Utah Deadly Double (9781101558867) (19 page)

“Hell, you said this Captain Lee is your chum. Why not visit his wife and leave a message for him?”

“He's a friend, not my mother,” Fargo said. “He's a sworn officer in the Mormon Battalion, and he'll have to report that I'm here in the city. Besides, what would I say? This ain't a job to hire out—we'll do it ourselves.”

“Right as rain,” Old Billy conceded. “Even a fool can put his own pants on better than the guv'ment can do it for him.”

A buggy with its top up against the dust rolled past them. They passed a harness shop, a mercantile, a cooperage with barrels stacked in pyramids out front. Fargo noticed a few new redbrick buildings since his last trip here, for the Saints had recently established a brick furnace. They passed a rawlumber home with a dour-faced matron sweeping sand off her porch. She stared at both men and puckered her face as if she had just whiffed skunk.

“Goddamn my eyes,” Old Billy muttered in his raspy voice, “that woman's ugly as proud flesh. You could toss her in a pond and skim ugly for a month.”

When it was clear, Fargo reined toward the western outskirts of town and Mica's livery. Fargo was especially worried about the horses. If Landry's gang had discovered them, they could be waiting in ambush to kill Fargo and Old Billy when they rode in for them.

So he didn't ride in. Leaving Old Billy back in the shadow of a schoolhouse to hold both horses, he hoofed it in cautiously and entered the livery through the rear doors, his Colt cocked and to hand. He spotted Mica at a workbench in the middle of the barn, pounding caulks into horseshoes.

“Hey up, old-timer,” he said as he stepped inside and leathered his shooter. “Any trouble since I left?”

“Not so's you'd notice,” Mica replied without looking up.

Fargo stopped at the Ovaro's stall and the stallion nuzzled his shoulder in greeting. Fargo scratched his withers. “Don't fret, old campaigner, you'll soon be stretching those legs out good.”

“Anybody come in today asking about these horses?” he queried Mica.

“Nary a soul. 'Pears to me that fox-faced outlander musta believed my lie about only boarding horses belongin' to Mormons. Just to be safe, I lock up good at bedtime and sleep down here in a stall. Any egg-sucking varmint who tries to get in will get a seat-load of double-aught buckshot for his trouble.”

Fargo chuckled. “'Preciate you keeping a close eye on my horse, Mica. But these three thugs asking about him are poison—don't stick your neck out. They'd steal Tiny Tim's crutch.”

Mica now looked up at Fargo, his face craggy as a walnut shell. “These three mean badgers are the ones that've framed you, eh? Made you out to be a rapist and murderer of wimmin?”

Fargo nodded. “I don't have any proof yet that you could hang on a nail. And they're the ones bankrolling the fourth man who's doing the dirt work.”

Fargo turned to leave. Mica spoke up behind him. “I hope you mean to kill all four of 'em. Kill one fly, kill a million.”

Fargo sent the old hostler an over-the-shoulder glance. “Damn straight I'm killing the dirt worker. He made it personal. As for the other three, Mica—the one thing they fear more than anything is Mormon law. They'll have to spend two years at hard labor before they stretch hemp. It's one thing to die—it's another to know exactly
when
you're going to die. Unless they force my hand, I won't do them the favor of killing them.”

Skye Fargo and Old Billy Williams trotted their horses toward the outlander camps, swinging toward the center of the street when they approached corner street lanterns.

“How do we play this?” Old Billy spoke up above the clipclop of shod hooves. “Them camps is crowded with wellheeled men, and most of 'em ain't exactly what you'd call familiar with opera houses and good grooming.”

Fargo grinned at the irony. “Listen to this jay! Old son, I have never once known you to take a bath. The punk blowing off you could raise blood blisters on a new saddle.”

Old Billy bristled and puffed out his chest. “I'll sink you, boy! Never mind giving me the rough side of your tongue—I said how do we play this? Fargo, every man in that camp is poor as Job's turkey, and they all know about the reward on our hides. A pair of hombres riding in after dark—hell, they'll be all over us like two-bit perfume.”

“They're not all poor,” Fargo reminded him. “The three we're after have money to throw at the birds. But, anyhow, you're right, Old Billy. This will be a tricky piece of work.”

