Utah Deadly Double (9781101558867) (14 page)

“Ain't no fair,” she pouted. “We didn't even get to screw. I'll have a bellyache all night.”

Fargo lifted her out of the tub, her wet dress clinging like a can label, and climbed out behind her. “I don't like it either, cupcake. You are one fine specimen of woman.”

This cheered her up a bit. Fargo dried off with a rough, thin towel, then looked at the clothes she handed him: a pair of worn but clean kersey trousers and a cotton pullover shirt.

“Nothing fancy,” she said, “but lots better than them ridiculous rags you got on.”

“The way you say,” Fargo replied gratefully, pulling them on. “Fit better, too.”

“Kind of a shame,” she teased him, glancing at the looserfitting trousers. “Least them others didn't leave much to a gal's imagination.”

“Fargo, you skunk-bit coyote!” Old Billy's gravelly voice roared. “This ain't no foofaraw house! If you ain't horsed in one minute, I'll come back there and shoot you to doll stuffings!”

 

The vast Mormon region formerly known as Deseret had become the Utah Territory in 1850. The Mormons had been forced to endure some gentiles as government officers, but the Saints still controlled the city and made sure there were few attractions to draw the lower elements. Destitute travelers, especially women and children, were generously assisted, but saloons were almost nonexistent, and fornication was strictly forbidden by law so that soiled doves were never spotted on the wide streets.

There were, however, clean camps provided for outlanders on the edge of the sprawling city. Riding hard from Echo Canyon, swinging well south to avoid Skye Fargo and his dangerous friend, Butch Landry's gang reached one of these camps on the evening of the day Fargo had visited Kellar's Station.

“Butch,” Orrin Trapp carped, kicking at the fire, “I ain't never seen the like of these Mormons! The men all got them beards that look like half a doughnut, and the women—Christ ! Buncha sour-pussed old biddies that look like their assholes are screwed on too tight. Hell, I kept gettin' 'em mixed up with the oxen they got all over this town.”

“Never mind that,” Butch snapped. “Didja find a bottle?”

“Are you shittin'? Every Jack shall have his Jill before you find any strong water in this town. I found one saloon, but all they had was beer and sarsaparilla.”

“See how it is?” Butch stewed. “When it comes to women, these Mormon men run a whole string just for theirselves. But can a bachelor passing through town find a saloon with gals topside? Hypocritical sons of bitches.”

He spat into the fire and heaved a long sigh. “Well, good chance Fargo will be in this area by tomorrow. If Deets does his job good—and he has so far—we won't need to be here all that long. Just long enough to see Fargo clamped into chains and tossed into prison. Trials ain't delayed around here, boys, and the lawyers are all Mormons. When we know the hanging date, we'll come back for that, too. Maybe even piss on Fargo's grave.”

“Say,” Orrin piped up, “when Fargo goes to prison, we need to visit him—just so he'll know who done him in before he stretches hemp.”

Landry laughed long and hard. “Orrin, you struck a lode there! Ain't a damn thing he can do about it by then. But wait . . . that might not be a smart play seeing as how we're all wanted, too.”

“We'll send in a note after we're long gone,” Orrin suggested. “We won't spell it out plain—just something to let him know it was us that cooked his goose to a cinder.”

The men quieted down as a Mormon constable rode past on a big sorrel, casting a suspicious glance in their direction. The camps were free, firewood provided, but any violation of the rules and they'd get the boot.

“Brigham Young's lick-finger,” Orrin muttered.

“Bluenoses all,” Butch agreed. “But we dursn't get pinched—these law-and-order bastards run files on every wanted man in the territory. I prefer a bullet to the brain over going back to prison.”

Harlan Perry, squatting by the fire and gnawing on a cold biscuit, spoke up. “How's Deets gonna nab a young girl in a place like this? Hell, everybody stares at any outsider and I didn't see no gals walking the streets except prune-faced biddies.”

“He won't do it here in the city,” Butch replied. “North of here, still in Salt Lake Valley near the lake, there's this settlement called Mormon Station. It's for tending crops in the valley. Deets says it ain't much more than a double handful of cabins strung along an irrigation canal.”

