by Jon Sharpe
They had just begun to discuss the order in which they would stand guard during the night when Fargo noticed the Ovaro’s ears pricking up. The stallion stopped cropping at the grass and lifted his head, peering off to the east, toward the hills the men had crossed earlier.
Fargo motioned for Billy and McNally to continue talking as he stood up. He eased the Colt from its holster on his hip as he moved silently toward the brush. Barely breathing, he stopped and listened. Most men wouldn’t have heard the faint sounds made by someone sneaking up on the camp, but the Trailsman did.
Billy and McNally kept up their conversation as if nothing was wrong, although to Fargo’s ears the words sounded a little forced and strained. They were normal enough to fool the man skulking toward the camp, however. He kept coming until he was right on the other side of a bush from Fargo, who stood there silent and invisible in the darkness.
Fargo’s eyes had adjusted enough so that he could vaguely make out the figure of the lurker. When he saw the man lift something that appeared to be a rifle, Fargo knew it was time to make his move.
His free hand shot out, reaching through the brush, and his aim was unerring. His hand caught hold of the stranger’s collar, and then the muscles of his arms and shoulders bunched with power as he heaved the startled man through the brush and into the camp.
The lurker was taken completely by surprise, and the violence of the throw spilled him off his feet. He rolled on the ground between Billy and McNally. As the stranger came to a stop, Fargo stepped out into the open and leveled his Colt at the man. He had eared back the revolver’s hammer, and his finger was on the trigger, ready to fire.
‘‘Don’t move,’’ Fargo warned, ‘‘or I’ll blow a hole through you, hombre.’’
7
‘‘Don’t shoot!’’ a familiar voice yelped.
‘‘Charley!’’ Billy said. ‘‘What the hell!’’
Fargo grimaced in disgust as he holstered his Colt. ‘‘You damned near caused me to kill you, son,’’ he said. ‘‘That would’ve made me mighty upset.’’
‘‘I’m sorry, Mr. Fargo,’’ Charley gulped as he lay there trying to keep his hands raised despite his prone position. ‘‘Can I, uh, get up now?’’
Fargo reached down, clasped the youngster’s right wrist, and hauled Charley to his feet seemingly effortlessly. ‘‘Followed us all day, did you?’’ he asked.
Sheepishly, Charley nodded. ‘‘Yeah. I hope you’re not too mad at me. I just wanted to come along and help you find Echo. I thought a few times that I wasn’t gonna be able to keep up, but I just kept riding and every so often I’d spot the three of you up ahead.’’
Fargo didn’t say it because he didn’t want to encourage the boy, but he thought that Charley had done an excellent job of trailing them, especially in going undetected as long as he had. Fargo’s instincts had told him that somebody was back there, but he hadn’t caught even a glimpse of the youngster. Charley had some natural talent for this sort of work.
Fargo wished the boy hadn’t used that talent on this particular chore, though. Now he was forced to choose between sending Charley back home on his own—and not knowing whether the boy would actually go—or letting him come along as he and Billy and Joseph McNally closed in on the kidnappers, which could easily turn out to be mighty dangerous. Neither choice was very appealing to Fargo.
‘‘You’re gonna just have to turn around and go back,’’ Billy told Charley. ‘‘This is no place for you.’’
‘‘Aw, Billy—’’ Charley began.
McNally interrupted him by saying, ‘‘When I was a young man and followed Osceola into battle against the white man’s army, many brave Seminole youths no older than this boy fought with us. Our children are born with courage and honor flowing in their veins.’’
‘‘See, Billy?’’ Charley said. ‘‘Mr. McNally wants me to come along.’’
‘‘I know you are a devoted friend to my daughter, Charley,’’ the old Seminole said. ‘‘And it is a long way back home.’’
Charley turned to Fargo. ‘‘What about you, Mr. Fargo? What do you think?’’
‘‘I think you should have stayed put on the farm like Billy and I told you to,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘But since you didn’t . . . it might be better to have you around so that we can keep an eye on you and try to make sure you don’t get into too much trouble. One thing, though . . . you’re going to have to do what you’re told, right away and without arguing.’’
