The Trailsman (Giant): Idaho Blood Spoor

The three bodyguards were typical of most whites. They paid no attention to the surrounding woods. Slouched in fatigue, they climbed until they were almost in the shadow of the fir tree Fargo was behind. He chose that moment to growl, “That’s far enough.”

Pike Driscoll drew sharp rein. He swooped a hand to his jacket but turned to stone when he saw the Henry trained on his chest. “You!” he blurted.

“The reason you are following me. The reason you tried to blow out my wick last night.”

“Someone took a shot at you?” Driscoll’s surprise was not feigned. “It sure wasn’t me. It wasn’t any of us. Hell, Mr. Zared would have us gutted and quartered if we laid so much as a finger on you. He’s counting on you to find his boy.”

“Mr. Zared doesn’t like to leave anything to chance,” Driscoll said. “He sent some of us after each of you to stay close and be of help if need be.”

Fargo frowned. It sounded like something Benjamin Zared would do. But he did not like it. He did not like it one bit, and he told Driscoll as much.

“I’m only doing my job. Me, I could care less if you ran into trouble—say, a war party out for your scalp. But Mr. Zared wants you alive and healthy until his boy is found, so here I am.”

“We sure haven’t. But then, we left Fort Hall before they did. We had to, in order to catch up to you.” Driscoll gestured. “Are you fixing to shoot me or can I move?”

“On his way to Kellogg, if he’s not there already,” Driscoll answered. “I was fixing to send word to him once we reached Lewiston. And before you ask, I talked to that whiskey peddler at the last camp. He told me where you were heading.”

Fighting his anger, Fargo reclaimed the Ovaro and swung into the saddle. As he shoved the Henry into the scabbard, the three bodyguards came up.

“Look, Trailsman,” Driscoll said. “I don’t like you and you don’t like me. But that shouldn’t keep us from getting along until this is over. What do you say we bury the hatchet and go on to Lewiston together?”

Fargo could think of nothing he would like less, but he heard himself say, “I reckon we might as well.”

Driscoll brought his mount up alongside the Ovaro as they entered the pass. “If it makes you feel any better, I like being here even less than you like it. I told Mr. Zared that none of you needed a nursemaid, but Mr. Zared does as he damn well pleases and it pleased him to have us follow you.”

It occurred to Fargo that maybe he could benefit from their unwanted company. “It must be hard working for a man like Zared.”

“You have no idea,” Driscoll said. “Not that he’s mean-tempered or anything, but we don’t dare buck him. We do as he wants when he wants. No questions asked.”

“He’s no more bossy than most parents, I guess. They have their spats, if that’s what you’re getting at. The boy is a chip off the old block. He always wants to do things his way, and his father be hanged.”

“Gideon? He’s all right. He always treated me decent enough. Although he did get mad at me a few times over his father having us keep an eye on him.”

“Mr. Zared keeps a close watch on everybody he has an interest in,” Driscoll explained. “That includes his boy. Especially after Gideon took up with Tabor Garnet. Mr. Zared was worried she might be after Gideon for his money.”

“Zared told me his son came into these mountains after gold. That doesn’t sound like Gideon had much money of his own.”

“No, but the boy stands to inherit a fortune when Mr. Zared dies, which has Edrea mad as a wet hen.”

Driscoll laughed. “Almost all of the family’s money goes to him. You see, Mr. Zared and his daughter aren’t on the best of terms—something to do with her blaming him for her mother’s death. So when Mr. Zared passes on, she’ll get one hundred thousand dollars and her brother gets millions.”

They wended down the mountain. Fargo waited a while, then asked, “Do you have any idea why Gideon would want to go to Canada?” He was watching Driscoll from under his hat brim, and the chief bodyguard’s reaction was revealing: Driscoll recoiled as if he had been slapped.

Pike Driscoll pretended to be interested in a cloud formation, then replied, “The drummer must have been mistaken. There’s no reason for the boy to want to go that far north.”

Fargo would bet his last dollar that the bodyguard was lying, but he did not let on. “It’s bad enough Gideon dragged his fiancée up here.”

