Hangtown Hellcat

by Jon Sharpe

  “I hope not,” Fargo replied. “Unless we sneak in at night, they’d shoot us to doll stuffings before we got across that tableland.”

  “Bad medicine,” Buckshot agreed. He gnawed off a corner of his plug and parked it in his cheek as soon as he had it juicing proper.

  “Chaw?” he asked Fargo, offering the tobacco.

  Fargo waved it off. “Can’t abide the taste.”

  “You damn weak sister. You gotta learn to chew the suption out of it, is all.”

  Buckshot loosed another brown streamer that just missed Fargo’s boot.

  “You get that suption on me,” Fargo warned, “and you’ll be wearing your ass for a hat.”

  Buckshot hooted. “Won’tcha listen to pretty teeth? The pup is barkin’ like a full-growed dog.”

  The terrain gradually altered and soon the riders were crossing meadows where sunflowers grew shoulder high and blue-winged teals darted about like spring-drunk butterflies. The horses, never pushed beyond a trot, still had plenty of bottom. Fargo had lashed a goat gut filled with water to the Ovaro, and now the two riders reined in to water the mounts from their hats.

  “Sheep clouds making up,” Fargo remarked as they hit leather and gigged their horses forward again. “Rain’s likely in an hour or two.”

  “I wunner when them Injins will show,” Buckshot said, slewing around in his saddle to study their back trail.

  “If it’s Cheyennes,” Fargo reminded him, “they’ll likely show up on our flanks or out front of us. They don’t track their enemies—they pace ’em and guess where they’re headed.”

  Both men gnawed on buffalo jerky and cold biscuits in the saddle. When he finished eating, Fargo poked a skinny black Mexican cigar into his teeth and scratched a phosphor to life with his thumbnail. He leaned forward into the flame, fighting the wind for a light. The wind won and he cursed mildly, sticking the cigar back into his possibles bag—he was damned if he’d use up another precious match.

  A few more uneventful miles and the terrain changed again, rising slightly as the grass thinned to sandy patches. Scattered rock spines dotted the land, and Fargo realized that was potentially dangerous news.

  “Trouble,” he announced, lake blue eyes slanted toward the ground. “They’ve pulled an Indian trick on us and split off in three directions.”

  Buckshot eyed the nearest rock spine, rubbing his chin. “And in good ambush country, too. One a them shit-heels could be layin’ back to pop us over.”

  “Nothing else for it,” Fargo decided. “I’d wager all three of them are headed to the same place, so it won’t matter which trail we follow. Let’s stick with the middle one.”

  “Hey diddle diddle and up the middle,” Buckshot agreed. “That’s how me, Kit, and Uncle Dick attacked and drove them Mexer freebooters out of Taos. Scattered ’em like ninepins. Them pepper guts ran like a river when the snow melts.”

  “Way I heard it,” Fargo said, “you were drunk as a fiddler’s bitch and wallowing with a whore during that battle.”

  Buckshot sent him a dirty look and then expelled a sigh. “You’re a hard man to bullshit, Skye. Well, I’ll take a hoor over a shooting scrape every time.”

  Both men, realizing their increased danger with the trip split up, scoured their surroundings with an eye to likely snipers’ nests. Fargo’s earlier prediction came true when a sudden thunderstorm boiled up. Gray sheets of wind-driven rain pelted them, destroying visibility and forcing them to shelter under a traprock shelf. The rain lasted nearly an hour and left patches of mud as thick and sloppy as gumbo, slowing them down. But both men were among the best trackers in the West and they held the trail.

  However, it was a rough piece of work. Splitting up was only the beginning of their enemy’s precautions. The rider they were following also rode for several hundred yards through a small creek, making it difficult for his trackers to pick up the spot where he emerged. And once he even rode into a chewed up buffalo run, obscuring his tracks.

  “I’m thinking maybe you were right yesterday, Buckshot,” Fargo speculated out loud. “This jasper went to a lot of trouble to hide his trail. That tells me these three ain’t just on the prod—they’ve got themselves a hideout and they’re bound and determined to keep anybody from finding it.”

  The two men doggedly persisted, leaning low from the saddle and often forced to dismount to study the bend of the grass or an overturned stone. The afternoon heated up and biting flies plagued men and horses mercilessly.

