by Jon Sharpe
‘‘That’s right,’’ Fargo replied with a nod. ‘‘First thing in the morning, we’ll pick up the trail of whoever grabbed her.’’
‘‘My old friend Joseph McNally will join you. I tried to convince him to leave this to you and my son, but he would not listen.’’ Cam-at-so shrugged. ‘‘With his daughter missing and surely in danger, I didn’t really expect him to. I helped my son search for Wa-nee-sha at first, too, and my heart is still torn with worry.’’
Fargo wasn’t too fond of the idea of being saddled with the old-timer, but he understood what Echo’s father was going through. ‘‘If he can’t keep up, we won’t be able to wait for him,’’ he warned.
Cam-at-so nodded. ‘‘I told him as much. He says that he will keep up and help find Echo, or he will die.’’
That was what Fargo was worried about. Like it or not, he would feel that he had to look after McNally as well as follow the trail of whoever had kidnapped Echo.
He took a look at the wound on Billy’s arm before Mary Ann wrapped clean bandages around it and tied them in place. The furrow that the bullet had left behind hadn’t done any serious damage, even though Billy’s arm had to be pretty stiff and sore. Give it a week or two and he would be as good as new.
‘‘Can you fire a gun with that hand?’’ Fargo asked.
‘‘Hide and watch if you don’t think I can,’’ Billy replied with his usual cocksure grin. He must have decided that Fargo wasn’t going to give away his secret, because he was his old self again.
Not as carefree as he had once been, though, because now his childhood friend Echo was missing along with his sister Wa-nee-sha and a dozen other girls and young women from the area. Fargo could tell from the look in Billy’s eyes that the disappearances haunted him, too.
Fargo’s instincts told him that whatever had happened to the missing girls, it couldn’t be good. His gut said that they were running out of time, too, if they wanted to do anything to help those victims. If they didn’t find out what was going on soon, chances were they never would. In fact, it might already be too late. . . .
But Fargo wasn’t going to think that, because it would mean giving up.
And that just wasn’t something the Trailsman was going to do.
He slept in the barn again that night, although the memories that the hayloft held for him were bitter-sweet ones now, with Echo missing and maybe dead . . . and maybe worse. But his reasoning in choosing to sleep in the hayloft the night before—so that he could surprise anyone who attacked the farm—were still as valid as they’d ever been.
Fargo’s restless slumber left him stiff and gritty-eyed the next morning. His throat was bruised and his voice hoarse from the choking he had received the day before. A couple of cups of Mary Ann’s strong coffee and a hearty breakfast helped with all those ailments.
‘‘How’s your arm?’’ he asked Billy.
‘‘Fine.’’ Billy moved the bandaged arm to demonstrate just how good it was, but the wince that appeared briefly on his face told Fargo that Billy still felt some aches and pains, too. ‘‘How about you?’’
‘‘I’ll live,’’ Fargo said curtly. He was anxious to ride out and try to pick up the trail of Echo’s kidnappers, but he knew they would have to wait until the sky was light enough for them to see.
Charley came in from outside, where he had been tending to the early-morning chores with Cam-at-so. ‘‘Mr. McNally’s comin’,’’ he said. ‘‘He’s armed for bear, too.’’
Carrying their coffee cups, Fargo and Billy went outside to greet Echo’s father, who obviously hadn’t changed his mind about accompanying them.
Dressed in traditional Seminole garb, including the buckskin leggings, long, loose-sleeved shirt, sash, and feathered turban, Joseph McNally looked like he was ready to go to war. Two cap-and-ball pistols were tucked into his sash, along with a knife with a long, heavy blade, and he carried a Sharps carbine. Twin bandoliers containing bullets for the Sharps crisscrossed his chest. When he dismounted, Fargo saw that he was taller and leaner than most Seminole men. He had long gray hair braided behind his head and startling green eyes that looked out from a rough-hewn face. He looked tough as knotty pine, and Fargo liked him instantly.
He was still a little worried about having to keep an eye on the man, though, so he was a mite reserved as he nodded and shook hands with McNally when Cam-at-so introduced them.
