by Jon Sharpe
More shots rang out. Fargo heard the slugs pounding against the rock, but he was safe as long as he remained where he was.
But he was also pinned down, unable to fight back, and he didn’t like that a bit. From the boulder to the base of the bluff was about twenty feet. Quite a bit of brush grew along there, and Fargo thought that if he could reach the concealment of the thick growth, he might be able to work his way along the bluff into a position where he could get a shot at whoever had ambushed him. Getting there might be trickier than it sounded, though, because there was no cover along the way.
The first thing he had to do was buy a second or two. He moved an eye past the edge of the boulder and spotted a figure behind that distant cottonwood. Powder smoke spurted from a gun muzzle as the man fired again. Instantly, Fargo thrust the Henry’s barrel around the rock and fired three times as fast as he could work the repeater’s lever.
Then he dashed the other way, toward the bluff, breaking out into the open and running for all he was worth as shots roared and bushwhacker lead screamed through the hot afternoon air around him.
4
Fargo reached the base of the bluff without any of the bullets hitting him. He dived headlong into the brush, once again shielded from the view of the man who was trying to kill him.
He couldn’t stay where he was, though. The bushwhacker had seen where he went into the brush and was already concentrating his fire on the spot. Bullets rattled through the branches and clipped leaves that fluttered to the ground around Fargo as he bellied down and crawled along the bluff.
The shots fell silent. Fargo didn’t know if the hombre was reloading or just trying to figure out where he was.
A second later a voice lifted in a shout, and another voice answered. Fargo heard hoofbeats and bit back a curse. Sounded like the bushwhacker was getting some reinforcements.
Fargo continued crawling along the base of the bluff. He glanced up and saw that openings pitted the bulging sandstone face, some of them large enough for a man to crawl into. He was tempted to try to reach one of them, on the chance that it might lead into a cave that would provide a way back to the top of the bluff.
He considered that possibility unlikely, though. Chances were, the openings went only a few feet deep into the bluff, and if he climbed into one he would be in an even worse fix than he was now. One way or another, he was going to have to fight his way out of this mess.
More than one rifle opened up on him. Fargo thought that three or four men were firing now. He had moved far enough so that they didn’t know exactly where he was, but if they continued peppering this whole stretch of brush with lead, one of the bullets would find him sooner or later. He needed some better cover. . . .
A minute later, he found it as he came to a vertical fissure where the bluff’s face had split as a result of some geological disturbance in the past. The crack in the sandstone was maybe four feet wide and angled in to a depth of about four feet as well. Fargo crawled into the opening and stood up, pressing his back against the rock.
He couldn’t see the riflemen from here, which meant they couldn’t see him, either. Nor were they likely to hit him with their shots unless they got lucky with a ricochet. He stood there for a long moment, catching his breath.
Then he tipped his head back and gazed up above him, his eyes following the fissure. He lifted his right foot and rested the sole of his boot against the opposite wall, pushing against it. A grim expression etched his face as he nodded. What he was considering was possible, but he didn’t know where it would lead him since he couldn’t see how far up the bluff the fissure ran.
It was a chance, though, which was more than he had charging four guns head-on.
Fargo pushed even harder against the rock, bracing himself tightly in the crack. He supported himself with his right foot and lifted his left, planting it a little higher. Then, holding the Henry at a slant across his chest, he wiggled his shoulders and worked his back a few inches up the fissure.
It was a good thing he wore tough buckskins, he thought. Otherwise even the relatively soft sandstone might soon shred his back to ribbons. One foot at a time, he shifted his position and maneuvered his way higher.
Along the riverbank, the guns still roared. The men hadn’t given up on killing him. Since he wasn’t shooting back, though, eventually they would hold their fire and start trying to decide if they wanted to risk going to check on him, to see if he was dead. By the time they did that, Fargo intended to be a good distance up the fissure, maybe even at the top of the bluff if it went that far.
