by Jon Sharpe
“I came along to look after her.”
“That’s all?”
Gretchen sighed. “Esther and I have been friends since we were little. We’ve always stuck by each other. I tried to talk her out of this but she refused to change her mind. Now the best I can do is stick with her and try to make it less of a mess than it already is.”
Fargo admired this woman. He placed great value on friendship and so did she. He didn’t have a lot of close friends and those he did he would do anything for. “You have sand,” he complimented her.
“Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I better go in before she becomes madder than she already is.”
“Wait.” Fargo grasped her hand. “One last thing. How do Maxine and her family fit in?”
“Who?”
“The redhead and her dogs.”
“I don’t have any idea what you are talking about. Explain it to me later. I really must go.” Gretchen went to turn but stopped and reached up and touched his cheek. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For offering to help. I’m very much afraid that unless we’re very careful, Esther’s mad scheme will lead to violence.”
“It already has. Or have you forgotten the stage driver?”
“I’ll remember that poor man in my nightmares for the rest of my life.” Gretchen hurried in.
Fargo went out to the street. Except for a light in the millinery and another in the saloon, Kill Creek was dark and desolate. The wind whipped out of the northwest, chilling him. He headed for the saloon.
The door to the butcher shop was open and as Fargo came abreast of it, from inside came a scuffing sound. Dropping his hand to his Colt, he peered in. He couldn’t see much. The scuffing was repeated, from deeper in, he thought. Silently sideling in, he crouched.
Something swished over his head.
Fargo sidestepped and drew just as a large shape loomed out of the darkness. It was the hooded figure he had seen at the stable and again in a window. There was another swish, and a hard jolt to Fargo’s forearm sent the Colt skittering. Fargo bounded to one side and the figure came after him, swinging. Fargo raised the Henry in both hands and there was the clang of metal on metal. The blow was so powerful it jarred him. The man in the frock was enormously strong.
Fargo tried to aim the Henry but another blow knocked it from his grasp.
He crouched, hoping for a chance to palm the Arkansas toothpick. Something brushed his shoulder and thudded into the floor. Before the figure could swing again, Fargo sprang. He landed a punch to the hood that had no effect. He jabbed the man’s gut but it was like hitting a wall. Then a backhand sent him tottering. He recovered and raised both fists.
The figure had vanished.
Suspecting a trick, Fargo backed toward the door where the light was better.
A minute crawled by. Other than voices from down the street, the ghost town was still. The butcher shop might as well be a morgue.
Another minute, and Fargo ventured to rove the floor, hunting for his weapons. He swung his boot from side to side and made contact with something.
The Henry. Scooping it up, he held it level while he continued to slide his boots back and forth. The Colt took longer to find. It was over near a corner. Rearmed, Fargo backed out of the shop. He didn’t breathe easy until he was in the street.
Fargo pondered the attack. It made no sense. If the hooded figure was who he thought it was, why had the man tried to kill him? He would as soon be shed of this whole nonsense if not for Gretchen. And Maxine. And Serilda. Any one of them would do to spend the night with.
He walked on to the saloon.
James Harker and Roy Landreth were at the table. Moon and his men were over by the bar, and the moment Fargo walked in, Moon demanded, “Where the hell have you been, mister?”
Fargo told them about the figure in the butcher shop.
James came out of his chair. “It must have been whoever gave Esther that scare. Mr. Moon, I want someone keeping watch down at the millinery. The guard is not to go in but he is to make damn sure the ladies aren’t harmed.”
Moon nodded at Shorty and Shorty clomped out.
“We should have sent someone sooner,” Landreth complained. “Instead we sit here squabbling with the hired help.”
“I don’t much like you,” Moon said.
Landreth didn’t respond.
“When you don’t answer a man, that’s an insult.”
“Not that again,” James said. “This constant squabbling is annoying. You would do well not to carp, given how much you stand to gain.”