‘‘I have heard much that is good about you, Mr. Fargo,’’ McNally said. ‘‘I believe that with help from you and At-loo-sha, we will find my daughter.’’
‘‘Darn right we’re gonna find Echo,’’ Billy said. He drank the last of his coffee from the cup and handed it to Daisy, who had followed them out of the house along with Charley. ‘‘Let’s get our horses saddled up, and we’ll be ready to go.’’
‘‘I will speak with my old friend Cam-at-so,’’ McNally said with a grave nod.
Fargo drank the rest of his coffee and gave the cup to Daisy, too. Then he headed for the barn with Billy. Charley followed along behind them, carrying a lantern to dispel the predawn gloom.
Once they were in the barn, Charley asked in a low voice, ‘‘How about letting me come along, too, Billy?’’
With a frown, Billy shook his head. ‘‘I don’t reckon that’d be a good idea. We’re liable to run into some pretty bad men. It’d take that kind to steal a bunch of girls and young women like that.’’
‘‘But I can fight,’’ Charley insisted. ‘‘I’m a good shot. I did fine during that ruckus a couple of days ago, when those men attacked the farm.’’
Fargo knew that they were after a different gang now, but Charley didn’t. Fargo didn’t say anything, just went about the business of getting the Ovaro saddled up and ready to ride.
‘‘I know I shouldn’t have run away when that fella bushwhacked Mr. Fargo,’’ Charley went on. ‘‘I’d like to make up for that now.’’
Fargo said, ‘‘There’s nothing to make up for as far as I’m concerned, Charley. You didn’t know me, and you didn’t know what was going on. You did the smart thing by lighting a shuck when you did.’’
‘‘Well, I don’t feel so smart,’’ Charley said, ‘‘and I don’t feel good about it, Mr. Fargo.’’ He turned back to Billy. ‘‘How about it, Billy? Let me come with you?’’
Billy shook his head. ‘‘Forget it. You’re like a little brother to me, Charley. I got to look out for you and do what’s best for you, and it’s best that you let me and Skye handle this.’’
‘‘You’re letting Mr. McNally go along,’’ the youngster protested.
‘‘That’s different. Echo’s his daughter.’’
‘‘Yeah, well, she’s almost like a sister to you, ain’t she?’’
Billy shrugged in acknowledgment of that fact.
‘‘And you just said that I’m like a little brother to you,’’ Charley went on. ‘‘That would make me and Echo like brother and sister, too, wouldn’t it?’’
Billy laughed. ‘‘I swear, you’d argue with a coon and tell it that it wasn’t sittin’ in a tree, when all the time it was chunkin’ acorns at your head.’’ He clapped a hand on Charley’s shoulder. ‘‘But you still can’t go, and that’s final.’’
Charley’s face fell. He muttered something, turned, and went out of the barn, leaving Fargo and Billy to finish getting their mounts ready.
Billy glanced at Fargo. ‘‘I did the right thing by turnin’ him down, didn’t I, Skye?’’
‘‘Yeah, I’d say you did the right thing, Billy . . . this time.’’
Billy’s face flushed in the lantern light. ‘‘I was gonna tell ’em about Rafferty and, well, about that whole ugly business, but everybody was so worried about Echo . . . I just didn’t think it was a good idea to give them something else to be upset about right now.’’
Fargo had to admit that that reasoning actually made sense, despite being a little self-serving on Billy’s part. ‘‘Finding Echo and those other girls is what’s important,’
’ he said.
‘‘You bet it is. Ready?’’
Fargo nodded. ‘‘Let’s get Mr. McNally and hit the trail.’’
McNally was ready to ride. He shook hands with Cam-at-so and swung up into the saddle with a litheness that belied his age. The three men heeled their horses into motion and set off eastward from the farm, heading toward the spot where Echo had been waylaid and carried off the day before.
The sun had not yet risen when they started off, but the sky had lightened enough for them to see where they were going. By the time they reached the place where Echo’s wagon had been found, the brilliant orange ball had climbed halfway above the horizon, spreading its garish glow over the landscape.
