by Jon Sharpe
The door was closed and the front part of the building was dark when Fargo got there. He walked around behind it and slipped inside through the rear door. A single candle in a wall holder gave off just enough light for Fargo to make his way along the corridor to the door of the room he always used when he stayed at Pablo’s.
The room itself was dark, but when Fargo opened the door, enough light from the candle spilled inside for him to be able to see the bunk under the window.
He saw the shape lying there under a thin sheet and recognized the curves as female. The sound of deep, regular breathing came from her.
With a sigh, Fargo eased the door shut behind him. He dug a match out of his pocket, snapped the lucifer to life with his thumbnail, and held the flame to the wick of a candle on a tiny bedside table. When the candle was burning, he said, ‘‘Sofia!’’
His voice was sharp enough to rouse the girl from sleep. She sat up and gasped, the sheet sliding away from her naked body. In the candlelight, her dusky skin, wild tangle of black hair, and dark eyes, wide with surprise, gave her the look of a pagan. A pagan lover—that was what she wanted to be, and Skye Fargo was her quarry.
Her body had been lush even at fourteen, almost a woman’s body. Now, five years later, maturity made her a very beautiful woman indeed. Her breasts were high and full and firm, crowned with dark brown nipples. Her face held an earthy, sultry quality that proclaimed, just as surely as her body, that she was made to please a man in bed.
But when Fargo looked at her, a part of him saw not a sensuous young woman but rather the little girl she had been when he first met her.
‘‘Senor Skye,’’ she said, ‘‘You frightened me!’’
‘‘You scared me a mite, too, Sofia,’’ Fargo told her.
Her full lips curved in a smile. ‘‘How could I ever frighten a man such as you, Senor Skye?’’
‘‘By climbing into my bed uninvited. If you keep this up, Sofia, one of these days I’m going to take what you keep offering me.’’
That was the wrong thing to say, he realized, as she smiled even more and pushed the sheet back to swing her legs out of the bunk and stand up. She was nude, and a gorgeous sight to behold, from her muscular calves up the sleek columns of her thighs, to the thick triangle of dark hair at the base of her slightly rounded belly, those magnificent breasts, and the face that was set in an expression of sleepy lust.
‘‘It is yours any time you want it,’’ she said. ‘‘You know that, mi corazón.’’
‘‘Right now what I need is some sleep, so put your clothes on and get out of here.’’ He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he wanted it made clear that she wasn’t going to accomplish her goal tonight.
Instead of reaching for the skirt and blouse she had tossed over the room’s single chair, she came toward him and stopped just in front of him, close enough so that the hard tips of her breasts brushed the front of his buckskin shirt.
‘‘Senor Skye,’’ she said as she laid her hands on his shoulders, ‘‘you might as well surrender. Tonight you will be mine. The time has come for us to be together.’’
She came up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
With steely resolve, Fargo tried not to respond to her. That lasted about five seconds. Then his arms came up and went around her, pulling her against him. Her body molded to his. Her lips were hot and fierce and demanding.
Fargo had deflowered a few virgins in his time, back when he was a young man, but no matter how ardently Sofia was offering herself to him, he felt uneasy about it. She might hope that he would stay with her, when they both knew that was impossible. He might settle down someday, if he lived long enough, but that time was still far in the future.
He pulled his head back, breaking the kiss, and growled, ‘‘Damn it, get out of here. This isn’t right.’’
‘‘If it is not right, then why are you still holding me?’’
He let go of her. She clutched at him, but he stepped back. As he did, his foot bumped something on the floor, something he hadn’t noticed when he came in because he’d been distracted by discovering Sofia in his bed. He looked down and saw a box about a foot square and six inches deep on the floor.
‘‘Where’d that come from?’’ he asked.
‘‘What?’’ Sofia was still upset by his rejection of her, so she didn’t seem to understand what he was talking about at first. Then she looked down at the box and said, ‘‘Oh, that. It was on the bed when I came in. I thought Pablo put it there. Some tortillas, probably, in case you are hungry.’’ Her bottom lip came out in a pout. ‘‘I would rather you were hungry for me.’’
‘‘You moved it off the bed?’’
