The Trailsman #396 (16 page)

Now,
she thought. Now they would rape ­her—­and worse.

“Pablo, is that pussy hair or golden silk?” Butler finally said, moving magnetically toward her. “It ain't even crinkly. Man, I ain't waiting . . .”

“This Fargo,” the Scorpion spoke up in a forceful, warning tone behind him. “He works on a man's nerves. They say it is his hard eyes and taunting sneer.”

Butler turned around and the grinning Mexican shrugged. “You know how it is, '
mano
. The nervous man's hand sweats, the gun slips . . . and it is said he has taken more than one fool he caught wallowing in the rut.”

Butler's face went rigid. “Yeah, you been pushing that line ­plenty—­how no man can kill or outwit Fargo. You know why you greasers lost half your country to us Americans? Because we're mean, hard murderers, and neither gospel nor gunpowder can reform us. There ain't nothing can back us down.”

“I happen to agree,” the Scorpion said. “And have you forgotten that Fargo, too, is an American?”

Butler cursed and turned away.

There it is again,
Karen thought,
Skye's name. That's who they are afraid of!
Hope sparked within her at the very image of him in her mind.

Fargo would come, she told herself. And she clung to that hope like a drowning man clings to a log.

The tracks started out headed northeast, and then after about two miles they jogged sharply to the northwest. Nothing lay in that direction but an eruption of dead, ­gray-­black mountains marked only U
NNAMED
R
ANGE
N
O. 7
on Fargo's army map.

The two men stopped every half hour to give their mounts a few swallows of water. The trail they followed was hit-and-miss depending on the level of drifting sand. But Jude eventually realized Fargo was hardly bothering to look down for sign. He seemed to know where Alvarez and Butler were headed with their prisoner.

“Their bridles are pointed right into those mountains,” he told Jude. “Likely they got a redoubt or some such there. And there'll be excellent ambush ­nests—­they figure no sane man would follow them that far.”

“Then what's that make us?”

Fargo's teeth flashed under his ­sand-­coated mustache. “I'll be generous and call us fools.”

They rode for another twenty minutes in silence before Jude's worried voice cut into Fargo's concentration. “They got no call to kill her, do they?”

Fargo willed himself patient. “Kid, that's at least the third time you've asked me that. Set it to a tune, why'n'cha? Look, the outlaw trash who have Karen are mad dogs off their ­leashes—­I can't give you a ­cast-­iron guarantee she'll live. But she should be worth more to them alive. The best solution is to find them quick as we can.”

“Yeah. Well anyhow, that big mouth Grizz Bear ain't got no right to accuse Karen and other folks like he does,” Jude said resentfully.

“He's a blowhard,” Fargo agreed. “Likes to stack his conclusions a lot higher than his evidence. He'll back you in a fight,
though, and he's tough as boar bristles for a man past fifty. I just hope Robinson doesn't cross ­him—­Grizz Bear has done some ­cold-­blooded killing in his day.”

“Is he a murderer, Mr. Fargo?”

Fargo kept his face deadpan. “Nothing I've ever witnessed.”

Jude looked at him and caught the drift of Fargo's reply. “Oh. Well, anyhow, he's got no right to make up lies about Miss Bradish.”

Fargo agreed but he didn't have the heart to remind the ­love-­struck young fool that appearances were often ­deceiving—­and “baseless rumors” sometimes correct.

Protect me,
Karen had begged him. Was it just part of the grift, a way of keeping suspicion off her while she did her man's bidding? But the usual way a beautiful female outlaw bent a man to her will was through sex.

Rosalinda and Bobbie Lou had given it up like patriots, but Karen hadn't even seriously flirted. Was it just a “good girl” act? Grizz Bear was a slanderous old goat, but he was right: there was no proof Karen had been abducted.

“Just quiet down and keep a sharp eye out,” Fargo told the private. “Nurse your damn grudges later. For Karen's sake, the best thing we can do right now until we kill those two roaches is keep them on the run. We hang on like ticks, we keep them ­nerve-­frazzled, ducking bullets real or imaginary, constantly worried about their own hides. One thing we
don't
do is trap them.”

