During the next two hours, Fargo and his employers delivered the rest of their ice to the nearby camps of Kellyville and California Gulch. Fargo was surprised to note that no imported killers had shown up in those two camps yet. It made little sense given the amount of gold being pulled out of the streams. Why was only Buckskin Joe blessed with an infestation of rats?
Dave, too, wondered the same thing, and as they headed back toward the Yellow Grizz trace, the three men discussed it.
“It’s got me treed,” Fargo admitted, his slitted eyes scanning the brush around them. “It’s not a shortage of paid killers—Missouri alone could take over Europe with them. This guy Scully spoke of must have a good reason for dropping a bead on Buckskin Joe.”
“Could be this Gus Latimer is the one,” Steve surmised. “You talk him up pretty big, and he seemed pretty smart to me.”
“Smart as a steel trap,” Fargo agreed. “And Ozark Bill might be even smarter. But these are paid jobbers, not men who work the grand schemes. No, Scully is reliable. There’s a heap big chief pulling the strings.”
“That fellow Ace,” Steve said, “the one you backed down in the Gravel Pan—is he with Latimer and Ozark Bill, you think?”
Fargo lifted a shoulder. “Hard to say. Maybe he rode in with them, or maybe he just drifted in to get hired on.”
“I wish you’d’a killed him, Mr. Fargo. That would teach these sons of bitches not to haze you.”
Dave snorted. “Jesus, Steve, this ain’t one a’ them penny dreadfuls you always got your nose stuck into. There’s rules to these things. You don’t just murder a man in cold blood. That fellow backed down, and that’s that.”
“Ballocks. First chance that chicken plucker gets, he’ll shoot Mr. Fargo in the back.”
Fargo grinned. “Little brother’s prob’ly right, Dave. Maybe I just avoided the toll to lose my freight. I got a gut hunch me and Ace will be huggin’ soon.”
Dave let out a long sigh. “You know, Inez flaps her gums a lot, but just maybe she was right. She didn’t mind leaving Ohio—said she was sick of the smell of manure and corn siftings. But she wanted to skip the frontier altogether and try our luck in the Oregon Territory.”
Fargo and Steve exchanged an amused glance. Dave’s favorite topic was his beautiful wife. He glanced up at Fargo, who rode to the right of the wagon with his Henry resting butt-first on his thigh.
“Skye, I reckon you figure me and Inez being married is like hitching a horse with a coyote.”
“I got no ideas when it comes to marriage,” Fargo admitted. “None. With me it’s live and let live.”
“Sure. You’re a take-it-by-and-large fellow. But you don’t cross married women off your list, do you? I remember this one scandal back at Fort Robinson and you lighting out like a scalded dog with a captain chasing you.”
Fargo thumbed his hat back and glanced at Holman. “Dave, Inez is a handsome woman. A man would have to be blind as a posthole not to see that. But she ain’t exactly sweet on me.”
Dave and Steve laughed at the undeniable truth of this. “Nah,” Dave said. “She sure’s hell ain’t. You’re poor as a hind-tit calf, and poverty is a mortal sin to Inez.”
The empty wagon bounced hard over a rock, and the brothers almost fell off the seat.
“The first three times I proposed to her,” Dave resumed, telling the familiar story yet again, “she gave me the mitten. Said I was too poor and slurped my coffee from the saucer. But I finally wore her down. I reckon she’s sorry now.”
Fargo knew that Dave was insecure and fishing for reassurance. It irritated the Trailsman no end to see a man so damn hot over a pert skirt. But he also knew Dave was a prisoner of his own heart, and he felt sorry for the lovelorn man.
“Don’t bank on that,” he replied. “I’ve never learned to read sign on a woman’s breast, but I’d say Inez doesn’t hate marriage—she hates the West. It doesn’t set well with most female pilgrims, not at first, anyhow. This country is a shock to a flatlander.”
Dave perked up at this and began humming “Camptown Races.”