Unfortunately, the riflemen’s patience didn’t last that long. The guns fell silent, and a man called out, ‘‘Bastard’s gotta be dead by now, don’t he?’’
‘‘You’d think so, as much lead as we poured in there,’’ another rough-voiced man answered. ‘‘Sanders, go see if he’s still alive.’’
‘‘Me?’’ yet a third man yelped. ‘‘If he ain’t dead, that’s a good way for me to get shot, Rafferty.’’
‘‘Maybe I’ll shoot you if you don’t do what I tell you, damn it!’’ the man called Rafferty responded.
‘‘Why don’t you make Chupco or Brunner go?’’
‘‘Ah, hell,’’ a fourth man rumbled. ‘‘Let’s all go. The son of a bitch can’t get us all, and I’m willin’ to take my chances.’’
Rafferty must have been thinking that over, because after a few seconds of silence he said, ‘‘All right. We’ll do what Brunner said. Everybody spread out. First sign of movement or noise from that brush, we all open fire again. Got it?’’
Mutters of understanding came from the other three men. When Fargo listened closely, he could hear their cautious footsteps as they approached the brushy stretch along the base of the bluff.
This was as far as he could go, he realized. He had managed to wedge himself about a dozen feet up the fissure. Even though he hadn’t been able to escape, he still had the element of surprise on his side. They wouldn’t be expecting him to be above them.
Holding his breath and remaining absolutely motionless, the Trailsman waited. The four men were coming from behind him. They talked among themselves in low voices, speculating about who he was and whether they had killed him with their fusillade.
‘‘I think he’s the fella who rode down the hill at Buzzard’s place,’’ one of the men said, confirming that they belonged to the bunch that had attacked the farm. Fargo hadn’t had any real doubts about that, but it was nice to know for sure that he had found his quarry.
‘‘Must be one o’ Buzzard’s friends,’’ Rafferty said. ‘‘I never saw him around here before.’’
‘‘Be just like that son of a bitch to yell for help.’’
That comment brought a frown to Fargo’s face. The men were talking like they knew Billy quite well, but the former scout had acted like he had no idea who they were. Something was really off-kilter here. . . .
But Fargo would have to stay alive in order to find out what it was.
He saw movement from the corner of his eye as one of the men stepped into his range of vision. A second man followed him an instant later, then the other two came into view as well. About fifteen feet separated each man as they warily approached the bluff. They were concentrating so hard on watching the brush where they believed Fargo to be that for several heartbeats none of them even glanced up.
That gave him time to swing the Henry into position to start the ball all over again.
He lined the muzzle on the man at the right end of the line, since that shot was at the easiest angle for him. The rifle’s movement must have snagged the man’s attention, because he finally looked up, his eyes widening and his mouth opening to yell as he saw Fargo perched in the fissure.
Before the man could make a sound, Fargo’s finger squeezed the Henry’s trigger. The rifle cracked and kicked against his shoulder, and the man went back a step as the bullet slammed into his chest.
Fargo dropped his legs as soon as he had fired, which se
nt him falling to the bottom of the crack in the bluff. He worked the Henry’s lever as he fell. It wasn’t a long drop, so even though the impact of his landing shivered from his soles up through his muscular calves and thighs, he didn’t stagger or lose his feet.
The other three men reacted instinctively to Fargo shooting their companion. They jerked their rifles up and opened fire, spraying bullets into the fissure.
Luckily for Fargo, their aim was too high and all the slugs did was cause a shower of dust and grit around him as they smacked into the sandstone well above his head. In the meantime he brought the Henry to bear on another of the men and triggered a second shot. This one busted the hombre’s shoulder and spun him around. Howling in pain, he pitched to the ground.
Fargo had cut the odds in half in little more than the blink of an eye . . . but unfortunately he was still outnumbered two to one. He threw himself to the side as the remaining two gunmen adjusted their aim and sent hot lead fanging at him.
