The Trailsman #396

by Jon Sharpe

  “You’re a private,” Fargo reminded him. “You don’t pick your bosses.”

  Sergeant Woodrow “Red” Robinson hauled back on the reins and stared at the dead man sprawled at the bottom of the slope.

  “He’s a freebooter,” Fargo explained. “Belonged to Pablo Alvarez’s gang.”

  Fargo pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Lupe copped it bad. Looks like the Scorpion’s work.”

  “Leaving plenty out, ain’tcher, Fargo?” Grizz Bear put in like a schoolboy tattletale. “Like how this dead bandito is Juan Salazar’s brother? And how both of ’em hail from the Scorpion’s hometown?”

  Sergeant Robinson grabbed the horn and swung down. He was a ­big-­bellied man with powerful muscles. The NCO was vain about his appearance and wore a long duster to protect his clothing, a gun belt cinching it.

  “If you were fired on, Fargo, you had no choice,” he said pointlessly. “But I’ll need reports from you men on Lupe Vargas. And just a reminder to all of you: the U.S. Army Camel Corps has two missions, and two only. First, to establish a new supply and emigrant trail across the Mojave. And second, to figure out the best way to use the camels and see how they rate against pack mules.”

  Robinson stood with his feet planted wide, thumbs tucked behind his shell belt. He nodded toward the badly pulped body. “One thing we are not is jackleg lawmen.”

  “Like you said,” Fargo reminded him, “we were fired on. Ain’t like we forced a ­call-­down.”

  Fargo was an old acquaintance of the officer in charge of the Camel Corps, Lieutenant Ed Beale, a longtime desert explorer and blazer of several key desert trails. But Beale had been abruptly pulled from the expedition and ordered north to Fort Mojave to meet with an official from the War Department.

  Fargo had so far had no major dustups with the burly, redheaded top sergeant Beale left in charge. However, he had the distinct impression that Robinson was inexperienced at top field command and would turn to brutality and stupidity when adversity exposed that inexperience.

  Sergeant Robinson shifted his attention to Juan Salazar. “You report to my tent later after we make camp. I want to know more about this dead brother of yours.”

  Without warning Robinson whirled on Jude.

  “Wipe that stupid, ­shit-­eating grin off your dial, Trooper Hollander, and get back to your duties! Fargo doesn’t rate an orderly.”

  “­But—”

  “But me no buts, trooper. We’ve got a big river to ford, and those damn fool Arab tribesmen don’t even know if camels can swim. I ain’t chewing my lip, ­Hollander—­any lollygaggers will get a taste of the cowhide.”

  Grizz Bear cleared his throat. He had been hired because of his knowledge of desert Indian languages and warfare.

  “A-course you mean any soldier lollygaggers, Red,” he said. “Any foolish son of a bitch who tries to cowhide this child will die slow with a burning gut.”

  “You like to talk about death, old man,” Robinson retorted after he heaved his considerable bulk into the saddle. “I’ll discipline any man who endangers this mission.”

  He reined the sorrel around and sank steel into it, racing back toward the river encampment.

  “Not exactly a ­play-­the-­crowd man,” Fargo remarked.

  “Didja know Robinson had him a brother who killed a bank teller?” Grizz Bear said.

  Fargo shook his head, not much interested.

  “It was back someplace in Indiana. You might say he got a suspended ­sentence—­they hung him.”

  “Sounds like a latrine rumor,” Fargo said, eyes flicking toward Salazar. The Mexican was trudging back toward his mule.

  “It ain’t no rumor, Mr. Fargo,” Jude cut in. “I heard him brag about it at grub pile one night.”

  “I don’t cotton to the son of a bitch,” Grizz Bear said. “Always swingin’ his eggs like he’s some. He’s a prick, is what he is.”

  “All sergeants are pricks,” Fargo scoffed. “This is the army, you knucklehead, not a freethinkers’ society. Quit teaching the kid to disrespect rank.”

  “Fargo, you ­two-­faced groat! You got no respect for rank yourself.”

  “I always respect it . . . insofar as I can.”

  “I will bring a shovel,” Salazar called over before he clucked to the mule, “and bury both bodies.”

  Jude tugged up his picket pin. “Mr. Fargo, what if them camels can’t swim?”

