by Jon Sharpe
They weren’t quite in range yet.
Fargo wished he had his old Sharps. With it he could pick them off at three times the distance. But he’d stopped using it because it was a single-shot, and in a tight spot, sixteen rounds beat one round any day.
He fixed a bead on the lead rider, a man in a sombrero who kept leaning to one side or the other. A tracker, he reckoned.
There wasn’t much of a breeze so he didn’t have to take the wind into account. And since he was only thirty feet up, the elevation wasn’t much of a factor, either.
The tracker drew rein. When the rest came up, he pointed at the bluff and said something to Sarah Patterson.
To Fargo’s consternation, they spread out. In a bunch they’d be easier to drop. A skirmish line could get in close before he could drop them.
Fargo was tempted to scramble back down and fan the breeze. But no. This was the spot he’d picked for his stand, and here it would be.
He didn’t recognize any of the riders. None were Bar P cowhands. They must be the men Sarah had sent Clay south to fetch. More gun hands, most likely.
Fargo had no compunctions about putting lead into them. They were out for his blood, and to make worm food of the Caventrys. They had it coming.
Sarah and the tracker were close together, the rest spaced out about ten yards apart. She waved an arm and started forward at a trot.
The tracker was Fargo’s first target. He held his breath to steady his body and was curling his finger around the trigger when fate played a dirty trick. The sun must have reflected off the Henry’s barrel or the brass receiver because the tracker stiffened and hollered and suddenly swung onto the side of his roan, Comanche-fashion.
The other riders raked their spurs. Revolvers were swept from holsters, rifles were pointed at the bluff.
“Damn,” Fargo said, and shot a man in a brown hat .
All hell erupted.
The riders unleashed a firestorm. Slugs smacked the bluff, high and low.
Some of the riders bent to make themselves harder to hit. Others charged recklessly, shooting as fast as they could shoot.
Fargo fired and a man reeled. He fired a second time and another tumbled over his mount’s rump.
By now they knew exactly where he was. All their lead came uncomfortably close. They were trying to keep him pinned down so they could reach the bluff.
Instead, Fargo rose up, fired, and flattened. Rose up, fired, and flattened. He dropped only two of the seven, and there was Sarah, yet.
Lead thumped and thudded and clipped the grass. When the spray slackened, he rose up for another shot.
Nearly all the riders were to the bluff. One pointed a Spencer.
Fargo cored his head.
“Up there!!” Sarah bellowed. “A thousand extra dollars to whoever kills the son of a bitch.”
A gun boomed. Not at the south end of the bluff, where the killers were, but at the north end, where Fargo had left Dandy and her brother.
Heaving to his feet, Fargo raced down the slope. Halfway, he saw Dandy in a crouch, holding her revolver two-handed as she fired.
Lester was in the middle of the horses, gripping a saddle horn as if about to mount or because he was so scared he couldn’t stand on his own two legs. The whites of his eyes were showing.
Fargo ran to Dandy and she glanced up and smiled.
“Just in time,” she yelled. “I’m holding them back but I’m about empty.”
A slug caught her in the shoulder and drilled out her back in a shower of blood and flesh and dress. It spun her around, and she dropped her six-shooter and cried out in agony.
The killer who had shot her was about to fire again.
Fargo sent lead through the man’s brain. Bending, he wrapped his left arm around Dandy and pulled her toward the horses.
“My pistol!”
“Forget the damn gun.” Fargo shoved her toward the horses and spun, just in time.
Two assassins were converging. One fired and Fargo’s hat went flying.
Quick as thought Fargo dropped him. He dropped the second. As he pumped the lever, Dandy screamed his name.
Another shooter was coming around the other side of the bluff. They both squeezed trigger at the instant they set eyes on each other. Fargo felt a sting in his leg. The shooter jolted to a halt with a new hole about where his heart should be.
Dandy screamed a second time.
Fargo tried to turn but he was too slow. A blow to the head pitched him to his knees. Another smashed the Henry from his hands. He clawed for the Colt but it was snatched from his holster.
“We have him, senora. Alive, as you wanted.”
It was the tracker. He had dark eyes and a neatly trimmed beard, and his gun belt was decorated with silver conchos.
Sarah Patterson came from behind him. She, too, wore a gun belt, but she hadn’t drawn her six-gun. She smirked at Fargo, and at Dandy on her knees a few yards away. “Well, well, well,” she said.
Fargo was struggling to collect his wits. He still had the Arkansas toothpick in its ankle sheath. The trick was to palm it without being seen.
“You put up a good fight, I’ll say that for you,” Sarah said.
“Go to hell,” Fargo got out.
Sarah made a clucking sound. “Now, now. I’m being civil. You can be too.” She turned toward the horses, and Lester. “And there’s your worthless excuse for a brother, my dear. Cowering, I see.”
