Utah Deadly Double (9781101558867) (17 page)

The woman finished, splashed onto dry ground, and toweled off. When she left, Deets was alone with the singsong cadence of insects and the rustle of wind in the huge melon patch. He could just make out the impressive silhouettes of the mountains ringing the valley.

A voice reached his ears: a soft, feminine voice humming “Listen to the Mocking Bird.” Heart thudding with anticipation, Deets pressed himself flatter in the warm dirt. Soon a woman glided into view in the moonlight, a young woman with a long blond braid down the center of her back.

He watched her remove a frumpy shirtwaist and a long calico skirt, letting them fall in a puddle around her feet. In a moment she had shimmied out of a petticoat and chemise, then stepped out of her pantaloons to stand naked in the moonlight.

Deets forgot to breathe, the sight was so stunning. Her ass, firm and high-split, gleamed like polished ivory. She turned sideways to pick up her knot of soap and he saw taut breasts with hard, pointing nipples.

This, he realized, was an embarrassment of riches. Even Belle Lajeunesse, the San Francisco actress he had cut to bloody streamers, had not looked this fetching. Better, the outrage this beauty's attack would foment must surely turn all of Utah against Skye Fargo. And then Deets would work the final part of his plan—a plan completely at odds with what Butch Landry was paying him to do.

The girl gingerly tested the water with one dainty foot, and Deets sprang into action.

 

Mounted on a new horse, Fargo breathed a bit easier. The two horsebackers rode right past a blue-helmeted roundsman who only nodded at them cordially.

“So what's the big idea?” Old Billy asked as they rode down Tabernacle Street. “Now we know them three owlhoots are here in town, why'n't we ride out to the outlander camps and roust them? Like you just said, they're fugitives. We can run them in and lay out the story for the law dogs.”

Fargo shook his head. “Old son, if I was ever tempted. Sure, they're fugitives and the Mormons will likely have dodgers on them. But that bunch aren't about to admit this Skye Fargo plan. And we'd just be pinched along with 'em.”

Old Billy mulled that and nodded. “A-huh. We'd just be looking for our own graves.”

“Our clue is that ambush earlier at the salt dunes north of town,” Fargo said. “The killer wouldn't be hanging around there unless he had his eye on Mormon Station. It's just a roll of the dice, but we can't be everywhere at once. Let's dust our hocks toward the north valley.”

“I'm with you till the wheels fall off,” Old Billy shot back. “But speakin' of them salt dunes—that shit-eating polecat had to get a good gander at you, right?”

Fargo had been thinking about that himself and knew where this trail was headed. “You're thinking that by now he knows I've shaved my beard and chucked my buckskins?”

“Hell yes. Might be he knew it before he seen you. Them jackleg lawmen at Junebug Kellar's place seen you, too. Good chance this bastard has got hisself shaved and into different duds. It's the Ovaro that will sink you—you can't shave a horse's markings.”

“Here's the way I see it,” Fargo replied. “Right now we're neither up the well nor down. Whatever this son of a bitch is doing with fake beards is nothing to the matter. What
does
matter is that I get his life over, the quicker the better. All the evidence of beards and such will be on him—and the best evidence will be his horse. So let's knock him out from under his hat.”

“By the horn spoons!” Billy exclaimed. “Let's put your twin brother to work shovelin' coal in hell!”

Salt Lake City strictly enforced the law against “speedy and reckless riding” in the city streets. Impatient at the delay, Fargo nudged the coal black gelding up to a fast trot and held him at that pace. The horse was a typical Micajah Jones mount: well-trained and spirited. Like Fargo, it was eager to run but did not fight the restraint of the reins.

The moment they reached the outskirts of the settlement, Fargo thumped its flanks with his boot heels and the black surged forward. It was no Ovaro—few horses were—but the rataplan of hoofbeats increased through a canter and a lope to a strong gallop.

The valley road was wide and well graded, and in the sterling moonlight visibility was excellent. Fargo decided against riding directly into the double row of cabins—an attack there by his deadly look-alike seemed too risky. He would need to catch his victim at a distance from the cabins, and only two reasons would call a Mormon woman out at night: a “necessary trip” to the outlying jakes or a visit to the bathing pool at the edge of the fields. Fargo had learned about the pool during his first visit to the Salt Lake Valley, when he was sternly warned to avoid it by a Mormon elder who knew his reputation for frolics with the ladies.

