The second day after the Ute ambush on Fargo and the Holmans dawned clear and cool atop Yellow Grizz Mountain. Soon after a hearty breakfast, the ice blocks were loaded into the Owensboro wagon and the Mormon brakes affixed to the rear. Fargo, Dave, and Steve headed down the trace toward Buckskin Joe.
Fargo would have welcomed a fourth gun, but he was convinced by now that some interloper was watching the top of the mountain. Jess was left behind to side Dunk in the event of trouble. He told the other two men about his hunch.
“White man or Indian?” Dave asked him, riding the brake with his left foot as the wagon tried to break forward on the steep slope.
“If it’s a white man,” Fargo replied, “his backwoods skills are a cut above most of that saloon trash down below. These Pukes are lazy and like to stay in rented rooms. Most of them can’t read sign or move around silently among trees and brush. This jasper seems right at home in the wild.”
“Indian, huh?” Steve asked.
Fargo, his lake blue eyes in constant motion, replied, “I hope so. If it’s one of Powell’s yellow curs, it can only mean bloody trouble. If it’s a Ute, it might just be curiosity.”
“I don’t know, Skye,” Dave mused aloud, his clean-shaven, freckled face drawn in a troubled frown. “I got used to facing danger in the army, and Steve and Jess got a set on them like a stallion. We knew it was dicey to come this far west, and we didn’t want to bring Susan and Inez. Trouble is, the Pawnee had struck the warpath, and we were far enough west in Iowa that they were raiding on us. We needed money bad, but we couldn’t leave the gals unprotected while we came out here. Now I’m thinking maybe we shoulda just tried this ice business somewheres closer to civilization.”
“Maybe,” Fargo agreed. “But you’d’ve never got the money you’re making now. You didn’t ask for my advice, but you might consider just saving up a stake to hold all of you while you settle somewhere safer.”
“We’d have it,” Steve chimed in bitterly, “if Jackson Powell wouldn’ta honey-fuggled Inez outta that thousand dollars.”
“That account will be settled,” Fargo said with grim determination. “One way or the other.”
The three men reached the base of the mountain and headed into a dogleg bend that twisted the trail toward Buckskin Joe. The Ovaro suddenly fought the bit, not wanting to proceed. Fargo glanced left toward a little copse of sycamore trees and felt his blood seem to stop and flow backward in his veins.
“Holy Hannah,” he said in a voice just above a whisper. He felt his gorge rising.
Dave followed his gaze and hauled in on the reins, his face turning ashen. Steve, bringing up the rear on his sorrel, was last to see the abomination in the copse. “S’matter, brother Dave? Let’s get this medicine show on the—good God!”
Fargo had seen rough killing in gold country, but this one capped the climax. The corpse hanging from a sycamore limb hardly looked human. His tongue had been cut out and nailed to a shingle secured just above his head. Crude charcoal letters proclaimed THIS TUNG FLAPPED TO FARGO.
“He’s chawed up bad,” Dave said, averting his eyes. “Do you know him, Skye?”
Fargo nodded. “It’s Otis Scully. The Pukes saw him talking to me in the Gravel Pan. They’re sending a message to anybody else who might consider helping me—and to us.”
“How’s come he looks like they skinned him?” Steve asked. “Lord, he’s all red meat.”
“That’s the work of a man who knows how to use a blacksnake,” Fargo replied.
“That one-eyed lout, Philander Brace?”
Fargo nodded. “The very man. Well, let’s cut Otis down, boys. Steve, grab that shovel out of the wagon. Least we can do is bury him. I wasn’t Bible raised, but maybe one of you boys can get off a line or two of Scripture for him. Otis was fond of reading his Bible.”
The burial was quick, Fargo keeping his eyes to all sides. He expected more trouble when they reached the heart of Buckskin Joe, and he wasn’t disappointed. Evidently the four Pukes were waiting for them. Fargo knocked back the Colt’s riding thong.
“Steve,” he said quietly as they rode into camp, “your Greener is our ace in the hole. Cock both barrels and aim it straight out from your hip. Cover Latimer, and if he goes near that barking iron of his, blast him to paste. Dave, cover Brassfield and that big bruiser Perley.”
“What about one-eye?”
“I’ll be huggin’ with Blacksnake Phil,” Fargo said. “He’s my favorite boy now.”
Powell’s dirt jobbers were resting with their backs against the log wall of the mercantile store, watching the new arrivals from eyes shaded by their hats.
“You boys look a mite sweaty,” Latimer greeted them. “Maybe you oughter stretch out on some of that ice. You know—like dead fish?”
“We worked up a sweat burying Otis Scully,” Fargo explained in an even voice.
Latimer had trouble keeping a straight face. “Yeah, I seen him. Looks like somebody played cat’s cradle with his neck.”
“I take it you four were the hangmen?”
“It was all legallike, Fargo.” Latimer brushed the red sash tied to his belt. The other three wore one, too. “See, we’re what you might call camp constables.”
“First you boys set up to be mining surveyors. Now you’re law dogs. Next I s’pose you’ll open a seamstress shop.”
“We ain’t never been grave diggers,” Philander Brace taunted.
