by Jon Sharpe
“That is an outright lie. No one will believe it.”
“Sure they will,” Kutler said. “Especially since there are people, myself being one of them who will swear on a stack of Bibles that you were always talking about moving to California one day.”
Uttering a low moan, Sally bowed her head.
Kutler grinned at Fargo. “Pitiful, isn’t she? You would think that at her age she would know it is dog eat dog.”
“She is learning.”
“I am right here!” Sally said. “I resent your talking about me as if I am some sort of simpleton.”
“You are,” Kutler said. “Or you would not have bucked Big Mike Durn. As stupid goes, that is at the top of the tree.”
A sudden burst of noise from the tunnel caused Sally to cringe and Kutler to cackle with glee.
“Hear that, missy? They are on their way. If you and your lover have any last prayers you want to say, now is the time to say them.”
19
They were laughing and gay—and drinking. Bottles were passed from hand to hand and chugged like water. A number of Polson’s residents mingled with Durn’s lawless crew, among them a few white women. Also present, which Fargo did not expect, were the Indian women in forced servitude to Durn. He found out why when Durn cleared his throat and raised his arms to get everyone’s attention.
“Tonight is a special night for me. I get rid of a thorn in my side.” Durn pointed at Fargo. “I shed baggage I am better off without.” He pointed at Sally Brook. “And I show you squaws what happens to those who defy me.” He swept an arm at the knot of maidens, who stood off by themselves.
“Enough jawing!” an already drunk Polsonite bawled. “Let the festivities commence!”
“They will shortly,” Big Mike assured him. “But first you are forgetting something.”
The man blinked stupidly. “I am?”
“There won’t be any festivities, as you call them, without our furry guest of honor.” Durn motioned again, and half a dozen of his men hastened into the tunnel.
Fargo and Sally were to Durn’s right, covered by Kutler and five others who had their guns leveled and cocked. As Kutler had put it, “One wrong twitch and we will throw you in the pit without a knee or an elbow.”
Sally’s hands were pressed to her bosom and she was breathing as if each breath might be her last. “What are we to do?” she mewed as the men ran off to fetch the most widely feared creature on the frontier.
“We don’t give up,” Fargo said.
“That is easy for you to suggest but not so easy to practice,” Sally said forlornly, and dabbed at a tear forming in a corner of an eye. “Oh, Skye. I thought I was strong but I was wrong. I don’t want to die.”
“Who does?”
“I am so scared I could soil myself. More scared than I have ever been in my whole life.”
“I will need your help when the time comes,” Fargo said.
“I don’t see what use I can be,” Sally responded. “We can’t fight the thing. Hands and feet are no match for teeth and claws.”
“You might be surprised.” Fargo noticed Tork give him a look that suggested the end could not come soon enough to suit him. Fargo smiled at him and he flushed red.
“How can you be so calm?” Sally asked, wringing her hands. “A person would think you were fed to wild beasts all the time.”
“When you have survived Apaches, sandstorms, and blizzards,” Fargo said, “a wolverine is no more than a nuisance.” He was trying to get her to relax but she was too overwrought.
“How can you jest at a time like this? I am telling you, my blood is water. My legs are shaking so bad, if I try to take a step I will collapse.”
Kutler heard her, and said, “Don’t worry on that score, missy. You won’t need to walk to the pit. We will carry you over and throw you in.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, being so unspeakably evil?” Sally retorted.
“Not at all,” Kutler said. “That is the thing people like you can never seem to savvy.”
“People like me?”
“Those who go around doing good, who think virtue is everything. Your kind always think everyone else is the same as you.” Kutler shook his head. “But it doesn’t work that way, lady. I don’t have a sliver of virtue anywhere in me, and I am happy I don’t. I look out for me and me alone. The rest of the world can go hang itself.”
“You are just saying that to upset me,” Sally said. “There must be a kernel of decency deep down inside of you.”
“See what I mean?” Kutler said, and laughed. “You go through life with blinders on.”