‘‘Sí.’’
Fargo prodded the box again. A humming sound came from it. He leaned closer and listened, realizing that what he heard wasn’t humming at all.
It was a fast, low-pitched rattle.
4
Fargo’s left hand shot out to stop Sofia as she started to take a step toward him again. His right dropped to the butt of the Colt on his hip, but he didn’t draw the gun just yet.
‘‘Senor Skye! What is it? What is wrong?’’
‘‘Stay back,’’ Fargo told her. ‘‘If what’s in this box is what I think it is, you don’t want any part of it.’’ He licked his lips, which had gone dry. ‘‘Neither do I, but I don’t have much choice in the matter.’’
‘‘Skye, I am frightened—’’
‘‘You should be.’’ Fargo felt cold inside when he thought about Sofia picking up the box and moving it off the bunk without an idea in her head except how she planned to seduce him.
She wouldn’t have been very seductive if he had come in and found her dead.
He studied the box. It was flimsy, made of thin strips of wood interlaced together. The lid was hinged but not fastened in any way. Fargo steeled his nerves and reached down to take hold of it. His thumbs looped over the lid to make sure that it stayed closed.
The rattle grew louder as Fargo picked up the box and carried it toward the window, moving with great caution as he did so. ‘‘Stay back,’’ he told Sofia again. ‘‘If I drop this, or if it busts open, jump onto the bed as fast as you can and start yelling for help.’’
‘‘That sound . . . it is what I think it is?’’
Fargo nodded. ‘‘Yep.’’
He reached the window, leaned out into the night, and tilted the box so that when he let go of the lid, it would fall open away from him. Breathing a little easier once he was in that position, he said to Sofia, ‘‘Bring the candle over here and hold it so the light shines outside.’’
She did so, leaning into the window beside him. Her face was tight with nervousness, and neither of them paid any attention anymore to the fact that she was still naked.
‘‘Hold the candle steady,’’ Fargo breathed. He lifted his thumbs to release the lid of the box.
It fell open, and the snake that had been inside the box tumbled out to land in the dirt just outside the window. The rattle on the end of its tail was still buzzing in furious anger.
Fargo tossed the empty box aside as the snake fell. He drew his Colt with blinding speed, so that the revolver was in his hand by the time the snake hit the ground. Instead of coiling, as Fargo had hoped it would, it began twisting away in a distinctive motion. He took aim in the candlelight and pulled the trigger twice.
The second shot exploded the snake’s head, spraying its gory remains across the alley behind the cantina. Fargo felt a certain atavistic satisfaction as he saw the now headless body whipping around in its death throes, the same surge of savage triumph man always experienced at the death of a snake. The feeling went back as far as the Garden of Eden, Fargo reckoned.
‘‘Dios mio,’’ Sofia said. ‘‘It was a sidewinder.’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ Fargo said. Smaller than a diamondback but no less deadly. He knew it had been coiled in the box when someone placed it on the bed.
Not Pablo, though, as Sofia had assumed
. Whoever had tried to kill him had reached in through the open window and placed the box on the bed. If Fargo had come in and laid down without lighting the candle, he would have crushed the box and set the snake free to strike him. If he had seen it first, the would-be killer had hoped he would open it to take a look inside.
‘‘Who could have done such a thing?’’ Sofia asked. She put a hand to her mouth in terrified realization. ‘‘Dios mio, I picked it up and moved it—’’
A hammering on the door interrupted her. ‘‘Skye!’’ Pablo’s heavy voice called. ‘‘Skye, are you all right?’’ The shots must have awakened the cantina’s proprietor.
‘‘Cover up if you’re going to,’’ Fargo said to Sofia as he went to the door. She wasted no time pulling the sheet off the bed and wrapping herself in it.
Pablo didn’t look surprised to see Sofia when Fargo opened the door. ‘‘I heard shots,’’ he grumbled as he stepped into the room carrying a lantern. With a glare at Sofia, he added, ‘‘Were you trying to drive away something troublesome?’’
‘‘You could say that,’’ Fargo replied. ‘‘Take a look out the window.’’