“Speaking of Inez,” Fargo said, “I’m a mite curious about something. You know that box she’s always talking about? The little one covered in red felt that she always keeps locked?”
Both brothers howled with mirth. “Christ, do we?” Dave replied. “What about it?”
“I don’t aim to steal it, boys, I’m just curious. She’s always picking it up and stroking it like it was a baby. I heard her tell your sister it was the dream of her life or some such. What the hell’s inside that box?”
“You’ll have to keep wondering, Skye. She won’t show none of us, neither. She hides the key at night, and I do believe she’d let daylight into me if she ever caught me trying to peek.”
The trio broke free of the scrub brush and aspen trees and began the ascent up Yellow Grizz Mountain. Fargo gigged the Ovaro forward and scouted several hundred yards ahead, mindful of the earlier attack by Utes. With all this gun-toting trash moving into Buckskin Joe, it bothered him that he and the Holmans were forced to one fixed route. He had learned a long time ago, the hard way, that the mouse who had but one hole was quickly taken.
“Looks clear for now,” he reported as he rode back down to join the brothers. “The wagon’s empty, but about halfway up you boys best lead the team on foot. They got played out running so hard this morning.”
“You expect trouble?” Dave asked.
“Always, old son. Always. That way it never comes as a surprise.”
“Susan’s right about you,” Steve said. “She said you’re the readiest man she ever knew.”
Mentioning Inez only bored Fargo. Mentioning their blond-haired sister, however, always piqued his interest. Dave seemed to read his thought.
“You know,” he said, “Susan’s a mite skeery and bashful, especially for a girl pretty as she is. I can tell she takes a fancy to you, but I reckon you’re used to that from women.”
“No point in my denying it. But I only encourage gals looking for a good time.”
Steve grinned. “Still waters run deep, Fargo. Susan is one a them free-love gals. She’s death on marriage—but not on good times.”
In case Fargo didn’t get the point, Dave added, “She ain’t never been hitched, but she ain’t been cherry for a long time. I mention that on account you don’t seem to be no cherry picker.”
“Well, now,” Fargo said, rubbing his chin and letting the topic die.
* * *
“Well, kick me in the nuts and call me Squeaky!” Dunk Langdon greeted the three men as they rode into the pole corral beside the icehouse. “I heard that ruckus a few hours back and figured you boys for gone coons. Damn glad to see yous above the horizon. Utes, eh? I heard their eagle-bone war whistles.”
Fargo swung down and Dunk hobbled quickly forward to take the Ovaro’s reins. “Let it be, Trailsman. I’ll rub your stallion down good and give him a feed. Let that team go, too, boys. I’ll tend to ’em. Say, where’s the albino? Never mind—I can guess.”
Dunk was an old prospector who had ruined his back panning one too many creeks. But he was still useful for general work, and more important to Dave Holman, he was a veteran Indian fighter. He had hired the old roadster on for three hots and a cot so he could stay with the women.
“Utes, all right,” Fargo finally confirmed. “But I don’t think they were out for blood.”
“Naw, you wouldn’t be here happens they was. The Mountain Ute is one a’ the most dangersome tribes in the West. I’ve seed Apaches run away from ’em. Mister, when they’re wrathy, you’ll by God know it. Only way to bury you will be with a rake.”
Fargo glanced at him askance. “You’re sure in a chirpy mood.”
Dunk loosed a brown streamer of tobacco juice into the grass. Then, hunched forward, he led the Ovaro toward an open-fronted shed.
“Skye, I ain’t one to whitewash Injins. Some say they’re only nits, but nits make lice. This ‘pacification’ shit they preach back in the States is for the birds. Teach ’em to farm, teach ’em to tend furnaces—tarnal foolishness! You might’s well try to tie down a bobcat with a piece of string.”
“Think he’s right?” Steve asked Fargo as the trio headed toward the house.
