The Trailsman #396 (2 page)

After Salazar's emotionless announcement Fargo waited cautiously, his eyes on the old but no doubt highly lethal Colt Walker .44 in Salazar's crude canvas holster.

Blood vengeance was a big deal to some Mexicans, and Fargo had even seen a few kill on impulse, without a word of warning, when insulted. Salazar, however, seemed already resigned to his brother's violent demise.

“He forced my hand,” Fargo said. “I got no regrets about killing ­him—­his kind require it.”

Salazar nodded. “He was evil. Back in our town, in La Cuesta, his hero was
el Scorpio
. Like him, Roberto was no good.”

“Now, ain't that uncommon coincidental,” Grizz Bear spoke up. “You and your brother both from that sewer rat's hometown . . . you know, Skye? I recollect hearing how that greaser Alvarez likes to put a man in 'mongst his enemies.”

“And you figure the Scorpion's man here is going to tell us this is his brother and that he rode for the gang?” Fargo countered. “If you got better proof than that, old son, trot it out. Otherwise, sing soft.”

“Trot out a cat's tail,” Grizz Bear rumbled back. “You just watch this chili pep, Fargo, and you watch him like a cat on a rat. You done for his brother and there's a Mexer blood chit on you now.”

Fargo ignored him, glancing at each man in turn. “From all I've been told, if the Scorpion has notched on us we damn straight best keep a weather eye out.”

“Here comes Sergeant Robinson,” Jude spoke up, watching a ­seventeen-­hand sorrel horse lope toward them from the encampment in the river valley. “I sure do wish Lieutenant Beale was back in charge.”

“You're a private,” Fargo reminded him. “You don't pick your bosses.”

Sergeant Woodrow “Red” Robinson hauled back on the reins and stared at the dead man sprawled at the bottom of the slope.

“He's a freebooter,” Fargo explained. “Belonged to Pablo Alvarez's gang.”

Fargo pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Lupe copped it bad. Looks like the Scorpion's work.”

“Leaving plenty out, ain'tcher, Fargo?” Grizz Bear put in like a schoolboy tattletale. “Like how this dead bandito is Juan Salazar's brother? And how both of 'em hail from the Scorpion's hometown?”

Sergeant Robinson grabbed the horn and swung down. He was a ­big-­bellied man with powerful muscles. The NCO was vain about his appearance and wore a long duster to protect his clothing, a gun belt cinching it.

“If you were fired on, Fargo, you had no choice,” he said pointlessly. “But I'll need reports from you men on Lupe Vargas. And just a reminder to all of you: the U.S. Army Camel Corps has two missions, and two
only
. First, to establish a new supply and emigrant trail across the Mojave. And second, to figure out the best way to use the camels and see how they rate against pack mules.”

Robinson stood with his feet planted wide, thumbs tucked behind his shell belt. He nodded toward the badly pulped body. “One thing we are
not
is jackleg lawmen.”

“Like you said,” Fargo reminded him, “we were fired on. Ain't like we forced a ­call-­down.”

Fargo was an old acquaintance of the officer in charge of the Camel Corps, Lieutenant Ed Beale, a longtime desert explorer and blazer of several key desert trails. But Beale had been abruptly pulled from the expedition and ordered north to Fort Mojave to meet with an official from the War Department.

Fargo had so far had no major dustups with the burly, redheaded top sergeant Beale left in charge. However, he had the distinct impression that Robinson was inexperienced at top field command and would turn to brutality and stupidity when adversity exposed that inexperience.

Sergeant Robinson shifted his attention to Juan Salazar.
“You report to my tent later after we make camp. I want to know more about this dead brother of yours.”

Without warning Robinson whirled on Jude.

“Wipe that stupid, ­shit-­eating grin off your dial, Trooper Hollander, and get back to your duties! Fargo doesn't rate an orderly.”

“­But—”

“But me no buts, trooper. We've got a big river to ford, and those damn fool Arab tribesmen don't even know if camels can swim. I ain't chewing my lip, ­Hollander—­any lollygaggers will get a taste of the cowhide.”

Grizz Bear cleared his throat. He had been hired because of his knowledge of desert Indian languages and warfare.

“A-course you mean any
soldier
lollygaggers, Red,” he said. “Any foolish son of a bitch who tries to cowhide
this
child will die slow with a burning gut.”