“Why?”

“Would you corner a wolverine or a badger? We want them desperate, Jude, but not hopeless. Desperate men will still bargain, and we might have to bargain to get Karen. But hopeless men are past all controlling.”

Closer, ever closer to the mountains the two men pressed as the afternoon sun punished the desert with temperatures soaring well over a hundred degrees. They slogged on through a glaring expanse of sand and scrubby creosote, tossed between two horns: when they weren't wishing they'd brought more water they were battling saddle sleepiness.

Fargo halted them in the lee of a ­wind-­scrubbed knoll. They fed the horses a few handfuls of parched corn and a small drink from their hats. The men allowed themselves only a few swallows of water.

Before they mounted, Fargo slid his Henry from its boot and quickly checked the firing mechanism for sand. He had not kept a round in the chamber because of possible “­cook-­offs” from the direct sun.

“All right,” he said, sheathing the Henry and turning a stirrup, “hop your horse and let's do some depopulating.”

•   •   •

As the exhausting hours dragged past like an eternity in hell, Karen found one consolation: the two men had grown too nervous, and increasingly too tired, to terrorize her.

Each took turns napping while the other watched for Fargo. But now both men were awake, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly as they cast continual glances at Karen.

They're about to do something,
she realized, feeling her heart pulsing hard in her throat.

Dear God, wasn't it horrid enough already? She felt filthy and exhausted and on the brink of nervous collapse. She hadn't stolen a moment's rest because of this ­heart-­hammering ­fear—­not just of rape, but of what else these two sick, evil men might do to hurt her.

And God have mercy, the Mexican was walking toward her now.

He crossed to where she sat huddled against a boulder, hugging her knees. He squatted on his rowels and brought his face close to hers. Alvarez had lately become fascinated by a vein that pulsed visibly in Karen's slim white throat. He watched it now.

“Hola, querida,”
he said in a ­razor-­thin whisper. “Have you missed me? It will not be long now, little ­play-­pretty. Fargo will soon be dead, and we three will make a camp. And then you can get out of that wrinkled and dirty dress, eh?”

His very nearness made her feel like slugs were squirming against her skin. Even if she could screw up the courage to run away, where would she go? These filthy brutes had the only ­water—­water they gave her only sparingly although they had plenty. She had no choice but to pray that Skye Fargo was more than a newspaper hero.

He
was the only reason she hadn't yet been ­raped—­so far.

The Scorpion, those black, piercing eyes trapping her, raised a goatskin water bag to his lips.

“Hey, sugar nips,” Jim Butler called to her. “That ain't no nasty alkali water. It's clean, ­deep-­table water from a spring. Wouldn't a long drink of
that
hit the spot, huh?”

Alvarez made a big production out of rinsing his mouth before spitting the first mouthful out at her feet. Then he drank deeply, letting the water run off his chin into the burning sand.

Karen's nostrils flared and she started to protest their barbaric behavior. But the emotional hell she'd endured since they seized her finally extracted its ­toll—­she abruptly burst into tears.

“Let crybaby have a drink,” Butler said. “We don't want her to dry up.”

Butler finished wolfing down some bacon they had fried. She tasted the acidic bile of fear when he stood up and wiped his greasy hands off on his shirt, watching her the whole time like a starving man at a banquet. He came over and stood beside Alvarez.

“Let's see something nice,” he ordered Karen, his voice obscenely thick and husky.

When she hesitated he snarled and grabbed hold of the front of her dress, ripping the bodice and exposing her breasts.

“Put your damn arms down,” Butler ordered her, for Karen had raised them to cover herself.

When she hesitated again Alvarez casually raised his ­double-­barreled “­widow-­maker.” Karen dropped her arms. But she turned her face, crimson with humiliation and anger, away from the men's hungry, prodding eyes.

“Damn, man,” Butler finally said after swallowing hard to find his voice. “
Damn!
Tits that big on such a wisp of a girl. And glom them nipples! Look just like in 'em French paintings, don't they? Just like juicy plums ready to be bit into.”

