The Trailsman #396 (5 page)

“You told me we're not in grave danger!” a nearly hysterical Karen Bradish accused Fargo. “Well, my stars! I'd call a bullet sailing through our tent awfully grave!”

The blond songbird pointed to pieces of a broken tortoiseshell brush scattered on the tent floor.

“Rosalinda was brushing her hair when the bullet hit that
inches
from her head. If Roberta and I hadn't been lying ­down—”

“A little danger adds savor to life,” Fargo tweaked her.

Karen bristled, but a strikingly pretty Mexican woman standing close to Fargo suddenly laughed.

“Skye is right to be humorous,” she said in clear but accented English. “Of course Karen is frightened. Certainly I am. But we must be brave and accept dangers. This trouble is not Skye's fault.”

She flashed Fargo a pearly smile. The voluptuous Mexican beauty had sensuous, pouting lips. Her blouse bared her shoulders and her flawless topaz skin.

“Of course it isn't,” chimed in the third woman in the tent, singer Bobbie Lou Davis. While not quite as fetching as her stage partner, she was still a fine example of desirable woman flesh with her mass of copper curls and big emerald eyes. Right now she wore nothing but a thin muslin chemise, and all three men kept glancing at the exciting dark triangle where her bush showed faintly through the garment.

Grizz Bear was gnawing away on a fingernail, pleasantly agitated by the proximity of three attractive ­females—­the odor of perfume inside the tent, and the fancy French soap Karen used, mixed deliciously with the teasing, ­heart-­accelerating scent of a ready woman. Grizz Bear guessed it was Rosalinda and Bobbie Lou wanting to get naked and climb all over Fargo.

Deke Ritter, however, was the most openly horny of the three men. He hadn't been able to pry his eyes away from Bobbie Lou in that skimpy chemise. Fargo had to bite his lip when he saw the cook awkwardly move his hat over his crotch. Karen Bradish saw this, too.

“We really should try to rest now,” she hinted to Fargo. “We thank all three of you for your concern.”

“Maybe you gals'd feel better if I stayed awhile,” Deke suggested.

“You've got work to do,” Fargo told him, gripping his elbow and propelling him outside of the tent.

“
Ho
-ly jumpin' Judas,” Deke declared when the tent was well behind them. “I wonder if I can find a knothole in the chuck wagon. Brother, I need one.”

“Both of you turn in,” Fargo said. “It's past noon. We'll be pulling out at sundown. Sleep on your weapons.”

Fargo sought the shade of a boulder and, using his saddle for a pillow, caught a few hours of uneasy rest in the merciless heat. He roused himself, feeling sluggish, when Deke clanged the triangle calling the civilian crew to supper about an hour before sundown.

Fargo was halfway through a plate of salt beef and biscuits with flour gravy when bedlam broke out.

One of the camels had somehow escaped the corral. Their thickly padded feet made little sound, and now the ­reddish-­brown beast had trampled two of the Sibley tents. Hassan, Turkish Tom and other drivers were chasing after the rampaging animal in a confusion of clanging bells and foreign curses.

Grizz Bear shook with laughter, food spraying from his mouth. “Them ugly sons of the sand is comical, ain't they?”

Jude Hollander had sneaked off to eat with the civilians. “If you think a man can't get chummy with a mule,” he said, “try winning over one of
them
. Nasty? Don't I reckon!”

“It's their stubborn nature that will sink this camel deal,” Fargo predicted. “They don't rebel outright and honest like a ­mule—­they're more cunning. Lately we been getting thirty miles on a good day, and that's ­top-­notch in the desert. But if Topsy and Tuili decide to make it ten miles a day, or five, nobody's going to change their thinking.”

Even so, Fargo was impressed with the amazing animals.
Beale had tested the heavily laden camels once by depriving them of water for ten days. He didn't have the heart to deprive them longer, but Fargo saw no signs they were suffering. A horse or mule carrying a full load and deprived of water would die in just two days in the desert.

Grizz Bear glanced at Jude and grinned wickedly. The lad was staring toward the women's tent. All three women were awake and eating their supper under the fly, sharing a slanting rectangle of shade it cast in the westering sun.

“­Push-­push,” Grizz Bear said quietly and the kid flushed.

Grizz Bear roared with laughter. “‘Must you corrupt such a sweet young lad?'” he minced, trying to sound like Karen Bradish but coming off like a parrot with a sore throat. “I think Miss Karen is sweet on you, pup. Mebbe you can get a little bit of frippet.”

