Wyoming Winterkill (8 page)

14

Fargo was up before the crack of dawn. He saddled the Ovaro and brought the stallion out of the stable to a hitch rail. As he was looping the reins a shape detached itself from the darkness. He dropped his hand to his Colt but didn't draw. “You?” he said when he recognized who it was.

“Me,” Jules Vallee said. He was mounted on a bay that had seen a lot of years and holding a Sharps in the crook of his elbow.

“What do you think you're doing?”

“Coming along.”

“I thought you wanted to spend the rest of your days drunk.”

“I thought I did, too,” Jules said. “But the booze isn't helping me forget like it's supposed to. I wake up with the sweats, so scared I can't hardly think straight.”

“After what you went through—” Fargo said, and let it go at that.

“It turned me yellow,” Jules said quietly. “It's gotten so, I'm afeared of my own shadow.”

“I wouldn't go that far,” Fargo said.

“I am, I tell you,” Jules said. “And I'm sick of it. I want to be me again. I want to be able to look at myself and not be sick to my stomach.”

“This won't be easy. You said so yourself.”

“You reckon I don't know that?” Jules gazed to the east at the lightening sky. “I have something to prove to myself and this is the only way.” He paused. “Besides, you need me to help you find those pilgrims.”

“Only if you're sure,” Fargo said.

“I've never been more sure of anything in my life.”

In the summer the ride from Fort Laramie to the geyser country was pleasant enough; in the winter it was hell.

The cold seeped into their bones before they had gone a mile from the gates, and stayed there. At night they bundled in blankets but it warmed them only a little and by the middle of the night they sometimes woke up freezing with their jaws chattering.

The soldiers, anyway.

Fargo was used to it.

He led them north along the Platte and then along the Sweetwater River to the Wind River Range. South Pass and the Oregon Trail were to the west.

Fargo continued north into the mountains, and from there on he relied on Jules.

Ordinarily, the ruts left by twenty heavy wagons would be enough of a guide. But those ruts were buried under half a foot of snow.

Captain Griffin kept pretty much to himself. Early on he'd tried to engage Fargo in conversation but when he discovered Fargo wasn't much of a talker, he gave it up as a lost cause.

Sergeant Petrie was a solid block of muscle, a career soldier who took his soldiering as seriously as a pastor took the Bible. The five troopers under him were older than average, experienced campaigners who had served long spells on the frontier. During the day they rarely spoke unless spoken to and at night they didn't talk and joke a lot as younger soldiers would.

Now it was a new day and a front was rolling in, the clouds thick and ominous.

Fargo hoped the snow would hold off. He wanted to get up into the high country and get out again as quickly as practical.

The third morning after they entered the Wind River Range, Fargo brought the Ovaro up alongside the trapper's plodding bay. “How much farther?”

“Miles or days?”

“Both,” Fargo said.

The old trapper squinted ahead at jagged white peaks that thrust at the clouds. “As the crow flies, I'd guess not more than fifty miles. On horseback, with all this snow, eight to ten days, I reckon.”

“Damn,” Fargo said.

“They're up a ways. That Jacob Coarse got it into his head there's a pass over the Tetons.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me.”

Fargo almost drew rein. “You talked to him? When?”

“When I first came on them stranded in that meadow. Didn't I mention it? They begged me to go for help.”

“Why didn't they send one of their own down sooner?”

“I asked them that,” Jules said. “Hell, it's not that hard to find Fort Laramie.”

“And?” Fargo prompted when the old trapper didn't go on.

“Jacob Coarse wouldn't let anyone leave. He said they had to stick together no matter what.”

“The damned fool.”

“To tell the truth, they didn't impress me much. Farmers, mostly, and a few city folk. They were bound to get lost.”

“So they stay stranded when they don't have to be.”

“Part of it is they refuse to leave their wagons. Everything those people own is on their Conestogas. They're fearful it will get taken if they leave it untended.”

“What's more important?” Fargo grumbled. “Their china and grandfather clocks or their lives?”

“You know how some folks are,” Jules said with a sigh. “They're more attached to things than they are to breathing.”

“So much for talking them into leaving their wagons up there until spring.”

Jules laughed. “Not likely. They'd as soon chop off an arm and a leg.”

Fargo gazed at the swirling clouds. “What we need is a warm spell.”

“What we have is winter.”