“See, the thing of it is,” Latimer went on, “we’re what you might call versatile. Ain’t we, boys?”
Fargo caught big Bill Brassfield’s surly eyes. “How ’bout Rosita, Bill? Is she versatile, too? Or just . . . flexible?”
Brassfield’s face clouded with instant hate.
Fargo grinned. “Maybe I’ll just hafta . . . poke into that deal myself.”
Brassfield’s fingers inched toward his big Colt Dragoon in a canvas holster dangling over his crotch. Dave Holman spoke up with the authority he’d learned as a sergeant riding herd on tough frontier soldiers.
“Move your hand any closer to that hog leg, Bill, and I’ll be forced to let daylight into you.”
Fargo glanced around and didn’t like the set of their faces. “Tell you what, gents,” he said, bringing his Colt out and thumb-cocking it. “All four of you pull your short guns out with just your thumb and pointing finger. Then drop them straight down into the dirt. Brace, Brassfield, ground them long guns first.”
“In a pig’s ass,” Brassfield growled.
Fargo swung the muzzle onto Ozark Bill. “In just about five seconds, chappie, you’ll be playing checkers with the devil.”
The Trailsman’s voice and manner brooked no defiance, so all four men complied. But Latimer shook his head in mock compassion.
“Fargo, you just stepped in it deep. Man, we’re the cockchafing law in this camp.”
“Good. Then tell me exactly what crime you executed Scully for.”
“Your good pal Scully, well, see, he tried to boost a horse and we caught him red-handed—that was it.”
“Red-handed,” Fargo repeated. “I see. Whose horse?”
Latimer floundered for a moment. “Why, oh yeah, it was Ozark Bill’s handsome gray over there. Ain’t that the shits? In broad daylight, too.”
“Fine-looking animal,” Fargo agreed, shading his eyes with his hand to examine it.
“Yeah. So naturally, us bein’ sworn officers and all, we had to fit him for a California collar. It’s a capital offense, stealing a man’s horse.”
“That’s a real interesting story,” Fargo said, “seein’s how Scully hailed from Chicago and told me he couldn’t even ride a horse. Never pounded a saddle in his life. He gets—got—around the West by hitching rides on freight wagons.”
“Do tell?” Latimer shrugged. “It’s a stumper, ain’t it? Like my mama use to say—what does make a good man go bad?”
“Eat shit, Fargo,” Brace interrupted, his voice yielding to brute anger. “You lily-livered, crusading son of a bitch. Ain’t none of your say-so how we run this camp.”
Fargo had been waiting for the irascible Brace to pop off like this. He turned to face him. “So you’re the big man around here all of a sudden, is that the deal?”
“Yeah, that’s the deal. And you best be able to back up your mouth.”
“Dave, Steve, cover the others good,” Fargo said with quiet authority. “Kill the first jay who goes for a weapon.”
He moved closer to Brace, his face hardening to granite, his eyes implacable. The blustering loudmouth took an uncertain step backward.
“You know, one-eye, hanging an innocent man was bad enough. But you had to cowhide him first—whip him so hard you skinned him alive. Otis was already dead when you shit heels strung him up. Now you’re gonna get a taste of that cowhide.”
Fargo shifted his weight to his left foot and kicked up his right leg with all his might, his toes landing square under Brace’s jaw and making his teeth clack like dice when they smashed together, clipping off the end of his tongue. Brace collapsed into the rutted street screeching like a soul in torment.
Fargo’s hand shot forward and snatched the blacksnake from Brace’s sash. He shook it out to full length and cracked the popper a few times, Brace flinching violently at the sound. Prospectors began to gather in a ring. Fargo brought a stinging blow across Brace’s back, and the hard case roared at the fiery pain.
“Fargo,” Latimer spoke up, his eyes constantly on Steve’s Greener, “you know that Jackson Powell is a considerable man. Might be you should bethink yourself.”
Fargo drew his whip hand back. “Oh, I’ll fix Powell’s flint soon enough. You just remind him to send that money over to Riley.”
Again, again, yet again Fargo brought the vicious whip slashing down across Brace’s squirming body, shredding the butternut homespun shirt. Finally the murdering scut made the play Fargo had been expecting: He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a two-shot over-and-under derringer.
Fargo dropped the whip and, faster than a finger snap, had his Colt in hand. Brace fired once, missing his target, but Fargo scored with his first shot, opening a neat hole in the middle of Brace’s forehead. A thin rope of blood spurted out as the dead man flopped heavily into the street, his heels scratching the dirt a few times as his nervous system tried to deny the fact of death.
Fargo’s Colt was still smoking when he turned to the other three Pukes. “Well, Constables, may your comrade fry everlasting. You saw how it was. That lump of shit in the dirt pulled down on me, and I dispatched him in self-defense. Plenty of witnesses, too.”
“Brubaker’s hogs eat good today!” a prospector shouted, and a cheer went through the throng.
Latimer had lost his swagger but not his cold hatred. “Fargo, we gave you a chance to cash in big. Now you’ll end up like Scully—dead as a can of corned beef.”
