by Jon Sharpe
‘‘I found the hideout,’’ Fargo told them, ‘‘but I didn’t see anybody moving around. There are enough horses in the corral, though, that I’m convinced the whole gang is here.’’
Quickly, he verbally sketched the layout for them and then explained about his plan to take care of the sentry.
‘‘Maybe you ought to let me do that, Skye,’’ Billy suggested. ‘‘That would leave you free to lead the attack on the cabin, if it comes to that.’’
‘‘Or me,’’ Charley offered. ‘‘I’m younger, and I can climb real good.’’
Fargo shook his head. ‘‘Billy, no offense, but you’ve got a bad leg to start with and a stiff arm from that bullet graze. I’m not sure you’d be able to make the climb. And Charley, if you did, you’d have to kill that guard by yourself.’’
‘‘You think I couldn’t do that?’’
‘‘I think you’re still a boy,’’ Fargo said, not bothering to keep the bluntness from his voice. This was not the time for anything less than straight shooting. ‘‘How many men have you killed?’’
Charley grimaced. ‘‘Well . . . none, when you put it that way.’’
‘‘That’s the only way to put it,’’ Fargo said. He softened his tone a little. ‘‘It’s not a matter of trust. It’s a matter of who’s best suited for the job.’’
‘‘Yeah, I reckon,’’ Charley said with a nod. ‘‘We got to do whatever gives us the best chance of rescuin’ those prisoners.’’
Fargo glanced at Joseph McNally. ‘‘You’re not going to argue with me, too?’’
A grim chuckle came from the old Seminole. ‘‘I know I could not make a climb such as the one you describe, Mr. Fargo. But I can pull a trigger just fine, if I have to, and kill the men who stole my daughter.’’
Fargo nodded. ‘‘It’s all settled, then. And I don’t see any point in waiting. Let’s move on up the canyon. Lead your horses and be as quiet as you can.’’
They set off toward the kidnappers’ hideout. When they reached the last bend before the long, straight stretch that led to the waterfall, Fargo signaled another halt. He took off his hat and hung it on the Ovaro’s saddle. Then, knowing how well voices could carry in canyons like this, he whispered, ‘‘I’ll climb up here and work my way around behind the guard. It’ll take me a good ten or fifteen minutes. Billy, when that much time has passed, start checking around the bend every minute or so. Be careful about it, though. You don’t want that hombre to spot you if I haven’t gotten rid of him yet.’’
Billy nodded and said, a little testily, ‘‘I know that, Skye.’’
‘‘I’ll be watching for you,’’ Fargo went on, ‘‘and when I see you I’ll give you the signal that it’s clear. The three of you leave your horses here and work your way as close to the cabin as you can. Stay behind cover as much as possible. I’ll draw them out.’’
‘‘How?’’ Billy asked.
‘‘I’m thinking about pushing down that boulder. It would make a mighty big crash if it fell.’’
The other three nodded. ‘‘Do we shoot them when they come out of the cabin?’’ McNally asked.
‘‘Not unless they put up a fight,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘Just throw down on them and let them know they’re covered. Some of them might stay inside with the prisoners, and we don’t want them to panic and start shooting in there. But if they won’t surrender . . . well, then, we won’t have much choice.’’
The nods were grim ones this time. All four of them knew that what they planned meant great danger, not only for themselves but also for the prisoners.
But there was no other way that Fargo could see. He left his rifle in the saddle boot. Disposing of the guard would be close, bloody work, best suited for the Arkansas toothpick. A shot would give the game away too soon.
Selecting a handhold, Fargo grasped it and pulled himself up. He wedged a boot toe in a crack in the rock and shifted his grip. Moving slowly and carefully, he ascended the canyon’s rocky wall.
Fargo had never liked climbing like this, but his lithely muscular body was well suited for it. When he glanced down a few minutes later he saw that he was already twenty feet above the canyon floor. Thirty or forty more feet would bring him to the top. He kept climbing, making sure that he was secure each time before he shifted a hand or foot.