Fargo landed behind the screening brush, rolled over, and stretched out on his belly as he fired upward at an angle through the branches. That was enough to scatter the two men who were still on their feet.
Eyes darting from side to side as he tried to locate his enemies, Fargo scrambled up. A shrill whistle came from his mouth. Almost instantly, hoofbeats pounded nearby. A gun roared, followed by the whine of a ricochet as the bullet missed Fargo and hit the stone wall behind him. He tracked the Henry toward the sound of the shot and fired, but he didn’t know if he hit anything.
Then he spotted one of the gunmen to his right, drawing a bead on him. Fargo had a split second to realize that he wouldn’t be able to bring his own rifle to bear in time to stop the man from firing.
He didn’t need to, because at that instant the Ovaro loomed up behind the man, galloping toward Fargo. The man heard the thundering hooves and tried to get out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid the stallion entirely. Instead of trampling him under steel-shod hooves, the Ovaro clipped his shoulder as he raced past. The impact was still enough to send the man flying through the air. He crashed to the ground, rolled over a couple of times, and then lay motionless in a limp sprawl.
That left Fargo with only one enemy to deal with, but that man had gone to ground in the brush, too, and as Fargo came up in a crouch, he couldn’t locate the lone remaining gunman. He turned slowly, holding the rifle steady as he scanned the thick growth.
The man burst out of the bushes with a yell. Fargo caught a glimpse of a blocky head and angry, twisted features in a red-hued face. Like the other three, the man was an Indian, although he wore white man’s clothing. Those facts barely had time to register on Fargo’s brain before the man crashed into him and knocked him over backward.
The impact as Fargo’s back slammed into the ground jolted the rifle out of his hands. The man he was fighting no longer carried a rifle, and Fargo wondered fleetingly if he had run out of bullets for the weapon.
It didn’t really matter, because at the moment the only important thing was that the man’s hands locked around Fargo’s throat and started trying to squeeze the life out of him.
The man had a knee planted painfully in Fargo’s belly, too. Better there than the groin, Fargo supposed. The man had caught him without much air in his lungs, so he knew he had to break the hold quickly or pass out.
And if he passed out, he wasn’t confident that he would ever regain consciousness.
He heaved himself up and hammered a fist into the side of the man’s head. The man grunted in pain, but his grip didn’t loosen. In fact, he squeezed tighter with his hands and his knee dug harder into Fargo’s guts. The Trailsman hit him again, but the man raised his shoulders and drew his head down, almost like a turtle pulling back into its shell. His skull seemed to be made of cast iron, for all the good Fargo’s punches were doing.
Knowing that he would run out of air within seconds, Fargo drew his right leg up as high as he could and strained to reach the handle of the Arkansas toothpick that rode in a fringed sheath strapped to his calf. His fingers brushed the leather-wrapped handle of the knife, but from this angle he couldn’t quite get a good enough grip to pull it from the sheath.
The Indian must have figured out what Fargo was trying to do. He twisted his head to look and then started choking Fargo even harder. He pulled Fargo’s head up off the ground and slammed it back down. Stars swam in front of Fargo’s eyes. He lunged for the knife again, wrapped his fingers around it, and jerked it free.
The next second he had it planted in his enemy’s side, shoving the long, heavy blade through flesh and feeling it rasp against bone as it scraped past the ribs. The man’s eyes opened incredibly wide and his mouth gaped as he stared down at Fargo. Fargo drove the knife deeper, all the way to the heart.
The man tried to say something, but the only thing that came from his mouth was an agonized gasp. Then his face went slack, his fingers fell away from Fargo’s throat, and he slumped forward. His deadweight pinned Fargo down for a second and still kept him from breathing, before Fargo got hold of his shoulders and shoved him aside.
Then Fargo was able to roll onto his side and lie there with his chest heaving as he dragged in great lungfuls of air. His throat hurt, and he knew it would be bruised. But that was a minor matter, especially as close to dying as he had just come.