Dandy, her hand over her wound, blood oozing between her fingers, groaned and said, “How could you?”
“How could I what?” Sarah placed her hands on her hips. “How could I go to so much trouble and expense to put your father in his place?”
“So Skye was right,” Dandy gasped. “This is about revenge.”
“Never anything else,” Sarah said. “I’m used to having my own way. To always getting what I want. I picked your father for husband number five but he refused to have anything to do with me.” She swore. “No one treats me like that. Especially a man.”
“You lured us here with the bowie to kill us?” Dandy said. “Is that how you want our father to suffer?”
“To tell the truth, dearie, I figured your pa would come himself. I had plans for him. It involved a fire and a branding iron. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when he wrote me that he was sending you and your harebrained brother.”
“You’re hideous,” Dandy said.
Sarah found that hilarious. After she was done laughing she said, “What I am is a woman scorned.”
Fargo had eased his fingers to his right boot. All he needed was a moment’s distraction.
“You won’t get away with this,” Dandy said through clenched teeth. “My father has influence. He’ll contact the Rangers.”
“Who will report back that you were murdered by bandits. I’ll have half a dozen people willing to testify to that effect.”
“What now?” Dandy asked. “You finish us off?”
The tall Mexican was listening to their exchange, and pointed his six-gun at her.
“You sure are anxious to die,” Sarah said. “Any last words before Emilio, here, puts one between your eyes?”
Fargo saw Lester come up unnoticed behind her and was momentarily rooted in shock at what he saw Lester was holding.
“I have a couple of last words,” Lester said.
Sarah snorted and began to turn. “What do you have to say, boy?”
“Die, bitch,” Lester screamed, and drove the bowie into her vitals.
Sarah Patterson shrieked.
Emilio leveled his revolver at Lester but before he could shoot, Fargo jumped erect and thrust the toothpick into his chest below the sternum. Once, twice, a third stab, and Emilio melted.
For a long minute afterward none of them spoke. They watched the bodies conv
ulse and the blood pools mingle.
“Guess I taught her,” Lester said, puffing out his chest.
“Can you stop preening and help me?” Dandy said. “I need bandaging before I bleed to death.” She wearily smiled up at Fargo. “How about you, Skye?”
“I need a drink,” Fargo said.
LOOKING FORWARD!
The following is the opening
section of the next novel in the exciting
Trailsman series from Signet:
TRAILSMAN #382
TERROR TRACKDOWN
1861, just over the Divide—someone makes the mistake of stealing a certain Ovaro.
The wolves came out of the timber at a run.
Skye Fargo wasn’t expecting trouble. He had crossed the Divide over Berthoud Pass and was winding down Clear Creek Canyon toward the Fraser River. Lower down were the foothills and the distant city of Denver.
The only things on his mind were whiskey, cards, and women, not necessarily in that order. A big man, wide at the shoulders and slim at the hips, he wore buckskins, boots, and a high-crowned hat, along with a red bandanna and a Colt that had seen a lot of use. He was looking forward to a week without a care in the world. He planned to spend it indulging in what some would call wild shenanigans and others would brand outright sinful. He aimed to get lucky, get drunk, and get laid, and again, not necessarily in that order.
The army’s campaign against a band of Modocs had taken a lot out of him. The renegades proved hard to find, and once found, proved that they were serious about fighting the white man to the last warrior. Now Fargo had time to himself, and he couldn’t wait to taste the treats that gave his life spice.
When three wolves broke out of pines about two hundred yards to the south, Fargo wasn’t alarmed. Wolves hardly ever went after people. They didn’t attack horses often, either.
At first sight he figured they were after deer or some other game. But then he saw that they weren’t paralleling the tree line. They were coming straight toward him. They were coming fast, too.
Bodies low to the ground, ears back, their tails straight, they flew toward him and the Ovaro in a beeline that left no doubt as to their purpose.
“What the hell?” Fargo blurted. He thought about jerking his Henry rifle from the saddle scabbard, but why bother? The Ovaro had a big enough lead that it could outrun them. Jabbing his spurs, he brought the stallion to a gallop.
They were on a flat stretch but soon he came to a slope and had to slow. Glancing back, he saw that the wolves were about a hundred and fifty yards away, give or take a few. He flew down the slope to another flat and used his spurs.
It wasn’t half a minute later that he glanced back again and realized he had miscalculated. The wolves weren’t directly behind him, they were closing at an angle. Already they’d cut the distance to a hundred and twenty yards and now they were coming on even faster.
“Damn.” Fargo urged the Ovaro to its peak and realized something else.
The stallion was tired. They’d been on the go for a lot of days, from sunrise to sunset, pushing hard over some of the most rugged country on the continent.
