The Trailsman #396 (10 page)

More than enough bullets, but it wasn't volume that would save them: it was speed and accuracy and being first to hit.

Grizz Bear tossed back his drink and shuddered violently. “Christ on a crutch! You can taste the gunpowder. But I reckon it's good for curing the French pox.”

Two men, especially, drew Fargo's notice. They sat at one of the tables and were apparently engrossed in draw poker. One was a ­pinch-­faced gringo who must have been born mean, the other a lipless Mexican.

“Them two's the only ones that ain't looked at us,” Grizz Bear remarked as he followed Fargo's gaze.

“Yeah,” Fargo said. “They're making a
point
of not looking at us.”

“What? You think the Mexican could be the Scorpion?” Jude blurted out too loudly in his nervousness.

“Damn it, kid,” Fargo muttered, “no need to be parading it. Lower your voice.”

But evidently Jude had been overheard. Harsh laughter exploded and three men suddenly moved in front of the door and filled their hands. The two cardplayers at the table now stared grinning at Fargo as several more men drew their weapons.

“Here's the elephant, boys,” Fargo said quietly. “It's gonna be a hot bust out. When I give the word I want both of you to drop fast to the floor. Jude, start from the left and drill any man who's got us under a gun. I'll start from the right after I kill the two head hounds at the table. Grizz ­Bear—”

“Drop the three at the door,” the old salt finished for Fargo, “and then it's ­hey-­diddle-­diddle and up the middle.”

“Cripes!” Jude protested in a whisper. “They already got the drop on us.”

“Shut up and do what you're told,” Fargo ordered. “Hell, all they can do is kill you.”

“'At's right,” Grizz Bear tormented the kid. “Ain't like it's the end of the world, hanh?”

The lipless, ­turtle-­mouthed Mexican, wearing the scarred leather chaps of a
vaquero
, rose and swaggered toward the Americans, a Savage Arms ­trigger-­cock revolver in his fist.

“Welcome to Doomed Domains, hombres!” he called out with false bonhomie, clearly enjoying himself. “Where every man has a set on him and every woman says yes!”

Fargo had felt this before: the sense that he was both participating in and observing his fate at the same time. It felt just like a dream, only he knew this was the real, brutal world. And he knew the moment of truth was here, perhaps in the next breath.

His fabled marksmanship was less valuable, right now, than his honed reflexes and quick reactions. Timing was the key ­now—­perfect, flawless timing. If he muffed it by even a second, the three of them would be shot to chair stuffings.

“
Very
slowly,” Turtle Mouth ordered, “step away from your rifles and drop your gun belts to the floor. The first one who tries to play the hero will die the hardest.”

“Looks like you're the boss,” Fargo said. “Can I at least swallow my jolt? I paid for it.”

“Drink up, gringo
famoso
,” Turtle Mouth invited. “We are cordial men. It was your foolish choice to come here. Clearly you
wish
to die.”

Fargo took the shot glass in his thumb and index finger.
“No,” he said amiably. “It's my way to just chop wood and let the chips fall where they may.
DROP, boys!
”

Quicker than a hiccup all three men fell to the floor. Fargo's Colt was in his hand and cocked before he even landed. Gunfire erupted and lead whistled through the air where the three men had just been standing.

Fargo opened fire lying on his left side. A corkscrewing rope of blood spurted from the Mexican's forehead and he flopped facedown to the floor. In less than a heartbeat Fargo had shifted his muzzle to the ­terrier-­faced gringo and blown pebbly clots of his brain onto the man behind him. Then the Trailsman tracked his muzzle to the right and blasted away at any man brandishing a weapon.

During all this Grizz Bear's powerful Dragoon boomed away with the authority of a cannon. But it was the rapid, rat-a-tat precision of Jude's Colt that capped the climax. One, two, three would-be assassins along the left wall dropped dead to the floor quicker than you could say Jack Spratt.