Soon the lights from Mormon Station hove into view, twinkling like fireflies. Fargo pulled back on the reins. Old Billy reined in beside him. “What's on the spit?”

Fargo pointed left. “We're going to ride through the field now, but make sure you stay between the rows—trampling crops is a felony around here. See the outline of those trees down there? That's a bathing pool reserved for women.”

Old Billy snorted. “Fargo, you pick queerlike times to go in rut.”

“Sell your ass, you damn fool. That's the best place for the killer to strike. By strict Mormon law, men can't go near that spot, so our boy has got easy pickings.”

Old Billy liked the sound of this. “If he's there we'll send him over the mountains. Happens he ain't, might see some titties and it won't cost me nothing.”

Fargo loosed a long, fuming sigh and shook his head. “Look, just ride in slow, and make sure your bit ring doesn't jangle. About fifty feet or so away we'll dismount and hobble our horses. We'll hoof it in from there, but do
not
spy on the women. We're only watching for our killer.”

“Don't spy my lily-white ass,” Old Billy fumed as they entered a big melon field. “Fargo, I'll look away if it's some big fat breed cow on the yonder side of fifty with dugs trailing on the ground. But happens I spot a pert set of puffy loaves on a young gal, goddamn my eyes if I ain't lookin'! And you will too, you pussy hound.”

Fargo said nothing, for of course it was true.

 

Goosebumps chilled her skin as Katy Emerson waded into the pool, but she liked bathing late. For one thing it was refreshing after the day's furnace heat. For another, she sought the privacy. The other women stared at her naked form with envy and resentment, as if she, and not the Good Lord, had made her body this way.

When the water was up to her hips she unbraided her long golden hair and dipped in over her head, gasping as she broke the surface again. She was still wiping the water from her eyes when a low male voice behind her announced, “Oh, muffin, we're
both
going to enjoy this.”

In the moments of shocked silence following this, the man behind her wrapped a cloth over her mouth and quickly knotted it. She whirled to confront her attacker. In the generous moon wash she glimpsed a handsome, smooth-shaven face sporting a twisted smile. The blade of a long, thin knife glinted cruelly in the moonlight.

“Yes,” he assured her, “it's Skye Fargo without his beard. Now it won't burn when I rub my face in those succulent tits. Best melons in the field.”

She reached for the gag, but he suddenly threw a crashing right fist into her jaw and her knees buckled. He caught her and carried her to the grassy bank, laying her down and spreading her legs open. But in the time it took him to open his fly and lay his gun belt next to the Henry in the grass, her eyes fluttered open and she regained consciousness.

She managed only to begin a piercing scream before he cursed and slugged her again. Before he could either cut or rape her, however, the drumbeat of rapidly approaching hooves pushed him to the brink of panic.

The Mormon settlers could not have mounted and begun the chase in the short time since she screamed. That meant Skye Fargo was now bearing down on him like a Doomsday juggernaut!

His heart stomped violently against his ribs as he fumbled his trousers closed and shot to his feet. Repeating rifles opened up, bullets chunking into the cottonwood trees all around him—aimed deliberately high, he gratefully noted, to avoid hitting innocents. But in a few moments they'd be able to make him out in the moonlight, and Deets had heard that incredible story about Fargo shooting a hawk on the wing in Echo Canyon.

He buckled on his gun belt—black leather just like Fargo's—and snatched up the Henry from the ground. Deets could not boast the shooting prowess of Fargo, but he had spent plenty of time practicing with the Henry. He knelt behind a gnarled cottonwood and threw the butt-plate into his shoulder. He could see the two horsebackers now, dark shadows gliding across the face of the moon, and he opened fire, levering rapidly to lay down a withering field of fire.

It must have been accurate, he realized, because both men leaped from their horses and went to ground. Deets had left the pinto behind a granary about a quarter mile beyond the bathing pool. He took advantage of the hiatus in their charge and bolted into the night, leaving the stunning Mormon woman naked and unconscious in the grass.