  “Shit-oh-dear,” Fargo breathed softly when he and Buckshot rounded a long rock abutment. “Stay frosty, old son. Straight ahead and keep up the strut. Looks like we got company, and they don’t appear too happy to see us.”

  Strung out in a line just ahead of them, impassive faces blank as gray slate, sat six Northern Cheyenne braves astride their mustangs, weapons pointed at the paleface intruders.

  * * *

  Fargo had expected an eventual encounter with one of the tribes, but had not envisioned riding cold into a trap like this. In his experience the Northern Cheyenne were not cold-blooded murderers, even of white men. Deeply religious in their fashion, the taking of a human life was not a casual act.

  Then again, braves who had painted and danced, propitiating Maiyun the Great Supernatural, had a freer hand to take an enemy’s life.

  And every one of these braves wore his red, yellow, and black war paint.

  “Katy Christ,” Buckshot muttered, “I thought your stallion was trained to hate the Indian smell.”

  Buckshot meant the smell of the bear grease that Cheyenne braves smeared liberally into their long black hair.

  “He is,” Fargo replied quietly as they walked their mounts closer. “But we’re upwind, you knothead.”

  “These red sons are painted, Fargo. How’s ’bout I swing Patsy Plumb up and jerk both triggers? This smoke wagon can blow three of those bucks off their ponies. You’re quicker than eyesight with that thumb-buster of yours—you can send the other three under faster than a finger snap.”

  “At least pretend you got more brains than a rabbit. We leave six Cheyenne braves murdered and we’ll touch off a vengeance war that’ll guarandamntee Indian haircuts for Big Ed and his crew. Don’t pull down on them unless we can’t wangle out of this.”

  Fargo raised one hand high in sign talk for peace. Both men drew rein about ten feet in front of the line of grim-faced braves. The two men kept any feelings from showing in their faces—a white man’s habit despised by most Plains warriors as unmanly.

  The brave who first spoke had the most eagle-tail feathers dangling from his coup stick, making him the natural choice for leader.

  “Mah-ish-ta-shee-da,” he said in a tone laced with contempt—the Cheyenne word for white men. Fargo knew enough of their language to know it meant “yellow eyes”—the first white men the Cheyenne had ever seen were fur trappers suffering from severe jaundice.

  Fargo thumped his own chest with his fist, a symbol of defiance—a reaction more likely to engender respect among these proud and defiant warriors.

  “Wasichu,” he said proudly, the Lakota Sioux word for white men and a language the Cheyenne knew well for the Sioux were their battle cousins.

  Fargo noticed that all six braves avoided making direct eye contact with the white men, fearing they might steal their souls. He made a quick survey of the weapons now trained on him and Buckshot. One Cheyenne had a badly used .33 caliber breechloader, a standard trade rifle. Its cracked stock had been wrapped tightly with buckskin. Another held a cap-and-ball Colt’s Dragoon pistol, a “knockdown gun” whose huge, conical slug often killed even with a hit to the arm or leg.

  The other four brandished Osage-wood bows, arrows nocked, and light but deadly spears tipped with flaked-flint points.

  “Why are you here, hair face?” the leader demanded in the Lakota tongue.

  Fargo had long ago learned the universal sign language used by Plains Indians as a lingua franca between tribes. He replied using signs f
or Lakota or Cheyenne words he didn’t know.

  “The paleface believes the land belongs to him. Like the red man, I believe we all belong to the land. I belong to this place. It has always been my home.”

  The brave seemed momentarily impressed by this unexpected answer. But he had to save face with the others, so he shook his head adamantly. “From Great Waters to place where sun rises, white man’s home. From Great Waters to place where sun sets, red man’s home.”

  Fargo hooked a thumb toward Buckshot. “Look at him. He mounts his horse from the Indian side. You can see he is no hair face. He is Choctaw and his tribe is from east of Great Waters.”

  “You speak in a wolf bark! Where are these tribes now? Planting corn like women in the place where your white leader Sharp Knife sent them. No horses, no weapons. They are prisoners. And you plan to send us there and make women of our men.”

  The brave with the Colt’s Dragoon thumbed his hammer from half to full cock. “I will kill the beef-eaters now!”