As if to bring that point home, large flakes began to fall. Only a few but it portended worse to come.

“Wonderful,” Fargo said.

They hadn't gone much farther when they came on fresh tracks.

“What do you make of those?” Jules asked.

Fargo drew rein and bent from the saddle. A pair of riders—on shod horses—had come from the southeast and gone off toward the northwest. Judging by the little amount of snow that had filled the tracks, it couldn't have been more than half an hour ago. He related as much.

“Who in hell would be heading up into the high country in weather like this?”

“In the same direction as the stranded wagon train,” Fargo had noticed.

“Could be a couple of them tried to make it to the fort and turned back.”

“Could be,” Fargo said, although his gut instinct told him that wasn't the case.

“If they stop we might run into them,” Jules mentioned. “Then we'll know.”

They climbed, and the snow thickened.

Fargo marveled that the pilgrims had made it so far. Lacking a trail, they'd had to choose the easiest route by sight, avoiding steep grades and the thickest timber and deadfalls. They must have pushed their teams to try to make it over the mountains before the first snow. Little did they know that other than South Pass and another pass nearly a hundred miles to the north, there was no way over the Divide. Not for wagons, anyhow.

The snow had turned the greens and browns to stark white. White peaks, white slopes, white trees, white ground. It was picturesque but treacherous. The snow hid obstacles that would otherwise be avoided. And it made even the slightest of slopes slippery for beast and man.

The normally dry air wasn't. Thick with moisture, it made breathing at high altitudes harder. They weren't so high yet that it would pose a problem but it was something to keep in mind.

Fargo didn't resent the snow. Not like others he knew. Some scouts refused to head out into the wilds in the winter if a lot of snow had fallen. The odds of making it back were slimmer. A man had to know exactly what he was doing and even then there were no guarantees.

“Do you smell that, pard?” Jules asked.

Fargo had been so caught up in thought, he hadn't. He sniffed and said, “Smoke.”

“That pair must have made camp.”

It was early yet but that meant nothing. Fargo rose in the stirrups but couldn't spot the telltale tendrils. “They can't be far ahead.”

They rode on, the clomp of their hooves muffled by the white blanket. Occasionally clumps of snow fell from trees, showering them.

The tracks entered a belt of pines.

Out of habit Fargo rode with his hand on his Colt. “Tell the troopers not to make any noise,” he said quietly over his shoulder, and Jules passed it on to Captain Griffin in a whisper.

The orange flames were easy to spot.

Fargo drew rein and the others followed suit. Dismounting, he handed the reins to Jules and glided forward.

The pair had camped in a small clearing. Their horses were tied and a coffeepot had been put on. But there was no sign of the riders.

Fargo squatted to wait. It could be they were gathering firewood. They wouldn't have gone far.

When they emerged, their arms laden with broken branches, he gave a start. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised but he was. Drawing the Colt, he cocked it and moved into the open. They were talking and looking at one another and didn't see him until he said, “Fancy meeting you here.”

Fletcher and Margaret froze.

“You!” she blurted.

“And friends,” Fargo said. He gave a loud whistle.

Fletcher glanced at the stock of a rifle jutting from a scabbard on a sorrel.

“Try for it,” Fargo urged. “Give me an excuse.”

“The colonel sent you after us,” Fletcher said.

“You won't believe this,” Fargo said, “but we found you by accident.”

“Can we set down this firewood?” Margaret asked, hefting her burden.

“No.”

Out of the pines came Jules and Captain Griffin and Sergeant Petrie and the five soldiers. Petrie promptly drew his sidearm and ordered his men to do the same.

“Now you can set the firewood down,” Fargo said. He walked around behind them and relieved Fletcher of his six-shooter and Margaret of a Smith & Wesson she'd acquired somewhere.

Fletcher was boiling mad and trying hard to contain himself. “I thought we'd gotten clean away.”

“Of all the places in the world,” Fargo said, “why in hell did you come way up here?”

“To join up with Blackjack Tar,” Margaret said. “Why else?”

“You killed our other friends,” Fletcher said.

Jules said, “Blackjack Tar ain't anyone's friend. He's as liable to kill you as anything.”

“Blackjack would never harm a hair on our heads,” Margaret declared.

“And why's that, missy?” Jules asked.

“Because I'm his sister.”

15

Margaret Tar. Fargo would never have suspected that. It explained a lot.