Appearing puzzled, Pablo carried the lantern to the window, leaned out, and exclaimed as he saw the rattlesnake’s body in the alley.
‘‘See that box lying out there?’’ Fargo went on. ‘‘Somebody put the snake in it, reached through the window, and left it on the bed for me, like a present. It wasn’t one that I wanted, though.’’
Pablo turned around to face him. ‘‘But who . . . who would do such a thing?’’
Fargo had been in Los Angeles only a few hours on this visit, and the only enemies he had made so far were Hiram Stoddard and the hardcase called Elam. He thought that either of them were capable of trying to kill him. He had interfered with their plans, and vengeance was the spur that drove men like them.
Chances were Stoddard hadn’t handled the chore himself. He wasn’t the sort to go around catching rattlesnakes and putting them in boxes. He might have come up with the idea, but he would have ordered Elam or another of his flunkies to carry it out.
‘‘I’ve got a pretty good idea who’s to blame,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘What I’m wondering is how anybody knew I was going to be staying in this room.’’
Pablo gave an expressive shrug of his shoulders. ‘‘The cantina is a busy place,’’ he said. ‘‘Many men were at the bar when we were talking earlier. Anyone could have heard me say that your usual room would be made ready for you, and perhaps someone questioned one of my serving girls to find out which room that is.’’
Fargo thought about it and nodded. The theory Pablo suggested made sense. In fact, it was the only explanation that did . . . unless someone who worked at the cantina was responsible for the attempt on his life, and none of them had any reason to want him dead.
If Pablo was right, that meant someone who worked for Stoddard had been here tonight. Again, there was nothing unusual in that. The cantina was one of the pueblo’s popular watering holes. Plenty of gringos as well as Mexicans drank there.
‘‘Would you like a different room for the night?’’ Pablo asked.
Fargo thought about it and shook his head. ‘‘I don’t reckon anything else will happen tonight.’’
‘‘Very well. I will take the snake’s body and toss it into the river.’’ Pablo cast another glance at Sofia and went out.
She said, ‘‘Senor Skye, after what happened, I do not think that I . . . that I feel like . . . You understand?’’
‘‘Sure,’’ he told her. ‘‘I’m not much in the mood myself anymore.’’ He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. ‘‘Grab your clothes and skedaddle. Maybe there’ll be another time for us.’’
He doubted it, though. Sooner or later Sofia would figure out that she needed to find somebody else better suited to her.
As for Fargo, even though the danger had made him more alert for a while, he was getting sleepy again. He undressed and lay down with his gun close at hand.
But not before pulling the bed away from the window so that nobody could reach inside and drop another sidewinder on him.
Fargo was up early the next morning, breakfasting on tortillas, eggs, and chili peppers in Pablo’s kitchen, washed down with strong black coffee flavored with chocolate. The rest of the night had passed quietly, and Fargo felt rested.
He checked on the Ovaro, then walked to the hotel to see Grayson and Belinda. If they were going to go ahead with their plans, he saw no point in delaying.
Fargo ran into Grayson in the hotel lobby. The man had just emerged from the dining room, where he’d had his own breakfast. He greeted Fargo with a grin and a handshake.
‘‘I was just coming to look you up,’’ Grayson said. ‘‘Thought you might like to see the coach and meet the driver.’’
‘‘That’s what I had in mind, too,’’ Fargo agreed with a nod.
Together, the two men left the hotel and walked down the street. Grayson led the way to a wagon yard where three stagecoaches were parked.
‘‘They’re not straight from the Abbott and Downing Company factory at Concord, New Hampshire,’’ Grayson said as he waved a hand at the vehicles. ‘‘I bought them from the Butterfield Line, rather than trying to bring coaches out here from one of my other lines back east. But they’re in good shape, and I’ve had men going over them, making any necessary repairs.’’
Fargo went into the wagon yard and walked around the coaches, making a close inspection of them, especially the broad leather thoroughbraces that ran under the body of each coach. Those thoroughbraces supported the coaches and acted as shock absorbers of a sort, although anyone who had ridden very far on a stage knew they didn’t absorb anywhere near all of the bumps and jolts.
