The Trailsman #396

by Jon Sharpe

  Grizz Bear studied them in the moonlight for perhaps ten seconds. “Why, they’re clumped close together, ain’t they? Forty or fifty in a damn cluster!”

  “So what?” Jude demanded.

  “Like I said, kid,” Fargo replied, “learn to observe. The only way plants can get enough water in the desert is by having plenty of space around them. Those saguaros are too far from that water hole to tap it, so they must be over ­water—­over a good amount of it or they wouldn’t form a little forest.”

  They had two entrenching tools along. Beginning near the saguaros Fargo and Jude put their backs into it. For nearly two hours, moving from spot to spot with Grizz Bear spelling them by turns, they worked desperately with no luck. Then Fargo turned over a shovelful of damp earth.

  At that moment he felt more elation than if he’d struck a lode of ­high-­grade assay. Twenty minutes later, with Jude pitching in, a pool of cool spring water filled the ­three-­foot-wide hole Fargo had begun.

  “She’ll fill up quick as we can empty ’er!” Grizz Bear crowed. “Fargo, I b’lieve I’ll sire a whelp by you!”

  “No need to tack up bunting,” Fargo said. “Jude, go fetch one water bag. We’ll fill it and use it to water our mounts good so they won’t try to drink the bad water when we bring them forward. We’re going to fill up four of those water bags. Then you and Grizz Bear get them back to the rest quick as you can. And keep one hand on your weapons.”

  “You staying here?” Jude asked.

  “Could be good hunting,” Fargo replied. “I don’t know if Alvarez and his jackals are watching now. But they poisoned the water and likely they’ll want to see if it worked.”

  “If they are watching,” Jude said, “that means they know about this new water, don’t it?”

  “Like I said,” Fargo told him, “could be good hunting.”

  • • •

  After Grizz Bear and Jude rode out, Fargo hobbled the Ovaro in the shadow of the saguaro patch. He stripped off the saddle and used it to rest his back as he lay waiting in the moonlit desert night.

  An hour ticked by, then two, the only sounds the ghostly moaning of the wind, the skittering of blowing gravel and the occasional snuffling of the Ovaro. Despite his vigilance an exhausted Fargo drifted in and out of a foggy doze, repeatedly coming awake with a start.

  A third hour dragged by, Fargo waking up less frequently now. Abruptly the Ovaro snorted and Fargo sat up slapping leather.

  At first he saw or heard nothing except his heart ­surf-­crashing in his ears. It was late now, the moon a big, buttery dab, the wind dead calm. Moonlight reflected from the surface of the deadly water hole.

  Nothing obvious to worry about. But Fargo felt an ­ice-­cold feather tickle the length of his spine.

  From the shadow of the saguaro patch he watched and waited. And soon he recognized a solitary figure emerging on foot from the short pass leading to the water hole through the surrounding rock abutments.

  Left his horse hidden, Fargo surmised. But is he by himself?

  The cautious figure inched closer, moving silent as a stalking cat. Fargo recognized the outline of a ­revolving-­cylinder rifle.

  The face turned in Fargo’s direction and showed up clearly in a shaft of bright moonlight: the ­half-­breed who had ­throat-­slashed Private Rudy Mumford and tried to gun down Fargo. The Trailsman waited until the man was only a stone’s throw away before he ­thumb-­cocked his ­six-­gun.

  “Toss down the smoke wagon, ’breed,” Fargo ordered from the shadows, “or I’ll send you across now.”

  But the Scorpion’s man evidently knew his fate if captured. Quicker than thought the rifle snapped up to the ready and the ­half-­breed shifted toward the sound of Fargo’s voice, opening up with a vengeance.

  The silent night erupted in gunfire, and chunks of saguaro showered Fargo as hot lead thinned the patch around him. He took careful aim and shot at the rifle’s trigger housing, his bullet punching through the ­half-­breed’s right hand and forcing him to drop the weapon.

  “Pull that bean shooter out with your left hand and drop it,” Fargo ordered. “Any parlor tricks and I drill you through the jewels.”

  When the man hesitated Fargo shot him in the right biceps, eliciting a howl of pain.

  “Mister, I don’t chew my cabbage twice.”