  “Fargo,” Buckshot said quietly but urgently, “our tits are in the wringer, boy. I’m swingin’ Patsy up—you best jerk your short iron.”

  Before Fargo could reply, the leader raised his hand to stop the hothead. Then he addressed himself to Fargo.

  “It is true that you look different than the Mah-ish-ta-shee-da who travel in the great bone shakers. You and your friend have not cut your stallions and broken their spirit. You wear buckskins. You know a little of our tongue. Your faces are not those of women who show their feelings. Perhaps you do belong to this place, and the Cheyenne Way does not permit us to kill you.”

  The immediate danger of violent action had passed for the moment, but Fargo knew they had avoided a stampede only to be caught in a flood. When Plains warriors spared a white man’s life, they exacted tribute for crossing Indian ranges safely. Despite their obvious admiration for the Ovaro and Buckshot’s rare grulla, the warriors knew it was beyond the pale to demand a man’s horse in this country.

  But the way they had been covetously admiring Fargo’s Henry and Buckshot’s double-ten, it was clear what was coming.

  “You may go in peace,” the brave continued, “but you will leave your thunder sticks with us. And that fine knife in your…”

  He did not know the word for boot so he pointed at the Arkansas toothpick in Fargo’s boot sheath. Fargo shook his head.

  “Would you surrender your best weapons?” the Trailsman demanded. “We will give you some sugar and coffee. These are fine things.”

  This puny offer clearly angered the brave although his stoic face never altered. His eyes and voice hardened.

  “Hair face, it is the white man’s stink that scares away Uncle Pte, the buffalo. Your strong water makes women of our best braves. Even now the white dogs swarm the sacred Paha Sapa”—he meant the Black Hills to the east—“searching for the glittering yellow rocks. Why should we not kill you both and take everything you own?”

  Fargo always favored wit and wile over lead slinging. But he feared the worst option was now the only option. Buckshot considered his beloved double-ten an extension of his body, and no man—red, white, or purple—was taking Fargo’s Henry from him.

  Fargo’s thumb twitched, knocking the riding thong off the hammer of his Colt. “I hate to say it, Buckshot,” he said in a low tone, “but it’s come down to the nut-cuttin’. Get ready to let ’er rip.”

  But Buckshot had followed most of the exchange and now he spoke up. “Hold off, Fargo. ’Member what we done with them Arapahos up at Roaring Horse Canyon?”

  Fargo did remember and suddenly grinned inwardly. It just might work, at that.

  “You should take nothing from us,” he told the angry brave, “because your medicine will go bad if you do. This man riding with me is We-Ota-Wichasa, a great medicine man. He has come to this country on a vision quest.”

  The leader’s voice was mocking. “Words are cheap, things of smoke. Especially in a white man’s mouth as he faces death. Let us see this great ‘shaman’s’ medicine.”

  Fargo nodded and looked at Buckshot. The latter lifted his arms like a priest blessing his flock. In a solemn, deep-chested voice he intoned:

  Had to take a shit so she squat on the floor;

  Wind from her ass blew the cat out the door;

  Moon shone bright on the tipples of her nits;

  Carved her initials in a bucket of shit.

  The Cheyenne understood not one word of this mysterious incantation, but, in spite of themselves, watched this supposed shaman with growing expectation. Buckshot whistled sharply and his cayuse performed a half turn, putting Buckshot’s back to the Cheyenne. His right hand moved up to his face briefly.

  He whistled again and the smoky turned back around. Fargo had never seen the color drain from a copper-skinned Indian’s face, but he witnessed it now when the braves saw the raw red socket from which Buckshot’s right eye had simply disappeared.

  To cap the climax, his lips curled back to reveal his eye staring at the bucks from his grinning mouth!

  The braves did not turn and flee—they were too astounded to even move. And every one of them forgot about the “stoic impassivity” of their faces as their jaws slacked open in astonishment when Buckshot made as if he were chewing.

  “We-Ota-Wichasa has plucked out his own eye and now he eats it?” the leader said to Fargo in a wondering tone. “And there is no pain?”

  Fargo shook his head. “A new eye will grow back by tomorrow.”

  “His medicine is indeed powerful.”