  Fargo forked leather, strong white teeth flashing in a grin through his ­close-­cropped beard. “That would be an army logistical problem, Jude. I’m just a contract scout.”

  “If them ugly, stinking sons-of-­the-­sand-­dunes drown,” Grizz Bear suggested, “we can pull some ashore and butcher out some hump steaks. I been wondering if it’s as tasty as buff meat.”

  Jude stared into Grizz Bear’s tired, ­grit-­galled eyes. But they peered out of the weathered grooves of a face like windswept stone.

  “He’s joking, ain’t he?” the young soldier asked Fargo.

  The Trailsman grunted to acknowledge the question but gave no reply.

  • • •

  Fargo topped a rise overlooking the Colorado at a site where the river broadened, slowing the current slightly.

  Finally, after many weeks of hard travel, the Camel Corps had reached the King of Desert Rivers. The ultimate goal was the dusty pueblo of Los Angeles and here at last was California. But first the burning, vast, ­water-­scarce Mojave Desert must be ­conquered—­and the Colorado forded.

  Fargo wasn’t surprised they had gotten this far without discovering whether or not camels could swim. Many creek and stream beds sliced the desert, but only a few held water more than two or three weeks. Rivers tended to flow on its margins, not across it, which made the Colorado River fifteen hundred miles of literal lifeblood as it twisted and turned from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of ­Mexico—­right smack through the heart of the American desert and the jealously protected Mojave Indian homeland.

  This new ford, selected by Ed Beale, was about seventy miles north of the usual crossing at Quartzsite. After crossing into California they would blaze a new trail and inspect water sources as they linked remote Mojave outposts like Fort Tejon and scattered American and Mormon settlements on or near the route to Los Angeles.

  But the sight that riveted Fargo’s attention at the moment was the barely controlled chaos straight ahead at river’s edge.

  How ­twenty-­five camels could raise a ruckus like two hundred was beyond Fargo, but this bunch always did. They were big, clumsy, shaggy, waddling, with bells around their necks to warn of their ­proximity—­they were excellent stalkers and Fargo had so far been bitten on the ass and copiously spat on with a foul and most disgusting “cud broth” that coated like gun oil.

  “Lookit!” Grizz Bear said, pointing. “Lookit Topsy chewin’ her ­cud—­lookit them big, floppy lips! Them ­lips—­them—”

  Grizz Bear broke up laughing and smacking his thigh. “I ain’t never seen the like in all my born days,” he finally managed. “Lookit them damn lips! A-floppin’ up and down ­like—­say, they’re just like fingers, too. I seen that troublemaker Mad Maggie using her lips to untie a tent line—that’s no shit.”

  He lost control again and by now the rest were laughing, too. Fargo had never seen such an ugly, comical species in his life. And the stench blowing off them always forced him to eat upwind of the camels.

  It was just last year when Fargo first caught word that Ed ­Beale—­backed by Secretary of War Jefferson ­Davis—­had got up some foolish plan to use camels in the deserts. Like most veteran frontiersmen, Fargo had treated the notion as a lunkheaded lark even when he was hired on.

  But observation and experience had since reformed his ­thinking on some points. Fargo had been along when a ­six-­camel caravan had hauled a ton of supplies sixty miles in one ­day—�
�a record no other pack animal could ever match in the desert.

  “The ­one-­humpers are lighter and faster,” Jude said.

  Grizz Bear shifted his gun belt, grunted as he threw a leg around the horn, and began to build himself a smoke.

  “Them ugly hunchback horses don’t wear no metal shoes,” he praised, “but there ain’t nothin’ they can’t walk across. And after a spell horses and mules will tolerate ’em just so’s they don’t get too close.”

  Fargo granted all that. And he had quickly been convinced of the beasts’ astounding ability to withstand heat and go without water. But Ed Beale and his supporters had wildly exaggerated visions of camels hauling the mail and even carrying soldiers into battle.

  All that was possible, maybe, except for a form of incurable camel rebellion that Fargo called “the ­walk-­down.” When the mood came over the ­leaders—­even when well fed and ­rested—­they simply began walking slower and slower.