  “Christ, no more!” the ­half-­breed bellowed, hastily tossing his short gun down.

  Fargo moved out of the shadows. If more men were waiting they should have shown themselves by now. Then again, they might be watching. Fargo wagged his smoking gun toward the water hole.

  “You must be thirsty by now, ’breed,” Fargo said. “Have a long drink on me.”

  “After you, Fargo,” he said through teeth clenched in pain.

  The Colt leaped in Fargo’s hand and the ­half-­breed shrieked when the slug mauled his right big toe. The ­thrice-­wounded murderer hobbled toward the water. Fargo knew he would eventually drink ­it—­a doomed man fights for every second of life when very few are left.

  “You and your boss like to dish it out, maggot,” Fargo said. “Now you’re going to take it. You ­throat-­slashed a soldier, and that’s just the one murder I know about. But one is enough. Now get on your belly and drink—and, mister, I mean drink deep. You think you hurt now? I still got three beans in the wheel.”

  The ­half-­breed dropped to his knees at the edge of the water, flopped onto his belly, lowered his face. When he stopped with his lips inches above the poisoned water, unable to do it, Fargo sent his fourth bullet through the sole of the outlaw’s left boot.

  He screamed and jerked forward hard, his face forced into the water with his mouth wide open. Fargo heard the scream interrupted by choking, swallowing sounds as the ­half-­breed, severely impeded by multiple wounds, floundered in the ­shallow water. Several minutes later he was dead, and Fargo didn’t give a tinker’s damn whether or not the poison beat the bullets.

  He had found no satisfaction in killing the murdering bastard. But he killed him slow and screaming just in case the others were watching or listening. Fargo had lives and a key mission in his hands, and he believed his responsibilities justified his tactics.

  He glanced at the body, now just one more animal carcass among all the others.

  “I’m pretty good with horses,” he told himself aloud. “Maybe I could start a livery stable someplace peaceful.”

  He thumbed reloads into his Colt and saddled the Ovaro. If the Scorpion had sent a lone man to reconnoiter, odds didn’t favor his coming here himself. Especially if his man didn’t return.

  But it raised a new problem that plagued Fargo like a blister as he gigged the Ovaro toward the pass. If the Scorpion wasn’t here, then where the hell was he and what was he up to?

  18

  Fargo lashed two full water bags to the Ovaro. Then he stripped the leather from the ­half-­breed’s blood bay and set him free after watering him good. Horses were highly social and Fargo knew this one would soon be adopted by a manada. Master stallions tolerated geldings as no threat to their dominion over the mares.

  Fargo lit a shuck east hoping it wouldn’t be long before he encountered the camel caravan on the move. But an hour, two hours passed with no sign of them.

  When the sun broke over the eastern flats in a spreading flare of pale gold, it revealed bare, open desert as far ahead as Fargo could see. He swore out loud but mildly.

  The hell was going on? By all appearances so far, Grizz Bear and Jude hadn’t been waylaid. Fargo hadn’t sent enough water back to the caravan for them to simply remain in place consuming it. It was meant to sustain their journey to Yucca Springs.

  An hour after sunup he finally encountered the caravan in camp. Even before he could swing down he was surrounded by Jude, Bobbie Lou and Rosalinda, all babbling excitedly at once so he couldn’t understand them.<
br />
  Fargo finally managed to shoehorn a complete sentence into the midst of the clamor. “Would you magpies pipe down? Jude, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s Miss ­Bradish—­she’s missing!”

  Fargo lit down. “Since when and where?”

  “Right here. ­Robin—­Sergeant Robinson halted the expedition when the other ladies reported her gone.”

  “Was this before you and Grizz Bear got here with the water?”

  “About an hour before,” Bobbie Lou said. “Karen said she was going out to make a necessary trip and she never came back.”

  “I thought you spoke to her about not going so far out?”

  “I did,” Bobbie Lou insisted. “She must not have listened. We didn’t see where she went, did we, Rosalinda?”

  Fargo cursed under his breath. It was always one damn thing after another.

  “Is anybody looking for her?” Fargo asked, adding sarcastically, “I realize that’s not an obvious thing to do.”

