Fargo had made a shady camp in a pine copse across the small lake from the Holmans’ log house and icehouse. It was sweltering hot down below in the diggings, but pleasantly cool this high up on Yellow Grizz Mountain.
“Hey, Fargo!” Dunk Langdon hollered to him from the pole corral, spotting Fargo when he came outside. “Look yonder toward the east!”
Fargo looked just in time to see a flaming arrow complete its arc in the blue-black sky. He hoofed it over to the corral.
“Utes sending signals,” he said. “There’s several bands scattered through these mountains.”
“Uh-huh. Earlier, while you boys was gone, I seen their mirror signals. I’ll be dogged and gone iffen they ain’t up to somethin.”
“Could be, old-timer,” Fargo conceded. “You’ve hugged with your share of Indians. But I think we’re just small potatoes—it’s the camps down below they’re fretting about. A few white men, in isolated areas like this, won’t usually put warriors on the peck.”
Dunk, busy pouring grain into the manger in front of the open shed, paused to mull over Fargo’s words. “You know, Trailsman, just mebbe that’s right. I spent too much time killin’ savages ’stead’a studying on ’em like you do.”
“Dunk, were you here today when Jackson Powell talked to Inez?”
Dunk dropped the grain bucket and gaped in astonishment. “Are you a-tellin’ me that the chicken-shouldered son of a bitch with the spade beard was Powell? I seen that jasper ride in on a fine-looking whatchacallit, a sabino, a roan with a white belly. But he had him a straw case and I figgered him for a drummer.”
“It was Powell, all right, and he handed Inez a line of shit. Sold her two hundred worthless shares of mining stock for a thousand dollars.”
This news struck the strength from his legs, and the crippled man sat down heavily on a powder keg. “Well, cuss my coup! Skye, I’d’a shot that yellow-bellied egg sucker to trap bait iffen I’d knowed it was Powell. Hell, him and his scavengers caused a massacre in the Black Hills. Mebbe I’d ought to hang up my fiddle. Use to was, I didn’t make no mistakes like that.”
“Chuck the self-pity, Dunk. You’ll be showing your mettle soon enough. Powell and his lick-fingers will be making it hot for us. You up to a shooting fray?”
Dunk pushed back up and huffed. “This child wasn’t born in the woods to be scared by an owl. How’s ’bout a dose of spirits?”
The old salt snatched up a whiskey bottle from behind the keg and pulled the cork out with his teeth. He took a long pull, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Wash your teeth,” he told Fargo, handing him the bottle.
The cheap forty-rod burned in a straight line to Fargo’s gut.
“Just finished currycombing your Ovaro,” Dunk said. “It was hell gettin’ the witch’s bridle out of his mane. He damn near bit my nose off.”
Fargo nodded toward the corral. There was still enough light to make out the horses. “Steve will need a new horse. Dave promised him that reddish gold California sorrel. Is he as good as he looks?”
“He’ll do to take along. Now, the best animal in that bunch, besides yours, is that dun. True, he’s a mite mule-hipped, and a puddin’ foot, but he’ll gallop from hell to breakfast and back and won’t even lather. But that sorrel is good horseflesh for a green-antler like Steve.”
“I best get to my camp,” Fargo said. “From now on, Dunk, sleep on your weapon and pay close attention to my horse—he’ll alert to any danger.”
“You figger we’ll be hit this soon?”
“Prob’ly not. I haven’t sent in my card yet. But Powell favors the element of surprise.”
“Speaking on that—I seen that pretty Susan Holman head off toward your camp. That’s like a fly headin’ into a spiderweb, hanh?”
Dunk broke into a sputtering laugh behind him. When Fargo said nothing, he added, “Slap ’n’ tickle, slap ’n’ tickle! Push-push, hanh?”
“Bottle it,” Fargo said over his shoulder, and the old-timer laughed even louder.
* * *
It was dark, except for a full moon and a star-spangled sky, when Fargo reached his camp. He was disappointed to find that Susan was not waiting for him—he could still feel, in his hip pocket, the looks she had given him earlier.