“If it wasn’t for your jackass of a friend there, we’d get along just fine,” Moon said.
Landreth started to rise but James put a hand on his shoulder. “Control that temper of yours.” He turned to Fargo. “The issue now is what to do with you.”
“You won’t do a damn thing.”
James held out a hand. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to turn over your revolver and your rifle.”
“Like hell,” Fargo said.
“Be reasonable. There are six of us. You wouldn’t stand a prayer.” James smiled. “Do as I ask and I promise that once this is over I’ll return your guns and you can be on your way.”
“No.”
“You can trust me.”
“You must think I’m loco.”
“I think you are pigheaded.”
Fargo kept his eyes on Moon and his men. The Henry was in his left hand, his right next to his holster.
James turned toward the bar. “Mr. Moon, would you do me the favor of having—”
From down the street came a crash and a whinny.
“What the hell?” Conklin exclaimed. “That came from the stable.”
Fargo was past the batwing before the whinny died. He fairly flew, fear filling him, fear for the one thing in all the world that mattered. He reached the stable and dashed inside and an oath was torn from his lips.
The Ovaro had been taken.
Again.
8
If there was anything that made Fargo madder than having the stallion mistreated or stolen, he had yet to come across it. He saw no one in the direction of the bluffs so he ran around the corner toward the forest. No one was there, either.
Bewildered, and growing madder, Fargo returned to the front. By then James and Landreth and Moon and the others were there, and James Harker asked the obvious, “Someone took your horse?”
Fargo scanned the street.
“It wasn’t one of us and it certainly wasn’t the women,” Landreth said. “Who else is in this godforsaken town?”
Fargo could think of three people: Maxine, Serilda and their pa. He scanned the empty street and slapped the Henry against his leg in frustration.
“Where could it have gotten to?” James voiced the very puzzlement Fargo was feeling. “A horse can’t just disappear.”
Fargo scoured the bluffs again. There was nothing at all to give a clue.
He bent and examined the ground but the jumble of recent prints thwarted him.
He went to go in the stable and Roy Landreth grabbed his arm.
“Hold on. There’s still the matter of handing over your firearms. We’ll take them now, if you don’t mind, and even if you do.”
Fargo snapped. In the blink of an eye he had the Colt out and up and slammed the barrel against Landreth’s head. Landreth’s bowler went flying and Landreth buckled at the knees and oozed to the ground like so much mud.
“Lord Almighty!” the hardcase called Tucker bleated. “Did you see that? I hardly saw his hand move.”
“He’s as quick as you,” Beck said to Moon.
James was riveted in disbelief but now he went to slide his hand under his jacket.
Fargo pointed the Colt at him and thumbed back the hammer. “Try it and die.”
James imitated a tree.
“I’m serving notice,” Fargo said to all of them. “The next son of a bitch who gets in my way better
have a hankering for the hereafter.” He waited for one of them to say something and when no one did he twirled the Colt into his holster and looked at Moon. “How about you?”
“If I decide to I’ll pick the time and the place. This ain’t it.”
Fargo took a stride but Moon wasn’t done.
“One more thing. If and when I do decide, it won’t be in the back. I am a lot of things but not a back-shooter.”
Fargo remembered him shooting the unarmed driver, and wasn’t impressed.
“Anytime you want.”
The dust in the stable had been disturbed by all the comings and goings. There were so many tracks, reading sign was next to impossible. A jagged hole in the stall where the Ovaro had kicked it and furrows in the dirt told Fargo the stallion resisted. He suspected that whoever was to blame used a rope.
He hastened back out and around to the rear, ignoring the glares of Landreth, who was being helped to rise by James.
Fargo reckoned that the stallion had to be in the woods. There hadn’t been time for the horse thief to take it anywhere else. He jogged to the tree line and stopped to listen. A beastly chorus filled the night air—the cries of coyotes, the shriek of a big cat.