The sustained thunder of three weapons inside the small cantina seemed endless, but in fact was over in about five seconds. Ten shots had been fired by the victors and ten men lay crumpled on the floor, dead or dying.

­Gray-­white gun smoke hazed the room in an acrid pall, and the smell commingled with the ­sheared-­metal stench of blood and the disgusting stink of feces and urine, released when the dead men's bowels and bladders emptied.

The surviving patrons stood in shocked silence after the ­ear-­punishing roar of gunfire fell silent. It was so quiet now all that could be heard were a few dying moans and the blood still spurting from mortal wounds.

Fargo wagged the smoking barrel of his Colt. “The rest of you swinging dicks got ten seconds to clear out,” he commanded in a tone of unquestionable authority. “And then those dicks won't be swinging.”

In fact the place emptied out in half that time. Fargo turned to the old barkeep. “Arturo, which of these men worked for the Scorpion?”

The Mexican nodded back toward the table with its scattered cards. “The men you keel first. Ham Rogers and Pinchito Montoya.”

“Ham Rogers?” Grizz Bear looked a question at Fargo.

“Never heard of him.”

“Perhaps,” Arturo suggested, “you know the name of his cousin and partner in crime, Jim Butler.”

Fargo whistled. “Missouri Jim Butler. I've heard he's a yeoman gunfighter. A sheriff in Arkansas told me Butler killed Big Bat McQuady in a fair draw with two slugs through the pump.”

“Dame Rumor claimed he was here in the desert,” Grizz Bear said. “But I didn't figure him to get chummy with Mexers. Anyhow, if Ham is here, so is Butler.”

Arturo shrugged. He had not followed all of this, but they were not speaking to him so what did it matter?

“These two men,” he said, “they pay these others ­to—­how you say?—back their play.”

Fargo nodded. “Sorry as all hell we killed so many of your customers.”

“Customers?
Vaya!
Most of them never pay one
centavo
.”

Jude had not said a word and just stood staring at the ­bodies—­three of which were his first kills.

“Kid,” Fargo said, clapping him on the back, “you were ­some—­
Christ!
”

Fargo barely managed to step back in time when a stream of puke spewed from Jude's mouth. Grizz Bear howled with mirth and seized the private's untouched whiskey.

“That little pukin' pussy ain't gonna drink it. Here's to bowlegged women.”

Fargo sent the ­green-­gilled kid outside for some fresh air and laid a twenty-dollar gold double eagle on the raw plank ­bar—­twenty dollars he was damn straight charging to the army.

“Sorry for leaving you with the bodies,” he told the barkeep. “But I never bury any son of a bitch who tries to kill me.”

“That will be no problem,” Arturo assured him, grinning as he eyed the gold shiner. “Old man Padilla, he owns savage and hungry hogs.”

“Kinda funny, ain't it?” Grizz Bear said. “These old boys are gonna end life just like they lived it: as pig shit.”

Three days after the bloody cartridge session in Doomed Domains, another act of apparent sabotage plunged the camel caravan into its worst crisis ­yet—­one bullets couldn't remedy.

It happened just when Fargo had started to hope the violent deaths of Ham Rogers and Pinchito Montoya might have dissuaded the Scorpion from his latest plan. With the exception of light water rationing, caused by the slitting of ten water bags earlier, things had started to look up.

Two days west of Doomed Domains they had successfully resupplied a remote army observation post and rescue station at a dreary, ­wind-­scoured elevation called Saddleback Summit. The expedition was now slogging through the vast, desolate basin between the Old Woman Mountains and Joshua Tree, and now and then Fargo spotted the ­ermine-­capped Sierra Nevada range projecting above the horizon.

Much of the terrain now seemed as level and flat as a billiard table. But sand hills occasionally formed tall headlands with plenty of good hiding places above the trail. At such points Fargo was ever mindful of the Scorpion and Chief Tasenko's aggrieved Mojaves. He usually found an alternate route even if they lost a little time.