 

Fargo rose to his knees in the melon field, the long barrel of his Henry still emitting curls of smoke.

“He decided to rabbit,” he told Old Billy. “I saw a shadow round the pool. C'mon, let's tote up the butcher's bill.”

Both men stepped up into leather and raced their steeds toward the end of the field. Fargo heard shouts behind them and knew more trouble was coming—the Mormons had heard the gunplay and would know that one of their womenfolk was in trouble.

They reined in at the edge of the moon-gleaming pool and immediately spotted the pale beauty in the grass.

“Christ on a mule, he killed her,” Old Billy fretted as they lit down. “Fargo, we best rabbit ourselves afore them Saints get here. You
know
what them hell-and-brimstone Mormons will do to two gentiles what killed one a their women—and
look
at her, man! By the twin balls of Saint Peter she's a beauty!”

“She's some pumpkins,” Fargo agreed, kneeling beside her. “But she ain't dead—and no cuts. Just a bruise making up on her jaw. Old son, we mighta got here in the nick of time.”

A growing hubbub was heading toward them across the field, a confusion of shouting male voices. Several torches flickered in the darkness, but Fargo was grateful they had left their horses grazing.

“Damn it, Fargo, quit ogling her catheads and let's pull foot. That mob is closing in on us.”

“Stay frosty, Indian fighter,” Fargo replied, dipping his hat into the pool and splashing cold water on the girl.

Her eyes trembled open, and for at least ten seconds she stared into Fargo's face without comprehension. Then, as memory returned, her pretty face contorted into a mask of abject fear.

“You!” she said, trying to make herself smaller in the grass. “No, don't touch me!”

She sucked in a huge breath and screamed so loud the sound pierced Fargo's ears like jagged shards of glass. It was like a warning siren to the advancing Mormons—a crackling volley of gunshots opened up, deadly lead making the air hum.

“Stupid bastards,” Fargo muttered even as a round tugged at his shirt passing through. “They'll kill her.”

“Stay flat!” Fargo ordered her even as he and Old Billy leaped for their horses.

“Let's get off to the flanks,” Fargo said as he leaped onto the rented mount, wishing it was the Ovaro. “Then toss some snap-shots into the air so those damn turnip-heads will stop firing toward the girl. Let's rendezvous at that desert shack we found earlier.”

Once again, Fargo thought grimly, he had to let that stinking sage rat scurry to safety. And whether or not that unfortunate beauty had been raped tonight, Skye Fargo would be accused of a heinous attack on an innocent woman.

But as he thumped the gelding's ribs with his heels and they vaulted forward, angry bullets still seeking his vitals, Fargo's lips formed a grim, determined slit. No posse would corral this killer, no judge decide his fate. He had raped, wounded, and murdered women in the name of Skye Fargo, and his only refuge would be in the hottest pit of hell.

Captain Saunders Lee unsnapped the brim of his cavalry hat to provide a little more shade for his sunburned face. Each breath of the desert air was like molten glass, and sweat evaporated the moment it appeared.

“Sergeant Shoemaker,” he called to the NCO behind him, “we'll walk the horses for thirty minutes to spell them.”

“Yessir!”

“And call in the flankers. There's a band of Paiutes down from the Humboldt River, and I'd rather have every man here in the main gather. Nobody can sneak up on us in this country.”

The burly sergeant barked out the order and the squad of twelve Mormon soldiers dismounted, taking their horses by the reins to lead them. Saunders, leading his roan, glanced all around this parched corner of the Great Salt Desert, his eyes trembling and watering. This salt desert hardpan produced a glare that could drive animals and humans mad. Back east Salt Lake City was being called the “Halfway House” between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean.

But all he'd found, so far, was a harsh, unforgiving land of tarantulas, centipedes, and scorpions. In this desolate saltdesert waste, no joyous birds celebrated sunup. It was an arid land of
borrasca
, barren rock. It was terrain so hostile that even the mission padres gave it wide berth. The Great Basin was devoid of humanity except for a few nomadic braves, mostly Utes and a few Paiutes or Shoshonis.