Fargo fell silent, turning the problem back and forth for a while.

“We won't ride in together,” Fargo decided. “You'll tie off on the east side of the camp, me on the west. You know what these scrotes look like—it's chilly tonight, most of the campers will be sitting around fires. The first one of us to see them will shout out, ‘Hey, Jimmy, where are you?' That will be the other man's signal to return to his horse and skedaddle. But don't forget—each camp spot has a numbered stake. Make sure you read it.”

“I reckon that'll do,” Old Billy agreed. “I can cipher numbers. You always was good at horseback thinking, Fargo.”

“If either of us hears gunfire break out,” Fargo added as an afterthought, “never mind the ‘Hey, Jimmy' business—just light out.”

They reached the outskirts of Salt Lake City. Dead ahead they could see scores of campfires sawing in the brisk night gusts.

Old Billy managed to spit. “These goldang Mormons. They ain't so bad as some make out, but they got no respect for the rights of the wandering man. It's just like in England—a man can't hunt good meat unless he's poaching on the estate of some rich toff.”

Fargo nodded agreement. “When I first started yondering you never saw a no-trespassing sign anywhere west of the Mississippi. It looked just like it did when Meriwether Lewis and Bill Clark sighted through it fifty-some years ago. Son, there was room to swing a cat in! Still is, room aplenty, but you can see it coming from the east—a thundering herd of land hunters, railroad men, and hard-rock miners. These confounded ‘sportsmen' are already killing off the buffalo. After this big war they say is coming, cattle empires will start in deep Texas and spread north like a pox. Saddle bums like us will have to stay on pikes and pay a toll to do it.”

Old Billy stared hard at his friend. “God's nightgown! You're a perky son of a bitch, ain't you? Will our peckers fall off, too?”

A second later, however, his tone changed. “I know you're right, Skye—right as the mail. And speaking on that, ain't we part of the problem, too? Look at us—taking free and open land to locate line stations for the Pony.”

“We are,” Fargo admitted. “But I only took the job because I knew them line stations will be weed lots inside two years. Waddell and his pards know the Pony will go bust fast. They figure it'll cost twenty times more to deliver a letter than it costs the customer to mail it. Meantime, though, it's a terrific sensation all over the damn world and bringing freighting business in hand over fist.”

Old Billy rubbed his jaw. “That's how them new ‘businessmen' think—burn up a small pile of money to get a bigger one. Me, I pinch every Bungtown copper until it cries ‘ouch!' ”

“I hadn't noticed,” Fargo said drily. “But never mind—it's time to split up before any of the campers notice us. Give me the Henry—I'm going to cache it. Take Patsy Plumb with you—only a fool would come against a Greener. I'll take your Spencer so nobody heists it. Keep your face turned away from the flames in case the word is out about your birthmark. Remember, if you spot them get the number of their camp and then raise the shout for Jimmy.
Don't
brace the sons of bitches.”

“You done, schoolman?” Old Billy said sarcastically. “Hell, I ain't no soft brain.”

“Luck,” Fargo called out to him before tugging rein and heading around to the far side of the sprawling camp. He wrapped the black gelding's reins around a long hitching post. There was no graze available but a good number of horses were tethered within range of a long water trough.

There was only moonlight to reveal him, and just as Fargo lit down the wind blew a raft of clouds in front of it. He quickly crossed to the trough and slid his Henry under it. Then, Billy's Spencer carbine carried muzzle-down under his left arm, he entered the sprawling camp.

Countless campfires cast a lurid orange glow, illuminating men's faces like half-remembered dream images. Some had tents and Fargo even spotted a few wickiups made from bent branches. Most of these men were the dregs or the destitute of the Far West: prospectors gone bust in the California goldfields, denizens of the owlhoot trail, down-at-the-heels laborers who went broke before they could reach Sacramento or San Francisco.

And every damn one of them, Fargo reminded himself, would have a new start in life if they captured or killed Skye Fargo, Utah's most wanted man.

Men were wandering aimlessly around, bored or lonely and looking to join in a campfire conversation. This made Fargo feel less conspicuous, especially as he stayed in the shape-shifting shadows. Any one of those wandering men might be a Mormon guard.