Careful to place each boot quietly, Fargo entered the forest. There was no movement anywhere, no noises out of the ordinary. It was as if the earth had opened up and swallowed the Ovaro whole. He went another twenty yards and realized how futile it was. His best bet was to wait until daylight.
Simmering with rage, Fargo headed back. He came out of the trees and stopped. “You.”
“I warned you and you didn’t listen.”
“Where’s my horse, Maxine?” In the dark it would be hard for Fargo to tell her from her sister if not for the four-legged forms on either side of her. “I want it back and I want it back now.”
“You don’t listen very well.”
Fargo took a step and two of the dogs snarled. He didn’t care. “I won’t tell you again.”
Maxine’s hair swirled in the wind, lending the illusion her tresses writhed like snakes. “You should have left when I told you to. Now they’re here and there’s nothing I can do. It’s too late for your horse and it’s too late for you.”
“Stop talking in goddamn riddles. It’s your pa, isn’t he? He’s the one running around in that hood. He jumped me in the butcher shop and now he’s gone and taken my horse.”
“Can you lift an anvil over your head with one hand?”
The question was so peculiar it threw Fargo off his mental stride. “What was that?”
“You heard me. Can you lift an anvil over your head with one hand?”
“What the hell does that have to do with my horse?”
“Just answer the question.”
Fargo had been in more than a few blacksmith shops in his travels and he knew how heavy anvils were. A small one might weigh a hundred and twenty pounds, larger anvils upwards of three hundred. “I’ve never tried.”
“He can.”
“Who? Your pa?” Fargo took another step and three of the mastiffs growled and the fourth crouched low to the ground as if to spring. “Call your mutton-heads off.”
“Have I introduced you?”
“To your dogs?”
“They have names.” Maxine pointed at the mastiff farthest to her left and then at each in turn. “That’s Thunder and then Lightning and this one over here is Storm and the last one is Cloud.”
“Stupid names for dogs.”
“I happen to like thunderstorms. I was going to name the last one Wind but I decided Cloud was better.” Maxine put her hand on Lightning’s head and the mastiff rubbed against her. “They do whatever I want them to.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Fargo said.
“Then why didn’t you go? Serilda and me both tried to get you to and you stayed.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Too bad.” Maxine was quiet a bit, and then said almost sadly, “I don’t want to do this. I argued with him but he has the last say. And he’s right about not leaving any witnesses. We don’t want the law to come nosing around. It has to be everyone and everything and we have to erase all the sign, after.”
“There you go with riddles again.”
“I’ll make it plain, then.” Maxine’s tone hardened. “It’s too late for you and it’s too late for them. It’s fitting you’re first since you got here before they did. I’d be obliged if you’d give my dogs some sport.”
“Sport?” Fargo said.
“Run. I’ll give you to the count of thirty. Then it will be them or you and you know as well as I do that it’ll be you.”
Fargo was tempted to start shooting but he couldn’t get all four before they reached him.
“One,” Maxine said, and then in rapid cadence. “Two, three, four, five, six . . .”
Fargo wheeled and plunged into the woods. A log was suddenly in front of him and he barely vaulted over it. He avoided a boulder and skirted a thicket and heard Maxine give a strange trilling cry and knew it was the signal.
The mastiffs were after him.
A pine was to his left, an oak to his right. He chose the oak.
Jumping, he caught hold of a low limb and pulled himself high enough to hook his elbow over the branch. Then, holding tight to the Henry, he swung his legs up and over. Now he was straddling the limb with his back to the bole. Precariously balanced, he reached higher and got hold of another branch. As he was pulling himself up the undergrowth crackled and out spilled his canine pursuers. They had their noses to the ground and were sniffing. The first came to the oak, looked up, and howled.
Fargo jammed the Henry to his shoulder. The dogs were growling and pacing. One of them suddenly rushed at the oak and leaped at Fargo’s roost but fell well short, its massive jaws snapping shut with a crunch.