  Beating, cajoling, coaxing, prodding, even singing had no effect. The same camels who might give sixty miles in one day often gave only fifteen over easier terrain. Nor were the camel boosters realistic about the preferences of American riders. Fargo had climbed aboard one of the camels for a short ride and quickly became violently seasick. By his lights camels didn’t walk or ­trot—­they pitched and rolled like jolly boats on angry swells.

  “There goes Salazar totin’ a shovel,” Grizz Bear said. “He won’t dig your grave, ­Fargo—­just fill it.”

  Fargo ignored him, dismounting as he reached the clamorous bottleneck beside the river. The party was made up of soldiers, Mexican ranch hands, veteran frontiersmen and camel drivers imported from the Middle East along with the animals.

  Two of the drivers, Hassan and Turkish Tom, were friendly, energetic, ­fresh-­faced lads still in their teens. Fargo found them arguing confusedly with Sergeant Robinson while several more drivers crowded close, gesturing wildly and shaking their fists.

  “This ain’t the best damn place to go into a mill,” Fargo told the temporary commander. “The Mojaves had a helluva battle a few months back with white prospectors. Grizz Bear tells me they’re still on the warpath.”

  “Tell these crazy bastards all that,” a ­flush-­faced Robinson retorted. “I can’t get a straight answer out of the ­mealymouthed—”

  “Hassan,” Fargo said to a lad wearing billowing trousers, a turban and a short jacket dotted with bells, “do these camels know how to swim?”

  Hassan nodded thoughtfully, shook his head no, nodded again.

  “Does that mean they can swim?” Fargo demanded.

  Hassan looked at Turkish Tom, and both camel drivers began rattling away in rapid Arabic. Then they looked at Fargo and shrugged.

  “Swim maybe,” Hassan suggested. “Maybe sink? Sometimes hard to say always. I think yes, perhaps no.”

  He nodded again and Fargo swore. He knew they understood English, but getting anything straight out of these drivers required a pry bar.

  “Look,” he told them, “we have to cross this river now. Tell the drivers to neck the camels in groups of four or five. Then you two push Topsy into the river. If she swims, the rest will follow.”

  “As you were, Fargo,” Robinson snapped. “Who died and left you in charge? If those camels drown I’ll be drumheaded from the army. You don’t have to answer for them.”

  “If they drown,” Fargo said, “I’ll take responsibility. Anyhow, I am in charge of Indian matters, and right now we’re caught between a sawmill and a ­shoot-­out with those camels clumped in the open.”

  “Lieutenant Beale told me the Mojaves aren’t a warring tribe.”

  “That was before they decided they had to protect this river country from Americans, and I’ve seen those big, strong braves swing those potato mashers of theirs. They don’t tip their arrows with stone or flint, either. They use a piece of hardwood with barbs that rip the target open wide. They could slaughter that herd in thirty seconds even if we drove the attackers off.”

  Fargo pointed his chin toward the bluff where Roberto Salazar had opened fire on him.

  “And now it appears the Scorpion means to waltz with us, too. He knows damn good and well what it means for military strength if these camel caravans succeed. We need to get those animals to better-protected ground, and we’ve got no choice but to shove them into the river. I say they’ll swim.”

  Robinson saw the logic of his argument but was ­unwilling—­as Lieutenant Beale would ­have—­to own the risky order.

  “All right, Fargo. But if it goes bad, I’m arresting you on the spot.”

  “Try that,” Fargo said in a mild tone, “and I’ll gut you like a rabbit.”

  Fargo sent Hassan and Turkish Tom the high sign. Without too much trouble they prodded Topsy into the ­brisk-­flowing river. A cheer broke out when the unhappy camel swam clumsily across, ­grim-­faced and vengeful. The remarkable sight was too much for Grizz Bear.

  “Boys, I don’t credit my own eyes! Swimming? Hell, lookit! Looks to me like she’s trying to drag her ass out of hot coals!”

  He laughed so hard he hawked up phlegm. The rest of the camels also crossed without incident, although two horses and a mule foundered and drowned.

  Not to be outdone by Fargo, Sergeant Woodrow Robinson pulled his beloved blacksnake whip out from under his duster. He waded a few feet into the water and began cracking the whip and whistling loudly, pretending he was hazing the camels across.

  When the time finally came the Ovaro swam the river easily, Fargo sliding back out of the saddle and taking ahold on the stallion’s tail at the hardest stretch of current. He clambered up the California bank of the river, shook the water from his eyes, and glanced toward the opposite bank.