“You like to talk about death, old man,” Robinson retorted after he heaved his considerable bulk into the saddle. “I'll discipline
any
man who endangers this mission.”

He reined the sorrel around and sank steel into it, racing back toward the river encampment.

“Not exactly a ­play-­the-­crowd man,” Fargo remarked.

“Didja know Robinson had him a brother who killed a bank teller?” Grizz Bear said.

Fargo shook his head, not much interested.

“It was back someplace in Indiana. You might say he got a suspended ­sentence—­they hung him.”

“Sounds like a latrine rumor,” Fargo said, eyes flicking toward Salazar. The Mexican was trudging back toward his mule.

“It ain't no rumor, Mr. Fargo,” Jude cut in. “I heard him brag about it at grub pile one night.”

“I don't cotton to the son of a bitch,” Grizz Bear said. “Always swingin' his eggs like he's
some
. He's a prick, is what he is.”

“All sergeants are pricks,” Fargo scoffed. “This is the army, you knucklehead, not a freethinkers' society. Quit teaching the kid to disrespect rank.”

“Fargo, you ­two-­faced groat! You got no respect for rank yourself.”

“I always respect it . . . insofar as I can.”

“I will bring a shovel,” Salazar called over before he clucked to the mule, “and bury both bodies.”

Jude tugged up his picket pin. “Mr. Fargo, what if them camels
can't
swim?”

Fargo forked leather, strong white teeth flashing in a grin through his ­close-­cropped beard. “That would be an army logistical problem, Jude. I'm just a contract scout.”

“If them ugly, stinking sons-of-­the-­sand-­dunes drown,” Grizz Bear suggested, “we can pull some ashore and butcher out some hump steaks. I been wondering if it's as tasty as buff meat.”

Jude stared into Grizz Bear's tired, ­grit-­galled eyes. But they peered out of the weathered grooves of a face like windswept stone.

“He's joking, ain't he?” the young soldier asked Fargo.

The Trailsman grunted to acknowledge the question but gave no reply.

•   •   •

Fargo topped a rise overlooking the Colorado at a site where the river broadened, slowing the current slightly.

Finally, after many weeks of hard travel, the Camel Corps had reached the King of Desert Rivers. The ultimate goal was the dusty pueblo of Los Angeles and here at last was California. But first the burning, vast, ­water-­scarce Mojave Desert must be ­conquered—­and the Colorado forded.

Fargo wasn't surprised they had gotten this far without discovering whether or not camels could swim. Many creek and stream beds sliced the desert, but only a few held water more than two or three weeks. Rivers tended to flow on its margins, not across it, which made the Colorado River fifteen hundred miles of literal lifeblood as it twisted and turned from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of ­Mexico—­right smack through the heart of the American desert and the jealously protected Mojave Indian homeland.

This new ford, selected by Ed Beale, was about seventy miles north of the usual crossing at Quartzsite. After crossing into California they would blaze a new trail and inspect water sources as they linked remote Mojave outposts like Fort Tejon and scattered American and Mormon settlements on or near the route to Los Angeles.

But the sight that riveted Fargo's attention at the moment was the barely controlled chaos straight ahead at river's edge.

How ­twenty-­five camels could raise a ruckus like two hundred was beyond Fargo, but this bunch always did. They were big, clumsy, shaggy, waddling, with bells around their necks to warn of their ­proximity—­they were excellent stalkers and Fargo had so far been bitten on the ass and copiously spat on with a foul and most disgusting “cud broth” that coated like gun oil.

“Lookit!” Grizz Bear said, pointing. “Lookit Topsy chewin' her ­cud—­lookit them big, floppy lips! Them ­lips—­them—”

Grizz Bear broke up laughing and smacking his thigh. “I ain't never seen the like in all my born days,” he finally managed. “
Look
it them damn lips! A-floppin' up and down ­like—­say, they're just like fingers, too. I seen that troublemaker Mad Maggie using her lips to untie a tent line—that's no shit.”

He lost control again and by now the rest were laughing, too. Fargo had never seen such an ugly, comical species in his life. And the stench blowing off them always forced him to eat upwind of the camels.