Still, Fargo had unbounded confidence in his mount. The Ovaro had saved his hash more times than he could count. Its stamina was exceptional. Even tired, it should be able to leave the wolves breathing its dust.
But when Fargo looked over his shoulder yet again, the wolves were another twenty to thirty yards nearer. They were big and in their prime and over short distances they could bring down a moose or an elk.
Or a horse.
His jaw muscles twitching in anger, Fargo rode as if the Ovaro’s life depended on it. Which it did.
They’d been through too much together. Some folks might deem it silly but he regarded the stallion as more of a pard than an animal. It was a friend, and he’d be damned if he’d let anything happen to it.
Another slope loomed. This one was steeper and littered with boulders, forcing Fargo to slow even more. At the bottom he snapped his head around and genuine worry blossomed.
The wolves weren’t more than eighty yards away.
“Son of a bitch.”
Fargo began to think about making a stand. Find a spot he could defend and resort to the Henry. If he picked the fastest wolf off, the rest might scatter. He’d tangled with wolves before. Most were spooked by the sound of gunfire.
That gave him an idea. Drawing his Colt, he shifted in the saddle. He doubted he’d hit them but he fired two swift shots anyway, hoping the blasts would bring them to a stop or cause them to veer away.
No such luck. The three lupine killers came on as determinedly as ever.
Fargo swore more colorfully. He’d gone from being angry to outright mad. He shoved the Colt into his holster and concentrated on riding.
The next time he glanced back the wolves were only sixty yards back.
Fargo needed to find a spot soon. He was at a narrow point in the valley, with forest to the north and the south. Trying to reach it would be pointless. Heavy timber would slow the Ovaro even more, and give the wolves the advantage of cover. He needed to fight them in the open.
Ahead was an ideal spot. maybe half an acre in extent. There were a few boulders but they were small and a few trees but they were far apart.
“There,” he said to himself.
On reaching it, Fargo hauled on the reins so sharply, the Ovaro slid to a stop on its haunches. He was out of the saddle before the stallion stopped moving, yanking on the Henry as he swung down. He worked the lever to feed a cartridge into the chamber, dropped to a knee, and took deliberate aim at the foremost wolf.
By now the wolves were only forty yards away.
Fargo heard the Ovaro whinny and assumed it was because of the three wolves he was about to shoot. Then the stallion whinnied again and he risked a quick glance to find out why and his blood became ice in his veins.
Two more wolves were closing from the north.
It was a typical tactic. A pack split and converged on prey from two or more directions. And while the prey was focused on one group, the rest rushed in close enough for the kill.
Fargo should have kept a lookout for more. He fixed a quick bead on the first wolf to the west and smoothly stroked the trigger. At the boom, the wolf went into a roll but was on its paws again in a twinkling and running strong.
Fargo worked the lever to fire again. Things had gone to hell and now it was do or die. He fired and the first wolf’s legs buckled and it slid to a stop and this time it didn’t rise.
Whirling, Fargo snapped a shot at the wolves to the north but he must have missed because the wolf he shot at didn’t slow or stumble.
This was bad. Four wolves, two thirty yards to the west and two about the same to the north. Grim ravagers, out to bring the Ovaro down no matter what. Odds were he couldn’t drop all four before the wolves were on them.
Fargo took a step back thinking that if he vaulted onto the stallion and rode like hell he still might be able to get away but then his left heel struck a rock he hadn’t noticed, and before he could catch himself, he fell. He landed on his back and instantly twisted to rise.
The wolves were so close he could see the gleam of bloodlust in their eyes.
Snapping the Henry to his shoulder, Fargo fired. The wolf he shot at yelped and broke stride but didn’t go down. He worked the lever and fired again and now there were only three but three was more than enough, and the wolves had reached them.
Another whinny shattered the air as Fargo jacked the lever. He hadn’t quite worked it all the way when a hairy form slammed into him with the impact of an avalanche. The next moment he was flat on the ground with a wolf straddling him, and the only thing keeping the wolf’s slavering jaws from his throat was the Henry, which he had shoved against the wolf’s throat.
The Ovaro whinnied louder than ever.
Fear lent him the strength to heave the wolf off even as fangs tore his sleeve and raked his forearm. Rising onto a knee, he shoved the muzzle at its face and sent a slug crashing through its skull.
Fargo spun.
The two remaining wolves had ringed the Ovaro. Snarling and snapping, they leaped at its legs and its belly.
Rearing, the stallion flailed with its heavy hooves and there was the sharp crack of splintering bones. The Ovaro kicked out and sent the wolf tumbling.
The last wolf had crouched and waited its chance. Now it saw it. With a powerful bound, it sprang at the Ovaro’s unprotected throat.