Jude stoically ignored him. “Mr. Fargo, you crossed the Mojave before. Is it as dry as some of the men are claiming? Rudy Mumford, in the second squad, says there's some places that don't see rain for two years.”

“I don't keep records,” Fargo replied, “but that wouldn't surprise me. There's creatures in some stretches out ahead of us that go their entire lives without even one drop of water.”

“Now, I ain't
that
green. That just can't ­be—­no more than them fish Grizz Bear claims ain't learned to swim yet.”

Fargo tossed his plate in the wreck pan and crossed to the rope corral to tack the Ovaro. As he was fastening the throat latch on the bridle, Fargo felt his scalp tingling. He turned around and saw Juan Salazar standing about twenty feet behind him.

You just watch that chili pep, Fargo, and you watch him close. You done for his brother and there's a Mexer blood chit on you now
.

Fargo nodded at the man and forked leather.

•   •   •

It was Fargo's habit to make a sweep of the terrain out ahead, in the waning hours of daylight, before the expedition pulled out each night.

The wranglers and drivers and packers were hard at it as he rode out. Fargo had noticed it early on: the horses and mules, though controllable now, were constantly unnerved by the camels, and would panic if they got too close. But from day one the
imperturbable camels seemed oblivious to the other animals, serenely chewing their cuds while a half dozen army horses reared up screaming all around them.

Fargo grinned as the Ovaro trotted past one of the fodder wagons. Some frisky enlisted men (Fargo suspected Jude and his messmates) had painted the wagon bright red dotted with blue and white stars. This only added to the impression that an exotic troupe of nomads was crossing the American desert.

Fargo held the Ovaro to a trot, mindful of the next attack by an enemy determined to end his days. He gave wide berth to an expanse of giant, ­spiny-­limbed saguaros, some rising to fifty feet.

Fargo liked the open, ­spread-­out nature of the desert. Because of the brutal competition for water, things didn't crowd each other, and every piece of vegetation flourished in abundant space. A man could look into, look through, a vast swath of desert, and enemies were forced to find ambush nests that Fargo had learned to avoid.

He rode in a sweeping pattern, watching especially for the dangerous clumps of rattlesnakes that sometimes came out in numbers to cool off as the sun began to set. Desert sidewinders secreted a more lethal venom, and one bite could kill a man. Fargo had no desire to find out how many bites would kill a camel. He watched for the sidewinder's distinctive trail in the sand, a string of connected J's.

Heat lightning flashed out on the horizon but there was no chance of rain coming. Fargo spotted no snakes, including the ­two-­legged variety. Only a jackrabbit with long donkey ears. It flashed out of sight with astonishing speed after he startled it from hiding.

Elsewhere, days generally bled into the nights, gradual and slow. But here in the desert night just fell like a theater curtain. By the time Fargo returned to the expedition, now rolling out in a shuddering confusion, a deep indigo sky was scattered with an infinite profusion of stars. The pure air and reflecting sand made visibility ­excellent—­and turned all of them, Fargo reminded himself, into much easier targets.

But the night also brought blessed relief from the heat. After daytime temperatures soaring well over a hundred degrees, some nights could turn downright cold before dawn. A few
mornings Fargo had even found traces of frost on his bedroll, and there had been a particularly parched section of the Yuma Desert where he had gratefully licked the morning dew off his saddle.

“Skye!”

Fargo recognized Bobbie Lou's slight Southern drawl. She and Karen were each riding on separate fodder wagons. Rosalinda rode with Deke on the ­leather-­padded seat of the mobile kitchen.

Fargo rode alongside the wagon and tipped his hat to her. “Bobbie Lou . . . lass, you gals sure do brighten up this trip.”

Bobbie Lou beckoned him closer. She kept her voice just above the rattling and jouncing of the wagon. She leaned in close to Fargo so the young private driving couldn't hear her. Lilac perfume wafted to Fargo's nostrils.

“Did you like looking at me earlier in the tent?” she asked him.

“Is Paris a city? I liked it just fine. Matter fact, I been seeing it over and over in my mind since then.”

“Good. I liked you looking at me,” she goaded him. “It got me . . . warm down below, you know? Like wax was melting between my legs.”

Damn,
Fargo thought. If she was trying to get him het up, she was succeeding in spades.

“We could make it even warmer,” Fargo assured her, forced to shift in the saddle.