It was just last year when Fargo first caught word that Ed ­Beale—­backed by Secretary of War Jefferson ­Davis—­had got up some foolish plan to use camels in the deserts. Like most veteran frontiersmen, Fargo had treated the notion as a lunkheaded lark even when he was hired on.

But observation and experience had since reformed his ­thinking on some points. Fargo had been along when a ­six-­camel caravan had hauled a ton of supplies sixty miles in one ­day—­a record no other pack animal could ever match in the desert.

“The ­one-­humpers are lighter and faster,” Jude said.

Grizz Bear shifted his gun belt, grunted as he threw a leg around the horn, and began to build himself a smoke.

“Them ugly hunchback horses don't wear no metal shoes,” he praised, “but there ain't nothin' they can't walk across. And after a spell horses and mules will tolerate 'em just so's they don't get too close.”

Fargo granted all that. And he had quickly been convinced of the beasts' astounding ability to withstand heat and go without water. But Ed Beale and his supporters had wildly exaggerated visions of camels hauling the mail and even carrying soldiers into battle.

All that was possible, maybe, except for a form of incurable camel rebellion that Fargo called “the ­walk-­down.” When the mood came over the ­leaders—­even when well fed and ­rested—­they simply began walking slower and slower.

Beating, cajoling, coaxing, prodding, even singing had no effect. The same camels who might give sixty miles in one day often gave only fifteen over easier terrain. Nor were the camel boosters realistic about the preferences of American riders. Fargo had climbed aboard one of the camels for a short ride and quickly became violently seasick. By his lights camels didn't walk or ­trot—­they pitched and rolled like jolly boats on angry swells.

“There goes Salazar totin' a shovel,” Grizz Bear said. “He won't dig your grave, ­Fargo—­just fill it.”

Fargo ignored him, dismounting as he reached the clamorous bottleneck beside the river. The party was made up of soldiers, Mexican ranch hands, veteran frontiersmen and camel drivers imported from the Middle East along with the animals.

Two of the drivers, Hassan and Turkish Tom, were friendly, energetic, ­fresh-­faced lads still in their teens. Fargo found them arguing confusedly with Sergeant Robinson while several more drivers crowded close, gesturing wildly and shaking their fists.

“This ain't the best damn place to go into a mill,” Fargo told the temporary commander. “The Mojaves had a helluva battle a few months back with white prospectors. Grizz Bear tells me they're still on the warpath.”

“Tell these crazy bastards all that,” a ­flush-­faced Robinson retorted. “I can't get a straight answer out of the ­mealymouthed—”

“Hassan,” Fargo said to a lad wearing billowing trousers, a turban and a short jacket dotted with bells, “do these camels know how to swim?”

Hassan nodded thoughtfully, shook his head no, nodded again.

“Does that mean they can swim?” Fargo demanded.

Hassan looked at Turkish Tom, and both camel drivers began rattling away in rapid Arabic. Then they looked at Fargo and shrugged.

“Swim maybe,” Hassan suggested. “Maybe sink? Sometimes hard to say always. I think yes, perhaps no.”

He nodded again and Fargo swore. He knew they understood
English, but getting anything straight out of these drivers required a pry bar.

“Look,” he told them, “we have to cross this river
now
. Tell the drivers to neck the camels in groups of four or five. Then you two push Topsy into the river. If she swims, the rest will follow.”

“As you were, Fargo,” Robinson snapped. “Who died and left you in charge? If those camels drown I'll be drumheaded from the army. You don't have to answer for them.”

“If they drown,” Fargo said, “I'll take responsibility. Anyhow, I
am
in charge of Indian matters, and right now we're caught between a sawmill and a ­shoot-­out with those camels clumped in the open.”

“Lieutenant Beale told me the Mojaves aren't a warring tribe.”

“That was before they decided they had to protect this river country from Americans, and I've seen those big, strong braves swing those potato mashers of theirs. They don't tip their arrows with stone or flint, either. They use a piece of hardwood with barbs that rip the target open wide. They could slaughter that herd in thirty seconds even if we drove the attackers off.”

Fargo pointed his chin toward the bluff where Roberto Salazar had opened fire on him.

“And now it appears the Scorpion means to waltz with us, too. He knows damn good and well what it means for military strength if these camel caravans succeed. We need to get those animals to better-protected ground, and we've got no choice but to shove them into the river. I say they'll swim.”