Bowie's Knife

by Jon Sharpe

  “If you’re smart it is,” Fargo said.

  The batwings creaked and the jangling of their spurs faded.

  “Thank God,” the bartender said. “I thought for sure they would spill blood.”

  “Someone would,” Fargo said. He twirled the Colt into his holster, picked up the bottle, and took a healthy pull. Setting it down, he turned to Consuelo and grinned. “Now where were we?”

  6

  Fargo liked women who liked it as much as he did.

  Consuelo liked it a lot. Once they reached her room, she melted into him, kissing, groping, caressing, massaging .

  The room was small but comfortable. Curtains adorned a window and a rug covered the floor. The bed was a surprise: a four-poster with a flowered quilt.

  At the first touch of her hand below his belt, Fargo felt himself swell.

  “Oh, my,” Consuelo husked in his ear. “You are grande, yes?”

  “Ever seen a redwood?” Fargo said.

  It fired her hunger. Eagerly, she drew him to the bed and clawed at his buckskins as if fit to rip them off.

  As Fargo had suspected, she didn’t have anything on under her dress. Once he’d peeled it from her luscious body, she lay on her back with a leg crooked in invitation. She was exquisite to behold: full, ripe breasts, their tips rigid as nails; a flat tummy and a bushy thatch; and creamy thighs that went on forever.

  Fargo got a constriction in his throat just looking at her. He ran his hands everywhere and roamed his mouth over her tits and her stomach and up to her ear. Her lobe was sensitive and she arched her back when he licked and nipped it.

  It wasn’t long before Consuelo became an inferno of desire. She was especially fond of cupping him down low and running her hand his entire hard length. It made him shiver.

  At the back of his mind Fargo didn’t forget he was supposed to meet up with Dandy and the others. After about ten minutes of foreplay, he eased to his knees between Consuelo’s legs, spread her wide, and went to penetrate her.

  Consuelo, smiling hungrily, pushed his hand away to do it herself. Uttering tiny mews of pleasure, she fed him in inch by gradual inch, her eyes widening toward the end. “There is so much of you,” she breathed. “I love it.”

  “Do tell,” Fargo said. He stroked just once, lifting her bottom off the bed.

  “Ahhh!” Consuelo moaned. Digging her fingernails into his shoulders, she bit him. “Do it, senor. Do it rough.”

  Fargo propped his hands on either side of her and became a living piston, driving up and in, up and in, each thrust inciting her more.

  Consuelo cooed and kissed and gooaned and caressed and reached the summit before he did. She crested with a cry of rapture, her thighs clamping tight as her tunnel burst with moisture. She gushed and gushed, an upheaval that would do justice to an earthquake. At last she subsided and lay limp and satiated, saying, “That was magnificent.”

  “We’re not done.”

  Her eyes widened anew as Fargo resumed his rhythm, rocking on his knees and his hands. Her inner sheath was a wet glove that heightened his pleasure.

  He was at it a good long while. She came again and was on the verge of a third time when he felt himself about to explode.

  Consuelo sensed it, too. “Make me scream,” she said.

  Fargo did. Afterward, they lay on their sides facing each other. He was slick with sweat and fully relaxed for the first time in days. “Gracias,” he said.

  “No, thank you,” Consuelo said breathlessly. “You are one of the best ever.”

  “I bet you say that to all the bulls,” Fargo joked. He closed his eyes, tempted to doze off. But no, if he did, he’d keep Dandy and the others waiting. Fighting the urge off, he slowly sat up and leaned back against the headboard.

  “You are leaving already?” Consuelo asked.

  “I have to,” Fargo said. “Damn it.”

  “Come visit me again, yes? I would like that very much.” Consuelo placed the tip of a finger on his gut and moved it in slow circles, lower each time.

  “No, you don’t,” Fargo said, grinning. He slid off before she got him hard again, and put himself together. His boots were last, and as he tugged them on, she played with his hair and his ear.

  “I am sorry to see you go. You are great fun.”

  “Tell me something,” Fargo thought to ask. “How long have you been here?”

