by Jon Sharpe
“Yup. Asked me flat out if I was tired of the penny-ante game. I told her I was like most men drifting around the West—willing to do most anything if it wouldn’t get me jugged or hanged.”
“Sounds like you played the best hand you could. But we can’t look too eager to throw in with her—we have to let her nudge us a little, make her think we’ll fall, all right, but only with a little push.”
Buckshot suddenly sniffed the air. “Damn your bones, Fargo! I wunnered where Jasmine disappeared to. You trimmed her while I was dickin’ around with them little Chinee tiles—I can smell the woman scent.”
Fargo grinned. “If a ripe apple falls off the tree, I eat it.”
“Uh-huh. Was the apple any good?”
“Never mind that. Any idea where our weapons might be?”
“I looked around best I could but couldn’t see no hiding places. I’d wager them two dickless yacks got ’em somewheres in their room.”
“Distinct possibility,” Fargo agreed. “Now get some shut-eye. I got a hunch we’re gonna need it.”
* * *
With no window in the room Fargo had no idea what time it was when El Burro kicked him awake.
Both men pulled on their boots and, with the two bodyguards watching them at gunpoint, they were led to a rickety jakes behind the house where they relieved themselves. Fargo saw that the day’s new sun was just then peeking over the eastern horizon. Then they were led back inside to a small but tidy kitchen where Jenny Lavoy sat at a cloth-covered table drinking tea.
“Good morning, my rustic houseguests,” she greeted them cheerfully. “Jasmine, heap their plates—Fargo, especially, must be very hungry.”
Jasmine, standing before an iron cookstove, smiled over her shoulder at Fargo. She served up plates of hash and biscuits.
“Tell me, Mr. Fargo,” Jenny said as the two men tied into their food, “have you ever been to San Francisco?”
Fargo nodded. “I knew the place when some still called it Yerba Buena. For my money it’s the roughest city in the West.”
“Nonsense. True, the Barbary Coast and areas along the Embarcadero are unsavory and full of rattle and hullabaloo. But there is a great deal of money and some fine mansions up in the hills. I used to cut quite a swath there.”
Fargo studied her across the table. She looked striking—even angelic—in a white linen dress, her hair neatly coifed in braids under a jeweled silver tiara.
“I can believe that,” he assured her. “And, yet, now you’re stuck in a pukehole called Hangtown. From president to postman, huh?”
The smile she gave him was bright but strained. “Stuck? Not at all. Yes, I suffered a…reversal of fortunes in San Francisco, true. But Hangtown is a means, not an end. It is merely phase one in my plan—the phase that takes me from dirty money to clean, from the abject squalor here to the purposeless splendor I will once again enjoy in San Francisco.”
“Purposeless splendor?” Fargo repeated dubiously.
“Yes, a hallmark of the fabulously wealthy. And it will begin with a beautiful marble villa featuring a sunken Italian garden.”
Fargo nodded politely. “Sounds real nice.”
She laughed, sweet, tinkling notes. “I take your skepticism for granted. But I hope to overcome it—for your sake and mine. And you might be surprised at just how nicely phase one is developing. Even in this ‘pukehole,’ as you call it, I’ve got a gown of organdy and tulle shipped all the way from Paris. I’ve got a hat that would cost you a year’s wages. I have a chemise embroidered with fine lace that—”
“All them fancy feathers,” Buckshot cut her off, still rankled about last night’s disappointment and fed up with this woman’s foolish talk, “don’t mean spit to a man. All we want is to see pretty gals naked.”
Her cold stare at Buckshot was a clear warning. “Yes, and the damned want ice water in hell, too, do they not? Speak over me like that again, Mr. Brady, and I’ll have El Burro bore a hole through your tongue.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly, wiping his plate clean with a biscuit.
“Now that you’re both finished eating,” she said briskly, standing up, “it’s time for a bit of unpleasant but necessary business. Norton, the ropes, please. If you gentlemen will follow me outside…”
Fargo and Buckshot exchanged uncomfortable glances at the ominous word “ropes.” In a place called Hangtown, the word resonated with sinister force. Everybody except Jasmine filed outside, Jenny blithely chirping as if she were explaining the fine points of ikebana.
