Texas Timber War (7 page)

But there was beauty mixed in with the danger and death, and Fargo appreciated it as much as he was aware of the other. Giant flowers on drooping stalks festooned some of the trees. The singing of birds filled the air, along with the scent of flowers and rich dark earth and, yes, the underlying hint of decay that was unavoidable in such a damp climate. It was all part of life, and Skye Fargo embraced it wholeheartedly.

The trail ran on the other side of the bayou, so Fargo had to find his own way on this side. That became more difficult as the cypress with their spreading roots and mantle of Spanish moss crowded close to the bank. Back of them were the pines, growing so closely together that they formed an almost solid wall. At times Fargo had to dismount and lead the stallion as he sought out narrow paths that would take them through the woods.

The going was slow, and it was midday before Fargo reached Alligator Slough, although it was difficult to tell that because so little sun penetrated into this hazy green wilderness. He stopped as he came to the stream, which was only about a dozen feet wide and maybe three feet deep. Nothing larger than a canoe could have made it up the slough, which took a twisting course northward through the trees. Fargo lost sight of it in fewer than fifty yards.

That meant if he followed the slough he would be moving pretty much blindly through the forest. He wouldn't be able to see what was around the next bend. He might stumble into the camp of the river pirates before he knew it was there.

But that was a chance he would have to take, he told himself. He had made a promise to Lawrence Kiley, and as Isabel had pointed out, he was a man of his word.

Besides, there were other senses besides sight, and those were keen in Skye Fargo, too.

The cypresses grew too thick along the bank of the slough for the Ovaro to make it through without risking a broken leg among the spreading roots. Fargo looped the reins around the horn, rubbed the stallion's shoulder, and murmured, ‘‘Wait here for me, big fella.''

He wasn't too worried about someone coming along, finding the black-and-white horse, and trying to capture him. The Ovaro was a one-man horse and could take care of himself. Anyone who got too close to the stallion without Fargo's permission would have to worry about slashing hooves and big, strong teeth taking a wicked bite out of their hide.

Leaving the Ovaro there, where a little grass grew on the bank of the bayou, Fargo set out along Alligator Slough. He jumped from root to root among the cypresses, steadying himself with a hand against the trunks when need be.

He was able to travel fairly fast that way, and it didn't take him long to penetrate several hundred yards into the forest. Something splashed in the water, and as he looked to his right he saw several alligators, each of them five or six feet long, gliding into the slough from the bank. They sank into the stream until only their eyes were visible above the surface as they swam.

Alligator Slough had come by its name honestly, Fargo thought. That was a good reason to be careful and not fall in. Another was the wriggling black shape of a cottonmouth he spotted in the water, heading away from the gators.

Fargo moved on, twisting and turning along with the slough. The passage of time didn't mean much— when the sun set, the dim light would disappear suddenly, like a candle flame being blown out, but until then, things wouldn't change much. Fargo tried to keep track in his head of how far he had gone and how long it had been since he left the Ovaro, but it was almost impossible to do in these otherworldly surroundings.

He stopped short, lifted his head a little, and sniffed the air. Something new had been added to the mixture of scents, and after a second Fargo caught another whiff of it and identified it. His first thought had been correct.

Wood smoke.

Somebody had a camp near here; the smoke was proof of that. But it might not be the river pirates, Fargo reminded himself. There were probably some fur trappers in these woods, along with alligator hunters. Someone might have even found enough open land to start a small farm, although that was more doubtful.

But it was also possible that he had found McShane's camp, and Fargo pushed on, eager to be sure one way or the other.

His eagerness didn't make him any less careful, though. In fact, he slowed down a bit, just to be certain that he didn't stumble right into the camp.

The smell of smoke grew stronger, and mixed with the scent of burning was that of pipe tobacco. Fargo paused and listened intently for a moment. He heard men's voices, but he couldn't make out the words.

Then he heard something that surprised him: a woman's laugh.

