Seminole Showdown

by Jon Sharpe

  ‘‘We can hope,’’ Fargo said with a laugh.

  He stood there with the Henry tucked under his arm and watched as Echo slipped back into the cabin. He hoped she didn’t wake any of the others. He wasn’t ashamed of what they had done, but as a gentleman, he believed in the concept of discretion. . . .

  A sudden sharp nicker from the Ovaro made him turn toward the corral. The other horses shifted restlessly. Could be a coyote sniffing around, thought Fargo. He was about to go check it out when something else caught his attention—the scrape of boot leather on rock.

  He was wheeling toward the sound when flame suddenly lanced out of the darkness, accompanied by the roar of a gun. What felt like a giant fist smashed into Fargo’s head. He knew he was falling but couldn’t do anything about it, and then he felt the cold shock of water closing around him.

  That sensation was the last thing he knew.

  9

  Fargo choked and sputtered, and that brought him out of the darkness that threatened to claim him for all eternity. Each cough sent a sledgehammer of pain crashing through his head, but at the same time he savored that agony because it proved he was still alive.

  Water streamed over his face. He ducked his head and tried to shield it with his arms. His fingers rasped against stone. He pulled himself upward, feeling the tug of his soaked buckskins as he did so. The easy thing would have been to slip back under the surface, to let the watery embrace wrap itself around him, but Fargo fought against that temptation. He clambered over the rocks until he was completely out of the water.

  Darkness still surrounded him, along with a rushing roar. Cold, wet spray coated his face. Gradually, he came to realize that he was under the waterfall at the head of the canyon, lying on the rocks in the narrow space behind the cascade. How he had gotten there, he didn’t know. The last things he remembered were a flash of light and a smashing blow to his head. . . .

  Somebody had taken a shot at him, he realized as his stunned brain began to function again. He forced his muscles to work and lifted a hand to his head, to the center of the pain. Above his right ear, his fingers found a small, sticky lump where a slug had barely grazed him.

  That leaden kiss had been enough to knock him out and send him tumbling into the pool at the base of the waterfall. He wasn’t sure how he had gotten all the way around here behind the falling stream. Even though he’d been unconscious, his instinct for survival must have fought to keep him from going under and he had floated or crawled over here.

  Echo! Memories of the beautiful young woman surged up in Fargo’s mind. She had just gone into the cabin, where everyone else was sleeping. Who the hell had taken that shot at him? Everybody was accounted for, and anyway, none of them would have any reason to try to ventilate him.

  Fargo pushed himself up on his elbows and looked around. He spotted a flickering orange glow through the falling water, and the realization of what it was sent shock waves jolting along his nerves and through his muscles.

  The cabin was on fire!

  Without even realizing that he had climbed to his feet, Fargo found himself stumbling through the torrent and then out into the open air. Water splashed around his feet as he staggered toward the blazing structure. Heat from the flames washed over him, forcing him to stop before he could get too close. He lifted an arm to shield his face, just as he had when he came to in the water.

  ‘‘Echo!’’ he shouted, lifting his voice to be heard over the fierce crackling of the flames. ‘‘Echo! Billy! Charley!’’

  ‘‘Mr. Fargo! Over here! Mr. Fargo!’’

  Fargo turned toward the sound of the familiar voice. ‘‘Charley! Where are you?’’

  After what seemed like a long time but was probably only seconds, he finally focused on a shape near the corral. He realized it was Charley. The youngster waved both arms over his head.

  ‘‘Mr. Fargo! Help!’’

  Fargo hurried toward him. Pain still throbbed inside Fargo’s skull, but his steps were steadier now and he was able to use his iron will to force the pain into the back of his mind. He saw two dark shapes lying on the ground near Charley’s feet and feared the worst.

  Charley clutched at Fargo’s arms as Fargo came up to the boy. ‘‘It’s Billy and Mr. McNally,’’ Charley said. ‘‘They’re hurt!’’

  ‘‘Where are Echo and the other girls?’’ Fargo asked. He glanced back toward the burning cabin, afraid that Charley was going to tell him the girls were inside that inferno.

  Instead, Charley said, ‘‘They’re gone! He made them get in the wagon and took ’em with him!’’

  ‘‘All of them? Echo, too?’’

  Charley’s head bobbed in a nod. ‘‘Yeah. Billy and Mr. McNally tried to stop him, but . . . but he shot them!’’