The thoroughbraces were in good shape, as Grayson had said, and so were the singletrees to which the horses in the teams would be attached when they were hitched up. Fresh coats of red and yellow paint had been slapped on the vehicles. The brass fittings had been polished.
The stagecoaches wouldn’t look that nice after they had finished the long, hard run up the coast. By the time they got where they were going, they would be covered with a thick layer of dust, and the paint would be scratched and scraped in quite a few places.
Fargo gave a nod of approval to Grayson and said, ‘‘Looks like the coaches are ready to roll. Where’s the jehu you’ve hired?’’
‘‘He should be around,’’ Grayson said with a frown. ‘‘I’ll ask the fellow who owns the wagon yard.’’
He went in the office and came back out in a moment with a grim look on his face. ‘‘The man said to check in the barn.’’
Grayson stalked in that direction. Fargo followed, trying to suppress a smile. From the sound of Grayson’s voice, he hadn’t liked what the proprietor of the wagon yard had told him.
The barn’s big double doors were open. Grayson went inside, looked around, and called, ‘‘Mr. Stevens! Mr. Stevens, are you in here?’’
Fargo heard some sort of incoherent mutter from the hayloft and pointed a thumb in that direction. ‘‘Sounds like he’s up there.’’
Grayson tilted his head back and said, ‘‘Mr. Stevens, if you’re up there, please come down!’’
After some rustling around in the hay, a wild tangle of graying hair thrust itself over the edge of the loft. ‘‘Who’s that?’’ the man under the hair called. His bleary gaze roamed around the shadowy interior of the barn for a second or two before it focused on Grayson and Fargo. ‘‘Oh, Mr. Grayson!’’ the man went on. ‘‘Howdy! Just hang on, and I’ll be right there.’’
More rustling. Stevens must have been looking for his hat, because a battered old hat with the brim pushed up in front was crammed on his head as he reappeared and began climbing down the ladder from the loft.
He had some trouble with that, slipping several times and almost falling. Each time he had to clutch the ladder for a moment before he could start down again. Fargo tried not to
chuckle. He recognized a hell of a hangover when he saw one.
The man finally reached the bottom of the ladder. He still clung to one of the rungs to steady himself as he turned toward Fargo and Grayson. In addition to the hat, he wore a red flannel shirt with leather sleeve cuffs, a buckskin vest, patched denim trousers, and down-at-the-heel boots. Fargo put his age around forty. His short beard was streaked with gray, and his skin was leathery from years of exposure to sun and wind.
‘‘This is Mr. Stevens,’’ Grayson said to Fargo with a note of disapproval in his voice. ‘‘I’ve engaged him to drive the stagecoach up the coast on this inaugural run.’’
‘‘Call me Sandy,’’ Stevens said. He looked like he wanted to shake hands, but he realized that his right hand was still holding on to the ladder. He switched hands and thrust out a callused palm.
Fargo shook hands with the man and said, ‘‘The moon was shining bright on pretty red wings last night, eh, Sandy?’’
‘‘You’re damn right about that, mister. Bright as it could be. I didn’t catch your handle.’’
‘‘Skye Fargo.’’
Bleary or not, Sandy’s eyes opened wider. ‘‘The Trailsman?’’
‘‘One and the same.’’
Grayson put in, ‘‘Mr. Fargo’s going to lay out the route for us and guide the coach on the first run.’’
‘‘I told you it’d be a good idea to find the Trailsman and hire him. I’ve heard a bunch o’ stories ’bout you, Fargo.’’
‘‘Most of them aren’t true,’’ Fargo said.
Sandy chuckled. ‘‘Hell, if even half of ’em are, you been to see the elephant, son.’’
‘‘How soon can we get started?’’ Grayson asked.
Sandy blinked at him. ‘‘Headin’ for San Francisco, you mean?’’
‘‘That’s right. Mr. Fargo and I agree that it’s not a good idea to wait any longer than necessary. That just gives Hiram Stoddard more time to try to stop us.’’
Sandy was a little steadier on his feet now. He let go of the ladder and used that hand to scratch at his beard. He pulled something out of the thicket of hair, looked at it, and flicked it aside.
