The Trailsman #396 (4 page)

Grizz Bear rolled on the ground convulsed with laughter while Fargo was forced to turn his face away to hide his grin.

“That's a start, cottontail,” Deke said, rubbing his cheek. “I like it rough.”

“I realize that men who rarely bathe are vulgar when they talk among themselves,” fumed the indignant woman. “And you didn't know I was present. But
must
you corrupt a sweet young lad?”

She nodded toward Jude, who instantly looked horrified.

“
All
of you should know better,” she added with chilly dignity, her sternly pretty face swiveling to stare accusingly at Fargo.

Fargo's appreciative eyes frankly took her measure. Karen, her ­song-­and-­dance partner Roberta “Bobbie Lou” Davis, and a young Mexican beauty named Rosalinda Gonzales had been rescued at a ­burned-­out way station at Palo Verde in western New Mexico Territory.

Karen and Bobbie Lou were headed for work in Los Angeles, a growing town of five thousand residents, where Karen's
older brother supposedly owned a thriving dance hall and other concerns. Rosalinda, a young widow, claimed her husband had been gunned down in Las Cruces. Now she was traveling to join her family in California's San Fernando Valley northwest of Los Angeles.

“Miss Bradish,” Fargo replied to her rebuke, “Jude is young, but he's a soldier. Men who live in barracks and tents don't behave like plaster saints. I'm afraid there's no protecting his virgin ears.”

“That ain't the only part of him that's virgin,” Grizz Bear muttered so only Fargo could hear him.

“Oh, I suppose that's so,” she suddenly relented, strain showing in her voice. “And all three of us do appreciate being allowed to travel with the caravan. I'm just scratchy and out of ­sorts—­it was frightening crossing the river, and it's so terribly difficult to sleep in this horrid daytime heat.”

Fargo nodded sympathetically. The southern route across New Mexico, Arizona and the Mojave Desert of California was among the hottest, longest and driest trails Fargo knew of. Only Death Valley to the north offered more brutal conditions, but it could be more quickly crossed. If this was tough on him, what must it be like for females who normally slept in feather beds?

“We heard the shooting earlier,” Karen added, “and one of the men told us a member of the party was murdered. Are we in grave danger, Mr. Fargo?”

“
Grave
danger? Nah,” Fargo lied. “There's always some risk traveling on the frontier. You'll be fatigued, all right, and mighty glad when it's all over. But we'll get all three of you through if you just pluck up.”

Fargo's evident confidence seemed to rally her. “Yes, we three ­can—­we
will
—do this. God made Beowulf stand on his own two feet before He agreed to help him slay the dragon. And we girls will slay this dragon, too.”

Grizz Bear, sitting behind the pretty singer, caught Fargo's eye. The cynical old desert rat smirked as he brought his right index finger up to his neck and pulled it across in a fast ­throat-­slashing motion.

Although always ­dog-­tired by night's end, Fargo couldn't get used to turning in while the sun was blazing. So he always delayed it until the last few hours before the expedition moved out.

After breakfast he checked the Ovaro carefully for saddle galls. He fished a hoof pick out of a saddlebag and removed a few small stones from the stallion's hooves. He also kept a close eye toward the horizons, liking this location less and less and regretting he'd let Robinson pick it.

“Got the fantods?” Grizz Bear asked, noticing Fargo's vigilance.

“Too many ambush nests out there, old son,” Fargo replied as he attacked the tangled witches' bridles in the Ovaro's mane with a metal currycomb.

“Why hell! Soldier blue is out there on picket guard,” Grizz Bear reminded him sarcastically. “Most likely squeezing pimples or diddling theirselves.”

“Even if they're alert there's enough space between them to plant cotton fields.”

“Well, leastways the Mojaves won't make their play in open country,” Grizz Bear said. “They're foot soldiers and too savvy to attack across open ground against long guns. What's bitin' at me, Skye, is wondering if the Yuma and Piute tribes will back their play. They made common cause wunst to drive Hudson Bay trappers out of the river valley, and mister, it was a bloody piece of work.”

Fargo nodded. “I look for them to hit us when the terrain changes. Right now the load in our pants is the Scorpion.”