‘‘I can do that!’’ Charley agreed excitedly. He turned to Billy again. ‘‘What do you say, Billy? Mr. Fargo and Mr. McNally don’t mind if I stay. You’ll let me, won’t you?’’
Billy frowned and didn’t say anything for a moment. Charley shifted worriedly from foot to foot. Finally Billy nodded and said, ‘‘All right, but I’m tellin’ you right now, I don’t like it. From here on out, you obey orders, understand?’’
‘‘You bet I do! You won’t be sorry, Billy!’’
‘‘I already am,’’ Billy said with a sigh. ‘‘Now, where’s your horse?’’
Charley pointed into the night. ‘‘I left him back there about a quarter of a mile. I didn’t want to just ride right in, because I thought you might be mad at me and try to send me back. So I figured I’d sneak up, make sure where you were, and be ready to follow you in the morning.’’
‘‘How’d you know we were camped here?’’ Fargo asked. ‘‘We don’t have a fire, so you couldn’t have seen it or smelled any smoke.’’
‘‘I was close enough to see you stop at the edge of these badlands and I figured you wouldn’t try to follow the kidnappers’ trail out there until morning. I dropped back a little and dismounted, then left my horse there and came ahead on foot, just to be sure.’’
Fargo continued to be impressed with the youngster’s skills, as well as what seemed to be a canny nature. However, it was at odds with what he had displayed two days earlier when they had first met, after Charley had followed Fargo up that gulch. That day Charley’s ability to trail somebody stealthily had seemed to be nonexistent.
‘‘How’d you get to be so good at moving quietly, Charley?’’ Fargo asked. ‘‘A couple of days ago you made almost as much noise as a herd of stampeding buffalo.’’
Charley looked down at his feet. ‘‘Aw, I just . . . I been watchin’ you, Mr. Fargo. The way you move around so quiet-like, I mean. I just tried to do things like I thought you might do ’em.’’
Billy made a strangled noise and said, ‘‘You never learned anything from me.’’
‘‘Sure, I did, Billy.’’
‘‘What?’’
Charley smiled. ‘‘How to grin and talk my way out of trouble?’’
Then he ducked as Billy took a swipe at his head and Fargo and Joseph McNally chuckled.
Fargo grew more serious as he picked up the rifle Charley had dropped and handed it to the boy. He asked, ‘‘Why did you point that rifle at Billy and Mr. McNally just before I grabbed you?’’
‘‘I wasn’t really pointin’ it at them,’’ Charley explained. ‘‘I just had it ready in case I was wrong and it wasn’t you fellas camped here. I thought it was, but I couldn’t be absolutely sure until I heard Billy and Mr. McNally talkin’, and by that time it was too late. You’d grabbed hold of me and I was flyin’ through the air.’’
‘‘Caution is a rare thing in one so young,’’ McNally said. ‘‘And a good thing, too.’’
Fargo jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘‘Come on. Let’s go get your horse.’’
As they headed off through the darkness with Charley obviously trying to emulate Fargo’s quiet manner of walking, the youngster said, ‘‘I’m glad you and Billy aren’t too mad at me. I just want to help Echo.’’
‘‘I know that. It would have been better if you’d done like we told you and stayed home, but you have to deal with things the way they are, not the way you wish they were. You’re here, and we’ll make the best of it.’’ Fargo’s tone was grim as h
e added, ‘‘But you know this is liable to be dangerous. You could get hurt or even killed.’’
Charley swallowed hard. ‘‘I know. And I won’t lie to you, Mr. Fargo. I’m kinda scared. But Echo’s always been nice to me. Like I told Billy, she really is sorta like my older sister. If there’s any chance I can help her, I want to, no matter what the risks.’’
‘‘Just do what you’re told and pay attention. Maybe we’ll all come through this alive,’’ Fargo said.
But he wouldn’t have offered very good odds on that. Men who would steal girls and young women and tote them off to God knows what sort of fate wouldn’t hesitate to kill anybody who got in their way. . . .