  “About five years now. Why?”

  “Ever hear of someone who has a knife that supposedly belonged to James Bowie?”

  “Bowie? The knife-fighter from the Alamo? I have not, no,” Consuelo said. “I hear a lot of gossip, thanks to my work. But I have never heard that.”

  “You call this work?” Fargo teased, and gave her fanny a swat.

  Consuelo squealed in delight. “Men like to talk when they are through. They tell me about their wives, their families, their lives. It bores me but they pay me so I endure it.”

  “Speaking of pay,” Fargo said, and reached for his poke.

  “No, handsome one,” Consuelo said, placing her hand on his. “That is not necessary.”

  “I don’t mind,” Fargo said.

  “I do. This time was for me. For the fun of it, as you gringos say.”

  “Suit yourself.” Fargo kissed her, and stood. He strolled out at peace with the world until he got to the main room.

  They were back. Basilio was to the right of the batwings, Tadeo to the left, their thumbs hooked in their gun belts.

  “Some folks,” Fargo said, “have no brains.”

  “We are not here for you,” Basilio said. “Only to take the woman to someone who wants her company.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Tadeo said. “I would try this gringo if not for you.”

  “You are too hot-blooded,” Basilio said, “and are to do as I say.” He moved away from the doorway.

  Swearing bitterly in Spanish, Tadeo, too, backed off.

  Fargo’s bottle was still on the bar. He snagged it with his left hand and walked out, careful not to turn his back to Tadeo as he shoved through the batwings.

  The horses at the hitch rail had hung their heads from the heat. Down the street, Bronack emerged from a building with a small man in a dark suit, shook the man’s hand, and came toward the cantina.

  Fargo leaned against the front wall and treated himself to more whiskey. A single bottle wouldn’t get him drunk, as it did most men. It took two or three.

  “All taken care of,” Bronack said when he was close enough. “That was the undertaker.” He looked around. “Seen any sign of Miss Caventry and her brother?”

  Fargo shook his head.

  “I shouldn’t have left them alone,” Bronack said. He dug a pocket watch from his vest and flipped the cover open. “It hasn’t been an hour yet so maybe that’s why.”

  Fargo held out the bottle.

  “I shouldn’t.” But Bronack took a light swallow and gave the bottle back.

  “That’s all?”

  “I’ll get good and drunk when I get back to Austin. Not before.” Bronack glanced sharply to the north. “Here they come. It looks like they’re arguing.”

  “When don’t they?” Fargo said.

  Dandelion and Lester were at it again, with Lester doing a lot of angry gesturing. His sister, unruffled, kept shaking her head.

  “They remind me of my niece and nephew,” Bronack said, “who are eight and ten years old.”

  Fargo chuckled.

  The siblings neared the hitch rail. Lester was red in the face and looked ready to spit nails.

  “What is it this time?” Fargo asked.

  “None of your business,” Lester snapped.

  “He wants me to offer less for the bowie than Father told us to,” Dandy said, “and keep the difference for ourselves.”

  “Why not?” Les
ter said. “As I keep having to remind you over and over, it’s our inheritance he’s squandering.”

  “I’m so tired of you going on about that,” Dandy said. “It’s not really ours until Father dies, and he could live a good twenty years yet. Who knows how much money he’ll have to pass on by then?”

  “That’s exactly my point,” Lester said. “I don’t intend to let him deprive me of what’s rightfully mine.”

  “God, Les.”

  “Don’t God me, consarn you.”

  Maybe it was tangling with the pistoleros or maybe it was the heat and the whiskey, but Fargo had reached the end of his patience. Striding over to Lester, he poked him in the chest so hard, Lester almost fell. “Not another goddamn word about your goddamn inheritance.”

  Lester was incredulous. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

  “I’ll do a hell of a lot more than talk if you don’t shut the hell up.”

  “Skye, no,” Dandy said softly.

  “You have to put up with him because he’s your brother,” Fargo said. “I don’t. If he annoys me just one more time—”

  Lester turned to Bronack. “You’re standing right there. You had to hear him threaten me. Yet once again you do nothing.”