The first white men had come to the deserts searching for mythical cities of gold. And eventually some found real gold and other mineral wealth. But Fargo had seen how every legitimate
enterprise also spawned criminal parasites like Alvarez, men who would never do an hour's honest labor but would fight savagely to protect their criminal ­empires—­even a wasteland empire.

Deke Ritter, trailing a reek of the medicinal whiskey, crossed to the horse corral favoring his crippled left leg. “What's the next stop for this Arabian medicine show, Fargo?”

“Food and medical supplies for a ­mirror-­relay station in the Old Woman Mountains,” he replied absently. Fargo was watching a slice of ­yellow-­brown desert visible between two of the huge boulders partially ringing the camp.

He shifted his eyes and found another opening between boulders, then a third. Those three and more left him, many others and some of the camels clear targets for a good rifle marksman.

Earlier, Roberto Salazar had missed by inches, but it was a tough angle. Anyone drawing a bead from the surrounding desert, however, had several plumb lines into the heart of camp.

“Way I hear it,” Grizz Bear said, “it ain't likely them six men at the mirror station is still alive. The mirror signals stopped a few weeks back. Last time the army was able to push a supply train into them mountains, Indians made off with their water barrels. Only three men made it back to Fort Mojave. One of 'em took sick with brain fever and died.”

“There might be a water source up there,” Fargo said. “If so, they can kill enough snakes and jackrabbits to stay alive.”

“Stand by for the blast,” Deke muttered. “Here comes Red Robinson.”

“You men should've turned in by now,” the sergeant greeted them curtly.

All three men ignored the remark. Robinson glanced around. “Have you seen Private Hollander?”

“Seems like he's on picket guard,” Deke said.

“Yeah,
seems
like,” Robinson repeated, irritation clear in his tone. “That shitbird had best straighten up and fly right. Twice now I've caught him mooning around the women's tent when he was supposed to be on duty. I hope you men won't forget that he's in the army. I need soldiers out here, by-god
men
, not a pathetic mooncalf who still shits yellow and reads love poems.”

“He seems like a stout enough lad to me,” Fargo said. “But
I'd say he was smart to sign only a ­six-­month enlistment. I agree he's poor shakes as a soldier.”

Clearly, however, something more important was on Robinson's mind.

“Fargo,” he said brusquely, “I'm considering a change to Beale'­s—­that is, Lieutenant Beale's route. I think we should swing well north of the Old Woman Mountains.”

“Why?”

“You're the scout and expert Indian fighter, and you ask why? You yourself said you think the place is lousy with Mojaves.”

“So what? We've hugged with ­gut-­eaters before. You've got six soldiers marooned out there, and they're owed army support.”

“Christ, Fargo, that bunch has gone to glory by now.”

Robinson made a visible effort at patience. So far they'd lost a few horses, mules and many of the sheep they'd hauled along for fresh meat. But not one camel, and until today not one man had been ­lost—­and even a hotheaded martinet like Robinson knew Fargo had plenty to do with that.

But the NCO also harbored a deep well of resentment. To him, the next guy was always a prick. Lieutenant Beale championed Fargo, and Robinson was sick and tired of men like ­them—­puffed-up newspaper heroes. A tribe of ­back-­scratching cousins who hogged all the glory and lorded it around while treating the iron backbone of the American ­West—­her career army ­sergeants—­like Joe Shit the Ragman.

“We have women along now,” Robinson said. “I'm changing the route.”

“Bad idea.”

Robinson's fleshy lips formed a scowl. “Why don't you spell that out plain?”

“Sure. Here it is real plain: Ed Beale personally hired me and gave me my orders. I'm following those orders unless he countermands ­them—­or unless I have to.”

“He left me in charge, Fargo, not you.”

“No one's in charge of me. I was standing right there when he told
both
of us to ‘stay the course.' And that's what I figure to do.”

For a moment Robinson was so enraged that the veins in his neck bulged out fat as night crawlers. Suddenly he stalked wordlessly off.

“Say! He wants your guts for garters,” Deke remarked.

Grizz Bear yawned. “I didn't know that big blowhard was yellow. Soldiers is
s'pose
to have ­set-­tos with the red aboriginals. Hell, they ain't Quakers.”

