why.
More important, he was convinced by now despite the apparent illogic of it that Scully and his bunch had killed Clement Hightower and his family. But why? Hightower was the mining engineer they supposedly needed to locate that rumored big silver vein.
He had separate pieces but could not make them fall into place and provide the big picture. What secret was Belle Star hiding, a secret important enough to keep her from seeking protection? And what about Fargo’s nagging hunch that the sashes wanted more from her than merely killing her to shut her up? By now they must have realized that she hadn’t gone to the law, so why the intense interest in her?
“This shit’s for the birds,” he told Sitch in a disgusted tone before he reported on his earlier conversation with Belle Star.
Unfortunately, more bad news awaited them when they stopped at the feed stable after dark to retrieve their mounts.
“Some unsavory type was watching the paddock today,” old man Peatross reported. “Seemed to have a special interest in the Ovaro and that sorrel.”
“He say anything to you?” Fargo asked.
“Yep. Made a point of asking me how’s come them two horses was never stalled nights. He musta snuck into the barn while I was sleeping to know that.”
Fargo looked at Sitch. “That means they’ve figured out that we’re camping outside of town at night.”
“So what do we do?”
“For tonight at least we’ll be safest sleeping right here in the livery with the horses. The sashes will be looking for our camp. But I’m worried about the turn this trail is taking. We can’t afford to roost hereabouts any longer, Sitch.”
“Yeah, that’s the best way to avoid a rope, all right.”
“I’m not so worried about that. Sheriff Vance is about to be cashiered because of me. I’ll turn in this badge tomorrow and we’ll camp farther out in the rougher country.”
“But you said we needed to be in town so—”
“Oh, we’ll still be riding in now and then. But a man can’t conquer the world from his own front porch.”
Sitch’s face became a mask of confusion. “Is that what we’re doing—trying to conquer the world?”
Fargo expelled a long, weary sigh. “No. But would it be any harder than this deal we’re caught up in now?”
12
Fargo and Sitch passed that night without incident, sleeping in a straw-lined stall near their horses. Bright and early the next morning they visited Sheriff Vance and Fargo turned in his badge.
“Fargo,” the sheriff said reluctantly, “I didn’t mean to run you off with that little talk yesterday.”
“I know that, Sheriff. And I won’t be running off until me and the horse thief here clear our names. There’s a few other things that have to be cleared up, too, and I’ll try like hell not to step on your toes. But Iron Mike Scully has got plenty of irons in the fire, and every damn one of them is somehow connected.”
Fargo omitted the details of his talk with Belle Star. But he filled the lawman in on the recent discovery of the megaphone, the bellows and the meeting place near Rough and Ready.
“It’s the sashes who are ‘haunting’ this valley,” he concluded, “and I got no doubt it was them who killed the Hightower family. Never mind that it doesn’t seem to add up. Scully is on to something big, so big that he’s packing heaven with fresh corpses, including women and kids. Yeah, you’re right that I got personal scores to settle with him. But this is a lot bigger than just him trying to execute me and Sitch.”
Vance took a sip of milk and cast his eyes downward.
“I know you’re right, Fargo. Hell, even quicksand would spit Scully back up. I’ve known for some time that him and that red sash bunch are lawless schemers, and I have tried to poke into this thing. But, son, I just ain’t the man I use to be. Just one hour pounding a saddle and I can barely climb off my horse. Hell, nowadays I have to fill my canteen with milk. I’m retiring at the end of this year and leaving this job to a younger man. But I’ll tell you straight from the shoulder—I trust you, and you got my blessing to handle this in your own way.”
The sheriff shifted his gaze to Sitch. “As for you—if you wasn’t siding Fargo, I’d’ve jugged you by now. You’re trouble on two sticks.”
“He is,” Fargo agreed. “And he’s beyond reforming. But I got a hunch he’ll come in handy before this deal is over. He’s green but he’s got grit in him. Once in a while he gets off a good joke, too.”
Sitch brightened. “Say, speaking of jokes—here’s a good one I heard in the Three Sisters. This old rancher walks into the tack room and catches his fifteen-year-old boy playing with himself. ‘Son,’
he says sternly, ‘you’d better stop doing that right now or you’ll eventually go blind.’ ‘Pa,’ the boy replies, never missing a stroke, ‘how ’bout if I quit when I need glasses?’”
The sheriff cast a baleful eye at Fargo. “Is that one of his better jokes?”
Fargo chuckled. “I thought it was pretty good.”