“I am not an infant,” Sally said archly.
Kutler glanced at Fargo. “You would think that someone so pretty would not be so dumb.”
His insults had taken Sally’s mind off the pit, and her fears. “If you were not holding that gun on us, I would claw your eyes out.”
“Speaking of claws,” Kutler said, and bobbed his chin at the tunnel.
They were coming. Six men holding the ends of long poles that had been slid between the bars of a large wooden cage. Inside the cage, snarling and spitting and biting at the bars, was the scourge of the Rockies. Between the beast’s moving about, and the heavy cage, it was all the men could do to carry their burden without falling.
“Caesar!” Big Mike Durn said fondly.
Sally Brook shuddered.
A hush fell over the spectators. Every neck craned for a better look at the cage. One woman squealed in delight and cried out, “Oh! Isn’t he positively vicious!”
A path was cleared. As the cage went past them, many backed away in terror.
The animal that instilled such potent fear was oblivious to the effect its presence caused. It was snapping at a bar, its razor teeth flashing.
Sally’s hand found Fargo’s. “I will faint,” she said weakly. “I swear I will pass out.”
“Be ready to do exactly as I tell you, when I tell you,” Fargo said. “We will only get one chance.”
“At what?” Sally’s desperation was climbing.
Fargo didn’t answer. Not with Kutler and the others right there.
The cage was deposited at the edge of the pit. Ropes were produced and fastened to the ends of the poles. Then, with ten men straining and sweating, the cage was carefully lowered to the bottom.
The wolverine stopped biting the bars. It had been through this before. It knew what came next.
Durn walked to the edge. A man handed him a long rawhide cord that was tied to the top bar at one end of the cage. Gripping the cord firmly in both hands, Durn tugged.
The end of the cage rose.
Cheers broke out as Fargo at last had a clear look at the creature he was about to tangle with.
Gluttons, they were called. Skunk bears was another name. They were bulky like bears, but where a full-grown black bear might weigh over five hundred pounds and a full-grown grizzly might top the scales at over a thousand, a large male wolverine—and this one was large—weighed a paltry fifty pounds.
But what wolverines lacked in weight they made up for in ferocity. No other animal was as fierce—not grizzlies, not wolves, not mountain lions. Savagery incarnate, wolverines were immensely powerful. Pound for pound, they were the strongest creatures on the continent. Add to that teeth like knives and claws like sabers, and their reputation was justly deserved.
This one had a typical dark brown coat with yellow splashes across its shoulders and over its hips, and lighter coloration above its eyes and along the edges of its ears.
The stink was abominable. Wolverines, like skunks, emitted a foul musk, which they used to mark caches of food and discourage other predators. But they also emitted the musk when they were excited, like now.
“Caesar!” Mike Durn called, and the wolverine looked up. “Do you see, Fargo? He knows what we call him. Wonderfully clever, these things.”
That was another of their traits. Wolverines were notoriously shrewd. They deprived trappe
rs of their livelihood by raiding traplines, going from trap to trap and ripping apart the animals that were caught. Or they would come on a camp high in the mountains, and in an unguarded moment, wreak havoc by tearing articles to shreds and generally disporting themselves as if they were the devil in four-legged guise.
Caesar had commenced to prowl about the pit and irritably growl and snarl at the excited onlookers.
A man more tipsy than most nearly plummeted over the edge when he was bumped by a friend, and instantly the wolverine bounded to a spot directly below him, eager to feed on human flesh.
“Look at him!” Durn gushed in admiration. “Did you ever see anything so savage? A brute in every sense of the word.”
Sally was appalled. “That thing is a fiend, yes, but at least it has an excuse.”
Durn turned on her, his good mood evaporating. “Explain that remark, my dear.”
“That wolverine can’t help itself. Yes, it is savage, but it is merely being true to its nature. It was born as it is and can be nothing other than itself.” Sally did not keep the contempt from her voice as she went on. “But you, on the other hand, are a true abomination. You were not born as you are. You choose to be sadistic instead of kind. You lord it over others because you want to. You kill because you delight in spilling blood. The wolverine is not the monster here. You are.”