“But that lake is salt water,” Orrin said.

“Yeah, but they got a snowmelt reservoir up there. That's how's come they got all they rye and wheat fields. Anyhow, Deets has already been through there and met a little gal named Rebecca who don't exactly live by the Book of Mormon, if you take my drift. He figures he can lure her out—him disguised as Fargo, of course—and cut up rough—rough enough that Mormon law will throw a net around the real Fargo.”

“But if he kills her,” Orrin put in, “how will anybody know Fargo done it?”

“He don't need to kill her. Rape is a hanging offense around here. But he's gonna cut her up so bad that she'll have to talk out.”

“Hell, that's all right, I s'pose,” Harlan said. “I mean, Butch, it was your brother Fargo killed, and he put all of us in prison to boot, so t'hell with him. But I sure will be glad to get shed of all this skulkin' around and get back to the States—we got all that gold and we ain't hardly had no chance to spend it.”

“You and me have hitched our thoughts to the same post,” Butch said. “Money is like manure—it works best when you spread it around. And just as soon as Fargo has started his one or two years of penitence, we'll point our bridles due east. Saint Louis, maybe, or hell, maybe even go west to San Francisco. That way the trip will be shorter when Fargo gets jerked to Jesus.”

“What about Deets?” Orrin said quietly.

Butch searched for his foxlike features in the yelloworange firelight. “How's that?”

“Deets. What happens with him at the end of the trail?”

“Why, we square up with him. What else?”

“That's cussed stupidity,” Orrin said bluntly. “That theater fop is shiftier than a creased buck. The moment he gets his last yeller boy from us, he could turn around and collect the reward on us.”

“How?” Harlan demanded. “Lookit all the crimes he done for us.”

“Besides,” Butch said, “how can he work a double-cross on us when he's wanted for murder himself? Killed a gal beloved all over San Francisco—all on account she wouldn't let him court and spark her. So it's a standoff between us and him.”

“Maybe so,” Orrin conceded, “but I say we just kill the son of a bitch. He knows too much. Besides, we not only save the final payment, we're likely to find most of the gold we paid him so far. I don't like that high-hatting bastard. Thinks his shit don't stink just because he can rattle off Shakespeare. Hell, any gal-boy can read a book and get it off by heart.”

“Deets ain't no gal-boy,” Butch said with conviction. “He's all grit and a yard wide. Still, I think Orrin is on to a scent. When you send a man as famous as Skye Fargo to the gallows, it ain't smart to have a man like Deets running around knowing about it. What if he makes a deathbed confession ?”

“Now you're talking sense,” Orrin approved. “Best way to cure a boil is to lance it.”

Butch slowly nodded, his face brooding in the flickering firelight. “But let's take care of Fargo first—he's the biggest frog in the puddle.”

Fargo and Old Billy managed to locate and record one more future line station before grainy twilight descended on them, bringing a blessed chill with it. Because of the threat of Mormon soldier patrols, triggered by the recent Ute uprisings, they opted for a cold camp in a slight hollow just off the federal freight road about ten miles east of Salt Lake City.

“We got one helluva piece of work ahead of us,” Old Billy remarked as the two men shared an airtight of peaches they had purchased from Junebug Kellar. “You can say what you want to about the queer ways of Mormons; they ain't no fools, not by a jugful.”

“I never said they were,” Fargo replied, slurping some juice from the can. “Matter of fact, I like Mormons all right. They've hired me several times and always paid good money.”

“Well, ain't that just sweet lavender?” Billy spat out sarcastically. “Fargo likes the Mormons. That ain't the point, bonehead. Happens you done work for them, we're in even deeper shit than I thought—that means they recognize your face. I done looked at that route map of yours, and damn my eyes if we ain't riding damn near into the city itself.”

“Is that too rich for your belly, Indian fighter? You're the one harping how we have to get the job done so you can draw your wages. You got some plan for us to just fly over the city?”

Old Billy cursed. “Fargo, you are the world-beatingest man I ever wanted to shoot. You know what I mean. Ain't nobody left on God's green earth what don't know who's mapping out these line stations. We'll be marked for carrion the minute we ride in.”