“Every man to his own gait. Here, Fargo, take this before you go. You’ll be needing it.”
The sheriff banged opened the desk drawer and handed Fargo two half-eagle gold pieces. “Ten bucks won’t buy you the moon, but maybe it’ll help you out.”
“’Preciate it,” Fargo replied. “Now we can lay in some grub.”
Back out on the boardwalk Sitch said, “We going to find a camp now?”
Fargo shook his head. “Not until after dark. I don’t want to give those sashes any chance to locate us. We’ll just stick around town and let trouble come to us.”
They swung into a mercantile and Fargo purchased coffee, cornmeal, dried fruit, sacks of jerky and hardtack, salt and whiskey. As they carried the supplies back to the livery, Sitch remarked:
“K. T. Christ, look at all those men giving us the hoodoo eye. I’m glad we’re getting the hell out of town soon.”
Fargo sent him a sly grin. “You might not be so glad, whip boy. We’re not going into hiding. We’re gonna be stirring up the shit, and, mister, I mean stirring it up good.”
• • •
The two men killed time that day drifting from saloon to saloon, sipping a beer at each watering hole, their presence reminding the local hotheads that tough talk was cheap. But Fargo knew that the Sawdust Corner was the real magnet for trouble, and toward sundown they ambled through the batwings.
“No tin star?” Bob Skinner greeted Fargo before plunking down a mug of beer with a nappy head.
“Kept me on too short a tether,” Fargo replied. “Sometimes a man needs to open from a gallop to a run.”
“I take your drift, Trailsman. I heard that little speech you gave in the bar yesterday. That jasper you ventilated upstairs—I recognized him when they hauled him out. His name was Butch Soss, a hired killer from Virginia City. He wasn’t a red sash, but Mike Scully is—was—his cousin.”
“Interesting,” Fargo said. “But no big surprise.”
Skinner’s fat and folded face leaned closer across the bar, and he lowered his voice. “There’s a rumor Iron Mike himself and some of his boys will be coming in tonight. I know your reputation, Fargo, but take my word for it—nobody in these parts can handle a six-gun like Scully. Watch that son of a bitch like a hawk.”
“I’m a peace-loving man,” Fargo said from a deadpan and Skinner grinned.
“Try not to shoot my backbar mirror,” he said. “That gilt trim cost me a fortune.”
“Any chance on another free whiskey?” Sitch wheedled the barkeep, staring with distaste at his beer. “I been drinking this barley pop all day, and all it does is make me piss.”
“Nix on the whiskey,” Fargo said. “You’ll need your wits about you tonight.”
Skinner waited on a few customers, then wandered back toward Fargo. The Trailsman had been waiting to bring up a certain topic, and the talk about Mike Scully gave him an opening.
“You know,” he remarked casually, “Libby Snyder tells me the red sashes seem to have a special interest in Belle Star.”
Skinner used a rag to wipe up some beer slops, his eyes running from Fargo’s. “Can you blame them? If she was any prettier she’d be illegal.”
“Oh, she is that, all right. But Scully’s interest in her runs deeper than that. I think maybe he’s guessed she’s not exactly who she says she is. I have too.”
“That’s too far north for me,” Skinner said evasively. “Just who do you think she is?”
Fargo recounted the tale Belle had told him yesterday while they were dancing.
“That’s what she told me too,” the bartender said, letting it go at that.
“Bob, I’ve never met a stupid bartender. You can’t possibly believe that foolish pack of lies. I think she’s confided in you, at least a little, and I think you’re protecting her. Don’t know as I blame you, either. The gal’s in trouble, big trouble, and you’re scared for her. But sometimes a man with the best intentions can make things worse.”
Skinner mulled all that, his face a mask of indecision.
“Yeah, I know the story she gave both of us is pure twaddle and bunkum. You’re wrong about one thing though—she hasn’t confided in me even though I’ve begged her to. But she’s a damn scared woman on her own in dangerous country, and I figure she must have good reasons for lying. And I’ll tell you this much, too: I believe she’s a good, decent woman despite the lies.”
“That gets my money, too,” Fargo agreed.
“Tell you something else,” Skinner said. “I’ve noticed she’s cold as last night’s mashed potatoes around you, and I find that hard to figure. She’s friendly with all the other men on the dance floor though she does ignore the other girls. But until I know a little more about all this, Fargo, I don’t know from nothing.”
Fargo nodded. “Fair enough.”