“Then let's do,” she urged him. “As soon as possible. Please?”

“Or even sooner,” Fargo agreed, snapping a ­two-­finger salute before he rode off.

All around him some drivers were singing to their camels, others cursing them. Topsy and Tuili, two of the most useful of the desert beasts, were out front setting the pace.

Fargo rode a loop around the caravan, noting the position of the soldiers riding flank. He found Jude Hollander riding drag in the choking ­dust—­where Robinson had been sticking him lately.

“Keep a constant eye to our back trail,” Fargo warned. “The Scorpion's bunch are out there, and they're on us close.”

“Yessir. Mr. Fargo, I heard about how you and Sergeant Robinson locked horns over changing the route. Wha'd'ya gonna do if he orders us north around them mountains where the mirror station is?”

Fargo had been wondering about that himself. If Robinson made good on his threat, he'd have to order a jog to the north within the next day or so. Fargo was in the ­right—­his orders came from Ed Beale, and Ed hadn't changed them. Still, the idea of a civilian scout commandeering an entire military expedition was daunting to Fargo.

“If it comes to that,” Jude vouchsafed, “most of us soldiers are stringing along with you even if it means fighting Mojaves in the mountains.”

“Hearken and heed,” Fargo reproached him just before he gigged his horse forward. “You're in the army and Robinson is your topkick.
Don't
be stupid enough to even be talking about such things. Treason is a hanging offense. Just follow your orders and let me worry about Robinson.”

The Scorpion and his killers . . . a possible Indian war looming . . . questions about Juan Salazar's motives . . . a dangerous desert hell to cross . . . and now a possible showdown with Red Robinson on the near horizon.

“Pile on the agony,” Fargo muttered. “Just pile it the hell on.”

For the next three days the bizarre camel caravan pressed farther west with a grim sense of purpose.

At sunrise on the fifth day since fording the Colorado, a ­saddle-­sore Skye Fargo searched for a spot to make camp. But a search seemed ­pointless—­the parched desert plain stretched out ahead like a geographic death sentence, broken only by sterile mountains devoid of plant or animal life. And yet Fargo had noticed how those lifeless mountains put on quite a show, changing colors all day long as the sun struck their rocks from different angles.

“The Old Woman Mountains are dead ahead,” he told Grizz Bear just after the expedition had halted for the day. “We should reach them tonight. And Robinson hasn't altered the route.”

“Ahuh. You buffaloed His Nibs this time, Trailsman. But that blowhard son of a bitch wants your scrotum for a 'baccy pouch. Don't put your back to him
or
Juan Salazar.”

“I fret the Scorpion more than either of them,” Fargo replied. “I can't figure out why he hasn't made his next play yet.”

“I'd wager he's a-comin' with a bone in his teeth. But don't miscalculate ­Robinson—­he's one of them broodin' sons-a-bitches that explode on you. When the hell is Beale s'pose to join back up with us?”

Fargo shrugged. “What's after what's next? I wish to hell he'd get here and rein in ­Robin—”

He was interrupted by a booming thunderclap when the big Hawken gun opened up.

A Greek camel driver, just then towing his ship of the desert into the camel corral, cried out. His legs collapsed as if deboned, and Fargo saw blood bubbling from his lips and pumping like a bellows from his ­torn-­open chest.

“God's garters!” Grizz Bear exclaimed.

“Cover down!” Fargo bellowed.

Fargo, who hadn't yet stripped the Ovaro, reacted with the quick reflexes of a jungle cat. He speared the Henry from its boot and then ducked behind a fodder wagon as he rapidly scanned the terrain for powder smoke.

The big Hawken barked again and a ­fist-­sized chunk of the wagon blew off right beside Fargo's head, splinters and chips flying. Fargo spotted the ­gray-­white billow spreading above a clutch of large black cinder boulders about four hundred yards out.

Grizz Bear had spotted it, too.

“That ­skunk-­bit coyote has got him a scope, Fargo!” he called out. “He couldn't recognize you that far out.”

Fargo agreed and now he realized: that camel driver had stepped directly in front of him as the ambusher fired, taking a bullet intended for Fargo.

Robinson was shouting out orders to his troops, but right now they were milling in confusion, and Fargo had no intention of letting the lethal rifle keep hammering out slugs.

But he couldn't stop it from here.

Fargo vaulted onto the Ovaro and slapped its rump hard, launching the stallion into action as if ­spring-­loaded.