Even though Charley offered to take a turn on watch that night, Fargo could tell that the boy was even more exhausted by the long day in the saddle than the rest of them were. He told Charley to get a good night’s sleep and promised him that he could take a turn the next night.
Assuming, of course, that all of them were still alive the next night.
This one passed quietly, and before dawn the next morning the four of them shared a meager breakfast. Having Charley along would force them to stretch their rations a little more than they had planned, but in a land with abundant game and water, that wasn’t really a serious consideration.
As soon as it was light enough for them to see where they were going and more importantly to see the tracks left by the kidnappers’ horses, they moved out, following the trail down the slope and into the maze of canyons and ridges.
Most of the canyons were deep enough so that they would remain in shadow all day, except for a short time at midday when the sun was directly overhead. This gave the wilderness a feeling of gloom. Nothing good could be hidden in here, thought Fargo.
The trail led them to a fairly wide but shallow stream that curled in and out of canyons as it flowed cold and clear over a rocky bed dotted with sandbars. Trees lined its banks. Rugged outcroppings of stone jutted from the hillsides above it. In a quiet voice, Fargo told his companions, ‘‘Keep your eyes peeled. If we’re anywhere near the gang’s hideout, there could be lookouts posted up on some of those rocks.’’
Billy, Charley, and McNally nodded their understanding. Billy and McNally looked tense but calm. Charley was scared—Fargo could see the fear in his eyes—but he was doing his best to control it and not let it affect him. He rode just as steady as the men with him, holding his rifle across the saddle in front of him.
They had penetrated a mile or so into the canyons when Fargo reined in and lifted a hand in a signal for the others to halt. They knew to be quiet without being told to. Fargo sniffed the air. A second earlier he had thought he caught a whiff of smoke, but now he didn’t smell it anymore.
There! Suddenly he smelled it again. He sniffed and looked over at Billy, who nodded to signify that he had caught the scent, too. Wood smoke, mixed with the fainter aroma of something cooking. It was unmistakably the smoke from a campfire.
The scent was faint enough so that Fargo knew it came from some distance away. The smoke might waft along these canyons for half a mile, maybe more. But the fact that they were close enough to smell it at all meant that they had to be more cautious than ever now.
Fargo motioned for the others to move back in the direction they had come from. They rode several hundred yards before Fargo stopped and dismounted. Billy, Charley, and McNally followed suit.
‘‘I’m going ahead alone to get the lay of the land,’’ Fargo told them.
‘‘Damn it, Skye,’’ Billy said. ‘‘You’d better let me go with you.’’
Fargo shook his head. ‘‘No. If anything happens to me, I want you to be able to come along and get me out of trouble, Billy.’’ He left unsaid the fact that Billy had done just that a couple of days earlier, but the look they exchanged said that neither of them had forgotten about that. ‘‘And if I don’t come back . . . well, then it’ll be up to the three of you to find Echo and those other girls and rescue them.’’
‘‘Don’t talk like that, Mr. Fargo,’’ Charley said. ‘‘Nobody can beat the Trailsman!’’
‘‘That’s where you’re wrong,’’ Fargo told him with a smile. ‘‘No matter how good you are at anything, there’s always somebody better. Don’t ever let that stop you from trying to be the best you can be, though.’’
Fargo shucked the Henry from its saddle sheath. Billy said, ‘‘Be careful, Skye.’’
Fargo nodded and set off on foot. The way the canyon bent back on itself, he hadn’t gone very far before he was out of sight of the others.
The snakelike course that the stream had carved out for itself meant that the kidnappers’ camp might be only a couple of hundred yards away as the crow flew, but Fargo might have to travel half a mile or more to reach it. He moved with the stealth and patience that long years of adventuring had taught him, sticking to the shadows and the cover of trees and brush as much as he could. He moved so quietly that birds still sang in the trees as he slipped underneath them. A raccoon stood in the water, its masklike face intent as it suddenly reached under the surface and came up with a silver fish wriggling in its paws. An eagle wheeled through the sky overhead.
This was a beautiful land, thought Fargo.