“By now, gentlemen, Butch McDade and his cronies will be in a fine pucker after discussing the events of last night. They will, of course, have serious doubts about my honesty and true motives.” She smiled sweetly at Fargo, a gorgeous angel on Satan’s payroll. “Can you imagine that?”
“It’s hard to feature,” Fargo said from a deadpan as her two loyal henchmen tied the prisoners’ hands behind their backs.
“Isn’t it, though? But as I was saying, the unholy trinity will doubt me and spread the word throughout Hangtown that their mayor is mollycoddling two dangerous enemies. We must put the crusher on that rumor immediately by giving both of you a little tour of our thriving settlement. That way all of them will see the evidence that you are hardly my favorites—which, by the way, you certainly are.”
She turned to El Burro and Norton and gave them instructions in a tone implying she was teaching children to buckle their shoes. “Now, boys, I want plenty of blood and bruising, but no permanent damage. And for goodness’ sakes, Burro, nothing like the blow you gave Boots Winkler. Don’t damage Mr. Fargo’s marvelous teeth, and Mr. Brady can hardly afford to lose any more.”
“Don’t break my glass eye, neither” Buckshot quickly interposed.
Jenny studied his face closely. “My goodness, it is glass! I thought you were just walleyed. Yes, Norton, spare the glass eye.”
“Look here,” Fargo protested. “This—”
He swallowed the rest of the sentence when El Burro gave him a paster in the face that almost knocked Fargo out of his boots. He was still doing the Virginia reel backward when the slab-faced mestizo waded into him, delivering two short, hard jabs, one to each of Fargo’s eyes. When Fargo’s knees buckled, El Burro picked him up as easily as a sack of feathers and punched him in the nose—not hard enough to break it but sufficient to send blood spraying.
He finished off with a fast, hard series of slaps to Fargo’s lips, splitting them open on his teeth. Fargo could hear the sickening thuds and painful grunts as Norton gave Buckshot the same treatment.
“That’s fine,” Jenny announced cheerfully. “Lift up their shirts and smear some of the blood on those, too. Leave their hands tied, of course—they are, after all, prisoners. Come along, everyone, let’s stroll through the gulch.”
“Ma’am,” Buckshot managed, “if me and Fargo are your favorites, I’d hate like hell to be in your bad books.”
Fargo, feeling woozy and unsteady on his feet, cast a baleful eye at El Burro. He spat out a gob of blood and said, “You know—I felt sorry for you two when Jenny described what the Comanches did to you. But there are limits to human sympathy, and you just reached mine.”
“Why, Mr. Fargo!” Jenny exclaimed, clearly amused. “Are you threatening Burro?”
“I don’t make threats,” Fargo replied in the same mild tone. “I’m just telling him he’d better kill me because I’m sure-God gonna kill him.”
* * *
At least, Fargo noted gratefully as Jenny led her odd-looking troupe into the gulch, it had rained during the night—he could see fresh puddles pockmarking the hog wallow that passed for Hangtown’s only street. That meant the little cistern he and Buckshot had made for their horses had been replenished somewhat. He only hoped the tethers were long enough to allow them enough graze to keep them in the draw.
But if the two men didn’t escape this place soon, Fargo realized, they’d lose both their horses and their rifles—and likely their li
ves.
Jenny took Fargo’s elbow and pushed him slightly ahead of the others, speaking low so only he could hear.
“You know, Jasmine must be the excitable and melodramatic type. She gave me a rather incredible report about you last night.”
“Oh? How so?”
“I’m not saying she lied to me, mind you. But her experience with men is probably limited to her late husband. Her description of your…male endowment has to be gross exaggeration. Fisherman’s lie and all that?”
She gave him a quizzical glance.
“Distinct possibility,” Fargo agreed. “The light was dim.”
“Hmm. As to her rapturous account of your supposed prowess and endurance, well, I’m told each horse bucks to its own pattern, but so far as I can tell men are all the same. Sixty-second wonders…and the handsome ones like you are the most disappointing. One quick grunt and they fall asleep.”
Fargo shrugged. “Best way to check the weather,” he advised, “is to step outside into it.”
“I’ve got a plan,” she said mysteriously. “But a sexually conventional man will not do.”