“He's not yellow,” Fargo gainsaid. “I've watched him in action. He's got balls enough when an officer is giving the commands. The thing is, he's scared shitless about being responsible for losing the camels. This isn't an Indian expedition, boys. It's mainly to test the camels. And the army shucked out plenty of mazuma to get them over here.”

“To hell with Robinson,” Grizz Bear said, yawning again. “I need my beauty rest.”

“You'll need to sleep a century,” Deke assured him.

Fargo glanced between two boulders and watched a ­red-­tailed hawk suddenly rise from near a clump of shiny creosote bushes. The Trailsman felt his stomach tighten as he grabbed his saddle off the ground.

“I'm taking a squint around out there,” he told the other two. “I don't ­like—”

The bullet struck before the sound of the shot reached them, missing Fargo by inches and digging a slight groove across the top of his saddle horn before striking a mule standing behind him. An eyeblink later the impressive crack of the ­big-­bore rifle shattered the silence of the camp.

“God kiss me!” Deke exclaimed, diving into the sand.

“That's a Hawken gun,” Grizz Bear warned, crouching down.

The near miss sent Fargo's pulse thudding into his ears like war drums. He watched several soldiers armed with their Sharps rifles stumble from their tents.

Fargo, whose experienced ear had gauged the time between the slug's arrival and the sound, snapped out crisply, “Hold your powder, boys! The shooter's too far out.”

The wounded mule squealed piteously until Grizz Bear yanked his big Colt's Dragoon and put a bullet in its head. Fargo had squirted forward and ducked behind one of the boulders, peering out.

A big chunk of the boulder exploded into rock dust and stung Fargo's eyes. A heartbeat later the boom of the big Hawken sounded. Knowing the loading process for the powerful old relic, Fargo boldly leaped out into the open.

For the next thirty seconds he ignored the danger, squinting to study the outlying desert.

“The hell's that crazy bastard up to?” Deke demanded nervously.

“He calls that ‘following the bullet back to the gun,'” Grizz Bear replied. “I've seen him do it before. He's been shot at so damn many times he's good at it. His eyes and ears tell him a bullet's path, and then he just figures the best place for the shooter to be.”

Fargo glanced quickly behind him toward the dead mule, figuring the angle.

“Christ, look at his face,” Deke said quietly. “Hell, he enjoys thinking like a killer.”

“He was born for the gun,” Grizz Bear conceded. “But I ain't never heard of him killing any jasper who didn't require killing.”

Fargo ducked back behind the rock only moments before he heard the third big boom from the Hawken. But no bullet whanged in close this time, and moments later he realized why when a piercing scream rose from the women's tent.

“Deke!” he shouted. “Check on the gals!”

Fargo figured he had at least half a minute before that hand ­cannon—­firing a ­half-­ounce lead ball that could drop a buffalo at seven hundred ­yards—­barked again. The situation was desperate, but he had pinpointed the marksman's position, a low ridge in the sand close to those creosote bushes.

Fargo had decided to hop the Ovaro bareback and rush the position behind a steady stream of fire from the Henry. Just then, however, he noticed faint dust puffs from behind the ridge as the shooter escaped.

“It was a ­shoot-­and-­scoot,” Fargo called back to Grizz Bear. “No sense chasing him in this open country. You know the way of it: I'll just ride into a trap.”

“He wasn't just shooting at rovers,” Grizz Bear said, kneecaps cracking loudly as he rose to his feet. “He was tryin' like hell to put the quietus on Skye Fargo especial.”

“Story of my life,” Fargo replied calmly, digging at some rock dust in the corner of one eye. “We're lucky he took up that ­position—­he didn't have a clear shot at the camels.”

Both men aimed toward the women's tent, which was ominously silent.

“That's two attacks in one day,” Grizz Bear fretted, “and we
ain't even out of sight of the river valley yet. We're in for six sorts of hell, Fargo.”

“You need a sugar tit, ­bawl-­baby. What'd you expect when you made your mark on the contract, a trip to Delilah's lap? You're drawing fighting wages.”

Grizz Bear opened his mouth to retort. Just then, however, a choked sob reached them from inside the tent, and both men quickened their pace.