The Trailsman #281

After a hearty meal provided by Serafina, Fargo went out into the sneeze-bright sunshine of midday. Weston doesn’t seem to strike by day, Fargo reminded himself. Not with his fires, anyway. Probably because the darkness, besides hiding him, literally magnified the “glory” of his achievement.

Skye Fargo had never claimed he could read sign on a sick mind. But common sense and the clues were clear. Weston was unable to rape the beautiful woman he desired. So he torched them to death in the same beds where he’d failed to master them.

And the other fires that didn’t involve young women? That was just Weston “playing with himself” until the great, climactic fires gave him ultimate release.

Fargo walked down to the chapel, checked it thoroughly inside and out, then strolled around the entire village, drawing plenty of curious glances.

No sign of Blaze Weston. But he’s here, Fargo told himself. As sure as sunrise in the morning. In the area if not the village.

The Ovaro had been turned out into a little paddock behind the house of his hosts. Fargo used a hoof pick and began removing a few tiny pebbles embedded in the stallion’s hooves.

Normally Fargo tried to do this once a day. But he hadn’t had time lately to do so. However, ignoring the pebbles any longer could cause a crack to develop up into the fetlock, making his horse founder at a critical moment.

Rosalinda had come outside to find him. She was freshly bathed and now looked pretty in one of her sister’s blue skirts with a white camisola that bared both beautiful shoulders.

“Jesus, girl, I damn near cleared the holster. Don’t sneak up on a fella like that. Especially these days.”

“I saw your face when Otero talked about the strange behavior of the animals this morning. He is here, isn’t he? The same man who tried to kill me last night?”

“Been here, and my guess is he’s coming back,” he replied. “Right now I’d bet a king’s ransom he’s holed up outside of Chimayo. Holed up tighter than a rabbit in a hollow log. Waiting until twilight.”

“You are tending to your horse. Does this mean you are riding out now to find him?”

Fear had crept into her tone, and Fargo knew why. After what she’d been through last night, a fellow she called Dave Tutt was her only reliable protector.

“Don’t you worry,” he assured her. “Mostly I’ll be keeping an eye on you, which is no awful job. And now and then I’ll take a quick stroll around the village.”

“He’d like me to come flush him out,” Fargo added. “That way he can kill me and have a free hand. So I don’t figure to accommodate him in his plans.”

She flashed him a smile full of pearly teeth. “I have faith in your brain and courage. But he is a monster beyond words to describe him. Ten cuidado?”

“Yes, I’ll be careful,” he replied. “There’s no other way to be, with him.”

She had something else to say, something that made her cast her eyes demurely downward.

“I only gave thanks for my rescue last night and our safe journey past the Apaches. I did not ask forgiveness for . . . for what we did last night.”

Fargo grinned. “Guess what? I don’t plan on asking for any forgiveness, either.”

“Of course, you are a pagan. And a good pagan is better than a bad Catholic. I cannot lie, in a prayer, and say I am sorry when I am not. Especially . . .”

She flushed. “Especially since I will be leaving the shutters on my bedroom window unlocked tonight—in case you should choose to come to me.”

The sudden explosion of heat in Fargo’s groin answered that invitation. He remembered her last night, opening the blanket to show herself to him. And later, thrusting up and down on top of him, riding his length to climax after climax . . .

“Good. And since I plan on knocking on those shutters later, you just make damn sure you know who you’re shooting.”

At the halfway point, on the trail leading from Chimayo to the nearby Nambe Pueblo, stood a tumble of rocks larger than a two-story house.

Old Indian legends claimed the Great Thunderbird had dropped those rocks there to kill a bruja, a witch. Perhaps so, for Blaze Weston had circled around behind the rocks and found a spot where he and his horse could wedge themselves in and hide.

Before he did, however, he wiped out his tracks and continued along the path, leaving a false trail to the east. Finally, he doubled back through the trees to his new hiding place.

He would sleep, eat a few crusts of ash-pone, then move on again.

This Fargo was a worthy opponent. But without question Blaze would return to Chimayo, Fargo be damned. He must, after what he had seen earlier today.

This morning, as he passed El Santuario, he had seen a painted harlot go into the chapel. And the priest out front had smiled and greeted her as she did so! Letting that soiled dove bring the devil in with her.

And that pretty little whore last night in Santa Cruz—Fargo had “saved” her from her own purification by flames. But he wouldn’t save that bunch of sluts at the Queen of Sheba in Springer. Blaze would make sure of that by killing Fargo first.

“Hellfire’s coming,” he promised as he lay his head on his saddle for a thirty-minute sleep. “Oh, hellfire’s coming!”

Just after sunset, Fargo stood in the small anteroom of El Santuario, closely studying the interior of the chapel.

