Texas Timber War

by Jon Sharpe

  Fargo stood up. He held one end of the rope and flipped the other upward, toward the roof. He was casting blindly, and it took him several tries before the rope didn’t fall back to his feet. He waved his other arm in front of him, found the dangling rope, and took hold of it so that he could tug hard on both ends.

  The rope held. He had succeeded in tossing it over one of the beams. Now if it would just support his weight . . .

  Fargo had seen earlier in the day that the beams were too high to reach, even with a couple of the other prisoners giving him a boost. He had noted as well that there were a few gaps between the boards on the roof.

  Burnley and Milton were both wounded, but not seriously, and they were younger than Caleb Thorn and Captain Russell. Fargo said, ‘‘Rollie, Jasper, come over here.’’

  ‘‘What do you want, Fargo?’’ Burnley said.

  ‘‘Cup your hands and give me a boost. I’ve got a rope looped over one of those beams, and with you two helping me, I think I can pull myself up into the rafters.’’

  ‘‘What good’s that gonna do?’’ Milton asked.

  ‘‘The roof is made of planks, not logs,’’ Fargo explained. ‘‘I think I can maybe work one or two of them loose.’’

  ‘‘Sounds like it might work,’’ Burnley admitted.

  ‘‘Worth a try, anyway,’’ Milton said.

  ‘‘Skye, be careful,’’ Isabel put in. ‘‘If any of those pirates figures out what you’re doing, they’re liable to come in here and hurt you.’’

  ‘‘They’re planning to kill us in the morning when they get back from that raid,’’ Fargo pointed out. ‘‘I think a little risk tonight is worth it.’’

  Again working by feel, Burnley and Milton joined their hands to form crude stirrups for Fargo’s feet. He hung on to the burlap rope as they lifted him. Then he began pulling himself upward, hand over hand. The rough burlap burned his palms as his weight hit them, but he didn’t lose his grip.

  After a moment, when he reached up, his fingers brushed the rough wood of the beam. He clung to it, looped his other arm over it, pulled himself higher, and kicked a leg upward, flinging it over the beam as well. From there he was able to lift and roll himself on top of it.

  Fargo got hold of a rafter and climbed higher. He rested both feet on the beam and balanced himself. The roof was low enough so that he had to crouch almost double, even at its highest point. He felt along the underside of the roof, searching for a gap between boards.

  It took him several minutes to locate a crack wide enough for him to slip his fingers through it. When he did, though, he grasped the board and began to put pressure on it, working it back and forth. It had a little play. Not much, but enough to give him hope. The river pirates had thrown up the buildings in their camp hurriedly, and they hadn’t done a very good job of it.

  Fargo had to go slow. He didn’t want the screech of nails being pulled free to alert the guards. But after a while his steady efforts began to pay off. The board loosened even more. Fargo kept working at it, encouraged by his progress but all too aware that time was passing. Most of the pirates had probably left the camp by now to attack the loggers who worked for Lawrence Kiley. The chances of being able to warn the men in time were dwindling.

  The board came loose. Fargo angled it and brought it inside through the opening he had created. He lowered it to the men below, who felt around in the darkness until they got hold of it and took it from him. Now Fargo had enough space to get both hands on the next board and start to prize it up.

  Again, the work was slow and tedious, but when the second board finally came free, Fargo was able to wedge himself through the opening he had made. He pulled himself up onto the roof and sprawled there for a moment, listening intently. He was on the back side of the roof. He crawled up to its peak and looked over. A fire still burned in the center of the pirates’ camp, casting a flickering glow over the cabins. Fargo didn’t see anyone moving around. That confirmed his theory that the gang had already left on the raid. He heard a cough at the front of the smokehouse and knew at least one guard had to be stationed there. Fargo began sliding forward toward the front edge of the roof.

  When he was close enough to peer over the edge, he saw a man sitting there on a tree stump. The man had a rifle across his knees and was trying to roll a quirly. Moving quietly, Fargo drew himself up in a crouch and then launched from the top of the smokehouse in a diving tackle.

  The guard jerked his head up, but not in time to avoid Fargo’s attack. They crashed together. The impact drove the guard backward off the stump. Fargo landed on top, clubbed his hands together, and smashed them down into the guard’s face. The man went limp, knocked senseless by the powerful blow, maybe even dead.