On the morning of the third day west of Doomed Domains the expedition went into its usual daytime camp. Fargo, Deke, Grizz Bear and Private Jude Hollander lingered near the chuck wagon waiting for their coffee to cool. Nobody drank it hot in the Mojave.

“
Thank
you, Jesus!” Grizz Bear suddenly shouted. “Another glorious day nursing hunchback horses in God's sandbox! I got the prickly rash so bad on my ass cheeks I hafta stand up in the stirrups.”

“If you hate the job so much,” Fargo said, “why'd you join up? Nobody put a gun to your head.”

“Fargo, I ain't greedy for money, but it quiets my nerves. Two dollars a day and your eats ain't such bad pay for an old fart with no pension.”

“Dang,” Jude said. “I only get twenty dollars a month, and it ain't even real money.”

“Kid, a man can't make a fist of any kind in the army,” Deke said, “unless he goes to West Point. Look at ­Robinson—­that worthless chunk of suet would be collecting buffalo bones for a living if he didn't have the army. Now ­if—”

He abruptly fell silent as all three women emerged from their tent.

“I think I just felt my cod move,” Grizz Bear said.

Deke snorted. “Must be the wind nudged it, you old relic. Boys, lookit how Bobbie Lou is ogling Fargo.”

Grizz Bear shook with silent laughter. “She's so jo-fired hot for'm her petticoat is charred. Fargo, it's been comical as a puppet show watching you two tryin' to figure out how to sneak off and do the black deed.”

“What's the ­black—?” Jude fell silent when he caught on.

Grizz Bear hooted. “Does your mother know you're out, infant?”

“You see that blanket Rosalinda's carrying?” Deke said. “I seen how they do it. Two of the gals holds up the blanket for a screen while the third does her business.”

“'Cept for Miss Bradish,” Jude corrected him. “She's too modest. After the other two go back to the tent, she goes way off by herself till you can't hardly see her. She's a real lady.”

“Lady or no, that's a fool's play with the enemies we got,” Fargo said. “I didn't know she was doing that.”

“Yeah,” Jude said. “I been worrying about it. But I just can't work myself up to mention it to her.”

“Nix on that,” Fargo warned. “She'll drop dead from embarrassment if a man tells her. I'll talk to Rosalinda or Bobbie Lou, make it sound like it's their idea to warn her.”

Fargo said nothing to the others, but Karen's strange plea from several days ago kept playing over and over in his mind like a snatch of song he couldn't shake:
please, Skye—protect me?
A woman who claimed to be that scared would have to be
awful damn modest to wander far from ­camp—­or maybe just a good actress.

“Miss Gonzalez and Miss Davis are both real pretty,” Jude observed. “And real nice to everybody. But they're women of loose morals. Miss Bradish ain't like that.”

“Sell your ass, boy,” Grizz Bear shot back. “She's a dance hall ­singer—­that's 'bout a half bead off from being a dove. Karen or
any
woman will put out for a man if you give her just enough liquor to make her weak in the nays.”

Jude again looked puzzled. “Weak in the . . . I don'­t—”

“That Karen,” Deke interrupted him impatiently, “don't like me on account I'm a dipper. She says chewin' snuff is a dirty habit. Dainty little bitch.”

“She ain't no bitch,” Jude said hotly.

“Like hell she ain't,” Deke shot back. “Acts likes she's F.F.V.”

“What's that?” Jude demanded.

“First Families of Virginia.”

“Oh. She's not from Virginia,” Jude said. “She told ­me—”

“Kid”—Fargo broke it up, tired of the pointless ­grab-­assing—“it's just a humorous manner of speaking. Ain't you got some place to be? Won't be long and Robinson will be over here pissing and moaning that we're keeping you from your duties.”

“Robinson,” Grizz Bear repeated as if spitting out a nasty taste. “He's the type who's always backing and filling when he'd oughter be steaming ahead.”

