Thunderhead Trail (16 page)

Fargo was glad the Hollisters were talkers. It gave him time to think, and increased the odds of them making a mistake.

They were about to make one now.

They were having so much fun mocking and threatening that Rance had let the barrel of his Sharps dip and Grizz had lowered his revolver to his side. Kyler still held his bone-handled knife but he was no longer pressing it to Aramone's throat.

Fargo was tempted to jump them but with Rafer Crown hurt it would be three to one. He tried another tack. “I have a question.”

The brothers stopped smirking and Kyler said, “Listen to you. Polite as anything.”

“Stupid scout,” Grizz rumbled again.

“Ask it,” Rance said.

“What are you fixing to do when the Blackfeet catch up to us?”

The mention of the terrors of the northern plains and mountains caused all three brothers to suddenly become serious.

“What's that?” Rance said.

“We've tangled with the war party twice,” Fargo said, although a case could be made that Thunderhead did most of the tangling. “They killed Dirk Peters and this lady's brother,” he outright lied, “and they're hard on our heels.”

All three Hollisters glanced to the west.

“Like hell they are,” Kyler scoffed, but he sounded uncertain.

Aramone gave Fargo a strange look and then must have caught on to what he was doing because she nodded and said, “That's right. Thunderhead scared them off the last time they came after us. They're afraid of him.”

“He's a mighty big bull,” Grizz said. “I'd be scared of him except I'm big too.”

“Hush, you infant,” Rance snapped. He stared hard at Fargo and then at Aramone as if trying to see through them.

“If that's true, why have you stopped for the night?”

“That's right,” Kyler said. “Why ain't you runnin' like hell?”

“And leave them behind?” Fargo said, jerking his thumb at the longhorns. “After all the trouble we've gone to for that five thousand?”

Rance gazed to the west again. “We saw the war party once from far off but they didn't spot us.”

“Seven or eight of them, weren't there?” Kyler said.

“I don't like Blackfeet,” Grizz said. “They're mean.”

Fargo fueled their worry by saying, “Everyone knows the Blackfeet don't travel at night. It's one of their superstitions.” It was no such thing but he was banking on the Hollisters not knowing that. “Come daybreak, though, they'll be after us again.”

“I've heard tell that most Injuns don't go anywhere after the sun goes down,” Kyler said.

“Why are you tellin' us this?” Rance asked suspiciously.

“Because I'm not hankering to be scalped,” Fargo answered.

“You damned idiot,” Kyler said. “What makes you think you'll be breathin' come daylight?” He wagged his long knife and took a step toward Fargo.

“No,” Rance said.

Kyler looked at him.

“The bull and the cow can only go so fast and they're what's important,” Rance said. “No Thunderhead, no five thousand.”

“So?” Kyler said.

“So we want to delay the redskins long enough for us to get away.”

“How?”

Rance grinned a vicious grin. “I have me an idea. I'll cover them while you tie the scout and the bounty hunter. But no cuttin' on them, you hear? We want them in one piece.”

“We do?”

“They're our gift to the Blackfeet.”

Grizz's hairy face contorted in confusion. “They're what now?”

Kyler chuckled. “I get it, big brother. That's smart. Real smart.” Still chuckling, he headed off into the darkness. “I'll fetch our horses and our rope.”

Rance raised his Sharps and centered it on Fargo. “Thanks for the warnin'.”

“I didn't mean it to be,” Fargo played his part.

Rafer Crown wiped his mouth with his sleeve and slowly sat up. He'd caught on to Fargo's ruse and said, “You shouldn't have told them about the Blackfeet.”

“Hush, you,” Rance said. “It was right kind of him.” And he laughed.

“I don't savvy any of this,” Grizz said.

“It's simple, brother,” Rance said. “There's a war party after these three.”

“There is?”

“And if the Injuns catch up with the scout and the bounty hunter, here, guess what.”

The lines in Grizz's brow deepened. “You know I'm not good at thinkin'.”

“You think good enough to know what the Blackfeet do to whites they catch.”

“They torture and kill them.”

“Exactly. And they take a while at it, don't they?”

“So I've heard.”

“Then if we leave the scout and the bounty hunter for them to find, they'll be at it a good long while. Givin' us time to slip clean away.”

“That's smart, Rance. That's more than smart. What's that word? It's brilliant.”

“Brotherly love,” Fargo said.

Rance stopped smirking. “Insult us again and I'll splatter your innards. The bounty man will be enough to slow them a spell.”

“What about me?” Aramone asked.

“What about you?”

“How do I fit into this plan of yours?”

Rance ogled her and licked his lips. “You fit right fine. We're takin' you with us.”

“We are?” Grizz said.

“Wouldn't you like a poke?”