  Fargo was reaching for the rifle the guard had dropped when a woman’s shrill voice said, ‘‘Hold it! One more move and I’ll blow you to pieces, mister!’’

  Fargo looked up and saw Tillie, the scarred blonde, standing no more than ten feet away, a shotgun in her hands.

  And she held the Greener like she knew how to use it.

  13

  At this range, if Tillie pulled the triggers of that double-barreled weapon, the twin charges of buckshot would turn Fargo into something that looked only vaguely human. He tried to keep the strain out of his voice as he said, ‘‘Take it easy, Tillie. I don’t mean you any harm.’’

  ‘‘How about Red Mike?’’ she demanded with a sneer. ‘‘You mean him any harm?’’

  Fargo’s answer was honest. ‘‘I want to stop him from killing Kiley’s men.’’

  ‘‘That ain’t good enough,’’ Tillie said. Then she lowered the shotgun a little. ‘‘I want you to kill him.’’

  The words took Fargo by surprise, but he remained calm as he said, ‘‘How about if I stand up and we talk about this?’’

  ‘‘All right. Just don’t try any tricks. I don’t know how you got out of that smokehouse, but the fact that you did tells me you’re a dangerous man.’’

  ‘‘Not to you,’’ Fargo said as he pushed himself to his feet without picking up the rifle. ‘‘I don’t have anything against you. My quarrel is with the McShane brothers.’’

  ‘‘Fine. I ain’t overfond of those bastards, neither.’’ She let go of the shotgun with her left hand and raised it to her scarred cheek. ‘‘Red Mike gave me this, ’cause he told me to bed down with his brother and I didn’t want to. Linus sometimes likes to hurt the girls he’s with. But then, I reckon Mike’s the same way. Both of ’em are no better’n animals. And that sister o’ theirs is the worst of all. Wouldn’t think it to look at her, would you?’’

  Fargo shook his head. ‘‘You can’t always judge a person by how they look. Hell, you usually can’t judge them that way.’’

  ‘‘Yeah. I was just on my way to let you folks out. Wouldn’t have thought that, would you?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Fargo replied. ‘‘I didn’t think you’d be brave enough to cross Red Mike that way. But I’m glad I was wrong about you.’’

  Tillie snorted. ‘‘Don’t get the idea I’m goin’ soft. I just want Red Mike and Linus dead, that’s all, and you look like the sort of gent who could get that done. Now I’m the one judgin’ by appearances, I guess. Can you do it?’’

  ‘‘I don’t often set out to kill someone, no matter what they’ve done,’’ Fargo told her. ‘‘But if they put up a fight—and they will—I sure as blazes won’t hold back.’’

  Tillie nodded. ‘‘That’s good enough for me. All your guns and that big knife o’ yours are all in the cabin where you talked to Mike and his sister earlier. You can go get them whilst I let the others out.’’

  ‘‘All right.’’ Fargo paused before he went to retrieve the weapons, though. ‘‘How were you going to get past the guard?’’

  Tillie reached in her pocket and brought out a wicked-looking straight razor. ‘‘Ol’ Lonnie there would’ve let me get behind him. He wouldn’t have suspected a thing until it was too late and his throat was sl
iced open.’’

  Fargo didn’t doubt for a second that she would have done it, too. It was probably lucky for Lonnie, assuming he was still alive, that Fargo had jumped him first.

  No one else seemed to be in the camp as Fargo hurried over to Red Mike’s cabin. It was possible that McShane had taken all the men except Lonnie with him to Kiley’s logging camp. The handful of women besides Tillie had to still be around, but they were probably lying low in the other cabins. No one challenged Fargo as he retrieved the weapons, and that was the main thing.

  Isabel, Captain Russell, and the other three men had emerged from the smokehouse by the time Fargo got back there. As Fargo handed out the guns, he said, ‘‘Tillie was going to let us go anyway. She’s not really one of the gang.’’

  Isabel sniffed. ‘‘You were about to rescue us, Skye. I don’t see that we owe her anything.’’