“A real ­double-­barreled asshole,” Deke agreed. “Acts like he's one of the big bugs, but he's just a louse. Don't even have the stones to own an order, so he makes Fargo the pigeon 'case there's bad trouble.”

“Looks like we're stuck with him,” Fargo said. “Don't seem likely Beale will join us until after the expedition lays over near Los Angeles.”

“You ask me,” Grizz Bear said, “­you—”

“Nobody
is
asking you,” Fargo cut him off, nodding toward Jude to warn Grizz Bear to shut up.

Fargo knew what the old desert rat was going to say because lately he repeated it like a parrot: that Robinson was becoming less stable, more prone to impulsive rage and ­tangle-­brained decisions as the expedition advanced. And that Fargo might have to seize command for the survival of the group.

The idea of usurping control of a military mission went against Fargo's grain, and might even put him on a fugitive list when he inevitably refused to let himself be arrested. Seizing the reins would be a last resort.

“At least there's been no more Indian trouble,” Fargo said to change the subject.

“That set-to in the mountain pass spooked 'em,” Grizz Bear agreed. “But you killed one of their warriors. The Mojaves will be down on us like all wrath.”

Fargo nodded. “What's really biting at me is whether or not the Scorpion has given up his plans for us.”

“Might be,” Grizz Bear said. “This here is the third day since we put the quietus on his two rabid curs, and nary a peep.”

“Hope you're right,” Fargo said. “But I'm assuming otherwise.”

“It's no use to cogitate on it,” Deke said. “If there's a bullet out there somewheres with your name on it, brother, ain't shit you can do about it.”

“Let me enlighten you, ­hash-­slinger,” Fargo said, finishing his coffee and pushing to his feet. “There's no such thing as a bullet with your name on it. It's the ones marked ‘to whom it may concern' that will kill you.”

•   •   •

Fargo had been averaging no more than three hours sleep a day, and by now there was a permanent dull ache behind his eyes. But he decided to ride a wide loop around the camp before crawling under a wagon to snatch some fitful sleep in the oppressive heat.

On his way to the corral he spotted Juan Salazar seated on a packing crate and mending a bridle with an awl and buckskin thread.

Fargo halted. “How's it going, Salazar?”

The Mexican ranch hand's eyes, as always, fled from Fargo's. “It is another day like the rest.”

“You got something on your mind?” Fargo said. “Seems to me something is scratching at you pretty bad.”

Salazar continued with his work. Fargo couldn't help noticing the big Colt Walker .44 protruding from its canvas holster. It seemed an odd choice for a ranch hand.

“Many things are on a man's mind,” he replied evasively.

Fargo's face hardened. “Let's cut the ­ring-­around-­the-­rosy.
Are you stewing over the fact that I killed your brother? If you are, be a man and call me out.”

“My brother is no ­loss—­let him burn in hell. But my sister . . .”

He abruptly fell silent as if realizing he had said too much.

“Your sister?” Fargo repeated. “What about her?”

“Con permiso,”
Salazar said, suddenly standing up and walking off.

Fargo was still standing there, trying to puzzle this thing out, when a raucous commotion suddenly erupted from the direction of the camel corral. Moments later Mad Maggie, the troublemaking dromedary, came tearing through camp and plowed right through a Sibley tent filled with sleeping soldiers.

But evidently the camel revolt was spreading. Fargo heard the rapid, dull thuds of their padded feet, the jangling clamor of their bells, and saw ­reddish-­brown streaks as other camels followed Maggie's lead. Cursing men leapt from their paths.

Fargo hurried across camp, Grizz Bear falling in with him. The scene near the corral was bedlam. Hassan, Turkish Tom and the other drivers—redolent of their homelands in their billowy trousers, silk turbans and ­bell-­spangled ­jackets—­were scurrying around madly trying to control the rebellious animals.

