by Jon Sharpe
The Apache grinned.
“You speak the white tongue?” Fargo realized.
Squatting just out of reach, the warrior placed his rifle on the ground and rested his forearms on his knees. “I speak it good, white-eye.”
Only then did Fargo notice that the warrior’s eyes were blue; Apaches nearly always had brown or black eyes. The man’s face wasn’t typical of an Apache, either. The cheekbones were more prominent, the chin not rounded. “You’re part white.”
“My father Chiricahua. My mother was your kind.”
Fargo had met more than a few half-breeds in his travels. As a rule they were looked down on, especially in the white world. “Do your folks live with the Chiricahuas?”
“Father and mother dead,” the warrior said. “Killed in Mexico by scalp hunters.”
Fargo had never taken part in the vile business of lifting scalps for bounty money but he was acquainted with a few who did. “A rotten way to die.”
The warrior grunted.
“But then, there’s no shortage of bastards in this world,” Fargo declared. No shortage of bitches, either.
“Scalp hunters dead, too,” the Apache said. “I hunt them. I find them.” He moved the tip of the knife across his own throat without touching it.
“They got what they deserved,” Fargo said.
“We think alike, white-eye.”
Fargo was unsure what to make of how friendly the warrior was being. Most Apaches would have killed him by now, or started to carve on him to test his courage. “How are you called?”
“My white name John Jackson.” The warrior paused. “Apaches call me Slits Throats.”
So that’s how he was going to do it, Fargo realized.
Slits Throats gestured. “Why did white women do this to you?”
“It’s a long story,” Fargo said.
“You going somewhere?”
Fargo would swear that inwardly the warrior was laughing at him. “You really want to hear it?”
“I never see white women tie a white man before. Why you not fight? You afraid of them?”
“The one pulled a gun on me. You must have seen her.”
“Let me hear story.”
Reluctantly, Fargo explained about the payroll robbery, about Mrs. Waxler, and about the five female outlaws.
“Five white women rob army?” Slits Throats said, and chuckled.
“How did you get mixed in this?” Fargo wanted to know.
“I came on tracks of woman on bay. I want her horse, so I stalk her. I see her try to shoot you, see you take her captive, see the other one tie you. This was strange, even for white-eyes. It make me curious.”
“Now you know,” Fargo said. “You might as well get it over with.”
“Eh?”
“I don’t like cat and mouse,” Fargo said, “especially when I’m the mouse.”
“You want me slit your throat?”
“That’s what you aim to do, isn’t it?”
“You first white-eye ever ask me to kill him,” Slits Throats said, and his shoulders shook in silent mirth.
“Glad you’re amused,” Fargo said.
“You did hear me say my father white?”
“To some that wouldn’t make a difference.”
Slits Throats grew somber. “I not hate my father, white-eye. He loved my mother. He good father to me.”
“What about other whites? What about me?”
“You make me laugh,” Slits Throats said.
Fargo propped his elbows under him. “If you’re not fixing to kill me, why haven’t you cut me free?”
Slits Throats regarded him a bit. “I have—” He stopped. “What do whites call it? A proposition for you.”
“I’m listening,” Fargo said, smothering his bewilderment.
“I free you,” Slits Throats said. “I help you track the white women. For that, you give me two things.”
“If I can,” Fargo said, wondering what in the world they could be.
“I want a horse.”
“You have the bay.”
“I want another horse.”
Fargo was dumbfounded. Slits Throats could easily steal another from someone else. “That’s easy enough. What else?”
“One hundred dollars.”
Just when Fargo thought he’d heard everything. Apaches had little interest in money. But then, Slits Throats was part white. “The army can afford to pay that much as a reward, I reckon.”
“Not army. You.”
“You want me to pay you the hundred out of my own pocket?”
Slits Throats wagged his knife, and grinned. “Your life not worth that much?”
Fargo was thoroughly confused. The request made no sense. But who was he to quibble, the predicament he was in. “A horse and a hundred dollars. Agreed.”
“We shake on it.” Slits Throats moved around behind him.
The knife flashed, and the rope between Fargo’s arms and legs was severed. Another flash, and the rope around his wrists fell off, his skin unbroken.
Sitting up, Fargo removed the rest of the rope himself. His blisters hurt like hell but he put them from his mind. “I’m obliged.”
Slits Throats came back around, slid his knife into its sheath, and held out his callused hand. “We have a deal, as whites say?”
Fargo shook. “What will your Apache friends think, you helping a white man?”
“They do what they want. I do what I want. You savvy?”
Fargo had never cared what others thought, either. Some folks did. They lived their whole lives trying to fit in with everyone else. They’d wear the same clothes everybody else did, go about their day like everybody else. To be considered different was a calamity.
“When you want to start?” Slits Throats asked. “Now or first light?”
Rubbing his wrists, Fargo stood. Not a single light showed anywhere. If Big Bertha and her cohorts had stopped for the night, they were smart enough to hide their fire. “It will have to be daybreak.”