  Fargo gripped the boy’s shoulders. ‘‘Who?’’

  ‘‘The man . . . I don’t know where he came from. . . . I’d never seen him before . . . but Billy called him Rafferty!’’

  Shock stiffened Fargo’s muscles as he heard that name. He had believed that Rafferty was dead under tons of rock and dirt after the exploding whiskey barrels caused that overhanging bluff above the Canadian River to collapse.

  What Charley said next sent ice along Fargo’s veins. ‘‘I . . . I never saw anybody who looked like him, Mr. Fargo! It was like his whole face had been burned off, but he was still alive somehow!’’

  So Rafferty had been caught in the fire as the whiskey burned, but he must have managed to crawl through the flames and get out from under the bluff just before it came down. Maybe he was the only one of the whiskey runners who had survived that catastrophe. Bent on revenge, driven by hatred that enabled him to keep moving in spite of his injuries, he must have been trailing Fargo and Billy ever since, waiting for a chance to wreak his vengeance on them.

  ‘‘You can tell me later exactly what happened,’’ Fargo said to Charley. ‘‘Right now we’d better see how bad Billy and Mr. McNally are hurt.’’

  The light from the burning cabin was enough for Fargo to see the bloodstain on McNally’s shirt when he rolled the old Seminole onto his back. Fargo ripped the shirt open and rested a hand on McNally’s chest, which rose and fell steadily. The old-timer was alive, and when Fargo tore the shirt even more, he saw that a bullet had knocked a hunk out of McNally’s side but didn’t seem to have penetrated his body. McNally had passed out from shock and loss of blood, but he ought to pull through.

  Billy was in worse shape, Fargo saw immediately when he moved over to check on his old friend. The entire front of Billy’s shirt was sodden with blood.

  Incredibly, Billy was still alive, too. In fact, his eyelids fluttered and he let out a groan as Fargo moved the blood-sticky shirt aside and saw the worst. Billy had at least two bullet holes in his stomach. He was gut-shot, the sort of wound from which no one recovered. At least he had lost enough blood so that he couldn’t last much longer, and in its own grim way, that was merciful. Sometimes men injured like this took agonizing hours to die.

  ‘‘Sk-Skye . . .’’ Billy whispered.

  ‘‘Right here,’’ Fargo told him. ‘‘You just rest easy, Billy. You’ll be fine.’’

  ‘‘All the things . . . you can do . . . better’n me . . . lyin’ was never one of ’em, Skye . . .’’

  Fargo didn’t respond to that. He leaned over Billy and said, ‘‘Charley told me it was Rafferty.’’

  ‘‘Y-yeah. . . . Don’t know how the son of a bitch . . . is still alive. . . . Did he . . . did he hurt the girls?’’

  ‘‘He took them with him,’’ Fargo said.

  ‘‘Damn!’’ Billy lifted a hand and clutched feebly at Fargo’s arm. ‘‘You got to . . . go after him . . . get ’em back . . .’’

  ‘‘I will,’’ Fargo promised. ‘‘You can rest easy about that, Billy.’’

  Billy’s eyes closed and a long sigh came from him, and Fargo thought he was gone. But a second later he murmured, ‘‘Knew I could . . . count on you . . . Skye.’’ A moment passed
, and then Billy whispered, ‘‘Skye . . . you know how . . . I got my name?’’

  ‘‘You mean your real name?’’

  ‘‘No . . . Billy Buzzard.’’

  Fargo shook his head. ‘‘I don’t reckon I do. Folks were already calling you that when I first met you.’’

  ‘‘One of the soldiers . . . gave me the name . . . ’cause I was so good at findin’ the enemy . . . said I was always circlin’ around . . . followin’ death . . . like a buzzard . . . what he didn’t know . . . was that death was . . . followin’ me. . . .’’

  This time when Billy’s head sagged back, the rattling breath that came from his throat was unmistakable. Death followed everybody, Fargo thought, from the moment they took their first breath as babies. The trick was in staying ahead of it as long as you could.

  But it had caught up to Billy Buzzard at last.

  From behind Fargo, Charley said, ‘‘Is . . . is he . . . ?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Fargo said, ‘‘he’s gone.’’

  ‘‘Mr. McNally’s awake now. I helped him sit up.’’