“All true, '
mano
. But I can no longer look without ­having—­to hell with my rule about waiting until we kill Fargo. Let us match coins. The winner tops her first while the other keeps watch.”

“I told ­you—­she's white meat and the white man gets first whack at her.”

“You can have her first,” Alvarez surrendered in a burst of generosity. “I never miss a slice from a cut loaf.”

It had come at last and Karen was wooden with fear. But what was about to happen was less terrifying to her than something
the Mexican had said during an earlier stop: “We can still trick your brother into thinking you are alive.” Now she fully grasped their real plan, and it sent spikes of cold fear into her limbs. They had no intention of letting her live.

Damn these monsters to hell! How could God let such men exist?

Butler unbuckled his thick leather gun belt and dropped it. Then he slid the stiletto from his boot.

“You
ain't
just gonna lay there like you're frostbit,” he warned her. “You're gonna work that little cunny of yours just like I was your lovin' man. You try to fight me, woman, and I'll cut you to trap bait. I
like
knife work.”

She had spent much of her time praying, and perhaps she was being rewarded now. The Mexican, who had scuttled up a nearby ridge to check their back trail, called out:

“
Maldito!
Fargo and the soldier! They are perhaps ten minutes below us!”

Karen saw the sick lust on Butler's face transform instantly into blank, naked fear. “Watch the girl while I pack the gear.”

“Why run? He must be killed, and at the moment we are ­fortune-­kissed, gunman! Our position is excellent and they have a bad trail. Unless, of course, you are pissing yourself with fright?”

“Me and you will settle accounts for that insult later. Help me get this bitch tied and gagged. I recall a perfect place to jump them.”

“Keep your nose to the wind,” Fargo warned Jude. “My scouting instincts are warning me this stretch coming up could get rough and ugly.”

His voice slapped Jude out of his saddle doze. It was late afternoon, the sun blazing on their left. The thick stands of ocotillo, numerous on the flatland, had thinned out as the trail wound and twisted its way higher. They had passed through a stretch of desolate lava beds, then into these rough, folded hills.

“God dawg!”

Riding in a stupor, Jude hadn't noticed how the rough trail had squeezed in on them. To their right a steep, ­rock-­strewn slope rose toward the jagged rimrock. To their left a sheer cliff dropped hundreds of feet to the ­razor-­sharp volcanic rocks below.

Fargo rode about ten yards ahead of him, his eyes in constant motion. He halted every few minutes now, ­sun-­slitted eyes peering overhead.

“Snap into it!” Fargo called back to Jude. “I got a hunch we'll be huggin' with killers short meter. Get your mind clear, savvy that? Forget Karen. Don't think, just observe. It doesn't matter that the two of us are dead shots if we don't kill them before they kill us. Everything now is the kill, Jude.”

“Yessir!”

Sweat beaded momentarily on Fargo's forehead before the giant sponge of desert air absorbed it. He took that as a good sign that he wasn't seriously dehydrated yet. When a man stopped sweating in the desert, his life span was measured in hours.

“This is their first good chance to ­dry-­gulch us,” he told the kid. “Now me, I'd favor that stretch of rimrock just ahead that's
in the shade. It keeps the sun out of the shooters' eyes and cuts reflection and glare.”

Fargo pulled the Henry out and jacked a round into the chamber. “But they could jump us from closer down,” he added. “If they're in ­short-­gun range, make that Colt sing. I know what you're capable ­of—­that's why you're here.”

Some knowledge rooted in the blood warned Fargo a hunch wasn't good enough: the fight was only moments away, and the enemy had the advantage.

“Swing down and lower your target profile,” he told the kid, throwing off and leading the Ovaro by the bridle reins. “Walk to the left of your horse just behind his shoulder. Keep your rifle in your left hand in case it's best to jerk your sidearm.”

“Man, you've done this before,” Jude said as he dropped to the ground.

“Yeah, and you've seen the elephant too, kid,” Fargo reminded him. “I saw what you did in Doomed Domains. But you still lack common ­sense—­don't walk so damn close to that cliff, and be careful if your ­horse—”

A round chunked into the ground with insolent authority only an inch from Fargo's boot as an ­ear­splitting rifle shot echoed down the trail.

