32
The ground rose, broken and scarred by ancient upheavals. A line of tracks went up a boulder-strewn slope to a gap. Overhung by high walls of rocks, the gap was in perpetual shadow.
Fargo drew rein and rested his hands on the saddle horn.
“Take a drink if you want.”
Sarabell opened her canteen and raised it to Billybob’s lips. After he swallowed a few times she took it away and took a single swallow herself. As she capped it she asked, “Something the matter?”
Fargo nodded at the gap. “Good spot for an ambush.”
“She doesn’t have a gun, does she?”
“Not that we know of.” Fargo still didn’t like it. His instincts warned him that something wasn’t quite right and he had learned a long time ago that he ignored them at his peril. “Let me go first and stay back a ways.”
“Be careful.”
Fargo gigged the Ovaro and pulled on the lead rope. Hooves ringing on the rocks, he slowly climbed. He saw where Miranda had stopped partway up and turned her horse as if to check her back trail. Then she had gone on.
The gap was barely wide enough for a horse. Fargo stopped again about thirty feet below it. The shadow of the cliffs was darkest in the opening. He couldn’t see what lay beyond.
Dismounting, he drew the Colt and climbed on foot. He would make sure it was safe before he took the horses through. But he had taken only a couple of steps when there was a loud crash and the next instant a boulder the size of a watermelon came bouncing and sliding through the gap and straight at him. He flung himself aside and the boulder hurtled past. It missed the Ovaro but not the next horse. With a sharp crack it struck a front leg. The horse squealed and staggered and crashed to the ground as the boulder went skipping and sliding past Sarabell and Billybob and on down the slope another dozen yards before it came to a stop in a swirl of dust.
Fargo scrambled to his feet and ran to the Ovaro. As he grabbed the reins another boulder came hurtling out of the gap. Slightly smaller but no less deadly, it clattered and bounced and would have smashed into the Ovaro’s head had Fargo not hauled on the reins. He pulled the Ovaro away from the opening. The third horse just stood there staring at the one that was down. He couldn’t let go of the Ovaro to go to it so he yelled, “Here, fella, here!” but the animal didn’t move. Bending, he grabbed a stone and threw it and the third horse broke into motion. He thought it would turn and run back down. Instead, it ran toward the gap.
Another boulder shot out. It hit the ground and arced up and smashed into the horse’s head and felled it in its tracks.
Fargo went far enough to one side that the boulders couldn’t harm them. Letting go of the reins, he sprinted for the opening. He was almost to it when he heard cold laughter and then another boulder bounded past. He stopped with his back to the cliff. It wouldn’t be wise to enter the gap not knowing how far it went.
High-pitched tittering floated from the heights. Miranda was having fun.
Below, Sarabell gazed anxiously up at him.
Fargo inched to the opening and poked his head in. As near as he could tell, the gap went about ten feet and then opened onto another boulder-covered slope. He ducked back.
“You still alive down there, handsome?” Miranda shouted, and did more tittering.
“I’m here, bitch.”
“I heard a horse squeal. Did I get one?”
Fargo stared at the animal with the crushed skull and the other with the shattered leg, still kicking and trying to stand.
“You got two.”
“You don’t say?” Miranda said, and laughed. “Too bad I didn’t get you or that hayseed.”
“You can’t keep rolling boulders down on us forever.”
“Until dark will do,” Miranda shouted. “Then I can slip away.”
“Why’d you kill Amy?” Fargo hollered to keep her talking while he pondered his next move.
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Miranda said. “You know damn well why. I hated the bitch and she hated me.”
“You can’t go around killing everyone you don’t like.”
“It’s a shame we can’t,” Miranda said. “I’d have done in more than a few folks by now if it weren’t that I couldn’t stand being behind bars the rest of my life.”
“You’re loco,” Fargo said.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t killed. I know better.”
“Only when I have to.”
“Same as me,” Miranda said. “I had to kill that stupid cow. I couldn’t take another minute of her treating me like I was dirt.”
Fargo stuck his head into the gap again, trying to spot her. “What excuse do you have for leaving Sarabell and her boy to die?”
“She’s nothing to me,” Miranda answered. “She’s lucky I didn’t bash in her brains like I did the other one.”
“The horse you took is dead,” Fargo said to keep her talking. He had a fair idea where she was. “You ran it into the ground.”
“It was a poor excuse for a mount. A stronger horse would have lasted longer.”
“You don’t have any regrets, do you?”
“Hell,” Miranda said, and laughed. “I don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Fargo had pinpointed her voice as coming from behind a large boulder about forty feet up. To roll another down at him, she would have to come out from behind it.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“Make this easy for both of us,” Fargo said. “Come out now with your hands in the air.”
“And what? You’ll take me to my father? I’d rather die.”
“You’re going one way or the other.”
“Big words. Let’s see you carry them out.”
“Think I won’t?” Fargo said, and charged into the gap.