  The braves spoke rapidly among themselves. Then the leader raised his hand in the sign for peace before they raced off to the northeast at a gallop.

  “Jesus, Buckshot, you are a holy show,” Fargo managed before both men laughed so hard they almost fell off their mounts. Then Buckshot worked his glass eye back into the socket.

  But as they gigged their horses forward again, Fargo added, “You know, Cheyennes are superstitious, right enough. But they’re also smart. They might figure out they were bamboozled somehow and pay us another visit.”

  “That’s all right,” Buckshot replied from a deadpan. “I’ll keep an eye out for ’em.”

  4

  A hot westering sun had soon baked the mud into hard folds and wrinkles. But the recent downpour had made reading sign more difficult and slowed down the two trackers. Fargo still had to worry about the terrain, too. Rock spines, gulches, and thick brush provided excellent cover for any man with dry-gulching on his mind.

  “They still ain’t joined back up. These murdering scuts are going to a helluva lot of trouble to keep trackers off their spoor,” Buckshot remarked as the two riders crossed through a line of sand hills. “What gets my money is them thinking they can stop Big Ed Creighton from stringing up that telegraph. Why, it’s hog stupid. That stubborn Irishman could route Powder River uphill if he set his mind to it.”

  “It’s not so stupid,” Fargo gainsaid. “Remember, they don’t know Big Ed. I was out in California when Mexican freebooters stopped a line going up between Sacramento and Los Angeles.”

  “I recall that,” Buckshot conceded. “It was a big gang armed to the teeth. And mayhap there’s a big nest of ’em out here, too. How do we play it when we find their hideout?”

  Fargo backhanded sweat from his brow, eyes in constant motion. The latest hatch of flies was plaguing him and the Ovaro to distraction.

  “Hell, where do all lost years go?” he replied irritably. “What’s after what’s next? Ask me something easy now and then.”

  “Ain’t you the touchy son of a bitch now you ain’t gettin’ no poon? Look, you’re the big bushway here. You telling me you ain’t even got a mother-lovin’ plan?”

  “You know my anthem, hoss—the best way to cure a boil is to lance it. I favor handling this deal ourselves. These are stone-cold killers, not a bunch of harum-scarum cowboys hooraying the town. This is a territory, not a state, and it looks like right now we’re the only law around.
If there’s too damn many for us to hug with, well, I don’t plan to get us killed in a lost cause. We’ll have to reconnoiter, fix the location, and report it to Fort Laramie.”

  “Naught else for it,” Buckshot agreed reluctantly. “Big Ed’s got that pocket relay doodad. If the line is back up, he can send word. It chaps my ass though, Skye. The fort ain’t likely to send out troops. Happens that’s so, the scum buckets that killed Danny and shot up Steve and Ron will escape the wrath. Neither one of us got a gander at any of ’em. Didn’t even glom their horses.”

  Fargo nodded, his lips set in a grim, straight line. Yesterday he had vowed the murder would not stand. He also believed it wasn’t true bravery if a man took action only when he was sure of success.

  “We’re the only law, Buckshot,” he repeated. “And we’re both death to the devil in a scrape. Piss and vinegar has got us out of some tough fixes before. Straight ahead and keep up the strut, hey?”

  “Hell yes!” Buckshot said, rallying. “No matter how you slice it, there’s no laurels to be won. But I never planned to live forever—leastways, not after I met you.”

  The sun was a flat orange disk balanced on the western horizon when the two horsebackers reached a clear, sand-bottom creek meandering through a grassy draw.

  “Good place to camp,” Fargo decided. “But we best not risk a fire tonight—it’s too open here. We’ll build one tomorrow and get outside of some hot grub before we ride out. That is, if we can pull a fish out of that creek.”

  “Sun going low and no hot supper,” Buckshot groused good-naturedly. “Thank you, Jesus! Another glorious day siding Skye goldang Fargo.”

  The two men loosed their cinches and pulled their saddles, then dropped the bits and bridles before tethering their mounts in good graze beside the creek. When the mounts had cooled off they’d be allowed to tank up. They spread their saddle blankets out in the grass to dry. Then they flopped on their bellies and dunked their heads in the cool, bracing water. Fargo spat out the first mouthful before drinking deeply.