Grizz looked at her with lust in his eyes. “I'd like four or five.”

“Now you know why.”

“You think of everything, Rance,” Grizz complimented him.

“One of us has to.”

Fargo's ruse had bought him and the others some time.

But they were still in deadly peril, Aramone most of all.

He was under no illusions about what the Hollisters would do to her once they'd had their fun.

“Yes, sir,” Rance was saying. “This has worked out real nice. And all because you warned me about the redskins.”

“Go to hell,” Fargo said.

“You'll be there long before me. I'll look you up when my time comes.”

Grizz laughed.

“Yes, sir,” Rance said. “The Blackfeet carve on you and him. Her, we rape. And then we get five thousand dollars for the bull. Life doesn't get any better.”

“You and your brainstorms,” Rafer Crown said when the sun was a couple of hours high in the sky.

Fargo didn't blame him for being angry. Here they were, each tied between different trees. “We're alive, aren't we?”

“Don't get me wrong. I'm glad your trick worked. But they have
her
.”

Fargo couldn't stop thinking about that, either. He liked Aramone. He only hoped the Hollisters would spend most of the day pushing hard to the east to escape the Blackfeet who weren't after them, and not lay a hand on her until nightfall. “How are you coming at getting free?”

“I can barely feel my arms and legs.”

Fargo was the same. Kyler Hollister had taken particular delight in making the ropes as tight as he could.

“I'm bleeding down both arms. Not a lot, but still.”

“Keep working at it.”

“What in hell do you think I'm doing?”

The Hollisters had picked tall pines at the east end of the valley. When Crown asked why they were being tied between the trees rather than to the trunk, Rance replied that it would be easier for the Blackfeet to spot them.

“They can't torture you if they can't find you.”

“And they do love to cut on us white folks,” Kyler had added.

Grizz simply chuckled.

Despite working his wrists back and forth for the past two hours, all Fargo had to show for it was stripped flesh and pain and trickles of blood.

“We have to get free soon or they'll get too far ahead,” Crown said.

“They can only go as fast as Mabel.”

“Is that supposed to give me hope? They have horses and we'll be on foot.”

Fargo twisted both wrists, or tried to. His agony doubled. To take his mind off it he remarked, “She's a fine lady, that Aramone.”

“She sure is,” Crown agreed with evident feeling.

“And she's a bounty hunter, besides.”

“That too,” Crown said, and lowered his voice as if he was afraid someone would overhear. “She's offered to work with me. With her brother gone, she's on her own, and collecting bounties will be a lot harder.”

“With you as her partner, I'd say the two of you would do right fine.”

“That's what she said.”

Fargo couldn't help but reflect that when it came to throwing loops, women were more devious than men could ever be.

“We have to save her,” Crown said. “We can't let those sons of bitches have their way.”

“No, we can't.”

“Just so you know,” Crown said, “I'm killing all three of them.”

“Only if I don't get to them first.”

“That they'd abuse a fine gal like her is—” Crown suddenly stopped and jerked his head up and stared down the valley. “Tell me I'm seeing things.”

Fargo looked and felt the blood in his veins turn to ice.

A grizzly had come out of the trees at the far end.

“If he catches wind of us, he's liable to eat us alive,” Crown said.

“Maybe he won't,” Fargo said. “Maybe he'll go elsewhere.”

As if to prove how wrong he was, the grizzly started up the valley, looking for all the world as if he were out for a midmorning stroll.

Fargo wrenched at the ropes and set his skin to bleeding again.

Rafer Crown was doing the same in a near frenzy.

Fargo tugged and twisted, never once taking his eyes off the bear. He could think of few more horrible fates than being eaten alive.

Crown, too, was jerking and straining. “I refuse to goddamn die this way.”

Fargo noticed some slack in the rope around his right wrist. He strained harder while working his wrist back and forth.

“Goddamn it,” Crown fumed. “Goddamn it. Goddamn it. Goddamn it.”

“You'd better hope the Almighty's not listening.”

Crown stopped for a moment to say, “How in hell can you josh at a time like this?”

“It beats crying.”

They renewed their efforts. The grizzly was still hundreds of yards away and hadn't spotted them yet but was slowly coming in their direction.

“Look at the size of that thing,” Crown said.

Fargo was intent on his right wrist. It was smeared with blood and slick enough that he could almost pull it loose. Twisting his wrist back and forth, he tried harder. Suddenly his hand was free.

“One down,” he crowed, and attacked the knots in the rope around his left wrist. Prying and tugging, he loosened first one and then another. His fingers hurt like hell and he started to bleed from under a nail but he didn't stop. Not with their lives at stake.

He was so engrossed in freeing his left arm that he didn't pay attention to the bear.

