by Sharpe, Jon
Fargo knew they also raided with impunity in New Mexico knowing that, if pursued, they could flee south to the lava-bed country and the desolate alkali pan known as Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of Death. Fargo had barely survived it once, and no one was foolish enough to follow Apaches there.
“Apaches,” Ashton said, his normally nonchalant tone now tense. “No boys to fool with. I was under the impression they were hiding down in the Dragoon Mountains and harassing Mexicans.”
“To them,” Fargo replied, “the entire New Mexico territory has been Apacheria for centuries. That bunch you’re talking about is only the Coyotero branch of the tribe. Red Sash and his renegades are Jicarillas. They’re raiders and they don’t put down roots anywhere.”
“God preserve us,” the preacher said.
“Skye,” Trixie said, “do Apaches . . . I mean, when they capture white women, do they . . . ?”
“They’ll rape the living shit outta both you beauties,” Pow interjected bluntly. “And then they’ll either stone you into silence or take you along fir the bucks to enjoy every night when they git shellacked on tizwin—that’s corn beer. But there’s good news, too.”
By now Kathleen had been stunned out of her indignation, which was replaced by tight-lipped fear. “Good news? You say we’ll be outraged and murdered. How could there possibly be good news?”
Pow quirted another fly. “Apaches don’t scalp, little lady. You won’t have to lose that beautiful hair.”
* * *
By midafternoon of June fourteenth, Zack Lomax was nervously pacing back and forth in his study, gesturing with both hands.
“Damn it, Olney, I’m starting to worry. It’s a ten-day run from El Paso to Santa Fe, and they’re now halfway here. You’re certain this latest mirror relay was interpreted correctly?”
“’Fraid so, boss,” Olney Lucas replied. “Congreve and the rest of the team know the signal system real good—I tested them all. Today’s message from Alcott is that they failed to kill Fargo at Bosque Grande.”
“Shit, piss and corruption! That’s two failures now. The chances for any further attempts diminish greatly until well north of Albuquerque—it’s mostly open and level country along the Overland route. I was hoping Russ’s bunch would point Fargo’s toes to the sky by now.”
Olney cleared his throat. “Just calm down, Mr. Lomax, and remember what you always tell me—you planned this out for one full year. You anticipated trouble and you knew you’d need safeguards. There’s still plenty of time, and the odds look mighty grim for Fargo.”
“And now these goddamn gut-eating Apaches,” Lomax stewed. “Jesus, talk about irony. One year of planning, thousands of dollars to execute those plans—all so that I personally can balance the ledger by killing the bitch with my own hands. And here a bunch of half-naked red savages might beat me to it.”
“Yeah, but at least she’d be dead.”
Olney realized the remark was unwise when his employer’s burning, preternatural eyes drilled into him, piercing like bullets. “You pathetic idiot! We’ll all die eventually, won’t we? The question is how and who’s in control of it. The point is to make her realize, in her last terrified seconds, that I am the master of her fate—that her signature on that vicious letter to the newspaper one year ago also signed her own death warrant.”
This time Olney wisely held his tongue. Watching Lomax now, the hard angles and planes of his face a mask of soul-searing rage, those intense eyes were windows on a mind rotted by insanity and the lust for revenge. All this because a piece of uppity quiff gave him the mitten—you had to handle a man like that the same way you’d handle unstable nitro.
“Fargo,” Lomax said suddenly, abruptly picking up the thread he’d dropped. “It’s irony heaped on top of irony. All of a sudden I have to hope Fargo does stay alive long enough to stave off this Apache threat.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget your safeguard,” Olney reminded him. “Fargo can’t know you got a man on the coach. Hell, you kept that so secret even I don’t know who it is. If Russ and the boys botch it, he can kill Fargo.”
This reminder, however, evoked a worried frown from Lomax.
“You forget something, Olney. Remember Alcott’s report that the stagecoach driver has not been relieved for hundreds of miles? Haven’t you figured that one out by now? Whoever that driver is, Fargo handpicked him. If he trusts the man that much, count upon it—he is both trustworthy and capable.”