Besides the dozens of votive candles, farolitos burned along the side walls. A handful of the local faithful were seated among the pews, praying or saying their beads. A monk in a roped tunic knelt before the altar, head bowed deep in prayer.

Fargo went out into the grainy twilight. He had purposely left the Ovaro in the paddock on the opposite end of town and walked here.

Sticking to the apron of shadows close to the chapel, Fargo slowly and carefully made his way along all four sides, Colt to hand.

He paused at sight of the camposanto out back, where rows of crosses and stones represented generations. The wind came shrieking in off the Sangre de Cristo slopes, chilling him. Somewhere, a coyote yipped mournfully, and Fargo heard it as a potential death omen.

He spotted no sign of Blaze Weston. But then again, the man could almost literally disappear without a trace when he wanted to.

A farmer’s cart rattled past out front. Somewhere a dog barked, setting off a chain reaction throughout the village. When the racket died down, the wind rose in howling, whipping gusts.

It was night, Fargo reminded himself, and the Weeping Woman was now wandering all over the region, her grief in the sound of the wind. Better she than others who stalked the night.

Fargo poked his head back inside the chapel. The worshippers in the pews had dwindled to two. The monk was still deep in prayer.

All secure inside. But something felt wrong to Fargo—his “goose tickle” was back, that familiar tingle in his scalp that meant trouble was a cat whisker away.

A shadowy form approached on foot along the village street, taking no pains to sneak or hide. Fargo watched it take pleasing shape as Rosalinda.

“Serafina sends this,” she said, handing him a pottery mug of steaming coffee.

“I will not. She has an eye for you, I can tell. And you, Dave Tutt, have an eye for the women.”

He sipped from the cup, then added: “But I thought we agreed you were staying home with Serafina and Otero—and the gun,” he added with emphasis.

“We did, and I am sorry. But . . . it is just . . . thinking about last night, how it felt to once again . . .”

She trailed off, but Fargo could hear the quickening of her breath as passion got her in its grip.

“You quiet little firecracker,” Fargo teased her. “Admit it, chica. You’re hot for more of it, are’n’cha?”

Fargo laughed. “Well, hell, so am I. Should we do it in front of the chapel or behind?”

She slapped his arm. “I only meant . . . I mean . . . I will be naked in my bed, waiting. Now I will go.”

She had started to hurry away, but Fargo caught her by the arm. “Now that you’ve broken the rules, best to let me escort you home. Hang on a minute.”

To be absolutely certain, Fargo glanced inside the chapel again. All was well. He also took another quick turn around the exterior of El Santuario.

“Let’s hurry,” he told Rosalinda, linking his arm through hers.

It took about ten minutes to walk her home. On the way back, still about fifty yards from the chapel, Fargo glimpsed something glittering in the shallow ditch beside the path.

He knelt down to investigate: It was a fancy rosary, with colored glass beads that reflected the moonlight.

And there, a few feet away, Fargo spotted the hand that had been holding it—and the rest of the nearly naked man who lay stone dead in the ditch, his head swimming in his own blood.

His throat had been slashed ear to ear—exactly like the killing of the old hostler in Chico Springs.

A rosary . . . a nearly naked man killed in the obvious style of Blaze Weston. . . . Why nearly naked?

“Shit!” Fargo swore out loud, drawing steel and bolting toward the chapel. “That damned ‘monk!’ ”

Fargo burst through the anteroom of the chapel. The place reeked of coal oil. The worshippers were either gone or dead by now.

And the “monk”—votive candle in hand—now stood over the cloth-draped altar.

Blaze spun around when Fargo cried out his name, his big cap-and-ball aimed at Fargo’s lights.

The Trailsman veered to one side, the big pistol exploded with a cannon roar in the chapel, and then Fargo’s heart turned to ice as Blaze dropped the candle on the altar.

With a horrific whoosh, the cloth covering erupted in flames. Weston, lumbering like a buffalo but incredibly fast, bolted toward the little door behind the altar, and now Fargo finally sprayed lead at him.

Again and again the Colt leaped in his fist, filling the chapel with the acrid stink of spent powder. Still on the run, he leathered his gun and jerked the Arkansas Toothpick from its boot sheath. But Blaze had slipped through the door and was gone.

Fargo put out the flaming altar with water from a nearby ewer. In the brief time he’d been walking Rosalinda home and returning, Blaze had managed to rig the entire interior for an inferno. Coal-oil soaked tinder, Fargo noticed, was strategically placed so that one quick pass with a lit candle would have gutted the chapel.

And now, Blaze was still out there. And if Fargo started right now, he’d have a fresh trail. As much as he regretted passing on that invitation from Rosalinda, salting this killer’s tail came first.