McNally indicated a large clump of brush that grew to one side of the trail. ‘‘Behind those bushes,’’ he told Fargo and Billy. They circled the thick growth and saw the wagon, which still sat right where it had the previous day when McNally, Cam-at-so, and Charley had discovered it.
The mules were nowhere in sight, and the harness that had attached them to the wagon had been cut. Fargo confirmed that by checking the ends of the harness that remained. He dismounted and walked slowly around the vehicle. He saw no signs of blood on the wagon seat or anywhere else around it, and he was grateful for that.
The tracks of four shod horses mingled with those of the mules. They came up on both sides of the wagon, as if the riders had surrounded Echo and forced her to drive back here in the concealment of the brush. It would have been simple then to pluck her off the seat, throw her over the saddle of one of the riders, and gallop off with her, leaving a man or two behind to cut the mules loose and haze them out of the vicinity so they wouldn’t draw attention to the empty wagon.
‘‘Did you find her shotgun?’’ Fargo asked McNally.
The old man shook his head. ‘‘No, the kidnappers must have taken it with them, too.’’
‘‘Wonder if she got a shot off,’’ Fargo mused.
Billy said, ‘‘She would have unless they took her completely by surprise. Echo isn’t the sort to give up easy.’’
‘‘At-loo-sha speaks the truth,’’ McNally agreed. ‘‘My daughter would fight if she could.’’
Fargo had seen the evidence of that with his own eyes, a couple of days earlier. He knelt and studied the hoofprints left behind by the kidnappers’ horses. ‘‘Nothing unusual about these tracks,’’ he announced as he straightened and reached for the Ovaro’s reins. ‘‘Let’s see if we can follow them.’’
The trail meandered a little, as if the kidnappers had been trying to throw off any pursuit, but Fargo was able to follow it as it led generally westward, skirting well north of the farm where Billy lived and heading toward that low range of hills in the distance.
‘‘Either of you know much about those hills?’’ Fargo asked.
McNally shook his head. ‘‘I have never been there. I have always stayed close to my own farm.’’
‘‘I rode over there a few times when I was a youngster,’’ Billy said. ‘‘You know, just exploring like a kid will do. They’re pretty rocky, and honeycombed with caves. Go on past them, and the ground sort of drops away into some mountains.’’
Fargo glanced over at him with a frown. ‘‘Drops into mountains instead of rises into them?’’
‘‘Yeah. You’ll be ridin’ along on what seems like relatively flat land, and then all of a sudden you’re on top of a mountain with big canyons on either side of you. Sort of like those canyons over in the Texas panhandle, only there are a lot more trees around here.’’
Fargo had been through the Palo Duro country, a highly dangerous part of the panhandle that was home to numerous bands of warlike Comanches, so he understood now the sort of terrain Billy was talking about.
‘‘Sounds like that would make a pretty good hiding place for anybody who didn’t want to be found,’’ he commented.
‘‘Yeah, the same thought was starting to cross my mind,’’ Billy said with a nod. ‘‘It’s a good day’s ride over there. Maybe we should’ve brought more supplies than we did.’’
McNally slapped a canvas bag tied to his saddle. ‘‘I have provisions enough for several days,’’ he told them. ‘‘I left home knowing that I would not return without my daughter.’’
Fargo smiled. ‘‘We ought to be all right, then. And it’s not like we can’t rig a few snares if we need to.’’
They rode on, continuing to follow the trail as it trended westward toward the hills. The more Fargo thought it, the more he believed that their destination lay not in the hills themselves but in the more rugged country beyond them that Billy had described. The gang of kidnappers would find even more good places to hide there.
The kidnappers had ridden across rocky stretches of ground and along streambeds, but every time it began to seem that the trail had disappeared, Fargo found it again. McNally looked on in amazement as Fargo’s eyes saw what few men could even begin to discern.
‘‘I am told that you are called the Trailsman,’’ the old Seminole said. ‘‘Now I understand why. I would have believed that no white man could read sign as well as an Indian . . . and I would have been wrong.’’
‘‘I’ve been blessed with good eyesight and good instincts,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘It’s nothing I can take credit for. Any bragging rights belong to the Good Lord.’’