“I take your drift. He has to get the drop on both of them. Still—if they don’t suspect one of the passengers, it can’t be that hard to just back-shoot the two of them. Since you picked this man yourself, you must have confidence in him.”
Olney’s remark heartened Lomax for a moment. Everything in his face smiled except those strangely luminous, insane eyes. “You’ve put the axe on the helve. He’s the best money can buy.”
Abruptly, however, the smile faded from his face like a snowflake melting on a river. His features turned hard as granite.
“But I don’t want to use him to kill Fargo, don’t you see? Because then his cover is exposed and he has to kill the driver, too. That throws all my plans into disarray. That would force him to abduct her and get her to Santa Fe, and given who she is, that triggers a manhunt.”
“It would at that,” Olney agreed. “We’re talking America’s Sweetheart here.”
“It’s the damn timing, Olney, don’t you see it? This man’s job is to strike at Blood Mesa on the nineteenth, with Fargo already out of the picture. He kills the driver and the passengers when it’s far too late for any authorities to intervene.”
Lomax crossed to his desk and picked up the Spanish dagger he had purchased just for one occasion, gazing fondly at it as if it were a beloved child.
“When you thrust steel deep into vitals, Olney, and give it what’s called the Spanish twist, you can actually feel the victim’s body heat rush out on to your hand. I won’t, I can’t, let Fargo ruin this for me! One way or the other he must be killed before Blood Mesa.”
* * *
By late afternoon the exhausted team could not be whipped past a walk.
“Pah!” Booger slipped his six-horse whip into its socket and cursed in disgust. “Bad medicine, Skye. We’ll hafta rest and water ’em soon or we’ll all be riding shank’s mare.”
Fargo nodded, his eyes narrowed to slits as he minutely studied the surrounding landscape. The vast western sky stretched to infinity all around them, only a few ragged tatters of cloud in a dome of china blue. Distant mountains—the Manzano Range—saw-toothed the northeast horizon, but the agriculture had thinned out toward the Rio Grande just west of them. The terrain around them now was mostly yellow-brown and arid, dotted with creosote bushes and greasewood.
“Them hawk eyes of yours spotted any sign of Apaches?” Booger demanded.
Fargo shook his head. “But that’s what troubles me,” he admitted. “It’s bad enough when you see Apaches, but at least you know where they are. It’s worse when you don’t see them.”
“Skye?”
Fargo leaned sideways and looked over his shoulder. Trixie’s anxious face hung out the window. “What, m’heart?”
“Back yonder at that burned-out station, Pol—Polva—”
“Polvadera.”
“Yes. I seen you hunkered down on your heels studying the ground for a long time. What didja figure out?”
“Well, judging from the prints—especially the overlaps—I’d guess we got about twenty renegades raiding in these parts. Their mounts are a mix of shod horses, likely stolen from whites, and unshod mustangs stolen in raids on other tribes. After the raid they headed due east.”
“Twenty,” she repeated, biting her lower lip. “Are they gonna attack us?”
“How long is a piece of string? All Indians are notional. Could b
e they left these parts for better targets.”
“Twenty,” she said again, and Fargo saw her chin tremble. Still thinking, he realized, about what Methuselah told them last night at Los Pinos, the stupid old goat.
“Listen,” he told her firmly, knowing that Kathleen, too, was hanging on every word, “there’s no call to go puny. Everybody back in the land of steady habits believes all wild Indians are expert horsemen. But Apaches are mostly indifferent to horses—most would as soon eat one as ride it. They prefer sneak attacks on foot, but the open country around here forces them to ride.”
“That’s good?”
“Hell yes, it is. We’d be in a lot tighter spot if this was twenty Comanches or Kiowas. They practically live on their horses. But with Apaches, a mounted attack won’t be near as dangerous.”
“You mean, you think we got a chance?”
His sturdy white teeth flashed in a smile. “Honey, I always plan to win.”
The wink he gave her told her his boast included winning with women, and she encouraged his confidence with a flirtatious smile.