“I be back,” Slits Throats said, and melted into the darkness as soundlessly as a specter.
Fargo looked down at his empty holster. He wished he had his Colt but Geraldine had taken it. His Henry, too. All he had left was the toothpick.
It wasn’t a minute later that hooves thudded, and Slits Throats returned on the bay. Hopping down, he patted it. “If you hungry, we can eat horse.”
“No, thanks,” Fargo said. Apaches often ate their animals, but he wasn’t that hungry. “I would like to look in those saddlebags.”
“Be my guest.”
Fargo had to remember the warrior was half-white. He took the saddlebags and spread them by the fire and began taking everything out. “Coffee, by God.” And a pot to make it in. He also found ammunition for Ruby’s rifle, a spare man’s shirt and britches, and the carmine she used on her lips as well as the brush she applied it with.
“What is that?” Slits Throats asked.
Fargo told him.
“Make mouth red? I want them.”
Wondering what in the world the breed wanted them for, Fargo handed them over. “You should look right pretty.”
“Not for me, silly white-eye,” Slits Throats said. “For wife.”
“You have one.”
“Soon, maybe.”
Fargo had more important things to ponder. Such as what he’d do when he caught up to Geraldine, to say nothing of the female outlaws. The way things had been going, the only thing he could say with certainty was that corralling them wouldn’t be easy.
Matter of fact, the way things had been going, he’d be lucky to make it back to Fort Bowie alive.
16
Fargo slept fitfully. Half a pot of coffee was partly to blame. His new “partner” had more to do with it.
He should be grateful that Slits Throats had freed him. He should be able to let down his guard long enough to get a few hours sleep. But try as he might, he couldn’t. He’d doze off for a few minutes and snap awake again to see Slits Throats lying on the ground on the other side of the charred remains of their fire. He couldn’t make out much detail in the dark but Fargo had the sense that the breed was awake and staring at him.
The first trace of dawn was cause for Fargo to get up and get the fire going. He needed the other half of that pot of coffee.
Slits Throats opened his eyes and sat up. “You not sleep much.”
“My wrists,” Fargo said by way of excuse. The blisters bothered him, but not that much.
“That only reason?”
“What else?” Fargo said. He had a sense that the breed was laughing at him again.
“Whites let pain hurt too much,” Slits Throats said.
“No argument there,” Fargo replied. He’d witnessed firsthand how Apaches could endure pain that would make most anyone else scream in torment.
“You like being white-eye?”
Fargo set the coffeepot so it would heat up, and shrugged. “I’ve never thought about it much.”
“You think of it when you like me. Part white. Part red. Many hate those who half of each.”
Since Slits Throats was being so gabby, Fargo decided to say, “I’m curious. What do you want the hundred dollars for?”
“Buy new rifle,” Slits Throats said. He patted the Spencer in his lap. “This is good gun. It shoots true. But I want rifle like you have.” His lips quirked. “Rifle woman take.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“How it feel to be beat by woman?”
“I knew it,” Fargo said. “You’re rubbing it in. You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”
“You funny man.”
“I thought I was silly.”
“You silly and funny,” Slits Throats said. “Most white-eyes one or other. You both.”
Fargo bit off a “Go to hell.”
“Tell me about shiny rifle,” Slits Throats said. “It called Henry, yes?”
“It’s named after the man who came up with it, yes.”
“It true that Henry shoot more times than Spencer?”
“A Henry holds sixteen rounds. A Spencer can only hold seven,” Fargo confirmed.
Slits Throats’ face lit with delight. “Sixteen,” he repeated, almost in awe. “Can kill many times with gun like that.”
“A Henry costs about forty dollars,” Fargo mentioned. A little more if the buyer wanted a sling or extras, like having the receiver gold-plated instead of brass.
“And bullets?”
“Ten dollars will buy you a thousand rounds.”
“Hundred dollars more than enough, then,” Slits Throats said, clearly pleased. “Can buy Henry and much bullets.”
“You really have your heart set on it,” Fargo said.
“Many Chiricahuas have Spencer. Few have Henry.”
Fargo thought he understood. To an Apache, owning a rifle like a Henry was a mark of prestige. Other warriors would secretly admire it, and want one of their own.
The coffee was soon ready, and Fargo savored his first cup. He offered some to Slits Throats but he wanted only a few swallows of water from Ruby’s canteen.
A ring of orange crowned the eastern horizon when they were ready to head out. Fargo figured they’d ride double but Slits Throats surprised him.
“You ride. I run.”
“You sure?”
“Me Apache.”
“Suit yourself,” Fargo said. Apache endurance was legendary. It was said an Apache could travel seventy-five miles in a day at a dogtrot.
The trail was easy to follow. They made good time.
It was soon apparent that Geraldine hadn’t stopped for the night. She should have. The Ovaro and the sorrel needed rest. By the middle of the day they would be flagging.
Not Slits Throats. He ran tirelessly, matching the fast walk of the bay, his breathing as normal as if he were taking a stroll.
The terrain became more mountainous.