  Fargo came to his feet and turned around. He saw that McNally now leaned against one of the corral poles. The old Seminole’s face was drawn and haggard in the firelight, but his eyes glittered with anger as he looked up at Fargo.

  ‘‘My daughter has been taken prisoner again,’’ he said.

  ‘‘I know,’’ Fargo told him. ‘‘But I’m going to get her back. Rafferty put all the girls in that wagon, and he won’t be able to move very fast with it. It won’t take me long to catch up to him.’’

  ‘‘Take Charley with you,’’ McNally said.

  Fargo frowned. ‘‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea. You’re going to need help—’’

  McNally shook his head. ‘‘Bandage my wound, and I will be fine. I can take Billy back to his mother and father. You and Charley bring back their daughter, and mine.’’

  ‘‘Are you sure about that?’’

  McNally nodded.

  ‘‘All right, then,’’ Fargo said, reaching a decision. ‘‘Charley, you’re coming with me. But first we need to tend to Mr. McNally.’’

  Normally, Fargo wouldn’t take anybody as young as Charley along with him on a dangerous mission, but Charley had handled himself well so far and had in fact saved Fargo’s life during the gunfight with the kidnappers. After being nicked a couple of times by bullets, Fargo thought it might be a good idea to have someone backing his play when he went after Rafferty.

  He tore a strip off McNally’s shirt and wet it in the pool, then used it to clean away the blood around the wound in the old Seminole’s side. Fargo was able to confirm that the wound was a shallow one.

  ‘‘I’d feel better if we had some whiskey to clean it with,’’ he commented as he sat back on his heels.

  ‘‘Use gunpowder,’’ McNally suggested.

  Fargo frowned. ‘‘That’s a mighty painful way to do it.’’

  ‘‘I know, but I am an old man. If the wound festers, I might not survive.’’

  ‘‘There is that to consider,’’ Fargo admitted. ‘‘If you’re sure.’’

  ‘‘Go ahead,’’ McNally told him.

  Fargo used the Arkansas toothpick to pry open a couple of cartridges and sprinkled the gunpowder in the wound in McNally’s side. Then, since the lucifers he carried in his pocket were a sodden, useless lump, he got a piece of flint from his saddlebags and knelt next to the old man, holding the knife.

  ‘‘Hang on,’’ Fargo said. McNally just nodded again.

  Fargo struck the blade against the flint as he held them close to McNally’s side. Sparks flew, and one of them landed in the wound. The gunpowder ignited with a flash.

  McNally threw his head back, the cords in his neck standing out as he gritted his teeth against the pain. Smoke curled up from the wound, bringing with it the smell of burned powder and burned flesh.

  ‘‘We’ll tie some clean rags over that,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘You ought to be able to make it back to the farm. Billy’s mother can look after you once you get there.’’ He hesitated. ‘‘One thing, though. You can’t take Billy’s body back there. It would take too long. We need to bury him here.’’

  McNally sighed. ‘‘I know. I wish that were not true, but it is. Do what you must.’’

  Fargo turned his head to look at Charley. ‘‘See if you can find a shovel.’’

  Charley had no luck in that, so finally they had to use a broken branch to scoop out a shallow grave. Charley did most of the work, and as he did, he filled Fargo in on what had happened.

  ‘‘There was a shot outside that woke everybody up. Billy and Mr. McNally and I ran outside to see what was going on, and Mr. McNally got hit next. I went to help him, and while I was doing that this man came out of nowhere and threw a burning torch in the cabin. That’s when Billy called his name, and they shot at each other.’’ Charley gulped. ‘‘Billy missed. Rafferty didn’t. I slid under the bottom rail into the corral and pulled Mr. McNally inside with me while the girls came runnin’ out of the cabin after it started to burn. Rafferty made ’em get in the wagon. Echo tried to fight him, and he knocked her down and then slung her in there himself. He locked the door so they couldn’t get out.’’

  Fargo wasn’t surprised that Echo had put up a fight. She wasn’t one to surrender to anything or anybody . . . unless she wanted to.

  ‘‘I was gonna take a shot at him, but then Billy got up somehow and tried to fight again, and he was between me and Rafferty. That’s when Rafferty shot him again. Billy fell where he could see me in the corral, and he told me to hold my fire. He said Rafferty probably thought he had killed all of us, and to let him go. Billy whispered for me to find you and go after Rafferty later. He said you weren’t dead. He said . . .’’ Charley stopped and wiped the back of his hand across his nose as tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘‘He said that no rotten bastard like Rafferty could kill the Trailsman, that you were still around somewhere and would save Echo and the other girls. I’m sorry, Mr. Fargo, but I did what he said. I let Rafferty think that me and Mr. McNally were dead.’’