“At last you understand me,” Big Mike said.
“I have always understood,” Sally replied. “Why do you think I rebuffed your advances time and again? Your pretense did not fool me.”
Durn said nothing.
“You are a common thug, nothing more,” Sally unleashed more barbs. “A river rat who left the river but is still a rat, nonetheless. Oh, I will grant you are a notch above the rest of your breed, in that you can read and write, and have a certain coarse intelligence. But you have your delusions as well. Above all, you have your hate, and it is that which will destroy you.”
Fargo was as amazed as Mike Durn at her outburst. He tensed to protect her should it be necessary.
But Durn did not fly into a rage. Instead, he laughed heartily, then said, “I swear. That was some speech. But you can come down from your pedestal now. The fun is about to begin.”
Those assembled fell quiet when Big Mike bellowed for silence. Smiling broadly, he regarded their expectant faces. “Tonight you are in for a special treat. Special because my pet will feed more than once. Special because a white woman is one of the morsels. Special, too, as an object lesson.”
“A what?” someone asked.
“When I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed. When it isn’t, there are consequences.” Durn swung toward a group of his men. “Mr. Dawson, step forward, if you please.”
Fargo remembered the lanky riverman who had guarded him in the tunnel, and guessed what was coming.
Dawson’s surprise rooted him in place, but only until Durn motioned and several others pushed him forward. His dagger was snatched from its sheath, and his Remington, which had been returned after Fargo was caught, was lifted from his holster. It all happened so rapidly, he was disarmed and standing before Durn before he could collect his wits.
“Anything to say?” Mike Durn asked.
Licking his thin lips, Dawson croaked, “What is this? I am not one of them.” He nodded toward Fargo and Sally.
“You have forgotten.”
“Forgotten what?” Dawson asked, his voice rising.
“I set you to keep watch over Fargo,” Durn jogged his memory. “I warned you that if he got away, I would feed you to Caesar.”
“But that was just talk,” Dawson said. “To scare me so I would take you serious and not doze off.”
“I do not make idle threats.”
Dawson glanced into the pit, and swallowed. “Now hold on, Mr. Durn. Don’t I always do as you want, no questions asked? I couldn’t help it if he pushed a door on top of me.”
“Did you think to search him before he was put in the storeroom?” Mike Durn asked.
“No. But I was just doing what you told me to do. You should have searched him yourself if—” Dawson stopped, petrified by his blunder.
“So it is my fault Fargo got away?”
“No, no, no,” Dawson bleated. “I am not saying that. I am not saying that at all.”
“It sounded like you were to me.”
Dawson started to back away from the pit. “You can’t!”
All it took was a quick step and a hard shove. Mike Durn was smiling as he pushed Dawson over the edge, his smile widening at the shriek that filled the pit.
Sally turned away and covered her ears with her hands.
Not Fargo. He watched the wolverine, studying its movements. It was on the other side of the pit when Dawson went over. At the thud of Dawson hitting the earth, the beast whirled. Dawson, terrified, scrambled to his hands and knees, whining, “Not this! Not this! Not this!”
Most everyone else was pressing forward for a better view, including the white women, whose faces gleamed with bloodlust. The Indian women, though, hung back, their distaste transparent.
With a loud snarl, the wolverine streaked across the pit. Dawson let out a shriek. He was so petrified, he made no attempt to fight back when the wolverine sprang. At the last instant he raised his hands in front of his face, a futile bid to ward off the inevitable.
The wolverine bowled Dawson over. The riverman screamed as its teeth sheared through his outspread fingers and tore into his neck. The scream faded into a wet, bubbly gurgle, and then died entirely as his throat was ravaged. His body convulsed a few times and was still.
The wolverine did not stop there. In a mad frenzy, it slashed and tore and bit until Dawson’s face and neck and chest were a ruin of mangled flesh and pooling blood.