“Way I see it, Gus, it’s one down and three to go. Only a dog returns to its own vomit, take my drift? The next ‘vigilante’ hanging will result in turnabout just like today. Collect your wages and light out now, old son, because I aim to kill Powell and any bootlicker foolish enough to side him. And with me the word ain’t a damn bit different from the deed.”
* * *
Everyone inside the Gravel Pan, including the lovely Rosita, had stepped outside when the blacksnake began popping. Now, as Powell’s men left camp and Fargo and the Holman brothers began unloading ice behind Riley’s grog shop, Chicken Pete and Big Dick McQuady came around to join them.
Chicken Pete sidled up close to Fargo. “Got a message for you from Rosita. She wants you to meet her at the Aspen Ring around noon.”
Fargo took one corner of a huge block of ice, his hands instantly freezing. “What for?”
Pete gave him a leering grin. “What’s wrong with you, and what doctor told you so? She didn’t say what for, but use your imagination.”
Fargo helped the others lower the ice into the insulated hole. “I am using it, and I don’t like what I see. It’s got ambush written all over it. Where’s this Aspen Ring?”
Big Dick took over. “You know where you come down off the mountain? Just bear right for about ten minutes. It’s an aspen grove with a grassy hollow in the middle.”
“Ain’t likely an ambush, Skye,” Chicken Pete volunteered. “I reckon she just wants to climb all over you.”
“All you fools need to see a bumpologist and have your heads examined. You ever ask that pretty little Mexer what the hell she’s doing here?” Fargo demanded. “When have you ever seen a woman that comely in a gold camp? And haven’t you two lunkheads ever noticed how Ozark Bill keeps watch over her? It’s all got the stink on it.”
The two prospectors exchanged a sheepish glance.
“Hell’s bells,” Pete said, “all that shines, all right. She’s so easy to look at, and all of us been thinkin’ with our peeders, not our heads. Now you mention it, that little piece does ask a shit house full of questions about our claims and such.”
Dave and Fargo each grabbed another corner of ice, Riley and Steve on the other end.
“Bad trouble last night,” Big Dick said. “A sourdough named Jeremiah Hupenbecker has got him a rich claim where the creek bends just west of camp. Powell tried to buy him out with paper shares, and he refused to sell. Somebody jumped him during the night and busted both his legs. Now he can’t work his claim and Powell means to file on it in three days.”
Fargo tipped his hat back and wiped his forehead on a sleeve. “Tell him to write out a letter naming a proxy.”
“A who?”
“A proxy, a replacement to work it for him. He can file it at the assay office. That might buy him thirty days unless Judge Moneybags controls the assayer, too.”
Fargo answered absently because his mind was still on the message from Rosita, with whom he had never exchanged a word in his life. He turned the problem back and forth for a while, examining all of its facets. Fargo admitted he was vain enough to believe a woman might boldly invite him to an erotic rendezvous—it wouldn’t be the first time. But he suspected that her being here had something to do with Jackson Powell, which made any meeting with her a potential death trap.
“Looks like Powell controls the whole shebang around here.” Big Dick’s plaintive voice cut into Fargo’s thoughts. “You’ve killed one of his hounds. Why not do for the rest of ’em? We’ll pay you in gold, Skye.”
“I already told you boys I’m no hired killer. And one man can’t get the job done—Powell likes to bring in outsiders when things go bad for him. Hell, you boys ain’t a bunch of clabber-lipped greenhorns who don’t know gee from haw. Why ain’t you got up a prospectors’ committee by now? You’ve got the numbers if you just organize. I’ll help you, but you’re gonna have to stand up on your own two feet. Even a fool can put on his own trousers better than someone else can do it for him.”
“By God, we will,” Chicken Pete said. “Skye is right. We’re so dang busy grubbin’ for nuggets we can’t even crap reg’lar. We’ll call a meeting.”
“Good,” Fargo replied. “Let me know what happens. And I want you boys to do me a favor. Drag Philander Brace’s body back here before you leave.”
Chicken Pete cocked his head. “What the hell for?”
Dave Holman guessed immediately and answered for Fargo. “It’s an old saying of warfare. Your enemy sets the rules of engagement.”
Chicken Pete and Big Dick exchanged a quizzical look, then shrugged. After they left, Fargo looked at Dave and Steve.
“Well, boys, looks like our sit-down-upons are hanging out there in the wind.”
This broke the tension, and Steve laughed so hard he had to support himself by grabbing the wagon. When the general merriment had passed, Fargo’s face grew serious.
“Straight-arrow now—there’s no going back. We were already sitting on a powder keg, and I just lit it when I killed Brace. From here on out we harrow hell.”
* * *
The center of Buckskin Joe was marked by a rough-barked cottonwood tree with spreading branches. When Gus Latimer, Frank Perley, and Ozark Bill Brassfield returned after giving their reports to Jackson Powell, they witnessed a gruesome spectacle. Philander Brace now dangled from a sturdy branch, his bloody gashes thick with flies.
The same shingle that had been nailed over Otis Scully had been reversed and nailed to the cottonwood, bearing a new message: I SIDED JACKSON POWELL.