  ‘‘No?’’ Tillie said. ‘‘How about Fargo’s life? I had the drop on him with a scattergun and could’ve blown him from hell to breakfast.’’

  ‘‘That’s true,’’ Fargo said with a wry grin.

  ‘‘Well,’’ Isabel admitted, ‘‘I guess we should feel a little grateful.’’

  Lonnie had regained consciousness, Fargo noted, so he wasn’t dead after all. One of the others had tied his hands behind his back with his own belt. As he glared up at Fargo, he blustered, ‘‘Red Mike’s gonna skin you alive, mister.’’

  Fargo ignored the threat. He turned to Russell and asked, ‘‘Do you know how to get to Kiley’s camp, Cap’n?’’

  ‘‘I think so,’’ Russell said. ‘‘I was out there once. But I don’t know these woods near as well as I know the bayou.’’

  ‘‘Just get us close,’’ Fargo said with a nod. ‘‘Then I reckon the sound of gunfire will lead us the rest of the way.’’

  Moving through the forest at night wasn’t easy, especially for people who didn’t really know where they were going. They had to cut across country, which made things even more difficult. But there was no time to follow Alligator Slough to Big Cypress Bayou and then follow the bayou back to Jefferson. If they had tried to do that, Kiley’s men would have been wiped out long before they could reach the logging camp.

  So Fargo had to rely on instinct and occasional glimpses of the stars to guide them. Captain Russell had told him that Kiley’s camp was northeast of the settlement, so Fargo steered them in that direction as best he could. He had found some hatchets in the pirates’ camp, and the group used those to chop their way through the underbrush. When they came to a clearer stretch every now and then, they broke into a trot until the vegetation closed in around them again.

  Also, before leaving the camp on Alligator Slough, Tillie had told Fargo that she wouldn’t be there whenever anybody got back, whether it was Fargo who returned or Red Mike and the rest of the pirates.

  ‘‘My time here is done,’’ she said. ‘‘But I’m leavin’ holdin’ you to your word, Fargo. You got to kill Red Mike and Linus.’’

  Fargo hadn’t exactly promised her that he would kill the McShane brothers, but that was probably what a showdown would come to. The pirates weren’t the sort of men to surrender and face justice in the courts. They would rather take their chances with hot lead.

  Fargo didn’t really want to take Isabel into battle with him, but neither did he think it would be a good idea to leave her behind at the pirates’ camp. Besides, she never would have agreed to that. She was too much of a fighter for that.

  ‘‘I wish I’d had it out with Gideon, instead of running away,’’ she told Fargo as they made their way through the thickets with the others strung out behind them. ‘‘I guess I didn’t know then how strong I really am.’’

  ‘‘It takes a while to figure that out sometimes,’’ Fargo agreed. ‘‘The important thing is that you know it now.’’

  ‘‘That’s right, and I’ll never run from him again. I almost hope he has found me, because I don’t want that hanging over my head anymore.’’

  Fargo knew what she meant. In his experience, it was usually better to confront trouble head-on.

  A short time later, he stopped as the distant crackle of gunfire came to his ears. ‘‘Listen,’’ he said to the others.

  ‘‘Sounds like a war,’’ Russell said. ‘‘Too bad we didn’t get there in time to warn those fellas.’’

  ‘‘That just wasn’t possible. But it sounds like they’re putting up quite a fight. Maybe we can change the odds a little if we get there in time.’’

  Fargo started moving again, stepping up the pace. A few minutes later he stumbled a little as he broke out of the brush into a broad, open space. It was another skid road, he realized, and it would lead them right to the logging camp. He turned toward the sound of shots and broke into a run. The others hurried after him.

  He had his own Henry rifle in his hands and his Colt snugged in the holster on his hip. Having the weapons back made him feel more comfortable about going into battle. The fighting spirit that was always within him soared.

  He began to see muzzle flashes up ahead. Charging right into the middle of a fight without knowing what was going on was a good way to get killed, so Fargo slowed his charge and motioned for the others to slow down as well. The six of them gathered in the darkness to study the situation.