  “Grizz Bear is looking around for tracks,” Jude said. “But nobody knows exactly where she was when she disappeared. I wanted to ride out, but Sergeant Robinson said you were the tracker. He ordered all of us soldiers to stand by in camp and wait for you.”

  “Yeah, hell, give it to Fargo,” he groused, forking leather again. “Next I’ll be doing the cooking and laundry.”

  He had already spotted Grizz Bear about a hundred yards out, kneeling to study the ground closely. Fargo loped the stallion out to join him.

  “That little ­silky-­satin calico screwed the pooch this time,” Grizz Bear greeted him. “If she was really snatched. I can’t read sign like you do, Fargo, but this here’s where Karen was last.”

  “If she was really snatched? Christ, old man, you been swearing all along that Rosalinda is the Scorpion’s woman and Juan Salazar one of his men. Now you’re adding Karen to the roll?”

  “Plenty of white women like that copper meat. Or mebbe she’s Jim Butler’s whore, you ever cogitate on that? They say he’s a ladies’ man. You see any signs here that Karen put up any struggle?”

  Fargo tossed the reins forward and dismounted to study the ground. Only dim imprints, already mostly filled in with blowing sand, showed where she had come out from camp. The tracks of two horsebackers led in from the northeast and then led out again. The intruders wouldn’t have been spotted by the sentries because of a ridge Karen had foolishly ­descended—­presumably for complete privacy.

  A woman who claimed to be that frightened, and after Bobbie Lou had passed on Fargo’s warning . . . it gnawed at Fargo.

  “No signs of a struggle,” he affirmed. “But there wouldn’t be if she was just plucked up by a man on horseback, and that’s what the tracks show. The men never got down.”

  “Or if she was just returning to her man. Nobody sees or hears a damn thing, no screams—she’s just gone like a fist when you open your hand. I ain’t sayin’ for ­certain-­sure Karen is the bad egg, ­Fargo—­that pretty little Rosalinda still gets my money. Look yonder.”

  He rolled his head over his shoulder toward camp. Fargo saw Rosalinda and Juan Salazar standing together at the edge of camp, evidently engrossed in earnest conversation.

  “Grizz, you’re an asshole,” Fargo said in a weary tone, rising to his feet and removing his hat to spear his fingers through his hair. “Plenty of guts but a damn female gossip and calamity howler. C’mon, we’ve got to palaver with Robinson. That girl’s already been gone too long. Robinson should’ve sent out a ­five-­man detail the moment he knew she was missing.”

  “Now, it’s a mite queer about that fleshy son of a bitch,” Grizz Bear said as they rode back toward camp. “The soldiers say Robinson ain’t cracked his whip lately nor tossed out the threats he use to.”

  “All we can do is watch him,” Fargo said absently, suddenly so tired he didn’t much give a damn about anything.

  “Anyhow,” Grizz Bear nattered on, “it’s a damn good thing we got that water here when we did, Fargo. Some of them young fool soldiers wasted their ration. Their mouths was so dry they couldn’t swallow food nor talk. No telling what they mighta ­done—­or might still do if we don’t get to Yucca Springs quick.”

  “I brought two more bags,” Fargo said, “but the expedition has to raise dust now toward that good water. I don’t trust Robinson, so you and him will take the caravan to the water while me and Jude pick up Karen’s trail.”

  “Jude’s good firepower,” Grizz Bear agreed. “But don’t be too exfluctuated when you find out she’s got no plans to come back with you.”

  Salazar had walked away as the two men rode nearer, but Rosalinda stood waiting for them. Again Fargo admired the sensuous, pouting lips and the beauty’s flawless topaz skin.

  He touched his hat. “A pretty girl with a worried face.”

  “Can you get her back, Skye?” she pressed him anxiously.

  “No partic’lar reason why not. But the way she’s likely to be treated . . .”

  “Shit,” Grizz Bear muttered. Raising his voice, he added, “If you’re so consarn worried about Karen, chica, send your boyfriend Salazar after her. I seen you two just now talkin’ chummy.”

  The homicidal look she gave Grizz Bear frightened even Fargo. She shook a fist at the crusty old desert rat.