Fargo wiped his hands on his new trousers and settled back against his saddle. “All right, so what's your big idea?”

“Simple—we
don't
ride in. The line station can be before or after the city itself. So we either site it to the east or west. Either way, we can swing south of the settlement and never set a hoof in it.”

“We could,” Fargo agreed. “But what happened to the blustering bravo who was roweling me to lock horns with this Fargo imposter?”

“Huh?”

“You yourself said it, Billy. Salt Lake City is really his last chance to get me framed for good. After that is just godawful desert and empty Sierra until Sacramento. I'd say he's going to do his level best in Salt Lake, wouldn't you?”

Fargo could see Old Billy in the buttery moonlight, pulling on his chin and thinking. “I can't gainsay it. But what if he does attack a Mormon woman? Mister, happens he does, I'd ruther be caught in a buffalo stampede than in Salt Lake City.”

“I already told you how the whole city foolishly sees me as a sort of savior—that time when a swarm of grasshoppers had descended on the crops in the valley.”

Old Billy snorted. “That claptrap about how, just as you come over the ridge, all the seagulls rose up from the lake and et all the grasshoppers? Don't make me pop a rib laughing. Tell me, Fargo, did you ride around the lake or walk across it?”

“I said it was foolishness, didn't I? It was just coincidental timing, but all religions believe in miracles, and the Saints decided I was a miracle worker.”

“Uh-huh, just like the miracle you worked in that washtub earlier, Saint Fargo. All right, so these blame fool Mormons think you're a first cousin to Jesus. Don't forget, they been hearing all kinds of swamp gas lately about how Skye Fargo has turned into a rapist and murderer. Then you sashay into town and—likely—a Mormon gal gets attacked. You really think that plague-of-locusts twaddle will keep you—maybe
us
—out of the noose?”

“No,” Fargo admitted readily. “That's why I have another plan, too. It's mainly the Ovaro that gets us scrutinized right off. And by now they know about your Appaloosa. There's a big livery on the outskirts of the city run by an old codger named Mica Jones—if he's still above the earth. We can trust him. We'll ride in after dark and leave our horses there, rent two from him.”

“New horses would help,” Old Billy agreed. “And you got them duds that don't make you look like a Bowery pimp, and with your whiskers gone and all—still, it could be a wild and bloody business.”

“Would you have it any other way?”

Old Billy howled like a wolf. “
Hell
no! I've killed more red savages, and pronged more plump squaws, than any swinging dick in the West! I can kill a grizz with a butter knife, bring down a bull buffalo with my bolos, and piss across the Missouri! Fargo, if them wivin' Mormons do kill you, I'll drink your goddamn blood and make an ammo pouch outta your scrote.”

“
That's
the Old Billy I know and love,” Fargo said fondly. “But nix on the ammo pouch.”

“It was an ammo pouch today,” Old Billy said slyly. “All I could hear back in that lean-to was heavy breathin' and water sloshin'. How was she, boy?”

“That's a mite hard to say,” Fargo admitted. “As far as we got, she was fine.”

“Ah-
hah
! So there's one filly the stallion couldn't mount.”

“How could I with you threatening to shoot me if I didn't get a wiggle on?”

Even in the moonlit darkness, Fargo saw the astounded look on Old Billy's homely face. “Why, God's garters, I gave you fifteen minutes! How much time do you need in the rut? Christ, I've topped three Mandan squaws in the time it takes to eat a biscuit.”

“Billy, it takes most women a little longer to get their shiver than it does men. I like to leave 'em eager in case I see them again.”

This remark landed on Old Billy like a bomb. He pushed to his feet and stood over Fargo with arms akimbo. “Fargo, what is wrong with you and what doctor told you so? Why, the woman ain't nothing to the matter. You think a male dog holds off to please the bitch? This is what comes of petticoat guv'ment.”

Fargo waved him back down, laughing. “Never mind, you cantankerous fool. I just want to warn you again—I see you're spitting closer and closer to the Ovaro's ear, taunting him. Ease off or you'll rue the day.”