Fargo laughed. He had outwitted the bastards; they couldn’t get at him.
He fixed a bead on the dog that had jumped but it moved around to the other side of the tree. He took aim at another. But before he could thumb back the hammer, a whistle pierced the woods. The mastiffs promptly whirled and vanished into the benighted greenery.
Fargo waited. He wasn’t about to let himself be tricked into climbing down with them still there.
From out of the brush came a melodious laugh. “You’re a clever cuss, I’ll give you that.”
“Call them off, Maxine. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do. I may not amount to much but I can always say I’ve been a dutiful daughter.”
“How many have you killed this way?”
Maxine didn’t answer.
“Five? Ten? More?” Fargo heard a scraping noise on the other side of the oak. Holding on to a branch to keep from falling, he leaned as far out as he dared.
Once again, nothing.
Fargo settled back. There was nothing for it except to wait until they went away. The mastiffs were bound to give up eventually. They would get hungry or thirsty and drift off. Or would they, if Maxine stayed by their side? Then he remembered something else. Maxine had a six-gun. He needed to pinpoint where she was, so he called down, “You don’t care much for those dogs, do you?”
She didn’t reply.
“If you did you wouldn’t set them on a man with a gun.”
The stillness was unbroken.
A trick or not a trick? Fargo came to a decision. He lowered himself to the bottom limb, half expecting the dogs to come out snapping and growling, but none appeared. “I’ll take as many of those curs with me as I can,” he said to get Maxine mad enough to say something.
The continued silence persuaded Fargo she was gone and had taken the dogs with her. He lowered one leg. Nothing happened. He lowered the other leg. Still nothing. More convinced than ever, Fargo dropped to the ground.
The forest erupted. Snarling and slavering, the four mastiffs came at him from different directions.
Fargo streaked the Henry to his shoulder and fired. The slug caught a mastiff
in the head and it tumbled right at him. He flung himself against the trunk to avoid it and felt the brush of a heavy body against his back; another dog had leaped and missed. He shifted as a third launched itself in the air and it smashed against him broadside, yelping when it hit. Quickly, Fargo darted around the tree to put it between them and him.
The fourth mastiff’s teeth clamped onto his leg.
Fargo tried to wrench loose but the dog’s fangs sank deeper. The pain was excruciating. He drove the Henry’s stock at its eyes and the mastiff did as he hoped and scrambled back out of reach. He was bleeding but his leg was free and Fargo didn’t waste a moment in barreling into the vegetation and flying for all he was worth. He shut out the pain and the blood and focused on running and nothing but running. The crack and pop of brush told him they had given chase.
A cluster of boulders loomed. Fargo veered to go around and then ducked behind the last. Hardly had he crouched than a darkling four-legged form bounded past. Then another. The third ran past on the other side. They were relying on sight and not their noses.
Fargo heaved upright and ran back the way he had come. It wouldn’t take the dogs long to realize they had been tricked.
A howl rent the night.
Fargo glanced back but didn’t see them. He faced front and there was the oak and the dog he had shot—and Maxine on her knees cradling its bloody head in her lap. She heard him and turned, unlimbering her revolver as she rose.
“You killed Thunder! Damn you to hell!”
Fargo hit her on the fly. He swung the Henry and clipped her across the head, and then he was past and bounding full out. He glanced back and saw one of the mastiffs hurtle out of the murk near the oak and abruptly stop. It had seen Maxine.
Grimly smiling, Fargo ran on. With any luck the other dogs would stop too.
He glanced up through the canopy at the North Star to get his bearings, and headed for Kill Creek. It wasn’t long until he was in the open. Ahead were the benighted buildings. He thought maybe the racket would bring James Harker and Moon to investigate but he didn’t see them. He reached the stable and sprinted around to the front. No one was there. He went over to the stage. Quickly, he clambered to the top and pressed flat. The seconds crawled and none of the dogs appeared.