“He’s got his view of it. Me, I’ll kill an Indian or any other man that goes for my lights. But I don’t hold with this business of calling red men nits or lice or vermin. It’s just a backhanded excuse for exterminating women and children. This Quaker program of pacification—that word really means ‘whip into submission.’ Red John will eventually be whipped, all right, but so will the whole damn West along with him.”
“Maybe,” Dave said, “but I’m not as wild as you, Skye. I’m a merchant and I hope this country comes under law and order.”
They neared the front of the house, newly built of hewn logs. Oiled paper served for the windows, and the slab door was mounted on leather hinges. The windowless icehouse out back was built of earth-covered planks hidden by several layers of well-chinked mud bricks. One small door insulated with stiff hides marked the only way in.
Suddenly the front door of the house banged open. A copper-haired beauty in an immaculate blue dress and crisp white apron stood with arms akimbo.
“I’m glad to see all three of you safely arrived,” she said in a scolding tone, “but sakes alive! Do you think you’re coming into my clean house dragging all that dirt with you? A body might think we’re backwoods trash who eat in the kitchen! David and Stephen, wash up and change into clean shirts. And, Mr. Fargo, it would not injure you if you spent a half hour or so under a pump.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Fargo, biting back a grin. “Do I have to change my buckskins?”
“Stuff!” she said before slamming the door.
“Whew! She’s in a fine pucker,” Dave said as the three men dutifully tramped around back to the pump.
“Sure is,” Steve agreed. “Even called me Stephen. I’ll bet she thinks we was drinking.”
“We were,” Dave reminded him. “But caulk up about it or she’ll read us the riot act.”
Fargo waited his turn, then soaked his head good and borrowed Steve’s comb to attack the thick, unruly mass of his hair. Inside, a piping-hot meal was laid out on the dining room table. Inez bustled over an iron cook stove in the slope-off kitchen, assisted by a pretty blonde with her hair tumbling in a golden cascade over her shoulders.
Steve’s twin brother, clad in clean homespun trousers and a new broadcloth shirt, was already seated and pinching sugar out of the bowl. As Fargo and the others pushed their legs under the table, Jess said in an eager undertone, “Say! Dunk tells me there was shooting on the trail. Was you fellows in a frolic?”
Dave hooked a thumb toward the kitchen. “Shush it, boy. If Inez hears you, we’ll be back in Iowa hoeing beans.”
Inez came in with a platter of fried chicken, Susan following her with two gravy boats. Susan’s eyes met Fargo’s—jade green eyes with flecks of gold in the irises. Her pale skin was flawless as a creamy lotion.
“Your hair looks very nice, Mr. Fargo,” she said in her musical voice.
“Susan!” Inez snapped. “You mustn’t coquette like those fast young ladies in Santa Fe. Mr. Fargo will get the wrong idea.”
Mr. Fargo had dallied with many of those fast young ladies in Santa Fe and now recalled what the brothers had told him about Susan. Free love . . . Fargo’s favorite kind.
“I’m plagued most to death by you men,” Inez carped as she began filling plates and handing them around. “I can smell it on your breath—you stopped at that whiskey mill in Buckskin Joe, didn’t you?”
“Honey, we have to stop there,” Dave said in a patient voice. “Riley is our best customer.”
“Shaw! And I suppose you have to swill his liquor, too?”
“It wasn’t swilling,” Steve objected. “Just a little bracer for the trail.”
“Letting a lad Steve’s age go into a doggery,” Inez complained. “I shudder to think what else he’s doing down there.”
Inez speared a chicken breast off the platter and offered it to Fargo. “Mr. Fargo, would you care for the . . . bosom?”
This was too much genteelness for Jess and Steve, who burst into sputtering laughter. Dave, too, experienced a sudden coughing fit to cover his mirth. By a supreme effort Fargo held his face deadpan.
“Thank you, ma’am. A . . . bosom can be a mighty pleasant thing.”
Even Susan burst into laughter at this, and Inez’s sternly pretty face flushed scarlet. “Land sakes! A body might think you were raised in a bawdy house, Mr. Fargo! That was a horrid innuendo.”