It was a shame that evil men had to bring their ugliness into it.
A short time later he began to hear a low, rumbling, rushing sound. For a moment he couldn’t identify it, but then he realized that he knew what it was. The river twisted around a bend up ahead, with a rocky shoulder to the right that blocked Fargo’s view. He had begun to smell the smoke even stronger now, though, so he knew he had to be close to the camp. Edging closer to the bend, he pressed his back against the rock and took his hat off. Then he leaned around the corner and risked a quick look.
The stream flowed from a large pond at the base of a cliff about five hundred yards away. Down that cliff and into the pond tumbled the waterfall that made the sound Fargo had heard. A crude trail twisted up the face of the cliff to the right of the waterfall, and at the top of it a boulder perched.
A man sat on a smaller rock next to the boulder. He had a rifle tucked under his arm and was smoking a quirley. He looked back up the canyon, which came to a dead end against the cliff. From that vantage point he had a perfect view and would be able to see anyone approaching the pond and the large log cabin that sat in a curve of the cliff to the left of the pond. Near the cabin was a corral made of peeled poles. Fargo counted seven horses in it, and there were four mules as well.
Fargo knew why the mules were there. A wagon was parked between the cabin and the corral, a wagon of a sort that Fargo had seen before. Sturdy walls enclosed its bed. Each of the walls Fargo could see had a small, barred window built into it. Although he couldn’t see the rear of the wagon from where he was, he would have bet that it had a locked door mounted in it.
That was a prison wagon—but there was no prison anywhere around here.
It could be used to carry any sort of prisoners, though, including young women stolen away ruthlessly from their families. As Fargo pulled his head back around the rock, his bearded jaw tightened in anger. What he had just seen gave him a pretty good idea what was going on here.
According to what he had been told, there had been a spate of kidnappings several weeks earlier, then the outrages had stopped for a while. That was because the kidnappers had loaded up their victims in that prison wagon and delivered them to wherever they were going. Then they had come back here to this hideout to start over again, gathering up girls and young women in a sinister harvest. The fact that the wagon was still here meant that the bastards hadn’t finished getting their second load together.
And that meant that Echo, as well as Billy’s sister Wa-nee-sha, were probably still in that cabin, being held prisoner until the kidnappers had enough captives to make it worth their while to load up the wagon and set out again.
It was probably too late to save the first shipment of girls that had left this hellhole, Fargo tol
d himself, but not too late to rescue Echo, Wa-nee-sha, and any other victims who were still here. In order to do that, though, he would have to figure out how he, Billy, Charley, and Joseph McNally could get to the cabin without being seen and free the girls without starting a huge gun battle that would expose them to danger from stray bullets flying around.
The first obstacle was the sentry guarding the approach to the cabin. He would have to be disposed of before they could hope to get close enough to take the kidnappers by surprise. Fargo looked around and then tipped his head back to gaze upward.
No trail led to the top of the ridge that curved around to form the cliff, but he spotted enough potential handholds and footholds to make him believe that he could climb the rock face. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could do it, and if he did then he might be able to work his way around behind the sentry.
With the guard out of the way, Fargo’s companions could sneak up the canyon until they were close to the cabin. Then Fargo would have to create some sort of distraction that would lure the kidnappers into the open. When they came out to see what was going on, Billy, McNally, and Charley could get the drop on them. If the confrontation came down to a shoot-out, the prisoners would have the best chance of survival if all the gunplay took place outside.
The plan stood a good chance of working, Fargo decided. And that was all he had ever asked out of life . . . a good chance.
He clapped his hat on and hurried back up the canyon toward the spot where he had left the other three rescuers. Despite his haste, Fargo still moved as quietly as he could. He had spotted only the one guard, but he didn’t want to take any chances of giving away their presence.
Billy, Charley, and McNally all raised their rifles instinctively as Fargo came trotting into view, then relaxed as they recognized the Trailsman. ‘‘Did you find them?’’ Billy asked anxiously. ‘‘Did you see the prisoners?’’
‘‘Was my daughter there?’’ McNally put in.