Then Crown said, “Hell in a basket. We're in for it now.”

Fargo looked up.

The grizzly had seen them.

Fargo redoubled his efforts to free his left arm. The rope had loosened but not enough that he could slide his hand from the loop.

“Look!” Crown exclaimed.

The grizzly had risen onto its hind legs and was staring fixedly at them.

“The size of him,” Crown said in awe.

It was the teeth and claws that worried Fargo. One bite of those massive jaws and the bear could crush his skull like an eggshell. Or one swipe of those huge paws could open him like a gutted fish.

“What's he doing?”

The grizzly was tilting its head from side to side, its muzzle raised high.

“Trying to catch our scent,” Fargo guessed. “He doesn't know what to make of us.”

“And when he does?”

With a wrench that tore an inch of skin from his forearm, Fargo freed his other wrist. Quickly bending, he attacked the knots in the rope that held his right leg to the pine.

“I don't have much to do with bears,” the bounty hunter said as he struggled mightily to break free. “I hunt men.”

The bounty hunter was anxious, and Fargo didn't blame him. Facing a man in a gunfight was one thing. Facing the prospect of being clawed to ribbons was another.

“He's made up his mind.”

Fargo looked up again.

The grizzly had dropped onto all fours and was lumbering toward them, sniffing as it came.

Suddenly Fargo's right leg was free. He turned to the knots on his left, pressing his nails so hard, it was a wonder they didn't break.

“Damn, damn, damn,” Crown said as he continued to fling himself against his ropes.

The grizzly came on faster, as if the sight of the bounty hunter's struggles had triggered a reflex that here was meat for the eating.

The knots on Fargo's left leg were tight as hell. He pried and pried.

Crown was practically beside himself, struggling as if he'd gone berserk.

Twenty yards out, the grizzly stopped. With its enormous bulk, a mouth lined with inches-long teeth, and claws that could shred flesh as if it were paper, his kind were the undisputed lords of the Rockies. Or had been, until the coming of the white man with his guns. They'd roamed where they pleased, killing what and who they pleased.

Based on its bulk, this one looked to weigh close to seven hundred pounds.

Fargo always gave silver-tips a wide berth when he could. They were too deadly to tempt fate. The only other animal that came close to being as formidable was a riled buffalo.

The last knot loosened and he quickly tore the rope off and cast it away.

His movements had drawn the attention of the bear.

Fargo had seldom felt so helpless. He had no rifle, no revolver, no knife.

Rafer Crown let out a grunt. He'd finally freed his left arm and immediately went to work trying to free the other.

Fargo took a step to help him and the grizzly growled. Taking a gamble, he raising his pain-racked arms and waved them back and forth. “Go away! Do you hear me? Get the hell out of here!”

Sometimes that worked.

This time it didn't.

All the grizzly did was stare and sniff.

Crown was working furiously at the knots on his right wrist.

Fargo cast about for something to use as a weapon. A downed limb, a rock, anything. Not that either would do him much good. A grizzly was a living mountain of muscle and bone. Nothing short of a shot to the brain or the heart would bring one down.

“Come undone, damn you,” Crown railed at a knot.

The griz growled.

Fargo saw a fallen branch. It wasn't thick or very long but the broken end came to a jagged point. Darting over, he picked it up and hefted it. As makeshift spears went, it was pitiful. But it was all he had.

“Fargo!” Crown cried.

Sniffing noisily, the bear was coming toward them.

Fargo moved in front of the bounty hunter and set himself.

“What do you think you're doing?”

“Protecting you.”

“Like hell you are. Run for it. I'll try to keep him occupied and you go save her.”

“No.”

“Damn it,” Crown fumed. “She matters more than me.”

Fargo gripped the branch in both hands with the jagged end toward the bear. If he could jab it in the eyes. If he could blind it. Or maybe if he could strike hard enough in the throat. If, if, if.

“We can't let them do that to her,” Crown said. “As a favor to me, go.”

“No.”

“They'll
rape
her.”

“I know.”

“You are one coldhearted son of a bitch.”

Fargo was focused on the griz. It had stopped again, apparently because it was puzzled by the bounty hunter's outburst. He raised his makeshift spear, ready to thrust.

“Anytime you want to get loose, be my guest.”

Crown went into a frenzy, tugging and yanking and all the while heaping invective on Fargo and the Hollisters and the bear. He used every cuss word Fargo ever heard and some Fargo hadn't. Finally he subsided and hung by his one arm, spent and defeated.

That was when the grizzly took another loud sniff, wheeled on its hind legs, and ponderously strolled off to the south.

“I'll be damned,” Fargo said.

“Thank God,” Crown said. “Now can we get to killing those Hollisters?”