Evening was setting. The snow had tapered to flurries. Fletcher and Margaret sat with their hands bound behind their backs, Fletcher still simmering, Margaret acting as if it was perfectly natural for her to be covered by two of the troopers.

“This is a stroke of luck,” Sergeant Petrie commented as the coffeepot was being passed around. “I should send them back under guard in the morning.”

“We take them with us,” Fargo said.

The sergeant shook his head. “They killed Trooper Hayes. They have to answer for it.”

“We don't split up.”

Petrie stared at the pair and tapped his tin cup with a thick finger. “My orders are to escort you to the Coarse wagon train and assist you in getting them down the mountains to safety. I can do that with three men as well as five.”

“And if her brother shows up?” Jules said with a nod at Margaret. “Three of you ain't hardly enough.”

“Two less won't make that much of a difference,” Petrie argued.

Fargo was dead set against it. “I'd take it as a favor if you didn't.”

Captain Griffin settled the matter by saying, “We'll do as he wants, Sergeant, and that's final.”

“Yes, sir,” Petrie said unhappily.

Margaret had listened to every word and was grinning.

“What's so funny, girlie?” Jules asked.

“I'm not no girl. I'm a full-grown woman,” she shot back. “And what's funny is what my brother will do when he gets hold of you. He won't like you taking me prisoner. He won't like it at all.”

Petrie said to Griffin, “All the more reason for me to send them to the fort. Blackjack Tar won't know they've been taken into custody.”

“That's a good point,” Margaret said. “You should listen to him, Captain.”

Fargo was puzzled. It made no sense for her to want to be taken to Fort Laramie. They wouldn't hang her. Woman were rarely hanged. But she'd likely spend a good many years behind bars.

“Cat got your tongue?” Jules said to Fletcher. “You haven't given your two cents.”

“I get the chance,” Fletcher growled, “I'll kill every last one of you.”

“That's what I like to see,” Jules said. “Brotherly love.”

Fargo snorted.

“You won't think it's so hilarious when you meet
my
brother,” Margaret boasted. “You'll die slow and horrible and begging for mercy.”

“That's enough of that kind of talk,” Captain Griffin said. “It's not fit for a lady.”

Margaret Tar laughed. “Who the hell are you talking to? I haven't ever been a
lady
. I drink like a man and cuss like a man and kill like a man. And yes, I screw like a man, too.”

“Such language,” Jules said.

Margaret winked at Fargo. “Tell them how I am. Tell them how it really is.”

“She's a bitch,” Fargo said.

“And proud of it,” Margaret said, her eyes twin points of vicious glee. “I liked killing that old granny and that old man. I like killing, period.”

“You're not in your right mind,” Captain Griffin remarked.

“Wretch,” Margaret said. “Thinking everyone should think as you do. Some of us won't be chained by rules and such.”

“Now you're talking nonsense,” Captain Griffin said. “No one has put chains on you.”

Margaret bent toward him. “I could tell you things that would curl your hair. You wouldn't—”

“Enough,” Fletcher said. She looked at him and he said, “I mean it.”

Fargo was impressed that she listened. “I was wondering which of you is worse. Now I know.”

“I don't listen to him out of fear,” Margaret said. “I do it out of love.”

“Hell,” Jules said. “I doubt you know the meaning of the word.”

“Why? Because I kill and steal?”

“I said enough,” Fletcher warned her.

“And you want to take these two with us?” Sergeant Petrie said to Griffin. “With all due respect, sir, we'll have to watch them every second. At least two of my men will have them under constant guard. We might as well send them to the fort.”

“No is no. Not another word,” Captain Griffin said.

Margaret stared intently at Fargo. “So tell me, handsome. How does it feel to be chasing your tail?”

“How do you mean?” Fargo asked.

Fletcher turned on her, glowering. “Damn it to hell. Give it away and your brother will take a bullwhip to you, sister or not.”

“Blackjack would never lay a finger on me,” Margaret said. “Besides, a gal has to have her fun.”

“That's all you ever want to do.”

“Now, now,” Margaret said.

“Rabid coyotes,” Jules said. “The pair of them.”

Fargo wasn't so sure. They were hiding something. He couldn't imagine what. “Both of you are done talking for a while.”

“Or what?” Margaret rejoined. “You'll pistol-whip us? You would, wouldn't you? The good captain wouldn't, me being a lady and all. But you, you're more like us than you'll own up to.”