  ‘‘You did the right thing,’’ Fargo told him. ‘‘If you’d put up a fight, Rafferty would have just killed you and Mr. McNally both. This way we’ve still got a chance to go after him.’’

  ‘‘Who is he, Mr. Fargo? Why’s he doin’ this?’’

  Fargo hesitated. With Billy dead, there was no need to go into detail about the whiskey-running scheme. He said, ‘‘Rafferty is an old enemy of Billy’s. He was with those outlaws we got in a fight with the other day, and I reckon he’s been following us ever since, waiting for a chance to get even.’’

  ‘‘How’d he get burned so bad?’’

  ‘‘Now that I don’t know,’’ Fargo lied. Billy had been wrong about that; he could lie when he had to. He just didn’t like it much.

  When they had the grave as deep as they were going to get it, they wrapped Billy’s body in a blanket from his bedroll and carried it over to the hole. They lowered him as gently as possible. Joseph McNally walked stiffly over to the grave and lifted his voice in a chant. Fargo didn’t speak any Seminole, but he knew a prayer when he heard one, so he sent one of his own up as well, a prayer for the soul of Billy Buzzard, no saint, surely, but in the end a man with more good in him than bad.

  That was all they could do for Billy, except pile some large rocks on the grave once Charley had used his hands to shovel the dirt back into the hole. ‘‘Somebody ought to come back here sometime and put up a marker,’’ Charley said as he straightened from that chore.

  ‘‘That would be a good job for you,’’ Fargo told him. ‘‘Maybe you could bring the rest of his family back here, too, so they can say good-bye to him.’’

  Charley swallowed hard. ‘‘I’ll do that, Mr. Fargo,’’ he said. ‘‘I surely will.’’

  Fargo didn’t doubt it. Charley had the makings of a good man . . . if he lived long enough to get there.

  That bastar
d Rafferty might have something to say about that when they caught up to him.

  Fargo was anxious to get started after Rafferty, but he knew better than to rush. He used a wet rag to clean the wound on his own head, wincing a little as he swabbed dried blood away from the tender lump.

  ‘‘You sure got a goose egg there, Mr. Fargo,’’ Charley told him. The roof of the cabin and the walls had collapsed, causing the fire to die down, but enough flames still burned to light up this end of the blind canyon.

  ‘‘Yeah, it feels like a mule kicked me,’’ Fargo agreed. ‘‘I’d like to lie down and sleep for about a week, but in this life, we don’t always get to do what we want to do. Mr. McNally’s going to rest here until morning, but you and I can start after Rafferty tonight. With that wagon, he’s got to follow the canyon until it lifts back up out of here. We’ll go that far and then wait until dawn. We ought to be able to pick up his trail then.’’

  ‘‘You reckon he’s gonna hurt Echo and Wa-nee-sha and those other girls?’’ Charley asked worriedly.

  Fargo shook his head. ‘‘I just don’t know, Charley. When a fella’s half crazed like Rafferty is, there’s just no telling what he might do.’’

  After making sure that McNally had plenty of supplies for his trip back home, Fargo and Charley saddled their horses. They fastened lead ropes to two of the kidnappers’ mounts. Fargo didn’t expect this chase to turn out to be a long one, but if it did, it might come in handy if he and Charley had extra horses so they could switch out riding them. Having fresh mounts available increased a man’s speed on the trail, Fargo explained to the youngster.

  Then, after shaking hands with McNally, Fargo and Charley mounted up and rode away from the cabin, heading down the canyon by the light of the stars and a thin crescent moon. Earlier tonight those stars had been shining down on Echo’s beautifully nude body as she stood there with the waterfall cascading around her. Fargo had trouble believing that only a few hours had passed since that idyllic moment.

  Just went to show you how changeable life could be, he thought.

  As they followed the twists and turns of the canyon, Fargo kept an eye on their flanks to make sure there were no trails where the wagon could have gotten up to the ridges on either side. He didn’t recall any such places, but he wanted to be sure Rafferty didn’t slip away from them.