With a frown, Fargo stepped away from the bayou and moved into the pine trees. He began to circle through them. It was his intention to approach the camp from a different direction, rather than following the slough all the way there. He thought his chances of not being spotted would be better that way.

It would be easy to get lost in this trackless forest, though, and wind up going around and around in circles. Fargo concentrated, listening to his senses and his instincts and letting them guide him through the pines. The smoke grew stronger and the voices louder.

The underbrush became so thick that he was forced to get down on his belly and crawl beneath the tangled briars. The ground was carpeted with decades' worth of fallen pine needles and cypress leaves, all of which had rotted together. That made the ground unpleasantly damp, but at least the stuff didn't crackle like dry leaves would have as he crawled over it, Fargo told himself.

He could make out what the men were saying now. Most of the conversation seemed to consist of obscene gibes. Fargo smelled roasting meat and knew from what he overheard that the men were cooking a small hog that one of them had shot earlier in the day. Feral hogs, descendants of animals that had wandered away from farms farther south, were also common here in the thickets.

Fargo moved some brush aside, being careful not to make any noise as he did it, and found himself looking out into a large clearing. It wasn't a natural clearing; the stumps that remained where trees had been hacked down were proof of that. The pines that had been felled had been used to construct several log cabins that sat alongside Alligator Slough.

Fargo counted eight men moving around the cabins and knew there must be more inside, because the gang numbered at least a dozen. One of the men was a big, brawny hombre with coppery hair and a bushy beard of the same shade. Fargo pegged him as Red Mike McShane, although of course that guess could have been wrong. But as he watched from the concealment of the thick brush, Fargo heard the big man giving orders and figured that confirmed McShane's identity.

Another redhead emerged from one of the cabins. He was small and wiry, with a face like a weasel. Despite the difference in sizes, Fargo detected a family resemblance. It looked like the McShane brothers had more in common with the Harpes than just a bloodthirsty nature and a career as river pirates. One was big and one was little.

But then the smaller man said in a sharp voice, ‘‘Linus!''

The big red-bearded gent turned around and said, ‘‘Yeah, Mike?''

Fargo gave a soft grunt. That would teach him to judge by appearances. The little weaselly hombre was Red Mike, the leader of the gang. That made the big fella his brother and lieutenant, who seemed to be called Linus. Mike probably provided the brains for the river pirates, while Linus enforced his brother's decisions with his brawn.

‘‘We're runnin' short of supplies,'' Red Mike went on. ‘‘I reckon you better go get some. Take Wilcox and Patton with you.''

‘‘Sure, Mike,'' Linus said with a bob of his head.

Fargo asked himself where the men could go to pick up supplies. As notorious river pirates, they couldn't just go into Jefferson and waltz into a general store. Somebody would be too likely to recognize them if they tried that.

A woman emerged from the same cabin Red Mike had come out of. She was buttoning a ragged homespun dress. Her straw-colored hair was a wild tangle. Even though she probably wasn't more than twenty-five years old, judging by the lithe, slender body she possessed, life's hardships had etched a few lines on her face.

Somebody had done worse than that with some sort of blade. An ugly red scar ran from near her left eye down across her cheek to the line of her jaw.

Fargo figured she was Red Mike's woman. He had spotted another woman, older, chunkier, and more slatternly-looking, stirring something in a big iron cooking pot near the fire where the hog roasted on a spit. It wasn't unusual to find a few women in an outlaw hideout. They were prostitutes for the most part, but a few were legally married to the desperadoes they lived with.

Now that Fargo knew where the pirates were holed up, he supposed he could back out of there, retrace his steps to where he had left the Ovaro, and ride back to Jefferson to pass along the information to Sheriff Higgins. Even though he hadn't yet made the acquaintance of the lawman and all he knew about Higgins was what Kiley had told him, he figured no self-respecting badge-toter could ignore being given the location of an outlaw gang that had been plaguing his county.