Even though the air in these shadowy canyons held a hint of coolness in it year-round, a fine sheen of sweat coated Fargo’s face by the time he finally pulled himself over the rimrock at the top of the canyon wall. He lay there catching his breath for a moment, then lifted his head and studied the terrain around him.
The ridge top lifted in a slope to his right that was dotted with trees and scrubby bushes. His eyes followed it on around toward the spot where the sentry was posted above the canyon. Fargo recalled that the rock where the man sat was positioned slightly below the level of the rimrock. While the sentry had a perfect view back down the canyon, he wouldn’t be able to see as well behind him. If Fargo could be quiet enough in his approach, the man would never see him coming.
Knowing that the others were waiting for him, and depending on him, Fargo came to his feet and began making his way along the rimrock, being careful not to dislodge any stones that might clatter down to the canyon below and alert the sentry that someone was skulking around.
He retreated into the trees and used them for cover as he made his way closer and closer to the guard’s position at the top of the trail. The sound of the waterfall was loud now. Fargo dropped to a knee and carefully parted some brush to take a look.
The rimrock’s ragged edge was about a dozen feet in front of him. Fargo’s instincts had brought him to the right place. He saw the top of the sentry’s hat next to the bulge of the boulder that perched at the head of the trail. The trail itself stopped just below the top of the cliff.
Fargo reached down and drew the Arkansas toothpick from the sheath on his calf. He slid almost noiselessly through the brush and edged forward, catfooting closer to the guard. The waterfall so close by made a lot of racket, enough to cover up any small sounds he might make.
He had almost reached the edge when he suddenly realized that he had made a potentially fatal mistake. The sun had risen high enough in the sky to cast a thin, wavering shadow down over the sentry’s position. The man must have seen Fargo’s shadow move at the same instant Fargo himself noticed it, because he bolted up from the smaller rock where he’d been sitting and whirled around to face the threat behind him, bringing up his rifle as he did so.
In that same shaved heartbeat of time, Fargo leaped off the rimrock, hurtling down at the sentry. He had to stop the man from getting off a shot or letting out a yell, no matter what.
Fargo crashed into the guard and knocked him backward. Both of them sprawled onto the steep trail and began to roll down it toward the canyon floor. The trail’s first switchback caught them and stopped their out-of-control tumbling. Luck was the only thing that kept them from going over the edge and falling a good twenty feet to another section of trail below.
Fargo had hold of the rifle barrel with his left hand. He twisted it, wrenching the weapon out of the sentry’s grasp. At the same time he drove the knife at the man’s body, but the man grabbed Fargo’s wrist and with desperate strength held off the blade.
Their faces were only inches apart. Fargo heard the man’s gasp of recognition. He knew the freckled features glaring at him, too. This was the redheaded hombre who had tried to kill him three days earlier. Fargo would have liked to ask the man why he’d bushwhacked him, but this was no time for conversation. The redhead’s free hand bunched into a fist and slammed against the side of Fargo’s head.
Fargo was able to keep his wits about him despite the blow. He still had hold of the guard’s rifle, so he rammed the weapon’s butt into the man’s midsection. The man’s grip on Fargo’s wrist slipped, but not enough to allow Fargo to plunge the Arkansas toothpick into him. The man opened his mouth to yell, forcing Fargo to drop the rifle and lu
nge to grab his throat. He choked off the outcry.
In writhing around during their struggle, they had skidded a little farther down the trail. The boulder loomed above them now, and the air was cool in the giant rock’s shadow. In grim silence, the two men strained against each other in the life-and-death battle. The outlaw hammered punches against Fargo’s head. The Trailsman had no choice but to absorb the punishment as best he could. One hand gripped the knife while the other was locked around the sentry’s throat, preventing him from shouting a warning to his friends.
Gradually, Fargo’s superior strength began to prevail. He brought the knife closer and closer to his enemy’s body as the sentry weakened due to lack of air. The man’s punches grew more feeble. Terror gave him renewed strength for a few seconds as he felt the painful bite of the knife as it penetrated his clothes and then his skin, but it didn’t last. Fargo heaved and felt the blade slide home. The man’s eyes widened in agony as the knife rasped between his ribs and reached his heart.