“Go to your long gun!” Fargo barked. “They're up in the rimrock!”

Fargo dropped the reins and left the Ovaro to his horse sense, folding to one knee and swinging the Henry up to fire offhand toward the ­gray-­white powder smoke above. But a sudden, harrowing cry for help made him turn toward the cliff behind him.

Jude had simply disappeared as if an eagle had plucked him up. His horse was now racing back down the trail. Then Fargo spotted two ­hands—­now twisted into desperate ­claws—­digging into the lip of the cliff. Fargo had been on the verge of warning the kid, when the gunshot rang out, to get out of the horse's way if it spooked.

In the mere second or two it took Fargo to register Jude's plight, the men got off two more shots almost simultaneously. The shot Fargo heard whapped into the dirt so close to his left knee it sprayed sand on his trousers; however, the one he didn't hear creased his head just above his left ear and instantly
knocked him senseless when the whole damn world exploded around him in an orange flash.

Uncounted seconds later he became dazedly aware his face was in the dirt. There was a hellacious racket going on somewhere distant, and it felt like he'd discovered the mother lode of hangovers.

Mr. Fargo! I can't hang on!

Fargo shook his head like a confused bull, thoughts still cloudy but rapidly clearing. That thundering racket that seemed so distant was actually close. . . .

Gunfire right here and now! Fargo suddenly remembered everything. And now Jude's voice wasn't muffled and distant:

“Mr. Fargo, I'm a goner! My hands're slipping!”

Fargo had his own imminent demise to worry about. The gunfire from above remained steady and he had already beat the house percentage too many times. He followed the ­bullet-­savvy Ovaro's lead and dove toward the base of the ­rock-­strewn slope. If he hugged it tightly, the shooters in the rimrock couldn't angle their bullets down on him.

“Mr. ­Far—”

“Shut up, you damn fool!” Fargo shot back. He winced when the shouting made his injured head hurt even more. “I know you're there. All that damn screaming saps your strength. Just hang on!”

“My ­hands—”

“Settle down!” Fargo was rapidly dallying one end of his rope around the saddle horn. “Dig your toes into the face of the cliff to take some strain off your arms.”

The shooters overhead, losing their bead on Fargo, switched to the smaller but more vulnerable targets offered by Jude's hands.

“There's a rope coming over,” Fargo told him between gunshots. “Grab it first with your strongest arm, then pull yourself over
quick
, boy, and cross to the slope.”

“Cross? Cripes, there's lead flying ­every—”

“All right, drop to your death if you want to, kid,” Fargo called over, flipping the rope over the edge. “Hell, I ain't your wet nurse. But in case you decide to quit bawling and be a soldier, wait until you hear my Henry open up. Then haul your freight ­lickety-­split. You got the space of sixteen shots to save your bacon.”

Fargo dreaded what he had to do next, especially after having just cheated the Reaper once. He waited a few moments until his breathing had settled a little. Then he tucked hard, rolled fast out into the trail and came up smoking.

“
Move
it, kid!”

Holding tight patterns on the two known positions, Fargo put the magazine repeater through its paces, levering and firing until hot brass surrounded him and he heard gun oil sizzling in the barrel. The men topside got off several shots as Jude scrambled to safety, but Fargo's lead persuasion had thrown off their accuracy.

The kid streaked past him and Fargo sprang to safety behind him, both men huddled with the Ovaro tight against the slope.

“God
dawg
!” Jude exploded in gasping relief. “I was hearing harps, Mr. Fargo. Criminy, thanks.”

“You owe me a beer, ­pip-­squeak. Where's your Sharps?”

“It went over the cliff. Dang, you got a big old bloody groove over your ear.”

“Hurts like a son of a bitch and now I'll have to change my part to hide it.”

Jude was still too scared to appreciate the humor. “What we gonna do now?”

“We know they don't want a fair fight, so they'll be escaping while we retrieve your horse. Like I said, I figure they've got some kind of redoubt in these mountains. So if they don't light a shuck this might be the place. We'll soon know.”

