The Trailsman #352

Fargo rode under a blazing sun. The tracks of the twenty and their captives were still plain enough. So long as it didn’t rain—and at that time of year it was unlikely—he wouldn’t lose their trail.

The wild things, for the most part, shunned the heat. A hawk wheeled in the pale sky. Every so often he saw a rabbit or a deer. Once a rattlesnake slithered across his path.

Water wasn’t easy to come by. Most of the streams were dry at this time of year. Others were trickles but trickles were enough when the alternative was to die of thirst.

Then Fargo came on a body. The buzzards and other scavengers had been at it so there wasn’t much left. The dress was in tatters but there was enough of it, plus the long blond hair, to tell him it had been a woman. She had been shot in the back of the head. Before she was shot her wrist had been broken and a knee shattered. Someone had hurt her, and hurt her bad.

Fargo picked up his pace. At night, hunched by his fire, the countryside alive with the cries of coyotes, he told himself that he had done the right thing in going to the fort. It pricked at him anyway.

Fargo was aware that a lot of folks back east had the notion that Texas was flat and empty. They were wrong. It had rolling hills and broken country. It had parts so wild, sane men avoided them.

Soon serrated bluffs rose like tombstones. Washes crisscrossed among them. Trees were few but there was mesquite and brush and on the third day, buildings were where there shouldn’t be any. One was a lean-to and another a poorly constructed cabin, another slapped together of mismatched boards. The biggest, a saloon, had no door and no glass in the windows. The place looked dead but the three horses tied in front proved otherwise.

Fargo drew rein on a hillock and watched for a spell. No one came out or was moving about. It could be they were staying out of the sun. It could be they had a lookout and had spotted him and were lying in ambush. He gigged the Ovaro, his right hand on his Colt.

A sound from the lean-to made him think of seeds in a dry gourd. It was an old man in rags with an unkempt beard, snoring with his mouth agape. Those of his teeth that weren’t missing were yellow. Piled around and under him were torn packs and clothes and empty bottles and a few rusted tools. A skinny mongrel was nosing about.

A woman stood in the cabin doorway. Her dress not much more than a sack, she had a dirty child on her hip. Both stared at him with wary eyes. As he went past she melted into the shadows.

The hitch rail was a sapling. Fargo tied off the reins, shucked the Henry and cradled it, and went into the saloon. The familiar odor of liquor was eclipsed by other foul reeks. He stopped to let his eyes adjust. Dust motes hung like so many gnats. Or maybe they were gnats.

Three men occupied a corner table. The bartender had a beard down to a belly as big around as a washtub. His lizard eyes were lit with false warmth.

Fargo stood so he could see the corner table and set the Henry on the plank that served as a bar. “Whiskey.”

The man reached under the plank and brought out a half-empty bottle. He produced a glass that had seen a lot of use and poured. “We don’t see many strangers in these parts.”

The man’s burp of a laugh was as genuine as the rest of him. “We’re off the beaten path, that’s for sure. But we like it that way.”

“I don’t reckon anyone has gotten around to giving it one yet,” the barman said, and shrugged. “What’s it need one for, anyhow?”

A bulbous fly was crawling on a moldy piece of cheese. On a dirty plate were several chicken bones.

“Twenty riders came through here with four women”—Fargo caught himself—“with three women, less than a week ago. What can you tell me about them?”

The bartender’s thick neck went rigid. The men in the corner had been talking in low tones but stopped. The green fly buzzed into the air and settled back on the cheese.

Chairs scraped, and the three men rose. Hats, clothes, bodies, none had been washed since soap was invented. One had a patch over an eye and a scar under the patch. He also wore a Remington butt-forward on his left hip and his hand was resting on it. The three separated. One moved toward the door, the other took a spot at the end of the bar, while Patch came up to Fargo and smiled. His teeth were worse than the old man’s in the lean-to.

“Their tracks come up to the hitch rail,” Fargo said. He was watching the one by the door and the one at the end of the bar.

Fargo was patient with him. He would get what answers he could before the gunplay. “Would I have asked if I wasn’t?”

Patch touched a finger to the circle of rawhide. “What the hell you want to know about this for?”

“I lost it in a knife fight in Galveston. Man said I was cheating at cards and when I pulled my knife he pulled his.”

“Hell no,” Patch said. He shifted his weight and his hand slid lower on the Remington. “Forget about me. We want to know about you. How come you’re looking for the riders you say were here?”

Patch’s scar twitched. He glanced at his friends and at the bartender and said, “You a tin star?”

Patch’s scar did more twitching. “You don’t make much sense. Suppose you just come out with it before me and my pards blow holes in you.”