He seemed to deflate then as the life went out of him. The muscles of his throat relaxed under Fargo’s tightly gripping hand. His eyes began to glaze over. Fargo had witnessed enough death, often at close range like this, to know it when he saw it.
Fargo let go of the dead man’s throat and put his hand on the trail to push himself up. He pulled the knife free of the man’s body and used the corpse’s shirt to wipe away the blood that stained the blade. A little shaky from the desperate struggle, Fargo climbed to his feet and looked down at the cabin. No one was in sight, although smoke continued to rise from the stone chimney.
He gazed along the canyon toward the bend where Billy, Charley, and McNally waited. Lifting his left hand above his head, Fargo waved back and forth as he caught a glimpse of movement at the bend.
A moment later he saw Billy emerge from cover and hurry toward the cabin, limping as he dashed behind some brush. Charley came into view, then McNally. All three of them began working their way toward the cabin, being careful about it as Fargo had told them but not wasting any time.
Fargo left the sentry where he had fallen and climbed back to the top of the trail, taking the man’s rifle with him. He would probably need it to use as a lever in dislodging that boulder. As soon as he had done that, he would start down the trail so that he could join the others and hopefully help them disarm the kidnappers.
While Billy, Charley, and McNally made their way into position, Fargo studied the massive rock. He had room to get behind it, but not really enough to wedge the rifle in at its base and try to lever it into motion. Instead he wedged himself in with his back against the rimrock and his booted feet against the boulder. The painful muscles in his back reminded him that this was a similar position to the one he’d been in a couple of days earlier when he had worked his way up that fissure in an attempt to escape from the whiskey runners.
Fargo set himself and heaved, bringing all the strength in his legs to bear on the boulder. A lesser man might have despaired as he felt its unyielding mass. Fargo just gritted his teeth and tried again, putting his back and shoulders into it, too.
This time the huge rock shifted, but only a fraction of an inch. Even that much progress was encouraging, though. Fargo let himself slide back down to the ground and stood there catching his breath as he checked on the progress his three allies were making. They were doing a good job of staying behind cover, he saw. If he hadn’t known they were there, he might not have been able to spot them as they slipped closer and closer to the cabin. He thought they would be ready by the time he got the rock moving.
Unfortunately, time was something they didn’t have as much of as Fargo had hoped, because at that moment a gunshot blasted inside the cabin.
8
Fargo tensed as he saw the door of the cabin slam open, hard on the heels of the shot. A figure with thick dark hair tumbling around her shoulders dashed outside. Fargo’s heart leaped as he recognized Echo. As she ran, she twisted around and fired back at the cabin.
Thoughts flashed through Fargo’s brain. Somehow, Echo had gotten her hands on a gun, and now she was making a break for freedom, just as he and his companions were about to launch their rescue attempt.
Echo had no way of knowing that, however. She had to be thinking that she was seizing her only chance to get away from her captors. But she had placed herself in even more danger, and Fargo expected to hear a shot ring out at any second, a shot that would drop Echo in her tracks and probably end her life.
Instead of firing, a burly man with a dark, tangled beard lunged through the cabin door and gave chase. Echo turned and threw another shot at him, but it missed. The man never broke stride as his long legs carried him after the fleeing young woman. He closed the gap in seconds, and when Echo tried to swing the gun around and fire again, he slapped it aside with one big, brutal paw.
At the same time, his other hand closed on the collar of her shirt and yanked backward. The cloth ripped, allowing one of Echo’s breasts to spill from the shirt, but enough of it held together so that she was jerked off her feet. She slumped to the ground.
‘‘Echo!’’
The shout came from Joseph McNally, who leaped out from behind the tree where he had hidden and ran toward his daughter. Fargo bit back a curse. He had been hoping that McNally and the others would be coolheaded enough to stay out of sight until the big kidnapper had taken Echo back inside. Then they could go ahead and put their plan into effect.
All bets were off now, though. McNally thrust his rifle toward the kidnapper and yelled, ‘‘Get away from her!’’ Billy and Charley came out into the open, too, and pointed their rifles at the man. Fargo saw the rest of the kidnappers come boiling out of the cabin, hardfaced hombres bristling with guns.