“Don’t tell Mr. Zared I said this, but his son isn’t the smartest person I’ve ever met. The boy never thinks things through. He’s always going off half-cocked.”

“Strange he would prospect for gold when he stands to inherit millions,” Fargo remarked.

“Boys his age are always doing stupid stuff” was Driscoll’s opinion; then he added, “But we all pay for our mistakes sooner or later, don’t we?”

“Sooner or later,” Fargo agreed. After that Driscoll drifted back to his friends. By late afternoon they were thousands of feet lower and still had a ways to go to reach the bottom.

On a flat bench Fargo drew rein and rose in the stirrups to survey the land ahead. When he happened to glance down, there, next to the Ovaro, were more of the shod tracks he had followed that morning. The killer was still bound for Lewiston, and somehow had gotten ahead of him again.

It was close to five o’clock and Fargo was giving thought to where they should stop for the night when Pike Driscoll trotted up.

“We were wondering if you would care to ride all night? That way we would reach Lewiston by noon or so.”

Yet another sign of an amateur, Fargo reflected, was a man who did not take proper care of his horse. “You can do what you want but I’m making camp.”

“Aren’t you fed up with sleeping on the hard ground? I know I am. Give me a soft bed any day.”

A meadow spread before them. Coming to a halt, Fargo wearily swung down. He ignored the looks Driscoll and the other two men in black cast in his direction, and loosened the Ovaro’s cinch. He was reaching up to take hold of the saddle when three shots crackled from across the meadow, from high on the slope on the far side.

Instinctively, Fargo dropped into a crouch and spun while sweeping the Colt clear of his holster. Driscoll and the other two bodyguards did the same but they were slower. For tense moments they waited for more shots or an outcry but there was only the sigh of the wind in the woodland canopy.

“How in hell would I know, Baker?” Driscoll snapped. Slowly rising, he slid a short-barreled Smith & Wesson under his black jacket.

“Use your head, Hodges,” Driscoll responded. “We’re not poking our noses into something that might not concern us.”

“Maybe it does concern us,” Baker said. “Maybe it was some of our own men in trouble.”

Fargo was not so sure. He had a hunch it was one of the other scouts who had taken a shot at him the previous night, and if Weaver, Smith or the Picketts were in the area, then the bodyguards assigned to follow them would be, too, although he had seen no sign of them so far.

Briefly, Fargo related the latest attempt on his life, and the shod horse he had tracked for a while.

“Damn it all,” Driscoll grumbled. “Maybe we should go have a look.” He motioned at Baker and Hodges. “Mount up. We’ll leave the packhorse here, but one of you hobble him.”

Fargo had no interest in accompanying them. Even if other bodyguards were involved, it was of no consequence to him. Except that whoever had tried to kill him might also be up on that mountain. “I’ll go along.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Driscoll said. “My job is to keep you alive until Zared’s son is found.”

No more shots shattered the stillness, but Fargo shucked the Henry from its scabbard anyway and fed a cartridge into the chamber. With the stock resting on his right thigh, he spurred the Ovaro into the trees.

The bodyguards had their pistols out. At a command from Pike Driscoll, they spread out. Driscoll would rise in the stirrups every twenty or thirty feet to scour the vegetation.

The undergrowth was dense. Deadfalls slowed their progress even more. Wildlife, Fargo noted, was absent, but that could be because the sun was about to set and the animals that came out during the day were retreating into their dens and burrows before night fell and the meat-eaters claimed the land.

“I hate these mountains,” Hodges remarked. “I can’t wait until we’re back east where we belong.”

Fargo was slightly in the lead. They had climbed a considerable distance and he was thinking of turning back when he spied a saddled horse off through the trees. Drawing rein, he pointed.

Driscoll and the other pair stopped, and Driscoll motioned for Baker to swing right and Hodges to swing left. Driscoll kneed his mount past the Ovaro. “Stay put,” he directed.

“Like hell.” Fargo could take care of himself. Every nerve jangling, he kneed the pinto on.

The riderless horse spotted them but did not run off. Soon they saw a second, and a third. The reins of all three were dangling, and from the sweat that glistened on their bodies, they had been ridden hard to get to where they were.