She left it there, so Fargo said, “This gulch is full of woman-starved men. They can’t all be conventional.”
“You’d have to know my unique tastes to be sure of that. Besides, you can see the lice leaping off their filthy clothes. That’s why Butch…gathered up some soiled doves to sate the brutes. Unfortunately, the girls were barbarously treated and made their escape.”
“Leaving you and the prisoners the only women in town?”
“Sadly, yes. If things come to a head, I’m afraid I may have to offer up Jasmine as a sacrifice. As for me, I’d rather wallow with hogs.”
“Yeah, but do you tell them that? Or do you keep them all het up so they’ll do your bidding?”
She scowled darkly. “I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of the pie.”
A moment later, however, she smiled. “Maybe that was the wrong metaphor?”
Fargo grinned. “I sure hope not.”
Hangtown looked far more squalid and disgusting in the stark light of day. Rats nearly the size of rabbits feasted on the garbage strewn everywhere. The slapdash hovels and she-bangs made the poorest farmer’s chicken coop look like Buckingham Palace.
Jenny made a point of starting her “tour” at the far end by the gallows. The freshest of the corpses was covered in a shifting blanket of bluebottle flies and the putrid stench of death—sickly sweet and heavy—tickled Fargo’s gag reflex.
Jenny held a lace-edged handkerchief over her nose. “It’s sickening, I know, but it’s the smell of money.”
Fargo looked at Buckshot and shook his head in amazement. Jenny caught the gesture and laughed. “There ought to be a law, right, Mr. Fargo?”
As they headed back into the gulch she pointed to a shack near the center of the outlaw outpost. “That’s the place shared by Butch McDade, Lupe Cruz, and Waldo Tate—just in case you ever need to know.”
Again Fargo exchanged a quick glance with Buckshot, raising his eyebrows in curiosity. That remark, Fargo reflected, sounded like an invitation to kill her “unholy trinity.” But with this odd woman, motives were something written on water.
Two large army tents sat opposite each other. She led them into the one on the north side of the hog wallow.
“We call this,” she explained, “the Temple of Morpheus. Neither gospel nor gunpowder will ever reform Hangtown, so I made sure there’s a brake on men’s wilder impulses.”
The place reeked of opium and many of the “patrons” were slumped over tables asleep or sat with their eyes glazed in trances. Fargo spotted Waldo Tate watching them serenely from eyes like dull glass orbs.
“I detest opiates myself,” she confided to her prisoners. “But even a benevolent tyrant is wise to keep her subjects…subdued as much as possible. Liquor makes men wild, so I make sure the bartenders ‘baptize’ it by watering it down for most of the men. Do you use the Chinese pipe, Mr. Fargo?”
He shook his head. “I’ve made my share of enemies, and for me the readiness is all.”
“The readiness is all,” she repeated in an admiring tone. “What a felicitous phrase. My sentiments exactly. Perhaps we shall see which one of us most lives up to that credo?”
“Judging from the condition of my face,” Fargo replied, “I’d say you’ve got the edge on me.”
She led them back outside. By now the few men in the street had spotted her little group and warily followed as Jenny aimed for the other big tent across the street.
“Good,” she said in a satisfied tone. “They’ve seen my battered and bloodied prisoners. Now we’ll add the crowning touch and take you into our mean facsimile of a saloon, the Bucket of Blood.”
“You promised a complete tour,” Fargo spoke up. “So what about that place?”
He pointed with his chin toward the crude stone structure with a guard seated out front.
She sent him a canny look. “I see you know all about our…guests? By all means, let’s look in on them.”
“Morning, Little Britches,” the guard greeted her, doffing his hat. He glanced at Fargo and Buckshot and whistled sharply. “Man alive! These two b’hoys have been chawed up something fierce.”
Jenny led them into the dim, dank-smelling interior. Fargo spotted four dejected, hopeless-looking adults, a young couple and a middle-aged couple. They sat on filthy straw pallets, the young woman clutching an infant. Their clothing was dirty and rumpled, the air stale and foul; roaches and flies crawled everywhere, and the young mother kept brushing them from her baby’s filthy blanket.
“Not ideal conditions,” Jenny admitted, “but they’re fed regularly and get clean water.”