A direct charge would give the shooter an easy bead. Fargo figured he had to approach obliquely to get visual targets behind the boulders. He quartered the wind, swinging off to the left, and hoped the Ovaro's impressive speed would thwart the shooter and make his target hard to lead.

A third time the Hawken spoke its piece, the lead ball whizzing past Fargo's ear with a sharp snap. But he had finally spotted at least one man behind the boulders.

The Ovaro's ears flattened back as Fargo took the reins in his teeth and poured on the blistering fire, levering and firing so rapidly that only a couple of heartbeats passed between shots. But fate revealed an ugly surprise: the shooter wasn't alone. At least three handguns opened up like a string of firecrackers as they sent a withering cloud of lead at him.

Fargo could see their muzzles spitting puffs of smoke. He was still too far out and their bullets struck short or wide, kicking up geysers of sand. But these veteran killers used their misses to improve their aim.

He got another round off, then cursed when a spent cartridge jammed in the ejector port. The sun was already hot, and he had fired so rapidly the gun had ­heat-­warmed the brass casing. There was no way Fargo could clear it while riding this fast. Knowing he was about to be shot to wolf bait, he veered off sharply, rounds slicing the air all around him.

By now the soldiers had taken up firing positions and were keeping up steady fire on the ambushers with their ­breech-­loading Sharps rifles. Fargo, fleeing northwest, glanced back over his shoulder and spotted four riders emerging from a hidden barranca and escaping to the east.

Pursuing four men in open terrain with nothing but a ­six-­shooter in his fist was flirting with suicide.

“Son of a bitch,” Fargo cursed aloud but calmly.

Every time those crud weevils struck and then escaped clean only upped the odds that they would succeed in dousing Fargo's glims with the next ­attack—­and clearly it was the Trailsman they were after first. Survival on the harsh frontier was always a game of diminishing odds, and Fargo had beat the house dealer too damn many times already.

­Dog-­tired, disgusted, eyes burning from grit and lack of sleep, he reined the Ovaro back around toward the camp and wondered if he might really be happier as a ­soft-­handed storekeeper.

•   •   •

“Fargo,” Sergeant Woodrow Robinson said accusingly, “who gave you authority to reposition the picket guards after I posted them?”

Breakfast was over and Fargo was sitting with Grizz Bear and Deke Ritter in the shade cast by a ­high-­walled fodder wagon.

Fargo glanced indifferently at the big, blustering soldier. “They weren't efficiently dispersed, is all. It had nothing to do with your authority.”

“In a pig's ass! You've been deliberately undermining my authority and stirring the troops to rebellion against me.”

Fargo's eyes, hard blue gems in a strong, ­weather-­bronzed face, matched Robinson's stare until the latter was forced to look elsewhere.

“If you're wondering why your men don't respect you,” Fargo said, “don't stare at ­me—­go look in a mirror. I notice you been
cracking that whip of yours a lot more lately and threatening to use it on your troops. 'Case you haven't noticed, they're in the same army you are.”

“Corporal punishment is legal in the army and you know it. Are you threatening to interfere if I punish troops?”

“Nope. I'm just telling you that what's legal at a fort ain't exactly what's wise in the field.”

Robinson's fleshy lips compressed in sudden anger.

“When we reach Fort Tejon I'm bringing charges against you!”

“Free country,” Fargo said. “And remember: that's Skye with an ‘e.'”

Robinson spat in contempt. “Yeah, you swagger it up big, Fargo. And the fawning, no-dick magpies in the penny press get rich egging it on. But it don't impress me.”

“Christ,” Fargo said, “my dreams are shattered. I was hoping for a quick wedding.”

This was too much for Grizz Bear, who rolled on the ground slapping his leg and howling. Deke shook with silent laughter. Robinson flushed purple. His hand twitched under his long duster but didn't move.

Fargo pushed wearily to his feet. “Well,” he said amiably, “you're a big, strong boy. Why'n't you try taking that whip to me? You know you want to. I'm bushed, but kicking your ass might help me sleep.”

“Sure, so your friend there can shoot me in the back the first time I flatten you?”

“I ain't his fuckin' friend,” Grizz Bear protested. “Matter fact, I don't even like him that ­much—­he hogs all the poon and washes his teeth. If you can kill him, I'll split his money with you.”

Robinson looked trapped and Fargo, who wasn't spoiling for this fight anyway, knew that trapped men did stupid things. This expedition had enough troubles already.