Fargo had. A large red stain on one of the saddles, blood so fresh drops were falling to the grass.

Baker and Hodges were converging. It was the latter who stiffened and pointed and exclaimed much too loudly, “There, Pike! Look there!”

A black-clad leg with a black boot attached lay amid high weeds. Fargo reached it a second after Pike Driscoll did and stayed on the Ovaro while Driscoll swung down and and rolled the body over.

A slug had caught the late Mr. Varnes squarely between the eyes and blown out the back of his skull.

They found them. One was sprawled on his face, the lower half of which had been mangled by lead. The third had been shot in the chest, and was alive. The man groaned feebly when Driscoll rolled him over.

“Lattimer? Lattimer? Can you hear me?” the chief bodyguard asked, shaking the stricken man.

Driscoll ignored him and smacked Lattimer across the cheek. Lattimer’s eyes snapped open but they were glazed and unfocused. “Who did this to you?” Driscoll asked.

“Damn it,” Driscoll fumed. “I need to know who did this.” He smacked Lattimer a lot harder.

Hodges looked away, but looked back again when Lattimer croaked, “P-P-Pike? Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me,” Driscoll confirmed. “Varnes and Bryce are dead. Who shot you? Was it James Smith?”

“N-n-never saw,” Lattimer stuttered. “Lost No-Nose days ago . . . on our way to L-L-Lewiston.” And with that, he exhaled loudly, and died.

Spewing curses, Driscoll stood. “Search for sign! But be careful. Whoever did this might still be around.”

Pike Driscoll, never the most patient of men, lost what little he possessed. “You do what I damn well tell you to do when I damn well tell you to do it!”

Fargo helped. He wanted to know who was responsible as much as Driscoll did. He had not gone far when he came on hoofprints made by a horse with shod hooves—made, in fact, by the same horse as before. The tracks led off to the northwest.

Driscoll and the others trotted over at his holler. Pike, in a vengeful frame of mine, declared, “It had to be No-Nose Smith! When we catch up to him, he is as good as dead.”

“To us it doesn’t but he must have his reasons,” Driscoll said. He shifted in his saddle. “How about you, Fargo? Any idea why your friend has turned into a murderer?”

Fargo was at a loss. Even though No-Nose had made it plain he wanted the money at any cost, killing the bodyguards served no purpose. “We don’t know it is him.”

“Maybe you won’t accept the truth. But Lattimer was assigned to follow him, and now Lattimer and those others are dead. That’s good enough for me.”

“Not until morning,” Pike Driscoll said. “We don’t want to wind up like Lattimer, do we?”

They hastily buried the bodies after Driscoll went through every pocket and put everything into his saddlebags. One item proved of interest, a small leather-bound journal belonging to Lattimer, the kind commonly used for diaries and journals. Driscoll slipped it into his jacket, saying, “We’ll look at this after we’re done.”

A rope was tied to the riderless mounts and Hodges was given the task of handling the string.

They had barely started for the meadow when night fell. Fargo picked his way with care. Horses that blundered into deadfalls often suffered broken legs and had to be put out of their misery, and he was not about to let that happen to the Ovaro.

It took two hours. The packhorse was still there. As the bodyguards went about the business of setting up camp, Fargo stripped his saddle off the Ovaro.

Pike Driscoll produced the journal. “I never knew Lattimer kept this,” he said, flipping pages. “Looks like he started it four years ago, soon after Mr. Zared hired him. A lot of stuff is about his wife.” He read a short entry, “ ‘September second, 1859. I wish I did not have to work such long hours. I miss Katherine so. I rarely get to see her.’ ” Driscoll stopped and snickered. “How silly can a man be?”

Pike flipped more pages, running a finger from top to bottom. “These are about New York. And the trip west.” He stopped flipping, and grinned. “Here’s one you will like, Fargo.” He read it out loud, “ ‘The last scout has arrived. The most famous of the bunch. People call him the Trailsman. They say he knows the West better than anyone alive.’ ”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like folks fawning over you?” Driscoll laughed and turned more pages and suddenly sobered. “Here we go.” He read an entry, then shared it aloud. “ ‘I am to follow No-Nose Smith. Varnes and Bryce are under me. Good men. I only hope we don’t let Mr. Zared down. I am not much use in the wild.’ ”

Pike Driscoll looked at him over the top of the journal. “Were you born an idiot or do you work at it?”