Big Mike Durn laughed for joy, and turned to Fargo and Sally Brook. “I hope you two were paying attention. Your turn is next.”
20
Whoops of glee and laughter greeted Dawson’s demise. If any of Mike Durn’s men objected to one of their own dying, they did not let on out of fear that what happened to Dawson could happen to them. As for the rest of the onlookers, it was wonderful fun. One of the women commented on how she wished there had been more blood. A man remarked that Dawson had not screamed nearly as much as he thought Dawson would.
Fargo was more interested in Sally. She was quaking like an aspen leaf, her fists clenched so hard her knuckles were white. When he touched her shoulder, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Leaning over, he said in her ear, “You must stay calm.”
“How, in God’s name? I am not you. You have probably witnessed things like this before.”
Fargo had. Animal attacks were common in the wild, and the wilds were his home. But that was not the issue. “I need you to be brave,” he stressed.
“You ask the impossible,” Sally said, shaking her head. “I will pass out when Durn pushes us in, and that will be that.”
“Try not to,” Fargo urged.
“But I want to,” Sally said. “I would rather be unconscious when that thing pounces. I won’t feel the pain. I won’t experience the horror.”
“It is not as hopeless as you think,” Fargo said. Then, making sure Durn had his back to them, and that neither Kutler nor Tork were listening, he whispered, “I have my knife.”
“So?” Sally said. “What good will it do us? You might as well throw pebbles at it.”
“Trust me,” Fargo said. “I know what I am doing. I have a plan.” A crazy plan, a plan fraught with peril, a plan that could as easily get him killed as anything, but a plan, nonetheless.
“Do we make a break for it before they throw us in?”
“No.” Fargo doubted they would reach the tunnel.
“Oh! You intend to kill Durn! And then we can escape in the confusion.” Sally grinned, thinking she had figured it out.
“There will be confusion, yes,” Fargo said. But not for the reason she expected.
Sally put her lips to his ear, her breath
warm on the lobe. “When do we make our break?”
“After they throw us into the pit.”
“After?” Sally blinked. “Are you insane? Once we are in that pit, we are as good as dead.”
“Listen to me,” Fargo said, and gently squeezed her arm to soothe her. “When we go over the side, try to land on your feet. Stay close to me and keep your back to the wall. I will take care of the rest.”
“If only I could believe that.”
Fargo leaned closer. “There is one thing more you can do,” he said, and told her what it was.
Sally drew back, her wide eyes fixed on his. “You are insane.”
“It will work,” Fargo promised.
“Listen to yourself. It is a wolverine, not a dog or a cat. And ten feet is awful high.”
“I am counting on the wolverine to help,” Fargo said. “And remember, it doesn’t weigh more than sixty pounds.”
“That is plenty enough,” Sally said.
Then there was no more time to talk. Durn’s men seized them and hauled them to the edge but did not, as yet, hurl them over.
Mike Durn had some crowing to do. He raised his arms. “Friends! Now for some real fun! Two at once, and one of them a white woman!”
Not one of the faces ringing the pit was sympathetic to their plight. Which made it easier for Fargo; he had no qualms about what he was about to unleash on them.
“You squaws over there!” Durn said. “Pay attention! This could be you if you don’t do as I say!” He stepped around behind Fargo and Sally and placed a hand on their backs between their shoulder blades. “And so it ends.”
“Remember,” Fargo said to her.
Mike Durn paused. “Remember what?”
“That you are a miserable son of a bitch who will get what he has coming to him,” Fargo predicted.
Always quick to anger, Durn swore and shoved.
Fargo didn’t resist. He kept his legs under him as he dropped, his arms out from his sides. Beside him, Sally screamed, her fingers plucking at his sleeve. He came down hard on his boot heels and pitched backward. He thrust his hands behind him and came up against the wall. From above came liquor-spawned hoots and cries of derision as he turned and nearly tripped over Sally, who was on her knees, staring straight ahead with her features frozen in shock.