By now Fargo realized that, unless Skinner was a superb liar, the barkeep didn’t know about the bloodied woman who had escaped from the massacre site days ago. He also suspected, however, that Skinner knew exactly where she was staying. But it was obvious he was hopelessly in love with the beauty, and exceedingly worried about her, and Fargo didn’t have the heart to press him any longer on the subject.
“Man alive, is he smitten,” Sitch remarked when the barkeep moved down the S-shaped bar to pour some drinks. “Speaking as a homely bastard myself, I’m never foolish enough to fall in love. That’s why the Lord made whores.”
“There’s homely women, too,” Fargo reminded him. “And plenty of them look mighty fine from the neck down. Fall in love with one of them.”
“Now, see, that’s where you handsome sons of bitches go off the rails. A homely man hankers after the same beauties you do—we ain’t blind, for Christsakes.”
“I’ve screwed plenty of homely women,” Fargo assured him. “And older women, too. All I require are willing volunteers above the age of consent and below the age of indifference.”
“Well, it is true that all cats look alike in the dark. You know, I once poked a beautiful gal that was born without any legs.”
Fargo looked at him askance. “This is leading into another joke, right?”
“My hand to God it’s not! Nothing from her hips down. She was pretty as the dickens, too. She was all het up to do it, and when I asked her the best way, she told me her arms were strong and just to let her hang from a tree branch and I could do her standing up. So that’s just what I did.”
Fargo waved all this off. “Good thing I’m wearing boots.”
“It’s the truth, I swear it. And when I took her home her father thanked me several times. When I asked him why he was so grateful, he says, ‘Son, they usually leave her hanging in the tree.’”
In spite of himself, Fargo cracked a grin. The next moment, however, the levity ended when the batwings swung inward and Iron Mike Scully strolled inside, accompanied by Leroy Jackman and Romer Stanton. Jackman carried his big Hawken gun, Stanton his Sharps fifty.
Fargo turned halfway around and stood hip-cocked against the bar. All three men deliberately ignored him and Sitch, staring toward Belle Star as she wound into the finish of a fine rendition of “Oh! Susanna.”
Fargo had to admit Scully was a fearsome sight with his necklace of grizzly claws and the pair of ivory-handled Navy Colts tied down low in cutaway holsters. His eyes finally flicked toward Fargo and he flashed that cruel, thin-lipped smile that failed to include the corners of his mouth. The rest of the saloon had grown as quiet as the piano.
“Well, now,” Scully called toward Fa
rgo, “how’s my favorite boy?”
“Sassy as the first man breathed on by God,” Fargo replied amiably.
“Lose your badge someplace, buckskins?”
“It outgrew its usefulness,” Fargo replied.
Belle Star had started to step off the stage.
“Hey, blondie!” Scully shouted. “How’s ’bout another tune?”
She ignored him, crossing to a door under the stairway and disappearing.
“That bitch ain’t too friendly, Bob,” Scully said to the bartender. “When did you hire her on?”
“A while back,” Skinner replied.
“Well, say, is she one of the upstairs gals?”
“Nope. A singer and a dancer.”
Scully nudged one of his companions. “I say don’t hang your best meat in the window if it ain’t for sale, eh, Romer?”
Scully nodded toward the door through which Belle Star had disappeared. “What’s back there?”
“Just the room where the gals change.”
“Yeah? Think I’ll get me a free peek.”
He had taken perhaps four steps before Bob Skinner reached under the bar and produced a sawed-off double ten. “It’s my responsibility to protect my girls, Mike. Touch the door and I’ll blast you to wolf bait.”
Scully laughed. “Shit, come down off your hind legs, porky.”
Scully again stared at Fargo.
“He’s aching something fierce to put sunlight through you,” Skinner muttered. “But he ain’t quite sure of himself yet. Watch his eyes, Fargo. That’ll tell you when he’s decided to pull down on you.”
“You never watch a gunman’s eyes, Bob. That’s nickel-novel crap. You watch his hands. Eyes can’t clear leather.”
Scully and his minions bellied up to the bar, crowding in close to Fargo. Scully gave Sitch a quick size-up.
“Fargo, you can sure pick ’em. Is this runt wearing a hat? Looks to me like something a Mexer catamite would wear.”
“It’s foolish,” Fargo agreed. “But take a gander at his nice new Remington—maybe you’ve seen that gun before? I believe you and the previous owner, rest his soul, were feeding at the same trough. Now he’s joined your cousin, the late Butch Soss, in the everlasting.”