Malachi Feldman poked his head outside. “What about the others, Mr. Fargo? The white men who attacked you yesterday—think you scared ’em off?”
“They’re mercenaries,” Fargo replied, “and not likely to draw most of their wages until they finish the job. But they ain’t stupid enough to try attacking us in this open country. They’ll send in their card later, but I’d wager we’re all right for now.”
Fargo said nothing about the mirror flashes he and Booger had spotted earlier today. Flashes traveling in relay—and both men knew there were no U.S. Army mirror stations along this route.
“‘Honey, I always plan to win,’” Booger mimicked when Fargo turned back around. “You’ll play push-push with her next while old Booger will be forced to skin the cat. Well, you best poke her quick, catfish. What you told Trixie just now—that was turning dung into strawberries.”
“How you figure that?”
“Happens them ’Paches notch their sights on us, it won’t matter a jackstraw how piss-poor they ride. You know damn good and well them red sons is some pumpkins at marksmanship, and they got plenty of rifles. Most Injins count on big medicine to guide a bullet, but ’Paches have learned to aim. Twenty raiders agin two of us, Fargo.”
“Ain’t you the sunshine peddler. There’s three other men along.”
Booger howled like a dog in the hot moons. “Men? Fargo, this ain’t no peyote dream. The God-monger and the stargazer is both worthless cheese dicks. Hell, neither one of ’em is even heeled.”
“Ashton has got mettle in him. And his pepperbox will chuck plenty of lead in a close-in fight.”
“Aye, but he’s saving them whistlers for me and you.” Booger loosed a streamer, barely missing Fargo. “Use to was, you found only by-God men west of Big Muddy. Now it’s all these mail-order yacks wearin’ pretty conchos and dressed in reach-me-downs from stores. Christmas Crackers! These gussied-up dudes like Ashton would starve and go naked without stores.”
Booger was a complainer by nature, but Fargo knew he was right in the main. It had already begun: the methodical destruction of the American West, soon to be incinerated to ashes by the inflammatory gas of “expansionist” politicians and their sidekicks, the merchant capitalists and their new “investment consortiums.” The buffalo, once found in thundering herds numbering into the hundreds of thousands, was now on the wane, and the Plains tribes would inevitably follow. And before too long, the one-man outfits like Skye Fargo, too, would be relics of the past, ground up in a profiteering onslaught of mines, railroads, timbering and farming.
Booger’s voice sliced into his ruminations. “Eyes right!”
Fargo glanced east and felt his stomach knot into a fist. Puffs of dark smoke were rising above the horizon.
“Apaches,” Booger announced. “And that smoke talk is all about us.”
10
By turns Booger cursed, nursed and cajoled his exhausted team northward, resting them a few minutes every half hour. Fargo helped him harness the two spare bays into the lead, but the stronger horses were fighting four weaker ones and the coach still plodded along slower than a man walking.
The afternoon had begun to fade as they reached the time of day Fargo called “between dog and wolf,” neither day nor night.
“Fargo, this shit’s for the birds,” Booger announced. “Mayhap we can reach La Joya by midnight or thereabouts, but this stretch of the road is called the Kidney Crusher—filled with washouts and holes. We’d hafta use the running lights or risk busting an axle, if you catch my drift?”
Fargo caught it. Apaches were not constricted, as were many other tribes, by superstitious taboos against nighttime warfare. Like the fierce Comanches, they did some of their bloodiest work in surprise raids after dark. And those four bright running lamps would be beacons guiding them to the slaughter.
“I’ll scout ahead and find us a spot to camp,” Fargo said. “The team needs a long rest. And we’ll be safer if we fort up. When you hear me fire one shot, bring the rig forward.”
He tossed down his tack and climbed off the coach. Kathleen poked her head out. “Where are you going, Mr. Fargo? And please don’t tell me ‘crazy’ this time.”
He explained the situation to the others. “You folks might’s well step out and stretch your leg—uhh, limbs,” he corrected himself, grinning at the actress in the grainy twilight. “But stay close to the coach. Ashton, can you work a Henry?”