“It’s Mr. Driscoll to you from now on.” Driscoll bent his nose to the page. “ ‘Four days out of Fort Hall. We are staying well back as Mr. Zared wanted. Smith is heading northwest at a fast pace.’ ” He flipped a couple of pages, scanning them as he went. “ ‘Ten days now. Never so sore in my life. Not used to so much riding.’ ”

Driscoll ran a finger down another page. “ ‘Twelve days out. Have passed through two gold camps. Smith did not stop. Pushing faster than ever.’ ” He paused.

“ ‘Day fourteen. Last night our packhorse was spooked by something in the woods. Woke us up about one in the morning. Might have been an animal but we heard nothing, saw nothing.’ ” He paused again. “ ‘Day fifteen. Again awoken in the middle of the night by packhorse whinnying and stomping.’ ”

Hodges snapped his fingers. “Say! Where is their pack animal? It wasn’t with the rest.”

Fargo had been wondering the same thing. There had been no other hoofprints leading away from the dead bodyguards.

“That’s right,” Driscoll said, and resumed reading. “ ‘Day sixteen. What is going on? Last night the packhorse woke us again. This morning we found it dead. Its throat was slit from end to end. What would do this? Indians? Why didn’t they harm us or steal the other horses?’ ” Driscoll glanced up. “Would Indians do a thing like that?”

“No,” Fargo said simply. As to why only the pack animal was slain, it could be it had the sharpest senses, and whoever was in the woods wanted it out of the way.

“ ‘Day seventeen. I am worried. Whatever killed our packhorse is stalking us. I have not said anything to Varnes and Bryce but I am sure. It must be Indians. Or maybe just one.’ ”

“I wish we had run into them sooner,” Baker said. “They might still be alive.”

Driscoll was reading again. “ ‘Last night the oddest thing. About midnight we heard a strange laugh. It almost did not sound human. None of us slept much. On edge.’ ” Driscoll swore.

“ ‘We have lost Smith’s trail. How, I do not know. I have been most diligent. But I am so tired. So very tired. Last night more laughter from the woods. We took torches and searched but no one was there. Bryce thinks it is a specter. He and Varnes want to turn back. I refused.’ ”

A burning limb in the fire abruptly made a popping noise, and Baker and Hodges both jumped.

“Try not to wet your pants, boys,” Driscoll mocked them, and turned to the last page. “ ‘Our horses are worn-out. Us, too. I thought I saw someone in the trees this morning. A glimpse of a face. It was there and it was gone. Could not tell if it was white or red. An hour later someone threw a rock at us.’ ”

“Pay attention.” Driscoll reread the passage. “ ‘An hour later someone threw a rock at us. It hit Varnes and he was nearly unhorsed. We ride with our guns in our hands. I plan to make it to Lewiston. If Smith is not there, will go on to Kellogg.’ ” Driscoll closed the journal. “That was the last entry.”

“Our job is to follow Fargo,” Driscoll reminded him. “Where he goes, I go, and where I go, you two go.”

“We won’t,” Driscoll declared. “I don’t scare easy, and the same tricks won’t work with me.”

Pike Driscoll turned to Fargo. “How about you? You’ve been awful quiet. What do you think we should do?”

“Push on to Lewiston,” Fargo answered. What else was there? Searching for the killer would be pointless. The man could be anywhere.

“Whoever murdered Lattimer is miles away by now,” Driscoll assured the men under him. “You can rest easy.”

As if to prove him wrong, a sound wafted from out of the night, from high up on the mountain where they had found the bodies. A shrill, piercing laugh unlike any laugh Fargo ever heard. A laugh spawned from depraved depths. A laugh that prickled the short hairs at Fargo’s nape.

“He’s still out there!” Baker breathed. “And he’ll be coming for us next.”