Even well into summer the nighttime temperature this high up could plummet, and Fargo laid his Henry aside to build a fire in the pit he had dug and lined with rocks. When the flames were snapping good, he tossed a handful of coffee beans into his blue enameled pot and hung it over the fire on a green stick propped between two forked branches.
He never bothered with a tent, which cut off a man’s senses and could trap him in case of ambush. Instead, he had unfolded a canvas groundsheet and made himself a soft bed of pine need-les, spreading his bedroll atop it. When it rained, he only had to roll the wide edges of the groundsheet over him.
While the coffee slowly roiled to a boil, he propped his back against a log and sharpened his Arkansas toothpick on a shard of flint. He carefully listened to the sound of the mountain night. Out on the nearby lake, now silver-gleaming in the moonlight, the occasional bass or trout broke the surface with a flat plop. He reminded himself to check his trotline before he rolled into his blankets.
Animals scurried in the thick woods surrounding him, nocturnal predators in search of prey. He alerted to the deep-chested woofing of a bear, but it was distant and no grizzly—a black bear, Fargo guessed, and not likely to attack a human when food was plentiful.
Fargo averted his eyes from the fire, not wanting to ruin his night vision in case of sudden trouble. And sure as cats fighting, trouble was coming. He had hoped all along that Jackson Powell was not the kingpin behind the sudden appearance of Gus Latimer and the rest of the Missouri Pukes in Buckskin Joe. Fargo liked this peaceful camp on the shore of Lake Bridger and had no desire to play crusader in something that was none of his mix. But the fat was in the fire now, and it was root hog or die.
A twig snapped, somewhere in the shadowy mass of trees to his left, and Fargo shucked out his Colt and rolled clear of the fire.
“Whoever you are, give the hail or I’ll put moonlight through you!”
“Don’t shoot, Skye!” came back a frightened, feminine voice. “It’s only me—Susan.”
Fargo expelled a sigh as she emerged into view, her flowing blond hair shimmering like spun gold in the firelight. “Girl, I’m happy to see you, but out West you have to let folks know you’re coming into their camp.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure I’ll ever get the hang of this derring-do on the frontier.”
“Derring-do, huh? That makes it sound like a penny dreadful where it’s all make-believe. The danger is real, not a campfire yarn. C’mon, have a seat.”
Fargo shot nimbly to his feet and led her to a grassy spot before the log. They both sat down.
“Oh, I know the danger is real,” she assured him, seated so close that Fargo could whiff her lilac perfume. “I talked with Dunk before I took my walk, and he told me about the Indian attack. And I tried to stop Inez from letting that Ike Perry, or whoever he is, snooker her like he done. There’s trouble brewing, isn’t there, Skye?”
“Well, there’s coffee brewing, too,” he said lightly. “Care for a cup? Or will that get you in hot water for staying out too late?”
“I’m free, white, and twenty-one. I’d love coffee.”
“Yeah, there’s trouble on the spit,” he told her a few moments later as he handed her a tin cup. “Happy as I am to see you, I suggest you stay close to the house after dark from now on.”
She leaned sideways until her hair was brushing his cheek. “Well, then, as long as I’m here now . . .”
Fargo grinned. “You don’t use up all your kindling to make a fire, do you?”
“If that means I don’t like small talk, you’re right.”
“What do you like?”
Her pretty, oval face flashed up at him, her lips parting. The flecks of gold in her irises seemed like tiny, luminous sparks. “I came out here to show you that. And I’m tired of talking.”
Her nimble fingers moved to the button loops on the front of her gingham dress, rapidly undoing them as her breathing grew more heavy and rapid—Fargo could feel her hot, moist, animal-warm breath on his face. Sudden lust made his own blood throb in his ears like Tewa tom-toms. He was forced to shift his position.
“My bosoms are not as big as Inez’s,” she said, “but I think they’re pretty, and men tell me the same. See?”
She pulled the dress open and Fargo feasted his eyes on two magnificent works of female sculpture. True, they were only medium in size, but solid and pointy with caramel-covered nipples. When he pressed his hands against them, they pushed back like lush, hard fruit.