“I’m no marksman with a rifle, but I know how to work a repeater.”
“I’ll leave it with you.” Even if the man was working for Lomax, Fargo reasoned, he wouldn’t try anything now—he had no horse to escape on, and he needed Booger and Fargo in the face of this Apache threat.
Kathleen approached him while Fargo was checking his cinches and latigos. “Mr. Fargo, this delay troubles me. I open at the Bella Union on the twenty-first of this month. If we don’t arrive in Santa Fe on the nineteenth, as scheduled, I won’t even have time to recuperate from this horrid journey and attend dress rehearsal.”
“I’ve got the nineteenth on my mind, too,” Fargo assured her, “but for a different reason.”
“I understand your meaning. So have I,” she admitted. “I fear Lomax terribly. But the show must go on. We actors have our code, too.”
Fargo turned the stirrup and swung up and over. “I respect that, lady. We can make up for lost time later, maybe, but those horses are damn near dead in the traces. There’s no help for it—things are the way they are.”
He touched his hat brim and gigged the Ovaro forward. Luck was with the travelers: less than a third of a mile ahead Fargo discovered a good spot in the lee of a small mesa, a circle of juniper trees with a small creek behind them. By the time the coach reached him and pulled off the trail, the last light had bled from the sky.
Fargo built a fire in a pit and put on a can of coffee to boil. He added his supply of hardtack and dried fruit to the last of Kathleen’s hamper and a meager, somewhat odd meal was shared out.
“Booger and me will take turnabout on guard duty,” Fargo remarked as he sipped from a tin cup of coffee. “But everybody stay alert. Keep a close eye on my horse—he’s a crackerjack sentry. You won’t catch Apaches sneaking in, but he’s trained to alert at the Indian smell.”
“I’ll gladly take a stint of guard duty,” Ashton said. “You two need your sleep, too.”
Fargo shook his head. He had no proof against Ashton, but with Booger and Fargo both asleep, and the Ovaro available, it was too great a risk to trust him.
“’Preciate the offer,” he said. “But me and Booger are drawing wages to get you folks through.”
Trixie and Fargo had been exchanging coy glances in the flickering firelight. Booger noticed this and knew exactly what was on their
minds. Now he watched Fargo from a sly, slanted, expectant glance. “Push-push,” he whispered.
The preacher had been nervous and withdrawn since learning of the Apache menace. Now he spoke up.
“I fear it is God’s will that we are all about to be slaughtered by the Godless red horde. I urge all of you to make peace with our Creator and ensure your place in His kingdom. No matter the weight of your sins, if—”
“Ease off that calamity howling,” Fargo snapped, seeing the fearful look on the women’s faces. “Just put some stiff in your spine, preacher. We’re in a dirty corner, all right, but I’ve wangled out of worse.”
“No, no, Fargo,” Booger said, his tone conciliatory. “The skinny fellow with the big Bible is right—our time is at hand.”
Booger had been visiting with his flask, and Fargo realized immediately that something sly was in the wind. He watched Booger heave to his feet and square off in front of a startled and puzzled Kathleen Barton.
“Your Loveliness, those who own souls may wish to heed the holy man. However, I am a pagan, as is Skye Fargo. I have always been Fargo’s favorite gaffer—when there’s dirty work, not fit for the lowest navvy, he sends for me. Well, pretty, this time he has got us both killed. So what is the point of cowardly indirection when men are about to die? On behalf of Fargo, myself, and these other three . . . men here gathered, I have a sincere request.”
Oh, Christ, Fargo thought, knowing Booger’s grift well enough to suspect where this was headed.
“And what might that be?” the curious actress inquired, perhaps expecting a request to perform one of her notable theatrical speeches.
Booger drew his massive bulk up formally. “For the reason I have just plainly spoke—our looming deaths—I’m after wondering: Is there the slightest chance at all of viewing your naked form before we die?”
Trixie was the first to react—she burst out laughing. “Booger, you aren’t serious, are you?”