“Now, hold on, dear,” Dave said when he had recovered. “Mr. Fargo doesn’t rate that beef. He was only being polite.”
“Mm-hmm. Never mind. How much did you make from the vegetables?”
A stone silence settled over the table. Fargo watched a helpless panic come over Dave’s and Steve’s faces. They had carelessly forgotten to invent a story to cover the loss of the spun truck. Fargo knew that neither man could lie convincingly to Inez, so he pitched into the game.
“Inez,” he said solemnly, assuming an innocent and pious face, “we didn’t make one red cent.”
She set her fork down and looked at all three men in turn. “And may I ask why?”
“We gave it away,” Fargo said. “Every last melon and cucumber and tomato.”
Dave turned white as new linen and Steve scootched his chair back, preparing to flee the eruption.
“Gave it . . .? Mr. Fargo, do you realize how long Susan and I labor in that garden?”
“I do. But it was a Christian act, ma’am. When we arrived in Buckskin Joe, we encountered a wagon full of orphans. The preacher with them said they were promised to families in the Oregon Territory.”
“Orphans!” Inez and Susan exclaimed together.
“For a fact,” Fargo lied shamelessly. “Some so skinny their backbones were scraping against their ribs. The preacher told us Indians took all their food. So we piled the truck into their wagon. They were a sight to break your heart.”
“The poor things!” Inez exclaimed, aiming an approving smile at her husband. “I’m proud of all of you. Susan, let’s set to work baking those poor creatures some bread. And I’ll make some plum pudding.”
“Oh, they’re long gone now,” Dave interjected, trying not to meet Fargo’s eye. “We gave them a little money, too, to tide them.”
Jess and Steve were fit to be tied and excused themselves from the table to hurry outside. Susan, too, had figured out Fargo’s game and looked at him curiously.
Inez, however, was clearly distracted by something and hardly noticed she was being bamboozled. She rose from the table and crossed to a sideboard, picking up a bundle of papers tied with string.
“David,” she announced grandly, “the days of backbreaking labor are over for you. We can move back to civilization and live on investments, not perspiration.”
Dave shot a worried glance at Fargo. “How do you mean? We just got this ice business started, hon.”
She held the bundle of papers up. “Never mind the ice business. Today I purchased two hundred shares in Transmontane Enterprises, a brand-new mining venture. They were only five dollars apiece, but Mr. Perry assures me we will profit tenfold within one year.”
Fargo suddenly leaned forward. “Perry? Ike Perry?”
Inez looked surprised. “Yes, a very cultured gentleman and a graduate of Harvard. You can’t possibly know him?”
“Oh, I know your Harvard man, all right. His real name is Jackson Powell. He’s the biggest grifter in the West and so low he could walk under a snake’s belly on stilts. If he was ever at Harvard, it was to steal the buildings. He and his hired killers have left a trail of dead bodies and busted dreams from Cincinnati to San Francisco.”
“You are misinformed, Mr. Fargo. This gentleman’s grammar was perfect, and he was meticulously groomed.”
Dave looked as if he had been slugged but not quite dropped. “Inez, that’s one thousand dollars you gave him. Where in blazes did you get it?”
“I took it out of the tin box you keep in the bedroom.”
“The tin . . . good Christ, woman! That’s every penny of profit we’ve made from the business!”
“Oh, hell! You made two hundred dollars just today.”
“You don’t seem to understand gold-camp prices. Flour is thirty dollars a barrel, eggs a dollar apiece. Much of what we make goes into daily expenses.”
“You won’t need this peasant enterprise any longer,” she insisted confidently. “Mr. Perry is a true gentleman. And Transmontane Enterprises is a going concern, I think he called it. We will soon take our place in the best society back in Ohio.”
Fargo pushed to his feet and expelled a resigned sigh. He had hoped to steer clear of the trouble brewing up around Buckskin Joe. Now, thanks to a pretty but harebrained female, he realized he was in the thick of it, meticulous grooming and perfect grammar be damned.