  “He hasn’t gone for his gun,” Bronack said.

  “I’ll remember this,” Lester fumed. “I’ll tell Father and have you fired. Just see if I don’t.”

  Dandy stepped to her horse. “Enough. Let’s be on our way. With a little luck we can conclude our business by nightfall and head home.”

  The road was an inch thick with dust and pockmarked with hoofprints. On both sides stretched grassland, the grass mostly brown from the summer heat. A lone belt of green along the Rio Grande was the exception.

  Fargo was in the lead, his hand on his Colt. Whoever had sent the bandits might send others.

  Dandy brought her bay up next to the Ovaro. “Did you enjoy that run-down little hole of a saloon?” she sarcastically asked.

  “It was a nice hole,” Fargo said.

  “Now that we’re almost there, it’s only fair I warn you,” Dandy said. “The person we’re going to see, the person who claims to have the bowie, has a reputation for being vicious when their ire is aroused.”

  “People have ires?” Fargo said.

  “Poke fun if you must. But be on your best behavior when we get there. I don’t want you to ruin my father’s chance to buy the knife.”

  “If anyone will ruin it,” Fargo said, “it’s your brother.”

  “Even he wouldn’t dare make her mad.”

  “Her?”

  Dandy frowned. “I might as well reveal the rest. Her name is Patterson. Sarah Patterson. Most in these parts know her by her nickname.”

  “Which is?” Fargo prompted when she didn’t go on.

  “The Throat Slitter.”

  7

  As Dandy related it, Sarah Patterson had married into money. Not once or twice but three times. Her latest conquest had been rough-and-tumble Charlie Patterson, owner of the Bar P, one of the largest ranches in all of Texas.

  Patterson had been pushing fifty. He was too busy in his earlier years establishing his cattle empire to give any thought to getting hitched. Then one day he went on a trip to Houston and met Sarah.

  The cynical had it that she played him like a fiddle and wrapped him around her little finger. The cynical were probably right. Before Charlie left Houston, they were engaged. Before six months had gone by, they were hitched. Sarah moved in to Charlie’s sprawling ranch house and immediately took over.

  “All that’s fine and dandy,” Fargo interrupted. “But how did she get the nickname of Throat Slitter?”

  “I’m coming to that,” Dandy said.

  Apparently Sarah had become very protective of the Bar P. Even more than Charlie. Their ranch bordered another on the Mexican side, the Alante spread, and when some vaqueros pushed their cattle onto the Bar P, claiming the land was Alante’s, Charlie and his punchers, and Sarah, paid their camp a visit.

  Fargo grunted in surprise. It was rare for a man to take his wife along on something like that. Range disputes often resulted in gunplay.

  “No one ever saw those vaqueros again,” Dandy revealed. “Alante sent word to Charlie Patterson that it was a mistake and assured Patterson nothing like that would ever happen again.”

  “Men can’t just vanish,” Fargo said.

  “It’s just a rumor, mind you, but my father says that Charlie explained to the vaqueros that they were on his land and asked them to herd their cattle back where it belonged. They refused. Charlie was still trying to reason with them when Sarah ordered the Bar P hands to jump them and hold them down. Supposedly eight vaqueros were taken alive.” Dandy paused. “Sarah went from one to the next and slit their throats.”

  “Charlie Patterson did nothing?”

  “The word is that Charlie was very much afraid of her. When she invited Senor Alante to their ranch for a parley, he went along with it. And then stood by and did nothing when she had her men hold Alante down so she could slit his throat, too.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “The Alante spread became part of the Bar P. Charlie died about three years ago and Sarah has had the ranch to herself ever since. She hasn’t remarried. My father met her once. He told me she runs the Bar P like a queen, and anyone who crosses her regrets it.”

  “This is the woman who has Bowie’s knife?”

  “She claims she does, yes. She sent her ramrod, a gentleman called Brazos, to contact my father, and here we are.”

  “How did she get hold of it?”