He decided to pour oil on the waters.

“Sergeant,” he said, “I'd prefer to call off this pissing contest. I'm worn down to the hubs, and the desert is no place for a man to waste his fettle in a brawl. You're wrong on one ­point—­I'm not deliberately stirring your men to a damn thing against you.” Fargo shrugged like a man with little choice in the matter. “Beale told me my duties as scout include a say on security decisions. Just
come down off your hind legs. You leave me alone, and I'll stay out of your way.”

Robinson seized the opportunity to save face without fighting. Without a word he turned to leave. But he paused and turned back toward Fargo again.

“Just remember: it was
your
decision, over my objections, to go into the Old Woman Mountains. That's a suspected Mojave stronghold these days.”

“Pull up your skirts, Nancy,” Grizz Bear waded in. “The River People live in the Colorado River valley. Might be they are holed up in them mountains right now, waiting to jump ­us—­so damn what? You ain't gonna turn them ­tit-­suckin', ­fuzz-­faced babies of yours into by-god men withouten a bloody fight.”

“Keep your nose outta the pie, Ormsby!” Robinson snarled. “You were hired to translate Injin lingo, not dictate tactics to a career soldier.”

“Bottle it, Grizz,” Fargo said when the old salt opened his mouth to retort.

“That fat bastard is a smallpox blanket,” Grizz Bear said after Robinson left.

Fargo, however, wasn't listening. Rosalinda was approaching the wagon from the tent shared by the three women, and the Mexican beauty was a welcome tonic for his bleary eyes. She wore a simple, thin cotton dress and was forced by the heat to wear nothing under it. Supple nipples pressed into the fabric and drew a man's eyes.

Ever since their erotic conversation a few days ago, he and Bobbie Lou and been trying, without success, to meet somewhere and scratch each other's itch. But Fargo noticed that Rosalinda, too, looked frisky. Hell, the order didn't matter. . . .

Again wearily, Fargo pushed to his feet and touched his hat. “Morning, pretty lady.”

She flashed him a ­come-­hither smile and Fargo felt an instant stirring in his trousers.

“We were all relieved to see you return from that terrible gun battle,” she greeted him.

Fargo grinned. “Yeah, you know I was, too? I hate being shot at before breakfast.”

“Again with your gallows humor. Men like you are very exciting, Skye Fargo. But most end up in nameless graves.”

“A grave's a grave, I expect. I hope I won't be too particular after I'm dead.”

Those flashing dark eyes sent him a reminder of her invitation. “Yes. And a man like you knows he must . . . taste life to the fullest while blood still courses in his veins.”

Right now it was coursing someplace else, too, and Fargo saw her notice it approvingly.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I like to taste.”

“There's a gleam in your voice, Mr. Fargo.”

“And in your eyes, Senorita Gonzales.”

“Christ, you two,” Grizz Bear cut in. “Why'n't you rent a room?”

Rosalinda laughed gaily and returned to her tent, her thin dress tracing a pert behind split high like a Georgia peach.

“‘I like to taste,'” Grizz Bear repeated, snorting. “What? Are you a Frenchman now, Fargo, yodeling in the canyon? Say . . . tell me straight: have you pricked her vent yet?”

“Let's just say I'm always hopeful.”

“Well, you know what they say: familiarity breeds attempt. I kallate you'll prong her and Bobbie Lou. I ain't sayin' about ­Karen—­she's more highfalutin. 'Course, even gals who wear them long white gloves get the urge, too, hanh?”

“That would be my guess,” Fargo said innocently.

Grizz Bear's eyes focused behind Fargo. “I
told
you, ­long-­tall . . . he's lettin' you know he means to kill you. Priddy soon you'll find two ­black-­painted eggs in your ­bedroll—­that's how a Mexer tells you he's comin' after your nuts.”

Fargo turned to look. Juan ­Salazar—­his sad, serious eyes aimed at ­Fargo—­squatted on his rowels about twenty feet away, eating a plate of beans and tortillas. As always when anyone met his gaze, he looked quickly away.

“He's a sneaky, cunning Mexer, Fargo,” Grizz Bear said in a low voice. “You killed his brother right in front of him. He won't abide that. Don't underrate him, chappie, or he'll put a ­frog-­sticker in you and give it the Spanish twist.”

Fargo yawned so hard his lower jaw trembled visibly.

“Trust everybody, Grizz Bear,” he replied, “but always cut the cards.”