  The skid road led to a large clearing, in which a long, low building had been constructed from logs. That would be the logging crew’s bunkhouse, Fargo knew. A few shacks were scattered around. One of them would be the cookshack; the others probably were used for storage of tools and supplies. Shots came from inside the bunkhouse as the loggers defended the place. More muzzle flashes from the surrounding woods gave away the positions of the attackers.

  ‘‘Stay here,’’ Fargo told his companions in a low voice. ‘‘I’m going to try to pick off some of those pirates before they know what’s going on. The rest of you hit the others from behind when I give you the signal.’’

  Isabel clutched at his arm and said again, ‘‘Be careful, Skye.’’ This time she reinforced the warning by tugging him closer and giving him a hard kiss on the mouth.

  Burnley chuckled. ‘‘If that don’t give a fella a good reason to stay alive, I don’t know what would.’’

  Fargo knew exactly what he meant. He was looking forward to a time when all this trouble would be over, when he and Isabel could be alone together again.

  But for now there was deadly business to take care of. He squeezed her shoulder and then moved off into the night, disappearing into the shadows of the trees at the edge of the skid road.

  This wasn’t the first time Fargo had engaged in such clandestine warfare. As silently and swiftly as an Indian, he slipped through the forest, letting the sounds of gunfire guide him. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he was able to make out the shape of a man crouched behind a pine tree, firing at the bunkhouse. Fargo stepped up to him, lifted the Henry, and slammed the rifle butt into the back of his head with one smooth, powerful stroke.

  The blow had enough force behind it to knock the man senseless but not enough to shatter his skull. Fargo didn’t kill in cold blood unless he was absolutely forced to. The man went down without uttering a sound. Fargo knelt beside him, felt for a belt, but didn’t find one. He used his Arkansas toothpick to cut strips from the man’s shirt and used those to bind his hands and feet tightly enough so that he couldn’t get loose. Then he crammed another piece of shirt in the man’s mouth as a gag.

  From there it was on to the next man. Fargo slipped up on him and knocked him out and tied him up the same way. He had just taken a third man out of the fight in the same manner when a sudden flare of light caught his attention. He twisted toward it and saw a torch spinning through the air toward the bunkhouse. It was a crude affair, just a broken branch with dried moss wrapped around one end, but the moss burned easily and the torch made an effective weapon. It landed on the bunkhouse roof and continued to blaze.

  Several other torches joined it a momen
t later, then a half dozen more rained down out of the night and landed on the roof. The pirates were going to burn the loggers out, force them to flee from the burning building and shoot them down as they tried to escape from the flames.

  Fargo couldn’t do anything about the fire. It was too late for that. The only chance the defenders had was for Fargo and his companions to provide them with a distraction so they could get clear of the building.

  ‘‘Now!’’ Fargo shouted toward the skid road where he had left the others. ‘‘Hit them now!’’

  Not too far off, a man yelled, ‘‘What the hell! Fargo!’’

  That sounded like one of the McShanes, Fargo thought. He pivoted in that direction, brought the Henry to his shoulder, and fired twice, aiming at the sound of the voice. An orange flower of muzzle flame bloomed in the darkness as whoever it was returned the fire. Fargo threw himself to one side and triggered the Henry again as bullets whipped past him.

  He heard a strangled cry, and a second later, as he surged to his feet again, Linus McShane stumbled into view. The roof of the bunkhouse was on fire now, and the glare from the fire reached into the trees, lighting them up like a nightmarish scene from some crazed artist’s vision of a woodland hell. Linus pawed at his throat as blood spilled darkly from the wound that one of Fargo’s bullets had torn there. Gargling and choking on his own blood, Linus pitched forward and shuddered his way into death as he lay on the ground.

  Half of Tillie’s goal had been accomplished. One of the McShane brothers was dead.

  The woods were full of gunfire and confusion as the rest of Fargo’s group joined in the fight. Fargo glided through the trees. Another of the river pirates suddenly loomed up in front of him. The gun in the man’s hand blasted, so close that it practically singed Fargo’s eyebrows. He rammed the barrel of the rifle into the pirate’s midsection, causing him to double over in pain. Fargo lifted the Henry and brought the butt down on the back of the man’s neck. He didn’t hold back any this time, and the sharp crack as the blow landed told him that he had just broken the pirate’s neck. The man fell and didn’t move again.