  “We don’t know. The ramrod said she had heard Father was interested in Alamo artifacts and she was offering it to him first but if he wasn’t interested, she’d find another buyer.”

  “I’d have made her bring the knife to me.”

  “She never leaves the Bar P these days. Or so her foreman assured us.” Dandy gazed in the direction they were riding. “Father couldn’t think of any reason she would try to dupe him. It’s not as if she needs the money.”

  It was another hour and a half before the rutted road brought them to a sign made of logs and planks. BEYOND THIS POINT IS BAR P LAND, it read. NO TRESPASSING ALLOWED. RUSTLERS WILL BE HUNG. DRUMMERS WILL BE TARRED AND FEATHERED.

  “Friendly place,” Fargo said.

  They no sooner passed the sign than two young cowboys rode up out of a dry wash to bar their way. Both wore chaps and pistols, and the taller of the two demanded, “Who are you and what’s your business on the Bar P?”

  “I’m Dandelion Caventry,” Dandy explained. “Your mistress sent for us.”

  “Caventry?” the tall puncher said. “Then you’d be the knife lady?”

  “I would.”

  “I’m to take you to the ranch house when you show up. These others have to stay here.”

  “Out of the question,” Dandy said.

  “Ma’am, those orders are straight from Mrs. Patterson herself.”

  “All four of us go or none of us do,” Dandy said. “Send word to her and we’ll wait.”

  “It’d be three days before I got back,” the tall puncher said. “You want to wait that long?”

  “You’re joshing.”

  “Ma’am, this is the Bar P. It takes ten days to ride across it from end to end It’ll take a day and a half just to to reach the ranch house and a day and half to come back.”

  “I had no idea.” Dandy pondered and said, “I don’t care. We’ll make camp and wait. I’m not leaving my brother. And these other two go with us or we don’t go at all.”

  The cowboys consulted in low tones and the tall puncher frowned and cleared his throat.

  “All right, ma’am. I’ll likely as not get in trouble with the boss. But she did say I wasn’t to waste time fetching you.”<
br />
  “I’ll speak to her on your behalf,” Dandy offered.

  “That’s kind of you, ma’am,” the tall man said, “but you don’t know her like I do.”

  They rode hard. Fargo lost count of the cattle they saw. A fortune on the hoof.

  That night they camped by a spring. The punchers sat by themselves and didn’t say much. Lester was in one of his sulks. Bronack hadn’t gotten over Waxler and spent the evening staring into his coffee cup. Even Dandy was unusually quiet.

  “Sure is a lively bunch,” Fargo remarked.

  “I have a lot on my mind,” Dandy said. “I’m hoping everything goes well so I can justify Father’s faith in me.”

  “You need to relax,” Fargo suggested. “How about if we go for a stroll?”

  “Just the two of us? Alone in the dark?” Dandy shook her head, but grinned. “You never give up, do you?”

  “As easy on the eyes as you are,” Fargo said, “you can’t blame me.”

  “Flattery, sir, will get you nowhere,” Dandy teased. “It’s not as if men haven’t tried all kinds of ways before.”

  “Here’s one I bet you haven’t heard.” Fargo bent so no one else would hear. “We go for a walk, do what comes naturally, and sleep like babies the rest of the night.”

  Dandy had a marvelous laugh. “I would accuse you of being a cad but I know you’re just being playful.”

  “You see right through me,” Fargo said. The hell of it was, he was serious. But since he wasn’t going to get up her dress, he announced that he’d keep first watch if the rest wanted to turn in.

  The punchers were the first to spread their bedrolls. Bronack was next, saying he’d relieve Fargo at midnight. Lester sat in his usual perpetual sulk but finally he lay down and pulled a blanket over his head.

  That left Dandy. She sat and doodled in the dirt with a stick.

  “Not tired?” Fargo said.

  “I’m too wrought up. If I’m wrong about the knife, I could cost my father a lot of money for nothing.”

  “It’s not as if he can’t spare it.”

  “That’s not the point. He trusts me.” She rubbed her shoulder, and winced. “My body is in knots, I’m so tense.”