All hell was going to break loose, he realized. There was no way to stop it now.
So he decided that he might as well contribute to it.
He threw himself between the rimrock and the boulder again, drawing his knees up so that he slid down lower as his feet braced against the huge rock. It was now or never, the Trailsman told himself as he threw every iota of his strength into the effort. A grinding rasp came from the boulder.
Fargo rolled the stone.
Once the boulder began to move, its own weight did the rest. It lurched forward, dislodging a shower of dirt and pebbles around its base. Fargo fell to the ground as the boulder tipped over and began to roll. It crashed down onto the trail below, bounced, rolled, fell again, and all the while a roar was building that dwarfed the sound of the waterfall.
Fargo scrambled forward to the edge of the trail and peered over it. He saw everyone below peering upward in astonishment as the boulder came bounding and smashing down the cliff. What seemed to take forever was probably no more than a pair of split seconds, and then the boulder landed in the pool with an earth-shaking crash and a huge splash that threw water high in the air.
While that water still hung in the air, Fargo was already moving. He raced down the trail toward the hideout, Colt in hand. Below, guns began to roar. Through the haze of dust that the boulder had kicked up as it fell, Fargo saw that Billy and Charley had opened fire on the kidnappers to give McNally some cover while the old Seminole dashed forward toward his daughter.
The Colt in Fargo’s hand bucked as he added a couple of shots of his own. The bullets from Billy and Charley’s guns made the kidnappers duck for cover, but Fargo’s lead kept them from retreating into the cabin. He didn’t want them getting back in there where they could use the remaining prisoners as hostages.
The burly hombre who had grabbed Echo and torn her shirt stepped forward to meet McNally’s rush. He knocked the old man’s rifle aside and clubbed McNally in the head with his other fist. McNally slumped to one knee.
Before the kidnapper could press his advantage, Echo leaped on his back from behind and reached around him to claw at his eyes. The man howled in anger and stumbled forward. McNally grabbed him around the knees and jerked his legs out from under him. T
he kidnapper toppled to the ground, taking Echo with him.
Fargo had almost reached the bottom of the trail. Flame spurted from a gun muzzle as one of the men fired at him. The bullet whistled past Fargo’s ear. He triggered again, and the kidnapper doubled over as the slug punched into his belly.
He was the only kidnapper who had been downed so far, though, and the others were starting to get organized. Their shots drove Billy and Charley into the cover of some trees. Meanwhile, the man who was struggling with Echo and her father got the upper hand as well, backhanding Echo away from him and then sinking a fist deep into McNally’s belly as the Seminole tried to get up. Gray-faced and gasping for breath, the old-timer collapsed.
Fargo headed for them, hoping that he might get there quickly enough to turn the tide, but he had to circle the pool to reach them and before he was halfway around it, the kidnapper had hold of Echo again and had started dragging her back toward the cabin.
Fargo turned and went the other way, plunging toward the waterfall. He could see the rocks there and knew the pool was shallow enough he could cross it without having to swim. The water pounded at him as he ducked under the waterfall. He had to be careful not to slip and fall as he leaped from rock to rock.
He burst out of the cascading water and found himself only a few yards from the cabin. Echo was still struggling with the kidnapper, slowing him down. They hadn’t reached the door yet. Fargo couldn’t risk a shot, not with Echo that close to the man, so he jammed his Colt back in its holster and left his feet in a flying tackle.
He slammed into the kidnapper and knocked him away from Echo. Both men sprawled to the sandy ground in front of the cabin. Fargo rolled over and came up on his knees. As he did so, he saw that the kidnapper was getting up, too. The man lunged at him, swinging a malletlike fist. Fargo ducked his head and took the blow on his shoulder as he hooked a punch of his own into the man’s midsection.
Both of them kept punching as they surged to their feet. They wound up toe to toe, slugging away at each other. Fargo gave as good as he got, but the other man was taller and heavier. Fargo knew this was one time he might not be able to match his opponent in sheer power.