  “I have heard the things you say about him and about me. You are a pig!”

  “Kiss my ass, you conniving Mexican bitch!”

  She looked at Fargo. “Yes, I spoke with Juan. What of it? His heart is heavy about his sister.”

  She made the sign of the cross.

  “Yeah, he mentioned a sister to me once,” Fargo said. “But he told me nothing.”

  “Her name was Miranda, a pretty young thing only sixteen years old. El Scorpio raped her and then murdered her to silence the only witness. Juan told me he joined this expedition in the hope Scorpion would attack and he might kill him in revenge.”

  “Somebody fetch my hip boots,” Grizz Bear scoffed. “Fargo, her and Salazar cooked up that sob story to fool you.”

  “Yes, you gossipy old crone,” Rosalinda said, adding pointedly, “Don’t forget to tell everyone it’s a secret, old woman.”

  Jude had joined them by now. Grizz Bear, face flushed after taking guff from a Mexican, pointed a stubby index finger at the lad.

  “Tadpole, you pass the word to your soldier buddies,” he fumed. “Tell ’em to watch this pretty little bitch close around the water. And Salazar, too. Them two is in it together.”

  “All I want is to find Miss Bradish.”

  “You simple shit! Moonin’ around and sighin’ like some lovesick fop . . . all a man gets from a woman like her is the little end of the horn.”

  “Both of you knock it off,” Fargo said in an impatient tone. “Jude, you say all you want is to rescue Karen. So provision yourself with a full shell belt and thirty rounds for the Sharps. Draw rations for three days. Soon as I talk to your topkick we’re riding out.”

  • • •

  The nightmare had started many hours ago, but Karen Bradish had finally realized she wasn’t waking up from this one.

  Oh, her stupid modesty! If she hadn’t decided to void herself in the privacy beyond that ridge . . . she hadn’t even heard them approach until it was too late.

  They had been riding for hours. She wasn’t used to it, and the man with the ­mud-­colored eyes had left very little room for her behind him in the saddle. By now the cantle was hurting her back.

  But on the occasions when they stopped and spelled their horses . . . fear iced her blood. So far they hadn’t raped her, but only because they clearly feared Skye Fargo, whose name they had brought up several times. He had killed someone named Jemez and she heard both men speak of it in hushed, worried tones.

  She risked a peek at the Mexican riding beside them. He must be Pablo Alva
rez, the Scorpion everyone was talking about. He had piercing black eyes that probed her with sexual force, and he was always running one finger over his thin line of mustache just like villains in the penny dreadfuls.

  Those invasive eyes caught her peeking and he took one hand off the reins to grab his crotch, barking with harsh laughter when she flushed and looked away.

  For an hour now they had been climbing into a low range of barren, craggy mountains rising above the desert floor. She imagined the moon might look like this lifeless landscape where even hope could not survive. She had overheard enough to learn they were headed for some kind of hideout deeper in the mountains and that ten men from a place called Quartzsite were due to come there in a few days.

  Her heart scampered in her chest like a frenzied animal when they reined in under a big shale outcrop. The rider lit down and lifted her from the saddle.

  “Hop down and stretch your limbs, sugar dumpling,” said the ­mud-­eyed man Alvarez called Butler. “Hell, feel free to finish that pee we interrupted. We won’t look.”

  She felt dread heavy in her stomach when she saw the smoldering sickness in those dull eyes. Both these men frightened her to the point of blind panic. She knew they would rape her, perhaps now, and if it stopped there she could endure it. But she was convinced that neither brute could take a woman without hurting ­her—­hurting her bad. She could read meanness in a man’s face, and both of these monsters had it in volumes.

  “How much is your brother in Los Angeles worth?” the Mexican demanded.

  “I . . . I have no idea. Oh!”

  She flinched back when Butler slapped her hard enough to make her ears ring. “Talk out, bitch! How much is your brother worth?”

  “Please, I don’t know,” she repeated. “He owns a dance hall, a horse ranch, a ­short-­line freight ­service—”

  “Pablo, I told you she was the keys to the mint,” Butler gloated.

  “Your woman told the truth,” the Scorpion agreed.

  “What do you mean?” she demanded.