“Please, miss,” the young mother pleaded, “my little girl needs milk. She can’t hold down the solid food.”
“I’m truly sorry,” Jenny replied, “but we have no cows in Hangtown. Perhaps a little cornmeal mush will help—I’ll see that you get some. As soon as we receive the ransom—I mean, the travel funds—you’ll be free to go.”
The desperate young woman gave Fargo a pleading look that knifed him to his core. He felt a hot welling of anger at the sight of the pale, sickly child, but he guessed he was being tested and held his face expressionless. Jenny’s questioning of Buckshot last night suggested she had a partnership in mind, an idea Fargo had to encourage.
Back outside in the bright morning sunlight, Jenny looked at Fargo and demanded, “Well? In the parlance of the frontier, was that too rich for your belly?”
Fargo lifted a shoulder, clamping his teeth around his first retort. He had to walk a fine line here because this woman had a potent mind. He needed to come off as reluctant but flexible.
“You don’t really plan to turn them loose, do you?”
“How can I? They know too much.”
“Well, I don’t care too much about the men, Miss Lavoy. But kidnapping and murdering women and children doesn’t set too well with me.”
“It’s not my first choice, Mr. Fargo, but they bring in the most money.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But kidnapping is too risky for the profit. If the crapsheets get into a boil over it, you could have a smart chance of trouble on your hands. There’s quicker, easier ways to make a lot more money without all the national outrage.”
“Such as…?”
“Well, like heisting mining company payrolls. There’s several big operations just south of here in the Front Range. They usually have a light guard, and the public doesn’t give a damn if the big bugs in silk toppers get robbed.”
She watched Fargo with keen interest. “I see. Have you ever robbed one?”
“No, but I’ve been sorely tempted.”
By now they had stepped into the smoky, stinking interior of the Bucket of Blood. Fargo realized most of the denizens of Hangtown were here, packed in like maggots in cheese—perhaps thirty men. They included Butch McDade and Lupe Cruz, leaning against the plank bar whil
e they exercised their livers.
“Well, now,” an obviously pleased McDade said, looking at the battered and swollen maps of the two prisoners. “This is more like it. Why’n’t you just have them two geldings of yours finish the job, Little Britches? Better yet, let Lupe here slit their entrails open.”
“They’re money in our pockets, Butch, so long as they’re alive.”
A big, florid-faced bully wearing a filthy shirt sewn from old feed sacks moved in closer, lips twisted in scorn as he studied Fargo. “So this here’s the big crusader, huh? The big man, brought down by a little chit of a girl no bigger’n a minute. Pull up your skirt, Nancy, and try to look brave.”
Laughter and jeers exploded throughout the tent.
“And glom this half-breed gazabo siding him,” the loudmouth taunted. “Why, they must be a couple of them gal-boys you hear tell of. Tell me, Fargo, which one pitches and which one catches?”
More laughter and hoots. “Give him a facer, Lem!” somebody shouted.
“Believe I’ll do just that,” Lem answered, doubling up a fist the size of a Virginia ham. “Nobody misses a slice off a cut loaf, huh? One more punch won’t matter none.”
“Burro,” Jenny said quietly, “you better—”
“Never mind,” Fargo cut in. “I’ll handle this one. Burro, Norton, just keep your eyes on Lupe and Butch—they might try to kill Jenny.”
Fargo’s real concern was for himself and Buckshot, but he knew the bodyguards didn’t give a tinker’s damn about either of them. The thug named Lem cocked back his arm and took a step closer to Fargo.
That was the move Fargo had been counting on. His muscle-corded right leg shot up as fast as an arrow leaving the bow. There was a solid thud of impact when the toe of his boot landed exactly on bead, smashing Lem’s family jewels.
Lem’s face drained of color as if he’d been leeched. He dropped to his knees, making sucking-drain noises, and clutched his crotch. But Fargo wasn’t about to let it go at that. A homicidal rage had been seething beneath the surface since that earlier beating while his hands were tied. Besides, he had two crucial goals to accomplish: convincing these filthy jackals that the legend of Skye Fargo was in fact a real man to be feared; and convincing Jenny Lavoy that she should hitch her star to his wagon, not Butch McDade’s.