“I hope Karen is all right,” Jude fretted. “We ain't seen no sign of her.”

“I'm worried about her, too,” Fargo said. “But right now, like it or not, it's not about her. It's about the kill, remember? And we both better improve in a puffin' hurry, trooper, because one more performance like this one just now will sink us
and
Karen.”

•   •   •

It was just before sunset when Fargo spotted a reminder that frontier troubles took many forms.

Jude had retrieved his cavalry sorrel and the two men confirmed that the outlaws and their captive had indeed escaped deeper into the mountains. Fargo was convinced by now, from the pattern of tracks in the camp, that Karen was indeed a
prisoner. If she weren't, her prints would be distributed around differently and not be so confined.

They picked up the trail and the two horsebackers were crossing a barren ridge that offered a stunning panorama of the Mojave in the last golden flush of sunlight.

“Think we can spot the expedition from up here?” Jude wondered.

“They should have watered at Yucca Springs by now,” Fargo said, raising his binoculars and focusing out for distance. “If they . . .”

Fargo trailed off and loosed a long whistle.

“What?” Jude demanded.

“Damn my eyes,” Fargo said softly. Then, raising his voice: “Jude, m'boy, we have one shitload of savages a few miles or so away.”

“Mojaves?”

Fargo gave a gallows grin. “You might say they're the starter dough. It's a damn conclave. That's one tribe calling in its allies, usually for war. I recognize Mojaves, Yumas, Yavapais . . . Christ, even a few Paiutes. Looks to be at least a hundred warriors and there's likely more coming.”

“Will they . . . I ­mean—”

“Attack the expedition? Hell, you numbskull, why do you think they're down ­there—­to discuss the causes of the wind?”

“The rest might not know about the Indians! ­We—”

Fargo snapped his fingers to get the kid's floundering thoughts back on track. “You giving up on Karen, is that it?”

Jude looked insulted. “When I give up on breathing!”

“All right, forget the damn Indians for now. A ­God-­spouter told me once how the damned go through hell one room at a time, and our fight right now is out ahead of us.”

•   •   •

No more nascent moon. From the position of the polestar, Fargo guessed it was nearing midnight.

“Wake up, Rip Van Winkle.”

Jude's head snapped up. “Huh? Guess I dozed off for a second.”

“That's painting the lily. You've been sound asleep in the saddle for fifteen minutes, snoring like a leaky bellows. I let it go, but we're closing in on 'em again. The last horse droppings
I checked were still warm. Shake off the cobwebs, kid, the fandango's coming.”

They had ascended into another dangerous stretch of trail. Giant rock formations, detritus from some massive geological upheaval eons ago, formed impassable terrain on both sides of the narrow sand wash that served as trail.

“I'm guessing,” Fargo said in a voice just above a whisper, “that we're closing in on their redoubt. We're coming up on the highest point with the best view in every direction. They'd want that.”

“I sure hope ­they—”

“If they raped her they raped her,” Fargo cut him off wearily. “Seems like you'd be more worried if she's alive. Now pipe down. There's a good chance they'll see us coming in this moonlight, and I'm damned if I'm riding into another turkey shoot.”

They rode another ten minutes in silence. Fargo craned his neck constantly to study the craggy, moonlit expanse out ahead. Abruptly he reined in.

“What?” Jude whispered.

“I can't be sure, but I
thought
I saw a cigarette glow for a second. 'Bout halfway up that slope just ahead of us. One thing for sure, there's no lightning bugs around here. Swing down, kid.”

Fargo tossed his right leg over the cantle and dismounted, landing light as a cat. He handed his reins to Jude.

“Best put hobbles on both horses. Wait here with your Colt to hand. I'm gonna head up that slope for a better look.”

“Hold on!” Jude objected. “What if you'­re—­I ­mean—”

“What do you do if I'm killed?” Fargo chuckled. “Hell, that's your problem, Private. Far as I'm concerned, the world ends when I do. Who I truly feel sorry for are all the women who'll never get to ride the Fargo express.”