“Make my nipples hard,” she begged. Susan was a type Fargo encountered often and enjoyed immensely: quiet and proper on the surface, but with a short fuse once she got the itch for a man—greedy, almost savage, for pleasure and uninhibited in the “acts of love.” As Fargo tweaked her nipples between thumb and forefinger, she started panting like a dehydrating animal.
She hitched her dress up over her hips, revealing the blond bush and a tantalizing glimpse of slit.
“Look how hot you got me already,” she said in a voice husky with desire.
She scissored open two shapely, supple thighs and showed him the nooks and folds of her sex—it gleamed like new varnish in the red-gold firelight, slick and ready.
“Shuck down your trousers,” she half begged, half ordered him.
Fargo was happy to oblige, quickly knocking his gun belt aside. When his rigid staff was freed, leaping wildly with each heartbeat, Susan took a sharp, hissing breath.
“Oh my lands,” she said in a voice just above a whisper. “No wonder you ride a stallion. Skye, would I be too forward if I just straddle you? I wanna be on top so I can ride that huge, beautiful thing.”
“With me it’s always the lady’s choice,” Fargo assured her. “Here, let me line us up.”
She felt like a handful of feathers when Fargo gripped her hourglass hips and lifted her over his lap. He let her down a few inches at a time until the pulsating tip of his man gland parted the tissue-soft folds of skin over her portal. It snugged in a few inches, parting the elastic walls of her sex as he penetrated into tight heat.
“Oh, Moses on the mountain!” she said in a breathless voice. “I never been filled up like this! Bend it forward just a smidgen so it rubs my button, please?”
Again Fargo was glad to oblige. He scooted back just a little until the top of his shaft was caressing her pearly nubbin. She cried out and suddenly began plunging up and down on him, crying, “Do me, Skye, do me! Deeper, darlin’, deeper!”
In no time at all the first of many climaxes exploded through her, and Fargo was forced to hold her tight when she lost all control of herself as erotic pleasure washed over her in tidal waves. Soon, however, she was on her own as Fargo felt the hot, intense welling of pleasure in his groin. He nearly bucked her into the lake as he spent himself inside her, yet somehow she hung on, a beautiful bronc rider crying out, “Get it, Skye, get your shiver! Tamp it deeper, deeper!”
Even for Fargo, who had pleasured countless women, this was a remarkable encounter, and he lay with her in the cool grass for uncounted minutes as his body slowly returned to normal.
Then her breath, warm and moist in his ear, whispered, “Once isn’t enough for me—the second one is the good one. Want to go again? Lord, I see you do! You feel like hardwood down there!”
Her exploring hand had quickly sent his manhood stirring back to life.
“That’s fine by me,” Fargo assured her. “But this time I take the saddle.”
But the moment he rose on one elbow, a hammering racket of gunfire erupted from across the lake. Drunken shouts and whoops, and the rataplan of pounding hooves, added to the sudden din.
“Sakes and saints!” Susan exclaimed, hands fumbling at the button loops on her dress. “Indians have attacked the house!”
“The Utes don’t have guns,” Fargo assured her as he rose and tied his fly closed. “And they don’t leave their clan circles after dark. This will be white trash from Buckskin Joe. Here.”
He scooped up his shell belt and holster and dropped it in her lap. “There’s six beans in the wheel and plenty of reloads. Pull it to full-cock before you fire—you’ll hear two clicks when it’s ready. Cock it after each shot. I want you to stay right here.”
Fargo kicked dirt onto the fire and snatched up his Henry, wishing now that he’d kept the Ovaro here in camp. The din of gunfire increased as the defenders in the house began firing back through loopholes. He jacked a round into the chamber.
“I can’t believe it,” she fretted just before he took off in a hard run.
“Don’t let the racket scare you. They’re well armed in the house,” Fargo soothed her.
“No, I mean I can’t believe this happened right when we was going to do it again.”
Fargo grinned. “My kinda girl,” he said fondly, and then the night swallowed him up.