  Juan Salazar stood looking in his direction as the Mexican prepared his mule for the ford.

  Salazar saw him looking and averted his gaze.

  “Interesting,” Fargo muttered.

  3

  “There he is, ’mano,” said Pablo “the Scorpion” Alvarez. “Skye ­Fargo—­the man who must be killed if we are to control the desert.”

  He handed a spyglass to Jim Butler. The two men were ensconced in a rock nest, watching the caravan across the dry, cracked bed of a vast and prehistoric lake. A third man, his eyes so keen he didn’t need a spyglass, lay in the open sand about ten yards to their left.

  The expedition had crossed the river and formed up into a day camp on the far side of the dry lake. For the past week they had been traveling only at night.

  Butler peered through the glass, watching the ­buckskin-­clad scout strip the leather from his magnificent stallion.

  “The big man,” he muttered. He raised his voice and added: “You been harping all along how it’s the camels will sink us. Now the big idea is to kill Fargo?”

  “Vaya! Get this one a dug!” Alvarez mocked his new gringo partner. “Of course we must kill the camels. But that will take time ­as—­how you say?—they are ­whinnied—­winnowed down. And any fool who gives this ­blue-­eyed killer enough time is marked for carrion.”

  Butler handed the spyglass back to the Scorpion. Murky, ­mud-­colored eyes too small for the skull stared out of the gringo’s dusty and ­beard-­smudged face.

  “Yeah? All right, maybe he is rough,” Butler said. “He sure looks it. But they say Fargo is a pussy hound. He won’t be looking for trouble from a woman.”

  At this remark Alvarez gave a quick, sharp bark of scorn. “He looks for trouble everywhere, ’mano, and that is why he still casts a shadow. El Scorpio would never depend on a woman to eliminate him. They are weak reeds in Fargo’s capable hands.”

  Butler’s face creased in a frown. “I gotta admit he did a helluva job on Roberto. Flushed his ass out like a quail.”

  “Fargo didn’t kill Roberto,” said the man on their left, a ­Mexican-­Pima India
n ­half-­breed. “Pablo did.”

  “You’re fulla shit, Jemez,” Butler retorted. “Pablo was right next to me when Fargo opened up, and he didn’t fire a shot.”

  Alvarez grinned as he smoothed his thin line of mustache with one finger. He had a square, solid jaw and a piercing gaze that could trap a man like lance points. He was the natural leader in any group of hard, immoral ­men—­the one who could always unite them in the vilest acts.

  But even Alvarez shuddered inwardly at the nameless depravity in Jemez’s dead, ­bone-­button eyes. When those eyes looked at any man for more than a few seconds they were generally mapping out kill zones.

  “Jemez speaks the truth,” he said. “Fargo pulled the trigger, but I am the killer. You see, I . . . took Roberto’s sister in La Cuesta. Evidently the girl was fragile, for somehow she died. Who knows? It was her first time and perhaps she became too excited. Sometimes I can be a stallion.”

  Jemez’s laugh was dry as sotol stalks. Alvarez shrugged as if embarrassed to speak of such a trivial matter.

  “Roberto pretended that it did not matter, that he was still loyal to me. Perhaps that was true. But sometimes these things work at a man like a cactus thorn. So I ordered him to fire on Fargo knowing Fargo would kill him.”

  “All right,” Butler said. “Maybe that was smart. But you said Juan Salazar, his younger brother, was with this army bunch. That can’t be no coincidence.”

  Alvarez smoothed his mustache again. “Juan Salazar has the courage of a gourd vine. Any man who works for honest wages lacks the huevos to be a true man.”

  Alvarez nodded toward the camp just past the river. “This woman,” he said thoughtfully, “this beautiful cantante . . . you say she is a feast for a man’s eyes?”

  Butler, who had only recently joined the Scorpion’s gang along with his owlhoot cousin, Ham Rogers, nodded enthusiastically.

  “You’ll see her soon,” he replied. “I seen her close up when she sang at the Frontier Theater back in Omaha. Her name’s Karen Bradish. Blond hair the color of new wheat, white skin like some creamy lotion, and more curves than a man could possibly brake for, so why bother?”