“. . . no damn right to tax the meat we eat!” a rusty voice fumed as Fargo passed a campfire. “We whipped John Bull for taxing our damn tea! The hell's next—a tax every time we take a piss?”

The speaker looked up at Fargo as he passed, watching him from a slanted glance. “How 'bout you, stranger?” he called out. “You support this Congress?”

“Add a politician to a nail,” Fargo replied, “and you'll have a nail.”

The men ringed around the fire broke into raucous laughter and Fargo passed safely by. Just ahead he saw a kid carrying a water yoke, full pails at either end. Fargo caught up to him.

“Maybe you can help me, son,” he greeted the kid. “I got three cousins somewhere in camp but don't know the number of their spot. One looks like a bulldog, another's got a face like a fox, and the third one is big enough to fight cougars with a shoe.”

“Sir, I can't read numbers,” the kid replied. “But you'll find them three at the end of the second row—the end closest to town.”

Fargo thanked the kid and slipped him two bits. He angled over to the second row and headed toward the end. He spotted the last fire and three figures seated around it. Fargo loosened his Colt in its holster and eased into the shadows behind them. He was stealing closer when cold steel pressed into the back of his neck.

“The hell you think you're doin', mister?” a gritty voice challenged him. Fargo turned slowly around and the scant light revealed a doltish-looking, slope-shouldered man. “Make any sudden moves and I'll put moonlight through you.”

“The hell's your dicker?” Fargo demanded, doubting that such a slovenly looking man was a Mormon guard. “These are public camps, ain't they?”

“I want your opinion I'll beat it out of you. I heard you ask that kid about your three ‘cousins.' Now I see you sneakin' up on 'em like a murderin' redskin. What, you a bounty hunter? Drop that carbine and ease your short gun out with two fingers.”

Fargo cursed the luck. He was confident that he could draw steel and kill this man in a heartbeat. And usually, on the frontier, nobody asked any questions if the bullet hole was in front. But he was on the threshold of verifying where the Butch Landry gang was, and gunplay now would alert them before he learned that site number.

This was a situation invented for the silent “buffalo” developed by Western lawmen. His right arm moving like a piston, Fargo drew his Colt and in one smooth, fluid movement brought the barrel down hard on the top of the bullyboy's skull. He folded to the ground like an empty sack.

But disaster struck. When he hit the ground his primed and loaded rifle, a Sharp's Big Fifty firing a huge one-ounce ball, went off with a roar like a Spanish one-pounder. It was aimed straight at the last campfire and Fargo heard a sickening sound like a hammer hitting a watermelon. He glanced over just in time to see a huge man—Harlan Perry, he guessed—topple dead to the ground with half his head a crumpled, pulpy mess.

Clearly the gang had been nerved for attack, and the two survivors wasted no time opening up in Fargo's direction. Bullets thickened the air all around him, making snapping sounds as they whizzed past his head. Fargo debated laying down some fire to cover his retreat but realized he'd never make it out of this heavily armed camp if he wasted even a precious second.

His long legs carried him full tilt in the direction of his horse, Fargo's elbows pumping. He zigzagged wildly to avoid men along the path. One managed to stick out a foot and trip him, but Fargo's honed reflexes saved him—for several seconds his arms windmilled the air as he teetered on the feather edge of losing his balance; then he recovered and put on a new burst of speed.

By now a confused alarm rippled through the camp, Mormon guards and others demanding to know what was happening. Enough men had spotted him to give a lively chase, and Fargo realized: He'd never have time to recover his Henry and hop his horse if he didn't force these riled-up men to cover down.

He whirled in midstep and, running backwards, brought the business end of the Spencer up. Aiming high, he levered and fired all seven .56 caliber slugs, spreading them out fanwise. The sounds of pursuit abated long enough for Fargo to grab the Henry, unloop the reins, and vault into the saddle. But then his short grace period was over. Even as he jerked rein and wheeled the black into the street, a fusillade of bullets hurled at him from the camp. The greenhorns, in their zeal to kill, stupidly shot several of their own horses.