Fargo wasn't sure what he would do if Higgins
did
refuse to take action against McShane. He had never liked the idea of taking the law into his own hands, but remembering how the likable Captain Andy Russell had almost been killed and how Isabel had been put in danger, too, Fargo knew he might be tempted to do something about the river pirates.

At the moment, however, he couldn't do much of anything, because as he felt something brush against his skin, he looked down to see a small snake with red, yellow, and black bands encircling its body crawling over his left hand.

Fargo's breath froze in his throat as he recognized the brightly colored reptile as a coral snake. The red and yellow bands touched each other, which distinguished it from similar-looking but harmless snakes. Fargo lay utterly motionless, knowing that if the snake bit him he would be dead within minutes, and there was nothing he could do about it.

But as if Fargo's hand was nothing more than a broken branch the snake found in its way, it continued to slither across. It cleared his hand and then crawled no more than six inches in front of his face, moving steadily from left to right. Fargo's right hand was farther back, so the snake crawled past and paid no attention to it. Fargo watched the serpent until it disappeared in some brush about ten feet away.

Then and only then did he dare to breathe again. He clenched his jaw and suppressed the shudder of revulsion and horror that went through him. Snakes didn't particularly bother him, not like they did some people, but that little striped bastard had just come
too
close, he thought.

While Fargo had been watching the snake, Linus McShane had gotten the two men his brother had told him to take with him, and now all three of them set out on foot, carrying the burlap sacks they would use to bring back supplies. Still curious as to their destination, Fargo wriggled backward, away from the camp, until he thought it was safe to stand up again. As he listened, he heard Linus and the other two men moving through the woods.

Fargo decided to trail them. Someone in the area had to be working with the river pirates, and he wanted to find out who it was. He already suspected Jonas Baxter, but it would be nice to have confirmation.

The men moved fairly quickly, which told Fargo they were following a trail of some sort. He didn't have that luxury. He had to make his own path through the woods, and he had to be quiet about it, too. He couldn't just go thrashing through the brush, or Linus and the other two men might hear him and realize they were being followed.

A grim smile touched Fargo's mouth as he made his way through the forest. He was known for being able to find his way where other men couldn't. That was how he had come to be called the Trailsman. But in these piney woods even he might get lost and wander around aimlessly. He already wasn't sure how to get back to the spot where he had left the Ovaro.

That would be a particularly ignominious end, he thought, tramping around out here until a gator or a snake got him. He was determined not to let that happen.

Linus and the others got ahead of him, and he began having trouble hearing them. Fargo was about to start moving faster, even though it was a risk, when he heard some other noises. They continued, and after a few seconds, he recognized them as the sound of ax blades biting deep into the trunks of trees.

He paused and thought about that, finding it very interesting. A crew of loggers had to be working somewhere nearby. Was that where Linus McShane and the other two men were headed?

There was one good way to find out. Fargo followed the sound of the axes.

A few minutes later, he came to another cleared area. This one wasn't natural, either, and was dotted with stumps like the one where the river pirates' camp was located. Drag marks showed where mule teams had been hitched up to the felled trees with chains so the trees could be hauled away. This was the skid road, where the trees were taken out of the forest.

The loggers were working to Fargo's right, far enough away that he couldn't see them. Staying in the cover of trees that hadn't been cut down yet, he moved in that direction.

He couldn't hear Linus McShane and the other men anymore. The
thunk!
of the ax blades and the shouts of the loggers as they worked drowned out any other sounds. Fargo proceeded with great care, and a minute later he came in sight of the crew.

They were all big, powerful men with broad shoulders and heavily muscled arms, made that way by swinging an ax hour after hour, day after day, week after week. They wore overalls, flannel or homespun shirts, shapeless hats, and work boots with metal calks on the soles to give them better purchase. Some had climbed high in the pines, ‘‘topping'' the trees or cutting off the upper section where most of the branches were. Others used axes or long, crosscut handsaws to cut through the base and do the actual felling. On a few occasions in the past, Fargo had found himself temporarily working as a logger, so he knew how the various jobs were done.