Fargo put his hand on his Colt and smirked and had the satisfaction of seeing her blanch.

“I reckon I'll sleep with one eye open tonight,” Jules remarked.

“You don't need to worry,” Sergeant Petrie said. “We'll tie their legs and gag them until morning. They're not going anywhere.”

“I broke out of your guardhouse, didn't I?” Margaret boasted.

“With his help,” Petrie said with a gesture at Fletcher. “This time he'll be as trussed up as you.”

“Gloat while you can,” Margaret said. “But you don't know everything.”

“For the last goddamn time,” Fletcher said, “shut the hell up.”

The snow finally stopped but the wind picked up. Once the sun was swallowed by the mountains, the temperature plummeted.

Fargo didn't object when the troopers added wood to make the fire larger and warmer. He doubted any hostiles were abroad. Not in that weather.

Jules Vallee draped a blanket over his slim shoulders and pulled it tight around him. “You get my age, the cold bothers you more.”

“My brother will see to it you don't get any older,” Margaret predicted.

“About him,” Jules said. “What made him how he is? You, too, for that matter? How can you go around killing folks and not give a damn?”

“Why should we?” Margaret replied. “They're strangers. They're nothing to us.”

“They're people, for God's sake.”

Margaret looked at him in scorn. “You want to understand us—is that it? We have to have a reason so you can sleep better at night.”

“It's not natural,” Jules said.

“Tell me, old man,” Margaret said. “I hear tell you were a trapper once. One of the best of the beaver men. How many of them did you kill?”

“Beaver?” Jules shrugged. “I never counted 'em. In the early years, before most of the streams were trapped out, I probably caught three to four hundred a year. My best year was close to five.”

“So all told,” Margaret said, “you killed thousands of beavers in your time.”

“I reckon. So what?”

“Do you regret it?”

“Why would I? I was earning a living, same as a lot of men. And they were beaver. They were no more to us than the deer we eat for supper or the buffalo we shot.”

“There you have it,” Margaret said.

“Have what?”

“That's exactly what people are to my brother and me. They're deer. They're buffalo. They're beaver. Doing them in is no different to us than killing animals is to you.”

“You're”—Jules seemed to search for the right way to say it—“sick in the head.”

“By how you think. Not by how we think.”

One of the troopers covering them said, “Can we shut her up now, Sarge?”

“Good idea, Benton. Tie their legs and gag them. And if they give you trouble, no need to be nice about it.”

“You'll get yours, blue belly,” Fletcher said.

Fargo was grateful for the silence but it didn't last long. He had gotten up to arch his back and stretch his legs when a shot cracked in the distance and echoed off the peaks, seeming to come from everywhere at once.

“Someone's shooting.” A soldier stated the obvious.

“At this time of night?” Petrie said.

“Maybe it's the pilgrims,” another trooper said.

“Could be it's Blackjack Tar,” Jules put in.

If it wasn't for the snow, Fargo would saddle the Ovaro and scout around. But at night he would be asking for a fall and risk the Ovaro breaking a leg.

“By tomorrow night we should be at the wagons,” Jules said. “The morning after at the latest if something holds us up.”

“Like Blackjack Tar,” Private Benton said.

“He shows his face, I'll put a slug in it,” Sergeant Petrie said.

Fargo saw Margaret glare at him, then glance over at her saddle. It was next to Fletcher's and had been left untended. On an impulse he went over, hunkered, and opened her saddlebags.

Almost immediately Margaret started making angry sounds and made as if to wriggle toward him.

“What's gotten into her?” Jules wondered.

The first saddlebag was crammed with money and jewelry: rings, necklaces, bracelets, several pocket watches, an ivory stickpin, and more. A poke bulged with coins and there was a wad of paper money.

One of the soldiers whistled. “Will you look at it all.”

“Ill-gotten gains,” Jules said.

“Evidence,” Captain Griffin said. “I'm confiscating it and turning it over to Colonel Harrington.”

Fargo reached into the second saddlebag and pulled out a cloth bundle wrapped with twine. He set it down, undid the twine, and opened the cloth. Inside were a dozen or more irregular patches of . . . something.

“What are those?” Sergeant Petrie asked.

The old trapper bent down, and stiffened. “God help us,” he said. “That's human skin.”