‘‘Blessed is right,’’ McNally said. ‘‘And I hope our efforts to find Echo and Wa-nee-sha and the other missing girls are blessed as well.’’
Fargo nodded in agreement with that sentiment.
He called a halt around midday, and the three men let their horses rest while they made a simple meal of jerky and biscuits, washed down with water from their canteens. The stop was only a short one, and soon they were back in the saddle.
Fargo glanced back a couple of times during the afternoon, and the second time Billy noticed. ‘‘Something wrong, Skye?’’ he asked.
‘‘Just checking our back trail,’’ Fargo replied. ‘‘I wouldn’t swear to it, but I’ve got a funny feeling that somebody’s following us.’’
Billy hipped around in his saddle and gazed behind them. ‘‘I don’t see anything,’’ he said after a moment.
‘‘I didn’t, either. But I’m still not convinced that somebody’s not on our trail.’’
Billy nodded. ‘‘I trust your instincts. We’ll keep a close eye out.’’
‘‘I think that’d be a good idea,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘It’s possible the gang left somebody watching that wagon, so that they could follow along behind any pursuers and maybe ambush them.’’
Despite his increased vigilance, Fargo didn’t spot anyone following them as the afternoon wore on. The trail became easier to follow, as if the kidnappers had been convinced by the time they came along here that no one could be tracking them anymore.
By late afternoon the three men were in the hills. At the edge of the slopes they had found the remains of a campfire where the kidnappers had stopped the night before. Fargo had taken a close look around but found nothing to indicate exactly what had happened here.
All they could do was hope for the best.
The trail wound around more now as the riders followed the easiest route through the rugged terrain. Thick woods covered the slopes, and brush choked most of the gullies between the hills. A fella would have to know where he was going in order to get through here without a lot of trouble and slow going. The kidnappers were obviously familiar with the best route, and by following their trail, Fargo, Billy, and McNally were able to reach the far side of the range by the time the sun began to slide below the western horizon.
It had been a long day already, but Billy and McNally didn’t want to stop. ‘‘This strip of prairie in front of us isn’t very wide,’’ Billy explained. ‘‘It’s just a couple of miles to where those mountains or canyons or whatever you want to call ’em start. I think we ought to ride on that far before we make camp, anyway.’’
‘‘I agree,’’ McNal
ly said. ‘‘I feel that we are close to those we seek.’’
‘‘All right,’’ Fargo agreed. ‘‘But it’ll have to be a cold camp tonight. We don’t want to tip them off that we’re this close.’’
That was fine with the other two men. Fargo pointed out where the hooves of their quarry’s mounts had flattened some of the grass, and they were off on the hunt again.
Billy was right about it not being far to the more rugged terrain they sought. The trail led straight across the plains that were dotted here and there with trees. Then, just as Billy had described, the ground suddenly dropped away in a steep slope in front of them. Fargo, Billy, and McNally reined to a halt and peered out across miles of brushy, wooded, rocky wilderness. The ridges and canyons that formed this mountain range twisted and turned in a serpentine maze.
‘‘There are caves here, too,’’ Billy said. ‘‘I found a couple, and there are bound to be more because I never went very far in there. To tell you the truth, I was a mite scared. To a kid it looked like the sort of place where varmints might be lurking.’’
‘‘You were right about that,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘I’d stake my hide there are varmints hiding somewhere out there right now . . . the varmints we’re looking for.’’
‘‘Should we go ahead?’’ McNally asked.
Fargo shook his head. ‘‘There’s not enough light left.’’ Already the waning sunlight left the canyons cloaked in deep shadows. ‘‘We’d be better off getting a fresh start in the morning.’’
Billy and McNally went along with that, although both men were clearly tense and anxious to continue the search for the missing women and girls.
They found a good spot to camp, a clearing in the brush that would give them some concealment in case of trouble. Billy and McNally hobbled their horses after they had unsaddled them, but Fargo left the Ovaro free. The stallion’s keen senses and combative nature made him an excellent sentry, and he never strayed far from Fargo’s side.
Supper was jerky and biscuits and canteen water again, as well as some apples that McNally had brought along. The men ate as darkness gathered around them. Yawns were common. They had ridden a long way today and were tired.