And a ­florid-­faced Sergeant Woodrow Robinson, whip in hand, was raising holy hell in the middle of it all.

“You goddamn, ignorant sand monkeys!” he raged at them. “It's your job to control those ­mother-­lovin' camels!”

“Phew! Ain't he in a fine pucker?” Grizz Bear remarked. “The man's pathetic.”

A moment later the trouble escalated. Topsy, one of the lead camels, managed to get behind Robinson and sink those sharp front teeth into his ample sitter. Robinson squalled like a cat with a stepped-on tail. Then rage gripped him so tightly it left his jaw muscles bunched.

He whirled and his whip lashed out, slicing Topsy across the face.

“That stupid bastard,” Fargo said as he broke into a run.

Hassan, who doted on Topsy, flew into his own rage. He charged at Robinson just as the NCO drew back his arm to lash Hassan. Fargo spurted in just in time to grab his arm.

Fargo, his lips set in grim determination, spun the big man
around and smashed a hard right fist into his mouth, splitting both fleshy lips and knocking the soldier hard to the ground.

“You cowardly bully,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “You know Beale's strict order:
no
abuses of the camels or their drivers.”

Robinson, blood streaming from his mouth and his ass, was apoplectic with rage. “As you were, Fargo!
I'm
the one in charge now! This is a military mission, and I'll deal with them any goddamn way I want ­to—­and they'll eat it and they'll
like
it!”

“You've got it hind side foremost, fat man. You ain't got the caliber for the job. You're in charge until I decide different. One more stupid stunt like this and I'm putting you in irons.”

“And then you'll rot in prison, you puffed-up peacock! This mission is failing, Fargo, and it's all your fault! If you'd spend less time tomcatting and more time doing your job, we'd have more water and fewer savages.”

“This mission is doing just fine,” Fargo countered, “and guarding the water is the army's job, not mine. And why blubber over the fact that you encounter Indians when you're crossing Indian ranges? The hell do you expect, Italians?”

“You provoked them in the Old Woman Mountains. I wanted nothing to do ­with—”

“We've already skinned that grizz. Nothing you just whined about has thing one to do with taking the cowhide to camels and unarmed drivers. You're just a spiteful son of a bitch stewing over past grievances instead of leading like a career soldier and a by-god man. Think about it, Robinson, and make your decision ­quick—­there's a capable soldier somewhere inside you. Roust him out fast, or you'll spend the rest of this journey in chains, assuming I don't kill you.”

Robinson stood up, swiping the back of his hand across his bloody lips. He was so infuriated now that his face shaded from red to purple and he trembled like a ­rain-­soaked dog with the force of his hatred. Several of his men were witnessing his humiliation.

“Fargo, your ass is grass, do you mark me? I'm going to make sure that you are hanged for treason!”

Fargo goaded him with a smile that failed to include his eyes.

“Thanks for the warning,” he said. “Maybe you're going to have an accident pretty soon, huh? You think any of these men you're embarrassing right now are going to rally for you? Look
around, asshole. It's your own fault, but you're down to bedrock and showing damn little color.”

Later Fargo would regret that he hadn't handled Robinson some other way. But trail weariness and constant vigilance and a merciless sun had shortened his fuse.

He turned away to give the drivers a hand. He'd taken only two steps before Robinson's lash cracked like green wood snapping and fire sliced deep into his muscular back.

Fargo spun on his heel as Robinson snapped his blacksnake a second time. Fargo timed it perfectly, jutting aside and catching the knotted buckskin popper. One hard tug and the whip was his.

Robinson turned to flee, but Fargo moved swift as a striking snake, encircling the soldier's left ankle with the lash and sending him crashing to the ground. Again, again, a third time the whip snapped, Robinson huddling in a ball and begging for mercy.

“You don't like it when it's turnabout, huh?” Fargo said, laying the next slash across Robinson's face and ripping a cheek wide open. He threw the whip down on top of him.