Soon the hoofprints climbed toward an island of ponderosa pines, some of the trees over a hundred feet high.
Fargo wasn’t quite to the trees when Slits Throats suddenly stopped.
“Voices.”
Fargo drew rein. He strained his ears but he couldn’t hear anything other than a few birds.
“Women,” Slits Throats said. “They angry.”
Fargo took his word for it. Dismounting, he led the bay, careful to avoid rocks that might clatter and give them away. The first small pine he came to, he tied the reins and crept into the shadowed woods. His hand drifted to his empty holster, and he frowned.
At his side glided Slits Throats.
They had gone over a hundred feet in when Fargo halted and crouched. He’d heard the voices too.
“. . . tired of your griping,” Ruby was saying. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
“You tricked me, you cow,” Geraldine said bitterly.
“What the hell did you expect?”
Fargo stalked closer.
The women had stopped at a small clearing. There was shade from the sun, and something with even more appeal: a spring. The Ovaro and the sorrel were picketed close by, and a small fire gave off hardly any smoke. Ruby was hunkered beside it, drinking coffee she had brewed in Fargo’s own pot, sipping from Fargo’s own cup. Her rifle was at her feet, and she was grinning like the cat that just ate the canary.
Geraldine Waxler lay on the other side of the fire. Her wrists were tied. She had a gash in her temple, and a ribbon of dried blood ran from the gash to her chin. “I should never have turned my back on you.”
“Did you think I was too scared to try and turn the tables? Did you think I was afraid of you?”
“You acted like you were.”
“Jackass,” Ruby said. “You’re a whore, like me. What’s to be afraid of?”
“So what now? You finish me off?”
“No,” Ruby said. “I’m taking you to my boss. She’d like that, I do believe.”
“She?”
“The person who organized the payroll robbery, the very one who shot your precious husband full of holes, is a woman.”
“The hell you say.”
Slits Throats nudged Fargo and whispered, “What we do?”
“We don’t do anything yet,” Fargo whispered. He hoped to overhear more.
In the clearing, Ruby was saying, “And before you ask, no, I won’t tell you who the woman is. I want it to be a surprise.”
Geraldine seemed dazed. “My husband could hold his own against Apaches. And he was shot by a female?”
“Women can be as deadly as men when they put their minds to it,” Ruby boasted.
Fargo agreed. He’d run across some ladies who were as deadly as they came.
“What is this world coming to?” Geraldine said.
“Maybe you should ask that scout,” Ruby said. “He was on your side, wasn’t he? Helping you catch the ones who shot your major. And what did you do? Refresh my memory?”
Geraldine didn’t respond.
“Now I remember,” Ruby said, smirking. “You left him to be whittled on by an Apache. So don’t lie there and claim the notion of a woman shooting your husband shocks you. You’re not much different than she is.”
“I couldn’t let Fargo stop me.”
“Is that your excuse?” Ruby taunted. “By now he’s probably been skinned alive and strangled with his own innards.” She shook her head in disgust. “If that’s what you do to your friends, I’d hate to see what you do to your enemies.”
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” Geraldine said.
“Liar,” Ruby shot back. “Y
ou knew exactly what you were up to. And truth to tell, I should thank you. With him out of the way, you’ve made it a lot easier for me. He’d never have let me get the better of him.”
“Lord, I am tired of your chatter.”
“You can’t stand to hear the truth, is more like it.” Ruby raised Fargo’s tin cup and took several swallows. “Ah. That hit the spot. I’d give you some but you’re not getting a drop to drink until we’ve caught up to my friends.”
“That could take days.”
“At least,” Ruby said.
“I’ll die of thirst.”
“One can only hope.”
“But you just said you wanted to turn me over to your boss,” Geraldine reminded her.
“I never said you had to be breathing.”
“You’d kill me for no reason? How coldhearted are you?”
“No reason?” Ruby scoffed. “How about to keep you from killing us?”
Geraldine hung her head. “This isn’t working out as I’d hoped.”
Fargo had listened to enough. He wasn’t learning anything new. He turned to whisper to Slits Throats that they should move in.
The warrior wasn’t there.
“What the hell?” Fargo blurted. He looked back at the clearing just as a muscular figure in a headband and knee-high moccasins reared up behind Ruby.
Slits Throats.
Ruby never heard him. She was smirking at Geraldine when the stock of Slits Throats’ Spencer connected with her skull.
Ruby’s beautiful green eyes rolled up into her head, and she collapsed.
Geraldine had been forlornly staring into the fire but now she cried, “God in heaven! Not you! Not here!” She scrambled back in terror.
Slits Throats stepped over Ruby and came around the fire.
“Stay back!” Geraldine screeched, all her courage flown.
Fargo walked out of the ponderosas and planted himself behind her. She was as oblivious to him as she had been to Slits Throats.
Geraldine gave a start when she collided with his legs. Half turning, she bleated in surprise, “You!”
“Miss me?” Fargo said.
“How are you still alive? Why didn’t that stupid Indian kill you?”
“You’ll have to ask him when you wake up.”