After a moment, when his racing heartbeat had returned somewhat to normal, he pushed himself to his hands and knees and then to his feet. His iron constitution enabled him to shake off the effects of combat in a hurry.
The Ovaro suddenly whinnied a warning. Fargo whirled in the direction of the sound and saw a man leaping at him and swinging a rifle by the barrel, like a club. Fargo barely had time to recognize the man as the one who’d been knocked down and stunned when the stallion collided with him. Obviously the man had regained his senses.
Knowing that didn’t do Fargo a damned bit of good. The rifle stock crashed into the side of his head. He felt himself falling, but he was out cold by the time he hit the ground.
When he woke up, Fargo wasn’t sure what hurt worse, his pounding skull or his bruised throat. One thing was certain, though—he was damned surprised that he had regained consciousness at all. If he’d had to guess, he would have said that the man who’d attacked him would have slit his throat while he was out cold.
But he was alive—nobody dead could hurt this bad—and as long as he drew breath he still had a chance to get out of this trap, wherever he was.
So, first things first. He kept his eyes closed so that his captors wouldn’t know he was awake again, then began taking stock of where he was and what was going on around him.
He lay on his side on a hard, uneven surface, probably rock of some sort. His arms were pulled back painfully, and he couldn’t feel his hands, so he figured that his wrists were tied together so tightly he had lost the feeling in them. He tensed the muscles of his legs just enough to confirm that they wouldn’t move, meaning his ankles were lashed together, too. So he’d been tied hand and foot, trussed up like a hog going to market.
Fargo couldn’t see anything, either. He moved his head slightly and felt something bind against his skin. A blindfold, he decided. His captors didn’t want him moving around and didn’t want him to know where he was.
He smelled wood smoke and heard the crackling of flames, but he didn’t feel any heat coming from the fire, so he knew he wasn’t lying close to it. In fact, the air around him had a dank chill to it. If he had been out in the sun, he would have been able to feel its warmth on his skin.
Yet he was conscious of a faint breeze brushing against his cheek. He was outside, not in a building, lying on rocky ground where the sun didn’t shine.
A cave of some sort, thought Fargo.
And it was occupied, too. He knew that because of the fire. He didn’t hear any voices, though, or anyone moving around. So maybe nobody was close to him, at least right at the moment.
He took advantage of the opportunity
to bunch the muscles in his arms and shoulders and strain against his bonds. They were too tight. He didn’t feel any give in them. Whoever had tied him up had known what they were doing.
He moved his head and felt the blindfold scrape against the ground. Maybe he could work it off or at least dislodge it enough to see a little. He had to know what obstacles he faced if he was going to get out of here.
He had barely gotten started, though, when he heard footsteps nearby, followed by voices that echoed slightly, another indication that they were in a cave.
‘‘Think he’s awake yet?’’
‘‘Hell if I know. Go back there and take a look if you want to.’’
‘‘I’m still not sure why Rafferty wants him alive. He killed Chupco and Sanders, and Brunner won’t be no good to us anymore with that busted shoulder. We ought to just cut the bastard’s throat.’’
That was the sort of thinking Fargo expected from them. Rafferty, though, whoever he was, obviously thought differently.
The second man said, ‘‘I think Rafferty decided to keep him alive so he can take a long time dyin’. Rafferty wants him to pay for what he done. And he wants to know what this fella’s connection is with Billy Buzzard, too. He said he was gonna ask him some questions as soon as he got back from lookin’ for Billy.’’
There it was again, that familiar tone when one of them spoke of the former scout. That still made no sense to Fargo.
The first man said, ‘‘You know, I keep thinkin’ that I’ve seen this man before. In Fort Smith, maybe. I feel like I ought to know who he is.’’
‘‘He’s a damned troublemaker—that’s who he is. If he hadn’t come along to lend a hand, we might’ve got Billy yesterday evenin’.’’
They hadn’t said anything about the missing girls and women. Fargo had hoped that they might spill something useful on that subject.
